Work Text:
She's laughing. It hurts like fucking hell but she's laughing. She gets up, ribs screaming in pain, and stumbles out of the rubble that was once a perfectly fine building. People gape at her as she walks outside, phones already out and recording what is probably another humiliating defeat, but Millie Parfait was never one to go out quietly.
She's already weaving spells, ichor bleeding from her palms and gums, head turned to the sky with one eye scrunched shut. She sees it, the dark cloud she's conjuring, holy and terrible in its gusty wind and sparking lightning.
It's shredded to pieces instantly, and the crowd's cheers are nothing more than a drone in her ears. She stares, eyes wide, nose bleeding and it tastes gross; copper and asbestos, probably, this part of town has no health inspections to speak of.
And god (the one that doesn't talk to her anymore) she's beautiful. Long hair that shines in the sun, wings that extend out, one metallic and the other, pure snow white feathers. Her smile is small, secret. She knows something Millie doesn't know, and it itches like a paper cut, the want to ask, to understand the little things that make up her nemesis, her sworn enemy, her-
"Are we done yet?" Enna Alouette shifted her stance, smoothing out the fabric of her shirt that has somehow stayed clean throughout the citywide battle. "Don't want my coffee place to close yet, you know?"
"We're done when you die!" Millie bares her teeth, and then coughs and sneezes at the same time. "Which is soon! Someday! I'll be the one to put you in the ground, Enna!"
Her scheduled victim stares at her impassively. Millie coughs again, pops the joint of her thumb out.
"In the ground, you will be!" Millie repeats, with as much gravitas as she can muster, and the last vestiges of her storm swirl around her, carrying her up and up until all she can see is the top of Enna's head.
God damn it. She's not even looking at her.
- - -
This isn’t exactly the first time, so Millie supposes it shouldn’t be that embarrassing. But it is! People already have posted images of her on social media, and her body is sinking lower in her chair the more she scrolls.
“You should stop reading that.” A hand reaches out and plucks the device from Millie’s grip, who flails for it while simultaneously trying to sit up.
“I was studying,” Millie grumped, arms crossed. “Planning-”
“Your next devious, certain to work, not at all inane plan?” Petra guessed, hoisting herself up onto Millie’s desk, giggling at the face her boss made. “Yeah yeah, which backup of a backup plan are we on?”
Millie was silent. Petra waited.
“Three hundred twenty seven,” Millie said quietly, sinking into her seat again, pulling the tattered remains of her coat around her as if she could hide in it.
Petra shook her head, smiling gently as she slid off the desk, moving to a large closet in the corner of the room filled with identical ironed coats. She helped Millie out of her old one, slipping the new one on her and smoothing the lapels out, humming softly.
“You don’t have to do this, you know.” Petra busied herself with the dusty ‘coat’, but not before slipping a loose strand of hair behind Millie’s slightly pointed ears. “We can go, somewhere, anywhere.” For the first time, Millie saw Petra shrink on herself, holding the coat tightly in her hands before she looked over her shoulder at Millie. “Can’t you fly, boss?”
“Not yet,” Millie spat, hating herself at Petra’s flinch when she slammed a hand on her desk. The sound echoed, loud and harsh like her voice. “Not when fucking Enna Alouette is still-”
“-Still prancing around, okay, okay.” Petra sighed. The coat she held went somewhere, neatly folded up and ready for repairs. “What now, then, boss?”
“We move onto the next plan!” She held her chin high, strutting across the room to a large file cabinet, running a finger down it before stopping at the one labeled ‘300-400’. “Number three hundred something!”
“Three hundred twenty eight.”
“That!”
Millie took the file, sliding back into her comfy chair while Petra dragged a rickety stool over to sit by her. Reverently, Millie opened it, Petra peering over her shoulder.
“What the fuck.” Millie stared at a printed out page of pure gibberish, some words in a shitty typed out font, others in a barely legible scrawl, and still others done in bright red pen, probably meant to be magical runes. “Did I write this?”
“I think this is from that one time when you got really drunk,” Petra mused. “Like, really drunk, and started writing stuff down and none of it really made sense but you had me put all the plans you wrote in the cabinet anyways.”
“Why was I drunk?” Millie frowned.
“It was when Enna threw you into that fountain? Specifically, the white chocolate one.”
A grunt. “Who does that anyways? White chocolate tastes horrible.”
“It does, sir.”
“You know, I like that more than ‘boss’.”
“Okay boss.”
“Fuck you.” Millie smiled with Petra laughed, though it fell when she looked back to her absolute mess of a ‘plan’. “So the next few plans are going to be like this?”
“Probably,” Petra said, shrugging. “The next thirty are going to be rough.”
“Thirty!?”
- - -
She’s a mess by the time she’s done, dirt on her knees and twigs in her hair. The circle is large and sprawling, turf messily torn out to form the shape, certain positions dotted with flasks and smaller versions of the circle, spitting sparks and general unholiness everywhere. It’s perfect, and the grass dies before Millie’s eyes, old and yellow before it’s nothing but dust and she’s left staring at dry, cracked earth, perfect for her purposes.
Millie begins. The ash of a thrice burned tree, once by dawn, once by sunset, and once by starlight, mixes with the blood on Millie’s palm. She’s always hated this part, the echoing memory of the blade’s kiss. She’s glad though, it only shows up again in plan seven hundred sixty-eight.
Her vocal cords strain with her chant, her vision blurring in and out like heat waves. She doesn’t even know what she is saying, old words from a time long since past, summoning up a large vile thing that shines like oil slick and sings like a mountain coming down.
It’s glorious, it’s monstrous, it’s-
-Been four hours, and nobody has shown up. Millie sits on her creature’s shoulder, idly kicking her feet, sucking wind through her teeth and huffing it out. Her creation is huge! It towers over some of the buildings in the downtown area of the city! She is most definitely being a threat, the ultimate supervillain, et cetera et cetera, and yet Enna hasn’t even shown a single feather and it’s pissing Millie off.
She slides off her monster and banishes it with an errant hand. Which really sucks because some of the materials she used? Strokes of genius, no other witch has ever reached her level, even brushed it with their non magic stained fingers (Millie’s just that cool).
Petra is on her phone, typing something frantically, occasionally muttering a few words into her voice memos app. Millie angrily stomps past her, hears her scramble to follow and lets something ugly warp her face.
“Why didn’t she show up?” Millie growled, starting the car and only just waiting for Petra to slide in before driving off. She flipped a random switch and the gorgeous expanse of the public park that they were using burst into flames. “All that work, wasted. It’s like she doesn’t appreciate what I do, you know?”
“Mhmm,” Petra managed to say, while trying to search for the seat belt buckle as the car shifted back and forth from Millie’s deranged driving.
“The circle! The outfits! The one-liners!” Millie turned a hard right, heading into a part of town that Petra hadn’t oft ventured into. “It’s a commitment, yeah?”
At that point Petra didn’t say anything more, finally buckled in and with a hand now pressed to her mouth, looking rather pale. The only sound was the car’s tires squealing on the asphalt, as Millie pulled a sharp u-turn with a muttered, “Wrong left”.
When the car stopped, with a harsh screech and a jolt forward, Petra finally took her shaking hand away, queasily looking Millie in the eyes.
“Are we there yet?” She said, very quietly.
“Yeah.” For a moment, Millie looked strange, face cast in the shadows and warm light of the sun beginning to set; like one of her demons. “We are.”
Petra looked out to see a rather drab house, short and squat with walls painted off white, dark drapes covering all the windows. It looked stunningly normal, the lawn drying out and a creaking swing tied to a large drooping tree. It gave the feeling of an abandoned family home, a shell of itself.
“Who lives here?” Petra asked, voice faint for some reason, as if speaking too loud would cause something irreversible to happen to the near silent street, practically empty of life.
Millie chuckled dryly, short and bitter. “Our dear Enna Alouette.”
“She lives here?” Petra said it more to herself. Then it registered. “She lives here?”
“Yup.” The car’s engine cut off, and Petra hadn’t realized how loud the drone of it was until it was gone, and the sound of the shifting swing in the wind was all there was.
“How the hell do you know where she lives?”
“It was plan one hundred ninety-eight, Petra,” Millie smiled a melancholy smile. “I hadn’t hired you yet.”
“Must have been a tough time then,” Petra tried to joke, but Millie was nodding.
“It was.” A beat. “Don’t worry, she knows where we live too.”
“This is starting to feel much more complicated than just a ‘nemesis’ sort of thing.” Petra shifted uncomfortably in her seat, unbuckling her seat belt to give herself more room to move.
Now Millie gave up all restraint and just laughed, and the uneasy quiet of the street was shattered. Now it was just a horrible absence that prickled its way up Petra’s spine.
“Because knowing where your arch nemesis lives is an arch nemesis sort of thing.” Millie explained, a quaint smile on her face. “We weren’t there yet.”
“Now this just sounds like a committed relationship.”
“It is!” Millie snarled, and Petra flinched as she got out of the car and slammed the door behind her, stomping over to stand in the driveway of the way-too-normal house. “And now she’s throwing away years of hard work-”
And she was off. Petra just listened, far too used to her boss’ antics to give a real reaction as she inspected the house. None of the windows were open, and none of the drapes moved either to suggest a wind in the house. She noticed a newspaper thrown to the side, tucked by the steps leading up to the porch. Millie was still talking as she picked it up and checked the date, reading it to be a few days ago.
“She’s not there.” Petra announced to a still rambling Millie.
“-I don’t dress up like a maniac and summon demons for anyone, you know?” Millie started, finally registering Petra’s words. “Wait, she's not here?”
Petra held out the newspaper and Millie snatched it away, scanning it before her face twitched and the paper started to smoke.
“Ah.” She said. “I see.”
Petra got a really bad feeling about where this was all going.
- - -
“We’re going where?”
“To find her,” Millie said resolutely, skinny arms shaking as she tried to lift a bag into the trunk of the car. Sighing, Petra picked it up easily and packed it away for her, moving some other things around to leave more space.
“Maybe she’s on vacation?” Petra tried, tucking a pile of blankets into the backseat and sliding the various animal bones into the folds of it for safekeeping. She had gotten way too used to this, to ignore the femur that looked suspiciously human. “Or visiting family.”
“She would have told me.” Honestly, it sounded like Millie was trying to convince herself. Her worry had solidified into a weight on her shoulders and a crinkle in her brow, and the laugh lines at the corner of her eyes were like ice in mid July with how quickly they melted away whenever Petra tried to get her to laugh.
Kindly, Petra did not point out that there was no real way for them to contact each other save for Millie robbing a bank in broad daylight in order to yell questions at Enna. And even then, she wasn’t even sure if she would show up.
Millie disappeared into the hide out to grab a few last things, leaving Petra to stand there with a hip braced against the passenger’s side door. There was an indent along the side of it, repaired but not very well so it was still visible as a slight indent, of when Millie finally let Petra drive her fancy villain car.
It had not gone well, as the door implied, but Petra smiled remembering how Millie had reached out for the wheel, screaming, to place her hand over Petra’s and to cast a shield over her when the car swerved too far and crashed into the bridge railing, sending it down into the river.
“I thought you said you had taken your driver’s test?!” Millie had panted, every muscle in her body tensed as she struggled to drag Petra’s limp form out of the cold rushing water. Petra remembered the panic on Millie’s face, the sheer terror, and the slight feeling that it wasn’t a normal thing to see on your boss’ face slammed up into her chest like a quick growing tree, worming its roots in, and Petra quickly, so quickly tore it to shreds.
Millie had waved a shaking, pale hand and the car rose up after them to settle on the shore, then she dragged the both of them to it for a breather.
“I did.” Petra had responded after she spat up a few mouthfuls of water. They were sitting next to the smoking wreck of the car, Petra leaning against Millie’s warm form because she was shivering from the cold and Millie’s had the devil’s heat in her bones, hellfire. “I failed it.”
“God dammit Petra,” Millie said, but she was laughing, hysterical, and her eyes flickered like iron when it got too hot, turning white in its weakness and turning into something soft. “I’m rubbing off on you, huh?”
“What are you thinking about?”
Petra let out a high pitched eep in her surprise, making Millie laugh bright and clear. Her laugh lines returned, the forehead wrinkle of worry faded, but only for a moment. Petra sighed when it disappeared, and turned back to running her fingers over the slight dent.
“This car.” She finally responded. Her words came out clipped, and she didn’t know how to draw them back in. “How many times has it blown up?”
“It blows up whenever you drive.” Millie climbed into the driver’s seat, Petra sliding in after her. The car started up, a soothing rumble as the tires squealed into life, the car now rolling down the dark road. “So no funny business when we switch over.”
“I’m going to drive?” Petra asked, dumbfounded.
Millie drew something out of her pocket, a large pale feather, and Petra bit her lip instead of asking what it was, because she already knew. A snap of Millie’s fingers and the feather quivered like it was in the wind instead of a very cramped car, like it was on a wing in flight again. It swirled in circles on the dashboard before the quill of it pointed in a vaguely north western direction.
“You just had that?” Petra finally asked, when they were well on their way and she was sure Millie wouldn’t have the heart to kick her out onto the side of the road.
“Obviously.” Millie rolled her eyes and didn’t elaborate at all. Petra saw right through her, as usual, how she was barely holding it together. Petra wondered if she was trying so hard for her sake.
Petra nodded, settling into the seat and staring out the window, at the condensation that started to cling to it and the trees and rolling fields that went by. “Right.”
- - -
It had been going so smoothly for so long, three days on this goose chase, that something was bound to happen, to explode. The two of them were tiptoeing around the subject like it was a land mine, and if it went off something was going to be lost.
The only words they had said to each other on the trip was Petra telling Millie what roads were good to go on and which ones were clearly a one way track to the middle of butt fuck nowhere.
“Clearly,” Millie repeated, “the road that the feather is pointing towards, the one that is closest to the direction we need to go. We can’t go on it.”
“We can’t.” Petra shook her head for good measure. “It doesn’t show up on the map, Millie! We’re going to end up at some abandoned house to get haunted by ghosts!”
“Pshh,” Millie waved her off, and the heat in Petra’s stomach rolled like an angry sea, the one that had been there since before they had left, fueled by concern and something she didn’t not look at.
“What do you mean, ‘pshh’?” Petra asked coldly. “Because I’m telling you quite clearly, that way isn’t safe.”
“You’re not the driver, Petra.” Millie argued. “You’re not even the boss here.”
Petra could taste blood in her mouth, her tongue trapped tight between her teeth, because how exactly was she supposed to word to her ‘boss’ that they were barely in the throes of an employer/employee relationship, that they were something different. They were on a road that wasn’t safe and didn’t show up on any maps, because of course the strange witch/supervillain had to stick with her brand of being abnormal and very apt toward metaphor.
“No,” Petra smiled and hoped her teeth weren’t red. “I’m not.”
- - -
The motel offered a room with two beds for them. Millie asked for two separate rooms instead, and Petra had to act like it didn’t hurt as much as it did. Her bag went down with a harsh thump, joining her heart at her feet, by the door that creaked when it closed, that had on it a lock that didn’t work.
Petra lied on the bed, staring at the ceiling. It looked hideous, pockmarked and sick looking, and had a stain in the far right corner that Petra tried to convince herself was coffee. She had seen her fair share of blood and then some, courtesy of Millie, but this was glaring at her as she tried to fall asleep, sore from the car ride with the afternoon light still shining through the blinds.
She gave up really fast when she heard a skittering in the bathroom, and decided that this wasn’t a safe place anymore. Petra took her bag with her and walked outside, breathing in the warm air and feeling a bit better.
Even when being dragged along on a nonsensical road trip, she supposed it could have been worse. The town they were staying in was small, with a large forest blooming around the edge of it like it was trying to swallow the houses up. Petra could see it from here, tall and dark, with birds flying in and out of it occasionally. It was nice, she supposed, which helped her ignore the cockroach in her room.
There was a pool, she noticed, glowing a light blue in the dark as the lights at the bottom of it flickered on. Petra found herself walking towards it, a moth drawn to light, and even when she saw Millie sitting at the edge of it with her feet drifting in the water, the pull only grew stronger. The heat in her belly, a furnace.
“Hello,” she said. She sat down next to Millie. She slid her shoes off too and dipped them in the water as well, making a sound because of how cold it was.
It made Millie laugh, so Petra immediately relaxed. Then she tensed up again, noticing her Pavlovian response and registering only irritation towards it.
“Hey,” Millie said back, nonchalantly, like they hadn’t been trapped in a car together for the past week, like it wasn’t a hell of their own devising. “Is your room okay?”
“It’s great,” Petra said, and at Millie’s wry look, sighed and admitted, “It sucks.”
“Mm. Is it the stains, the bugs, or the weird doors?”
Petra barked a laugh, paddling her feet in the water now that she had gotten more used to it. “All of the above.”
“Thank you for joining us at the ‘How Shitty Is Your Motel?’ gameshow,” Millie snarked. “Give us a rating on Yelp and we’ll send you a complimentary cockroach in a pillowcase.”
Petra’s nose wrinkled, and she splashed water at Millie with her foot. “That’s not how tv shows are reviewed.”
“Then how are they?”
Spluttering, flailing, a general resignation to nothing more than splashing Millie some more as Petra groaned out; “I don’t know.”
“Then forever hold your silence.” Millie grinned.
“That’s also not how it goes,” Petra protested, but Millie was laughing and finally splashing her back, and when the two of them walked back to their rooms barefoot with soaked pants hems, Millie let her come into her room when Petra said she was scared of her door’s lock not being good enough. Petra was lying, kinda. The crook of Millie’s mouth told her she knew, and the little hollow she made with her body in the bed and the warm arm she slung over Petra’s side told her it would be alright anyways.
- - -
That was two days ago, and the hot box that was their car was now just a little social experiment of which one of the two of them would shatter first. Millie from tiredness, her little tracking spell going on throughout the day, sputtering out at night and barely reviving in the morning. Petra, because she was trapped in her car with her boss, and that was always a recipe for disaster.
Their poor car had been put through the wringer, driving through terrain it wasn’t meant for over the past few days, as they entered a patch of rolling hills and barely maintained roads. Petra tried to maneuver the car as best she could when it was her turn to drive, Millie taking much needed naps in the backseat, but even then it was only for a few minutes before Millie was awakened by the jolting of the car and Petra’s muttered strings of curses.
The car had given up, rattling to a slow halt by the side of the road that Petra had thankfully pulled them into before it could go no further. There was a strange silence inside of the car, Petra’s mouth having gone too dry for her to speak and she didn’t know why.
Millie stumbled out of the car into the cool night air with a vengeance, beelining towards the hood and struggling with whatever mechanisms there were to pop it open. Petra watched her through the windshield that slowly fogged up with how cold it was. She got out slowly, still watching Millie curse and burn her hands on the steaming hood, then return to it.
She watched until she couldn’t anymore, reaching out to take Millie’s hands in her own and holding them tight, feeling the burnt palms mend themselves with a weird shedding of skin that made Petra slightly queasy but she still didn’t let go.
“What?” Millie hissed, venomous, a snake with a wounded tail.
“Calm down,” Petra said as patiently as she could, even as she started to shake from the cold. Millie noticed, a slight spark causing the air around them to rise several degrees. It made the tension between them weaken a little bit, the facade of whatever was happening melting away before returning back full force.
“Let me go.” Millie tugged her hands away, though slightly more under control now, and turned back to the hood. She fiddled with it a bit more before she tore her hands through her hair and growled something ferocious to the stars. “Fuck.”
“It’s alright, Millie,” Petra tried to soothe. “We can call someone, get it fixed and be back on the road in a few days. We need the break-”
“No we don’t,” Millie shot back, stepping away from the car like it was exuding toxic gas. “We have to find Enna, I need to know if she’s okay-”
“Well, alright, maybe when we find her you can ask if she thought about you at all too.” Petra knew that was too far, too cruel, but the heat in her burned her tongue until it was too much melted slag than silver.
Millie gaped at her, canines like a falling star in their curve, before her lips were in a terrible smile. “It doesn’t matter, Petra, and you shouldn’t say anything because I doubt anyone thinks anything of you either.”
Oh. Oh.
“Fuck you,” Petra said, and her voice was rising steadily, like the tide without the moon to restrain it, rose-colored glasses thrown to the side for a moment, “Fuck you, Millie Parfait. It’s not like you have to do this anyways, like this is your goddamn cross to bear-”
“It is!” Millie roared, hands thrown up in the air, lightning crackling in her eyes. At some point, they had backed up to the tree line, away from the car, into the darkness that was separate from their last anchor of civilization. A tree trunk split at her errant kick, the car wasn’t smoking until she slammed a fist on the hood. “Petra, godammit Petra, this is all I have!”
Petra shrank as Millie rushed forward, letting herself be shaken by the shoulders. “It’s not,” she tried to say, but Millie barreled on, a natural disaster in its futility to stop.
“What am I without her?” Millie slumped onto the ground. The sticks on the ground hurt her ass and she dug her claws into her knees just to feel the sting. “I have nothing without her…”
“You have me!”
They stared at each other, Petra’s hand over her mouth, because she had screamed it so loud the birds were flying away. She couldn’t see them, but she heard them in the rustling of the leaves and their saccharine calls. Petra wished she was like them, leaving, but also hated how much she was like them already, fast beating hearts and hollow bones. Fragile.
“You have me,” Petra said quieter, and sat down next to Millie on the hard road. “Jesus fucking Christ-”
“-Language-”
“-Shut the fuck up!” Millie was struck dumb again, eyes wide. “You, you, all you see is Enna! Does she even see you? You haven’t had a single conversation that wasn’t that fucking stupid banter that I know you practice in a mirror. I’m here! Always! I work for you! Yeah the benefits are great, I don’t know how you give dental but that’s not the fucking point! The goddamn point is that I don’t even know why I put up with you!”
Petra was breathing hard, shoulders heaving, cheeks flushed red. Her hair was a mess. Millie realized that she caused this, put Petra in this state. It caused a shaking in her chest, not unlike her magic begging to be released, only this time Millie didn’t know what would happen if she let go.
“I,” Petra wetted her lips, “But still. Because I’m a fucking idiot, I’m right here. For you. Always. I hope you know that.” And she stood. Went back to the car, popped the hood easily and began fiddling with something.
Millie sits on the ground, stunned, and doesn’t look over at Petra. Because she can hear her crying, and she doesn’t want to add to the list of what she’s done.
- - -
It was hours later when the tow truck came by, lights cutting through the darkness that was late evening. The man driving thankfully let them sit up with him as he drove them to a nearby town for repairs. It was awkwardly silent, with only a tinny radio blaring out country music for the hours-long drive. Petra was grateful to finally get out, to not have her arm pressed so close to her side as to not brush against Millie’s skin.
When she had first met her ‘boss’, (honestly their working relationship was anything but orthodox, and at this point Petra wondered if Millie just paid her to be a friend) she had been sitting on the corner with a hand pressed against her side, red leaking out between her fingers. Immediately, Petra was panicking and fumbling with her phone to call the ambulance, but them Millie Parfait was laughing at her and showing her that it was really a cracked vial of a potion she was supposed to use on Enna.
“Oh,” Petra said, like she understood. She didn’t. “Did, did it work?”
“She slammed me into a car before I could use it,” Millie said matter of factly. “So now I’m going to be stuck with hives for the next few days.”
“Huh.” Petra looked at Millie like one would look at a mewling kitten; like if she left it alone it would immediately wither and perish. “Okay.”
Petra had started helping Millie of her own free will, chucking in her own little bits of advice, tidbits of information she had heard from her friends that helped Millie extend their fights out from two minute, one sided beatdowns to actual fights that Petra had to watch with bated breath and unceasing worry. Everytime Millie disappeared from the shaky camera of a bystander, or just went out of sight as Petra watched from across the street, her heart would leap to her throat and threaten to leave her body entirely to go and find her.
“Oh,” Petra said aloud, back in the present, bringing along with herself the truth of the matter that she held within like a hardened pearl. She waved off the truck driver’s confused stare, and tapped Millie’s knee reassuringly, mouthing that it was fine.
It was a simple unassuming touch, and yet it made Petra’s fingers burn, like she had touched a roaring flame and now was being swallowed up by it. Millie shifted and bumped her shoulder into Petra’s, comforting, with a sweet little smile wound through with an olive branch.
Oh, Petra thought, internally, thankfully. And as the tow truck pulled into the city, the largest signs of civilization they had seen since they had started this road trip, Petra faced her longing in the eyes and drew it close. It settled over her like a blanket, and she bent over with its weight. Millie put her hand on Petra’s knee this time, eyes questioning and now concerned. Petra waved her off again.
The city lights twinkled like stars, welcoming them. The feather in Millie’s pocket was like a stone, and there was a matching one in her throat. She looked at Petra one more time; the soft curve of her cheek, the furrowed brow of her stubbornness, the slight jutting of her bottom lip.
When they got out of the car, having gotten the address for the repair shop the car was going to, Millie and Petra stood on the sidewalk. Still and silent, like strangers. Millie’s face felt very warm.
“I’m sorry,” she was the first to say.
“I’m sorry,” Petra said as well.
It wasn’t enough, they both knew without speaking, because there was more to it. Neither acknowledged it.
The city lights continued on twinkling, even as everything changed.