Surrender

Sasha arrives the morning of their first day shooting the seventh season, walking straight to the conference room for the read through. Despite six years of having previously gone through this, she feels decidedly more nervous and anxious this time. The reason, she can’t quite dwell on right now.

“Hey, Sash,” she hears coming from her right, looking up to find Angie’s smiling yet wary pair of brown eyes.

“Hi, Angie!”

“Ready for this? Last first day of the season.”

“Well...I guess I am. I don’t really know how I feel about this right now. A bit more anxious than usual,” she rattles off, nerves on display. She moves as if to hug the taller actress, however, is stopped by an awkward pat on her shoulder instead.

“Final season jitters. I think we all got those,” Angie laughs throatily, the forced nature of it causing it to sound even huskier than usual.

“Yeah, that’s probably it,” Sasha agrees. She reaches a hand out to squeeze Angie’s arm, somehow still needing the contact.

“Heeeey!”  the blonde jumps, Harmon’s booming greeting startling her while she watches the towering brunette wave her long arms up and down. Sasha turns around to find the rest of the cast approaching.

Greetings are exchanged, the final read through commences and then eventually ends more than a couple of hours later. Later, half of them goes on to shoot a few scenes, wrapping up well after 1 AM.

Except for the short chats, mostly talking about blocking and scene treatment, Sasha doesn’t get to talk to Angie again after the initial encounter. She watched her all day horsing around, taking selfies with Jordan or Idara, Jan or one of the crew...whomever was not with Sasha.

Whatever hopefulness she had woken up and brought to read through with, now all but gone.

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The next shooting day, Sasha finds herself on set in a scene with Idara and after a few takes, the director gives everyone a 30-minute break. She relaxes on her chair, flanked by Jan and the other actress. They chat about what they had done during the break, starting off lighthearted and giggling.

Meanwhile, even as the rest of the cast and crew not involved in the scene are either not on set yet or waiting in their trailers, Angie finds herself wanting to wander around, unable to sit still much longer. From her trailer door, she spots the trio of Sasha, Idara, and Jan sitting together by themselves, the rest of the crew obviously on a break. For a second, she considers going over to say hi, maybe even sneak up on them. She hesitates, knowing very well why, and then decides to stay where she’s at, just inside her trailer door, obscured from the threesome’s view.

Angie watches the three smiling and laughing, and then quiet down, still talking. Obviously moving onto a more serious topic. Idara eventually gets up to stand next  to Sasha, then wraps the blonde up in a long hug. She watches Sasha’s arm around Idara’s waist, squeezing with much affection. She almost runs over, instinctively concerned.  When Idara sits back down, Angie doesn’t fail to see Sasha wiping at her eyes. Her eyes are glued to the blonde, she misses Jan calling over Sasha’s makeup person for a retouch. Jan then turns and says something that makes Sasha and Idara laugh and within minutes, they resume shooting. Angie, meanwhile remains clueless.

What she had missed, standing a few hundred feet away, was Sasha inadvertently revealing to Idara that Edoardo and her are on a trial separation. While Jan had known about this, having been kept up to date since her last conversation with Sasha, no one else had known. Sasha asked both to keep the news to themselves, wanting privacy for her family’s sake.

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Regardless of what had been going on between them, Angie is unable to curtail her protective instincts, especially when it comes to Sasha. Half of her anxiety, she has to admit, has been caused by guilt. She knows she hasn’t actually been making much of an effort to reconnect with and rekindle her friendship with Sasha and now there’s this, her witnessing the woman she had been so close with obviously going through something.

“Am I part of it? Could I be the reason for it?” she can’t help but ask herself.

So now, she finds herself outside Sasha’s trailer at the end of shoot, waiting for the blonde. Pre-kiss, she would’ve headed inside without second thought. Now, she no longer feels comfortable enough to do so.

“Angie?”

The quiet voice startles her. “Oh, hey, there you are,” she manages to blurt out, awkwardly gesturing with her arm.

“Yeah, you need anything? Were you waiting for me?” Sasha asks, obviously shocked to see Angie initiating interaction with her.

“Yeah yeah. I mean no, I don’t need anything but yes, I was waiting for you,” Angie exclaims, nerves masked by energy. “I...I just…”

“Did you want to talk about tomorrow’s scene?”

“Tomorrow...tomorrow’s...scene? Oh! Tomorrow’s shoot, that scene. Yeah, no.”

Sasha couldn’t help her chuckle. “Which is it? Yes? No?”

“Oh no, no. That’s not why,” Angie clarifies, still not quite getting to her reply.

“Oh.” Sasha looks even more confused.

And exhausted. Angie couldn’t fail to notice the dark circles underneath her eyes. And then there’s her eyes. Her eyes that reflect so much...sadness. She’s not used to seeing sadness in Sasha’s eyes. She’s always loved Sasha’s laughing eyes, always full of joy and life.

“How are you, Sash?” Angie asks quietly, taking a step toward the other woman. “Is everything ok?”

The question startles Sasha. It wasn’t what she had expected. Definitely not the genuine concern in Angie’s voice. She’d gotten used to impersonal Angie, to the on-the-other-side-of-the-wall Angie she had been working with.

“Ok?” She echoes dumbly. “I mean yes, I’m...I’m ok. How are you?” She manages to bounce the question back, still caught off guard.

“Are you sure? I...I wanted to actually apologize for...for how I’ve been behaving lately...I mean...”

Sasha’s heart stops for a moment, wanting to believe this is Angie sincerely reaching out to her this time. Not the Angie who had reached out previously, Sasha has concluded, just to get her back onboard the final season. The urge to believe leaves her emotions suddenly bubbling inside.

With everything happening, her emotions have constantly been simmering just beneath the surface, waiting for something to trigger them to spill over.

This, Angie showing concern, is a very likely trigger.

“Also I...I saw you with Idara and Jan earlier and you looked upset...and I...I wanted to come over but I also didn’t want to intrude...”

Sasha hears what Angie had said but her brain takes a while to process its meaning. Angie had seen her upset. She so wants to believe this is just Angie being concerned about her and not about the possibility of her quitting...again. Emotionally spent, Sasha decides she doesn’t have the energy to either confirm or disprove her suspicions. She just doesn’t think she can handle disappointment right now.

“I’m sure, Angie. Don’t worry about it, I’m ok, we’re ok. 13 episodes, we’re done. We’ll do whatever we need to do to get through those, I’m sure.”

She smiles, even though inside, she wants to break down and tell the woman she used to be able to confide everything to about what’s going on in her life. Inside, she just wants to throw her arms around Angie and feel the other woman’s arms around her. Instead, she reaches out to squeeze her forearm, mumbling a quick thank you and then an “I’ll see you tomorrow.” before turning around. It’s all she could do to keep from running toward Angie.

Behind her, she misses Angie’s confusion grow into a frustrated scowl.

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“What the fuck happened there?”

Angie asked herself the question a few times, walking away from Sasha’s trailer even more confused, and now frustrated and irritated, too. It was obvious there was something wrong but it Sasha wants to deny it to her then...there’s really nothing she could do.

Seeing Idara headed for her car, Angie runs to the woman without thinking.

“Hey, sweetie!”

“Oh, hey Ang! Last to leave again?” the dark-haired woman teases.

“Always.” Angie smiles distractedly. “Hey, I actually wanted to ask you something.”

“Yeah?”

“How’s...what’s going on with Sasha? Is everything ok with her?” She shifts nervously, not sure why she feels like they’re discussing top secret government information.

“What do you mean?” Idara returns, suddenly looking uncomfortable and defensive.

“I saw you guys this morning. She looked upset. I was just wondering if everything’s ok.”

Idara stares at her a few beats, jaws set. “Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

The harsh question from the usually sweet woman startles Angie, causing her to physically jump back. “What the…? I did! I actually asked her and she said everything’s ok, even though she was obviously lying. Didn’t want to pressure her.”

Idara sighs, quickly hugging Angie in apology. “I’m sorry. It’s just...you two used to be so close. Used to be, you would always be first to know. I just hate seeing all this...distance between you two now. Regardless of what the fuck caused it because, Lord knows, to this moment I have no idea.”

Angie keeps her eyes down on the ground, unable to look the other woman in the eye. She just nods.

“Anyway,” Idara speaks up when it becomes obvious Angie won’t, “you got it straight from the horse’ mouth, right? She says she’s ok, she’s ok. Right?”

“But…”

“Hey, I’d stay and talk but I gotta pick up my brother from LAX in an hour, should go now with all that 405 traffic.”  

They say a hasty goodbye, the other woman obviously anxious to leave.

Used to be, you would always be first to know.

She replays the words in her head. Obviously, there is something to know.

Only, Sasha does not want her to know.

Angie walks away feeling deeply unsatisfied. Feeling like the outsider this time, knowing exactly how Sasha has been feeling for a while now.