Work Text:
Emmeline finds out first.
Giselle is usually tight-lipped about her personal affairs, as they both are, but at their overnight catch-ups she’s always conjuring up something new to share. They’re at Emmeline’s this time, a few hours in and sleepdrunk (“when it’s dark outside and every other thing you say sends us to giggles and the moon is humming and we’re exhausted but not tired at all”), playing with the cushions on Emmeline’s couch.
Picking at a stray thread on the cushion cover, Giselle takes advantage of a lull in the chat to lob the news into the conversational space. “I started seeing someone, Em.”
“Oh, really? That’s good for you, Giselle.” Dazed just a moment ago, Emmeline forcefully blinks her eyes open and sits up a little straighter.
“Yeah.”
Something in the grey tone of Giselle’s voice sounds funny to Emmeline. She shoots her friend a look. Giselle’s still fiddling with the cushion on her lap, her eyes downcast. She looks more like someone who’s just been dumped than someone shy and pink in honeymoon days.
“I’m happy for you,” Emmeline tries again.
This time Giselle doesn’t even say anything, just nods a swipe of her head in acknowledgement.
Emmeline is definitely alert now. She takes a quick breath, then asks,
“So? Do I know her?”
“…Oh, maybe.”
“Maybe? She’s new?”
“Yeah.”
Emmeline pauses. “I think I’ve met most of us from before the new millennium. Agatha? The other francophone in Ontario?”
“No, not Farrah.”
A frown. “Did you meet someone at a conference, are you guys long distance? Oh—Finally figure things out with Beatrice?”
There’s a wicked gleam in Giselle’s eye, she squeezes the cushion to her chest. “Keep guessing,” she says in a low voice.
Emmeline huffs. “Oh my god Giselle is it someone from across the border?? I dunno, one of the girls in Boston? Why you expect I’d keep track of those smiley football guys I don’t know…”
That gets a real laugh out of Giselle. (But the atmosphere’s still kind of wrong because Giselle is passing up a free shot at their Southern neighbours and nobody this side of the Great Lakes does that.)
“OK, OK,” Giselle makes a gesture with her hand. “You were close. She’s 2006.”
Emmeline groans. “Okay I’m literally just pulling up Wikipedia. 2006 you said?” She tries the Canadian universities page first because she has a small shred of hope Giselle will have better taste than that. Nothing. Onto the American page, and the name she sees beside 2006 gives her pause.
“…Georgia?” She tries.
Giselle tenses visibly.
There’s a bitter second of silence before Emmeline rushes to fill it. “Georgia Gwinnett,” Emmeline adds hastily. “I don’t know her real name but it’s a US uni.” Emmeline doesn’t know why she even mentioned the name, regardless of Giselle’s particular history with the deceased Georgia, everything around that generation of former Montrealers is a sore memory for Emmeline too. Maybe it just would’ve been too horribly perfect for Giselle to end up with a Georgia.
“No. No, no.” Giselle soberly says. “No way. I-I wouldn’t.” A glimpse of red shame flashes across her cheeks.
She wouldn’t. Emmeline knew that already. She’d joked about it once spitefully, a few decades ago when neither of them were in the right state of mind, “Wouldn’t it have made you just the happiest if she’d been dating you, looked at you like you were the sun?” and Giselle had blanched and almost immediately vomited. It’s…delicate.
At every nighttime hangout they reach this point where they talk about old friends from the 60s and 70s, and Giselle’s face alternates strained and wistful and crumpled, but it’s always Giselle prodding the conversation further down that path.
While Emmeline’s actually trying her best to live and let go, Giselle just keeps picking at the wound like she has something to prove.
Case in point:
“Do you ever think about Georgia and Laurel and all of them?” Giselle leans her head against the cushion on Emmeline’s lap. (She isn’t asking, she’s just setting the scene for the next part of this conversation.)
“Well, yeah.” As an afterthought, Emmeline adds, “You know Laurel grew up in the same gen as me.” She’s not sure if Giselle actually remembers this—Giselle can go blind with her grief, so possessive of that specific sorrow.
Giselle blinks. “Right—yeah. I guess I was just thinking…” she trails off. “Thinking…Aren’t you scared you’ll forget them all one day?”
Emmeline thinks carefully before she replies. “I don’t think we will.”
“But Em, you know,” and there’s a hint of despair in Giselle’s voice, “Things just keep changing. Time is moving on—Cordelia and Camille barely even knew their sisters, and there’s no chance anyone newer than them has even heard of Laurel or Georgia or-or anyone! Nobody even wants to talk about it and keep them real.” Her voice cracks.
“…We try. I try to remember them. I visit Laurel’s old campus when I have the time—you should go too, Giselle. It’s a really nice lush spot, makes me think of her.”
“Hm. Maybe.” (The tone of this maybe means ‘no’ to a well-trained Emmelinean ear.) “Aren’t you worried you can’t even remember anything right? What if I just end up erasing her?”
Her rant has sent Emmeline into quiet contemplation. Time is moving, but as unaging immortals the only thing they can really do is go with it. And now there’s a question on her mind:
“Is this related to your new girlfriend?” Emmeline says abruptly. It’s not very tactful, but it cuts to the chase.
Silence from Giselle. Bang on, then.
Emmeline peeks at Giselle. It doesn’t look like she’s going to say anything, so Emmeline throws out another comment. (It’s okay, Giselle will forgive her for this.)
“We always said you’d be the last of the four of us to find somebody. What was the order again? Me, Laurel, Georgia, you. Congrats again.“
“Hah. Yeah, Emmeline, when are you finding yourself a girlfriend?”
“Ha-ha.” (On this topic Giselle always talks about ‘when’, Emmeline dryly says ‘if’.) A fond look flashes across Emmeline’s face. “You were, are, always so serious. Georgia thought it was cute how insistent you got that you’d always put your school before romance, but God that girl was a dreamer and a romantic.”
“Mn.” Nodding, Giselle’s gaze goes distant. Emmeline finds it odd how willingly she draws on the memories that hurt compared to the memories that shine.
“Yeah,” Emmeline adds. “I wouldn’t have expected you to be dating someone.”
“Me neither.”
Her attention’s piqued. “Didn’t you say you didn’t want to? Did something happen?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure.”
“Hm. But she’s special? Tell me about her?”
Giselle shifts and runs her fingers through a stray section of her hair. “Honestly I don’t even know where to start.”
Emmeline huffs. “Well, give me something to work with. How long have you been dating again?”
“…A while,” Giselle admits but doesn’t elaborate. Interesting. There’s something there, or why wouldn’t she tell? Giselle is never short of cautious but they don’t keep real secrets from each other.
“Hm. Oh yeah. You mentioned earlier, 2006?” She reaches for her phone again.
“You’re not going to find her there.”
“Hm?” Emmeline has her suspicions, but she holds off from any assumptions.
Giselle takes a long breath in, then rushes out her next words. “She’s human. A new Concordia student.”
Emmeline just stares. Stares and stares and it sinks in but it’s still so difficult to parse because—“Are you serious? You’re dating one of the students?!” Hallways through the question she tries to tone the sharp point of her hiss down to incredulity, because this is Giselle her best friend, even if Giselle her best friend is doing something very very very stupid right now. “Dating them doesn’t…”
Giselle holds up her hands. “Yeah. Yeah—I don’t know, Em.”
Emmeline scoffs. “Yeah? Giselle—I know you know this is a bad idea. We both saw how messy it ended for Vallée and her human, and Vallée has the most life lived of all of us. Your girlfriend’s just a person! What are you going to do in a couple years—have you even told her what you are, Gia?! Come on. She always said—“
“Please stop. Please don’t.” Giselle’s voice sounds one tap away from shattering.
Staring some more, Emmeline asks, “Did you tell Cordelia? No, I know you wouldn’t. Are you going to?”
A shake of the head, one, two.
“…Okay. I really think you should think this through.”
“I can’t explain,” Giselle rubs an eye. “But sometimes she really makes me think of them.” She doesn’t have to specify.
Giselle continues. “Well, she talks like she’s from an older century. Plainly normal conversations and then she throws in a word like “dame” or “clement”, “uncouth”, “quibble”—she’s absolutely obsessed with “swell” when she’s in a good mood, by the way. When I hear her speak I can’t help but think of those good old days. We don’t even talk like that anymore, but that’s how I remember them being.”
“Or she does the—the thinking thing,” Giselle tries. “That I always made fun of her for.” She scrunches her nose in some imitation, then laughs breathlessly.
“Just like Laurel, she’s crazy invested in theology. Ask her to explain about it and she gets more and more invested, she takes up all the space in the room. …It’s really cute.”
There’s a faraway look to her eye and Emmeline’s not sure who Giselle is imagining when she says it.
Continuing, “She wears glasses more round than Georgia’s, but sometimes she’ll dangle them at the bottom of her nose bridge and look down in this kind of playful way and her eyes are so sharp.”
“…I remember that,” Emmeline says quietly. “And Georgia put on this voice mimicking God knows who, and Laurel would see that and immediately jump into a skit.”
“Right. Right, you get it, Em.” Giselle swallows. “I miss us. Maybe in another life…I wish we’d all gotten more time together.“
“Well, it’s us two now.” Emmeline squeezes her arms in a hug.
“Yeah.” Giselle squeezes back.
They sit, holding each other, until Emmeline speaks again. Nudging Giselle lightly, “…Do I get to meet her, your new girlfriend?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Good, good. …You know, I’m still not sure. I don’t think it’s a good idea. But if you’re happy…?”
Some tension goes out of Giselle. “I am.”
“Don’t hurt her.”
“I won’t, I won’t.” Giselle looks solemn.
“Don’t hurt yourself.”
“…It’ll be fine.”
-
Camille finds out entirely on accident. Well, she thinks wryly, she doesn’t think Giselle would’ve ever come out to tell her.
They have a casual friendship, one where they swap pleasant words and warm greetings but never anything too substantial. Giselle, Camille thinks, has decades ago grown too withdrawn to let anyone new into her inner guard. Camille’s made her peace with it.
It catches her off guard when she spots Giselle on the street from a distance a block away, holding hands with someone Camille has never seen in her life.
She walks up to say hi, and Giselle’s face comes into view. She has a terribly fond look on her face, and Camille notices how she’s never looking away from the girl she’s walking with for too long.
Crossing the street, Camille sees the two of them share a quick kiss and then the other girl parts ways in the opposite direction.
Giselle must have her mind entirely occupied, because she’s smiling after the girl, blissfully, and doesn’t notice Camille at all until she yells out from behind, "Giselle! Giselle, so good to see you!"
Giselle almost jumps. A flash of out-of-character anxiety crosses her face, and then she brushes back a strand of her hair. "…Camille! Hello. I didn’t think you would be around here." Her eyes dart back and forth across Camille’s face, and Camille wonders why she looks so guilty. Giselle’s always pointlessly secretive and usually better at keeping her cards close to her chest.
"Oh, I’m just wandering," Camille says with a shrug. "Getting some fresh air," She continues as explanation, breezy.
"It’s a good, clear day." Giselle relaxes into agreement as they step into their routine. It doesn’t seem like she’s planning on bringing up the girl from earlier at all — maybe she thinks Camille didn’t see her?
"Nice to see the good weather’s sticking with us through October!" Camille mock-shivers. "We haven’t all had centuries to get used to the cold, brr."
Giselle laughs warmly. "You’ll get there."
"I trust you." Camille would any other time be happy to continue their easy, pleasant talk but she’s pretty curious about the girl and she thinks she has a few years of un-nosyness to cash in. "Hey," she tilts her head, "Who was that?"
Immediately Giselle shifts onto her guard. If Camille is reading her right, she’s a little hostile and scared and…relieved, of all things? Giselle seems to consider the question for a while before she settles on an answer. "I’m seeing her," she says slowly.
"Oh!" It’s not a surprising answer, though maybe for the fact that Giselle didn’t dodge it. "Yay I’m happy for you!" Camille claps overeagerly.
Giselle dips her head in acknowledgement, then as if reciting a faded script, says a brief "Thanks."
Camille takes advantage of Giselle’s courtesy to add on, "I don’t think I’ve met her before. Just curious, where’s she from?"
"Around here."
"Oh wait really? What’s her name?"
"…She’s not a named being like us." Watching with a long look, Giselle clarifies, "She’s a human."
Camille betrays no reaction. Honestly, she doesn’t really see a problem with it? The incident with Emmeline’s cousin was so long ago and there are humans older than she is. The one thing she notes is that Giselle didn’t provide a name. "Interesting. Okay."
Closing her eyes, Camille reaches her senses out to the air and the people. She hums as she gets a feeling of who the girl who was just here is. "She’s Cordelia’s?" That makes sense, for why Giselle is even more closed off than usual. Oh dear…
"Yes." There’s a dark note to Giselle’s voice.
Camille rushes in before Giselle gets the wrong impression. "Aww. You guys look cute together." She kicks her feet back and forth. "So, how long’s it been?"
Visibly tense, Giselle says, "New. But a while."
It’s not a helpful answer. Biting her lip, Camille goes on. "Oh, cool. Cool! In any case that’s really wonderful, it looks like you guys work well and deserve each other. Um, have you told everyone?" She looks away when she asks this last question, a bit because she’s worried she’s been kept out of the loop for being silly Camille and a bit because she dreads having to be the one to tell Cordelia.
Flatly, willingness to play nice decaying, Giselle says, "No."
Camille clicks her tongue. "When are you planning on it?"
"Well, it’s just not anybody else’s concern, is it?"
Camille hums. It kind of is Cordelia’s? She’s positive her friend isn’t going to take the news very well, but she doesn’t want to break up the happy couple or leave them to go at it. She doesn’t bring the issue up with Giselle, instead saying, "But isn’t it exciting? It’s an occasion! You should get to tell the whole world about the girl you’re sweet on, and how she makes you happy, you know."
"I understand. But it’s really not that important to me."
Reeling back a little, Camille says, "What does that mean? She’s important to you!"
It takes a moment for Giselle to collect herself to reply. "Of course." She says it with one of her most practiced smiles.
"Okay…" Cautiously, Camille goes, "But—Wouldn’t it make you happier to share the good news?"
"Not everyone needs their life a public spectacle." There is an edge making its way into Giselle’s voice. "You can’t understand, alright?"
Camille holds her hands up, a bit miffed. "Okay! I get it, sorry, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable…"
"It’s fine." (It doesn’t look like it.)
This whole time Giselle has seemed ill at ease. She doesn’t want the other girl to leave this conversation too upset, so Camille says, "I won’t say anything. I don’t think you want me to."
"And I appreciate it, Camille." Giselle relaxes a minuscule amount at the words, so that might be a win for Camille?
She bites her lip again, mulling over whether or not she is going to say the next thing. It’s reckless but important so finally she just goes for it: "You know… I never knew Laurel or Georgia (Giselle inhales hard at the mention of the names) for very long, but they were always so sweet to me. I know they were special to you. When I saw the two of you just now, it made me really glad — I think they would have been too, to see you find someone who could be just as special. You’re really lucky to find someone."
"I’m sorry, I have to go." Giselle says each word with clear enunciation, clutching her arms close to her side. She’s looking away from Camille, and it’s a pretty obvious excuse, but Camille relents to giving Giselle her precious distance.
Camille reaches out to give her a farewell hug. Giselle isn’t one for physical affection, but she seems to always appreciate this from Camille. She softens a little, returns the hug. Camille says while squeezing Giselle, "Take care. And give her my love!"
"Sure."
-
Cordelia finds out months and months later. And ooh boy, she is not a happy camper. The youngest of their four in Montreal, she’s grown up last to be told all the things that matter. Infuriating. She’s no child who needs to be sheltered, and this time too, when it’s so personal?
“Giselle!” Cordelia shouts. She’s caught Giselle in front of the Vanier library, and takes rapid steps up to her now.
Giselle just stands still and watches and awaits judgement as Cordelia approaches in a swish of agitated sunflower skirts.
Cordelia feels her temper rising upon seeing Giselle’s neutral face. It’s a weakness of hers, how quick she is to emotion and also never someone to hide her feelings. (Privately, she suspects Giselle is also easily emotional, though the other girl buries it under seven layers of anything else.)
Quick, step-beat-steps carry her until she’s facing Giselle. “What are you doing here?!”
Giselle raises an eyebrow a millimetre at her tone. “I was wondering when you were going to want to talk to me,” she says instead of answering.
Cordelia sputters. “YOU’RE the one I’ve been trying to track down for weeks! I haven’t felt a brush of you at all at downtown, what ridiculous routes are you taking to avoid SGW?”
"Oh, well you know,” Giselle says with clear amusement. “Secret alleys, underground tunnels, magical routes outlined by the white squirrels. You should try making friends with them.” Her tone of voice is the same one she used to read fairy tales to Cordelia with.
Cordelia stares, incredulous. Then her anger flares—“Don’t make fun of me! What are you doing?”
"I didn’t realize it was a crime not to update the gossips on every moment of my life. Well then, consider me caught." Giselle lets out a small sigh.
God, Cordelia sometimes cannot stand Giselle’s historical pretentiousness. It’s such an ugly thing grown on an elegant girl, and today is not a day she has the patience to disarm the arrogant gleam in Giselle’s blue eyes. "I know you know what I’m talking about! She’s my student, Giselle. She’s my student."
"I know that. And?" Giselle’s droll voice picks up a sharper tone.
"…Agh! You’re so — Why are you—" Cordelia gestures in all directions with her hands as she tries to find the right words. "Why are you toying with her?"
"What makes you say that?"
"You’re really actually horrible, you know," Cordelia snaps.
"Careful."
The conversational atmosphere is quickly sinking into something heavy.
Cordelia accelerates it with a cry: "You are horrible. That girl has her whole life ahead of her. You’re you, and she’s one of mine!! You should’ve asked, or at the very least, told me — it’s not fair that I had to find out through someone else, so many and a half months later! You never even try to talk to me!" Cordelia is aware how easily her train of thought is slipping away in this argument. Her ears burn a little as she hears the shameful words coming out of her mouth.
Giselle shifts her weight from one foot to the other. "It’s not your concern."
"Of course it matters!"
"You were right earlier, it’s her life." Recovering quick, Giselle fires back, "We don’t meddle with humans. You’re not young enough you haven’t learned that yet, I hope?"
"You’re literally the one doing the meddling!" The fight in her has become something desperate. "Come on."
"I think," Giselle says slowly, "I can make her happy. So who are you to decide what’s best?"
The words weigh heavy on Cordelia. She takes a long breath, flickering her eyes shut as she tries to keep a grip on the conversation and a lid on her feelings. She reaches for something to say, chooses something underhand that she knows will leave a similar blow on Giselle.
In a low voice, Cordelia asks, "Giselle. Giselle, when you look at her, do you see Laurel?" She’s watching the other girl closely.
A tension races through Giselle’s body as her standing position goes rigidly still. When she speaks, her voice is tight and sounds like a string on the precipice of snapping: "Who told you?" Giselle’s eyes narrow. "Em or Camille?" She sweeps Cordelia up and down with her gaze like she’s trying to extract the truth from her body. "Well, I suppose doesn’t matter. What’s any of this to you?"
There’s real upset in her voice. Cordelia feels a bit of vicious glee at getting a rise out of the other girl.
Giselle adds, heat rising, "She doesn’t belong to you." (When Cordelia thinks back to this conversation later, she won’t be quite sure which 'she' Giselle is talking about here.)
Cordelia falters, incredulous. "Laurel was my sister! How do you want me to react when I hear you’re going out with her lookalike now that she’s gone? You’re messed up." This all said quite meanly, and then with a bitter bitter huff, "I know you’ve never come to pay your respects here, after. I would’ve felt it."
"She was your sister," Giselle agrees. There’s a wry smile sitting on her face. "But." There’s a sense of drama as she pauses for breath before her next words, Giselle with her perfect narrative and lofty control. "You never knew her after all. You never knew either of them."
Cordelia feels her face fall.
Seeing the stricken look on her face, Giselle pushes the point home. She laughs a little funny then says, "Because you’re on the wrong track. You don’t even realize she looks more like Georgia." (Cordelia inhales sharp.) "Something like a 55-45 split between them, if I had to call it."
Blank, Cordelia forgets to breathe. Then her face twists furious. "What’s wrong with you, Giselle?! You’ve thought the calculation through, are you serious?!"
Giselle is watching with a loose look of amusement. She gives no comment, the only tell for her loss of composure is one twitching finger.
"You’re insane. They’re dead, and here you are, projecting onto some human you snatched from under me. If they were here, what would they think of you?!"
Twitch. "They’re gone." Giselle’s tone is the lowest it has been all conversation. Sourly, she looks down and says, "They can’t think anything of me."
Cordelia paces and wrings her hands. She doesn’t know how to escape out of this corner, she tries to get through to Giselle from another angle. "The girl you’re with, she’s a real person! This is not a game, don’t be selfish."
"I don’t listen to you." Giselle fixes cold eyes onto Cordelia, seeming to look past her entirely. "Who do you think you are, lecturing me?! “
(And Cordelia feels horribly out of place. She’s furious at Giselle, furious at herself, furious at this whole conversation for starting. It provokes an outburst:) "I’m not STUPID! I know you better than you think."
Cordelia chokes out the next words as a terrible emotion rises up in her chest. "I know you loved them. Why, why can’t you stand me?" Suddenly her eyes might be wet. "Are you — is this — tell me, do you want to get revenge on me or something? I’m sorry they’re gone and I’m the only one here, ok!" Words are coming out faster than she can speak them, she’s a barely comprehensible mess. "I wish they were here, every single day. I wish we could have all been together. Take it out on me if you want, but please quit messing around with that human girl. She deserves better."
Cordelia drops to the ground, rubbing her face. Giselle watches with wide eyes.
They are there the two of them, Cordelia panting and trying to pull back from her childish display, Giselle standing wordlessly.
"…Sometimes, you look like her."
Cordelia blinks and looks up at Giselle. Was she the one who just spoke? The older girl is looking at her carefully.
Giselle stretches out a hand in something of a peace offering. "There’s something about you all that glows gold."
Baffled, Cordelia takes the helping hand and stumbles up. "I-I, thank you??"
A muted laugh from Giselle, and it’s a real sound. "She could never take a compliment either." Her next words are a soft admission: "I know it’s not easy for you. For what it’s worth, I don’t hate you. How could I?" She flashes a broken smile. "You’re their little sister. It’s just. All difficult."
The conversation drops down and once more, quiet, quiet, quiet. This time, Cordelia is the one left uncertain of what to say. Again, Giselle is the first to break the silence. She opens her mouth and seems to be forming the start of a few different words before she settles on saying:
"You can take your girl back."
“Appreciate it." She’s still a bit numb, she doesn’t know if this is the right reply. Cordelia squeezes her hands in her skirts, then draws to her full height. Putting on a brave face, she says firmly, "I don’t want to see you again on my campus, though.”
Giselle smiles ruefully. “Don’t worry. You won’t.”
-
Don’t date the students, Laurel or Georgia or even both of them had warned. A word of advice. You’ll only break your own heart.