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Don hadn’t planned to say any of it. The words just came pouring out of him when Lina strode into the recording room and attacked Kathy like that. He’d felt pretty darn good about it, too: standing up for Kathy and finally getting Lina to see the truth about his lack of feelings for her at the same time. Announcing that he’d be marrying Kathy was probably meaner than he had to be, but everything else had bounced right off that woman’s thick skin a million times. And sure, there was real hurt in her eyes, and it was an awful way to break a heart even if he’d never led her on in the least -- and maybe his conscience would’ve caught up with him enough to soften it a little.
If he hadn’t looked over her shoulder at Cosmo, frozen in the doorway with a dozen other backstage denizens who were clearly a bit too late to cut Lina off at the pass. But it was Cosmo’s face, and the open shock written across it, that filled Don with a sudden sense of panic.
Not that he could do anything about it at that point. Lina pushed her way out at the same time that the others were pushing their way in, determined to shake his hand and congratulate him and Kathy and commiserate on Lina’s absolute rudeness. And a part of Don was right there, shaking hands and smiling and accepting all the well-wishes, all the while he desperately wanted to get this over with so he can go talk to Cosmo.
[]
It turns out he needn’t have worried . Don barely sticks his head out outside the room when someone grips his arm like a vise and drags him out a side door. He stands blinking stupidly in the sun as Cosmo looms over him.
“What the heck was all that?” Cosmo asks, voice low and angry.
“I got carried away.” It sets Don off-balance; he feels like he ought to be apologizing for something, but he’s not sure what it is yet. “Look, I know I shouldn’t have said all that, but I couldn’t let Lina talk to Kathy that way.”
“I get that you’d want to protect her, but, sheesh, Don.” Cosmo stops for a moment, clearly gathering his thoughts. “Are you really going to marry her?”
“Well, yes,” Don says. “If she’ll have me. You know I always wanted--”
“Family. Kids. I know.” All the anger drops out of Cosmo like wind from a sail. “It just took me by surprise, is all. I thought you’d tell me, first.”
“It’s not like I planned for this to happen.” But even as he says it, he realizes that the thought has been hovering in the back of his mind since he first met her. Don’s never really cared much for girls before, never really dated seriously or even wanted to. He had Cosmo, and that was enough.
And then Kathy came along, and suddenly it was all possible -- marriage and kids and a house for the three of them. That dream had wormed its way under his skin without him even knowing about it. And he hadn’t thought about it, because it was all too soon. But it had been there.
“I haven’t exactly asked her yet,” Don blurts, a little horrified at how much he’d just... taken everything for granted. That Kathy would want the same things he does. That she’s been dreaming of that house, too.
Cosmo laughs sharply. “So, what, you just announced it in front of god and everyone, and you haven’t even asked her? That’s very romantic of you, Don Lockwood. At least she was there at the time, so she’s not the last to know.”
The words are bitter, but Don can’t read his face through the afternoon shadows. “Cos?”
“But seriously, Don, congratulations. She’s a fine girl.” Cosmo dredges up a smile, wide and cheerful and completely false.
Don doesn’t understand what’s happening, and suddenly that panic is back. “Cos--”
The grin drops away, which is slightly less terrible, but now Cosmo looks sad. “What do you want me to say, Don?”
Don fumbles for the words to fix this. “You know this doesn’t change anything between us. You know that, right?”
“I don’t think I can say that.” It’s Cosmo’s serious voice, the one he barely ever uses, even when things are bad.
It freezes Don in place while Cosmo walks away.
[]
Don hears through the grapevine that Cosmo is camping out in one of the writers’ rooms at the studio. It makes sense; they’ve been running him ragged writing songs and choreographing dances, then revising everything on the fly, trying to make a brand new movie happen in six weeks.
It’s just, he’s never there when Don comes by looking for him.
And it’s not that Don has a lot of free time himself, either. Now that Lina’s decided to boycott the whole production, Don is having to re-shoot some scenes and change dialogue to work around the ones Lina hadn’t finished. He’s scheduled to be in front of a camera or a dance instructor almost every hour of the day. Heck, he’d probably be better off sleeping at the studio himself.
Still, he goes home every night, hoping Cosmo will be there, too.
[]
Oddly, nothing changed between him and Kathy, after that. She told him flat-out that she wouldn’t give him an answer until he asked her a question, and she thought it was too soon for him to ask, anyway. Since that seemed a lot more fair than he deserved, he’d been happy to let the subject drop.
The only good thing that’s come out of his marriage confession is that the studio staff are more willing to leave him and Kathy alone when they can. She’d brought sandwiches for lunch, and the whole dance crew had suddenly found other places to be, in the most obvious and approving ways they could.
So the two of them have the whole practice room to themselves. They sit companionably on the floor, knee to knee, with an entire basket of ham sandwiches and lemonade waiting.
But Kathy doesn’t reach for it. “Is everything all right? You’ve been awfully down lately.”
“Have I? I’m sorry, darling. I don’t mean to trouble you.”
“I’d rather be troubled, if something’s troubling you,” she says easily.
It’s so tempting. Don wants to tell her everything, but the words won't come. How can he explain something he’s not clear about himself?
After a minute Kathy hums softly, accepting his silence. “Then let’s go out for a drive this weekend. I read about a hotel upstate, little cabins in the woods. It’d be perfect for you and me and Cosmo... oh.” Kathy looks at him gently. “Have you two argued?”
“It’s nothing.”
But she sees right through him. Her eyes narrow, and he knows she’s thinking hard. She gets a little wrinkle between her brows when she’s hatching a plan. It reminds him sharply of Cosmo, before he does something brave and crazy and wonderful.
“Then let’s head over to his office and invite him!” she says, tugging at his hand. But he doesn’t move, and she frowns. “Should I do it alone?”
Don shakes his head. “No, I’ll do it.” But he still doesn’t move.
“Oh, Don,” she says, voice full of sympathy. “What are you so worried about?”
“He won’t come.” Don can’t help sounding just as hopeless as he feels.
“He will, or we’ll hunt him down and kidnap him.” Her words startle a smile out of him. “So you’d better start practicing your apology,” she says, teasingly.
It’s an offer, of sorts. It’s so easy to banter with her, to let the words flow back and forth between them until he stumbles onto something true. He likes that about her; he knows she’ll catch him if he stumbles.
“How do you know I’m the one who needs to apologize?” he asks, following her lead.
“If it were Cosmo, you’d have done it already. It’s easier,” she says gently, “when it’s not your mistake.”
“Oh.” Still, it makes his breath catch when she’s right. “I’m not sure it’s my mistake, either.”
Kathy raises an eyebrow. “Do you want to go on like this, with him?”
“Like this? No.” It hurts his heart to think about. It’s only been a few days, and he’s already a wreck about it.
“Then talk to him. Really talk.”
Which is the problem. “You know I’m no good at that.”
“No, I know you’re very good at that.” She winks at him when he looks up at her, startled.
“Think about it,” she says, one arm gesturing broadly as she paints the scene. “There you’ll be, in the soft quiet of the woods. With a moon hanging low, and all the stars reflected in the lake spread out before you. The crackle of a fire. If the breeze is too cool, you can put your jacket around his shoulders.”
It sounds lovely. The three of them, taking some time together in a romantic setting. It’s a little like his dream of a house together, and it makes his heart skip a beat.
“His shoulders? Not yours?” he asks playfully.
“No,” she says, and thumps him on the arm. “Because I’m going to be reading my book in the other cabin while you two settle this.”
His heart suddenly stops skipping and runs full-tilt to make up for lost time. Because that’s the thing about talking about something: it stops being a dream. And maybe it turns out better than you’d ever hoped, but... you still have to take the chance on losing it.
“Kathy. I.” But the words catch in his throat, and Don fumbles for something, anything to follow that up with.
“Hush,” Kathy says, “or you’ll make me blush too much to speak, and I hate that. Let me say it.”
Her face is flushed already, and she keeps her eyes fixed steadily on her knees, but her voice is steady. “You and Cosmo were inseparable when I met you, and inseparable when I fell in love with you, and I expect you to go right on being inseparable for the rest of your lives. Whatever that means for you.”
The last words come out in a tumble, but no less certain than the first, and Don feels a rush of love and pride and -- relief. That she’s braver than he is, and forgiving, and willing to say the things he can’t yet.
“Can you tell Cosmo that?” He means for it to be a joke, but it comes out too plaintively.
“Oh, Don. I can, and I will if you think I should.” Kathy takes his hand. “But I can’t tell him how you feel. A lot of men ditch their friends once they have a wife and a, a 'respectable' life in front of them.”
“I’m not like that!” he protests indignantly.
“But you’ve seen it,” she points out, relentlessly. “Heck, I’ve seen it, so Cosmo has to have seen it too.”
It sits there like a rock in his gut. Because she’s right again. And sure, he’s not the kind of guy who does that. But he hasn’t exactly done a good job of showing Cosmo that. Prattling on about marriage, but not about... what it would look like if the family and kids he dreamed of were for the three of them, not just that ‘respectable’ two.
That stone in his gut feels a lot like regret, but he knows how to deal with that. “I do owe him an apology.”
He finds himself on his feet almost without thinking. He needs to go find Cosmo right now.
“That’s my Don!” Kathy says, and hugs him before shoving him toward the door. “Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure he’ll let you make it up to him."