Work Text:
Deborah has to physically drag herself back to Vegas after walking away from Ava.
She doesn't want to, but she holds ending late night against her, and she also holds it against herself that she doesn't possess the skills to work through it in a healthy way.
So she rots in her bed for weeks, watching reality TV, eating snacks and drinking DC with her phone on do not disturb. Josefina tip toes in every few hours to check on her and tries to coax her out of her bedroom unsuccessfully.
Unable to silence the piercing hurt in her brain and heart, she goes to the 24-hour souvenir shop off the strip in the middle of the night just to get out of the house.
Her melancholia does not however preclude her from visiting the wall of bedazzled baseball hats, because she's never met a sequin, crystal or glitter she didn't like. She grabs a "Diva" hat, a diet coke and a nip of vodka. She sneaks out of the store unnoticed and immediately mixes a curbside roadie and drives home.
Josefina starts to notice her morning coffees being mixed with something other than creamer, and her workout routines become nonexistent. She takes note but gives her grace as she often finds her in the basement where Ava used to sit, just staring into space like she's looking for all the answers.
One afternoon after day drinking and bingeing The Amazing Race, Deborah decides to turn on her phone. Fifty two text messages.
Ava:
Hi, I just wanted to check in.
Hey is everything okay?
Deborah I know you blame me
D...
I'm really sorry
You should have fired me
Can you please just respond so I know you're okay?
Come on D, you're worrying me
So are you just never going to talk to me again?
Josefina is worried about you too
Deborah, come on!
Please just answer me
and on and on...
Deborah, far from sober and unable to trust herself not to tell Ava she still loves her, just closes her phone and curls into the fetal position.
The next morning, Josefina enters her room and finds her still asleep in her clothes with an empty Krug bottle in her bed and immediately shouts her name. "Deborah, wake up!"
Deborah pulls a pillow over her head and grumbles in her deep sleep voice "GET OUT!" but Josefina yanks the pillow away, grabs her by the shoulders and pulls her up to a sitting position.
Deborah, immediately and incredulously opens her eyes, "Are you out of your fucking mind?"
Josefina, undeterred and fed up, "I'm worried about you, Ava is worried about you, Marty has called multiple times."
"Fuck Marty", Deborah spits. "Do you know he fucks with his shirt on?".
Josefina scrunching her face in horror, "Yes Deborah everyone knows, now can you focus? You have not been yourself, and we're all worried. What's going on? Why aren't you texting Ava back?"
"I don't want to talk to her right now, she cost me my dream."
"Deborah", she says softly and kindly, "you said on live national television that you love her so stop lying to yourself and stop wallowing,"
Deborah has not fully processed the gall of Josefina to say these things to her before she is being pulled by both arms and marched towards her shower.
"Get your God Damn hands off me!" As she flails her arms like she's being attacked by birds.
"No Deborah, this is for your own good I need you to get a shower, and come down to the kitchen to get some coffee that I will personally make for you because you're going to drink it straight and black."
After being supervised during her morning coffee, Deborah slumps to her office and just stares at her desk looking back at her with an overwhelming pile of mail.
She sits in her desk chair, head in hands with a deflated sigh not knowing where to start. On the corner of her desk was a business card she had been given during one her trips to QVC.
She'd crossed paths with Neil Gross, the founder of Chumhum who was there meeting with the QVC folks about algorithmic biases. He'd been there with his lawyer, who had given Deborah her card in case she ever had a future need.
She stares at the card like her wheels are turning in her glittery beautiful brain.
Diane Lockhart of Reddick, Boseman & Lockhart. She remembers thinking she was one of the fanciest people she had ever met. Next to herself of course.
She picks up the phone and calls Diane's number. "Hi Diane, its Deborah Vance,... I need help getting out of a contract."
Deborah, who had not used her private plane in months, gets it fueled up and flies to Chicago to meet Diane with one ace still left in her back pocket.
Once on the plane she allows herself to get lost in the thought of possibly getting her life back. Work and Ava. Or Ava and Work.
She knows the debilitating dread she's felt for weeks is having realized she was in love with Ava just moments before finding out her life might be on permanent pause until she's 75 years old.
That night at the studio it was too overwhelming to deal with in a way that was humane to Ava. Tears finally stream down her face, and they are all for the girl. No, she's not a girl Deborah thinks... she's a woman, the most beautiful, messy, honest woman she has ever met and she has been so miserable and lonely without her.
The elevator doors open on the 32nd floor and Deborah enters the Reddick, Boseman & Lockhart offices immediately filling the lobby with her signature Black Pashmina scent.
While she waits a few brief moments for Diane several staffers notice and laud her for how she ended her show that night.
Marissa Gold, Diane's assistant, who is intimidated by no one, plops right down next to her on the lobby couch and says "Ms. Vance, I just wanted to say I'm a huge fan, and fuck Bob Lipka for censoring you and asking you to fire your girlfriend."
Deborah's mouth drops open like a cartoon dog, "Oh no, she's not...."
"Deborah!" Diane greets her with a hug and whisks her down the hallway toward her office like a grand payout is imminent. Deborah, who has not yet recovered from Marissa's assured assumption that Ava was her girlfriend, has to momentarily shake her head to dislodge the words echoing against her brain.
"So, tell me how I can help?" Diane says with absolutely zero hesitation that this was something she could fix for Deborah.
"Well, as you might have heard I quit my job". Deborah says with a beleaguered chuckle.
"I might have heard something", Diane smirks.
"I wouldn't trust what I'm about to tell you to any man and that is part of the reason i called you, Diane. I have some information that Bob Lipka would not want to get out to the press, his shareholders, and more specifically his wife."
Diane listens quietly as she knows what's coming and feels a certain way about it after her husband Kurt's own affair, but Deborah is a high ticket client and she'll use every possible detail to make sure she gets her the outcomes she needs.
"Tell me about that night." Diane can't help but notice how Deborah mentions Ava several times during the retelling.
After talking for an hour, Diane has what she needs. "Okay, I think I'm clear here. I'll call you as soon as I know something." Deborah shakes her hand in appreciation while trying to not concentrate too much on her jealousy over her gold Armani power suit.
As she leaves the office of Reddick, Boseman & Lockhart she returns to what Marissa had said to her earlier and opens her phone to the many unreturned texts from Ava.
Deborah: I'm fine Ava, there is nothing to worry about. And puts it back on do not disturb.
She has her driver take her back to Chicago Executive Airport where she boards her plane to Vegas.
When she gets back to the mansion she immediately goes up to her bedroom, gets into her bed and turns on her monologue from her last night as host. Up until now she had refused to watch it but she hadn't stopped thinking about what both Diane's assistant and Josefina said to her and needed to hear her own words the way the rest of the world heard them.
She passes out from exhaustion and only wakes up when Josefina brings the phone to her bed "Diane Lockhart is on the line". Deborah, with an emotional hangover from the past 24 hours takes the phone from Josefina and quickly transitions from sleep voice to combat tone. "What've you got for me?"
"Welp Deborah, I guess he didn't want his wife to know about his country club dalliances or his willingness to be kink shamed in the shower. All you need to agree to is to never speak publicly about him, the company or the details of what happened, ever.
Deborah practically levitates out of her bed with a renewed sense of Vance-ness she hadn't felt since Jimmy told her she got late night.
"Diane you are an absolute Queen and Badass and one of the most elegant people I've ever met. After me of course. I really didn't know if i could have survived 18 months without doing what I love. Thank you"
Diane chuckles to herself because she thinks the same thing about Deborah.
"It is my pleasure Deborah but also the bill is in the mail. I hope things work out with you and your partner."
"Yes, yes, my creative...partner". Deborah stammers, still afraid to admit what she knows to be true after everything else she has surrendered to.
"Mmhmm, right. You got half of your life back Deborah, now go get your other half. Be well." and hangs up.
Deborah's shoulders release the tension for the first time since Los Angeles.
Before she gets to the important stuff, she calls Marty back.
She then paces around bedroom before she scrolls to Ava's name in her phone.
She giggles to herself when she sees the heart emoji that ava had put next to her name, because as annoyed as she was when she did it, she eagerly accepts the feeling is now mutual.
Her hand shakes as she types "may I call you?", knowing she has life changing news and feelings.
Ava: oh (her pulse races)
Deborah: I have news
Ava: Is the news that you lost your phone for months and now found it because I've been texting you
Deborah: Not taking the bait. Can we please talk in person.
Ava: Of course, sure. As stung as she has been from the radio silence, she knows Deborah's process for working through things is unconventional.
Ava's phone rings and she immediately picks it up but tries to sound casual as she nonchalantly leans on a wall in her house for effect but misses and stumbles three steps before gaining her composure.
"hey"
"Hi! First of all i want to explain why I haven't been in contact. And then i have two pieces of news. One of which I would like to tell you in person"
"shoot." makes little finger guns to herself.
"I got out of my contract with Bob. Its a long story, but I found the Deborah Vance of lawyers who threatened his pale cheating ass and got my contract voided.
I'd like to start working again, and honey, I'd like you to come home to Vegas."
Ava's whole being cracks open at the word home. She knew that Deborah blamed her for what happened and honestly she felt she deserved it. She's just happy it didn't take a year for Deborah to call her again.
She's now ugly sobbing as the relief sets in that at the very least, she and Deborah will be creative partners again. She wipes snot on the sleeve of the sweatshirt she's had on for days.
"I'd love to come home."
"The plane is waiting for you at Burbank, sweetheart."
The next day the doorbell rings and Deborah opens it wearing a light blue sweater and pants with her natural hair slicked back. Ava audibly gasps at the sight of her which slowly turns into a smirk as Deborah moves towards her and kisses her with her hands in the exact place as their embrace that night.
Ava comes up for air.
"Do I have to take my shoes off?"
Deborah laughs as a single tear drops down her cheek. "No, baby, you don't have to take your shoes off. Please just kiss me."
The kiss is agonizingly slow and gentle and when their tongues touch it cures the depression Deborah had not named over the past few months, and her heart feels like it just settled onto a tiny velvet pillow in her chest.
Ava on the other hand, is kissing her with desperation trying to say everything she's wanted to say during their unfortunate communication embargo.
"Deborah, Ava says against her lips not wanting to disconnect, what was the second thing you wanted to tell me?"
"We're going to Hawaii tomorrow!" Courtesy of Marty Ghilaine himself.
"Whoa, what?! Fuck yeah!"
Deborah leans forward so her forehead is resting against Ava's.
"And that I love you. I love you more than I have ever loved someone. I was hurt and placed blame on you when you didn't deserve it. I took it out on you, I drank too much and I wasn't myself. And I didn't want to communicate with you in a bad place and make it worse.”
She looks down at the floor as embarrassment sweeps over her for the way she treated her most valuable treasure."
“It wasn't kind and it wasn't right and I'm sorry. Will you forgive me?"
"Can we go to your bedroom? I'll answer you there."
"I think I can do that."
The next morning Deborah wakes up as the sunlight enhances her already overstimulated senses.
She takes inventory of the situation: naked, check, sore, check, beautiful and also naked redhead sleeping on her chest with a hand on her breast, check check.
She hums and strokes Ava's hair as she snores, replaying what happened the night before in her head. From the way they had undressed each other like they were memorizing every detail of the thrill, to Ava's most skilled yet ginormous hands all over every inch of her body.
Deborah had been a little nervous at first but after Ava coaxed the first orgasm out of her with her fingers and filthy words spewing from her mouth, Deborah had settled right in for what was the longest love making session she had ever had without an escape route planned the next morning.
After slowly waking Ava up as they have a plane to catch, she manages to motivate her extraction from slumber by offering to shower together. Ava, of course jumps out of bed and immediately trips on the sheets she was tangled in, lands with an unceremonious thud, and pops back up naked while high tailing it to the shower completely unphased.
They board the plane an hour later and get settled. Deborah is finally at peace and plans to use this time to relax and reflect on how her broken life has been miraculously put back together.
Ava, dressed like she raided a Hawaiian tourist shop, immediately starts in on everything she has planned for them:
"This place looks so sick.
we're gonna have so much fun.
we're gonna relax to the max. nothing to do but chill.
10 o'clock, chill
10 thirty chill,
11 o'clock chill,
oh look I'm late, gotta go chill.
so excited.
they have guided meditation, they have unguided meditation, they have semi guided meditation.
shit, they have a sensory deprivation tank.
have you done that?
it is so sick, you are completely in the dark, you can't see, you can't hear, the water is your body temperature so you are just like totally alone with your thoughts completely unaware of your physical body just mind, mind, mind."
Deborah cant take it anymore.
"Ava, honey?"
"Yeah?"
"If I let you go down on me will you stop talking?"
"Absofuckinglutely."