Title: Carbonite
Fandom: 30 Rock
Rating: PG
Pairing: Liz/Floyd
Length: 750 words.
Disclaimer: These aren't my characters.
AN: Spoilers through "Cleveland". Written for the Nothing Hip challenge.
Carbonite
by
***
They decide to date long-distance when Floyd moves to Cleveland. Which will never work out, obviously -- Liz gives it six months and feels like that's overly optimistic. It's depressing, but not as depressing as breaking up with him right now would be, so what're you gonna do.
Saturday mornings, she takes really early flights to Cleveland. Friday nights are the show, and then the afterparty, and then the staggering home at one or two or three to pack. Sometimes she sleeps for an hour or two before the cab comes to take her to the airport, but most nights she doesn't, watches M*A*S*H reruns in her apartment in the dark, her suitcase leaning against the couch. She doesn't drink any coffee so she can sleep on the plane, out like a light every time, and when the plane lands at the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport she always wakes up with a bump, stumbles out of the gate half-asleep, yawning hugely. Floyd's always waiting for her outside security in sweatpants and sneakers, his hair sticking up a little bit, eyes half-lidded. When he sees her, he smiles slowly, starting with his eyes, and when he hugs her she snakes her arms under his jacket and he's sleepy and warm like he's just rolled out of bed. They go to his (enormous) house, with a yard and everything, grass and trees and room for kids to play, and go back to bed, have the kind of sleepy sex that's half like dreaming, slow and unhurried, easy.
She likes him so much, is the thing. At the end of one of the weekends when he came to New York, she takes him to the airport on Monday morning, kisses him goodbye and stands back to watch him go through security. As he's about to go through the metal detector he turns to look at her over his shoulder and on impulse she calls out, "I love you!"
He gets a rakish, Han Solo-y look on his face, smiles with half his mouth and calls back, "I know." Then as he goes through the metal detector he puts up his hands in a frozen-in-carbonite gesture, which the guard doesn't like at all. Liz watches Floyd get pulled aside to be patted down and wonders how she got this lucky and this unlucky both at the same time. She has a special gift, she guesses.
He calls her a few minutes later, once he's at the gate. "I love you too," he says. "In case you didn't get that."
"I know," she says, and tucks her hair behind her ears. "I got it."
"Good," he says.
"Tell Cleveland hi from me," she says. Cleveland will say hi back, she's pretty sure. New York would ask what the fuck was the matter with you.
The whole way to work she thinks maybe the show will get cancelled, or maybe she'll get fired, and when she walks into the office Jack hands her the latest ratings, which are way up. "Good work, Lemon!" he says, and gives her a raise. Goddammit. Seriously, is there no God?
"The fool says in his heart, there is no God," Kenneth says cheerfully, walking past her down the hallway.
"What the fuck is the matter with you?" Liz says.
"Be nice," Pete says, taking Liz by the elbow and dragging her to the room to talk about one of the sketches that isn't working. Twofer brought donuts. She has two. Well, okay, four. Ish. Four and a half.
Her phone buzzes around lunchtime and it's a text from Floyd. "Miss you. Love, Floydster." She hopes that's not actually for Jack.
She thinks about texting back, "This isn't working," but she can't stand to think about actually breaking up with him. It's only been a few months since he's moved, and after all, there's still time for her to get fired.
"Hey Liz," Frank says, leaning around the door. "Is that your goat or are you just holding it for someone?"
"What?" Liz says.
"In your office," Frank says.
"There's a goat in my office?" For crying out loud. She just got the horse smell out of there.
"So it's not your goat," Frank says.
She goes to find Tracy to discuss things that are not appropriate to be stored in her office (barnyard animals, illegal drugs, pornography, barnyard animals, children, mass quantities of hard boiled eggs, barnyard animals) and thinks about quitting, thinks about Cleveland, thinks about Floyd frozen in carbonite. It's unfair, it's unfair.
**
END