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ceuThis was the original scene for we are for each other then, part three, scene two (Eduardo's first POV scene in that section.) I didn't like it because I made Eduardo way too genial and easy-to-forgive, when both realistically and in my head I picture her much more frosty and not easily forgiving and distrustful of Mark. Because, you know, considering.
Anyway, so the current version definitely has that reluctance and antagonism, for contextual reasons within the movie and also spurring the, like, next 13000 words of that scene. But this is the friendlier version that I had first written before I decided I didn't like it. This, like all other scenes of the fic (with a few exceptions) were originally written on my phone, so there is no formatting.
3.2 FIRST DRAFT
The biggest secret Eduardo keeps from Mark is the one that the rest of the world knows - that every Facebook shareholders' meeting she doesn't respond to the RSVP, but uses it as an excuse to fly back into town anyway. She's pretty sure Mark's assistant knows too by the way they sometimes run into the sandwich place; they've never spoken before, but Dustin had pointed her out the first time and Eduardo had been on the receiving end of those stony stares ever since.
Even Eduardo's father knows, having long forgiven her for the - fiasco, public embarrassment. Eduardo hadn't needed it at that point, settled in all the way on the other side of the world, but it makes visits back to Miami less strained. Her father thinks that Mark doesn't deserve a minute of Eduardo's time anymore, and Eduardo's inclined to believe him. But -
But Eduardo misses seeing her. She confesses this to Dustin one day and Dustin's face gets all sad, which is really pathetic so Eduardo tells her it's okay. But then Dustin emails her /dude im inviting mark to our next lunch so u better not walk out/ - Eduardo can't really argue with that.
Except Mark doesn't come. Even for all the lunch dates that follow, Dustin shows up alone. And Eduardo feels kind of stupid for hoping, even though she should've - she shouldn't even /want/ to see Mark. She's seen Mark's face on the cover of TIME magazine, and Facebook is literally /everywhere/, so she doesn't need to - She doesn't want to reconcile with Mark. She shouldn't.
Except she does. And the one time Dustin tells her that they should swing by the office after lunch anyway so she can show Eduardo what's changed, Eduardo sees her. Mark in her formless hoodie and baggy boy shorts and just as stunning as ever.
And Eduardo doesn't know how to figure her out anymore.
The realization doesn't strike her until she's on her flight back to Singapore at the end of the week - Mark had been unreadable. It's been too long. Eduardo had known how to hear her scoffs, make those dimples appear - and Mark had looked the same as always, but she's - less intense, more tired. She still makes Eduardo's stomach flip and Eduardo can still hear the scorn in her tone, but she's also a different person.
Eduardo doesn't know what to do with this information. She'd been so sure that the world had revolved around Mark, back in college - and Eduardo had too, orbiting around where she's fiery and intense, too afraid to get too close. But Mark moves with everyone else, too; all the fear that Eduardo might've had fizzles into what feels like a nostalgic pang. She's long accepted that what had happened not been entirely Mark's fault - if she hadn't frozen the bank account - if they'd had a chance to sit down and talk - But Eduardo doesn't miss any of that either.
(She knows what she misses.)
Back home, she goes back to her life, Mark once again a thought, a question, a linger in the back of her head. She helps young people with their tech startups, and works with app designers, and punches in calculations on her spreadsheets, and charts the weather once in a while just like she used to. Weather tracking helps her clear her thoughts, though it hadn't quite worked during the depositions. That was when she started working out at the gym and doing yoga; and all in all she's pretty happy with her life.
But as time passes she knows it's just filler until the next shareholders' invitation comes, and then she'll be on a plane again. Which is also okay, despite the raised eyebrows she gets from her office mate who comes in every once in a while to gossip and sees the look on her face when Eduardo's phone pings with a new email. Most of her friends here know about the Mark thing, which is - fine. She's okay, really.
So life goes on and she goes on for a few months, watering her plants and doing yoga and going out to nightclubs, par for the course. She doesn't expect anything to be different, because nothing ever is at this point - and then she gets an email.
It's not a shareholders' email. It's far too soon for that.
But the notification says /From Mark Zuckerberg/.
Eduardo doesn't swallow the lump in her throat. Numbly, she opens it. She's in her sleep clothes, sitting in her living room couch. It's early morning in California time.
/You look good/, says the email. /I'm glad I saw you the other day./
Despite herself, Eduardo snorts. It's been months, so of course Mark would refer to it as "the other day."
She hits Reply before she can stop herself.
/Which day are you talking about? You might have to specify./
The next one comes a minute after she sends it.
/You know what I'm talking about. It's not like we've seen each other a lot lately.
I was thinking about deleting that, but it's true and it's late so I'm not./
Eduardo's middle hurts and she's smiling at her laptop and chewing on her fingernails. She types out another reply.
/Late? Shouldn't it be morning for you?/
/That depends on your perception of time/, is Mark's reply.
Eduardo's never wanted to fly back out to California so soon - ever, really. /Go to sleep, Mark/, is all she types, before closing her laptop and not letting herself check her email for the rest of the night.
She tries to convince herself that it means nothing, that it's not that important - though her dreams are Mark-filled and okay maybe in the middle of the night she wakes up hot between her legs and jerks off to the thought of Mark's mouth. In the morning she keeps her phone and laptop out of reach while she gets ready, only allowing herself to check her email once she's at work.
There's two new messages from Mark. Eduardo's stomach does a funny little thing. She opens them up.
/I don't want to go to sleep/, says the first one.
/Eduardo?/ says the second.
They'd both been sent shortly after Eduardo had closed her laptop last night. She presses /Reply/ and types carefully.
/Did you go to sleep at a reasonable time yesterday?/
/Yes, I did/, is the reply two minutes later. /I went to sleep after I realized you'd left too./
/I'll keep that strategy in mind./
It's like being transported to another planet where the depositions and the dilution didn't happen. Except they did, and Eduardo is still on the same planet, and a client comes in so she has to close her email and focus on the meeting at hand.
After, she opens it again. Her middle aches, then leaps at the sight of another new message.
/What are you implying?/
Eduardo doesn't answer that; but she doesn't want Mark to think that she's ignoring her again, so she replies with a Lord of the Rings meme that Dustin had sent her not too long ago.
/What the fuck, Eduardo?/
Then:
/Is this Dustin hacking?/
/No, it's just me/, Eduardo replies. /Did Dustin send that to you too?/
/She sends me memes all the time. I hate it./
Eduardo sends her another one.
After that, it sort of becomes - a thing. A hesitant, not-quite-there thing - Eduardo hates that it's easy for her and Mark to pretend what happened never happened, hates it even more that all the fury and self-righteousness had faded into something more sad. This is almost like bridging that sadness, and she can see it with Mark, too - not the same way she used to be able to see her, but more in that neither of them let their conversations go any further from surface level office work and world events and memes.
Mark doesn't ask about the specifics of Singapore, and Eduardo doesn't ask her if she's single. Everything is in the past. Including the past.
Until a few weeks later, when Eduardo's checking her phone in the morning, waiting in the elevator of her office building, a protein shake in her hand. She expects to find the usual snark reply from where she and Mark are complaining about incompetent male CEOs, but the she message receives is something else.
/I don't know what you want or are expecting from out of all of this, but I don't feel like this would be appropriate if I didn't say I'm sorry. And I am. I don't regret what I did for Facebook and if I had to do it again I probably would. But I do regret hurting you and I do regret losing you.
So.
Yeah./
Eduardo's teeth dig into her lip. She wants to laugh and cry all at once. She settles for snorting and wiping at her eyes for a moment, glad she's alone in the elevator.
The email is so short, and Eduardo had always imagined when - if - this would happen, it would feel like a victory. A relief. Instead Eduardo wants to fling herself across the ocean and say the same words to Mark, ask her if they're okay, if they /can/ be okay anymore. Wanting Mark before had been like reaching for something she could never have, but now - now whatever Eduardo /can/ get, she'll take.
She's typing out a response before she knows it, thumbs shaking. The elevator doors open and she walks out, still typing.
/While I know we live in the era of technology, this feels a little cheap, doesn't it? Sending an apology in an email?/
She has to backspace and retype multiple times, but she doesn't care. She's smiling and blinking still; her gossipy coworker is already in her office when she comes in.
"What's got you all teary-eyed?" she asks Eduardo.
"Nothing." Eduardo pockets her phone away.
A smirk comes across her friend's face. "It doesn't have anything to do with all those times you've been smiling at your phone whenever you get a new notification, does it?"
Eduardo blushes. "I didn't do that."
"But you did." And Eduardo's phone pings again and she picks it up, and her friend says, "There it is again."
"Shut up," says Eduardo, ignoring her.
/What, do you really expect me to fly all the way out to Singapore just to apologize to you in person?/
/I'm not saying it wouldn't mean anything./
"You look happy," her friend comments when Eduardo puts her phone away again.
Eduardo means it when she replies, "I am happy."
Two days later, she's trying a new recipe recommended by a friend when the doorbell in her apartment rings. "Coming!" she calls, licking the sauce off her fingers on one hand and grabbing a towel with another.
She's still sucking the frosting off a finger when she opens the door. Mark's standing there, a backpack slung one-strapped over her shoulder.
Eduardo stares.
Mark does, too.
"Um, hi," says Eduardo, taking her fingertips out of her mouth and wiping them on her towel. "What are you doing here?"
"I - " Mark shakes her head, meeting Eduardo's eyes. "You said you wanted me to fly out and apologize to you in person - "
Eduardo blinks. "I mean," she stumbles, because yeah, she did send the email, and yeah, she did mean it, but - "This is unexpectedly fast."
Mark shrugs.
"Do you want me to say it now, or can I come in?" she asks.
"Oh, yeah, you can - " Eduardo moves aside so Mark can walk in, looking around Eduardo's apartment and inspecting the two umbrellas she has in the umbrella stand.
Sniffing the air, Mark says, "It smells good."
"I'm making tart," Eduardo says.
"Ah." Mark nods. She goes to the living room and begins opening random drawers. Eduardo rolls her eyes as she heads back to the kitchen; it's nothing new. She washes her hands properly and dries them, trying to relax her nerves before coming back out.
She wipes her palms on her skirt, anyway, when she walks out of the kitchen. Mark looks weirdly cozy on her couch. Maybe it's because her eyelids are dropping and she's wearing sweatpants, but Eduardo's heart does a funny thing. She rubs her palms on her skirt again.
Mark blinks when she realizes Eduardo's walking toward her, and then stands up quickly.
"Sorry," she says, and then scowls. "I meant, for nearly falling asleep on your couch. But also sorry for, you know, everything."
"Did you not sleep on the plane?"
Mark's scowl deepens. "I just apologized to you."
"And I just asked you a question," says Eduardo.
"You just - " Mark's face does a complicated thing like she doesn't know what to feel, before settling on what appears to be confused. "No, I didn't sleep on the plane."
"You can use my bed then." Eduardo points down the hallway. "You look exhausted."
"But - "
Eduardo pokes her to turn her around, placing a hand on her back, between her shoulder blades. "I forgave you after you sent me the first email," she tells her as they walk down the hall. "And I'm sorry too. Now sleep."
"Do you mean the email where I apologized, or the first email I sent?"
Eduardo smiles as she urges Mark into her room. "Goodnight Mark," she says even though it's two in the afternoon, before closing the door in Mark's face.
She heads back to the kitchen, finishing baking her tart, taking the tray out delicately with a gloved hand. It tastes sweeter than usual - or maybe it's just Eduardo - so she ends up eating half, straight from the tray.
She leaves out the other half, and then sits on her couch, computer in her lap, watching the weather channel. Later Mark will wake up and they'll finish the rest of the tart and Mark will insist that she's slept enough so Eduardo can take her bed back for the night. In the morning Eduardo will find Mark still coding away at her couch, and make her take the next flight back to SFO so she won't have to fix any jet lag on either side of the world. Mark will ask her for her number again. Eduardo will give it to her.
Eduardo charts the weather in her living room now, and knows that she and Mark can be okay again. That they are.
Anyway, so the current version definitely has that reluctance and antagonism, for contextual reasons within the movie and also spurring the, like, next 13000 words of that scene. But this is the friendlier version that I had first written before I decided I didn't like it. This, like all other scenes of the fic (with a few exceptions) were originally written on my phone, so there is no formatting.
3.2 FIRST DRAFT
The biggest secret Eduardo keeps from Mark is the one that the rest of the world knows - that every Facebook shareholders' meeting she doesn't respond to the RSVP, but uses it as an excuse to fly back into town anyway. She's pretty sure Mark's assistant knows too by the way they sometimes run into the sandwich place; they've never spoken before, but Dustin had pointed her out the first time and Eduardo had been on the receiving end of those stony stares ever since.
Even Eduardo's father knows, having long forgiven her for the - fiasco, public embarrassment. Eduardo hadn't needed it at that point, settled in all the way on the other side of the world, but it makes visits back to Miami less strained. Her father thinks that Mark doesn't deserve a minute of Eduardo's time anymore, and Eduardo's inclined to believe him. But -
But Eduardo misses seeing her. She confesses this to Dustin one day and Dustin's face gets all sad, which is really pathetic so Eduardo tells her it's okay. But then Dustin emails her /dude im inviting mark to our next lunch so u better not walk out/ - Eduardo can't really argue with that.
Except Mark doesn't come. Even for all the lunch dates that follow, Dustin shows up alone. And Eduardo feels kind of stupid for hoping, even though she should've - she shouldn't even /want/ to see Mark. She's seen Mark's face on the cover of TIME magazine, and Facebook is literally /everywhere/, so she doesn't need to - She doesn't want to reconcile with Mark. She shouldn't.
Except she does. And the one time Dustin tells her that they should swing by the office after lunch anyway so she can show Eduardo what's changed, Eduardo sees her. Mark in her formless hoodie and baggy boy shorts and just as stunning as ever.
And Eduardo doesn't know how to figure her out anymore.
The realization doesn't strike her until she's on her flight back to Singapore at the end of the week - Mark had been unreadable. It's been too long. Eduardo had known how to hear her scoffs, make those dimples appear - and Mark had looked the same as always, but she's - less intense, more tired. She still makes Eduardo's stomach flip and Eduardo can still hear the scorn in her tone, but she's also a different person.
Eduardo doesn't know what to do with this information. She'd been so sure that the world had revolved around Mark, back in college - and Eduardo had too, orbiting around where she's fiery and intense, too afraid to get too close. But Mark moves with everyone else, too; all the fear that Eduardo might've had fizzles into what feels like a nostalgic pang. She's long accepted that what had happened not been entirely Mark's fault - if she hadn't frozen the bank account - if they'd had a chance to sit down and talk - But Eduardo doesn't miss any of that either.
(She knows what she misses.)
Back home, she goes back to her life, Mark once again a thought, a question, a linger in the back of her head. She helps young people with their tech startups, and works with app designers, and punches in calculations on her spreadsheets, and charts the weather once in a while just like she used to. Weather tracking helps her clear her thoughts, though it hadn't quite worked during the depositions. That was when she started working out at the gym and doing yoga; and all in all she's pretty happy with her life.
But as time passes she knows it's just filler until the next shareholders' invitation comes, and then she'll be on a plane again. Which is also okay, despite the raised eyebrows she gets from her office mate who comes in every once in a while to gossip and sees the look on her face when Eduardo's phone pings with a new email. Most of her friends here know about the Mark thing, which is - fine. She's okay, really.
So life goes on and she goes on for a few months, watering her plants and doing yoga and going out to nightclubs, par for the course. She doesn't expect anything to be different, because nothing ever is at this point - and then she gets an email.
It's not a shareholders' email. It's far too soon for that.
But the notification says /From Mark Zuckerberg/.
Eduardo doesn't swallow the lump in her throat. Numbly, she opens it. She's in her sleep clothes, sitting in her living room couch. It's early morning in California time.
/You look good/, says the email. /I'm glad I saw you the other day./
Despite herself, Eduardo snorts. It's been months, so of course Mark would refer to it as "the other day."
She hits Reply before she can stop herself.
/Which day are you talking about? You might have to specify./
The next one comes a minute after she sends it.
/You know what I'm talking about. It's not like we've seen each other a lot lately.
I was thinking about deleting that, but it's true and it's late so I'm not./
Eduardo's middle hurts and she's smiling at her laptop and chewing on her fingernails. She types out another reply.
/Late? Shouldn't it be morning for you?/
/That depends on your perception of time/, is Mark's reply.
Eduardo's never wanted to fly back out to California so soon - ever, really. /Go to sleep, Mark/, is all she types, before closing her laptop and not letting herself check her email for the rest of the night.
She tries to convince herself that it means nothing, that it's not that important - though her dreams are Mark-filled and okay maybe in the middle of the night she wakes up hot between her legs and jerks off to the thought of Mark's mouth. In the morning she keeps her phone and laptop out of reach while she gets ready, only allowing herself to check her email once she's at work.
There's two new messages from Mark. Eduardo's stomach does a funny little thing. She opens them up.
/I don't want to go to sleep/, says the first one.
/Eduardo?/ says the second.
They'd both been sent shortly after Eduardo had closed her laptop last night. She presses /Reply/ and types carefully.
/Did you go to sleep at a reasonable time yesterday?/
/Yes, I did/, is the reply two minutes later. /I went to sleep after I realized you'd left too./
/I'll keep that strategy in mind./
It's like being transported to another planet where the depositions and the dilution didn't happen. Except they did, and Eduardo is still on the same planet, and a client comes in so she has to close her email and focus on the meeting at hand.
After, she opens it again. Her middle aches, then leaps at the sight of another new message.
/What are you implying?/
Eduardo doesn't answer that; but she doesn't want Mark to think that she's ignoring her again, so she replies with a Lord of the Rings meme that Dustin had sent her not too long ago.
/What the fuck, Eduardo?/
Then:
/Is this Dustin hacking?/
/No, it's just me/, Eduardo replies. /Did Dustin send that to you too?/
/She sends me memes all the time. I hate it./
Eduardo sends her another one.
After that, it sort of becomes - a thing. A hesitant, not-quite-there thing - Eduardo hates that it's easy for her and Mark to pretend what happened never happened, hates it even more that all the fury and self-righteousness had faded into something more sad. This is almost like bridging that sadness, and she can see it with Mark, too - not the same way she used to be able to see her, but more in that neither of them let their conversations go any further from surface level office work and world events and memes.
Mark doesn't ask about the specifics of Singapore, and Eduardo doesn't ask her if she's single. Everything is in the past. Including the past.
Until a few weeks later, when Eduardo's checking her phone in the morning, waiting in the elevator of her office building, a protein shake in her hand. She expects to find the usual snark reply from where she and Mark are complaining about incompetent male CEOs, but the she message receives is something else.
/I don't know what you want or are expecting from out of all of this, but I don't feel like this would be appropriate if I didn't say I'm sorry. And I am. I don't regret what I did for Facebook and if I had to do it again I probably would. But I do regret hurting you and I do regret losing you.
So.
Yeah./
Eduardo's teeth dig into her lip. She wants to laugh and cry all at once. She settles for snorting and wiping at her eyes for a moment, glad she's alone in the elevator.
The email is so short, and Eduardo had always imagined when - if - this would happen, it would feel like a victory. A relief. Instead Eduardo wants to fling herself across the ocean and say the same words to Mark, ask her if they're okay, if they /can/ be okay anymore. Wanting Mark before had been like reaching for something she could never have, but now - now whatever Eduardo /can/ get, she'll take.
She's typing out a response before she knows it, thumbs shaking. The elevator doors open and she walks out, still typing.
/While I know we live in the era of technology, this feels a little cheap, doesn't it? Sending an apology in an email?/
She has to backspace and retype multiple times, but she doesn't care. She's smiling and blinking still; her gossipy coworker is already in her office when she comes in.
"What's got you all teary-eyed?" she asks Eduardo.
"Nothing." Eduardo pockets her phone away.
A smirk comes across her friend's face. "It doesn't have anything to do with all those times you've been smiling at your phone whenever you get a new notification, does it?"
Eduardo blushes. "I didn't do that."
"But you did." And Eduardo's phone pings again and she picks it up, and her friend says, "There it is again."
"Shut up," says Eduardo, ignoring her.
/What, do you really expect me to fly all the way out to Singapore just to apologize to you in person?/
/I'm not saying it wouldn't mean anything./
"You look happy," her friend comments when Eduardo puts her phone away again.
Eduardo means it when she replies, "I am happy."
Two days later, she's trying a new recipe recommended by a friend when the doorbell in her apartment rings. "Coming!" she calls, licking the sauce off her fingers on one hand and grabbing a towel with another.
She's still sucking the frosting off a finger when she opens the door. Mark's standing there, a backpack slung one-strapped over her shoulder.
Eduardo stares.
Mark does, too.
"Um, hi," says Eduardo, taking her fingertips out of her mouth and wiping them on her towel. "What are you doing here?"
"I - " Mark shakes her head, meeting Eduardo's eyes. "You said you wanted me to fly out and apologize to you in person - "
Eduardo blinks. "I mean," she stumbles, because yeah, she did send the email, and yeah, she did mean it, but - "This is unexpectedly fast."
Mark shrugs.
"Do you want me to say it now, or can I come in?" she asks.
"Oh, yeah, you can - " Eduardo moves aside so Mark can walk in, looking around Eduardo's apartment and inspecting the two umbrellas she has in the umbrella stand.
Sniffing the air, Mark says, "It smells good."
"I'm making tart," Eduardo says.
"Ah." Mark nods. She goes to the living room and begins opening random drawers. Eduardo rolls her eyes as she heads back to the kitchen; it's nothing new. She washes her hands properly and dries them, trying to relax her nerves before coming back out.
She wipes her palms on her skirt, anyway, when she walks out of the kitchen. Mark looks weirdly cozy on her couch. Maybe it's because her eyelids are dropping and she's wearing sweatpants, but Eduardo's heart does a funny thing. She rubs her palms on her skirt again.
Mark blinks when she realizes Eduardo's walking toward her, and then stands up quickly.
"Sorry," she says, and then scowls. "I meant, for nearly falling asleep on your couch. But also sorry for, you know, everything."
"Did you not sleep on the plane?"
Mark's scowl deepens. "I just apologized to you."
"And I just asked you a question," says Eduardo.
"You just - " Mark's face does a complicated thing like she doesn't know what to feel, before settling on what appears to be confused. "No, I didn't sleep on the plane."
"You can use my bed then." Eduardo points down the hallway. "You look exhausted."
"But - "
Eduardo pokes her to turn her around, placing a hand on her back, between her shoulder blades. "I forgave you after you sent me the first email," she tells her as they walk down the hall. "And I'm sorry too. Now sleep."
"Do you mean the email where I apologized, or the first email I sent?"
Eduardo smiles as she urges Mark into her room. "Goodnight Mark," she says even though it's two in the afternoon, before closing the door in Mark's face.
She heads back to the kitchen, finishing baking her tart, taking the tray out delicately with a gloved hand. It tastes sweeter than usual - or maybe it's just Eduardo - so she ends up eating half, straight from the tray.
She leaves out the other half, and then sits on her couch, computer in her lap, watching the weather channel. Later Mark will wake up and they'll finish the rest of the tart and Mark will insist that she's slept enough so Eduardo can take her bed back for the night. In the morning Eduardo will find Mark still coding away at her couch, and make her take the next flight back to SFO so she won't have to fix any jet lag on either side of the world. Mark will ask her for her number again. Eduardo will give it to her.
Eduardo charts the weather in her living room now, and knows that she and Mark can be okay again. That they are.
