Disclaimer: I do not own Miranda, Andy, the Twins - nope. I do borrow them to play without any copyright infringement intended.

A/N: I dedicate this to my friend Brithna (brithna dot livejournal dot com - or fanfiction dot net slash u slash 3592409) - if it wasn't for our in depth MirAndy discussions, I would not be able to go into their heads like this and feel I "know" the characters enough to even attempt the first person. Thank you also to my grammar-whiz, Eden!

Kneeling in Supplication

A MirAndy short story

By Gun Brooke

I dream of Miranda every single night. Or, at least, that's how it feels. Perhaps because I'm in her home the last thing I do every evening, before I catch the subway home. It's as if all those nameless faces I come across on my way home don't register. Pathetic, I know, but all I think about is her.

I have tried to remember what triggered it and when it started, this obsession. Maybe it was so gradually; it snuck up on me and was just suddenly there. Yes, I did try to write it off as simple hero worship, a crush on a woman whom I admire, fear, and am awestruck by. This could be a plausible explanation if I hadn't found myself constantly checking her out. Her perfectly shaped ass in those pinstripe skirts, and, oh God, those black Armani slacks she totally rocks. Then, her affinity for wearing low cut, wrap-around blouses. Or jackets over spaghetti-strap camisoles. Then there are the off-the-shoulder evening dresses, like that Valentino she wore on the very first function I attended at MOMA. God. I was standing so close to her the entire evening; it's a miracle I didn't end up being asphyxiated from constantly losing my breath.

While we're on the subject of the things about Miranda that makes me swoon like a southern belle...her voice. That low, distinct voice that can either make you run off to weep in a bathroom stall, or even fight back dry heaves. Doesn't sound like a voice to fall in love with, does it? But there are other times, when you know she's pleased with your efforts, even, God forbid she would ever say so out loud. Her voice lets you know. It loses its lethal tinge and instead becomes velvety in all the right ways. I swear it makes me want to drop to my knees and press my forehead to hers in supplication.

I suppose you can say I hover somewhere between carnal lust and sublime adoration. Basically this means I'm fucked.

Yes, she's divorced. I can't begin to tell you how thrilled I was when she finalized the divorce. I had gone through the whole mess with her, sort of, and seen her go from exasperation, to fury, to tears, and back. I even came close to hugging her once, and only the fact that this would get me fired in five seconds flat, and thus make it impossible for me to be of any help to her, kept me from wrapping her up in my arms.

Speaking of that, if I had a dollar for every time my arms have ached, I mean physically hurt, from the desire to hold her, I'd be a wealthy woman.

So, she's divorced, and I'd know if she was seeing someone. I mean, I do everything for her, even outside of Runway. I have even started making extra money by attending school functions at Dalton, when she can't make it. The twins don't seem to mind. They greet me like I'm something between a friend and a sort of aunt. I don't mind. I really have bonded with the redheaded rascals. It took me a while to figure out who is who as they are identical twins, but once I figured it out, they can't fool me anymore. As it turned out, it sort of sealed the deal between me and the girls; as far as they are concerned, I'm family.

I nearly had a heart attack that day when the twins spent half a day at Runway, doing their homework in Miranda's office. I was at my desk and our new second assistant, Lulu, had gone home as she was sneezing all over the place. Suddenly I heard one of the girls say, "Mom, is Andy moving in with us soon?"

I wonder if Miranda was as shocked as I was as it took her quite a while to respond, and when she did, she sounded slightly out of breath. "What makes you ask that, Bobbsey?"

I slapped a hand over my mouth as I felt the world's loudest whimper threaten to escape.

"I just thought since she's with us all the time, it'd be smarter?"

OH, God bless these girls, but if I could have muffled that so called innocent voice, I could have. I know them well enough to realize they were up to something. What exactly, I have yet to figure out.

"I don't have the foggiest idea where you got this idea from," Miranda said. "Why would Andrea want to live with us?"

Huh. Recollecting this embarrassing event now, I do wonder about her wording. She didn't say "why would we want Andrea to live with us" - but the other way around. I was probably so mortified; it didn't dawn on me there and then.

I have to say this discovery gives me pause. Could there be other anomalies in what she has said lately that I've missed. Not that I read anything into what she said to the twins that day, as Miranda couldn't possibly have meant anything that changed...anything.

I have just put on my favorite pajamas and I hope I can have a dreamless sleep tonight. It's Friday, I should be out with Lily and Doug, but I...I just don't feel like it. Lately I've been feeling as if I'm, I don't know, fading? I guess there is a limit to how long you can go with this internal bonfire at the mere sight of the woman I've grown to love with all my heart, without paying the piper.

Feeling utterly idiotic, I wipe at the stupid tears running down my cheeks. I had for some reason harbored even more idiotic hopes that Miranda would be home and awake when I delivered the Book tonight. I caught her watching me with a strange frown, as if she was puzzled, or even concerned. She has this way of tilting her head while scanning me from my shoes to my hair, but today was different. She merely looked at me when she didn't think I was noticed and as soon as I turned my head her way, she pretended to focus on her laptop or what she was reading. I was so sure she would say something that explained this unusual behavior on her part, but...she wasn't home. Her townhouse was dark and not even Patricia, the darling klutz of a St. Bernard, was home.

I go into the kitchen and fetch a large glass of ice water to bring into the bedroom. I can already tell this will be a night of tears, which will leave me feel dehydrated. Just as I'm about to enter the bedroom, there's a knock on the door. I check my alarm clock on the nightstand. 12.30. Huh. Suddenly I'm afraid. Something happen to my friends? Hurrying, I fling my front door open.

Miranda. Miranda Priestly at my door step in the middle of the night.

"May I come in?" she asks politely. She dressed in what goes for leisure wear when it comes to her. Light grey slacks, white blouse and a brown leather jacket that is sexier on her than anything else I've ever seen.

"M-Miranda?" Now my fingers give in and I nearly drop the water. I manage to catch the glass again, but the ice water splashes all over me.

"Dear God, Andrea, I know I'm here at a late hour, but I promise you, I come in peace." Miranda takes the glass from me, which is no doubt a smart move and walks right by me, into my apartment. "Quaint. Not bad, considering what you had to work with," she says and puts the glass down on the table in the kitchen area.

"What can I do for you? Oh, no, did something happen? The girls?" I close the door and hurry after her.

"Girls are fine. I drove them to the Hamptons to spend the weekend with their friend and her family." Miranda is actually fidgeting now, tugging at the shoulder strap to her purse. "I had planned to be back when you delivered the book, but the Craigs insisted on taking us all out to dinner...and I didn't want to disappoint the girls. I admit I was on pins and needles to get back and... and I'm babbling, aren't I?"

She is. Another first. The woman who can rattle off orders like no other, she never babbles. "Why are you here?" I whisper. "I mean, what did you want to talk to me about. At the townhouse?"

"Mind if we sit down?" Miranda gives my tattered couch a suspicious look.

"Of course. I'm sorry." I gesture for her to sit and take a seat myself. I'm not sure it's smart to sit on a couch with Miranda Priestly in my frame of mind, but I can't resist the urge to be close to her.

Miranda stares at me. Her gaze locks with mine and I want to look away but I can't. She lifts her hand and pushes my bangs out of my eyes. "Silly girl," she says, her voice suddenly thick with emotions. "I was going to talk to you...ask you, really, how you see our future."

I'm at a loss. Our future? Ours? "What do you mean?" Ï honestly don't understand anything.

"You are going to make me say it first, aren't you?" Miranda sighs, but she doesn't sound angry. "We have tiptoed around each other for months. I've been so undecided and downright confused, and I've tried to... grasp what I was feeling, and guess what you might be feeling in return. The last few weeks I've been worried. About you, mainly, as you haven't been your usual exuberant self. It made me afraid that I may be losing you. Losing you before I ever..." She drew a trembling breath. "Before I even had you."

I'm floored. If I wasn't already sitting down, my legs would give in and I would be crashing onto the floor, kneeling before her in supplication, like I've thought of doing so many times before. As it is, all I can do is stare as my heart thunders and my tears run again.

"Don't cry, darling," Miranda whispers and wipes at my tears with her Hermes scarf, then her fingertips. "Am I so very wrong when I dare to hope you might care for me?"

"No. You're not wrong."

"I care for you as well, Andrea. I can't bear to see you distraught to a point where you pull back from me. It frightens me. In fact, the thought of losing you terrifies me."

I know she isn't talking about losing me as her assistant. That day is approaching, we both know it. She's talking about losing me, period.

"I've been panicking," I confess. "Oh, God, I'm so in love with you, Miranda and it's...it's killing me."

Her arms are around my neck as she pulls close. She buries her nose in my hair and inhales, her breathing trembling and uneven. "I have loved you for quite some time. I love you in a way I never thought possible, and you haunt my dreams every single night, or so it seems."

I laugh, slightly hysterically, as I listen to her words. "Me too."

"Yes? Imagine that."

Her mouth finds mine and we kiss... She tastes of my tears and faintly of coffee, a blend so magical and sexy in a heartbreaking sort of way, I tremble against her.

"Stay," I plead.

"Let me stay," she says huskily.

My fingers are in her hair, under her jacket, then under her shirt. Her hands are tugging at my damp pajama jacket.

"Come home with me tomorrow?" she asks.

"Yes."

"I don't want to be without you. Ever. Ever..." Her kisses illustrate her urgency as do her hands when they tug open my pajama jacket, making buttons fly across the couch. I reciprocate by slowly pushing her sexy jacket down her arms.

"I've waited a long time for this, Andrea. Your hands on my body. Your eyes burning me like they do now."

I have to be honest with her. "Ï haven't dared to hope, Miranda." Ï kiss her neck; inhale her perfume as I lick a trail from her earlobe to her collar bone. "Ï have not dared to ever allow myself to hope. If I had, and you hadn't loved me, it would've broken my heart. I'm sorry I've been such a coward."

She merely smiles sadly before parting my lips with hers. Her answer is in the kiss. She forgives me. No matter that she hasn't spoken the words-I hear them so clearly through her kiss.

I take her by the hand and drag her toward my bed. It's unmade, but the sheets are my best ones. As we tumble down on the mattress, and as I hold her close and unfasten her slacks, I know that even if I'm not at Miranda's townhouse yet, we have both come home.

END