Title: And We Felt True Author: battling-bard Rating: M-ish, for references to particular scenes in a particular show.

Summary: An AU Achele fic. Di's a "normal" human being living in NYC. Lea's on Broadway. They may eventually meet. --------------------------------------------------------------------On the subway home, she finally gets a chance to check her iPhone. It takes a minute for the Tumblr app to open -- stupid new update messed everything up -- and then they go through a tunnel and she loses the signal but finally, finally, four stops from home, her last post loads. She loves looking at those photos -- she got so lucky, walking home just when they were hanging the new neon over the Eugene O'Neill, and there's this incredible shot where the welding sparks are still falling and the neon's just flickered on behind it -- and she's beyond excited that others like them too. She texts Naya, only because she's the first contact to come up when she opens her messages; Nay had texted her last night to say she had a whole line in an upcoming episode of House, where she plays a concerned daughter who questions the doctor's unusual treatments for her father's skin rash. The last text is still there: i have to honestly ask "is it lupus?" i plan to fuck it up as many times as possible. fuq the police She types quickly: Nay!!! She deletes six of the original exclamation points before sending. Three is not nearly enough to express her excitement, but Naya will complain of an enthusiasm headache if she sends more. o cripes D, wat now? Guess how many notes my pics of the crane and neon sign got??? A few minutes pass. Dianna hops off the subway and climbs the stairs to her street. Halfway home, her phone finally buzzes: u need a hobby. She doesn't stop walking, just dodges around a hundred other New Yorkers on their own phones while she types quickly. I have one! And people love it! Guess how many!! 1000? Now Di is the one slow to respond. She struggles with her keys and tries to pretend that's why she hasn't answered. Finally she writes: 630

She works hard not to add ellipses and a sad face after it. Arthur's all over her as soon as she's in the door, bouncing a foot off the ground and barking in joy. She rubs his head and chucks her keys on the counter as she grabs his leash and hooks it on. Naya replies: that's still a lot Di tucks the phone in her jacket pocket, throws in her earbuds and grabs her Nikon, and lets Arthur drag her outside. She knows it's not that he's lonely all day. Her neighbor Jon takes him to the rooftop dog park every afternoon with his own dog (who names a corgi Oliver, honestly, and the dog is just as dumb as a box of rocks, but at least he's good company) -- but Arthur loves her, and their walks are the best of everything in his very good New York Dog life. She puts her long hair up in a pony and tries to forget about work as Arthur sniffs the hydrant on the corner. Something was wrong with one of the major accounts today, so everybody was hyper-tense and no one wanted to take their damn phone calls. If you're just going to send everything to voicemail, why have a receptionist slash secretary at all? (Of course, if they didn't, she'd be out of a job. So don't tell them, shhh!) Halfway down the block, her pocket buzzes, but she doesn't check it till they get to the park. Nay's texted her three more times by then. sorry ill give u some exclusive naya rivera vagina to "leak" definitely break 1000 notes and itll boost my street cred. & probably do a lot more for my resume than anything else ive tried The fourth is a photo of Naya, plaid shirt undone, fingers playing with the button of her jeans, winking at the camera. Di can't help but laugh. I'm sure your agent would appreciate that. when jaime gets me better parts then dead body 3 on csi, then he can make decisions about who gets to see my snatch and who doesnt I would rather not be the first. if u think ud be the first u dont know me very well

This is why she loves Naya: because she's so ridiculously crude. None of her other friends are like this. Dianna really shouldn't have majored in social work; first of all, there's no money in it (and no jobs, right now) and second, all her friends are such prudes. Like having a little fun might get back to the office and you won't be considered a Voice of Authority on treatment placement if they find out you were doing body shots on Saturday night. She'll always be grateful to Julie for introducing them, back when Naya was placating her parents by pretending to go for a degree at NYU while really just biding her time till she could save up enough "tuition money" to move to LA. Julie was dating Naya's ex-boyfriend, and tried to make nice by suggesting Di do some headshots. Naya still uses them. Which is maybe why she's not getting any work. That's what Di always says, and Naya always hits her, or hangs up on her, or texts her a photo of her middle finger (depending on their method of communication at the time). And that's kind of what Di wants: for someone in "the biz" (even if they're mostly playing walk-ons and dead bodies) to say that she's doing something right. She loves doing headshots, building that relationship, getting to know that person, seeing their personality and possibilities come alive as she clicks away. It's much more fun than babies and engagements and families when everyone just wants pictures that make you go "Awww." Headshots make her nervous, in that anticipatory, high-strung, ball of energy kind of way; it's not just something to go in the Christmas cards, it's someone's entire career riding on your ability to capture them in a single frame. She actually thinks she's pretty good at it. She just wouldn't admit that out loud. btw ill be in nyc on thurs. crashing at ur place It's not a question. Di smiles, and Arthur noses her hand; he's found a stick. She unhooks his leash and throws it, and watches as he tumbles over himself in his haste to get it back. What's up? A role? god i wish. Corys in an off-off-broad produc of Wicked. plus mom wants to see me. Wicked's a good show. ugh nothing is good off-off Can I come? u and ur shows! ill never understand ur love for musicals Di considers this and throws the stick for Arthur again, before replying: You already got me a ticket, didn't you.

ill never let u down, lady d. see you thurs They walk home as evening falls. Orange sunlight plays off a mirrored building, and Di stands there, shooting picture after picture, pausing every few moments to wait for a cloud to pass into the perfect spot. She never quite gets it right. Not with any picture. She always wants to see something more, something that changes her. There are plenty of pictures that she loves, that she's secretly proud of, but everything's always where she expected it to be. Just once, she wants to see something more when she looks through the lens. Right now, all she does is capture what she sees -- bottles it in a glass jar and seals the lid tight. It's not a bad thing. She just wants something bigger. She doesn't know what it is or where to find it or if it even exists. She just knows that longing, that burning in her chest, for something more. -------------------------------------------"Can I wear this?" Naya doesn't even bother to lift her head. Di hears her roll her eyes, more than sees it. "You live here, in the heart of the city that makes fashion. How can you not dress yourself?" But she's smirking, and after a moment, her dark eyes flicker up and take Di in. "You look hot. Skinny jeans are good to you." Di turns and zips up her other boot. When she stands, she sees Nay watching her, and she rolls her hips with a laugh. Nay has always been jealous of her ass. "You're such a bitch," says Nay, laughing, but she swings herself up and straightens out her scoop neck. "Ready to go?" asks Di, turning to grab her clutch, when Naya suddenly attacks her in a hug, burying her cheek into her shoulder. Di tries to turn and look at her, but all she gets is a head of thick dark hair. "Nay?" "Sorry." Naya shakes herself off. "Just feeling funny." "Do you not wanna go?" "No, no, I just ... it was just a bad week, and Mom was all over me to come back and finish school, or maybe try to do it part-time out there." She shrugs. "I'm just glad I'm staying here. You don't treat me like a failed daughter." She laughs, trying to change the subject. "Or a star. Amber's texted me four times since she heard I was coming to the show tonight, asking if she can get my manager's card. Like

I'm so successful. Jaime should be so lucky to get another client from me, ever." She's ranting, which she often does when she comes to the city. Di pulls her in for another hug, a real one, hip to hip, cheek to cheek. Naya sighs. "You just make me feel normal, you know?" Di nuzzles her cheek. "That's 'cause I'm normal." "Nice normal. Not boring normal. Sane normal." "Stop kissing my ass," says Di, pulling back with a smirk. "I bet people would pay good money to kiss that ass. You should sell it as a model for cosmetic work." Di kisses Arthur and grabs her keys. Naya keeps talking, mostly to entertain herself. "Someday you'll get good enough to photograph it myself, and then you'll have a truly winning portfolio." Locking the door, Di chuckles. "Your vag and my ass. Now we just need some great boobs. Triple threat photography." "I'll cover those too. My tits are the absolute best," says Nay with pride, wrapping an arm around her best friend's waist. -----------------------------------------Di flips through the playbill, excited to finally see one of her favorite shows live, instead of desperately trying to reconstruct it through bootlegged YouTube videos from the Broadway original. There's a funny feeling in her stomach as they struggle to find their seats in the dark of the tiny theater. It's anticipation, that buzz along the inside of her arms that says she should have brought her camera, that something beautiful is about to happen. She's disappointed to find that along with the tiny space came a tiny budget, and all the scenery and nearly all the props are spray-painted black. She figures the director wants her to use her imagination, but all she can do is imagine that there's a stage manager somewhere with dark paint flecks under her fingernails for eternity. The singing's good, and the acting is passable -- Cory, who's playing Fiyero, is too tall for everything and sort of stumbles around, but when he sings it's easy to forget that he can't do much else. There's some serious eye contact during "For Good," and Naya whispers that Cory walked in on them in a very compromising position (of which Nay is glad, of course, to whisper none-too-quietly the extensive detail) a week ago. Di shrugs it off. The girls are good, she thinks, but how can you ever listen to anyone else once you've heard Kristin and Idina? After the show, Cory invites Naya to join half the cast for drinks at a nearby bar. Di would love to slip away, but that's not an option, so she throws on her most winning smile and peruses her phone in a corner of the bar while the rest of them shout about what they did the last time they went drinking, or

what they'll do next time, or how drunk one of them is right now. Someone appears next to Di, and she'd really rather not chat, but the shadow is persistent. She feels that swoop in her stomach -- that anticipation of beauty -- and looks up. It's one of Naya's friends. Some guy she was in a show with at NYU in her freshman year. He was in the chorus tonight, and did a decent job, though he kept cheating out to the audience when the rest of the Emerald City dwellers were paying attention to Glinda. He flashes a grin at her, and she remembers his name: Darren. "Hey," he says. "Having fun?" It's a stupid question, because she's obviously not, but she knows how to be polite. She puts away her phone and smiles back. "Great time." "Are you busy tomorrow night?" Di doesn't get it. She knows that Darren's attractive, reasonably tolerable if Naya's friends with him. He likes musicals, so they'd have that in common. So why does she have no interest in going out tomorrow? But she's too sweet -- she always has been -- and she can't lie -- she never could, so she ends up with his number and a time and place to meet him tomorrow. Dinner and "a show," he says, mysteriously, and she wonders if he's got tickets to something a little more on Broadway, and that would be exciting and beautiful. --------------------------------The show turns out to be Mystery Science Theater 3000 at one of the old screens in midtown, which is actually awesome, and she's excited. And pleased. Dinner is pleasant, and he insists on paying, which is impressive for a guy whose main source of income is decidedly under the average. This wasn't so bad, she thinks. Dating's not ... that awful. Maybe, as Naya pointed out, she's got her sights set too high. She's looking for too much. She wants lightning bolts, fireworks, laws of physics defied, unstoppable force meets immovable object. Maybe this is what she needs, though - a nice guy who takes her out to laugh at stupid movies. Maybe this is all she's gonna get. She won't find out tonight, though, because three miles from the theater, the cabbie suddenly curses in a language unknown to her, and then the hood starts smoking. He pulls over, they climb out, and she kicks herself for not even bringing the baby Nikon, because the streetlamp's light hits the white smoke in a really interesting way, and the cabbie's flinging his hat at the fumes like that will help at all. She couldn't stage a better set, honestly. She always forgets the damn camera.

She looks around, if only to forget that she's missing some great shots, and realizes where they are. "Hey!" She turns to Darren, eyes alight. "We're three blocks from Broadway!" He looks around, lost, and then pretends to agree. "Y-yeah, we are!" She knows he has no idea where they are -- like many New Yorkers, he has no sense of direction -- but she glosses over it. "We could walk to the Eugene from here." He shrugs. "I don't think they'll have tickets available." "We can still try to rush. Come on! It'll be fun!" She's already decided she's going without him, and maybe it shows in her eyes, because he quickly says: "Okay, sure." She's been excited ever since she saw the letters under the new neon last week. She remembers reading about the "rising star," whoever she is -- L something -- she did the voice of the little girl in Ragtine, which Dianna knows by heart, of course. Di remembers the show's title from a review, when it was at the Atlantic, and the CD's actually lying unopened on her desk at home. It's unusual for her not to have listened to it, but she's been on a weird Sondheim kick this month, and it just didn't fit in. It's weird for her to go to a show without knowing the music first, but she'll take the very-off chance of rush tickets for the newest Broadway hit over her usual method of waiting for years for it to get popular enough for no-name theaters to start imitating the original. As they wait in line, her stomach bubbles, and she wonders if this is the beauty she's been waiting for. When they get the last rush tickets, a pair in the very back row, she thinks that maybe this is it. A guy who's willing to toss the night's plans in the hopes of catching a Broadway show. It's not a bad life, she thinks. She could do that. It's not more, but maybe she's just not going to get more.

----------------------------------The curtain rises, the violins trip through the dark, and a xylophone traces a line through that slightlyoff sound that everyone loves to write these days. Dianna longs for the old stuff, sometimes -- the grand swells of the golden age of musicals, the overtures that gave you that delicious and tantalizing taste, like Shakespeare's narrators warning you of the star-crossed lovers to come. Tonight, instead, she gets a bunch of dry-ice smoke and a chair and this tiny figure in the midst of it all as one spot breaks through the darkness. And then that creature breathes, and everything shatters. Mama who bore me Mama who gave me No way to handle things Who made me so sad It's frantic, and painful, and erotic, and Di's heart has completely left her chest and turned into a sparkling ball of fire and light and air. She laughs, and holds her breath, and cries, and gasps, and does everything along with everyone else, like she's sitting on the stage, like she's there in Germany in 1892 feeling everything they feel. Oh, if this is what it's like to see a Broadway show, knowing nothing about it but the name on the playbill she was handed, then give her this for the rest of her life and let her die in it. Let her die tonight, now, this minute, so she'll never hear another voice but the angel singing Let that be my story. Let her die, now, because living could never be better than this moment. ---------------------------------------------------------------Darren is not so impressed. "I just don't care for the new stuff," he says. "The classics are where it's at." Dianna whips her head so fast she sees her hair fly, and it hasn't settled before the words cut her lips: "This from a boy who chants Wickedness must be punished six nights a week." He blinks, surprised, and she's surprised too -- she's not normally so ... angry, about anything -- but how could he not see how amazing that all just was? How could he ruin it with his stupid voice and idiot smile and bushy eyebrows? Ugh. "Wanna grab a drink?" he asks. "Maybe we'll have better luck with the next cab."

She does something she's never done before: she lies without even thinking. "I can't. I have an early shoot tomorrow morning." "Okay, cool." He shrugs and waves for a taxi headed north. "Do you need money for your cab?" He's such a gentleman. She really is impressed by that. Even if he's an idiot. "Thanks, I'm good," she tells him, because she doesn't want to take more of his money and she's probably going to take the subway, honestly, even though it's late at night. He doesn't take it as an insult, which is good, because she doesn't mean it as one; she's being polite, not rude, really. "Call me," he says, crawling into the backseat, and she doesn't even remember to wave distractedly as he shuts the door. She turns south, for the Broadway line, but stops and looks up at the sign. Spring Awakening. The neon looks great. She wishes she had her camera. There's a bustling, just beyond the wall of the theater, and Di's musing and dawdling and hungry to crawl back inside the music and the smoke of the stage, and her feet move without her direction. The crowd around the stage door is murmuring, pushing each other lightly -- pretty polite for New Yorkers, although the theater crowd's usually decent -- and then there's a rise of voices and excitement as the door opens and Melchior comes out. What was his name? Jon something. She opens her playbill. Jonathan. He was really good. In a ... well, she didn't really have a way to judge ... Now that the show is over, and the wet smell of the city is seeping into her brain, she realizes how very weird it is to watch two people having sex on stage. She wonders if Jonathan and Lea are sleeping together offstage, as well. She feels sick. Well, why wouldn't she? It's private, sex is, and it's weird to think about two people having sex on stage in front of thousands of people and then going home and doing it again. She appreciates, suddenly, how confident Lea must be about her body. Not that there's anything to not be confident about, but -- the girl gets top-naked in front of hundreds of people every night. You've gotta have some serious self-love to be able to do that and not break out in hives. Di would most certainly break out in hives. She's breaking out in hives just thinking about it, right now. She unbuttons her coat and pulls at her scarf. Geez, it's warm out here. Her temperature rockets up when the door opens again and Lea, hair swirled up in an elegant bun, steps out. The crowd roars, and Jonathan over-elegantly bows to her, and she curtsies back.

Di can't catalog everything happening to her right now: tingling in her stomach, pricking along her spine, collarbone heating up, knees a little wobbly. And why not? The girl is amazing. Phenomenal. "Rising star" does not cover it. "The next Barbra Streisand" might come close but just barely. She's just -- she's beyond words. Why does she not have her camera with her! Lea's even more beautiful up close. She was darkly, painfully intense on stage, but now she radiates happiness. She's signing playbills with a silver Sharpie, making eye contact with each fan, asking their name, checking the spelling. Jonathan, who trails behind her, whispers something and she laughs -- her smile cracking wide, her entire face a beacon of joy, a musical tumble of giggles, then closing back to the delighted grin. Di wonders if she could photograph that, a series of shots from smile to laugh and back. Not wonders if she could do the sequence itself, mind you, because that's a basic engagement photo shot, but could she catch Lea doing it? It's just taking the shots, right? For the first time in the twentysome years she's been looking at life through a lens, Di feels like she just saw something she couldn't capture. Whatever Lea is, she's more than a photo could hold. Dianna's lost in this thought, this immense sense of being totally unable to capture and deal with reality, and then reality breaks in and shakes her awake, in the form of a small hand reaching for her half-outstretched playbill, and a sweet voice asking: "Who do I make it out to?" Di tosses her head, laughing at herself, and looks up. Lea's eyes are dark, and shining, and they look straight into hers. Di must have her camera with her, and she must be inside it, because everything just stopped. She's standing outside this, looking at a frame of it, of this moment, this single event in her life that is beyond lenses and filters and F-stops and film and digital and prints and everything she uses to catalog moments of beauty. There's no way to bottle and stopper this. It's just a moment, a fleeting and heartstopping moment in time, and she'll never get it back, so please God, let her just die right here. Every other moment of beauty, of purity, of joy, of brilliance, every other good moment in her life -she'd trade them for this to last a second more. "Wandalanda? You forget how to spell your name?" Jonathan's hand reaches for Di's playbill. Curse every god ever invented for not letting her die right there. (Lea seems to have a strange, existential effect on her; she just wants to die rather than move on to anything else.) Lea laughs, pulling back into herself, but she keeps her eyes on Dianna. Jonathan scrawls his name and passes the program to her, then crosses behind her to keep moving to his left, grinning and signing like the star he is. It reminds Dianna who she is, and what's going on; she reaches for her playbill, but Lea's still holding it close. "Hi," she says.

Oh, well ... that's new. "H-hi," stammers Dianna, wondering if that's her heart pounding or if an orchestra entirely made of timpanis has set up shop in her ribs. "Hi," says Lea, again. Di likes this game. "Hi." "I'm Lea," she says, as if they're meeting on the first day of kindergarten. "Dianna," she replies, and she wonders how she got her name through her lips when she's grinning as widely as she is. And then -- oh no, no, please no -- oh yes, she keeps talking. "You were amazing. That was -- that was incredible. I don't even have words. Thank you, for sharing who you are with us. That was just -- beyond anything I'd ever experienced before." Lea smiles, and there's a long moment again when everything just sort of crawls, and Di has that same damn death wish, only now there's a tinge of embarrassment. It's shorter, too, because the crowd gets noisy, and Lea seems to remember where she is. "Thanks for coming, Dianna," Lea says, and bites her lower lip. Oh, wow. Wow. That's -- wow. Then the lip bite fades into a smile, and she leans close, sucks in a breath, and seems to want to say something in just above a whisper. Now Di's quite sure she has actually died, because -- did that just? Did she really? Is she serious? Is this happening? Lea comes to herself, again, and pulls back, nearly dropping her pen, and when Dianna reaches for it, she ends up with her fingers wrapped around Lea's. Oh. Oh... wow. Okay. Wow. Um. Wow. Is her hand on fire? Is it made of sparklers, or maybe electrons? Are there wizards involved? It definitely seems there are wizards involved right now. Lea's smile is stunning, but shy, and she signs the playbill slowly and deliberately. When she releases it, she squeezes Di's hand for just a moment, and then lets go. "Thank you," Di stutters out -- at least she thinks she did, but she's not entirely sure, because this can't be real, any of it, and yet here she is, with a crowd pressing in on all sides, in a far-too-warm coat in a city that always smells wet and she just met Lea Michele. (It no longer matters that she didn't know who she was until they'd bought their tickets. Starring roles in all Broadway shows, from this day forth, should go to Lea Michele. No one will ever be better and no one else is worth remembering. End of discussion.) When Dianna finally blinks, a few years later (at least in heart's time), Lea's moved on to the next adoring fan, and there's that weird swoop in Di's stomach again. She watches her as she steps down the line of people. She tries not to, but - wow! She's just so -amazing! And she said Hi! And Thank you! It's awesome. It's the best moment of her life. The best words of her life. Can she really just die right here? This is really, really nice. Di looks down at the playbill, because she has to look at something else eventually.

To Dianna You're beautiful. Lea Michele Sarfati When Di finally remembers to breathe, Lea and Jonathan are climbing into the backseat of a cab. Jonathan is holding the door for her, and Lea leans inside, but then pulls back and looks up. She's looking for Dianna. At least that's what Dianna hopes, for no reason she can put words or pictures to, and when Lea's eyes meet hers for the last time, she wants it to be the very last moment of her life. Because it feels like the first. ---------------------------------------------------------------She can't stop humming. She can't stop humming, or dancing in the kitchen, and when she's not moving to some unknown music in her head she's reading Pablo Neruda with happy tears streaming down her cheeks. Who knows why? A girl's allowed to be happy, isn't she? Of course she is. She's looked up Lea a few times online (...maybe more than a few times), but she can't read things for more than a few minutes before she has to shut it down and walk into another room. It just feels invasive and weird. Of course she's read about celebrities before -- hello, this is America -- but she's actually met Lea, for a brief moment (that felt like it lasted a day and a half) and she doesn't feel like it's right to collect pictures and stalk her Twitter like she's done with other stars she admires. (But she keeps going back to it. And when Lea tweets about Central Park she nearly kills herself getting there. Di doesn't see her, of course.) She's dancing with a spoon and a bowl of cookie dough -- why she's suddenly feeling domestic and crafty, she has no idea, really! -- in her kitchen at three twenty-seven a.m., singing along to country music, and that's what convinces her that something has gone very, very wrong in her brain. She grabs her phone. Nay? She gets a response immediately. D! hows life, wats up She'd like to know that herself, really. What is up? Why does "Fearless" suddenly make her want to lindy hop around her kitchen table? Why hasn't she picked up her camera in three days? Why does she have twenty-seven reviews bookmarked, and why has she looked up the full names and contact information for the three negative ones?

She thinks too long, or Naya's too smart, or both, because another text comes through: IT'S GOT TO BE 3 A.M. THERE. ARE YOU DRUNK?? Di puts down the bowl, turns off the radio, and types: Do you think you could fall in love with a woman? She hits Send before she realizes what she's written. Shit! Shit! Take it back! Unsend! Why does the iPhone not have an unsend! Everyone needs an unsend in their life! Get on it, Apple team! Create it and get it in her phone ten seconds ago so she can stop that message from flying on little cyber wings out to California. She throws her phone across the room, into the couch, and flops down into a chair. Shit, shit, shit. Wait. In love? The phone buzzes, and she crosses the room slowly. i knew this day would come. She did? Another message immediately follows. D, i adore you, but u r just not my type Oh, thank God for Naya. Di laughs, rubbing her brow, and flings herself onto the couch, dropping her feet over the arm. Nay texts again: in seriousness, yes i do. im half dead over this dancer chick in the music vid im background for. Di doesn't remember the music video gig; it must be recent. Naya's texts come in rapid succession now. she's got a bf, of course. know what i call him? toldemort! because his name is Taylor and he is like Voldemort HE WHO SHOULD NOT BE DATED

date Naya instead i is much prettier Di doesn't know how to respond: she wants to laugh, she wants to cry, she wants to fly to L.A. and hug Naya and stay up all night watching South of Nowhere (which just took on a whole new meaning in their friendship). Her phone rings. Her heart pounds, against her will, the way it has every time in the past three days when her phone has rung or she's had a new email, and as much as she wants to pretend she's not hoping that Lea Michele Sarfati is on the other end... that's exactly what she's hoping. It's Naya. "You're being serious. You're being serious. I didn't mean to joke, D! Oh my God, tell me all about her!" "There's nothing to tell," says Di, and spends the next half hour telling it, every moment, every second, from that spotlight turning on to the cab door closing, and the whole time she keeps saying "But we've never actually met" and "I know nothing about her." She's not sure if she's trying to convince Naya, or herself. After the fourth "Really, it's nothing, it's just a thing," she can hear Naya yawn, and she's a smart enough friend to not apologize for keeping her up late, even though she wants to. "Lady D." "Yeah." "It sounds -- okay, it sounds really nice, but maybe you should get to know the girl before you start using the L word." A chuckle turns into a yawn. "Either of them." She knows Naya's right. She wants to agree with her. It's just -- there's something more to this, more than just "nice". Not that she'll ever find out what that more is, because -- really? This is Lea Michele we're talking about here. And she's just Dianna Agron. Sure, she's a kickass amateur photographer, and she's really great with Excel spreadsheets, and she has the cutest dog in the world, but this is Lea Michele.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------"Who are you looking for?" Jonathan weaves his arm through hers, beaming at a nearby camera as he turns her to face him. "What?" Lea asks, glancing over his shoulder. "You've hardly made eye contact with anyone for two seconds. Including the cameras. Who are you looking for?" "I'm not looking for anyone." But she says it while scanning the crowd. "Sure," he says, "and I wouldn't pass my number to that E! news anchor in a heartbeat if I didn't know he'd just turn around and sell it to Perez. Lea. Come on. Tell Groffles what's up." "Nothing's up. I'm just ... nothing's up." She forces herself to hold eye contact with him. He laughs and looks away from her. "It's all young blondes. If you're trying to cut Molina, she's not showing tonight." If she wasn't standing on a red carpet, with flashes going off like strobe lights, she might frown and press a hand to her head. But, as things are, all she can do is allow her brow to wrinkle for half a second before she's fake-smiling again. She's not entirely sure her arm can bend that far in this dress, anyway. She feels a little like a teal penguin. "You look lovely," Jonathan tells her, and she breathes out a thankful sigh for his ability to read her mind. "You too," she says, and fixes his tie for a photo op; a murmur ripples through the paparazzi, and soon she's nearly blinded from the lights. He grins down at her, and she flashes her dazzling star smile up at him. "Why would I want to cut Lauren?" she asks, not showing the puzzlement on her face. Jonathan puts her arm in his and spins her around, showing her off as he says with a puppy-dog sound to his voice, "Sweeney Todd? Cut?" She makes no response. They turn away, continuing their walk to the double doors, and he murmurs to her, "Something's definitely up with you when you don't appreciate my stage-related humor." "Perhaps I just thought it wasn't up to snuff." "Oh, puh-leeze," he says, pulling out a chair for her. "You've been looking everywhere for someone. I swear you had your eyes on the audience during 'I Believe' last night. Who are you looking for?" He's not wrong. She's been looking everywhere. On the street, in coffee shops, in her favorite vegan deli - she even went to a real deli the other day, just because she felt like maybe she should.

She's looking in the front row of every show (the only row she can see, but it doesn't stop her trying to look everywhere else), in the crowds outside the stage door. Lea's frustrated and she doesn't know why. She's looking for someone, and she has no idea who. They do an outdoor shoot in costume, frolicking through a carefully roped-off section of Central Park, and she's pleased when a crowd of onlookers shows up along with the 'razzi; she's going to attribute that to her Twitter account, thank you very much. The pride fades, though, when she scans the crowd of fans and finds again that whoever she's looking for isn't there -- and the whole shoot, she can't shake these tingles in her stomach and prickling of her skin. Like she's naked in front of them. Even though she has her clothes on. (Of course, if they're following her on Twitter, they've probably been to the show and that means they've probably seen her sans clothes, so why she cares is a mystery, but still. It feels weird.) She never finds who she's looking for. Two days later, Jonathan texts her, saying "You've got a fan with a good shot" and a link to a Tumblr page. It's creepy, but he does it all the time, and she's sick of checking them -- half the time it's just a RickRoll anyway. It's probably some photoshopped image of a ceiling fan with a gun strapped to it. She rolls her eyes and deletes the text. She checks her favorite coffee shop, even walking to the back to check the tables, before she remembers that she decided she's not checking for anyone. Jenna texts her that weekend; her brother Carl, whom Lea adores, and his wife Melanie just got a portrait session done with the new baby. Baby Ushkowitz is just too adorable not to gaze at for hours, so she waits until Monday when she can stay in bed just a little late, and she pages through picture after picture. The photos are extremely well done. She's not an expert, especially not on baby and family portraits, but it seems like the warmth and love has come right through the lens onto the screen, and that takes talent. After thirty-two minutes of baby pictures, she's wandered into other portfolios, and found lots of New York scenes: shots of Times Square, of Central Park, of Broadway. There's a fantastic one of the new sign going up over the O'Neill, with sparks flying in the foreground, and she's impressed by the artist's control of light and flash. She clicks the Contact page, even though her headshots are recent and she's not going to any tryouts in the next year, and while the page is loading Jonathan calls and invites her out to dinner at some new tapas place. She shuts down her laptop before any of the other images have loaded. -------------------------------------------------------"Nay, I adore you, but what is this place." Di walks carefully, as if the crazy food might reach out and grab her. "It's tapas. Gluten free." Naya shrugs. "I found it online."

"Great, fine, well and good, but why are we here? I thought you liked Marcy's." "I do. Maybe next time. I just feel like some gluten-free bread." Dianna stops and turns completely around now. "Gluten-free bread tastes like cardboard." She cocks an eyebrow and grins. "Is this about that girl?" Naya shoves her into a booth. They play with the straws in their ice water for a minute, not talking, and finally Naya takes a deep breath. "It's the same diet the dancer girl is on. No gluten." "We can call her by her name, you know." "No, because I don't know what it is." Di throws her straw wrapper at her. "You know what she doesn't eat but you don't know her name? You've got it bad, girl. No wonder you came home for Thanksgiving." Naya chucks a napkin back. "You wanna talk about bad, let's talk about you." "There's nothing to talk about," says Di, drinking too much water at once and struggling to swallow. "You haven't updated your portfolio in three weeks. Which means you haven't taken any photos you consider worthwhile in at least four. If that's not something to talk about, I'll eat my weight in tofurkey." "You will anyway." "Only because your saintly mother lets me drizzle gravy made with real fat all over it. Don't change the subject." The bread at the table is actually not that bad. It's maybe the level of bread that's halfway to crotons, which is a significant improvement over most gluten-free bread she's eaten. Di covers it in jam -- no animal-fat butter, thank you -- and sighs. "It's just so weird. I've never felt this way about a guy, and now ... I think about her and there are ..." "Butterflies." She hates when Naya interrupts, especially when she's right. "Yeah. Butterflies. And it's someone I don't even know, and it's super weird. And I don't know who to talk to about it." "Why are you telling me?" It's a challenge, but Naya asks it kindly. "Because I don't know how I can tell anyone else. I don't even know what this is." They order their food -- or what may be food, depending on the chef's skill level -- and Naya begins a list of ideas on how to get in touch with The Great Lea Michele, and Di shoots them all down until each situation becomes more improbable than the last, and when their food arrives -- looking reasonably

edible -- Nay concludes with hiring a skywriter and they both laugh. "Well if you're going to be such a prude about it, maybe you should set your sights on the plesbians." Naya's faux-cheese topping drips down her chin, and she grabs a napkin. "The what now?" "Plebian lesbians." Naya nods to a corner of the restaurant. "There's some hot chick over there who's been checking you out this whole time." Dianna turns, slowly, and tries not to be disappointed when it's not Lea. It's just some hot chick. Granted, she is hot, but ... Ugh, this is just so stupid, because she'll never see Lea again, and even if she did she'll never get her, but ... The girl slides from her stool, her intent clear, and Di shakes her head and gives her a sad smile. Girls are great, she notes, because they get the hint. Hottie moves on to the next target. Naya sighs, loudly. --------------------------------------------------She tries not to get her hopes up when someone's manager contacts her and schedules a headshot session. Especially when all she gets are the client's initials -- L.M. Try as she might, she almost throws up from disappointment when she arrives at the studio and meets Lukas Matthews. Who is: a) decidedly not Lea Michele, b) not nearly talented enough with facial expressions to merit anything above a chorus role, c) an arrogant prick, d) all of the above. He fights her on every shot, lifting his chin when she asks him to drop, turning left when she says right, and after several minutes she finally says: "Excuse me, Lukas, but I'm the photographer here. You need to trust me." "Sweetheart, I don't need to trust anyone but myself. I know what looks good on me. I don't even need you; you could just set it on a tripod and let me have the remote, and I'd turn out better than what you'll make." His manager stares at her Blackberry, and Di feels sorry for how badly this woman must need this client. She, however, does not need him. "Actually, the personal element is what makes or breaks a headshot. You wouldn't get anything if it wasn't a person taking the shots." He laughs at her, props his head on his hand (ugh, she hates that in a headshot) and says: "A person? Honey, in this city, you've gotta know a couple hundred people to be anyone, and I know you're not."

It's not the first time she's ended a shoot prematurely, but it's the first time she's thrown a client out of her studio with specific instructions about what parts of his anatomy can be placed where to amend his horrific personality. Di storms home through Central Park, with her baby Nikon around her neck and her bigger camera in her shoulder bag. She passes a busker with a guitar, and then turns around and comes back; she drops in a fiver, and he looks up and says: "Got a request, sweetheart?" What does she want to hear? Some Adele, maybe. Something with a lot of drums. Something she could set fire to the world to. "Something sweet," she tells him. "It's been a rough day." He strums some chord progression she almost recognizes, and then murmurs in a husky baritone: All I want is the best for our lives my dear And you know my wishes are sincere What's to say for the days I cannot bear She walks away. She buys a bag of popcorn and sits by the lake, feeding the ducks, who are too fat anyway. She decides to give up thinking about Lea. It'll never happen, which she already knew, and even if it does, who is she to think she could be friends with a star? Lea probably has hundreds of people flocking around her at any time: brilliant, talented, successful. Musical people, and Di's not going to lie and pretend hopping around her kitchen and singing into her hairbrush will ever measure up to that. She's normal, but she's nobody. She fingers the strap to the bigger camera. She considers throwing it in the lake, but she's too practical and poor: she'll take it home and sell it. She'd sell the playbill, too, but with her name on it, it's not going to be worth much. (She'll never admit it, but it's not like she could let it go anyway.) Di tosses the last kernels into the lake, shoulders her bag, and stands to go. When she turns around, she's met with dark and shining eyes. Lea Michele Sarfati. Who says: "Hi."

-----------------------------------------------------Four hours later, they're still talking. They can't stop, it seems, unless it's to laugh, and then they go right back into talking, swapping stories, outdoing one another, raising and lowering voices as they animate their lives. Lea starts with the moment, at age eight, when she stood in her first spotlight and realized what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. It's totally surreal, for Di, to be listening to the woman with the golden voice -- she sounds just like she does in the Fiddler revival recordings -- tell stories about Broadway like it's community theater at the rec center in Nowheresville, Ohio. This is Lea Michele and she's sitting right across from her, hands flying, eyes alight, laugh so brash and loud ("God bless the Bronx," Lea's said more than once). The strangeness of the situation goes in and out of focus: sometimes Di's skin tingles with the excitement of talking to Lea Michele, and other times it just feels so freaking normal and natural that she starts to think they've been friends forever, or maybe in another life at least. And between the normal and the star-studded moments, there are lightning bolts, straight to her heart, every time their eyes meet. There's that quietness, that stillness of their first meeting, and then one of them will break it with a shy smile and a "Hi." It's an intensity of joy, more than Di's ever imagined could exist. It's a Monday, so there's no show tonight, and they went out for dinner at this great Asian-vegan fusion place, and then for drinks at the bar across the street. They found out they're both Jewish, and cardcarrying PETA members. Now it's over espresso in a dingy little cafe four blocks from Lea's place that their voices grow quieter and their stories grow more deep and personal. They unwrap themselves for each other, opening up the boxes of their lives, unpacking struggles and pain and the little bubbles of joy within all of it. They discover new things about themselves, right now, over their cooling coffees, and they look in wonder at the beauty of their own lives and how much they missed by not having someone to talk it over with. Di feels stupid, sharing stories of college and office work when it's Lea Michele, but Lea seems honestly interested, and she laughs in all the right places, and makes sad faces and sympathetic noises right when she's supposed to. It feels like Lea got the script for the evening well in advance, and she's memorized all the lines for the Supportive Friend role perfectly. She laughs at herself, when she thinks this, for imagining Lea Michele in a supporting role, but that's what she's doing -- she's nodding, and smiling, and when Di talks about her family back at home and gets a little misty-eyed, Lea reaches across the table and strokes her arm. Di notes, through the buzz in her brain, that Lea Michele is truly the embodiment of star power; sparks fly from her fingertips. When the cafe owner politely kicks them out, a half-hour past closing time, they walk out right into a rainstorm. The lights on the cabs flash by in the street, and Di grabs her baby Nikon and starts

snapping away, without even thinking. The world is glistening, and she wants to capture as much of it as she can. She feels Lea watching her, and feels partly silly but mostly just so keyed up by the lateness of the night and the brilliance of the world that she doesn't try to explain what she's doing. Di pauses, and it's then that a small hand reaches out and catches her wrist. Star power, again, and when she meets Lea's eyes she's amazed to find that they can still be shining when there's so much darkness around them. Maybe it's the streetlights. "Show me," says Lea, already pulling the camera toward her, and when Di hesitates, small fingers pry the camera entirely from her hands and Lea starts flicking through the pictures one by one. Di's stomach swoops -- she doesn't let anyone see her camera, because she takes twenty shots so that one will turn out, and it's her baby, but the wide and amazed look in dark eyes keeps her from saying a word. "You're really good," says Lea, flipping through more. She never learned to take a compliment, because she's so hungry for them, so Di stammers out: "Well, that's just a little -- I mean -- I do better with this." She shrugs her bag with the four lens pockets. Which was a mistake, because now Lea's reaching for it. Di wants so badly to show her what she can do, but she's so scared -- this girl is a star, and she sees beautiful things every day, and how can anything Dianna shoots ever compare? Di can't decide if she's more afraid that Lea won't like them, or that she will. She turns her hip away, but Lea's persistent, wrapping her arms around her waist and laughing. "I wanna see!" "It's raining!" Di shouts back, trying to push her away, and trying to ignore the feeling of hundredvolt currents shooting through her entire body. Does Lea have some kind of weird medical condition? How does she keep her hair so sleek when there's so much electricity in her skin? "It's huge," says Lea, gripping one of the lenses through the pocket, and her eyes twinkle and she murmurs "That's what she said" before looking at Di shyly. "You're a professional. Why didn't you sau that? You gave me this whole song and dance about office work and you're carrying around a bag full of --" "I'm not, I'm not! It's just something I do for fun. And I do portraits and stuff." "Are you in any galleries?" Lea's released her grip on her waist, and she's finally handing back the Nikon, which Di carefully stows away. "Oh no. Absolutely not. No. It's just for fun." "So I haven't ever seen anything of yours?" Di flashes her a look and a grin. "You go to galleries often?"

Lea sways her hips from side to side. "Well, no, but ... " They look at each other, and the world slows, the rain freezing in its cool sheets. Lea grins, and the world returns to its normal speed. "Hi." "Hi." "So there's nothing?" Di feels shy again. "I do headshots, but I've never done anyone who's gotten further than off-Broad, so you've probably never seen any of them." "But you do artistic stuff too. Right? I wanna see those." Dangerously, she reaches for the bag again. Di takes a step back, dodging her grip. "I'll send you my portfolio link." It was meant to just be something to say, but the bottom drops out of her heart, because it occurs to her that this night is going to have to end, sometime, and she'll probably never see Lea again, and even if she does get her email address and work up the courage to share her portfolio, Lea'll probably be too busy to look at it. This is just a moment, a heart-stopping moment -- granted, it's lasted for almost ten hours now, but it's still just a moment, and she can't keep it. Better to end it here. "Let's not get soaked," she says, and turns away from Lea's gaze. It's three in the morning, so of course Dianna walks her home -- for safety's sake -- and of course Lea makes a show of inviting Di to sleep on her couch and then insisting on waiting for the cab with her. For safety's sake. Di can't decide if this is the best night of her life, or the worst -- because it is the best night she's ever had, but now it's ending, and that just ... sucks. When the cab pulls up, Di turns to say goodnight, and Lea's already pulling her into a hug. Her arms go around Di's waist and then snake up her back, so that the wholes of their bodies are pressed together. If she ever sees Lea again, which she won't, but just in case, she'll have to ask the girl to say "CLEAR!" before she hugs her, because it's somewhat like what Di imagines getting her heart jump-started by ER paddles must be like. In a really nice way, thought. "Goodnight," whispers Lea into her short-cropped layers. Di answers, "Goodnight, Miss Sarfati."

Lea pulls back, looks at her with starry eyes, and kisses her cheek, a little closer to her lips than perhaps is normal. Well, now she'll need the paddles, because Di is dead. In a really nice way. She pulls away and goes for the cab, but she can't get the door closed because Lea has run after her and grabbed onto the handle. Di's heart swells and her stomach swoops, and she's falling over that precipice she's been on all day, straight from anticipation into beauty and then back around again. She meets Lea's eyes, and a few heart-hours pass, and then Lea says: "Hi." Can your face crack from smiling too wide? Di thinks so, but hopes not, because she needs her mouth to be able to say back: "Hi." "I don't have your number," Lea explains. Well, this is just not fair; when did Lea learn to shoot lightning bolts through Di without even touching her? It takes a day or two to form words, but eventually she can spell out all ten digits (with her San Francisco area code, still, because it makes New York feel a little more like home, even after all these years) and then her own phone's buzzing with a text from an unknown number and it says: Hi. Dianna grins, and bites her lip, and looks up at Lea, who apologizes to the cabbie and lets go of the door. She climbs the stairs outside her apartment, and the doorman grabs the handle for her, but Lea stops and turns. She's still outside, watching, when the cab turns the corner and Di can't see her anymore. The cab ride is interminable, if only because Dianna has not yet mastered the skill of dancing in the backseat, and she has to save her swagger for Arthur's sleepy and unappreciative eyes.

----------------------------------------------------For two weeks, everything is perfect. The whole world glows, and Di can't stop shooting. She skips taking the Nikon with her: everything's gotten too beautiful, suddenly, and she doesn't know why or when, and she's afraid it will stop, so the big camera and the big lenses go with her everywhere. Lea texts her every morning around ten, when she's getting up, and Di always stops whatever she's doing at work to text her back and tease her about the Star of Broadway rising late, and more than once Lea's shot back that she wouldn't stay up so late if one particular amateur photographer wouldn't post so many beautiful shots on her portfolio every evening. The next Monday, Lea shows up at her apartment at seven a.m., bearing two fair-trade drip coffees with soy, fresh baked dog treats from the bakery, and a sparkling smile. Di calls in sick to work, and they stay in the apartment all day, watching the grey and cool November skies threaten snow. They play Scrabble and Lea wins by a hundred and three points, and then Di drags out her Nintendo NES and schools Lea without blinking an eye. They make pear and provolone and spinach pizza for lunch, and take all afternoon eating it, and Di pretends not to see Lea sneak a piece to Arthur. At three o'clock Di goes to the bathroom and when she returns, Lea's gone. She can't breathe, and stumbles into her bedroom, trying to figure out where she went wrong -- was it the joke about the length of her pleated skirt? -- and finds a note on her mirror, scrawled in Lea's burgundy lipstick: You have no wine in this house!!! Situation to be remeded shortly!!! (It is a sign, Di will realize weeks later, that she completely overlooks Lea's inability to spell.) She doesn't keep wine in the house because she doesn't enjoy drinking alone, at least not enough to get through a bottle before it starts to spoil. Lea returns with takeout fettuccine and two bottles of Starborough sauv blanc, and Di's never heard of it, but she likes the starfish on the label, and discovers on her first sip that this is hands down the best wine she's ever had. They get through a bottle and a half. On the second round of Scrabble, Di is up by twenty-two points when Lea, who's been frowning at her letters for the past six minutes, suddenly flips the board and sends tiles flying everywhere. Di tries to tackle her, but Lea runs for it, and it becomes a mad dash through the apartment with Arthur at Di's heels and Lea skidding around the kitchen table in her socks. It's well past one a.m. when they finally crash in a heap on the couch. Di wakes with a start at six; Arthur's wet-nosing her bare foot, begging for his usual walk before work. Lea is laying over her, with an arm around her waist and her cheek against Di's shoulder. Maybe she's still a little buzzed, but Lea's skin against hers is not the usual electric current; it's cool and dry, like fresh sheets in the air conditioning after a long and hot summer day. Di wants to just wrap up in her and stay forever. Can she build a fort out of Lea limbs? Tuck herself under arms and legs and

torso and just stay cool and calm forever? Arthur licks her toes and she forces down a giggle. It takes a little bit of wiggling to get out from under Lea but, fun fact: a happy star is an exhausted star. Di brushes her teeth and sneaks out the door without waking her guest. When she returns, Lea's not on the couch. Di fights down a squeeze in her chest, and she's about to check her mirror for another message when she realizes the apartment smells like coffee. A completely awake, mussed-hair-pulled-into-a-bun, wearing-a-teeshirt-Di-left-on-the-bedroom-floora-week-ago Lea is in her kitchen making pancakes. Di never liked having a roommate in college; she's an introvert, and she needs her alone time. She loved Julie, but she never loved Julie better than when she began dating Carl and stayed at his place three nights a week. When Lea adds blueberries to the pancake batter, stretching so that the shirt rides up and the curve of her ass appears, Di decides she could get used to having a roommate. If and only if it's Lea. She hangs up Arthur's leash and grabs her baby Nikon, neglected for a week, and comes into the kitchen with lens a-blazing. She gets in five shots of Lea cooking, elbow cocked, dishtowel over her shoulder, face relaxed and open, before the minuscule click of the button catches her attention. Lea protests, crossing the spatula over her face and squealing. "Don't!" But she's laughing, and she drops her hands and flashes her red-carpet smile. "Stop it," says Di, without meaning to, and Lea's face falters. Shit. Shit. Take it back! Shit! "I mean --" Di drops the camera, tugs on the strap around her neck, and wills herself to melt into the floor. She drops her chin, but keeps her eyes leveled with Lea's. "You don't need to go all Star Power for me. I wanted to catch you being you." Lea's face is unreadable for a moment, and Di swallows around a very prominent lump in her throat, but then dark eyes sparkle at her, and the room spins a little sideways. "Hi." "Hi." "Breakfast?" Lea bites her lip, whites of her teeth flashing just a little, and offers up a plate of pancakes. Yes please. -----------------------------------------------------------------

On Friday night, Dianna is tinkering with the portfolio layout -- should it be four by five, or does five by four look better? -- when Lea texts her. DIRRRTY DIANNNAAA!!! She laughs out loud. Are you drunk? Yes!!! Are you OK? Di's best guess is that she is, but it's always good to check. Yepp Where are you? A bar!! New York is magic!! Doesnt matter where I am a cab will get me home!! Do you need me to come get you? She's not actually worried. She just wants to make sure Lea's okay. That's what good friends do -check on each other, even when it isn't necessary. Lea would do the same for her. I didnt mean to wake you!! I'm so sorry!!! Does her iPhone have four buttons for exclamation points? You didn't wake me :) Okay :) Hi. Di shakes her head. What time is it? Past two. Yikes. What are you doing tomorrow??? Sleeping in because Broadway's biggest star sets late Meet me at the theatre at ten Why? ...Youll see!!!

Who puts ellipses in their text messages? Who capitalizes when they're drunk? It's so friggin' cute. The next morning, Di arrives five minutes late, certain that Lea will have forgotten -- but instead she finds her pacing the sidewalk in a cute vintage dress, blue with ivory trim, and a matching scarf and knee-high brown boots. "You're late!" she says, and wraps her in a fantastic hug. "It's supposed to snow, Lee -- you're going to freeze." Di pulls her closer. For warmth's sake. "None of my coats go with this dress." "So wear a different dress." "But this one's so pretty." She pulls away and twirls, and the skirt fans out perfectly. Di knows now why Lea wanted her here. She pulls out her big camera and starts snapping away. Lea plays for her, dancing, bowing, hanging sideways from a light pole, looking at her hand in consternation as she realizes how dirty the pole is. They play up and down the sidewalk, like puppies in a blanket; Lea never stops smiling, flashing shy close-lipped smiles in between wide laughing grins, and Dianna can't help but smile back. When the snow starts falling, Lea stretches out her hands and tongue to catch flakes, laughing when one lands on her cheek instead. Di comes close, waits for it, adjusts the shutter speed, and then clickclick-click-click-click-click-click -She knows in there, somewhere tonight, she'll find a sequence of a snowflake landing on Lea's eyelashes. Di lifts her eyes above the viewfinder. They grin at each other as snow falls between them. "Hi," she says, watching the light play in Lea's dark eyes. "Hi." Lea lifts her hand and lays it alongside Di's jaw, brushing a thumb over her cheekbone. "You've got snow on your cheek." Di unclips the lens and slips the camera into her bag. "Your hands are cold." She hurries to cover Lea's hand with her own, her purple fingerless gloves warm against cold skin. "Yours are too, the tips of them." Lea takes her hand and reaches for the other. Lea cups her hands around Di's and blows on her fingers, hot breath tingling the cracking skin. Di watches her, watches snow fall between them, watches Lea's lips as she wets them and blows again.

Di feels her soul leave her and pump, with each beat of her trembling heart, into the fingertips where her skin is slowly warming. She's OK if it never comes back. -----------------------------------------------------------------She takes Monday off, and she and Lea take the subway to Rockefeller Center. It's so cliche New York, and Di knows that most of the patrons are tourists, but she's never been, and she's excited to try. The temperature drops quickly, but they stay till the rink closes, watching the lights twinkle on the tree. Di doesn't risk the big camera, but she can barely keep her hands off the Nikon until Lea twines her fingers with hers and pulls them both onto the ice. Neither of them have a lot of experience on skates, but they share a love of ballet, and soon they're carefully spinning each other and doing slow figure eights, Dianna's hands on Lea's hips, matching her steps glide for glide. ---------------------------------------------------------------This time, they sleep together in Di's bed. It isn't quite planned, per se; Lea packed an overnight bag and everything, but they didn't think about sleeping arrangements until it was much too late to have an argument about who got the bed and who got the couch. Di's got a full-size, so it's large enough for the two of them, with Arthur peering up over the edge, surprised to find two people in the bed he sneaks onto when Di's not home. Lea focuses on Di's lack of pillow for what seems like forever, but finally the rising star of Broadway crashes, her words trailing off into whispers. It's normal, and lovely, and sweet, like a grade school sleepover. They play with each other's hair and murmur secrets in the dark. She wishes, for what may be the first time, that she could be the one photographed. The moment is beautiful, and perfect, strung with twinkling Christmas lights and candle flames and barely-bottled joy, and she just wants someone to capture it. It does not occur to Dianna that this is not necessarily normal behavior. In the morning, when Arthur wakes her, Lea's covering her again, her head tucked under Di's chin and snuggled against her shoulder. It's funny, the weight of her head and body; it feels so right, like she's been waiting her whole life for Lea to sleep on her. Like she was incomplete before. It almost hurts to shimmy out from underneath her and take Arthur for his walk.

When Di gets back, Lea's made coffee and baked scones from a mix she brought. They eat and drink quietly, watching the snow blow around the faux balcony outside the kitchen window. Lea walks her to work, and kisses her cheek goodbye. ------------------------------------------------------------------It's Tuesday when it all goes to hell. Lea texts her when the show is over, like always, but this time says they're going out to Eustis, the new bar three blocks from the Eugene, and can Di please come, pretty please? Di doesn't like bars, and she doesn't love meeting new people, but she's dressed and hailing a cab within seven minutes. Within twenty, she remembers why she doesn't like bars. Or meeting new people. Everyone's nice, of course, but this is a Broadway cast, and she'd sort of forgotten how famous Lea is. And how talented her friends therefore must be. And dramatic. And loud. They shout at each other, inside joke after inside joke, and when they ask about Di's life, they just make polite faces until she takes a breath, and then someone jumps in with another show story, another memory, another inside joke. She can't really be angry, because they're right -- she's not that interesting -- but it still stings. Lea fluctuates all evening. Sometimes she smiles and laughs and shouts her own contributions. But Di also catches Lea looking across the table at her with a funny expression -- bordering on apologetic, but something more, something Di can't quite put her finger on. Jonathan brings her another drink, even though she's only halfway through her first one, and shouts: "Lea says you have a really cute dog." Di brightens, because she loves Arthur, but before she can draw breath, Janie, a redheaded chorus girl, rants drunkenly: "I hate dogs! There's no such thing as a cute dog. Maybe in pictures! But in real life they're just smelly and demanding. They're worse than babies. There's no point to dogs." Di runs a finger around the rim of her new glass, and flicks her eyes to Lea. She can see her eyebrows knitting, her mouth opening -- is she about to say something? -- but all she does is bite her bottom lip and look away. Di tells Jonathan to finish her drink for her and gets her coat. She's halfway down the block when she realizes she's walked in the wrong direction, and she's dragging her feet when she should be hurrying if she wants to catch the next car (otherwise she'd have to wait another half-hour), and the subway train of her heart slams into the station of her mind.

She wanted Lea to follow her. And Lea didn't. Di doesn't remember how she got home. She might have walked, honestly. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that she wanted Lea to follow her. She wanted, and still wants, for Lea to care about her, more than she does about the rest of her friends. She doesn't want to be just another friend to take to the bar after the curtain falls. She wants to be ... special. Somebody. Somebody more. Not just to anyone. She wants to be somebody more to Lea. She puts on Pandora and snuggles with Arthur while she cries. The ridiculousness of it all -- that she let herself fall for someone like Lea Michele. Who has more somebodies around her than most people will see on stage in a lifetime. Who could have anyone she wanted, as a best friend or otherwise. Who didn't follow her out of the bar. Dianna doesn't sleep that night. ----------------------------------------------------------------------Di tries to sleep when she gets home from work, but she's been slugging coffee back all day, and she's just wired enough that she can't sleep and can't think. She plans to settle for a round of Sex and the City, but an ad for The L Word comes up and she has to sit and try to think about that for a while. Then she remembers that it doesn't matter, because Lea doesn't love her back. When her buzzing phone wakes her at eleven twenty-one p.m., Di's still on the couch. She must have watched something, because she hasn't moved in five hours and the TV's on, but she doesn't remember a thing. Arthur lays next to her and whimpers softly when she rubs his ears. She checks the phone, even though she knows who it is, even though she wishes she didn't know. Hi. It's Lea's usual check-in post show. Lights are down, curtain fell. Let that be my story. Di turns off her phone. She's never done that before, but it's not a big deal, right? She's ignored other text messages from other friends. Text messages are like that: you can ignore them -- you might be busy. For god's sake it's past eleven and she works early; Lea's apologized a dozen times before for waking her, even though Di's told her time and time again that she doesn't go to bed before at least midnight. But maybe she did tonight, right? So not responding is not a big deal.

Except that at eleven forty-nine p.m., when Di's close to falling back asleep, there's a pounding on her door. Arthur's there before she is, but he doesn't bark; he sits on the welcome mat and pants, grinning, like he knows who's on the other side. Di does, too. She just can't hope to believe herself. But what she knows and what she hopes and what is reality are exactly the same: it's Lea, hair still in Wendla waves, streaks of stage makeup left around her chin. Her eyes, though, are what get Di. They're wild and flashing and angry, a lightening storm in darkness, electricity and tears. For a moment, at least. Then she sees Dianna's face, and her eyes widen and shine, and a breath she's possibly been holding for twenty minutes escapes her lungs. She throws her arms around Di's neck. It hurts, it physically hurts to be held right now, but what overcomes that is that Lea is crying -sobbing -- into her collarbone, with big gasps for air and lots of tears. Di pulls her inside, nudging the door closed with a bare foot, and Arthur licks her ankle, trying to comfort her. Any anger she felt is far gone; all she feels is a need to hold Lea, comfort her, wipe away her tears. It hurts, in ripples from her heart, to care this much and to know Lea's just come for consolation -- but it hurts even more to hear her cry. "Lea, sweetheart," she says (sweetheart, and she feels a stab in her chest, but powers through it), "what happened?" A hiccup and another sob, and Lea presses her open mouth into Di's shirt. Di kisses the side of her head, as sweetly as she can, as friendly as she can, and pulls back. "What happened?" Lea tilts her head up, eyes full of tears and light. "You didn't answer your phone." It's not the best time, maybe, to explain that she needed to not answer it and just sit in the dark listening to Adele and crying, so Di says: "I'm sorry. I didn't think. Are you okay?" "No!" Lea shoves her, and tears stream down her face. "You didn't answer your phone! I thought you were hurt!" Di stares at her. "You're upset because I didn't text you?" Lea's lips fold over, and new tears appear. Di wants to pull her into a hug, again, but it will hurt, so much, and she just can't do that to herself. "Why do you care?" she chokes out, and her pain surfaces as anger when she adds: "We barely know each other."

"That's not true!" Lea shouts. "It is!" Di shouts back. "Don't yell at me! I died inside when you didn't answer and now you're yelling at me!" Di drops her head and turns away. This hurts too much, it's too much, it's too big and too much of everything. She forces herself to say: "It's just a text. Why do you care?" Di can't help but wince at how desperate and hopeful she sounds. "I don't know," Lea chokes out, finally. "I just do." She steps forward, her hands faltering. "Maybe we shouldn't hang out so much," says Di, which is the line that she's been practicing since she left the bar, but it comes out broken and teary instead of detached and casual. "Maybe that will kill me." Di raises her eyes. Lea is in her space, immediately, arms around her waist, pulling her close and staring up at her. "I can't not see you. I need you in my life." "Why?" She tries to stuff down hope, tries to jar it and screw the lid tight, but hope's not something that can be tamed; it bubbles up through her throat and she knows it's shining in her eyes. "Because," Lea says, simply, and kisses her.

Hi. Hi. How are you?? Di can't help but grin when she types: Magnificent :) And you? Glorious!! The next text follows almost immediately: Have you ever noticed how beautiful New York is?? She's so happy, and it's intoxicating. She wants to drink from Lea's joy forever. I have. But only when I'm with you. Liar!! Youve got a thousand shots prettier than what I see right now But everything's more beautiful when I'm with you. Sap ;) Seriously, how can she still be smiling? How has she not just died from being this happy? You love it. I do. You make everything beautiful The Eugene is lovely, especially at night. Not @ the theatre ;) ..You're not? Nope!! Where are you? Staring at this really boring door w/ 302 on it!! It's a race, and Arther wins because Dianna trips over him and nearly slams into the end table in the hall, and he's barking his friendly bark at Lea's burbling laugh in the hall while Di's fingers tangle in the deadbolt and chain.

And then, bless all the gods in all the worlds, because her fingers are now tangled in dark thick hair and Lea's mouth is on hers. "Hi," she whispers, nibbling on Lea's lip. "Hi." Gentle fingers trace up Di's sides, and she can't help the grin that breaks across her face. She loops her hands through Lea's belt, unbuttoning the coat as she kisses her again and again. "You said you -- had something -- you wanted -- to talk about," she murmurs. Lea hums against her. "Mmm. Kinda busy right now." Di pushes the coat down her arms, giggling, and when Lea grins and rolls her hips into her, she ducks away and takes the coat with her. She makes it the three steps to the closet before Lea grabs her around the waist. "Not fair!" Lea shouts, hungry lips trying to frown and failing. "I am not--" Di grabs a hanger, nearly falling over as Lea nuzzles into her neck-- "allowing you to terrify me with a text that says 'We need to talk' and then--" "I took it back! I said it wasn't bad!" Lea pouts at her. "Stop it." Di pulls off Lea's scarf, trying to keep the move from becoming at all sexual, and failing miserably. This is life with Lea: delightfully and unavoidably wonderful. "Thinking you can come over here and get snuggles just because you're always cuddly after the show." "But I'm adorable," Lea protests. The girl has a point. Di kisses her cheek. "We can snuggle and talk," points out Lea. Stubborn girl. Di changes tactics. "How was the show?" "Oh no, don't you try and distract me." And Lea tickles her, which is just unfair, because Di collapses onto the couch with delicate fingers assaulting her. "Okay, okay, okay." Di kisses her nose and pulls her close. Arthur sits on the floor, grinning, and Lea rubs his head. "Your mama is a sap." "Your sap," murmurs Di, and then blinks and waits for the pounding panic in her heart that indicates she's said something too soon. It's funny, because it's happened a hundred times, and yet she can never get used to what happens next: Lea, looking at her through dark lashes, no panic in her eyes, no worry on her lips, no anxiety. Just that shy winning smile that says:

Yeah. Di's still swallowing down the words that first bubbled to her lips three weeks ago, but Lea's sweet and confident look whenever she says something like yours or always or love is making it very, very difficult. "So, sappy," says Lea, laying completely across her and ruining any chance of actual intelligent conversation, "we need to talk." "So you said," says Di, and pats herself on the back for stringing three words together when Lea's breasts are pressing into hers. "I get Christmas Day off." "Hey, me too!" Di grins at her playfully. Lea wrinkles her nose and runs a finger up Di's ribs. Di tries not to jerk away. "Not fair!" "Then just listen for a minute?" "I have to sit through a whole minute of this?" Lea digs her elbows into Di's hips and sulks at her. "I want you to meet my friends. And my family." It is possible that Di makes a noise very similar to "Eeep," which she quickly turns into: "Iiii...have met your friends." "At a bar. And they were assholes. We've been over this." She sits up, pulling Di with her and swinging their legs to the side. She clasps Di's hands and looks into her eyes. "I want to throw a Christmanukkah party and have everyone I love come and meet the girl I l--" She stops, then gets a determined look on her face and finishes: "love." Good luck saying no to that. To Di's credit, she tries. "It's kind of soon." It wouldn't be that hard to throw together a party, even at this point, but surely people have made other plans by now. "I've known since you asked me to sign your playbill." Lea just answered an entirely different question. Di would love to focus on the fact that this is the kind of overblown, dramatic thing that Lea Michele is probably famous for among the friends she so desperately wants Di to meet (because this is the fourth time they've had this conversation), but her brain has melted into a big, gooey, happy mess. She looks at Lea and bites her lip.

"Baby." Lea pulls her closer, wraps an arm around her shoulders, kisses her temple. "What are you worrying about?" Di twists her fingers. It's fine, you know, to be in love with Lea when no one else is involved. But when she thinks about friends, and family, and co-stars, and flashing lights... Di loves herself. It's not that. She likes who she is, and she doesn't mind that she works what is essentially a dead-end job. She'd love to do photography professionally, but she knows it might not happen, and that's okay because she loves just doing it. She loves who she is, and she's happy. She's just not quite sure that who she is, is enough to be on the arm of Lea Michele. She's not scared of love, but she's scared to risk everything on a woman that might one day wake up and realize Di's not enough for her. Scared that her huggy girl will, one day, hug someone who burns as bright as her, and realize what she's missing. (And coming out might wreck Lea's career, and is Di worth enough to be worth that?) The worst part is that Di knows if she says this, any of it, that Lea will immediately deny it, might even be upset with her for thinking it. And she knows that Lea would think herself honest in that moment. There's only one answer to this party, and it's in no small part the only answer because Di will never, ever be able to say no to Lea. "Okay." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The party, of course, is a goddamn hit. Lea is delighted. And Di is having a blast. To every new person who meets "Dianna, my girlfriend," there is a different squeal. Di notes that drama people are good at ridiculous choruses of joy. And every single one of them says, without battling an eyelash, some version of: "I've heard so much about you. No, really. She won't shut up." The first time, Lea just laughs. The second time, her cheeks flush. By the fifth time, she's taken to ducking her head into Di's shoulder, and Di's pretty sure it's half embarrassment, half intoxication with Di's perfume, and three-quarters a desire to try to see down her dress. None of which Di has a problem with, mind you, so she wraps a joyful arm around her every

time, and presses her just a little harder into her side with each shy giggle. She makes sure to do it for the rest of the party. Di's parents flew in from Savannah yesterday, and they won't stop gushing about everything in the city. Lea's mom is totally in love with Di's, and they're in the kitchen whipping up more cookies just because they feel like it. The dads are discussing basketball, of all things, but they're nursing their local craft brews and appearing to enjoy themselves, so she's not worrying. There's a constant cycle of Di's portfolios on three different laptop screens, and it feels over the top and awful for the first thirty seconds that Lea insists on running them and then Darren and his "friend" (but who's he kidding) Chris start oohing over her series from the Hudson Bay and the rest of the party is full of random gasps and exclamations and demands for paper so they can write down the ones they love and order prints later. Lea's flat isn't nearly big enough to hold them all, but that doesn't appear to matter, as her friends seem to have been planning to sit in each other's laps anyway. They shout and steal each other's drinks and keep forgetting to use coasters, but that's not something that Lea cares about anyway. Now that there isn't a jumble of unrecognized emotions taking up residence in her stomach, Di loves them. They're loud and crazy and fun, and they grab and pull and twist and dance, and monopolize the iPod. They pull Di into their impromptu dance circles, and they spin her from partner to partner, grabbing her arms and hands and laughing into her hair. At one point Jonathan calls her a flirt, and she's about to protest when suddenly two small hands circle her waist and a dark head tucks under her chin, and Lea's protective voice says with a laugh: "She's not a flirt, she's a star. My star." Groffles gives Lea a strange look, but she doesn't appear to care, and Di can't really care either, not when her entire existence has been reduced to a gorgeous woman wrapped around her, with dark eyes pretending not to oogle her cleavage. She kind of feels like a star, right now. Burning bright. And she must be putting off some kind of light, because when Lea's eyes meet hers, they shine. Naya skips out on a family thing, and arrives a half-hour late, looking twice as sultry as anyone else in the room. She works it, carefully but consistently, and forty minutes later has three cards and a tentative job offer for a bit part -- but a speaking and recurring bit part -- on some upcoming TV show. (Along with three guys' numbers, and one girl's, all of which she politely takes, but she spends a significant portion of the night texting someone labeled "Hems" and it's pretty clear that the texts are not about a sale on houndstooth skirts.) Lea sidles up to her, and the two brunettes are soon engaged in some kind of squealing laughter that makes Di's eyes wet. They're her two favorite people and they like each other. She lets herself -because she's been letting herself do more of it, these days -- imagine Lea in a white dress and Nay in something burgundy. She snaps photo after photo.

Oh, of course she's taking pictures. The best ones are the casual shots, the twinkling eyes and tipsy laughter of her new friends. They try to pose, and then try to see the shots. Dianna hates that -- she wants to just capture them, as they are -- but she doesn't plan to say a word about it. Then a firm and sweet arm slides around her, gripping her hip, and a dark head tucks into her shoulder, and Lea's loud voice tells her friends to back off before she turns their next photo into a mug shot. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but they get the threat of violence if they ask to see the view screen again, and Di gets to take as many casual photos as she wants. Lea is everywhere, of course, but she's never away from Di more than four minutes at a stretch. Even if she gets involved in a long conversation, her eyes are always flickering away, seeking out blonde hair and that brilliant blue dress. After four hours, it becomes clear that Lea's had too much wine, as she's trying to essentially crawl down the front of said dress. Jonathan teases her that she's probably small enough to do it, and when she glares at him, he sets himself to ushering their friends out the door, with a very unsubtle stage whisper about Lea's desire to start her afterparty now. Lea's dad lays his hand on Di's shoulder, looks into her eyes with a penetrating gaze, and says completely straightfaced: "Your father and I have already settled the dowry issue, so you don't have to worry." Di runs through possible reactions: horror, laughter, sheer panic. She knows it's a good sign that all she feels is that her smile is so big that she needs to sit down before she falls down. Her father kisses her cheek and tells her Lea's lovely. "Your grandmother will be happy you're marrying a nice Jewish girl." Her mother mentions for the six time that she's "not all that surprised" by this "new development." And that she loves her. And she'll always love her. And she'll always be her daughter. Di regrets sending her a copy of Love, Ellen as apparently her mother is convinced that Di expects her to be upset about this whole thing. When the door finally shuts and Lea slides the deadbolt closed, Di notices that her actions are markedly sober. "You're not drunk at all, are you." Lea turns, chin down, eyes blazing. "Uh-hmm." Lea's able to make it four steps across the hall, getting her hands around Di's waist, before Di realizes: "You pretended to be drunk." Lea's lips are working their way up her neck. "Mmhmm." "Are you trying to seduce me, Miss Sarfati?" Lea giggles and snuggles into her shoulder. "I love when you call me that."

Di nuzzles her head and undoes the clip holding up her hair, winding her fingers into the falling dark waves. "Any particular reason?" "You make me feel real." Lea lays another trail of kisses up her neck, nosing her jawline. "You are very real, love," says Di as she kisses a lock of her hair, inhaling the scent of her rosemary mint shampoo. "Normal, then," Lea murmurs into her ear, almost standing on her toes. "I like you not normal." Di bends down to flutter her eyelashes on Lea's cheeks. Lea kisses her, sweetly, smiling against her lips. "Everyone," kiss, "loved," kiss, "you," kiss. Di kisses her for one long, breathless moment. Forgets to breathe through her nose. Oxygen deprivation. She sighs, breathes in, ends with a sweet short kiss. "That's cheating. You threatened their lives if they didn't." "That's not cheating. It's devotion." Lea shifts from side to side, stepping out of her burnished gold heels and nudging them aside. "Devotion, huh?" She has to look down significantly, and her vision blurs a bit. "Mhm." Lea's very involved with her neck. "Baby?" Somewhere along the line Di got backed into the wall. Not that she minds. "Busy right now." And yes, her lips and tongue and fingers certainly are. She's noticed before that Lea has little hands, but the moment makes it abundantly clear that they are tiny, because even though Di's sure there's not a centimeter of space between her and the wall, Lea has gotten her hands underneath her and unzipped her dress. "Lea." "Mm." Lea's thigh is pressing into her, deliciously and dangerously. "I don't want to do this here." Di feels a tingle in her arms, that buzz of anticipation, and then thinks: Shit. She had meant to say "I don't want to be halfway naked before I say what I need to, especially because you're so sexy that I'll probably forget, so can you please stop so I can collect my thoughts," but it might have come out as "I don't want to make out against your wall," which is not what she meant, because please see above re: what she needs to say, and also she doesn't mind making out against walls one bit, not when Lea's involved.

"Do what where?" Lea murmurs into her collarbone, between kisses, unconcerned by whatever Di might have meant, and she loves that, that she doesn't overanalyze things like this. "Mmm." It's hard to remember, exactly, because there's a very persistent brunette pressed against every ridge and curve of Di's body. "Okay, stop, stop, just for a second." "Don't wanna." "Lea." Lea pulls back and grins at her. "Yes, baby?" Okay, she really wanted to do this in a better position than pressed up against an exposed brick interior wall with her mouth dry and lips unable to close, but if she waits one more second--especially with Lea looking at her like that--she will absolutely burst. "I love you." Lea rolls her eyes. "Finally." "Finally?" "Finally! You think I haven't seen you holding it back?" She squirms against Lea, pretending she's trying to push her off. "You know, the usual response is 'I love you too.'" Lea presses her harder into the wall, her small hands splayed against the brick. "I thought you liked me not normal." The way she looks at her is a mix of everlasting love and unquenchable desire. Di's ready to meet both, head on. -----------------------------------------------

Title: And We Felt True Author: battling-bard A/N: This has been awesome. I adore each and every one of you. Special love goes to: - connectedanon, and all her drawings, for letting me bounce ideas off her. - goscrewaduck and i-am-anonymously-yours, for all your words of encouragement. - haughtymelodic, the best FFN crush anyone could ask for ;) Your love for Ache gave me confidence to try something else. Thank you :) - and finally, to kkrowling, whose idea this was. I hope I did it justice, kk :) Put on the plaid and stay off the motorcycles. Di likes the edges of her life crisp. Likes to see where she's going. Likes to see what she's seen. Likes her photos in their neat 8x10 frames. It occurs to her, days later, how odd it is that she loves the fuzziness of this, the blurred corners, the uncertainty of whose lips belong to who. Like a dance with no choreography, no beat, no music, no long-practiced moves spontaneously bursting forth. Only the rhythm of their hearts pressed close, skin to skin, erratic and happy pounding. Only the music of their fingers, lips, tongues singing in twinkling harmony. She will laugh, hours from now, at her own lack of experience, but she will laugh, because Lea will be curled up against her, sweet and warm, linking and unlinking their fingers as she sighs in contented quiet. But right now Di's simply moving, not thinking, her hands unquestioning. Arms wrapped around Lea's waist, pulling her up and close. Breaking long kisses to gasp for air, trying to remember to breathe through her nose. Enjoying the strange combination of coolness and roughness of the brick against her bare shoulders, the heat of Lea against her collarbone and neck. Lea's elbows are at her waist, hands just under her shoulderblades, and she's pushing into Di with her whole body and pulling her away from the wall with the length of her arms. Di works her hands into Lea's dress, gripping the fabric in handfuls, her fingertips skimming skin before clenching again around the black lace overlay. Lea's tongue traces hers, expectant, lazy, and then rolls along her teeth. When her body trembles, Di's arm jerks involuntarily, and Lea's thigh is pulled between hers. The height difference means that Lea's hipbone is now square in the center of Di's legs, and she's pressing, rolling, pressing, rolling. Pulling back, just slightly, and pushing in. Di's hips beg against her, funny and jerky circles that draw Lea closer and closer. Di's eyes flutter, and she registers only a glimpse of Lea's dark look, joyous and intense. There's no determination, no goal, no terrifying conviction other than that this is enough, whatever it is, this fullyclothed kiss-that-is-so-much-more. Di's head swims. Things speed up and slow down all at once, and she's pretty sure her heart has stopped, and maybe all of time too.

Kill her. Kill her now. Oh please, just let her die here, with her whole body flushed and tingling, limbs numb and loose, jaw slack-- let this be the last thing she ever remembers-All the black behind her eyes goes white. There's a release in her stomach, like she was holding a deep breath too long, but instead of escaping through her lips, it's taken another exit route, further south. She's not entirely certain that she's breathing, for a minute. She's only dimly aware of Lea still against her, still moving, much slower and gentle, but still that sweet mouth on her jaw and neck, still that gentle leg between hers. Everything feels ... not quite numb, perhaps -- more like full to brimming, so full it can't move. Blinking feels like a lot of work. Lea murmurs something against her collarbone, and she can't quite make it out -- perhaps because her head feels like it's underwater (in, like, the most delicious way possible) and perhaps because Lea's lips are still caressing her skin, tongue following, kisses with an extra stamp of love at the end. "Mmm?" Di manages, through Herculean effort, to make a questioning noise. Lea lifts her head, she guesses, because the hair against her shoulders shifts a little and the kisses stop for a moment. "Asked if you're OK." In another moment, she might say "No," and wait a beat for Lea's eyes to crinkle in confusion (which is adorable, by the way, if anyone's wondering) and then add that she's way beyond okay, somewhere into the realm of Death By Amazement, but at this particular moment, all she can manage to do is hum back an "Mmm-hmm." Lea shifts back, and Di's eyes open slowly. She completely ruined that beautiful dark knot, and there's a significant red mark against Lea's neck that she's pretty sure wasn't there twenty minutes ago. She's wild and electric and beautiful. Di sighs. "Love you." "Yeah, yeah. I love you too." Lea pulls her from the wall, wrapping an arm around her waist and walking her into the bedroom. "Let's get you into bed before you fall down." "Mmmph." Di falls onto her back, head rolled to the side, one hand landing on her stomach, drawing happy circles through the dress into her skin. Lea stands before her, reaching behind her back to undo her own zipper, hands fluttering to her hips for a moment. "Sit up. Can't get your dress off if you're lying down." "Mmm. Nice." Di murmurs into the comforter as an answer.

"Jerk." Lea steps closer, leans over and plants her hands on either side of Di's head, bearing her full weight and mock-glaring. One of Lea's knees brushes hers. Ka-bam. Di's eyes slant, and she glances up, hoping she still looks lazy and spent. "Mmm, just c'mere." She lifts her arms, sort of numbly, and pulls Lea down into her. "Seriously, you can't sleep in your --" Di rolls them over, pinning Lea beneath her. "Gerroff me," she laughs, her grin flashing wide. Di simply buries her nose into Lea's hair, nuzzling her with a few quick turns of her head, then slowing and grinning against her ear. "Although..." Lea's hand trails up the back of the blue dress. "I could probably get your dress off, from this position." In response, Di lays a few kisses against her neck, then one on her ear. Lea's fingers find the zipper, but she's only able to pull it two inches down before Di rolls her shoulders and pulls away from her fingers. "Di?" A note of puzzlement in her voice. She kisses along Lea's cheekbone, down her nose, and then lifts her mouth into hers. It's not a gentle kiss, not by any means -- it's searing, and Di knows from Lea's sharp intake that she can feel it in her toes. The heat in her body flashes again, everywhere, and it's kisses in the rain, sex in a thunderstorm, blood pounding with the thunder, lips drenched in sweet water. She slips her hands to Lea's back, pulling her up and into her, and slides her fingers easily inside the unzipped dress. Lea breaks the kiss when her head arches back. She rasps out: "You're not sleepy at all, are you." Di's hands are fully under Lea's shoulders now, loving the weight of her in her arms. "Nuh-uh." Lea is, amazingly enough, still able to sound indignant, though it's tinged with arousal. "You pretended to be sleepy." Di pulls one hand out, like a lightning flash in the storm between them, and slides it up Lea's thigh, taking the dress with her. "You and your sex-on-a-stick legs woke me very much up."

"You're a pretty good actress yourself, you know," says Lea as she sets her arms over her head, and Di scoots down to work the dress fully up and over her hips, hot and open kisses on each new inch of skin, unpredictable and wet. Lea's hands, uncharacteristically unsure, scramble at her back, and Di grabs one and presses it above their heads, just below the pillow. She dips her tongue into Lea's navel, a rush of blood hitting her head and heart and heat when Lea gasps. It's a funny, hazy thought that passes through Di's head, that she should be anxious about this -- she knows the clinical terms for things, and she knows she's supposed to know things (she's seen the Vagina Monologues, thank you very much), but she's not sure where everything's located, not really, and she expects that should terrify her, but the worry is sort of a ship way off on the horizon and she's the rich and silky sand of the shore, and Lea feels like the salty cool waves crashing down on her. Or something like that. They actually have to fight the dress off, but where the flash of embarrassment might be there's just a surge of arousal, another wave of wanting to devour and love her all at once. She's able to giggle, just a little, as her hands skim Lea's bare sides and she asks: "Do you ever wear a bra?" She feels Lea's scowl, more than sees it, and grins against her stomach when Lea finally responds: "I don't hear you complaining." It's hard to laugh for too long, though, because her body is just incredible -- the skin, the muscles, the bird on her hip, the scrawl under her rib. Di spends a lot of time on that scrawl. Too much time, apparently, because Lea's able to come back to herself and unzip the rest of Di's dress - not that she's minding, really, but she sort of had this fantasy of stripping herself while Lea watched. Of course, it's not like this is going to be the only time, and there's got to be something to look forward to for Round Two, right? Aside from everything else amazing that's going on. Actually, if all they ever did was this, step by step, night after night, she'd be pretty well set for life. Di noses her sternum, breathless, amazed by the everything of this, by the more of it. Lea's hands slip under the zipper and up her bare sides, attempting to toy with the clasp of her strapless bra, and Di shakes her off and pins one of her hands again. Lea might consider fighting back, but all she can do is suck in a deep shuddering breath when Di's palm covers her nipple. They lay like that forever, it seems, slow and gentle, Di caressing her sweetly, Lea's breaths shaky and sharp. It's love in an entirely different key; the tenor markedly changed from their moments against the wall.

Still just as sexy, though. After a long while, Di noses her way from the hollow between her breasts to Lea's other nipple, dark and taut, not because of anything planned but because she simply has to know what will happen if... She tongues one slow circle, her own chest shaking at the feel. Smooth skin shifting unpredictably to rough. Lea's hand snakes into her hair, fingers tensing, asking. She draws another circle, and another, and another, losing count as the skin grows wetter and tighter. Her own skin is flushed, far too warm, but the thought of stopping to shed her own dress (which is mostly bunched around her hips and waist, and sort of dangling off the one shoulder) is ludicrous, because how will she ever stop doing this? She closes her whole mouth around Lea's nipple, and -- oh, wow. Wow. Lea presses a bare thigh into her, and she knows she's soaking wet but right now all she wants to do is just be here, with Lea's hands tugging gently at her hair, her teeth carefully grazing dark skin, tongue flat and then rolled and then curled and then flat again. Di's dimly aware of Lea gasping, moaning, making some string of completely unintelligible sounds, and her hands slide lower, under her ass, pulling her hips up, pushing down against her. Lea's ribs press up against her chin as her back arches, urging Di closer. Di breaks her mouth away for a gasp, and in that moment Lea's hands fly to her shoulders and push her back. There's no time to even ask why, because in a second Lea's hands are at her thighs, pushing the dress up and over, the blue satin spilling every direction as she pulls it over her head. Lea latches onto her bare shoulder, lips and teeth against her pale skin, and she unclasps her bra and pulls it away. They're kneeling together, knees between each other, Lea's head just a little higher, and Di wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her close. They begin again, kisses open and wet, tongues exploring, thick and wanting. Lea's hands grip her shoulders, fingers pressing at the back of her neck, pulling her up and close. Di slips her hands down her sides, over those perfect little tattoos, to cup and tug at her ass, urging her into a rhythm, an arching and settling that makes them both ache. One hand still under Lea's thigh, Di glides her other hand over her knee and up, searching her out, blindly seeking heat and wet. Her palm presses Lea's pelvic bone and she cups three fingers against her, starting low and pulling up. Lea groans into her neck, and Di kisses her collarbone, sweet and slow, as she strokes her, low to high, again and again.

She's soaked, through her panties, and Di is too, and everything is hazy and delicious and warm. Lea's mouth moves against her, and she chokes out, "Baby -- Di -- can you -- " Di pulls away and then slips her hand down, fingers moving through curls, one finger just barely outside, the base of her fingers making quick and gentle circles against her clit. Lea's head goes limp against her, searing hot forehead against her sweating shoulders, and they kneel there for what seems like forever, riding, stroking, thrusting, searching for nothing, searching for everything. There's no science to it, no magic, no secret; it's just a summation of everything, the combination of kisses and friction and touches and hearts pounding together. Lea's body tenses, and it's instinct alone that keeps Di moving, just a little slower, a little lower, a little sweeter, and when the body against her trembles and then goes rigid, she feels Lea's cry all the way down her back. She wraps an arm around her, pulling Lea down and into her, splaying them across the bed as her breath and voice leaves her. Di plays with a wave of Lea's hair, watching it fall from her fingers. After a few minutes their combined heart rate is approaching normal again, and Lea's able to breathe without shuddering. She lifts her head from Di's shoulder. Dark, half-lidded eyes meet flickering gold hazel. "Hi." "Hi." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------She always thought, when she imagined this kind of day, that the first thing she'd do is hang pictures. Of course, in her daydreams, it was always a new place, and the walls were white, and her roommatespouse-whatever was always sort of greyfaced and anonymous. In reality, the place is far from brand new, and the walls are brick or cream or a velvety red, and there's this gorgeous woodland creature dancing around her as they haul in box after box. And she doesn't hang pictures first, because there are already seven on the wall. That was probably the moment, she figures -- when Lea opened her Christmanukkah present and gasped at the perfectly black-framed shot of the O'Neill's new neon, with SPRING AWAKENING just barely in focus and sparks filling the air, and immediately took down her own framed headshot to hang it in its place -- that was the moment when Di knew this was for keeps.

Arthur sits in a corner, lifting his head whenever they enter, huffing a little doggy huff when he lays back down. Lea's cats are circling him, still unsure, although they've met six times before now and seemed to come to some sort of understanding. Blended family, Di thinks, and chuckles. Just like their Pandora stations, which have come to some sort of standoff on the whole Fiddler on the Roof vs Florence and the Machine debate. Lea hauls up a box, her arms barely able to get around it, and asks, "What's in this one?" Di raises her eyebrow and traces a finger along the letters on the top and sides. "Video games." "Well." She sets it down and flashes a grin. "I thought maybe it was mislabeled--" Somewhere in the direction of the bedroom, her phone buzzes, the ringtone indicating it's Marci, her agent. "Hold that thought," Lea says, and dashes for it. Di watches her go with a grin. They've been in talks about some new role, which makes her nervous and excited at the same time. Di hauls in six more boxes, sunglasses tossed into one as the sun begins to set, before the conversation ends. She catches, on her ins and outs, "That sounds incredible" and "Do you think that they'd--" and "Well of course I'll--" On the seventh box, Di comes in to find Lea frantically rooting through the box of cartridges. "Did you lose something?" she asks, chuckling, setting down the box of pans. Lea looks up and a panicked smile flashes across her face before quickly being replaced with a delighted innocent grin. "Hi." Di doesn't believe her, not for a second, but she takes the bait anyway. "Hi." Lea digs around in the box again. "So, what's--" "Was that about the show?" She loves disrupting Lea's well-laid plans, whatever they might be right now. Lea grins and claps her hands, forgetting whatever she was after. "Yes! I'll go in next week. It's going to be amazing. I'm so excited." She wraps her arms around Di, grinning into her shoulder just above her tank top. "Gross, I'm sweaty, get off." "You smell nice, dork." Di curls her arms around her. "You'll be amazing. I'm so proud of you, always."

"I'm not sure if I'm ready for this." Di sighs and bites her lip. "Di?" "Yeah." "What's up, baby?" She pulls back, sliding her hands down Lea's arms, squeezing her fingers once and then letting go. "My stuff's still mostly packed, you know." The wrinkle in her dark brows indicates she does not know. "I could ... y'know. My lease isn't up till next week and I could..." Di ducks her head and rubs at her neck. "Are you saying you don't want to move in with me?" Lea's eyes blink rapidly. "I'm saying maybe it's not a good time. Marci and I talked, and Hollywood's a lot different than Broadway, you know..." She hates this. She really wants this role, for Lea, because it'll finally get her the exposure she deserves, and yet she doesn't know when she'll get to see her if she's shooting in L.A. every week, or even what's going to happen next week when the directors find out their potential leading lady is a shining star in the bisexual galaxy. "Hey." Lea takes her hands. "I'd sling coffee at four a.m. in some terrible hole-in-the-wall cafe with cockroaches and bacon if it was the only way to be with you." Di laughs and rolls her eyes, keeping her head down so the tears don't fall. "Such a drama queen." "You love it." And Lea steps into her space and wraps her arms around her, kissing her cheeks where the tears, damn their betrayal, are making their wet tracks. "And I love you." Her heart fills up, to the very top, the way it always does, and all her fears fade away as she whispers back, "I love you too." "Now." Lea pulls back, reaches into the box, and retrieves an old controller. "What's this go to?" "It's a Nintendo NES," Di says, and tries to hide the dorky grin that crosses her face. "We should play!" Lea says with a wide grin. "I never got to play video games." "You had a truly tragic childhood," murmurs Di, but only half-mockingly, as she's digging for the other controller. Lea selects Super Mario -- "it's always best to begin with the classics" -- and insists on playing as Mario. Her turn ends almost immediately, in a series of nearly-identical run-ins with Goombas

("Stinking little mushrooms! The little bastards!"), and Lea watches in a huff as Di navigates easily all the way to level 3-2 before overrunning her star power, colliding directly with a Koopa Troopa, and then running right off a cliff. (To be fair, she's partially distracted by Lea losing her absolute shit over the existence of Star Power.) "Your turn again," Di says, grinning, as she selects 2 Player and hands the first controller to Lea. "It's not fair, you know," she says as she pulls her dark hair back into a quick pony. "My hands are too small for this controller. I can't reach all the buttons properly." Di assumes she's joking and laughs, her eyes crinkling. "You're ridiculous. I started playing this when I was six." Lea pouts. "I hate having little hands." Di's face opens, then melts into tenderness. "Oh, sweetie." She pulls Lea into her, setting the controllers aside and bringing their clasped hands to her mouth. "I love them." She kisses each knuckle, her eyes closing as the mix of sweet and salty of Lea's skin meets her lips. "They're perfect." Lea's eyes haze over, and she brings Di's mouth to hers. "I can think of one thing they're perfect for," she says. Di barely blinks and she's on her back, with Lea's nimble fingers perfectly sized to slip down her unbuttoned jeans and toy with her skin. It's not hard to go from loving to aroused in just a few seconds--after all, when she's around Lea, it's a constant state of both--and they're five minutes in and about forty-five seconds away when a wet nose bumps her arm and they both open their eyes to yell, "Arthur!" He sits besides them and looks confusedly sheepish; they're on the floor, surely they came to play, right? The moment's over, but it's unimportant, because Lea collapses down against her and laughs, and that's just as good and lovely and skin-tingling as anything. They lie there, sweaty skin sticking together, laughter subsiding into deep sighs, and Arthur gets a few good head scritches in before Lea sits up and says, "Do you think you could finish the game?" It's possibly the strangest post-almost-coital line Di can imagine, so she says: "Right now?" "Yeah." "Why--" "Please?" Oh, that mouth. Try and resist that shit, Di. Just try.

She shakes off her jeans and underwear and grabs a fresh pair of each, but sits cross-legged in the middle of the wooden bedroom floor in just her white tank top and blue boyshorts, because she knows it kills Lea when she does. She plays through level 4 easily, but she's a little rusty, and she's nervous about being able to make it all the way to the end -- and Lea's clearly set on seeing it, though she has no idea why. At 5-1, though, Di nails the flagpole perfectly, and watches with a grin as the fireworks shoot off behind the castle. She turns to beam at Lea, and finds her ... gone? She pauses the game and swings herself from the floor. "Lee? Where--" The darkened living room is full of candles, with Lea leaning against the brick wall. Di's heart pounds. "I couldn't think of how to do this," says Lea, stepping forward, "without being either overdramatic or overly cliche." Di's pretty sure she's swallowed her tongue, so she attempts to murmur some kind of strangled noise of assent. "If you ever play that particular cartridge through to level 8-4, you'll notice there's an altered screen that says Now that the princess is in my castle, can I make her mine? because ... well because Jenna knows a guy and I thought it would be cute." Di doesn't even pretend to try to say something to that. "But honestly I've been holding this for months and I can't wait one minute longer." In the dim light Di can't even see the box in her hands, can't see anything besides something glinting there, but she already loves it, it's already perfect. "Di, will you -- " Lea swallows loudly, her hands shaking. She looks from the box to Lea's eyes, her perfect dark gaze, and realizes that Lea Michele Sarfati, star of stage and soon-to-be-of-screen, has forgotten her lines. Di cups her hands around Lea's, momentarily amazed that she's able to move at all, and says, "Can you give me two minutes?" Lea's face falls, and her mouth opens in an unasked question. Di grins. "Because everything's packed and it'll take me a while to find yours." Lea squeals, loudly and perfectly, and throws her arms wildly around Di's neck. "Really?" "Really," she murmurs, feeling her skin buzz and hum as Lea presses against her.

They stand there, candlelight flickering around them, moonlight and starlight filtering in, Arthur and the cats sitting primly in the doorway with their heads almost identically cocked. When their lips find each other, the kisses are sweet, like promises, like tomorrow, like forever. "Hi," whispers Lea. "Hi," Di whispers back. ----------------------------------------------------------------------The end (but it's just the beginning...)

Summary: This is a sequel to my slightly-AU Achele fic. If you haven't read that, you probably should, because it's really fucking cute. No, seriously. I'm not giving you a summary. Go read it. I worked hard on that thing. A/N: I had to sit in on a three-hour faculty meeting today, and it was either this or paying attention. This is for everyone who's loved me through the past few months, which have been really hard. Thank you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------She hates this. She hates the way the tinny ring of the Skype call makes her run from the kitchen, forgetting her carefully-steeped Teavana red berry chai and ramming her toe into the doorjam on the way. She hates that she spent an hour doing her hair when she knows the camera will make it look like crap anyway, and that she wore her best pair of ass-hugging jeans in case she has to get up to get something and Lea gets a shot of her ass. She hates the way the phone rings and she feels simultaneously elated and crushed. She hits that damn green button and adjusts her webcam. "Hi." Lea's voice is far away, and it doesn't quite match up with her mouth, because the wireless on set is absolute crap. Her trailer is clean, the walls a glaring blue-white. The edge of a black frame peeks into the screen, and Di knows it's one of their engagement photos, the one where she's dangling upside-down from the Ambassador Theater sign (hanging off an out-of-shot ladder), her hair wild and wavy while Lea reaches for her. It was the stupidest shot of all, which is why Lea loves it best. "Hi," says Di, out of breath and trying not to wince. Arthur pads in and sits on the floor next to her chair, and Claude peers at her from his favorite spot on the bookcase. Sheila's probably still sleeping in the sun, unconcerned about her step-mom's possibly broken toe. Lea just looks at her, for a while, and sighs, "I miss you." Di runs a hand through her hair, pulling it down over her face and peering up through a curtain of blonde. Lea's laugh, short and striking bursts of joy, echoes from her speakers. Di hates this, but God, does she ever love it. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------"I won't be home for Christmas," Lea says, suddenly, an hour into their too-late conversation.

Di rubs her fingers up her face, trying to hide her reaction under cover of sleepiness. Not that she cares; she's just not as much a night person. "Kay," she says, into her palms. She appreciates -- honestly, she does -- that Lea doesn't dance around this, doesn't set it up with "We're over schedule" or "They added another scene" or "Kevin's been atrocious, we have to re-shoot". Her girl doesn't babble. She gets straight to the point, and leaves it there. It's just that this point is shit. They sit in silence, for a while, both knowing that Lea wants to tell them to go to hell in a shit-laced handbasket, and that Di is on the verge of telling Lea to go with them if she keeps letting them jerk her around like this. It was supposed to be just two months. It was supposed to be a mini-series with a definite end. Because who's going to want to watch a show about six people who live in two neighboring apartments and randomly burst into song? Apparently fucking everyone. "Friends meets High School Musical," they said, and Di and Lea had planned on it being time-wise more Vanessa Hudgens than Jennifer Aniston, but it's definitely leaning more towards the ten-season box set every day. Which is awesome, really, except that Di really, really loves New York, and is really, really not keen on L.A. California's fine for visits and family, but there is just something about the craziness of eight million people in three hundred square miles. And she knows Lea misses it too -- not just because she mentions it every chance she gets, but because she never talks about moving to L.A. Either of them. She looks up, and sees the blue light of Lea's laptop winking in a tear track down her cheek. Di sighs, slowly. She wants to say "I love you," in the way that means And that makes this worth it, but she is just too tired and too lonely to pretend that she's not achingly depressed over this. Sheila, of all pets, paws at her knee and then jumps into her lap. She rubs at Di's face, blocking the camera with her lasciviousness, purring in a low rumble that Di wishes Lea could hear. "I hate this bitch-fucking show," Lea whispers. Di breathes out a quick smile, if only because Lea's cursing gets more inventive the longer shooting goes. "I know." She scoops Sheila up and twists her so she can lay on her lap -- a huge affront, as always, because Sheila digs her back claws into her thighs and then takes off with a jolt and a flurry of fluff. "I'm just going to go in there and light my fucking contract on--"

"Lee." Di pinches the bridge of her nose and then looks up. "We'll get through this." "It's fucking Christmas." Her eyes dart offscreen and Di's pretty sure she's thinking about the nearest place to find a lighter. Not in her trailer -- no fire on set, of course, and so she's got that horrific lightup menorah on her vanity. Arthur looks up at Di with his big crossed doggy eyes, and she grabs the laptop and walks into the dining room. He crawls up next to her on the couch and snuggles into her side, grunting. "Good boy," says Lea, a little fuzzily, and his ears twitch. "He misses you," says Di, and curses herself for being a bitch about everything, when this is what Lea so badly wanted, but -"I miss him too." Lea looks at her, then kisses her palm and presses it to the camera. Di brings her face close, trying not to cry. ---------------------------------------------------------------------Di looks at flights, considers standby, but Lea will be home the 27th -- she got them to write it down, so hopefully they'll stick to that -- and what's the point of finding a dog sitter for four days just so she can have forty extra hours with Lea that will mostly consist of her sitting in a director's chair on set and getting coldly snubbed by the director? It's not that he hates her, she knows. It's that he wants Lea in L.A. twenty-four seven, and she gives him exactly one hundred hours every week and then she is fucking out of there. It's in her contract. Her flight in and her flight out have to be within one hundred and eight hours of each other. Lea thought that by being a ridiculous diva they'd cut her from the show -- replace her with someone else (not someone better, obviously, because that angel doesn't exist), awkwardly kill off her character and slip in someone new. Instead, she's got a crazy schedule where she gets the script two hours before her flight on Monday, memorizes it on the way out there, and then shoots for nearly thirty hours straight before they let her collapse for eight and then do it again. The terrifying thing is that she thrives on that crazy schedule, and her voice sounds as flawless as ever. She takes a late-night flight back Thursday and she's in the studio most of the workday Friday, getting whatever the next week's songs are recorded, and then she and Di get the weekend, in a way, except almost every weekend is interrupted by them begging her to get back in the studio to fix one more thing to the point at which all studio lines and directors', writers', and musicians' cell phone numbers go straight to a pre-programmed voicemail that says, late Friday through mid-Monday, "My contract specifically states that these are the hours when you can fuck the fuck off." It was funny in September, bittersweet in October, the cause of three fights in November, and now Di's just tired of it.

To the point at which she's wondering if she could survive L.A. for more than a week. She did high school in Cali, after all; it's not like it would kill her. She loves the weather, even if she loves the grey and rotting rains of New York more. She doesn't love her job, by any measure, and she's not going to make a lifelong career out of receptioning anyway. Lea's got plenty of friends, so they wouldn't be lonely, and her parents would only be a seven-hour drive... She makes a list, pros and cons, and the cons column is so short and so easily circumvented -- moving the cats and Arthur wouldn't be that hard, and so on -- and then she walks outside to get milk and she knows she just can't leave. This is home. Here. This cement and steel and smelly town, with too many people all on top of each other, and traffic that makes her swear off ever owning a car again, and every corner another perfect shot waiting to happen. She goes back inside, grabs the Nikon, and hops the subway. She blows the afternoon shooting buskers on every corner in Santa hats, red kettles with change clanging and bells ringing, dirty slush flying up from bus wheels, people hurrying home with hats pulled low and scarves pulled high against the wind. She tries to pretend that at every turn she's not hoping to find a sudden whirl of dark hair and wild eyes meeting her, mouth whispering Surprise. She tries to pretend it doesn't hurt that she doesn't. She tries to pretend she's checking her phone because the 4G is so spotty and not because she's hoping for a call, a text, a picture message, a fucking tweet that announces that for whatever insipid reason, that damn show has been canceled until further notice. Or shooting's been moved to New York. Or the director grew a heart and let Lea hop a plane ride home. Lea texts her at her lunchtime -- a twenty-minute window -- and says Ill be home for Hanukkah just doesnt work as well, and Di has to laugh, because otherwise she'll cry. I dunno, the alliteration is good. She sits on a bench to think over the words, humming to herself, and finally texting: Spin the top, and take the pot... Almost instantly her phone rings, and Lea sings, "And bring me latkes three." Di groans. "I hate rhyming schemes that have to flip normal word order." "You're supposed to sing along, jerk."

She sighs, glancing around at all the New Yorkers heading home from work, not paying attention to anything but themselves. Low and sweet, and a little sharp, she sings: "The last night will find me..." "Where candles gleam..." Lea has to cram in the syllables, but it works, because it's her. "I'll be home for Han-nu-kah..." "Without a damn question." Lea chuckles, not singing. "Not only in my dreams." "Get back to work, superstar." Di smiles. Snow's beginning to fall, and she should head home soon. "I love you." "I love you too." At the crosswalk just before the station that will take her home, in the deepening shadows of dusk, there's a couple, an old man and an old woman. Barely distinguishable, so stooped and wrapped in layers, she on a walker, him on a cane. He holds her hand on top of the walker as they hobble across the street. When she gets into the apartment, she checks every room, just in case -- but she's the only one home. She eats her dinner next to Arthur, sitting on the floor in the glow of the four candles, picking at the organic mac and cheese and trying not to think about anything. ---------------------------------------------------------Buzz. Buzz. Buzz -- Anything you want, dear, fine, fine, fine, fine, f-Di grabs her phone and silences it, rubbing her eyes and squinting at the screen. She fell asleep with her contacts in, curled up on the floor with her head against the couch and Arthur by her feet. In the background, whatever Harry Potter movie ABC Family is marathoning now is playing. It's the one where he has the really bad hockey hair. She presses the phone to her ear, lays back down, and fumbles for the remote. "Hi," she says, while Hermione scolds Ron for something. There. Muted. "Hi. Sorry to wake you." "S'okay. Love you." Lea laughs. Fucking angels, man. "I love you too, my sleepy girl. Are you in bed?" Di rolls over onto her stomach, propping herself on an elbow. "Can't find my favorite pillow." "You don't sleep with a--" There's a pause, and she can hear Lea smile. "Cutie." "You know it." Arthur licks her heel, and she muffles her giggle.

"I just wanted to say goodnight," says Lea, gently, and Di hears the six unspoken sentences that all begin or end or center around Sorry. "Thanks for waking me up. I fell asleep watching a movie." Di stretches, feeling more awake every moment, and she wonders if Lea's exhausted or if they can turn this into something that moves their names clearly onto the Naughty list. If Lea asks, "What movie?", she's going to lie and say, "Porn." Just to see what will happen. "Di?" Dammit, Lea, take the hint. "Yeah?" "I should let you go. It's late." Her tone is placating. "True, but as long as you've got me up ..." Di raises an eyebrow into the darkness. Lea laughs, loud and hard, but it denigrates into a yawn that sounds almost forced. "Baby, I adore you, but I need to sleep. I've only got a few hours." Di grumbles low enough to sound like a growl. Lea growls back, more forcefully. Soon they're growling and snarling at each other, between hysterical giggles, and when Lea's voice coaxes her into the bathroom to brush her teeth, she's almost forgotten how much this honestly sucks. "Dream of me," Lea tells her. "Mmph," she replies. ------------------------------------------------------------She tries to, but ends up with some horrific nightmare sequence of them trapped in the Chamber of Secrets, with a balrog chasing them, and she ends up having to choose between her or Lea -- they can't both escape. And she tries to choose Lea, but Lea wants to choose her, and then they're running through the halls of Hogwarts but this time chased by zombies, which is normally fine but these are Dawn of the Dead type zombies, fast zombies, and the pterodactyls can't get to them in time... She blinks herself awake, and reaches in the dark for Lea before she remembers. Di drags herself to the kitchen, flipping on lights as she goes, checking the couch once and then mentally kicking herself for being -- what? hopeful? She makes a cup of chamomile and brings it to her nightstand -- Lea would kill her, she's so picky about food not being in the bedroom -- but she'll clean it up before she comes home... She falls asleep before she finishes it. ---------------------------------------------------------------

She decides to spend Christmas Eve Day on the floor of the living room, wrapped up in her old quilt with the laptop on the coffee table, editing photos to the background of A Charlie Brown Christmas. At exactly four nineteen, that plan is upset by a knock at the door. Her heart soars, her feet scramble, but before her trembling fingers can unlatch the deadbolt, she looks down at Arthur -who is barking. Once he smells Naya, he remembers her and willingly accepts an ear rub from her. She wrinkles up his wrinkled face, kissing him on the top of his head as she assesses Di from her kneeling spot on the floor. "You look like shit, Lady D." Di wants to tell her to fuck off, but she just shrugs. Nay tries to drag her out, but she just can't, so they stay in, blowing through all the Christmas episodes of any TV show on Hulu, beloved or not, and Naya sings the blessings with her and lights five candles, and they pass out around eleven-thirty with plates stained with eggplant parmesan cluttering the coffee table, two bottles of wine finished, and the credits to "Afternoon Delight" cycling across the bottom of the TV screen. --------------------------------------------------------When Di wakes, Naya's gone. She left a note on the fridge -- Family thing, didn't want to wake you, call you later -- and set the coffeepot to make one cup as soon as Di hits the button. She's tempted to leave it, give herself a caffeine headache just so she can have a good reason to lie on the couch and bemoan her existence. She makes one anyway. She makes one, and she drinks it, and she drags herself into the shower, if only so as not to offend Naya's sensitive nose when she sees her next. A hot shower turns into a hot bath, with lavender bubbles and Hedys Folly and Sheila peering at her judgmentally from her perch on the sink. Di dries her hair, and puts on a nice charcoal-grey sweater that shows off her collarbone and a pair of black skinny jeans. She takes Arthur out, and he shakes his nose at the snow and begs to go back in as soon as he's done. She calls her mom and dad, and skypes Jason. Then it's ten-thirty, and the day still looms ahead of her, full of hours and empty of everything else.

----------------------------------------------------------------------She goes for a walk. She thinks at first that it's just for something to do, but within a few blocks it becomes so much more than that; it's about remembering who she is, and who they are. And maybe it's about soaking up enough of the city that she might survive a few months out in L.A. Maybe she could do it, if she carried the feel and life of New York like armor around her heart. Lea gets a break from shooting, usually around noon ET, and she always calls, so Di's not so much startled as wistful when her phone rings. "Hey," says Di. "Hi." A snow flurry blows off an awning, and Di watches it fall. She's got a hundred shots like that stored away. Maybe she could live off the pictures for a few months. Blow one up to life-size and cover a wall of their rented condo in it. She could handle that, maybe. "Merry Christmas, darling," adds Lea, not quite singing it, but there's a tone to her voice that's especially musical, and Di can't help but turn around, just in case she's walking up behind her. But it's just a woman in a puffy coat waiting for the bus, and two boys a hundred feet away throwing dirty snowballs at each other. "Merry Christmas, my Lea," she says. "So, I was thinking," Lea begins, and takes a breath. "That sounds dangerous. Did you get yourself into trouble?" She has to smile, because otherwise -"I might." Lea laughs. "I was thinking -- what if I just walked into their office and said, 'I am the goddamn star of this goddamn show, and I'm going home to my girl for Christmas and there's nothing you can do about it.'" Di laughs back. "Then Perez Hilton would have a true Christmas present indeed. 'Diva storms out of set, makes insane demands.'" "Ugh." She can hear Lea shudder. "By the time it got to him, they'd make me sound like I boil puppies for my breakfast." "Vegan puppies." They both laugh. "My little diva," Di croons.

"I've gotta go." Lea already sounds farther away. "I know. I love you." "I love you too. I'll call you tonight." "I know. I love you three." "I love you four." "Five." "Six!" And Lea hangs up. Di texts her: Seven. Lea texts back: To infinity and beyond!!! Di has to smile. She has to. --------------------------------------------------------------------------It's a Wonderful Life is playing on three different channels. Di accepts her fate, makes a bowl of popcorn, and cuddles up with Arthur and Claude. Sheila glares from under the couch, and Di slips an extra spoonful of wet food into her bowl, because it's Christmas. The Sound of Music comes on after, for God only knows what reason, and she drifts in and out, neglecting her usual sing-and-dance-along to "My Favorite Things" in favor of seeing if she can lay still long enough to go completely numb. Hours later, Arthur wet-noses her foot and wakes her, to the tune of "We're Off to See the Wizard" playing in the background. Whoever determines "Christmas classics" needs a serious re-education. She digs out a Chinese delivery menu and takes it with her to the roof, considering her options while Arthur shivers through his business. There's still some eggplant parmesan left, but it just feels wrong to not eat something rice-based at Christmas. She calls her mom, again, and they agree to order shrimp lo mein together, three hours time difference notwithstanding. They don't talk about Lea, and as Di jams her keys in the door, she wonders if she should have asked her mom to call her. Lea might need some family to go to tonight. Arthur noses his way past Di's legs, and she closes the door behind them, locking it and flicking on the hall light. She kicks her wet shoes onto the rubber mat where they can dry properly. It's a good time to tidy; she can't stand Judy Garland, not right now, and Lea appreciates coming home to clean house.

Hanukkah lights first, though. She grabs matches from the kitchen and walks into the living room -and everything stops. Time, sound, her heart. All stopped. Because six candles are already lit --- and Lea's standing beside them. They stand there, silently, forever, with Di back-lit by the kitchen chandelier, Lea's face shining in the light of the candles. It doesn't matter who moves first and who moves second, because within just a few steps, they're holding hands, quietly and gently, their eyes never leaving the other's. "Hi," says Lea. "Hi," says Di. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------