Author's Note I:
This is a kind of "plagiarized" story of something I wrote for another fandom ages ago (that I took down due to fandom politics recently, so I'm not going to bother mentioning what fandom). I did a little tweaking for it to fit The Bear fandom and Syd/Carmy. I didn't follow timelines or anything because I suck at figuring those out for any show. This was largely written to the new Snow Patrol album, "The Forest Is The Path". It might be slightly OOC but it is AU, and I was trying to finish it for SydCarmy week but it got ahead of me. Oh well, the best-laid plans.
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"We Might be broken
Might be bruised
But I'm with you every time you choose"
Everything's Here And Nothing's Lost, Snow Patrol
Mikey commits suicide on a Sunday.
Syd hears about it from Sugar, her voice thick with tears, asking her to go and check in on Carmy because she can't stand the thought of him being alone right now. Syd is at a loss for words, she knows that she should tell Sugar that she's sorry for her loss but she can't get the words out past her throat, no matter how hard she tries. So, she agrees to go and see Carmy, throwing on her coat and shoes as fast as she can.
She promises to call Sugar back later and makes the short trek from her apartment building to Carmy's. She lets herself in with the "in case of emergencies" key he gave her when they moved out of the CIA dorms and into apartments after graduation.
"Carmy?" She calls out, nervous about what she will find, her heart pounding harder than it probably has a right to.
"Yo, I'm in the kitchen," he replies.
She kicks off her shoes and goes to the kitchen, finding him surrounded by oranges and an unreadable expression on his face as he halves the citrus fruit with a sharp knife.
"Carmy…" she repeats, trailing off and going over to him, she wants to take the knife out of his hand, to hug him. "How are you?" she asks, finally finding her voice, mentally scolding herself for asking just a generically stupid question.
Carmy shrugs and sniffs a little, laser-focused on cutting oranges.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" Syd asks as she takes her coat off and drapes it on a bar stool, leaning against the counter and watching him.
Carmy shrugs again, still non-committal. She doesn't know what she expected him to do. Cry? Breakdown in her arms? Throw a fit? She's known him all her life and whenever something goes wrong or something terrible happens, all he's ever done is withdraw into himself. Always almost too far to reach.
So, Syd does what she always does best for him, and that's to make herself useful. His laptop is at her elbow, and since she knows his password, she keys it in and starts to look at flights for them to go back to Chicago. Sugar didn't mention a funeral but Syd guesses there will be one at some point.
"We should go home," Syd tells Carmy. "When do you want to leave?"
"Home?" Carmy finally looks at her, his eyebrows furrowing and Syd wonders if he has any idea about what's actually going on. "I don't know if I'll be able to get time off work on such short notice, Syd."
"I'll make all the arrangements," Syd assures him even though she knows Carmy's boss is a dick, and more likely than not, getting the needed time off will be a pain in the ass.
"Syd, you don't have to… you don't have to try and get time off work for me," Carmy says, suddenly more animated than he's been since she got there. "I-I've already asked for some days off. Okay? And you don't have to come with me either, there's no fuckin' sense in you taking time off when you just got this job. I-I couldn't ask you to do that."
Syd rolls her eyes. "Of course, I'm coming with you!" she scoffs, taking her phone out of her pocket and pulling up Gmail. She started to compose an email, explaining the situation to her boss, she reworded it a few times and then pressed send when she was satisfied with the wording. "It's all done. I told them that we would probably need to leave sooner than later."
Carmy sighs and descends into silence again while Syd scrolls through flights.
"I'm booking two tickets for Tuesday morning," Syd tells him. "It leaves kind of early though."
"Do whatever you need to do," Carmy replies.
"Maybe now that you have dates, they'll let you go…" Syd muses as she scrapes nail polish off her fingernails, glittery lacquer falling in flakes onto her jeans.
Carmy shrugs and cuts more oranges, blood-red juice spilling out onto the cutting board.
"What are you doing Carmy?" Syd finally asks.
"Uh, I was thinking about making a blood orange sauce… and some sort of fish? Maybe chicken." Carmy looks at her, really looks at her like he's realizing she's there for the first time. "Are you hungry? I could cook for you."
"No, not really. Are you?"
"No. Not really," Carmy echoes.
"It would be a shame to waste all those oranges," Syd says even though she doesn't think she'll be able to eat a bite, it's like lead has taken up residence in her stomach.
"Maybe I'll juice them and freeze them for later."
He looks so lost, that Syd finally goes to him, extracts the knife from his hand, and wraps her arms around him. For a second, he's so loose in her embrace, arms hanging limply by his side and then he hugs her in return. She rubs comforting circles in his back and he sighs into her neck.
"I'm so sorry Carmy," Syd says. "I'm so sorry."
She doesn't know what else to say.
Nothing seems quite right even though everything she could possibly say would be true. She loved Mikey too. She was sorry for his loss. If there's anything I can do for you, let me know.
It all seems so annoyingly clichè and none of it seems good enough.
"Let's put the oranges away and go to bed," she says instead. "It's late."
Carmy pulls away and looks at her. "You're not going to leave, are you?"
Syd shook her head. "No, of course not. I never do."
They take turns getting ready for bed. She brushes her teeth, puts on the oversized Billy Joel concert t-shirt and Champion sweatpants that Carmy's reserved just for her when she sleeps over and secures her sleep scarf around her hair.
Carmy is hovering around the bathroom when she opens the door, and Syd doesn't know if he is waiting for his turn or if he's checking in on her, and she doesn't ask. She just steps aside to let him in.
"I'll, uh, be just a minute," Carmy tells her.
Syd nods. "Okay," she says.
She goes over to his bed and grabs the newest Nigella Lawson cookbook on his nightstand before crawling over to her side of the mattress and settling in. While she waits for Carmy to come out of the bathroom, she tries to look at the cookbook. Read Nigella's sexy descriptions of chocolate cake but she can't concentrate, she's looking at the words but they're blurring on the page.
All she can think of is loss and blood oranges and Carmy, and the last time they had seen Mikey. He hadn't talked to either of them, it had confused Carmy and they had spent the flight home from Christmas trying to figure out what was going on without drawing any proper conclusions.
Syd blinks and tries to think about anything else but Mikey. But the tragedy of the day is pressing into her and it dawns on her that she hasn't cried yet and she doesn't think Carmy has either.
Carmy joins her with this realization, looking even more tired than he did before he went to get ready for bed. He hesitates and she closes the book and pats the spot beside her because she knows what he's thinking. She doesn't know why he's so hesitant, they've shared a bed before and besides, he asked her to stay.
"Come on Carm," she says.
He slides in next to her, takes the cookbook from her, and then shuts the light out. They lie in silence, bathed in streetlights, and for a second Syd wonders when Carmy's going to put curtains up, and then he turns to her and takes her in his arms, clinging to her for what seems like dear life.
She holds him close, one hand working its way through his curls, and she strokes his hair. His face buried into her neck, his breath warm. Proof that there's life despite death looming over them.
Neither of them says anything and sleep evades them. She considers putting on a sleep meditation, music, or something to help force slumber. She considers asking Carmy how he is, and what he's thinking. But she doesn't and he doesn't.
Morning comes too soon.
Carmy leaves her to go and talk to his boss, to put in his time off.
Syd stays at his apartment and cleans out the fridge, juices the blood oranges, and freezes them in deli containers, she makes a simple breakfast of eggs in a basket with sourdough. She picks at it, still not that hungry.
Nat calls and asks her if they're coming home.
Syd assures her that they are and gives her the flight information. Nat seems relieved and she promises that she'll meet them at the airport.
Syd scrapes her food into the trash. She calls her dad and tells him that she'll be back in Chicago in a little over a day.
"I figured," Emmanuel says. "Sugar called me and told me about Mikey. How's Carmen doing?"
Syd sighs. "I don't know," she answers. "He hasn't told me. I haven't asked."
"If anyone knows how he's feeling without even asking, it's you," Emmanuel says. "You know him better than anyone else."
"He's not doing that well," Syd admits, even to herself. "But I've got him."
"Give him my love," Emmanuel tells her. "I'll see you soon, sweetheart."
"I will. See you soon. Love you, Dad."
"I love you too." Emmanuel disconnects the call.
Syd shuffles around the apartment, thinking about Carmy and anxiously waiting for him to come back. There's part of her that thinks he won't, that he'll just disappear until he thinks the hard parts are over.
But Carmy comes back home. He smells like cigarettes and his face is even more drawn than before.
"I got the time off," he tells her, he goes out to the fire escape and lights up again. Syd follows him, takes the cigarette from him, and takes a drag.
"What is it that you're not telling me?" she asks, sitting on a half-broken milk carton, blowing the smoke out of her mouth.
"Nothing," Carmy swears.
"I should go pack my things," Syd says, handing his cigarette back and standing up.
Carmy looks at her, he looks just the slightest bit concerned as he grabs her wrist. "You'll… you're going to come back, right?"
Syd nodded. "Of course. I just need to pack a few things for the trip. I'll be right back…. Or you can come with me if you'd like."
"Yeah, yeah… I'll come with you." He drops his cigarette, stubs it out, and gets up to follow her.
She clears out her fridge when they get to her apartment, throws leftovers away that won't keep while they're away, and wipes down the shelves, while Carmy leans against the counter and just watches her like he's afraid she'll disappear or something.
Syd wishes he'd talk to her, yes she's usually in tune with his moods like her dad said. Usually, she can read his mind, and know what he's thinking even before he does but right now, everything is hazy.
She thinks this is a crazy fucked up version of grief but everybody grieves in their own way.
.
They spend the night together pretty much the same way as the night before. Her hand stroked his hair, his arms around her waist, his face in her neck.
Sleep is an evasive bitch for the second night in a row and she hates it, hates that it seems like they're both wide awake and all there is silence between them.
"Carmy?" she whispers, testing the waters.
"Hmm?" Carmy whispers back.
"I'm going to make us something to eat. Do you remember the last time you had something other than Coke and cigarettes?" Syd says just because she needs something to do, she sits up and gets out of bed. "Do you want to come with?"
Carmy gets up too and follows her into the kitchen, she turns on all the lights and goes to the kitchen. The only thing she didn't throw away earlier in the day was a half-full carton of eggs and sourdough bread.
"What sounds more appealing to you? French toast or scrambled eggs and toast? And don't say you're not hungry. I insist you eat something, this is not good for us."
"Scrambled eggs and toast will be fine," Carmy answers.
She cracks what's left of the eggs into a bowl and whisks them with a fork, while she cooks them on low Carmy puts the bread in the toaster without her having to ask and when it's all done, they both try to eat while they watch an episode of Pioneer Woman, a show neither of them particularly like but it's the only late-night cooking show on and Syd is not in the mood to watch anything else.
Carmy doesn't protest either, he just pushes eggs around on his plate before taking a small bite of it and then repeating the process all over again.
He's never been much of an eater to begin with but in the wake of Mikey's death, it seems to be worse.
She wants to ask him if he's hungry at all but the pit in her own stomach is answer enough and it's enough that he's trying to eat, even if she can't tell what he's really thinking.
They finish eating, he smokes another cigarette while she watches him from inside the apartment. Then they go back to bed together and for some reason - maybe it's the fact that they have food in their stomachs - they both finally fall asleep. It's not long enough, they have to catch a 6:30 flight to Chicago, so the alarm Syd set the night before goes off before either of them are well-rested, but it's enough to say they at least got some sleep.
Carmy lies in bed for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling. Syd gives him space while she orders an Uber and wheels both their suitcases to the door. She gets dressed, slowly pulling on an oversized Ralph Lauren sweatshirt she thrifted, her most comfortable pair of worn-in jeans, socks, and Boston clogs. She pulls her hair away from her face with a scrunchie.
Carmy finally joins her and just in the nick of time.
"The Uber should be here in like ten minutes," Syd tells him just to say something to him.
Carmy nods. "I'll be ready in just a minute."
The ride to the airport is still punctured by silence, the only thing between them is Whitney Houston belting out I Have Nothing. But their hands are both resting in the middle seat and Carmy takes her hand.
She laces their fingers together and squeezes.
.
Nat is waiting for them at the airport just like she said she would be. She hugs Carmy first, the two of them holding onto each other for what seems like forever while Syd stands by awkwardly, guarding their luggage.
Finally, Nat turns to her and embraces her too, so tightly, that Syd's heart constricts, and a lump forms in her throat.
"Thank you for bringing Carmy home," she whispers, her voice watery with emotion.
.
They're in a sea of endless black, separated by two pews. Carmy is sitting with her family, and Syd is sitting with her father.
Carmy keeps craning his head to look at her like she might have disappeared somewhere between the eulogy and the Eucharist.
Syd considers how she wants to crawl inside Carmy and take his pain away. How she wants to squeeze in between Donna and Sugar and wrap herself around him to assure him that she's still there. That she's not going anywhere.
She tugs at the hem of her skirt and then clenches her fists instead. Emmanuel, sensing her agitation, places a calming on her arm like he would when she was younger and she'd get antsy during mass. She relaxes a little but in reality, she wishes that it was just her and Carmy in the whole entire world without grief or a care in the world.
.
The reception seems to go on forever and Carmy disappears.
Syd finds him in his room, lying on his bed, his eyes boring holes into his signed poster of Anthony Bourdain. She has a matching one in her own room back at her dad's apartment, she remembers when Mikey took them to Barnes & Noble to meet him.
"Carmy?" she asks.
"I-I, I j-just couldn't stand to be around all those people for a fucking second longer," Carmy tells her.
Syd nods and goes over to him. She so terribly wants to fix it for him. She sits down on the edge of the bed and leans down to kiss his forehead, her hair falling over his face. He sits up and hauls her into his arms, holding onto her harder than he's probably ever held onto her before and she thinks he's trembling in her embrace.
The world seems to slow down as Carmy's hands fumble with the zipper on her dress, his mouth on her neck. She thinks that she should stop him, he's grieving and she can't think of a worse idea than sleeping with him just hours after burying Mikey. In his childhood bedroom where they would listen to Taylor Swift and Beyoncé just because she insisted, where they would listen to The Velvet Underground and Billy Joel. They would spend hours hiding out here, watching cooking shows on his third-hand laptop, applying for cooking school, and making plans.
She can hear the echoes of their daydreams from long ago as his fingers leave her zipper, ghost across her arm.
They were really going to be something back then.
"Syd," he whispers, raising his head to look at her, his eyes swimming with questions. "Is this okay?"
Syd is so desperate for him to feel something, for them to connect in the wake of this colossal loss that she nods wordlessly, frames his face with her hands, and draws him in for a kiss.
Their first honest to god kiss.
No quick kisses on the mouth to ring in the New Year or celebratory cheek pecks like all the other times before or that one awkward birthday party in eighth grade where they played truth or dare, and Claire Dunlap dared Carmy to kiss her and their noses had bumped, and their teeth had knocked together.
She's dreamed about what their first real kiss would look like since then. But she's never dared to do it…
And now…
Now…
She pulls away from him and pushes his too-large suit jacket off, undoes the tie she had fixed that morning, and unbuttons his white dress shirt, easing it off his shoulders. She presses her hand against the left side of his chest before replacing it with her lips.
Carmy releases a shuddery sigh. "Syd," he whispers again.
"I'm here," Syd tells him as she stands up and reaches behind her, unzipping her dress. It falls to her ankles in a pool of black cotton misery (she'll never wear this dress again, she thinks). She kicks it away, her heart beating harder than it has the right to and there's nothing she can do to stop it.
Carmy lies down and pulls her with him, she lands on him with a gentle thud and kisses him again. They're a tangle of naked body parts and she doesn't know where he ends and she begins.
All common sense seems to fly out the window and she doesn't even bother to ask herself what she's doing.
"Are you sure about this?" Carmy asks between kisses.
"Are you?" Syd asks instead of answering him.
"Uh, yeah," Carmy answers, grasping at her desperately. "It's the only thing I am sure about right now."
So, she lets him have his way with her under the beaming smiles of Julia Child and Jacque Pépin. It's not like she hasn't thought about sleeping with him before, she has thought about it for as long as she can remember. But in all her dreams, it's been under happier circumstances.
And she's almost certain their story will have a very unhappy ending. But she doesn't really care, all she only wants to do is make him feel better.
So, with two dozen mourners below them, she makes love to him in his twin bed.
She wakes up with Carmy's face buried in her neck again, it's dark outside and someone's banging on the door, asking them if they're in there.
They rush around pulling on their clothes and running their fingers through their hair. Carmy's just finishing zipping up her dress for her when Richie bursts into the room.
"What are you two freaks of nature doing anyway?" He asks, eyeing them suspiciously.
"We fell asleep!" Syd explains hastily, praying Richie believes her, praying that today of all days he just leaves it alone and doesn't make any of his usual crass comments about the two of them fucking.
Carmy's beside her, looking at his feet, his ears bright red.
For once in his life, Richie uncharacteristically decides to leave them alone. "Well, we're going out to get some dinner. Donna's passed out drunk in the macaroni and cheese that Emmanuel brought, and it's as depressing as shit around here right now. You two want to come with?"
"Uh, sure…" Syd agrees, the pit is back in her stomach though. "I mean, Carmy you wanna go?"
"Uh, sure…" Carmy echoes. "Where were you thinking about going?"
"Macaroni Grill. No comments from either of you about franchises and fine dining," Richie warns. "Not today."
At the restaurant, Carmy stands close to her and buries his face in her hair while they wait to be seated. Syd hopes that his family won't notice there's been a shift in their relationship.
.
The day of the funeral isn't the last time they sleep together. Syd loses track of how many times he shows up at her door after he's done at work, his face drawn, bags under his eyes, looking incredibly lost and sad.
There are no strings attached but neither of them is seeing anyone else. So it's like they're exclusive even though he doesn't take her out to dinner or to see a movie before they spend the night together.
The friends-with-benefits thing works for them even though Syd sometimes wonders if he's just using her to fill an empty space in his life, to avoid mourning for Mikey properly. And even though they belong to each other, they always have, they won't have a happily ever after like Pete and Sugar.
But for an hour or two every other night, he is her's in every sense of the word.
She concludes that it's better than never having him at all.
.
"Mikey left The Beef to me," Carmy tells her one night, lying bathed in the light of the streetlights. "Sugar just told me about it during my lunch break today."
Syd's heart lurches a little at the news. The one thing Carmy wanted to be a part of and Mikey never really let him suddenly belonged to him. She rolls over to her side, props her head up on her elbow, and tilts her head to look at him. "Say more," she says.
"I guess it means I'd have to go home," Carmy replies.
Syd nods. "I would assume that's what it means. You can't run it from here. Are you going to?"
"I don't know," Carmy replies. "I could sell it and stay here."
"New York is fucking killing you though. It has been for a while now," Syd answers, not voicing her concerns about how he seems to have boxed Mikey's death away and shelved it. Not voicing her concerns about the verbal abuse she knows he suffers at the hands of his new boss, she witnessed it once when she brought him acid reducer. "Maybe going home would be for the best."
"Maybe," Carmy agrees, turning on his side to look at her. "What would you do if I left?"
Go with you if you ask.
Syd shrugs instead. "I don't know," she lies. "Maybe I'll start a catering business or something."
"You'd be good at that," Carmy tells her sincerely. "All your ideas are fire, Syd."
"Thanks," Syd mumbles. "What'll you do? Go home and make sandwiches? Maybe date Claire fucking Dunlap?"
"Shut up. I've never liked her that way," Carmy says. "Besides, I'm not sure Claire would want someone who's a mess like me. I don't know why anyone would want a mess like me."
"You mean aside from me?" Syd asks.
Carmy shakes his head. "Including you. But you're here. You're here and I never have to ask you anything or tell you anything. You just seem to know."
"You're not a mess, Carmy," Syd tells him.
"But I'm not okay either."
Syd reaches out and catches his hand. "But you will be okay eventually."
"Will you leave me if I'm never okay again?"
You might leave me first, Syd thinks because nowhere in the conversation about him inheriting The Beef did her going with him come up, and she knows that eventually she'll have to stop following him around.
"I'm not going anywhere," Syd whispers, running her fingers through his hair and then pulling him into her arms to kiss him.
Carmy kisses her back, clutching her like his life depends on it but Syd feels like he's miles and miles away from her.
.
Syd feels like throwing up while she's deboning fish at the restaurant where she works. She realizes she's late for her period as she empties the meager contents of her stomach into the staff toilet and she tries to remember if she's been consistent with taking her birth control in the year she's started to sleep with Carmy.
She knows the answer is no as she thinks about the half-full blister pack of pills sitting by the coffee pot in her kitchen as she flushes the toilet and rinses out her mouth. She should put it beside her Prevacid just for the reminder to take it every day.
If I'm not pregnant… she thinks to herself as she goes back to her prep station.
All she wants to do is duck out and go to CVS to buy a pregnancy test and check if her suspicions are real. But there's work to be done and she's good at pretending something might not be happening.
Like the fact that Carmy's pretty much decided to go back to Chicago and for the first time in their lives, he hasn't asked her to go with him.
Or how she's loved him since they were ten years old and not just in a friendly way either, or the way Sugar loves him.
It's not that easy to pretend there isn't something possibly happening to her though.
"I gotta take ten," she tells her boss, revolted by the thought of having to pull another endoskeleton out of another fish.
"Everything okay?"
"I just threw up," Syd says, knowing it's the only way to get a break. "I need to run and buy some gum, a Coke, maybe a toothbrush."
"You know, maybe you should just take the whole day instead. We wouldn't want there to be an outbreak of the stomach bug. We don't need that health code violation."
Syd nods. "Okay," she agrees mechanically.
"Call if you're still not feeling better in the morning."
"I will."
Syd leaves because there's nothing else she can do except leave under the guise of possibly having norovirus. She trudges through the rain to the nearest pharmacy, not caring if she runs into regulars from the restaurant or her co-workers or Carmy's.
She goes to the family planning aisle and picks up two tests. The cheapest and the most expensive. She gets a package of pads just to tempt fate, a vanilla Coke, and a three-pack of Polar Ice Extra gum and pays for it all at self-checkout just because she doesn't know how to act in this kind of situation. She can't act casually like she's buying the test for a friend and not for her.
Syd swipes her debit card, unwraps the gum, and stuffs two pieces in her mouth, while she works her jaw around it she realizes just how tired she feels. How weighed down by grief she is. The tests are burning a hole in the plastic bag as she sips Coke and chews minty gum, a weird combination but it quells the nausea eating away at her stomach and throat.
In the safety of her apartment, she takes the test, waiting for the little window to flash pregnant and confirm what she knows to be true. She leaves the bathroom, puts some music on to fill the silence, and paces around while she waits for the timer to go off. It does and she reads it, her palms sweating and her heart beating in a way that makes her feel sicker to her stomach than before.
Pregnant.
Syd doesn't need to take the other one just to be sure. She stashes the unused one under her sink, washes her hands with the meticulous care she uses in the restaurant kitchen, and then crawls into bed, falling deep deep into sleep.
She wakes up feeling dizzy and disoriented, her room shrouded in darkness, her tongue heavy with fatigue. She can hear noises coming from her kitchen and she wonders for a second if she left the door unlocked and someone broke in.
She reaches for her phone to see what time it is and realizes that she left it in the bathroom. Reluctantly, she gets out of bed to go and get it.
Carmy is in the kitchen, spreading peanut butter and fig jam on whole wheat bread.
Her heart stutters to a stop.
"Hi Syd," he says without looking at her. "You hungry? I can make you one too?"
The thought of fig jam and peanut butter together is revolting to her.
"I already ate," she fibs even though it's been hours since she ate anything, and the little breakfast she did consume, she wound up throwing up.
"Okay," Carmy says, taking a small nervous bite of his sandwich and chewing slowly.
Syd goes over to him and takes it out of his hand, placing it down on the counter without a plate. She frames his face with her hands and kisses him hard, less gently than she has other times before.
"Come on," she whispers, tugging him towards her bedroom.
"Syd, we don't have to." Carmy has the decency to resist.
She brings him to her bedroom anyway, wonders if he can notice the shift in her body as she pulls her white Hanes t-shirt off and tosses it on the floor, she takes his more expensive one off and drops it next to hers, kissing the newest tattoo on his chest.
If he can tell there's a change, he doesn't say anything. He just clings to her like all the other times before. Like his life depends on it, like she's all he has and she guesses that she is in this strange city that they've both tried to call home for the last ten years.
As they lie down together, she promises herself this will be the last time she sleeps with him, including just sharing a bed.
She smooths the curls away from his forehead and looks into his eyes, open and unblinking.
I love you, she thinks. I always have.
She thinks she always will.
She knows she always will.
When it's over, she turns away from him, tears spilling onto her blue satin pillowcase uninvited and she cries for the first time in she doesn't know how long. For the loss of Mikey, for how everything seems to be spinning out of control, how everything's changed so drastically in the months since Mikey died. But that's how it goes, isn't it? Everything's the same every day and then all of a sudden, it isn't.
"Syd?" Carmy whispers, touching her shoulder gently. "Syd, is-is it something I did?" he asks, his voice filled with the uncertainty she's been accustomed to, wrought with fear and anxiety because he hasn't changed that much.
(except for maybe for the worse. But she would never think that about him.)
She doesn't know how to tell him it has nothing to do with him but everything to do with him at the same time. She knows if she commands him to leave, he will without protesting. He might look at her with the expression of a wounded puppy, any questions he might have would only be in his eyes but he wouldn't expect her to answer.
Instead, she gets up and goes back to the kitchen without telling him where she's going, she remakes him that stupid peanut butter and fig jam sandwich just to give herself something to do. She pours Coke, adds some russet Cape Cod potato chips, and remembers to make herself something to eat too.
He joins her after a beat, standing in the middle of her kitchen in crew socks and boxers, his white t-shirt. He looks wild-eyed and broken, and she thinks about that scene in Gossip Girl. The one where Chuck has just lost his dad and he goes to Blair during her mother's wedding, all teary-eyed and despondent, needing and wanting her.
She can see that same look in Carmy's eyes.
Syd leans in and kisses him, the safety of a late-night dinner between them. She thinks this will be the last time she ever does any of this with him, no matter what decisions she makes going forward.
.
Syd leaves on a Sunday.
She doesn't tell Carmy she's going, except for a note telling him that she's going home shoved under his door. She doesn't know how to say goodbye or tell him that she's pregnant with his baby. She doesn't even know how far along she is or what she's going to do.
But she does know if she stays, her resolve will weaken and the next time Carmy comes knocking on her door in the middle of the night, she'll invite him in. She'll kiss him and bring him to her bed again.
She just can't help herself.
This has always been her decision and it's time to decide something different.
So, with one last forlorn look at Carmy's door, she disappears.
.
"Did you and Carmy argue?" Emmanuel asks her on the first morning home.
Syd looks at the toast and tea in front of her and shakes her head. "No, nothing like that. I just needed to get out of New York. Nothing's felt like it was working since Mikey died."
"Did you tell Carmy you were going?" Emmanuel asks, putting some scrambled eggs on her plate without looking at her. Her stomach rolls a little as the sulfuric smell of eggs hits her nostrils.
"I-I…" Syd trails off, feeling like a deer caught in the headlights, and then shakes her head, breathing through her mouth and ignoring the eggs. "I mean I left him a note."
Emmanuel raises an eyebrow. "A note?" he repeats. "You two have been best friends, joined at the hip since kindergarten and all you could do is leave him a note?"
Syd tears her crusts off her toast and dunks it in her tea. "You don't understand."
"You're right. I don't understand."
Syd doesn't want to have this conversation with her father. She can't imagine spilling the intimate details of her relationship with Carmy or telling him they had sex or why they had sex. In some ways, she'd prefer her father never know she had slept with anyone. But she'll be wearing the evidence soon enough, so she has to say something.
"Things got complicated," is all she offers. "I'm in love with him and I think he's… I don't think he's capable of falling in love."
Emmanuel scoffs. "Sydney, you cannot be that oblivious. That boy's been in love with you for as long as we've known him."
Syd can hardly believe it. There hasn't been any sign of it, she can't wrap her mind around this thing between them being anything but him searching for comfort and only being a temporary fix, like his cigarettes or the rush of a good review in the kitchen where he works.
"He hasn't," she insists.
Emmanuel tsks at her and sits down across from her. "You're not eating. Are you feeling okay?"
"I'm just not in the mood for eggs this morning," Syd answers.
"Your mother wasn't in the mood for eggs when she was pregnant with you," Emmanuel said off-handedly, his eyebrows furrowing as realization dawned across his face. "Sydney Adamu, what are you not telling me?"
Syd's stomach drops as she realizes what she just said. That her father knows without her having to say anything. She doesn't know what to say but she finds herself telling him everything.
.
Syd goes to The Beef maybe just for nostalgia or for the familiarity of things left behind. Childhood, the days when everything was simple. Maybe she's looking for a word on how Carmy is from Sugar or Richie.
She hasn't heard from him since a couple of days before she left New York when he came over to see her but just to bring her something to eat from the restaurant and they ate it together standing up at the kitchen island.
He kept his eyes on her the whole time they ate.
"Do I have something on my face?" Syd had asked subconsciously.
Carmy had shaken his head. "No. I'm just looking at you."
It was one of those things about Carmy, he always made her feel seen no matter what. No matter if she had wanted to or not.
She shakes her head clear of the memory and pushes the door to The Beef open. The last person she's expecting to see there is Carmy but there he is, standing at the counter, running the cash register like he had when they were in high school.
"What are you doing here?" she asks, dumbfounded.
"What are you doing here?" Carmy asks.
"I asked you first," Syd replies, arms wrapping around her waist, hugging herself.
"Making sandwiches," Carmy replies.
"Did you—" Syd pauses and frowns. "Did you follow me here?"
Carmy sighs in frustration. "Hey Richie, I'm taking ten! Could you please come out here?" he calls.
Richie appears and before he or Syd can exchange pleasantries or maybe before Richie can scold her, Carmy's hand is around her wrist and he's dragging her to the office.
"You left," he says once they're behind closed doors.
"You were going to leave first," Syd reminds him, going to sit in Mikey's old desk chair and swiveling away from him, feeling like a child but not wanting to look at Carmy.
Carmy marches towards her and spins the chair back so they can look at each other. He looks down at her, wordlessly, both hands gripping the armrests, she can feel the chair push backward a little.
"You didn't ask me to come with you," she continues, raising her chin and setting her jaw.
Confusion floods his face. "It's not like I have a corner on Chicago," he says. "This is your home too. Why the fuck would I need to ask you to come with me?"
"I didn't want you to think I was following you if I came back when you did," Syd explains, feeling stupid as soon as the words leave her mouth.
"So, you decided to just leave without saying anything?"
Carmy looks confused and hurt and her heart stutters a little, everything inside her says to get up and put her arms around him.
"I left a note!" Syd says instead, refusing to give in to the instinct to touch him, touching him never leads to anything good.
(Except it's the best, touching him is the best.)
"You stuffed the note under my fucking door!" Carmy says, sounding angry. "Like I don't mean anything at all. Have I been so horrible these last months that you felt like we couldn't talk? That you couldn't tell me something was bothering you, Syd?"
"We haven't done much talking the last few months, have we?" Syd asks getting the strangest feeling they're in a fight even though this isn't their usual style of fighting. There's no explosive outbursts, they're not screaming at each other and she really wants him to yell at her just for some show of emotion.
Carmy falters. "Syd… I-I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for it to get out of hand. I just - I didn't know how to articulate how I was feeling. I still don't but I never meant for you to feel like… I'm just sorry."
Syd suddenly feels terrible and she gets up to go to him and forces him to look at her, hands on both his cheeks, squeezing tighter than she means to. "What? No! I was a willing participant the whole time."
Carmy sighs and lowers his head. "I would never leave without you. I couldn't leave without you ever," he tells her, that desperation so familiar to her thick in his voice. "I just thought… y-you don't need me and I needed you too much. I've made everything so miserable this past year."
Syd feels her heart shatter for what seems like the hundredth time that year and she pulls him into her arms. "Carmy, you didn't make me miserable this year. This year was miserable, it was as miserable as hell but-but it wasn't because of you. I—" she pauses and rubs her hand across her face. "I hated seeing you like that and I just… I just felt so lost for the first time since I've known you."
"I wish I could go back and reverse this whole thing," Carmy tells her, his words muffled by her neck.
"I don't," Syd replies, lifting his head to look at her again. "I-I needed you just as much as you needed me," she hesitates and brings his hand to her stomach. "We both need you."
She knows it's not the best way to tell him but she has to pull the Band-Aid off and once it's out there, it feels better.
"We?" Carmy repeats, looking at her with his eyes wide, his hand still on her belly.
"I-I'm going to—" she stops and amends. "We're going to have a baby. We don't have to keep it if you don't want to. We can start the adoption process, you can make the decision. But-" she sighs. "Yeah, I'm pregnant."
"Is that why you really left?" Carmy asks. "Were you afraid to tell me?"
"No. Well, maybe. I left because I felt like we were going to be caught in an endless loop of sex and despair, and I couldn't take it anymore. I just wanted you to be happy again, I wanted us to be us again and I felt like I was losing you. I should have told you and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. For leaving like I did, for everything."
"Yeah. Yeah, I am too." Carmy pauses looking at her. "Syd do you, uh, do you think I could kiss you?"
Syd felt a wave of surprise wash over her. "You want to kiss me?"
"Yeah. But only if it's okay with you," he answers.
"Yeah, it's fine with me," Syd replies, feeling just the slightest hint of uncertainty about where this is all going.
Carmy presses his lips to her and it's soft and slow, and maybe like he loves her too. It feels like it lasts an eternity but when he pulls away, it doesn't feel like it lasted enough. He presses his forehead to hers, his eyes closed.
"Uh, do you think…" Carmy clears his throat. "I love you Syd, I have ever since I met you. It's like I've had this intense pull to you and it's only grown stronger since Mikey died. I look at you and it's like I'm home. I'm just sorry for being so bad at showing you. For not telling you sooner. I was just afraid because everything is so royally fucked up in my life and I didn't know how— but I wound up fucking it up anyway. Ya know?"
Nothing Carmy's saying makes sense but Syd thinks she understands anyway. She'll give him a chance to articulate himself better later.
"I love you too," she says, feeling tears prick the corners of her eyes. "I always have."
For the first time in what seems like forever, there's a shadow of a smile on Carmy's face and then he's kissing her again, he stumbles backward and falls hard into the chair, pulling her into his lap as he does.
"Do you think you'd like to be a real family? Just the three of us? I mean with all the Berzattos and everyone else who comes along with it? But mostly with me? Because I love you," Carmy says between kisses.
Syd feels a burden lift, smiling too. "I love you too and I would love to be part of your family."
.
It's been a year and a few months since Mikey died.
It's been a year since Syd allowed Carmy to undress her and find solace in her arms. They're married now, parents. They're not strangers to this, they know each other's bodies better than their past significant others do. They've been lovers for so long now.
Carmy comes around their bed, making the first move because someone has to. He pulls her oversized sweater over her head and whispers something in Italian in her ear. She laughs and kisses him, tracing his lips with her tongue as she gently presses her hand to the left side of his chest before replacing it with her mouth.
He pulls her down with him onto their mattress. They are a tangle of naked limbs, and Syd does not know where she ends or where he begins but she knows their story will have a happy ending. It's just the two of them in the whole entire world, their baby is with Sugar and Pete for the night.
They make love to each other and this time they mean it.
The End
.
Author's Note II:
Well, that's all there is. Carmy was so frustratingly distant in this story but no worries, if people are interested I might write a sequel giving insight into these events - and maybe throw in some bonus scenes. I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks! I should have the sequel to "Awkward Encounters" written soon.
Until Next Time!