Chapter Text
The red scarf flashes in the autumn breeze, bright against the brick and concrete of the courthouse sidewalk. For an instant, Mia finds herself back at college – a different sidewalk, coffee and a backpack instead of a briefcase and blazer, but the same fluttering scarf.
“Lana?”
She doesn’t really know what to expect – ex-girlfriend doesn’t feel like the right word, but it’s the closest she’s got – but Lana turns, with a faint, startled smile. “Mia?”
It hasn’t been that long; Mia supposes she shouldn’t really have expected much change. Still, it’s a bit of a surprise that Chief Prosecutor Skye doesn’t look much different from Detective Skye, or even fellow college student Lana. A little tired, a little warier, but she’s not the only one who looks like that these days.
“I thought that was you,” Mia says (as if she could ever mistake anyone else for Lana). “It’s been a while.”
“I heard you’d left Grossberg’s,” Lana says. They fall into step together on the sidewalk without discussion; Mia feels even more like she’s hurrying between classes, comparing notes with Lana on the way. “Fey & Co. now, right?”
“That’s right.” Mia’s not sure if the ripple of indefinable emotion is because Lana’s kept up with her career after all this time, or just the familiar sting of everything associated with her former employer. “It’s been a lot to adjust to, but I just hired an assistant – he helps. What about you, Chief Prosecutor?”
Something tightens in Lana’s face. Mia hasn’t used a magatama in a long time, but she can picture the locks across Lana’s heart clear as day when Lana smiles and says, “It’s good. There’s…a lot to keep track of. Not much time in the courtroom.”
Hmm.
“I have a free hour,” Mia offers, surprising even herself. “Join me for coffee?”
Lana hesitates. “I wish I could,” she says; Mia thinks it’s genuine. “I have a meeting at the precinct. Next time?”
“Sure, of course. I understand.” She does. It doesn’t feel like an excuse, just the truth.
Still, when their paths diverge, Mia watches Lana’s scarf flutter down the sidewalk, and wonders if she should have pressed a little harder.
If not for White, and Grossberg, and her mother –
If. There always were a lot of ifs between them.
Maybe someday, when Mia’s sorted out a few of those ifs – maybe then she’ll ask again.
Chapter 2
Notes:
I wasn't going to make this a two-parter, but the prompt 100 words of post-breakup grief grabbed me, so here's Lana's side of things.
Chapter Text
They were never going to last. College flings usually don’t.
At least, that’s what Lana tells herself, as she walks away from Mia with her shoulders held high. It’s not a crime to drift apart, and that’s all that happened to them. They were never meant to last, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
And still, all the things she might have said hover on her tongue as the sidewalk and streets blur in front of her.
It’s good to see you.
You look good.
I miss you.
It is, and Mia does, and Lana does.
She can’t exactly turn around and say it now, even if she wanted to (and she doesn’t, she tells herself, everything that needs to be said has been said). Her meeting at the precinct is in twenty minutes, and as a general rule she tries not to keep Damon Gant waiting.
Let today be a straightforward case. Something clean. She doesn’t know who it’s directed to. She’s never been much for prayer. Still –
A cold breeze stirs her hair, pulling her scarf out behind her. It feels like autumn, like long days spent running from class to class and nights at the campus coffee shop with one eye on her books and the other on Ema doing homework in front of the fake fireplace. Sometimes Mia came along for those study sessions, and it felt less like work and more like a date, even if it really wasn’t.
Mia would be so disappointed in her, if she knew.
So would Ema, but Ema is fourteen, and doesn’t understand (and if Lana has her way she never will). Mia is too good a lawyer not to understand the gravity of the situation, the depth of what Lana’s done out of desperation. Some things can’t be forgiven – and Lana knows too well it’s all but impossible to lie to Mia.
Even if Gant wasn’t waiting, even if Chief Prosecutor wasn’t a job that came with constant demands on her time, even if Lana had wanted to turn around and say any of those things left unsaid (and she does, god help her) –
They were never going to last. They drifted apart, and for Lana’s sake, and Ema’s, and even Mia’s too, they can’t drift back together.
So Lana walks away without looking back, each footstep a knife in her own heart, and leaves Mia Fey behind.
