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Greta didn’t refer to herself with any label in particular, as far as she was concerned she knew who she was and what she liked and that’s that. Besides, words are unsafe; one wrong utterance around the wrong person’s ears and everything could come crashing down around her. Instead, Greta stuck to vague notions of community - ‘people like us’, ‘a bar like that’, ‘they’re one of us’. Those phrases were harder to pin down as evidence of wrongdoing but served as beacons for those who felt the same way.
That’s not to say Greta disliked the words that people used to describe people like them. She would happily offer advice as Jo and Lupe traded secrets about where to shop for the best butch clothes. She nodded and smiled as Carson described her stud friend’s new haircut and how it suited her so well. Greta laughed along as Jess proclaimed they were The Greatest Dyke In Rockford after beating most of Vi’s bar at arm wrestling. The words they used demonstrated a sense of community and pride, two things that Greta felt more deeply with every passing day she spent with these girls even if she didn’t express it in the same way they did.
It wasn’t even one of the rules that she and Jo decided after everything that happened with Dana. Of course, it’s an unwritten rule that one would never refer to themselves like that in public - you might as well hand yourself in at the police station - but it was only Greta that refused to label herself even in the privacy of her own thoughts.
The only word that Greta occasionally permitted herself was queer. She didn’t use it often and rarely did she use it with the same joy that she saw in her friends’ eyes as they spoke about their own identities. Greta didn’t even like the word queer, it was the word other people used to describe them and it came with connotations of predators, sickness, and danger - ideas that she had spent years dismantling internally after Dana was taken away. Strangely, those disgusting connotations always made it feel like the safest word for her to use; any unwanted ears could be tricked into believing she was agreeing with them all along. She hated the thought of it, betraying who she was, but Greta knew that if push came to shove she could say what was necessary to protect herself and those around her.
Greta had been using it less these days anyway; as much as it left a bad taste in her own mouth, she knew that it tore Carson up inside. It was the word that Charlie threw back in her face after he’d caught them on the porch, along with a few other less polite ones. Ultimately Carson had been able to talk him into keeping their secret, but the scars that experience left were evident every time someone uttered the word and Greta could see Carson’s fists clench.
Whilst Greta tied herself up in more us and thems after Carson’s arrival in New York, she noticed Carson throwing herself into everything her new life had to offer. Every conversation seemed to include new vocabulary Carson had picked up, as though she was learning a new language and she was desperate to practice with a native speaker (it wouldn’t even surprise Greta if she had flashcards hidden away somewhere to study on her own).
Butch and femme were the first words that Carson learnt after Jess and Lupe had enlightened her during her first visit to Vi’s, although Carson wouldn’t add them to her own vocabulary until after she had begun to find her footing away from Charlie. During the off-season, Greta spent countless hours listening to Carson ramble about where she thought she fit in this new world, and it was an absolute delight - mostly.
It was a chilly morning and they were clearing out Carson’s wardrobe (she had decided it was time to remove 'the Charlie' from her life for good and that included outfits) when the short girl unknowingly broke one of Jo and Greta’s unspoken rules. It had only taken one heated conversation after they'd ran away for Jo to realise that referring to Greta’s sexuality as anything, no matter how innocuous, would never go down well.
“I just feel like there’s no middle ground y’know, like is everyone meant to be at one end or another? I mean obviously you’re like ultra-femme bu-”, Carson was absentmindedly monologuing (a habit Greta usually adored) as she steadily worked her way through organising the pile of socks in front of her, completely unaware of the faux pas she’d just committed.
Greta’s hands stilled mid-way through folding a skirt; she knew Carson didn’t mean to do anything wrong and it wasn’t her fault that she didn’t have 10 years of Greta Knowledge filed away in her brain to reference every time they spoke. All the same her mind started to spin with thoughts about how it simply wasn’t safe for Carson to say these things. After all, Carson had a habit of rambling when she got nervous and as far as Greta was concerned it was only a matter of time before something slipped out in the wrong company. Every part of Greta’s brain was screaming that she needed to shut this conversation down quickly.
“I don’t really think of myself as anything, actually,” Greta replied trying her best to keep her voice neutral and remain cool despite the fact she could feel herself starting to redden through her foundation.
“Why not? I mean you’re basically the textbook femme lesbian, half our bedroom is a shrine to Vivienne Hughes at this point and don’t get me wrong -”
The redhead cut Carson off quickly before she had a chance to dig deeper into the hole that was about to bury her 6ft under, “Carson, I know how I like to dress, and how I like my hair, and who I like to kiss; I don’t need fancy words to tell me that. Words are just another thing that they can use to find us,” Desperate for a diversion, Greta pulled another skirt from Carson’s wardrobe and held it up for her to see, “anyway, when were you going to tell me that you modelled for Farm Fashion Weekly?”
Carson giggled and muttered something about still not being from a farm and Greta relaxed a little knowing she’d closed the book on that conversation at least for the time being.
Greta took Carson shopping for new button-downs and helped her decide which dresses felt suitably Carson and which felt a little too Charlie for her liking. She had also managed to talk Carson into replacing some of her more ‘farm’ shoes which Greta considered a major win. They spent countless hours trying on outfits until Carson felt like Carson for the first time in her life.
As the weeks drew on, Carson began to try on more words too: dyke, gay, lesbian, sapphic, a friend of Dorothy - anything she could pick up on the odd occasion they’d let themselves explore the bars that New York had to offer. At first, each word sent sirens ringing through Greta’s mind as she thought about Carson, her Carson, getting caught out in a conversation and putting herself in danger. However, there was just something she couldn’t resist about the confident grin that spread across her girlfriend’s face every time she dropped a new bit of slang into their conversations. She wasn’t about to kill Carson’s enthusiasm for learning now - besides what would she do with all those flashcards?
To tell the truth, Greta was a little jealous that Carson was able to do this; Carson didn’t start her journey of self-discovery by having the person she loved put away in a terrible place, when things got rough with Charlie she had a team of friends in her corner and she didn’t have to run from place to place to keep safe. For Carson, this new side of herself brought nothing but joy and confidence.
Greta supposed that was the trade-off of discovering her sexuality later in life; yes she’d spent years miserable as a housewife, but Carson had never sat through a church service wondering if she was going to be sent to Hell, or worse an institution, for wanting to kiss the pretty girl in her English class.
Every time they went to a bar, Carson threw herself into the experience and spent the night learning everything she could about who she was and what it meant to be someone like them. Greta, on the other hand, sat back and mapped out their exit strategy before she got herself a drink. Carson would shout jokes about loving Greta across their New York apartment, and Greta’s eyes would dart to the windows making sure they were shut before she dared to respond.
Greta knew in her heart that the problem didn’t lie with Carson. Carson wasn’t a baby and didn’t need to be coddled about the realities of the life she’d chosen, especially after the close call with Charlie. She was careful enough and would never overstep in public - never walking too closely or blushing too much or looking at Greta for too long. After months of carefully observing Greta, she knew how to be safe and sensible, the difference between the two women was that Carson knew how to let go and relax too. Carson knew when she needed to whisper vague allusions to their relationship in the locker room, but she also felt free enough to tell Lupe to “stop being a lesbian and keep her fucking pants on for five minutes” at Vi’s bar after she returned to the table with a woman on her arm half an hour after she was meant to be getting the next round of drinks.
“You know Gill, you’ve really gotta stop looking so good whilst you’re on base - it’s really hard to concentrate as a dyke who just loves her girlfriend so much!” Carson was lying on their bed after one of their first matches of the new season. Whether it was Lady Luck or a certain chaperone looking out for them, Greta and Carson had ended up roommates this season and they were just grateful for the luxury of time together in a place that wasn’t Bev’s car.
Greta had laid her outfit out on the unused bed next to the vanity and she was carefully touching up her lipstick before they went down for dinner. Her eyes quickly darted in the mirror towards the direction of the door and focused on the brass lock to make sure that no one was about to barge in on them - it was second nature to lock the door behind them but it never hurt to double-check. Once she was convinced that no one was going to barge in on them, the redhead turned around on the small bench to face her lover.
“You know, I’ll never understand what it is about that word that you love so much,” Greta replied, the tone of her voice caught halfway between teasing and genuine curiosity.
“Which word?” Carson did her best to feign innocence; this was the closest they’d gotten to a genuine conversation on the matter since Greta had mocked her wardrobe choices all those months ago.
”Come on Shaw, you know which one I’m asking about!”
The brunette momentarily considered continuing her game of ignorance, but the edge of frustration in the other girl’s voice suggested that wouldn’t be a wise choice unless she wanted to sleep in the spare bed tonight. She swung her legs off the edge of the bed and sat down on the edge of the vanity’s bench next to Greta.
“I don’t know, when I call myself a dyke or a lesbian it just feels right…like it fits. It’s like a piece of the puzzle that I didn’t know was missing but it fits right in right alongside baseball player and master pie baker.”
The other girl raised an eyebrow at the mention of pies - technically Carson did know how to construct something that resembled a pie but she felt like ‘master’ might be a little far-fetched. If Carson had clocked her girlfriend’s doubt regarding her pie skills, she had chosen to ignore it and instead continued, ”Sometimes when we’re in the bar with Jess and Lupe and we’re joking, it feels like when we call ourselves the Peaches y’know…makes me feel like I’m part of a team, something bigger than just my feelings in my head.”
“Like you’re not alone in the world,” Greta noted, remembering the thoughts that spun in her head growing up as she wondered if she was the only one who felt like her heart was going to explode every time she brushed hands with her friend in the corridor.
“Yeah…like you’re not alone, exactly,” Carson smiled, resting her head against Greta’s shoulder,
“You’ve come a long way, Shaw, from the woman who insisted she was normal - you’re not the same person you were this time last year,”
“Thank God I had someone to show me what it was like on the other team,” Carson smirked as she noticed Greta mentally cursing Lupe for teaching her that one - she could already tell it was going to be a firm favourite in Carson’s ever-expanding dictionary of words.
“You really are a huge dyke, aren’t you?” It felt strange rolling off her tongue, but as she watched Carson blush and hold her hands up as a sign of defeat, Greta decided it was a good kind of strange.
Greta Gill didn’t care much for labels until she met Carson Shaw. She still knew who she was and what she liked, but she also knew that she wanted to be on Carson Shaw’s team whether that was the Rockford Peaches or the lesbians they hung out with down at Vi’s. It wasn’t easy at first and it took a while for the words she had denied herself for so long to stop feeling clunky on her tongue but it was worth it for the feeling of being part of something bigger than her.
Greta loved the way that Carson’s eyes lit up whenever she heard the words float out of her mouth, instead of making her head spin like queer did. When Carson spent a little too long complimenting Greta’s swing in the locker room, she took great pleasure in leaning close to Carson’s ear and whispering “Thanks Coach, but there’s no need to be such a lesbian about it,” and watching the smaller girl do her best to hide the smile spreading across her face. It was a secret acknowledgement of who they were even when they had to put on a show for the world around them.
The new words Greta used to talk about herself brought pride and passion and she said them as often as she could whether that was out loud amongst trusted friends or in her head every time she caught a glimpse of Carson Shaw. And goddammit was she a fucking dyke for Carson Shaw.