Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Miguel.

They’ve been in the car for three hours, which according to Ava, makes this the longest road trip she’s ever been on. So far, they’ve burned through three packets of chips, one packet of sour gummy worms, and a burger and a milkshake each. 

This whole trip is turning out to be a hard lesson in the fact that Miguel really can’t play in the same league as Ava when it comes to junk food consumption.

"Stop offering me snacks. I’ll die," he warns. 

"Stop taking them then."

"I’m serious. I’ll throw up all over you."

Ava shrugs, popping another gummy into her mouth with an air of overstated innocence. "I would’ve thought royalty would be made of tougher stuff, Miguel." 

Since he told Ava a few weeks ago that he’s Miguel Salvius, as in Jillian Salvius , the jokes have been coming pretty thick and fast. 

"I’m not royalty."

"Uh huh. Sure, you aren’t. The same way Bea isn’t royalty."

"Beatrice also isn’t royalty." He thinks. He’s pretty sure. Mostly sure?  

Ava hums. "No, she definitely is. Between the two of you, I’m surrounded on all sides. And one of these days, it’s gonna turn out that Diego’s a lost prince, or something. And a long lost relative will show up, and he’ll have to go rule a random —"

"Isn’t this the plot of The Princess Diaries ?"

"Miguel, this is very obviously completely different from The Princess Diaries ." Ava wriggles around in her seat, rearranging herself again. Extended drives do not seem to agree with her impulse towards constant motion. "For one thing, we don’t have a cat. And for another, who would even get the make-over? Bea and I are both hot already, and Diego is adorable." 

"Well, when you put it like that, it all falls apart," Miguel says dryly. 

He takes the next left, which leads them up the winding drive towards his mother’s property. It’s the manor Miguel grew up in: somewhat bleakly modern, but surrounded by endless grounds that he used to run through on his better days, when he was doing well enough to go outside. 

"Holy shit," Ava murmurs, watching the trees flicker by, and the house rising into view. "Be honest. Did you have a walk-in wardrobe?" 

"Yeah." 

It’s not until they’re held up at the gate, waiting for the security guard to clear them, that Ava starts to get nervous, her regular squirminess shifting into a more anxious kind of fidgeting. 

It’s a shame that Beatrice has classes today. If she were here, she could just do that thing she does, where she looks at Ava or touches her shoulder and the frequency that Ava’s vibrating on changes into something softer. 

But Miguel is not Beatrice, and all he can do is give Ava a reassuring smile and hope for the best. "She’s not scary," he says. "I promise." 

Ava scoffs. "I’m not scared."

"Right." 

"I’m starstruck, if anything. Because your mum is super cool." 

"She is."

"And a genius." 

Ava’s not usually one to get intimidated by people — Miguel won’t leave himself unattended with Lilith, for example, but Ava seems to make a sport of it — and it’s not super like her to suddenly freeze up this way. "Are you alright?" he asks. 

Ava makes a noncommittal noise, dragging her seatbelt out and letting it slither back into place again.

The gate whirs to life and the guard waves them through, and Miguel’s attention shifts back to the road for a moment. Maybe he needed to be facing away for Ava to speak, because once he turns, she says, "I’ve, like, never met anyone’s parents before." 

Miguel knew that, on some level. On more than one occasion, Ava’s alluded to the variety of extensive ass-kicking that would take place if she met Beatrice’s mother and father, but that’s the most he’s ever heard her talk about parents. 

It still does kind of break his heart to hear it, though. 

"I’ve never brought a friend to meet my mum before," he replies. "We’ll call this a practice round. And if we fuck it up horribly, we can put you sunglasses and a fake moustache and try again." 

Ava cracks a smile at that. "I do look great in a fake moustache."

They make their way up the path to the front door, where his mother is already waiting. He’d told her a lot about Ava, over the time they’ve been friends. Partly because he likes to update her on his life, and partly because he saw how it relaxed her, to hear about the people around him. She’d been so nervous when he left home, as though it were only her careful attention that kept him in remission, kept him safe. 

"Hey, Mum," Miguel says, leaning down to hug her as soon as she’s close enough. It’s always still the tiniest bit strange that she’s smaller than him; she towered all through his childhood, and towers even now. 

"Hello, darling." She cups his cheeks briefly, checking him over, and it nearly makes him laugh — because she does this every time; because he watched Ava do almost the exact same thing to Diego the other day, after he fell down face-first in an incident involving some untied shoelaces and a sudden flash of stubbornness. "And you must be Ava!"

"That’s me," Ava grins, bouncing up on her toes. Already, her nervousness has faded, outshone by excitement at the prospect of someone new to meet and charm. 

And Ava, because she’s Ava, does charm his mother, in about ten seconds flat. 

They take Ava on a tour of the whole place: Miguel showing off the incredibly sneaky hideyholes he favoured as a kid and Jillian allowing a peek into her lab.

The lab captivates Ava more than he thought it would, although perhaps he should’ve expected her to be entranced by a space bristling with machines and the potential for all sorts of havoc. 

There’s the welding gear, which promises the joys of contained fires and melting things, and the racks of neatly inventoried chemicals, ripe for the mixing. His mother is unusual, in the breadth of her scientific exploration — she sprawls beyond her specialty; a transdisciplinary scholar, forever certain the answers lie at the intersection of things. 

Miguel’s inclined to share this belief. Ava, for example, is best understood through her intersections: with Diego, with Beatrice, with everything she loves in the world. 

Ava’s got about a million questions for Jillian, and keeps referring to articles Miguel didn’t even realise his mother was in. Is he a bad son? Should he have a Google alert on her? But, to be fair, if he read every single article, he’d have no time to do other important things, like learn the chords to Mambo No. 5. Which he has done, successfully, by the way. Even if he keeps fucking up the lyrics. 

"— for a more consistent result," Jillian is saying, while Ava nods along. 

"That’s incredible," Ava replies.

Miguel has no idea what’s incredible. He’s lost track of the conversation. But Ava is visibly delighted, and now he really regrets not bringing Beatrice along too. He’s pretty sure that he and Beatrice are friends now, that she likes him, but it probably wouldn’t hurt his general standing with her if he could give her a chance to see Ava like this. 

Jillian tips her head. "What are you studying, Ava?" she asks.

"Oh, just, like, all sorts of stuff, at the moment." Ava stuffs her hands into her pockets and shrugs, so casual that he knows she’s not being casual at all. "But I’ve been thinking of, um, getting more serious with it, and everything. I took some biology classes last semester and I found it really interesting." 

What Miguel remembers about that biology class is explaining Punnett squares to Diego, and then getting lost in combining whole swathes of creatures. Does a shark crossed with a minotaur still have a fin? Would crossing a dragon with a mouse result in a very large mouse, a very small dragon, or a disappointingly medium-sized creature? Ava evidently took slightly more away from the lectures than he did, though. 

"Well, if you choose to get your credits, various departments at ArqTech host paid internships," Jillian informs her. "I’d encourage you to apply." 

Before Ava can respond, Jillian’s phone rings, and she glances at the screen.

"I’m sorry," she tells them. "I really must take this." 

She steps out of the room, leaving Miguel and Ava alone. 

"I didn’t realise you were thinking so much about all this stuff," Miguel says. 

"Yeah, kinda." Ava bumps her shoulder to his. "Like, I love being a bartender, and I’m awesome at it, obviously."

"Obviously." 

"But it would be cool to try other things too, one day." She pauses. "And I want to find a job where the hours aren’t, you know, wildly incompatible with school schedules." 

"Don’t most schools finish at two in the morning these days?" 

"Ha ha." 

Cara. 

Fucking Owen. 

Stupid, idiot, asshole, selfish Owen. 

Hot, regrettably still longed-for Owen. 

Ugh. 

What kind of reason is I just don’t know if I can envision everything with you for breaking up with someone, anyway? Who even says shit like that? 

It’s day four of her horrible, no good, very bad mood, and today, she’s treating it the exact same way she did yesterday: by going to the cafe on the corner and ordering something that’s mostly sugar with a splash of coffee. 

After Cara pays, she heads over to the little waiting area, leaning back against the wall. She glares at the floor. She glares at the ceiling. 

Everything is terrible. 

With no regard for this terribleness, someone nearby laughs — a girl in cutoffs and the kind of shirt that could only be described as appropriate attire for a Wiggles concert. 

"So?" the girl says to her companion. She’s smiling. Beaming, really.

Sure. Of course this girl can beam. It’s probably pretty easy to be that happy when you have a hot, dark-haired girl with perfect posture holding your hand and gazing at you indulgently. A girl who can evidently envision things with you, or whatever. 

Cara, who has always liked the press on a bruise, watches the two of them. 

"I don’t understand," the one with perfect posture says. 

"What’s to understand? It’s from Twitter."

A small sigh. "But why are you a worm, in this scenario?" 

"I just am." 

"What kind of worm?" 

The smiley girl leans closer. "Does it matter what kind?" 

"Ava, why would you preface this by saying it’s a very serious question if you don’t want me to take it seriously?" 

"Because I thought it would be funny. And it is a serious question, thank you very much." 

The one with perfect posture is either doubling down or teasing now: "It’s not just a bridge we can cross if this eventuality ever arises?"

"Sorry, we absolutely have to cross it now," Ava insists. 

It doesn’t look like they’re going to, though. They’re seemingly content entertaining one another with this constant back-and-forth while they wait for their orders. The dark-haired girl even makes something of a concession to her perfect posture when the other one tilts into her side; she lets go of her hand, wrapping an arm around her instead. 

"Cara!" the barista calls, setting down a drink on the counter. "Pickup for Cara!"

Cara slopes off to grab her caffeine-syrup monstrosity, leaving before she can find out the answer to would you still love me if I was a worm?  

Who cares about worms, though, Cara thinks. She just wants someone to love her that obviously and easily while she’s a person. 

Joseph.

Lars slumps against the fence, sinking all the way down onto the grass. "I’m going to die," he groans. 

"You’re not going to die," Joseph says. 

He and Diego kneel down across from him, and Joseph shoots Diego a somewhat panicked look — he’s awful at comforting people. 

Diego’s much better at it, thankfully. He shuffles forward and pats Lars on the back in that very particular way he does: three pats, and then a beat, and then three more. 

"It’s okay," Diego promises him.

Lars just groans again. 

"It’s an easy mistake to make," Joseph says. "It’s, like, you’re so used to saying mum all the time that it just sort of comes out of your mouth by accident." 

"I don’t care about that ," Lars mumbles. "I care that everyone heard . I’m going to get so much shit for this." 

Joseph shakes his head. "No, it’s fine. We’ve all done it at least once. I mean, I’ve definitely done it." There: solidarity. Maybe Joseph isn’t so crappy at this whole comforting thing after all. "And Diego’s done it too! Haven’t you, Diego?"

For a moment, Diego doesn’t answer. His hand stills on Lars’ back, and then he pulls away completely, curling in on himself a little.  

"Everyone does it," Diego echoes dutifully. "It’s like Joseph says, right? You guys are just — used to it." 

He gives Lars a smile that isn’t like any of his usual smiles, and suddenly, Joseph feels awful.

Because of course Diego never gets mixed up. He never says yes, Mum or no, Mum or in a minute, Mum. He has no one to say it to. 

Joseph is the worst best friend in the world. Alive today, and in all of history. 

He wants to say sorry, but Lars hasn't noticed anything, and Diego would hate for him to draw attention to it. 

Eventually, they manage to calm Lars down, but Diego’s even quieter than usual all afternoon, and by the time school wraps up, Joseph has rehearsed and scrapped about seventeen different apologies. 

"Hey, um, Diego?" Joseph catches up to him as they’re following their other friends out of the classroom. "At lunch, I didn’t mean —"

"It’s cool," Diego interrupts quickly. "I knew what you meant." 

They spill out of the building and onto the grounds. From here, Joseph can see his mum waiting for him by the gate, which means that Diego must be able to see her, too. And if today was a Tuesday or a Friday, Diego wouldn't care; he'd wave goodbye to Joseph and run off to Ava, who's never late. But it's Wednesday, and that means Diego walks back to St Michael's with one of the Sisters and a couple of other kids.

Diego turns away from the fence, but not towards Joseph, not really. He’s angled a little to the left of him, and Joseph, out of kindness, doesn’t try to meet his eyes. 

"It was dumb of me to say," Joseph tells him. "It wasn’t nice of me. I’m really sorry." 

"It’s okay. I’ve gotta go, though, so —"

But Joseph misses the rest of Diego’s sentence, because he thinks he catches another familiar face at the fence — someone else, standing next to his mother. 

"Is that Beatrice?" Joseph asks, craning up to get a better view. 

Diego shakes his head without even checking. "No, it’s Wednesday." 

"I’m pretty sure that’s Beatrice." 

Diego sighs, but twists around to follow Joseph’s line of sight. And Joseph was mostly certain before, but he really knows it must be Beatrice for how Diego reacts. All the heaviness on him suddenly folds into something else, and he smiles for the first time since this morning.

Then they’re off — the dawdling ends, and they wriggle their way through the flood of other kids with purpose, only pausing because Joseph nearly trips over a ball. 

Once the two of them are spat out of the traffic bottleneck at the gate, it’s only a few more quick steps until they’re in front of Beatrice and his mum. 

When Joseph was little, he used to cling to his mother the second he saw her. She’d scoop him up in a tight hug and take his backpack, slinging it over her own shoulder before setting him down again, and they’d hold hands the whole way home. 

But he’s getting bigger now, and he’s starting to feel more awkward about it. A lot of the older students don’t hug their parents at all, and Joseph doesn’t want to be the last one to grow out of something.

Diego has absolutely none of these hesitations; he hurls into Beatrice without a blink. Beatrice doesn’t blink either — she just hugs him back.

"You’re here!" Diego exclaims, mid-hug. 

"I am." Beatrice pats his back, and Joseph counts along, one-two-three. "Hello, Joseph."

"Hi, Beatrice." 

He realises, abruptly, that he’s technically known Beatrice longer than Diego has, even though Diego knows her much better. But there was a time — a time that now seems bizarre in hindsight — where Beatrice was his teacher and Diego was his friend, and the two of them had no knowledge of each other, and went through the world entirely separately. 

Diego pulls away from Beatrice and says hello to Joseph’s mother, too, giving her a wave and his most polite how are you . 

Then Diego’s attention switches back to Beatrice, and he pokes at the same mystery that Joseph is wondering over: "It’s Wednesday," Diego says. "It’s not one of our days."

"Well, I thought we could go and try to find a present for Ava’s birthday. We can’t do that when Ava’s with us," Beatrice explains.  

"Obviously," Diego agrees, very sensibly. "But are we allowed to just go?" 

"I arranged it with Mother Superion," she assures him. "She said it was alright, this once. I told her it was special circumstances." 

Diego tugs on the straps of his backpack, as though he needs to get a sudden jolt of enthusiasm out of his body. "We should come up with more special circumstances!"

Diego is full of restless, skippy energy for the next minute, and when he hugs Joseph goodbye, he doesn’t feel sad or faraway. 

Joseph watches as Diego and Beatrice head off down the street; in the growing distance, Diego is all gestures and exclamations, relaying something to Beatrice with what appears to be a lot of detail and emphasis. It's as if his quietness from earlier wasn't really quietness, but a piling up of unspoken things — things that have a place to go, now. 

"Ready?" Joseph's mum asks him, turning to start their own walk home. 

"Yeah." 

He reaches out and grabs her hand as they leave, and she glances at him, surprised. He hasn’t done that in a long while, and they’re still where any of his friends could see. But he doesn’t mind; having a mum who loves him seems like a pretty stupid thing to be embarrassed about, sometimes. 

Colin. 

There's a totally cool stall at the pop-up market that does all these awesome, unique stickers, and Colin is obsessed with it. 

Colin fucking loves stickers. All colours, all kinds: he puts them on his school books, his fridge, his prosthesis, his car. He'd like to get tattoos, too, but he's afraid of needles. Something he's still hoping he'll grow out of one day.

He’s debating between three different options — Colin wants to buy all of them, Colin’s wallet wants him to exercise some restraint for once — when he hears a voice he recognises. 

Colin whips around, and sure enough, that’s Beatrice at the stall diagonally across from him, the one that sells funky hats. 

He puts the sticker he’s holding back down on the bench. "I’m coming back," he promises Bianca, shooting her a double thumbs up. 

She laughs. "Okay," she says, undoubtedly very confident that he will come back, because Colin is the definition of a regular customer. 

He darts off, swerving around a dude with a pram. It’s only when he’s closer that he sees the little boy standing next to Beatrice, his hands curled up by his eyes like binoculars as he laughs about something and she smiles down at him. 

"Hi," Colin grins at Beatrice, waving. Then, taking a guess, "You must be Diego!"

Diego drops his hands from his face and regards Colin with far more suspicion than Colin’s expecting. "How do you know my name?"

Ah. Colin probably should’ve started by, like, introducing himself. Whoops. At least Diego’s got his stranger danger reflexes down. Not that he would’ve expected Beatrice to skimp in the safety department. 

"This is my friend Colin," Beatrice supplies. "We lift weights together sometimes." 

Colin’s never heard Beatrice refer to him as her friend before, and he can’t help but be a bit stoked. Maybe she’s just trying to reassure Diego, but it still counts. 

"Oh." Diego nods in understanding. Then, to Colin: "Can you lift as much as Beatrice? Could you lift Ava? That’s how you have to measure it." 

"That's how Ava measures it," Beatrice mutters. 

"Um," Colin says. Diego is looking at him expectantly, but Colin has no idea how much Ava weighs. So. The path forward is unclear. He decides to pivot. "Are you guys enjoying the markets?" 

Diego recounts a few things they've seen, glancing up at Beatrice every so often as though to double-check what he's saying, or in a silent request for her to explain something or fill in a blank, which she does. 

In this moment, Beatrice is a slightly different version of herself than the one he’s used to. It’s not that Beatrice is ever scary — even if, okay, he was intimidated in the beginning — but Colin has always considered her to be quite reserved, everything about her lined up and tucked away. Now, though, it seems strange that he ever thought of Beatrice like that: as someone mostly closed. 

"Have you seen anything cool here?" Diego asks. "We’re on a present quest." 

"Oh, nice. Well, um, I’ve just been to Bianca’s stall," Colin says, gesturing back across the small street. "She’s got some really cool dragon stickers right now. Beatrice told me you like dragons, yeah?" 

Diego shines then, very pleased, and at first Colin assumes it’s because of the dragons, but then Diego nudges a little closer to Beatrice, and Colin’s understanding shifts. 

"I do," Diego says, happily. "They’re my favourite." He gives Colin a wide smile. 

Colin gets the feeling that possibly nothing could’ve got him in Diego’s good books faster than mentioning that Beatrice talks about him. "Mine too, dude. Can’t go wrong with a dragon." 

Camila. 

They're sitting on cushions on Camila's floor, facing one another. Diego’s holding his notebook, and Camila’s holding an extra pillow. To help with the stress. 

"— and then the rain turned into a torrent, and Bartholomew was swept away," Diego finishes, with a flourish of a hand gesture that is clearly meant to evoke said sweeping away. He snaps his notebook shut. 

"But she can't swim!" 

Diego nods. "Beatrice said it’s called a cliffhanger." 

"I’m terrible with cliffhangers," Camila admits. "I always start the next chapter or skip to the next episode immediately." 

"I haven’t written the next chapter yet." Diego taps the cover of his notebook thoughtfully. "I guess I could tell you, if you can keep it a secret."  

He glances across the room, over to where Beatrice is locked in an intense debate with Lilith, and Ava is watching, throwing in occasional comments that seem solely intended to wind Lilith tighter. Camila is more than used to Lilith and Beatrice’s brand of recreational arguing: always in level voices, always over something pointlessly complicated, always when both are struck by the exact right mood. They’re all far too focused to overhear anything. 

Camila mimes zipping her lips. "I'm a vault," she promises. 

"A vault?"

"Like a safe. But bigger." 

Diego considers this. "I like that. I'm going to put one in the next chapter." 

"So, how does Bartholomew escape?" Camila asks.

"If Camila gets to know, I get to know!" Ava calls out, and maybe Camila was wrong about them being mostly out of earshot, because they're all turning towards him now. 

Diego shakes his head, clamming up. "Nope!" He preens under the attention, under Ava's excitement. 

"Aw, not even a clue?" Ava drops onto the floor beside him, poking his arm. "For your number one fans?"

It's forever interesting how Ava and Beatrice hype him up in different ways: Ava asks him questions like an interviewer at a press conference and points out her favourite parts on every page; Beatrice praises his ideas and vocabulary, and puts his notebook on the shelf with her favourite novels when he leaves it at their apartment for safe keeping. 

"You can't have more than one number one fan," Diego points out, grinning.

"Who told you that? That's obviously a lie, D."

Diego pokes her arm in return. "Because it's number one. " 

"Oh, I see how it is. Well, if you're going to be like that about it —"

"No tickling!" Diego shrieks, preemptively scuttling away from Ava and towards Beatrice and Lilith, taking cover between them. 

Ava holds up her hands in surrender, but Diego only sticks his tongue out at her, apparently having decided to commit to his new location. 

"Does Bartholomew even have to get rescued?" Lilith chimes in. "Couldn't she become a sea monster or something?" She pauses, then course-corrects: "Or — whatever you want to do with it." 

"I do love sea monsters," Diego agrees, and Lilith doesn't smile, but something about her sharpens victoriously. 

Which is a definite tune change from earlier, when Lilith lost at three different video games. Try as she might, Camila has yet to find a single game that Lilith isn't terrible at, even when Camila sets it on easy. She wondered, at first, whether Lilith was just letting Diego win in some sort of dislocated display of affection, but it's become apparent over the months that Lilith is really just that bad. 

The fact that she stays later after aikido on Tuesdays to read Diego's new chapter is one of those dislocated displays of affection, though. It's sweet, even if Camila's offended that it means Lilith usually gets to read it before her.  

Luis . 

Therese seems kind of nervous. He wraps his arm around her and presses a kiss to her cheek. 

"It’ll be super relaxed," Luis swears. "They're all really easy to get along with."

She nods, and they make their way up the stairs and into Miguel’s house. It’s already busy, although not overcrowded, which is exactly what he was hoping for. He doesn’t want to throw Therese in the deep end. He’s prepped her with brief explanations of who everyone is and how he met them, but it’s probably a lot to take in all at once. 

"Alright, I need faces to names," Therese murmurs, glancing around.

Luis nods, and starts pointing out his friends, without much of an attempt at subtlety. "That's Ricci, with the red sweater. And that’s her boyfriend Winston, holding the jug. That's Miguel — you know Miguel. And Sarah is beside him. And that's Ava and Beatrice."

Therese frowns. "And they’re the ones who — who aren’t dating, right?" The frown is justified: Ava is sitting on the counter, and has pulled Beatrice back to rest against her, letting her loop her arms around Beatrice's neck. They’re chatting to Miguel and Sarah, neither of whom appears the slightest bit fazed by the display; it’s very on-brand for Ava, who never lets the opportunity of Beatrice being within touching distance go to waste. 

"Right," Luis nods. "It’s a whole thing. Like, they aren’t. But they are. Except don’t mention anything about it, because they aren’t." 

"Huh?"

"Yeah." 

They make their way into the kitchen and Luis gets a drink for Therese first, and then himself — it’s his first time being a boyfriend, but he thinks he’s doing alright at it so far — and introduces her to the rest of the group. He’s given Ava and Miguel firm instructions to be chill, which he’s half-sure they’ll abide by. 

It goes smoothly, just like he thought it would — in no time, they’re pulled easily into the conversation, as if he and Therese have been there all along. 

"Oh, I found a whole bunch of my old Nerf guns when I was at my mum’s place last week," Miguel says. "D’you reckon Diego would be interested?"

"I see how it is," Ava grumbles. "The cute kid gets first dibs, over me, your beloved friend, who could also really go for a Nerf gun." 

"So, that’s a yes?"

"You know it."

"Wanna come round on Friday? We can have a shootout."

"Totally," Ava agrees, but Beatrice starts to shake her head, and Ava goes, "Oh, right. We’re at Mary and Shannon’s. Are you free Saturday?"

As the schedule haggling continues, Therese leans over to Luis and whispers, "Who’s Diego?" 

Which is a great and very reasonable question. Luis definitely should've figured out how to answer it before they came here. 

"Well," Luis starts. In truth, it’s not an arrangement that he’s ever really had clearly explained to him. It's just — how it's always been. He learned it from Ava never being available on Friday nights, from her ever-changing lock screen photograph with its ever-constant elements, from watching Diego cheat at frisbee by pleading his way into a piggyback from Beatrice so that he has the highest possible vantage point. "He’s like Ava’s brother. They grew up together. But he’s not her brother. But he is."

Therese tilts her head. "Like how those two aren’t dating, but they are?" 

"Exactly." 

Later, in the car on the way home, she says, "Your friends are complicated. Like, very cool. But very complicated." 

Luis thinks that his friends are actually pretty simple: that the complicated stuff is just a sheen over the surface that stops them from having to consider how simple it really is. But it’s never been his place to say anything about it, beyond a few smirks levelled at Ava and some jokes with Miguel, and so he doesn’t. 

Besides, they’re getting there. 

Shannon.

She’s always been a light sleeper, prone to waking up a few times a night, and the effect is magnified when she’s somewhere different. 

Tonight, different is their backyard: Diego has been desperate to go camping, and sleeping out under the stars behind Shannon and Mary’s house is their trial attempt at the whole experience. 

Beside her, Mary is still out, eyes closed. She tends to frown in her sleep, which Shannon finds charming; or perhaps what she finds charming is the way the frown clears when Mary wakes up, how she sees Shannon and her expression changes, first thing. 

Shannon slips out of their makeshift bed and stands, stretching her arm, working through a couple of nerve glides. Sometimes, when the weather changes too much too quickly, her old shoulder injury still twinges. It’s not too bad, anymore, but it’s better to get ahead of these things. 

From here, she can see the banked remains of the small fire they’d had in the pit, and the arrangement of the others, strewn out across the lawn. 

Diego, Ava, and Beatrice are lined up on a collection of mats. Ava has curled around Beatrice, and the way the two of them are pressed close makes Shannon sure they’ve slept like this before, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Together, Ava and Beatrice have made an art out of avoiding change, or rather, of changing everything except that last little thing that makes it impossible to go back. 

Diego’s head pops up from his nest of blankets. In the moonlight, Shannon can see him blink, rubbing the back of his hand across his eyes. He catches sight of her and squirms free, scooping up his water bottle from the ground nearby before weaving his way over to her. 

He’s wearing a hoodie that he inherited from Ava recently — it features a graphic of a turtle in a judge’s wig, with the word TORTLE printed below. Shannon’s not sure he actually gets it, but he wears it all the time now anyway. 

"You’re awake, too," he says — softly, so he won’t wake everyone else.

"Yep. Thought I'd check out the stars for a bit."

They sit down together in two of the chairs by the firepit and tip their heads up to look at the sky. 

"How are you liking camping so far?" Shannon asks. 

"It’s cool," he whispers back. "Definitely marshmallows are the best part." 

Only Shannon, Ava, and Diego eat marshmallows — Beatrice is bothered by the texture and Mary finds them too sweet — but between the three of them, they’d managed to finish off a whole packet. Shannon had about three marshmallows total, so most of the credit has to be split between Ava and Diego’s industrious efforts. 

"Marshmallows are the best part," Shannon confirms. 

Diego’s attention drifts back to the stars for a moment, and then over to their campsite: the inflatable mattresses and the sleeping bags and the heaps of pillows — almost every single pillow from their house.

His expression shifts, and she can’t quite read him anymore.

"Everything okay?" 

At Diego’s age, if asked anything about how she was feeling, Beatrice had a variety of responses. She’d inform Shannon, stony-faced, that she was fine, that it didn’t matter, or just change the topic completely. Occasionally, when she did open up, it was almost always accompanied by a preface: this is ridiculous, but —

It’s a habit that stuck through her adolescence, a sense that emotions could only be discussed after having gained distance from them, after positioning them as inconsequential or unimportant. 

Shannon doesn’t really hear Beatrice talk like that anymore. Maybe it’s growing up and growing into herself, and being away from her parents. Maybe it’s Ava’s influence, and how she wants to put every one of Beatrice’s feelings under light and examine it and take it seriously. Or maybe it was a conscious choice, out of fear that Diego might pick it up, might start to speak and think in the same way. 

"Yeah," Diego says. "It’s just nice, isn’t it? It’s really nice."

"It is," Shannon replies. 

There’s a beat, and then Diego admits, "I wanted to try it because of what you said. You said that camping trips were your favourite thing when you were a kid."

Actually, what Shannon said was that family camping trips were her favourite, but this omission, it seems, has been made deliberately: Diego is watching her very carefully, now, his fingers tugging at his hoodie sleeve. 

"Is this like the ones you remember?" he asks. 

"Well, my brother used to snore like a tractor," Shannon answers, and Diego’s nose crinkles in amusement. "But other than that, they were exactly like this." 

Diego nods, satisfied, and the two of them sit there a little longer, until Diego yawns, and then he’s off again, saying goodnight to Shannon before disappearing back into his nest, wriggling a bit closer to Ava before going still. 

Glen. 

He and Ava go to the print shop together once every few weeks. He gets sent a lot of pictures of his grandchildren, but having the photographs on his tablet screen isn't the same as a real, genuine photo album, and Ava always has more to add to that picture wall of theirs. 

They wait for a nice day when Ava's free, and they walk together. Glen moves slowly, but Ava never seems to mind. She's always racing or dawdling, that one — trying to get somewhere important or deciding that where she's standing in any given instant is the most important place after all. 

"— and we're going to see if we can get a whole weekend, and take him camping properly," Ava says. "It'll depend on Mother Superion, though. And work. I'm always scheduled on weekends."

"I've got equipment you can borrow," Glen offers. "It's a bit old, but it's tough stuff. It'll get the job done." 

Mallory was big on hiking. God knows how many mountains he followed her up. After a while, Glen took to it, too, but he'll never know whether it was hiking he loved or the way it felt to hike together. They went on a few long treks, after their youngest moved out. He even kept going after she died, noticing all the bugs and looking at all the horizons for the both of them. 

Eventually, the kids worried too much about him having a fall, and he had to give it up. But he still goes to stand in the shallow part of the woods, sometimes — to feel all his old luck. Even if most of it has gone now, he still had it, way back when. 

Or maybe it isn't gone. Maybe it's not one of those things that disappears. Maybe it just changes states, or passes on to someone else. 

Next door has a lot of that same luck now, and it's nice to live beside — to occasionally hear Ava's loudest laughs through the wall, or Diego's indignant screech over something-or-other, or the front door open and close at six a.m., when only Glen and Beatrice are awake. 

"Thanks! That'd be so awesome!"

They pass the bakery that they'll stop at on the way back — Glen will eat what he likes, cholesterol be damned; the time for skipping mid-morning desserts is long over — and then they're at the little print shop. 

It's small and poky, downsized for the modern age, but it has that comforting inky smell. 

And the boy at the counter who's obviously got a soft spot for Ava, but has developed enough of Ava's pictures of Beatrice and Ava with Beatrice to lose that hopeful quality he had at the start. 

Lucia.

Mira is always a handful, but she’s especially a handful when she’s excited. And nothing makes Mira more excited than swords and the opportunity to run in places clearly labelled no running . As a result, the museum is her absolute favourite place in the world. 

It’s not uncommon to lose track of Mira at the museum, on account of said running, and the fact that Lucia can’t really predict which sword or mace or helmet will next pinch her attention. It’s still mildly panic-inducing every time, though. 

Lucia clears the exhibition hall and — taking the gamble that Mira might’ve gone back to stare longingly at that jade dagger again, as if she can wish it into her hands — returns to the previous room.

She’s wrong about the dagger, in the end, but she does find Mira, talking to two strangers.

"Mira, please don’t just disappear," Lucia begs, before she can get distracted by anything else, like the young woman Mira is chatting to, who is certainly the definition of distracting. 

"Sorry!" Mira has mastered the art of an apology that is all sincerity and no meaning: she really is sorry, and she will do it again immediately, at the first chance she gets. "But I saw my friend. This is Diego. From aikido. I’ve told you about him, remember? And this is Beatrice! She teaches us." 

Lucia does remember Diego. Mira sends Lucia a rambling email at least once a week — her concession to carrier pigeons not being a viable option — and Diego’s name has popped up a dozen times there, and in general conversation. He seems like a sweet kid, from what she’s heard.  

Beatrice has been mentioned, too, in only the most reverent of terms. Perhaps most significantly, despite how laissez-faire Mira can be about grammar, Beatrice has earned herself a capital letter each time Mira writes about her — an honour afforded to very few. 

What doesn’t come through in emails or Mira’s energetic tirades about blocks and kicks is that Beatrice is gorgeous. 

"Hi," Lucia says. "I’m Lucia. Nice to meet you both. I’m Mira’s sister. I’ve heard a lot of great things about your class."

Diego has shuffled ever-so-slightly closer to Beatrice’s side at Lucia’s appearance, which is not unfamiliar to Lucia — it’s similar to the kind of move Mira pulls when she’s confronted with an adult she’s afraid might be boring or ask her to do a chore. 

Lucia doesn't have much to help her guess at the relationship between Beatrice and Diego. They don’t resemble one another enough to look like siblings in the least, although she supposes there’s more to looking like siblings than physical resemblance; Lucia recognises herself and Mira in the way Diego glances up at Beatrice, waiting for her to reply on their behalf. 

Beatrice reaches out a hand. Her grip is firm but careful, like she’s put thought into exactly how this is supposed to be done. 

Lucia’s always had a weakness for careful people, for teasing their edges. 

In the end, Lucia doesn’t even have to do anything — Mira is her unknowing wingman, pleading to stick with Diego, who nods in immediate agreement. 

Lucia walks beside Beatrice while the kids scurry ahead of them; thankfully, Diego seems extremely resistant to running inside, which reins in Mira, even if only for now. 

It’s hardly a date-like atmosphere — keeping at least one eye on a ten-year-old has a certain impact on the vibe — but Lucia’s determined to make the most of it. She doesn’t like to waste opportunities, especially opportunities with girls like Beatrice. 

Beatrice is an expert at keeping the conversation off herself, redirecting to Lucia or the kids, but Lucia still manages to squeeze in a few of the usual questions, and gets interesting answers. Many of these answers also include passing references to someone named Ava , and around the sixth or seventh mention, Lucia nudges Beatrice for more information. 

"So, this Ava," Lucia says. "She’s your girlfriend?"

Beatrice ducks her head. Her hands are tucked away in her pockets; everything about her is so contained, and Lucia wonders what she’s like uncontained. If there’s anyone who knows. If Ava does. "Isn’t that quite a direct question?" 

"I’m quite a direct person," Lucia shrugs. "But I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable."

"You didn’t." There’s a pause. "No, she’s not my girlfriend." 

Lucia's familiar with that kind of pause — with relationships that require such a pause, that necessitate a beat of silence before anything else, unable to be articulated only with words. "Ah."

"Ah?"

"I have a friend like that. Who’s not my girlfriend, either." 

Yves: beautiful, terrible, always turning away and then turning towards Lucia again.  

Lucia has decided to give up trying to find out what’s holding Yves back, and she doesn’t know what’s holding Beatrice and Ava back either. It’s not really her business. 

But maybe Lucia can make a case for herself as someone to hang around in the meantime. 

Lilith.

She leaves them to it, at first. 

It is, admittedly, a little funny how quickly and obviously Ava’s mood tanks as soon as she notices the hot woman hitting on Beatrice. 

Lilith could step in, of course, but she won’t. Ava’s due for some karmic punishment — just last week, Lilith was forced to watch while Ava got Beatrice’s keys out of her pocket because both of Beatrice’s hands were full, and Ava chose to do that rather than take one of Beatrice’s bags.

Lilith hangs back as Beatrice introduces the newcomers to Ava, who does less than a passable impression of her usual self. 

Beatrice notices this, of course, and reaches out, but for once, this garners little in the way of a pathetically thrilled reaction from Ava. 

It’s then that Lilith considers that, maybe , this isn’t the same display of idiocy that Beatrice was prone to in the early stages of Ava's friendship with that blond boy. 

Beatrice just seems confused by Ava's stiltedness, because of course she is, because Beatrice is never going to look at Lucia as anything other than a friendly acquaintance. But Lilith can see what Ava sees: that her relationship is one without labels or rules or clear definition, and whenever there are people interested in disrupting it, Ava has nothing to tell them.

Ava has always been one to hang on tightly, shamelessly, to what she’s got, and it’s almost unsettling to witness her feel like she’s fumbling her grip. 

None of this is Lilith’s problem, of course — she’s free to ignore all this nonsense. And she’s going to. She will.

Except there’s the very real risk that this will drag down Ava’s general level of positivity to such an extent that she no longer feels inclined to give Lilith free drinks. Which, despite her lack of care for whatever juvenile displays of romantic incompetence Ava and Beatrice are engaged in at any given time, would affect Lilith’s quality of life.  

So, Lilith — begrudgingly — swoops in and manoeuvres Lucia away to join her own class. Which already contains one other would-be suitor for Beatrice who Lilith is keeping out of the mix. Now she's got a set.

It’s not that Ava’s in any way the superior choice — Lilith still can’t stand her, and it’s been almost two years — but better the devil you know. And better the devil who makes Beatrice happy, or whatever. 

After class, Lilith threatens Ava lightly, but it’s more out of habit than anything; she’s not the one needing sense knocked into them this time. 

So, while Diego and Ava are distracted by one of his invented clapping games — that Lilith is far better than Ava at, for the record — Lilith waylays Beatrice, pulling her aside. 

Beatrice keeps glancing over at Ava, worry twisting at the corner of her mouth.

"Stop freaking out," Lilith scolds. "It’s not rocket science. Just tell her you’re not planning to ride off into the sunset with Lucia. Or ride Lucia, period. And she’ll be fine." 

Beatrice sputters, and Lilith genuinely isn’t sure which part of her speech caused it, which is how she knows it was a good speech. "What — I — Lucia? "

"Mm."

Beatrice hesitates, but it seems to be more out of puzzlement than anything else. When she speaks, it's as if it's not really hard to say at all: "But she must know that I don't want anyone else."

Lilith would be willing to bet that Ava does know that, somewhere deep in her brain — what’s that expression Diego made up? — but Ava’s not the best at using her brain. Especially when it comes to Beatrice. "You still have to tell her. She’s never going to bring it up, because she's not going to push you." 

Beatrice breathes out, and her head tips down, maybe because she’s aware that Lilith can read her more easily than she’d like. Lilith doesn’t feel bad about it, though; Beatrice understands her just as well. It’s fucking annoying, but they deal. And sometimes it’s not so bad, having someone who was made at the same time as you, in the same place, who was impaled on the same long spike. 

"It doesn’t have to be everything," Lilith points out, more gently. "Just give her something, or she’s going to be even more unbearable than she already is."

Beatrice nods once, and when she glances over at Ava again she smiles in that reflexive way that means that Ava was already looking. 

Lilith swears to herself that this is the absolute last time she gets even close to being involved in any of this. 

It won’t be, but pretending it is makes her feel less like a fucking pushover. 

Javier. 

They've never done a virtual study session before. But, to be fair, Beatrice has never really missed class before, either. Like, ever. 

The text she'd sent him had barely clarified things, although that's true of most of Beatrice's texts, which are often so considered that they’re almost opaque. She'd informed him — politely, and with perfect grammar — that she wouldn't be able to make their lecture, or their post-lecture catch-up, and asked whether he'd still like to review the new material over call.

"Are you alright?" he asks, as soon as Beatrice picks up and her face appears on his laptop screen. 

She looks okay, he thinks. At least, she looks normal. Stressed, perhaps, but that’s standard for her, and she's definitely at her apartment — he can see a sliver of her bookshelf behind her, and half of the poster that was almost certainly Ava's decorating choice.

"I'm fine," Beatrice tells him. She's speaking very quietly, and he has to jab the volume key on his laptop a few times to actually be able to hear her properly. "Thank you for being flexible about this." 

"Sure," Javier says. "Anytime." 

Javier has questions — questions stemming mostly from friendly concern, although perhaps also a little from general nosiness, because Javier's not a saint — but he's learned that Beatrice doesn't like to be pushed for information. She reacts to prying like someone who's had secrets stolen from her before.

They get started on their chapter summaries and proceed as they always do. Every so often, though, her gaze flicks to something past her screen, and she frowns. 

After about twenty minutes of this, she says, "Sorry, can you excuse me for a moment?" and then disappears out of view of the camera entirely.

She really is only gone for a moment, but when she comes back, she seems distracted still, and it's just slightly too unusual to ignore. 

"Do you want to reschedule?" he offers. "I don't mind. Really. If something's come up." 

"No, it's —" Beatrice pauses. "Diego's sick. He’s home with us today, but Ava got called in to cover an hour for someone at work, so it's just the him and me here for a bit." 

Javier himself flounders when left to supervise children — he doesn't know what they're allowed to eat, or how high they're allowed to climb up things, or which books aren't going to scar them emotionally. But these are things that Beatrice does know, or has put a lot of effort into finding out and remembering. 

It's odd, then, to see Beatrice so thrown off by this, when she usually seems so familiar with it all. 

"He's sleeping," Beatrice continues. "I've been checking on him, but I'm not really sure how much he should sleep. Or if I should get him up to drink something. Or — well." 

"He doesn't get sick a lot?" Javier guesses. 

Beatrice shakes her head. "He gets colds and headaches every so often, but I've nothing like this." She sighs. "I've done my research. And I — I understand. That it's normal. Children get sick." 

"They do," Javier agrees. "They get better, too. Pretty quickly, if memory serves."

Beatrice hums. She twirls her pen around her fingers, something he only catches her doing if he glances her way during exams. "Yes."

"Well, what did your parents do for you when you were little?" he asks. Beatrice seems to do best when she's got a task in front of her, something to tick off a list. 

Beatrice's expression doesn't cloud, exactly, but there's something abruptly telescopic about the moment, as though she's become far away without moving at all. "We kept separate. I wouldn't have wanted them to get sick as well." The pen twirls again. "It seemed very straightforward back then. But it's harder than I realised. To watch. Or — I find it hard, I mean." 

Javier hasn't really had much cause to consider that, but he imagines that it must be: other problems, Beatrice and Ava can solve for Diego, or help him through, or pull him out of the path of, but this is painful and ordinary and unavoidable, and it can only be waited out. 

"I remember that I just liked knowing my mum or dad or sister was there," Javier says, when Beatrice runs aground, apparently having nothing more to go off. "Just, like, then I didn't have to worry about anything. Even if I still felt like crap. Because they were there."

He can tell it won't be enough for Beatrice, who probably won’t settle until Diego’s better. But maybe it might steady her, for a minute, or at least until Ava gets back. And then Ava will know what to say or do or give to orient her again. 

Evie.

Her trip home has been non-stop — she’s been to about a hundred coffee catch-ups over the last few days — but she’s finally got a chance to go visit her grandpa. 

She makes the familiar trek to his building, where he’s lived since they sold the old house, back when Evie was still in high school. 

She knocks on the door of his apartment, and gets no answer. She’s about half an hour early, sure, but she thought he’d be home. 

It doesn’t seem like he is, though, so she resigns herself to chilling in the hallway for a bit. It’s a pretty good hallway, all things considered.  

About five minutes later, the elevator doors open, and a girl steps out holding a bag of groceries, her attention on her phone. She makes it all the way to the door of 4C before she spots Evie. 

"Are you alright?" she asks, which is probably a fair question to ask someone just lurking in the corridor. 

"Oh, yeah! Totally. Just waiting for my grandpa." Evie gestures to 4B.

"Right! You must be Evie," the girl says. "He has tons of pictures of all you guys." 

That’s her grandpa, alright: chronic documentor of everything, but family especially. "Yep. Are you Ava?" There’s the possibility that she’s Beatrice, but given the passing descriptions that her grandpa has provided over the past year or so, she finds it unlikely. 

Ava nods, beams. "That’s me."

Evie’s heard quite a bit about Ava — she’s helped her grandpa fix his television, showed him how to install an adblocker, and got him into overly complicated mocktails — so it’s slightly jarring to see her in person for the first time, and not just as a character in another story about her grandpa’s neighbours, who he insists aren’t dating. Even though every single piece of information he shares makes it sound like they’re dating. 

"I’m pretty sure that Glen’s at his knitting club, by the way," Ava adds. "Sorry."

"Oh. Right."

Ava switches her groceries to her other hand and unlocks her door. "Do you want to come sit inside while you wait?"

"Sure. Thanks." 

Evie follows Ava into her apartment. It’s cute. Much better than what the previous guys did with it, from the one time Evie did actually stop to say hi to the old tenants. 

Ava offers her a drink, and leads her to the kitchen. 

From where Evie’s standing, she can make out a vast array of photographs stuck to the wall behind Ava. Most of them feature a little boy; he looks really happy in all of them, except one, where he’s frowning fiercely, although seemingly on purpose. Someone has written Lilith face in black marker over the top of the picture. 

On the kitchen table is a book that Evie recognises, having torn through it once and then again a few months ago. "Oh, I loved that one," she says, pointing to it. "Are you enjoying it?" 

Ava smiles. "That’s my girlfriend’s, actually," she says. "I haven’t read it. But I’m told that it’s very good." 

Evie replies to her like a normal person, but her brain sticks on the word girlfriend. 

Told you so, she thinks. 

Incredible that her grandpa didn’t figure this out in more than a year of living next to them, when Evie has managed to solve the case in under fifteen minutes. 

Lilith.

A lot of unfortunate things have happened to Lilith in her life — Patricia Trousdale left their boarding school before Lilith could properly exact revenge upon her; she wasn’t allowed to bring that sword back through airport security and couldn’t find a good way to ship it; and she still hasn’t managed to beat Camila’s stupid little chef game. 

But this, surely, is the worst of all.

It’s not the first time she’s accidentally bumped into Ava at a bar. Usually, when it happens, Ava follows Lilith around like a baby duckling with a bad sense of humour, and Lilith sometimes allows it, when the bartender on duty is more susceptible to smiles and wide eyes than deadpan glares. 

It’s also not the first time she’s bumped into Ava at a bar with Beatrice in tow, although that’s far more rare, and also involves suffering through Ava’s smugness at having persuaded Beatrice to try something new. 

However, this is definitely the first time she’s seen the two of them standing in a corner, no longer dancing, and watched as Ava reaches up and tugs Beatrice down at the same time that she presses up. It’s not desperately cautious or agonisingly gentle: it’s not new . 

Huh. 

It’s dark, and they’re out of the way, and as far as kisses go, it’s fairly tame. Well, mostly tame. On the generally tamer end of things. 

But that doesn’t mean Lilith isn’t going to bully them for it. She’s more than earned it, after the soap opera she’s suffered through. 

It’s not that hard to sneak up on them. A second after they’ve pulled away from each other, she swoops in, clapping a hand onto Beatrice’s shoulder and feeling her startle. 

Lilith hasn’t been able to sneak up on Beatrice since they were very, very young, and it’s satisfying to have the power returned to her now, however briefly. Maybe Ava does have some uses. Limited ones. 

"Well," Lilith drawls. "I’m sure this has ruined everyone’s evening."

For a glorious second, both of them are entirely taken aback, and it’s not worth all the idiocy it took them to get here, but it’s pretty fucking entertaining. 

Ava recovers first. "My evening’s still going great, actually," she replies, swiping at her smudged lip gloss with the back of her hand. 

Beatrice still seems stuck between mortified and defiant, and Lilith watches her waver: waits for her to strike a flint, knows that she can. 

"Mine too," Beatrice says. 

"So." Lilith looks between them. Not that there’s much between. They’re standing disgustingly close. But that’s not exactly unusual. "I’m sure I can put the pieces together myself, and we can all avoid having a heartfelt conversation about this." 

Lilith still holds Beatrice’s gaze for a beat longer. Beatrice can take from Lilith’s expression what she will. Hopefully nothing, but if there’s some vague sense that Lilith is at least glad that they’re done dancing around one another ridiculously, then Lilith can live with that. 

"Done," Ava agrees. "Feel free to go away so that we can get back to — wait. Actually, you have to promise not to tell Camila. I want to tell her."

"I don’t tell Camila things," Lilith bites back.

Lilith should’ve left instead of coming over. Then she could’ve sent them a vague and ominous text message and let them sweat a bit. 

"We both know you do. So, promise," Ava demands. 

Lilith scoffs. "As if I care enough to gossip about you." 

Ava raises an eyebrow, not letting up. If she’s aiming to be intimidating, it isn’t working. 

But it’s not worth the hassle of arguing about it. "Fine. I won’t tell Camila anything." 

"Great. Now you can go away."

Beatrice nudges her, never immune to the stranglehold of the manners they were brought up with. " Ava ."

"Fine. But I’m making out with you whether she’s around or not, so I’m actually not being rude, because I think Lilith would really prefer to not be here for —" 

Lilith turns and leaves, not at all doubting Ava’s willingness to follow through on her threat. 

Hans.

Pretty much as soon as Hans steps behind the bar, Ava starts unknotting her apron, her fingers fumbling so quickly that it takes her three tries to disentangle herself. 

"Someone’s in a rush," he says. Normally, Ava sticks around for a little while to chat if they haven’t been on the same shift, but tonight’s not one of those nights, evidently. 

She grins at him, her body a relentless shifting of energy. "Yep!"

"Got plans?"

"I," she says grandly, "have a date . With Beatrice." 

With Beatrice is kind of redundant, like saying dark night or hot fire . Of course, it’s with Beatrice. That’s never the question. The question is: "Does Beatrice know it’s a date?" 

Ava rolls her eyes at him, then pauses. "I guess that’s fair," she concedes. It most definitely is fair, considering that Beatrice and Ava have gone on dates that aren’t dates for the entire time he’s known them. "And yes, she does, actually ." 

Hans blinks. "Wait, for real? Like, for real-for real?" 

"Hans, it may shock you to learn this, but I have mad game," Ava informs him. She’s brimming with something brighter than usual, different to any other way he’s ever seen her. "I’m a genius. I’m a god. I —" 

"I was there while you tried to come up with your perfect first text to send her, don’t forget that," Hans warns. 

The reminder of the thirteen minutes Ava once spent writing, deleting, and ignoring all of Hans’ extremely reasonable suggestions — an embarrassing episode by anyone’s standards — does nothing to slow her roll now.

"That was a great first text," Ava replies. "And look where I am now! Just two years and about eighteen hundred simple steps later." 

It’s quite the concept to reckon with: that after everything, they’ve finally managed it. He has about a hundred follow-ups, but Ava seems to remember that she was supposed to be rushing. She slings an arm around him in the world’s fastest hug, and then she’s grabbing her bag and darting for the door. 

"I’m hearing more about this next shift!" he calls after her. 

Another redundant statement: nothing stops Ava talking about Beatrice at any chance she gets. 

Shannon.  

Ava glances over at Diego, but he’s entirely distracted by Beetle. 

"Hey," Ava says. "Can we talk to you guys a sec?" 

They’re all just standing there talking anyway, but Shannon appreciates that it’s Ava’s attempt at a segue, and that she also looks more than a little nervous. 

In the end — maybe because of that nervousness, maybe because Beatrice has known them longer, maybe because part of the thrill is Beatrice being able to say it — Beatrice is the one who does the talking. 

Shannon wonders, briefly, whether she should pretend to be totally surprised. Mary would probably find it funny. Lilith certainly would, if she were here. 

Instead, she hugs both of them, tells them that she’s proud of them, and feels the way Beatrice’s fingers curl slightly tighter against her back at the words. 

This time, she doesn’t ask for details — confession is certainly enough work for one day, and Ava and Beatrice clearly have more they want to say. 

"We haven’t told Diego yet," Ava admits. "Still, like, figuring out how to do that. If anyone has any hot tips."  

Most stuff seems to bounce right off Ava without a problem; she’s happy to roll with the punches, to try her luck and shrug it off if something doesn’t work out. Only things concerning Diego, Beatrice, and having to say the alphabet backwards really manage to stress her out. 

"There’s a lot of somewhat troubling literature on the subject," Beatrice adds. 

Shannon can only imagine what kinds of key words they’ve had to plug in to result in something even vaguely relating to their highly specific situation. 

She tries to come up with something to say that might help even though they’re very obviously not going to relax about it. They love him too much not to worry about every tiny thing that might tilt or shift his little world. 

Mary beats her to it. 

"There’s troubling literature on every subject," Mary informs them. "But given that there’s nothing you wouldn’t do for him, I’m pretty sure he’ll walk off a bit of an adjustment just fine."

Mary.  

"If you spill anything —"

"I have literally nothing spillable with me," Ava promises. She crosses her heart, actually, with an air of extreme seriousness that offers Mary no comfort whatsoever. 

"Fine. Don’t hit anything, either."

Ava pokes her arm. "I do have a licence, you know. And I didn’t even wear a low-cut top to get it." 

Mary rolls her eyes, but hands her the keys. Normally, the only person she lets drive her jeep is Shannon, and once, Beatrice. And that was only because it was a semi-emergency. One that Mary never got the full details of, but definitely involved Lilith and something being set on fire. Mary’s curiosity does not outweigh her desire for plausible deniability. 

Ava starts the engine. 

"Easy."

"I’m going easy. Don’t worry. Beatrice taught me how to drive and she’s, like, the most risk-averse driver to ever live." 

Rather, Mary imagines, Beatrice is a driving instructor highly invested in her only student not taking risks; Mary has seen Beatrice make some slightly more creative driving choices in the past. 

"Mm."

They’re out of town, driving down backroads and scenic paths — Mary’s compromise for switching over and letting Ava behind the wheel. 

Once they’re underway, curling around the base of a hill, Mary starts to unwind. And consider her ulterior motive for this trip. 

"So, you and Beatrice," Mary starts. 

"Oh my god," Ava says. But she doesn’t look away from the road, even though it’s straight, which means that Mary has sufficiently impressed upon her the non-negotiable rules of the jeep. Good. "Is this a shovel talk?" 

"Ava, why would I threaten you while you’re driving my car?" 

Ava shrugs. "It was just a guess!"

"I’m not giving you a shovel talk," Mary grumbles. "I’d be about two years late, anyhow." 

"And it’s not like you could make any threats that Lilith hasn’t already."

"Oh, I could," Mary assures her. "I’m just not going to."  

"Thanks?" 

"The idea of a shovel talk is ridiculous, anyway." Mary checks the mirror on her side, just in case. "Firstly, if you have to tell someone you’d hurt them, then you haven’t intimidated them properly —"

Ava laughs. 

And this, what she’s brought Ava out here to say, to emphasise to her one-on-one, separate from everything else — "And secondly, I know we were Beatrice’s friends first, but we love you too, kid. Everyone’s got your back as well." 

She turns towards Ava: Ava, whose mouth curls up, who blinks rapidly, who clings to the steering wheel twice as hard.

"Okay, maybe you shouldn’t have said that while I was driving. Now I’m going to cry." Ava delivers this like a joke, but she does still ease her foot off the accelerator. 

"If you crash my jeep, I’ll love you a lot less." It’s not really true, and she doesn’t put much effort into making it sound true, either. 

They wend their way around the base of a hill; the one they watched that comet from, months ago. The best part of this road is that it seems to curve forever, so much so that the dizziness just starts to set in, and then all of a sudden it straightens out, and heads off somewhere new. 

"I have kind of always wanted a shovel talk, though," Ava admits, her voice a little scratchy. "I watched too many TV shows as a kid."

"You still watch too many TV shows." 

"I watch the right amount, thank you. Come on, Mary, this is my only chance ever for a shovel talk. I mean, I could ask Shannon, but —" 

"Fine. If you hurt Beatrice, I’ll kill you," Mary says flatly. "Happy?"

"Yeah," Ava replies. "Pretty fucking happy."