Work Text:
"We have to go see the ocean."
Summer is coming up quickly at Silas, and Beth is curled up between Danny (lying down, leaning one arm on a stack of papers she’s stuck grading with her everpresent red pen) and Kirsch (playing Pokemon on the 3DS and cheering whenever he catches one). Beth - who chopped her hair short and then let it grow out, who reworked her entire timetable, who alternated phases of slutty and alone all year because she had to recalibrate her broken brain - stares up at the ceiling and poses this proposal.
"First off," Danny says, in full-on essay mode, "which ocean? And second, how?"
"Road trip!"
"We don’t have a car, Kirsch."
"I do." Beth doesn’t move her eyes from the stucco ceiling, shifting her pale hands to under her head. "I bought one yesterday."
"Beth. Please tell me you were careful." Danny shifts, concerned, and Beth smirks. She knows Danny’s protective instinct always shows up first. "I could’ve helped you. Made sure it wasn’t a lemon."
"Dude, I could’ve helped too. I’ve had like three cars."
"And how long did those last?" Danny’s drawn a little blood, but the smile undercuts it. And to Kirsch’s credit, he doesn’t pout. Instead, a competitive light enters his eyes that didn’t exist eight months ago.
"Fine. But I’m a real good driver, and I could definitely get us to the ocean. Trust me. I’m a road trip guru."
They bicker about route and travel times and France, while Beth crosses her arms and waits for them to realise they’ve talked themselves right into her plan.
They’re going to see the ocean.
===
Beth has money.
She worked through highschool, every spare moment she didn’t spend studying. She wanted to make it through Princeton debt-free, after all. Tuition, housing, food… she’d budgeted it to an inch of her life. Then Silas had happened, and she was flush with money. After all, Silas wasn’t exactly a money drain. Most of its students couldn’t afford other schools, after all.
So, Beth has money. Some of it, she splurged during her ‘lost weeks’ on alcohol and a new wardrobe, but Betty wasn’t exactly imaginative enough to spend that much money. And Beth herself had spent a chunk of it after her reawakening: reworking her wardrobe again, experimenting with new experiences, lifestyles. Then the apartment with Danny and Kirsch, once Danny had turned her back on the (ultimately traitorous) Summer Society and Kirsch had, in a burst of frustration thanks to his recent feminist awakening, quit the Zetas.
They all had separate rooms, and they didn’t often acknowledge what the three of them had accidentally become, but they were happy enough.
Beth doesn’t see Laura Hollis or her girlfriend any more. Danny does, once in a while; she dated Laura for a few weeks when she and the vampire were in an ‘off’ phase of their endless ‘on and off’, and it seemed to have gotten the tiny girl out of her system.
Both of them help Laura with her ‘supernatural issues’. though. Beth has yet to receive an invitation, but she’s not annoyed. She’d rather have a disciplinary meeting with the new Dean of Students than spend a weekend hunting ghosts with Laura Hollis, Betty’s best friend.
She doesn’t miss Betty any more, nor Elizabeth. Like any other phase, she’s gotten over them.
She prefers Beth by far.
She sometimes thinks about Laura Hollis, and those photos, though. The two of them lying on a dorm bed, staring into a camera together. Best friends. Fucking Laura Hollis never even called after she moved out.
She’s not an ex-girlfriend, not at all. But she’s an ex-something, and there’s a hole in Beth’s heart where that phantom friendship once sat. Danny sometimes lies in bed next to her and knows what she;s thinking, whispers "she doesn’t know what she missed,” but that doesn’t entirely fix it.
She’s not in love with Laura Hollis, but she might have been, in another life, and she can’t shake exactly how much she doesn’t know about herself.
So she’s running away to the ocean with a beautiful girl and a beautiful boy, and - she hopes - the water will cleanse away everything that’s missing.
===
They get lost in Switzerland.
They get turned around in France.
They make a pit stop in Paris, and Beth treats the two of them to a romantic dinner at a fantastically expensive restaurant and buys Danny a stunning red dress and Kirsch an amazing tuxedo. For herself, she buys a designer dress in pale blue, and Danny spends the evening affectionately humming Let It Go into Beth’s ear. Kirsch fumbles his way through dinner and Beth smiles so hard she can barely breathe, though that could be the dress.
The three of them are invited to an exceptionally expensive social club for the night, and make up complicated fictional backstories for themselves. Their companions are amused when Beth kisses Kirsch, but grow concerned when Danny also kisses him, and when Beth and Danny kiss one another with tongue, drunk on champagne and lies, they are cordially asked to leave.
They walk back to their hotel, laughing the whole way, and can’t help but cracking up when they are packing their things into their beat-up used car the next day.
They bicker the entire time they drive. Sometimes cutely, light sarcasm from Danny and cutting wit from Beth and affectionate laughter from Kirsch. Sometimes it has a little more to it - Betty’s syllables leaving wounds, Kirsch sulking for hours, Danny silent with rage over some big argument that was probably stupid and pointless. The compressed space makes everything bigger; every fight, every joke, every jealousy.
Beth sometimes finds herself counting kisses, making sure neither partner gets more attention than the other, and it sucks but if it’s a way to keep the peace she’ll do it.
They all take turns driving. Kirsch is surprisingly the best driver, though Danny gets lost the least. Beth is prone to road rage and stubbornness, but it’s her car and she’s impossible to argue with. That adds at least a few hours to the total trip, but neither of her companions holds it against her.
And then they reach the ocean.
It’s amazing.
They’re off the French coast, after days of travel. (it should have been fifteen hours or so, but they enjoyed the detours.) They woke up that morning and put on their bathing suits, ready to dive in.
Kirsch wades in immediately. Danny is more cautious, until Kirsch goads her into joining him.
Beth sits on the beach, staring at it. The sight of the blue water catching her breath in her throat. It’s so big. There’s so much space above it.
Danny and Kirsch stare at her, call her in, but she can’t move. There’s something too much about it, and the one thing she’s wanted for weeks now… it’s too much. After a few minutes, the two start splashing each other, and Beth can’t help but smile.
She wonders if the two of them will ever feel about each other like she feels about them.
She wonders if they’d love each other if she died.
She wonders if she’ll ever betray them.
She knows, somehow, they won’t ever betray her.
She thinks about the sky, and the ocean, and things that are too big to comprehend and too hard to face. About how she dealt with everything that happened to her. About how others, maybe, had.
And she calls Laura Hollis.
"Umm… hey." Laura’s perky voice, peppered with doubts and unseen questions. "Been a while."
Beth smiles. “Yeah.”
"So… Beth. What’s up?"
The tall blonde, thinking of another version of their lives an infinity ago, thinks for a moment. Should she apologise, bare her soul? Hang up? Try to be Betty? Try to be Elizabeth?
She thinks for a moment, and then…
"Laura, have you ever seen the ocean?"