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It’s embarrassingly late into her sophomore year before Katie really stops moving long enough to watch Elle, the way that she fits herself seamlessly into every room, how she takes up just as much space as she wants to. How she tucks herself under Katie’s arm, pressing her shoulder into Katie’s ribs as she effortlessly joins the conversation with the team, how she winds her arms around Katie's waist and holds on wordlessly at the end of the day. What’s going on between them is still new and fragile, but Katie finds herself besotted nonetheless.
She doesn’t think much of it, how this girl she had so loathed has become part of her daily thoughts. Nonetheless, she finds herself craving her touch, wishing that Elle would turn that intense focus onto her. She wants to think she’s above the ‘hand comparison’ joke, a reason to get Elle to hold her hand, but there they are, on the bus after a tournament huddled into a two-small bench seat, Elle holding up her palm against Katie’s.
“Christ, Katie, look at this” she intones lowly, turning their palms for her benefit.
Katie looks. Elle’s hand is dwarfed in hers, her delicate fingers reaching to the same level as Katie’s. She turns their hands, takes Katie’s hand in hers, traces her fingers over the web of callouses and paper-cut scars. Katie’s hand is a weapon, a tool, meant for a singular purpose and treated with just enough care to keep it functional. There’s a callous along the pad of her thumb from where the edge of her epee’s pistol grip wears down her glove, ridges of torn and regrown skin along her fingers, nails kept cut to the quick for practicality. She watches Elle’s fingers quest along her hand before she presses a kiss to her knuckles, torn from a drunken fall, so feather-light and fast that for a moment Katie thought she’d hallucinated it. Then, Elle simply tucks herself into the nook of Katie’s arm, contentedly opening a book for the rest of the bus ride.
They don’t mention it again, but a few nights later Katie is lying in Elle’s bed, staring at the stars through the skylight, when she feels Elle’s fingers trace along her hand again. She says nothing, barely breathing for fear of interrupting the moment, and Elle just interweaves their fingers, tucking her head against Katie’s chest. Her fingers are delicate against Katie’s, gently rubbing back and forth against her scabbed knuckles the same way that Katie has watched her turn the dials on her camera, the same way she braids Nightingale’s hair before practice, the surety of their movement a surprise. She is made of sturdy stuff, Katie’s not stupid enough to think otherwise, but nonetheless she wants to cover her, protect her, never let her bust her knuckles or rip her skin. If Katie’s hands are made for fighting, and it’ll take a lot to convince her otherwise, Elle’s hands are made for creating, for holding.