Archive of Our Own

If someone had told Karma Ashcroft, when she was a child, that she would one day be the future Mrs. Ashcroft-Raudenfeld, she…would have believed it, actually.  100%.  Because back then, marriage didn’t mean conscious commitment, nor sex, nor crazy in-laws and other familial problems, nor any of the other societal expectations and chains that weighed heavily on the concept the older she became.  The only thing she’d known about marriage, when she first met Amy, was that married people loved each other and spent all of their time together, and shared everything and they already did that so like…why wouldn’t she marry Amy?  It seemed pretty obvious that they were meant to be together, in that sense, because they already basically were, right?  So like, duh, obviously she was going to marry Amy Raudenfeld?!  That was kind of a given, and she would have been very offended at any indication to the contrary.  Amy was the sauce to her spaghetti, the cheese to her pizza, the milk to her cereal, the father of their kids when they played house and the donut to her coffee when they started getting older and were actually allowed to drink coffee.  They complimented each other and they were the best of friends so like, why wouldn’t they get married?? 

It’d made sense at the time, Karma mused to herself, flipping the pencil in her grip, her chin resting on her other, open palm, elbow planted on her desk, her gaze a million miles away. 

It made sense, as they aged and Karma started to realize that she’s never seen any women married to other women, nor men married to other men in her favorite tv shows or magazines or movies, that the husbands she made up for them were faceless and nameless Ken Dolls.  It made sense to make plans to live next to each other with their cookie-cutter husbands who would be handsome and wonderful and totally not possessive at all of their wives constantly hanging out all the time and sharing a bed with each other and never with their husbands, because they would conveniently disappear like the good fantasy husbands they were.  Because it was easy to assume that, okay, so maybe they wouldn’t marry each other because maybe they couldn’t, per se, but they could still be together, no problem! 

Again, at the time, it’d made perfect sense.  So did some of the other scenarios: Amy just pretending to be a man!  It worked fine for playing house and for the playground, but Amy always refused to be a boy after a little while because she wasn’t a boy!  And she’d get all huffy until Karma would hug her and hug her until the huffiness left and all was forgiven, and it was okay because next time, Karma could be the boy! 

Though she rarely ever was: Amy had a more commanding presence, a tomboyishness to her that Karma just couldn’t mimic, and playing house only really worked when Amy would agree to be the dad because then their imaginary kids would listen (Karma was too soft on them, and they both knew it).

Oh how times had changed, honestly.  Karma couldn’t help the small smile that formed on her face as she heard scuffling from the floor above her.

Of course, with age she learned what being married actually implied, but back then, sex was a taboo subject that was only talked about in hushed whispers and tittering, innocent giggles.  Boys started to suddenly seem less like an entirely different species, and more like important specimens that warranted more study.  A part of Karma still wouldn’t have been all that surprised if someone told her that she married Amy, because honestly, boys were kind of stupid and Amy was still her best friend, she’d rather spend the rest of her life with her than with some boy who thought she liked the weird screamo music he listened to, or who thought that Axe Body Spray doubled as a shower.

But times changed, they left childhood behind to become teenagers, where things always got muddied and complicated.

The smile turned to a frown, contemplative. 

If someone had told her in high school that she would marry her best friend, she would have laughed in their face.  She would have believed it if they told her it was because of some pact, like on Friends, where they decided that if they weren’t married by thirty or something, that they’d marry each other.  By then, marriage had been legalized in several states, so it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility for them to wed, but it definitely would have been out of desperation and friendship than because of any actual attraction or romance.  But if someone had told her that no, for real, she was actually secretly in love with her best friend and had been for most of her life, and that eventually they would get married, with everything that implied (even and especially the sex), then she would have laughed in their face, and she would have kept doing it for years to come, the laugh slowly growing desperate as, in her mid-twenties, she realized it was actually true. 

It was a long road to that realization, though.  After the disastrous events of high school, somehow her and Amy’s friendship largely weathering the storm, despite the many highs and the many, varied, and deep lows, despite the temporary separations and new partners and new friends and new families and new homes.  Despite it all, they’d made it, but had ended up at colleges on opposite ends of the country: Amy at San Diego State and Karma at NYU.  Their last goodbye had been full of promises of calls and Facetiming, and planning movie marathons to watch together on Netflix, of plans for when they were both back in Austin and could see each other again, of finding jobs so that they could afford flights to come and visit each other and…

Of course, the flights to see each other never panned out.  Turned out, New York City was expensive as hell and Karma had to work her ass off, in school and at an actual job (part-time as a waitress, how cliché, but she felt like she was taking her first steps towards stardom: this was just part of the process!)  Between her time being eaten up with that, and her money too, she didn’t have the cash to fly to see Amy, and while Amy’s San Diego housing was (somehow??) cheaper than New York City’s, she had her own issues flying out to New York.  Not to mention how exhausted Karma felt. 

She’d complained, on more than one occasion to Amy, how crazy her classes were.  How demanding.  She’d known that there was a lot to learn, when it came to music, but goddamn, there was a lot to learn, and Karma found herself burning out quickly. 

And it wasn’t that she didn’t like music anymore.  But by the end of her first semester, and certainly by the middle of her second one, she realized, with some help from Amy, that she was actually pretty miserable. 

---

“Karma…are you sure this is what you want?” Amy had asked, interrupting Karma mid-rant about her classes and how exhausting it all was and she hated composition and she didn’t understand why she even had to take it??  She liked writing her own music, sure, but there was so much pressure and competition between everyone in her classes, no sense of comradery except that of the pressure.  She didn’t like it.  On top of that, while customers were customers anywhere she went, New Yorkers seemed to be particularly cold.  She’d ended up quitting her gig at the restaurant and had tried to find venues to play in, but that hadn’t panned out either.  She didn’t have a name yet and while she was good, so was everyone else.  It was…a culture shock the likes of which she’d never experienced.  Suddenly, not everyone fawned over her voice or her musical talents, no one cared that she could hit Idina Menzel-level notes because yeah, so could everyone else.  No one cared that she wrote her own songs, because yeah, so did everybody else.  The only thing she had going for her – according to many sleazy men in the bars she determinedly walked into, asking for a gig – was that she was pretty. 

Not even beautiful, not even sexy or hot, just…pretty. 

She’d still scoffed though, shocked that Amy would think she would want anything other than music. 

“Of course Amy, I love music.  It’s just a bump in the road, it’s just…” and for weeks and months to come, she would say the same thing over and over again, with less and less conviction, until she sat down in her dorm room, and cried.  Because it was what she wanted: she’d loved music.

Loved it.  She’d loved making it, for fun, for art, to make Amy smile, to make people fawn over her and for attention, and she loved it because she felt like she could be herself with it, whoever that was.  But studying vocals?  Studying music?  Breaking it down to its bare and mathematical essentials and then trying to take those building blocks, and make something with them…reduce art to a science?  She hated it.  She hated how sterile her classes felt.  She hated that she was just another face, no one special.  She hated that she couldn’t keep up and she hated that she wanted to give up.  So she’d sat down and cried and called Amy, who listened to her as she finally realized,

“Amy, I don’t think I want to study music any more…”

“Okay,” Amy had said, soothing, and it’d made Karma cry harder. 

Who was she without her music??  Karma didn’t know.  It felt weird to walk into the registrar’s office and officially change her major to…English, of all things, for the coming semester.  The first one of her Sophomore year. 

God, she hadn’t even lasted a year in music…

Now, in retrospect, she was glad it had happened that way.  She was glad that she’d made the decision, because she didn’t like how studying music had made her feel…how she could feel herself falling out of love with that which she’d loved most.  She didn’t want that.  Music was a passion, even now, years down the road.  She would have lost that passion, she had no doubt, had she stayed even one more semester in the music program. 

She’d packed up and had been ready to head home, ready to see Amy, her heart beating faster at the thought.  They had so much they needed to catch up on, and they were way overdue for a sleepover or several and several show binges. 

---

Karma flipped her pencil again in her hand. 

---

She’d gotten the call from Amy as she’d just finished packing. 

“Are you so excited, Amy?!” she asked, in lieu of a greeting, “This time tomorrow I’m back in Austin, when are you supposed to be back?  Did you want to swing by my place or should I head back to yours?  I cannot wait for camp fires in the yard again and god, are we dressing up for this year’s Hometown Howdy Fair?  I-”

“Karma,” Amy had interrupted, and Karma knew immediately that something was up.  Something that wasn’t necessarily good, something that, from Amy’s tone of voice, Karma wasn’t going to like…

“What?” Karma asked, alert, and she knew that Amy knew that Karma’d already picked up on the tone.

Amy laughed, breathy and resigned, because god they really did just know each other so well, didn’t they?? 

“I, um…I mean, I’m home tomorrow too, definitely come over mine, our wifi is better,” Amy addressed Karma’s first concerns, “But…um, I don’t know if I’ll be at the Hometown Howdy…”

“I’m sorry, you what?” Karma asked, switching ears and leaning against her bed, next to her most recently packed suitcase.  It had been a miracle that she’d gotten it to close. 

“Well I mean, nothing’s decided yet, I uh…I wanted to talk to you about it first…”

“Spill it, Raudenfeld,” Karma said flatly, and Amy let out a shaky breath.

“Okay, so, you know that film program I was mentioning to you?”

“The Side Burns Internship?” Karma asked, proud she’d remembered it, until Amy started laughing heartily on the other side of the phone. 

“Ken Burns, Karma, god,” Amy laughed, “Remember how I made you obsessively look at the portfolio I was sending into them?”

“Yes Amy, I remember,” Karma said, suspicious as to where this was leading and feeling like she had a pretty good idea…

“Well-”

And the elation in the “well” was enough for Karma to squeal “You got it!!”

Amy laughed, genuine and sweet, the laugh of someone who had gotten into the program internship thingy but didn’t quite understand why. 

“I got it, they offered it to me yesterday and um…”

“And you’re going, right?!” Karma sat bolt upright, not liking the hesitation she heard in Amy’s voice one bit.  She didn’t know a lot about Ken Burns (clearly) but she did know that when she mentioned it to her parents that Amy was trying for an internship with him, both of her parents were impressed.  Apparently, he was a big deal in the world of nature documentaries or something, and Amy had pretty well and thoroughly explained to Karma that she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to get it because she was just a freshman and there were even some seniors competing for the position, and that was why she’d made Karma look at her portfolio so much that Karma actually knew every single photo off by heart as being Amy’s.  The little projects she’d also sent along to show her editing skills were actually really entertaining, just little things like skateboarders around her school or one of Karma singing.  Karma had actually kept that one…

“I don’t know, I haven’t accepted yet-”

“Amy Leigh Raudenfeld!” Karma said, sternly, “You are accepting that program, you worked so hard, you-”

“It’d be all summer, starting the beginning of June.  In Alaska.”

For a moment, all was quiet as Karma processed what Amy had just said.  An internship.  With a hot-shot documentary filmmaker.  In Alaska.  All summer. 

Amy rushed to fill the silence, to explain, “They’ll be filming right up until the start of the semester, and if I’m really lucky they may extend me to help with the editing” Amy said it all very fast, as though she thought that Karma needed to hear all of these reasons as to why it was the summer and why it was important that Amy go, and miss their summer together.  Miss out on all of their plans. 

Karma didn’t care, though (okay yes she cared but she didn’t because holy shit Amy had just been offered the chance of a lifetime and she was hesitating for some stupid reason?!) (because it was Karma, and somewhere deep down, she knew that, too.) 

“I know we made all those plans and I don’t want to bail on you-” Amy kept rambling in Karma’s continued silence, and Karma finally interrupted. 

“What?!” and well…she would never really be able to justify her next words, other than that she wasn’t thinking about their implications or any meaning beyond “don’t be an idiot”.  “Screw me Amy, Jesus!  That’s such a great opportunity, do that!”

A beat (in which Karma didn’t even hear her own words…in fact, it’d be a while before she realized what she’d said, and then she’d blush a deep shade of red, alone in her room, at the innuendo that she hadn’t meant to put there). 

“I mean, I know it’s a great opportunity, but-”

“But nothing!” Karma burst, “Amy Leigh Raudenfeld, you get your ass on your phone-” (Amy’s “I’m already on my phone” was pointedly ignored) “-and you accept that opportunity, now!  You absolutely are not allowed to say no to this, and if you do, I’ll tell Lauren and I’ll absolutely never forgive you.  If I see you even one day into June I’ll kick your ass.” 

Amy laughed, “Yeah right,”

“I’m serious, Amy.  Take the internship, holy shit?!” Karma exclaimed, her own excitement for her friend building. 

The implications of what another summer sans-Amy really meant didn’t really sink in for Karma until after they reunited in Austin, Amy all tanned skin and bright smile and tight hugs. 

Actually, the first taste of an Amy-absent summer started before Amy left, electing to spend some of her time with Sabrina, who was also annoyingly back and somehow still Amy’s girlfriend, even if it had been touch and go for a while there, with the distance: Amy in southern Cali and Sabrina in Seattle.  In the end they’d made it through and Karma tried not to be jealous, shoving the feeling down once again for her best friend’s happiness (even if, after hearing about some of their fights, Karma had decided that she liked Sabrina even less than she’d liked Reagan, and that was saying something…)

Still, Amy’s absence was felt the minute Karma watched her walk off in the airport.  Sabrina’d had to work so wasn’t able to make it, and Karma savored that little victory, because the car ride home would have been an absolute nightmare of tension and barbed exchanges and obvious animosity.  She could deal without all of that, it was hard enough saying goodbye to her friend, who was going to fucking Alaska, of all places. 

And, as they tended to do…things fell apart, with Amy gone.  Karma knew she could live without Amy: she’d done it on multiple occasions, at that point.  That first summer apart, when Amy ran away with Pussy Explosion, and then college, but she felt almost like an addict in withdrawals: she’d finally had a hit after too long and coming down from that high was like falling off a skyscraper onto solid concrete. 

The first half of the summer was somewhat okay: she caught up with Shane and a little with Liam, attempting to be friendly.  Lauren tolerated her presence when she stopped by the Raudenfeld household for a few things she’d left in Amy’s room from the brief time they’d seen each other during the summer. 

The last part of the summer was shit: the pressure mounted for her to go back to New York, to her expensive school and an expensive apartment or dorm, to a city that she loved in theory and somewhat in practice, but less than she thought she would.  She liked the hustle and bustle, the fashion, how everything felt alive and lived in and always ready to change.  She loved how a New York minute was an actual thing, how quickly things could change, how she blended right in with her fashion.  But sometimes, the constant movement in the city was tiring.  Sometimes she needed a moment to catch herself, to relax, to breathe.  To wear her sweatpants and be comfortable and to hear the sound of crickets rather than ambulances.  New York was thrilling but it was exhausting.  She found she didn’t want to go back: not really.  She didn’t want to go back to her school, the failed music major who switched into English, like everyone else who had failed their majors and didn’t know what to do and needed a placeholder.  Not that anyone would notice or care that she’d changed majors, which almost made it worse.  In New York, she was…no one.  A prospect that had been thrilling at first: a chance to reinvent herself! But that, in the end, just ended up being exhausting. 

Like everything else about New York.

The worst part, though, was just that…she didn’t know what to do.  She didn’t foresee a future in English: she liked writing but her passion for it was non-existent, and her grasp of grammar (or desire to improve that grasp) was shaky at best.  And truly, it wasn’t worth it to try to force herself into a major where she had no real passion, when the one that she had been passionate about had nearly destroyed the spark that had spurred her on to attend college in New York in the first place. 

In the end, she’d had a nice cry about it, stressed nearly beyond her limits from her thoughts about what would people think, what would her parents think, what would Amy think?  And what would Karma think of herself?  The girl who failed.  Who, just like her brother, had packed up and come home because she couldn’t hack it. 

And that was truly the worst part.  She hated that.  Hated admitting defeat: her pride was all she had left and that was taking quite a bruising as she thought about how disappointed her parents would be, how everyone at Hester at their ten year reunion would laugh because oh, there was Karma Ashcroft, who used to do music, remember?  And what had happened? 

She’d failed. 

Not having Amy around didn’t help at all, and Karma did end up going back to New York, only to receive a postcard from Amy, from Alaska.  The message was short, scribbled in the back of a picturesque mountain view, apparently where they had been filming. 

Hey Karm!

Alaska is crazy, it never gets dark here, for the first few days I didn’t even need any coffee?  I thought maybe I was dying but it turns out that bodies really like natural light, who knew?  We’re filming in this area, it’s really beautiful, one day I hope you and I can take a break from our busy lives so that I can show you this place.  It’s really peaceful here.  Gives you space to think.

I think you’d like it, even if you never were a fan of camping.  Promise they have indoor plumbing, haha!

Miss you,

Amy

And maybe it was just the beautiful spot, or the mention of slowing down, of a break…of having space to think, saw Karma marching into the registrar’s office once again and putting in for a gap year.  She’d forgotten it was an option, and she’d called her parents and headed right back home to Austin. 

Because that was what she needed.  Space to think.  Peace and quiet.  Time to slow down.  A moment to breathe, to figure things out. 

---

A loud thud temporarily broke Karma out of her thoughts, jumping slightly and then inclining her gaze upwards.  Karma grimaced.  What the hell were they doing up there?! 

“Hey!” she shouted, projecting (that year of music hadn’t been a total waste!) so that she would be heard over whatever chaos was happening above her.  “I’m working, keep it down!  And I thought I said no breaking things!”

There was more scuffling and a muffled “Sorry!”, followed by another, distinct voice,

“Nothing’s broken, promise!”

Karma rolled her eyes to herself, but the smile couldn’t be fought off her lips.  She trained her gaze down to her project once again.  The deadline was pretty far off, but she’d been putting it off for a while and she couldn’t keep doing that.  Having the project physically in front of her made her feel better about the fact that she was still technically procrastinating on it…

She tapped the pencil again.

---

Austin had been…different, without everyone in it.  Everyone had gone off to their respective schools or programs and Karma found herself at home, watching Netflix and searching for jobs until she got one (another waitressing one, but at least people in Texas were warmer than ones in New York).  The job was a good distraction, if nothing else, but she didn’t feel like herself, anymore.  Not really. 

Because who was Karma Ashcroft, without an audience?  Without her friends around her and with no goals and diminished passions?  Who was Karma Ashcroft, really? 

She found she didn’t know, and without an audience…she had time to find out.

Not that that was easy.  It wasn’t.  In the slightest. 

It was even worse because she hadn’t seen Amy for nearly seven months, and she felt…well, she felt lonely.  She was excited for Amy: after the summer, she’d been successfully offered a continuing spot on the post-production team.  It meant deferring a semester, but she was doing something she loved, and learning at the same time.  She’d had to go out to LA, to work in a real editing studio, and she’d been so excited relaying all of that to Karma on the phone that there was no way Karma was going to jump in with all of her problems. 

All that was great, but it also meant Amy was pulling long hours with the editing, and soaking up the entire process of film post-production, and oh yeah she and Sabrina had broken up. 

“What?!  And you didn’t tell me, Amy?!” Karma had burst at her, secretly glad but shoving that immediate reaction down, ready to be supportive of her friend. 

“I mean it was a while ago, but I saw it coming, you know?  With the distance and then, I wasn’t going to be able to stop in Seattle on the way back, so even more time apart…it was just time.  It was totally mutual though.”

“And you’re sure you’re fine?!” Karma had asked, suspicious.  Amy had really liked…maybe even loved, Sabrina.  A thought that was bittersweet, to Karma.  She wanted to be there if Amy truly was upset, but she couldn’t say that she was upset herself. 

“Yes, Karma, I’m fine,” Amy laughed, “It was time.  We had a good run.  We’re going to try to be friends but with the distance and everything, and her class schedule and now me with my thing…we’ll see how it goes,”

Karma could hear the shrug in her voice, so chose to believe her. 

“Okay, if you say so…”

“I do, Karm.  Really, I’m okay.  Better than okay.  I’m good.” And that time she could hear it in Amy’s voice, and so Karma found herself smiling, despite her own misery. 

“God, I knew they were going to ask you.  Remember us when you’re a hot-shot filmmaker,” Karma joked, and she could practically feel Amy roll her eyes as she groaned. 

“What about you?  How’s Austin?”

It was terrible, but Karma had lied, (“It’s fine!”, said far too chipper) and Amy had noticed but not pushed, and Karma’d flipped the script back to Amy’s thing.

The truth was, without Amy…without everyone, Austin was…fine.  It wasn’t good, it wasn’t bad, but Karma felt almost like a caged animal.  Her job was part-time but she didn’t dare work more, trying to focus on herself, on building Karma 2.0, on figuring out what she would do at the end of her gap year, what she could study, what she might like. 

One of her coworkers suggested classes at a community college, which she decided wasn’t a…terrible idea, actually.  They were online and she could take her gen-eds, then just worry about her major classes…

So she started doing that: part-time classes at the community college, and part-time at her waitressing job.  The rest of her time was spent on lists, of pros-and-cons, of things to do, of possibilities for her future, of who could she be, now that she had decided she wasn’t going to be Karma: the singer.  Now that she wasn’t going to be Karma: the Broadway Star.  Now that music was a hobby that, even then, she had largely put to the wayside, even the weight of the guitar feeling too heavy and giving her anxiety flash-backs of her finals in New York. 

Phone calls with Amy were about as frequent as could be expected (which was far less than Karma was okay with, but alas, the universe was against her in that as well as so many other things in that moment).  Karma ended up…becoming far more of a homebody than she ever thought possible.  She was home for her classes, home for her Netflix binges, and home for her lists and binders, and the only time she was really out of the house was for work.  Of the two of them, Amy had always been the homebody, and even though Karma saw the irony, she couldn’t say that she adjusted well to it.  She hated it, actually, but she couldn’t find any easy way out of it.  She didn’t have any friends that weren’t hundreds or thousands of miles away.  Shane insisted on her trying to make new ones, but all of her classes were online and she didn’t know of any parties in the area (and she certainly wasn’t going to just show up at a high school party, thank you very much [even if Shane did mention that he had connections if she wanted to]). 

So when a coworker invited her for a night out with some of the other waitresses, Karma almost didn’t say yes because…well, she’d fallen into a routine.  A loathsome and lonesome routine, but a routine nonetheless.  She’d originally said no, but by the end of her shift, mulling it over and honesty missing being able to go out and blow off steam, she’d ended up telling her coworker (Avery, was her name) that she would go, after all!

It was just her luck that they ended up, after bar hopping a few places, at Elektrik, the newest gay nightclub to open up in Austin.  Karma didn’t know it was the newest gay club, at the time, just that it was new, and when she realized – right as they hit the front of the line – that it was, in fact, a gay club, Karma had whirled around to Avery. 

“This is a gay club?!” she’d accidentally shouted, surprised.  She…well, she didn’t know her coworkers all that well.  Sure, she’d worked with them for months, but none of them had really opened up to her, in the sense that she didn’t know if any of them were gay or bi, and she honestly didn’t care.  She just cared that they supported her during rush hour, as she did for them. 

Avery looked taken aback, but then guarded, by Karma’s reaction.  “Yeah?  We like coming to them because the men don’t hit on us, and because I’m bi.  You got a problem, Ashcroft?”

It was a challenge, her gaze hardening, and…well, whoops.  Yes, she could have…definitely worded her question a lot better. 

Karma felt her face grow hot, suddenly very aware of all of her coworker’s eyes on her, curious and guarded, and even the eyes of the bouncer and several people in line.  Oh god, if only they knew…

“What?!  No!” and her voice sounded fake even to her own ears, which didn’t help at all, so she took a deep breath to calm herself down and shake her head, “No, really, I don’t.  My best friend is…” (god, what even did Amy identify as?  She had never really settled on a label, except “definitely into girls”) “gay.  Actually…several of my closest friends are gay,” she mused.  “I’m just surprised, is all.  I guess I just didn’t expect it,” she said sincerely, and Avery’s defensive look dropped slowly from her face as she nodded, choosing to believe her.  “I mean, not like I knew you were bi, but I don’t care.  I just would have worn a better outfit,” she channeled the old Karma, the charming one from high school, and winked, turning back around and handing the bouncer her (fake) ID. 

The night was actually really fun, and more than one woman had tried it on with Karma.  She found she liked the attention (some things never changed) and would flirt back, if only just a little.  She may not be interested in women (ha!) but that didn’t change the flattery at some gorgeous women coming up and talking to her.  She had fun but never let it go too far, wary, Amy in the back of her mind.  Her best friend who had fallen in love with her, and to whom she hadn’t been able to return the feeling.  She loved Amy with all of her heart, though.  That was true, and was never going to change.  They were Karma and Amy, Amy and Karma, two halves of the same whole that was Karmy.  And, if she was honest with herself…flirting with other women almost felt like cheating on Amy, in a way.  Because, and god she was loathe to admit it, but because a lot of how they talked to each other could easily be considered flirting, were Karma not, tragically, straight.  But Amy had Karma’s heart, so she tried not to let the guilt creep up when she reciprocated compliments and allowed light and flirty touches: because these were things Amy had been denied. 

It felt wrong, to let other women do it, even though Amy wasn’t her girlfriend and she wasn’t Amy’s and oh yeah, Karma was straight. 

Totally straight. 

Except she hadn’t slept with anyone, hadn’t made out, hadn’t hooked up…in nearly two years.  Since she’d left for New York.  New York had gotten too stressful for her to try to find a guy and she didn’t want to fall into casual sex: she’d still held out hope for an actual dating life. 

And she didn’t have a social life in Austin.  Not that any men had been catching her eye when she went out for coffee, or at the restaurant.  Admittedly, a few cute boys had tried, but Karma hadn’t really…wanted, to put in the effort to flirt with them.  She had a fistful of numbers from old, gross men who mistook her politeness and sugar-sweet customer service as her secretly wanting them (ick), but there were regular, cute boys who also left her their phone number.  But truth be told, she didn’t have the emotional energy, after all day faking her mood, to call any of the actually cute boys.  She had shit to figure out, thanks. 

So it was nice, to be outside of work, to be in a new environment, with new people (okay so she knew her coworkers but she’d never seen them out of their work uniforms, so she was going to count it anyway) and with some space to actually be the social Karma that she used to be. 

Plus, flirting with women was…fun.  The air of expectation wasn’t there, like with men.  These women didn’t expect anything from her, like that she would sleep with them if they bought her a drink (and buy her a drink they did).  They were there to flirt and try it on, and Karma found herself, with a few drinks, accepting invitations to dance, but she would break away before going any further. 

And so that was how their nights out went.  She would go with a group of her coworkers, and, true to what Avery said, they would always end the night in a gay bar or a gay club, and Karma found she really liked it. The gays were her people, even if they weren’t…her people. 

Still, though.  She caught the curious way that Avery looked at her, when she’d accept a drink from a woman and then a dance.  She never let it go any further than that: it wouldn’t be fair to the women, nor to Karma, who had given up on faking it long ago. 

Finally, Avery confronted her about it, pulling her aside in the bar they were in. 

“Okay Ashcroft, spill,” she said. 

Karma raised an eyebrow, taking a sip of a drink that a nice woman had just bought for her and whom, if she was frank, she’d been in the middle of charming the pants off of (figuratively speaking, of course). 

“Spill what?” she asked, genuinely confused. 

“You like girls?” Avery got straight to the point, and Karma choked on her drink. 

“What?  No,” Karma said, coughing, “I like flirting, but I’m straight.”

Avery’s eyebrows rose to damn near her hairline, “You sure?”

Karma barked out a laugh, “That I’m straight?  Yeah, pretty.”

“You ever kiss a girl?” Avery asked, and god did that bring back memories. 

Karma shut her eyes but snorted, “God, if you only knew.”

“So, are you bi then?”

“No, I-” Karma let out a breath, “No, at least, I don’t think so?”

She hadn’t meant to tell Avery about everything that went down in high school.  She’d largely tried to put the faking it behind her, because well, it turned out, Lauren had been right: they’d been mocking the gay rights movement.  Or, well.  Karma had been.  Amy just realized she was part of the gay rights movement.  Being gay and all…

Avery stared at her in a way that implied that she knew something that Karma didn’t know, and Karma didn’t like the look, but by the powers of the universe and friendship – which dictated that because she’d spilled the beans to her, Avery was now her confidant, and thusly – her closest friend of all of her coworkers. 

She couldn’t say what the tipping point was.  But she was out with Avery one night, at another gay bar, pleasantly buzzed on drinks she didn’t have to buy and dancing with this absolutely gorgeous blonde who, while she had nothing on Amy, definitely looked like she’d crawled out of the pages of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue, freckles and all.  And she just thought…fuck it.  She didn’t know who she was anymore, right?  She didn’t know what she liked or who she wanted to become, she had no idea.  Maybe she could be into women after all. 

So she’d turned around from where she’d had her ass pressed against the woman’s hips and leaned in and just like that, they were making out in a dark corner. 

And…honesty, upon waking up the next morning and groaning to herself because god, she needed to let up on the drinking…Karma realized that she didn’t hate kissing a woman.  With her eyes closed, honestly, the lips could have been anyone’s.  More experienced than Amy’s had been, less chapped than Liam’s had been, but not as soft as Shane’s had been (god, she’d felt her face burning at just the memory of that stupid kiss). 

One thing led to another, honestly.  Not that Karma told Avery (though Avery did ask her about where she’d ended up being half the night before they’d headed home) about her other conquests, though she’d been honest about that one, at the time. 

The “fuck it” attitude led her to more and more encounters, more and more daring make out sessions, until one night, inebriated and feeling like she was going to crawl out of her skin if she didn’t get laid, she’d ended up doing just that. 

Sex with a woman was…fine.  She’d woken up in the woman’s bed at 6:44am on the dot and had slunk out of the apartment as quietly and quickly as possible.  She had no interest in talking to the woman or seeing her again, or processing or whatever it was that women who liked women did after a one-night stand.  Amy had told her all about the processing, and she distinctly remembered that Reagan had always needed to do a lot of it. 

She didn’t want to stick around for breakfast or for awkward small-talk, so left without ceremony and, after a quick Google search that revealed she was a two and a half hour walk from her house, opted to walk home.  Fuck it.  She had nothing else to do, and she needed to think. 

To process.

Ironically. 

Part of her was tempted to call Amy, but that thought was immediately snuffed out.  Telling Amy would be possibly the stupidest thing she’d ever done, because just because she’d slept with a woman didn’t mean she’d liked it, and she wasn’t going to try to raise Amy’s hopes, and she wasn’t going to also crush her by being like “Oh by the way Amy, I decided to just have sex with a woman to see what it was like and it wasn’t you!”  The ways she could hurt Amy with that information were just too many and too variable, so she’d dismissed the thought almost as soon as she’d had it. 

No, for once, she was going to keep her mouth shut.  She could talk to Avery, but she didn’t want to do that either.  Maybe later.  But for that moment, she just took stock of herself as she walked.  She felt…good, but more because of the release of an orgasm (or two) than because of whom she slept with.  She was sore, in the sex way, and her right forearm was definitely sore in the “used it more than usual” way.  She was honestly shocked and honored that she’d been able to work the woman up to orgasm on her first try, and with minimal instruction!  And Karma had to say, that she hadn’t hated it.  The sex was fun, the woman was hot and she wasn’t nearly as put off as she thought she was going to be.  Not even as she sobered up while she walked. 

She didn’t regret it, and she’d actually liked it.  It was…different, than sex with a man.  She found that actually, she didn’t find either particularly better than the other.  It really sort of depended on the person. 

She’d stopped in her walking, surprised.  It…it depended on the person.  Sex with Liam had been…fine.  She didn’t experience orgasm with him the first few times, but he got better and his tongue did wonderful things.  That one guy she had slept with in New York had also been…fine.  Sex with this woman was…fine. 

It was all fine.  She didn’t care about the body, only that she found the person attractive enough to consider having sex with them. 

And apparently, that didn’t just include men, anymore. 

Karma ended up sitting in a park, still thinking, lost in her own world, contemplating. 

She thought she’d loved Liam, and she certainly had loved his aesthetic.  Sex with him had been fine.  That other guy was fine.  That woman was fine.  The common denominator was that…sex…was fine.  But there was something that was just…missing. 

A connection, of some sort.  That was what sex was supposed to be all about, right?  A connection? 

She thought she’d had it with Liam, but apparently not.  She thought she’d had it, or the potential to have it, with that other guy, but apparently not.  She’d thought she’d had the potential to have it with that Abercrombie & Fitch model in the club, and she felt like she’d had the potential with that woman she’d left behind that morning. 

But she didn’t.  None of them knew her, not really.  None of them understood her on a deeper level, saw her soul and loved her for it, none of them knew her quirks and the sex sort of felt…good, but empty, without that connection.  She’d always wanted that connection, and she’d never had it. 

Well…that wasn’t true. 

The realization hit her full-force. 

She had that connection with Amy.  That little something that was missing, that emotional spark, that emotional vulnerability, that sense of love and trust that wasn’t just sex, but something more. 

She’d never had sex with Amy, but suddenly she found herself wondering what it would be like, and it didn’t seem horrible.  Not at all.

Quite the opposite, in fact.  Amy would know what to do, even if neither of them were necessarily experienced (though Amy moreso than Karma, at any rate), Amy would know how to calm any nerves or lingering doubts Karma had.  Amy would know how to help her relax, to feel comfortable with herself and with Amy and with them, together…like that.  Amy would know how to caress her, to read her body language, to know what she needed, possibly even before Karma knew herself.  Amy would talk her through what she wanted with patience and love while Karma worked her body to a frenzy.  Amy would make her laugh, would laugh with her, would know exactly where to touch her and oh shit-

Karma nearly stood to head back to the woman’s apartment, suddenly hot and bothered again because, fuck.  Amy would be an amazing lay, and while part of her realized she was placing a lot of stock in a fantasy of her and Amy, she couldn’t help but realize that…part of it was true.  With Amy, sex wouldn’t be…sex.  It would be love.  Because that’s all it’d ever been between them.

And oh…

Oh no…

---

Another bang followed by a loud swear word had Karma snapping out of her reminiscing once more. 

“Hey!  No cursing before 11pm!” she shouted.  That was the rule in the house, because their daughter went to bed at 9pm and by 11pm, with any luck, Karma had Amy pinned to the bed and there was little she loved more than hearing Amy curse while she worked her way down her body.

“She started it!”

“Hey, don’t rat me out!”

“I don’t care who started it, don’t make me finish it!” Karma yelled back, and waited until she heard the quiet apologies. 

She waited a beat, ready to hear more fighting, because their daughter hated the no swearing before 11pm rule.  She also hated that she had to wait until she was thirteen to be allowed to use one swear word a day without losing part of her allowance, and Karma loved that they had somehow managed to convince the ten year old that that was a reasonable rule.  Karma remembered being a kid and how central to her vocabulary swears had become by the end of middle school.  She had no doubt they wouldn’t be able to enforce the rule, but with any luck, their daughter would stop.  Taking after.  Her mother. 

Amy, in this case.  Who swore like a drunken sailor on leave, and not in the sexy way (okay so it was almost always sexy, but not because they were having sex when she dropped them.  She was just sexy.)

Karma sighed.  Once more, back to her project…

---

Once she realized that maybe she would actually, really, genuinely, enjoy sex with her best friend, Karma couldn’t think of anything else for the rest of the morning, and so spent the morning in that park, thinking of everything she’d done with that woman and how it would be with Amy, and thank god she was the only one in the park because it would be just her luck that someone with mind reading powers would pass by and give her a look for the absolutely filthy and crazy thoughts that were going through her brain.  Because sex with Amy…god, it sounded weird to think it of it as a physical thing (she was straight right?  Except now she couldn’t even use that excuse…) but the images her brain kept supplying her and how her body was reacting to them…well, the thought was exciting (to say the least). 

It was like the flood gates suddenly opened.  She was into Amy.  Or well. She could be.  Very into Amy.  Very literally.

The thought had her biting back a moan.  It all made her so nervous, but giddy, and then flustered, because sex?!  With Amy?!  Her best friend?! 

Actually…nothing sounded better, and god how had it taken her that long to realize it?? 

She did end up calling Avery, around noon.

“Karm?  What’s up-”

“I had sex,” Karma blurted out, and she heard Avery shuffle her phone around. 

“Um…congratulations?” Avery muttered, clearly unsure of how she was supposed to react to that. 

“With a woman,”

A beat, and then: “Oh.  Um.  Congratulations?” the question was actually many rolled into one, and Karma could tell by the inflection.  “How was it?  Did you like it?  Are you bi now?  Do you know what this means?”, and all that before Karma had even gotten to the part about how she had been seriously considering, all morning, having sex with her best friend. 

Her best friend who’s heart she’d broken those few years back in high school. 

Karma opened her mouth to tell Avery everything, but ended up clamming up.  Maybe she shouldn’t.  Maybe she was still riding the curtails of good sex, maybe…

No, that wasn’t right.  Still, though…

“It was…okay.”

“Okay.  Do you…do you like women, now?” Avery was puzzled. 

“I don’t…think so?  I don’t know.  I didn’t hate the sex.”

“Not necessarily a promising description there, Karma,” Avery said, amused. 

“I don’t think I’m bi,” she said, simply, which was true enough.  Or maybe it wasn’t.  What she did know, was that the label didn’t feel right.  She could get excited about sex, no matter whom it was with, that was true.  But she was only ever truly excited with the prospect of having Amy underneath her (and on top of her and inside of her and-) “But I’m not straight, either.”

She couldn’t see it, but she was fairly certain that Avery was nodding. 

“Fair.  Well, that’s something.  Welcome to the queer umbrella.  It’s big, a lot of us fit under it.  And hey, unlike most umbrellas, you’re guaranteed to get wet.  Unless you’re ace, maybe…” she’d added the last bit, trailing off, and Karma couldn’t help but laugh.

“Thanks, Aves.”

“No worries, Karma.  You gonna tell Amy?”

Just hearing her name made Karma flustered all over again.  “I, um…I’m uh, I’m not…not yet.” She finally settled on, “Not right now.  Not until I know…”

Until she knew what?  That she really wanted to have Amy in bed with her? 

An ache opened up inside of her, then. 

She didn’t even need that.  She just needed…Amy.

And she should talk to her about…all of this.  But not then, not in that moment.  Not when it was fresh and new and still fragile, because god knew Karma had a history of jumping the gun.  She would have to wait.  See if these…feelings and thoughts would stick, or if she was still just riding high on post-orgasm endorphins. 

…more than six hours after the fact…

Even then, the excuse felt hollow, but the thought of telling Amy…of telling Amy, not even “hey, maybe I would (actually) be (very) open to a relationship with you,” but even telling Amy “Hey, I slept with a woman for the first time, can you believe that?  And now I know I’m actually not straight, better late than never, right?!” was, in a word – terrifying.  She wouldn’t even know where to begin. 

“Karma,” Avery’s voice brought her back, “Breathe.  You don’t have to tell her, yet.  You guys have a lot of um…history, so it’s okay if you want to figure out your head first.  That’s what coming out is all about.”

Coming out.  That was what she had to do, now.  Come out. 

But as what? 

The subject of labels eluded her even more than all of the other questions she had going on in her life, and started consuming her. 

The fact of the matter was…there were so many labels.  And Karma didn’t particularly like any of them.  She wasn’t necessarily attracted to women: she liked women, she liked them a lot, but she knew that she also liked men, and liked them a lot.  She knew she didn’t really care about their bodies, that she was attracted to…well, what she found attractive, but she found she could find just about anyone attractive if they were flirting with her, and were doing it well.  Words like Asexual and Aromantic and Gray Asexual were thrown about, but she rejected those because she definitely experienced all of the attractions.  She wasn’t looking for a fling, basically, even if she didn’t mind partaking in them.  She didn’t consider herself bisexual, and maybe the closest label she identified with was Pansexual, but she didn’t really like that one all that much, either.  She’d settled on questioning, but found that that label, apparently, wasn’t the right one. 

Any time she would talk to someone about it, people would (helpfully, but uselessly) try to talk to her about labels, as though “questioning” was a transitory one and not, simply, what Karma was. 

It pissed her off. 

In the end, she decided against any label.  She liked what she liked and that was that. 

And she loved Amy.

So, okay, she did pick a label, but she wouldn’t tell anyone until much, much later in life.

She was Amy-sexual.  And Amy-Romantic.  And she had no idea how to tell her best friend that. 

Avery – who had fast become her closest friend in Austin, with Amy gone – was the first person she told, laying out on Avery’s bed while Avery worked on her homework for her own classes at UT Austin: classes which she was actually taking online. 

“I mean, obviously,” was the only reaction Avery had, and Karma nearly smacked her with a pillow.

“What do you mean, ‘obviously’?!” she groaned, and Avery looked away from her laptop to give Karma a once-over. 

“I don’t know, Karma.  Something about deciding to fake being in lesbians with your best friend was kind of a massive tip-off,” she said, shrugging, “Super fucked-up, but like…you love her.  That’s obvious.  The rest could or could not come, but you’re not the first person to fall in love with their best friend and not realize it, you know?  Pretty sure that’s a whole trope on TV right now,” she leaned back in her seat, regarding Karma, who was staring back at her, gaping. 

“But I didn’t know I’d end up wanting to have sex with her!” Karma burst, and Avery shrugged. 

“I’ve met a few women who didn’t think they were into women and then they met one, dated her, everything.  Then broke up and the women went right back to dating men.  Sexuality is a weird thing.  For some people it’s fluid, for others it’s rigid and for still others, it’s just simply who they love.  And you found your love a long time ago.”

And goddamn it, she was right!  It’d…it’d always been Amy, for her.  She’d just never known it.  Never noticed because she’d been looking up and down for her Prince Charming, when all along she’d had Princess Sarcasm right at her side.  But it was true: they were soulmates, they always had been, and she couldn’t picture herself with literally anyone else.  It’d always been Amy: Amy and their faceless husbands who faded away as Karma continued to think about a future with her and Amy.  Amy and her.  

What was left… was just to tell Amy that…

Not that she did that right away. 

She had other, pressing matters to discuss with Amy (though really, maybe “Amy I’m actually in love with you” would have been pretty pressing to know, in Amy’s book…), like the fact that she was supposed to go back up to New York in a matter of months and she still didn’t know what she was going to study. 

The rest of Amy’s internship with the film, Wilds of Alaska, had been very successful.  She’d returned to school with no issues and had basically picked up where she’d left off, except with a shining letter of recommendation from Ken Burns and contacts that, Amy told Karma, even some of her professors would kill for.  It also landed her a summer job, which meant that Karma wouldn’t be seeing her for the summer, and though part of her was disappointed, a larger part was just…proud.  And she told Amy as much. 

“Thanks, Karma. I – god, that means a lot, from you.  I’m gonna miss you so much, though.  But with all this…I think…I think honestly, if I decide to do this…to do film…I’m all set.  They’ve always told us that it’s all about connections…”

“Amy, that’s fucking amazing!” Karma had said, enthusiastic. 

She could hear just how pleased Amy was as she uttered a quiet, but content “Yeah,”

“I’m going to miss you too, Ames.  But…” and she’d trailed off.  She hadn’t decided yet, about returning to New York, but she knew…she couldn’t.  She didn’t know what she wanted to study, and honestly, Austin, though it had always been home, had actually started to feel like it.  It turned out, Karma, the matured version of her she was becoming, and Austin fit quite well together.  She liked the people.  She liked the bars and their small but open and inviting open mic nights.  She liked her coworkers and she actually found that she didn’t hate her job.  She didn’t like it, but she didn’t hate it. 

“But, I think maybe I can come visit you?  I’ve decided” just then, actually, “that I’m not going back to New York,”

“You have?  Since when?  You didn’t tell me!”

Karma chuckled, surprised by how at peace she felt with the decision, now that she had made it.  “Since now,”

“Are you going to go somewhere else?”

Karma shrugged even though Amy couldn’t see it. “I don’t know.  Maybe?  I don’t know what I’d want to study, though, so it seems like it wouldn’t make sense for me to go somewhere.”

Amy agreed, and said that she was proud, and Karma nearly started tearing up from how genuine it was, coming from Amy.  She’d whispered her goodbye into the phone, choosing to finish it with “I love you,”

“I love you too, Karm.”

Butterflies. 

She was totally screwed. 

---

Karma tapped her pencil, smiling to herself.  Screwed in the best way possible. 

---

In the end, she did actually end up going back to school (UT Austin), and once again, she had Avery to thank.  Avery, who had let out a frustrated sigh in the middle of their study session in the park on a sunny Sunday afternoon, gearing up for their respective finals. 

“I can’t, I’m taking a break,” she said, sharply, before standing and stretching.  “I’m gonna go get something at Starbucks, want anything?”

“No,” Karma had answered absently, scribbling a note down. 

“Watch my stuff,”

“Will do.”

And Avery left.  Karma eventually shut her own notebook, tired of staring at the same three points about osmosis.  Biology was by far one of her worst subjects and she hated that she needed to take it again as a gen-ed.  She found herself looking at Avery’s stuff, spread out on the ground, book pages held open with rocks they’d found, notebook held down by her pencil case. 

The whole thing looked…like something out of a science fiction book.  Lots of designs with lines next to them, numbers and math scribbled all over, and Karma felt her eyebrow raising as she took in the notes, and the title of the book: Design: Form and Function. 

Huh.  She actually didn’t know what Avery was studying, so she asked when she sat down. 

“I’m studying environmental studies, but we have to take inter-disciplinary classes and this one is cross-listed with the architecture department.  Apparently they overlap quite a bit, what with global warming and everything,” Avery waved a frustrated hand, “It’s a lot more math than I’d prefer, but the class is okay, I guess.”

And something about those shapes, those designs, on paper, sparked something inside Karma.  It looked…like music.  Not like the notes and the bare essentials and the building blocks to a song, but like…the entire composition.  The end result of all of the notes.  It looks like a finished piece, art personified. 

She didn’t tell anyone that she went to the UT Austin open day.  That she asked for more information about the architecture program.  She didn’t even tell anyone that she was interested in it.  She wasn’t sure if she was, but on a whim she applied (right before the deadline), and then looked more and more into it and realized that…yeah, she might actually like architecture.  Math wasn’t necessarily her best subject, but she’d never really hated it (and she was certainly better at it than Amy was).  But what she really liked, was the design of it all.  Dramatic, theatrical, but practical.  It could be flashy or understated but it was necessary, it was needed, and she liked to be needed. 

She waited until she got the acceptance letter to tell Amy. 

“Karma, what the fuck, that’s amazing?!  Architecture?!”

“Yeah,” Karma said softly, her heart full to bursting.  She still hadn’t gathered up the courage to tell Amy how she felt, but god, was it getting harder to keep it in. 

“At UT Austin, though?” Amy asked, the implied “I thought you wanted to leave?” not lost on Karma. 

“Yeah.  I, um…I actually really like it here.  I’ve learned a lot about myself.”

Amy’s voice was almost too tender when she said, “I know.”

Karma laughed, “What do you mean ‘I know’?  I just started figuring it out myself!”

“You sound happier,” Amy said simply, “More mellow.  The Karma I know…well, knew, would have never been so chill about not seeing me during the summer.  Not that I would have minded, but the new Karma was just so…happy for me.  Selfless.  That comes from being happier.  I’m so happy for you, Karm.  Seriously,” and the sincerity once more brought tears to Karma’s eyes, her heart aching. 

God, I love you.  She thought, but managed a choked-up “Thanks,”

Amy heard the emotion, the voice break, but misinterpreted its reason, “It’s going to be okay, Karma.  You’re going to be okay,”

And she was.  She knew it.  She knew it because Amy knew it, and Amy believed in her, and on top of that, Karma believed in herself.  She’d said her goodbye and I love you with a little more emphasis: she’d been doing it more and more. 

---

Karma didn’t end up telling Amy for almost an entire year.  She went to UT Austin and loved it.  Her classes were challenging, but unlike her music classes in New York, the breaking down of the elements of her art made much more sense when it came to architecture.  Everything made sense, even the math, though she’d be lying if she said she liked her math classes.  She reduced her hours at the restaurant but still picked up a shift or two, where she felt she could.  She chose to stay on campus at UT Austin, which made it a bit harder to work, as her job was on the other end of the city, close to home.  Avery visited her fairly often, which was nice, and she made friends once again at school.  Friends who were real, who didn’t care about who she had been before, only who she was then.  Friends who didn’t care that she was in love with her best friend (and okay, maybe she should have told Amy before she told them, but there were there, and alcohol, and Amy had called and Karma had apparently made it very obvious that she was entirely in love when she’d answered the phone, and her friends didn’t stop teasing her about it for the rest of the night). 

Everything, after the end of her first year as an architecture major just felt…right.  Whole.  Complete. 

Almost. 

It took some begging and some finagling and some finessing, but Karma managed to convince her parents to pay half of her flight to LA and back, where Amy had taken yet another summer job on a set of a low-budget indie film that was especially keen to hire students (“Because they don’t have to pay us as much, but the exposure in this business really is key, so I guess it’s a trade-off…”)  It took even more begging and finagling and finessing (and some Facebook stalking) for her to get a hold of all of Amy’s future roommates for the summer to make sure they were cool with Karma staying with them for a few days, and for them to keep their mouths shut about the surprise. 

They hadn’t seen each other in nearly two years, and Amy was all too happy to text Karma her address after Karma had arrived in LA.  She’d texted Amy, asking for it under the guise of sending her a letter with some presents from the UT Austin gift shop. 

Not that Karma didn’t have it already, but she was nervous, and figured it wouldn’t hurt to double-check before she clambered into her Uber from the airport and headed off to Amy’s. 

Amy’s roommate, Carmen, who had dragged Amy out of the house so that Karma could be on the steps, waiting for them to return, sent her a text saying that she was going to bring Amy back to their shared house.  Karma’s heart hammered in her ribcage as she wrote back, “Okay, great, I’m in the Uber, there in twenty.”

“We’ll be there in thirty, I’m taking her by Dole’s, she can’t resist their donuts.”

Karma chuckled, “Good idea,” she typed back. 

She’d brought the UT Austin sweatshirt she’d promised Amy, tucked away in her backpack: she was travelling very light – unusual for her, but she couldn’t be there much longer than a few days, anyway, so it didn’t make any sense for her to bring more than the few clothes she had in her bag, her comfy Addidas streetwalkers, and any other bare necessities.  Everything else, she knew she’d just share with Amy. 

Including a few outfits. 

Her heart felt like it was hammering out of her chest when she heard Amy’s laugh and Carmen’s rich, deep voice, chatting as they exited their own Uber.

And god, if Karma wasn’t Amy-sexual before. 

She looked gorgeous.  The California sun had tanned her skin just enough that it gave her a healthy glow.  Her hair was a lighter blonde than when Karma had last seen her, on their last Facetime nearly two months before.  She was in a tank top and short shorts and Karma sucked in a breath at the sight.  Amy popped the last piece of the donut in her mouth before finally turning to look at where they were going, Karma sat on her stoop, fighting off a smile and failing miserably.

Amy went slack-jawed, dumbstruck, and Carmen laughed. 

“Karma?!” she managed, and Karma stood, her smile hitting maximum capacity. 

“Ames,” she said, but Amy was already barreling forward and Karma did the same, and they met in the middle, crashing together in the middle of the walkway.  Carmen passed them, shaking her head and chuckling to herself.

“Oh my god, Karma, what are you doing here?!” Amy practically shouted, pulling away from her.

Karma laughed, “Surprised?” 

“Um obviously?!  What, why – how?!”

Karma looped her arm around Amy’s shoulders and they headed into Amy’s apartment together, “I’ll explain-”

In her defense, Karma was pretty sure that her just showing up on Amy’s doorstep was a pretty romantic gesture.  But, then again, they’d always done ridiculously romantic things like that for each other, and it wasn’t like she’d told Amy that she was in love with her yet, so it made sense that Amy didn’t think it was anything extraordinary.  But Karma’s palms were sweaty any time they held hands walking down the street, Amy showing her the local spots that she’d gotten to know in the week she’d lived in the neighborhood, and Karma’s heart always skipped a beat any time they touched and god, was this how Amy had felt all those years ago? 

Did she still feel that way?

Karma shoved that doubt down because honestly…if she let herself think it, she wouldn’t have the stones to go through with telling Amy how she felt.  She just wouldn’t.  

In the end, Karma couldn’t find the words to tell Amy: all the careful planning, the entire notebook full of song lyrics and the entire binder full of romantic gestures and ways she could approach the whole thing…they all abandoned her at the most inopportune moment. 

They’d been in Amy’s room, it was Karma’s third day in LA and she could feel the tension building between them.  Something was going to give, and that something was 100% Karma’s resolve.  She’d always been the weakest link, of the two of them. 

Or perhaps, in this case, the strongest.  It was on her to make the move, anyway: it wasn’t like Amy could read her mind (much as it may sometimes seem), and even if she wasn’t entirely conscious of it,  Amy was respecting the boundaries that she didn’t know Karma had torn up long ago. 

They’d just gotten back from dinner, the two of them and Amy’s roommates, and the whole time, Karma couldn’t pay attention to anything other than Amy.  Amy, in no make-up, swaddled up in the sweatshirt that Karma had brought her, and Karma in a sundress that was technically Amy’s, and that she knew Amy never wore and actually just kept in her closet for when Karma came to visit. 

It felt…right and good, to sit there, by her side, in her clothes (technically), surrounded by her friends. 

Karma couldn’t take it anymore and, when they got back to the apartment and Amy shut the door, Karma couldn’t think of words and suddenly her nerves had her heart in her throat.  She sat on Amy’s bed without thinking, clasping her hands together and twiddling her thumbs.  A bad move, if she’d wanted to be subtle, because moving thumbs was a dead giveaway to her nerves, but it couldn’t be helped: she was nervous, and full to bursting with love for Amy.  Amy pushed hard on the door to make sure it was closed, because the house wasn’t the nicest and wasn’t the newest and the doors were a little finicky, and when she turned around, she intuited immediately (Karma could see it in her face) that something was wrong. 

“Karm, you okay?” she asked, cautious.

Karma couldn’t say she blamed Amy for that.  Not a few moments ago she’d been bubbly Karma, not serious, somber, nervous Karma. 

“Amy.  I…” she lost all of her words, Amy’s expression adorably confused.  She took in a deep breath and sighed. “I love you,” she said it, like it was the most simple thing in the world, and not the most laden.

“Okay?  I love you too, dork,” Amy still looked unsure, and Karma shook her head. 

“No, um…I...Well, I wanted to tell you.  There’s a lot I haven’t told you,”

“Okay…” Amy leaned against her door and folded her arms, as though sensing something heavy coming. 

“I did a lot of soul-searching, that gap year in Austin, and this year too.  Learning…well, a lot about myself.  About Karma Ashcroft,”

Amy raised her eyebrows, looking even more confused, “I know who you are, nerd.  Did you have like, a mild stroke or something?”

It was a good joke, and it actually made Karma chuckle (nervously), but she had to shut it down.  Amy was an expert at calming her and coaxing her until she wasn’t nervous anymore, and if she wasn’t nervous anymore, she wouldn’t do it.  Ironic, but the nerves were good.  The nerves reminded her that she wouldn’t be able to take two more days at Amy’s, sitting on this secret.

“No, I promise, I haven’t,” she answered, and Amy nodded.

“Okay, so, you did a lot of soul-searching, and…?”

Karma really had meant to say it with more tact, but she ended up just coming out with: “I slept with a woman!”

Amy’s brow furrowed, but not necessarily in a good way, and Karma could feel herself blushing.

“I…um.  Okay?” Amy tightened her already folded arms around herself.  Karma could see in her eyes, the walls starting to go up.  Preparing for the worst, and it made Karma’s heart ache to see it. 

God, Amy hadn’t been lying, had she?  When she said some part of her would always love Karma, and Karma could see that part, small and wounded, Amy unwilling to dare to let it hope. 

It hurt to see. 

“Sorry, I meant to say that with more tact…” Karma looked away, unable to watch the pain in Amy’s eyes, so she looked at her hands instead, “What I meant to say was that I’ve been going out with my work friends, you remember how I told you we went to that gay bar?  And well, one thing just led to another and suddenly I was drunk and in another woman’s bed and it wasn’t…well, it wasn’t horrible,”

Amy snorted, and Karma looked up at her to see her roll her eyes and laugh slightly, though her eyes were still stormy and she kept staring at the ceiling in a way that implied she was trying to collect herself, and trying not to cry.

“Understatement of the century,” she managed, with a clear voice, leveling Karma with a small but authentic smile, “women are amazing in bed, Karma.  I’ve been telling you this for years now.”

Karma couldn’t help but roll her eyes, “Yes I realize that.  Except I’d never had sex with a woman so I didn’t know, now did I?”

“Just couldn’t take my word for it, eh?” Amy asked, and while it was said without malice, Karma felt the sting anyway. 

She sighed, frustrated, “I’m sorry, we’re getting way off track, I had a binder for this and everything and none of it has gone according to any plan,”

“When has it ever, with us?” Amy asked.

Karma pinched the bridge of her nose, took a deep breath and closed her eyes before bursting: “This is all beside the point!  The point isn’t that I slept with a woman!  The point is that I wish it had been you!”

And then, just like that, it was out there. 

A silence followed in which all that Karma could hear was her own heart beating wildly in her chest.  This wasn’t exactly how she’d planned it.  She’d planned a kiss and a cuddle and grand professions of love and-

“Um…what?” Amy asked, sounding completely confounded. 

Karma opened her eyes and looked at Amy, then.  Her gaze wasn’t guarded, but it was still wary, looking like she didn’t entirely believe what she’d just heard.  She was leaning against the door and still in that adorable sweatshirt and dark wash skinny jeans and okay so it took Karma a few years but damn, Amy was beautiful. 

Karma exhaled, but bit her lip, trying to steel her resolve. 

“I just…the sex was fine, sex has always been fine.  It was fine with Liam and it was fine with Felix and it was fine with that woman but…do you remember how I always said, when we were younger, that I wanted my first time to be special?  That I wanted the romance and the wooing, and the love?  I just…I thought and thought and thought, and the more I thought, the more I realized that there was just something missing.  A connection.  A connection I have…that I’ve always had.  With you,” Karma looked up, suddenly feeling brave, “And I’m sorry that it took me so long to see it.”

Amy looked at her, her expression completely unreadable from all of the warring emotions that were clearly visible as she processed Karma’s words. 

Karma was honestly a little surprised that she couldn’t see steam coming out of Amy’s ears.

And then, perhaps stupidly, but just to fill the silence, she plowed on: “And maybe I’m too late and maybe you don’t want me-” doubtful, but she wasn’t going to say it, “-but I just…I had to tell you.  I’ve been waiting for over a year, just to make sure-”

Amy let out a noise, somewhere between a laugh and a snort of surprise.  She shook her head to herself and finally pushed herself off her door, coming to sit beside Karma on the bed.  But she didn’t look at her, not at first, sitting close to her, but arms straight at her sides, pushing her hands into the mattress.

“I…” Amy swallowed audibly, before tilting her head back, “Wow, Karm.  You really know how to drag a girl back into your orbit, huh?” she chuckled.

Karma furrowed her brow, “You don’t believe me?” she asked, somewhere between incredulous and upset. 

“I mean, Karma, can you blame me?” Amy asked, turning suddenly to look at her, her eyes frosty but pleading, “Like…why now?  Why after all these years, all this time fighting everything I’ve felt for you?  And you have to admit: your track record isn’t the best.”

Karma sighed, nodding, “I…I know.  I know that,” and it was true: she did. 

She didn’t know what she’d expected, really.  She’d built it all up so much in her head, finally telling Amy, that she’d forgotten that Amy hadn’t had a whole year to process her feelings like Karma had. 

“So you’ll forgive me for being…well, shocked.  You didn’t even tell me much more about going out to gay bars?  Or anything else involving women…like that?”

Karma nodded, looking at her hands again, “I wanted to, but I knew it would hurt you, Amy.  Like…after everything I put you through?  And then to tell you that maybe I was a little bi-curious, after all?  I couldn’t do that to you.  Give you hope where there might not have been any,”

“So what’s this, then?” Amy asked, her voice quiet. 

Karma snapped her gaze up at the soft, sad tone in Amy’s words.

“This is me, telling you, that I love you.  That I always have, and a part of me always will, no matter what.  And that…I’m ready, to step off that ledge with you.  No matter how scary the fall.”

Amy sucked in a breath, for the first time looking like she was daring to hope. 

“Um, don’t take any offense to this but, am I like…dreaming?”

Karma couldn’t help but laugh at that, tossing back her head to let out a real, deep belly laugh. 

That wasn’t a no, and it wasn’t a rejection, and that made her feel giddy as she calmed down. 

“No, not unless I am too,” Karma said, shrugging. 

Amy bit her bottom lip and stared at Karma. 

“I just…god, Karma, this is kind of a lot to take in.  I just…I have a lot to think about.  To process…”

There it was, that process word.  Amy’d ended up asking for space, and Karma had given it to her, though she’d be lying if she said that she was pleased about being relegated to the couch for the night (even when Amy had been head over heels in love with her, she’d never made “sleeping on the couch” one of her boundaries, and Karma couldn’t say she wasn’t upset by the sudden turn of events). 

She also wasn’t super-pleased about being woken up at six am by Carmen, who shook her awake and told her she was going out for donuts for everyone, and to come with.  Karma didn’t understand why she had to come with, but she did nevertheless, and she realized when they ate the donuts and didn’t buy any to bring home, that she’d been duped. 

“Amy told you to keep me out of the house today, didn’t she?!” Karma accused, as soon as she realized, Carmen driving very much in the wrong direction on the interstate after the donuts.

Carmen sighed, “Yeah, she did.  Kind of fucked up, don’t you think?” she asked, and Karma narrowed her eyes. 

“What?”

“You.  Coming here and making a mess of her head like that,”

Karma folded her arms, glaring, “She told you?!”

Carmen shrugged, “Not the whole story, no, but it was pretty obvious she’s had it bad for you, you know?  She talked about you a lot, and I’ve been there too.  Falling for your best friend is kind of bullshit, and it’s even more bullshit if she suddenly claims to be in love with you back, several years down the line,”

Karma should have gotten mad, but instead, she felt her expression soften, her crossed arms loosen.  Carmen was being protective.  Of Amy.  Against Karma.

It was…nice, actually.  To know that Amy had roommates who apparently cared that much about her. 

“I know it may seem sudden,” Karma said, quietly, sitting back in her seat and choosing to look at the city and cars going by, “But I’ve been thinking of nothing but her for the last year and a half, almost two.  I don’t know how she did it: the distance was really hard, but if she’d been with me the whole time?  I would have burst…

“But I love her.  I always have.  Just took me some time to realize I was in love with her, too.”  She thought she saw a slight smile on Carmen’s face out of the corner of her eye.  “And I’ll do anything she asks, to prove that,” Karma found herself saying.

Carmen snorted, “Maybe try telling her that, Romeo,”

“I will.”

So she did.  Carmen kept Karma out all day, seeing sights around the city while Amy processed, and upon returning, it took everything in her to not go and bang on Amy’s door and demand to process with her, just so she could know what was going on.  She’d done the smart thing instead, and had sent a text, and Amy had answered with a simple request to please just leave her be, for a bit. 

Karma didn’t like it, but she tried to shove it down, because it was what Amy needed, and if there was one thing that Karma valued above all, it was Amy.  So she’d given her space and ended up watching Netflix with all of Amy’s roomies until well into the morning. 

Amy kept her at a distance for the rest of her time in LA, which was…well, not ideal. 

The evening of her last day, Karma reached the end of her rope, and eventually ended up banging on Amy’s door and demanding to be let in. 

“Amy, let me in, you can’t avoid me forever!” followed by a quiet, but desperate, “Please don’t shut me out,”

Amy had opened the door, sighing, “I’m not shutting you out, Karma. I’m processing.  It’s a lesbian art form, you’re still new the whole thing so I know you don’t quite grasp the concept-”

“Shut up,” Karma whined, happy to see Amy was cracking jokes, but the ache in her chest reminded her of just how much she’d missed her best friend in the last few days. 

Amy smiled at her, though, a genuine smile, and it made Karma’s heart soar.  “Can I come in?” she asked, and Amy nodded, stepping back and fully opening the door.

“I guess we should talk,” Amy started.

And talk they did.  Amy was…elated.  Terrified, shocked, surprised, wary, but elated. 

“If I could tell high school me right now,” she’d joked, and Karma’d playfully slapped her arm. 

They talked well into the night, facing each other on Amy’s bed, just…talking.  Just being. 

It was nice.  Amy told Karma all of her fears, her thoughts, and finally ended with a deep, shaky but hopeful sigh and Amy saying, sincerely: “I want us to try.  God, Karma, I want to try so bad.  But…we have to take it slow.  I can’t…I can’t jump straight back into those feelings.  If I did, and you changed your mind? I would be devastated-”

“I’m not going to change my mind,” Karma said, sure. 

Amy sighed, “God, Karma, I want to believe that.  You don’t know how much I just want to let myself fall right back in love with you, but for me, and for you…I can’t.  I can’t put myself through that,”

“Okay,” Karma had agreed, because she could see it was important to Amy, and Amy smiled appreciatively at her.  “But I promise you, Amy Raudenfeld: I’m not going anywhere.  I mean, physically yes, I have to go back to Austin tomorrow,” and they both giggled, “but metaphorically: I’m staying.  I’m here.  I’m ready.”

Amy’d nodded, and though Karma would have loved to kiss her right then, Amy had scooted closer for a cuddle, and they fell asleep like that, Amy in Karma’s arms. 

She did get her kiss, though.  The next afternoon at the airport, as she was heading for the security gates, Amy’s pinky held in hers.  The kiss was quick and awkward and chaste, as if it was the first time they’d kissed, rather than the…well, certainly not the first. 

But in a way, it was their first kiss: first kiss as a possibly official couple, and it left Karma buzzing and smiling all the way home, full of hope. 

After she’d gone to visit Amy in LA, they became an official couple within a few months, but it hadn’t necessarily been an easy few months.  For Karma it had started out easily enough: all she had to do was consistently be there, and that wasn’t hard.  She’d always been there for Amy anyway: now she just had to show that she meant business, and that wasn’t difficult.  Just little things, like telling Amy how cute she looked in photos, or being a little flirty in texts, but nothing too crazy: they’d set some boundaries and Karma was careful to toe them, but never cross them.  She had to get this right, after all. 

But there were other things to consider, besides just being there.

Lauren, for example, wasn’t too pleased with her, and she’d gotten an earful the next time Karma saw her.  She hadn’t even seen the little blonde bomb approach, but she sure felt the explosion.  Lauren grabbed her roughly by the arm and had yanked her out of the bar they were in, not releasing despite Karma fighting this tiny, furious stranger.  She only realized it was Lauren when they were outside, and Lauren was glaring at her like nothing would give her more pleasure than murdering Karma right then and there.

“What gives, Ashcroft?” she asked, sharply. 

Karma raised both hands in surrender, “Uh, hey Lauren-”

“I swear to god Karma, if you hurt Amy again, people will only think of you when they think about the bad karma you suffered at my hands for messing with Amy’s head and her heart again,”

“Hey, hey!” Karma tried to put more emphasis on her surrender hands, waving them in the air slightly, “Lauren, I’m not messing with Amy.  I swear,”

Lauren didn’t believe her, and Karma didn’t blame her, but she kind of didn’t care: there would be time to make Lauren come around.  Her focus at the moment was Amy. 

“If you are, Ashcroft, they won’t even find the ashes of your body,” she threatened.

Karma couldn’t help the small “eep” that had come out when Lauren was suddenly in her face and poking her in the sternum.

“If you hurt Amy again, if you break her heart one more time, I’m ripping yours out and giving it to her so that she can have it some capacity.  You owe her that much,” Lauren seethed.

“Oddly specific and incredibly gruesome,” Karma couldn’t help but comment.  “Amy’d love it, though.”

“Shut up!  Why are you this calm?!” she demanded. 

Karma shrugged but couldn’t help the goofy grin she could feel spreading across her face, “Because I love her, Lauren.  I’m in love with her.  For real, this time.  I’m not faking it, I’m not insecure.  I know what I want,” she said the last part softly, and Lauren looked at her as though she was some sort of alien species.

“I don’t believe you, but I know that Amy does and I love Amy too, Karma.  Don’t go anywhere near her unless this is really for real.  You owe her that much.”

“I know,” Karma said, sincerely.

Lauren eyed her for a moment before giving a curt nod, and just as quickly as she’d come, she was gone.

Shane was much more cautiously optimistic.  She got a bit of a lecture from him about not hurting Amy, either: he was bad at picking sides but make no mistake, if Karma broke Amy’s heart again, he knew what side he’d be on. 

But then he spent the rest of their coffee date teasing Karma about how his gaydar was never wrong, and “Took you long enough, Starfish.”

Things with Amy did gradually change, though.  First it was the texts that gradually turned into sexts, mild but flirty and just enough to really tease Karma.  The distance didn’t help, but when Amy finally did find a moment to make it back to Austin, then there were kisses, chaste ones and then make-out ones, and then actual sex which, Karma was right, was much better than any of her partners before (not that that was important: the important thing was that it was Amy).  And really…some things didn’t change at all, like the Netflix binges and cuddles, face masks and tickle fights until they couldn’t breathe, and whispering nonsense to each other until the wee hours of the morning, in person or on the phone. 

One year turned into two, turned into three, and then Amy graduated and, though she had the choice to get right into the business, what with her connections, she’d opted for grad school in cinematography, and Karma moved out to LA to join her after her own graduation, and started her own masters at UCLA in architecture. 

And she moved to live with Amy, of course. 

Karma was the one who proposed, and she didn’t do it to stick it to Shane and Lauren, who she knew for a fact had a pool going about who would propose and when.  She did it because it felt right, and because she’d been carrying the ring around for nearly three years. 

She’d spotted the ring back in Austin.  It had just screamed Amy, a simple white gold band, brilliant in its unassuming simplicity.  Understated but beautiful, like her.  Karma’d bought it on the spot, using literally all of the money she’d managed to save from her waitressing job, and she didn’t even care.   

Amy graduated with her Masters degree and dove head-first into finding a job, which kept her very busy.  Filming schedules were insane, and it turned out being a cinematographer (and a good one, to boot) didn’t keep her from those crazy hours.  It was hard, but it was fine.  They’d been through longer, and worse, separations, and so Karma just threw herself into her studies, and any time she could, she’d look at that ring, and she’d picture it on Amy’s finger, and she couldn’t stop smiling. 

And maybe it was soon for her to propose, but she didn’t care.  She’d loved Amy all her life, and she planned to love her for the rest of it. 

She took to carrying the ring with her, on the off chance that the ideal opportunity would present itself. 

And it did, at Karma’s own Masters graduation.  She’d received her diploma, sat through the whole ceremony, and as soon as it ended, fought through the crowds, looking for her family.  And she found them, among the sea of people: her mother, her father, Zen, Zen’s girlfriend (soon to be fiancé, though Karma was about to upstage him, and neither of them knew that yet), and some of Amy’s friends, who had also become Karma’s friends when she’d moved to LA, all standing around, chatting, all dressed to the nines.  

And there was Amy, also dressed to impress in a tight dress, deep blue that hugged her curves perfectly.  The dress definitely had pockets (Amy almost never wore a dress, and when she did, it was a dress with pockets, this was just a fact) but Amy still had a clutch that, Karma knew, was entirely for show (keys phone and wallet all went into the pockets).  Her hair was styled and she’d put on a little bit of make-up, not that she needed it and not that Karma wanted her wearing any: she was so used to bare-faced Amy that sometimes, make-up Amy freaked her out a little.

But she looked hot as hell and god, Karma wanted the world to know that that incredible woman was hers. 

She had the ring in its box in her own dress (which ALSO had pockets, and which was nice and flowy and so made it hard to see the box’s shape), underneath her graduation robes and honestly? 

Fuck it. 

She reached into her pocket, pulling her arm into her gown and fishing out the ring box, clasped tightly in her suddenly sweaty palm, kept carefully hidden as she bounded forward.  She hugged her mom and her dad and Zen and Amy went in for her own hug, but Karma was already down on one knee, holding up the box and opening it to reveal the ring. 

“Amy Raudenfeld, I think that, ever since I met you and we – well, I – started all of that ridiculous wedding planning and all of my schemes for our futures together…even when I said things about husbands, I think even then I knew: it’s always been you,” was all she could think to say, because it was true.  She felt her heart soar as Amy covered her mouth and several people around them audibly gasped. 

“And I want it to always be you.  Will you-?”

“God, of course, you asshole!” she practically shouted, reaching down and grabbing Karma, yanking her up and into a desperate kiss. 

Karma held her tight and when they separated, Karma went back and kissed her, and kissed her, and kissed her, to the sound of wolf whistles and hoots and hollers from their friends. 

“God I hate you,” Amy breathed, when they finally parted, her eyes shining with happy tears, “This day was supposed to be about you, remember?”

“I love you too,” Karma answered instead. 

---

The photo (of which, there were many from that surprise moment) was still one of Karma’s favorites.  They had it framed and it was currently on the other end of the room, mocking her for not doing her damn project for a very high-paying client.  Some rich snob who wanted her to design his house.  He was an acquaintance of a guy who Amy was working with, though they didn’t learn that until after.

And she was going to do it.  Soon.  Very soon. 

---

The wedding was a beach wedding, like they’d always sort of planned, with no fancy dress, just casual and beach-chic, as Karma had called it.  It was windy and sandy and they’d had to head inside when the wind really picked up, but it was fine.  The venue was a cute little bar and grill right near the beach, overlooking a gorgeous view of the ocean and just far enough outside of the city that they had the beach largely to themselves. 

They legally married at the courthouse in Austin, though.  And after some years, they eventually moved back.  Adopted a child.  Little Belle, originally called Mayebelle but she didn’t like it. 

Little Belle who, despite the pretty name, was an absolute nightmare when she wanted to be.  She was so much like Amy that it was like meeting her wife all over again, just in child-form (again).  They’d adopted her when she was 8, so there were still some adjustments that were happening in their little family: her and Amy getting used to Belle’s personality, and Belle getting used to theirs. 

Belle and Amy got on like a house on fire.  If someone had told Karma Ashcroft-Raudenfeld that one day, her own wife would be the one who spoiled their child, who their child had wrapped around her little finger, she would have laughed because no way.  Karma had always been the sucker for kids.  Amy had grown to tolerate them as she aged and even got along with them well enough because of the wacky things they came out with, but she was less tolerant to their bullshit and manipulations than Karma was.  And also, again, that tomboyish presence.  Or, Big Dick Energy, as the kids might say those days. 

But no.  Of the two of them, Karma was the one who had to put her foot down, to set boundaries (and stick to them).  She tried to be reasonable, of course.  She didn’t want to be entirely like her parents, but she didn’t want to be entirely like Amy’s, either.  She’d seen first-hand how their no-nonsense policies had taken a toll on an independent spirit like Amy, and Belle’s personality was just as strong as Amy’s had been.

Amy backed her up, at least, when it came to discipline.  They were a team, and Amy didn’t forget that, even if sometimes she acted like just as much of a little shit as Belle. 

Luckily, Karma hadn’t lost her ability to charm strong personalities, so even though she and Belle sometimes didn’t see eye to eye, they had a good relationship. 

She was even willing to look beyond the fact that it was past Belle’s bedtime, on a school night, and her wife and her daughter were still playing pirates upstairs. 

And apparently, definitely not breaking anything.

Suddenly, the sounds of two humans bounding down the stairs drew Karma out of her musings, and she looked up to see a pajama-plaid ten year old, along with her pajama-clad wife, padding across the hardwood floors. 

“Sorry, I promise we didn’t break anything,” Amy said sheepishly, “We just wanted to come down and say goodnight, didn’t we Belle?”

Belle nodded, rounding Karma’s work table to take a peek at what she was doing. 

“What’cha workin’ on?” Belle asked, narrowing her eyes at the shapes and geometry and formulas she’d scratched into the margins of her paper.

“A rich man’s house,” Karma sighed, patting her lap. 

Belle scrambled up, nearly kneeing Karma right in the uterus, but she was prepared for it, bracing for that knee as it sunk into her gut before Belle turned herself around for a better look. 

“Looks ugly,” Belle commented, and Karma couldn’t help but laugh. 

“It’s not finished yet,” she said, then leaned in conspiratorially, “But it is really ugly,” she agreed in a stage whisper. 

“Why don’t you make him something cool, like my clubhouse?” she asked, and Karma chuckled.  She’d designed and had actually built (with a lot of help from Amy) Belle’s “clubhouse”, a small shed-like structure that was big enough for her and one of her friends (or Amy, if Amy didn’t mind having a few muscle cricks in the morning) to sleep in in the backyard.  They used a tent if it was nice enough out, but in the colder months, or if she just wanted somewhere to be on her own besides her room, it was there for her to use. 

And use it she did.  She loved it. 

“I would hun, but this is what he wants.”

She crinkled her nose.  “Is he an idiot?”

Karma laughed at that, full and loud.  “He is, but don’t tell him that, okay?  And, also: language.  We don’t call people idiots just because they have poor taste.”

Belle raised an eyebrow but nodded.  “Okay, sorry.  Goodnight, ma,” she leaned over and kissed Karma on the cheek, and Karma wrapped her up in a hug, kissing the crown of her head. 

“Goodnight, kid.  I’ll be up to tuck you in in a minute, okay?” she said, and Belle nodded while she clambered off her lap. 

“Upstairs you go, monkey, I’ll be there in a minute!” Amy hollered after her as Belle climbed up the stairs.  Karma snorted and Amy turned her attention back to her, pointing accusatorily.  “Don’t be too late, I saw you spacing out just then.  If she stays up too late, it’s on you.  You know she likes being tucked in by both of us,” Amy shot her a playful warning glance, and Karma couldn’t help but smile. 

Her gorgeous wife, Amy Ashcroft-Raudenfeld, with hair slightly ruffled and messy, face flushed from running around upstairs with their daughter, in nothing but an old UT Austin T-shirt and simple, checkered sweatpants. 

“Come here you,” Karma said, leaning back in her chair.  Amy raised an eyebrow but sauntered over to her nonetheless, looping her arms around Karma’s neck and plopping herself into Karma’s lap. 

She kissed Karma once, twice, and Karma groaned when she pulled away to look at what Karma had(n’t) been working on.

She snorted, “God, that really is ugly, isn’t it?” she asked, and Karma nodded, burying her nose into Amy’s neck. 

“Mmm,” she agreed, kissing the skin she found there, “It is.  But it’s what he wants.  Just a shame my name has to be on it, but I’m trying to convince him to let me put my own flair into it.  It’ll look much better.”

“Mmm,” Amy’s breath hitched as Karma kissed a spot she knew was sensitive.  “Karm,” Amy murmured, a warning, and Karma couldn’t help the shit-eating grin that slid across her face. 

She pulled away nevertheless to meet the smoldering look of her best friend, her forever human, her fucking wife, because sometimes she still couldn’t believe that they were married. 

“You’re in trouble, after we tuck the little one in,” Amy growled, and Karma felt heat shoot through her. 

“Mm, I think it’s you who’s in trouble.  Throwing things around upstairs?  Distracting me?  Breaking our no-swear rule?”

“You love it when I break that rule-”

“Mmm, and I’m going to make you do it a lot tonight,” she surged forward, capturing Amy’s lips with her own and sliding a hand under Amy’s shirt, right at her hip, where she knew Amy liked her to grab when they-

“Eeewwwww, make out after I’ve gone to bed, please!” came a shout from the stairs that forced them apart, Belle glaring at them with narrowed eyes.

Karma watch Amy flush bright red. 

“Upstairs, monkey!” Amy practically yelped.

Belle rolled her eyes, “I was upstairs!  For like three years!”

Amy untangled herself from Karma and murmured “The way you act you’d think you were already thirteen” before finally clambering out of Karma’s lap herself.  She held out her hand and Karma took it happily, standing and allowing herself to be led up the stairs, by her wife, to tuck in her daughter. 

And so, yes, if someone had told Karma Ashcroft that one day, she would be married to Amy Raudenfeld, her best friend who she had loved from nearly the moment they had met in that ball pit all those decades back, she would have believed them, because it made sense. 

It was always going to be Amy.  It had always been Amy.

Karma’d always known it, too. 

It just took her time to get there.