Spoiler warning: If you have not yet seen "Blowing Up is Hard to Do" you may want to wait before reading this.

Disclaimer:  Erica, Henry and Gary all belong to Tristar Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended.

Thanks to peregrin anna for beta reading.

Erica gazed out the window, hardly noticing the small soot-stained houses of the industrial town outside. Henry had stopped wheedling for yet another treat from the snack bar and had fallen asleep with his head in her lap. She sat as still as possible in the uncomfortable streamed-lined seat, trying not to disturb him. Her eyes were looking out the window of the train. But it was a
handsome face, with dark hair and a confused expression, that Erica saw.

“It’s better this way,” she said to the face. “Better for both of us.”

It had even started out all wrong.

The first day they met, Gary had told her to pay more attention to Henry. Nothing made Erica bust a gut so quickly as comments about the way she was bringing up her son. Usually the advice came from people with no kids; the critics never had
deadbeat ex-husbands. They didn’t know what it was like to try to earn enough to make ends meet and look after an active eight-year-old at the same time.

Gary’s criticism -- she hated it because it was true. Henry had started to run wild. He would give his sweet little smile and announce that he  was off to the library or the playground. But was he really running around with the wrong crowd of boys? Erica didn’t know. Before Gary gave her the manager’s job, she was too busy trying to pay the rent and the medical bills. Once she took the job, she was too busy running the bar. Erica tried to convince herself she was doing her best.

Of course, Gary had apologized afterward as if he, not she, was in the wrong. But that was Gary, always apologizing. Erica was getting tired of accepting.

To want to come first with her boyfriend or husband, was that so terrible, so selfish? If she stayed with Gary, the paper would come first. Gary would always, always be canceling plans and running off at a moment’s notice. Not that she blamed him. Usually people’s lives were at stake when Gary ran out to do the paper’s bidding. But that wasn’t how Erica wanted to live. She needed to be able to depend on something, even if it was just planning dinner and a movie.

Erica needed to know that *she* would come first with the man in her life. She had been through it before, when she considered marrying Nick Sterling. A nagging doubt had made her wonder if the doctor’s good works, and the publicity they
brought him, weren’t more important to Nick than Erica herself. At the time she thought Gary only a simple bar owner with no catastrophes or emergencies to call him away. Now that she knew better, the problem with Gary was worse than with Nick. Gary could never make any definite plans at all.

Oh, she had told Gary it had nothing to do with his famous paper. And really, there was no lie in what she said. She had been around Gary long enough to know that he would always run out to help whoever needed his assistance, whether he got tomorrow’s paper or not. Even without the paper he would still be making all those apologies that Erica was getting so tired of
accepting.

Yes, Gary would be hurt by her leaving. But in the long run she was doing him a favor. Gary needed a girlfriend who was more amenable and sympathetic to his way of life. There were woman who felt secure enough in their own lives that they could share a man with something bigger and more important than themselves. Maybe some women were attracted to heroes like Gary precisely *because* they gave of themselves so unselfishly to whoever needed them. Probably, Gary believed that Erica numbered among them. But Erica knew it wasn’t so.

Henry stirred in his sleep, then settled again. His mother shifted very slightly to accommodate his new position. She was still looking out the window, still seeing the face.

“It’s better this way,” Erica said again. “It’s better for both you and me that I get out now.”

Note: I realize that I may have given Erica more credit for insight than was warranted by her character on the show. I needed to do this in order to write from her point of view with any sympathy at all.

Feedback and comments are welcome.

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