Fic: And I’m Not the Girl I Intend to Be
Title: And I’m Not the Girl I Intend to Be
Author: saucydiva
Fandom: New Girl
Word count: 2K
Rating: PG
Timeline: AU following 2x25
Disclaimer: Clearly I don’t own it or we’d get the best table at Picca
Summary: Cece and Elizabeth, BroTP
Author’s Note: I’ve hated Cece’s storylines, from about the midway point of season 2. And I think there’s so much wasted potential with Elizabeth. Consider this the fix-it fic.
With thanks to blithers, who not only beta’d this, but encouraged me to write it in the first place.
Title from Sara Bareilles’s break up anthem “Gonna Get Over You”
“Do you want a drink? You look like you could use a drink,” Elizabeth said. She looked down the hallway, where Schmidt had run off. Cece followed her gaze, but he was gone. So was Shivrang.
Cece had to talk to her mother. She had to talk to Jess. She had to return presents and tip the caterers and apologize to everyone who had flown to LA. She had to figure out where she was going to live.
She needed a drink.
***
“He came back, you know, and he said ‘I need you to make her jealous.’ He said, ‘I need her to break off her wedding.’ He said it, and somehow I still fell for his stupid ass.” Elizabeth’s words were starting to slur, or maybe that was Cece’s brain.
“We never even really dated, not really,” Cece said. “I did the one thing you aren’t supposed to do at a wedding. I had one job, and I blew it, over a guy I never really even dated.”
Elizabeth tapped her beer on the table. “I mean, you didn’t really date the fiance either, right?”
“Not exactly.”
“Schmidt made it sound like your mom sold you to him.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“Such an idiot.”
They clinked their beers to that.
“I never fucked him,” Cece admitted a few minutes later.
“Schmidt?” Elizabeth asked.
“Oh no. That’s all I did with him. My fiance, I mean. Which is weird. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t fucked people before.”
“I was going to say. Sex is the best, and you should be having it.”
“I just was trying to do this right, the way you’re supposed to.”
“That’s... old-fashioned and awful,” Elizabeth said.
“Probably.”
***
Cece allowed herself a brief respite from post-wedding hell, when Schmidt came over and kissed her, and for one moment the world made sense again. She’d made the right choice.
She called Jess again, but she still wasn’t picking up.
Cece looked at her list of things to do and people to deal with, and shoved that out because Schmidt. She laid back her bed and smiled, thought about all the weirdly sexy things they’d done on this bed, and would do again. She’d be able to cut back on her piloxing classes now that they were back together- sex with him was always a workout.
Elizabeth, she suddenly realized. For Cece to win, Elizabeth had to have lost. Poor Elizabeth, but she seemed really strong. And she was such a sweetheart, the only person Cece’d talked to since the wedding who’d just been nice about the whole thing. Maybe they should go for a drink, talk it out.
They met up that night at a chic little bar not far from Elizabeth’s place. As soon as Cece walked in the door and saw all the sleek red chairs, she realized this was a stupid idea. She was about to hightail it out of there, and instead walked directly into Elizabeth.
“I’m sorry,” Cece said, while Elizabeth said that no, she was sorry, so very sorry. Then Cece insisted that no, she was the one that sorry, until finally Elizabeth asked her just what exactly Cece was sorry for.
“Schmidt and I are... back together,” Cece said, flinching a little. Elizabeth seemed nice, but she also seemed like she could break a woman in half.
And then Elizabeth started flexing her hands, curling them into fists, and then she drew back and-
Cece ducked, but all that happened was that Elizabeth smacked her fist into her other hand like some angry softball player.
“I should’ve known,” she said dully. “Big Guy’s gone, and there’s just this jackass-”
“He’s not- no, he is.”
“This is my- I thought I was a good judge of character. He’s still the guy you loved in college, I told myself. I’m a stupid idiot.”
Cece tried to pat Elizabeth’s shoulder to comfort her, but she jerked away. “Look, I-”
“He told me he was just trying to destroy your wedding. That first day, that’s what he told me, that he wanted to destroy your wedding.”
“He did what”
“He called you the model ex girlfriend. I didn’t know your name until I saw the wedding invite.” She paused, then sighed. “It was tasteful. I liked the font.”
“Schmidt,” Cece said, and suddenly, her own hands curled into fists and suddenly, there was dirt all over the pristine white floor, along with the potted palm tree from the hostess stand.
They were escorted out pretty quickly after that.
Elizabeth suggested frozen yogurt. Normally, Cece wouldn’t, but tonight, she was going wild. She ordered a scoop of vanilla in a cup with sprinkles, that was how little she cared tonight.
Elizabeth ordered the frozen yogurt version of a banana split, and looked pleased with her decision. When they sat at the table, though, she mostly stabbed at it with her plastic spoon. “You know what we have to do, right?”
Cece thought about all the things she wanted to do to Schmidt at that moment, everything from punching him to castrating him to punching him and then castrating him again. “What?”
Elizabeth stabbed her yogurt thoughtfully. “We have to use this as an opportunity to screw with him.”
“Howso?”
“Well, he seems to think he can just... have us both, right? So rather than, say, both breaking up with him tonight, possibly after setting his suits on fire, we let him think he’s getting away with dating both of us.”
“I’m listening.”
Elizabeth was smiling, her frozen yogurt abandoned as she slapped her hands on the table to emphasize her points. “He won’t be getting laid, just screwed, and he won’t even know what hit him.”
It was awful.
It was cruel.
It was genius.
***
She called Schmidt the next day. He was upset Nick wasn’t texting him back, and half of his roommates were missing, which explained Jess’s radio silence. She felt a little better, that Jess wasn’t somehow mad at her, and was instead hiding out with Nick, possibly. She suggested Schmidt check their bedrooms, and instead got a high-pitched explanation that of course he’d checked their bedrooms, despite his duel allergies to kitschy knick knacks and non-ironic posters.
She told him to meet her for a date that night at her favorite restaurant.
The same restaurant, coincidentally, that Elizabeth was going to request a date at not half an hour later.
***
I told him I can’t sleep with him until we are ready to have a baby
I told him he’s not getting any ‘til I feel he has demonstrated his devotion to me
***
Jess popped back into existence, finally, but when Cece went to talk to her about everything, how her life has changed so dramatically since the morning of her wedding, Jess wanted to talk about how Nick was finally her boyfriend and how they drove off to Mexico. Cece understood wanting to run away from problems, but she still called off her wedding in front of everyone. Jess might be the sort of person who would just not show up to the church, which bothered Cece in a way she couldn’t explain.
She made herself listen to Jess’s story even though Cece really felt it was her turn to talk. She was almost relieved when she realized Schmidt was part of the rescue efforts. That explained where he was the night before- a small part of her wondered if he was with Elizabeth, if she’d thrown feminism under the bus just because he’d pulled out some medieval torture device and called it a sex toy.
She was a little disappointed Schmidt didn’t get thrown into a Mexican prison.
***
He bought me a new flat screen
He bought me a new couch
I wonder how much skywriters cost?
***
“When we break up with him, it has to be spectacular,” Cece said. She fingered her necklace, a delicate pendant made of interlocking circles in white and rose gold. She’d made Schmidt replace the present he’d actually chosen, a white gold necklace that spelled out Hot Bitch. She probably would’ve worn it in college, actually, but not now.
Elizabeth snuggled back into her brand-new couch, a fluffy, comfy sectional, and grinned. “I still like the threesome idea.”
“Not even a little bit.”
“Come on, imagine his shock and dismay when we both take off just as he-”
“What about the billboard? I liked the billboard.”
“You know, I’m pretty damn confident, and you’d have to be, being as hot as I am, but even so, the idea of that huge a picture of me is slightly terrifying.”
“Good thing you’re not a professional model,” Cece said lightly.
“Ugh, your job sounds awful. I like brownies. When was the last time you had a brownie?”
“I eat whatever I want,” she responded automatically, the way she always did with any implicit criticism of her career, before she remembered that Elizabeth wouldn’t take the bullshit. “2009.”
“I thought so. Tell me more about it.”
So Cece talked about being a model, about her first job before she could even drive, about how cutthroat everything was. She talked about losing that Axe bodyspray campaign to Nadia, and how they didn’t speak for a month afterwards.
Elizabeth talked about how she liked IT, how she got to work from home most of the time. She’d been in sales once, but it was too many suits and people, and she’d hated it.
Elizabeth yawned somewhere in the middle of a story about how she’d once flirted her way out of a speeding ticket, and Cece got up to go.
“Stay,” Elizabeth said, pulling her back on to the couch. “We have to figure this out.”
“You know, I don’t even care about revenge anymore,” Cece shrugged. Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “Well, not that much.”
“It’s been nice hanging out with you.”
“I feel the same way,” Cece said. They hugged, gingerly, but it was nice. “Ok, Schmidt. Let’s take a vote: billboard, threesome, that thing with the bees, or singing telegram?”
“I don’t even think he deserves all this effort,” Elizabeth said, and she pulled out her phone, typed something in, and showed it to Cece. We’re done.
“Great idea,” Cece said, and she typed the same, and together, they dumped Schmidt.
“Movie?” Elizabeth asked a minute later.
“Not a rom-com,” Cece said, getting up to make coffee.
***
Calling Shivrang to figure out what to do about the honeymoon package is one of the least fun things Cece has ever had to do, and she once had a shoot where live rats crawled on her.
“Elaine and I are so blissfully happy,” he said. “I do hope you’ll come to the wedding.”
She might actually throw up. “I thought you were eloping.”
“We decided against it. It seemed rather- crass, so we’re waiting a year and doing the church and the flowers and the bridesmaids, the whole bit.”
“And when are you doing the Misri?”
“I don’t so much care for those traditions, actually,” Shivrang said, as though he’d already forgotten their own recent ceremony. It hurts, even though she rejected him first. “Anyway, Cece, I want you to go on the honeymoon. Elaine doesn’t have any more time off of work this year, and the trip’s non-refundable.”
“I’m alone, you know that, right?”
“I did wonder, based on your facebook. Well, take a girlfriend. All the best, dear Cece, I really must be going.” Click.
Cece stared at her phone, and wondered what Elizabeth was up to.
***
Cocktails under the stars might be the best part about Fiji. Turtle Island was beautiful, and Cece spent most of the day on the beach, pretending she was getting photographed for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. But the only person taking pictures had been Elizabeth, who occasionally woke up from her beach nap to put Cece on Instagram.
TheSchmidtster kept liking the photos, so they blocked him from both their streams.
It wasn’t the honeymoon she’d imagined- actually, she’d barely pictured this part at all- but Cece was happy.