Back to Work (Cobalt)

[Leila Gold]

Finally, after a month of lying around pretending to be a doormat or something even less useful, Leila was going back to work. Even after her release from the hospital she'd been forced to take a week off from work as she "regained her strength." Which meant instead of lying around in the hospital being bored, she was lying around her apartment being bored. But today that was going to change. She packed her fancy new pill case into her purse after fully loading it with the pills for the day--she used a weekly organizer just for one day, since she was taking pills six times a day, though Terrence had assured her this was only temporary. She also packed the rest of her medical equipment, including a thermometer. It made her feel old and sickly, but then it was better than dying suddenly because of a liver rejection.

She had given her extra time this morning so she could walk very slowly in to work. Athena seemed to appreciate being able to get outside again and trotted along at a happy pace, basically doing circles around Leila's slower steps. While Leila was sure her dog had been cared for well during her illness, Athena still perked up considerably as soon as her mistress was home. Together they made their way into town and to the law firm.

Leila let out a huge sigh of relief when she saw the familiar painted window. She hadn't even realized until just now how much she missed that door and all the work it entailed. The door opened with a happy ring and she stepped inside and took a deep breath.

And almost choked.

"Dear God, Blue! Did you let a skunk crawl in here and die in a back corner? It smells awful in here!" She pinched her nose closed with one hand and waved the other in front of her face. "Or has it always smelled this way and I never noticed?"

Leaving the door wide open she went to the back room and stared at the coffee machine for a moment. Remembering some of the notes about changes after liver transplants, she sighed and poured herself a cup of coffee, black. She took a careful sip and winced, then slowly stirred in two sugars. "I'll work down slowly," she told herself. "And it'll keep me healthier, anyway."

She stepped out again and moved over to her desk. "All right, lay it on me," she said, turning to her partner. "What're the current cases, where's the paperwork, and how much legwork do we still need to do on this?" She glanced at her desk. "And why is this thing not completely littered with paper? I expected it'd just get worse since I wasn't here, not better. Or have you hired an intern without telling me?"

[Cobalt Weaver]

Cobalt was incredibly happy that Leila was coming back to work. He didn’t really need her as an intern, not the slow way business was going nowadays, but she was his friend, and he’d been worried about her. Leila coming back to work was another step towards normalcy. But he’d also been given instructions for how she was supposed to behave. And that meant not a whole lot of work for a while. So that was what he was going to do.

Did he expect her to pitch fit about it? Yes. Would that help? Absolutely not. Cobalt had been fairly lenient towards what Leila wanted, but he could dig his heels in with the best of them.

When Leila burst through the door and started yelling about the smell, Cobalt didn’t even look up. Instead, he grinned to himself and continued typing at his computer, “I think it’s always smelled like that. Unless you choose to insinuate that I smell like a dead skunk, in which case, I might feel a little insulted.” Ahh… normalcy. It was so nice.

He casually glanced up over his glasses at her desk, “All right well. The current cases are here,” He pointed to one pile of paper on his desk, “The paperwork is here,” He made a vague, encompassing gesture to his desk as a whole, “And you don’t get to do legwork on this one because I already did it.” He sipped at his coffee, “And your desk is not littered with paper because mine is.” He raised a challenging look at her, “I’ve been given strict instructions to make sure you take it easy. So that’s what I’m gonna do.”

And let the onslaught begin.

[Leila Gold]

"If I did say you smelled like a dead skunk, it wouldn't be the worst compliment someone ever paid you." She bent and kissed the top of his head as she passed into the back room. It was so good to be back and bantering again.

She watched as he pointed out the different piles, noting that he made no move to give her any of the piles. Her eyes narrowed when he mentioned the legwork--it was starting to sound suspicious. Her fears were justified when he made his order about a light load.

"Blue, that was, like, last week! I'm fine now! It's been three weeks since the surgery. I can handle it! I walked here, didn't I?"

She pouted for a moment, then stood and went over to his desk.

"Here, at least let me take these current cases and look over them. You can't take this whole thing yourself. Honestly, Blue, I can take care of myself. It's not like I'm going to just keel over and die if I actually do my job."

[Cobalt Weaver]

Cobalt laughed slightly, “That is hardly the point, I think. But yes. That is true. It certainly wouldn’t.” Oh, this good humor might not last very long. Oh well.

Cobalt held up his hands in a gesture of mock defensiveness, “Well, you weren’t supposed to walk here. I will give you things to do, but you’re not going to go running around town talking people’s ears off yet. Take it slow, will you?” He shook his head slightly before turning back to look at his computer. Almost done filing motions. Rejoice.

At her request, Cobalt pretended to look affronted, “I can so handle this whole thing by myself. In case you forgot, I was handling things myself for years since before you came along. If you’re interested, go ahead and look, but I really did take care of all the legwork.” He stared up at her mildly, “Are you sure? I’m pretty sure that you keeling over and almost dying while doing your job is exactly what happened a few weeks ago. And you’ve only been on your feet three weeks. Just… Chill. Okay?”

[Leila Gold]

"Except that I was supposed to walk here. It's how I get my exercise. I'm supposed to be up and moving around every day and encouraging healthy habits. Don't worry, it's not like I jogged or anything, and it's better than riding my bike or something." She'd been forbidden from all heavy machinery and driving. Which she took to mean anything with wheels. It was probably the safer option, in the end.

"I am taking it slow. Look, I took a whole week off, and it's not like I'm bouncing around all the time. I just...things are all better now. You don't have to be scared any more!" But he was ignoring her. Maybe he was just doing his work as usual, but Leila saw it more as an avoidance strategy.

She flicked through the piles of papers, then looked up and gazed at her partner darkly from under lowered brows. "You can handle this on your own, huh? So, what, is this supposed to be you telling me that I should just leave? That you don't need me, I should just quit and go find an easier job somewhere?" She said all this in a low voice, refusing to shout.

Slamming the papers onto the desk, she stood and went back to her seat. "I don't need to chill. I have been bored out of my mind for three fucking weeks and what I really want is to get back to doing the job that I love and not have someone breathing down my neck all the time because they think I can't handle myself. Well guess what, it wasn't fun when my parents did it back home, and I sure don't need it from you."

Chill was probably the last word one should use to describe her attitude right now. But she wasn't quite done.

"So if you don't want me here, fine, I get it. Just tell me now and I'll get out of your hair and you can go back to doing whatever it was that was so important to you before I walked into your life. I bet you were happy to have me gone again, so you didn't have to deal with having another person in your life. Besides, what do you need me for? You have your own family now, right? A happy little family..." She spit out the words as she swung her bag over her shoulder and headed toward the door.

[Cobalt Weaver]

Cobalt thought they were bantering. He thought the majority of this was only half-serious ribbing. It was how they worked. So when Leila started getting annoyed, Cobalt didn’t notice, instead continuing to work, “I know I don’t have to be scared anymore, but I’m going to continue to be so. But yeah, you should probably lay off the bouncing.” He looked up to give her a sarcastic grin, but it slid off his face at her expression. Somewhere along the way, this got serious, and Cobalt didn’t realize it.

“…No, but I like to remind you that I’m a competent lawyer, same as you. You don’t need to babysit me.” And maybe it was a mistake to add emphasis on the “me”, but Cobalt still didn’t quite understand that Leila was no longer kidding.

He jumped when she slammed the papers down on his desk and blinked, alarmed, when she started yelling at him. He tried to interject, but Leila continued to rant and rage. He stared at her, openmouthed, as each word cut him a little deeper. Eventually, she stopped and headed for the door. Cobalt stood up.

“You stop. Right. Now.” Cobalt growled dangerously, his face angry and hurt, his fists clenched.

“How dare you say something like that. We’re friends. We’re supposed to look out for each other. And you have the nerve to imply that I’m happy that something like this happened to you? That I was glad that you were in the hospital? That I would just… go and have a grand time, knowing you could very well die? At any moment? I tell you to chill because I don’t want to have to rush you to the hospital and worry about you dying anymore. I—I don’t want to have to worry about picking up the pieces of something like that ever again because I can’t. I won’t be able to again, you understand me? And yeah, I have a pretty happy little goddamn family now. Finally. For the first time in my life. But only because you’re a part of it, okay? Because I never would have been able to allow myself even that one bit of happiness that Ben gives me if it wasn’t for you and-and for everything you’ve done for me.”

He sat down heavily in his chair and glared at her, betrayed and tired, “Goddammit, Leila. I went to Church for you.” He knew she wouldn’t totally understand that, but it seemed important for her to know. He pinched the bridge of his nose, “…Fine. Just go. I’m not going to make you stay anymore.”

[Leila Gold]

Leila froze in her tracks, hand clenched on the door frame and foot still raised to take the next step. She dropped her head and let her loose hair fall into her face, listening to the tirade.

The thing was, she knew she was wrong. She was wrong to have said those things, and she knew that none of it was true. Hadn't Cobalt been over every single day checking on her? Hadn't he sat the entire time of the operation in the waiting room, just to see if she was okay? He had done everything possible for her, yet she had practically slapped him and threatened to leave. He didn't deserve any of it, and that, more than anything else, was what hurt the most.

The long and short of it was, Cobalt was too good to her. He was too good, too kind a person to deserve someone as broken as she was. Someone as selfish, spiteful, and mean. Someone who could be jealous that her father had finally found someone else to be with.

Despite everything he said, Leila was convinced that he was wrong. He didn't need her. He truly would be better off if she left. He didn't need to have to worry about her all the time, didn't deserve to have to put up with all of that. More than anything else, Leila felt ashamed of herself, for what she had said and for what she had to do now in order to fix everything.

Licking her lips, she whistled to Athena, ready to listen to Cobalt's last words. The whistle was shaky, but she steadied her breath and whistled again, harder. And she refused to wipe away the tears running down her cheeks, because so long as they were hidden by her hair Cobalt wouldn't have to know she was crying as she walked out the door. So she stood and waited for her dog to come to her.

But Athena was still stubbornly sitting by the desk, gazing mournfully at her mistress. Leila turned and went to go get her dog, keeping her head bent. As she bent over, though, Athena gave a small whimper.

"Come on, Athena," Leila whispered. "We need to...to..." Without meaning to she glanced over at Cobalt. And broke.

She sat next to her dog and sobbed, clutching her knees to her chest and crying onto her bent legs. "I'm s-s-so sorry, Blue. I'm sorry. I'll l-leave, I p-promise. J-just, don't...don't..."

[Cobalt Weaver]

Cobalt knew he’d probably gone too far, saying all those things to her. And if he knew what she was thinking, he might have cried, just a little bit. The fact of the matter was, they were both sort of falling apart a little and both were far too proud to ask for help or admit defeat. When she tried to whistle for her dog, Cobalt looked up from where he’d rested his head in his hands. It took a moment for him to realize Leila was crying, and at that moment of realization, she broke down, sitting on the floor next to Athena.

Cobalt was on his feet in an instant, crossing the room in a few steps. He sat down next to her—kneeling was out of the question anyways—and looped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into a hug. “Oh, no, Leila.” Cobalt shook his head at her apology, “I’m sorry. It’s okay. We’re okay. You’re fine. Shhh... you're okay.” He rested his head on hers for a moment, waiting for her shoulders to stop hitching.

“Hey. Look.” Cobalt paused a moment, both to gather his thoughts and get her attention, “Ben… He makes me happy. Or. Well, he’s starting to. At last, he’s not as stressful. Anyways.” Pause. Start over. “He makes me happy, but he’s not the only important person in my life. Not by a long shot. And I’m sorry if I make you think that.” He rubbed her shoulder gently, “I need you around, kid. And I need someone to remind me I’m full of crap every once in a while. Who else is gonna do it? Josh? Riley?” He joked mildly, hoping to tease a smile out of her, “Besides, I’m only gonna say this once, and it’s probably gonna come back to bite me later, but you’re usually right about that kind of stuff.”

He sighed a little and leaned back against the wall. What a pair they made. The thought made him laugh a little. “This is what happens when we finally talk about our feelings.” He chuckled a little.

[Leila Gold]

She let herself fall into Cobalt's hug, even to the point where she embarrassed herself by crying into his shoulder. Once she had cried herself out and managed to wipe away her snotty tears, she blinked blearily up at her boss and father figure.

"I just, I didn't think..." But she couldn't really get a full sentence out, and then Cobalt was talking again, so Leila just sat quietly and listened, looking down at her hands, clasped around her legs. She slowly raised her head to look him in the eye, using a small breeze to brush her hair back. A tiny smile crept onto her face when he joked around. "Yeah, I guess that's true," she said with a small laugh and a large sniff. "Those guys are pushovers."

She sat back against the wall. "Thanks, Blue. I really am sorry. I just...I'm really scared. And I don't like to talk about it and I don't really want to say anything about it but I just...everything's so different now. And I don't want it to be. I want everything to just go back to the way it was. But I'm so scared because that's never going to happen." In more ways than one, the world had shifted. And she wasn't ready for the change.

Resting her head, which was once again pounding, against the wall, she closed her eyes and smiled. "Yeah, we're a bunch of stupid saps," she said. "Pot and kettle. Don't ask me who's who."

Reaching down to Athena, she scratched the dog behind the ears. "You're the only really smart one here, aren't you?" she asked her pet. The corgi just rested her head on her paws and gave what might have been a contented smile.

Leila rested her head on Cobalt's shoulder as they sat together for a moment. Then she sat up straight again. "Well," she said, standing again. "I think maybe I'd like to try this again. What do you think?"

She went to the door and walked outside for a moment, closing the door behind her and counting to three. Then she opened it again and walked toward Cobalt. "Hello," she said, extending her hand. "My name is Leila Gold. I'm here because I would like to ask for a position with your law firm. I'm trying to make a fresh start, and this is the place I want to be. What do you say?"