Chapter Text
Andrew woke up because Akko woke up, since when Akko woke up, she’d sat up and yawned loudly.
“Hrm,” he said, shielding his face from the light in the window. He’d never slept so well and he wasn’t entirely yet sure how to comprehend reality. Anything more than the fact that Akko was right next to him was too much to think about, and even that was a hard-to-grasp concept. Luckily, she seemed to be grasping him instead and settling back down into where she’d been lying, giving up on stretching and waking up.
Andrew was a little more awake by now. Her face was right in front of his. “Good morning.”
“Good morning.”
“What time is it?”
“I don’t know. It’s morning.”
“Close enough. How did you sleep?”
“Pretty well. Not as well as you, though. I don’t believe that you actually have insomnia.”
“Really?” He was genuinely surprised.
“Yes!” She laughed. “You slept like a baby.”
“Really? Surprising.”
She laughed again. He pulled the covers up to their chins. “We’ll be suspiciously late to breakfast, but I don’t want to get up.”
“You’re right,” she said, “Let’s stay here.”
And they did, for a while, until it really was time to get up. Akko dashed back over to her room to throw on some clothes from the crumpled pile that was her still-unpacked suitcase, and returned in time to brush her hair sitting on the carpet cross-legged and chat to Andrew as he fastened his tie. “I know it looks formal,” he said, “but I just felt like wearing a tie.”
“You look very handsome.”
“Thank you.”
They walked hand in hand down to breakfast and paused outside the breakfast room when they could hear everyone else’s voices reaching out into the wood-paneled hall, and they remembered there were other people in the world.
“Hm,” said Andrew, ever overthinking, “we’d best not enter together.”
“Yeah, that would be really conspicuous,” said Akko. “We’d best not. You go in first, it makes more sense for me to be late.”
So he did. Akko waited a minute before following. They fooled no one, but none of their companions said anything.
The hours passed, tragically, Akko shoved everything into her suitcase and got Diana to zip it up while she sat on it to hold it together and Andrew stood nearby with his arms crossed and criticized everything they were doing. When the zippers were zipped and everything was finished, Akko looked up at her friends. “I’m going to miss you guys.”
“I’ll miss you, Akko,” said Diana. “We’ll see each other next year, though. I’ll be in Blytonbury as often as I can.”
“We’ll all get tea when you visit,” said Andrew to Diana.
“That will be fun,” said Akko.
She sprung up from the defeated suitcase to squeeze both of them into a hug. “I’m glad we reunited the summer trio. I love you both.”
Soon, it was time for Akko to actually fly off to the airport. Diana was going to accompany her, and they’d have another hour or so in the air before they’d need to say their goodbyes. The Cavendish house had been built for witches, and so it had a specific turret which was designated as a broom landing and taking-off point, for receiving and bidding goodbye to visitors. Meryl, Beryl, and Diana, with her broom, stood there waiting for Akko, who once again was just outside the doorway, out of sight, saying goodbye to Andrew with one last kiss before they walked, together this time, out onto the landing.
Akko hugged Meryl and Beryl goodbye and promised to call Andrew and said she loved them all before she and Diana took off. Andrew, Meryl, and Beryl stood and watched them get smaller and smaller in the sky. The sisters exchanged a look when they saw how sad Andrew was.
“Well then,” said Meryl. “Let’s go have tea to cheer ourselves up.”
“Alright,” said Andrew. The three of them went down to the kitchen to plan the rest of the day.