The Devil’s Fall from Grace, Chapter 4


Pairing: Miranda/Andy
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Andy leaves after Paris. Miranda doesn't react well.




She’d always been one to follow through on a decision once she’d made it and never one to suffer from nerves. But, as she raised the receiver with a shaking hand and listened to the shrill ring, she seriously doubted the logic behind her actions.

“Hello,” a voice answered on the fourth ring.

“Andrea,” she gasped, her voice almost unrecognisable with emotion.

“Miranda?” Andy’s voice wouldn’t have sounded more shocked if she’d been trying. Of course, Miranda had disguised her called ID - she hadn’t wanted to be ignored.

“Yes. Where are you?” she asked, regaining control of her emotions.

“I’m working in London,” Andy answered sounding slightly suspicious.

“What you couldn’t find a job in the Land of Opportunity? You had to take one from the Brits?” she regretted the words as soon as the left her mouth. She continued quickly, not wanting the younger woman to hang up. “I…” she couldn’t remember the last time she’s apologised. “I wanted to see you.”

“Well… the Mirror sent me here to work on a story about the Embassy, so I…”

Miranda wasn’t sure whether she was explaining herself of babbling, they often sounded the same coming from Andrea. “When do you return to New York?” she asked.

“Three weeks, maybe more, it depends on how…”

“I shall call you then,” Miranda said, then hung up.

Three weeks, that was simply unacceptable.

“Sophia, make arrangements for the girls to stay at their grandmother’s, then book me on a flight to London, then get me a coffee. Emily, go to my house and pack me a case.” Miranda barely raised her voice, she didn’t have to when people would fall over themselves to hear what she had to say.


Fours hours later, she was flicking through British Vogue as the plane took off for England. It had been a simple matter to find out where Andy was staying, and simpler still to book a room at her preffered hotel for the next three nights. Leaning back in her seat, a luxury she would never had afforded herself had she been travelling with employees, she closed her eyes and prepared herself for the flight.

She must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew it was dark. Looking out of the window, she tried to determine where they were, but it was too dark and all she could see was the flashing light on the wing. Sparing a contemptuous glare for the flight attendant offering complimentary mints, she watched as the wing, a dark slash against the blue black sky, tilted and, deep in her stomach, she felt the beginning of the descent. Outside the window, a series of long, orange lines, scars on the English landscape, came together to form the irregular circle that was London, a majestic spider in the centre of its web.

Falling in love, she mused, was a lot like landing. Plummeting head first into the unknown, not normally even aware you’re falling until informed by somebody else, after which you brace yourself, anxious of crashing, but excited by the unknown of what lay before you, although occasionally jarred by the bumps in the road you remain confindent that it will all be worth it. Then you land, and you realise the unknown isn’t exciting at all, but rather quite messy and almost painfully familiar, only the air is different and you feel more weighed down than usual, until you get used to it and start to ignore it.

She had to stop thinking quite so deeply, it couldn’t be good for her health, she thought as she disembarked.

Heathrow wasn’t untidy, she thought with disinterest.