Chapter Text
Bradley Jackson is an adult who skips breakfast.
When she's in the office until 3 in the afternoon, no intern to run out and grab her a quick salad, Laura offers a firm but gentle reminder of the human body's need for nutrients, along with a serving of whatever she's having. When she gets out of work, exhausted, and stumbles out to the back porch for a breath of fresh air and yet another coffee, Laura is quick to point out dinner before slipping into the set for her own filming.
But Laura isn't up at 3 in the morning, a time too hideous for food, especially when there's no craft services to pop by with something simple and easy to get down between segments. So Bradley skips breakfast and chugs half a pot of coffee, and scarfs down a power bar when she gets the chance, long after the sun has risen.
Bradley Jackson skips breakfast. But in all other aspects, she is an adult.
She's doing her job under safe distancing protocols, in a huge ranch that seems to be occupied by a phantom staff she has sometimes heard, but not once seen. She's got her brother in a top clinic, voluntarily this time, and showing encouraging progress. She has a- girlfriend?
Laura prefers "partner", which feels oddly business-like, but "girlfriend" does make it seem like they're 12 years old, and the one time Bradley only half-jokingly suggested "roomie", she received a blank gaze somehow infused with judgment. Which is a little unfair, considering the things Laura expects her to laugh at.
Well, they're workshopping it. And anyway, it's a good problem to have, right?
It's good to be here, with Laura, to have somebody to share this end of the world with, to not feel so entirely untethered and disconnected from everyone.
She sees people, sure, on endless screens, through audio streams that, no matter how high-quality, never quite manage to sound like the real deal. And she sees distant faces on her walks, masks up close. But that makes it worse, she sometimes feels. A pale imitation of what they used to have, mocking her with its loss. A constant reminder of the fear a tiny spiky little fucker has instilled in an entire nation.
Spring came. Technically, it was already spring when she arrived, fresh from two weeks stuck alone in a hotel room, nothing but phone calls to keep her company. But it was that chilling thawing spring, life barely recalling itself. Now it's warm, most days, and everything that was going to flower has gone ahead and done it, and just like everybody on the internet keeps insisting, it does feel like nature is healing.
It makes her hopeful that this will all end soon, as much as the thought lingers that the world is beginning to carry on, time ticking while everybody is stuck in place.
She doesn't call Alex every day anymore. She started during the worst of it, and kept it up just like she promised, a distraction for herself as much as for Alex. She'd sit on that hotel room sofa that quickly began to fill her with an irrational annoyance at the constant sight, chatting away about nothing. She can't even remember half the things she shared, only knows that she carried nearly the entire conversation while Alex struggled to catch her breath.
And then, slowly, there were more interruptions. More questions, then comments, then Alex was sharing too, and it made something stick in Bradley's throat, a sappiness she isn't used to, to realize she couldn't hear those wheezing gasps anymore. That Alex could breathe again.
But when the quarantine ended and she got on the jet to Montana and Laura was sitting there with a glass of champagne and a smile on her face, looking unreal after the separation, like a mirage in the desert, Bradley didn't think to call. Just for one day, while she drank in all she'd lost, while they explored fresh sheets and sounds that became familiar again with startling speed, and an unwinding pleasure that Bradley had already begun to think could never be true again, dramatic in her long isolation.
She called the next day. Alex answered with a chuckle and Bradley knew that she knew, right away. She'd already let it slip about Laura and herself, on one of their phone calls, and the rest could surely be pieced together. Alex told her she'd be busy, properly busy now, with a full recording setup and thus able to do her usual full-time work, instead of the few segments she'd been managing with her little camera and ring light back at the hotel. She'd also be busy with other things, Alex suggested, and Bradley swore she could picture her smile as she said it.
Alex offered weekly calls. Bradley tried for every other day, but the woman was as stubborn as ever. "Keep them wanting more," she drawled into the receiver, a suggestive lilt to her voice, and then ended the call.
So she calls Alex once a week, and that's very adult of her too, to have a routine. To cook with Laura on the weekends, to touch up her hair on Fridays - another layer of the brown she's gone back to, reapplying regularly as the home job fades, to match her roots until they've grown out -, to have a Tuesday date night when Laura finishes early and they can share their dinner instead of eating it about 2 hours apart.
It still feels not quite right. Not wrong, or bad, just… weird. Like Bradley has snuck into somebody else's life and keeps waiting for the switch to be noticed. For her mother to shake her awake, pull her from this dream and back to the reality where she belongs. She just can't believe she gets to have this, to be happy and wanted like this. Even if she doesn't think she deserves it quite yet, she'll do what she can to become somebody who does.
She's on the back porch, swinging gently on one of the chairs, watching the distant trees sway in the breeze. The sound of rustling leaves fills her with a nostalgic sort of peace, familiar and new all at once. She can tell that Laura has joined her before she steps into her line of vision, and that recognition is familiar and new too.
"How was your day?" Laura asks, hand coming to rest on her shoulder with a light squeeze.
"The usual. World's going to hell but the dogs are happy."
She turns to catch the smile on Laura's lips, the easy affection warming her as always. She's not used to things feeling easy, no tip-toeing around tempers.
"Maybe we should get a dog," Laura comments, voice still light and tinged with that slight ironic inflection that Bradley hasn't quite decoded yet.
"Oh, I don't know about that. I mean, I can barely feed myself, so I doubt I could-"
Laura's smile widens, now more amused than anything, and Bradley knows she guessed wrong. Just a joke. Next time she'll know.
"Don't worry, I won't show up tomorrow with a Golden Retriever." Laura tilts her head, taps her fingers against Bradley's shoulder. "You shouldn't make decisions in times of crisis, anyway."
Bradley wavers. "I came here," she eventually gives in and points out, and she's not sure why. Facing her fears? Creating conflict? Could she be making a joke too, like Laura? Just a simple joke with no baggage behind it. Maybe one day she'll get there.
Laura hums, a smooth sound that disappears easily into the background of rustling leaves and bird calls. "Maybe sometimes it's not so bad."
Bradley smiles. She's glad she's here. She lets her hand rise to rest on top of Laura's, give it a tight squeeze.
It's dizzying, sometimes, how adrift she feels without the anger and combativeness to fall back on. When she allows herself to care, to let someone in, and realizes that now she can't afford to push them away anymore. That now she has to let them see the dirt and the rot and just hope they'll stay, hope she'll give enough good to outweigh the bad. When Laura smiles like that, and looks at her, warm and unguarded, she feels like she's managing it.
Even when they argue and she feels all the air squeezing out of the room, the world collapsing in on her at a single hurt glance, it's never hopeless. It's never the end. Laura cares about her, wants to help her. Laura draws her line in the sand, but it's also her pulling Bradley back up from the darkness, drawing soothing circles on her back as she gasps out all her fears, all the ghosts.
"Have you thought of dinner?"
"Like, ever?" she asks evasively.
"Like today."
"It… crossed my mind on occasion." She darts another glance upwards, at Laura's still smiling face, at her gentle disapproval. She sighs. "We still have some of the smoked salmon, right? I'll probably just make a salad with that."
"Sounds good. Save me some?"
"The lettuce will get soggy."
Laura heaves a long sigh, like Bradley has just delivered devastating news. "I miss my chef."
"I miss room service."
"Covid has taken everything from us," Laura delivers with her customary teasing tone. "But maybe the room service was for the best, I'm not sure you can be trusted with that in the long-term."
Bradley feels a languid smile stretch across her face at the reminder of their time in Las Vegas. The luxurious spread of foods they ordered was an exaggeration, sure, but it wasn't about the meal itself. It was… a freedom that she was finally allowed. To indulge, because she wanted to, even if she didn't do it right or make the most of it or get her money's worth. She felt giddy at first, listing out the items, then guilty as it all arrived and the extravagance stared her in the face. And then, slowly, as it all sank in again, no consequences, no judgment, just her and Laura and every kind of food she might want, she felt free.
It feels silly in hindsight, to put so much weight on a room service order. Surely she should have a nicer, more meaningful milestone, but this was it. This was the start of her feeling like she could do something just for herself and the sky wouldn't fall on her.
And then the sky did fall, with that article outing her, with Laura finally losing her patience with all of Bradley's shit, her fucked up adult behaviors. And for a terrifying moment, it felt right. Fair. Punishment for daring to reach for more. As she watched her brother break everything he could reach, and scream, and kick his feet as security dragged him off, she felt herself step aside, then walk away, and it barely felt like herself anymore. It was like watching a movie and finally getting to the scene where karma hits and feeling, mingled with the empathy, a serene sort of understanding. It was bound to happen.
Only here she is. It hurt like shit, all of it, but she didn't lose it all. Unlike past relationships, Laura stayed. She helped her. Even in her darkest hour, searching the streets of New York alone, thinking that the fragile peace she'd recovered was about to shatter all over again, she didn't lose it. And when she finally told Laura, there was no disappointed sigh, no telltale frown. She asked how she could help.
Bradley knew, obviously, that people don't just blow up at you for disappointing them. That making one mistake doesn't ruin you, that even when people are done with you, they can find it in themselves to have empathy, to be gentle.
She knew that, but it can be so hard. It can be so hard to believe what you know.
"You didn't seem to mind my appetite at the time," she comments slyly, eyebrows quirked as she watches Laura catch the hidden meaning. Laura leans down, lips close to hers.
"I do appreciate a woman with a taste for the finer things in life."
"Meaning you?"
"Your words, not mine," Laura delivers with devastating self-confidence, straightening up before Bradley can pull her into a kiss and turning on her heel. "I have to go in now. See you later."
"Good luck," Bradley calls out. And then she's alone again, breathing in the cooling air. It's a strange mixture of peace and unease, at the state of the world and at the state of herself.
But she wants Laura. And she's here, making it happen. That's all she can do.
(...)
The phone rings for a long time before Alex picks up.
It's just Bradley in the house, Laura off on her horse somewhere. They tried to get Bradley riding too, a couple of disastrous attempts that left her with nothing but vertigo and a very firm impression of how much taller a horse seems when you're on top of it. Now Laura rides alone, with Bradley's very earnest blessing.
"Hey," Alex finally says, voice raspy with sleep.
"Oh, I'm sorry, did I wake you up?"
"Don't worry about it. You'd need pretty good aim not to."
She shifts in her seat, immediately uneasy. "I thought you were getting your energy back. Have you been eating?"
"No, Bradley. I haven't eaten since we last spoke," Alex replies with clear sarcasm, already awake enough to be an asshole. Still, her words are slightly slurred, like it's an effort to sound them out.
"Have you eaten properly? "
A beat of silence. "I haven't gone hungry."
"That's not an answer."
"Okay, miss reporter, you've caught on to my misdirection. I'll take the handcuffs now."
"If you have enough energy to mouth off, you have enough energy to have three meals a day."
"I mean, evidently not."
"You are such an ass," Bradley sighs into her phone, not really annoyed at Alex but mostly frustrated at her own inability to do something. To step into that New York apartment and force-feed her some soup.
"You love my ass."
"That is beside the point," she replies absently, mind still on the problem. Can she order something for Alex? That's not a long-term solution. Can she call Chip, get on his case about it? Seriously, what is the guy doing there if he isn't even taking care of Alex? Unless… The last time Alex mentioned him, he was asymptomatic, but could he have gotten worse? Is she taking care of him now?
"So you admit it."
"I-" Admit what? What were they talking about again?
"Oh, shit, am I on speakerphone?" Alex blurts out. "Because I meant my ass as in me, not like… my actual-"
"Oh my God, Alex, nobody else is here!"
"Oh." A pause. "Then I definitely meant my actual ass."
"Alex!"
"What? Laura is a possessive woman, I'm not taking any chances."
"She can tell when you're joking," Bradley says, running a hand through her face in exasperation. Alex is not getting out of it this easily. "Did you have lunch?"
A long pause. "I'm not sure."
"How can you not be sure?" Bradley snaps, worry flaring at everything the woman reveals.
"I've been sleeping a lot. I lose track of when…"
"Alex," she calls again, gentler, concern only growing, "I need you to put Chip on the line."
"I can't do that."
"Don't get stubborn on me, now. I'll talk to him if I have to make my assistant march into your house and staple a phone to his ear."
"You'd endanger your assistant?"
"And staple Chip - which, by the way, your concern is touching." She can imagine Alex's eye roll. "But you're not going to make me do that, are you?"
Alex sighs, a heaving labored thing. It takes a long beat for her to speak, and Bradley can't tell whether she's gathering her strength or just hesitating.
"I'm not being difficult. I really can't do it." Bradley frowns, confused. "Chip isn't here."
"Hospital?" is her first terrible instinct.
"No, he… He didn't get fucking tested. When he came to my house, to film the streaming special. He told me he was positive, but actually he couldn't get his hands on a test. He just fucking came anyway. The shitty fucking- selfish spineless asshole," Alex hisses, growing agitated.
"He- Why didn't you say anything?"
"I'm too tired to keep getting angry. I need my energy for more useful things than vividly describing throwing that parasitic little shit-nugget into a wood-chipper." As if to illustrate her point, she abruptly stops and takes a couple of long breaths. Bradley waits, because she doubts this is the end of it. "He didn't even tell his fiancée. She found out when I- when I said it, live, that he had it. He kept getting phone calls after that, kept saying it was nothing. And then I saw it was her, and I made him tell me everything."
"So where is he now?"
"Back with her. Or alone at some hotel. Dead in a ditch, for all I care. I told him to get the fuck out of my house and blocked his calls."
"That's it?"
"I also told him I'm not in the habit of doling out pity fucks and I'm not about to make an exception for him."
"I meant, if he's not with you, are you just… on your own?" Bradley drums her fingers on the arm of her chair, nervous energy flowing through them.
"I'm not even sick anymore, Bradley. I have the negative tests to prove it."
"You're something ."
Alex's voice is softly pacifying when she speaks again, a genuine attempt to soothe Bradley. "I'll order dinner."
"You should have a nurse or something, or-"
"I'll order lunch too," Alex bargains. Bradley clenches her fingers into useless fists.
"Can I call you tomorrow?"
"You really can't play hard to get, can you?"
She smiles a little at that. She can't help it.
"If you want something, you should go for it," she quips back. This faux-flirting banter of theirs has always felt so much easier than the real deal.
"So go for it. But not all of us share the same philosophy, you know."
"I can call you, but you might not answer," Bradley translates easily.
"But it's so nice to be wanted, either way," Alex says with a hint of ironic wistfulness that further tugs at Bradley's smile. "Thanks, honey. For everything."
"I'll see you tomorrow."
"We'll see."
The line goes silent. Bradley sits there, motionless, for a long time. When Laura returns from riding, she already knows what she's going to do.
(...)
"I think this is a bad idea."
Bradley studies Laura's face, searching for any hint of what she's thinking, but she keeps it carefully composed as she speaks her mind. There's no way to tell whether it's a light comment or an unshakeable decision. Bradley takes her chances.
"I get that, but I mean, what else can we do?"
"Nothing," Laura concedes, way too easily. "As in, we can do nothing." Right. "We don't have an obligation here. Bradley, you don't-"
"It's not an obligation , I just want to do this for her. We don't have to- Obviously you have the final word, but I… I want to help her, if I can. She's all alone, and she's not doing well."
"I just don't understand why this is so important to you. The last time we spoke about Alex, you said your feelings were of minor interest."
She grimaces at the phrasing. "I'm sure that's not…"
"Your words," Laura points out. She sips her glass of wine and Bradley swirls her own, not really in the mood for alcohol at the moment. "And honestly, I feel similarly. Alex is a person from my past and I don't care to make her part of my present."
"She's my co-anchor." She's more than that, maybe. A friend? That’s what she said to Alex. But really, a murky thing Bradley never bothered to truly name, because she never considered she'd have to speak it when it really mattered. Now she wishes she had a word to put to it, something to stop Laura in her tracks. Something to make Alex the undeniable present.
"Was," Laura pronounces, the single syllable sharp on her tongue. "She quit, didn't she?"
"That's still up in the air. Public opinion hasn't stabilized yet, and now she's like this, so obviously she can't come back yet. But Cory's-" Her train of thought stutters slightly at the word, a prickling of guilt running up her spine that she does her best to dismiss. "She's still an option. They're working on it."
"Do you want her to come back?"
Bradley freezes. It feels like one of those questions, the ones that have a right answer and a wrong answer, and neither has anything to do with the truth. And she knows she's probably projecting, but like always, it's so hard to believe the things she knows.
She tries. "I do."
Laura takes another sip of her wine and studies her silently. It's as if she's carefully rearranging her thoughts, adapting to this new reality that Bradley has established with two simple words.
"Is that why you defended her against Maggie?"
"Maggie's attacks were sexist bullshit, you know that as well as I do."
"She's my friend."
"She could have buried a whole corrupt company and she chose to focus on Alex instead. There's a personal vendetta there and you probably know it better than I do."
"We're getting sidetracked," Laura says, voice carefully neutral. Bradley agrees with relief. She doesn't want to start an argument over this, no matter how incensed the topic makes her. They don't need to talk about it. The book is gone now, anyway, forgotten amid the chaos of the new normal.
"You know I've been talking to Alex," she tries again, voice quieter. "I don't think I can call her my friend, not a real one, but I can't pretend she's a stranger. We've been through too much together."
"Bradley…" Laura hesitates, seeming to measure her words. Bradley recognizes that look, knows she's about to be told something she'd rather not hear. "You're not required to return every kindness you're shown."
The words echo dizzily in her head. She hates when Laura does this, when she offers her wisdom and only makes Bradley more confused. She thinks she's doing the right thing, was sure of it, but is she? Is she crazy?
"Alex isn't my parents. Or Hal."
"She knows how to work people. She gets pity for problems she caused herself."
"She's not working me." Bradley sighs and leans back in her chair, frustration rising. She's not sure whom she's even frustrated at. Laura, for not getting it, or herself, for not quite knowing what she's trying to get across either. "Is it so hard to believe I just care about her?"
Laura shrugs, glass still in hand. "Why?"
"Because." She frowns. It's a simple question, but it goes right back to her own confusion. To the lack of a name she can put to Alex and herself. "I just, I know what it's like to have my mistakes thrown in my face, like they're all I am. And to want to be more than that, and not know how."
Laura's gaze softens and only then does Bradley notice how it had slowly been growing tense. She steps closer and grasps Bradley's fingers, a light touch.
"Bradley, you are not the same as Alex."
"I know." Is that what Laura thinks? That Bradley's fixing Alex to fix herself? Is it so unthinkable that anyone could wish any good on Alex, for her sake? The thought makes Bradley feel strangely lonely. "Sometimes I think we're polar opposites in every single way. But don't you ever feel like there's something else? Something more than circumstances, just some core part of you, that happens to match someone else's?"
"Like soulmates?" Laura asks, derisive but not entirely unbothered.
The words spark a flare of nerves inside Bradley, the familiar feeling that she's said the wrong thing. It's a bad instinct. It's just a conversation. The best she can offer is honesty.
And yet…
"Not that, obviously." She wants to drop it, to forget this whole conversation, and maybe she would if she was asking for something for herself. But she can't do it to Alex. "It's your house. I can't force you to take her in. But can you at least think about it?"
Laura's hold on Bradley's hand grows firmer, more present. Slowly, a gentle smile forms on her face, affectionate and maybe a little regretful. She shakes her head.
"No. You're right. I've been angry at Alex for a long time, but that's not a productive feeling to cling to." Bradley feels herself light up at the words, at the tacit agreement. "This business is cutthroat but right now, everything that's happening, it's not business. It's life. And your kindness is a much better instinct than my grudge."
"Yeah?" Bradley asks simply, dazed by the easy admission. Laura conceding her point, just like that; no screaming, no blaming, no digging of heels. Once more, it's like she's skipped a step on the stairs and is staggering at the unexpected void, her whole body readjusting. She tries to ease the built-up tension from her frame.
"Yeah. The fact that after all you’ve been through, you still choose to trust people, to reach out to them… Well, like I said, you’re impressive in a lot of ways.” Laura pauses to bring Bradley’s palm to her lips, to kiss the inside of her wrist with tender care. When she speaks again, her playful tone is mingled with something undeniably earnest. “I think I could stand to learn from you too.”