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thirdmondayTitle: Rachel Through the Looking Glass
Recipient:aybara_max
Fandoms: TRMS
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: No Warnings
Characters/Pairings: Rachel Maddow/Susan Mikula
Prompt: the contrasts between Rachel's life in western Massachusetts & her life in NYC.
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jender13
Author's note: Many thanks toaybara_max for the great prompt, and to aliya for the beta-ing!
Rachel's only just turned on to the Robert F Kennedy Bridge and her eyes are already heavy. She turns the heat down and cracks a window, hoping the icy February air will shock her awake, because she's still got over 3 hours to go before she stumbles through the door and can collapse into bed. Usually she looks forward to this trip, uses the time to slowly come down off the high she runs on all week, so that by the time she's crawling under the covers next to Susan she can take a deep breath and just relax in the quiet and the dark, letting the soft rhythm of Susan's breathing lull her to sleep.
Tonight, though, she would have been happy to stay in the city, to meet Keith for drinks after the show, then have only the short trip back to the West Village between her and her bed. But she didn't go home last weekend, and Susan had called right before she went on air, double checking that she'd be home tonight, and Rachel knew without asking that she'd be upset if Rachel opted to stay away for another week. So she opens the window a little wider, finds some Metallica on her iPod, and does her best to stay awake for the trip back to Western Mass.
Luckily, she can do this on autopilot now. There are definitely times when she's suddenly pulling into the driveway and can't really remember anything about the drive. Lately she's been feeling that every weekend away from the city is like that: the routine so familiar, the demands on her so few that she can turn off her brain and rely on muscle memory to take her from one minute to the next. And before she knows it, she's walking into the office on Monday morning, everything buzzing around her, and she's fully engaged and firing on all cylinders again.
People ask her about it, how it feels to lead a double life, shuttling between two places that are so different. Rachel's never seen it that way, though; she's the same Rachel, whether she's in New York or in Massachusetts, nothing about her changes with the scenery. At least, that's how she used to feel about it, but she's not so sure anymore; thinking of going through her weekends at home on autopilot was pretty damn close to admitting she was just going through the motions, and that was a realization she wasn't quite ready to have yet.
Rachel is pulled away from that train of thought by her phone ringing. Shifting her grip on the steering wheel so she can drive with one hand she reaches across the seat and picks it up, turning down the radio before answering.
"Hi."
"Hi, where are you?"
"Somewhere on I-95."
"Michael just called; he invited us to a dinner party tomorrow night. Do you want to go?"
"Yeah, sure, if you want to go. That'd be great."
"I'll let him know." Susan pauses before continuing, as if she's hesitating over what to say next. "I could stay on the phone with you, to help you stay awake."
Rachel tries to figure out whether Susan is saying she wants to stay on the phone, or if she really is just offering to be helpful. When had everything they said to each other begun to be so loaded, started to require such careful consideration before a reply could be offered? She can't help but think of her banter with Keith, how she knows what he's going to say before he finishes saying it; how even when she says something asinine, he never takes offense because he understands what she meant to say, sometimes better than she does herself.
"Rach?"
"Oh, um…no. No, I'm fine. It's probably better if I'm not distracted, anyway." That was not the right answer. Rachel starts to explain that it was the phone, not Susan, that would be the distraction but Susan is already saying goodbye.
"Drive safely. I'll leave the light on for you."
"Thanks. I'll be there soon."
Rachel clicks the phone off and tosses it back onto the seat next to her. She needs to figure this out. She needs to figure out what changed and why, and if she can shift it back to the way it used to be. When returning to Western Mass each weekend was the only thing that kept her sane. When being with Susan was the thing that reminded her who she was and where her place was in the world. When it didn't feel like an obligation, like spending time with your family over holiday breaks when you really want to be spending it with your friends.
She thinks it may have started - or at least, she may have started paying attention to it - when she bought the apartment in the West Village. The house in Cummington was always Susan's, really; when Rachel moved in, she didn't have much to bring with her, other than books and clothes. So Susan had made room for her in the closet and the dresser, bought some extra bookshelves, and Rachel never thought twice about it. It was easy to slide into the home Susan had already established; Rachel couldn't even have told you what color the curtains were, let alone offer an opinion on them.
Her tiny apartment in the city had been a place to shower and sleep and that was about it, which made weekends a treat – time to stretch out and feel domestic. Keith was the one that actually started to press her to get a bigger place. When she scoffed at the idea, he bought her a copy of A Room of One's Own and began sending her real estate listings. Susan caught wind of it and pointed out that owning property would be a good investment, and between the two of them, Rachel allowed herself to be swayed. For the first time, Rachel had a place that was hers, and the joy she felt in picking out furniture and rearranging things over and over until they were perfect surprised her.
Suddenly, she had her own space, filled with things she was drawn to, big enough to have friends over without having to sit on each other's laps. Each night, she walked through the door and her mind suddenly grew quiet. She poured herself a drink, sunk onto the couch and looked out the window at the Hudson, and her world stopped spinning quite so fast. She began to consider what it felt like to be Rachel for Rachel - not for her staff or her viewers or her girlfriend, but who she was when she was just with herself. And she cursed Keith for not only ambushing her with Virginia Woolf, but for being right about it.
She caught herself not long ago telling Bill that she was making the drive out to Susan's for the weekend, but that she would be home Sunday night. Bill hadn't seemed to notice but Rachel did and she ended up staying in Massachusetts until Monday after all, to somehow make up to Susan her infidelity, for forgetting where home was supposed to be.
Rachel sees the sign for exit 18 and flicks on her blinker, merging off of the highway and onto the deserted streets of downtown Northampton. She drives down Pleasant Street, reminding herself as she passes the video store to call Bill Dwight about another visit to his radio show. As she turns on to Main Street and up towards Smith College, she feels tugged in so many different directions – all the familiar places here that anchor the various parts of her, Rachel past and present. Inexplicably she finds herself fighting back tears and it dawns on her that the problem isn't that she has to choose: New York over Massachusetts, Rachel on her own over Rachel with Susan. It's that she's convinced herself that one has to cancel out the other.
She pulls into the driveway and wipes at the tears on her face. The porch light is on just as Susan promised, along with the one over the sink in the kitchen. Poppy races to the door to meet her and Rachel laughs as she tries to quiet him down, his tail thumping so loudly against the floor she's sure it will wake Susan up. There's a note propped up on the counter. "Dearheart, there's soup in the fridge if you're hungry. Breakfast at The Green Bean tomorrow? Wake me up if you want. – S"
Rachel runs a finger gently over the words, picturing Susan, wrapped in the bathrobe Rachel's mother sent her for Christmas, writing the note right before she went to bed.
"Sometimes you make things way more complicated than they have to be, Maddow," she mutters to herself with a lopsided smile. Poppy is sitting expectantly at the door so she takes him out for a quick romp around the yard. As he runs to his favorite tree Rachel looks up at the stars and finds Orion, brighter than he ever is in Manhattan. Poppy bounds past her back to the porch and she follows him, snow crunching under her feet.
She takes a quick shower, scrubbing her face of any lingering vestiges of make-up and letting the hot water smooth out her car-cramped muscles. Then she pulls on the flannel pajama pants and tank top hanging on the bathroom door and pads quietly into the bedroom. Susan is soft and warm under the covers and Rachel wraps herself around her, burying her nose in Susan's hair to smell her shampoo. Tears well up in her eyes again and she lets out a shuddering breath against Susan's shoulder. Susan stirs and murmurs sleepily.
"Rach? Are you okay?"
Rachel nods, sliding Susan's hair aside and pressing her lips against the back of the other woman's neck.
"Yeah…I'm just…I'm glad to be home."
Susan laces her fingers through Rachel's and pulls Rachel's arm around her, resting their joined hands against her chest.
"Maybe next weekend, I'll come out to stay with you, so you don't have to drive so late."
Rachel snuggles deeper under the blankets and entwines her legs with Susan's.
"I think I'd really like that. I could cook for us."
Susan snorts. "Maybe leave that part to me, baby." Her voice is already fading back into sleep.
"Yeah. Yeah. You're probably right."
Rachel closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She lets the soft rhythm of Susan's breathing lull her towards sleep. She tries to remind herself that home is really wherever she can be herself. She hopes that it works.
Recipient:
aybara_maxFandoms: TRMS
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: No Warnings
Characters/Pairings: Rachel Maddow/Susan Mikula
Prompt: the contrasts between Rachel's life in western Massachusetts & her life in NYC.
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Author:
jender13Author's note: Many thanks to
aybara_max for the great prompt, and to aliya for the beta-ing!Rachel's only just turned on to the Robert F Kennedy Bridge and her eyes are already heavy. She turns the heat down and cracks a window, hoping the icy February air will shock her awake, because she's still got over 3 hours to go before she stumbles through the door and can collapse into bed. Usually she looks forward to this trip, uses the time to slowly come down off the high she runs on all week, so that by the time she's crawling under the covers next to Susan she can take a deep breath and just relax in the quiet and the dark, letting the soft rhythm of Susan's breathing lull her to sleep.
Tonight, though, she would have been happy to stay in the city, to meet Keith for drinks after the show, then have only the short trip back to the West Village between her and her bed. But she didn't go home last weekend, and Susan had called right before she went on air, double checking that she'd be home tonight, and Rachel knew without asking that she'd be upset if Rachel opted to stay away for another week. So she opens the window a little wider, finds some Metallica on her iPod, and does her best to stay awake for the trip back to Western Mass.
Luckily, she can do this on autopilot now. There are definitely times when she's suddenly pulling into the driveway and can't really remember anything about the drive. Lately she's been feeling that every weekend away from the city is like that: the routine so familiar, the demands on her so few that she can turn off her brain and rely on muscle memory to take her from one minute to the next. And before she knows it, she's walking into the office on Monday morning, everything buzzing around her, and she's fully engaged and firing on all cylinders again.
People ask her about it, how it feels to lead a double life, shuttling between two places that are so different. Rachel's never seen it that way, though; she's the same Rachel, whether she's in New York or in Massachusetts, nothing about her changes with the scenery. At least, that's how she used to feel about it, but she's not so sure anymore; thinking of going through her weekends at home on autopilot was pretty damn close to admitting she was just going through the motions, and that was a realization she wasn't quite ready to have yet.
Rachel is pulled away from that train of thought by her phone ringing. Shifting her grip on the steering wheel so she can drive with one hand she reaches across the seat and picks it up, turning down the radio before answering.
"Hi."
"Hi, where are you?"
"Somewhere on I-95."
"Michael just called; he invited us to a dinner party tomorrow night. Do you want to go?"
"Yeah, sure, if you want to go. That'd be great."
"I'll let him know." Susan pauses before continuing, as if she's hesitating over what to say next. "I could stay on the phone with you, to help you stay awake."
Rachel tries to figure out whether Susan is saying she wants to stay on the phone, or if she really is just offering to be helpful. When had everything they said to each other begun to be so loaded, started to require such careful consideration before a reply could be offered? She can't help but think of her banter with Keith, how she knows what he's going to say before he finishes saying it; how even when she says something asinine, he never takes offense because he understands what she meant to say, sometimes better than she does herself.
"Rach?"
"Oh, um…no. No, I'm fine. It's probably better if I'm not distracted, anyway." That was not the right answer. Rachel starts to explain that it was the phone, not Susan, that would be the distraction but Susan is already saying goodbye.
"Drive safely. I'll leave the light on for you."
"Thanks. I'll be there soon."
Rachel clicks the phone off and tosses it back onto the seat next to her. She needs to figure this out. She needs to figure out what changed and why, and if she can shift it back to the way it used to be. When returning to Western Mass each weekend was the only thing that kept her sane. When being with Susan was the thing that reminded her who she was and where her place was in the world. When it didn't feel like an obligation, like spending time with your family over holiday breaks when you really want to be spending it with your friends.
She thinks it may have started - or at least, she may have started paying attention to it - when she bought the apartment in the West Village. The house in Cummington was always Susan's, really; when Rachel moved in, she didn't have much to bring with her, other than books and clothes. So Susan had made room for her in the closet and the dresser, bought some extra bookshelves, and Rachel never thought twice about it. It was easy to slide into the home Susan had already established; Rachel couldn't even have told you what color the curtains were, let alone offer an opinion on them.
Her tiny apartment in the city had been a place to shower and sleep and that was about it, which made weekends a treat – time to stretch out and feel domestic. Keith was the one that actually started to press her to get a bigger place. When she scoffed at the idea, he bought her a copy of A Room of One's Own and began sending her real estate listings. Susan caught wind of it and pointed out that owning property would be a good investment, and between the two of them, Rachel allowed herself to be swayed. For the first time, Rachel had a place that was hers, and the joy she felt in picking out furniture and rearranging things over and over until they were perfect surprised her.
Suddenly, she had her own space, filled with things she was drawn to, big enough to have friends over without having to sit on each other's laps. Each night, she walked through the door and her mind suddenly grew quiet. She poured herself a drink, sunk onto the couch and looked out the window at the Hudson, and her world stopped spinning quite so fast. She began to consider what it felt like to be Rachel for Rachel - not for her staff or her viewers or her girlfriend, but who she was when she was just with herself. And she cursed Keith for not only ambushing her with Virginia Woolf, but for being right about it.
She caught herself not long ago telling Bill that she was making the drive out to Susan's for the weekend, but that she would be home Sunday night. Bill hadn't seemed to notice but Rachel did and she ended up staying in Massachusetts until Monday after all, to somehow make up to Susan her infidelity, for forgetting where home was supposed to be.
Rachel sees the sign for exit 18 and flicks on her blinker, merging off of the highway and onto the deserted streets of downtown Northampton. She drives down Pleasant Street, reminding herself as she passes the video store to call Bill Dwight about another visit to his radio show. As she turns on to Main Street and up towards Smith College, she feels tugged in so many different directions – all the familiar places here that anchor the various parts of her, Rachel past and present. Inexplicably she finds herself fighting back tears and it dawns on her that the problem isn't that she has to choose: New York over Massachusetts, Rachel on her own over Rachel with Susan. It's that she's convinced herself that one has to cancel out the other.
She pulls into the driveway and wipes at the tears on her face. The porch light is on just as Susan promised, along with the one over the sink in the kitchen. Poppy races to the door to meet her and Rachel laughs as she tries to quiet him down, his tail thumping so loudly against the floor she's sure it will wake Susan up. There's a note propped up on the counter. "Dearheart, there's soup in the fridge if you're hungry. Breakfast at The Green Bean tomorrow? Wake me up if you want. – S"
Rachel runs a finger gently over the words, picturing Susan, wrapped in the bathrobe Rachel's mother sent her for Christmas, writing the note right before she went to bed.
"Sometimes you make things way more complicated than they have to be, Maddow," she mutters to herself with a lopsided smile. Poppy is sitting expectantly at the door so she takes him out for a quick romp around the yard. As he runs to his favorite tree Rachel looks up at the stars and finds Orion, brighter than he ever is in Manhattan. Poppy bounds past her back to the porch and she follows him, snow crunching under her feet.
She takes a quick shower, scrubbing her face of any lingering vestiges of make-up and letting the hot water smooth out her car-cramped muscles. Then she pulls on the flannel pajama pants and tank top hanging on the bathroom door and pads quietly into the bedroom. Susan is soft and warm under the covers and Rachel wraps herself around her, burying her nose in Susan's hair to smell her shampoo. Tears well up in her eyes again and she lets out a shuddering breath against Susan's shoulder. Susan stirs and murmurs sleepily.
"Rach? Are you okay?"
Rachel nods, sliding Susan's hair aside and pressing her lips against the back of the other woman's neck.
"Yeah…I'm just…I'm glad to be home."
Susan laces her fingers through Rachel's and pulls Rachel's arm around her, resting their joined hands against her chest.
"Maybe next weekend, I'll come out to stay with you, so you don't have to drive so late."
Rachel snuggles deeper under the blankets and entwines her legs with Susan's.
"I think I'd really like that. I could cook for us."
Susan snorts. "Maybe leave that part to me, baby." Her voice is already fading back into sleep.
"Yeah. Yeah. You're probably right."
Rachel closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She lets the soft rhythm of Susan's breathing lull her towards sleep. She tries to remind herself that home is really wherever she can be herself. She hopes that it works.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-22 10:15 am (UTC)Aww. That is a really cute exchange.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-03 04:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-24 07:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-03 04:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-27 04:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-03 04:09 am (UTC)