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On the long flight home, it occurs to Pippa to worry that having Hecate back in her life might be very much like not having her back at all. Reconciliation is one thing, and oh, it is a marvelous thing! But it's been many years since the days when they came to understand one another, and that was not such an easy feat the first time around.
Hecate is set in her ways, and she is not the sort to reach out when she isn't certain of where things stand. Hecate turned her back on Pippa because she was insecure, would have let Pippa walk away a few hours prior just the same. It doesn't mean she doesn't care. It doesn't mean...
When she returns to her school, Pippa is busy. Always a lot to catch up on after a big event like the Spelling Bee, and though Pippa likes her Deputy Head very much, Miss Knotgrass does not always bear stress gracefully. A handful of students took Miss Pentangle's absence as their cue to wreak a bit of havoc across the school grounds, and apart from organizing and supervising the repairs and reparations for their actions, Pippa finds herself with the task of untangling a few ill-conceived remarks Miss Knotgrass saw fit to make to other members of staff.
Her days are full, and exhausting, and so her nights pass quickly, at first.
After a fortnight or so, things return to normal, and Pippa considers that perhaps she ought to write. Actually, she considers that she ought to call, but then she imagines Hecate being forced to operate even the most rudimentary of telephones and decides she would be far better off writing.
Her plan is foiled when, at the end of the day, she takes a seat at her writing desk, takes up pen and paper, and finds that she hasn't the faintest idea of what to write.
It was so good to see you again, she wants to begin, because oh, how it was! But can such a feeling be confined to words? Pippa had convinced herself so thoroughly that she was beyond the whole thing, that they used to be friends but then they weren't anymore, that the handful of months that had followed the incident had been agonizing, but then they'd gone their separate ways, and it was over now, long over, so it would not matter, did not matter, had never mattered even a fraction as much as a young, overemotional witch had made it out to matter—
And then she had heard Hecate's voice, older but unmistakable, and then she had seen the line of Hecate's shoulders, the shape of the tension in her jaw, and it was like they had been friends just yesterday, and it was both wonderful and terrible to see her again, because she still felt like they should be friends but weren't anymore.
And she can't very well write that in a letter.
She gives up sometime in the early morning hours, but she doesn't sleep well. The next handful of nights are much the same. She finds herself pacing the school grounds at odd hours, bracing herself against the bitter chill of the night air in some misguided attempt to recapture the essence of the Hecate she once knew.
They never wrote letters then. They were inseparable during the school year, and Hecate's family was strange and strict during the summer. Pippa got the sense that Hecate's every moment was carefully controlled when she was at home, a habit she had no doubt carried into her adult life.
They never wrote letters, but Pippa did try, she remembers now. That summer after Hecate stopped talking to her, when she was still close enough to reach yet suddenly, inexplicable untouchable, Pippa tried to write her a letter. Several. She can see the words before her eyes now, forgotten in the way one forces unpleasantness from the forefront of the mind, deliberately blurred around the edges.
I don't understand what I've done wrong—
How could you be so heartless? You're just as bad as everyone—
Please just talk to me. Just tell me what—
I miss you, Hiccup.
In the present, Pippa squeezes her eyes closed and digs her nails into her palm. Perhaps she can't write Hecate a letter, after all. Perhaps she ought to let the matter rest and return her full attention to the life around her eyes. Reconciliation is one thing, but perhaps it is more akin to closure. They have gone their separate ways for many years now, and it has been fine. It is fine. Everything is just—
Pippa opens her eyes.
Hecate traces the script on the envelope with her finger, feels the subtle indentation in the material and remembers quite suddenly Pippa's heavy-handedness, and how it had come as such a charming surprise to her in their youth.
Pippa was always so graceful, all flowing and flourishing in the way she walked and moved and spoke, that it was beyond Hecate how she could be doing so poorly with potions. When she asked for help, though, Hecate quickly understood the problem. When the recipe called for a dash, she thrust in a handful. Two stirs counter-clockwise? A veritable hurricane.
Alarm had overtaken her at the sight of it, obscured her inclination to remain at arm's length, and she had reached out to stay Pippa's hand with a clipped, "That's enough."
Pippa had looked up at her then, wide-eyed and grinning, and Hecate's alarm had been redirected so suddenly that it dizzied her, but before she could pull her hand away, Pippa slapped her free hand atop Hecate's with a forcefulness that made her wince.
Hecate still remembers the feeling, too keenly—her own hand, bony and perpetually cold, trapped between Pippa's, warm and soft and strong, and the way Pippa smiled at her—smiled! At her!
In the present, Hecate feels her lips twitching into the worst sort of smile, the sort that prickles at the corners of her eyes and closes up her throat, and she curls her fingers into a fist to stop herself tracing and retracing the heavy-handed lettering on the envelope Pippa has sent her.
Hecate had fully expected never to hear from Pippa again when she returned to her own school, and though the thought left her feeling cold and empty, she had not intended to interfere with the natural order of the world. Reconciliation was one thing—and oh, it was...it had been...
But it has been many years since they have gone their separate ways, and the entirety of Pippa's friendship always seemed to Hecate a very perplexing, transient sort of fluke. How can she expect Pippa to desire her companionship against all odds a second time?
She turns the envelope over and draws her finger thoughtlessly across the seal. There's something she's ignoring, buried deep but impossible to disregard entirely, a twisting, churning sort of anxiety that compels her to find senseless activities that prevent her from actually opening the letter Pippa has sent her.
She doesn't know what worries her: what the letter says, or what it doesn't say. She is frightened of heartbreak, to be certain, but perhaps far more terrified of disappointment.
In the end it is merely the necessity of her daily schedule that saves her, for she knows very well that she cannot allow the letter to sit unopened whilst she goes about her day. She tears it open carefully, pulls gently at the seal to keep the envelope intact, and slides the letter out with a hand that trembles.
When she glimpses its brevity, her heart sinks, and she is very nearly seized by the irrational urge to tear it to pieces or throw it out the window of the school.
She squeezes her eyes closed and digs her nails into her palm, swallows down the destructive compulsion and breathes deeply before she opens her eyes to read what Pippa has written.
My dearest Hecate,
I've been trying to write you a letter for over a week now. There's so much I'd like to tell you and so much I'd like to ask that I know neither where to begin nor where to end. I am so very happy that we've spoken again after all this time, but one conversation isn't nearly enough, and neither is a letter. I thought instead I might come and visit you for a few days, and then perhaps we might have the time to make up for some of what the years have stolen from us.
Please send word that it's all right. I wouldn't want to impose.
All my love,
Pippa
Hecate steadies herself against her desk.
At first, being around Hecate again is a bit like being around a very anxious brick wall. She doesn't refuse anything that Pippa says or does, but she doesn't readily contribute anything of her own. Pippa talks, tells her about the last few weeks and about the last few years, shares very nearly every thought that's ever crossed her mind since the incident that marked the end of their friendship, and Hecate listens, and nods, and turns away with that telltale tension in her jaw, but she says very little of herself if Pippa does not directly ask.
Pippa would find it worrying if it were not the way things had always been between them. A younger and stupider version of herself had taken Hecate's silence to mean she had little she wanted to say. Now she can see the decades of unspoken words shining in Hecate's eyes, held at bay by the thin line of her lips, practically begging to be voiced.
She tries not to find it infuriating.
The third day of her visit is better. Pippa is sure she's made some kind of breakthrough when she remembers that Hecate will talk more when her mind is occupied, and proposes a game of chess. Pippa used to be very good, due in no small part to Hecate's influence, but she is years out of practice, and the concept of thinking several moves ahead has always come far more naturally to Hecate than to Pippa.
But while Hecate is steepling her fingers, contemplating the board for moments on end, Pippa asks her idle questions, and she answers them. She tells Pippa about her schooling and about applying to work at Cackle's Academy, about her difficulty in adjusting to teaching and how she has more than come around to it, about the last time she visited her parents and how she spent her days in those strange, terrible months after their friendship ended.
"I still don't understand, Hiccup," Pippa prods gently. "Something must have happened."
Hecate's brow furrows subtly. She moves a knight. As far as Pippa can tell, the move accomplishes nothing. Pippa moves a pawn without much thought.
Hecate's frown deepens. She steeples her fingers in front of her face.
"Did something happen, Hecate?" Pippa tries again.
Hecate inhales, parts her lips as though to speak, but nothing comes. She breathes deeply as she contemplates the board. "It was...something your friends said," she says at last, without emotion. She captures the pawn Pippa has just moved with a bishop. "Check."
"Something my—" Pippa echoes, shakes her head. "What? Who? What did they say?" She reaches out to move a random piece, but Hecate's hand snaps up to stay Pippa's, so swiftly and so unexpectedly she feels her heart surge. She looks up into Hecate's eyes, filled with a dreadful, dizzying sort of hope.
"Check," Hecate repeats, and if Pippa didn't know her, she would think there was no emotion in it at all.
Pippa averts her eyes, withdraws her hand and swallows hard. "Right. Of course. Sorry, I was..." She blinks rapidly, tries to force herself to focus on the pieces, and captures the bishop with a knight. It's probably a stupid move, probably exactly what Hecate wanted her to do, but she's never cared about the game.
Hecate folds her hands beneath her chin and contemplates the board as though nothing has changed, but Pippa can see the tension in her jaw, the way she's drawn her lips into a thin line.
"Who was it, Hecate?" Pippa tries again. "Who said something to you?"
Pippa has been called heavy-handed in more than one respect. She wants to say everything and know everything all at once, and she has never been very good at thinking several moves ahead. That is the way Hecate works.
"Simone," says Hecate at last. "Simone Everworth, and the other two who always followed her around. They stopped me on my way back from practice."
"What did she say to you?" Pippa ducks her head in an attempt to catch Hecate's eyes, but she is focused entirely on her pieces.
Again Hecate looks like she might speak, but hesitates, and frowns again. "It...hardly matters now," she says thinly.
"It does matter!" Pippa insists. She feels the frustration of their stilted conversations building up once more, threatening to overflow. "How could anything Simone Everworth had to say be important enough to end our friendship, Hecate? How?"
Hecate lets out a little huff of something like amusement. "It was only a matter of time," she replies. She moves a rook.
"A matter of time?" Pippa echoes incredulously, and the injustice of it brings her to her feet. She feels the sting of the comment somewhere far beneath her mounting anger. "How can you say that? How can you still think I cared anything for those witches next to you?"
Hecate doesn't move. Her eyes are focused on the board.
"Answer me!" Pippa demands. She digs her fingers into the fabric of her skirt and tries to ignore the feeling of tears prickling at the corners of her eyes.
Hecate looks up, and her lower lip just barely trembles before she speaks. "It's your move."
Pippa swipes her arm across the board and sends all the pieces clattering to the ground. "I don't care about the game, Hecate! I care about you! I want to know what she said to you!"
Hecate stands, too, then, suddenly and sharply, with her hands held just slightly out, like she's expecting to be attacked. Pippa watches her struggle to keep her features neutral, watches the rise and fall of her shoulders as she seems like she will speak and seems like she will turn around and storm out.
"She said," says Hecate at last, rough and raw and terrible, "that I was sick."
All the anger, all the frustration, flees Pippa in an instant, and she feels as though it is the only thing that has been holding her up. "What?" she breathes.
"She said," Hecate continues, and her face contorts with a rage of her own, "that the whole school knew that I was in love with you, but you would never love me back because you weren't a freak like me. She said that if I really wanted to do what was best for you, I would just leave you alone."
"Hecate—"
"And she was right!" Hecate cuts her off as tears stream down her cheeks. "And I hated her for it. But she was right."
Pippa tries to say something. Anything. Nothing comes. Vaguely, she realizes that she has allowed her own tears to fall.
"So I did," Hecate finishes crisply. She draws herself up to her full height, raises her chin and squares her shoulders.
Pippa tries to take a deep breath, but she feels as though all the air has been rent from her lungs. She steadies herself on the table, ignores the feeling of a chess piece digging into the palm of her hand as she staggers around to the side. "Oh, Hecate..." she hears herself saying, and before she can think better of it, she practically throws herself into Hecate's arms.
Hecate catches her, stiff and surprised, and she is trembling, but she catches Pippa and she doesn't let go.
"Oh, Hecate, I have always loved you," Pippa breathes. "Oh, I...I should have told you! I should have told you, but I was so afraid of losing you, and then—!"
Hecate pulls her away to study her with wide, dark eyes and a tear-streaked face, but her hands are still gripping Pippa's arms with a firmness that surprises her. "What?" she says.
Pippa takes Hecate's face in her hands, and wipes the tears away with her thumbs. "I should have told you," she says again.
"You...?" Hecate echoes what Pippa has said in silence. Her lips form the words, but no sound accompanies them, as though she is reading them and failing to comprehend.
There are a thousand words Pippa could say. Indeed, she feels them all threatening to spill over, and just like trying to write a letter, she hasn't any idea where to begin or where to end. I have always loved you, but I never told you. I hardly understood the feeling, and your friendship meant so much to me. I was so afraid to lose you, but then I lost you anyway—
Instead she leans in, and Hecate's eyelashes flutter, in befuddlement, in surprise, in acceptance, and when their lips meet, Hecate seems almost to collapse into herself. Her grip on Pippa's arms tightens, and the dreadful tension in her shoulders falls away all in a rush. She makes the smallest noise of delight against Pippa's lips, and it sends a jolt through Pippa's entire body that leaves her ravenous for more.
But Pippa is heavy-handed, and she likes to say and know and do everything all at once. Hecate doesn't work that way. It takes every last sliver of self-control Pippa has ever possessed to pull away.
Hecate opens her eyes slowly. She contemplates Pippa like she looked at the chess board before, considers her eyes and her lips in turn as though she is trying to think several moves ahead, shakes her head subtly to indicate that she is failing. "You..." she breathes.
Pippa feels herself smiling, feels herself relaxing as she begins to recognize old, familiar mannerisms, obscure, but not impossible to understand. "I am so sorry," she says. "All this time..."
Hecate continues to consider her in silence, lips parted as though she means to speak.
"Hecate?" Pippa tries, searching for anything resembling a real answer.
"Pippa," Hecate says in response, but instead of saying anything more, she leans in for another kiss, softer and deeper and warmer than the first.
Pippa finds that, for the moment, this is answer enough.