Chapter Text
It was unexpected, to say the very least.
Dr. Wallace, at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, wanted to offer her a job.
Her first question had been simple, one that tugged at her heart strings and pulled breath from her lungs as she breathed out the question into the phone.
Will I have to leave NASA?
Holtzmann knew that GISS and NASA worked together, but she didn’t know if they played nicely together and sometimes, in the scientific community, that was an issue. Certain scientists and engineers were considered ‘hot commodities’ and ended up the subject of whatever academia’s version of a bidding war was, and then ultimately, the ‘hot commodity’ in question had to choose.
Her loyalty had been to NASA, the big program, since she was in college with her big dreams and bigger hair and eyes focused solely on the stars. Nobody ever doubted that Jillian Holtzmann was a dreamer, but she was one of few who could accomplish as well as dream big, and her accomplishments were lengthy, all on record from several impressive institutions, and now she was one of those precious unicorns that everyone wanted on their team.
When Dr. Wallace assured her – six times, actually – that she would remain with NASA, and that (for now) the position was only crafted as a temporary fix to a bigger problem, she agreed. Holtzmann had never wanted to teach, but the idea of working with college students who were bright-eyed and bushy tailed as she once was, back when she’d wanted little other than getting into NASA’s program, wasn’t wholly unappealing. She’d have her own lab, the college’s incredible resources, supportive colleagues, and the ‘cream of the crop’ of Columbia University’s most promising engineering and robotics students.
Leaving Washington, DC was going to be more difficult than she thought because she’d spent the last seven years getting established, building a life, and she had friends, people who cared about her, people who would miss her, and she didn’t have anyone in New York City. She’d been there a few times – on business, usually – and the noise and lights and sounds of the city bordered on overwhelming, but hey, at least she was out of Pittsburgh, where college had been the only real draw. She’d taken Patty to DC with her, introduced her best friend to a colleague who ended up being the love of her life, and the rest was history. Patty and Nicholas had a daughter who had just turned five – just old enough to really start tinkering – and Holtzmann was the ‘cool aunt.’
Or, according to Patty, she was the ‘dangerous aunt,’ but weren’t the two synonymous, anyway? It wasn’t like she let her little niece hold the blowtorches… yet.
But it wasn’t going to be forever.
That’s what Holtzmann told herself when she gave teary hugs and long goodbyes at the airport while her people saw her off.
That’s what she told herself when the plane took off and she traced the window with fingertips and watched the skyline disappear beneath the clouds.
It was only temporary.
DC was her home.
“Don’t forget, your midterm assignment will be on Thursday, so I’ll need those lab reports and group summaries in by no later than Wednesday,” Erin called after a few of her students as they scurried toward the door, eager to be dismissed – she liked to think it was to study up for midterms, but nobody ever liked Mondays. They were probably off to play hacky-sack in the quad or eat entire foot-long sandwiches and smoke joints behind the dumpster for all she knew. Most of them were good enough to keep their grades from slipping, and while some of her more basic Physics courses were required material – and drew a mixed bag of students – she appreciated her influence on all young minds, not just the ones who showed real potential in her upper level courses and reminded her a lot of herself and Abby when they were wide-eyed youngsters, eager to take every science and math course that they could feasibly cram into one semester.
Erin pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and pulled her phone out of her desk drawer, noticing that she had three texts from Abby.
Reminders.
Reminders that she was getting older, tomorrow.
As if she’d forgotten.
Relax, babe, it’s not like you’re 45 yet.
Erin sighed and pinched her nose where her glasses had been sitting as they fell slightly, then responded to the last text. Abby meant well – she really did – but Erin didn’t ever like the reminders that some of her best years were behind her. An optimist might say that the best years were yet to come, and she wasn’t counting any of that out, but she was on a track where she was… comfortable, more than expecting some unfounded adventure to come out of nowhere and whisk her away.
Next year, big whoop. One year off makes a huge difference, Abs.
She’d gotten tenure at Columbia – she and Abby both had – and it was everything she wanted. When she’d first gotten the offer, her life had been… different.
Erin had just put money down on a fabulous brownstone that was only about ten minutes from campus. It was her own money, too, funds she’d saved and squirreled away throughout the years when she could have been out living a more glamorous lifestyle, but that had never appealed to her. When she did take vacations, it was a rare event that usually involved mild pressure and goading from her eternally wild, fun-loving, incredible best friend.
She’d moved her then-boyfriend, Mark, into the brownstone six months after purchasing it.
Within the next year, they were married.
Two years later, she was finalizing divorce papers.
Now, she still had her brownstone, she still had Abby, and she still had her tenure. Erin had her drive, her passion, her students, and the knowledge that she was really making a difference in the world by molding the next generation. She had resources at her disposal, had been published nationally and internationally in different, well-respected scientific journals, and while she hadn’t been on the cusp of scientific discovery, she had done very well for herself.
She didn’t even mind being single, because she’d learned that there was more to life than coupledom, and she had spent the last two years working on herself, discovering that she was whole and complete, capable and strong, all on her own.
Abby joked, of course, that it was her fierce independence that had always kept her so young – even though they were the same age – and even tried one of her old ‘we’ll get you under someone new’ approaches when Erin had been lonely, drinking wine in her apartment and listening to old vinyl records, trying to find solace in where it all had gone wrong. But she never took her friend up on those offers; instead, she was introspective, doing her equations on herself for a change, and taking stock in the kind of life she wanted to create by herself, as Erin Gilbert, no ‘plus one’ necessary.
And it was liberating.
Besides, she never really noticed a spark anymore, when she met new people. A part of her started mapping out when it would end, if it began, drawing hypothetical conclusions and mapping out potential outcomes in her mind within the span of seconds whenever she got the occasional invite to coffee, drinks, dancing, dinner… she got them semi-frequently, and it was flattering that she still could draw potential suitors – men and women – but nobody ever seemed to see her, and maybe that just meant her standards were too high.
As a scientist, it was illogical to rule out possibilities before they were well-tested, so that was her next hypothesis.
I’ll buy you a stripper for 45, if it’ll make you stop whining. Male or female, or both. Both?
Erin laughed at her phone’s newest text, then placed the device into her purse as she made her way toward the door, turning off the lights in the lecture hall before exiting. She had two hours between classes which gave her plenty of time to grab a bite to eat from the café across the street – she had a mountain of paperwork to do, and it was always a perfect place to get some much needed quiet and get her out of the office, which typically ended up being something of a revolving door of students at the most inconvenient moments.
Not that she minded – Erin much preferred when her students came to her for assistance when they were in need – but sometimes, a woman just needed some time for herself.
Especially because she was a day away from 44.
Columbia smelled stuffy. Every person Holtzmann passed was buttoned-up, wearing odd patterns – tweed and argyle – and it was awful. The worst. Honestly, she’d expected some of the professors to be hoity-toity, but she even got the same vibe from students, young people who should have been full of life, ready to take on the world, but the energy here was stagnant. The halls moved in a sea of efficiency, and she got a few less than subtle sideways glances as she made her way toward the science wing.
Holtz ignored them all.
During her college years, she’d stopped making apologies for who and what she was – she was too loud, fine. Too bright? Excellent. Not someone’s cup of tea? So she’d find someone who did want her, no skin off her teeth. Patty had encouraged this change of heart, so to speak, helped Holtz revel in her wild, unbridled, quirky ferocity. All the mania, all the 80’s dance pop that played in the lab at Carnegie Mellon, it all sank in to intertwine with her DNA, and Holtzmann knew, sure as she knew she wanted to work for NASA, who she was, and there was no going back. There was no need.
Because she ended up building robots in space, and that was fucking awesome.
A particularly grumpy, rotund man with a name-badge and a toupee had the gall to let his sidelong glance linger, and the eccentric blonde watched his expression morph from confusion to disdain. She smiled at him, flashed bright, straight teeth and a dimpled grin, and pressed two fingers to the space just beside her temple in a salute, then passed him by, whistling and thumbing the straps of her overalls as she made her way into the science-y part of her self-guided tour of Columbia. The part that was supposed to be her new home – or her home away from home - and she was hoping it would be a little more unglued, or at least house some different scenery where basic nouns were concerned.
And if not, that’s a pretty good place for me to start – this whole joint is gonna get Holtzmann’d.
As her eyes scanned the hallways, she saw a few brightly colored bulletin boards, mostly for outside advertisements, a display case with some awards from various contests, pictures of alumni and current students who excelled at math and science-related aspects of academia, a few generic posters that were probably meant to be inspirational, a fire extinguisher – and oh, they’d need to get more of those if she was going to be working here – and then Holtz continued forward, adjusting the yellow goggles over her eyes because suddenly, the world was too much and she started to wonder if maybe she’d made a mistake. At Carnegie Mellon, she’d found a safe space in her lab eventually, but it had taken a long time and an act of odd interaction on the universe’s part to instill some goddamn confidence in her during one particularly memorable spring break.
At NASA, she’d always felt complete, like everything she’d been working toward had culminated in a flash and color, and for the first time in her academic life, she hadn’t needed to force anything. She was surrounded by other glorious weirdos that were just like – well, maybe not just like her – but they were the island of misfit toys in the robotics branch that she basically captained these days, or had, before she’d accepted this temporary job. Everything was fine back in DC, she knew, or it would be – she had people, good people, who were looking after everything in her personal life and work life, and they’d all assured her that everything would be just as she left it when she returned in eight months.
When her glasses were on, acting as a dampener, they were meant to keep out the strain of everything being too much. The roboticist took a much-needed breath, stabilizing herself. Holtz swallowed her nerves, trying to discern that she could be comfortable here, she could handle eight months of a new place and a slew of new faces, but she just needed a minute. As she took the time to breathe, managing each inhale and exhale, counting her breaths as she walked, Holtzmann was stirred by the scent of jasmine floating in the air, stronger as she made her way down the hallway. Her mind triggered an immediate memory, a phantom string of images that brought a fond, soft smile to her face and suddenly, her spirits were lifted, soothed by her olfactory sense that held her with a gentle touch and suspended her in that moment until she heard heels clicking rhythmically in her direction and snapped free of the memory’s hold.
First, she blinked. Once, then twice.
Her jaw dropped a second later.
Third, she whipped the glasses off her face, balancing them by spearing them, lopsided, into her wild up-do.
Was she hallucinating, now?
Her hands were so shaky, she almost dropped her glasses a second before she managed to secure them, not knowing whether they were going to stay put and finding that she didn’t care. A quiet, shaky exhale left her as time slowed down around her and she finally found herself standing still, slack-jawed in the middle of the hallway.
Erin’s hair was the same color, but it was longer now, pin-straight as it fell past her shoulders. Her shorter bangs had been exchanged for a sideways swish, they were longer, and Holtz couldn’t tell if they fell that way intentionally, or if she just fidgeted with them enough to make them lean to the left of her gorgeous face.
Her gorgeous face that was, save for the addition of years and time, a perfect conjuration of some of Holtz’s favorite memories to date. It was only when she got a little closer that the blonde could see remnants of smile lines that were a little deeper than the ones she could remember tracing with her thumbs, kissing until the older woman giggled, and fawning over every time she did smile. She had crow’s feet, but they added to her beauty, and weren’t severe – she guessed Erin wasn’t fond of them, because she’d worried about getting them years and years ago.
She was wearing glasses and stuffy tweed that might have very well been a uniform of sorts for all the professors at Columbia, as far as Holtz could tell.
“Excuse me, but where did you manage to find the world’s tiniest bow tie?”
Erin stopped dead in her tracks and dropped her bag on the ground at the mere sound of the other woman’s voice, causing a few of its contents to spill into the hallway. Immediately, Holtz was on them like a shot – she gathered a compact, chapstick, Erin’s cell phone, and a tiny notebook into her arms along with the professor’s purse and gingerly handed them back to her. For the first time in what felt like forever, their eyes met, and Holtz gave Erin that signature, dimpled smile. Their hands brushed as Erin’s personal items were transferred back to their rightful owner and she busied herself with rearranging everything before she could finally speak.
Before she spoke, however, she traced Holtzmann with her eyes from head to toe and Holtz did the same. The blonde could see Erin’s hands visibly twitch at her sides, almost like she wanted to reach out and touch her to prove if she was real, but the older woman refrained, and seemed pained by doing so.
“You’re wearing a crop top and overalls in an academic institution,” Erin deadpanned, and her voice was exactly how Holtz remembered it, too.
“I am indeed,” Holtzmann nodded, shoving her hands into deep pockets because suddenly they had no other, logical place to go.
“You’re here,” Erin breathed, looking at the woman in front of her like she was a ghost. For a second, the blonde thought she saw Erin’s eyes well up, and hers had stung, too, but only for a second, just a pinprick of emotion that washed over her. For a second, it was almost like she was 21 again, like they were back in Hawaii.
But they weren’t.
They were in the hallway at Columbia University, somewhere she’d dreamed of going for months and months and months after they’d parted ways, but she never dared.
“Why are you here?”
It wasn’t said unkindly, like she didn’t want to see her. If anything, it was exhaled on the winds of pained curiosity.
“Job offer. Apparently, your head honchos need someone to hold down robotics and engineering over at GISS,” Holtzmann responded, because when they’d first called her and said Columbia, her mind had immediately jumped to Erin, but the years changed people, goals changed, ambitions faltered, life took unexpected turns. “They found me.”
“Are you… are you building robots in space?”
Holtz chuckled and rubbed the back of her neck.
“Yeah, for NASA. I basically run that ship, these days. O Captain, their Captain,” she continued, noting the flicker of pride that immediately surged in Erin’s eyes when she did a little salute that was just a little bit overdramatic. “You got your tenure, right? That’s why you’re still here? Because if they didn’t give it to you, I’d hope you’d go somewhere else… somewhere where they’d appreciate you.”
“I did. Abby, too.”
Holtzmann sighed, her smile getting bigger by the second.
“Abby, too.”
“I guess this goes to show how much I pay attention to what’s happening with my colleagues,” Erin said, laughing softly and stumbling over the word colleague for a second, because she supposed that’s what they were, now. “Maybe paying closer attention would spare me this… this…” Suddenly, the brilliant professor was at a loss for words.
Holtz interjected, finding the most natural response was one Erin had said to her so many times before.
“I know.” The two women paused, still looking each other over, delighted and shocked and unsure of what to do or say. “I get it.”
“How long?” Erin asked, realizing that her question wasn’t complete, then clarified. “How long are you here?” They’d always been on borrowed time; it seemed to be their thing, a pattern, if ever they had one.
“Eight months,” Holtz said, nodding. “They set me up with a place – just a little studio, but it’s nice – pretty close by. Ten minutes or so, but that’s New York time stuff, and I’m used to DC.”
“Ten minutes is close. That’s, um… that’s about how far away I live,” Erin said, trying not to think about just how close they’d be – geographically as well as working in the same building – for eight whole months.
“Solid,” Holtz replied. “So, hey… let me address the elephant in the room for a second here, okay?”
Erin coughed and sputtered because this side of the blonde was unexpected, and not at all in a bad way. If anything, the way she had aged and matured made Erin flutter inside, made her weak in her knees, made her question every aspect of her own sanity.
“Please,” Erin said, holding her hands up to let Holtzmann know it was okay, that she had no objections, because she knew they had to talk about it sometime, so why not immediately?
“For the longest time, I thought we were three sheets passing in the night. I never forgot you. I never forgot… us,” Holtzmann said, her voice lowering, soft and reflective, housing fondness and something else Erin couldn’t quite peg. Her eyes never left the professor’s, and Erin was grateful for that, for the firm, grounding contact and the kindness she could see in the blonde’s eyes. It was that same glimmer of pure levity that she remembered, a facet of her that she suspected would never, ever change no matter what time did to interfere. “But I don’t want you to think that working together is going to… complicate anything. For you. For us.”
Erin breathed a sigh of relief.
“Okay,” Erin replied, smiling. “But you… you’re still using those wrong.”
“Am I?” Holtz asked, the goofy smile returning to her face as she scratched her head.
While she wouldn’t want to put her career or Holtzmann’s at risk in any way, shape, or form, the older woman still longed for her. She’d be lying to herself if she said she never thought of Holtz – she did, all the time – and she’d be triggered by the most random things, as if the universe wanted to remind her that her former lover was never really that far away. The notion that they could proceed… somehow… and not put their work at risk was comforting, and it emboldened Erin just like it had when they were back at the Tiki bar, when they’d first met and she’d decided to take a chance on a woman ten years her junior.
“Hey, so I was thinking…”
She was headed to lunch, and maybe Holtz could join her? They’d have enough time to catch up, she could invite her to whatever shindig Abby decided to throw for her birthday, and while she wasn’t foolish enough to think they could rekindle their spark immediately, there was still something between them, and maybe they’d been in the right place at the wrong time before. That didn’t mean it was wrong now. Sometimes, the pieces just sort of… fell together, like they had, once upon a time.
Holtz’s phone rang – the sound of a musical gong – inside her pocket and her eyes widened.
“Shit, hold that thought, would you? I’m so, so sorry,” Holtz said, then swiped her finger across the touch screen. “Yello,” she answered, then walked a couple paces away, out of earshot, and Erin found herself waiting, her heart soaring in her chest as she thought of all the things she’d always wanted to say to Holtz that she never thought she’d get the opportunity to express.
Everything did happen for a reason.
Twice, the universe had tilted her axis in Holtzmann’s direction.
That had to mean something.
A couple minutes later, the blonde approached her with an apologetic smile.
“Sorry, that was my fiancée. She was just calling to check in, see how my first day’s going, but it’s… it’s barely even started,” Holtz said, chuckling a little and shaking her head. Erin watched her face morph into a slow, easy smile at what had to be a pleasant thought. A very happy thought.
Erin’s heart sank into her stomach.
For a second, she thought she was going to vomit.
Her temperature dropped and her skin was clammy, everything spun into a painful blur, like vertigo.
Of course Holtz had somebody.
It had been twelve years. What did she think, that Holtz would be unlucky in love like her?
Most of all, other than the pain and sudden sadness, Erin felt stupid for thinking that she could get her hopes up like they could just… pick right up where they left off, like distance hadn’t separated them, like they ever really had a chance to begin with.
“Your fiancée?”
“Yeah, she’s back in DC,” Holtz said, her hands falling back into those ridiculously baggy pockets. “We’re… we’re adjusting to the long-distance thing. Anyway, what were you saying, Erin?”
“Oh, ha. You should let me give you a proper tour of campus when you have the time. I can help you get your bearings,” Erin said, changing her tune on a dime. Holtz smiled and nodded.
“That sounds really great. I’d love that.”
“Then it’s a plan,” Erin said, shoving her bag back on her shoulder as she looked past Holtzmann, toward the door she’d been headed toward originally, before she’d gotten distracted. “Hey, it was really good seeing you.”
Erin was jarred by the sound of her own voice, but didn’t show it. Her face didn’t crack for a second. To get her tenure, she had to kiss a lot of different kinds of asses for a lot of years. She had to smile and pretend, she had to make nice and be pleasant even when she was uncomfortable, trying to make a name for herself in the boys’ club of scientific academia. She was used to fake-smiling her way through any unpleasant emotions.
She just never thought she’d have to deploy that skill – a skill she hated being good at – with Holtzmann, of all people.
“Yeah, you look… you look great, Erin,” the blonde replied, tucking a strand of her hair out of her eyes as it fell across her face. “I’ll be seein’ you around, then.”
“Yes, you will,” Erin said softly, knowing she couldn’t keep the façade up for much longer. “Have a nice first day, Holtzmann.”
And, with that, she walked past the blonde and hurried past the door just as fast as her feet could take her.
As soon as she was out of sight, away from where anyone could see, Erin slumped against a wall, brought her knees up to her chest, and started to cry.
Holtzmann stood in the middle of the hallway, blank and empty, her body completely still. For a second, she wondered if her heart was even still beating.
Slowly, she lowered her glasses and positioned them back over her eyes, needing them to act against all the pain and confusion that was washing over her like a rip tide, determined to drag her out to sea against brutal currents that would surely drown her, if she let them.
She loved Casey.
She really, really did.
So… why did she feel so fucking awful?