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"Are you sure we can't stick a nail file in there? I saw it in a movie once." Akko flopped over the chair, flailing her arms out fearfully when it wobbled. Chariot steadied it for her. "Croix-sensei's smart, she'd be able to break out of there in no time!"
"She told me that she doesn't want us doing anything rash." Chariot paused, and the batter stopped whipping around in its bowl. "I think she wants to face the consequences of what she did. We have to respect that."
"Boo." Akko stuck her tongue out. "So this is just a cake, then?"
"Exactly." Chariot started mixing again, sticking out her tongue a little in concentration. "I'm sure she's lonely. Until then, would you keep lookout? We're not really supposed to be in here."
"Aye-aye, captain!" Akko hopped off her chair and stood by the door, stiff at attention like a soldier. Chariot had to hold back a chuckle.
"You don't have to be so tense, Akko. I don't think anyone's really going to break into the kitchen at this hour." The moon, shining with the star-shaped brand of Chariot's mistakes, dangled outside.
"Can you tell me another story, then?" Akko plopped down on the floor, pushing the brim of her hat up so it didn't get in her eyes.
"About what?"
"Anything you want! Your Shiny Chariot days, or your search for the Words, or . . ." Akko trailed off, drooping a little. Chariot stopped mixing again.
"Or?"
"Croix-sensei."
"Oh." Chariot felt a stinging in her chest, something physical and tangible, something that stabbed with loneliness. She had to breathe a few times before saying anything else. "Yes, of course."
"Yay!" Akko pumped her fists in the air, smiling that perfect, heartbreaking smile. She was too good for this world, too good for Luna Nova. Chariot wished to protect her from all the evils it held, and yet she knew all she could do was pass on what she had to teach.
(That, and maybe give her a shoulder to lean on)
"Have I told you about the first time we met?"
"Hmm . . ." Akko scrunched up her face, putting a finger to her chin in deep, deep thought. "I don't think so."
"Well, I grew up here. Not in the school, but close enough to it that I was pretty familiar with the grounds. The teachers knew me well enough, but I wasn't friends with any of the students, and-"
"What?" Akko stood up suddenly enough that she knocked down a few frying pans on her way. "Really?"
"Believe it or not, yes. My roommates were nice, but they had their own circle. Then I was in the library one day, just looking for a place to practice some of my routines, and I heard this voice."
"What was it saying?" Akko whispered, spellbound. Chariot grimaced.
"Words I won't repeat here. I rushed over to see what happened, and there was this girl covered in books - there must've been five, six of them on top of her, and the little wooden stepstool they kept over there was toppled over, and she was rubbing her head and groaning, and her wand was on the floor next to her. So I asked her if she was okay, and she just kind of groaned. Then I asked her what she was looking for, and she said 'books on magic technology,' and she said her levitation spells needed some work so she didn't want to use one in case she damaged the books."
"Huh." Akko hung onto every word. Chariot stuck her finger in the cake batter and tasted it - it wasn't anything special, but it would do. She was no baker, and neither was Akko, but it would have to do.
"There wasn't really anything on magic technology - such a new thing, you know, even newer twelve years ago - but, ah, she was excited about it. Also very flustered, kept fidgeting with her glasses, wouldn't look me in the eye. I fell hard, Akko, pretty early on." Chariot leaned on the countertop, trying not to think of the same Croix who'd helped her through countless tests, had kissed her in the dorms when nobody was looking, had loved her even now, sitting somewhere in a witch prison. "Ah, I shouldn't be telling you this, should I? There's probably some rule against teachers talking about their love lives to students."
"Professor Pisces does it all the time," Akko said, somehow with a perfectly straight face. "Apparently she's been eyeing a very attractive tuna."
"I'll have to talk to her about that." Chariot fiddled with her glasses, trying to remember the next part of the recipe. "Anyway, I told her that sounded amazing and asked for her name, and she did the same thing. She was the first person to really take an interest in my performing." Luna Nova had no air conditioning - it wasn't really needed, considering how cold it usually was outside, and considering the magic keeping the buildings temperate, but Chariot felt a chill in the room nonetheless. Akko shivered a bit, too. "Before her, it was always sort of a pipe dream. She made it feel real. We kept talking after that, and, well, you know where it went from there."
"Geez, you love her a lot, don't you?"
"Of course." Chariot blinked rapidly, wishing suddenly that she hadn't popped out the lenses in her glasses the first chance she'd gotten. They helped hide her eyes, sometimes, when the light was good enough. They'd help her not break down in front of Akko, anyhow. "Which is why we need to finish this cake."
"Right!" Akko hopped up, hurrying over to the counter. "What next?"
"We pour the batter into the mold here, and then I think we bake it."
"'Kay."
"I'll hold the mold steady, you pour it in, alright?"
"Yep." Akko hefted up the bowl of batter and started to tip it with all the precision of a brain surgeon, just as the door flung open. Diana Cavendish stood in the hallway, wearing an expression of tired irritation on her face.
"There were some noise complaints coming from the students sleeping near here, and I was told to check it out," she said in a low growl, eyebrows knit together.
"D-Diana!" Akko jumped, and the bowl clattered to the counter, sending a glob of cake batter flying and landing squarely on Diana's cheek. She wiped it off with her thumb, still glaring icily at the pair.
"You know I should tell the goblins that the two of you are in here after hours," she muttered.
"But you won't?" Chariot hopefully supplied. She'd assumed this sort of situation wouldn't happen anymore now that she was a teacher, but clearly that wasn't the case. Diana sighed.
"Why are you doing this?"
"We're baking a cake for Croix-sensei!" Akko chirped. Chariot nodded in agreement.
"Nothing harmful. Consider it an extracurricular lesson."
"In . . . baking?"
"Lots of different skills for young witches to learn. It's important to broaden our horizons."
"It still baffles me that you're Shiny Chariot."
"It baffles me just the same, if that helps." Chariot took a deep breath. "Listen, just give us another hour and we'll clean up after everything and it'll be like we weren't here, I promise."
"I feel like I'm going to regret this." Diana turned for the door, then stopped. "I'm going to stay and keep watch over you two, just to make sure nothing goes wrong."
"That's fine by me," Chariot said, only partially oblivious to Akko's frantic gesturing in her direction. She was not quite as well-versed in the silent language of teenage girls with a crush, even if she had been one once upon a time, but she knew enough to get the sense that Akko didn't want Diana seeing her like this - this being covered in flour and batter, grocery-store vanilla icing she'd already snuck several licks of sticking to her robes. Still, some sacrifices had to be made, and she refused to let Akko get in trouble because of her. Diana sat down expectantly on a chair, and with a nervous sigh the pair went back to pouring the batter, now under additional scrutiny.
***
The timer in the oven ticked by painfully slowly, all while possible conversation topics slid off of Diana like water on an umbrella. She was smitten, Chariot was well aware, even if she was showing it in a particularly bizarre way, and Akko was equally smitten. Puppy love, that was what they called it. Chariot wondered if she'd someday fancy herself Diana's mother-in-law, then banished the thought. They were kids, they would have time.
Time I didn't have with Croix, she thought, and bit her lip.
"Say, I'm getting pretty good at flying my broom," Akko said, swaying back and forth as she talked. Diana twirled a strand of hair around her finger, around and around, maintaining her composed figure quite well for someone very clearly blushing.
(Or maybe it was the fact that it was the middle of the night, Chariot thought. The allure of the moon and the stars didn't always extend to the sleep-deprived)
"You wanna come with me sometime? We could have a race or something!"
"I would beat you," Diana said, deadpan. Akko socked her in the arm. A puff of flour came off her clothes, settling onto both of them.
"Ahaha, don't be like that!" she tittered.
"Like what?"
"So confident." Akko licked her lips, not making eye contact anymore. "It's enough to drive a girl crazy, Diana."
"I-is it?"
They're hopeless, Chariot thought, and she smiled. The timer dinged, and she turned back to the oven with a little hum. Neither Akko nor Diana seemed to notice.
***
"Thank you, Diana," Chariot said, once the cake was frosted and safely packed away in a box ready to be taken to the European Women's Witch Prison the following day. Diana dipped her head, just slightly.
"Don't ask me for any more favors, Professor Callis- du Nord-"
"It's alright."
"Chariot."
"Go back to sleep, now. It's important for you to get your rest." Chariot waved politely as Diana walked off, then turned to Akko. "You too."
"You got it!" Akko gave her a quick hug and dashed off, leaving a trail of sugar and flour and icing in her wake. Chariot sighed and started for her room.
***
The next day came all too soon, and Chariot knew without a doubt that what she was about to do would be leagues harder than baking a cake in the middle of the night. Her inability to fly a broom meant that she'd need someone to take her to the prison, and her heart beat faster and heavier at the thought of seeing Croix again.
"Finneran?" she said, voice hardly above a whisper as she knocked on the door.
"You can come in, Ms. du Nord."
"Thank you, thank you." Chariot hurried inside, clutching the cake box to her chest like a precious treasure. That's what it was, really. "I've filed all the paperwork to use one of my vacation days to visit the European Women's Witch Prison-"
"Redundant title, isn't it?" Finneran scribbled down something with her quill.
"Yes, but that's beside the point - I need someone to take me there, on account of my, erm, condition, and the only other teacher available was Nelson, and you know how she is with flying, I wouldn't make it there in one piece, and-"
"Yes, I'll take you there," Finneran groaned, standing up and stretching her back as she did so. "Maybe your friend Ms. Meridies was onto something with those little round buggers she called 'advanced brooms.' Would help you, anyway."
"Thank you."
"You're on your own on the way back, though. I've got a class to teach."
"That's fine." Chariot held the cake-box tighter. "Just as long as I get to see her."
***
The ride was long and slow - Finneran was not a show-off and was not in the business of trying to make it somewhere before she needed to, and so Chariot was left to ruminate in her own thoughts until they reached the prison, a blocky gray building towering above them.
"I'll be headed back to Luna Nova," Finneran said, and promptly turned the broom around once Chariot was on the ground.
"Thank you again!" she called, but Finneran was already gone. With a shaky breath, she started for the prison doors. Two men, lanky and standing guard with entirely blank expressions, greeted her with curious looks.
"We don't get a lot of visitors here," one of them said.
"I'm here for Croix Meridies," Chariot explained. The men looked at each other and then opened the door, gesturing down a long hallway.
"We'll tell her you're here," the second one said. "She doesn't get many visitors, either."
"Thank you." It seemed like she was thanking a lot of people today.
***
The European Women's Witch Prison was set up surprisingly similar to the movies, or at least the part of it that Chariot saw was - a phone, a glass wall, a chair. She waited in an empty space for a few minutes, tapping her foot and hoping Croix wouldn't be mad to see her (she thought that might break her), hoping things would be alright again.
"I wasn't expecting to see you here." Chariot didn't hear the words - she had yet to pick up the phone, and there wasn't any sound coming through the glass, but she saw Croix and saw her mouthing it and scrambled for the phone instantly. "Where's your charge?"
"They don't let children come here." Chariot paused, trying her best to keep her composure calm. "Because they're children."
"Children don't usually save the world, either." Croix ran a hand through her hair - it had gotten longer, and she'd forgone the poncho for an orange jumpsuit. Chariot looked down guiltily.
"You shouldn't be in here," she said. "You did the right thing, in the end."
"Eh, my sentence was pretty light. I plead guilty, plus the nuke was an accident, so . . ." Croix shrugged, so nonchalant even in prison. Chariot had to admire that, among the many other things she admired Croix for. "How's everything back at Luna Nova?"
"Oh! They're good. Akko's getting much better at flying, and Diana - you know Diana - is helping her with it. Nobody's really paid much attention to the fact that I'm . . . you know."
"The most magnificent witch to gift the planet with her presence?" Croix smirked, and Chariot felt heat creep up to her cheeks. Her heart melted.
"Don't flatter me," she mumbled.
"I'm not. You saved the world, Chariot, you and your seven kids. That's something to be proud of."
"You helped, too."
"After causing the problem."
"Still." Chariot let out a sigh. "I don't want to fight, Croix."
"I don't, either." Croix started to lift up her hand as if to press it to the glass, then put it back down.
"How's your search for the cure going?" Chariot asked. "N-not to make this about me or anything."
"It's going." Croix twirled the phone cord around her finger like the teenage girl in so many of the old non-magical films that she'd snuck into her dorm and watched with Chariot on late winter nights. "They've been generous enough to let me research here, so . . ."
"I'm glad."
"That reminds me, how'd you get here? Levitate another door through the leylines?"
"Finneran." Just the name was enough. Croix blinked, then burst out laughing.
"Seriously? Finneran? Do you remember when we found Alcor and she found us sneaking him around?"
"We had to clean the grounds for weeks!" Chariot laughed at the memory, and soon things felt easy again, or as easy as they could be. She reached out to hold Croix's hand. Glass met her fingers instead. "I miss you, Croix."
"I miss you too."
"You know that you'll always have me waiting for you at Luna Nova once you get out of here."
"You really think they'd take me back as a professor after I almost nuked a small country?"
"Maybe you could be a janitor or something." They both laughed at that, lightly, in that way that implied it might not be such a bad idea after all.
"Janitor Croix. Imagine that."
"Oh, I almost forgot!" Hurriedly, Chariot produced the cake. "I, erm, don't know how I'm supposed to give it to you, but . . ."
"I think the guards are supposed to take care of that." Croix peered at it. "Is there a nail file in there or something?"
"Do you want there to be?"
"No."
"Well, you're in luck in that case. It's just a cake, made semi-illegally in the middle of the night."
"You were never much of a baker."
"I'm still not," Chariot chuckled. "Don't expect anything great from this."
"It'll be better than what they feed us here, at least."
"I'm so sorry, Croix."
"Don't be." Croix tugged at the sleeves of her jumpsuit, still looking right at Chariot. "I love you, you know that." The forwardness of it shocked her - shocked both of them, really. Croix stumbled backwards, and Chariot suddenly found the ground to be very, very interesting.
"Y-you too," Chariot stuttered. "I mean, I love you too."
"Yeah, I got that." Croix pressed her hand up to the glass, and Chariot did the same. She could almost feel her, hands calloused from working on her machinery, smelling like cup noodles and oil, smelling like Croix. Her heart ached once again. "Come back, alright? It gets lonely here."
"I promise."
***
And come back she did, every chance she got, until nearly every week she found herself at the European Women's Witch Prison, until the guards knew her well and the cakes she baked were good enough to win a prize, until the end of Croix's sentence loomed near.
"Just a little longer," Croix said, one visit close to the end. "I think they're letting me out early on good behavior."
"I'm so glad." Chariot set down her glasses - she'd never needed them, even if she'd kept them as something of a memento, but she wanted to see Croix as clearly as she could. "We'll finally be able to . . . to go outside, and go on dates, and walk around! That janitor position's still open if you're interested."
"I'd like nothing more."
***
The day came, then, when Croix was let go and stood in front of the leyline, and Chariot stood right there in front of her, with no cake but her arms spread wide open. Croix broke her promise, then, to not come back until the cure was found - Luna Nova's resources were better, janitors were paid well enough thanks to the fairy labor union, and besides, Chariot was there, and that was enough, wasn't it? Feeling the sun on her face and feeling happier than she had in over a decade, Croix ran forward.