Work Text:
The morning of their wedding day is perfect.
The sun is shining through the curtains in their bedroom, falling right on Miranda’s chest, settling there happily. Andy stirs first, anxious already, and hides her face in Miranda’s neck, just breathing in the scent of her. Her soon-to-be wife is still asleep—the pills tend to knock her out for uninterrupted eight hours without a fail—and Andy allows herself to just be, in that perfect moment, in her perfect life, and feel, at last, peace.
They kiss with thirty people as witnesses; a small wedding, just friends and family. No press, none of their fashion contacts, just them, and the people they love, and their everlasting love to be the witness of it all, with them there at last, after twenty years of distance and avoidance and fear.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
Miranda breaks the news three years later, on their sofa, when Andy is nuzzling a cup of tea. She’s in her sleepwear already, even if it’s not that late, reading through some of the newest articles for Runway. Miranda is still in her work clothes, and that should’ve been Andy’s first sign, because Miranda is never in her work clothes at home unless she needs armour, and why would she need armour with Andy?
“Remember the doctor’s visit I had a month ago?” she asks softly, sitting down next to Andy. Andy hums under her breath—later, she’ll be cursing herself for not giving Miranda her full attention from the beginning—and scrolls down on her tablet. “They found something.”
Andy’s eyes snap up, to meet with Miranda’s, clouded with worry. “Something as in…?” she asks carefully, something cold settling in her gut.
Miranda swallows once. Licks her lips; swallows again, something almost painful passing through her face. “They suspect it might be a cluster of carcinogenic cells.”
Suspect. Might be. Cells. Andy holds onto these words like to a lifeline, even if a part of her, deep down in her chest, already knows how it ends.
“Suspect,” she repeats quietly. Miranda is looking at her, very still, breathing slowly and shallowly. Tears start to sting in Andy’s eyes, hot and insistent; she blinks them away.
“They want to run more tests,” Miranda says, “but I should… get myself acquainted with the thought of radiotherapy.”
“It’s this bad?” Andy asks without thinking, and then immediately wants to curse herself for her stupidity. Miranda only smiles, very faintly, very sadly.
“It’s not good, Andrea,” she replies quietly. “It’s not good.”
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
Andy won’t remember much of the next years after that. Won’t remember anything except for the very happy or the very sad moments.
Happy: Miranda taking a week off and going with Andy to Paris again, to see it properly, to kiss in the pouring rain, laughing at how it soaked through their clothes immediately, warm and smelling of warm asphalt and the croissants from the nearby bakery. To drink coffee, and try out pastries, and restaurants, and see museums, and try not to think about what was coming.
Happy: Miranda cooking together with Andy, her face smudged with sauce, her eyes twinkling as she grabs Andy and presses her against the counter, and kisses, and kisses, and kisses with no care for the world.
Happy: Miranda and Andy going out with Cassidy and Caroline, dressed up to be unrecognisable, and just walking through Times Square like normal tourists, stopping to grab street food, because when was the last time Miranda ate something that wasn’t either from a Michelin-starred restaurant or made by Andy?
Sad: the results coming in; breast cancer, with metastases in Miranda’s bones already. The doctors not wanting to give them any concrete dates. Andy crying in Miranda’s arms—selfishly, because how could she be the one crying when Miranda was dying?—choking on her tears until she had to be sedated.
Sad: Amari calling Andy about normal things, usual things, safe things, and Andy’s heart picking up at the sight of her name whenever Miranda wasn’t with her, because what if something happened, what if Miranda passed out, or what if she just died, and Andy was alone, and would stay alone forever—?
Sad: Miranda insisting she’s fine. Smiling at Andy whenever she caught her worried gaze, covering Andy’s hands with hers, weaker now than before, shaking more and more with each passing day. Miranda blaming the ache in her bones for rheumatism and refusing to take medicine for pain, because it was normal. Miranda was fine; it was just her getting old. She could still work. There was no reason for Andy to worry.
Sad: Andy crying, under the soft cover of the night, screaming soundlessly as her heart felt like it was breaking, and breaking, to never be mended again. Crying for all the days she wasn’t going to spend with Miranda. Crying for the twenty years that weren’t given to her, because she was a coward and left Miranda in Paris because she stupidly panicked.
Sad: Andy helping Miranda dress up for the day, in the last months before her death, buttoning her shirt up as Miranda’s shaky fingers couldn’t do that anymore. Passing her a cane; Hermès, bespoke, because nothing Miranda had could be anything less than perfect, even if it was a walking aid without which Miranda was starting to become unable to move.
When she’ll think back about the time Miranda was still with her, it’ll be bittersweet, tainted with her tears, and heartbreak, and the stupid, desperate need to make the most out of the little time she had left with Miranda.
⋆✴︎˚｡⋆
Miranda passes away a month after she became so bedridden she couldn’t come to Runway anymore, two years after Andy found out she had cancer, in the anniversary of their wedding. Andy has been praying for it to be on a different day; she blinks awake from her shallow sleep at Miranda’s side on the anniversary morning instead to find Miranda dying. She’s trying to tell Andy something, reaching out to her, sunlight falling on her chest, just like it did five years earlier.
Miranda’s words die in her throat before she manages to say anything coherent, together with her last breath and with whatever was keeping Andy’s heart whole and beating.