Chapter Text
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Mal frowned, standing up from her desk and heading towards Lonnie.
They were planning next month's fundraiser for the Isle’s Scholarship fund. Normally Jane helped out, but she was in the middle of her final year project for her business degree and stressing out big style. So Mal had taken the executive decision to leave the Gala until next season, and enlisted Lonnie to help her host a three day charity sports event instead.
They’d have a day of Swords & Shields, a day of Tourney, and a day of random sports from around the world. It was inclusive, scalable, and involved exactly zero layers of chiffon.
Mal had just stepped away to her computer to check the list of vendors, when Lonnie groaned for the sixth time in as many minutes.
“Yeah I’m fine,” she exhaled heavily, gripping onto the back of the sofa. “I must have pulled something in my back at practice, I think I just keep moving the wrong-”
Lonnie gasped again, her knuckles going white as she gripped the wooden frame.
“I’m calling for the royal physician.” Mal said slowly, eyeing her friend warily as she stood and rounded the desk.
In the six years she had known Lonnie, she had never known the girl to have a low pain threshold. She had finished her first international Swords & Shields tournament on a sprained ankle, and still came home with the gold.
Jay had been furious when he realised she hadn’t gotten medical attention. But that was just another quirk of the non-couple that Mal had learned to live with.
In their final year at Auradon Prep, when they were all turning eighteen, both her friends had mentioned something about ‘not tying the other down in a long distance relationship’. Apparently, there was too much to experience without being chained to someone on the other side of the country.
What if they met someone else. What if Jay was only with Lonnie because he hadn’t seen life outside of the school. (That was her, not him.) What if their schedules got so crazy they started neglecting each other. (His argument, not hers.) What if the media started causing problems.
‘It was easier this way.’
‘No hard feelings on either side.’
It was crazy. They’d spent the eight months before completely inseparable. But they were...fine with it.
Their friends, not so much.
Carlos told Jay he was an idiot for letting her go. Jane cried. Evie sat them both down for failed interventions. Ben gave Mal a run for her money with his plotting. Mal spiked them both with truth serum.
It didn’t make a difference.
Jay went off to Sherwood University, Lonnie joined Jane and Carlos at the University of Auradon. They’d both gone on dates with other people, at least for the first year. Mal refused to say they dated other people, because that would suggest seeing the same person more than once.
But they also vacationed together. Attended each other’s games. Went out on what could only be described as dates, with each other, at least once a month. Attended royal and social events together.
At Doug and Evie’s wedding eight months ago, they spent the whole night wrapped up in each other. And everyone pretended not to notice when they’d sneaked off around 11pm.
Mal knew Lonnie hadn’t been on a date with someone other than Jay in almost two years. That she hadn’t slept with someone other than Jay since her third month of college.
She also knew that Jay hadn’t slept with anyone other than Lonnie since he was seventeen. (Despite that, his body count was still a lot higher than hers. He hadn’t missed out on anything .) He’d spent the last eighteen months ensuring that she was too busy with him to even consider dating anyone else.
Mal had suggested to them both, separately, that they drop the pretence that they were waiting until they’d finished college to decide that they’d experienced enough to settle down. There was nothing to say that Isle experience didn’t count. That your first love couldn’t be True Love. She and Evie weren’t more likely to leave Ben and Doug just because they’d married young.
Lonnie and Jay had both made excuses, and Mal rolled her eyes and offered them more tea. She tried to stay out of it.
She was a vault when it came to her friends’ love lives. It was the only way to survive when you were friends with couples. If Jane complained about Carlos bringing home another stray, Mal rolled her eyes and offered more tea. If Carlos complained about Jane nixing the idea of bearded dragons, she rolled her eyes and offered more tea.
If anyone was going to interfere, it would be Ben. Her husband just didn’t know when to stop.
Deciding she would send off a quick text to Jay while she was getting her bodyguard to summon the doctor, Mal headed for the door. She refused to have someone sitting in the room with her 24/7, so she let them patrol the halls instead.
Before she could move beyond the sofa, she heard a splash and was instantly filled with dread.
Lonnie’s face was an expression of pure horror, and it was probably mirrored on Mal’s as she peeked around the sofa. Her eyes went from the puddle on the floor, to her friends' definitely flat stomach, and back to the floor again.
Gesturing to the puddle gingerly, Mal tried to stay calm as she whispered, “I really hope you just wet yourself and not-”
Mal was cut off by another two gushes of liquid in quick succession, followed by another groan that confirmed that this was definitely what she was afraid of.
“I’ll go get help,” Mal squeaked, her voice shooting through the octaves. She bolted for the door and yanked it open.
Thankfully Arthur, her personal bodyguard, was heading back up the corridor and there was some staff dusting the ornaments in the hall. Mal wasn’t sure what she’d have done in an empty hallway. She barely tossed them a look as she screamed, “Somebody get me a doctor , right now!”
She headed straight for Ben’s office across the hall, yanking the door open and disrupting whatever committee meeting he was chairing.
Ben had obviously heard her scream, because he was on his feet and heading towards the door when she barged in. Eyes wide, looking like she’d stared into the bowels of hell and they’d looked right back, Mal was barking orders before the door was fully open, “Call Carlos. We need to get Jay here. It’s Lonnie.”
And then she turned, bolting straight back into her office.
Her friend needed her. Even if she didn’t have a fucking clue what she was doing.