The Campaign For Shorter Days

by gilligankane

Spoilers: Let's just pretend they - Natalia and floppy-haired Frank - got hitched.

Author's Note: I wrote this in twenty minutes and posted it on a dare. I loathe you.

When we get to the end of this, you're going to need to remind me whose turn it is to leave.

- pleasefindthis

She smiles sweetly at him as he dutifully opens the door for her, the loud noises of the airport filling the empty spaces in their life.

“I'll see you in a couple days?” he asks, right on cue.

They've memorized this script; this little game they play when the time comes – when the first weekend of the month comes along and she gets on a plane bound for anywhere but home and he goes back to Springfield and smiles at his family and says “business” like it explains everything.

On the surface, it does.

But it's her turn now: “A couple of days,” she parrots and he gives her another little half-smile, hoisting her overnight bag out of the trunk and lightly onto her shoulder, resisting the urge to reach forward and press his lips fleetingly to her forehead; resisting the urge to reach forward and pull her to him and never let her go.

Instead, he settles with the fact that she always comes home to him, no matter how long she stays away.

“Have a good flight,” he tells her, the way a husband would tell any wife, like they both don't know that Olivia is going to pick her up at the airport; like they both don't know she'll spent the entire time she's gone wrapped in someone else's arms.

Instead, he settles with the fact that she always comes home to him, no matter how many times she leaves him.

“Drive safe,” she reminds him absently, her eyes already scanning the departure screen; her eyes lighting up to see that her flight is on time. He says something else, but he knows she doesn't hear him because she's already moving across the walkway and towards the check-in point; already lost to Olivia.

He doesn't like this: this sharing thing he's doing.

But it makes her happy and that's what he wants.

Only, he doesn't want to have to let her go to make her happy, so he lets her go and she comes back to him.

He lets her go and he just waits until she comes back and every time she does , he wants to hold onto her forever and ever and never let her leave again.

Because he knows – one of these days, she just won't come home.

---

She spots her as soon as the passengers start to get off the plane, walking towards her with her smile and her black overnight bag and her heart.

“Hey,” they whisper at the same time and she feels her heart swell, because Natalia came back, again.

Each time she leaves, each time Natalia gets back on that plane and leaves, she's afraid she's never going to come back again; that she'll just really settle down with Frank and these weekends where they can pretend will just become memories that she'll use to fall asleep.

She doesn't talk about Emma or Ava or San Francisco.

They've never even seen the city together, just the four walls of the hotel room she rents once a month, but every time they meet in the airport, they get to pretend, just for a moment, that Natalia is coming down to live with them forever: to take Emma to her talent shows and to show Ava how to bake an edible batch of cookies and to kiss her goodnight before they go to bed.

But the moment is over as soon as it starts and without a word – because this is the routine, this is the planned schedule – she guides Natalia through the airport traffic, through the parking lot and to the car.

She doesn't kiss the younger woman until they're at the car, in the back corner of the fifth floor of the parking garage, pressed against the backseat door like a couple of teenagers and then, and only then does she lean forward and slowly kiss Natalia like it's the first time.

(When they're in this same spot, two days from now, Olivia will press Natalia against the car again and lean in and kiss her fast, like it's the last time.)

The car ride is always fast: just a left off of the freeway and a short quarter-mile from the highway and they're pulling into the parking lot and she has the urge – every time – to take a right instead, to go back to the loft apartment she bought for her and Emma and Ava, when she wants to be there; the urge to take Natalia home and keep her there so that they'll never have to be apart.

Sometimes, they don't even do anything.

Sometimes, she just likes to stare at Natalia and wonder what her life would be she had fought harder in that graveyard, if she had done something else, if she hadn't waited until right before she took her daughter all the way to San Francisco to actually do something.

Sometimes, they do do things.

Sometimes, they don't breathe or come up for air for hours and they don't say a word, even to each other.

Sometimes, when Natalia sleeps, she likes to just watch.

Sometimes, when she sleeps, she likes to think that Natalia is watching her .

Sometimes, when they're just holding each other, Olivia never wants to let go.

---

Natalia leaves this time – with a heavy heart and tear-soaked eyes she leaves Olivia sleeping in the hotel bed and gets back on a plane to go back to her life.

Back to the life she doesn't even live anymore.

Back to a husband she doesn't love and never will.

Back to a house that stopped being a home.

She goes back to it all and smiles for Buzz and Marina and her son and the husband she never felt anything for and pretends that Olivia being halfway across the country doesn't kill her everyday they're apart.

She knows she needs to start letting go; that each time she goes to San Francisco and each time Olivia comes to her they're just prolonging the inevitable disappointment of returning to their real lives with its real people and its real consequences.

The stewardess – Jane, she knows from all her flights back and forth; Jane, ironically – offers her a bottle of gin and she takes it, downing in one solid throwback Olivia would have been proud of.

Olivia .

She shakes her head, like it will clear all the thoughts and all the memories but they still linger: on her skin, in her hair, in her laugh and her smile, in her mouth, on her tongue. Olivia still invades her, even as she flies over the Midwest; Olivia still has a hold on her.

When the plane touches down, she thinks about not getting off: this is a connecting flight after all, she could keep going to wherever it's headed next.

She thinks about leaving Frank.

She thinks about leaving Olivia.

She thinks about leaving in general, but she's not that strong: she needs the normalcy of Frank and the love of Olivia to make each day alright ; she needs them to make the world spin slowly.

Natalia leaves this time – next time it'll be Olivia leaving her and the cycle will start again and again until one of them has the courage to break it.

Until one of them leaves – for good.