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Juniper grows up in pain; in her lungs and throat, which clench and rattle every time she's worried, which is often. She’s so used to the feeling that she barely notices the tickling, burning sensation spreading from her soulmark when she walks into the park that day.
Gran sits on a bench and knits while Juniper wanders around the large metal and plastic playset, doing her best to avoid the other children and the dusty clouds of mulch they throw into the air as they pass by. Juniper would much rather have stayed home today, trying out the new shortbread cookie recipe she found in a magazine or picking the weeds out of the begonia beds, but Gran insisted that she needed to at least try to act her own age and be around other kids, so here Juniper is, hiding underneath the little climbing wall and peeking her head out periodically to see whether there’s anyone here that she can possibly play with. At one point, a boy catches her eye and gives her a weird look. Juniper immediately ducks back into her safe space, but moves so fast that she hits the side of her head against the wall.
On around her fifth peek, Juniper notices another little girl, around her age, sitting quietly and playing in the sandbox. The most distinctive thing about this girl, the thing that originally draws Juniper’s eye, is the large pink pair of headphones that she’s wearing. They’ve got little wire attachments on them that make them look like bunny ears, and that makes Juniper smile to herself, because bunnies are, in her opinion, the greatest animals in the world.
But even if she weren’t wearing those massive headphones, Juniper thinks she would have noticed this girl anyway. There’s an energy about her that she can’t help but feel drawn to. She has bright red hair and scraped-up knees and legs covered in a rainbow of band-aids. Her arms are wrapped in bright shades too, not from bandages, but from what looks like magic marker drawings. Juniper spots a couple of flowers, a smiley face, a thunder cloud, and an elaborately decorated block letter ‘A’, all covering the pale, freckly, skin of the girl’s arms. Briefly, she wonders if the girl’s name starts with A and that’s why she drew it on her shoulder. Juniper likes the letter A. It’s safe, always in the same place at the start of the alphabet, and always easy to remember. Yes, A is a nice letter. And by that logic, Juniper hopes this girl will be nice too. She bites her lip, psyching herself up, and walks over to the sandbox to talk to the colorful girl. The left side of her head continues to throb a little bit on the way, but she ignores it. It’s probably just sore from when she hit it against the wall earlier.
In what is probably the bravest choice of Juniper’s life up to this point, she walks right up to the girl, sticks her hand out the way she’s seen grown-ups do on TV, and introduces herself: “Hello. My name is Juniper Woods. I really like your arm drawings. Would you like to be friends?”
The headphone girl looks up at Juniper. She looks confused for a moment, but then she gives a small smile and tentatively takes Juniper’s handshake. “I’m Athena Cykes,” she responds, “And I’d love to be your friend. Do you wanna help me build a sandcastle?”
Juniper nods enthusiastically and settles herself down into the sand. She looks over at Athena and gives her a smile, which Athena returns twice as brightly. It feels like the spot beside Athena was made especially by the universe just for Juniper. She’s so invested in this sandcastle and her new friend that doesn’t notice the gentle pain that’s still poking the side of her skull.
Athena grows up in pain; when the people around her are too loud or too emotional, which is often. She's so used to the feeling that she barely notices the dull throbbing of her head that becomes a constant at some point. One day, probably months after it first occurs, when it’s particularly quiet and calm, Athena finally notices the feeling. She spends the whole day thinking her ears are going to fall off, until she realizes that the pain is coming not from her ear, but from right behind it; from her soulmark.
She knows, logically, that because these bursts of burning come from her soulmark, they must be related to her soulmate, but it turns out that soulmates are somewhat of a taboo topic in the GYAXA labs. Auntie Aura scoffs at the idea, calling it unscientific. Simon’s eyes glaze over when Athena tries to bring it up, as though he has something he’s trying to hide from her, and then he asks her to go away so she won’t hear his feelings. Simon is Athena’s third favorite person in the world, so she goes away. Mom says that they’ll talk about it when Athena is older, even though Athena is 10, which she thinks is a very grown-up age. Bitterly, Athena realizes the concept of ‘older’ probably has more to do with what her mother wants than her actual age. The only thing that Ponco and Clonco can do is recite the Wikipedia page on ‘soulmate bonds’, which Athena finds less than helpful. She gives up, deciding that she’ll think about the soulmate thing later, and goes to call Juniper if she can hang out.
Juniper is free, so she comes over and they color enough flowers to build a garden. At one point Simon comes by and in what must be an apology for avoiding Athena's question earlier, tries to teach them to draw roses, which he insists on coloring black every time. The idea of a soulmate quickly slips from Athena’s mind, replaced by a magic marker in her hand and Juniper at her side.
It’s a few years into their friendship, months after Athena has had her realization and promptly forgotten it, before the topic of soulmates ever comes up. Not because either of them has been avoiding it, but simply because Athena would much rather discuss her mother’s newest psychological breakthrough or give a crash course in the lore of the samurai cartoon series than talk about herself, and Juniper says that she likes nothing better than to sit and listen to Athena talk about the things she’s passionate about. Juniper doesn’t seem to mind the way Athena’s hands flap with joy she simply cannot contain while she talks, or the way sometimes she can’t make words come out all the way, or how her tirades sometimes meander far enough away from the original topic that she forgets where she started. Juniper could sit for hours and listen to Athena talk, or at least she claims she could, and Athena could sit for hours in comfortable silence helping Juniper garden or bake or knit, so why would either of them ever interrupt her to ask a question as silly as ‘do you have a soul mark’?
The reason it finally comes up is not profound or significant or anything like that. It comes up because Athena and Juniper are watching The Pink Princess on TV. Right after a dramatic shouting match between the main character and the Steel Samurai, the screen goes black. Athena rolls her eyes, frustrated at the placement of the cliffhanger, and then turns to face Juniper, playing to debrief on the new episode, and what this cameo appearance of the Steel Samurai means for the plot going forward. For some reason, Juniper is still staring, transfixed at the screen. Athena glances at it, and it’s playing some sort of ad for soulmate location services, which makes Athena frown. That’s not nearly as interesting as The Pink Princess. Feeling slightly ignored, she taps Juniper several times on the shoulder. Except for a small flinch, she doesn’t react, still watching the ad. When it finally ends, Athena picks up the remote and turns off the television, hoping that they can talk now.
“Do you have a soulmate?” Juniper asks, speaking so quickly that Athena has to mentally play back her words several times before she can understand them.
Athena thinks about the question. She must have a soulmate, because she has a mark. She nods, and Juniper’s eyes go wide.
“I mean, I have the mark. I haven’t met them or anything,” Athena explains, not wanting Juniper to feel jealous.
“Can I see it?” Juniper asks, still more enthusiastic than usual.
Athena thinks a little while longer before slowly pulling off her headphones. Her mother always says that she should only remove them around people who she really trusts, people whose emotional noise she knows well enough to block out, and there's no one in the world that Athena trusts and knows as well as Juniper. She sets them down carefully on the table and then pulls back her hair so that Juniper can see her mark; a chain of flowers wrapping around the back of her ear. Juniper gasps, and her hand instinctively reaches out to touch the mark before she stops herself.
“Sorry,” she whispers,“I know I’m supposed to ask first.”
“It’s okay. I’m in a green light mood for touching right now,” says Athena, and she barely twinges at how robotic the words trained into her by her mother sound, because she’s excited to finally share this part of herself with someone.
Juniper nods and leans forward again. She brushes her fingers over the mark, and her touch makes Athena feel warm to her very core. After a few seconds of staring, Juniper whispers something to herself, mouth barely moving, as though the silence is something she’s afraid to break.
“What is it?” Athena asks, trying and failing to keep her voice similarly low.
“It’s just…it looks sort of like mine.”
“Your what?”
“My soulmark. Yours looks like mine.”
There is silence again. Juniper’s words hang heavily in the air, and the tension between the two girls is suddenly so thick that Athena thinks she could reach out and touch it.
“What…what does yours look like?” Athena eventually finds the courage to ask.
Without speaking, Juniper slowly reaches her hand up and pulls one of her braids up and away from her head, so that Athena can see her mark etched behind her ear.
It does look like Athena’s. Weirdly so. It’s the same pattern, with a chain wrapping around the ear, only instead of flowers like hers, Juniper’s looks like it’s made of…wires? There’s a smiling blue face in the middle that feels oddly familiar to Athena, although she doesn’t know where she would have seen it before, and on both ends of the electrical cord/wire thing there’s a design with two long prongs that look sort of like…rabbit ears.
Athena can’t stop herself from gasping.
“It’s like my headphones,” she says, pointing frantically back and forth between Juniper’s mark and the headphones themselves, which lay abandoned on the table.
Juniper bites her lip, and then nods. “I always thought I was being silly,” she whispers, “I thought I was making it up.”
“Making what up, Junie?” Athena asks, inching closer to her on the couch, eyes wide.
“The connection. I thought that because I liked you, I was trying to find a way to relate my soulmark to you.”
Athena laughs, and then freezes at the sight of the look on Juniper’s face. “Oh, it wasn’t a bad laugh, I promise. I just meant, well, they’re clearly my headphones. What else could it mean?”
Juniper shrugs, blush spreading across her entire face. “I didn’t want to get my hopes up,” she mumbles. “But then your mark…it’s flowers. Just like the ones in my garden. And on my hats.”
“Sunflowers,” Athena agrees, “Your favorite.”
“Our marks match. Mine means you and yours means me,” says Juniper, as though she’s trying to convince herself of the fact.
“Well, I guess that’s that then,” chirps Athena cheerfully. Juniper blinks a few times, still blushing, and Athena can feel her face growing hot too. She hadn’t noticed just how close together they were sitting. She could count Juniper’s eyelashes one by one if she wanted to. But she has no patience for that right now. She wants to do something else; to follow through on an idea she’s probably been nursing for weeks, which has finally broken its way into the forefront of her mind, spurred on by her closeness to Juniper’s face and the reveal of their soulmate bond.
“Junie?” she says after a moment, “Do you think I could…um…” But before she can finish her thought, Juniper, seemingly having read Athena’s mind, leans forward very quickly and gives her a small, chaste kiss. She stays right in front of Athena’s face for a moment, the tips of their noses just brushing, before she becomes aware of herself again and turns away, blushing terribly. Athena blinks several times in shock before her face breaks into an impossibly wide grin.
“Wow,” she whispers, “Soulmates.” She flexes her fingers back and forth several times, trying to keep her joy contained at a reasonable level. She can’t manage it, and so decides to just let her leg bounce and her mouth grin so hard it starts to hurt her face. She sits in silence for a little while longer, hoping to memorize every detail of Juniper’s flushing face. “Well, that was easy,” she says finally.
Juniper grins back. “Yeah. Easy,” she agrees.
And it should have been. It really should have been.
Juniper is in the kitchen, humming softly to herself and stirring the batter for a batch of lemon and raspberry madeleines she’s making to take to her next play-date with Athena. After deciding the mixture looks just as smooth as the one in the flour-dusted recipe book that’s propped up against the toaster, she wipes her hands on her apron and hops off of the stepstool which allows her to reach the counter. She’s just about to go find her grandmother to help turn on the oven, when a sudden sharp pain erupts in her head. Her hands leap to her temples as she lets out a little whimper and then begins coughing uncontrollably. Before she can lower a hand to cover her mouth, another burst of pain, a burning sensation, spreads from above her ear, seeming to come from her soulmark.
Gran comes hobbling into the kitchen, drawn by Juniper’s coughing. She’s brandishing an inhaler, but Juniper shoves it away, shaking her head. She’s not the one who's in danger right now, she can tell.
“Somethings wrong, Gran. I think something’s wrong with Athena.”
Gran tries to talk Juniper out of going to the trial in a hundred different ways, but Juniper insists that she has to be there for Athena. It’s miserable, and Juniper doesn’t understand anything these grown-ups in suits are saying except for the fact that Ms. Metis is dead and they want to put Simon (the same Simon who taught Juniper how to draw roses and would give her and Athena piggy-back rides around the labs whenever they asked, no matter how busy he was) in jail for it, but there’s nothing in the world you could offer her to make her leave Athena alone in that courtroom.
When Athena gets up to testify, none of the grown-ups listen. They don’t even pretend to. Athena screams and cries and begs them not to believe that Simon could ever do something so awful, but they just brush her off like she doesn’t know what she’s saying. Juniper wants to jump up out of her seat and run to Athena, hold her tight, and scream at the grown-ups with her until they listen even just a little bit, but Gran keeps her firmly in her seat with a hand. Juniper’s head feels like it’s about to split open the whole time, but she knows her pain must be nothing compared to what Athena must feel when they read the guilty verdict.
Afterward, Juniper wonders what would have happened if she’d jumped up anyway, refusing to leave the stand until someone listened to her and Athena. But a small, wiser part of her knows that they were never going to listen, that the decision of sending Simon to jail has been made long before the trial even started, no matter how many tears Athena shed in the process.
There’s barely time for them to say goodbye. There’s a rushed hug at the departures gate of the airport, with Juniper crying and Athena seemingly beyond emotion, staring straight forward with glassy eyes. The only way Juniper can tell that Athena is even alive is the trembling of her arms as she grips Juniper’s sides, afraid to let go.
“Thena…I…I love you,” Juniper whispers in her ear, right before they break apart. She allows herself the slight indulgence of tucking Athena’s hair behind an ear, letting her fingers brush over the flowery mark. Athena squeezes her hand one last time, the only indicator that she’s heard. Juniper squeezes back, as hard as she can, hoping to leave behind something that lasts, even if it’s just a feeling.
“And you’re sure she can’t come live with us?” Juniper asks in the car on the way home, “We could go back and get her, it’s not too late to turn around!”
“I’m sorry, sunflower. But it’s already been decided. We can’t fight Ms.Metis’s will.”
Juniper pouts, crossing her arms firmly across her chest. She knows Athena would rather live with them than some European aunt she’s never even met. She knows it the same way that Athena knew Simon was innocent. But she and Athena are just kids, and adults never listen to them, and Juniper is too tired to try and scream at them until they do anymore.
Juniper doesn’t want to go inside when they get back. It reminds her too much of all the times Athena’s been over, and how she’ll never get to come over again. “Can I just…be alone right now?” she asks. Gran nods and then goes back inside the house. At one point she comes back out and deposits a plastic bin full of madeleines beside her; the cookies Juniper had been making at the same moment Athena’s mother was getting murdered.
Juniper picks one of the golden cookies out of the Tupperware container and pokes her finger into it, letting the juice from the raspberry squelch out and cover her finger. Instead of licking the juice off like she normally would, she wipes it off on her skirt. She knows she will be in trouble later for staining the cloth, but right now she can’t bring herself to care. Raising the madeleines to her mouth, hoping to find a bit of familiar comfort, she takes a small, hesitant bite, only to find that she can’t taste anything at all. She might as well be eating dust. She spits the bite out into the flowerbed and then throws the cookie as hard as she can into the yard, where it hits a tree and then falls pathetically into the grass. Juniper sighs, buries her head in her hands, and breaks into unrepentant sobs.
Dear Junie,
Thank you for your letter. To answer your question, I am okay fine terrible the worst I’ve ever been surviving. My aunt here in Europe is nice, but she's not my mom. She’s tried to introduce me to a few other kids, but no one here even compares to you. Or Simon. I should have been able to save him, I should have been able to make them listen to me. Why did no one listen? No one understands me the way that you two do. Sometimes I don’t think anyone even tries. I miss you. Please don't get a new best friend while I'm gone. I think about you every time I see flowers, which is a lot. I think about you even when I’m not seeing flowers too. Please don’t get a new soulmate while I’m gone either. Is that possible? To get a new soulmate? Well, even if it is possible, Junie, please don’t do it.
Athena groans and hits her forehead against the desk. The letter she’s trying to write isn't going anywhere. She can’t articulate any of her thoughts properly, and she’s so anxious about it that her leg won’t stop bouncing. It’s shaking the table, making her writing even more sloppy than it normally is. Half of the paper is full of clumsy crossings-out too, because Athena keeps writing down things she didn’t actually want Juniper to know. She doesn’t want Juniper to know that she’s cried herself to sleep every night since she’s gotten to her aunt’s house. She doesn’t want Juniper to know that once she does fall asleep, all her dreams revolve around a faceless man standing above her mother’s corpse, holding a bloody sword and laughing. She definitely doesn’t want Juniper to know that on her bad nights that man morphs into Simon, and that on the very worst nights he shrinks down to become Athena herself.
Athena misses home. She misses the Space Center. She misses Ponco and Clonco and even Auntie Aura sometimes. She misses Simon. She misses her mom. And she misses Juniper. Missing Juniper is an ache, a gap in her life deeper and wider than she could ever describe. She misses passing silly notes during homeschool events, and coloring together, each of them drawing one line at a time until they become one big collaborative picture. She misses picking oranges from the fruit trees in Juniper’s backyard, throwing the rotten ones at the wall to watch them splat until Juniper’s grandmother would come out and scold them. She misses showing Juniper how to flip the Razor scooter around without hitting your ankles, and she misses Juniper teaching her how to pull the weeds out of the garden but not the good plants. She misses talking and knowing that Juniper was listening to every word she said, and knowing that at least one person didn’t think she was stupid or weird or spastic.
Athena thinks there’s a part of her that might miss Juniper more than her own mother, because Juniper was bright and warm and kind all of the time and never made Athena feel different from other kids or treated her like a rare specimen to be inspected and studied. But then she hates that part of herself that doesn’t seem to love her mother enough even now that she’s dead, so she pushes it deep, deep down inside of her and tries to forget.
She writes letters upon letters to Juniper and even sends some of them. She gets replies in the mail and then she replies to those back, and that goes on until she doesn’t even need the excuse of responding to scribble the words ‘Dear Juniper,’ on the top of a piece of paper and to let her thoughts and feelings flow out freely. She tells Juniper everything in her letters. Well, almost everything. There are some things, like her dreams, that Athena prefers to keep to herself. And neither of them ever mention the soulmate thing. Athena doesn't bring it up because she doesn’t want Juniper to feel forced into it, tied to someone like Athena who's halfway around the world and might be a terrible failure of a person. She wants Juniper to be happy, with lots of friends and maybe a different girlfriend who she loves, more than she wants to keep Juniper all to herself, so she never tries to stake a claim by bringing up the matching set of marks hidden behind their ears. Juniper must get the hint, because she never brings it up in her letters either. Athena kind of wishes she would, even if it would hurt to read. Just so she could convince herself she didn’t make the whole thing up.
Juniper spends years dreaming of her reunion with Athena. While she’s trying to fall asleep or when she should be paying attention in class, she constructs elaborate fantasies in her head where they run dramatically into each other's arms, crying tears of joy, and the soulmate thing that they both seem to afraid to talk about in real life is suddenly just understood, and they kiss, and proclaim their love to each other, and then go on to live happily ever after, with a cottage in the woods and two pet rabbits. Sometimes Juniper thinks she’s let all those years of writing mock trial scripts turn her subconscious into an extremely cliche romance author.
Her real reunion with Athena is nowhere near as ideal. It involves Professor Means, two men in bright, primary-colored suits, and Athena, completing their trio in glowing yellow, looking thoroughly like she belongs. Juniper had known that Athena was back in the States, but she’d never expected to run into her at school of all places, and certainly not when she has a mock trial to run.
The first thing that Juniper’s mind manages to latch onto and catalog in the midst of its extraordinary freak-out is that Athena isn’t wearing her headphones. Of course, Athena had mentioned off-handedly in her letters a couple of years ago that she’d never actually liked wearing them, they had been her mom's idea, and that since she was older now and better at blocking out other people’s emotions, it wasn’t too overwhelming to be without them in public settings. So, logically, Juniper knew that if she ever saw Athena again, her headphones would be gone, but knowing something and seeing it for yourself with your own eyes are very different things.
Almost unconsciously, Juniper’s hand reaches up behind her ear to touch her soulmark. Oh. That’s why it’s bothering her so much. It feels like a betrayal of her soulmark. Juniper’s soulmark has those bunny-ear-wires in it. If Athena doesn’t wear those anymore, then what does that mean for their soulmate bond? Is it…over? Were child Juniper and Athena soulmates but now that they’re older they aren’t anymore? Was there some sort of diversion point where they broke apart?
When Juniper resurfaces from her realm of frantic thought, Athena is telling the man in the blue suit (who must be Phoenix Wright, her boss) how she and Juniper met. “...we’re like best friends, right, Junie?!”
Best friends. Not soulmates. Okay. Well, it’s good for Juniper to know where she stands, even if it hurts.
“Yes…Well, we lived close to each other, so we used to play in the forest together,” she explains, keeping her gaze towards the ground. She doesn’t know if she can look at Athena right now, wearing a shiny new lawyer’s badge and an even shinier newer suit, and not burst into tears.
She swallows her pride and finishes the conversation as quickly as she can. Then she walks Athena and Mr.Wright down to the waiting room, letting Athena chatter away about something or another as they go. Juniper doesn’t say much, just nods, or adds in little reactions wherever she feels it’s appropriate. The whole exchange is awkward and stilted, to the point where she’s sure even Mr. Wright notices. She and Athena have been pen-pals for so long, even longer than they were in-person friends. It’s almost like they’ve forgotten how to talk to each other in person.
“So, a judge, huh?” says Athena as they exit the stairwell. “You mentioned it a couple of times in your letters, but you never really explained it. Why do you wanna be a judge?”
Juniper trips over her own feet. Oh, that is really not as casual a question as you think it is, Thena. Mr. Wright must sense her desperation to get out of answering, because like a big blue guardian angel, he says: “Juniper, don’t you have to get back upstairs to run the mock trial? Athena and I can walk the last couple of steps by ourselves.”
“Oh-uh, thank you Mr. Wright. I’ll see you later The–Athena,” Juniper stammers out, before turning on her heel and power walking away back down the corridor.
The second she’s out of their sight, she sighs deeply and allows her hand to reach back up and cradle her soulmark. The skin under it is burning, a sensation she hasn’t felt in years but that is still so familiar. It used to be this every time she and Athena were together, and Juniper had gone almost numb to it, but now it’s back, and either her tolerance has faded or this pain is exponentially worse.
She grits her teeth and forces herself to keep walking, up the stairs and to the mock trial. There are so many people counting on her to make sure this goes well. She’ll have plenty of time to think about Athena later.
It’s later, and Juniper is proving herself right. She does indeed have plenty of time to think about Athena, mostly because she’s in a jail cell, accused of murdering her favorite professor, and there’s not much else to do. Well, except for crying until her lungs nearly give out, but she’s done that already. Now she’s pretty much used up her supply of tears and is lying down, exhausted, on the cold metal bench, playing back every conversation she and Athena had had that day. She’d felt like Hugh and Robin had totally embarrassed her, but probably not as much as she’d embarrassed herself. Now, looking back on it, she was probably trying too hard with the whole stoic and strong student council president thing. All she’d wanted to do was impress Athena. To show how much she’d grown. Whether or not her new persona actually had any effect is debatable, but it’s likely all been squandered now anyway, now that Athena’s seen Juniper dragged away by the police and (worst of all) had to interview her about her relationship issues while being watched by that hair-horned coworker of hers and the detention center guard, who’d looked way too interested in the whole situation as he’d stood in the corner, slowly chewing on a bagel.
Athena had…Athena had glowed, promising to defend Juniper no matter what, and then rushing out the door like a solar flare, off to look for clues. And Juniper had been…well, utterly pathetic is probably putting it nicely. She doubts that Athena will even want to be her best friend after this, much less anything else.
Later that night, listening to the slow rhythmic dripping of water from the ceiling of her cell, Juniper promises herself that if/when she gets an innocent verdict, she’ll talk to Athena. Tell her that her feelings haven’t changed and ask her why they’ve never mentioned the soulmate thing, even if it hurts. Just so she can convince herself she didn’t make the whole thing up.
Winning Juniper’s case is one of the best moments of Athena’s life, but it is quickly eclipsed by the hug she gets from Juniper in the defendant lobby afterward.
Mr.Wright and Apollo offer to take them both out for Eldoon’s, but Juniper says she has something to talk to Athena about first, so they stay after everyone leaves, sitting on opposite sides of the couch and awkwardly avoiding eye contact. After a few tense, silent minutes, Juniper apparently works up her courage to speak.
“Thena, I just-I just want you to know that there’s nothing between me and Hugh. Or me and Robin. On any side, no matter what Myriam wrote in the paper,” she says quickly, a familiar pink blush spreading across her cheeks.
“Oh. Okay,” says Athena, more to herself than anyone else, trying to figure out what to do with this information.
“And I hope you know I never would’ve done that to you,” Juniper continues. “I never gave up on you, you know. I always knew you’d come back.”
Athena looks up, slowly, into Juniper’s still pink but completely sincere face. “You did?” she asks softly.
“Of course,” says Juniper, scooting closer on the couch to hold both of Athena’s hands in her own (Her fingernails show clear signs of nervous biting, which makes Athena smile to herself. It’s nice to see that Juniper hasn’t grown up into an entirely different person than the one she used to know). “Because we’re…we’re soulmates. And that’s what soulmates do,” Athena's heart seems to implode and pull itself back together immediately at this declaration. She didn’t make it up after all. “Nothing on earth would have stopped me from getting back to you, no matter how long we were separated or how far apart we were.”
It’s Athena’s turn to blush now, as she tries to stop her heart from beating out of her chest. “Ah, Junie! You can’t just say stuff like that!” The word soulmates keeps echoing over and over in her head.
“Well, it’s true,” Juniper insists, “I had this plan, it seems stupid in retrospect, but it really kept me going some days. The second I turned 18, I was going to apply for a credit card, and I was going to use it to buy a plane ticket and visit you in Europe. I had this whole vision of this grand, dramatic reunion in the airport, where you’d have a big decorated sign with my name on it, but the second you saw me you would scream and throw the sign down and run to me. Then I would drop my bags and you’d pick me up and spin me around like they do in the movies. It was gonna be perfect.” Juniper’s eyes shine as she speaks, like she’s really seeing this dream in her mind’s eyes, and Athena suddenly feels overwhelmingly cared for, in a way she hasn’t in years.
“You spent a lot of time working on that didn’t you?” teases Athena, and Juniper is nice enough to pretend not to notice how her voice trembles under the quip.
“Only every night before I fell asleep.”
Athena did not think it was possible for her to blush harder than she had been a second ago, but she proves herself wrong.
“Well, I’m sorry our reunion wasn’t as…perfect as you’d imagined,” she manages to say eventually. “I could still probably pick you up and spin you around, though. If you want. I’ve got the muscles for it.” Athena flexes one of her biceps and pretends not to enjoy seeing Juniper’s eyes bulge at the sight. Her kindness only lasts a few seconds before she looks over and gives Juniper a smirk and then they both break down into giggles. The barrier of awkwardness between them seems to be quickly eroding, and a new dynamic is forming. Not like their childhood friendship, and not like their teenage correspondence, but something new. Something stable and warm and loving.
Juniper gives her an affectionate shove. “All of that time in Europe has turned you into an egregious flirt, Athena Cykes,” she laughs.
“Only for you, Junie. Only for you,” says Athena. It’s a promise, but not a solemn one in any sense.
“So if any other young maidens in desperate need of legal counsel,” Juniper begins teasingly, “were to show up at your office, seductively batting their eyelashes at you…”
“I would assist them in any way I could, but firmly instruct them to take their seductive eyelashes elsewhere,” finishes Athena, “Maybe over to Apollo’s desk. He’s immune to anything of the sort.”
“I thought that was the energy I was getting,” Juniper says, nodding wisely, “Does that mean he’s dating…”
“Klavier Gavin? Yes, yes he is. They’re a soulmate match and everything. I’ll make it three out of three in the office.”
Juniper blinks, seemingly confused, and Athena stumbles. “I mean-unless that’s not what you-I just thought-you brought up the soulmate thing and so I thought that meant-” she collapses into a sigh and covers her face with her hands, unable to form words. Her leg threatens to start bouncing, and because she’s never felt the need to mask in front of Juniper before, she lets it.
Juniper, bless her, lets Athena sit for a moment before speaking. “Are you…are you asking me to be your girlfriend?” she asks, so, so softly, like the words might be dangerous.
Athena peaks out from between her fingers to see Juniper looking at her with the most hopeful expression on her face. Athena would scale mountains and battle dragons to make sure that hope is never misplaced. “If that’s what you want,” she answers, terrified and elated all at the same time.
“That’s what I want,” Juniper whispers.
“Then yes. I’m asking. Will you be my girlfriend?” Athena asks, endeavoring to keep her voice equally gentle.
Juniper answers in the best possible way; by leaning across the couch and pressing her infinitely soft lips to Athena’s. This immediately surpasses both the innocent verdict and the hug as the new best moment of Athena’s life.
“Athena, I hate to break this to you,” Juniper smiles under her ever-present blush, “But I’m pretty sure we’ve been dating since we were ten.”
A few months and what feels like far too many trials later, they’re sitting on the couch in Athena’s apartment one night, cuddling after finishing a movie, the events of the GYAXA murder successfully…well, not behind them exactly, but certainly in the past, when Juniper decides to bring up something important.
She leans in very close to Athena’s face, and runs a finger down the chain of flowers behind her ear, smiling to herself. “I think I’m ready now. You can ask me again,” she whispers.
“Ask you what again?” Athena asks, turning to face her with a wide, slightly-mischievous smile.
“Why I decided to become a judge. Remember, you asked me that day at Themis, and I was so awkward about it that I pretty much ran away?”
“Oh, I remember,” Athena grins, “I just thought it must have been a personal thing. But, okay, why did you decide to become a judge?”
Juniper psyches herself up with a few more breaths and then speaks, “Because when you spoke at Simon’s trial, the first time, nobody listened to you, and I thought that was so unfair. I wanted to…I wanted to become a person who would listen and have the power to do something. To make a change. I thought that maybe even if I couldn’t go back and fix that case, I could fix other ones like it going forward. Make sure what happened to you never happened to anyone else.” There’s more Juniper has to say, but before she can keep going, Athena surges forward and pulls her into a kiss.
“I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said or done for me,” Athena smiles, eyes shining.
Juniper shrugs, but lets Athena pepper her cheeks with soft kisses for a few moments before pulling back.
“You’re not the only one with romantic secrets,” Athena teases, making it a point to lean back in and rub her nose against Junipers. “You know that one of the reasons I came back to LA was to work for Mr. Wright and to try and save Simon, but do you know what the other reason was?”
“What?” asks Juniper softly, hoping she already knows the answer.
“To find you again.”
Juniper, for once in her life, does not blush. She just smiles, very softly, and leans in to kiss Athena again, full of hope that this time around, things will actually be easy.