Chapter Text
Margaery Tyrell had enjoyed a thoroughly satisfying day in the way that only an independent woman of means could enjoy. She had saluted the sun this morning before settling in for a solid hour of meditation where she actually managed to keep a blank mind for a whole five minutes. Maybe. She had morning tea with her grandmother at the Ritz, and posted a photoshopped montage on Lipp! of herself designer op-shop shopping. And then she'd impetuously bought a new apartment on Swanston Street off the plan, because she had happened to walk by the Open House sign and they had been taking names. It was such a sweet four-bedroom apartment, and only walking distance to the city and shopping — even in heels! A girl really couldn't lose! Her personal Relationship Manager was a darling to answer his phone on a Saturday, even though the bank was closed.
Which was just as well, because Sansa needed to unload and Margaery had already detoxed and could take her negative energy on. As good friends should.
“But darling, what happened!” Margaery's eyebrows were furrowed in sympathy — not too much that deep crease lines were to show, but enough to convey love and comfort while still looking unwittingly sultry in that small preview pane on the corner of her phone. She shook her hair forward. Even better.
Mrs Sansa Hardyng sniffled a few more times before she started to bawl. It was honestly quite difficult to hear her.
“It’s Harry!” she finally wailed. “He’s left me!”
“He’s what?!”
“Left me!” And Sansa sniffed. “But not really. But he’s gone!”
“Wait right where you are. I’m getting Loras to drive you back to my place.”
“Can’t you come to me?” Another sniff. “I just want to stay home in my bed. I’m so miserable, Margee.” Margaery relented with a dramatic sigh.
“Alright. I’ll get the car ‘round. Because I love you.”
By the time Loras pulled into the Hardyngs' driveway, Sansa had pulled herself together enough to meet Margaery at the door.
“Darling, I’ve brought two bottles — one red, of course. And your favourite dessert wine, the white one. And a fourth surprise choice, in case you really want to get smashed!”
Sansa’s mouth formed a watery smile. She knew Margaery found her home “cosy”. The fact that she was willing to stay late nonetheless, even overnight… that’s real love.
Unlike her Harry’s.
At the thought of her wayfaring husband, Sansa’s eyes began to water once more and Margaery hastily guided her friend back into her house.
“So what happened?” Margaery finally asked after half a bottle and Sansa’s voice had stopped wobbling.
“He wants a break from our marriage — but not a divorce.”
“Go on.”
“He wants to see the world more. On his own. H… he feels he never got to know his true self, because we married so young.”
“Why can’t he travel the world with you! It’s not like you can’t afford to!”
“That’s what I said,” protested Sansa, feeling a little defensive. “I told him I’d do whatever it takes. Talk to Olenna. Push the release of the next book out by six months. Marriage over career, right? But he wouldn’t listen. Just kept saying it’s something he needs to do on his own!”
“So where’s he gone!”
“Southeast Asia, he said.”
“Yes, but which part?”
“He refuses to say. He just says he wants to get lost there... and find himself!”
Margaery rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Eat Pray Love is so yesterday.”
“Not according to Lipp!, it’s not!” And Margaery cringed. Touché, little bird. Marge had written that article not two months ago. And then a month after that, she had written about marriage sabbaticals.
Oh dear.
“Angel…” Margaery hesitated, “exactly what does a break mean?”
“We don’t live in each other’s pockets, I suppose. That’s his first big thing. He wants to do whatever he wants without having to worry about me or whether I like it. I guess he doesn’t want to feel like he has to consult me or get my approval, or… or to report to me. Oh Margee, am I unreasonable like that? Did I nag him too much, you think? I know I can be angry with him sometimes, when he’s doing silly, thoughtless things. Am I too stubborn?”
“Sansa,” Margaery eyes grew stern. “You are the sweetest person I know. No, you are not stubborn. You do not nag. You sure as hell have not been unreasonable! You are his wife! And you are gorgeous. I am the bitch, but you are lovely and lovable and sweet and kind. And don’t you dare think otherwise!”
Another watery smile.
“What else.”
“No rings.” And Sansa twisted the rock on her finger then, her face whitening as she worked the band around her finger, her lower lip caught in her teeth to stop the trembling.
“Sansa…” Margaery’s tone was gentle and low. “Does a break means he gets to… see other people? You know… if he meets one along the way?”
The look on Sansa’s face was pure anguish, and Margaery wanted to hunt down Harry with a Doberman specially trained in the art of sniffing out dropkick husbands who want to have their cake and eat it.
A Doberman with a firm grip over that feckless man’s sausage.
“I don’t know.” A tiny whisper. The quiver was back.
“Is there already another woman, you think?” Margaery loathed to ask the question, but it had to be put on the table. Surprisingly, Sansa shook her head vehemently.
“That’s the first thing he assured me of, Margee. It isn't because of another woman or anything. He’s not looking to play around. He genuinely wants to find himself. He’s just never been to him. Like that old song by Charlene*.”
“Oh the poor baby,” Margaery snapped, and yanked the bottle to top up her glass. She was feeling pissy now. Margaery had always found Harrold rather vain and shallow. And that was quite something, coming from her.
In this instance, however, she hated to be proven so right. Ugh.
“How long is he going to take to find himself, you think?” Margaery asked neutrally, although she privately snarked that an hour should have sufficed, seeing how Harry didn’t have very much material to work with.
“I don’t know.”
“What is your plan, my darling?"
Sansa sighed. “I think I’m just going to sit and wait for him to come home.”
"I can't just sit and wait for him to come home!”
Sansa was pacing the floor again, something that Harry had always found annoying. It was cold comfort that he wasn’t here to coax her to cut it out. It never really bothered Margaery. At least Sansa was burning carbs while she was agonising over her half-abandoned marriage. That’s something.
“I mean… two months is a long time, isn’t it? Surely I’ve waited long enough!”
Margaery privately thought Sansa had waited two months too long. If any of her ex-husbands had ever thought to drop her like a tonne of bricks to go walkabout without so much as a hint of where he was walking to, Margaery would have breezily waved the prenup in his face before kicking his sorry ass to the curb. You can walk over there, there, and there to collect your clothes. And I’m keeping the bloody jewels.
In her article last week on the stages of grief — the one that came with a pop quiz — Margaery had wondered aloud if people could skip whole stages in the process. Because Sansa Hardyng over here seems to have moved right past the anger stage.
Margaery had been waiting for Anger stage. Because then they could go destroy Harry things and then go shopping. Margaery really liked shopping.
“And what kind of wife am I, anyway!” Sansa was lamenting now. “Leonara would have gone after Leopold by now!” Leonara was the heroine from Sansa’s fifth book. She was an Ugly Duckling turned Unwilling Duchess and Leopold was the Byronic duke who brooded a lot and once stalked off to the moors after he threw a tantrum.
A writer’s got to get her ideas from somewhere, Margaery supposed.
But lo, as they say. An idea was also forming…
Margaery turned suddenly to face her oldest friend. “Do you want to go after Harry?”
“Do I want to?”
“Well, it’s sounding a lot like you’re sick of sitting and waiting. Why not get out there and look for him?”
Sansa looked doubtful yet a little hopeful all at once. “Do you think I could?”
“Sure you can! At the very least, you’ll get out of the house. Get proactive! Show Harry you’re fighting for your marriage. It’s the ultimate romantic gesture, isn’t it. You’re a modern woman. You can woo.” Margaery was not modern. She did not woo.
But Sansa mulled the idea in her head. She had never been one to woo either. But this was her marriage, not fiction. And if she truly loved her husband, she would swallow her pride and her dignity.
“How would we even start?”
Already there. “Where did you say the last credit card transaction was before Harry went completely offline?”
“Singapore, I think.”
Margaery smiled. “Perfect,” she purred.
Like clockwork, the skies opened right on mid-afternoon and bucketed down on the island, bringing with it a temporary reprieve from the heat.
Petyr dropped into the white rattan love seat facing out to the garden that lay beyond the covered patio at the back of the house. This was, by far, his favourite room. It was easily the heart of the home, the way all other living spaces seemed to coalesce into this space. He loved the tall ceiling lined neatly with dark timber beams, the sheer expanse of the room that made no apologies for its existence. A standard apartment in the government suburbs could fit into the entire width and depth of this space.
But most of all, Petyr loved how the white tiled steps leading to the patio took up the entire width of the room. And how there was nothing — no fourth wall, no door, not even bamboo blinds — separating him from the lush tropical greenery that lay beyond.
The freedom. It was strangely liberating, to have the ass of the house hanging out completely exposed in this way. And yet, such was the security of the island. Of the country. Of Singapore.
This stunning black-and-white room was why Petyr decided to drop an eye-watering sum of moolah to call this house his home. He figured — after renting the place for a ball-squeezing twenty-thousand Sing a night — that he was probably better off sitting down and making someone a proper offer.
The ice-cold glass of water in his hand was already beading profusely from condensation. A drop or two had already dripped onto his belly, a small hazard of slumming shirtless around the house. And even though the fans overhead were going full bore, he could feel the mugginess in the air. Petyr breathed in the thick smell of rain and practically purred.
It was during this moment of delectation that Margaery Tyrell decided to call.
“Margaery.” But the smile on Petyr's face was small and affectionate. “To what do I owe this pleasure.” He waited. There was always something, and she could be amusing at times.
“Petyr!” Her voice was low and it purred, matching his. “Darling, I’ve missed you! You’re still living in that massive house, aren’t you. The one in Singapore.”
“I am.” He waited some more, even though he suspected the next few words out her mouth.
“I’m planning to fly into town real soon. With a friend. She’s… ah… in need of some help.”
“What kind of help, Margaery."
Petyr smirked. He’d played this game before. Margaery tended to have projects that got bigger than Ben Hur sometimes. He could practically hear her thoughts bubbling, her small pink tongue choosing her words.
“She needs to find someone.”
“Who?”
“Her husband.” And he laughed mirthlessly.
“Are you kidding me, Margaery. You’ve reduced me to this? Some sodding private detective spying on some dickwad that a housewife can’t satisfy?”
“Look. I wouldn’t ask, but she’s a total sweetheart and the dickwad has gone silent for a month. She just wants to know he’s okay. He left two months ago. I figured you’d know how to find him.”
Petyr took another sip of his water and mulled that one for a second or two. On the one hand, this was almost a pathetic job. Sordid. These things are typically messy and emotional and tedious. And he was no P.I., really. If he wanted to do that sort of work, he would have gone into that in his retirement ages ago.
On the other hand, he hadn’t seen Margaery for a while.
“It’s going to cost you,” he warned.
“Like hell you’re going to charge me. You owe me!”
“You owe me a lot more, sweetheart.”
A tinkling laugh that was at once familiar and brought him right back. She hadn’t changed that laugh at all since the first time he met her. “You’re right. I do," she smiled. "But I’m going to ask yet another favour. Please, Petey? For me?"
"Why her," Petyr asked, mildly curious. "I thought you never trust women."
"I don't. Not usually. But Sans and I go way back. When you meet her, you'll understand. You couldn't hate her. No one can. She's an absolute sweetheart. And she's hurting right now, thanks to that schmuck."
Margaery quickly filled him in. No, he has never watched Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love — why the hell would he? And now that Margaery just explained the rough premise, he'll probably NEVER watch it ever.
And as for marriage sabbaticals... Petyr was dumbfounded. So people actually do that sort of thing now, park a spouse? The things people in relationships do to one another.
Petyr rolled his eyes, already sensing his defeat.
"IF I were to allow this new madcap scheme, when were you thinking of landing me in this steaming turd of matrimonial shizz?"
"Ahhh... doing anything tomorrow?"
Petyr rolled his eyes. Typical, typical Margaery Tyrell.
The flight from Melbourne direct to Singapore was uneventful — only a little turbulence over pockets of Indonesia. Margaery had chosen to splash out on First Class for both of them, rather than tolerate eight hours in Economy. She pretended that she’d used her krisflyer points for Sansa’s ticket. Sansa, of course, saw through that white lie at once.
Thankfully, she had been rather distracted throughout the flight and hadn’t insisted on something silly like paying Margaery back.
Sansa had been a ball of excitement at first. Even though they could afford it, the Hardyngs seldom travelled, really. Twice back to England for funerals of Harrold’s grandparents, in recent memory. The trips had paid off for Harry; he got his inheritance for his efforts, in the end. But it hadn't exactly been a sightseeing kind of holiday.
Sansa had never been to Southeast Asia — not even to the airport in Singapore in transit. She had been excited at first, peppering Margaery with questions as they frantically packed their bags in their respective homes.
Once she got on the plane, however, Sansa grew quiet. She was still wearing her ring, despite instructions from Harry to the contrary. And while Margaery applauded her fuck-you spirit in not acquiescing to every suggestion he made, she wished that Sansa hadn’t chosen to keep her ring.
It broke her heart a little, frankly, that Sansa was still faithfully holding on while that shitbag had dumped his wedding band in the small dish of the ensuite bathroom counter before walking away from his vows temporarily, without so much as a second look at his quietly devastated wife. And the gall of it, honestly. That he would string her along. That he couldn’t even do the decent thing and cut the ties. His safety net — that was what Sansa was to him now.
It made Margaery's blood boil, truly.
In what must be a rare thing in aviation history, they had landed almost a whole hour early. And even though they had entered the airport through a jet bridge, Sansa and Margaery felt the humidity fall over them like an invisible wet, clammy blanket. The air was cool inside one of Margaery’s favourite airports in the world, but it smelled different already. Thicker. Wetter.
Margaery hadn’t bothered to call Petyr, opting instead to hail a cab which was easy enough to do. Sansa was still quiet, eyes bleary even though they had travelled the Red Eye in First. She was taking in her surroundings with keen interest, but it wasn’t until they were in the taxi speeding along a highway flanked by endless pink blossom bushes that Sansa squeaked,
“They’re so beautiful, you notice?”
“What, darling? The bushes?”
“The locals. The women. They’re petite and delicate and pretty… What if Harry falls for one of them? He’s technically not married. He’s not wearing his ring… How would they know he’s got a wife? And he’s so handsome—” Sansa's voice caught then, and she hastily turned away to look out the window at the blur of cars and greenery.
Margaery reached an arm over and gripped Sansa’s shoulder tight, even with the seatbelts on between them both.
“He’s still married,” Margaery reminded her fiercely. "And why would he fall for anyone when he has you, chickadee.”
It was empty comfort, but it was the best she could do.
The cab driver had deposited them in front of the tall black metal gates, assuring them over and over that they had come to the right place. Sansa sure hoped so. Petyr’s house had turned out to be buried deep in a suburb that was green and leafy, with twisty small roads that sometimes opened up to huge mansions. The more they had driven further in, the more nervous Sansa had gotten. She didn’t know Petyr at all, only that he was Margaery’s friend — and even she had been vague on details. She hoped feverishly that they’d all get along, that he wouldn’t mind them. It was awfully nice of him to accommodate them at such short notice...
The house in front of them looked modest in comparison to some of its leviathan neighbours. It was a smart looking house, and Sansa wondered if it was heritage listed. It wasn’t very tall — only two stories. But the entire house looked so smart with its white-washed walls and jet-black trim. Potted plants, some with that same bush they had seen on the highway, accented the tall white pillars. The entire building looked happily ensconced in a dewy bed of lush, tropical green velvet.
Margaery found an intercom button eventually and buzzed.
A crackle, before a timid voice answered in what Margaery had to interpret as a thickly-accented, “Hello?”
“Hello!” Margaery answered brightly. “We’re here to see Petyr.”
“Peeeetah?” the frail voice answered, a woman’s. Margaery guessed she might be older.
“Yes, Petyr. Petyr Baelish?”
And then, as if she had just uttered the secret password, that voice suddenly came to life.
“Peetah, ah? Peetah—“ And a string of words flowed, thick and fast, excited and absolutely foreign. Margaery blinked.
“Um… hello? Do you speak any English?”
And then they both heard a man's voice. Except he was speaking just as fluently in that foreign tongue they just heard, only slower. The chatter of the excitable lady soon faded away and the gate suddenly opened.
Sansa and Margaery wheeled their bags up a small slope and around a long driveway until they reached the tall double doors, painted white with that same black trim. Sansa looked down then, and what she saw made her gasp in unexpected delight. For under their feet lay a gorgeous floor made of black and white art deco tiles. Sansa bent down immediately to trace a finger around a pattern, mouth shaped in awe.
It’s just so beautiful, she breathed to herself.
The door flung open suddenly. And then a lean figure appeared, completely shirtless and browned. A long, silvery-white scar drew Sansa's eye immediately from that space between his collarbone right down… down... past his toned stomach, until she had to turn away suddenly, slightly uncomfortable. His hair was tousled and curled around the neck, as if he had just woken up. It was just touching seven in the morning, after all.
That man, whom Sansa could only surmise to be Petyr Baelish, was wearing little else except a deep scowl.
“Bloody oath, Tyrell,” Petyr growled, unimpressed. “Give a man some notice next time, will ya?"