Archive of Our Own ^beta

1 -

Fran was five years old when her father died.

She remembers that day. Her mother's screams from the front hall of the house, Anthony trudging up the steps in silence. The fact that she didn't know what was wrong, not right away. Not until she heard Anthony crying in the night and left her bed to go to him. Gregory was asleep in his crib, just two years old, and Anthony was outside his door, his head in his hands. Fran hugged his leg, and he dropped to his knees and held on to her, saying, sorry, I'm sorry I woke you. And he had told her in a low voice that their dad wasn't coming back.

She remembers Edmund Bridgerton in fragments. Moments, unconnected to each other. The way he smelled when he was carrying her, aftershave and something woody. His lips on her cheek, on her head, on her hand. How it felt to put her little arms around his neck and hug him. Feeling the echo of his laughter. His deep, rolling voice saying, Francesca, my baby girl. It had made Daphne and Eloise jealous, sometimes, but then he would sweep them all up into his arms, swing them around, and make them laugh until they forgot they were annoyed. His strength, physical and otherwise. His adoration, so freely given, so easily known.

When John died, and then Michaela went away, Fran had remembered those first days without her father, her mother too overcome with grief to leave her bed. That feeling, like she was without shelter, without harbor, a ship being tossed and thrown around by a storm. That anything she held onto may be taken away at any moment, never to return.

She tried her hand at it then — composing. Trying to be her own instead of following someone else. But it frustrated her. She would unconsciously go back to pieces she knew from before; she wasn't able to place anything as clearly as the first few notes; she was wasting her time. A sound in her head that she was hoping would become a song remained just a sound, nothing more to it, until she clicked shut the fallboard a little too harshly, and went upstairs for the night.

.

Every moment of John's death was burned into Francesca's memory. Every second of it. From the second the doctor came to tell them the news, to the funeral.
She remembered putting a hand on the wall to help keep her upright - but falling to the floor as she realized what was happening, her knees buckling, a scream caught in her throat. And she coughed out sobs, cries, hysterical, broken in fragments.

John, she thought. No.

Michaela didn't cry. She didn't say anything at all. She just stood by the blue plastic chairs mounted to the wall and stared through the doors like she was waiting for John to appear from behind them.

John.

By then, Anthony and Daphne had come running in through the sliding doors. She registered the skid of Anthony's shoes on the white floor, the sharp gasp as Daphne approached her, immediately falling to her knees and embracing her.

John.

And then — Michaela. She thought, and looked about for her through the murmurs of her siblings.

She was sitting on one of the chairs staring at the wall opposite, her expression completely blank. Anthony got to his feet and went over to her, sat down beside her. Said something that Fran couldn't hear, because she couldn't stop heaving, couldn't stop crying. She let her head fall into Daphne's shoulder, and stayed there.

They saw each other a handful of times in the next week. Only in passing. Only in exchanged looks, moments where they were in a room together with John and Michaela's mothers, with the Bridgertons, with the funeral organizers. Moments where Fran would look up, see her own misery reflected back at her in Michaela's face, and look away.

They watched John be lowered into the ground. She focused on her engagement ring instead, letting the coffin blur behind it. And tears again, always tears. Never seemed to run out of them. Would find herself crying in the kitchen while making tea, crying in the garden while standing in the sun.

More, too, on behalf of his family. Watching Michaela handle her aunt and mother's grief while Fran's siblings and mother rallied around her. Janet's gray face. Helen's tight grip on Michaela's hand.

And Michaela's silence. The most unnerving of all, wide as the ocean. Fran heard her speak at most two sentences. She planned the funeral, oversaw the transport of John's body. She did everything, and all Fran did was cry.

Maybe that was it, Fran thought sometimes. Maybe that was why they didn't speak anymore. Maybe Michaela resented her weakness, unable to be anything for anyone else. But part of her thought - no, she would never. She would never think that. So what was it then?

Their last conversation, the last time they saw each other - Fran confessed something she'd never told anyone before or since. That the week John died, her period was late. She'd been terrified that was pregnant, but deep down, so hopeful. So incredibly hopeful. Until John died, and her period came, and she was crying again, telling Michaela everything she hoped for the baby. When she had looked up, Michaela had that faraway look again. Maybe it had never left. She comforted Fran, nodded and encouraged her to speak, but her words were empty, her eyes emptier, and the most damning thing of all - she didn't touch Fran for a second. She was always affectionate, always patting her cheek, hugging her from the side, tugging on her hand. That time, she stood on the opposite end of the room, her arms folded across her middle, and just listened, offered comfort in words alone.

Maybe that, then. Maybe Fran had been too much in that moment, let too much of her grief get the better of her. Loaded too much onto Michaela and made her feel like she had to run. Had to be that, didn't it?

In the weeks after, they spoke a handful of times over text — repetitive versions of how are you? holding it together, how are you? Fine.

The weeks turned into months, and suddenly they hadn't spoken in half a year.

It led into four years of radio silence.

.

Or almost radio silence, because there was another thing Fran had never told anyone, before or since.

One night, five months after the funeral, she'd woken up in cold sweat and gut-wrenching fear, seized from a nightmare that Michaela had died in their silence, that she was being lowered into the ground, her coffin the same as John's.

She had tried to rationalize it away, but the fear pricked at her insides, refused to let her sleep. The tree outside the window cast long shadows on the bedroom floor, the darkness interrupted only by a low light in the corner. Where was Michaela? She would know if something had happened, for sure, but where was she now?

It wasn't just a random dream, either. She'd been at her piano in the main room, listening quietly to her siblings chatter - Gregory say something and Hyacinth near tackle him - when a memory had come rising up, unbidden.

Once, after their last year of college, just after John had proposed. She'd been at the piano then, too. Michaela and John side by side on the couch, both on their phones, chatting about something in low voices.

"You'll drink yourself into an early grave at this point."

"It's really not that bad. And you really think I'm going to die and leave you to muck around here on your own? If anything, I'm taking you with me."

John raising his voice — "Francesca, I do believe your future cousin in law has just threatened to murder me."

Michaela barking a laugh. "Okay. As if I'm going anywhere you're not coming with me."

"You say that like I stalk you."

"You do stalk me, you chronic Find My Friends checker." She kicked him, he kicked back, and then they were exchanging kicks and elbows back and forth like children.

And something about remembering that conversation just then had sent a chill down her spine. Scared her. They would always joke like that, Michaela and John. Always joke that they'd come out of the womb near the same time, lived life in parallel, that they were two of a kind, each other's halves and that they always would, always would have each other if nothing else, would probably die at the same time like their twin fathers had done.

As if I'm going anywhere you're not coming with me.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she'd wiped her eyes, picked up her phone and tapped Michaela's international number.

And it rang, and rang — and then picked up. "Hello?"

And Fran had nearly teared up from relief, her fear evaporating. Michaela's voice, low pitch and soft cadence and so entirely her, an instant balm to her soul. "Hi."

"Fran? Why are you calling me — what time is it for you?" A shuffle, as she checked. "Three?"

"Yeah I..." The background coming into focus, cheers and bass into the distance. "Are you... out somewhere?"

"There's a boat party passing by. Wait a second." A shuffle again, then silence. "It's gone now."

"Are you on a boat?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Istanbul."

"Oh."

"...Is something wrong? Did something happen? Why aren't you sleeping?"

"I..."

"Is it an emergency?"

"No, no. Nothing like that, I just." Fran placed the phone on speaker in her lap and put her head in her hands, running her hands over her face. "I just. I had a bad dream. That something happened to you."

"Oh."

"I just wanted to check, since we haven't spoken in a while."

"I'm okay."

"Okay. That's... good."

Silence again. No words left to be said between them, it felt like.

Then Michaela spoke. "You hear that?"

"What?"

Crackles, then the sound of the ocean.

"Oh, yeah, I hear it."

Waves, lapping up against the side of the boat. For a moment, Fran just listened to the water, and imagined Michaela standing at a ship bow with her phone out to the sea.

"...You should go to sleep, Fran."

"Yeah... I should..." But she didn't want to. She wanted to talk, but didn't know what about. The things she wanted to say, she didn't feel like she could.

Why are you there and not here? "What's Istanbul like?"

"It's beautiful. You should visit some time."

How long till I see you again? "How long are you there?"

"Just a few days."

Come back. "Then back to London?"

"No... Egypt, actually."

Why aren't you coming back? "Oh. I hope... you have fun."

"Thank you."

What did I do? "...I miss you."

"...I miss you too, Fran. We'll speak later, alright? Sleep well."

"Okay. Thanks. Good night."

"Good night."

And that - after the conversation about the pregnancy scare, was actually the last time.

The next time they spoke, it would be three and a half years later, when Michaela returned to London.

2 -

The problem with the dating apps, as Fran tells only Penelope, because only Penelope understands, is that she's not sure that she can just meet somebody and they'll like her. Not that she thinks incredibly poorly of herself; just that she's never been a very good first impression.

She's not very good at conversations and parties, and never was. She'd rather sit silently and listen than be the one talking. Then, the fact that she doesn't have much ambition, or drive. Doesn't know how to exist anything but moment to moment, note to note. Then, that's she's almost apathetic when it comes to making decisions, she really doesn't mind anything at all, would rather not choose what to do than be the one choosing. And she is obsessive by nature — but it is as a musician must be, to some extent. Obsessive enough to practice the same piece over and over again until perfect. To sit every day in the same spot with the same posture, keep at it. Single-minded, too. Can not keep other trains of thought intact in her head as much as the main one. It works in her favor as a pianist, and John had always loved it about her, but another mark on the list of things she thinks don't really set her up for success in dating.

But again, obsessive, and so this thing - wanting to date again, wanting to be someone who wasn't so damned gray all the time, wanting to feel human again - becomes an obsession.

She gets almost thirty matches, and says yes to nearly everything, because — god, she might as well. Even if all she makes is a poor impression, maybe one out of thirty can be a good one.

That's how she finds herself on a date some weeks later, trying to focus on the boy in front of her instead of the rain against the window, when he says — Tell me about yourself. And then she's struggling to find the words to explain herself, and the only thing she manages to eke out is that she's the sixth of eight siblings and a pianist.

Some people she meets know themselves awfully well, or have done this for a long time, because they launch right into characteristics. Meanwhile, Fran barely knows her own borders, where she ends and her perception begins, who she actually is under all the layers of who she was, who she wants to be.

And she does like that about those dates, that they're so willing to put themselves out there, so easily able to say — this is me. I am easily known.

But she also hates it, because when it's her turn, she knows her words will be lacking.

When they part ways, she takes the train back. Sends Colin an update on the date, checks the time and her mother's texts, shifts back on the platform to make room for someone walking past —

And there's Michaela.

Seeing her across the train platform is such a shock, Fran stops in place and nearly drops her phone into the tracks.

Michaela, across the underground station, waiting for the train on the other side. Her head bowed over her phone.

She didn't even say she was in London, Fran thinks miserably. She waits for Michaela to look up, but she never does. The screech of the tunnel startles her, then, but she looks to the side instead of up, and Fran sees her only for another second before the train comes barreling through the tracks and blocks the view.

The first time they met was at the train station in Edinburgh. Fran had struggled her suitcase onto the platform, then realized the family behind her - a mother, two kids and grandmother - might need some help with theirs. She had stopped for a moment to help the mother unload a stroller from the train. But with her other bag heavy on her shoulder, she was only able to do so much. Then a bystander had run up to take over, grabbing it out of Fran's hand and shifting it out onto the platform with ease. Her confidence so casual, and her smile so beautiful — for a moment, Fran was stunned. Michaela winked at her, smiled and responded kindly as the young mother thanked them both for their help. Didn't notice her effect for a second.

John came jogging up to the platform just then. And he introduced them, and Fran remembers that moment perfectly. The moment both of them turned to each other and recognized each other from John's stories, that electric buzz between strangers turning to the warm awkwardness of the first time meeting the family.

.

When the house needs to be emptied for the renovation, Fran decides to go stay with Janet Stirling a while. It takes half the morning to pack up what she needs for two weeks, and twenty minutes to have Anthony drive it over to the Stirling house.

She moves into one of the guest bedrooms in relative silence, since Janet's not home. Decides she'll unpack later, because there's too much else to do today, and patters down the stairs.

Doesn't register all the noise outside the house until the door swings open before she can push it, and —

She freezes, meeting familiar brown eyes a few steps below her on the pavement.

Michaela is on the doorstep, her eyes wide like she's seen a ghost. For a moment, Fran feels utterly haunting. Even darkly hopes that she is, if only so that Michaela hasn't entirely forgotten her in all these years.

Fran recovers first. "Hi."

"Hi..."

"Is that a furniture van?

"Yes, I'm moving... What are you doing here?"

"I'm staying for two weeks. The house had an infestation, I didn't have anywhere to go, so I asked Janet for help."

"Oh." Michaela picks up her phone, flips through her messages. "She didn't tell me."

"I'm sorry."

"No — no, don't be sorry. I'm glad she invited you in. It would've been -"

Yours anyway. But Michaela breaks off before she says that part, even though Fran wouldn't be hurt by the reference to John. But then, how is Michaela supposed to know? Do they even know each other anymore?

They part ways with a nod, and Fran resists the urge to look back over her shoulder and to try and guess how Michaela might be feeling, like she used to do, once.

The next day, too, a nod instead of a hello, and separate directions when they leave the house.

She meets Colin that week, when he's watching Edmund, and they walk to the train together. They pass a billboard on top of a nearby building, and Michaela's face comes into view, her side profile over a deep purple background. Fran stares for a second. Colin notices and looks up as well.

"Wow," he says. "Great picture."

Fran just nods and looks pointedly away as they navigate their way through the busy street, being pushed behind and ahead of each other more than once.

"What's that like, sharing a house?"

"It's fine." She doesn't have anything to complain about.

"Not weird at all?"

"We don't talk much."

And they don't. But that's not exactly something that Fran can go complaining about, that they aren't friends anymore, not really, anyway. The fact that she can see in Michaela's face how she's changed. Twenty five has made her - somehow - even more bold than she was before, and even more beautiful, with a different approach to her hair, to her makeup, to her clothes. Almost a stranger.

Once, though, she patters down the stairs into the hallway, only to see Michaela talking to Janet in the doorway on the other end. A smile on her face, the I'm humoring you but I think you're hovering smile she would always give John, so achingly familiar in such a grown face, that Fran can't keep looking.

3 -

Sharing a house brings them back to each other in increments. It starts small — Fran's sweater, folded on the couch after she'd left it there. Her leaving the light on for Michaela on a late night. Fran's favourite cheese in the fridge. Michaela's favourite tea in the tea box she leaves in the kitchen.

Sitting in the living room, hearing the door click open and the rustle of a coat being shed.

Fran chances a question. "How was your day?"

"Lovely," but a flatness in her tone that Fran doesn't press. "Yours?"

"Alright."

A moment where Michaela pauses by the door, and Fran gets to her feet.

"Don't... don't leave on my account."

"I wasn't. I was just going to get something."

"Oh. Alright. Sorry."

The moment is broken by the sound of footsteps. Hyacinth strolls down from upstairs, casually oblivious (or not - Francesca often suspects any and all of her obliviousness to be a facade, and isn't as likely as her older siblings to buy into it). She drops down onto the couch and puts her feet up on the couch arm, scrolling through her phone.

"Do you have any playlists on Spotify, Michaela?"

"A few."

"Can I see?"

Fran gives her a look. "Can you not be nosy for two seconds?"

"It's alright." Michaela hands her phone off to Hyacinth, and continues putting her bag aside, taking off her shoes, stretching her neck.

"Oooh, these are nice. Can we make a Blend?"

And sure enough, the awkwardness is broken in her errant comments about Michaela's music taste. Francesca leaves the room and comes back, and Hyacinth is comfortably scrolling though Spotify on the TV, asking Michaela's opinions on various artists. All hip hop, R&B, the music taste perhaps the only thing Michaela and John ever had in common.

Sometimes John and Michaela looked so alike — their bone structures identical, their eyes the same shape and color, their expressions eerily similar to each other — that people would get surprised by how different they were in personality. Night and day.

John, who loved quiet and one on one time with friends, who piled up books in the corner of his room and never dated anyone other than Fran. Versus Michaela, who loved a party and a whole group of new people to meet, who piled flight and train and ferry tickets on top of John's books, who had a different friend every other week and a real girlfriend only once in a while.

John was thoughtful and never said a word in waste. Michaela flirted indiscriminately and often without thinking. John was cautious; Michaela was fearless.

John wouldn't go anywhere without planning a place to stay, arriving at the airport or train station hours prior, accounting for phones, money, wallets, cards. Michaela once went to Barcelona on a whim overnight and couch surfed across strangers' beds for almost a week.

John couldn't hide his upset; he would put a coffee mug down at a certain angle, and Michaela and Fran would look at each other, then him, and know something was bothering him.
Michaela never let slip a negative feeling, bottled it up and kept it somewhere unreachable, behind a laugh and a kiss on your cheek.

Not something Fran knew immediately. Just once, when they were alone together after Michaela had just left, that John murmured. "I worry about her sometimes."

"Worry about what," Fran had chuckled, "how she's handling this many admirers?"

"No, not that." He shook his head, smiling. "The why of it. She keeps her cards close to her chest. Laughs more when she's hurting. I know her."

Fran remembered that moment in perfect clarity for years to come. The shake of John's head, his quiet acceptance. If she was braver, she would have gone to Michaela right then and said — tell me. What's the matter? You can tell me.

As it was, when she first encountered such a moment, she froze and didn't say anything. It was a night during their exam season, her and John dying over sheet music and music theory, finally dragging themselves to bed at 2 am. Michaela, asleep on the couch by then, surrounded by business and finance books.

After changing for the night, Fran had gone out for water, and seen her there.

"Michaela," she'd said, "wake up. Your back is going to hurt in the morning."

Then she noticed it — tears. She was crying in her sleep. Fran frowned, called her name again, softly, and Michaela's eyes snapped open.

She got up quickly, wiping her eyes, looking pointedly away.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

"Just a bad dream."

"It didn't look like -"

"Stop," she said, a note sharper than she'd ever used with Fran before. "Don't hover."

Before Fran could say anything, she disappeared into her rooms on the other side of the flat, leaving Fran standing by the couch. Fran picked up the blanket she'd left behind, and began to fold it, thinking, you've never snapped at me before.

And she couldn't forget it.

A week later, at a friend's birthday party. Head resting on John's shoulder, both of them by the wall. She watched Michaela charm a movie star's daughter, but there was something about her smile. A flatness? Could be imagined.

On the way home, she looked back over her shoulder, noticing Michaela in the corner. On her phone, her expression unreadable.

Are you hurting? Fran would think to herself. Are you unhappy?

But she didn't say it, because she was afraid to overstep. Because she didn't know how not to give away how much it bothered her to think of Michaela anything but happy.

.

The full night she spends in the hospital before Michaela wakes, Fran sits back in the armchair and just watches her breathe. Her head is turned to the side, facing Fran, and so Fran slides a little further down in her chair so their faces are level. Watches the rise and fall of her chest, the color returned to her face.

For a moment, when she'd arrived at the emergency, she'd been seized with a paralytic panic so strong, Anthony had to speak for her. Finding her in her bedroom, her breathing shallow and her complexion terribly off, Fran had to move so quickly, she didn't allow herself to picture the worst. But once in the emergency room, she was sure she was going to watch Michaela die like she had watched John die, and the anticipatory pain of it had been overwhelming.

But then a nurse barked an order, a doctor came running, Fran choked out some basic information, and it was all already more than they had been able to do for John, and that was the only thing that kept her on her feet.

When she returns to the hospital the next day with a bag packed for her, Michaela looks much better, vibrant against the pale blue gown and the dry white of hospital walls. Unfair, really, that she looks so pretty even when she's been through such an ordeal, even when she's literally bedridden.

"You didn't have to come."

"Don't. Of course I had to come." Fran drops back into the chair that she'd made her home yesterday, and leans back in it. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I almost gave up the ghost. Danny Phantom."

Fran gives her a withering look. "That's not funny."

And things are different. Their fight before the hospital trip, their conversation after, like a wall is broken. A barrier between them crumbling down, and it's as though no time has passed at all. Michaela winks at her, and teases her to get some food. Fran pretends to be annoyed, but smiles when a remark is particularly characteristic. Like they've always been friends. Like they were never separated. Something about it bothers Fran, but she leaves that argument for later.

While waiting for the doctor to discharge her, Fran leans back in her chair and asks a lot of the questions she'd been bottling up inside her.

"Did you like travelling?"

"I loved it." Michaela lies back in her bed, now raised at the head. "Everything seemed so simple."

"Where did you like best?"

"Uganda. The people I met there were just... they were wonderful. Did some non profit work there."

"You did?"

"A little. I was part of a study on microloans to women trying to run their own businesses and households."

"How did that happen?"

Michaela looks at her with that faraway look in her eyes, again. "Met the right people, at the right time. In some, admittedly, strange places." She changes the subject. "Do you like it in London? I thought you wanted Edinburgh forever."

"John wanted Edinburgh forever," Fran stares up at the ceiling. "I didn't mind it either way, as long as I had my own place."

"You don't have your own place, though."

"I suppose that answers your question."

"Ha."

"It's not so bad now as it was in school, but yeah, I wish I had my own place."

"Are you liking staying with us?"

"I love it. I'm hoping the infestation in my room stays. Bugs, do your thing."

Michaela laughs.

"Kidding. I don't want to overstay my welcome."

"No such thing." And her smile is tender when Fran looks at her.

Just then, the doctor shows up and lets them know that she can get ready to go.

As Michaela changes and gathers her things, Fran updates her on her family in the last few years, the drama and the babies and everything. Her job, how she got it, and what she's doing.
In the taxi home, Michaela lists everywhere she's been, and everything that had reminded her of John and Fran there. She tells Fran about the foundation, about her inheritance, how long it took her to decide that this was what she wanted to do with that.

When they're back in the house, Michaela lying down in her room and Fran helping put away her stuff, Michaela asks Fran about the dating apps.

"I hate it." Fran throws up a hand, sitting down on the armchair across from her bed. "I said it. I haven't said it to anyone, because I don't want them to think I can't handle it, it's just — it's my worst nightmare in so many ways."

Michaela chuckles. "I thought it might be."

"It's uncomfortable... but... I want..."

"Love." She says it so simply, like it is so simple.

"A partner," Fran counters, "I want the whole thing, kids, and marriage and a house with a picket fence, if that's possible in this economy." And maybe she gives herself away in the redirect, that she doesn't really know that true love is in the cards for her anymore, and a part of her doesn't care, but she lets the words linger in the air before she speaks again. "... And... I did it because needed to know... if I was capable of this. What it would be like. If this was something I could do, speak to people and go on dates, and try... put myself out there. Like you." And then, maybe to placate Michaela, maybe to placate herself — "I know that it won't be same as it was with John. And I'll always... have a hard time explaining him to anyone... but I want to try."

Michaela's expression flattens out, serious, but when she nods, there's reassurance in it. "You can do anything, Fran."

Fran purses her lips, shakes her head. "...I miss him."

"I miss him too." Michaela sighs, a slow, deep exhale. "When I was abroad, I could almost pretend... that he was in Edinburgh or London, in the house, going about his life. I didn't have to... be confronted by his absence."

"I know what you mean."

Later, when Michaela is supposed to be sleeping, and Fran is thinking about getting up and going to her room, she speaks again, a low mutter in the darkness, a confession.

"You are so quiet and even-tempered, sometimes I must admit, I can't imagine you feeling something as extreme as anger. Or even want."

"I got angry at you day before yesterday." More sadness than anger, she knows now. She'd gotten so upset about Michaela's distance from her at dinner with her sisters and sisters-in-law, she'd nearly cried. It seems almost pathetic now. But it had made Michaela notice. So maybe not pathetic at all. Maybe inevitable. "And you've seen me angry before."

"Yes, and I'm surprised every time. Especially day before yesterday. Mostly because I can't imagine you angry, but partly because I didn't imagine you cared so much... not about as little a thing as me."

"You're not a little thing." Fran says, rising from her seat and going over to the bed. "You're not just anyone. Or someone I can brush aside."

Michaela looks at her with a frown "...Neither are you to me. I'm sorry if I made you feel that way."

"I forgive you." Fran kisses her forehead. "If you need anything, I'm just a room away."

Michaela looks for a moment like she's going to say something else, but she doesn't. Just nods and closes her eyes.

Fran leaves the door a crack open so she can check in on her every so often.

4 -

They spend much of the next two weeks together, even when they don't plan to.

Michaela has follow up appointments with her doctor, and Fran goes with. Fran gets stood up, and when she looks up from texting Michaela about it, Michaela is entering through the door of the cafe, looking around for her. Every day after Fran's work ends, they spend time in the house together, watching movies and playing video games, going on walks. Fran enters the odd record store while Michaela lingers outside on the pavement, and when Fran looks up she's suddenly seized by a desire to take a picture of her, framed by the window, black fences, blue sky.

Fran asks her to join when she takes Edmund on the tube. Babysitting him for the afternoon, while Kate and Anthony are busy with work and the baby. Edmund takes to Michaela so instantly, you wouldn't believe they've never met before.

On the way back to the house, Michaela tells him they can make him fly, and he says yes, loud and insistent, I want to fly!

Michaela and Fran each take one of his hands, and Michaela counts, one, two, three, and then they both pull him up together while walking, so he's in the air for moment, unbound to earth, flying, shrieking with laughter — again, again! And they do it again, every time he asks, until he's laughing so hard his cheeks are red.

And Fran's blood is humming with something feather light and saccharine. Her stomach is flipping over in her abdomen. She smiles so wide her cheeks hurt - and it's been a long time. It's been a really long time.

In her head, the sound of Michaela's laughter, deep and elegant. Edmund's laughter, the chortling, almost squeaking, beautiful sounds of a happy little boy.

In composing later, she thinks of the sounds of a train, and Edmund, and Michaela. The train forming the bass, the tempo. Edmund and his joy, the clumsy and wandering notes across it. Michaela's electric smile and impulsivity — let's get off here! Let's run and catch that one! — a quick buildup and a sudden delivery in the middle, once and then twice.

And Fran is —

She's surprised by herself.

.

Her last week in the house, Fran takes advantage of their grand, spending most of her free time sitting on the bench and trying to replicate whatever it was that made her write the previous song.

Michaela saunters into the main hall with her earrings in her hand and the back of her dress unzipped.

"Darling, can you zip me?"

Fran beckons her over to the piano seat, drags the zip up from her lower back to her neck.

"Beautiful dress." It's simple, expensive, black, accentuating every curve.

"Thank you." Michaela turns around, fixing an earring.

"You're two hours late."

Michaela tuts. "They should be glad I showed up at all." She winks at Fran, eliciting a smile. "One of these days, you should come with me."

"Why?"

"Because then I might be on time, knowing there's something worth going for." She leans forward and kisses the top of Fran's head. "Thanks. Good night."

"Have fun."

And then Michaela is gone, and Fran is left with the sudden warmth of the room.

The bell rings when she's about to turn in for the night. Fran peeks through the side window of the main door, and catches a glimpse of short brown hair and a hopeful smile.

She swings the door open.

"Gregory."

"Francesca." He smiles, swaying slightly on his feet.

Fran looks over his shoulder to reveal his friends. Gareth St. Clair - taper fade, brown skin and sheepish, looking worse for the wear. Lucy Amarnath - long dark hair, hazel eyes and beautiful, dressed to the nines.

"Hi." Gareth smiles. "Sorry to bother you. He swore you wouldn't mind us crashing here the night."

Fran sighs, and opens the door a bit wider. "I'll make up some space for you, but you'd better apologize to Michaela in the morning."

Gregory scoffs, his words coming out slow and mixed together. "Michaela loves me, she'll forgive us."

They trudge in, in various states of drunkenness. Gregory wasted, Lucy, more tired than anything - Gareth is, by contrast, flushed and fill of energy.

"We couldn't get," he says, "a single Uber. Like not one."

"It's Friday night." Lucy says. "I think we should have planned for this."

"If you had things your way, Luce, we'd never do anything without an itinerary and a Google Calendar invite." Gareth counters. Lucy whacks his shoulder. "Ow. That's battery, your honor."

Gregory howls with laughter. "I'm charging you with battery!" He laughs until he's doubled over, and decides to lie down on the floor.

Lucy chuckles, the sound full of tenderness.

Gareth pulls him back up to stand. "Not the bed, buddy." 

Fran disappears upstairs to make up two of the guest rooms for them. When she pads back down, Gregory is stretched out on the couch, laughing deliriously. Gareth is telling some story, waving his hands, and Lucy is giving him a look that is decidedly unimpressed.

For a minute, Fran remembers her own university days. Her laughing in an armchair as Michaela acted out some insane story. John beside her, pointing out how unsafe it all was with a shake of his head but a smile.

She sets Gregory and Gareth up in John's old room, Lucy in the room beside hers. Goes to bed late, dropping off instantly.

Just a few hours later, a dry mouth and troubled dreams wake her.

She pushes out of bed, pads down the hallway to the stairs.

A familiar sound from the doorway.

She's seen it so many times since uni, she doesn't even have to look to know the way Michaela walks in from a night out. Putting her purse aside with a thud. The click of high heels, and then the sound of them being removed and dumped to the wooden floor. The shuffle of a coat being put aside.

She's about to go down and talk to her when -

"Gareth?"  

"Hi."

"What are you doing here?"

"Greg, Luce and I couldn't get an Uber home. Sorry for the invasion."

"No worries." Silence, for a moment. "Are you alright?"

"Fine."

The scrape of a chair. The plush footstool being pulled closer to the couch.

"You don't look fine."

"Do you ever wonder what the point is?" Gareth's voice is dull, emotionless. "Why do we bother?"

"More than you know."

"Sometimes, I just don't see the point in anything."

"Is this about your brother?"

"Maybe."

Silence again. Then...

"Do you miss him? Your cousin?"

"Every day."

"I didn't think I'd miss George every day, but I..."

"You do."

"I'm still angry. I know it's been some time but I still... I just don't understand how George can just die, and I just have to... I have to just keep on..."

"I know."

"Wish the fucker had taken me with him."

"Hah. I know that feeling, too. But... there's no easy way out. There is no path you can take that will make your pain disappear. It will become Simon's, or your grandmother's, or Gregory's pain. And you know what it's like."

"Wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."

"...You should talk to someone."

"Hah. And say what, that I'm not sure life has any value now that I've seen someone I love die?"

"Yes. That."

"I'm good."

A moment passes, quiet.

"I'm not good, am I?"

"I can't tell you that for sure, Gareth. All I can tell you... and trust me, I know what I'm talking about... if you don't at least try to fix this wound, you'll spend the rest of your life bleeding on people who didn't cut you."

That is the end then, because Gareth sniffles again, and then says, "I know." There's a soft thud as he leans back against the couch.

"Would you like me to stay a while?"

"Please."

Fran doesn't end up going down for water after all.

5 -

She goes back home with no small amount of resistance. Because she loves her family, she really does, and it's not so bad, sharing such a large house with what is now fewer and more self-contained people, but still. Something about the Stirling house felt like freedom.

Hyacinth and Gregory are out at university, Anthony and Kate somewhere with their boys, her mother home with tea in the garden, and Fran just sits at the piano, stares out the window at her mother in the garden chair.

Her mother shifts forward to answer her phone, then settles back down with a book, absently rearranging the flowers on the table with one hand.

Fran toys with the keys, imagining her mother alone after her father died, struggling to go on. Imagines her mother, an only child, having eight children of her own. Fixing the flowers and sipping her tea, picking up the phone whenever one of them needed their mum.

She calls the song Violets.

Then goes outside to sit beside her. Her mother smiles, holding out a hand as Fran rounds her chair. And Fran catches her hand for a moment, squeezes it, and takes the chair on the other side of the table.

And she lifts her head and looks at the sky, letting the heat of the sun wash over her, almost like a kiss from the universe after stepping out of a cold indoors.

.

Colin and Michaela come into the main room the next day, chatting about something. 

Fran is seated at the piano - again, always - attempting to parse out the notes of Violets, to make it smoother, to fix that last nagging thing about it.

They greet Fran with waves and smiles, Michaela going over to give her a hug. Colin makes tea, wordlessly places a cup on the table beside the piano. She smiles at him thankfully, and keeps going, slower and softer, so as not to disturb their conversation.

They talk about their trips through Africa, Michaela having been everywhere from Ethiopia to South Africa. Colin having toured Egypt to Morocco, Zimbabwe and South Africa as well. Colin describes the people he'd met on his travels, about the kindness he encountered, the accommodation, the care. Asks Michaela if it was different from hers, considering her roots.

"It was not the same, if only because I was not really... a tourist, even in the places I technically was. I was not sightseeing. I was wandering."

Fran's fingers pause over the keys.

"And they treated you differently than they would have, if you were a tourist?"

"Yes. When I told them my brother was dead." Michaela says, matter-of-factly. "Sometimes I didn't even have to say it. Sometimes I'd meet someone who would look at me and already know."

Colin nods, his eyes passing over Fran for moment. "I imagine you found some understanding, then."

"I did." And she does not say anymore, letting Colin fill the silence instead. Glimpses, always just glimpses of Michaela's heart, its heaviness.

His phone rings, and Colin excuses himself, going off into the dining room. Speaking in soft tones to, most likely, Penelope.

For a minute, it is just Fran and Michaela in the quiet afternoon sunlight, the sitting room aglow with it. Michaela's expression is too somber for Fran's liking — she takes to the keys again, swapping Satie for something Michaela will recognize, a popular song from their university days, something that will make her smile. And sure enough, Michaela looks up from her tea and grins. For a moment Fran basks in her success, grinning back from across the room.

Then, her eyes dart to the window facing the garden, and she waves. Fran follows her gaze out the window nearest to her to see her mother, ripping off gardening gloves and trudging towards the house.

The front door swings open, and her mother appears in the doorway. "Hello, Michaela, darling. I didn't know you were over. How are you?"

"Lovely. Would you like some assistance out there?"

"I'd love some," Violet chuckles, "if you have experience."

"My father loved gardening."

"He did?" Fran asks.

"Yes..." Michaela's eyes drift to her, then back to Violet. "I'm hardly a green thumb, but I would not be starting from zero."

"Ah, better than any of my children already, then. I would love an extra pair of hands for a moment. You may regret offering."

"For a bit of time spent with you, Mrs. Bridgerton? Never."

"Ah." Violet's eyes sparkle in amusement. "I see some things never change. Come, tell me how your aunt and mother are."

Michaela gets to her feet, and next Fran sees of her is on her feet in the dirt outside, hands in the shrubbery. When Colin finishes his call, he goes outside too, and Fran has a blissful few minutes of the afternoon to herself and her piano.

Interrupted violently, when Michaela and Colin come back in just as Gregory thunders down the stairs and into the room.

"Francesca." Gregory says, deadly serious. "I need you to do that thing again where you play a circus theme on the piano so I can record it and send it to Lucy. Posthaste."

"Posthaste?" Colin blinks, laughing. "What are you, a hundred? You can't send her a YouTube clip?"

"No."

Fran plays a few bars for his voice note, and he disappears with a hurried thank you.

"Do I want to know...?" Michaela wonders out loud.

"No." Colin sighs. "You don't. I have to go, by the way. Fran, keep Michaela company."

"Do this, do that." Michaela shakes her head. "What is she, a Pokémon?"

"Fran, piano attack." Colin says, glibly. He disappears out the front hallway with a wave and a quick goodbye.

"Brothers." Fran mutters, and Michaela laughs softly, coming over to join her at the piano seat.

"Move over." Fran makes space for her to sit on the piano bench. "What were you playing earlier, before Colin and I interrupted you?"

"The song I sent you." Fran plays a bit of it, the middle part, before realizing she too, could use the extra pair of hands. "Can you..." She taps four notes in slow succession. "Repeat that?"

Michaela does, a little fast. Fran shows her again, and then she repeats it a bit slower.

"Not as easy for me as gardening," Michaela jokes.

"...You never talk about your father."

"You never talk about yours."

"There... isn't much to say. I was really little. I don't even know if I remember his face outside of pictures."

She looks up to the side, tips her head towards the portrait there. Her mother and father, a picture from just before he died. Her mother, radiant. Her father, warmth. Michaela examines it, before she looks back at the keyboard.

"...I remember my father's face." She presses an errant key. "Him and my uncle, John's dad, they were identical. But my dad was a bit shorter, a bit quieter. My uncle laughed, and the whole house would hear it. My dad would just chuckle. He would say that John and I must have got our DNA mixed up, because John was so like him, and I was so like my uncle."

"I didn't know that."

"It was too hard for John to talk about."

"Not you?"

"Not as much, no." Michaela goes back to the keys Fran had shown her earlier. "Just that?"

"Yes."

And Michaela plays those four notes, and Fran plays the rest of the song over it. It's simple — soft, her fingers flying over the keys while Michaela keeps playing beside her. And then she speeds up, builds up to a sharper key, and then a flourishing finish, ending with same notes as the beginning.

When it ends, Michaela smiles, pulling her hands back. "Magic." She always said that before, too, watching Fran play something. Her voice drops a note. "I don't know how you do it."

.

There is a statue in the center of the Greek sculpture gallery, a man begging at the feet of a goddess. Fran stares, then finds a place to sit where she can keep observing it.

Her thoughts keep flying to Michaela's date, seeing them enter together.

The twist of her stomach when she saw them. The girl is Middle Eastern, brown eyed, dark haired and beautiful. She looks exactly like the kind of person one might imagine Michaela would end up with, if such a person could be imagined.

For a moment, Fran imagines Michaela choosing someone. Getting engaged to someone. Marrying someone. She feels such a sudden wave of nausea at the thought, it surprises her.

I'd be happy for her, she reprimands herself. As long as it's someone who understands her. Who understands that Michaela wasn't always as she presents herself to be, elegant, extroverted and scandalous. Who understands that she retreats into herself rather than to anyone else. That sometimes, she might need to be handled with care.

Later, after her date, Michaela finds her in the sculpture gallery and sits down beside her. Says they should call a cab, but doesn't. They end up walking around in a companionable silence, with the occasional gesture of a waved hand — look at this. Fran breathes easy in the space of not having to say anything or ask anything or be anyone or explain herself; she just tips her head towards a display, Michaela smiles at it, and she knows that she is understood.

There's a Greek sculpture of a woman looking up towards the skylight of the gallery, Athena unbound to earth. Michaela walks up beside her to look at it, and hums, impressed, before moving on. Fran stays a second longer, watching Athena look to the sky.

+1

Fran shows up to the Stirling Foundation Party earlier than everyone else, to help. She doesn't end up doing much, just checking on the catering and the decor. Janet points out, rather unsubtly, that there is a grand in the center of the room that she could make use of. If she would like, of course.

Fran takes the hint, and goes over to it. For a moment, she doesn't do anything, just gets herself oriented, and thinks about what she could play. A ritual she always did before, whenever she was at a party with a piano somewhere. She would hide there. If this was one of those parties, four years and something ago, Michaela would come over and pull her out.

She looks around for Michaela - and spots her by the doorway, with the date from before. Introducing her to Janet, smiling as they shake hands.

When she turns back to the piano, her hands slip across the keys, and the piano makes a discordant clang. The few people present in the room all turn towards her, Janet, Michaela and her date included.

"Sorry," she says, wincing, "my mistake."

Everyone goes back to their planning and organizing.

Except Michaela, who narrows her eyes and frowns. Fran looks pointedly away, but Michaela comes up.

"Are you okay?"

"Fine."

"You don't have to perform anything..."

"No, I want to. I'll just check if it's tuned enough for me."

Michaela looks between her and the piano. Fran waits for her to say something else, but she doesn't, just nods and goes back to her aunt.

She performs an hour later, leaving her purse with Colin and champagne with Benedict. Penelope smiles and claps excitedly. Colin says - bit early for that, and Penelope says - oh hush. She goes over and takes the seat, looks at their wide smiles, at Benedict's steady nod. Janet turning to watch her, setting her champagne glass aside.

Michaela is across the room with her date, not looking.

And Fran decides she's had enough of the classics, and plays something else. Something practiced through Beethoven and pure emotion. Her fingers fly over the keys as she twists a classic beginning, playing faster and angrier, a rainstorm, throwing out the sheet music. Her hands come thundering down on the keys as she builds towards a crescendo. Out of the corner of her eye, she notes Michaela turning back around, away from her companion to look.

And she slips from the crescendo into slow, long notes, riffs that sound like longing. The echo and song of every key, playing out the desire, bitterness, desperation, of the original. Something else unnameable, Fran's own.

When she stops, her breaths are uneven. Slowly, everyone nearby starts to put their hands together and clap. She looks at Michaela, not smiling like everyone else, clapping slowly. Her gaze dark when their eyes meet.

And she rises from her seat.

It is only when she is outside, writing down what she remembers of what she played on her phone, that she recognizes the feeling for what it was. Bitter, abject jealousy. The thought that someone else might be getting more than glimpses. That someone else had more of Michaela than she did.

The thought gives her pause. She has no reason to be jealous, not of anything. What is she doing?

And her moment of introspection is interrupted by a dark shadow in the garden, and Fran is usually more alert than this, but she's out of sorts, and when the shadow gets closer —

Michaela appears, and kicks her leg out so swiftly, the man goes tumbling down to his knees before he gets any closer. He tries to get up, but she takes him down with a hard punch, and then grabs his arm behind him.

Fran yelps. Michaela yells for security.

"Are you alright?" Michaela asks.

"Yes." She nods as lucidly as she can.

When the security floods out into the garden, Michaela's pulled the would-be mugger to his feet, and his arms tightly gripped behind his back. "Go inside, Fran."

"I'm not going to leave you alone out here."

"It's fine. Just go in." Her voice is flat.

Michaela won't look at her. Again, like the early weeks, like just before she left.

Fran doesn't listen, stands staunchly waiting until the head of security gets there. Michaela ends up going inside first, and Fran follows a bit after, immediately texting her, swinging into the main room to look for her — but though the party's winding down, Michaela's nowhere to be seen. By the time she hunts down a friend to ask, he tells her what she already guessed; Michaela went home early, citing a headache.

Did she drive her away from her own party?

Michaela texts back saying, you didn't do anything, Fran.

Somehow, Fran doesn't believe it. The Stirling house is two streets away, and although she shouldn't, given her earlier experience in the garden, but she walks. Two steps in, it starts raining, but she walks anyway, because it's not that far, and the security probably would've scared any other muggers off, and she feels like she's insane, so having cold water dripping down her neck is almost welcome. It's almost welcome, a physical sensation to remind her the evening, streetlight illuminated and achingly strange, is real.

When she stops outside the Stirling house, she texts Michaela again. Then steps forward and rings the doorbell.

The door swings open almost instantly.

"What on earth are you doing? Did you walk here? Jesus, Francesca."

Michaela tugs her inside the warm entry hall and disappears into the house. "Take off your coat. Let me get you a towel."

There's a single oval mirror in the center of the entry hall, over an old brown table with curving legs, and for a moment, Fran looks at herself, her dripping hair against the maroon wallpaper, how crazy she looks, her hair curling where it's escaped from her clip, her clothes soaked. Slowly, she takes off her trench coat. 

Michaela returns with a towel just as Fran is silently hanging her coat up on the rack.

And all Fran can think is, she is so beautiful. And yes, she's thought this a million times before, and even said so — that her skin is flawless, her symmetry perfect, her smile stunning. But in this moment, she's beautiful because she's Michaela. Her kind hearted friend, who understands her better than anyone else in the world, who looks out for her in everything, who would come running down the street if she knew Fran was sitting alone in a cafe, come sprinting out into the garden to save her.

And her heart is flooded with such overwhelming love, looking at her, that Fran doesn't move at all.

When she doesn't take the towel, Michaela sighs, and moves beside her. She starts patting down Fran's hair herself, folding the towel as best she can around it.

"You're angry with me." Fran says, and she sounds like a broken record, because she's texted Michaela this already.

"I'm not angry with you, you idiot." The words have no bite, her voice too sweet. "God. You should have taken a taxi."

"It was five minutes."

"You should have gone home, then."

"But I had to..."

And she can't explain what it was she had to do, because this is unlike her. She doesn't act irrationally, or without thinking, not ever. She doesn't just up and do things. But tonight — she's so restless, so thrown off balance, that nothing feels in her hands.

"I had to see you." Had to see her and be reminded that the world is still intact, that Michaela is still her friend, and her familiar, and that's never going to change. "I had to know."

"It's really fine."

Fran spins around, pulling out of her hold. "Is it John? Are you upset with me for looking for someone else, is that it?"

"No." Michaela steps back with a frown. "No, come on, you know I would never."

"Then what?"

Michaela crumples the towel in her hands, her voice coming out frustrated. "It's... it's nothing, just - forget about it."

"It's not nothing." Fran's voice rises in conviction. "I know you. I know when you're here with me, and I know when you withdraw from me, and I've tried to be okay with that. I have been okay with that." Her breathing grows heavy, the words spilling out of her. She steps forward. "The whole time I've known you, I've known this about you, but I can't anymore. I can't just watch you withdraw from me and not ask why. I can't just sit here and be left alone again."

When she finishes, her chest is heaving. Michaela's eyes are molten in the low light. "...I'm not going anywhere." Her voice is a whisper. "I'm here, alright? I'm with you."

"You..." You're not really, she wants to say, but that doesn't make any sense at all. "I just..."

Fran steps forward again, and then stops.

She's so close to Michaela. She doesn't think she's ever been this close to her. And though she's dripping wet still, her heart races, her body burning with warmth. She can feel the redness in her cheeks, the heat in her breath almost reaching Michaela's skin. And she shivers.

For a moment, the rain and thunder outside the door is the only source of sound.

And Michaela's eyes drop down to her lips. In the span of her eyes moving, impossible becomes inevitable.

Michaela's hand rises to her cheek, and Fran doesn't move. She doesn't think, just wets her lips, and the moment is electric. Anticipation, burning her up. Another shiver in her bones, suppressed when Michaela leans closer almost unconsciously. And Fran - well - she doesn't think at all, just sways forward and kisses her.

And it's perfect. All she can think is — she knew it would be.

A soft caress, at first. A point of contact, both of them afraid to go any further. But Fran's whole body tingles with the promise of it, mesmerized, and she can't break away.

When she deepens it, Michaela breaks, and suddenly Fran's back is flush against the door, Michaela tilting her head to deepen it further. Demanding more with every touch, every gasp, every motion. And Fran responds in kind, lifts her hands to cradle Michaela's face and then slips them around her neck, grasping onto her, to hold her, to remind her that she's there, wanting this.

Michaela whispers, Fran.

Both of them freeze. Fran blinks as she pulls back. Michaela looks at her with wide, dark eyes, her breathing short and uneven.

And she pauses as the weight of it sinks in, as she realizes that she kissed Michaela.

Suddenly, she can't stand talking about it, can't even think about what this means, what Michaela will say, how this is going to end — she leaves her coat, the towel, the warmth of Michaela's house and her arms, and flees.

First out the door, then home, then the next day, all the way back to Scotland.

.

Edinburgh does not, as she hoped it would, bring her any peace.

The worst part about making out with your best friend against the front door of her house after you've chased her down and demanded she tell you what's wrong is — it can't be undone. Francesca can't just pick up the phone and text Michaela, lunch? Can't just send her a picture of her morning coffee or forward a cute dog video, because to do so would be to pretend it never happened. And she can't. Pretend it never happened.

The worst part about kissing her best friend is — it can't be undone, and worse, the things she thought when Michaela's lips were on hers, can't be unthought.

And the actual, honest, worst part about kissing her best friend is that Fran doesn't know what to do when a night passes and it's still all she can think about.

She opens the door, and remembers the pressure of the door against her back, Michaela's hand on her waist. She sends in some work, and is ambushed by the memory of the softness of Michaela's cheeks under her hands, her lips even softer. She makes herself tea, and she thinks about how she knows the exact shade of brown of Michaela's eyes now, that she'd tasted like champagne and something sweet, that Fran had forgotten for a moment that she needed to breathe.

She has feelings for Michaela, is the answer to all of this. And she has, for a while. It surprises her in the first instance of thinking it, but the surprise fades quickly, because of course. Of course she likes Michaela. God, who wouldn't? And the memories of her joy, her attention, her jealousy come flitting through her brain, and she cringes at herself for not knowing. She must have been obvious.

Once she's thought it, she can't unthink it. And once thinking about telling her starts, it's all she can think about. 

Have you ever thought about you and me?

I know it's crazy, Michaela, but —

I think.

I think we could be good.

Am I imagining things? Would you ever see me that way?

But Fran bites her tongue. She shouldn't plan to say it, shouldn't say anything at all, tries not to think about it again, not to even consider the thought. It isn't worth ruining their bond over. Michaela might not even be able to speak to her afterwards, if it makes things awkward.

Except Michaela shows up on her doorstep the next day, and Fran's plans go out the window, because the second she's upstairs and they're alone together, Michaela steps forward and says - "Why not me?"

"What?"

Michaela steps closer. "You said you wanted to date somebody, to have a partner again, didn't you?"

"Yes... I..."

"It could be me."

Fran thinks — I have to be dreaming.

"I'm putting my name in the box for you, Fran." She steps closer again. "I know there's a lot of people you've met recently, a lot of people you could choose, but..." She's so close, Fran can see the sunlight illuminate her brown eyes, cinnamon and honey. "Choose me, won't you?"

And then Michaela just tilts her head so her lips are hovering over Fran's, and all Fran feels is her breathing, sending a shiver down her spine. Again, she's the one who closes the gap, thinking, there isn't even any competition.

.

I'm afraid, she texts her the next morning, that this is going to ruin our friendship.

Her phone pings instantly. Too late, Frannie.

It was ruined the second I got a taste of you.

And the image brings back memories of Michaela's mouth from the night before, her words and her whispers, and Fran is suddenly not sure why she ever sent the first text in the first place, because there's no being friends with Michaela anymore. There's no way on earth she's going back to London knowing Michaela is just out there in Edinburgh, saying things like that, wanting her.

Later, Michaela texts back, saying they can hold off for a while. And Fran's immediate response to sigh, relieved. But when Michaela walks in the door that evening, groceries in hand for dinner, her heart tightens, and picks up pace. Except Michaela doesn't touch her, doesn't kiss her, just smiles and starts cooking.

And Fran wonders if she's gone insane, because this is torture already, and they just slept together yesterday. Michaela just kissed her this morning on her way out. There's absolutely no reason for her to feel like this.

She hovers in the kitchen, lingers behind the table. "What are you making?"

"Chicken and rice," Michaela says, "you don't have to help me, you can go and sit."

Fran stays where she is. She strikes up a conversation, sets the table for them.

And Michaela had said she couldn't imagine Fran wanting anything. Which Fran could say was fair, because it had been such a long time since she had wanted anything. She'd almost started to believe there was something wrong with her, something defective, that part of her that could crave, atrophied and absent.

She knows now that it was simply a matter of not seeing anything that she really, truly, wanted.

Michaela places her dish at the head of the table for herself, and Fran's in front of her. She uncorks a bottle of wine to her right, her hands making quick work of the corkscrew, and holds it up.

Fran nods, her chin resting on her hand, her elbow on the table. Michaela leans forward to pour into her glass, and Fran sees her chance, smiling, pushing the glass slightly down the table. Michaela laughs, and has to shift forward a bit to pour, closer to her. Fran pushes the glass again, and Michaela leans forward again, bringing their faces even closer together.

And Fran brings her forehead to Michaela's, watching her hand shake, setting the bottle down.

"Ulterior motives, I see. I'm trapped."

Fran doesn't beat around the bush. "Kiss me."

Michaela's eyes soften. She leans forward and kisses her, slow and sweet. Then again, just a peck. She sits back in her chair, straightening out. "Is that sufficient, my captor?"

"I'm starting to think," Fran lets slip in a murmur, "that it'll never be enough."

Michaela freezes, staring at her for a quiet second. Then a breathy laugh spills out of her, and she pulls closer to the table with a shake of her head.

.

The next day, Michaela comes back from buying tea, and Francesca snaps. She's sick, sick of waiting, sick of silence, sick of stillness.

"My turn." She pushes Michaela two steps back until her back hits the door, her eyes widening in surprise. "My rules."

Michaela's jaw falls slack, her words coming slowly as Fran lingers in her space. "I have to be dreaming."

And Fran claims her lips again, and bites, so she knows she isn't.

Michaela laughs when they break apart and Fran starts kissing the side of her face, the side of her neck. Utter delight in the sound. "Francesca Bridgerton," she says, her voice full of joy and teasing, "What happened to ruining the friendship?"

"Might as well ruin it entirely," Fran says, as she tugs Michaela towards the bedroom, kissing her through her laughter.

And she was never like this before, never like this with John or any date she's been on in the last year, not with anyone — but there's something about Michaela that makes her feel like she's a different person entirely, someone braver and bolder and far more decisive.

She tells her afterwards, when Michaela falls asleep first. Turns to her side and watches Michaela breathe, asleep on her back, reminded of the hospital. Pulls her hair out of her face and leans forward until her forehead is touching the side of Michaela's head. You make me crazy, she whispers. Wonders if Michaela will hear it in her dreams.

.

Fran's packing their things, readying to go back to London together, when stack of postcards comes slipping out of Michaela's bag. And Fran would put them aside and ignore them, if she didn't catch sight of her name on the top most one.

A postcard. France. An inscription — Francesca. I think I hate and love you in equal measure.

The one beside it, Italy. Fran. No, I don't. I love you far more than I could ever hate you

The one below it, Greece. It is a testament to how much feeling I have, then, because I can't rid myself of this resentment.

Another, Turkey. What will it take for your grip to release?

Then six or seven more, different cities across Africa, one India, one China.

All inscribed. One after another, she flips through them. Dear Francesca, then nothing. Dear Francesca. No message. Just, Dear Fran. Francesca.
Fran.

No ensuing messages on any of them.

The door swings open. Fran freezes.

"What are you doing?" Michaela's voice, sharp and confused.

Fran means to say, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. But where she would have paused before, she bites back just as sharply now, holding up the first postcard. "What is this?"

"It's none of your business. Jesus, Fran, why are you going through my stuff?"

"Because I saw it, and it was addressed to me."

Michaela takes the postcards out of her hands, and stacks them together. "It's nothing."

"Why do you hate me?"

"I don't hate you."

"Why do you resent me? What did I do? Why won't you tell me what I did?"

"You didn't do anything," Michaela says. Her voice is so miserable, tears prick the back of Fran's eyes.

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying."

"You're not exactly telling me the truth!"

"Hell." Michaela breaks, and her voice is sharp on the words. "...You existed, Francesca. That's what you did. You existed, and I loved you instantly, always, and you were not mine to love."

Fran takes a step back and leans against the wall. Too many thoughts crowd her head all at once.

And there's a headache in her temple.

"Always?"

"From the first day I met you."

A pulsing pain in her chest. Tears, burning her eyes.

Fran does what she always does, when she doesn't know what else to do - she flees.

.

John is buried in a cemetery in the neighborhood he grew up in, in Edinburgh. Two lines down from his father and uncle.

His headstone is marble, printed font on it. Here lies John Stirling. Beloved son, cousin, and fiance. There's a Bible verse under it, one his aunt chose. Francesca knows everything on his gravestone by heart, down to the last line. 8th October 2000 - 12th February 2022.

They were together for five years.

An important five years, that stretch between sixteen and twenty one, when she was growing up, finding herself, becoming herself. Only her mother really understands this part, but Fran was so accustomed to him, so certain that they were forever, so attached to him in those years, that she feels him with her even now. Even now, she knows what he would say to things, what he would do, what he would think.

She would text him from time to time while she was trying to figure her life out without him, and even then, she had known deep down exactly what he would say.

She retreats to the bench opposite the graveyard. Imagines him now, sitting beside her, the ghost of him, thoughtful as ever.

Michaela loved me this whole time, she would tell him.

That makes sense. He would say.

It does?

Doesn't it? I know you noticed what I noticed.

A bit of it. You knew her better.

You knew her better than you confessed to knowing her.

I never thought about her that way back then.

I know you didn't.

I don't know what's happened to me now.

You're in love.

It feels different this time.

Because Michaela and I are different. She can almost hear John's voice saying her name, she'd heard it so many millions of times. We were always the sky and the earth. Naturally, you will love her differently than you did me, because she loves you differently than I did.

Yes.

There is a great deal more despair in the way she loves you.

Because you and I had nothing to lose, Fran thinks, no worries about the future, or what our lives would turn out like, we were so certain of everything. Michaela and I know that life is short, you only have what you have for a while, and plans change.

John's voice dissipates, and she knows he would agree. It will always be there, his voice, her memory of him, should she ever need it again.

She's on her phone, messaging Anthony, when she hears footsteps down the sidewalk.

"Is this seat taken?"

"No."

"I'm sorry," Michaela sits beside her, "that wasn't how I'd hoped to tell you."

"But you would have told me?"

"Yes, of course."

"I..."

"It's okay," Michaela says, almost omnisciently, like she knows exactly what train of thought Fran has chosen to board, "it's not your fault."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not -" she shakes her head, "- your fault."

"I wouldn't have wanted -"

"You wouldn't have wanted to hurt me, I know. You would never. But you get it, don't you?"

And Fran does.

Fran gets to her feet. For a moment, Michaela looks alarmed - then she sees Fran holding a hand out to her, and takes it, standing as well. 

She slips her hands around Michaela's neck and pulls her into a tight hug, swaying with the force of it.

"I love you." Michaela whispers, and her voice is a confession, different on the words than it's ever been before. Like there's a fire under her words, flames licking the walls. And Fran knows she's said it before, laughing, joking, saying goodbye when they were friends — but she says it again. "And I always loved you." Different, like a lock is undone inside her, like a language she's never spoken before.

Fran holds her as close as she can, an unspoken promise to them both. "I love you too."