Work Text:
The first thing Saoirse does when she sees the call list is laugh.
There’s simply no way. It doesn’t even make any sense, really, because something like this should have never been done without her purview, actually, and quite frankly, it’s a little disturbing that something so monstrous would occur on her set for her show to desecrate her writing, and just really, totally, in everything right and true, it just does not make a single bit of sense.
“Who the hell hired Greta O’Neill?”
There’s a group of empty-eyed, blank-faced, soon-to-be dream-crushed writers—that she did not hire—standing in front of her, each pissing her off in their own unique and inspiring way. She zones in on the one in the back, one hand holding a mug and the other scrolling through his phone.
“You,” she says, and it only takes three seconds for him to look up and point to himself in question. “Yes, you. Who hired Greta O’Neill?”
He looks around as if it’s a confusing question.
“I—I think it was casting, who hired him,” he says.
Saoirse clenches a fist. She wonders, briefly, if it would break the terms of her out-patient program if she shoved a pencil through her eye, right now.
“And who gave casting the green light when Greta O’Neill was presented as an option?”
“Well, I guess it would’ve been Seb, then, no?”
Seb.
—
“Seb?”
Saoirse leans back into Robyn’s couch, eyes trailing the soft thumping of footsteps as they rumble across the ceiling above.
“His parting gift to the show.”
The couch dips as Robyn sits next to her.
“Robyn,” Dara hisses, and Saoirse rolls her head over to find the two of them silently arguing over the wine glass in Robyn’s hand.
“What?” Robyn says, eyes Saoirse. Takes a sip. “Is she gonna almost-die again if I have a glass?”
Dara shrugs, and they both look at Saoirse.
“Are you?” Dara asks, and it’s so earnest that Saoirse would cry if she weren’t loaded up on the highest dose of SSRI’s legal this north of Dublin.
“If I did, I wouldn’t have to see Greta, so maybe,” she says, and Robyn whacks her arm.
“Ow?”
“I said almost, you idiot,” Robyn says. “You’d still have to see her.”
“I dunno, I was thinking I could try buying the whole farm this time.”
“Not funny,” Dara says.
“Not joking.”
Robyn rolls her eyes.
“She wouldn’t leave us,” she says. “Pigs’d fly before she let Seb control the whole show.”
“Right. Probably’d rise from the coffin before they could even bury ya,” Dara laughs. “Could you imagine Saoirse ringing in the Second Coming?”
“This whole experience actually kind of made me realize I might want to be cremated,” Saoirse says. “And also, I’m not an alcoholic—”
“Put it in your will,” Robyn says. “Now—what does Seb know about you and Greta?
Saoirse shakes her head.
“He knows that we were friends a long time ago,” she says. “I might’ve told him we had a falling out, but I don’t know. He doesn’t know much.”
“So, it’s not malicious then?” Dara asks.
“From Seb? No. From the universe? Seems like a sick joke, doesn’t it?”
She hasn’t seen Greta in, what, twenty years, give or take? And the last time was decidedly not cordial.
“I could just quit,” Saoirse says. “I could buy a cottage up in the hills, right by the coast, and spend the rest of my days raising goats and feral cats. Could be nice. Do you think there are feral cats out in Ballycastle?”
Robyn laughs, and Saoirse scrunches her brows, looking over again.
“You couldn’t raise a plant, let alone goats and feral cats,” Robyn says. Then, into the glass of wine— “Can’t even keep yourself alive, for Christ’s sake.”
The silence in the room isn’t exactly uncomfortable, but Saoirse can’t say it’s comfortable either. They’re about twenty years past low-blows, most categorized as hard-truths these days. Saoirse has had her fair share for Robyn as well, and she can’t say this one wasn’t duly earned.
Saoirse clears her throat.
“You’ve made your point,” she says. “Don’t have to be such a dick about it.”
“Right, well—since you’re not dying and you’re not quitting, I guess you’re just going to have to work with her, aren’t ya?”
—
Work with her is a loose description of what Saoirse manages. Through an intricate web of agents and production assistants and writing assistants and personal assistants, and scheduled emails, and perfectly timed early arrivals and late departures, Saoirse doesn’t find herself so much as in the same room as Greta until the first table read.
(Which is, decidedly, a dark day.)
It goes smoothly, at first. Saoirse texts the director with something about a network meeting that’s going to run over, and you can just start without me, no, really, don’t let me hold yous up, and she slips in a good twenty minutes late, when she’s certain the speeches and the introductions have ended, and the reading has started. It’s nearly perfect, how she enters without a single acknowledgment save for a few nods from the writers and producers. It’s amazing, actually. Until Greta starts to speak.
It’s not that she forgot, more so like she’d pushed it away, far out of her memory, how magnetic Greta is with a script. How magnetic Greta is with her scripts. There’s a pounding of exhilaration that swells in her chest, but before she can latch onto it, it swells into a burning anger that shines inward, like some sort of self-betrayal for having basked in Greta for just a moment.
And then it’s nearly over, and she realizes she hasn’t come up with an exit plan. She’ll be expected to say something. Maybe she can keep it short and sweet? Really, she’s the fucking showrunner—she doesn’t have to have time for a speech. She just doesn’t have to. She has a show to run, actually, so that all of these people who were hired without her permission can get paid, and then the show can end, and they go on to some other set and leave her alone for the rest of fucking—
“Saoirse?”
She looks up. Every eye in the room is on her.
“I asked if you have any notes,” the director asks, shoots her a smile.
(And—thank God she has her notebook in her hands and wasn’t just staring into space like a complete basket case.)
She clears her throat. Closes the notebook.
“Em, nope. Sounding amazing so far. Everyone.”
(She pretends not to be a little miffed at some of the looks of surprise, surely recalling the monster she’d been during table reads last season.
Pretends not to think about how not nice she’d been in general, how many assistants she made cry, how many she made quit, how many people would clear a room just from her walking in.)
By the time it’s actually over, several people from several departments find it fit to take advantage of her seemingly good mood to ask about product placements and can we slide the budget here or it would just look really good if we gave them a wee tit for tat and I know it’s not the location we wanted, but this one is just as well and she thinks any chance of having to speak with Greta has been regrettably been squandered.
Then, leaning just outside the doors of the room—
“Hey, Saoirse,” Greta says, popping off the wall. “I was wondering if we could speak about the script, if you aren’t too busy? I have a few questions.”
She says it as if it’s the most normal request in the world, and Saoirse supposes it is, between any other showrunner and actor. That is, ones that don’t have two decades of heartache standing between them.
“You can speak about the script with the script supervisor,” Saoirse says. She continues walking, but then she hears footsteps behind her.
“That’s not what the script supervisor does.”
“I’m pretty sure if you have questions about the script, the person whose position is titled Script Supervisor can answer your questions about the script.”
“Okay, well—it’s not a question about the script so much as it is the writing.
“Well, then you can ask one of the writers,” Saoirse says. Checks her phone for pretend notifications. “I’m pretty sure their names are on the first page. The script supervisor can help you with that if they’re not.”
“I don’t have questions for the writers, Saoirse. I have questions for the person who invented the show.”
Saoirse stops walking, and Greta nearly bumps into her. Saoirse faces her.
“It kinda sounds like you don’t want to talk about the script, Greta.”
Greta grinds her jaw. Looks down.
“No,” she says. “I don’t.”
And maybe it’s that Saoirse pities her, maybe she wants to give into old wounds just as much as it seems Greta wants to, but, regardless of the truth, Saoirse sighs and keeps walking.
“Fine,” she throws over her shoulder.
She leads Greta to her office, still very much in a state of disarray from the previous season. They at least had the decency to clean up all of the empty cans of Monster Ultra for her, but the evidence still remains, seeped into the rest; unending piles of scrap paper—nixed scenes and rewrites upon rewrites—a whiteboard full of illegible scribbles that went so long without being erased she can’t get them off now, and drawers with about fifteen different drafts of her letter of resignation.
“Make yourself at home,” she mutters as they enter, and she leans against her desk. Greta shuts the door behind her, not hiding it as she looks around the room. She stops in front of Saoirse’s awards cabinet, taking in each one.
“You’ve done well for yourself.”
“So they say.”
Greta takes another fifteen seconds to look around, eyes trailing across the wall of behind-the-scenes photos and framed letters and invitations Saoirse thought were cool at the time. Now, she thinks it looks like a Showrunner’s Office Pinterest search threw up into the room. Eventually, Greta faces her, arms crossed, chewing her lip in worry.
“I thought we should talk,” she says.
“About?”
“C’mon,” Greta says, having the nerve to look annoyed. As if.
“I don’t have all day, Greta,” Saoirse says. “I have a television show to run, if you haven’t noticed.”
“Yeah, seemed like you did a lot of running today.”
“Wow—”
“I’m just—”
“You’d know a lot about that, right? Tell me, Greta, what were you thinking when you walked out on me?”
Greta shakes her head.
“I didn’t walk out on you.”
“Really.” Saoirse laughs. “You walked out, and you never came back. Sounds pretty simple when you break it down that way, actually.”
“You told me to get out and to never come back.”
“Well, obviously, I didn’t fucking mean it, Greta!”
“Well, you shouldn’t tell people to do things that you don’t actually want them to do, Saoirse! It gets a bit confusing.”
And it’s different, hearing Greta in this way, so intense. When she’d gone, it was quiet, dismissive.
“Look, Saoirse, I just want this to be an amicable experience—”
“Amicable,” Saoirse laughs. “Right.”
“—and I understand if you don’t want to see me, but we both have a contract to fulfill, and it would just be nice—”
“Why did you come here?” Saoirse says. “My show. My set. Why.”
Greta pauses, and Saoirse can imagine the answer. Who wouldn’t want to see the train wreck that is Saoirse Shaw with their own two eyes?
“It was offered to me, and—” She thinks. Hard, it seems. “I knew that I would regret it forever if I said no. I can’t live with any more regrets.”
Saoirse chews at her lip, and a million different sentences form at the tip of her tongue. Greta waits, so patient that it almost makes Saoirse want to explode.
“So?”
Greta sighs.
“It would be nice if you could treat me like any other actor on set,” Greta says. “That’s all I wanted to say.”
“Like any other actor?”
“Any other actor.”
Saoirse huffs.
“Okay.” Scratches her forehead. “Em—your reading of Gráinne is too cynical. You need to have sympathy for her, or else the audience won’t. She’s not a bad person, she’s just…you know, she’s in a lose-lose situation, she’s—”
“She’s trying her best?”
Saoirse can’t bear to look at her.
“Yeah,” she says. Deep breath. She looks up, Greta’s gaze never having left her. “Is that all?”
Greta nods.
“That’s it.”
—
(For a while, it’s fine. Greta asks for notes, Saoirse is somewhat kind. She goes to her doctor’s appointments and mandated therapy sessions, dodges Robyn’s texts and Dara’s calls. She goes to sleep each night staring at the same blank ceiling and wakes up every morning slightly disappointed it didn’t cave in on her in the middle of the night. She thinks about Greta—about all of the things that never were—and sips cranberry club soda at industry parties, ignores the burning in her neck that she can never decide is from the accident or the permanent reminder of Greta, lying flush across her skin.)
—
“I’m just saying, I think it’s sweet she wants to reconnect with you.”
“Sweet,” Saoirse says, looking Dara dead on.
“Yeah,” Dara says, and she nods, her eyebrows raised in that Dara way, so full of optimism despite everything there is to be skeptical of. “I mean, it’s been a long time. Maybe she’s changed.”
“You mean, maybe she’s ready to let her dyke-flag fly?”
Saoirse rolls her eyes.
“You can’t say that word, Robyn.”
“And just who are you to tell me what words I can and cannot use, Saoirse?”
“Well, are you a dyke?”
“Could be,” Robyn says. “Still got time, don’t I?”
“Sure,” Saoirse says. She pushes her menu closer to her face. Bloody Mary. French 75. Negroni. Bramble. “This whole menu is cocktails.”
“That’s the cocktail menu,” Dara says.
Robyn rolls her eyes and slides the food menu to Saoirse.
“With your logic, you can’t be saying that word either,” she says. “By the by.”
“Well, Robyn, if you took anything in my life half as seriously as you took my four-month engagement, you’d remember the time I made out with Fiona Duffy in third year and how Amy Walsh called me a dyke until we graduated, so I think I’ve earned the right,” Saoirse says. “That, and by seeing women.”
They both look to Dara.
“As far as I can tell, it is mostly reserved for lesbians, but Robyn, she’s kind of got a point.”
“Okay, whatever,” Robyn says. “Can we get back to the actual point?”
“I wasn’t sure we were getting close to one at all, actually…”
“The point is, Greta wants you back in her life,” Dara says.
“Exactly.”
Saoirse laughs.
“Where did you two come up with that?”
“I mean,” Robyn smirks, as if it’s obvious. “She’s asking for notes, Saoirse, and I don’t think your show is exactly rocket science. She wants to talk to you.”
“My show is very complex, actually, I mean, not that you would know since you claim to have not watched a single episode of it—”
“Marnie Mullins led an entire season and won an award for it,” Robyn says. “I’d say the bar is fairly low.”
“Some would say that was actually a testament to the writing—”
“She wants extended time with you, Saoirse,” Dara says. “Extended.”
“No,” Saoirse says. “She wants the show to be good, that’s all. I’m telling yous.”
“D’you hear that, Dara?” Robyn says. “She’s telling us.”
“Okay, and what is that supposed to mean?”
“Well…” Dara looks from Saoirse to Robyn, and back to Saoirse. “You don’t like to listen to us. Not really.”
She looks between the two of them.
“Is that some sort of revelation?”
“Only trying to help,” Dara says, raising her hands in surrender. Her attention returns to the menu, and Saoirse has half a mind to feel bad in the moment. Robyn shoots her daggers. Quirks a brow. Saoirse sighs.
“Look, Dara, I’m sorry,” she says. “You’re right. Greta clearly wants something. I’m just not convinced that I need to know about whatever that something is. It’s probably not good for me, you know, given—everything.”
“Yeah,” Dara says. “I suppose you’ve had a rough go of it. It’s really hard when the rich and the famous suffer a nervous breakdown due to being rich and famous. Wouldn’t want to add more to your plate.”
Robyn chokes on her wine. Saoirse, stunned, laughs.
“Okay,” she says, turning to Robyn. “Did you feed her that one?”
“Thought of that on me own, thank you very much.”
—
(In the official report, it says something less like nervous breakdown due to being rich and famous and more along the lines of an opiate dependency that occurred when the patient was prescribed oxycontin after sustaining a head injury at work; once the prescription ran out, the patient was able to procure the substance from an unknown source and continued to abuse the substance regularly; on the night of the accident, the patient ingested the substance at a level well above the legal limit, ultimately leading to a proclaimed accidental overdose while behind the wheel of a motor vehicle; the patient continues to show signs of depression and irritability, however shows no intention to harm herself further—)
—
“You sure you want to do this?”
Harry stands in front of her, looking like he might keel over. Saoirse feels like she might as well, a seemingly endless pit settled deep into her stomach, and a pair of lungs that she can’t quite fill up all the way. She supposes that could just be the belt that the stylist decided to latch about three rungs too tight around her waist, and not the fact that in thirty minutes she’s going to be on late-night television. Again. With Greta.
(She distinctly recalls the last time she was on late night, over a year ago now, hands clammy, eyes unfocused, words slurring ever so slightly. It’s appalling, watching the footage back, that it hadn’t occurred to anyone that anything was wrong.)
“Yeah,” she says. Takes a deep breath. “Yeah. I mean, we cleared the questions, right? We know what they’re going to ask.”
“All cleared,” Harry says, fussing with the collar of her dress shirt. “No surprises, nothing you don’t want to talk about. Show only. Greta only. Patrick should focus on her mostly, anyway.”
“She is the star, after all,” Saoirse says, and Harry smiles. Pats her shoulder.
“Exactly.” He gives her another once over. Pulls on her sleeve a bit. “You look great, Saoirse. Healthy.”
She suppresses an eyeroll. Healthy. Oh, you’re just glowing. You look great, dear. Healthy. She smiles instead.
“Full of the joys of spring.”
“That’s the spirit,” he says. “I’ll see you out in the wings in five, alright? Gotta check on our leading lady.”
He leaves, and Saoirse wonders what would’ve happened if she’d just said she didn’t want to do this. If she said she wasn’t feeling well, or something even more important than Patrick Kielty came up, or that she should probably just go home, let Greta do the sweet-talking. She’s the one they actually want to see, right?
(And Saoirse isn’t stupid. She knows what everyone wants to see. Knows everyone wants the next chapter of her public downfall, wants to hear the juicy, gory details, wants her to cry or scream or be high again on national television. It’s why the network set this whole thing up, really.)
She heads out to the wings, letting the various people fuss with her hair and her clothes and reciting the questions and her planned answers just one more time, doll, and she thinks she’s ready, thinks she can do it, and then she spots Greta, fitted up in a beautiful black number, timeless spaghetti strap satin, and—
“I need a drink of water,” Saoirse shouts to the void. “Harry, could someone please get me a drink of water?”
And Harry’s rushing off, Saoirse needs water, where are we on water? And then Greta’s standing beside her, calm as ever, and she looks at Saoirse with the hint of concern that Saoirse thought should’ve been there from the beginning.
“You alright?” Greta asks quietly, and Saoirse nods. Takes a deep breath.
“Grand,” she says. “And Harry’s just told me I look healthy, so. Feeling like a true winner already.”
Greta laughs softly. Saoirse tries to hold onto the sound, let it wash over her nerves, for just a moment.
“If it makes you feel better, he told me you look a bit ill.”
She looks at Greta, only finding a sly smirk itching at her lips.
“Did he really?”
Greta eyes her. Nods.
“The fucker.”
Greta smiles, smiles for real, this time.
“It’ll be fine,” she says. “Twenty minutes and then it’s all over.”
Twenty minutes is a long time, Saoirse thinks, but then they’re being pushed out onto the stage, and she doesn’t have much time to think beyond that. She shakes hands when offered, she smiles when it seems like she should smile, laughs when everyone else laughs.
(Greta talks and talks, and Saoirse thinks she’s gone off scot-free. Until she hasn’t.)
“Saoirse, it’s a big year for you lot.”
Saoirse, a nervous laugh—
“No pressure.”
“Tell us, what was the inspiration for this season’s mystery?”
Pretend to think deeply—
“Well, I’ve always had a fascination with the peculiar—”
(Avoid looking at Greta.)
“—and the history of this particular cult was quite peculiar.”
“Heaven’s Veil.”
“Right. It’s a fascinating story. I think we’ve done it justice, and I hope the audience thinks so as well.”
“And, Saoirse, tell us—how does it feel being back on set after your time away?”
Ears ringing, face surely red—
“I’m sorry?”
“Well—and I do hope I’m not speaking out of turn here—but it’s no secret the year you’ve had. Tell us, how are things now?”
And her voice gets stuck, somewhere deep in her throat, and she can’t form the right response, can’t figure out what it really is that she wants to say, but then she hears words, and she realizes they’re not coming out of her, but out of Greta.
“Well, you know, not to speak for everyone—it’s only my first season with this show—but I can safely say the entire production and every person involved with it is just a joy to work with,” she says. “It’s a real pleasure coming to work every day, and, yeah, you know, I think that culture is attributed to Saoirse and the tremendous work she’s done. It’s a massive production she’s built here, and the set wouldn’t be the same without her there.”
(Smile, even though it’s not true. Think about the crying PAs and the cowering writers and the shouting matches with actors and directors. Push it all down. Look at Greta. Smile when she smiles. Laugh when she laughs. Watch her lips move. Spot the tattoo on her wrist, watch it shine under the spotlight. Feel the matching one on her neck burn. Wait for Greta’s lips to stop moving.)
“Thanks, Greta,” Saoirse manages to say.
(Wait for the applause. Wave bye. Get out, get out, get out.)
The cameras have barely stopped rolling before Saoirse’s booking it for anywhere other than the main stage, shoving Harry off and anyone else who tries to follow, and she finds herself in her greenroom, swiftly shutting the door behind her. She barely notices it reopening and closing as she digs through her purse, angrily latching onto a pack of gum and a few loose smokes when she realizes that’s all she has. She throws all of it back into her bag. Laughs.
“Saoirse—”
She turns around to find Greta, of all fucking people.
“Get out.”
“Saoirse, please, just—”
“I said, get out.”
But then, Saoirse thinks it’s possible her heart might pound right out of her chest, and Greta is, well, she feels a million miles away, and there’s a tightness in Saoirse’s throat wherein the air is coming on too quick, but it’s leaving her far too fast all the same. There’s a tug on her hand, and Greta is closer, saying words that Saoirse can’t make out, and then there’s pressure on her hand, and she looks down to find it placed firmly against Greta’s chest. She closes her eyes and follows the steady rhythm of Greta’s chest rising and falling until death doesn’t feel so imminent anymore, and she’s certain she won’t actually keel over from this whole incident, she tears her hand away.
“Thanks,” she mutters, and then she sits down on the couch, Greta following her. She drops her head into her hands. Tries for a few more deep breaths.
“Do you keep anything for this kind of thing?”
Saoirse nearly laughs.
“I’m afraid they don’t let me keep anything anymore.”
Greta lets out a soft, “Jesus.”
(And, really, the psychiatrist—the problem here, is Saoirse, I don’t think these incidents happen at a rate that is worth prescribing anything that might—)
“Were the rumors true?” Greta asks, then.
Saoirse turns her head, stares at Greta defiantly.
“Which ones?”
Greta’s jaw clenches, unclenches.
“The pills, Saoirse.”
(And, really, it all just feels a bit too serious for her liking.)
“You’ll have to be more specific,” Saoirse says. “Parts of it are still quite blurry, if I’m honest. On account of all the pills, so.”
Greta furrows a brow. Waits a second. A second more. Then—
“Did you do it on purpose?”
Saoirse feels herself go very still. It’s not exactly the type of thing she’d like to get into inside a greenroom at The Late Late Show. Not while Harry’s probably waiting, feverishly, outside the door. Not with Greta. Not now.
“I don’t really want to talk about it, Greta.”
(The truth is, she hasn’t really spoken about it with anyone other than the people who could sign off on her return to work.)
“That’s fine,” Greta says. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
Saoirse nods, all of the biting energy sucked out of her.
“Thank you,” Saoirse says. “And, for—you know.”
Greta nods. Places a hand over Saoirse’s.
“Anytime,” she says. “I mean it, Saoirse.”
—
Saoirse’s hands are shaking.
(She isn’t really sure what gives directors the right to think they can just choose whether or not a scene is absolutely needed to convey what it is we’re doing here—
“And what it is, exactly, that you think we’re doing here?”
“Saoirse, c’mon.” Moves in closer. Quiets voice. “This stuff is cool and all, but it’s not exactly The Godfather, you know?”
Of course it was a director she’s never worked with before, of course it was one of Seb’s buddies that needed a favor, of course, she’d put herself in a situation where she had to attempt to buy back some goodwill, of course.)
The door to her office is closed and the blinds are down, and she’s sitting at her desk, and she’s opened a drawer that she knows nobody had the foresight or the hindsight, or sight at all, really, to check, and in that drawer is a tin, and in that tin is, well, too much.
There are a lot of people she could call at this moment. A lot of people she should call. She stares at the tin in front of her, trying to think about what Robyn might say if she were in the room right now, tries to think of Dara’s sad, disappointed eyes, but it all comes out flat.
Saoirse is drowning, and her air supply is sitting right in front of her.
(Quick release, if she remembers correctly.)
But then there’s a rapping on her door, and she’s grabbing the tin and standing, shielding it with her palm as if she can protect what’s left of it, that part of her. Greta enters before she can invite her in, gingerly shutting the door behind her.
“Can I help you?” Saoirse asks, and it comes off a bit more aggressive than she’d intended.
“Sorry to intrude, I just—” Greta crosses her arms, stays on the far side of the room. “That got pretty nasty back there. I wanted to check on you.”
“I don’t need to be babysat.”
“No, I know.”
“Okay, well, is there anything else?”
Greta steps forward slowly, then. Eyes the open desk drawer, trails down to Saoirse’s hidden hand.
“What’ve you got there?”
Saoirse swallows nervously. Shrugs.
“Nothing.”
(Greta’s not stupid. Saoirse’s more sure of that than almost anything else.)
Greta furrows her brow, clearly calculates the various ways she could go about this conversation, and her conclusion seems to be a simple one. She holds out a hand.
“Give it,” she says, softly.
“It’s not what you think it is.”
Saoirse isn’t really sure why she argues. She’s not getting out of it. Sure, she could stand here all day, but she’s beginning to think that Greta would, too. Maybe she’s just buying time, maybe she just likes the feeling of getting as close to it as she can, even if it’s just one last time.
“Just let me have it, Saoirse.”
Saoirse closes her eyes and huffs. When she opens them, tears spring. She hands over the tin. Winces at the rattle of the contents inside.
Greta takes it wordlessly. She pops it open and stares at it for a few seconds before she closes it and looks back at Saoirse.
“Did you take any?”
“No,” Saoirse says immediately.
“Okay,” Greta says. She runs a hand through her hair, shoves the tin deep into her back pocket. “Okay, em, is there—is there someone I should call?”
Saoirse’s eyes widen, she steps closer.
“No. No, Greta, you can’t call anyone, okay? They’ll…it’ll have to be a whole thing, and it’s not a whole thing, I mean, clearly, it’s not a whole thing because nothing even happened, I just—I just looked at them. Okay? That’s all that happened.”
She must look crazy, really, because she feels a bit crazy, but she’s right, isn’t she? She didn’t do anything.
“It’s not illegal to look, Greta.”
“No, it’s not,” Greta says. She chews at her lip. “You haven’t taken any?”
“No,” Saoirse says. “I don’t really know how much my word means to you, but I swear.”
Then—a light gasp from Greta, Saoirse latching onto her wrist, thumb lightly pressing into the tattoo—
“I promise,” she whispers. “I am not lying to you.”
Greta sighs.
“Saoirse, this is…”
“Nothing,” Saoirse says. “It’s nothing.”
Greta nods. Squeezes her eyes shut. Shakes her head.
When her eyes open, there are tears, too.
“Did you do it on purpose?”
And it’s as if her entire throat seizes, swallows itself whole with the words. She drops Greta’s arm. Looks away. Takes a deep breath.
“I think—”
(And surely there’s an answer, but it’s not something Saoirse wants to think about, let alone speak out loud. Not something she wants to use against herself as some sort of self-sabotaging collateral. And that’s progress, isn’t it?)
“I don’t know, Greta. I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Okay,” Greta says. “Okay, em—here’s what I’m going to do. I’m—I’m flushing these and you’ll just—” Releases a deep breath. “I want you to stay with me tonight. I want you to let me stay with you.”
“No.”
“Then I have to tell someone, Saoirse—”
“Absolutely fucking not.”
Greta’s brow furrows.
“Okay, well, we’ve got two options here, so pick one.”
“There is a third one,” Saoirse says, crossing her arms. “Wherein we both go home and forget any of this happened. I quite like that one, actually—”
“I can’t do that.”
“And why is that?”
“Because, Saoirse, I’m not sitting up all night wondering if I sent you off to fucking relapse.”
“Wow,” Saoirse says. “That—that is a big word, right there.”
“Are you like this all the time now?”
And Saoirse gets angry then, all of the nervous energy replaced with that red-hot seething from earlier.
“People tend to change when you don’t talk to them for twenty years, so, yeah,” Saoirse says. “This is ne. Like what you see?”
“No,” Greta says. “I don’t.”
“Well, that’s too fucking bad.”
—
“You don’t have to do this, Robyn.”
“Clearly, I do,” Robyn says, shaking a bag Saoirse had forgotten she even owned. Robyn’s nearly finished the whole front coat closet, with only two bathrooms, a bedroom, and another closet to go.
“I told you, that was the last of them.”
“That’s exactly what you said last time, Saoirse. I’m not exactly buzzin' to believe you.”
“Well, last time we did this, I was high,” Saoirse says. “Of course I lied to you.”
“Just so we’re both clear, you’re admitting to being a liar?”
“I’m not admitting to being a liar now, I’m admitting to sometimes having lied in the past when I was heavily abusing substances.”
“Right, so, why am I supposed to believe that you’re somehow not lying to me now, when I’ve just found out you had a secret stash of said substances in your work office?”
“It wasn’t a secret stash—”
“What was it then, Saoirse? Because you certainly neglected to tell anyone about it.”
“I forgot about it, Robyn, it wasn’t, like, this calculated plan to secretly harbor it.”
“You forgot about it?” Robyn asks. “You know, Greta counted them, right? Are you telling me you forgot about hundreds of quid of pills just sitting there in your office? Do you actually expect me to buy that?”
“Sorry I couldn’t keep track of every single pill, Robyn,” Saoirse says. “They’re not exactly difficult to lose.”
“No, I suppose it’s quite easy to forget things when you’ve done half your head in wrapping an Audi around a tree.”
Saoirse scoffs.
“You’re such an arsehole.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got an A-word for you too, but I know you don’t like it so much.”
(Robyn’s not wrong. It’s a word she’s managed to skirt around through this entire ordeal. Doctors have said it here and there, her therapist, on occasion, but it doesn’t feel like her. It was never the pills, not really. Sure, toward the end there, it was probably the pills, but before then, it was just—it was her.)
“Robyn, I am not hiding any pills from you,” Saoirse says. “What do you want me to do to prove that?”
“That’s the thing, there’s nothing you can do to prove that,” Robyn says. She stands, tears in her eyes. “D’you know how scared we were watching all this madness? What it felt like getting that call? I had to recount every interaction we’d had in the last two decades. Had to retrace every step to figure out if I’d somehow been complicit, or if I’d missed something that I shouldn’t have missed. And still. Still, I’m here, doing this, because I can’t go through that again, I can’t. So, I don’t really care if you’re lying or you aren’t, I just need to be certain, alright, Saoirse?”
“Alright,” Saoirse repeats, softly. A pause. Robyn shakes another bag, stands.
“Onto the next.”
Saoirse trails her like a dog with its tail between its legs.
“I am sorry, you know,” she says.
“I don’t want you to be sorry,” Robyn says, rifling through her dresser drawers. “I just want you to be okay.”
—
(She hadn’t forgotten about the stash. How could she? It was an anchor, waiting if she needed something to stop her from drifting too far, keeping her steady. The problem with some anchors, she’s learned, is that it doesn’t take much for them to drag you down and keep you there.)
—
“This is the set we’re using today,” Saoirse says, pushing through a pair of double doors. Dara and Robyn trail behind her, opening to the bumbling studio, crew-hands putting the final touches on everything before the shoot starts for the day.
(Robyn drove her to work. Asked for a set tour under a thinly veiled guise for supervision. Asked if Dara could tag along to make it seem less suspicious. It did not, for the record.)
“What is it?” Dara asks.
“It’s a behavioral study room,” Saoirse explains. “There’ll be a girl on the left and a girl on the right. Short one for today, but they’ve got to tear down this set as soon as we’re done and put up a classroom.”
“So, they just build this whole set for one scene, and then they tear it down?”
Saoirse nods.
“Sometimes we keep them or repurpose them—sometimes other shows have already built what we need, but this is pretty much how it goes, yeah.”
“Seems like a giant waste of money,” Robyn says, looking around. She’s still got her sunglasses on, and Saoirse shakes off the memory of her quiet voice in the middle of the night, crying to Jim over the phone.
Saoirse clears her throat.
“They give me the budget before we start writing the season, so we can kind of work out our sets from there.”
And, of course, Greta walks in.
“Em, crafty’s over there if yous want some breakfast.”
“Could go for some caffeine,” Dara says, and the two of them make for the coffee stand.
Greta takes the opportunity to approach, much to Saoirse’s dismay.
“You’re early,” Saoirse says.
“So are you,” Greta replies, easily. She’s always been good at this part—pretending things didn’t happen. Here she is now, pretending she didn’t sic Robyn on Saoirse just last night. “Giving the grand tour?”
“Yeah, well, seems there was a coordinated effort to have me under supervisory hold for twenty-four hours, so,” she says, gesturing to everything. “Bring your babysitters to work day.”
Greta sighs. She eyes a gaffer as he walks by.
“Let’s not do this right here, Saoirse.”
But they’re saved anyway, because Robyn’s voice chimes in from behind them—
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the woman of the hour.”
(It’s actually a bit comical; Greta has half a mind to look nervous at the sight of Robyn.)
“It’s good to see you, Robyn,” she says, ever so cordial.
“Wish we could’ve caught up longer last night,” Robyn says. “‘Course, there was spring cleaning to attend to.”
“Jesus Christ,” Saoirse mutters, and Dara whacks her in the arm.
Greta quirks a brow, eyes Dara.
“Hi, Dara,” she says. “How do you do?”
Dara just holds her coffee and takes a bite of her scone.
“Feel a bit like I’ve seen a ghost, if I’m honest.”
Greta laughs, actually.
“Yeah, yeah, I kind of feel that way too.”
Saoirse claps.
“Alright, well, beautiful trip down memory lane, em, why don’t we continue the tour before Greta and I are due on set?”
“Would you like to join us?” Robyn asks Greta, just to spite Saoirse, she’s sure.
“No, thank you, I have some lines to run,” Greta says. Eyes Saoirse. “See you around.”
—
Greta leaves her alone, for the most part, after that. Saoirse does her best to behave—tries not to argue with any more film bros who come to her set to direct—tries not to forget about any more illegal substances stashed in her office.
But then, Greta does something unusual. She’s late. Forty minutes late. She tries to stay out of it, tries to let the problem resolve itself through the purposeful chain of command, but then someone’s coming up to her, radio blaring, eyes on Greta, and they’re whispering in her ear—
“We’ve got a problem in trailer lot number two—”
And that’s how Saoirse finds herself heading outside, following the echoes of shouting that permeate even through trailer lot one, and when she gets closer, it’s nearly coming from Greta’s trailer. She should call security, a production assistant, anyone, there’s a loud shattering, and then the voices go quiet, and Saoirse doesn’t think, really, only reacts.
When she opens the door to Greta’s trailer, two sets of eyes fall on her immediately. Greta’s wide, tearful. And Owen’s.
“What the hell is going on?” Saoirse asks, inspecting the scene. The mirror is shattered, and a cellphone sitting directly in the wreckage. Greta looks physically unharmed, at the very least.
“Perfect,” Owen says. “She’s here.”
“Saoirse, could you just give me ten minutes, please?”
Saoirse swallows nervously, eyes the pair carefully—the shards of glass now sitting at their feet.
“No, I don’t think I can do that.”
“She told you to leave,” Owen says, then, and it’s hard to conceive, really, the vitriol that he seems to speak to her with. It hits some sort of button of hers, a dormant switch she thought had gone away along with Owen and along with Greta.
She steps further into the trailer, the glass crackling beneath her.
“Last I checked, this was my set that you’re standing on, Owen,” Saoirse says. “So, I’d be very careful about whatever it is you were going to do next.”
Owen quirks a brow, looks at Greta.
“Seriously, Greta?”
But Greta only looks away from him.
“I think she wants you to leave.”
Owen scoffs.
“I don’t have time for this shit,” he says, and blows past Saoirse, shoulder-checking her on the way out the door. Saoirse and Greta stand in silence for a moment. The rest of the trailer is a bit of a mess as well, items strewn about, scripts every which way, and Greta—standing there with her arms crossed, brows furrowed—looks smaller than Saoirse has ever remembered.
“So, this is what he does now?” Saoirse asks. “He throws phones at you?”
Greta shakes her head.
“He didn’t throw it at me.”
“Right.”
“Saoirse—”
“I’m canceling the rest of today’s shoot— “
“I don’t want that.”
“It just seems a bit much—”
“Please, let’s just get on with the shoot, I’m ready for the scene, and—”
“Has he done that before?” Saoirse asks. It tumbles out of her mouth before she can stop it, really, something she knows she’s wondered for years but always been too afraid to ask, too afraid to think about. “Was he like that when we were—”
She can’t finish the rest of that sentence.
“He—” She watches as Greta does that thing she does so expertly: pulls herself together right as she’s falling apart, like a thread that’s being torn at one end and sewn back on the other. Takes a deep breath. “Sort of.”
And that’s enough.
Saoirse’s feet are carrying her out of the trailer before she even realizes she’s moving, and Greta is rushing after her, calling her name, begging her to just drop it, Saoirse, and he’s not worth it, but then she’s caught up to Owen and she’s pulling his shoulder so he turns around, and he looks so amused as she does it, like this whole thing is just entertainment to him.
For a second, she thinks she might punch him. She clenches a fist instead, cocks her head.
“Does it make you feel big, playing a garda on television, is that it?” Laughs a little. “Or does it make you feel small, knowing that’s all you’re ever going to amount to?”
“There some kind of point you’re making here, Saoirse?” Owen says, stepping closer. She tries to ignore the way he towers over her, the smarmy, menacing look in his eyes.
She lowers her voice. Hopes she looks just as fuming as she feels.
“If you ever touch her again, I will personally see to it that you can’t even get so much as a bit part as a petrol station attendant, ever again.”
He smirks.
“Like anyone would listen to a fucking junkie.”
Her lip twitches.
“Get off my set,” she says. “And if I have to see you again, you’re really not going to like what happens then.” She steps even closer. Looks up. “’Cause, d’you know what being a junkie means, Owen? It means that I’ve got no dignity left to lose.”
He stares her down, and she matches his gaze, not willing to be the first to break it off. Eventually, he scoffs.
“Fuck this shit,” he mumbles. Flicks his nose, turns away. He stalks off, and Saoirse takes a deep breath, tries to calm the nervous thumping of her heart that she hadn’t noticed was happening until now. She presses against her temples where she knows a headache is surely about to arise, blows out another breath of air.
(And it doesn’t feel good, using herself against him like that, but there’s something that happens to her when Greta’s in trouble—something she’s not sure she can even control—)
“Saoirse.”
It’s then, that she remembers Greta is right there. She turns around, finds a tear-tracked cheek.
“I’m canceling the shoot today,” Saoirse says, and Greta nods. “We’ll—I’ll find someone to deal with your trailer, and security will get a note about Owen.”
Greta only nods again, and she looks so small still, so unsure. It’s not the Greta that Saoirse remembers. Not the one she wants to remember.
“Do you have somewhere to go?”
Greta sighs, and Saoirse suddenly wishes they weren’t working local; wishes she’d chosen some far-off destination like New Zealand or Greece, and that she could just take her somewhere that’s not here. Somewhere she’s certain Owen would never be.
“I’ll figure something out,” Greta says. “Thanks, Saoirse.”
And then she turns, and Saoirse’s brain is working in overdrive again.
“You can come back to mine,” she calls out. “If—if that’s something that you want. It’s only fair I extend the offer.”
And it’s later, much later, when Greta has showered and the couch has been made up as a sort of half-bed and Saoirse’s not entirely unconvinced that they haven’t entered some alternate dimension, that she’s making tea to take to bed, and she can’t help but ask it—this question that’s been eating her from the inside for the last twenty years.
“Why’d you choose him?”
And Greta pauses, and it feels a bit serious—
“I mean, I’m not asking why you didn’t choose me, you didn’t have to choose me, but if it had to be someone else, you know, why him?”
And Greta looks away, furrows a brow. She looks back up, something challenging in her eye.
“Why’d you try to kill yourself?”
Saoirse laughs.
“I didn’t.”
Greta gestures, as if to say same.
“C’mon, Greta,” Saoirse says. “That’s not true.”
“Sure, it is,” Greta says, defiantly. “Seems like we either do things, or we don’t.”
“Well, I think there’s a bit of nuance in some people’s cases,” Saoirse mumbles. “Such as severely impaired cognitive function. Or so they say.”
Greta only watches her, those piercing eyes.
“I suppose,” she says. “But I think there was a choice. Before that moment, to not tell anyone that you were struggling at all.”
(And Greta always could read her like a book. Most of her friends can, it seems. She wonders if everyone can just see right through her, her motivations and intentions. She thinks if they could, things never would’ve gone as far as they did.)
“I think they actually advise against using that kind of choice-based language when it comes to this sort of thing, actually—”
“I’m not talking about the pills, Saoirse,” Greta says, then. “I’m talking about you.”
Saoirse looks down. She toys with the flag of the tea bag in her mug.
“You know, there’s not really a new question there, so, I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking.”
“I’m asking if you tried to kill yourself.”
Her voice gets quiet, then.
“I don’t think anyone really wants me to answer that question, Greta.”
Saoirse looks up. Greta is unflinching.
“I do.”
Saoirse sighs. Shrugs. She’s tired.
“What if I did?” she asks. “It wouldn’t change anything. It happened, and it didn’t work, so.”
Greta winces at it didn’t work. Saoirse never really knows where she loses control of conversations with Greta. She always ends up saying more than she wants to, admits more than she thinks she should. It’s like Greta has this magnet that pulls it all out of her. That makes her want to share. That makes her okay with it. And it’s scary, how after twenty years it’s like nothing has changed.
“Did it—” Greta pauses, looks away, finally. “When we lived together—did you feel that way then?”
“I think it’s always been there, Greta,” Saoirse says. She can’t remember a time when it didn’t feel like the world was threatening to swallow her whole. “I guess, over time, it just…built up.”
Greta nods.
“You know, I always wondered—the play—I thought, at the time, maybe—maybe it was about you,” Greta says. “I was always afraid to ask.”
(The play—an allegorical exploration of identity and belonging in the world that has been done over countless times, at this point, but she was proud of it, at the time.”
“I wouldn’t have told you if you did,” Saoirse says. “I looked at you and saw someone so assured, so—together. I wanted you to think of me the same. And, I mean, I wanted my writing to be mysterious.”
“Saoirse, I thought the world of you,” Greta says. “I still do.” Her eyes drop again. “I’m sorry for what I said a few weeks ago—”
“No,” Saoirse interrupts. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. I was backed into a corner, and I was being an arsehole. Honestly, I’m glad you were there. I don’t know that I was about to make a good decision.”
Greta shrugs.
“I’m sure you would have.”
“You’d be the first to believe that.”
Greta hesitates, then speaks.
“When I saw it on the news, I couldn’t believe any of it. I thought it had to be a different Saoirse Shaw. I mean, mine doesn’t even have a learner’s permit, how could she be taking down an oak tree in Belfast when she’s supposed to be filming a movie here in London?”
“She stole her ex-fiancé’s car is how,” Saoirse mumbles.
Greta only frowns.
“Was it as bad as they said it was?”
Saoirse swallows nervously. Plays with the tea bag. She can’t remember most of it, just bits and pieces of the night. She remembers leaving the late-night studio and getting back to her and Seb’s flat, and then she remembers having an argument, but she can’t remember what about. If she tries really hard, she thinks she can remember grabbing his car keys out of the key bowl, but that’s about as far as it goes. The next thing she knows, she’s gasping for air in an ambulance, and everything after that is totally gone until she woke up in hospital.
About a million and one jokes run through her head about the crack in her skull or the crick in her neck, or the way she still can’t look at a computer screen for more than twenty minutes at a time without getting cross-eyed or nauseous, or the fact that her driving license got suspended for six years even though she never had one to begin with, but she’s grown tired of the jokes.
“I can’t say I ever read the reports, but I’m thinking it was as bad as they said it was, yeah,” she says.
“The car looked like it had gone through a compactor,” Greta says.
“My ribs took the brunt of that situation, yes.”
“Jesus, Saoirse.”
(She can’t even count with two hands how many times she’s heard that one in the last year and a half.)
“Say it,” Saoirse says, but Greta only looks confused.
“What?”
“Tell me how lucky I was.”
She fully expects Greta to agree, but Greta only huffs.
“If that’s what luck is, I think I’m all set on mine.”
Then—
“I guess you are a bit lucky,” Greta adds, and Saoirse hums. “Didn’t kill anyone else, so.”
Saoirse frowns.
“Robyn said that when I woke up,” Saoirse says. Laughs, just a little. “Told her I’m actually shit out of luck because killing someone is exactly what I was trying to do.”
Except Greta doesn’t laugh with her, only quirks a brow.
“Yeah, she didn’t like that one, either.”
—
(Somehow—Saoirse doesn’t know, honest—they end up lying in bed together. She’ll blame it on delirium from her chamomile later, but after enough awkward silence and realizing Greta is way too tall for Saoirse’s couch and that Saoirse would not sleep on her own couch, there seemed to be only one solution.)
Saoirse’s nearly fallen asleep when she feels a tickle on the back of her neck, and she realizes Greta is tracing the tattoo. The one that lies identical on her arm, the one that Saoirse spent so many years wishing she could evaporate off of her skin.
(The one she was never brave enough to evaporate off of her skin.)
Greta continues to trace it until her touch trails lower, a few inches below the tattoo, and drags her touch in a straight line until she reaches the collar of Saoirse’s shirt. Saoirse shivers at the touch, Greta’s fingertips hovering over the fading scar.
“From the accident?”
“Just a wee spine thing,” Saoirse says.
“I’m sure it’s wee,” Greta replies, softly.
(And, yeah, wee is decidedly not the right description for the spine thing in general, but the extensive PT has given her killer biceps, so, who is she to complain, really?)
“Does it hurt?”
“Sometimes,” Saoirse says. “Not that there’s much I can do in that department.”
(She often tries to ignore how fucked up it is, getting so high on painkillers that you crash your car, but having been so high on painkillers that you’re not allowed any after you’ve just crashed your car.)
“Well, thank God it was wee,” Greta says, and Saoirse flops around to face her, expecting to find a half-smile or a smirk, but Greta’s expression is deadly serious. It’s then she realizes that somehow Greta’s done it again, gotten her to talk, all night. Not saying a word about herself.
“Any embarrassingly public near-death experiences you’d like to talk about to put me out of my misery?”
Greta stares at her with that mystery look.
“What you saw today was embarrassing enough,” she says.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Saoirse asks.
“Not tonight,” Greta says. “I just want to enjoy this moment. You. I missed you. So much.”
(If Saoirse could cry right now, she would.)
“Me too.”
—
“What’s your name again?”
“Jethro—”
“Let me get this right, Jethro,” Saoirse says. “I’ve got about forty-eight hours to rewrite an entire midseason finale before we have to shoot said midseason finale on the only set available for it, because the network decided yesterday that they no longer like all of the murdering on the murder show. On top of that, I have five of you apparent gifts from the writing Gods, breathing down my neck, might I add, who can’t even come up with one alternative scene that doesn’t set us back about sixty days off-schedule, and you’re telling me that you need to go home because your flatmate’s cat just gave birth?”
“Well, when you put it that way—”
“When I put it that way?” Saoirse says. “What the fuck did it sound like when you said it back to yourself?”
“I didn’t really try that, I suppose.”
“Jethro?”
“Ma’am.”
Saoirse winces.
“I want you to leave my office, and I don’t want you to even think about speaking to me again unless it’s with a scene that’s going to win this show another BAFTA,” she says. “And if you write a scene that you think is going to win this show another BAFTA, I promise you, it is not.”
“So…BAFTA or no BAFTA?”
“Get out. Now.”
Jethro, at the very least, has half a mind to leave the office right then and there. Saoirse sighs and rubs at her temple. Her hands are shaking, and she feels not entirely like she should be alone in this current moment, but it’s a bit stupid, isn't it? This is her job. This is the stress that comes with her job, this life that she chose for herself. Shouldn’t she be able to handle it like a normal fucking person?
Then, there’s a knocking at the door—because of course, someone else wants to see her—and of course, it’s Greta walking through. It’s always fucking Greta.
“That’s grand,” Saoirse mumbles.
“Bad time?”
“My whole life is a bad time, Greta.”
“Okay,” Greta says, sauntering into one of the seats opposite Saoirse’s desk. “Really bad time.”
“Do you need something?”
Greta pauses, then.
“I—is something going on?”
Saoirse sighs.
“Other than the entire production falling apart from under me, no, just another Tuesday.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, the network decided to pull our storyline for the next half of the season, so we have about, I don’t know, two days, to get that written, approved, storyboarded, and prepped to shoot; I have five writers—hired without my permission, by the way—bringing fuckall to the idea department, and about fifty different people waiting on me to figure out whether I need them tomorrow, or the next day, or ever again, actually, meanwhile, I can’t even figure out whether I’d like to be here at all, so, yeah,” Saoirse huffs. “Another fucking Tuesday.”
“Let’s just—”
“And my head is fucking banging,” Saoirse says, dropping it entirely into her hands.
“Well, that’s not ideal.”
“Are you trying to make this all even worse, or was there supposed to be something productive about your pop-in?”
Annoyingly, Greta doesn’t even bat an eye at the attitude.
“There was, but,” Greta sighs. “I think it can wait.”
“Okay,” Saoirse sighs, scribbling in her notebook. “Guess I’ll just add mystery Greta problem to my list of growing fires.”
“Saoirse, don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
Greta quirks a brow. She opens her mouth but decides against whatever she was going to say. Saoirse resents it—her calm collection.
“Do you want to take a walk around the lot with me?”
“Greta, does it seriously look like I have time to take a walk around the lot?”
“Honestly, Saoirse, it looks like you have no choice but to take a walk around the lot.”
And it’s there, in that sliver of I’m telling you what’s best for you right now, that makes Saoirse want to crack it all to hell.
“I can take care of myself, Greta,” Saoirse says. “You don’t get to waltz in here and pretend like anything I’m going through has anything to do with you.”
Greta has half a mind to look sheepish then.
“I’m not trying to assert that you can’t take care of yourself, Saoirse,” she says. “I just want you to know that you’re not dealing with any of it by yourself. Specifically, that I want to be there for you. If you’d let me.”
(And, fine. Maybe Saoirse could use a walk around the lot.)
—
“It makes me feel small,” Saoirse says. “When you do that. When everyone does that.”
They’ve been walking side by side around the lot for about ten minutes, and Saoirse is loath to admit it, but it was sort of needed.
(Sort of.)
“I didn’t realize,” Greta says. “I’m not trying to lecture you, I just—I mean, lord knows I have my own pile of bullshit.”
Saoirse snorts.
“How’s your mum?”
“I’m actually not speaking to her at the moment.”
“You say that like I should be surprised.”
“Well, like you’ve made it very clear, a lot can change in nearly two decades,” Greta says. “We did alright for the one, mostly for the sake of my daughter, but that could only last so long.”
(Saoirse can still recall getting hammered the day that news broke in the tabloids.)
“What happened?” Saoirse asks.
Greta shrugs.
“Owen happened.”
Saoirse nods, waves to a crew member on another production who calls out her name, pretends everything is fine. That everything is perfect, really.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was an arranged marriage.”
Except, Greta doesn’t respond. Saoirse looks at her.
“Please tell me it wasn’t an arranged marriage?” she says. “Despite the healing it would do to my psyche.”
“It wasn’t,” Greta says. Then— “Not really.”
“Not really isn’t sparking a lot of confidence here, Greta.”
Greta stops walking. Squints in the sun.
“There was a contract.”
“There was a contract?”
Greta nods.
“And what was in this contract?”
“A lot of stuff,” Greta says. “It was about image, mostly. Things we could do, things we couldn’t do. Appearances, paparazzi schedules, of those things.”
“Okay,” Saoirse says. “A—and what else, exactly?”
“Just stupid stuff, Saoirse,” Greta says. She starts walking again, Saoirse trailing her. “I had to date him for a certain amount of time, and—you know. We can drop it. It’s not really important.”
“You know, you’re not really doing a very good job about making this whole thing seem stupid.”
“Yeah, well.”
As much as she doesn’t want to, Saoirse drops it. It’s not long before they’ve looped back around to their building, and Saoirse is sighing in front of the facade. She still doesn’t want to deal with it—any of it—but there is some sense of calm, at least. Some.
“Em, thanks, you know,” Saoirse says. “This whole thing, well, it hasn’t been easy. More like—I don’t know. A bit all-consuming, so.”
She says the last bit like a joke, but neither of them laughs.
“I’m sorry if I’ve ever come on a bit too strong, Saoirse,” Greta says. “I know I wasn’t there, and I haven’t been there, not for a long time at least, but—I guess I just want you to know that you can depend on me right now. If you need it.”
Saoirse nods.
“I feel the same.”
Greta releases a breath.
“So, you’re not going to murder any writers in the next forty-eight hours?”
“Unfortunately, I can make zero promises on that one,” Saoirse says. “But I will certainly do my best.”
“I’m sure you will.”
And then Saoirse’s nearly walked back inside, when Greta calls out her name. Saoirse turns. Greta stares.
“I’m leaving him.”
—
“What’d’ya mean a contract?”
Saoirse picks up a menu. They’ve already asked for an extra five from their server twice.
“I don’t know,” Saoirse says. “She just said it, like, like it was just a PR thing, but then she got real cagey about it, like she regretted bringing it up at all. Like there was something nefarious.”
“I mean, being forced into a PR relationship is quite nefarious on its own, isn't it?” Dara asks.
“I guess. It just seemed like there was something more.”
Dara and Robyn share a look.
“What?” Saoirse asks. “What is that?”
“You just like to see things that aren’t there sometimes, Saoirse. That’s all,” Robyn says.
“Like that time you thought that new coffee cart in town center was a drug front,” Dara adds.
“Well, that’s because they were, in fact, selling me drugs,” Saoirse mumbles.
“What?”
“You know, they made a suspiciously good flat white,” Saoirse says with a nervous laugh.
“It always tasted burnt to me,” Dara says.
“Can we get back to the fact that your coffee man was selling you drugs, Saoirse?”
“It was a woman,” Saoirse says. “But I think that’s beside the point right now—”
“Which is?”
Saoirse groans.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I think I just want to think about her.”
“We can tell,” Robyn says.
“I mean, can you blame me?” Saoirse asks. “The one that got away, barreling back into my life, cementing her feet by my side, right at my most volatile moment, offering a stable shoulder and a steady hand in the dark moments—”
“It’s like we don’t even exist, Dara.”
“I dunno,” Dara says. “It is a bit romantic when she puts it that way.”
“Until we circle back around to the fact that Greta has a husband,” Robyn says. “Contractually obligated, apparently.”
“Well, all spouses are contractually obligated, technically,” Saoirse mumbles.
“Doubly contractually obligated.”
Saoirse groans once more, dropping her head onto the table.
“Aye, be careful with that thing,” Robyn says. “I’m not feeding you when you go prematurely vegetable.”
And Saoirse can share this, right? Robyn and Dara are like an extension of her mind. Whatever she knows, they get to know, right? Right.
“She left him.”
“What?”
“Greta left Owen. She told me last week.”
“She finally saw the light.”
Saoirse shakes her head.
“He’d been knocking her about, Robyn.”
“Oh, stop taking the piss, Saoirse,” Robyn says. “Just because you think weddings are nefarious—”
“I’m not,” Saoirse says. “I mean, she didn’t say those words exactly, but I saw it. He threw his phone into the mirror in her trailer. Smashed it to bits. She said he wasn’t throwing it at her, but—”
“Well, shit,” Dara says.
“I asked her how long he’d been doing it, if—” Saoirse pauses. She doesn’t like thinking about when it started. “She said it wasn’t the first time.”
“This whole thing just got a lot less entertaining.”
“Oh, I don’t know—”
“She’s a battered woman, Saoirse,” Robyn says. “You can’t just try to ride a battered woman.”
“Is that, like, a rule, or—”
“Maybe we should let Greta decide that for herself, Robyn,” Dara says. “We don’t even know if she identifies as a battered woman.”
“Thank you, Dara,” Saoirse says. Straightens her shirt. “Anyway, she didn’t seem battered when she was at my flat—”
Both Robyn and Dara—
“What?”
“Oh,” Saoirse smiles sheepishly. “Did I forget to mention that?”
—
(Saoirse still remembers the day she met Greta, auditioning for her play, reading the lines like nobody had ever read them, like Greta had been the only person to actually understand, to see through the veil.
The day she left—it was like she took all meaning with her.)
—
“Cut!” Saoirse hops off her chair, walks briskly onto set. They’re on location—a school ground—and only have so much time. “Let’s take five, everybody.”
Greta has never so much as fumbled a word; now she’s forgetting entire lines?
Saoirse walks up to her, tries to be kind. Gentle.
“What’s up?”
Greta looks around, waits for the extras to disappear, waves off a makeup touch-up.
“I’m sorry,” she sighs. “I’ve got a lot on my mind. I know the lines, I just—”
“Okay, that’s alright.”
(Normally, she’d get angry. She’d scream, probably, ask who the hell hired this idiot? and contemplate cutting the entire scene, but she’s a changed person. And Greta is, well, Greta.)
“How can I help?” Saoirse asks.
“I’ve got it,” Greta says. “I’m just going to go over the lines one more time. I’ll be good for next take.”
And Saoirse nods, shoves her hands in her pockets. She corals the crew back to places, waits for Greta to hand her script back over. Waits for her AD to roll speed.
“Action!”
Greta nails every word. Poignantly, even for a scene where she’s arguing with a store clerk over the sale of a blender. And they move on, through the aisles of the store—to the outside shot—and it’s as if Greta never had a fumble at all. That is, until Saoirse knocks on Greta’s trailer door and hears a soft, “Come in.”
Greta stands as the door opens, like she expected someone else, and then the facade cracks, just a bit.
“Wanted to see how things were going,” Saoirse says as she shuts the door. “You did great today. Really.”
Greta huffs.
“Really?” she says, sitting back down. “Feel like that might’ve been the worst shoot of my life.”
“Trust me,” Saoirse laughs, sits down next to her. “I’ve seen worse.”
Saoirse knocks Greta’s knee with her own.
“How are things?”
She doesn’t think she needs to specify which things.
Eyes on Greta again. Saoirse goes looking.
“I suppose I’m finding it troubling,” Greta says. “Keeping it all together.”
“Yeah,” Saoirse sighs. “It’s not very fun, is it?”
“No, it’s not.”
And then, of course, Saoirse’s mouth is moving faster than she should let it.
“Is it Owen?”
“Sort of,” Greta says. “I mean, yes, just—I don’t really know how to say it, to be honest.”
“Okay, well, maybe just say it, then.”
Greta nods. Looks at Saoirse.
“Owen’s suing me.”
“Suing you?” Saoirse asks. “Like, in the legal sense?”
“That is the main sense, yes.”
“Wow.”
“That’s not everything,” Greta says. Drop her head into her hand.
“Well, don’t leave me hanging,” Saoirse says quietly.
Greta sighs.
“He’s suing me for breach of contract—”
“Like, the contract?”
“Yes, the contract,” Greta says. “And there’s a chance that you’ll be mentioned in the lawsuit.”
“I see,” Saoirse says, rubs at the back of her neck. “And—just out of curiosity—what percent chance, might that be?”
“Upwards of ninety-nine.”
“Well, that’s not a high chance at all, then,” Saoirse says, standing.
“Hence, why I wanted to tell you.”
And she can guess, absolutely, she can make a very educated guess, but it’s still a bit jarring to find out you might be named in a lawsuit over a twenty-year-old contract you’ve only just heard of last week.
“What does—I mean, why am I mentioned in the contract?” Saoirse asks. “Not that I’m not flattered, but—”
“It was twenty years ago, Saoirse, and—”
“Why, Greta?”
They lock eyes. Greta just looks so sad.
“They didn’t want me to see you. My mother, she thought—she saw my career going in a different direction.”
“What do you mean, like, you were contractually obligated to not see me?”
“Yes.”
“And, like, they named me, specifically? Saoirse Shaw?”
“Yes,” Greta says. “I’m sorry, Saoirse, I—”
“What did your mother mean, she saw your career going in a different direction?” Saoirse asks. “I mean, we were making a play. A really good one. It was going to fucking Fringe.”
(It won awards. Many.)
“She didn’t like that we—” Greta puffs her cheeks. “She thought it’d be better suited if I were known for my professional partnership with a man.”
“As opposed to being known for your acting?”
“As opposed to you.”
Saoirse stands straighter. How exactly is she supposed to take that?
“Let me get this right,” Saoirse starts, slowly. “You moved out of the flat, dropped out of the play three weeks before it opened, and then disappeared out of my life—without so much as an email, even—because, what? Your mother thought what?”
“I don’t think I was behaving quite rationally on account of agreeing to a PR marriage—”
“That apparently had a twenty-year contract?”
Greta looks away.
“We renewed our vows.”
“Jesus Christ,” Saoirse says, pacing. “He’s sick. Your mother is sick.”
“I mean, the relationship was really, Saoirse, it’s not like we just—”
“Right, and what were we?” Saoirse asks, whipping around. “Imagination?”
“We had a special—”
“Oh, fuck out of here with that, Greta. You knew full well what was going on, he knew full well what was going on, apparently your mother knew full well what was going on, otherwise she wouldn’t have made it fucking illegal to see me!”
“I’m not arguing that part, Saoirse,” Greta says. “I’m not even trying to argue.”
“Then what are you trying to do?”
Greta shakes her head.
“Owen and my mother won’t give it a rest,” Greta says. “Like I said, they want to sue for breach of contract, and because you’re part of it, you’re going to get dragged into it, and I just wanted you to know. So, you could—prepare, I don’t know.”
“Well, what if I don’t want to get dragged into it?’
“I’m afraid that’s not how it works.”
“I’ve not got a very good relationship with the court system right now—”
“You’re not going to court, Saoirse, you didn’t sign anything.”
“Right. I knew that,” Saoirse says. “Then…what?”
“The press. They’re going to go to the press.”
“Oh.” Saoirse drops back onto the couch. “Grand.”
“And they’re going to try and smear me,” Greta says. “And they’re going to use any means necessary.”
Saoirse’s blood goes cold.
“Meaning, me.”
“Yeah.”
“Shit,” Saoirse says. “So, I’m reduced to what? Your sexually promiscuous, junkie roommate who invited you onto my show just to dig up old wounds and get between you and your husband?”
“Probably,” Greta says, and she’s never sounded more defeated.
“But the press won’t believe him. Because you’re going to tell them what he’s done to you. Right?”
“Saoirse—”
“Right, Greta?”
“My daughter—”
“Deserves to know what her father and grandmother have done to her mother,” Saoirse says. “You don’t deserve this, Greta. I don’t deserve this.”
“No,” Greta says, and Saoirse’s never heard her sound more defeated. “You don’t.”
—
(Saoirse’s not exactly a stranger to bad press, nowadays. She wasn’t exactly telling the truth when she said she hadn’t seen any of the reports on her crash. She saw them. The ones that picked apart every public appearance—invented their own timelines of when everything went wrong—and the ones that asked Who Is Saoirse Shaw, Really?
There were the ones who posted the crash site photos. Seb's Bedford Green Audi, wrapped delicately around a grand oak, miraculously a few inches away from crushing the entire driver’s side. The emergency team and the police. The scans of the police report, just hours after it had been submitted, every gruesome detail, every substance they found in the car.
Then there were the think pieces. The ones that called her reckless, selfish—just another wayward soul corrupted by Hollywood—and then made fun of her for going off to some fancy rehab paid for by the network. There were the ones full of antagonizing pity, the ones that dug into where she grew up, where she went to school, who her close relationships are.
And then her show won a BAFTA while she was locked away, reciting some hippie version of serenity, and Seb was sending emails through Harry saying he’s had it, he’s done with this show, and she got back and there were five writers she couldn’t fire and a whole host of people counting on her, and they’re still counting on her, aren’t they? A lot of people are counting on her, and bad press could sink them all, and what Greta’s saying isn’t fair. Saoirse has worked too hard, kissed too many asses. Put literal blood, sweat, and tears into getting her show back. And she thinks—knows—deep down, she knows, maybe she’s just destined to repeat this same story, over, and over, and over again.)
—
It’s weirdly calm after the confession. Greta avoids her like the plague. She shows up to the table reads, she comes to set knowing her lines. She doesn’t ask questions, and she delivers everything perfectly. It’s all Saoirse can do but to refresh Twitter every hour on the hour, waiting to see if the news breaks. It’ll be slow at first, Irish networks and British papers, but then it’ll spread. Junkie showrunner ruins something else.
She’s on set when the execs call her up, and it’s the most fear she thinks she’s felt in her entire career.
When she arrives in the sleek office, Harry is there to greet her like he knows exactly what it is they’re going to be talking about, and then they’re sitting, and Saoirse’s ears are ringing. She doesn’t hear most of the babble—just numbers and expectations and budgets—but then she hears the words.
Green light.
They want to green-light the next season. Early renewal, just as the first episode airs. They anticipate a lot of buzz surrounding Greta and want to keep it going. A culminating season, ending the series with returns of all the characters the audience loves. And they want to see what else Saoirse is working on.
And she wonders if this isn’t where the story ends at all.
—
(“First this whole TV thing and now another play? Do you ever, like, take a bath?”)
—
Somehow, they make it to the end of the season. The seemingly impending news never seems to break, but Greta continues to avoid her during their final days of filming—albeit a tad more cordial as they get closer and closer—and then, before Saoirse knows it, they’re at the wrap party.
It’s fine, for the most part. That is, until someone offers Saoirse a drink and she’s high-tailing it to the bathroom, and then finds an even bigger nightmare in the bathroom, so she high-tails it to the balcony, and then she’s out on the balcony, and Greta is there. Because—
“Of course.”
Saoirse sighs. Steps up next to Greta, leaning over the balcony. Greta doesn’t say anything, so she takes it as a sign that she can stay, at the very least. She pulls out a pack of cigarettes, takes one out, and lights it. She’s taking her first drag when Greta speaks.
“Can I bum one?”
“Sure,” Saoirse says, handing the pack and the lighter to Greta.
They stand there for a while, staring off into the night, partygoers tossing a, Congrats! In their direction every few minutes. But, eventually, it’s quiet out on the balcony, and Saoirse looks around to find it’s just her and Greta. She takes the opportunity.
“How’s that lawsuit going?” Saoirse asks.
Greta takes a puff—blows out the smoke.
“He dropped it.”
“Oh. Lovely,” Saoirse says. “Not like I’ve been looking over my shoulder every day for the last month, or anything.”
“He dropped it yesterday, Saoirse.”
“Oh,” Saoirse repeats, this time with a hefty sigh of relief. “Cheers, then, I suppose.”
Greta doesn’t have much of a reaction to that other than limply raising the cigarette and taking another huff. And Saoirse, well—she can’t help but wonder.
“What—” Clears her throat. “Em, what made him drop it?”
Greta shrugs.
“I threatened him with the truth.”
Saoirse nods. Takes a deep breath.
“Good. That’s really good, Greta. I’m happy for you. Truly.”
“He wasn’t—” Greta shakes her head softly. “Owen’s just been unhappy with the choices he made. He made a bed that he regrets lying in. He was lashing out.”
“You don’t need to make excuses for him.”
“I’m not,” Greta says. “It’s just that—I made that bed with him too, you know? There are a lot of things about this that I’m not proud of, either. I don’t feel blameless in all of it. I signed that piece of paper, too.”
“Well, you don’t throw your phone at him.”
Greta is silent, and Saoirse looks over. Her brows are furrowed.
“I’m fine, Saoirse,” she says. “Really.”
And however Greta feels about Owen is her business. Saoirse can still wish the prick would keel over. She takes the last puff of her cigarette, puts it out on the balcony. Clenches and unclenches a fist.
“Are you alright?” Greta asks.
“Me?” Saoirse says. “Oh, I’m grand, yeah. Love walking into a group of twenty-year-olds doing cocaine in the toilets. Nothing like a true test of willpower.”
Greta laughs, then.
“You’re telling me you miss doing cocaine in the toilets?”
“Not really,” Saoirse says. “I was more of a mirror girl, anyway. My phone if I was desperate.”
“Ah,” Greta pops a brow. “Fussy.”
“Well, wasn’t my main poison, so I suppose I had that luxury.”
“Right.”
It’s still weird, talking about all of this with Greta. Greta, who knew her before the world had gotten its claws into her, who used to do cocaine on the toilets with her.
“Does it feel any easier now?”
“I don’t know if easier is the right word,” Saoirse says. “Less intense, maybe, but definitely not easier. At least, right now. It’s hard, being around all this.”
“I’m sorry.”
Saoirse frowns.
“Did it to myself, I suppose.”
“Still.”
“It is a bit easier, actually,” Saoirse decides, then. “Now that my friend is talking to me again.”
Greta raises a brow.
“We’re friends now?”
Saoirse shrugs.
“Weren’t we always?”
Greta watches her, like she’s trying to calculate what it is that Saoirse’s doing in this moment, but Saoirse’s intentions couldn’t be purer. She’s missed Greta. Too much.
“Yeah,” Greta says, eventually. “I’m sorry about—I just needed to deal with everything on my own, you know? I didn’t mean to—if I caused any more grief for you—”
“Much to Robyn’s dismay, I can actually take care of myself sometimes, so no need to apologize,” Saoirse says. “I just care that you’re out of a bad situation. Whatever your involvement was.”
“I am,” Greta says, a small smile twitching at her lips. “You know, Saoirse, I—I want to be an active participant in my life again. I want to want things. I feel like I can, now. I think—well, I’m glad we got to do this. Reconnect.”
Saoirse does smile.
“I feel the same way.”
And Greta’s smile grows even bigger.
“So,” she says. “What’s next?”
“I wanted to talk to you about that, actually,” Saoirse says. “We’re ending the show next season.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Then, bravely— “And I want to do a play, after. I want to take it to London. I want you in it.”
“Saoirse, I—”
“I don’t want you to feel pressured. I know you’re a screen actress now, but—the play’s written. Harry has leads on producers,” Saoirse says. “It’s where I’m going—back to the beginning, I guess. I want to rewrite parts of the story, you know?”
“And you want me there?”
Saoirse looks down, trails the lights on the street below.
“I didn’t realize it until recently, just, being on set and preparing this pitch with Harry—but, all of these stories I’ve written, all of these characters, their needs and desires, I—they haven’t felt real. And then, I got to set and that first table reading, you just—you make things feel real, Greta. My words. Life. Me.”
And she can’t look at Greta, and she can’t stop talking, either—
“And I know I sound crazy and this is probably super off-putting, and I don’t want you to think that you have any actual, like, responsibility in making me feel real, that’s not—I’m just—I guess what I’m saying is I get it if you don’t want to and you never want to see me again, I’ll totally understand, but I just had to ask, because—”
“Yes.”
Saoirse blinks. “What?”
“Yes,” Greta says. “Yes, I’ll do it. Let’s do it.”
Saoirse laughs, and for the first time in months, years, maybe, things feel like they could actually be good.
“We’re going to make a play.”
“We’re making a play.”
Greta giggles, and Saoirse’s heart soars. She takes a nervous breath.
“I know you just ended things with your husband, and it wasn’t really the best situation, but—just a shot in the dark here, and if it’s a no, please forget I even asked, really—do you think it’s sort of possible that you want to kiss me right now? ‘Cause I’d definitely like to ki—”
“Saoirse?”/p>
“Hm?” Saoirse squeaks out.
“Stop talking.”
(And, yeah—Greta definitely feels real.)