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gray-autumn-sky · 5 years

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Sleepless in Seattle, Chapter 11

May 28, 1993- Seattle, Washington:

He’d had the talk with Emma, and she’d easily admitted that she was okay with keeping things casual. She liked him and she enjoyed his company, but she didn’t want to get in too deep or disrupt his life or put labels on things and try to fit into some traditional role that didn’t really work for either of them.

So he decided that if she was okay with the way things were, so was he.

Or he could be.

Or should be.

But when it came down to it, he wasn’t.

This wasn’t the sort of relationship that he wanted.

He wanted someone who would curl up on the couch with him and Roland and spend an entire day watch The Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid, and The Rescuers Down Under. He wanted someone who would go to Roland’s Cub Scouts activities with him and tell him that giving junk food to children wasn't good idea no matter what Roland said, and would replace pizza rolls with apples and peanut butter. He wanted someone who’d come to him, who’d involve his son on their dates, and someone who wanted to be a mother. He wanted someone who’d fight with him, someone who stood her ground, and someone who he’d have passionate makeup with. He wanted someone who could offer him more, someone he could build a future, someone who would make him fall in love all over again.

Emma had helped him to rediscover parts of himself that he’d forgotten about, and for that, he’d always be grateful--and though it seems cliche and the sort of line you’d give without actually meaning it to soften the blow of a break up, he genuinely hoped they could still be friends.

Now, he just had to figure out a way to tell Emma.

And now that he’d come to this realization, he needed to do it sooner rather than later.

Drawing in a breath, he reaches for the the phone, slowly dragging his fingers through the dial as he tries to figure out what to say--and all he manages to decide doing this over this over the phone probably isn’t his best option.

But, of course, it’s ringing and it’s too late to hang up, so he decides to ask her out for lunch--and then he’ll her over pizza. Nodding, he decides that’s a much better plan, and holds his breath waiting for her to pick up--and for brief moment, he thinks she won’t.

“Hello?” she asks, picking out the phone and sounding both irritated and out of breath.

“Hey, Emma. It’s me… it’s Robin.”

“Oh. Hi.”

“I was going to ask if you wanted to grab lunch, but it sounds like I’ve interrupted something.”

“No, no. You haven’t, and an hour ago I would have had plans, but not I don’t.”

His brow furrows. “Oh…”

“My car died. So, I’m stuck here.”

“Oh, were you… going somewhere?” He asks, trying to remember if she mentioned something to him and coming up blank. “Or do you need to be going somewhere?”

“The airport,” she says briskly, still sounding annoyed. “In, like, an hour.”

“Did you… call a cab?”

“Yes! Of course, I did. He never showed.”

“Oh. That’s...that’s weird.”

She sighs. “He was having trouble understanding me. We had a bad connection or something. He probably went to the wrong address and now someone else has my cab.”

Robin’s brow furrows. “Well… I could take you, I suppose,” he says, glancing toward the stairs. “Or well, Roland and I could.”

There’s a long pause, and for a second, it seems like she’s searching for a reason to say no--but then, she offers a tentative-sounding okay and asks if he could get her there by the time her flight takes off--and though he doesn’t have an answer for that, he says he’ll try.

He gets to Emma’s in record time and somehow, miraculously, he gets her to the airport in time.

On the way there, Emma explains that she’s meeting some friends she grew up with, kids who were in and out of foster care, like her, and kids she lived with through her teenage years at a group home. They were the closest thing to family she had, and though she wanted to see them, seeing them always set her on edge a bit.

She left it at that, not explaining anymore, and he could only assume she was on edge because seeing them reminded her of everything she lost and everything she didn’t have. But he didn’t press, he just listened and nodded, and every now and then, glanced in the rearview mirror to check on Roland who never once looked up from his gameboy.

When they reach the gate they exchange hasty goodbye and quickly, without a kiss or a hug, Emma turns and follows the crowd to board. He sighs and looks to Roland who giggles and makes a face. Robin rolls his eyes and drapes his arm around his son’s shoulders, turning him away from the gate and suggesting they grab some chili fries from the food court before heading home--and that’s when he notices her.

He stops dead in his tracks as he watches a woman with shoulder length dark brown hair step into the gate. She has a little boy with her and she’s rummaging through her purse. The little boy says something to her and she looks up at him, laughing--and from where he’s standing, he can hear it, soft and musical--and beautiful as her laugh is, it doesn't compare to the smile that accompanies it.

“Dad, the fries,” Roland whines, tugging on his hand and forcing him to take a step back. “Come on.”

“I just--”

“Dad!”

“One second,” he says, tightening his hold on Roland’s hand as he takes a step forward--and then, before he can take another, a man approaches her, carrying a bouquet of flowers. He slips a hand around her and presses a kiss to her cheek and as she accepts the bouquet, the light catches the stone on her ring--and though it’s completely irrational, he can’t help but feel disappointed.

“Dad! The fries! I’m starving!”

With a sigh, he looks to Roland at his side. “You aren’t starving.”

“Yes, I am.”

“You’re hungry, not starving.”

“Same difference.”

“No,” he sighs, looking up to steal one more glimpse of the woman at the gate--and again disappointment washes over him when he finds she’s already disappeared into the crowd.

“Daaaad--”

“Okay, okay,” he says, turning back to Roland scooping him up, lifting him onto his shoulders. “Let’s get those fries.”

“Can we get cheese on them, too?”

“Brilliant.”

“And eat them while we watch the planes take off?”

“Even better,” he says, taking one last glimpse into the crowd and searching for her--and feeling one last wave of disappointment washes over him when he realizes that she’s really gone.

____

May 28, 1993- Somewhere above Washington State and Seattle, Washington:

Regina rings her hands nervously as she looks to Henry, watching as he stares out the window, trying to catch his first glimpse of Seattle, and she reminds herself that this trip to Seattle will be totally and completely different from the last.

She’ll be sure of it.

In the nearly two months since her last visit, she had done her best to forget everything about it, including Sleepless in Seattle.

But now that she was on a plane descending into the city of Seattle, suddenly, he was all she could think about--the way he lifted his son onto his shoulder, the way he smiled and laughed as the boy threw the fish back into the water, the way his shirt tightened subtly around his arms.

And that feeling of guilt that she’d lived with since she heard Doctor Hopper’s show on Christmas came rushing back, and she didn’t know how to stop it.

Taking a breath, she nudges Henry, grinning when he looks over at her. “Do you need some gum?”

“I’m good?”

“Are you sure? Once we start dropping down toward the runway, your ears might pop.”

Henry considers it. “What flavor?”

“Spearmint and regular mint.”

“Regular mint,” Henry says, holding out his hand. “Just in case.”

Grinning she hands Henry a stick of gum, watching as he fumbles with the wrapper. “So, what do you want to do when we get to Seattle?”

“Will we have time to do stuff? We’ll only be here like two days.”

“Well, while Daniel’s working, you and I have all that time to ourselves to go sightseeing.”

Henry nods, considering it. “Well, I wanna see the Space Needle,” he says. “And Daniel said I’m not supposed to tell you but he got us tickets to the Mariners game.” A guilty little grin stretches over Henry’s lips as he shoves the gum into his mouth. “So, I guess I wanna do that, too.”

Regina’s eyes narrow. “It’s a secret?”

“Yeah. He got tickets from somebody.”

“Oh--”

“And you’re really excited?” she asks, narrowing her eyes as she remembers the time Leopold tried to take Henry to a Yankees game and half way through, he’d asked Leopold for some money to buy a slice of pizza and called her to pick him up instead. “I thought you didn’t like baseball.”

Henry shrugs dismissively. “He’s excited, so I guess I am, too.”

Regina frowns--that sounds like something she’d say.

“Well, maybe we can figure out some other stuff you want to do,” she says, trying not to dwell too much on all of the ways her own problems have influenced her son. “I’m sure the hotel we’re staying at has some of those brochures advertising different attractions. Maybe you’ll find some things in those.”

“Yeah,” Henry nods as he looks back to the window and smile. “Maybe.”

The captain of the plane announces that they need to make sure they’re in their seats, that their trays are up and that they’re buckled into their seats because in just a few short minutes, they’ll begin their descent into Seattle. Henry shoots her a look and rolls her eyes and she grins, caught red-handed in the lie she’d told him as they boarded the plane in Hartford when she told him he’d have to stay buckled in for the entire flight.

But it doesn't last long because as the plane begins to drop, Henry’s face scrunches up and he covers his ears with his hands--and when she stretches an arm around his shoulders, pulling him as closer as the confines of the plane will allow, he lets her. And as guilty she feels for being glad for her son’s discomfort, it serves the perfect distraction because as the plane touches down her last visit to Seattle and the man she came to see is the furthest thing from her mind.

When the first few rows ahead of them clear out, she reaches into the overhead compartment to grab Henry’s jacket--and when he protests, she points out the planes window, pointing to the gray skies that look like they’re about to bust open. He sighs and puts on the jacket as she grabs their carry-ons--then, drawing in a breath, she takes his hand a pulls him to the gate, laughing as he tries to pop his ears.

“Plug your nose and puff out your cheeks,” she tells him.

“What?”

Laughing she repeats it, then laughs again, as he looks to her as if she’s crazy, but nonetheless, tries it.

“Mom! Mom! I swallowed my gum.”

Her brow furrows as they come out of the gate. “You swallowed it?”

“Yeah, I gulped back some air to get my ears to pop and I swallowed it!” She grins as his eyes widen a little, completely unaware that he’s yelling. “Am I gonna get sick?”

“No.”

“But Mal told Lily if she eats her gum, it’ll stay there forever and twist around her organs and--”

“You’ll live,” she cuts in, shaking her head and laughing softly. “And your organs will be just fine.”

“But will it live in my stomach forever?”

“No,” she tells him, her voice dropping an octave. “You’re gonna poop it out.”

For a moment, Henry just stares at her with wide eyes, a slack jaw. and rosy cheeks, horrified that she’s talking about his poop in public and watching as she fishes the directions that Daniel gave her to get from the airport to the hotel--and she bites down on her lip when she can’t find them, hoping she didn’t leave them on her desk at work. After all, this trip--like her previous one--had been a spur of the moment decision and she wasn’t quite prepared to be traveling.

“We might have to stay here,” she tells him, still rummaging through her purpose. “At least until Daniel’s out of his meeting.” Glancing up at him briefly, she grins. “Maybe we can grab some chili cheese fries or--”

“You’re going to let me eat chili cheese fries?”

She nods, motioning in the direction of the food court. “Yeah. I don’t know. I just saw a sign from the corner of my eye. We can get something else if you don’t--”

“No. Chili cheese fries would be awesome. But… you never let me eat stuff like that.”

“We’re on vacation. Calories and cholesterol and saturated fats don’t exist on vacation.”

Henry grins. “I think I like Vacation Mom,” he tells her, just before his face falls. “Or are you just being nice to me because you know my gum is strangling my organs?!”

At that, she can’t help but laugh out as she looks to him. “Henry, if I thought something was strangling your organs, I’d have already hijacked a plane and had you halfway to the nearest hospital.”

He giggles. “True.”

“Now--”

“Daniel!”

She looks up, watching as Daniel pushes his way through the crowd, carrying a bouquet of bright pink flowers. “Hey, you! I thought I was meeting you at the hotel.”

“Change of plans,” he tells her, pressing a kiss to her cheek as she accepts the flowers. “I got out of my meeting early, so I figured I’d surprised you guys and pick you up.” Grinning, he turns to Henry and hands him a little bag. “And this is for you.”

Henry grins as he takes the bag, unrolling the top and grinning. “I don't know what King Caramels are, but I know that I’m going to eat them all before we get to the hotel.”

Regina laughs. “Thank you--for meeting us and for the flower and--”

“Those are coast rhododendrons, the State of Washington’s--”

“That sounds like a fungus,” Henry says, scrunching up his nose.

“They’re definitely not, but the place I am taking you two for lunch most certainly has fungus on the menu.”

For a moment, Henry looks grossed out--and then, he rolls his eyes. “Oh. They serve mushrooms.”

“You’ve got it.”

“So, where is this mushroom-serving place,” Regina asks, reaching for his hand. “And what else do you have planned for us?”

“Well, I was thinking we’d have lunch at this place at the Pike Place Market, then do a little sightseeing and--”

“That’s very Seattle.”

Daniel nods. “Well, since you two have never been here, I figured that was the best way to spend our time.”

Her stomach flutters and she nods, forcing as smile. “Perfect.”

Daniel gives her hand a little tug then loops his arm around Henry’s shoulders, turning them in the direction they need to go in to pick up their bags--and as they turn away from the gate, something catches her eye.

Or rather, someone.

There, just a few yards away is Robin and his son--the man she’s forced herself not to think about, the man whose mere voice attracted her, and the man she’d spent a whole day stalking. Her heart beats a little faster and she swallows hard, her stomach churning as all the things she’s refused to let herself think about since her last trip to Seattle come rushing back--and irrationally, she nearly turns herself in his direction.

But then Daniel tugs her in the opposite way and she reminds herself what a colossally bad idea it’d be to put herself in Robin’s orbit, and while she feels some deep--and probably a bit disturbing--connection to him, to him, she’s a complete stranger.

And that’s what she keeps telling herself all the way to baggage claim.

#oq ff #outlaw queen #advent 2018

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