Chapter Text
The townhouse was a mess.
Not in the literal sense—no, Miranda Priestly would never tolerate that—but in the way that anything touched by Andrea Sachs inevitably was. A book left open on the couch, spine bent like a careless afterthought. A half-drunk glass of water, its ring marring the coffee table. A cardigan, limp and forgotten over the armrest, rather than hung properly where it belonged. The disorder of youth.
Andrea was always shedding pieces of herself across a room, as if the very act of existing meant leaving a trail. It was infuriating.
And yet, Miranda had come to expect it.
She stepped further into the house, the air too still, too absent of the usual warmth of Andrea’s presence. Where is she? Miranda shrugged off her coat—a custom piece in the precise shade of black that wasn’t too harsh against her complexion—and draped it over the bench in the foyer. The silk lining whispered against her skin, a sensation as familiar as breath.
She had spent the day enduring the company of people she could barely tolerate—fashion executives with all the vision of a brick wall, models who thought their beauty made them interesting, assistants who made themselves smaller when she entered a room. The weak-willed exhausted her. The world is filled with so many small people.
But Andrea was not small. She was young, reckless, naive, and insufferably optimistic—but never small.
Still, she should have been waiting. That had been the unspoken agreement, hadn’t it? Miranda handled the world, cut through it like a knife, and at the end of the day, Andrea was supposed to be here, alert and engaged, eyes bright as she talked too much, too fast, about something she thought was important. It was the price she paid for this impossible relationship—indulgence, patience, the occasional softening of her gaze.
Miranda made an effort. Andrea should do the same.
She stepped forward, the sharp point of her heels clicking against the floor. A flicker of annoyance pulsed through her.
“Andrea.”
No answer.
Her lips pressed into a thin line.
Perhaps this was punishment for her lateness. Childish, if so. But Andrea could be childish. She was twenty-eight , for God’s sake, a child masquerading as an adult, as if she understood what real responsibility meant. Miranda's children were practically Andrea’s age.
Miranda climbed the stairs, her steps measured, purposeful. At the landing, she caught a sliver of light spilling from the bathroom, the door slightly ajar.
“Andrea?” She knocked lightly on the door. No response.
She pushed the door open.
Andrea was on the floor.
Miranda froze.
It was a stillness honed from years of discipline, the sharp-edged instinct that told her when to speak, when to remain silent, when to gut someone with nothing more than a glance. It was not hesitation. Hesitation was weakness.
But she paused.
And in that pause, the world sharpened into unbearable clarity.
Andrea’s body was slumped awkwardly, legs tangled, head tilted too far to the side. Her hair, thick and unruly, fanned out over the tile, dark against stark white. She looked absurdly small, the way young people did when they weren’t full of energy and noise.
She was too still.
Miranda’s stomach clenched—an unfamiliar, unwelcome sensation.
Then she moved.
She crouched beside Andrea, her trousers brushing against the cold floor. She reached out, fingers finding Andrea’s wrist, pressing down.
A pulse.
Too slow.
Too faint.
However, the rush of relief was immediate. It disgusted her. You are not a woman who reacts.
“Andrea.” Her voice was steel, precise.
No response.
She pressed harder. “Andrea.”
Nothing.
Her grip tightened.
Miranda reached for her phone, dialing with the same efficiency she used when canceling an entire designer’s collection with one call.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“My partner is unconscious.” The words were cold, clipped. Nothing was wrong . It was simply a problem to be solved.
She rattled off the necessary details, her voice unshaken. No, no visible injuries. Yes, she had a pulse. No, no history of illness.
And then—
“Has she been feeling unwell recently?”
The answer should have been no.
Except—
Andrea rubbing at her chest during breakfast, laughing it off. “Just tired.”
Andrea pushing her food around her plate last week, brushing off Miranda’s glance with, “Not really hungry.”
Andrea swaying, just slightly, in the kitchen last night before gripping the counter and shaking it off.
Miranda had seen it.
She had dismissed it.
She had been wrong.
Her fingers clenched around the phone. “She’s been tired,” she admitted, hating the words, hating herself.
The dispatcher spoke. Miranda barely heard them.
“Help is on the way.”
The call ended.
Miranda exhaled, slow and precise. She set the phone aside and stared down at Andrea.
She looked ridiculous like this. Undignified.
Miranda adjusted the sleeve of Andrea’s wrinkled, cheap sweater.
And then she waited.
The sirens cut through the night, an unwelcome intrusion.
Miranda stood as the paramedics entered. She watched, silent and unreadable, as they assessed Andrea, their voices sharp and professional.
“How long has she been like this?”
Miranda’s lips barely moved. “I.... I don't know.”
“Has she been eating properly?”
A pause.
Then: “Apparently not.”
The paramedic frowned but said nothing.
“She’s dehydrated,” one of them muttered. “Could be exhaustion.”
Miranda bristled. “Could be?”
The paramedic barely glanced at her. “We’ll know more at the hospital.”
Miranda stepped aside as they lifted Andrea onto the stretcher. The sight of her—limp, pale, helpless —was wrong.
Andrea was never helpless.
She turned sharply to the nearest paramedic. “You will take care of her.”
It was not a request.
The woman blinked. “Yes, ma’am.”
Miranda followed them outside, ignoring the cold.
The ambulance door swung open.
“Are you coming with us?”
Miranda paused.
Not because she wouldn’t—of course she would—but because the thought of being inside that too-small space, surrounded by the sterile scent of medical failure , made something twist inside her.
Andrea’s hand, limp against the stretcher.
“Obviously.”
She climbed in.
The inside of the ambulance smelled like antiseptic and car exhaust.
Miranda sat stiffly, hands folded in her lap, her scarf still tied pristinely despite the chaos around her.
Andrea’s head lolled slightly, her breath shallow. The paramedics worked, checking vitals, muttering about fluids and tests.
Miranda ignored them.
Instead, she stared at Andrea’s face, cataloging the exhaustion there. The dark circles she had chosen not to see. The weight loss she had dismissed as nothing.
She was furious.
At Andrea.
At herself.
She should have said something. Should have—
Miranda inhaled sharply. No.
There was nothing to be gained from dwelling.
Andrea would wake up, and then Miranda would fix this.
She did not fail the people who mattered to her.
And God help Andrea when she woke up, because Miranda would not tolerate this nonsense again.
She glanced down.
Andrea’s fingers twitched slightly.
Miranda did not move.
Her hands remained folded.
This was temporary.
She would make it temporary.
The emergency room smelled of latex and desperation.
It was a fluorescent-lit hellscape of the unimportant—people slumped in plastic chairs, nurses moving with clinical indifference, the low hum of suffering made background noise by overexposure. Miranda wanted to burn the entire place down.
Instead, she stood motionless as the paramedics wheeled Andrea inside.
“She needs immediate care,” Miranda said, her voice slicing through the air with the same precision that made grown men cower in boardrooms.
The nurse at the intake desk barely glanced up.
“She’ll be triaged and seen as soon as possible.”
Miranda’s nostrils flared.
Triage. A word that meant waiting. A word meant for people who were not her.
She took a step forward, placing both gloved hands on the counter, the cashmere-lined leather stretching taut over her fingers. The nurse looked up then—slowly, unimpressed—and Miranda smiled.
It was not a warm smile.
“I don’t think you understand,” she said, quiet and venomous. “That is Andrea Sachs on that stretcher. She is unresponsive. You will not triage her. You will take her back now .”
The nurse opened her mouth, no doubt to protest, but the doors to the inner ward swung open and a doctor stepped out, scanning the scene. The paramedics flagged him down, speaking in hushed tones, and he nodded.
Miranda did not waste time with gratitude.
She turned sharply, following as Andrea was wheeled past rows of patients waiting for someone to acknowledge their misery. The heels of her Manolo Blahnik's clacked against the polished floor, each step precise, controlled.
Control.
She had to keep it.
Andrea looked even smaller beneath the harsh hospital lights.
She was laid out on the bed like some fragile thing, the color still not returned to her cheeks, an IV taped to her arm with the gracelessness of people who had no sense of aesthetics. The room itself was an offense—ugly beige walls, medical equipment she did not understand, the faint scent of disease making her skin crawl.
She had spent decades avoiding places like this.
Hospitals were for the weak, the frail, the dying.
Andrea was none of those things.
A doctor—young, male, irritating—was speaking. Miranda forced herself to listen.
“We’re running a full panel of tests—bloodwork, electrolytes, cardiac enzymes. Right now, our primary concerns are dehydration and exhaustion, but we need to rule out infection, anemia, underlying conditions—”
Miranda lifted a hand. The doctor stopped speaking immediately, which was the first intelligent thing he had done.
“How long until we know?”
“Some results will come back within the hour. Others take longer. For now, fluids and rest are the best course of action.”
Miranda did not like that answer.
She did not like any of this.
Still, she nodded once, sharp and decisive, before turning her gaze back to Andrea.
Her hair was an absolute mess.
Miranda reached out, smoothing it back with clinical precision. Andrea would be horrified if she woke up looking like this.
The doctor left.
Miranda did not sit.
She stood beside the bed, one arm folded over her waist, the other hand resting beneath her chin, fingers tapping against her lower lip. A controlled, thoughtful posture. The kind that made people nervous.
Andrea had been fine.
She had been eating, sleeping, living. She had been fine.
Except.
She hadn’t, had she?
Andrea yawning at dinner, rubbing at her eyes, waving off Miranda’s raised brow with, “Just a long day.”
Andrea stretching too hard in the kitchen, pressing a hand to the counter for balance before grinning, “Should probably drink more water.”
Andrea, two nights ago, sitting on the couch with her laptop, blinking too much, too slowly, before sighing and closing it, muttering, “I can’t focus.”
Miranda had seen every moment. Had cataloged them, the way she cataloged every detail, every flaw, every strength.
And she had dismissed them.
She had assumed Andrea would fix it. Would take care of herself the way she was supposed to.
The way Miranda had never taken care of herself.
She exhaled sharply, tapping her fingers against her arm.
This was unacceptable.
Andrea’s fingers twitched against the sheet.
Miranda’s spine straightened, her hand moving toward her instinctively before she caught herself.
Then—Andrea exhaled, deeper this time, her brows drawing together slightly, her breathing shifting.
Miranda did not react.
She simply watched.
An hour passed.
Andrea did not wake.
Miranda did not move.
Finally, the doctor returned, holding a chart, his expression infuriatingly neutral.
“Well?” she said.
"Her vitals have stabilized with fluids. Bloodwork doesn’t show any major concerns, but her white blood cell count is slightly elevated, which could indicate an infection, though we haven’t pinpointed one yet. She’s experiencing severe dehydration and exhaustion—likely stress-induced."
Miranda’s jaw tightened.
“You are telling me she collapsed from… overwork .”
The doctor hesitated. “It’s more complicated than that. Bodies shut down when they aren’t given what they need. It could be that she’s been running at a deficit for some time, and tonight was simply the tipping point.”
A deficit .
Miranda exhaled through her nose. Of course Andrea would let herself break down like this.
“And?” she said, voice cold.
“We’ll keep her overnight for monitoring. She should wake up soon.”
Miranda narrowed her eyes.
“She will wake up.”
The doctor hesitated. Then nodded.
“She will.”
Miranda sat.
It was unnatural.
She perched on the edge of the chair beside Andrea’s bed, crossing her legs in a way that did not crease her trousers.
She did not wait for people.
People waited for her .
And yet, here she was.
Andrea breathed, slow and steady.
Miranda had sat through thousands of runway shows, countless meetings, dinners, events, interminable conversations with executives who had nothing of value to say. She had mastered the art of patience.
This was different.
This was personal.
And Miranda Priestly did not do personal.
Her gaze flickered over Andrea’s face. The dark circles beneath her eyes, the way her lips were chapped, the slight furrow between her brows even in unconsciousness.
The part of Miranda that was cruel wanted to be angry.
How dare Andrea put herself in this position? How dare she let herself unravel like this, force Miranda into a waiting room, force her to care this much?
But right now there was no anger.
Just something sharp and ugly sitting beneath her ribs.
Something that felt too much like guilt.
Andrea made a small sound.
Miranda did not react.
But she did allow her fingers to rest lightly—briefly—against Andrea’s wrist.
Just for a moment.