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When Betty gets back to their base, the rain has soaked through her clothes, her hair, but she’s still buzzing with some sort of restless energy. Paddy’s working with villagers at the other end of the hall, and doesn’t seem to notice her. Betty grins to herself.
“Maybe afk-ing out in the rain wasn’t the greatest idea,” she muses out-loud as she fights with unclasping the brooch holding her cloak in place.
Paddy literally jumps, spinning to face her. “Oh my god I didn’t - hi Betty hi hi,” she says, then, seemingly without thinking about it, she walks over and unclasps Betty’s brooch for her, hands lingering at Betty’s collar for a moment before stepping back with a giggle.
“Hey,” Betty says, any teasing forgotten as she stares at her teammate. Gods, she’s so -
“Hi!” Paddy says again, then kisses her on the cheek. “I missed you, by the way.”
“I missed you too!” Betty tugs off her cloak and drapes it over one of the barrels behind them, then grabs Paddy’s hands and presses their foreheads together.
It hasn’t even been that long. Still.
After a moment, she draws back unwillingly. “I need to. Get changed,” she says. Outside, the rain was nice. Indoors… she can feel her clothes sticking uncomfortably to her skin. But -
They’re still holding hands. Betty’s not sure which one of them wants to let go the least.
Eventually - “Go, go, sorry -” Paddy says, giggling and pushing her towards the ladder.
When Betty comes back down, she’s changed into a new blouse and skirt, and is one-handed trying to remove the flower pins from her hair without letting go of the ladder. It’s no surprise she fumbles stepping back onto the floor and trips - but before she can fall further than a couple of inches she’s caught.
She stares up at her teammate’s upside down face for a moment. If she could blush she would be right now.
“Hi,” she says slowly.
“Hi,” Paddy replies, then spins her around so she’s upright again.
“Can we not talk about that?” Betty pleads.
Paddy hums, looking up at the ceiling. “Oh, I don’t know, that was pretty funny…”
“Paddyyyy,” Betty whines.
They giggle. “Sorry, sorry.”
They’re still holding her waist, having somehow not let go of her while helping her up. And there’s a fond smile on their face and a lack of tension in their shoulders and such a look in their bright blue eyes -
“You’re beautiful, by the way,” Betty says.
Paddy squeaks, immediately blushing and covering their face with their hands. “Betty you can’t say these things to me, I get flustered,” they complain.
Betty misses the warmth of their touch, but hearing the smile in her teammates voice is good enough to make up for it.
“But I want to!” she says.
Paddy makes some wordless noise of complaint, and Betty giggles. She’s still holding one of her hairpins, grasped so tightly there’s an indent of a tulip on her palm when she uncurls her fingers, and she waves it excitedly at them.
“Hey, I didn’t drop it,” she says - an effortless topic change she’s sure.
Paddy laughs, no longer hiding her face but still blushing.
Betty stares hard at the floor, trying not to giggle herself, then notices the slight pain where one of her remaining hairpins is out of place. She scrunches up her face. “Can you help with the others?”
“Yes!”
Paddy immediately is back in Betty’s personal space, tilting her head into position with one hand on her cheek - Betty does not freeze inhumanly still at that touch and even if she did there’s no one here to see it - and tugging lightly at the remaining two hairpins, her face slightly furrowed with concentration. Betty focuses on not saying anything, trying not to think about Paddy’s hands in her hair and failing miserably.
“There!” Paddy says after a far-too-long moment, handing her the others - instead of taking them, Betty takes Paddy’s hand instead, leans up, and kisses her. Paddy kisses back, because of course she does, and if Betty wasn’t otherwise occupied she’d be giggling like a fool right now. Instead - she tries not to worry about her racing thoughts and just lets herself be.
Eventually - it feels like forever, but she’s sure is only a few seconds - she steps back, breaking the kiss and kicking awkwardly at the ground. “Um. Thank you!” she says. “For the help.” She’s incredibly glad she can’t blush.
Paddy’s giggling at her, but it’s fond, and when she pulls Betty into another kiss she can’t find it in herself to mind.