Chapter Text
February
Zoe isn’t expecting much from her girlfriend when it comes to Valentine’s Day. This is their first year celebrating it together but based on her prior knowledge of Madison Montgomery, Zoe assumes that she’s not a grand romantic gesture kind of girl. In fact, to try and send the message that she doesn’t need some sort of material gift, the younger girl mentioned a few weeks ago that no gift exchange was required. Not that she has a problem with that; Zoe is very much against the superficial commercialism that major companies use to manipulate those in relationships into buying overly expensive presents and make single people feel bad about themselves for not having someone to share the day with.
At least, that’s what she thought until she strolled into her and Madison’s bedroom on the night of February 14th to find every available surface covered in bouquets of roses. She stopped dead in her tracks, mouth falling open. The sight of their little room filled to the brim with the red flowers was overwhelming but not nearly as overwhelming as the smell. Zoe could already tell the scent was going to linger for weeks, given the sheer quantity of foliage. This didn’t bother her, however, as a small smile formed on her face. She slowly stepped further into the room.
“Madison?” she asked hesitantly, eyes scanning the sea of red for a flash of blonde hair. At the sound of her voice, the older girl popped up from beside the bed.
“Zoe!” the blonde moved toward the other girl, “You’re home early. I was just, um, you know, setting up a little, uh, something…Happy Valentine’s Day?”
“Did you do all of this?” Zoe was still slowly surveying the room. Madison stood a few feet away from her, trying to maintain her resting bitch face.
“Yeah, I know you said we didn’t need to do anything for today, and roses are so fucking cliché, but I couldn’t just not do something since I, you know, love you or whatever.” Madison was studying her nails in an attempt to look indifferent. Zoe averted her gaze from the elaborate setup to her girlfriend’s face and moved so they were standing face to face.
She took the manicured hand that Madison was so fixated on, forcing the other girl to meet her eyes. To Madison’s relief, Zoe was beaming.
“Madison Montgomery bought me roses. A shit ton of roses. How many even are there?” Madison cleared her throat nervously.
“Each bouquet has a dozen roses, there are 34 bouquets…one for each month we spent apart while I was in Hell.” Madison didn’t avert her eyes from Zoe now, watching as realization gave away to softness. The taller girl brought her hands up to cradle Madison’s face; the movie star’s arms instinctively wrapped around Zoe’s waist.
“Never in a million years would I have guessed you were such a romantic,” Zoe teased but her eyes were shining. Madison let one of her rare, Zoe-only smiles crawl across her face.
“Don’t let anyone else find out or I’ll have to move to another city.”
Zoe leaned in so her lips ghosted over Madison’s, “Our little secret.” The older girl rolled her eyes but tilted her face up to bring their lips together. She could feel Zoe was still smiling as she deepened the kiss, moving her hands from Madison’s face to tangle them in her hair. A little fire burned in the blonde’s stomach at the feeling, a sweet reminder that she was in fact alive again (and maybe more alive than she ever had been).
“Holy shit, did you rob a flower store?”
The girls abruptly pulled apart to see Queenie standing in the doorway, looking around the room with wide eyes. Madison groaned.
“It’s my Valentine’s Day gift,” Zoe laughed, ignoring the exasperated elbow that Madison threw into her side.
Queenie smirked before turning around and calling out, “Misty! You have got to get over here and see how whipped Montgomery is! It looks like a goddamn greenhouse in here.”
The thundering sound of feet running down the hall ensured that a lot more than Misty was coming to take a look at the evidence that Madison was in fact capable of human emotion. The girl in question turned to Zoe, arms crossed and glowering.
“You do understand we have to enter the Witness Protection Program now, right?”
Zoe chuckled and hooked her pinky through Madison’s, their hands resting behind their backs, “Just try not to make any of the younger girls cry. Oh and I love you or whatever too.”