Chapter 1: Bad decisions

[moonshadows]

Venom

The canister was sturdy, that was for certain. Riot had lashed out in rage as the first one closed around xir, with most of the others fleeing as best they could. There were a handful who, for their own reasons, either slithered eagerly into a canister or ‘allowed’ themselves to be captured.

Phage.

Toxin.

And, of course, Venom. Xie had been scurrying towards the suited figures because whatever primitive world they’d come from, it had space flight. That meant intelligent hosts, and intelligent hosts meant things to do. Things that weren’t just being endlessly bored riding a chunk of frozen rock through the vastness of space hoping that they’d aimed correctly and that they would, eventually, get somewhere.

Now xie was secured, along with the other three, peering eyelessly through the canister, trying to make sense of their future hosts’ communication and wondering when Riot would decide xie’d had enough. That the grey symbiote would break out was a given; Riot never followed any orders but xir own. The only question was: how close to landing would xie make xir move?

Venom guessed they had just begun descent to the surface of whatever unwitting planet they were being brought to when Riot formed xirself into a collection of spikes, shattering xir containment canister. That turned out, in Venom’s opinion, to have been a mistake as the suited figures panicked and the spacecraft began atmospheric re-entry in a decidedly rough manner. Phage and Toxin roiled excitedly in their canisters like the idiots they were, eager to be the first ones feasting once they landed, but the black symbiote braced for impact. Their descent was nearly uncontrolled, the craft’s thermal shielding tearing itself apart as they ripped through the atmosphere, and xie had no desire to die in a fiery explosion when the impact came.

Surprisingly, the canisters held. They had been constructed solidly enough that the impact did not shatter them, something that couldn’t be said for the entities in the suits. The one Riot picked had at random for xir first host survived long enough for the planet’s natives to haul it away in what Venom guessed was some emergency vehicle. Phage pressed xirself furiously against the clear walls constraining xir, a writhing mass of yellow, as their leader was carried away to begin xir reign of destruction. Toxin hurled xirself from side to side, alarming the creatures as the canister shook with the force of the blue symbiote’s futile wrath.

Venom merely curdled, trying to figure out what was going on. Someone had sent that spacecraft. Someone had given orders to bring back samples. Someone was going to want to see the three that had survived the crash, and the best way to survive whatever that someone had planned was to establish that xie was a reasonable entity and absolutely not the kind of symbiote that would gleefully build pyramids of severed heads (Tasty snacks! Crunchy on the outside, squishy in the middle!) and stack the bodies artistically.

That way, they’d never see it coming when xie did rip their heads off and stack the bodies in a corner.

Ah, this was going to be fun. Well, until Riot found xir way back to wherever they were being taken and started ordering them around again, but in the meantime…

Fun.

 

Anne

Morning.

Anne woke up with Eddie’s arms around her, cuddling her to his chest, and smiled. It was going to be a busy day – for both of them, and her mind was already in motion, planning and scheduling – but right now, for the next thirty seconds, she could enjoy the amazingly comforting embrace of the man she would soon spend the rest of her life waking up with.

Eddie’s top-notch hugs and unfairly reassuring cuddles were one of the reasons she’d said yes, actually, and most of the time she felt they made up for some of his…less-endearing traits.

She reached out to shut her alarm off just before it could sound and – reluctantly – slipped out of bed. Eddie sighed in his sleep and rolled over, somehow managing to take her pillow with him, and wound up with it on his head. Smiling, she shook her head and began getting ready for the day.

Shower. Teeth. Breakfast. Hair. Pick up the clothes strewn about – Eddie’s – and put them in the hamper. Coffee. Empty the dishwasher, which Eddie had sworn for the last week he was going to do, so he could switch to swearing he’d load it with the dirty dishes piled on the counter. Then, sipping her coffee, she dressed and started packing for the day.

Eddie was still sleeping.

Well, it wasn’t a surprise. He always did sleep like the dead, possibly because he pushed himself so hard when he was chasing a story. Anne watched him, sipping her coffee, and smiled softly. When he was chasing a story, he focused on it to the exclusion of things like sleeping and eating, and his poor abused body had long ago decided that it would make the most of every opportunity. When he slept, he was down for the count. When he ate, his body tried desperately to pack on the pounds. He was probably the only person in the whole city who could gain two pounds from eating a twelve-ounce steak. It wasn’t a bad thing, in her mind. Made his hugs that much more comforting.

Finally, it was time. She had to wake Eddie up before she left, or he’d sleep through his meeting entirely. Anne added her coffee cup to the herd of mugs on the counter and took back her pillow, only to whap him on the head with it.

“Morning, sunshine,” she teased, her voice reflecting the warmth of her brilliant smile because of the many faces of Eddie Brock, the baffled just-woke-up one was one of her favorites.

“What?” he muttered as the pillow hit his head. “I’m awake.” The words were pure reflex, because he was most assuredly not awake yet.

Anne dropped the pillow on his chest and moved away from the bed, grinning. Dazedly, he pushed at the pillow and then whipped it at her, but she dodged. “Missed me,” she said lightly.

“I’m awake,” he repeated, still not quite the truth, although he was sitting up and his mussed hair made her want to muss it more.

“You can have it back,” she told him as she picked the pillow up, and he was halfway through thanking her sleepily when she nailed him with it, right in the face.

Eddie went down like a sack of potatoes with a sound of good-natured protest, and Anne felt like her face was going to stay in a permanent smile until at least lunch.

This time, Eddie really was awake because he didn’t try to claim that he was. What he said instead was, “Oh, wow, you’re wearing a suit!” as he struggled to sit up again. “Yes! I love it when you wear the suit.”

It made her smile – again – because even though it was just a business suit, he somehow made it sound like a slinky black dress she’d put on just for him. “Thank you,” she murmured, paperwork in hand. Then, sadly, it was time to make sure he knew why she was wearing the suit and what he was doing that day because she would be willing to bet actual money her fiancé wouldn’t remember if she didn’t tell him. “I have depositions today in the Life Foundation case,” she said crisply, then reached for a casual tone when she said, “Hey, let me know how your meeting goes.”

Maybe he would remember he had a meeting. Maybe he wouldn’t. But either way, she sounded like she was assuming he remembered, and if he didn’t then she could remind him.

“My meeting?” he repeated blankly as she headed for the counter. “Oh shit. Yeah.” He remembered, and he sounded disgruntled that it even existed to be remembered. “My meeting.”

She had to smile again as he stared blearily at the contents of the bedside table. “Coffee,” she said tenderly as she offered him the mug.

Eddie looked up as he reached for the mug she was already placing in his hands, and before he could say anything, she stole a kiss full of promises from his lips.

“Mmm! You are perfect,” he breathed, making her smile again.

“Thank you,” she said through her grin as she gathered her papers. He may not be the best about household chores, but there were worse things in a relationship than having compliments lavished on her in the first sixty seconds her partner was awake.

“Hey, you know what…um…” Eddie stumbled to make his thoughts come out in actual words before she left. “You know what night it is tonight, right?”

The look he gave her was momentary fear, like she could have forgotten, or uncertainty, like she would turn him down.

“Date night,” she said in a wicked voice that conveyed how much she was absolutely looking forward to it.

He hummed in relief that was trying to sound like he hadn’t been worried at all. “So, I will- I will pick you up around, uh, six, and please, do not forget your helmet.”

For just a second Anne was filled with irritation. It’s not like she was the one who couldn’t remember anything that hadn’t been scribbled on the back of one hand in ballpoint pen. But then she smiled again and picked up her paperwork. “Oh, I’m glad that you like it, because I plan on wearing it at our wedding.”

Well, really, she expected that he’d have forgotten to arrange for transportation, but even if he didn’t…well…riding off to their honeymoon on the back of Eddie’s motorcycle wasn’t entirely a bad idea.

“That’s hot,” he murmured, nodding, like he wasn’t aware the words had come out of his mouth.

“Feed the cat,” she reminded him sharply as she left the room.

“I will,” he promised, but she knew he wouldn’t. That’s why she’d left dry food in its bowl. “I love you!” he called.

“Love you too,” she called back from the other end of the apartment. “Feed the cat!”

Whether Eddie fed the cat or made it to his meeting on time was no longer in her hands; she had depositions.

 

“I don’t know why he gave me this assignment, Annie,” sighed Eddie, slumping in the restaurant’s booth as he finished telling her about his meeting. “It’s not…it’s not what I do.”

After a day full of taking depositions in a wrongful-death suit, Anne could think of a few reasons, and they sat in her gut like the first ominous rumblings of food poisoning.

Had Drake asked for Eddie specifically?

Did he know that Eddie was engaged to her?

Was he angling for some kind of publicity stunt that would make enough noise to cover the court case?

“He knows your reputation for getting the truth out,” she said, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. “If you’re on camera with Drake saying the rockets are safe, then the audience can be confident that it’s the truth.”

Eddie didn’t look convinced, and to be honest, Anne wasn’t convinced herself. But he didn’t need her making him paranoid about this; he was anxious enough about it already. Especially because he hadn’t been given enough warning to do any serious digging beforehand.

“Are you gonna behave yourself tomorrow?” she asked lightly, hoping against all reason that the answer would be yes.

“No,” he answered unrepentantly. “No, I’m gonna do my job. That’s what I’m gonna do. I can’t, you know, not do my job,” he protested as the good humor left her face. “The guy you work for is a complete…”

“I don’t work for Drake,” Anne interrupted, trying to hold her patience in both hands because they’d had this argument, many times, and she did not want to argue the comparative ethics of living off of morally grey money again and certainly not in the restaurant. “I work for my firm, and my firm…works for him,” she finished lamely, realizing as the words left her mouth that she should have said retains him as a client, but off-the-cuff arguments without hours of prep and a judge watching weren’t her verbal forte. “And I’m sure that they defend many people that you don’t deem worthy,” she limped on, a note of desperation in her voice as Eddie sighed and looked away, “but we don’t – we can’t live on your salary, Eddie, you can barely live on your salary.”

He flinched at that, and immediately she regretted it because she knew money was a sensitive subject for him, that he blamed himself for not being able to shoulder a full fifty percent of their budget, and now he was probably feeling like shit because when the check came, she’d be the one paying it even though Date Night was supposed to be him taking her out.

“Just…think about what you’re going to ask in the interview?” she half-pled, taking his hands in hers and trying to keep him from falling into a pit of self-loathing over the money thing. “I know you know how to do your job, baby, and you’re good at your job, but Drake has a lot of power and even more money and maybe you don’t want to go poking at that hornet’s nest, alright? We don’t want a repeat-” hurriedly, she fished for something else to say instead of ending that sentence. “We don’t- I can’t just pick up my career and move to another city like you can, Eddie.” That wasn’t much better, but moving once on short notice had been stressful enough that her adrenaline was surging just thinking about the possibility that she might have to do it again. “I won’t move again. I can’t.”

And that would be the shrill edge of panic in her voice, tears pricking at her eyes, and Eddie’s lips on hers feeling like a scratchy lifeline that she was clinging to, clinging to him, everything forgotten in the baffling magic of his grounding, comforting hug.

“Less talking more kissing,” she breathed.

Eddie squeezed her hands gently. “Alright, let’s just…get the check…”

The silver lining, Anne thought as she signed the credit card slip, was that Eddie wasn’t focused on their income disparity anymore. The stormcloud, of course, was that he was now extremely worried, about her or the interview or both. Probably both, with some existential dread thrown in for flavor, but she couldn’t really do much about that because she was just as worried that Drake was going to somehow sabotage her life and she’d have to pick up the pieces and move again-

Lips on hers broke the spiral before it could really get started, and Eddie murmured something endearing into her hair as she melted into his embrace. Then they were securing helmets and she was clinging to his waist, relaxing almost against her will as they zoomed off into the night. As awkward as he could be sometimes, especially in more formal settings, once Eddie was mounted on his motorcycle he was all smooth confidence and it was probably more attractive than it should have been.

By the time they reached the apartment, all thoughts of interviews and disaster had evaporated and the trek up the stairs was a tangled mess of arms and legs and lips as they tried to get hands on skin before they’d even reached the living room. Then they were almost too busy kissing to bother with clothes, except that Eddie was fumbling with her tie and Anne pushed his hands away to loosen it, only to slip it around his neck and use it as a makeshift leash as she tugged him into the bedroom.

Anne adored moments like this, when Eddie looked at her as though she were a goddess come to earth and he absolutely could not believe how lucky he was that she chose to grace his life with her presence. She was reasonably certain that he would let her tie him up or beat him and do all kinds of things to him, but she had no desire to do any of that. She just wanted to lose herself in the heat of his body, the softness of his skin and the inexplicable way just touching him seemed to whisper wordless reassurance; an aura of it’s all going to be okay that was sweet and refreshing, like the shade cast by a tree on a sunny day as the breeze tickled its leaves. There was no better way to fall asleep than to be surrounded by Eddie’s comforting warmth, and no better way to wake up. So they crashed together, writhed together, panted and groaned and cried out together, sweated together and flopped back onto the sheets together and just breathed together until their hearts stopped racing, and then they kissed tenderly as they pulled on clothes to sleep in and finally, finally, tangled together in a warm, loose-limbed hug and drifted off without a single thought in either of their heads.

 

Anne sat in the break room, munching a Greek salad and watching the ‘special interview’ with Carlton Drake, head of the Life Foundation. Eddie was in his element, obediently asking question after question about the Life Foundation rockets with the wide-eyed, unassuming demeanor that had lulled so many people off-guard and seemed to be doing the same with Drake. With just the slightest hint of impatience in his voice and frequent annoyed glances at the camera, he repeatedly assured Eddie that the fuel line, ignition, heat shielding, etc. weren’t to blame for the LF-1 crashing and thus, the LF-2 was perfectly safe.

As Drake admitted evasively that the shuttle had failed to engage proper re-entry protocols because “an object” had gotten loose and struck one of the crew, Anne suddenly realized that he didn’t know he was live. He thought the interview was being recorded, and would be edited to make him look better. Instead, Eddie was peeling back the curtain on live TV, giving Drake enough rope to hang himself, and he was helpfully tying his own noose. Sure, the audience was being reassured that the rockets were safe, but in doing so, Drake himself was painting the Life Foundation being as a pretty shady operation led by a shady man.

“One of the astronauts did survive the impact,” Drake was saying defensively, and Anne noted he didn’t say how long the astronaut had survived for.

On screen, Eddie nodded. “Well, I guess that means your space program has a better survival rate than your pancreatic cancer gene therapy trials,” he said in a deadpan tone. “Tell me – isn’t it a bit of a misnomer to call your organization the Life Foundation, when so many people involved in your programs wind up dead?”

That, it seemed, was the last straw and Drake made a clear ‘kill the cameras’ gesture, only to look enraged as the camera panned uncertainly but kept rolling. Then there was a sudden motion, the camera swung wildly, and the station cut back to a startled anchorwoman.

Anne dropped her fork to cover her mouth with both hands, laughing hard enough that she couldn’t hear whatever the anchorwoman was saying while the black olive speared on the fork’s tines was jarred loose and rolled unnoticed off the edge of the table.

 

Venom

Venom was not having fun.

Xir canister, as well as the other two symbiote-filled ones and the remnants of the one Riot had broken, were loaded into a vehicle that traveled in an absence of communication between the native entities inside it. After a period of time, the vehicle stopped – but they were loaded onto a different vehicle. That one traveled with only a little discussion for a longer distance before they were loaded into a different type of vehicle, this one filled with natives and equipment. Phage and Toxin again lashed out, trying to break the clear barrier between them and their would-be hosts, but it was useless. None of them had Riot’s ability to form themselves into rigid structures, the trait that had won xir leadership over xir faction, so they only succeeded in alarming the natives.

Venom barely shifted in xir container, restless motions that got the attention of the native entities, and with what sounded like alarm they clustered around xir canister and peered at xir. Xie rose up in a clear reaction of knowing xie was being watched, observing the observers, and the alarm shifted to excitement.

Good enough for now; Venom settled in to be thoroughly bored during the next period of travel, which turned out to be wise because it lasted considerably longer, and xie could see that xir fellow symbiotes were exhausting their furious energy. The natives communicated amongst themselves this time, constant chattering sounds that Venom did xir best to try to catalogue and analyze, but xie still hadn’t gleaned much past some rudimentary social structure when the vehicle – they’d been flying, inter-atmospheric travel which made Venom wickedly amused at how hard Riot would have to work to find them – descended and came in for a landing.

It was more of the small vehicles after that, with nothing to do but wait until finally, the vehicle reached its destination and Venom – because xir less-hostile behavior had earned xir the position closest to the vehicle’s door – got xir first glimpse of the one who had, xie guessed, been the one to order their ‘capture’ and retrieval. Venom made the ‘I see you looking at me’ motions at this leader, while behind xir the other two tried again to escape containment, and the head native uttered sounds in a tone of what Venom would tentatively classify as awe, or perhaps admiration.

Unfortunately, that awe and admiration – which Venom was now confident in, after the head native had snapped orders to its subordinates and made repeated cooing sounds at xir – did not extend to freedom. Xie and the other two were carried into what looked like a very secure science facility, delivered with many incomprehensible orders and warnings to a trusted lieutenant, and then left there.

Clearly, they were prisoners. Phage and Toxin seemed convinced of that, at least, and redoubled their efforts to escape. Venom wasn’t so sure, and redoubled xir effort to establish communication with the trusted lieutenant because what xie suspected was that the native leader didn’t know they were intelligent and they weren’t prisoners.

They were samples to be studied.

 

Anne

For the next few days, Carlton Drake’s embarrassment on live TV was the talk of the town – that is, when people weren’t speculating about why the Life Foundation even had rockets or wondering about the pancreatic cancer gene therapy thing. Then he must have found the connection between the reporter who had so thoroughly manipulated him into humiliating himself and the lawyer who’d handled depositions for his pancreatic cancer gene therapy wrongful death suit, because Friday morning he leaned on the firm.

Hard.

Anne found herself facing the partners, both Michelinie and McFarlane – who assured her that she was a jewel, a valuable asset, and they absolutely did not want to lose her – and told that Drake had ripped them a new one, accused her of spilling confidential information to her fiancé, and demanded that they ‘do something’ to prove that they were as good as their reputation and could handle his suit with professional impartiality.

In other words, he wanted her gone. Not just off the case, but out of the firm entirely.

She panicked.

Michelinie and McFarlane didn’t believe that she’d told Eddie anything, thankfully, and they didn’t want to take her off the case. They told her that in all confidentiality, they thought Drake had brought it on himself by agreeing to (or demanding) the interview without making sure of the details and now he was throwing a shit-fit to try to cover that miscalculation, but he had too much pull and they had to do something.

She had to do something.

Fifteen minutes later she was in her office, sobbing into Eddie’s voicemail, telling him that she couldn’t do it, she couldn’t move, she couldn’t see him or talk to him. There was money in their joint account; she told him to use it to stay in a hotel for a couple of days while she sorted their things out. Afterwards, she couldn’t remember if she’d said ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘I love you’ or even the exact words she’d used; everything was an achingly hollow blur and she’d lost half an hour to crying and rocking as her mind shuddered away from having to make the choice between her job and sanity…

…and the man she loved.

The rest of the day passed in a fog while she took care of busywork – filing and straightening, the sort of thing she couldn’t cause more problems with by doing while emotionally impaired. Then the day was over and she was taking an Uber to the restaurant because the reservations were for six-thirty, her brain a whirl of trying to mentally re-arrange her schedule for next week and remember what chores still needed to be done during the weekend. It was only as she stood at the host’s podium and announced that she had reservations for two that she realized what she’d done and began crying again while the hostess uncomfortably repeated that she could either cancel or wait for the rest of her party and she tried to explain that the rest of her party – Eddie – wouldn’t be joining her.

“Maybe I could help?” a man said from the side.

Anne turned to look. He was tall, dark, and conventionally attractive. One-hundred-percent respectable. Serious and well-dressed and a bit more than just politely concerned. A modern-day prince sweeping in to save her from her situation.

“Surgery ran late at the hospital,” he was explaining in a smooth, professional voice, “and unfortunately that meant my date ate and left without me. But I’d be happy to keep you company if your date can’t make it.”

“I probably won’t be very good company,” she demurred, or tried to, because he smiled.

“You sound like you could use a sympathetic ear, and I’m feeling guilty for unintentionally standing up my date. Let me make up for ruining her evening by making yours easier to bear.”

That made her smile through her tears. “I can’t argue with that. I’m Anne.”

“Dan,” he said, holding his hand out to shake, then taking hers in a chivalrous manner and turning to the hostess. “If our table is ready…?”

The hostess closed her mouth and nodded. “Of course. Follow me.”

By the time they reached their booth, Anne had stuffed her emotions down enough to look at the menu and place her order with the waitress, but not enough to actually discuss things without breaking down again. Dan instantly understood this, and started talking about himself – how his ex-wife had cheated on him out of feeling neglected because he was a surgeon and his patients came first, and he was disappointed but understood where she was coming from. When he’d confronted her, however, she’d turned nasty and said that he’d deserved it and they hadn’t talked since the divorce finalized. His date had been a tinder match, and he’d called to warn the restaurant he’d be late. They’d let her eat while waiting for him, but when he finally got there, it was just in time to pay for her meal and she’d walked out without a word.

Anne explained tentatively how her fiancé had made a risky choice in his work and the choice she’d been given, and Dan’s eyes widened.

“Eddie,” he repeated. “Eddie Brock? The Carlton Drake interview?”

She nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks.

“So you can’t see him and you’re living together?”

“I told him to stay in a hotel for a few days,” she said shakily.

“But that means one of you has to move out right now.” Dan said, frowning.

“Me. I’ll move out. If I make him do it, he’ll be homeless by Tuesday. He can’t do laundry before he runs out of socks; he’ll never find an apartment in forty-eight hours.”

Dan took her hands gently in his. “And you can?” he asked quietly.

Her composure dissolved in a rush of fresh tears.

“Anne, Anne, it’s going to be okay,” he soothed. “I have a two-bedroom apartment and the lease renews in a couple of months. I’d been looking for a smaller place after the divorce, but I could bring you on. Rent you the room. Renew the lease as roommates. We can find movers; you can take some of the furniture and leave the rest for Eddie. When’s your lease up?”

“We were going month-to-month,” she sniffled.

“See? It’ll be okay. You give the landlord notice, pay the last month’s rent, and Eddie has a month to find a new place.”

Weakly, she laughed. “More like I have a month to find a new place for Eddie and point him there, but you’re right. You…we just met, you’d really let me move in?”

Dan looked at her, eyebrows wrinkling with concern. “We just met, and you’re okay with moving in?”

“You’re right,” she replied crisply. “I’ll find a sub-letting renter’s agreement.”

 

The weekend passed in a whirlwind of activity. Cleaning, packing, alerting utilities, address changes, all the minutia of moving that had been so shattering when she’d been severing her ties with her former life. But now, moving within the city, they were just another list of things that had to be juggled and she was good at that. So, it turned out, was Dan, and he made himself available as a very capable second set of hands. She split their possessions, having the movers pack Eddie’s for him but stacking the boxes in a corner. Shared possessions got divvied up, his and hers, according to who liked and/or used them more and she left a neatly handwritten, itemized list taped to the stack.

The engagement ring was its own issue.

Eddie had saved his money for months to buy it, foregoing personal indulgences for – actually, Anne had no idea how long he’d been secretly saving up. It had been a total surprise when he’d pulled it out of his pocket, no box to give away the plan before he’d just laid his beating heart in her lap and asked her, completely vulnerable like he expected her to say no, if she would marry him. So by all rights it was his, and selling it would bring in a significant amount of money that he would probably need. But if she just gave it back she’d be saying she no longer wanted to marry him, and that was not the case.

Back and forth she went, weighing the financial practicalities against the emotional impact, but in the end she found a compromise and scrawled a note on the bottom of the list that the engagement ring was in their safe-deposit box, because she couldn’t risk wearing it and she wouldn’t risk just leaving it with the rest of his things. If he needed the money, it was there for him to sell. If not – hopefully not – then once the Life Foundation case was over, he could put it back where it belonged: on her finger.

 

When Monday arrived, Anne was back at the office with a hard determination surrounding her. Everyone knew what had happened, somehow, but no one brought it up with her. They just let her work in peace, gave her space, and quietly admired (and possibly feared) how she was channeling her emotional turmoil into ruthless efficiency.

At the end of the day, she went to Dan’s apartment and cried as she unpacked.

That evening, over Thai take-out, she texted Eddie to let him know that he could go back to the apartment and that he had until the end of next month before he had to move out. When he texted back, it was clear that he considered their relationship over, and she was still crying when Dan got back from his shift at the hospital.

The first week was the hardest. Going to bed alone, waking up alone, living without the familiar chaos of chores left undone. Dan kept his apartment as neat and clean as Eddie didn’t, and he cooked whatever meals his schedule permitted. Anne would wake up to breakfast on the stove waiting for her, or come back after work to dinner in the oven. It was refreshing, honestly, and they had long conversations about Eddie’s inability to cook anything that required the slightest bit of attention or how he seemed physically incapable of just doing a chore without two weeks of nagging first. Dan was a ready and sympathetic ear whether she was voicing frustrations months and years old or crying because she missed Eddie and just knew that he was going to be a wreck without her.

Dan did all the checking she wanted to do but couldn’t let herself; he told her that Eddie had been fired and held her as she cried out of worry that she was going to read about his death in the paper. He promised to keep tabs on Eddie for her, and she focused on her job with an intensity that had Michelinie and McFarlane cautiously expressing encouragement. Every week, she checked the balance of her joint account with Eddie and replaced funds if they’d been used. And at least once a week, Dan let her cry on him.

His hugs lacked the inexplicable magic of Eddie’s.

As the weeks passed, they settled into a smoothly-functional rhythm that she’d never had with Eddie. Chores got done immediately, sometimes even before Anne could do them. Grocery shopping was organized and efficient. They drew up meal plans and never found themselves wondering what to do at dinnertime. Once a week, they went out somewhere nice to eat just to treat themselves for their hard work, and Anne realized with a pang of squirmy guilt that no matter how neatly Eddie had dressed for date night, he always somehow looked like he didn’t belong in a fancy restaurant. Dan always looked like he belonged in a fancy restaurant, even when he was wearing a polo shirt and jeans. In short, he was everything Eddie wasn’t.

But he also wasn’t everything that Eddie was.

She missed the hugs first. Going to sleep in a bed by herself was like a punishment straight out of the Bible, and even the cat couldn’t fill the void of Eddie’s warmth. Waking up without his arms around her meant she started each day disgruntled and disappointed, something a clean kitchen and hot breakfast didn’t entirely compensate for. But slowly she realized that she just never smiled anymore. Oh, she flashed quick grins to coworkers or Dan, but they were empty social gestures. She never smiled from sheer joy, never grinned until her cheeks hurt, never just fondly beamed. Anne was living in a sleek, orderly world that satisfied some long-neglected parts of her heart, but she wasn’t happy. When she and Dan renewed their lease, it felt good and right. Like she was following a path, checking things off a list of How To Be A Successful Woman. But then she’d be folding the clean laundry, slipping fresh pillowcases onto her pillows, and remember the adorable scruffy face of half-awake Eddie and how he called her perfect for bringing him coffee and Dan would find her sitting on her bed with a naked pillow in her arms, crying because it no longer smelled like Eddie.

Couple’s therapy was Dan’s idea.

The therapist was surprised that her new clients not only were there because they wanted to work out the problems they’d had with past partners, but that they weren’t actually dating yet. She approved, though, and together they worked out solutions for things they hadn’t even realized were problems. The therapist pointed out that both of them seemed to be struggling to form emotional attachments with each other out of a sense of duty (on Dan’s part) or trying to fill an emotional void (in Anne’s case). When they went out to dinner that night, they had a long, solemn conversation about whether they wanted to actually try to make a relationship work, their goals, their hopes, and Eddie. That Anne still had feelings for him was no surprise; that he would be the metaphoric elephant in the room of their relationship was a given. Steadily, her hands clasped in his, Dan told her that he neither expected nor wanted her to give up her feelings for Eddie. Whatever happened with them was her business, and he would support her choice. If she wanted to try a relationship, he would do his best with the understanding that he was not the only man in her life, even if the other man wasn’t actually in her life. Obviously, he would prefer if she didn’t seek attention from other men without talking to him first, but he had certain aversions to sharing bodily fluids and he understood if that made her feel unfulfilled.

Eddie was a moot point, Anne told him. Until the Life Foundation case was over, even being seen with Eddie would put her career in jeopardy. Afterwards, yes, she did intend to talk to him and see if there was anything left to rebuild but until then, Dan could rest assured that he had no competition. They went back to the therapist the next week holding hands, determined to build something together, even if it was less a conventional relationship and more an improvisation tailored to each of their emotional needs and abilities. The therapist approved of that.

The big thing Anne got out of therapy was the realization that she needed to stop trying to make people be what she thought they should be, and accept them for who they were. Dan would never be into deep kisses, for example, and instead of trying to change that about him, Anne needed to discuss the situation and try to find an alternative they could both be comfortable with. That led to more conversations about Eddie, because she realized that she hadn’t been doing that. It was obvious that Eddie was never going to be the kind of person who saw a chore that needed doing and just did it, and instead of trying to force him to do them when she thought they should be done, she should have been talking with him to figure out a better reminder system or negotiate a different part of the relationship to be responsible for.

That led to the chagrin of realizing that she and Eddie really hadn’t discussed much of anything having to do with their relationship, and that things she’d taken for granted that Eddie understood might not have been understood at all. Anne began to focus on interpersonal communication – not just clarifying assumptions or miscommunications, but voicing praise in clear, direct language when someone did something she appreciated. And, on the flip side, voicing criticisms in neutral, non-confrontational language instead of letting them fester into annoyance.

Her co-workers, faced with a resolutely determined Anne who was now engaging in clear and direct communication, were unnerved and inspired into greater efficiency. This did not escape the notice of the partners, who cautiously praised her and congratulated themselves for not letting Drake deprive them of one of their most valuable assets. It was a kind of catharsis for Anne, spinning her emotional turmoil into productivity, turning herself into a kind of living weapon. But her satisfaction was dulled by the fact that she was using her newfound edge for the benefit of the man who had used Eddie to try to cover his fuckups, and then when that failed, had tried to ruin him and her as well.

How could she face Eddie, even after the Life Foundation case was over, knowing that she’d effectively told him she would rather do Drake’s dirty work than marry him? Would he even listen long enough for her to explain, would he still care enough to hear her out, or had she broken his heart and his trust so thoroughly that he wouldn’t want anything to do with her?

Although she and Dan were starting to care about each other as more than friends, exchanging light kisses and occasionally sharing a bed, it was still cold and sterile compared to the spark and warmth she’d had with Eddie, and she still spent nights crying into the pillows that no longer smelled like him.