FicWad

“They would be so perfect together!” Ana clapped her hands together in excitement; her brilliant idea was nearly too much to handle. It was uncanny how great their personalities would flow; she was almost angry at herself for not thinking of it sooner.

Enthusiasm was absent in Patrick’s voice; his eyes were glued to the illuminated laptop that sat on the table before him, his fingers feverishly prodding away at the keys; but he was still quick to water down her fantasies; “That’s what you said about Nick.”

Scowling defensively Ana frowned, “Gabe is different!” With mock defensiveness, she crossed her arms sternly over her chest in retaliation, “And to be fair, I had nothing to do with that; you know that it was mostly Pete working his magic.”

Obvious to anyone with a set of eyes, ears and a soul; Patrick wasn’t paying attention to her, or the conversation but he mumbled a nearly incoherent “mhmm” to suffice for a legitimate response.

In one fluid motion, Ana shut the laptop in his face, nearly catching a finger or two in the process, before physically removing it from his view, clutching it carefully behind her back. Abducting his pride and joy; it was pathetic that this is what is had come down to, just to get him to pay attention, to listen.

“Real, live person requesting attention!” Waving her arms erratically and requesting sarcastically, the sing-song tone of her voice almost masked her sheer frustration and desperation; but almost only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades. Well, and in nuclear warfare, but is anyone really keeping track?

Patrick frowned out of reflex; it was as if his mind had already planned an immediate, subconscious defensive response to this situation. And before his eyes could even rise to meet hers, before he can see the pleading eyes staring down at him, an excuse was rolling off the tip of his tongue, “I’m sorry sweetie, you know that I don’t do it on purpose, I just –“

“Have a lot of work to finish before the tour, before this weekend, before you’re off touring the world again for months at a time.” Ana’s bitterness had cut him off; she already knew the answer, the explanation that she had heard so many times before. Finishing her statement with a sad sigh and a quiet, “Yeah, I know,” she placed the laptop back on the table before him.

Patrick physically winced at the sting of disappointment in her voice and was immediately pushing the laptop away from him, pleading “Don’t be like that, please.”

Shrugging nonchalantly, it was hard for her not to roll her eyes, “I’m not being like anything.” And with a weak, forced smile, she was turning on her heels and walking out of the kitchen. This was a battle that was become all too familiar in their home. Ana tried her best to be accepting, but their time together was becoming scarce and she was beginning to lose her patience with their entire situation.

With a quick, satisfied flip of her wrist, the zipper on her suitcase was shut and the last of her bags were packed; but it was hard not to frown down at the empty suitcases at her feet, begging to be filled with his belongings. A weekend away from the madness would be the perfect remedy to the problems they had been having, but that wasn’t what she was packing for. Packing for the madness, packing for the schedules, the press conferences, television interviews and photo shoots; she had volunteer to endure a weekend of chaos in the city of sin. But Janelle was tagging along, and it was Vegas; something good was bound to come of that detrimental combination, right?

After gathering her bags and dragging them to the door, she had finally returned to the kitchen to find him sitting in the same spot at the table, with his laptop open once again, but now, his eyes were distant, lacking their usual drive and concentration.

“I’m sorry”

An apology was all he honestly had left to offer her once he heard her come into the room. It had been days since he had given her a second thought, and it destroyed him to finally admit that. Climbing into bed beside her each night, the nights when he didn’t pass out in his office or on the couch, was the most affection he had shown her in the past two weeks. But in his defense, dividing his attention was a talent that he lacked, and she was painfully aware of this when she agreed to this relationship.

“It’s fine” Ana lied, sighing quietly, her voice low and sad, “I get it Patrick, you’re busy; you’re an important guy, you’re always going to have more important things to do. I can .. or at least, I will, learn to accept that.”

“No Banana, listen” Pushing back from the table almost violently, the sound of wood scraping the tile echoed through the cabinets as he rose from his chair, moving towards her in hesitation, but using his nickname for her to hold her attention, “Nothing is more important than you and I shouldn’t be neglecting you; I’m so sorry and you honestly shouldn’t forgive me, you should be so angry with me right now that it hurts. But I need you to help me, I need you to help me make this work.”

Moving just a little closer to her now, he wrapped his arms loosely around her waist, honestly expecting her to push him away, to slap him in the face, anything to show that she was angry at him, but she relaxed against his embrace after a moment of hesitation.

“I need you to tell me what I’m doing, to tell me how you feel. When you’re frustrated, or ignored, when you’re lonely and I’m neglecting you, please tell me so I can work it out. I’m never going to realize what I’m doing until its too late, so can you do that for me?”

Ana nodded in understanding; at least he was making an effort, or, making an effort to make an effort and honestly, anything would be better than what she was left with at this point. Agreeing with his proposal before wiggling out of his embrace, she shuffled to the hallway closet and began digging through her shoes, “You need to pack or we’re going to miss our flight. We have to be there early to meet Janelle once her flight lands here.”

“Pack for me?” Patrick sighed, defeated. Packing was his least favorite way to spend those free moments of his day; usually he resorted to living out of suitcases, even when he was on a break from touring, but Ana could only deal with tripping over his suitcases for so long.

Ana shook her head, but a small smile had finally broken through, “It’ll take you five minutes, now lets go or we’re going to be late, and it’s your ass on the line when little Miss diva-Pete is unhappy.”

Patrick huffed in defeat, “don’t remind me” and headed to the bedroom to toss the next two weeks of his life into an array of suitcases. It was hard, but this was the life he had chosen to live; he now could only wish that Ana was around when he was making these choices in the first place.

“Hey Ana!” Calling out through the bedroom door, he was unsure if she would hear him with her head in a closet full of shoes and jackets, but moments later she came stumbling in with an arm full of stilettos, eyeing him curiously.

“What do you think we would be like if I never joined the band?” It was a question that had picked at his brain for some time now, but never got around to posing.

Giving it a moment of thought, Ana dropped the array of shoes on to the bed, scratching absently at her hair before taking a seat on the mattress next to her high heel collection. A moment of silence passed as she began sorting through the shoes before her, a moment that faded as she gave her final answer.

“Well to start it off, we wouldn’t be here, together at this very moment.”

Patrick kept his mouth shut; she seemed so confident in her answer and waited patiently for her to elaborate.

“You still would have dated Kate and I still would have run away, but if you hadn’t joined the band, you would have been here in Chicago when I came home, instead of off touring the world like a rock star. And if you weren’t who you are today, I would have never been at your show where your clumsy self plowed over me. If you weren’t in the band, you wouldn’t have been in New York the day Pete harassed me in Starbucks and you wouldn’t have been flying home from New York first class that weekend; you wouldn’t have had the pull to get that hotel room when the flights were canceled and we wouldn’t have ended up having sex in the hotel room you were sharing with one of your band mates. I wouldn’t have realized at that moment how many mistakes I had made and how much I need you.”

“Wow” was all Patrick could respond with it, because every word of her reasoning was true. If it wasn’t for this band, she would never have come back to his life in the first place.

“Or …” Ana cut off his thoughts, standing up happily when she finally found the shoes she had been searching for, “You wouldn’t have spent so much time with the band when we were in high school, you and I would have spent more time together, and instead of Kate maybe you would have ended up with me, and we would be married with three kids and a minivan by now.”

Or, that could have happened. Patrick had never thought of changing the past far before he had even given thought to joining this band; but once again, Ana had an explanation, finishing the conversation before gathering her shoes and heading back to the closet.

“But, luckily I took Advanced Biology senior year instead of Physics with you and Kate, leaving the two of you together and leaving you to get that stupid job with her at Borders. And if it weren’t for Borders, you never would have joined the band, and we never would have met at your show and if Kate hadn’t been a cheating whore, she never would have left you because of the band, you never would have kissed me that night, or that night on Thanksgiving and we never would have had desperate sex in that hotel room. So maybe, at our reunion, we should probably thank Mr. Mason for his senior Biology class.”

And with that poignant explanation, Ana left the room, leaving Patrick with nothing but a smile and a still unpacked suitcase lying on the bed in front of him; more thankful for the wonderful world of science than he had ever been before.