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utterlyinevitable · 2 years

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For Better or Worse (4/4)

Part I | Part 2 | Part 3

Pairing: Ethan x F!MC (Becca Lao) & Bryce Lahela Rating: Teen+ Word Count: 1,308 Ethan Tropes: Mini Series; Angst; Break Up; Issues; Meet Again Bryce Tropes: Mini Series; Friends with Benefits

Series Summary: Two lovers, both alike in dignity. Prestige and pride and piteous misadventures overshadowing what could have been. Pride can be a devious foe backed by continuous rage. When will these two learn to say what they mean?

Chapter Summary: Epilogue. What happened 24 hours after the blowout & beyond.

______________

Ethan hadn’t seen Rebecca since that night. She had come to work, just never made an appearance in the Diagnostics wing. He’d heard she was spending time in the flailing clinic - bettering the processes, as much as he wouldn’t admit it. Even as her boss Dr. Ramsey couldn’t face her - couldn’t even send her a professional email about how unprofessional her avoidance is. The avoidance was for the best, he decided. Some time for them both to cool off.

Two weeks passed and they still hadn’t crossed paths.

Three weeks came and went, and it was time to face the music.

Ethan camped out with extreme apprehension in the diagnostics office, something pungent in the air yet his determination buried it aside. He headed the team meeting, once again without their junior member present. He paced around, alone, for a few minutes afterwards, restless with resignation. Sat at his desk drowning in defeat.

An email from Lara in HR was at the top of his inbox.

With tightened lips and furrowed brows, he opened it. Couldn’t bring himself to close it.

She’s leaving.

Effective immediately.

He hadn’t even been given the courtesy of her word. Just a line from someone else that the love of his life had resigned and will be taking the rest of her outstanding vacation and personal days from today.

Conflicting emotions war within him.

In the end, he tells himself it’s for the best.

Becca and Bryce co-habitated flawlessly.

A few days after she appeared on his doorstep, the rest of her things arrived just as Ethan promised. She looked at the stacks taking up most of his living room sadly, even more forlorn when she thought Bryce wasn’t watching her. He pulled her from the scene, ushering her to take a cleansing shower as he moved things around to make room for her.

After his confrontation with Ethan, Bryce sat down with Becca and told her she didn’t have to leave. He would help her figure things out, ‘hell, give it a few weeks to blow over and they’d get back together’ he kept saying. Ethan and Rebecca were written in the stars and everyone knew they belonged together. They just needed to get over this bump. Once their anger subsided, they could talk things through and plan the rest of their lives.

She scoffed at every affirmation.

Over the weeks more of her boxes were unpacked, he and Becca were even sharing the queen-sized bed.

She had only cried in front of him a handful of times those first weeks. Instead, Becca planned. Told him she wouldn’t be crashing here forever. That she would get her own place as soon as she could afford it. She pitched outcome after outcome on how to deal with Dr. Ramsey, volley severity of likelihood in confrontations verses emotional heartache at being in the same space. Ultimately, she took a leading role in the clinic whilst she figured things out.

In no time, she transferred hospitals - working on the same team as June Hirata - after swallowing her pride and chasing an outstanding offer. All things to keep her from Edenbrook’s fifth floor.

As sad as Bryce was to see her go, he supported her every decision. It was only a matter of time until his fellowship at Edenbrook ended and then he would be thrusted into the real world. Two things Bryce Lahela knew about what’s to come is that Becca would always be in his life, and that he would stay in New England - within a 5 hours drive to all the colleges Keiki was excited about.

The months flew by. Becca had moved out of Bryce’s one bedroom apartment and into her own place - a lofty two bedroom closer to work. She had a managing position at Boston Presbyterian Hospital, not in diagnostics like she had hoped, but a job that allows her to do the most good in the medical community.

So much time had passed since she was back in this little hamlet of Boston. Enough time that Keiki Lahela was graduating high school. Bryce was driving them down to Connecticut for the ceremony as soon as his early shift ended.

Here Becca was twenty minutes early for pick-up, strolling into her old haunt in an effort to avoid the lingering eyes of Edenbrook. Still anticipating that her grand vanishing and reappearance would entice the flow of the gossip mill.

She had only made it four steps through the doorway before stopping in her tracks.

There he was. At his stool at the far corner of the bar, back turned towards the door. She could still leave, turn on her heels and walk around the block as she waited for her friend. She planned on doing it too, except...

Reggie waved her in - “Look who it is!” a broad grin on his charming face, aging him down significantly.

Becca waved, taking slow steps in.

“How’ve ya been?” Reggie asks as soon as she sets her purse on the bar top.

“Good,” she says, settling onto the seat and not daring to look to her left. “You?”

Reggie said something pleasant along the lines of being old and still loving to work, honestly Becca didn’t comprehend a word he said. For her eyes landed on a glass of whiskey being set before her habitually, and all the memories loge themselves in her throat.

Silence follows as Reggie steps away. Becca doesn’t touch her damn drink.

Her companion clears his throat.

“Dr. Lao.”

Becca’s eyes rove over him - from half-clutched fists on the bar, up the sleeves of her favorite light blue shirt still crisp and tied together with a navy tie, to his hair, still perfectly placed, to his beard she always said suited him, now speckled, and, finally, a quick flick to his eyes - still ever blue and never telling.

“Dr. Ramsey,” she nods.

“I trust you’re well,” he asks like he hadn’t overheard her previous exchange.

She hums her confirmation, fingers tracing the condensation on her drink. “And you?”

“Not much different, I suppose.”

Becca doesn’t know whether to laugh or scream. This is all so unsettling. To sit here and pretend, after everything that’s happened to them and between them. It’s a wonder Reggie left them alone unchaperoned.

She inhales nice and deep, takes a large swig of her drink. Then, after all this time, she speaks;

“I hate how things ended.”

Ethan’s mouth drops, a defense ready to rebuke.

Becca holds up a hand that freezes the words on his tongue. “I know I’m just as much to blame as you, but you didn’t have to throw me out. Cutting me out of your life the second things got difficult hurt.”

“If I recall, you were the one that severed all ties between us.”

“Bryce and I -”

“I meant by leaving Edenbrook.”

Becca’s brows furrow as she asks incredulously, “You would have wanted to work side by side, everyday, after that?”

“I would have liked-” Ethan shifts in his seat. His back straightens and body turns to give her his full attention. “It doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“No,” the word so softly spoken as his sky blue eyes meet hers. “It doesn’t.”

The universe is sick and twisted and conspiring against any happiness they could share, Becca’s sure. Because not a second later her phone begins to ring, severing any moment bubbling between them.

“I’ll meet you in the lot,” she says into the receiver before hanging up.

Sliding off the stool, she shoots Ethan a sad little smile. Her eyes dart around looking for Reggie.

Before she could open her wallet, Ethan says his peace, “It’s on me.”

“Thank you.”

And with one lingering look on the man she has and always will love, Becca wanders out of the bar and to her ex-husband’s waiting car.

_____________________

a/n: it took me ages to figure out how i wanted this to end. part of me wants bryce to get his happy ending with becca. alas that’s not who becca is once she’s fallen in love with ethan...

Thank you for reading xx

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