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Penelope was incredibly glad that she wasn’t the only person moving into the building that month. Her new job with the FBI was confusing and exhilarating and somehow exactly what she needed, but it was unbelievably stressful sometimes. She’d done her best to make her apartment into a haven, but she hadn’t lived on the grid since her parents died and was nervous about somehow upsetting the neighbors with noise or smells.
The girl who had moved in down the hall, however, was a Wiccan who had immediately given her apartment a cleansing with burning sage and had offered the same to any neighbor who commented. Penelope had taken her up on the offer and was unsure if it had actually helped or if just the idea of it had helped. It had definitely taken the pressure off of her as the young, weird neighbor.
Tara was twenty-two and was working on a graduate degree in history. She’d moved across the country with only a carload of possessions and one grey cat named Miss Kitty after what she’d only called a bad breakup over a cup of tea and a plate of cookies. “I got to keep Miss Kitty but all of our mutual friends were Willow’s friends first, and my brother and father disowned me when I went to college and started dating Willow. It was just best to make a completely clean break and move across the country once I finished my degree.”
“I’m starting over from scratch too,” Penelope told her. “I let someone turn me into something I didn’t want to be, so now I’m trying to be me again.”
Tara nodded, cuddling with the cat that had curled up on her lap. “That’s a good way to put it. Trying to be me. We can start our own little support group.” She laughed, the sound a little watery.
And that’s the way it went for a while. Whenever Penelope felt the Black Queen at the edges, usually when someone made a comment about her behavior or dress at work, she went down to Tara’s apartment for a cup of coffee and a cuddle with Miss Kitty. Tara would sometimes come straight from the class she was TAing for with a stack of papers to grade and a minor crisis because someone had reminded her a little too much of the bad parts of her relationship with Willow.
She resisted the urge to research Tara’s ex-girlfriend, but if the other woman managed to show up there would be an accounting. Tara had let a few things slip as the two of them became closer friends and she’d picked up some others about the young woman’s childhood to know that she hadn’t been able to stand up for herself for a very long time. For her part, Tara seemed to be actively avoiding any type of romantic relationship and Penelope understood. She wasn’t quite so determined on her end and had a few casual meetups once she found her footing at Quantico, but no one was going to begrudge her that freedom.
She wasn’t a firm believer in things like Wicca, but she wasn’t Not a firm believer, so when Christmas rolled around and Tara had shyly gifted her a protection amulet, she happily added it to her wardrobe as a regular feature.
Tara had finished up her Master’s and moved on before Jason Clark Battle attempted to kill her and the bullet somehow didn’t kill her, but Penelope sent her an effusive thank you note once she was out of the hospital.