MORGAN: He might be undereducated and overworked -- and notoriously fond of political absolutes -- but even Morgan Williams found time for the news. The world fell into disappointingly self-destructive spirals; metaphorical blacks and whites laced through each and every one of his opinions; the headlines of the 2000s brought an increasingly unsettling twist in his gut and stirrings of the Comedian's blasé, nihilistic abandon. But he understood. Fingers calloused and his trousers grease-stained, even working-class Morgan understood that Time Magazine was worth the battered five-dollar bill he shelled out for it every week. Something felt right about keeping his thumb on politics and government and the newest bout of shittery from the Bush administration, after all; the tired voice of Eddie Blake knew federal bullshit when he read it, and that voice still carried through today.

... Plus, stopping at the good old-fashioned newsstand during his break meant being able to browse the papers he didn't want to buy. And it meant picking up a hotdog for lunch.

And so it was that this cold February afternoon, he hunched his shoulders in his coat against the chill and he warmed his hands around a New York chili dog, largely oblivious to the people streaming past and around him (and Joe of the newstand). If someone jostled him for space in the street, he instinctively jostled back, his posture rigid, solid, and unyielding.

LORELAI: She was still getting used to that feeling of someone else in her head, of the tingle in the bottom of her stomach that signaled someone like herself. Lorelai had had enough of a shock when her newest client at the gym was none other than one Laurie Juspezcyk -- so to speak -- and now she was careful, on her guard even, for that bottomless-bottomful feeling as her stomach swooped out from under her, like a rug pulled out from behind. But the past few weeks had been relatively quiet (or perhaps she was just doing a better job of ignoring things), and her walk to the newsstand was, surprisingly enough, somewhat pleasant. February was turning to March and the cold was starting to thaw; she didn't have to bundle up in so many layers to walk to and from her jobs, and people were starting to be less shitty in general with the warming weather. Of course, she still walked with her shoulders thrown back and arms protectively in -- a strange walk, to be sure, but the best way she felt to make sure no one grabbed at her without her consent -- eyes darting left and right, always on edge for a threat. A predator, a(nother) rapist, a comic book villain looking to get his jollies, Eddie Blake. She shoved her hands in her deep pockets and elbowed her way towards the newsstand.

People, as usual, were directly in the way, and seemed to have little intention of moving. A stuffy dick in a suit with the latest New Yorker; a disheveled university student with the Times in one hand, Time Magazine in the other, the former opened to the funny pages. Lorelai shook up an uncomfortable feeling of lewd drawings on cheap copies of paper.

"Hey, Joe," she said, and he nodded up at her, poured her a coffee as he did every morning and pushed the little tray of creamers and sugar packets in her direction. Lorelai smiled up at him, like one does with a somewhat distant uncle, before trying to slide in between the stuffy dick and the rumpled hot dog-eating laborer next to him. "'Scuse me," she said, in the impolite way only New Yorkers can manage. "Need to get through."

She barely felt her stomach bottom out.

MORGAN: He, on the other hand, did. It happened in a split second, and if there was anything the Comedian reacted to, it was physical contact -- the brush of an elbow and a shoulder squared against his own made something leap in his throat, a sudden rising nausea. Worse than usual. It was like a unique brand of motion sickness and Morgan had always, always hated the fact that he reacted so strongly to this fucking comic book thing: Eddie's reactions were always visceral and hard, and, well, so were Morgan's. He immediately stopped eating, the hot dog lowering as he surveyed the brunette beside him.

The man finished chewing, though: slowly and methodically, before swallowing about as much of the food as he could stand, his Adam's apple bobbing uneasily.

"Huh."

LORELAI: Joe was already shoveling napkins in Lorelai's direction when she finally blinked, swallowing hard and long against a sudden fit of nausea and confusion. For a second, she had to stare at the brown liquid dripping off her fingers and the sleeve of her coat, before she realized Sally had recognized someone -- recognized them so thoroughly Lorelai could barely control her own reaction. Her hand had shaken, coffee had spilled, and there was a comic next to her.

"Sorry," she said immediately to no one in particular. The man in the suit stepped away with a prim grimace of a smile while Lorelai loaded up napkins onto her hot skin and wet coat. Great. She'd smell like fucking Columbian roast all goddamn day. Something in her -- politeness, maybe, though she doubted it -- said to check and make sure she hadn't gotten any on hot dog guy. Something else warned her not to. Lorelai set the coffee down carefully, checking to make sure she hadn't spilled anywhere else, before idly surveying him out of the corner of her eye, appeasing the concerned conscience and the paranoid avoidant alike. He was looking her over. She felt inexplicably dirty, and snatched her coffee back up like a scalding, miniature shield.

"What?" she snapped. "I spilled some fucking coffee, it's not breaking fucking news." Of course, as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew exactly why he was staring, and why she couldn't stop checking him for a cloak and tights. But her scowl stayed in place, practiced, unyielding. She almost said to stop fucking staring, before she caught herself.

MORGAN: Whether comic or comedic, the differences were thin -- but Morgan saw the slapstick nature of their encounter and he chuckled, nothing but dry amusement in the wake of her blistering temper. One hand raised, half a placation, half a sign of truce. "Hey, not my problem you got scaldin' coffee all over yourself. You alright."

The man didn't phrase it as a question; to be honest, he couldn't really care less about the well-being of some stranger's coat, but he still swiped up a brute handful of napkins and half-heartedly dabbed at her sleeve.

LORELAI: "'M fine," she said, in exactly the same tone as she had asked what he was staring at. Really, there seemed to be two possible variations of speech for Lorelai: pissed off, and irrationally so. She wadded up the napkins in one hand, snatching her coffee-smelling arm away so quickly another burst of semi-scalding liquid sloshed up over the rim and down her front. It was only sheer will that kept her from swearing right in the guy's face; from that laugh at her misfortune -- what was that about -- she had every reason to believe he would only get great fucking pleasure from her spilling all over herself again. She wiped uselessly at her front, turning away in aggravation to set the (now half-empty) coffee cup on the news counter, unbutton the coat and shake off some of the moisture to the ground in front of her. The light blue hem of her maid's uniform -- pale, square, unflattering -- peeked out from beneath her heavy coat buttons, a tiny glimpse of something less angry, more pathetic. And now everyone could see it, a secret shame blown wildly out of proportion amidst coffee stains and dry, wry amusement.

Lorelai wanted to punch something. There was nothing available. Dammit.

MORGAN: People overreacting and making their bad situation worse -- shit, man, it was familiar. And if there was anything about Morgan in a good mood, it was his damnably breezy attitude and the attempts to take things in stride. Because he was in a good mood, as implausible as it was, the nausea aside; he liked seeing people getting their hackles up so much over this comic book crap. It wasn't worth it. Nothing was. He was surprised no one else ever saw this.

... And then his day just got better.

"A maid?" Morgan said, and there was a definite edge of incredulity there. "I pissed off a hot maid? Shit, I better fix this, stat."

LORELAI: No, Morgan. You just pissed off a maid. Hot had nothing to do with it, unless you were gunning for the rest of that coffee down your pants. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, something snapped in Lorelai's head. She stopped wiping at herself. Turning to face him wasn't so much an act, as an involuntary movement: her body shifted, her head turned rigidly, as if her neck had were holding onto all the rising anger and mortification in a desperate attempt to keep it from spilling up out of her mouth.

"Excuse me?" she said, one eyebrow arching. And again, "Excuse me?"

MORGAN: Whooooa, nelly. Could probably ease up on the fucking caffeine. Noting her exponentially-spiralling attitude, Morgan took a step back, building a safer distance between them. "Uh, just a joke. You know -- French maids, sex symbol, whatever?"

Way to be blunt, Morgan. And then, to the universe's horror, he tried clearing the air. With another joke.

"Sorry 'bout the coffee. You're not, like, American Maid, are you? 'Cause I'm really not looking for a stiletto heel to the face this morning."

LORELAI: Wow. Lorelai felt a bolt of warmth shoot up her spine, and her neck abruptly loosened; had this been a slightly less public place (read: a place slightly less unlikely to get her picked up by the cops), Morgan would have found himself plowed into the newsstand, her fist somewhere in the region of his eye. Or chest. Or throat. Once the allusion set in, it didn't make it any better. Steam came out of her ears. Anvils fell. Somewhere, a cartoon Morgan was holding up a sign that read "help" as he plummetted off a cliff in the Sonoran desert.

She shoved the top back on her coffee, nearly spilling it all over again. "How about you go fuck yourself, and save me the trouble?"

Yeah, Lorelai. You tell him.

MORGAN: An arch of the eyebrow. "Well, you're obviously a hopeless case," he remarked, taking another step back and tossing the leftover hot dog into a trashcan, shaking off the crumbs with a flick of his wrist. He disengaged.

But as a parting shot, even as he started turning his back to her, Morgan couldn't help adding in a dry growl: "Do you not know how to take a harmless joke, or what."

LORELAI: No. No she did not.

Whether it was the hopeless remark, or hitting a spot just a little too close to home, Lorelai snapped. She set the coffee down, and then in one smooth motion, brought her fist up, around, and into the side of his face with a loud crack. Her fingers didn't hurt -- they never did, in things like these. A tingle ran through her, something else. Something else shooting through the nearly overwhelming satisfaction. She shook it off, and swore louder than necessary. "Fuck you."

People were staring, and had cleared something of a space around her and Morgan. It wouldn't last long; they'd probably seen stranger than a maid punch a stranger just that week. But for a brief moment, she lifted her chin, and let that undercurrent of undefined discomfort take a back seat to smug self-satisfaction.

MORGAN: That surge of pain blossoming in his cheek, sending his head cracking to the left, set something else jumpstarting in Morgan's gut. Rage flared up -- a seething anger, because what the hell had he done to her, she'd spilled her own coffee, he hadn't even bumped the bitch, hadn't even insulted her since she actually was a hot maid, the hell did she --

"Psycho bitch, what the fuck," Morgan snarled, fingertips gently touching his stinging cheek, his face briefly contorted. It felt familiar. Too familiar. "The fuck?"

LORELAI: Lorelai felt herself sneer more than she was aware of it, a bitter laugh creeping out like something forgotten. "Not so fucking harmless now, uh, Blake?"

And that slipped out before she could bite it back. The sneer fell and her face with it. She snatched up her coffee and backed up abruptly into another suited businessman, who swore at her for nearly making him drop his paper -- but she couldn't bring herself to apologize, in case Morgan heard and mistook it for himself. "Shit."

MORGAN: And now it was his turn: Morgan experienced an exquisite sinking feeling, a mixture of disappointment and regret chewing their way through his nerves. His mind ran and he found himself thinking maybe it was someone else; after all, Veidt hated the shit out of him too, but god, god, it was Sally, it had to be Sally--

If it had been entirely up to Morgan, he would have chosen his fights wisely and walked away with nothing more than a bruised cheek.

But Blake had been named -- Blake had been called -- Blake was remembering -- and Edward Blake was angry, and in a whirl of movement he veered back to Sally and he swung a vindictive punch at her jaw; sloppy, messy, but hard.

LORELAI: She fell. Lorelai didn't fall often; maybe it was leftover from being a crime-fighter, quick on her feet, maybe it was just luck (she doubted that). The businessman who had just told her to go to hell suddenly found her clinging to one of his arms as the coffee gave up trying to stay intact and splashed all over the sidewalk, some woman's suede boots, a small dog's leash (who immediately began lapping it up), and a miniature pile of unidentifiable trash. The space around her and Morgan widened as people leapt out of the way of the coffee. Lorelai couldn't even hear the distressed businessman ask her if she was all right, that there was a bruise forming, if Joe had any ice or something cold behind the newsstand.

That fucker had hit her.

She'd given up delusions of not-hitting-girls years ago, and sure, she'd sent the first punch -- but she had reason. And by his reaction, he knew damn well she had reason. Her stomach sank abruptly -- his reaction. For a brief moment, she'd hoped she'd just hit some random Crossover reincarnate, some other jerk, that she'd misread and it wasn't Eddie at all. But only Blake would have hit her back. Something in her wanted to get up and claw his eyes out right then and there, and she almost did -- the businessman nearly dropped her as she abruptly sprang to her feet, fingers curling into her palms -- but she stopped. Stared.

"You stupid fuck," she said. "You stupid, fucking--fuck."

MORGAN: His fingers clenched and unclenched, unconsciously, all his muscles winding tight with goddamn adrenaline. But a muscle in his jaw was twitching, showing the effort required to not charge forward and pummel her, nor bullrush her in the street -- bless his shrivelled little soul, but he was exercising self-control.

"You fucking crazy bitch," he repeated, again, echoing himself in empty shock, "you hit me."

He could feel the withering, disapproving gazes of passersby boring into his back, goddamn Superman laser vision drilling through his skull, but he didn't care, he didn't care.

LORELAI: And at that moment, neither did she. Something welled up in her stomach, in her chest, behind her eyes, someone else -- she knew exactly who -- desperately clinging at Lorelai's dominant, violent thoughts to stand down, to back off, to recollect and recoup. Worse things had happened, Lorelai, worse things than a punch in the face, let it go. And for a second, hardly more, that someone else won out. Lorelai looked at Morgan and saw Eddie Blake; Sally looked at Eddie and saw all the things she couldn't fix.

Lorelai crumpled. Her shoulders fell, her chin dipped, and Sally receded in triumphant failure. "Fuck you," she said under her breath, and shaking off the businessman's arm, pushed off angrily through the crowd. If nothing else, she could leave first this time, instead of trailing along at Eddie's heels. Nothing else. She wrapped her coat around her a little tighter.

MORGAN: Morgan was left alone in the centre of a ever-widening circle on the street. A few mutterings had already started -- he could hear them -- but he avoided meeting anyone's eyes or catching their venomous scowls. His jaw still working mutely, he ducked to the ground and picked up his fallen magazine. Still frighteningly quiet, Morgan tucked it under his arm and shouldered his way into the crowd, in the opposite direction Lorelai had headed.

The moment he moved away, the intangible circle dissolved and the street was left crowded and faceless and impassionate once more. Nothing left but coffeestains on cement and a few scattered newspapers.