Marie-Ange and Doug, Sunday lunchtime

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

-Finally-, Doug takes it on himself to talk to Marie-Ange. And while everything isn't perfect, they both admit how they feel, and Doug asks her out. Three years to the day after their first date. (Which was a total coincidence on our parts until pointed out by another player.)



Doug felt a jarring sense of deja vu as he knocked on the door to Marie-Ange's apartment. It had been not very long at all since he had knocked that morning and found her in one of Forge's buttondown shirts. It felt like it had been much longer than the few hours that had actually passed. He was still somewhat in a daze from Forge's revelations. Still, he knocked, though not as sharply as he had earlier.

With a warning from Forge, Marie-Ange had expected another knock at her door. It didn't mean, however, that she was going to fall right back into old habits. If Doug was going to say something to her, if he still had feelings, like Amanda had said, like she believed, he was going to have to have them for her in a pair of old jeans and a long-sleeved cotton shirt. With no shoes on, and her hair pulled back in a ponytail.

She padded over to the door and opened it slowly, and all of the things she had thought to say if Doug came over evaporated as soon as the door was open.

The pair stared at each other for a few seconds, as Doug kept his hands in his pockets. He felt a little silly now. How long had he not been paying attention? Could they have avoided most of the heartache that had come between them? He shook his head. Thinking about what might have been didn't do much good. "Hi," he said quietly. "You doing anything right now?"

"Right now?" Marie-Ange said, looking around the room. "I was sket... no. No, I am not really doing anything at all." She gave a small shrug and shook her head. "Do you.. want to come in? It is a little bit of a mess.."

Doug wasn't sure he could do this in her apartment. Besides, he still needed a few minutes to marshal his thought. "I was thinking we could go get some coffee?" he offered in reply.

"I... think that would be good."

It only took a few moments for Marie-Ange to get a pair of shoes and socks from her room, and her shoulder bag and jacket from the closet. "Did you have somewhere in mind?" She asked, simply for the sake of having something to say.

"I was thinking of the little place around the corner," Doug said. After Marie-Ange had locked her door, they walked in silence until they arrived at the shop and placed their orders. In the minutes that they spent walking and waiting, he still couldn't come up with anything to say. Ironic that he was the one trying to find the perfect thing to say in this situation. They sat and he took a sip from his drink. "I've been trying to come up with something to say, and all I've got is...I still love you. Anything else I could say pretty much boils down to that."

"Why?" Marie-Ange asked, and had she not stopped herself by taking a sip from her drink, it would have turned into a hundred questions, all starting with "Why?" "Why do you still love me?" "Why did you not tell me?" "Why did you sleep with Amanda?" "Why did you even love me to start?" But she couldn't get any of them out.

Doug could practically hear all the unasked questions that Marie-Ange couldn't get out. He wasn't entirely sure he had answers to all of them. For that matter, he wasn't sure he had a good answer to "why do you still love me?" He just knew that he did. "Because," he answered finally with a grin that was part sheepish, part mischievous.

The urge to flick a packet of sugar at Doug was almost too high to resist. The only thing that kept Marie-Ange from it was that the sugar packets were on Doug's side of the table, and reaching for one would certainly give away her intentions. "What am I going to do with you?" She finally asked.

It was entirely possible that Doug had maneuvered the sugar packets to his side of the table just to prevent such a reaction by Marie-Ange. He looked up from his coffee to watch Marie-Ange. "Tell me I'm not just barking up the wrong tree, and that everyone was right to yell at me to just tell you how I feel already?" he asked, fingers twitching slightly from nervousness at putting himself out there to possibly be shot down.

"You are not barking up the wrong tree.." Marie-Ange answered. "I... I had wanted you to, but I did not want to tell you that because... " She toyed with a napkin for a moment. "Because then what if you were only saying it because I asked you to? Because... because, looking at things changes them.."

"Lol, Schrodinger," Doug muttered to himself whimsically. He chuckled, because it was either that or go back to moping about lost opportunities, and that way lay getting shoes thrown at him. "I find it amusing that of the two of us, you're the one that sounds like you've been reading articles on quantum physics and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle."

"Forge calls my visions 'Schrodinger events." Marie-Ange explained. "I spent one of our faux dates trying to explain to him about Tante Mattie, and he compared it to quantum physics. It was very interesting." She shrugged, and picked at the danish she'd gotten with her coffee. "And now, instead of precognition, I have deja vu. I have asked this question once already this weekend. Now what do we do?

Doug thought, and took another sip of his coffee, and then realized that Marie-Ange had not entirely answered him. "Was everyone right to tell me to tell you?" he asked again. "I mean, do you still...do you still love me?" he said quietly.

It was not easy to say so. And Marie-Ange felt just a touch silly, but if it was necessary, then she could just feel silly for a little while. "Yes. I am not sure if I stopped, even when I was so angry at you." She looked down at the table, a touch embarrassed. "I broke up with Garrison because of it."

"That's what Amanda told me. I didn't know whether to believe her." He paused. "You know that she and I..." he trailed off. Better to put all the cards on the table rather than have it come back to haunt him later, as difficult as it was to talk about with Marie-Ange.

"I know. She told me." Marie-Ange said. "And perhaps I am a little jealous, but it is part of why I thought to ... to trick you, and that was not fair of me at all, and Garrison and I... " She waved a hand in the air airily. "So I think even if I am a little jealous that I should not be. Because that would be hypocritical, yes?"

A huge sigh of relief gusted out of Doug. "You know, this is a lot harder this time around," he admitted. "But maybe that's a good thing. Maybe we've both grown up and matured since we broke up." He even managed to talk about the breakup without his voice hitching like it had so many times in the past. "I'm not sure I'm crazy about being tricked, but it seems to have all worked out okay in the end..." He reached across slowly, giving Marie-Ange plenty of time to pull away before taking her hand in his.

Marie-Ange smiled sheepishly and squeezed Doug's fingers. "That is very... Machiavellian of you. Also very introspective." She said quietly. "This was much easier when we did not have so much to think about, except if we were going to double-date with Jamie and Kitty, or if we were going to go out just us."

"Like I said, maybe that means we both grew up when we weren't looking. And maybe realizing all of this means we won't wind up screaming at each other in the lobby of the mansion this time." Doug shook his head wryly. "So...do you want to go out some time this week? Go on a date, learn how to be a couple again?"

"Where did you have in mind?" Marie-Ange asked. Maybe it was putting the ball back in Doug's court, but he was the one asking. "Is.. is it all right that maybe I want you to pick? Because... because I do not want to be so pushy?"

"I think we both can find some middle ground. I can try to be a little less passive, you can try to be a little less pushy. I can try not to take you so much for granted, you can try not to have to be so perfect." He indicated the worn buttondown and jeans she was wearing. "See, you look beautiful even like that. No makeup, hair back in a ponytail...I love you like this." He blushed a bit as he said it, but he said it with much more confidence than he'd ever had the first time they'd dated. "As for where, I was thinking maybe we could go catch a show? We live in New York City, and we've never been to see a show on Broadway. What do you say?"

"Perhaps Rent?" Marie-Ange asked. "I have had a soft spot for it ever since this young man I know had the soundtrack on his computer and spent a whole weekend singing songs from it." She wrinkled her nose and smiled, obviously teasing.

"To being an us for once, instead of a them?" Doug asked with a grin as he drained the last of his coffee. As he stood up from his chair and gathered his things to get ready to go, he took a look at his receipt. Noting the date, he chuckled dryly. "Life really is fully of little coincidences," he murmured. Off of Marie-Ange's confused look, he showed her the receipt. "Three years ago today, a shy blond hacker and a nervous French redhead went to a nice steak restaurant in Minnesota. How's that for synchronicity?"