Chapter Text
Emily felt like death was coming upon her, to put it mildly. As she stood outside the lavishly decorated venue for the long awaited charity benefit, she wondered what would happen to her if she just went home and had a nice sleep. She shook those thoughts out of her head. Bloody hell, she never thought there would be a day where she would abandoned work just because of a simple cold. If the her from two years ago saw her like this, all pathetic and sniffly, while being at what could be considered one of the most important events of the year in the fashion industry, she would’ve scoffed and rolled her eyes. She looked at her watch, she would surely collapse if she had to stand in this wind any longer and Miranda would be there in half an hour. Where the hell was Andrea Sachs?
Emily had been waiting for three minutes by the red carpet, growing increasingly irritated. And sick. She had never had to wait for anyone. Most people are terrified of her from the moment they meet and follow her every command and that certainly applied to all of the second assistants she’d had to put up with… until this one. Andrea Sachs, or Andy as she likes to put it which Emily finds incredibly childish, had been a surprise. The second Emily had laid eyes on her, she suppressed a gag. Okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic but her insides definitely gurgled a bit. In sheer revulsion, obviously. She had thought that this tiny, tweedy slob wouldn’t last three days at Runway, and that’s putting it nicely.
And then said slob got a full transformation, a miracle that only Nigel could pull off. Emily knew that Andy was still the same underneath, still the same person who didn’t know how to spell Gabbana, a word she had known since she could spell, and the same person who gorged on corn chowder and carbs, but she couldn’t help herself when her breath caught at the sight of her in those Chanel boots and the redhead’s gaze lingered way too long as she watched her annoying co-worker pick up that phone, talking into it with her stupidly melodic voice.
Emily snapped out of her thoughts when she saw that familiar company car pull up, Andy emerging clumsily from it and almost tripping on the curb as she stepped out. She had been about to let all hell loose and yell at her, but then her eyes travelled down to Andy’s dress. It was a simple but elegant floor-length black Valentino gown with sheer lace off-the-shoulder sleeves. Before her mind could even register it, Andrea had already made her way over, looking apologetic.
“Andy, you look so chic,” was the only thing Emily could blurt out.
The second those words left her mouth, she regretted them. Throughout the past few months of Andy working at Runway, Emily had never said a single nice thing to her. This was so out of completely character. She groaned internally.
Andy seemed caught off guard by that comment too and her cheeks reddened faintly. She scanned the other woman’s outfit in return. Emily knew that she looked good, she glanced at herself in the mirror before going out, but under Andrea’s careful eyes, she suddenly got a bit self-conscious. Must be the cold, she thought. It had to be because of the cold.
“Emily, you look so thin,” Andrea finally said after a brief pause.
That was not what Emily had expected, but nonetheless, she was glad someone noticed. She’d been starving herself for months for Paris. That was probably one of the reasons why she was so sick right now but it would all be worth it when she’s seated next to Miranda by a runway in couture.
She grinned as they walked up the stairs into the grand hall, “Really? It's for Paris, I'm on this new diet. Well, I don't eat anything and when I feel like I'm about to faint I eat a cube of cheese. I'm just one stomach flu away from my goal weight.”
Andrea’s brows furrowed in what seemed like concern but Emily brushed it off. Instead, she focused on her phone, waiting for those signature beeps signalling Miranda’s arrival while trying to ignore Andy’s fidgeting. Oh my god, she’s going to wrinkle the hem of her dress if she keeps twisting it like that.
Emily took the brunette’s hand in hers without thinking, the contact sending a small shock of electricity through both of them. Emily immediately let go.
She regained her composure before saying “Stop that, Miranda will kill the both of us if you show up looking so disheveled.”
Andy let go of the delicate fabric of the gown with a small nod, eyes seeming to still on the place where Emily had touched her hand. They stood on the sidelines, watching the other guests walking around and socialising with one another while waiting for Miranda to show up. The lights were shining brightly in the large room, making Emily’s vision a bit blurry. She shook it away.
Andrea shifted and Emily had been around her long enough to know she was about to break what she considered to be a comfortable silence.
“I didn’t mean to be late, I had to make a call to Nate,”
Again with that man. Nevermind how Andy put her romantic relationship over her work. God, she’s heard Andy mention Nate so many times and nine times out of ten he’s either whining about Andy’s job or trying to force her to quit. Why is she even staying with him? This question popped up in Emily’s mind more times than she liked to admit.
“He was kinda mad, considering I’m missing his birthday for this,”
The senior assistant suppressed the urge to just shut her up, she was tired enough with her cold, she did not need to be further ailed by her colleague’s personal drama.
Before she could deliver some sharp quip about how little she cared, her phone finally vibrated with a flurry rapid beeps. She picked it up and saw the text from Roy, their company driver hired specifically for Miranda.
“She will be here in five minutes, ready yourself,” Emily looked Andy up and down, fixing the strap of her dress with the speed that came with working at Runway for over two years. This earned her the second blush of the day from the younger woman, “And stop looking like that,”
Andrea immediately schooled her expression into one of poise and confidence even though her fingers were still drumming on her upper thigh. Progress, I suppose, Emily thought.
She moved to the entrance of the ballroom with Andrea, girding her loins for an evening of forcing herself to remember the names of the people who would approach Miranda despite the way her head currently felt like it was had been dunked in a tub of cold water.
Conversations stilled and heads turned. She was here. Miranda Priestley strolled into the room with the strut of a woman who had earned it. She was dressed head to toe in a dazzling structured black silk taffeta gown that was custom made for her, as all of her other outfits usually were, an exquisite diamond necklace resting against her collarbones.
Emily took her place next to the woman like it was second nature and Andy followed suit. Miranda appraised them and nodded very subtly. Emily exhaled in relief and the fidgeting that was happening beside her subsided.
The rest of the evening passed by pretty well, considering how badly Emily was feeling. God, her head was killing her and her dizziness made it hard to balance in her heels. This illness had really reduced her to a common 9-5 pedestrian.
Miranda was approached by more than twenty people just within the first hour alone, one following the next, Emily racking her brain for their names and notable facts. Everything was going fine save for the occasional cough and the stifled sneezes. Emily actually thought maybe she would be able to leave this ballroom without making a fool of herself. But, of course, the universe could never be that kind to Emily Charlton.
As she spotted a middle-aged man with his much younger plus-one approaching the small trio, she opened her mouth to inform Miranda of his name. Miranda turned her head slightly, urging her to give her the information for the guy to think she knew him personally. Emily spluttered, yes, spluttered, stumbling over names of the people in the book of guests’ information she spent weeks memorising. Her face flushed with shame and embarrassment. I’m done for.
And then, something nearing divine intervention happened.
Andy, who had less than half a day to memorize everything on the guide, spoke up smoothly, “That’s Ambassador Franklin and the woman is Rebecca Franklin who he left his first wife for,”
Miranda did not acknowledge Andy’s quick save asides from giving another nod. She plastered on her diplomatic smile and greeted the two with an air of familiarity and warmth that she would never display at Runway.
Emily gasped, looking at the girl next to her, the very same one she had found mildly incompetent and entirely lacking in the knowledge she considered elementary.
They made eye contact, “Thank you,” Emily whispered, her voice softer than it had ever been.
Andy’s lips curved into a small, genuine smile that made Emily’s heart do a weird little flip. Before Miranda could notice the lapse in their professionalism, their attention snapped back to her.
After an hour and a half of following Miranda around, Emily could tell Andrea wanted to leave. She kept looking at the exit like someone might magically whisk her away from all of this. The redhead knew it was because of the boyfriend, she pondered it for a moment through the fog of her illness before letting out a sigh.
“Andy, I guess you can leave, I have it under control now,” there hadn’t been a repeat of the previous, horrifying incident and Emily supposed the brunette deserved to go back home to her boyfriend after saving her arse just now.
Andy’s eyes lit up with gratitude, “Really, Em? Wouldn’t Miranda mind?”
She looked at the older woman a few meters away from them, conversing with an executive from another fashion magazine with a flute of champagne in her hand.
“She’s leaving in half an hour anyway, just go before I rethink my decision,” Emily said warningly.
Andy’s face broke out into a brilliant, breath-taking grin. Why on earth did Emily suddenly feel a desperate urge to make her smile like that every second of the day? Good god, she thought, thoroughly alarmed by her own mind. The delirium has finally set in.
The taller woman was almost sprinting out of the ballroom in her stilettos. Emily watched her silhouette move further and further away until she was swallowed by the crowd. As she continued staring at the last spot she had seen the brunette, a bright, flashing light from the display section of the ballroom hit directly into her eye.
The sudden burst of light, combined with her sheer exhaustion, extreme lack of sustenance, and raging fever, made her stumble. Her breath caught in the back of her throat, and everything started to spiral around her in a colorful, terrifying blur. Before she could even comprehend what was happening, she collapsed onto the floor with a dull thud.
Somewhere in the crowd, someone let out a scream.
Just paces away from the exit doors, Andy froze. The sound of the sudden uproar cut through the ambient chatter of the party, pulling her back. A cold knot of dread tightened in her stomach before she even registered why. Shifting on her heels, she pushed her way back through the crowd, her heart hammering against her ribs until she broke through the circle of panicking guests. And she found Emily unconscious on the floor.
Miranda was still at the same place she was when Andy left, practically clutching her metaphorical pearls. Andy whipped out her phone, struggling to maintain her footing as her heels slid against the polished floor, the tight satin of her gown restricting her movements as she dropped to her knees next to Emily’s unconscious body. Her hands were shaking so violently she could barely grip her phone. She gently shook Emily's shoulder with one hand while dialing for an ambulance with the other, completely ignoring the rest of the guests who merely crowded around them without offering a shred of help.