Author's comment: Because finding everyone's underlying depression is what I do best. Not that they didn't do something pretty much exactly like this on the show, already. Not saying this is original in the least. This is totally cliché. Just saying that making depressing stories is what I do, Darling. Even comedies. No one is safe.

Not Going Anywhere

She rubbed a hand over her face sleepily. Half awake, on her way back from the bathroom, Edina thought she could smell smoke. She followed it to the darkened living room, where she found Patsy sitting on the sofa. The glow from the end of her cigarette was the only light in the room besides the four a.m. moonlight that fell across the floor.

"What are you doing up?" Edina asked, sitting down beside Patsy.

"Couldn't sleep." She took another drag from her cigarette.

Edina leaned forward. "Have you been crying, Pats?"

"No." She angled her face away slightly.

"Don't lie to me, Darling." Reaching forward, Edina put a hand on Patsy's knee. She felt Patsy twitch slightly, but she didn't pull away.

Patsy tipped her glass up and drained it, reaching forward to the bottle of vodka on the table and refilling it. "It's nothing." She set the bottle back on the table with a 'thud'.

Edina didn't speak for a moment. "Do you want me to go, then?"

Patsy nodded, eyes focused on the carpet.

"Well, I'm not going anywhere." She crossed her arms and settled back against the cushions.

Patsy flicked her cigarette against the ashtray. "Bugger off, Eddy." Her tone was bitter.

"I'm not going anywhere," Edina repeated. "So you can either tell me what's wrong, or we can sit here all night in the dark."

Patsy said nothing. She dragged deeply on her cigarette, the ember glowing brightly in the darkness.

The minutes slipped by and the moonlight crept across the carpet.

Finally, she spoke.

"What have I done, Eddy?" Patsy raised her head, fixing vulnerable eyes on Edina's face for the first time since the conversation had begun.

"What d'you mean, Darling? Have you done something I should know about, in case the police come round?"

"No, no. Not that. I just mean… What've I done.. with everything. With my life. With all this." She waved her cigarette in a vague gesture. "All this."

"You're a successful editor of a top fashion magazine, Sweetie."

"Am I? Am I, 'successful'?" She spat the word as though it disgusted her.

"Yes, Sweetie. You are; you're fabulous."

"Right, because I've got so much to show for it. For being fabulous." She threw back a mouthful of vodka, inhaled a lungful of smoke. "Because this is just great. This is just everything I ever wanted."

Edina focused her eyes on her socks. Her shoulders fell a fraction.

Patsy inhaled a shaky breath through her cigarette. She lowered her voice to little more than a whisper. "I'm nothing."

Edina's eyes didn't move from her feet. "You've always been something to me."

Patsy snorted. "Thanks for trying to cheer me up, Eddy."

"I'm being serious, Pats. You know, you were always the pretty one, the successful one, the smart one. All the boys always wanted you, everyone always loved you. Not me."

"Lot of good it's done me, now, hasn't it?" She drained the last of the vodka from her glass and 'thunked' it empty onto the table. "What've I got to show for any of it?"

Edina was quiet a moment. "You've got me." She pulled at a thread from her sleeve. "You'll always have me."

The room was still.

Patsy raised her head slowly, eyes softening as she took in her friend. Edina didn't look up.

"Eddy." She crushed out her cigarette in the ashtray.

"Hm." Edina kept focused on her socks.

"Eddy." Patsy grasped Edina's jaw gently, turning her face toward her. "Eddy, I'm sorry."

Edina's eyes moved over Patsy's features, studying the emerging regret.

"I'll always be here, Pats. I'm sorry if that's not… That's all I can do." She shrugged, helpless. "That's all I've got."

Patsy's thumb traced the line of Edina's jaw, eyes pleading. "Sometimes I think you're the only thing that makes my life worth living."

Something crumbled behind Edina's eyes.

The moments slipped by, uncounted, one after another. And somehow, they found, Patsy's mouth was inches from Edina's, as if the weight of those moments themselves had pulled them together. Their lips met slowly, and neither could have stopped it even if they'd wanted to. Each made soft, wordless confessions, apologies, promises.

When they finally parted, they regarded each other in silence for a long minute.

"Don't ever go away, Eddy."

"I won't, Pats. I'm not going anywhere."