The Sacking of Rome

It was a meeting invite for... two minutes ago. She opened it up, clicked through Outlook for a second, and saw that it was in Tony's office. The HR manager.

Just a meeting. People talked privately with Tony all the time. She didn't particularly like Tony, but she didn't have anything against him. It was probably nothing. It's probably about the other thing, Nick outing her even though she wasn't really gay (probably(maybe)). Surely, there would be some conversations about that. That made more sense as a topic for the HR guy to be involved in.

She convinced herself of this in the time it took to walk over to the other side of the building. It had to be this. This made the most sense.

Hey, she typed. She didn't spend any more time fussing over the contents, or whether or not to delete it. She just pressed Send.

And then she knocked, opened the door, and the bottom fell out. Tony was seated at his desk, looking very calm and collected, and behind him, leaning against the wall, looking like a sullen third grader, was scrum master Jim.

"Have a seat, Jen," Tony said, gesturing.

Rome pressed her lips together into a flat line, and sat down. Jim had his arms folded across his chest, and was rapidly tapping two fingers against the elbow of his other arm.

"Jen, I'm sure you know why you're here."

"I don't," she said, trying for indignant, though her voice came out like a bullfrog.

"We had multiple reports of you bringing in an outsider, someone from outside the company, showing them around the office, showing them code. Showing them our work in progress."

"Oh," Rome said, blinking. "No. No, she... Daphne? She's not—"

Tony touched a finger to the corner of his screen, turning it and displaying a still frame of her and Daphne inside Peterman's office. She hadn't known there were any cameras inside the building.

"I can explain," she blurted, although she couldn't. And wouldn't. It was a naked bluff for time, and Tony was not buying it.

"Lemme stop you right there, Jen. We're an ideas company, right? We talk about it all the time. It's right there in the credo. The work we do, it's all right here." He tapped the side of the monitor. "We can't have employees bringing in outsiders, showing them our proprietary code. You know this, Jen. There are non-disclosure agreements. Non-compete clauses. That's our property, and we take intellectual rights very seriously."

"No, that's not—" She locked eyes with Jim, and zipped her lips shut. Did she want to expose Jim for having an affair, something the company had no business monitoring? Did she want to expose whatever side benefits some of the higher ups were enjoying? Did she have any real evidence to back that up? Was Tony in on it? Would they care that Daphne is just an artist?

Jim was staring at her with satisfaction. Petty, grim satisfaction.

After that, Rome brought down the shutters. She listened as Tony explained the nuanced aspects of her work contract, and which clauses came into effect. She listened as he talked about integrity and honesty. She nodded when it seemed like he was waiting for it. She folded her arms, and she crossed her legs, and she took it, and when she stood up the office manager was there waiting. Patrice escorted her back to her desk and waited, patiently, while Rome collected her things. There wasn't much to get. Aside from Ouchmouse, she was not one to gather a lot of trinkets or tchotchkes. The things that were hers fit into her purse, and then they started walking.

What felt good, the one thing she managed, was that she kept her chin high. On the one hand, fuck all of them, and on the other hand, it was going to take them months to onboard someone else, get them up to speed on those ancient readers, and dig through her meticulously-documented-but-intricate hardware interface code. They were never going to figure out the Not Connected bug before the roadmap said they had to deliver a finished product. They were screwed, and there was no way the Paxton Limited was going to get through even one day of regular use before that error started popping up.

She kept up appearances all the way to the door, even lengthening her stride a little, until she got out into the parking lot to find Daphne leaning against the front quarter panel of her weird Australian car. Daphne looked up at the sound of the door swinging, and her eyes were wide.

Rome dropped her badge in the office manager's hand, and walked away with her head still held high.

"I got your text," she said, when Rome walked up to her.

"You came all the way over here for a Hey?" Rome said, blinking furiously.

At this, Daphne shook her head. She reached up and scratched at the back of her neck. "Ange got a text this morning saying, I dunno, that he knew it was me or something. That I did something. Then she immediately texted me, and I just..."

"And you came?"

"I had a bad feeling," the other woman said. Then she looked back over Rome's shoulder, and her lips quirked in a sickly manner. "There's people in the window, watching."

"Fuck 'em," she said, giving voice to her frustration.

"They really just perp walked you out the building? Is that what that was?" At Rome's slow nodding, she added, "Shit, I fucked up your life."

"No," Rome said, sniffling. "No, not yet. We'll see where this goes." She rubbed the back of her hand against the corner of her eye, and willed the tears to retreat into their ducts. "I knew what I was getting into, okay? I knew."

"Come on, you—"

"Yeah, fine, I know I got swept up in how fucking hot you are, but I knew."

Daphne chortled, and then bit down on her lip while shaking her head.

"In my head, I knew. I was taking a gamble, and I lost, but... it's fine. Fuck it. It's fine."

"It's not fine," Daphne said, the ghost of a smirk still haunting the edges of her lips.

"I don't care. I can find another job, okay? I can find another job, but there will never be another Friday night for me. That was it." She paused for just a half a heart beat longer than necessary. "That was it for me. It... mattered a lot. It meant a lot to me, and I need to hear you say it meant something to you too."

Daphne recoiled a little, and her mouth hung open. Little sounds, like the start of words, but nothing whole made it past her lips.

"I'm not trying to ambush you, okay? I don't need you to lie to me, and tell me it rocked your whole world down to the foundations, but I just blew up my..."

She trailed off when Daphne placed both hands on her arms. Oh right, she thought, as she looked up, Daphne's tall.

"It meant a lot to me too," Daphne said, after a kiss that seemed to pause time around them.

This, somehow, inexplicably, broke her. This admission. This was what got her to cry, and what made her knees buckle just for a second. She didn't fall, because Daphne was still holding onto her, but she might have.

"Um," she said, sniffling again in a way that was very unsexy, "can we, um—"

"Do you want to go get some coffee?"

"Mmmhmm," Rome said, smiling and nodding. "Yeah."

Daphne nodded, gave her arms a squeeze, and then hesitantly let go of Rome. She nodded to Rome's car, parked just behind hers, and said, "You, uh, wanna follow me?"

Anywhere, Rome thought with a smile, though what she said was, "Yeah, okay," and she was proud of herself for playing it cool, tears and all.