It’s All Relative 29-ish of whatever-ish
Author: hawkbehere (hawkbehere@yahoo.com)
Rated: PG
Disclaimer: I’ve generally forgotten to say that most of the characters in this story are not mine. They’re not mine, thank God. I intend no copyright infringement. 

A/N: Don’t get excited. I’m tired of 28-abcd-ish. I can’t stand it when authors do that. Or make endless epilogues. They’re called chapters for a reason. I’m going micro-chapter—because I can do that, write and post and give any remaining readers the sense that I AM really working on this and DO want to finish this and I’ll do it in micro-bursts. I can do that or you’ll wait for 150 pages. My choice. 

Love and thanks to Rosemary for reading first; all mistakes are mine. Thanks to Anne, Jessica, xenavirgin, law_nerd and Martha.

***

The dismissal was a real one but forestalled as a buoyant Nigel sailed in with a smile and a garment bag.

He didn’t properly greet them, taking the temperature of the room at a glance. “So. I’m right on time. The bodies haven’t hit the floor.” His eyes snapped to Miranda’s, “No disrespect intended, given your close call but I call it as I see it.”

Miranda gave a cursory wave with her good hand, peering at the bag, “What’s this?”

“It’s something called…needs must, Miranda.”

The three standing women in the room gave way and he unzipped the garment bag, explaining as he did so, “I was thinking to myself last night. My, my, my. What to give a woman who has everything including an arm in a cast for months?”

He pulled out a gorgeous Caroline Herrera blouse and held it out for Miranda.
“This.”

She inspected it and said, “I love this blouse but it’s—“

“One size larger than you wear. Yes it is.”

Nigel threw the garment bag on Andy’s chair and draped the blouse over the bed. “Watch.” He astonished the four women by pulling at the left seam of the blouse from its side hem and pulling up. It parted upward, off of a minute strip of Velcro, opening the whole of the blouse from hem to shoulder, including along the line of the left sleeve.

“Voila, ma chere! Arm through the right sleeve and you press yourself together, if the seamstress is correct, all the way down the left and out the sleeve and no one will know the difference.”

Miranda looked over the finish of the blouse with wonder, “How did you—who—“

“Who? Me, of course. It took all of last night. You think I’m just pretty but I can sew and even think, if absolutely forced to.”

He looked her over, “Where are my manners?” He leaned in to kiss her cheek. “I knew everyone else would be droning on and on about ‘how are you feeling’ and ‘wasn’t that scary’ etcetera but if I were you—or me for that matter? All I’d really care about would be what to wear. Am I right?”

Miranda looked up into his kind, sad eyes that knew everything but and gave him a curt smile. “Exactly. People need proportion. Tragedy has many forms. Bad fashion is one of them. Thank you Nigel.”

“No worries. I think we’ll only have to deal with maybe 120 pieces over 10 weeks. I’m all over it.”

Everyone blinked. “120 pieces?” Andy’s voice was incredulous but the answer was given to Miranda.

“Give or take. You’ll need a number of dashing smocks until you get your real cast, then dresses, blouses. You’ll want options. You’ll have them is what I’m saying.”

“How?”

“Leave it to me. No worries.”

Miranda pursed her lips, “Nigel. You can’t press gang Runway staff into sewing for me. They already have jobs and to ask them otherwise for a personal reason would be unethical.”

Everyone in the room stared and Andy smiled, so Miranda glared icily at her. “I knew quite a bit about ethics before you were born Andrea, so don’t think you made the introduction.”

“Yes, Miranda.”

“Stop that. I’m in no mood for solicitousness.” She turned her full attention to Nigel, “I’d just thrown these people out of my room when you came in. I’m sorry to cut this visit short but I’m actually quite tired.” She smiled genuinely and held out her hand, which he took. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll take this with me and ethically procure elves to help me get started.”

“Very well. I trust you.”

“As you should.” He kissed her cheek again and stood a few feet from the bed, obviously waiting to walk out with the others.

Serena leaned over Miranda, brushed the lock of white hair from the woman’s forehead and kissed her gently in its place. “Rest well. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Miranda nodded and everyone looked at Emily, who was rooted in place and said, “If there’s nothing else…”

Miranda stared hard and gave the slight jerk of her head that Andy would always remember fondly as the ‘what are you waiting for—get in the elevator, you dumb-ass’ look.

Emily took her cue but only placed her hand very softly on Miranda’s pinioned arm. She left it there for a few moments, looking into Miranda’s eyes, then retreated. “That’s it. You lot get nothing more from me. Not even you, Priestly.”

Miranda nodded at her. “Fair enough. Get going. The future wife stays.”

Andy hugged them all as they left and turned, closing the door with a grin. “Ahh…alone at last.”

“Said the nun to God after a long day.”

“Dude, you’re really grouchy.”

“Dude is worse than buddy but you know what I hate even worse if that’s possible and it shouldn’t be? My left arm right now.”

“Morphine pump, sweetie. You’ve been holding out on yourself.”

Miranda grabbed the pump, jabbing it multiple times and forcefully.

“Again? You get the same dose no matter how you treat it.”

“Thank you for that bit of phatic communication. Not strictly phatic, of course, but it amounts to the same thing. It’s the figurative, not the literal, Andrea. You’re a writer—surely you know how this works.”

“Andrea? No. Andy. We’re alone.”

“Something besides dude. Yes? We’re alone.”

Andy leaned over the bed and stroked Miranda’s cheek. “Do you know you always parse words when you’re hurting, and not only physically? You’re such an editor right now.”

“I edit. It’s what I am.”

“I so very know that. What can I do for you, Miranda? Sweetheart? Lover? Love of my life? Fiancée? Heroine?”

Miranda snorted but suddenly there… and then very, very slowly, she dreamily smiled.

“Aha!” Andy laughed, “Morphine? Is good, no?”

“Heaven.”

“Good. I’m so glad. I hate to see you hurting.”

“Hero.”

“What?”

“Hero. I hate feminizations of nouns. Actor, not actress. Hero, not heroine.”

“Oh God. Here we go.” Andy pulled the visitor’s chair Serena had brought to the bedside and sat down. She took Miranda’s right hand and kissed it, “I love you so much.”

“Do you? Really?”

“Can you doubt it?”

Miranda looked at her and her gaze was so dozy and dopey that Andy knew whatever might come out of her mouth would be the truth. Her heart beat double-time.

Whatever she’d expected, she was surprised. Miranda spoke clearly and evenly, “I’m not a happy match for you. We’ve been arguing more often, if you haven’t noticed. And you have. Of course you have. I’m prideful and awful. But I am not false-hearted—never with you. I don’t want you to be unhappy with me.”

Okay. There it was. Something Andy had been thinking about, dealing with, going over in her mind for months. Yes, they argued more. A lot more. And yes, it wasn’t all peace, bliss, romance anymore. So what was it?

She’d sort of figured it out and she knew she might have/maybe should have involved Miranda in the process but what would be the point of that? It had been something so sad and fragile for her to contemplate that another human’s breath on it would have erased what she’d struggled to collect, to observe. She’d decided unilateral understanding had its merits. If she couldn’t understand it alone, what could Miranda’s vibrantly different pattern add, except confusion?

She loved Miranda. And Miranda had been so kind and so willing to be whatever Andy had needed her to be until their lives together had become real. Over time, however, Miranda had become real, as well. And the real Miranda was really, pretty much, Runway Miranda. Her husbands hadn’t known that. It was a bait and switch for them but it wasn’t for her. Perhaps that was the difference. She loved Runway Miranda but the fact the woman went overboard for her—Andy? Bending, breaking and distorting herself into allowing herself to love and be loved as other people did was really something. Something Andy noticed and appreciated.

The honeymoon was over. It was no longer easy for Miranda. Andy could see that, watching Miranda making a tremendously valiant daily, sometimes hourly, effort for her and for the children.

She sometimes won, more often failed. Miranda acted out—a lot. A lot a lot.

Andy was used to that, had decided she could marry that. Loving Miranda required discretion. That was an adult lesson she could admit she’d learned from the woman in question. She’d thought, before Miranda, that true love required a memory/experience dump between partners. No. Not really.

Was it kind? Was it helpful? Was it painful? Yes. Was it too painful or a puzzle that could not be solved? No.

They would never truly discuss what made Miranda Miranda because that could never be on the table. Or a reasonable dinner. On that figurative table. Whatever.

She’d made her decision. Unilaterally. She’d felt herself changing around that decision. Fighting back, mouthing off and just generally, she’d had to admit it to herself, really growing up. She—the least confrontational human on the planet. Owning her own crap and putting up with or confronting Miranda’s, whether it cost them an argument or not.

Andy smiled and kissed her before she sat down. “We argue because we’re different, sweetheart. It doesn’t bother me.”

“You hate arguing, Andy”

“You’re right. I despise it.” Andy pressed Miranda’s hand tighter and kissed it. “So what? You don’t like my clothes.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. We’ll never get along until the end of our lives. Argue with me. I don’t care. We’ll do that all the time but at the very end of the argument or fight or fist-fight, if it comes to that—and it’d better not or I will kick your ass? I’ll love you and know you love me. And I’ll be married to you and you’ll never be able to change that. Remember? No divorce. For better or worse. You’re SO the worst person I could ever imagine.”

She leaped up and kissed Miranda on the mouth. “See? Isn’t that the best thing ever? You’ll always be my worst-case scenario. I’ll hold onto you until the day I die.”

Miranda’s eyes glistened with unshed tears, “Is that supposed to be romantic?”

“Well, yeah. As romantic as I get at this point.”

“Pacifist.”

“Domme.”

Miranda snickered and pressed Andy’s hand tightly in hers, “Nice to meet you.”

Andy smiled—a big smile—“We’re so getting married just as soon as that cast’s off.”

“Why wait so long?”

“Hello? You’ll have marital duties?”

“Why would that bother you? Oh right. You’d have to work. You couldn’t just lie there in bed as per usual.”

Andy’s eyes popped wide, “You just said that? Literally? And lightning didn’t strike you?”

“What can I say? I’m right.”

Andy punched her very gently on her right arm.

Miranda grinned up at her, a very dopey grin, “And blessed. So very blessed. We’re getting married.”

“We are, asshole.”

“I suppose I’m supposed to think that’s better than dude?”

Andy ignored this. “Our daughters are coming in about three hours. Wanda’s coming to get you going before they get here. Naptime. Bedtime for Bonzo.”

“I’m not a monkey.”

“Actually? You sorta are,” Andy said as she wrapped a blanket over Miranda’s shoulders. “Plus? You’re the love and light of my life, Miranda. Sleep well and I’ll be right here beside you. Always.”

Andy watched Miranda struggling through her drugged haze for a response. All she could come up with was “Yes.” Her eyes closed.

Andy rolled her eyes and kissed her exactly where Serena had, “Yes. Indeed. Yes. You dumb-ass.”

***

Wanda was Wanda, rushing in and immediately filling a basin of water.

“This is very, as you say, unacceptable, Miranda. You get shot and—pftt—here we are.” She slipped gloves onto her hands. “This is stupid.”

“Wanda?”

“Si?”

“I’m okay. Really.”

Andy realized there was some wisdom in letting Wanda take her place by Miranda’s bedside, “What if that stupid had killed you? We could never live with that! Our poor children! Our children, Miranda.”

Miranda nodded her assent but cupped Wanda’s cheek, “Should I have left her? Could you ever leave Andy?”

Wanda pushed a cloth into soapy water. “Not in my life.”

“Exactly. Andrea? Go get some coffee. Get lost.”

“Yep”