Chapter Text
You knew having a show in your hometown would have its risks. You knew that walking around in broad daylight, hoping, praying nothing would happen would be a recipe for disaster. You knew it all and yet, for some stupid stupid reason you thought it would be a good idea to show the girls around your hometown. Or, at least, you let the girls talk you into walking them around your hometown. You knew they were curious about your friends, your town, your life before KATSEYE and Dream, before the shimmer of rhinestone costumes and Grammy nominations. Before you were their Ace, and you were just some kid from the middle of nowhere.
You were terrified to let them see it. You remember your very first time in Manila, walking through Sophia’s home thinking it looked like a palace. You remember the warmth, the smiles, the tenderness of her parents. Of her brothers. Of her life. You thought it was a fluke. A one-off. That Sophia Laforteza had unnaturally spectacular parents because the girl herself was built like a Disney princess. It made sense. Until, of course, you found yourself at Lara’s for dinner, and Megan’s for brunch. Until you listened to Yoonchae talk on the phone and her mother’s tone made you a little sick. Until you saw photos and old home movies of Manon’s old life in Switzerland and old interviews with Daniela’s mom and you realized that all of their families were like that. They were all surrounded by warmth and peace and something you couldn’t quite name all the time.
You knew they all had their struggles, that their lives had imperfections and chips and things they had to work through. You knew about Megan’s constant battle with her own anxiety, the comments about her dyslexia that she pretended didn’t bother her but secretly kept her up at night. You knew about Daniela’s feelings about not being Latina enough, about the racist remarks that had been thrown at Lara and Manon their whole lives. How Sophia struggled to let anyone see any insecurity ever and Yoonchae’s feelings of not being taken seriously because of her age. You also knew that every time one of them needed something, anything, someone would always answer. Someone had been at every dance recital, every performance. Someone had made their lunches with little notes and tucked them into bed and cared enough to make sure they were safe through the night. You remember classmates in high school telling you you were “lucky” that you didn’t have a curfew. You knew it was because no one cared.
You thought about the locked doors and the stone cold glances at the breakfast table and parents who only showed up when it would look good on Facebook and your hands shook. You remember Megan’s words from that fateful game night. Punishing a child for having panic attacks is neglect at best, abuse at worse. You think about all the things they don’t know and wonder if they would ever see you the same way again if you did. You remember late night phone calls with Michael, after he had graduated college and moved to L.A and left you alone with them. Ace, I think you’re having panic attacks, he had said and for the first time you had a name for the freezing and the tightened chest and the thought spirals that left you feeling like a shell of a human. You also remember how he had suddenly started to see you as something fragile and not the girl he had known most of his life.
You also knew that you had changed. You were not that scared little girl anymore, even if it felt like it sometimes. You were KATSEYE’S Ace, an all-rounder, a teenager with fire and spunk and sun in your soul, and you didn’t want that image changed or shifted by walking around the place where you were none of those things, had none of those things. The trees, the streets, the buildings in your hometown knew you as a shy little girl with a dinosaur backpack and Converse that were falling apart. Just driving over the town line felt like betraying everything you had ever built, and you were nearly shaking apart at the seams in the front seat of the too long and somehow not long enough Uber ride from the center of the city to one of the more run-down outskirts.
The seven of you had taken two separate cars and had deposited you just outside the big “mall”, which was really just a couple of stores smushed together haphazardly. You thought about telling them that this was a mistake right then and there, but then you watched Megan bounce up the cracked sidewalk and Yoonchae’s look of pure awe and tried to swallow down the coils of anxiety burning in your stomach. You steered them around the walkable parts of town, past the diner where you had your first kiss (the six of them “oooohing” so hard your face was the same shade as the neon sign), through some of the local stores that had been there since you were a kid in light-up sneakers, and around to whatever they thought was interesting. It was going good for the most part, but Sophia noticed the way the muscles in your shoulders had slowly started to tighten and the way your eyes kept flitting between them and the street.
Its midafternoon when Megan starts yawning and Manon’s eyes are slowly getting heavier and heavier and you usher them off the street and into a cute little coffee shop with exposed brick walls tucked onto one of the streetcorners. It's quite a busy cafe, a constant buzz of conversation electric in the air. You let Sophia direct for a second, leading the seven of you into a little booth in the back, secluded enough that most of your backs are turned to the rest of the cafe, but she can watch over the happenings around you. Just as she’s finally starting to relax she catches a glimpse of a woman staring at your little group from all the way across the cafe.
She’s not so much staring as she is glaring, her eyes narrow and sharp, mouth pressed into a thin line. Sophia suddenly has this sinking feeling in her stomach, unease she can’t place, and all the little hairs at the back of her neck stand up. The leader is not someone easily intimidated by any means, but the snarl on this woman’s face is so disturbing even she has the brief urge to crawl under the table. Yet, Sophia can’t seem to tear her eyes away from the woman, there’s something so odd, yet so devastatingly familiar about her, like someone you see in the grocery store who’s name you definitely know and just can’t quite place.
Across from her, you're sucked into a conversation with Megan and Yoonchae about sidewalk chalk of all things, completely oblivious to the Philipina’s sudden alarm. Lara, on the other hand, presses her shoulder into Sophia, whispering a quiet “What’s wrong?” Sophia tips her chin, trying to be subtle and Lara follows her line of sight.
Next to her the Indian tenses, and Sophia can feel her breath hitch.
“What the fuck?” The younger girl whispers back, nearly drowned out by the sound of your chair scraping against the floor as you stand.
“I’m going to the bathroom, be right back.” Your smile is easy and light and before Sophia can warn you about the lethal look being shot your way, you’ve disappeared into the labyrinth of tables. Now, with her view completely unobstructed, Sophia watches the woman’s gaze shift, and she realizes that she wasn’t glaring at them, but instead at you. Glancing between you and her, she starts to see the similarities. The shape of your eyes. The tilt of your nose. The freckles that dot your face and oh my god. Oh my god. She thinks back to the photo you had shyly shown her across the table at that coffee shop in Chicago and her heart stills. And then cracks as it hits her how much venom and hatred that your mother holds in her gaze. She remembers the first time she had come home after Dream and the warmth and love and safety she had fallen into and there are none of those things reflected back in her dark, steely eyes. She elbows Manon on her other side, and the older girl squeaks and then groans in annoyance until she follows both Sophia’s and now Lara’s eyes.
“Who-”
“The woman in the photo.” Sophia’s voice is barely a whisper, but the rest of their little group is starting to realise that something is really, really wrong. Manon’s eyes get big and wide and her breath hitches like it does at the jumpscare in horror movies.
“What the fuck is going on?” Megan leans in, her own eyes darting around the cafe, trying to figure out exactly what has the three of them so spooked.
“What photo?” Lara’s not exactly sure why they’re all suddenly whispering, they’ve dealt with people staring at them in public before, even she can admit that this feels different.
“I think that might be Ace’s mom.” Sophia’s voice is low, but they hear it nonetheless as six heads turn at just the right second to see the moment your eyes lock onto hers.
You wipe your wet hands on the front of your jeans, the automatic blower too loud for your already sensitive ears and push the heavy wooden bathroom door back open. The quiet calm that's slowly been trying to overtake your anxiety is all but destroyed when your eyes catch hers and all the air is punched out of your lungs. You think for a second you might be having another nightmare but you can feel your heart pounding faster and faster and the way your hands are really starting to shake. You stand frozen in your shoes, until she motions one of her hands towards you and you hate your body for clicking back into the autopilot you tried to break years and years ago. It feels like a betrayal as your shoes carry you closer and closer to her, the way the world shrinks to just you and her.
She says your name like it's poison in her mouth, the way she always did when she felt like you were embarrassing her, when your lungs stopped working in public.
“Mother.” You try to steady your voice, steel your face the way Sophia does effortlessly, but she sees right through you. Right through everything you’ve worked for. You hate yourself for the way the confidence that years surrounded by those girls has built is slashed to pieces by one glare. You hate the way you’re starting to shake, the way your chest is tightening painfully, the way your first instincts are still, after all these years, to make yourself smaller. You know by now the Kats are probably watching and you think, you hope, you pray that they won’t catch on to the panic-attack train headed your way and you won’t ruin yet another good day. A small, but loud, part of your brain still yearns for her approval, still wishes the look in her eyes was one of pride and not the contempt that's written out in the way she’s eyeing you up and down, picking apart everything that isn’t meeting her standards.
Your brain fills in the rest, and before you can stop yourself, you're straightening your spine and smoothing trembling hands over your hair in the way you know she likes.
“So this is what you look like now.” Her voice drips with poorly concealed resentment, statements that would seem innocuous to anyone else turned into shots targeted at the tiny insecurities she knows lie just under the surface. You turn your head fractionally, eyes trying to look anywhere but her face, trying to piece yourself back together before she can do more damage. You catch sight of Sophia, hovering close to the table, eyes wide, and five other heads turned to watch the scene unfold.
You feel yourself trying to shrink, to recoil, to wish you had some kind of invisibility cloak to shield them from watching whatever was about to happen. Or you wished you had an invisibility cloak to shield yourself from the shame of what they were about to watch. You stare at Sophia for a second too long, and you feel the familiar cold hand wrap around one of your shaky wrists and pull. Hard. Hard enough that you can see something flicker behind Sophia’s eyes and you stumble forward a couple of steps until her body is only a few inches from yours.
Across the cafe, Sophia sees red. So does Daniela, who after catching on to just who the glare belonged to, had to be physically kept in her seat by Lara and Manon, who realistically wanted to get up and give that woman a piece of their minds just as much as the Latina. Now though, watching you get yanked so hard you topple for a second, Lara and Manon release their hold, letting the dancer follow their leader across the cafe. It’s a true test to her own self control that the Indian doesn’t leap up from her own seat, but she can see the fear rolling off your shoulders in waves and she knows surrounding you right now is just going to be overwhelming. So instead, they watch anxiously from their little table as the storm that is Daniela starts to unfold.
You hear them before you see them, the hard edge in Daniela’s voice as she calls your name and oh god. They’ve seen just how pathetic you really are and now they’re pissed. Nausea rises up, fast and hot, and it takes several cartoonish gulps of air to push it back down. You can not prove her right. You think. That you’re just as weak as she thinks you are. You blink the tears back as Sophia and Dani come into your line of vision and for one single second relief floods into your system as you watch your mother’s expression change into surprise.
“Ace, c’mon. We have to go.” Sophia says, icy but polite and you can already feel how much trouble you’re going to be in later. How she’s going to yell in that voice you hate and send you up to bed without eating. How this is all your fault and if you just tried a little harder you would be able to get this problem under control it would go away and why are you always bothering everyone all the time? You want to scream, to beg her to not be mad even though you know it's useless, but instead you just nod robotically.
“Wait, we’re having a conversation here. Just who do you think you are?” Her voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard, screechy and off-putting and Daniela’s whole body tenses in restraint. Who does she think she is, causing her baby so much pain? The fear in your eyes and the fact that your eyes won’t leave the floor makes her heart clench.
“I’m Sophia. I’m the leader of our band.” The leader sticks her hand out politely and grips a little firmly for just a friendly handshake. At the word ‘band’, your mother’s smile tightens, teeth looking more like daggers.
“I wasn’t aware that little music thing had worked out for my daughter. Y’know, we really didn’t think she had what it took.” Her laugh is dry and you’re half expecting Sophia herself to smile. You’re not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing when she doesn’t.
“She’s very talented. You should be very proud.” Your mother’s polite smile turns back into a sneer, her grip on your arm is crushing and you vaguely wonder how you’re going to explain the bruise to your makeup department without dying of shame. Daniela also sees her fingernails digging into your soft skin and another flood of anger washes through her, followed quickly by a tsunami of dread.
If this is what she’s like in the middle of a busy cafe, Daniela wonders just what happened behind closed doors in that god awful house. For a split second she thinks about her own room in Atlanta and the warmth of it all and wonders if you even know what a home is supposed to feel like. She wonders if their home in L.A is the closest you’ve ever come to having somewhere truly safe and tears press into her eyes at the thought alone. She’s yanked back into the present moment as she gets close enough to feel your trembling frame next to hers, and takes in the way your feet are frozen to the floor.
“Well, it was nice to meet you, but we need to leave. Our schedule is packed. You understand how busy being a part of a two-time Grammy nominated group is, don’t you?” Daniela could kiss Sophia for the look of genuine shock that rushes over the older woman’s face. Its enough for her to release her grip, even just a little, and you feel Daniela’s warm hand slot into yours. You jerk away like it burns, shame and anxiety drowning out the cafe’s stereo and Sophia’s voice and you don’t see the look of hurt the flashes across Daniela’s face before softening into one of concern.
“Ace, lets go.” She whispers at you, carefully keeping her voice from melting into that soft tone that soothes you in the middle of the night but will make whatever shame thing you have going on in your head even worse. Your movements are jerky, not meeting her eyes, but following her gaze to the cluster of girls waiting at the door. You know you don’t have anywhere to be and your chest is ever tighter at the thought of just how disappointed in you they’re going to feel, if they don’t already. It feels like all the progress you’ve made is slipping out of your hands, dripping out of you like the tears that are pressing into your eyes.
“Ace.” Sophia positions her body between your shaking frame and the laser-sharp glare that’s once again been trained on you. “Lara needs you for something.” You hesitate, avoiding Sophia’s eyes and picking at your fingernails. Sophia can see the little rings of blood spilling from your cuticles, and she so badly wants to just wave a magic wand and make everything better.
“Now, please.” Its her leader voice, which is both effective and heartbreaking because you start to move, but you flinch a little at her tone. It’s a tiny, miniscule tightening of your shoulders but Sophia notices anyway because of course she does.
If your mother speaks again you don’t hear her, the blood pumping thick in your ears and the now-constant ringing brought on by panic is loud enough that you don’t even register Lara calling your name as you walk towards the rest of the girls.
“Sophia said you needed me.” Tears jerk forward in all of their eyes at just how small your voice is, how scared you still are. Lara wraps one of her hands in yours because she knows that the panic-panic is going to hit you like a truck if it hasn’t already and she just knows that you’re convincing yourself you deserved all of it. Whatever ‘it’ entails, Lara’s afraid to find out.
A bell rings as Yoonchae pushes open the door and suddenly you’re in the crisp air of your hometown again. Except instead of refreshing and nice, this time it’s suffocating and your head is jerking around, eyes moving wildly because you need a place to hide. You want to run, to jerk away from them, because all you can hear is your mother’s angry, cutting voice in your head and you feel like you’re thirteen again and you wish the sidewalk would just crack open and swallow you whole.
The sidewalk doesn’t move, but Megan does, swinging an arm around your shoulders like everything about this is perfectly normal and you’re not three seconds away from falling apart at the seams. There’s a tiny little alleyway on the other side of the coffee shop, and you suddenly find yourself in the relatively darker area, your back pressed against the cool brick of the wall. Your fingers are bleeding from the constant picking, your chest is starting to heave, and you’re head is swimming, trapped in a thick fog of sharp panic and overwhelming shame. You vaguely register Yoonchae and Manon standing, facing the road, blocking any onlookers from possibly catching sight of your vulnerability. You’re met with Megan and Lara’s soft eyes and concerned faces, and the absence of Daniela and Sophia and you have no idea what your mom is saying about you but you know its not good and you tried to protect yourself, you tried and tried and tried and you were never good enough and now they know the truth. The terrible, awful truth, and they’re never going to look at you the same way again when they realise this was all your fault. Its always been your fault, you don’t know why you ever, ever let them convince you it wasn’t and hey, Lara’s talking to you.
You don’t hear anything she says, but you stop her anyways, your voice coming out choked and broken.
“No-stop-I can’t-you don’t understand-I deserved-” Lara cuts off your panicky, pain-stricken ramblings with soft hushes and an even gentler tone. She wonders, briefly, if this was how Rhea felt when Lara herself came home crying when bullies were mean to her on the playground. Then she realises she came home to her mom and Rhea and a soft place to land and you had that and the tears finally spill over her waterline.
“Ace, babygirl, shhh. You’re okay.” Megan’s voice is so soft but you hear it crack all the same.
“No.” You whimper, and out of the corner of her eye she gets a perfect view of Yoonchae’s shoulders tightening. “You don’t understand. She was right and it’s my fault and I deser-”
“No, you absolutely did not, Ace, you. Oh, honey.” Lara cuts herself off as your shoulders really begin to shake, tears that have been kept at bay for so long finally dripping down your face. She reaches towards you, a silent invitation, and you fall into her arms, much the same way you did after Yoonchae found you during that panic attack all those months ago. Your tears are silent, but your breathing is not, wet gasps as you try to calm yourself down, trying to shrink away.
Megan’s nails run up and down your back in slow soothing circles as she thinks about her own anxiety. She remembers her first panic attack, when the thoughts got too big for her brain and she had run to her own mother. Her own mom who had spent countless nights awake at her daughter’s side, talking down all the scary, scary possibilities in this too-big world and then she imagines being alone. Alone like you think you’re supposed to be.
“Its okay love, you can cry. You’re safe.” She puts two fingers under your chin where its hidden in Lara’s chest and the look in your eyes makes her heart shatter.
“You are safe. You, Ace, are safe here with me, Megan, and Lara, and Manon, and Yoonchae, and Sophia, and Dani.” She spells it out slowly, genuinely, laying her reassurance on thick. “You did not deserve it.”
“But I-she said-it was better this way. That you didn’t want my issues, no one wants my issues, that I make things messy but now I’m stuck. You’re here and I’m still so broken and if I can’t fix it on my own and if I can’t fix it when there are people then I should just be on my own because it's better like she said. I can't make it go away, and I did deserve it. Meg. I did. All I do is make everything worse.” You draw in one shuddering, shaky breath before rambling ahead, speaking like you’re afraid of being stopped.
“My mom’s gonna tell Daniela everything and then she’s never going to see me the same way again because everyone always believes her and no one believes me.” For one split second, Manon is grateful that Dani and Sophia are still god knows where because she thinks that Daniela’s heart would actually rip out of her chest if she heard you say that. Her own heart isn’t faring much better, and she breathes a tiny little sigh of relief when she sees both the Latina and the leader burst out of the cafe doors, eyes scanning wildly, clearly trying to figure out where the hell they went.
Behind her, Megan’s voice breaks as she speaks.
“You are not broken for what you went through, baby. You are not burdening us by healing.” Lara hums in agreement, and you can feel the soft vibration it sends through her chest. “Do I burden you?” You shake your head, now tucked back down onto Lara’s chest. “So why would you ever burden us?”
“Because that's what I do. I don’t know.”You don’t mean for your voice to sound as defeated as it does, and you hate the way Megan’s face twists at your words. She goes to speak, pausing as she hears rapid footsteps of Sophia’s signature heels on the pavement, followed closely by what she can only assume is Daniela.
“Where is-Where is she?” The Latina’s whispers breathlessly and its only a moment before Lara’s grip is loosening to let the Latina press her warmth against you. She can feel you shaking, trembling in her arms, and heart is crushed by just how scared you still are.
“Are you okay?” She whispers, letting curls brush against your ear as she bends down. She realizes that its a silly question and it only hurts her feelings when you nod, trying to pull yourself back together.
“Lovey. You’re okay. I got you. I got you.” She murmurs, Megan’s hands returning to your back. “You’re safe.” They stand like that for a while, with Daniela breathing in deep breaths in a hope that you’ll copy her as she sways the two of you side to side softly. Lara can see Manon attempting to offer Sophia tiny little bits of comfort and the ever stubborn leader refusing to take them.
“What did she say?” You whisper back at her, tears still flowing freely down your face.
“Nothing really. We didn’t let her get much of a word in. No one gets to make my baby feel like that. No one. She needed to know just how valuable you are.” You reach for one of her hands, squeezing as tight as you can, your skin flushing with uncomfortable pride, but a small smile ghosts over your lips. “There’s my girl.” She whispers into hair, feeling your breathing get deeper and deeper as you slowly take in more of your surroundings.
Now, surrounded by the smell of Lara’s magnolia perfume and the feeling of Megan's nails on your back and the image of Sophia’s steely glare, the way she and Daniela had put their bodies in front of yours, you realize that thing you had felt in their homes, with their parents, that warm buzzing feeling you couldn’t name? That feeling was love. Unconditional, undemanding, pure and true, love. Maybe it was your turn to feel it too