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Jun. 2nd, 2004 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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maggis and christinekh --
The Pieces of My Life - New Year 1998
It is another New Year, and even though officially, they’ve split up and are no longer together, nonetheless, that’s how Greg and Ellie welcome in 1998, together. Greg has been living in New York since the fall, adjusting to grad school, working harder than he’s ever worked before in his life, and he tells himself that that’s the reason he hasn’t been dating that much, that his longest dalliance – he can’t even call it a relationship – has lasted about two weeks. That’s what he tells himself, but he knows that the real reason is in her senior year at Stanford, burying herself in her work from what mutual friends have told him, and by all accounts, missing him as much as he’s missing her.
They write, and they call, but considering how much time they’ve spent together in the last three years, when they saw one another every day; considering the fact that last summer, they were, for all intents and purposes, living together, it’s not nearly enough. It’s not the same as holding her, as talking to her face to face, as just being in the same place as her.
Greg knew when he was leaving California that he was going to miss her; he just had no idea that he was going to miss her this much.
They’ve never spent Christmas or New Year together before; both have always been in their respective homes with their families, keeping in touch with phone calls. But since that was what they’ve been doing all winter, Greg figures that he might as well try his luck in asking her to do everything backwards, so he suggests that he return to New York right after Christmas, and that she should join him for the New Year’s celebrations in New York. He’s mildly surprised when she agrees without a second’s hesitation, but he’s happy about it too.
So two days before New Year’s Eve, he flies back to New York, with enough home cooking from his mother in his hand luggage to keep him and Ellie fed until it’s time for her to go back home. The next day, he’s back at JFK, waiting for her, and he can’t help but remember the first time that he ever met her at an airport, in San Francisco that first summer that they were together but apart. And when he sees her coming towards him, he reacts exactly the same way as he had then, grinning like an idiot and making his way towards her, picking her up and swinging her around in the air. And just like she had done back then, she laughs in delight, holding onto him tightly.
They talk non-stop on their way back to his place, and Mom’s baking notwithstanding, his idea of fine cuisine hasn’t altered much; takeout pizza and a bottle of diet Coke, and they curl up together on his couch, swapping Christmas stories, gossip from Stanford, from New York, and they lose all track of time when they’re there together like that. Before they know it, it’s well past midnight, and she’s yawning more and more frequently, and he stands. “C’mon,” he says. “Let’s get you to bed.” She looks at him, raises an eyebrow, and he knows just what she’s asking, because after all, this is a one bedroom apartment. “I’m sleeping on the couch,” he tells her, and a second eyebrow rises alongside the first as she shakes her head.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, casting a sceptical glance at the couch which, he has to admit, has seen better days. “We can share the bed.”
The idea is not without appeal, but that’s the whole problem, all of which he endeavours to convey to her with one word, her name. “Ellie…” It’s a warning that she blithely ignores, greeting it with a laugh of genuine amusement.
“Hey, I’ve no intentions of ruining your virtue,” she laughs, swatting his shoulder, nothing like the kind of punch that he knows she can dish out, and he catches the hand as it’s pulling back, bringing it to his lips, just as he’s done a thousand times before. Her cheeks flush red, but he doesn’t drop her hand, just smiles across at her.
“If you insist,” he says, and hand in hand, they walk to the bedroom where they do indeed share the bed, him in a t-shirt and boxers, her in a too-big t-shirt that he knows used to be his, and while they hold one another all night long, true to her word, there is no ruination of virtue.
There is simply the best night’s sleep that he’s had in a long time.
There is no alarm to wake them on New Year’s Eve. Instead they sleep until they wake, and Greg is the first one to do so. Glancing at the clock he sees that it’s nearly midday, and he knows he should get up, but he doesn’t want to. Instead, he steals a few minutes from the day, stares down the woman asleep in his arms, studying her features, her wavy brown hair, sleep-flushed pink cheeks, the slight smile that’s on her face. Or particular interest to him is the tiny beauty mark on her right cheek, near to her lips, and he sees, as if it belongs to someone else, his finger reaching out to touch it, only to continue on, tracing a path down to the tiny cleft in her chin, marvelling at how soft her skin is, even more so than he remembered. Of course, his touch makes her wake, her long dark eyelashes beating a staccato rhythm against her cheeks, and when the brown of her eyes makes an appearance, he lowers his lips to hers, giving her a gentle kiss good morning, just like he’s done on so many mornings before this.
It’s so natural to him that it’s only when he pulls away, smiles down at her, that he realises it’s not his place to do it any more.
It’s only when he sees her eyes flare in recognition that he knows the same thing has occurred to her too.
Clearing his throat, he sits up, gives her a quick grin, makes some kind of story up about how he should run down to the shop at the corner, pick up some food for them. She agrees that that sounds like a plan, so he rises and dresses quickly, grabbing his keys and his wallet and heading out. It’s a quick run to the store, and he picks up some coffee for him, tea for her, and fresh rolls for them both. He also grabs the morning paper and a couple of the trashy tabloids that he has a weakness for, bringing it all back to the apartment.
Once there, he finds that old habits die hard, because she hasn’t moved, is still lying in bed, has, in fact, dropped back to sleep. It’s not a deep slumber though, because her eyes are opening as he walks into the bedroom, and when he places the two steaming cups on the bedside table, she’s already sitting up, reaching for her cup. As she’s taking her first sip, eyes closed in rapture, he’s doing the requisite teasing, wondering how a civilised woman like herself could hate the taste of coffee as he’s taking breakfast out of the shopping bag before turning it upside down so that the newspaper and the tabloids fall out. She ignores his teasing, laughing in delighted recognition, folding her legs up underneath her, reaching for the paper as he’s stripping off his clothes, preparing to slip back into bed beside her.
That’s how they spend the next couple of hours, over a leisurely breakfast, reading out excerpts of interest to one another, Greg taking great delight in finding the most strange and outlandish stories he can, just so that he can hear Ellie debunking them, making fun of him for wasting his money on such trash. It’s a familiar not-argument between the two of them, and lazy mornings in bed haven’t been the same in the last few months without it.
Eventually they shower – separately, though Greg does try his luck in suggesting, only half-jokingly, that they share – and dress, and make their way out into New York City, wandering around aimlessly, pausing only to stop for dinner before joining the gathering throng in Times Square, all waiting for the countdown to begin.
They’ve each seen it on television, but neither has been here in person before, and, as Greg says to Ellie, he never would have imagined anything like the energy in the area, has never seen anything like it before. He knows from her eyes, shining like the lights surrounding them, that Ellie’s feeling the same. They are bundled up against the freezing cold night, their breath is clear puffs of white in the air around them, they are constantly being jostled by the people around them, the mass of people buffeting them, pushing them ever closer together, but there is nowhere in the world that Greg would rather be, so he wraps his arms around Ellie from behind, holds onto her tightly, and counts his blessings.
When it comes closer to midnight, when it’s time for the countdown, Ellie turns in his arms, holds him even tighter as the crowd begin chanting numbers. They keep their eyes on the spectacle before them, but when the ball drops and Auld Lang Syne sounds out across the square, the piped music and the chants of the people rendering it almost deafening, they have only eyes for one another.
When he kisses her, what begins as a New Year’s kiss rapidly turns into something more, and Greg knows in his heart and soul that when they get back to his apartment, the ruination of virtue is a certainty.
When he pulls back from her, sees the same desire burning in her eyes that’s burning in his heart, hot enough to melt the snow around them, he knows that neither of them care.
>*<*>*<
He wakes not suddenly, with a start, but slowly, a gradual dawning of consciousness, and with it, the gradual realisation that all is not as it should be. After all, the last thing that he remembers, Ellie was lying in his arms, her head nestled against his chest, his hands tracing slow patterns over her skin. He remembers how utterly right it felt for the two of them to be there like that, remembers wondering why he agreed to let it go so easily. It had seemed right at the time, to go away to New York with no strings, but now he knows better.
Just like he knows, even before he opens his eyes, that something is wrong, because she’s not there beside him anymore. Just to be sure, he throws his arm out across the bed, encountering, as he knew he would, only empty space, and he opens his eyes, looking at the empty space beside him, as if that’s going to magically make her appear. When it doesn’t, he turns his head, sees first the clock on the bedside table, telling him that it’s six in the morning, still early, far too early to be awake on New Year’s Day. But there is no Ellie, and so he turns his head, sees her standing at the window, looking out on the street below.
It’s still growing light outside, but they are in New York, the city that never sleeps, so there are still sounds floating up from the street; cars, music, people shouting and laughing, still celebrating the New Year. Ellie is silent though, still as a statue, wearing only the shirt that she pulled from his body earlier on, a shirt that can’t hope to keep her warm. She’s not shivering though, nor is she even blinking; indeed, the only movement from her is of the flickering lights from the street outside that cast shadows on her face. He has never seen her look so melancholy, so lonely he thinks, and his heart wrenches at the sight.
“What are you doing over there?” he asks, his voice low, and she jumps at the sound.
“Couldn’t sleep,” she replies, her voice as low as his, but there’s a hoarseness to it that he’s only rarely heard. A suspicion as to its cause takes root in his mind, and before he can give voice to it, she turns away slightly, so that he can no longer see her profile, ducking her head at the same time, so that her hair further obscures her face from his gaze. She can’t disguise the tell-tale motion of her arm though, reaching up to her cheeks, making an unmistakeable sweeping gesture.
“Are you crying?” It comes out as a question, though he knows that he’s right, and because he knows he’s right, he’s already standing up, hissing as the cold air hits his warm skin. Pulling the blanket off the bed, he wraps it around himself, shuffles towards her, not the least bit surprised when she doesn’t reply. “You’re going to catch pneumonia,” he says instead, coming up behind her, encircling her in the blanket too, pressing his body against hers. When she doesn’t react to his presence, stays still as a statue, that’s when the first stirring of real worry makes itself known in the pit of his stomach, because the Ellie he knows wouldn’t do that. “Ellie?” he asks gently, one hand finding hers underneath the blanket, and she grabs at it, squeezes it hard. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she tells him, even as more tears make their way down her cheeks, and her free hand emerges from the blanket to swat at them, rather ineffectually as more instantly take their place. “I’m fine Greg,” she says, in a tone that says she’s anything but. “I just get maudlin around New Year’s. That’s all.”
There is a time, Greg knows, for gentleness, for concern, for not pushing her. Eleanor Bartlet does not respond well to such handling.
This, however, is not such a time, because he knows that this is more than the New Year’s blues.
“This is me Ellie,” he reminds her, in a tone that he hopes tells her that his concerns are not to be easily set aside. “You can talk to me.”
“Greg, really…”
“Ellie.” He turns her in his arms, tries to look her in the eyes, but she avoids his gaze, so instead, he does the next best thing, pulls her tightly against him, so that her head rests on his shoulder. Her arms, as he was sure they would, slide automatically around his waist, and while she still tries to move, he just tightens his hold on her, until the only movement from her is the slight shake of her shoulders as her tears fall against his bare skin.
Eventually, she straightens up, smiles a shaky smile at him as he wipes away any traces of her tears. “I’m sorry…” she whispers, and he shakes his head, letting her know without words that she doesn’t have anything to apologise for.
“C’mon,” he says. “Let’s get you back to bed.” She chuckles, a genuine flash of amusement lighting her eyes, but he doesn’t mean it like that, just wants to get her warm, because she’s cold to the touch. So he finds himself sitting up, back straight against the headboard, with her lying against him, her head on his chest, his fingers running through her hair. Thus settled, he begins again. “So… you’re going to tell me what’s wrong now, right?”
Her sigh blows across his skin, but that’s a good sign, better than the stonewalling of moments earlier. “I woke up,” she tells him quietly. “And I couldn’t go back to sleep. So I was just lying here, looking at you… thinking of all the times that we were like this…” She swallows hard, is quiet for a long moment. “I really, really, miss you,” she continues then, her voice breaking on the second “really” and a lump rises in Greg’s throat in response. “And I was just getting used to you not being there… and now, I’m going to go back to Stanford, and I’m going to miss you all over again.” She reaches up, wipes away another tear. “And I know… I know that it’s for the best. We can’t have a relationship when we’re on opposite sides of the country. But that doesn’t make it easy. You know?”
She’s looking up at him, brown eyes wide and shining, lashes dyed black with moisture, and her entire face pleads with him to agree with her. She needn’t waste her time though, because he knows exactly what she means, feels it with every fibre of his being. “Yeah,” he sighs, lowering his lips to hers. “I know.”
“I’m not like this at Stanford,” she tells him, and he knows that that’s true. “I think it’s just Christmas… and being at home…”
Greg frowns. “Trouble with your dad?” he wonders, because it’s not such an outlandish notion.
“I barely saw him,” Ellie replies. “He’s busy with the campaign, getting everything set up.”
Greg tilts his head, looks down at her curiously. “I thought you told me that he said he had no chance. Something about staying in ‘til Super Tuesday and then going home?”
He’s quoting her word for word, what she’d told him over the phone a couple of months ago, and that would normally make her smile. Now however, she does nothing of the sort, quite alarming to Greg. “That’s what he said. That’s what we thought. But they’ve brought in some new people… a whole new team. And they’re so dynamic, so driven… they really believe that he can do this.”
His hand finds hers, threads their fingers together, his thumb making sweeping patterns over her skin. “What do you think?”
She laughs, but there’s no humour in the sound. “I think that Jed Bartlet’s never failed at anything that he sets his mind to,” she tells him, not sounding enthused about the prospect. “And I don’t care what the polling says, or what he says… I just have this feeling that he’s going to win.”
“And you’re not wild about being the First Daughter?”
It’s not a hard thing to guess; after all, being the Governor’s daughter has driven her crazy for years. But that’s not the reason she gives. “I just don’t want any more big changes in my life,” she whispers, burying her head in his chest, and he sighs, kissing the top of her head.
“I know how you’re feeling,” he tells her, not sure if his words will do anything for her peace of mind, but wanting to try anyway. “I really miss you too.” He feels her smile, feels her squeeze his hand. “I wish things were different… that they could be back the way they were. That I could promise you more than this…”
“But you can’t.” Her voice is quiet.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen between us after this,” he tells her, though he has his hopes, his dreams. “But what I do know, is that no matter what happens… if we’re together like this, or if we’re not… I’m always going to be in your life Ellie. No matter what.” He grins to himself. “We’re going to be seventy years old with grey hair and slippers, and I’m still going to be driving you crazy.”
She giggles, and when she looks up at him, this time her eyes are dry, alive with hope, but with the slightest hint of doubt troubling them. “You promise?”
“Cross my heart.” Using their joined hands, he does just that, traces an X across his chest, and he’s never meant anything more in his life.
maggis and christinekh -- The Pieces of My Life - New Year 1998
It is another New Year, and even though officially, they’ve split up and are no longer together, nonetheless, that’s how Greg and Ellie welcome in 1998, together. Greg has been living in New York since the fall, adjusting to grad school, working harder than he’s ever worked before in his life, and he tells himself that that’s the reason he hasn’t been dating that much, that his longest dalliance – he can’t even call it a relationship – has lasted about two weeks. That’s what he tells himself, but he knows that the real reason is in her senior year at Stanford, burying herself in her work from what mutual friends have told him, and by all accounts, missing him as much as he’s missing her.
They write, and they call, but considering how much time they’ve spent together in the last three years, when they saw one another every day; considering the fact that last summer, they were, for all intents and purposes, living together, it’s not nearly enough. It’s not the same as holding her, as talking to her face to face, as just being in the same place as her.
Greg knew when he was leaving California that he was going to miss her; he just had no idea that he was going to miss her this much.
They’ve never spent Christmas or New Year together before; both have always been in their respective homes with their families, keeping in touch with phone calls. But since that was what they’ve been doing all winter, Greg figures that he might as well try his luck in asking her to do everything backwards, so he suggests that he return to New York right after Christmas, and that she should join him for the New Year’s celebrations in New York. He’s mildly surprised when she agrees without a second’s hesitation, but he’s happy about it too.
So two days before New Year’s Eve, he flies back to New York, with enough home cooking from his mother in his hand luggage to keep him and Ellie fed until it’s time for her to go back home. The next day, he’s back at JFK, waiting for her, and he can’t help but remember the first time that he ever met her at an airport, in San Francisco that first summer that they were together but apart. And when he sees her coming towards him, he reacts exactly the same way as he had then, grinning like an idiot and making his way towards her, picking her up and swinging her around in the air. And just like she had done back then, she laughs in delight, holding onto him tightly.
They talk non-stop on their way back to his place, and Mom’s baking notwithstanding, his idea of fine cuisine hasn’t altered much; takeout pizza and a bottle of diet Coke, and they curl up together on his couch, swapping Christmas stories, gossip from Stanford, from New York, and they lose all track of time when they’re there together like that. Before they know it, it’s well past midnight, and she’s yawning more and more frequently, and he stands. “C’mon,” he says. “Let’s get you to bed.” She looks at him, raises an eyebrow, and he knows just what she’s asking, because after all, this is a one bedroom apartment. “I’m sleeping on the couch,” he tells her, and a second eyebrow rises alongside the first as she shakes her head.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, casting a sceptical glance at the couch which, he has to admit, has seen better days. “We can share the bed.”
The idea is not without appeal, but that’s the whole problem, all of which he endeavours to convey to her with one word, her name. “Ellie…” It’s a warning that she blithely ignores, greeting it with a laugh of genuine amusement.
“Hey, I’ve no intentions of ruining your virtue,” she laughs, swatting his shoulder, nothing like the kind of punch that he knows she can dish out, and he catches the hand as it’s pulling back, bringing it to his lips, just as he’s done a thousand times before. Her cheeks flush red, but he doesn’t drop her hand, just smiles across at her.
“If you insist,” he says, and hand in hand, they walk to the bedroom where they do indeed share the bed, him in a t-shirt and boxers, her in a too-big t-shirt that he knows used to be his, and while they hold one another all night long, true to her word, there is no ruination of virtue.
There is simply the best night’s sleep that he’s had in a long time.
There is no alarm to wake them on New Year’s Eve. Instead they sleep until they wake, and Greg is the first one to do so. Glancing at the clock he sees that it’s nearly midday, and he knows he should get up, but he doesn’t want to. Instead, he steals a few minutes from the day, stares down the woman asleep in his arms, studying her features, her wavy brown hair, sleep-flushed pink cheeks, the slight smile that’s on her face. Or particular interest to him is the tiny beauty mark on her right cheek, near to her lips, and he sees, as if it belongs to someone else, his finger reaching out to touch it, only to continue on, tracing a path down to the tiny cleft in her chin, marvelling at how soft her skin is, even more so than he remembered. Of course, his touch makes her wake, her long dark eyelashes beating a staccato rhythm against her cheeks, and when the brown of her eyes makes an appearance, he lowers his lips to hers, giving her a gentle kiss good morning, just like he’s done on so many mornings before this.
It’s so natural to him that it’s only when he pulls away, smiles down at her, that he realises it’s not his place to do it any more.
It’s only when he sees her eyes flare in recognition that he knows the same thing has occurred to her too.
Clearing his throat, he sits up, gives her a quick grin, makes some kind of story up about how he should run down to the shop at the corner, pick up some food for them. She agrees that that sounds like a plan, so he rises and dresses quickly, grabbing his keys and his wallet and heading out. It’s a quick run to the store, and he picks up some coffee for him, tea for her, and fresh rolls for them both. He also grabs the morning paper and a couple of the trashy tabloids that he has a weakness for, bringing it all back to the apartment.
Once there, he finds that old habits die hard, because she hasn’t moved, is still lying in bed, has, in fact, dropped back to sleep. It’s not a deep slumber though, because her eyes are opening as he walks into the bedroom, and when he places the two steaming cups on the bedside table, she’s already sitting up, reaching for her cup. As she’s taking her first sip, eyes closed in rapture, he’s doing the requisite teasing, wondering how a civilised woman like herself could hate the taste of coffee as he’s taking breakfast out of the shopping bag before turning it upside down so that the newspaper and the tabloids fall out. She ignores his teasing, laughing in delighted recognition, folding her legs up underneath her, reaching for the paper as he’s stripping off his clothes, preparing to slip back into bed beside her.
That’s how they spend the next couple of hours, over a leisurely breakfast, reading out excerpts of interest to one another, Greg taking great delight in finding the most strange and outlandish stories he can, just so that he can hear Ellie debunking them, making fun of him for wasting his money on such trash. It’s a familiar not-argument between the two of them, and lazy mornings in bed haven’t been the same in the last few months without it.
Eventually they shower – separately, though Greg does try his luck in suggesting, only half-jokingly, that they share – and dress, and make their way out into New York City, wandering around aimlessly, pausing only to stop for dinner before joining the gathering throng in Times Square, all waiting for the countdown to begin.
They’ve each seen it on television, but neither has been here in person before, and, as Greg says to Ellie, he never would have imagined anything like the energy in the area, has never seen anything like it before. He knows from her eyes, shining like the lights surrounding them, that Ellie’s feeling the same. They are bundled up against the freezing cold night, their breath is clear puffs of white in the air around them, they are constantly being jostled by the people around them, the mass of people buffeting them, pushing them ever closer together, but there is nowhere in the world that Greg would rather be, so he wraps his arms around Ellie from behind, holds onto her tightly, and counts his blessings.
When it comes closer to midnight, when it’s time for the countdown, Ellie turns in his arms, holds him even tighter as the crowd begin chanting numbers. They keep their eyes on the spectacle before them, but when the ball drops and Auld Lang Syne sounds out across the square, the piped music and the chants of the people rendering it almost deafening, they have only eyes for one another.
When he kisses her, what begins as a New Year’s kiss rapidly turns into something more, and Greg knows in his heart and soul that when they get back to his apartment, the ruination of virtue is a certainty.
When he pulls back from her, sees the same desire burning in her eyes that’s burning in his heart, hot enough to melt the snow around them, he knows that neither of them care.
>*<*>*<
He wakes not suddenly, with a start, but slowly, a gradual dawning of consciousness, and with it, the gradual realisation that all is not as it should be. After all, the last thing that he remembers, Ellie was lying in his arms, her head nestled against his chest, his hands tracing slow patterns over her skin. He remembers how utterly right it felt for the two of them to be there like that, remembers wondering why he agreed to let it go so easily. It had seemed right at the time, to go away to New York with no strings, but now he knows better.
Just like he knows, even before he opens his eyes, that something is wrong, because she’s not there beside him anymore. Just to be sure, he throws his arm out across the bed, encountering, as he knew he would, only empty space, and he opens his eyes, looking at the empty space beside him, as if that’s going to magically make her appear. When it doesn’t, he turns his head, sees first the clock on the bedside table, telling him that it’s six in the morning, still early, far too early to be awake on New Year’s Day. But there is no Ellie, and so he turns his head, sees her standing at the window, looking out on the street below.
It’s still growing light outside, but they are in New York, the city that never sleeps, so there are still sounds floating up from the street; cars, music, people shouting and laughing, still celebrating the New Year. Ellie is silent though, still as a statue, wearing only the shirt that she pulled from his body earlier on, a shirt that can’t hope to keep her warm. She’s not shivering though, nor is she even blinking; indeed, the only movement from her is of the flickering lights from the street outside that cast shadows on her face. He has never seen her look so melancholy, so lonely he thinks, and his heart wrenches at the sight.
“What are you doing over there?” he asks, his voice low, and she jumps at the sound.
“Couldn’t sleep,” she replies, her voice as low as his, but there’s a hoarseness to it that he’s only rarely heard. A suspicion as to its cause takes root in his mind, and before he can give voice to it, she turns away slightly, so that he can no longer see her profile, ducking her head at the same time, so that her hair further obscures her face from his gaze. She can’t disguise the tell-tale motion of her arm though, reaching up to her cheeks, making an unmistakeable sweeping gesture.
“Are you crying?” It comes out as a question, though he knows that he’s right, and because he knows he’s right, he’s already standing up, hissing as the cold air hits his warm skin. Pulling the blanket off the bed, he wraps it around himself, shuffles towards her, not the least bit surprised when she doesn’t reply. “You’re going to catch pneumonia,” he says instead, coming up behind her, encircling her in the blanket too, pressing his body against hers. When she doesn’t react to his presence, stays still as a statue, that’s when the first stirring of real worry makes itself known in the pit of his stomach, because the Ellie he knows wouldn’t do that. “Ellie?” he asks gently, one hand finding hers underneath the blanket, and she grabs at it, squeezes it hard. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she tells him, even as more tears make their way down her cheeks, and her free hand emerges from the blanket to swat at them, rather ineffectually as more instantly take their place. “I’m fine Greg,” she says, in a tone that says she’s anything but. “I just get maudlin around New Year’s. That’s all.”
There is a time, Greg knows, for gentleness, for concern, for not pushing her. Eleanor Bartlet does not respond well to such handling.
This, however, is not such a time, because he knows that this is more than the New Year’s blues.
“This is me Ellie,” he reminds her, in a tone that he hopes tells her that his concerns are not to be easily set aside. “You can talk to me.”
“Greg, really…”
“Ellie.” He turns her in his arms, tries to look her in the eyes, but she avoids his gaze, so instead, he does the next best thing, pulls her tightly against him, so that her head rests on his shoulder. Her arms, as he was sure they would, slide automatically around his waist, and while she still tries to move, he just tightens his hold on her, until the only movement from her is the slight shake of her shoulders as her tears fall against his bare skin.
Eventually, she straightens up, smiles a shaky smile at him as he wipes away any traces of her tears. “I’m sorry…” she whispers, and he shakes his head, letting her know without words that she doesn’t have anything to apologise for.
“C’mon,” he says. “Let’s get you back to bed.” She chuckles, a genuine flash of amusement lighting her eyes, but he doesn’t mean it like that, just wants to get her warm, because she’s cold to the touch. So he finds himself sitting up, back straight against the headboard, with her lying against him, her head on his chest, his fingers running through her hair. Thus settled, he begins again. “So… you’re going to tell me what’s wrong now, right?”
Her sigh blows across his skin, but that’s a good sign, better than the stonewalling of moments earlier. “I woke up,” she tells him quietly. “And I couldn’t go back to sleep. So I was just lying here, looking at you… thinking of all the times that we were like this…” She swallows hard, is quiet for a long moment. “I really, really, miss you,” she continues then, her voice breaking on the second “really” and a lump rises in Greg’s throat in response. “And I was just getting used to you not being there… and now, I’m going to go back to Stanford, and I’m going to miss you all over again.” She reaches up, wipes away another tear. “And I know… I know that it’s for the best. We can’t have a relationship when we’re on opposite sides of the country. But that doesn’t make it easy. You know?”
She’s looking up at him, brown eyes wide and shining, lashes dyed black with moisture, and her entire face pleads with him to agree with her. She needn’t waste her time though, because he knows exactly what she means, feels it with every fibre of his being. “Yeah,” he sighs, lowering his lips to hers. “I know.”
“I’m not like this at Stanford,” she tells him, and he knows that that’s true. “I think it’s just Christmas… and being at home…”
Greg frowns. “Trouble with your dad?” he wonders, because it’s not such an outlandish notion.
“I barely saw him,” Ellie replies. “He’s busy with the campaign, getting everything set up.”
Greg tilts his head, looks down at her curiously. “I thought you told me that he said he had no chance. Something about staying in ‘til Super Tuesday and then going home?”
He’s quoting her word for word, what she’d told him over the phone a couple of months ago, and that would normally make her smile. Now however, she does nothing of the sort, quite alarming to Greg. “That’s what he said. That’s what we thought. But they’ve brought in some new people… a whole new team. And they’re so dynamic, so driven… they really believe that he can do this.”
His hand finds hers, threads their fingers together, his thumb making sweeping patterns over her skin. “What do you think?”
She laughs, but there’s no humour in the sound. “I think that Jed Bartlet’s never failed at anything that he sets his mind to,” she tells him, not sounding enthused about the prospect. “And I don’t care what the polling says, or what he says… I just have this feeling that he’s going to win.”
“And you’re not wild about being the First Daughter?”
It’s not a hard thing to guess; after all, being the Governor’s daughter has driven her crazy for years. But that’s not the reason she gives. “I just don’t want any more big changes in my life,” she whispers, burying her head in his chest, and he sighs, kissing the top of her head.
“I know how you’re feeling,” he tells her, not sure if his words will do anything for her peace of mind, but wanting to try anyway. “I really miss you too.” He feels her smile, feels her squeeze his hand. “I wish things were different… that they could be back the way they were. That I could promise you more than this…”
“But you can’t.” Her voice is quiet.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen between us after this,” he tells her, though he has his hopes, his dreams. “But what I do know, is that no matter what happens… if we’re together like this, or if we’re not… I’m always going to be in your life Ellie. No matter what.” He grins to himself. “We’re going to be seventy years old with grey hair and slippers, and I’m still going to be driving you crazy.”
She giggles, and when she looks up at him, this time her eyes are dry, alive with hope, but with the slightest hint of doubt troubling them. “You promise?”
“Cross my heart.” Using their joined hands, he does just that, traces an X across his chest, and he’s never meant anything more in his life.
