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A/N: FIRST BAWSON FIC OMG. Happy to be here, hope y’all enjoy!
Title from “La Cienega Just Smiled” by Ryan Adams, because it’s Mike LawsonAF. When the “San Francisco” episode opened with a Ryan Adams song, it sent me into a spiral. Also, don’t tell me Mike Lawson hasn’t gotten divorce drunk with Ryan Adams at like, No Name Bar or something.
Raise My Glass ‘Cause Either Way I’m Dead
As luck would have it, Mike Lawson’s last good knee finally gives out just after Ginny Baker’s pitched the final game of her rookie season.
If he’s honest, really, it goes out sometime in the top of the eighth. But she’s pitched seven scoreless, her fastball’s still in the mid-80s and the screwball looks so nice it belongs on a magazine cover. He’ll be damned if he’s gonna leave this game before his pitcher, and she shows no signs of slowing down.
He strikes out on purpose in the bottom of the eighth, just so he won’t have to try and run anywhere. (They’re up 7-0 and he’s not even sure he could jog out a walk at this point, his teeth are gritted to the point that he’s worried about adding an oral surgery to the lengthy list of procedures he knows are in his very near future.) Of course, that’s when Ginny realizes something’s up.
“Think your eyes are starting to go, Lawson,” she calls as he returns to the dugout, and her voice is playful, but when he turns to look, she’s got her eyes narrowed at him like she can see the painful truth he’s trying with every part of him to hide. “That last one was right in front of you.”
As grateful as Mike is that she’s back to sassing him pretty much full-time, he’s not supposed to be talking to her for superstition’s sake, so he just tosses back a glare that he hopes can pass for a snarky comeback and crushes a tab of Vicodin between his back teeth.
Kneeling down behind the plate at the top of the ninth is one of the hardest things he’s ever done; he cants his hips to his “good” side and takes a moment to say a silent prayer that she gets through the inning easy, so he doesn’t have to try and hobble his way to the mound and talk her down.
The first two go like clockwork, it takes four throws total to pop them both out. The third guy sticks around – fuckin’ Justin Turner – and Mike starts cursing each bright red hair on the guy’s head as he fouls his way to an eight-pitch at bat. Ginny’s still got him at 1-2 though, because of course she does. She’s damn near perfect.
When he looks up to see her answer the next sign, staring into her eyes from what feels like just a few inches away, some part of him knows that this is going to be the last pitch of his career. And for the first time since his mortality set in – right around the ten-year mark, when his back really started going bad – he’s not afraid.
Turner’s bat whiffs the air just a few inches in front of his face, and a split-second later, the ball hits his glove. And that’s it.
Mike doesn’t hear it, but the ump must call the out because all of a sudden, Ginny’s rushing towards him, and all he can do is will himself to his feet and pray she doesn’t jump on him, because he does not want to end his MLB career by collapsing on national television.
Maybe she’s the one who hears his prayers these days, or maybe she just sees the pain scrawled across his face, because she stops herself short, her elated expression furrowing into a frown – like it does when she’s studying tape.
“C’mere rook!” He pulls her into a back-slapping bear hug before anything looks too suspicious, and a few other teammates crowd around to congratulate her too. The season’s two games from over and they’re way out of it, but it’s still a complete game shutout. More history made by Ginny Baker. Of course her season would end just as remarkably as it began.
“What’s wrong?” Mike can barely hear Ginny’s question in his ear over the roar of the crowd, but it reminds him that one, he’s still holding her, and two, his knee feels like it’s damn near about to fall off.
“Gimme a shoulder?” he asks weakly, knowing it’ll confirm whatever her suspicions are. “Need a little help to the dugout.”
She just nods, twisting to the side and letting him toss his arm around her shoulders. She wraps her own around his back, hand cupping in on his ribcage as she takes enough of his weight on to make things feel slightly more manageable, and Mike’s hit with a wave of relief so strong he almost doesn’t notice the smell of her shampoo when he turns his head to thank her.
Ginny stays with him, even when it gets awkward to navigate the clubhouse hallway, ignoring the muted celebration all around them. Beyond the blinding pain in his leg, Mike notices the hard set of her face and he can’t tell if she’s figured it out or not, but he curses his bad luck for marring what should be one of the biggest days of her young career.
“I’m good, Baker,” he assures her once he’s hoisted himself onto the nearest training table. She watches him grimace as he works his pads and pants off, and glares at him like she doesn’t believe him for a second. “Go celebrate.”
Ginny purses her lips like she wants to say something, giving him a long look that he thinks he might be able to understand if he couldn’t feel his pulse pounding in his temples.
“C’mon, go,” he says, harder, like he’s trying to shoo away a stray puppy. Or a duckling. “Kiki’s on the way. I’ll be fine. Go get your high fives and then put some ice on that Maddux-throwing arm.”
She goes, but that furrow stays between her brows and Mike pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers so he doesn’t have to watch her leave.
There’s not much the trainer can do for him, aside from tentatively confirm what he already knows and give him a good wrap-up. They’ve got to wait for the swelling to go down for a proper MRI, he knows the drill as well as he can predict the diagnosis that’s coming. When Kiki steps out to the locker room to grab another ice pack, Mike meets Ginny’s worried eyes on the other side of the door, like she’s been watching, waiting. He’d kick himself if he could.
He hasn’t felt this guilty about the prospect of ruining something for her since that night outside the bar, when they had been 99% sure he was going to the Cubs, and he had stopped her just short on the off-chance. His whispered, regretful protest, “We shouldn’t,” had felt like a moot point when they were close enough that the words made his lips brush against hers, just the tiniest bit.
Once he gets his crutches, and a half-shower around his bad leg, the locker room’s already cleared out, and there’s the matter of a meeting with Al and Oscar. It’s a short one, he’s hurt, and his agent’s out of town, and there are plenty of longer meetings to come. They all get more choked up than anyone expects, but Mike doesn’t actually shed a tear until he returns to the empty locker room to pack up his bag.
It takes no time at all, with his mother’s voice echoing in his head. “OK, grab as much of your stuff as you can in five minutes!” As he gets older, Mike has a hard time recalling the years before he figured her out.
He throws most of his stuff in his bag haphazardly, like he has all his life, tucking the box that holds his gavel into Blip’s bottom drawer. Then it’s time to go. He’ll be back here, of course, probably soon. But it does feel like goodbye.
Mike allows himself ten seconds of sentimentality, one last look around the clubhouse that’s been more of a home to him than the $7 million glass box in La Jolla where they send his mail. Making his way out, he heaves a heavy sigh that’s part exhaustion, part frustration and, if he’s honest, the tiniest niggling bit of relief. He’s been dreading the ominous “next step,” and the approaching end of his career had begun to loom over the game he loved like a black cloud. Now there’s nothing left to do but move on.
He grew up in this locker room, Mike thinks to himself. This locker room and every one like it, all the way back to Little League, when the only thing on the sides of the field were uneven wooden benches with moss winding up the legs. This is where he learned how to be a player, and more importantly, where he learned to be a man, growing up with an endless supply of surrogate brothers and looking for his father in every man who donned a coach’s cap.
Baseball gave him a family and a sense of purpose, and then, it gave him Ginny Baker, who he finds waiting for him in the players’ parking lot, with a shy smile on her face that makes him think she could be both. Mike’s not sure what that means, exactly. But maybe it’s time, maybe he’s ready to find out.
And of course it’s Ginny making the call for both of them, just like the 76 times she waved him off this season. (Yes, he counted. No he’s never done that with another pitcher. Shut up.) She’s leaning up against his car like the love interest in an ‘80s film – which, oh god, she’s probably too young to have seen – and Mike’s heart stutter-steps a little because she’s here and she’s beautiful and she waited for him. He’s ready to shove everything down like he always does, until he realizes that maybe he’s allowed to feel this way now.
“Saw your car, so I knew you drove here,” Ginny says by way of explanation, sounding even less sure than he feels. “Figured maybe you’d need a driver to take you home, seeing as your old man joints are starting to give out on you.”
She’s smiling still, but there’s that look again, just behind her eyes. It’s like worry, but worse, heavier with something Mike tries to convince himself that he’s imagining.
“Team could’ve had someone do it.” She knows that, obviously. They both know she knows that. He’s not sure why he snaps the words out, he’s panicking or something, so he tosses his crutches in the back and folds himself into the passenger seat before her face can draw up any further. “Just keep to the speed limit, huh Rook?”
She doesn’t. His stomach’s flipped upside down by the time they get to his place, and Mike tells himself that it’s due to Ginny’s terrible driving, and not because the air between them is crackling like a live wire and being next to her in his stupidly small car had made him want to reach over and touch her. Then she follows him into his house and he gives up trying to convince himself of anything.
“You DVR the game?” she asks, and he can hear how false the levity in her voice is, but he’s still not sure what she’s angling at. “Wanna watch some tape?”
She’s asking, technically, but Ginny’s already his living room, expertly switching on the TV and DVR with the separate remote that Mike can make work maybe 30% of the time. “Blip has the same one,” she had shrugged once. That she knows her way around his place, that she feels as comfortable here as she does at the Sanders house, these are things that have completely different meanings now. Mike takes a seat next to her on the couch, stretching his leg out to the coffee table, and reminds himself how to breathe.
They don’t even make it through an inning before she’s turning to glare at him. “You’re not paying attention.”
“Yeah?” He really doesn’t want to do this right now, but maybe it’s more of a rip-off-the-band-aid situation.
“Why aren’t you paying attention?” She’s not going to let this go. “Are you…is it because of your knee?” Fucking fine. Mike sets his jaw.
“Why don’t you ask me the question you really want to be asking?”
That catches her off-guard, and he’s glad because it gets him off the hook for a second, but it’s also devastating to see her that close to vulnerable. Ripping off the band-aid fucking hurts, is the part of that metaphor that nobody ever reminds you of when they’re trying to be convincing.
“So, that’s it?” Ginny’s doesn’t even try to mask the betrayal on her face. She’s giving him what he asked for, but it’s almost more painful than his knee, which has dulled to an aching throb thanks to whatever Kiki shot him up with. “You’re just done, you’re just gonna quit? Just like that?”
Mike sighs, rolling his eyes and turning to face the TV just so he doesn’t have to look at her wounded expression for a second. “I’m not quitting, Baker, my goddamn body is.”
“There’s surgery…”
“I’ve had the surgeries.” His pain tolerance is pretty high at this point, but he can’t bear to listen to her try and reassure him. “There’s not much left down there to reconstruct.”
“You could play first,” she offers after a slightly longer silence. They’re pretending to watch the game instead of each other, but he can feel her next to him, like she’s gotten closer.
“Nobody wants that,” he answers, and it’s probably true.
“What about…” She trails off, thinking better of what they both know she’s about to say. Because there’s at least a half dozen AL teams out there that would pay Mike good money to DH. But he just can’t stomach the idea.
“I’m a Padre, Baker.”
“No, I know.” Ginny ducks her head like she’s ashamed to have even almost suggested it, and when she repeats herself, it’s so soft Mike wonders if he’s imagining it. “I know.”
He’s pretty sure the assertion reminds them both of that lost moment in time when he came so close to not being Padre anymore. She barely spoke a word for days after their almost-kiss, and when she did look at him, it was like he had kicked her puppy or something.
Then the Chicago trade fell apart, and they never spoke of it again. Something that felt strangely like relief had settled between them as they moved on, packing their feelings away into neat little boxes. Well, maybe Ginny’s were neat. Mike was a mess. But they had held it together, and their maudlin moods didn’t raise any eyebrows as the team lost out the next week, dropping themselves out of the Wild Card. Again.
“What about the team?” She pivots to a new angle like she’s reading his mind, though it’s really just a different way to approach the same unspoken uncertainty.“You can't… It’s not fair.”
“The team’s not my problem anymore.” He fires back childishly, just to needle her about yet another question she wants to ask but won’t. However, as soon as the words leave his mouth, something in his shoulders unknots, like a weight’s being lifted off his back.
It’s the expectations, the pressure that he’s carried with him since the commissioner said his name at the podium all those years ago, a weight he hadn’t even realized he was dragging behind him. And now, he can leave it behind.
He’s not Mike Lawson, starting catcher for the Padres, anymore. He’s not the leader of an unruly clubhouse, or an aging player looking back over his shoulder at the next guy up, or the captain of a squad that keeps missing the postseason by just enough to make everybody wonder aloud. He’s someone different now. He’s just himself.
“I got 15 good years, Baker.” Mike never, in a million years, expected to feel happy in this moment, to be relaxed or comfortable on the day his career ends, but some part of him gets lighter with every second he sits here, looking at Ginny. “More winning seasons than not, couple of All Star selections. I got more than my fair crack at things.”
She stands abruptly then, switching off the TV and moving towards the door like she’s going to walk out on him. He’s rising to his feet to follow before he has the chance to think twice about it, trying to call after her, but wincing sharply when weight falls unconsciously on his bad leg. Mike sucks in a pained breath through his front teeth and the sound seems to echo in the suddenly silent space.
Ginny turns back to face him then, and her eyes are red-rimmed and narrowed again, just like they were earlier, in the dugout. “It happened in the eighth, didn’t it? Your knee? That’s why you struck out.”
“I wasn’t gonna let you finish that game without me.” His answer settles across her face and he watches the dimple next to her chin flicker as she takes a shuddering breath, so focused on that detail that he almost doesn’t notice the streaks that have started down her cheeks.
“How am I supposed to do this without you?” The tear-stained question is quiet, but devastating all the same. This is it. This is the moment he’s been waiting for since that night outside the bar.
And what timing, the two of them. Mike may be finished with his career, but Ginny’s only just beginning. God willing, she’ll be in the thick of things for years to come, and her whirlwind is like nothing like he’s ever seen before. He only wants to make promises that he knows he can keep.
“You don’t have to do it without me,” he tells her, holding her gaze for a long moment and willing her to understand the feelings he’s struggling to force into words. “You don't… If you still want…”
This is real, he’s trying to tell her. We can do this.
Ginny’s eyes twinkle, and there’s that dimple again, except this time it precedes a tentative smile.
“Yeah?” The hopeful look on her face just about does him in right where he stands. “You’re not going to call me off again?”
Mike shakes his head, huffing out a laugh in spite of himself. “God, Ginny, I was just trying…”
“I know.” She doesn’t let him finish, closing what's left of the gap between them and putting her hands on his cheeks before she kisses him, deep and slow. “I know, I know, I know.”
They pull back after a few more lingering pecks that he can feel all the way down to his toes, and she nuzzles her nose against his, murmuring words he can barely hear over the thud of his heart in his chest.
“You’re the best ballplayer I’ve ever known, Mike Lawson.” The emotion in her voice nearly brings tears to his eyes. And then it does. "But you’re an even better man.”
That’s what’s this feeling is, he realizes. It’s the opposite of the crushing, confusing guilt that had overtaken him when he came to terms with how he felt about Ginny, all those months ago. It’s the freedom to feel it now.
It’s hope.
Mike stays silent for maybe a beat too long, worried that opening his mouth too quickly might unleash a declaration that, although true, he’s almost positive they’re not quite ready for. Ginny just grins at him and it’s every good thing in the universe rolled into one. Then, she leans in and looks pointedly down at his lips. “So, we can do that again?”
“Yeah.” He smiles back. He can’t think of anything better to do. In the days to come, when dozens, maybe hundreds, of people ask him what’s next, he might just admit, “I’m going to be spending most of my time smiling at Ginny Baker.”
Five years ago, his team stopped making the playoffs, and three years ago, his marriage ended. Since then, all Mike Lawson’s wanted was one more good shot.
“Yeah, we can do that again.”