Work Text:
During the first week Andy delivered The Book, she one night overheard Miranda and some man as they loudly argued in muffled voices behind closed doors upstairs in the townhouse. She didn't want to get involved, until she heard what sounded like a drinking glass being shattered against a wall. She hastily ran up the stairs to where the breaking glass noise came from and pushed the bedroom door wide open.
A lumbering drunken man she didn't know yelled at Miranda about not wanting to see her or the girls ever again. She believed it must be Stephen. She hadn't met him yet. Only ever talked to his secretary over the phone. He grabbed both of Miranda's shoulders hard and claimed she owed him more than what she offered him in their agreed upon separation. Miranda pushed his arms and hands off of her. He tried to grab for her neck next and Andrea, immediately, pulled him backwards into a tight headlock. Miranda looked frightened. Andrea wasn't sure if it was for her, the man who was likely Stephen or herself. Maybe all three.
"Listen, buddy, You need to leave now before I do something drastic. Your lawyers should be handling whatever this issue is. I witnessed you assault her and her shoulders are bruising already. Whatever I might do to wreck your ugly mug or scraggly body would be covered under self defense. Alternatively, you can also just go to jail for the assault I just witnessed. You won't get anything else from her if you do. You need to go and stay away!"
Stephen coughed and begged, "Let me go. I'll go. I won't come back."
She freed him from the tight headlock. He did not say anything else before he staggered down the stairs and dropped his townhouse key on a table in the foyer before he strolled out the door and down the street. Andy heard the clank on the table and when the door slammed behind Stephen. She didn't care what happened to him now. She didn't care about him at all. She went down and locked the door and called Nigel. She told him to come over to Miranda's right away.
She went into Miranda's kitchen and made up two ice packs for her injured shoulders. She ran back upstairs to Miranda with them. She sat on her bed crying with her head in her hands. Andrea dropped the ice packs down on the bed next to her.
"Can you help me with those?"
Andrea sat next to her and held the ice packs against Miranda's shoulders for about ten minutes. They sat together there in silence. At one point, Miranda nearly fell asleep on her left shoulder. She shook herself off her.
"You Should Go! Call Nigel. That's All."
"Miranda, I called him already. You don't have to say anything else. But, I'm not leaving you until Nigel gets here."
"Fine. Stay. I need to rest."
Andy stood up from the bed and went to get a bag and paper towels. She carefully and quietly cleaned up the broken glass shards and the spilled liquor on the carpet and wall. She tossed out the trash and washed her hands off in the hallway half-bath before she sat back down in a chair in the corner of Miranda's room. Miranda had laid down on her bed over the covers and closed her eyes. She slowly drifted off to slumber. Andrea closely watched her, but soon drifted off in the chair herself.
When Nigel arrived he woke Andy and told her, "Six, you did well."
Miranda was still fast asleep. She didn't tell him about what exactly happened because it was not her story to tell.
The next morning when Miranda lowly whispered, "Thank you, Andrea," to her behind her Runway office desk Andrea softly smiled back at her as she understood the gratitude was for more than her center of the sun hot coffee.