Fic: Unity (3/?)
Title: Unity
Pairing: Ben/Leslie
Word Count: 4500 (this part)
Rating: PG (this part)
Setting: Somewhere around “Meet ‘n’ Greet” in season 4
Summary: A collection of several moments that make up Leslie’s ideas for the unity quilt.
Author’s Note: I should probably change that summary, as this is becoming more of an exploration of what family means to Leslie, but oh well. It’s all going to come together down the road. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated, as always
Part One Part Two
Part Three
Leslie loves road trips
Well, perhaps to be more accurate, Leslie loves the idea of road trips. She likes planning them: snacks for the car and perfect playlists and safety appropriate games to play while driving. Sometimes she imagines driving in a convertible with the top down, heading down country routes populated with rambling green farms and lots of trees
Logistically, that never works out. She doesn’t own a convertible and never has time to take the roundabout way. And the frank reality is that she usually gets antsy, bored by long stretches of gray highway and ready to get where she’s going. Even when she has a great companion-and today she has the best companion, sweet and beautiful Ann-her impatience eventually gets the better of her
Today is an exception.
Today, the highway whizzes by. The traffic seems nonexistent. The sky is blue and the scenery stretches out on either side of the car, welcoming and more interesting than usual. Ann has a bag of cookies propped up on the console between them, and somehow they seem to be replenishing themselves instead of reaching the point where they run short of their destination. It strikes Leslie as wholly unfair that this road trip, finally, is flying by in a whirlwind when she feels rather indifferent about reaching the end of the road.
It’s not perfect, of course. Ann keeps giving Leslie looks that she knows speak of worry. It makes her feel frail in a way she doesn’t like, even though she knows Ann is just concerned. After all, it’s not like Leslie particularly wants to spend one of the last nice Saturdays this fall at her cousin’s wedding, dealing with her father’s somewhat odd family.
“The timing sucks,” Ann had said the day Leslie asked her to be her replacement date. “I mean, I know your cousin doesn’t know, but…”
Leslie had sat there, waiting for Ann to explain why her cousin’s wedding would be any worse now than it might have been before, but Ann never finished. Maybe it was meant to be implied: but you just broke up with your boyfriend; but sitting through a wedding you were supposed to go to with your boyfriend sucks; but I wouldn’t blame you for not wanting to go; but, but, but. Whatever the implication, Leslie hadn’t been able to come up with a satisfactory end to the sentence
She certainly hadn’t told Ann that she’d toyed with the idea of asking Ben to come anyway-just as a friend-only to abruptly find out, from Chris of all people, that Ben had taken a few days off to go visit his brother. She’d been annoyed at first-that Ben hadn’t told her himself even though he knew they’d had plans (even if she, herself, had assumed they’d been broken); that she’d tricked herself into believing they could have a night of friendly normalcy; that their relationship was now made of insinuations, and Leslie couldn’t follow the unspoken rules, especially as they seemed to keep changing. In that moment, with Ann giving her sympathetic gazes and making a bigger deal out of this than it was, it had only strengthened Leslie’s resolve to prove she was fine without Ben. “Weddings are fun,” she’d argued. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”
Another lie by omission. She’d been looking going to the wedding with Ben. Being a normal couple for one night. No hiding. No secrecy. Maybe even convincing him to dance with her. But Ann didn’t need to know. And none of that meant she still couldn’t have fun.
“Okay,” Ann had agreed. “You’re right. Yes.”
“And I was hoping you’d be my plus one.”
Taken aback as she was, there’d been little hemming and hawing on Ann’s part. She’d agreed easily, probably reading between the lines even though Leslie could barely confess her feelings to herself, and now here they are, halfway to Louisville, on the first road trip of Leslie’s life that is just flying by.
She starts to wonder if Ben hit the road too, if instead of flying, he took an ambling trip north, and immediately she tries to banish the idea. It doesn’t help to indulge these thoughts, and they come too often.
“So,” she says, tapping her thumbs against the steering wheel, a staccato beat of don’t think, don’t’ think, don’t think, “what is your favorite part of a wedding?”
Ann is slow to pick up the non sequitur, shifting slightly and brushing some cookie crumbs off of her lap. “Oh-uh…”
Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think.
“I always like to concentrate on the best parts and not the weird, uncomfortable parts,” she says in a rush, glad when Ann picks up the thread.
“There are weird, uncomfortable parts at a wedding?”
“You know. Like when the DJ tricks you out onto the dance floor with a really good song, but then it turns out that it’s just an excuse to do the bouquet toss, but you’re one of only two people out there and the bouquet lands at your feet and just sits there until you finally feel guilty and pick it up, and then you have to sit there while some weird guy with an eye patch rolls a garter up your leg.”
Leslie pauses to take a breath, glancing at Ann out of the corner of her eye; she has that look on her face that tells Leslie that this is probably the type of thing that’s only happened to her. But isn’t that always the case, she thinks with uncharacteristic bitterness. She exhales loudly, dismissing that thought as well, and continues, “I’m not a big fan of the bouquet toss in general.”
Ann throws her a sympathetic smile that Leslie’s not so sure the statement merits. She only means that the tradition seems outdated to her, something she’d probably let fall by the wayside if she ever has a wedding. Ann seems to take it as something more. “I promise, no bouquet toss tonight. We’ll duck out for a minute or something.”
“Okay,” she agrees simply. It occurs to her that this is one of the few times in their friendship that she and Ann are single at the same time. Sometimes she wonders if Ann is scared of being alone. Not scared enough to settle permanently with the wrong person, but scared enough that she can’t wait for the right person. Leslie’s never felt the tug of that fear, isn’t familiar with its icy embrace, but she imagines it’s the kin of her own fears, the ones that have been circling like birds of prey since the first time Ben kissed her: the fear of losing her job; the fear of not pursuing her dreams; the fear of letting go of a man she’s halfway sure she’s in love with. The problem is that they’re all so irrevocably tied together that Leslie always has to succumb to one of them. The one she holds near her heart now makes her ache, and she tries her best not to think of it.
Definitely don’t think about that.
Either because she can read minds and knows Leslie needs the distraction or by mere coincidence, Ann changes the subject. “Is your mom coming to this?”
“My mom isn’t on speaking terms with most of my dad’s family."
“Jeez.”
Leslie shrugs. “It’s complicated. Things were complicated after my dad died. He was visiting my nana when he got in the accident, and she and my mom got in a huge fight about where to bury him. They barely talked after that.”
“That’s rough."
“It wasn’t so bad,” says Leslie, a sentiment born more of what she can’t remember than what she can. She barely recalls that trip to Florida; all that remains are the spotty details of a day trip to Disney World-one her maternal grandparents took her on while, Leslie assumes now, her mother fought and lost that battle with her nana. The funeral is all a blur. “I still saw my nana every summer. My aunt took me when she went to visit. She’s the only one my mom still talks to.”
“I think that kind of grief can make you go a little crazy,” says Ann quietly. “I think that’s why my mom’s…you know.”
Leslie nods. Ann doesn’t talk about her family a lot, but Leslie knows enough to put the pieces together. She knows enough to understand that Ann has been taking care of people her whole life. She knows enough to realize that Ann considers their friendship as familial as Leslie does. Friendships like that fill the holes where the family you’re born into can’t or won’t; they mean everything. Leslie grew up without a father or siblings, and Ann grew up with parents who don’t care as much as they should, and Ben grew up with a mother and father who put him in the middle of a cold war. No one’s family is perfect, Leslie has learned; you make the most of what you get and find the rest outside of that.
She has beautiful best friend Ann. She has her hodgepodge, stitched together work-family. She has Ben, maybe not in the way she wants, but at least he’s still her friend. And her friends are just as much her family as her mother or her cousins or her aunt and uncle.
“Oh!” says Ann suddenly, looking toward Leslie with bright eyes. “I thought of one.”
“One…?”
“An uncomfortable wedding moment. I once had to do a bridal party dance with my friend’s younger brother, and he was so much shorter than me, he spent the whole dance with his head resting on my boobs.”
Leslie smiles. Thank god for Ann.
*****
The actual wedding ceremony is nice. If you ignore some of the annoyingly sexist overtones in a ceremony so traditional and focus on the really sweet parts, like how happy the couple look and how her uncle tears up halfway through and the hilarious, off-the-cuff additions to the bible reading that one of the groom’s aunts does, it’s lovely. The ceremony is late in the afternoon, and by the time she and Ann get to the hotel for the reception, the sun is low in the sky, a distinct chill in the air: reminders that it won’t be long until fall bows to winter. They check in before ambling toward the banquet hall for the reception, and Leslie has to gather her strength when she spots steel-gray curls of her great aunt sitting at their table
“Ow!”
Okay, so maybe she shouldn’t have so physically gathered her strength. She murmurs an apology to Ann, releasing her vise-like grip on her arm, and Ann frowns. “What the hell was that?”
“Nothing. Just trying to brace myself. We’re sitting with my great aunt.”
“And you’re planning to arm wrestle her or something…?”
“No.” Leslie indulges that thought for a minute; maybe the loser could commit to a night of silence-Leslie’s pretty sure she could take a ninety-three year old woman in an arm wrestling match. But where-No. Wait. “She’s kind of mean. And she hates me. And I think she might be a little bit evil. Like this one time my cousin chipped both his front teeth diving into the swimming pool, and she just stood there laughing at him. And this other time she ripped up a picture I drew of the American flag because she said the stars weren’t straight even though they were-oh! And once-“
“Leslie.” Ann cuts off her rambling gently, though her eyes speak to a general understand of Leslie’s point. She nods toward the table. “It’s just dinner, right?”
“Yeah, no, right. It’s fine. It’ll be fine.”
“So you want to go over there, or…?”
Leslie sighs, resigned, and approaches the table with as much enthusiasm as she can muster. Despite the fact that her aunt is the only one at the table, she has a feeling that Marilyn’s somewhat spineless offspring will be seated here as well. “He-e-ey, Aunt Marilyn,” she says, pulling out the seat farthest from her aunt and trying to smile.
“Well, well, well…If it isn’t the cookie thief.”
“Cookie thief?” Ann mutters.
“I didn’t realize Samantha had invited you. I should warn her to hide the cake.”
“I didn’t realize you were coming up from Florida.”
Her aunt’s eyes narrow, assessing her with the same cold indifference she’s employed since Leslie was a child. She’d moved in with her nana when Leslie was nine, proving to Leslie that however eccentric and curmudgeonly her nana had been, her great aunt was in a whole other league. “And who is this?” she asks, ancient eyes settling on Ann with no less hostility
“This is Ann, my best friend and the most beautiful nurse in the galaxy. Ann, this is my great aunt, Marilyn.”
“Nice to meet-“
“You might want to watch your food, sitting next to this one. She’s apt to steal it out from under you.”
“It was one cookie,” says Leslie through gritted teeth, unable to ignore her aunt no matter how many times they’d had this conversation. “And I was ten.”
“I told you no sweets, and you went behind my back. You’re sly and sneaky, just like your father.”
Beside her, Ann chokes a little on her water, coughing and laughing simultaneously, cutting off Marilyn’s usual rant about Leslie’s lesser qualities, her parents’ marriage, and the general disapproval she has for just about everyone in the family. Marilyn scowls as Leslie pats Ann’s back. “I’m sorry,” Ann sputters, waving her hand and clearing her throat. “Sorry. But are you serious?”
“What is she talking about?”
“Nothing,” says Leslie, frowning at Ann. “I’m plenty sneaky,” she mutters, and Ann rolls her eyes.
“Well, I know one thing: thank God your grandmother isn’t around to see how you turned out. The things I’ve heard about you from your aunt-“
Whichever of her exploits have spread throughout the family gossip, Leslie doesn’t find out. They’re interrupted by the arrival of Marilyn’s daughter and son-in-law, the latter of whom she dislikes even more than Leslie. Whatever egregious mistake he made upon meeting Marilyn, it was apparently worse than sneaking a cookie behind her back, and she immediately shifts the verbal assault toward him
And then, of course, Leslie receives the text message.
Leslie doesn’t register anything Marilyn says after that.
*****
“I’m never going to be intimidated by your mother again,” Ann lies as Leslie digs through her purse for her phone. “They have an open bar here, right?”
“Yeah,” says Leslie distractedly, retrieving her phone and blinking in confusion. It’s a picture message. From Ben. And Leslie has this sinking feeling, not just in her stomach but throughout her entire body-like she’s being dragged down into the depths of something dark. In the back of her mind, she imagines that this was prompted by a few too many beers and a longing she sees when he thinks she’s not looking. She tells herself not to open it. Not now of all times, but before she knows what’s happening, she taps her phone and lets the image spring to life.
That sinking feeling intensifies. She’s caught in an undertow and can’t breathe, can’t break the surface, can’t even struggle because the current is too strong
It’s Ben. He’s holding a baby-his niece, she presumes-but that’s expected. She knew, intuitively, what the picture was. But it’s also a thousand things she never could have predicted: the slightly awkward way Ben holds the baby in his arms and the way his face dips to look at her, his expression almost unreadable except Leslie knows him too well-can see mixture of fear and awe on his face even without seeing his eyes; it’s how casually he’s dressed and how he hasn’t shaved for a few days and the fact that he’s sitting on a goddamn picnic table, a swingset clearly visible in the background; it’s the text beneath the picture-Bunny was a big hit. Thank you.-so deceptively neutral, like he’s pretending he doesn’t know what this means. It’s these nuances that do her in, that pull her beneath the surface until she can’t tell which way is up.
“Leslie?” Ann’s hand touches her shoulder, but Leslie can only blink slowly, looking for the sun shimmering above the water and unable to find it. And it’s Ann, perfect, life-saving Ann, who jumps in after her and rescues her. She stands up, forcibly tugging Leslie to her feet as well, and announces to no one in particular that they’re going to the bathroom. Leslie goes mindlessly, unable to lessen her death grip on her phone.
“What’s wrong?” asks Ann the moment they’re sequestered in the bathroom. It’s one of those overly flouncy, girly bathrooms-pink and gold everywhere and a couch that she sinks onto, holding out her phone to Ann. Her best friend takes it silently, and Leslie doesn’t look up because she doesn’t want to see her reaction. Leslie has to figure out how she’s feeling first. Numb maybe. Or nauseous. Maybe both.
“What the hell?” Ann sits next to her on the couch and wraps an arm around her shoulders. The phone is already out of sight. “Do you want me to punch him? I will.”
“No. No-I…” Leslie trails off, not sure what to say or do or how to react. She’s so sick of it. Of tiptoeing around Ben at work, of her olive branches being met with a variety of reactions so varied she never knows which version of him she’ll get, of feeling so much for him that she can’t possibly begin to process it, just knowing that she misses him like crazy. “I shouldn’t have opened it here.”
“He shouldn’t have sent it. God.”
Maybe that’s true. Maybe this is atypical ex-boyfriend behavior. But it scares her more to think of what it would mean if he hadn’t sent it. That he didn’t care anymore or wasn’t thinking about her or didn’t feel deep down like she should be there with him. Because it’s too easy for her to picture herself there, sitting next to him, watching him hold that baby and maybe being overwhelmed in a whole different way, and she wants to believe that when he sent this, he was thinking that too, even if it’s not the truth. She wants to believe it so badly, she can’t say it to Ann.
“Do you want me to delete it?”
“No.” Leslie holds out her hand and Ann hands over the phone with the hesitance of someone handling a bomb. She doesn’t look at the picture again, though; just tucks it into her purse and then rubs at her temples. She’s suddenly, inexplicably exhausted. “We’re friends. Friends send each other pictures like this all the time.”
Ann purses her lips, but doesn’t respond. She doesn’t need to; Leslie can read the disapproval all over her face. “Do you want to go take advantage of the open bar?”
“Yes please.”
*****
It isn’t until later-much later-that Leslie finds herself looking at the picture again.
First there is an entire wedding reception to get through. A dinner where, to everyone’s surprise but Leslie’s, Ann manages to charm her aunt into a begrudging silence. It’s followed by the pageantry of cutting the cake and bridal party dances and a bouquet toss that-true to Ann’s word-they duck out of
“I have to go to the bathroom anyway,” she says, grabbing Leslie and dragging her out of the room. It’s calm outside of the ballroom, a few guests chatting in a quieter environment, and Leslie’s almost immediately distracted by a miniature slide show of the family set up on a table. As Ann makes a beeline toward the bathroom, Leslie ducks over to the table, mesmerized by the series of images on the tablet
If the picture Ben sent her wasn’t enough to overwhelm her this evening, this certainly is.
Leslie can’t place the emotion of it. More than half of the pictures are of strangers-her cousin’s husband’s family, and Samantha’s paternal relatives, about whom Leslie knows very little-but they’re as captivating as the ones of her own family. Grandparents who didn’t live to see this event and old black and white photos of their own weddings; family reunions and people who are well into adulthood captured as laughing children; Christmases with fathers and sons in matching outfits. It’s a striking montage, and Leslie feels a tight knot in her throat, almost as if she’s fighting back tears.
There’s a picture of her with her dad and her nana that she’s never seen before; a photo taken when she couldn’t have been any more than three that she itches to own a copy of. But it’s one after that, of her great aunt and her nana as young girls, arms around one another and twin smiles, that gives Leslie the most pause. It’s not the thought of how much Marilyn has changed that startles her as much how she sees herself and Ann reflected in the shot, a comparison that she doesn’t quite understand but can’t deny. She doesn’t entirely like the feeling of pity it inspires-a sudden bit of empathy that will make every future encounter with her aunt a little sadder.
Needless to say, when Ann finds her again, Leslie’s feeling the more maudlin effects of the three drinks she’s had. Ann stands with her for a few minutes, wordlessly watching the pictures blink by, before nudging Leslie back toward the reception.
They end up on the dance floor for most of the rest of the night, and it raises Leslie’s spirits considerably. She even hugs Marilyn goodbye before she retires for the evening, a gesture that is sourly, briefly returned. She and Ann celebrate the encounter with more drinks.
So she’s tipsy-maybe a little more than tipsy-by the time she and Ann get to their hotel room. They kick off their shoes and fall onto the bed together, their little bags of chocolate favors spread between them as they watch a rerun of Friends, but it isn’t long until Ann falls asleep and Leslie feels the more pleasant effects of her buzz turn sour.
Under Ann’s watchful eye, she’s been good all night, not touching her phone once.
But Ann’s asleep. And Leslie isn’t entirely sober. And halfway through the third episode of Friends, she finds herself locked in the bathroom with her phone.
Looking at the picture is no less devastating than it was earlier, but in a different way. She feels less like she’s drowning, and more like she’s slowly suffocating, the air sapped from her body while she doesn’t bother to struggle. It’s the difference between initial shock and painful acceptance of what she’s seeing, and she has no idea which is worse.
The picture itself still hits her hard. The details of it that took her breath away earlier do the same now, and she recognizes the ache she’s been trying to quell since the moment they broke up. That need to reach out and touch him, born not just out of desire or longing, but a sense of belonging-something natural that they’d never been able to indulge because they were always too busy hiding, first from each other and then from the rest of the world. It’s what this weekend was supposed to be about: holding hands, his arm resting over the back of her chair, his suit jacket over her shoulders when she got cold, her arms around his neck as the danced-all those easy, natural touches that they’ve never had in public
And now, with this picture in front of her, she imagines that version of this weekend as well. Meeting his family and seeing him in person with that baby, all awkward and shy and adorable, and his arm slung around her waist as they ate a picnic lunch at the park. And that hurts even worse, missing what should have been and what she never knew she wanted all at once.
It all coalesces in her mind, made slightly foggy by the alcohol, images slipping in and out of focus. Things that could have been mixing with the reality of tonight-her aunt’s frail arms not really knowing how to hug her; Ann making her laugh; watching her cousin’s father-daughter dance; seeing that picture of her own dad; seeing all of those photos, really. They mix with her imagined thoughts of Ben, which blend with the moments they’ve actually shared, good, bad and everything in between, until it’s nothing but a series of pictures in her mind punctuated by no concrete thoughts. Leslie can’t sort out what any of it means. It feels like loss, an ache of missing something and not quite knowing what it is.
Just a fear that there’s nothing she can do about it.
Leslie hasn’t let herself cry about the breakup yet, distracting herself whenever she feels the urge. And now, as tears spill over, slipping down her cheeks and spotting her shirt, she isn’t sure that it’s about the breakup either. It’s about more than that-potential and loss; fears she can’t name; the family she has and the family she’s missing-and she’s too scared to admit the ways Ben is in the center of it all.
She swipes her eyes before she leaves the bathroom, abandoning her phone on the counter so she can’t tempt herself, but the moment she catches sight of Ann, she’s crying anew. Ann, whose worried looks Leslie hasn’t understood or acknowledged until this moment. Ann, who came to this wedding without complaining once. Ann, who spent the whole day making her laugh. Ann, who doesn’t ask any questions when Leslie wakes her up; who simply holds her close and strokes her hair and tells her everything will be okay. Beautiful, comforting, wonderful Ann.
In a cloud of uncertainty, it’s the one thing Leslie knows: she could never have had a better sister.
Part 3b