TITLE: The End of an Era
E-MAIL: eli @ popullus.net
ARCHIVE: Ask, please.
RATING: PG-13
POSTED: Nov. 11, 2004
AUTHOR NOTES: Written as part of a series of snippets. For MC, who was looking to pair Sports Night with "commemorate."
DISCLAIMER: Read




At the signal from Dana -- which went something like: "Am I talking to myself? Raise your damn glasses, people!" -- everyone stood and toasted the pole.

Ten minutes and a sniffly bunch of people later, Dan and Casey retreated to stand with their backs against the conference room wall.

"Only us," Dan said.

The eye-rolling was audible. "'Only us,' what?"

"Only we, the lot of us, would be standing here reciting odes to commemorate this."

Casey snorted.

"I'm just saying," Dan said, and pulled his glass back in so its contents didn't end up all over Natalie. Then he snagged her elbow and leaned forward to peer at her, her awfully wet eyes, and her very red cheeks. "Did you all finally run out of tissues?"

She punched him in the stomach.

"...Ow?" Dan complained.

"Suck it up, Danny, I pulled it."

"She did," Casey agreed.

"And just how can you tell?"

Casey grinned. "You're not on the floor," he pointed out.

"Exactly." Natalie stuck out her tongue. "Pig."

"No, that'd be 'horse,' I believ-- Ow!"

He spun, hand pressed to the thwap-ped back his head, to scowl at Dana.

"What?!"

"Dan." Dana was standing there, her eyes narrowed in a way that had made more than one man quail. Dan stood his ground, though, and rubbed his head and made a note to make plans to do something horrible and uncomfortable to Casey for the unsupportive snickering.

"Yes, it was a horse, Dan," Dana said, quietly, not at all softly. "It was a horse that we all watched, and we all rooted for, and then--" She shoved a hand in his face and his head got another knock, this time on the glass wall, when her forefinger and thumb snapped the air maybe a centimeter away from his nose. "--just like that..."

Dan winced, watching the sniffling start up again.

"I don't understand what's the big deal," he muttered. "It's not like we don't have others. We're standing around, way past my bedtime, to drink glasses of a very bland champagne in rememberance of a cathode ray tube that was suspended from the ceiling and is now in more pieces than I feel like counting in the dumpster."

"This one was one of a kind, Rydell," Natalie informed him, poking him in the chest with a far longer fingernail than he'd suspected she could keep intact.

"It was a television," Casey said, apparently finally deciding to speak up for the honor of the situation.

Dana turned on him, leading with a pout. "But it was our television, Casey. The one that we've all watched so--"

"Who's up for margaritas?" Elliot bellowed.

Everyone turned, swayed by the promise of real alcohol.

"And someone better be planning to help me shake out these blues," Kim added with a wiggle for all to see from on top of Jeremy's desk.

There wasn't a stampede, but Natalie disappeared into the wave heading for the door, possibly pulled that direction by Jeremy. If that was so, Dan decided, Jeremy was getting a big kiss come Monday. Maybe Kim would do it after Dan kissed her for being a lovely, talented woman with a sense of timing and a terrific ass.

Dana, though...

He pulled back against the wall again when she spun to face him with a pointedly pointed finger.

"We're not done, Daniel."

Dan blinked at the full name. "Okay."

"You shall come up with a proper way to christen the...new television," she said with a somewhat theatrical sniff before the last two words.

He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Then, "I shouldn't point out that I'm not--?"

"I wouldn't," Casey whispered loudly on his right as Dana's eyes narrowed once more.

Dan nodded. "Right."

**

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