Work Text:
One.
Miranda signs for her town house two days after her first divorce is finalised.
She had been to open homes over the course of the court proceedings, slipped real estate catalogues in between the mountains of paper work and perused auction listings on the drives to and from her lawyer’s office, court and Runway.
It was not simply an idle past time to occupy her thoughts, the magazine demanded too much of her attention for that ever to be an issue, but was what felt like a worthwhile search for a more stable foundation for her future than a fancy apartment with a flakey husband. She had made her way through grand homes, under high ceilings and amongst luxurious furniture alone, letting well designed colour palettes and interior design wash her clean of the time she spent formally dragging herself out of a marriage she had left in her heart years ago.
She had found the town house after a particularly satisfying victory over James (she would keep the Mercedes) and while she did not believe in fate or signs or any manifestation of higher being, who was she to deny a string of fortunate events during a time that had been so cloudy. The area was prosperous and fitting of the social status she had acquired, there was enough space for the girls and the puppy, and enough windows that the light could touch even the deepest corners of every room. She could see on its walls a home she would be proud to call her own.
She did not consult anyone. It was only a few years into her time as editor in chief but she had known for a long time that her own instincts and judgement were to be trusted above all else.
Her daughters did not seem to care. Their therapist thought it was too much change for them, but they were only children and Miranda did not raise them to be weak. They wanted for nothing, all Miranda did as a child was want and want and want. They dumped their bags in the hallway without looking at the winding stair case with any particular interest or noticing the thought she had put into finding bedrooms perfect for them. But it didn’t matter, they were young and what was most important to them was that there was enough room for their toys and blankets and coloured pencils.
There was a great deal that was important to Miranda though. The house was her project. Of course it was already just right in so many ways when she bought it but her editor’s pen always found something to mark.
In her mind the hallways unfolded, colours blended and swelled and adjustment after adjustment presented itself to her. When things were tense at work, or in the divorce that seem to drag on for so much longer despite being officially resolved, she would do work on the place, transforming it closer to the vision in her head.
She called in the best and held them to that standard.
Even when there was no one to do the job she made sure it was done. Because even though she was already accustomed to having all of her demands, no matter how ridiculous, met she knew that no tradesman would answer her call to wallpaper the second floor sitting room at 2AM. Even when that was the time she needed it done because how else was she to deal with the frustration of her girls being with their intolerable grandmother when they should have been home with her. So on nights like this she put on the old clothes buried in a usually forgotten drawer and spent the early hours of the morning drowning out the noise in her head with manual labour.
The house altered and remorphed itself, in small details and subtle changes.
It was not until eleven months into living there that Cassidy looked up from her book, forehead scrunched and mouth pinched, “I like it here better than at Dad’s.” Miranda felt that sense of accomplishment she associated with met deadlines and high sales figures flood through her.
Two.
She fills her house with things, tastefully chosen and neatly arranged.
The hand me down girl, held together at the seams, look at all she has now.
She thinks of her mother, back hunched over the grey counter, bitterness twisted through her mouth. Her words echo in the back of her mind, Princhek women are never happy.
No, Miranda thinks, I’m not a Princheck, I’m a Priestly. This is the life I have chosen. This is the life I have made.
She wants to believe that money, influence and chandeliers can melt the ice in her bones from growing up in a town that was always too cold and a house so absent of warmth.
Regardless, her house is lovely, bursting with flowers and antique furniture.
It is almost enough.
Three.
Runway spreads through her home. Her (three) walk in wadrobes overflow with coture and outfits made just for her. Stacks of post-it notes are deposited on convenient surfaces. There is a jar of pens on the counter by the jug for when she is editing while making tea. The girls plaster their walls with photos from magazines, some of hers some not.
Her influence spreads across the world. People learn that who they should be turning to for not only guidance but instruction is her and her magazine. She had once stood humbled at the steps of the fashion world and now she is in charge, commanding it.
Her empire sits atop countless amounts of material and women’s bodies who better resemble coathangers than skin, muscle and bone.
She is revered, hated, and idolised. Men in suits sneer at her and her ‘pretty things’, women tear her down for the messages she perpetuates and at times it feels like everything is going to fall down around her ears.
Sometimes these thoughts plague her, that after all her hard work, that it was all just stuff – ephemeral and meaningless.
These thoughts are usually discarded when she returns to the office the next day. She oversees projects, critiques and criticises, pushing and pulling as the wheels of the fashion industry grind over and forth, with them millions of dollars, jobs and lives. Certainty returns, flooding through her, her blood humming and pulsing with it - it matters it matters it matters you matter you matter you matter.
Four.
Miranda has a general distaste for visitors.
Nigel has been here twice. He never made it above the first floor.
Her assistants tip toe around the entrance way, holding dry cleaning, book and breath.
Andrea Sachs comes up the stairs.
She makes the silly girl pay, because she knows better than anyone that nothing in this world comes without a price.
Somehow Andrea weathers the storm of her retribution, emerging out the other side with her determination channelled somewhere much more useful than holding herself superior to Runway and everything in it.
Exceptions aside, Miranda does not like opening up her home.
The girls’ friends are confined to the first floor, their giggles and thundering footsteps bounce of the walls. Their parents linger in the sitting rooms and hallways, trying to catch an extra glimpse of the Dragon Lady’s extravagent home, searching for a hint of the character they know so well from the media somewhere.
Stephen says he likes the peace, that he can get more work done in his study that he ever does at the office. Miranda is glad he appreciates the sanctuary she has built, but does not like when she can hear him typing loudly, making phone calls loudly, or rustling loudly from across the hall while she is trying to work. She does not like it most of all she can not hear anything at all.
Tonight is one of those quiet nights.
Miranda is not even sure if he is home tonight and has not been sure for almost a week now.
It’s not important though, there is work to do as there always is.
Andrea sits with her in the den. She is a lovely composition of chanel, sleek dark hair and a warm smile which offsets the neutral tones of the wall behind her nicely.
She wonders if the girl’s wrist is going to cramp, her hand flying across the page so rapidly.
Miranda places her glasses on the side table
“That’s all.”
Andrea nods and gathers up her things. She moves towards the door but pauses as she always does at the antique book case.
Miranda clears her throat, Andrea jumps.
“Oh sorry, it’s just this is so lovely.” Her fingers reach out and lightly touch the stained wood.
“Well, you wouldn’t want to keep your cook waiting,” Andrea’s eyes widen at this, Miranda just quirks her eyebrow. Andrea should know by now that there is nothing in Runway that Miranda does not know.
“Oh he’s gonna be mad no matter whatever time I get back,” she replied seemingly without thinking and then visually pulled herself back, surely reminding herself of where she was and who she was with.
“My boyfriend, he, he doesn’t get it. Work and everything.”
Miranda wants to tell her that she understands, that she is well accustomed to that hollowness and disappointment, that she should expect more of that. But above all she wants to tell her to not let that stop her, that she shows a promise and potential that should not be compromised by people’s pettiness.
“Not many do,” is all she says.
They quietly regard each other for a moment and then Andrea moves out the door and Miranda stays in her seat.
Five.
Stephen had wanted to build an extension.
He had wanted to knock out walls.
The carpet on the second floor was too dark to him and the wallpaper not modern enough.
Miranda returned from Paris without Nigel’s trust, without Stephen and without Andrea.
She was relieved she no longer had to fight to defend her choices, in her home or in her work, but the weight on her chest felt as crushing as ever.
Paris left her faith shaken.
Faith in what eactly? She does not know but she also does not have time to care.
Miranda Priestly does not look back.
She only concerns herself with things of beauty.
There is nothing beautiful about the peeling wallpaper on the walls of her childhood bedroom, her father’s cool indifference, dank New York apartments, or all the things she had to do to get to the top and stay there.
She has no room for any of that. She does not have room for anything that is not her magazine, her girls or her ambition.
So Miranda Priestly does not look back.
Six.
The press crusify her, Irv makes not so subtle jokes about online dating for spinsters, and Emily cannot do anything right.
She helps the girls redecorate their rooms. They are eleven and now apparently too old for the soft pastels she had picked out for them years ago. The three of them sit together in the car between photo shoots and music lessons and lawyers’ meetings leafing through colour samples and photos of rooms they have seen on screen and loved.
She has the second assistant (she stopped bothering to learn their names after the seventh one) run out and get stencils for Cassidy to cover her feature wall in stars and lanterns for Caroline.
They spend their weekends rearranging furniture, trying different shades of paint and trying to stop Patricia making a complete mess of everything.
They spend their week days and nights pretending not to be bothered about the time they don’t have together.
No matter what Miranda does, it always comes back to this disappointment.
Just because she has this degree of clarity and acceptance about the (in)balance between work and personal life does not mean it's not hard.
No matter her conviction, she still feels guilty, still resentful, still frustrated.
The clarity helps but it does not heal.
Seven.
Nigel’s replacement is good but not good enough.
She had, very graciously in her opinion, found him a position suitable for his talents and now was stuck with an opinionated little woman who sometimes demonstrated brilliance and at other times a tendency towards sheer lunacy.
Everyone else in the office appears to find her inspiring though so Miranda can not bring herself to fire the woman yet.
Even Andrea likes the new Nigel’s approach.
Oh that was something new too, Andrea the friend not Andrea the assistant. Andrea was nothing for a long time and then she was something all over again. It had been months since Paris and “everyone wants to be us”. She would be lying if she said she had thought about Andrea Sachs all that time. But she would also be lying if she said she did not think of Andrea Sachs at all.
So when she meets Andrea again at a poorly catered publishing luncheon with barely tolerable hosts she does not brush the woman off immediately. She is supposed to leave at 1:45 but does not make a move to go until long after 2 o’clock.
The girl’s charm and sharp wit captured her in a way that never was quite able to when she was a subordiante. Miranda finds herself using the business card Andrea slipped in her hand before she left, arranging lunch that turns into weekly dinners that turns into number two on her speed dial.
This Andrea is different from the one that skittered around her office almost two years ago. She is self assured, confident, and experience suits her well. Her passions remain, Miranda can see them burning through in debates, conversations and remarks. She has a better understanding of the world though and how it works, Miranda can only hope she had a hand in that growth of perspective.
She can finally see the girl that ordered around a college newspaper and took on the world with just her words.
“I almost wish I could hire you instead.”
“Well, you can and there’s nothing stopping you,” Andrea smirks.
They are tucked into the corner of the sitting room, knees bumping together under the coffee table.
“Hmm well I do remember you being the most annoyingly brattish employee,” Miranda drawls.
Andrea just laughs. Miranda watches the sunlight play against the wall behind her and hears herself join in the joyful sound.
The next day when the new Nigel proposes a direction that Miranda truly thinks must have come from a five year old she takes a deep breath, thinks of laughter, and gives the woman a least a minute more to explain herself before verbally flaying her.
Eight.
She spots a necklace perfect for Andrea.
It is part of a collection that a new designer is showing them. Jocelyn double takes at first at her reaction to it. Of course she knows it would not fit in the spread, its thin silver chain would clash and the deep green of the stone would distract the colour composition. But it would look absolutely divine on Andrea. Miranda can see it resting around her elegant neck, nestled on her collarbone and radiating on her lovely skin. These indulgent thoughts fuel her as she procures it after the run through to the designer's surprise.
It is not until later, when she has had the piece boxed and gift wrapped, that she realises that exquisite jewellery such as this may not be appropriate for a friend.
This blurring of lines and confusion of feelings has become a nuisance. This, attachment, towards her friend has been building up and has become increasingly hard for Miranda to ignore.
It's her job to notice the way clothes look on women's bodies, but not the way she notices how they are on Andrea. Her hungry eyes drink up the lace on her shoulders, greedily take in how different material clings and falls.
She can find meaning in the most seemingly insignificant of accessories, talk in detail of the symbolism of a certain shade of colour, and proclaim the importance of a mere fold of fabric. None of this attention to detail or clarity of meaning helps her in deciphering if the blush in Andrea's cheeks means she wants to kiss her too.
She spends far too long mentally compiling and cataloguing evidence of whether Andrea is attracted to her, of if the reporter shares in the feeling that cuts Miranda so deeply, of perhaps if she aches so desperately of wanting just the same. Determining what is mutual and what is unrequited is exhausting.
Miranda is not accustomed to being passive. She has gotten everything she has by taking action and hates this impasse she finds herself in. She has to check herself, remind herself daily of why dating a younger woman is not a good idea. She has to reign herself in when they are out for coffee, stop herself from reaching across the table for Andrea’s hand or swallow an offer to stay the night when they work late together in the den. She has to push aside all the reasons why being more with Andrea seems like the most rational thing in the world.
She puts the necklace away in a drawer in the guest room wardrobe. Another time.
Nine.
Caroline and Miranda have a fight.
The act, fighting, is nothing out of the ordinary. These days it feels like they argue constantly. Too much work, not enough parenting, not enough love, too much parenting. Caroline is angry about a number of things, mostly her Miranda realises and she knows quite well how hard it is to forgive parents for their shortcomings.
The result though has been particularly distressing as Caroline has stayed at her father’s for an extra week and Cassidy chose to go with her. The silent rooms and empty hallways mock Miranda and her fingers itch for a paintbrush.
She calls Andrea.
“Would you like to paint the third floor guest room with me today?” she says in lieu of a greeting.
Andrea takes it in her stride, no doubt still atuned to Miranda’s needs since her days as an assistant. She turns up on the doorstep in faded clothes and scuffed sneakers. “Usually I would be too afraid to be within 500 yards of you wearing anything like this!” she jokes, attemping to lift some of the heaviness she feels around her in this lonely house. Miranda hands her a bucket and a brush and they troop up the stairs.
The afternoon passes as does Miranda’s restlessness. Andrea tells her about the story she is working on, the walls go from light grey to white to a pale blue. They wash up and settle on the couch downstairs, shoulders pressing and elbows brushing as they eat the leftovers from the fridge.
This continues on into the kitchen as they do the dishes, fingers brushing waists and other physical manifestations of the gentle orbit they had fallen into around each other. Miranda cannot find the restraint in her that is usually so strong and practiced, her hands reach out, fingertips brushing Andrea’s cheek.
Andrea goes still under her touch. Miranda shifts forward but stops at the sound of Andrea’s voice, small and wavering.
“Only if you’re sure.”
Miranda stares at her bewildered. Out of all the things here to be unsure of - the media response, the reaction of her colleagues, the feelings of her daughters, the list went on each more uncertain than the rest - this was not it.
“There’s so much that could go wrong here,” Andrea went on, her voice still trembling, “I don’t want you to regret me.”
Andrea wanted her to be sure of everything, but the only thing Miranda was certain of was her.
“Never, darling.” She placed her hands on Andrea’s forearms, pressing her back against the counter. Andrea shifts in her arms, brushing her forehead against hers and then tucking against her shoulder before raising up to speak again.
“I was convinced, for so long, that you couldn’t see me. Like, the real me, not the petulant assistant. And that made me so, so sad, because you were all I could see – still are really” she ducked her head. “I don’t think I wanted you, you know romantically then, you just knocked the wind out of me, spun me round and I didn’t know what way was up for so long, even after I left.”
“You put me off kilter too.” Miranda hears herself say, “There was so much going on, I had so much to do, but under it all I could not shake you.”
Miranda wants to go on, wants to tell her about how she feels now, the depth and enormity of it. But here they are, tangled together in her the kitchen of her home, worlds away from boss and assistant staring each other down across an office. She tightens her grip, fingertips grazing at the edge of Andrea’s jersey and brushing against the small of her back.
“I think I am falling in love with you” Andrea whispers, Miranda feels the words against her skin more than she hears them.
Ten.
It turns out Andrea is a terrible cook.
It is beyond Miranda why the woman chose to prepare the first meal she was going to have with Miranda and the girls in full knowledge that the pasta dish was going to turn out a charred slush.
“I wanted to impress them,” Andrea had pouted as Miranda helped her scrape the last of it into the garbage.
Now the four of them sit perched at the table, salted caramel ice cream and brownie distributed between them. Andrea may not know how to cook but she certainly knows how to order dessert.
Miranda picks at her small scoop of ice cream, allowing herself to sit and enjoy the company and evening free of making threatening phone calls to gossip bloggers, fending off concerns from investors or tip toeing around the subject of Andrea’s parents.
Cassidy is making fun of Andrea about something she missed while was lost in thought but it doesn’t matter, her smile soon matches theirs anyway.
Eleven.
It is 2AM.
She is only just leaving the office.
The latest photo shoot did not turn out at all like planned and she had just spent far too long with far too idiotic people trying to piece together something vaguely acceptable to replace it.
She carries tension, stress, in between her shoulder blades, across her back and in the arches of her feet.
The prospect of an empty house is exhausting, her mind reels and her heart pounds.
She calls her. She must have woken her, her voice is muffled and heavy with sleep.
"You wanna come over?"
"Yes, I'm getting in a taxi now."
"Mmkay.”
The time it takes to her apartment slips away as Miranda fights sleep. She does not notice the figures lurking outside the building or the creaks in the stairs as she goes up to the sixth floor. Time is distorted, stilted and warped and Miranda only feels like she is on solid ground when the door opens and Andrea is there.
Her too young, too female and too inappropriate love is swamped in a baggy t shirt and topped with a dishelved mop of brown hair. She reaches out a hand silently and tugs Miranda inside the apartment. She leads her to the bed and then curls back into the covers, nestling her head into the pillow and patting the space beside her. Miranda loves her despite everything, adores every inch and fibre of this person without question or reservation.
Miranda strips off, peeling away her prestige with every label and layer of fabric. She crawls into bed with Andrea naked, her equal.
She orientates herself around her, a plant seeking the sun even in the darkness of the night. The sheets rustle as they rearrange limbs and hair and pillows. Her hands reach out, reading the curve of Andrea’s jaw, the roundness of her hip, the strong lines of her arms. She deciphers the story she finds, the solid warmth of her, kind strong and true. Miranda knows her body is giving away all her secrets, her need desperate and wild. Andrea draws gentle circles on her shoulder, calming and unwinding her.
Sleep envelops them in a easy embrace.
Twelve.
The girls’ grandmother dies.
Miranda never liked her former mother in law but she holds her daughters as they cry and stands beside them in black at the funeral.
Andrea is waiting for them at the townhouse afterwards. She has baked enough for a small army (with Lily’s help) and she tells them silly stories as the sit around the lounge, an old movie playing quietly in the background.
Somehow, inexplicably so, Andrea has begun to feel like home.
Of course it has not been easy. They do not fit into each other’s lives easily. There is a life time between them - twenty three years, two kids and years of a successful career. And then there is the mess.
Andrea is messy in Miranda’s house.
As excellent as Andrea is at organising her thoughts in words, her belongings resemble no such structure. Clothes draped everywhere carelessly, books slopping over desks onto couches, a bottle of her shampoo in the master bedroom’s en suite. Miranda cannot say that that she is bothered by the constant reminders of Andrea’s presence in her life.
She is moving in, slowly but surely, a quiet migration of possessions across the city.
Maybe it is the sentimentality bought on by funerals but Miranda rings her mother. The rest home staff are prickly and unfriendly as per usual and Ruth Princhek no longer recognises much at all let alone her estranged daughter’s voice. The act itself though is a comfort of sorts. She returns to the lounge after finishing the call. Caroline and Cassidy have fallen asleep on the couch, a blanket hastily drawn up over them. Andrea is curled around them, like she paused for just a moment to rest her eyes after arranging the blanket.
Miranda wishes that she had bought Andrea to meet her mother before it was almost too late. To show her mother, here look at my happiness, look at all that I have.
Thirteen.
She is going to retire from Runway.
The announcement won’t be for months, she has not handed in her resignation and few people even know.
She told the girls when they were home for Thanksgiving, Andrea and her now discuss vacations beyond hypotheticals.
She has projects in mind, positions to fill and things to fill her day with.
Andrea wants to write a book with her. “Women, power and clothes, Miranda it would be perfect”. It would be.
With Cassidy working in LA now and Caroline at university, the house feels somewhat unnecessarily big.
She and Andrea wander around open homes and peruse online real estate sites together, lightly weighing up square footage, location and what rooms would get the afternoon sun. They may move, they might not. Miranda finds she does not mind either way.