Work Text:
Sometimes when she's flying to LA, or back to New York, she'll be sitting at her gate, flipping through a recently purchased US Weekly (while ignoring the James Joyce novel she's always promising herself she'll read) and she'll hear, "Passengers traveling to Cleveland on Flight 179, be advised we'll begin boarding in about 10 minutes." And she'll look up, because maybe he'll be there, but he never is. After all, why would anyone ever leave the Cleve?
She's moved on. She's got a great boyfriend and even though his name is Lionel and he doesn't get along with Jack, she's happy. Enough. She's doing great otherwise too – TGS is still strong in the ratings, her movie was a hit at Sundance, and she's getting yearly dental check-ups.
Back in the airport, she thinks about what he looks like. Maybe he's grown an unfortunate midlife crisis beard or he's gained one hundred pounds and has rosacea. She fears that even if all of that were true, she'd barely notice it if she saw him because he's probably The One That Got Away.
After thinking she might see him, then not seeing him, then imagining him rotund and red-faced, she gets scared that she'll actually see him and she'll duck her head and cover face with a magazine.
Safe on her plane, she'll imagine running off and rushing to the Cleveland gate. 'Please,' she'll beg, 'I need to get on this flight. The man I love lives in Cleveland.' In this fantasy, no one would charge her credit card enough to max it out and there were no penalties or extremely invasive security checks. She'll sit happily on the plane, flying through the sunny skies, on her way to a man and a city that would embrace her and love her and be everything she needed.
Inevitably, a baby would start screaming in the row ahead and she'll take out her laptop and start to write a sketch about passive-aggressive ballerinas or polar bears on Xanax or anything. Just anything.
/end.