Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

i. 

Red only lets out one scream that she’s aware of. It is short and sharp and loud, and it yanks her out of her own nightmare by the back of her neck. She jerks upright in her sheets, shaking and sweat-damp, images stuck to the backs of her eyelids like taffy. 

“Red?” Chloe calls, alarmed.  

Red doesn’t answer. Can’t. She’s too busy gripping her comforter, scared that releasing it will mean slipping back down the rabbit hole, swirls of color and sensation giving way to red, red, so much of it, slick and hot between the lines of her palms, no one knows how much blood is in a body until they’re losing it, watching someone lose it. 

“Red,” Chloe ventures again, softer now. There’s the sound of something being set on the nightstand, a deep breath, and then, “Hey. Can I come closer?” 

No, Red thinks. No, no one can get close. No one can survive poison so potent as a Heart. 

No, Red thinks. That’s not right. That’s not the truth anymore.

Was it ever the truth? 

She nods, to what, she isn’t sure. But Chloe climbs onto the bed and walks on her knees to where Red has begun to curl into herself in the middle of the mattress. Pressing her chin to her bent knee as hard as she can manage. 

The weight of Chloe beside her causes a dip, and she feels her settle. Feels her sit. Feels her wait. For a bit, it is just like this, the two of them breathing together in the silence. It is so simple, and, yet, Red inches back into her body all the same. 

When Chloe moves again, eventually, she makes it obvious. Her right arm drifts into Red’s line of sight, slow and careful, and Red has all the time in the world to draw back. She doesn’t. Chloe’s fingers brush over Red’s right temple, pushing wayward strands of hair behind her ear, and Red releases another breath through her nose. 

Her eyelashes flutter, and it is weak. It is what her mother, the Queen of Hearts, would have called weak; she leans anyway. Chloe’s hand hovers, provides the barest hint of pressure against Red’s cheek like an offering, and Red clings to it. Presses her face just a breath closer until it’s cupped in the flat of Chloe’s palm. 

Chloe brings up her other hand, smoothing back the rest of Red’s hair and framing her jaw, and Red blinks at her slowly, her adrenaline dipping, her heart calming. Chloe’s thumb traces a path over her cheekbone, and it sends a series of small sparks through her nerves.

She smiles, faintly, and takes in Chloe’s face, all furrowed brow and dark eyes, concern etched careful into her features. Red’s chest aches, guilt and affection and gratitude swirling together. She lifts a hand to curl her fingers around Chloe’s right wrist. She squeezes gently once she’s found it.

“Hey,” she says.

Chloe’s face softens with relief. 

“Hi, sweetheart,” she says, tilting her head. “Wanna talk about it?” 

Red shakes her head. 

“Okay,” Chloe says easily. It’s not like she can’t guess, after all. “Back to sleep?” 

Red nods, now. Chloe does too. She releases Red and scoots back to give her the space to settle against her pillows. She helps grab the thrown sheets and comforter and straightens them out over her. 

“Sorry I woke you,” Red says. 

“It’s okay,” Chloe says, sitting back. 

A beat. 

“Sorry I scared you.” 

“It’s okay,” Chloe says again, quieter. “S’not your fault.” 

Chloe slides off the bed, revealing the glowing red numbers of the alarm clock. It’s half-past three, and she has to be up in two hours to run. The guilt in Red’s throat thickens. Even worse, when Chloe reaches for what she’d set down earlier—her dagger—and slips it back under her pillow. 

“You need anything?” Chloe asks. “Water? Pain potion?” 

“No,” Red says. “I’m okay.” 

“Okay,” Chloe says. "Goodnight, Red.” 

The guilt is almost enough to make Red stay silent. But when she thinks about lying in the dark again, alone, and meeting the blade of a pole-arm, she can’t do it. 

“Wait,” she says, and Chloe straightens, turns back. “Would you stay? Please.” 

The moonlight is slanting through the windows and casting Chloe in hazy shadows. There’s just enough to make her eyes glisten. Red’s heart throbs. 

“If you want me to,” Chloe says. 

Red can only answer by extending her hand, yet, still, Chloe climbs beneath the covers. She scoots closer and does not complain when Red curls an arm around her waist, nor when she presses her face into her neck. 

And it’s almost immediate, the way her muscles relax, and if Red were less selfish, she wouldn’t revel as much in these moments, this closeness. The feeling of safety she gets. 

But just because she’s an HK now doesn’t change her upbringing, and old habits die hard. So, for now, she’ll just be thankful that Chloe wakes up in the middle of the night with a dagger in her hand, ready to fight a threat she hasn’t even laid eyes on, so long as it means Red will be okay. 

That she sits with her and waits until she feels okay before going back to sleep. 

For now, she’ll just be thankful that, selfish or not, Chloe still chooses to stay with her. 

ii. 

After Wonderland, Red has had to get used to Auradonian courting practices. Or, more accurately, Luis’s courting practices, which, more often than not, involve grand gestures and declarations. 

Such as, an entire tourney field’s worth of flowers covering the available flat surfaces of her dorm room, and a card that reads, Because you make my heart bloom. 

Which is incredibly cheesy and sweet in the way that Luis manages to pull off, and Red smiles, inching her way into the room and leaning to smell one of the bouquets that’s sat atop the table she and Chloe sometimes do their homework at. 

These flowers are a deep, beautiful purple, and she, perhaps, leans a bit too close, because she gets a dusting of pollen on the tip of her nose. She brushes it off easily and slowly spins in a circle, wondering if she should let Chloe see it when she gets back from Swords & Shields practice or tell her at lunch with everyone else. 

She shakes her head, setting about the task of clearing Chloe’s side of the room first, as a good roommate does. Which goes well for about five bouquets until she sneezes so hard she nearly drops one on her toes. She spills some of the water onto the carpet. 

“Rabbits,” she murmurs.

It gets worse with the next three, until she’s nearly doubled over, alternating between coughing and sneezing, eyes watering so bad she can hardly see. 

“Oh, gods.”

She only manages to find one more a new spot before she has to flee from the room, and outside is better. Fresh air is good. Usually. But with whatever allergic reaction she seems to be having, more pollen is worse. 

She isn’t sure how she makes it to the nurse, but she does. And it takes about a period and a half of classes, but an antihistamine and fluids bring her back to normal. She’s only let go with the instructions to avoid all of the triggers which set off the allergy attack in the first place and the promise to return at the first sign of any flares. Which means her entire dorm room is off-limits. 

So, she heads to lunch without the textbook she’d gone to get two periods earlier, already dreading Chloe’s nonplussed expression when she tells her what the evening will entail. 

When the others see her, they perk up, especially the Smees, who she shares art with and who must have relayed her disappearance to the rest of the group. 

“Hey,” Max drawls as she approaches. “She’s alive.” 

Red sniffs and rolls her eyes, but it lacks bite. They’ve been getting better, the two of them, and Red knows he and Chloe have been talking too, working to make amends. It’s evident in the way his eyebrows crease at the sight of her, something like concern, or, at least, curiosity, ghosting his features. 

“You been crying?” he asks. 

This draws the others' attention more fully. 

“No,” she says, shoulders a little tense. “I was at the nurse.” 

“Are you okay?” Pink asks, quick, standing up from between the Smees. 

“I’m fine,” Red says, a touch awkward, because Luis is right there, and he’s also looking at her with worry, and she doesn’t want him to feel bad. “It was nothing.” 

“Doesn’t look like nothing,” Hazel says, pointing her hook at her. “Your face is all blotchy.” 

“And your nose is red,” Felix says. 

“Did you get hurt?” Luis asks. 

And if Red had known this is what it was like to have friends, maybe she wouldn’t have committed to it at all. Except, of course, that’s a lie, because her chest is doing that gross, gooey thing it does when it’s clear she’s being cared for. Even in the kind of incompetent way VKs manage. 

Red makes eye contact with Chloe, who has yet to speak, and some of the tension seeps out of her. Some of the fight. Chloe’s look is knowing, and Red sighs. 

“Fine,” she says. “I got hit by a ball walking by the tourney field. It hurt.” 

Chloe raises an eyebrow, and Red knows she knows she’s lying. Chloe tilts her head but doesn’t say anything. 

“So you did cry,” Max says. 

Red grits her teeth. 

“Yes,” she says. 

Luis stands up, approaching with raised hands, as if she were a wounded dormouse. His fingertips hover near her face, her chin, eyes searching her hairline and hair as if he could spot the injury. 

“Did Madame Fleur help?” he asks. "Do you feel better?” 

“Yeah,” she says. “Just a mild concussion. Nothing big.” 

He frowns but nods, his eyes wide and worried, and her stomach wriggles like the caterpillar is making its cocoon. Almost ready to be a butterfly. She really does like him, how kind and earnest he is. 

“Thank you, by the way,” she says. “For the flowers.” 

His smile transforms his face, lighting it up like the sunrise. 

“You liked them?” he asks. 

“Loved them,” she says. “They’re beautiful.” 

His chest puffs up a little, and it’s cute; just like his blush when she presses up on her toes to kiss his cheek is cute. A pleasant warmth buzzes through her, and the entire fiasco seems not quite so bad. The lingering headache pestering her is just a bit easier to ignore.

“I wish I had been there,” he tells her. “So I could have helped. I would’ve crushed the ball into pieces.” He mimes it dramatically, just to make her smile, and she does. But then, more genuine, “Or, at least, I could’ve carried you to the infirmary.”

“I know,” Red says. “But I’m okay, really.” She pats his arm. “Next time.”

That appears to appease him, and, so, Red moves around him with one final smile. Lunch hour is already slipping away, and she hasn’t eaten a thing. Not that she’s feeling very hungry. Still, she sits beside Chloe and accepts the tray that’s slid her way, as always. She picks at a bowl of fruit and stays upright for the five minutes it takes for her to be lost in the chaos.

Then, she slowly slumps to the table. Chloe rubs circles into her back over her jacket, and Red hums at the contact, rolling her head to see Chloe better. She blinks against sunshine and finds Chloe haloed by the light, golden.

Red smiles faintly, despite herself. Chloe lays her hand over Red’s forehead, her temple, cool skin meeting warm.

“Headache?” she asks.

Red simply nods. Chloe shifts her position, fingers gentle over Red’s eyes.

“Here?” she asks.

Red nods again, and Chloe hums. She traces her thumb along the bridge of Red’s nose.

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with the two dozen bouquets in our dorm room, would it?”

Red winces a little. 

“You already saw those?” she asks. Chloe doesn’t answer, just continues her soothing touch. “I tried moving them from your side of the room. Apparently I’m severely allergic to Auradon flowers.” 

“Hm, yes,” Chloe says. “Remember when I took you to the greenhouse and you sneezed for three days and three nights?” 

Her tone is teasing, and, so, Red narrows her eyes the same way. Chloe simply smiles at her. 

“And you didn’t think to warn me?” Red asks. 

Here, a flash of guilt. 

“I couldn’t be sure,” Chloe says. “And I didn’t want to interfere. With Luis’s gesture. The surprise.” She swallows, and Red watches her throat move. Watches the press of her lips, the troubled downturn of them. “If I’d known it would be so bad, I would have. I’m sorry.” 

Red sits up, and Chloe’s hand falls away, but only so far as Red’s lap. Red latches onto it. 

“No, hey,” she says, quietly, still careful to keep them from being overheard. “It’s okay. I was just messing.” 

It doesn’t seem to take any of the blame off Chloe’s shoulders, and Red lurches forward, wanting to press their foreheads together like they sometimes do in the dead of night, when it’s calm and quiet and they need the contact. Or, really, when she needs the contact. But something stops her, halts her just inches away, and, instead, she grips Chloe’s hand tighter, tugging a little, to show she means it. 

“I promise,” she says. “I’m good. We’re good, Princess.” 

Chloe searches Red’s face, her gaze flitting back and forth between her eyes, and Red used to be worse about taking the attention, feeling transparent and bare in a way she despised. But, now, it grounds her. It’s just Chloe, her body senses. Chloe is safe, and Chloe is good. Chloe is kind, and she would never use whatever she sees against her. 

Chloe, too, needs reassurance, and Red wants to give it to her. So, she lets her look. As long as she needs, whenever she needs. 

Chloe sighs through her nose and nods, and she doesn’t seem as soothed as Red would like, but she doesn’t push. She turns away and uses her one free hand to reach into her bag near her feet, slipping it into the front pocket and emerging with a small glass vial. 

She presents it to Red face-up. 

“What’s this?” Red asks, taking it carefully. 

“Your allergy pills,” Chloe says, some humor back in her voice. “I got some after the greenhouse incident, but you seemed fine and didn’t have any flares. Safe to say you might wanna start taking them if flowers are going to be making a regular appearance.” 

Red clutches the vial to her chest with one hand and frames Chloe’s chin with the other. 

“My hero,” she says. 

Chloe rolls her eyes and offers her cup from her own tray, because Red always asks for water and ends up eyeing Chloe’s juice. 

“Just take one.” 

“This isn’t poisoned, is it?” Red asks, pointing at the cup, fighting a smile when Chloe gives her a deadpan stare. 

Chloe takes the drink from her and sips through the straw, raising her eyebrows. 

“Happy?” she asks. 

“Very,” Red says. 

She pops one of the allergy pills into her mouth and lets the juice wash it down. She hums at the taste of apple, crisp and sweet on her tongue. She meets Chloe’s eyes again and finds them warm and sparkly in the sun. For a moment, she doesn’t think she needs the pills at all; her headache evaporates. 

Then, Chloe says, “The poison was in the pills.” 

Red half-chokes on an inhale, caught off-guard, more, by the quirk to Chloe’s lips, the mischief lining them. Something bright and full fills her chest. Her fingertips tingle. 

“Oh, you’re good, Charming,” she says. “The old bait and switch.” 

Chloe shrugs with one shoulder, tilting her head, and her cheek dimples. Red pokes her finger into it. 

“Well, sucks for you,” she says. “When I’m dead, I won’t be able to help you clean the room later.” 

Chloe’s expression drops, and, this time, Red laughs for real, full-bellied. Some of the others glance their way but don’t flinch. This is how it often goes when the two of them are together, and it’s nice. Red would have never imagined she’d have a life like this. Friends at all, but especially not a friend like Chloe. 

Who looks out for her even when she’s not paying attention to it. Even when she’s not expecting it. Like when she gets back to the dorm later that evening and finds the room already clear of the flowers that wreaked so much havoc. 

Except for one single bouquet, a collection of each of the multicolored blooms in one vase beneath a glass dome, sparkling with an enchantment. And a note, just like earlier, but this time in blue pen. 

A less binding version of the Beast’s preservation spell, it reads. So you can still enjoy them. See you after practice. 

iii. 

Red’s sketching in her journal, letting Pink ramble about her next brownie experiment—with the hair of a heffalump for emotional catharsis—while Hazel, Felix, and the Smees try to see how close they can get to hitting one another with rocks. It started that way, at least. At some point, Red’s pretty sure Hazel switched to practicing her aim for real and hasn’t told the Smees, who are definitely going to be nursing some nasty bruises on their shins and ankles later. 

Red shakes her head as Squirmy yelps and jumps, just avoiding a pebble to the big toe. Squeaky pats his beanie and misses Felix’s turn, taking a hit to the knee for it, and Squirmy laughs, dropping his handful of rocks to point, which devolves into Squeaky tackling him around the middle, the both of them going down in a heap of limbs. 

“Smees!” Hazel calls, already coming over. “Okay, stop. It was my fault—” 

And, aw, look who has a heart, after all. Red will have to tease her about it later. For now, she lets her handle the mess she made and casts her gaze a little further off, to Luis and Max, who are taking turns chucking a ball as far as they can and trying to catch it before it hits the ground. Or, well, Luis is doing that. Max is more so observing. 

Still, it’s calm—as calm as being with the Smees can be—and Red sighs, leaning back against the trunk of the tree shading her and Pink and looking to her sketchbook with renewed focus. She always thought her artistic inclinations were only spurred by rebellion, that restless urge to bite back, to say something that would have her tongue cut out. She feared, coming to this timeline, it was something else she would lose. Another piece of herself she wouldn’t be able to reach or recognize. 

But a couple weeks in, Chloe had dumped a frankly obscene number of supplies onto the table in their dorm and told her to find the medium she liked most, even if it was still her old ones—the spray paint, the paint balloons, the ones best for vandalism. And she’d shown her the art room, had told her about the classes and the club, and left it at that. 

She hadn’t tried to encroach, hadn’t asked to see or pry into Red’s sketchbooks or journals. Sometimes she would ask how progress was coming, and when Red said she was trying, she would beam at her and say she was proud, and it made Red flush, go warm all over, because no one ever really said that to her. 

Well, Bridget did, now, but not like Chloe. Chloe said it with the full weight of their past behind it, and it landed differently because of that. 

It made Red want to keep trying, and, so, she did. Until she was doing it unconsciously. All the time. 

Now, Red hardly went anywhere without something to draw with, something to draw on. She doodled on her papers, her homework, and sometimes on Chloe’s. Sometimes on their friends’ too. And she found it easier, by the day, to do it in the quiet. 

Anything and everything was fair game, and, right now, she was practicing the way the sunlight came through the leaves. It was much more meticulous than she would have thought. 

Meaning, Luis and Hazel’s running argument was an unwelcome background noise. 

“Oh yeah? Well, one time I held the walls of a fortress up for forty-five minutes until the rest of the village could evacuate.” 

“Oh, please,” Hazel says. “I’ll believe that when I read about it, pretty boy. Me, though? I wrangled two electric eels with just my hook and a ripped net.” 

“Yeah, right,” Luis says. “Like that even compares anyway.” 

Hazel settles cross-legged across from Red and Pink, who has gone silent in favor of listening. She rests her head on Red’s shoulder, though, and a soft, homey scent drifts to Red’s nose from her hair—tea leaves and sweet frosting. It makes something twinge in her chest, and she stops for a second to lean her head back. Pink then tilts her face just so, so she can smile at her. 

“Did I mention the ship was sinking?” Hazel says. 

“It’s true,” Max says. 

“And how would you know?” Luis asks. 

Max shrugs, all mysterious and nonchalant, which only makes Luis more indignant. Max’s smirk deepens. Luis opens his mouth to say something, eyebrows scrunched up and resolute, but is interrupted by a call from across the quad. 

“Guys!” They all look toward the school to find Robbie running their direction. “Guys!” 

“Whoa.” Luis helps steady Robbie out as he skids to a stop only a foot from Hazel’s back and nearly face plants onto her. “Dude, you good?” 

“No,” Robbie says, panting. “None of us are good. Chloe apparently made captain of Swords & Shield two days ago, and we didn’t say anything.” 

Red’s heart tumbles right out of her chest and to the grass. 

“What?” she says. 

“You didn’t know either?” Hazel asks, eyeing her curiously. 

“No,” Red says, setting her sketchbook down beside her and straightening her spine so severely pain pricks between her shoulder blades. 

“Hm,” Hazel says. “That’s weird.” 

And she doesn’t look judgmental or mean, more thoughtful than anything, but it still sends a defensive pulse of heat through Red’s veins, rising unbidden to her cheeks. 

“Why?” she asks, sharper than she wants. 

“Because I figured Chloe would tell you out of all of us,” Hazel says. 

And, oh. Yes, Red would have thought so, too. She breathes out through her nose, trying to rein in the roiling discontent that had read the situation wrong. That had said failure, failure and made her lash out. 

“Well, we have to congratulate her,” Robbie says. “Right?” 

“Absolutely,” Luis claps him on the back. 

“Well, it seems we won’t have to wait long,” Felix says, pointing lazily at Chloe approaching from the same direction as Robbie. 

Red bites her lip, tries to school her features into something amenable. Something not quite so obviously troubled. Something not so betrayed. Because this is small, and it’s petty to feel betrayed, surely. Surely, Chloe has a good reason for not telling her. Chloe has a good reason for most everything. 

“Charming,” Hazel says, drawing Red from her quick spiral. “Apparently I’m not the only captain around here now.” 

Chloe’s eyebrows lift, surprise slackening her features. Her eyes dart to everyone, realization sinking in, and then they fall on Red and do something more complicated. But neither of them have time to linger, because Pink is up and moving forward like a cannonball. 

“Chloe!” she says. “Congratulations! You deserve it so much.” 

Chloe is a bit unprepared for the armful of Pink she receives, but she takes the impact with a quiet oof and only a minor rock backwards. Red watches her shoulders stiffen briefly and then relax, her arms trapped at her sides in Pink’s embrace. She returns the hug with her hands on Pink’s biceps, a fond expression Pink can’t see but which breaks through the thickening dread in Red’s chest. 

“Thanks, Pink,” Chloe says. 

Pink pulls back and lets Chloe have her mobility back, and Chloe uses it to smooth some of Pink’s hair where it got a little mussed at the crown. Pink bounces on her toes. 

“I’m making you flamingo feather cupcakes as soon as I get my hands on the supplies,” she says. “You’ll sous chef?” 

“Depends,” Chloe says. “Can I lick the bowl?” 

“Does a jubjub taste like chicken?” Pink asks. 

Lucky, of course, that the answer is easy to guess, because Red knows Chloe has never tasted a jubjub bird. Red had only recently tried chicken and found the flavors remarkably similar, and, then, finally understood one of Pink’s favorite phrases. 

So, Chloe nods, and Pink smiles that smile that is so like Bridget and sends a pang through Red’s chest—all tender like a bruise, a new emotion that she had never even known to prepare for. A sister, how had she ever known to prepare for a sister, and all that would entail? 

She often feels like she’s messing it up. A lifetime of memories she doesn’t have—a handful of them that came back to her in the hedge maze. Love she doesn’t know how to feel. Except, it is easier, much easier, than she’d ever thought, to let Pink in. Easier than Bridget, at least. 

And, here, watching Chloe with Pink, it’s almost too much. This new love she’s got overwhelming her in a sunset glow. 

Pink steps back as Luis and Felix and Robbie move into a huddle around Chloe, and Red is overcome with the urge to do something with what she’s feeling. It’s been happening more often, this need for contact with people. Often, it’s Chloe, right there, understanding. But Pink is becoming an increasing recipient. Willing, too. 

Red throws her arm around Pink’s shoulders and tugs her tight against her side, and Pink leans her head against her shoulder like earlier. She loops her arm around Red’s waist and holds her just as tight, and they stand there for a few moments as Chloe reluctantly accepts praise from their friends. 

“Seriously, Chlo, why didn’t you tell us?” Luis asks. 

Chloe’s shoulders are near her ears, a faint blush on her cheeks. 

“It’s not that big of a deal,” she says, eyes down, and, well, that’s wrong; of course it’s a big deal. 

Chloe’s whole life revolves around Swords & Shield, it feels like sometimes. To Red, it feels that way, at least. So much of Chloe’s time is taken up by fencing, and she works so hard at it. To be named captain of the team is an honor she’s surely been working for her entire life, in either timeline. 

“Nonsense,” Robbie says, confirming this. “You’ve been talking about it since freshman year.” 

“Try our whole lives,” Luis says. “Well, this and being the best knight-princess in all the lands!”

He holds his hands out as if seeing the future. Chloe’s face tints a darker pink, and Red takes pity on her, finally moving forward and shoving through the boys so she can wrap her arm around Chloe’s waist. 

“Alright,” she says. “Stop crowding the captain. She’s a hero. She’s a leader. She’s amazing. Now, let her breathe.” 

“We’re gonna celebrate, Chlo,” Luis says. 

“Oh! Party at the lake?” Squeaky asks.  

“Bonfire,” Squirmy nods. 

“That’s really not necessary,” Chloe says. 

“I’ve got refreshments handled,” Hazel says. 

“Yes!” Robbie whoops, high-fiving Felix. 

“Aren’t we supposed to be doing better after Wonderland?” Chloe asks. “Staying out of trouble?”  

“Oh, come on, Princess,” Max says, and Red stiffens a little against Chloe; Chloe stiffens, too. He raises an eyebrow. “Live a little.” 

Chloe meets his eyes, and the two of them hold there for a breath, two. Red can’t figure out their dynamic. No one can, really. But, eventually, Chloe’s jaw tightens, and she seems to steel her resolve. 

“Fine,” she says. 

“Party!” the Smees say in harmony. “Tomorrow night. Enchanted Lake.” 

“We’ll handle transportation, too,” Felix says.

Chloe smiles, but it’s strained at the corners, in the eyes, and Red’s dread has returned heavier than before. She squeezes her arm firmer around Chloe’s torso, hoping to reassure, to soothe, even if she always feels out of her depth. 

It seems to come so easy to Chloe. She knows what to do and what to say when it’s Red who’s struggling, but Red doesn’t have the practice, and she wonders, sometimes, when it will be that Chloe realizes she’s insufficient in that way. She wonders if there will come a day when Chloe throws in the towel and searches for comfort elsewhere. 

“I’ve got some homework to finish up,” Chloe says to everyone. “But, tomorrow. See you all then.” 

And she pivots right out of Red’s hold with a final, parting smile and wave to them all, leaving Red wilted like a flower past spring. Her arms are too loose at her sides, directionless, and when she goes to pick up her sketchbook, dusting grass off the cover and glancing up at the sun through the leaves, it’s not as enchanting as it was just a few minutes earlier. 

Until a call comes from a few feet away, drawing her attention like a siren. 

“Red.” Chloe’s got her head tilted, her arm extended. “You coming?” 

And the light surges, warming Red all over. She walks with tunnel vision to Chloe’s side, twining their fingers, and letting herself be led all the way back to their room. 

Red never used to let herself be led anywhere if she could help it. Being led used to mean pain, darkness, nights in the dungeon or days in her mother’s throne room, watching her dole out punishments. Being led means an inherent lack of control that rubs against all of Red’s instincts. 

But she trusts Chloe. That’s what it comes down to, most days. She trusts Chloe, like she’s never trusted anyone, and it’s slow-going, relinquishing control, the instincts that it has to be her, only her, who takes care of herself, who keeps the hurt from coming, but it’s arriving at their dorm unscathed, Chloe undoing the lock and gesturing for her to go first, a gentle hand on the small of her back as she passes, that helps her. 

Chloe is always helping her, and Red wants, wants desperately to be able to help her too. She lingers by the door as Chloe goes to her desk, already pulling out books and papers, and, okay, so the homework wasn’t a lie. That’s something, at least. 

Red still twists her hands in front of her stomach. She bites at her lip, and she is not a coward, she doesn’t think, but she is not as brave as Chloe. Not when it comes to these moments and what needs to be discussed. If Chloe were the one with the nightmares, Red is ashamed to think she might flee out of the window, too scared to touch, to mess up and make it worse. She would take the terror of her own mind and memories over seeing Chloe that way any day. 

But this is simpler, and she doesn’t have the practice, but she has learned by observation. 

So, before Chloe gets immersed in her work, Red clears her throat, quietly, and asks, “Why didn’t you say anything?” Chloe stills. “About getting the captaincy.” 

Chloe’s mouth presses tight on the right side, and Red is sure she’s going to brush it off again. Going to shrug and say the same thing as before. She’s bracing herself for it. 

But then Chloe sighs faintly and says, “I didn’t want it.” 

Red’s eyebrows furrow. She comes closer, footsteps light like the ground has landmines. She sits on the edge of Chloe’s bed, closest to her desk. 

“What?” she asks, surprised but trying, hoping, to lack judgement. “Why not?” 

Chloe’s body is lined with that stiffness again, tension raising the height of her shoulders even after she shrugs them. 

“I don’t know,” she says, gaze downcast, somewhere near Red’s knee. “It’s just—This new timeline, and then Wonderland—” Her lips press together again, and she draws into herself like she had there in the cottage, in the split-second Red saw her before she fled, her arms over her stomach, her shoulders rounded rather than raised. Red hates it. Loathes it, actually. “I’m not the same. I’m not the Chloe here, who worked for the position. But I’m not the Chloe from back home either, I don’t think. I don’t—I don’t know who I am. I don’t even know if I'm—” 

Red’s entire body aches, and she wants to get closer, but she doesn’t. She lets Chloe think. Lets her feel. She curls her fingers into fists and her toes into the soles of her boots, and she waits. Waits.

When the silence stretches and stretches, though, she asks, gently, “Know if you’re what?” 

Chloe’s throat bobs, fighting to get a swallow down. She blinks, and her eyes glisten with unshed tears. They dart up to Red’s but immediately fall back down. Her fingers grip her arms tighter. 

“If I’m good,” she eventually says. 

Red’s heart cracks open. 

“Oh, angel,” she breathes. 

Chloe’s face crumples, and Red stands, takes the couple steps forward she needs to nearly close the space between them. She raises her arms tentatively. 

“Can I?” she asks, and Chloe nods; Chloe falls into her as if she has no strength left, and it’s not true. Chloe is so strong. The strongest person Red knows. She watched her mother be taken under threat of death, and, then, through a mirror, saw the confirmation of her worst nightmares, and kept going. Didn’t hesitate, didn’t fumble. Where Red faltered, Chloe never did, and the only time she had, she was enchanted. And, still, she came back. Not many could. She has to know that. “You are so strong, Chloe. You’re so strong, and you are good. You are.” 

Chloe trembles. She turns her face sideways against Red’s stomach, her tears wetting her shirt, and Red slips her hands over her back, her shoulders, beneath her hair, resting one against the back of Chloe’s neck. She hesitates with the other, hovers a beat, two, until Chloe’s breath hitches. Then, Red rests it, gentle, tender, on the side of her head, fingertips tangling in her hair, scratching delicately at her scalp. 

Chloe’s hands drift to Red’s legs, behind her knees, then, inch a little higher up her thighs to tug her closer, to hold her there; and Red goes, Red stays. 

She isn’t quite sure what else to do, what else to say, but what Chloe does when she’s upset is just this, sitting with her, letting her feel it. So, Red hopes it’s enough for Chloe too. 

She hardly moves an inch, other than to continue to run her fingers through Chloe’s hair, down her back, and repeat. At some point, she begins humming a faint tune, and it’s then that Chloe’s muscles loosen a touch, her breathing evening out. 

When she adjusts their positions again, straightening further, bringing her arms up to wrap around Red’s middle, Red knows she’s returning to herself. Knows she about to go embarrassed. Even though she’s seen Red in worse states over smaller things. 

Red hugs her harder, and Chloe lets out a quiet breath. She leans back, blinking shiny, teary eyes up at Red, lips quirking a little at one corner.

“Hi,” she says, and she is beautiful; that sunset glow is sat right in Red’s chest. 

She tilts her head and brushes some of Chloe’s hair behind her ear. She cups Chloe’s chin.

“Hi,” she says. “Do you feel a little better?” 

Chloe nods, though her features are not yet settled. Her chin wavers. She sniffs and releases Red so she can wipe at her face, and Red takes a step back to give her the space for it. She grabs the box of tissues off the edge of Chloe’s desk and offers it. 

“Thanks,” Chloe says, taking one. “I’m sorry.” 

“No need to be,” Red says. “You’ve seen me worse.” 

“This was stupid, though,” Chloe murmurs. 

“No it wasn’t,” Red says. Chloe wraps the tissue tight around her knuckle. Unwraps it and starts again. “Chlo, look at me.” 

Chloe does, reluctantly, her gaze wandering up slowly. 

“Anything you feel is important,” Red says. Chloe’s head tilts to one side, her shoulder lifting in a weak sort of shrug, dismissive. Red’s frown deepens. “Why is it true for me but not you?” 

Chloe shakes her head, but she doesn’t answer, and Red is not good at this. Red is grasping at straws, trying to understand where this has come from, and when Chloe began to feel as if she couldn’t express her feelings. It wasn’t so long ago that she would tell Red exactly what she thought, even if it hurt. Back in Wonderland, it’d nearly torn them apart. Back in Wonderland—

Oh. 

“Is it because of Wonderland?” Red asks.

Where they’d fought and lashed out at one another, but it was only Chloe’s emotions, Chloe’s turmoil, that had been turned against her. Chloe’s upset that had been taken and enchanted and warped into actions she never would have done without that influence.

Chloe’s eyes cutting away are all the answer Red needs. An ache lances through her chest. 

“Chloe,” she says quietly. 

“It’s just—everyone sees me one way,” Chloe says. “Like I’m perfect. And I always feel like I’m teetering on the edge of a pedestal. Like I’m made of glass, and just one slip means I’ll shatter. Last time, I nearly did. I nearly ruined everything. I nearly ruined everybody.” 

“You didn’t,” Red says. “It wasn’t your fault. It was mine, and Max’s. And just—the circumstances.” 

“No,” Chloe says, and this is with conviction. “No, it was me. I wasn’t focused. I took things out on you that I shouldn’t have, and it was—it was stupid. I was stupid.” She shakes her head. "And I—I felt it. The emotions were mine. They were just heightened, and if they’re there, that means it can be possible again. I could—I could become that way again.” 

Chloe’s words tremble at the end, weaker, and Red clenches her jaw to keep from slipping into anger. To keep from spinning on her heel and undoing all of the progress they’ve made with Max thus far. 

“You’re allowed to feel, Chloe,” she says, slow, meticulous. “The enchantment took away your control, but I know you. You are good. You might feel things so strong they make you crazy, and you still wouldn’t hurt someone. Not on purpose.” 

Chloe’s crying again, tears slipping from her lashes onto her cheeks. 

“I’m scared,” she says. “What if I do? Hurt someone? Hurt you? Again.” 

“I’ll forgive you,” Red says, because that’s easy. “I forgive you. Did I never tell you?” 

Chloe closes her eyes, and Red can’t take the distance anymore. She steps in again and holds Chloe’s face, swipes her thumbs through the moisture there. 

“You’re allowed to mess up,” she says. “It doesn’t mean you’re not good. You taught me that.” 

Chloe takes in a shuddering breath. For a few moments, she doesn’t speak, and, again, Red waits. Would wait as long as Chloe needs. Would say the same thing over and over, until she understood, until she accepted, until she believed it. 

Madness is part of her blood, after all, and if she had to go insane for anything, she wouldn’t mind it being a good cause. 

But, eventually, Chloe meets Red’s eyes and whispers, hoarsely, “You promise?” 

And Red smiles, gentler than she ever thought herself capable of. 

“Cross my heart,” she says, making the x over her sternum. 

Chloe’s smile is realer now, and Red’s heart pulses, tender. She wonders if there have been studies done about pain felt for someone else. Probably. Hells, Chloe’s likely read all about it. She’ll have to ask at a better time, when neither of them are feeling like a bruise. 

“Come on,” she says for now. “I think we’ve earned an early night.” 

And she tugs Chloe up and through a bedtime routine, which Chloe only halfheartedly fights for the sake of unfinished homework. When Red points out that she was doing homework for next week, she finally gives in, still grumbling. Red simply kisses her cheek and sends her off into the bathroom. 

Once Chloe’s come out and begun to braid her hair back, Red goes in and makes quick work of washing her face and brushing her teeth, of changing into a pair of sweatpants and a frayed Auradon Prep shirt. When she comes out, Chloe is already in her bed, leaning against the headboard, the covers up around her waist. She looks at Red for a moment, a strange expression on her face. 

“What?” Red says, and partially turns back. “Do I have toothpaste on my chin?” 

“No,” Chloe says, blinking out of it. “Sorry. Zoned out a bit.” 

Red hums, accepting the answer even if she doesn’t quite believe it. She grabs her sketchbook from her nightstand and then goes around her bed to Chloe’s, stopping at the edge of the mattress. 

“What?” Chloe asks now. 

“Well, you didn’t expect me to sleep all by myself, did you?” Red asks. 

“And why wouldn’t I?” Chloe asks, but it lacks bite. 

“It’s been so long,” Red says. “I miss you. I haven’t had as many nightmares, and it’s like we’re long distance.” 

Chloe raises an eyebrow, and it’s her turn, it seems, to be unbelieving. Red keeps a lid on her grin, but just barely. They both know, really, what Red is doing by seeking this closeness, and if Chloe were to tell her no, she would turn around and go back to her own bed without complaint. 

But Chloe puts on a long-suffering expression and sighs a put-out sigh, scooting over like it’s just about the last thing she wants to do, and all the while, Red’s stomach is tingling. 

“I suppose if you must,” Chloe says. “To help you sleep.” She pats the space beside her. "Even the gods would struggle with you on a sleepy day.” 

Red gasps. 

“Take that back,” she says, as she makes herself comfortable. 

“Sorry,” Chloe says. “One must not tell lies.” 

“You’re the worst,” Red says. 

“What did I just say?” Chloe asks. 

Red rolls her eyes, opening her sketchbook to its earlier page and examining the work she’d managed on the left page, ultimately deciding to begin anew on the blank one beside it. Chloe’s head falls to rest on her arm, and while it makes drawing a bit harder, Red doesn’t dare shift or mention it. 

She’s careful, slower, with her movements so as to not dislodge her, and the air in the room crawls to a bubble in time. To the sounds of their breaths and the scratch of graphite on the paper, and Red realizes, quite suddenly, she would be perfectly content to stay like this forever. 

It startles her a bit, because she is most inclined to movement. The need for motion and momentum, the adrenaline rush of a run over the rooftops. She often spins in her desk chair or taps her foot and pencil until Chloe tells her to walk it off. 

But this—this is enough. 

She looks up, mouth opening to say something. What, exactly, she isn’t sure, just something. Perhaps it’s that need manifesting in another way, but it stalls in its tracks when she notices Chloe’s fallen asleep, the lines of her face smoothing out and releasing the remnants of her earlier tension. 

Tension Red hadn’t realized she was holding onto seeps away too, and she lays her pencil into the fold of her pages, shuts the book quietly and sets it on the nightstand. 

“Hm,” Chloe says. “Red?” 

“Sorry,” Red whispers, coming back, settling down. “Was just putting my stuff up.” 

Chloe hums. 

“Mkay,” she says. Her arm slips around Red’s waist, already drifting off again. “G’night, mon cœur.” 

“Goodnight,” Red says, and it’s near unbearable, the sweetness of it on her tongue. 

Weak, it’s weak. The voice is so familiar and frequent, she’s had no chance to forget it, and it always creeps up on her at the worst times. Times like these, when she’s feeling her best. Times, too, when she’s feeling her worst. Just enough variation to keep her off-balance.

Love is weak, and she will suffer for it. Chloe will suffer for it, being so near to her. But, no, it’s not true. It’s not. And the realization earlier, that Chloe hadn’t told her she’d made captain had made her stomach drop something awful. Had made her feel more like a failure. 

That’s how much she’s changed, how she’s still changing, and she does not want to fail Chloe in that way, to where she doesn’t believe she can come to Red with her problems. She does not want a repeat of Wonderland. Not because of what happened, but because of how bad Chloe was hurt. 

So, all throughout the next day, and at the bonfire, Red keeps an eye on Chloe, watches for any signs of distress or sadness, but there are none. Chloe seems completely normal, and Red would like to be relieved. Instead, she’s caught up in how many times she’s missed Chloe’s upset before.

How good, she wonders, has Chloe become at hiding her emotions after Wonderland, when, before and during, it had been so clear? 

Is it so often, now, that she’s been thinking these things—that she’s no good, that she doesn’t deserve to feel—and she’s been thinking them alone? And what has Red been doing, to miss it? 

“You’re brooding.” 

“I’m not brooding,” Red says. “I don’t brood.” 

Chloe sits next to her, back to the sideways tree stump Red is also using as her support. 

“You definitely brood,” Chloe says. 

“That’s ridiculous.” 

Chloe presses the pad of her thumb between Red’s eyebrows, and Red relaxes them. She narrows her eyes at Chloe’s smug expression. 

“That proves nothing,” she says even as she trails her gaze along the angle of Chloe’s jaw, her sketchbook on her lap forgotten, not-brooding momentarily paused.

The fire twenty or so feet away climbs steadily higher with the devoted attention of Max and Felix, and orange sparks reflect in Chloe’s eyes as they wisp upward into the air. 

She snorts a little into her solo cup and says, “Okay. Whatever makes you feel better,” and Red is just awfully, terribly fond. 

“Thank you,” she says haughtily, through it, and Chloe nudges their shoulders together. 

She tilts her cup toward Red. 

“You want?” 

“So you can poison me?” Red asks. “No thanks.” 

“You think I’m a one-trick pony?” Chloe asks. “I don’t repeat means of assassination, thank you.” 

“Hm.” Red takes the cup from her and sparkling cider fizzes across her tongue. “Technically it wouldn’t be a repeat, since it was actually the pills last time.” 

“Good catch,” Chloe says. “And still you took it.” 

“You knave!” Red says, shoving her shoulder. “You know, one of these days, you’re going to actually have need for a royal taste tester, and I’ll have built up too much blindness to know the difference. Then, what’ll you do?” 

Chloe’s face screws up. 

“We don’t have royal taste testers anymore,” she says. “That’s such an archaic practice. Cruel to servants. We use testing strips.” When she sees Red’s face, her eyebrows lift. “What—You do?” 

“Well, now you say it, I don’t know. We did, back—back, you know.” Red tilts her head. “Mother was quite paranoid in that way. Though I’m sure no one had the guts to actually make an attempt on her life.” Red waves off Chloe’s sympathetic look, not wishing to make the air heavy. “Well, either way, I’m glad to know it’s not a career path I’ll have to follow.” 

“As if I would have asked you to,” Chloe says, taking the cup back. 

“As if I would have trusted anyone else,” Red says, snatching it again and taking another sip. 

“Hey—” 

“It is safe, by the way,” Red says. 

She does not mention that her mother trained her in over a dozen different poisons and how to detect them—by scent, taste, and consistency—and that she’s immune to at least seven. They had only gotten through a quarter of her training before the timelines switched. She wonders if her body has changed at all or if it has carried over. 

Red hands the cup back after a few more seconds of keep-away, and Chloe glares at her through her next drink. 

“You’re insufferable,” she says before she’s even fully swallowed. 

Red nods. 

“Another one of my career paths,” she says. “Or—no, maybe I’ll keep that as a hobby.” 

Chloe shakes her head, but she hasn’t been able to keep the smile off her face, and, yes, this is normal. Red would be able to tell, surely, if Chloe were hiding hurt. If she were tucking it away beneath the surface. Surely, she isn’t so good at it, in such a short amount of time, that Red can’t detect it this close up. 

From a little ways off, the Smees, Luis, Robbie, Pink, and Hazel are having a cannonball contest, throwing themselves off the edge of the gazebo that sits beside the Enchanted Lake. The water twinkles a pretty cerulean, even in the moonlight, its magic like a siren song and a calming balm, all in one. 

Squeaky has Luis hold him by the ankles and launch him into the air so he can get maximum impact, and a great cheer goes up as water showers the rest of them. Little patters sound against the bank and almost touch the bonfire. 

“Hey, c’mon guys, watch it!” Felix calls over, which only earns him boos and jeers. 

He shakes his head and turns back to Max, and it’s not clear what the two of them are getting up to, until there’s a quiet thwip! and the flames light up a fierce green. Shapes begin to dance overhead, a scene of dancing skeletons and a band playing music drifting over to where Red and Chloe sit. 

Red sees Max’s hands shift, the shuffle of cards, and then he, too, flicks his wrist. The flames flash purple, and hopping rabbits bound and leap through the air. 

A sudden, unexpected rush of nostalgia sweeps over Red, seeping down to her bones. From this angle, Max looks so like Maddox, and she aches for it, for the moments in Maddox’s lab when it was just them, quiet so as to not be called to the Queen’s throne room for any reason whatsoever. Maddox, her only friend for so long, and Max, a close second. Collateral she’d never meant to make. 

“Hey.”

Chloe’s voice is gentle with her, drawing her back. Red glances over. Chloe searches her face, and Red doesn’t flinch, though she wants to. She is a hypocrite, though she doesn’t mean to be. Seeking Chloe’s hurt but hiding from her own. Hoping Chloe doesn’t call it out. 

She is lucky, always so lucky, that Chloe seems to sense her boundaries. And when she doesn’t, asks. 

This time, she says, “Thank you.” 

Red’s eyebrows furrow delicately. 

“For what?” 

“Yesterday,” Chloe says. “Being there. Talking me down.” 

Red’s body relaxes. She reaches, but Chloe’s hands are wrapped around her cup, so she simply lays it on her knee. 

“Of course,” she says. “Are you—You’re feeling okay?” 

Chloe nods a little, and it’s not a firm, enthusiastic yes, but it’s something. Chloe wouldn’t lie to her. 

“Better,” she says, at least. 

“Good,” Red says. “Good.” A beat. “You know if you’re not—feeling okay, I mean—you can talk to me.”

“I know,” Chloe says.

“Okay.” Red squeezes Chloe’s knee. "Good.” 

Chloe smiles at her, and it’s sculpted by the moon, by the bonfire, by the enchanted lake, all the different lights working to cast her in soft shades and edges. She goes to stand but pauses on the way, her hand atop Red’s, leaning forward and pressing their foreheads together. 

“You’re the best, Red,” she says, quietly. 

She draws back and wipes at her pants, and Red is stuck, feeling the warmth of every place they’d made contact. 

She hardly hears herself say, “What are friends for?” 

And Chloe keeps smiling at her, casting one last look over her shoulder before she goes to cheer on Pink and Hazel in the contest. (If Red saw a tightness at the corners of her eyes, her mouth, it was just lingering paranoia. It was nothing.)

“Red!” Luis calls. “Come be ref! Chloe’s biased!” 

“And Red’s not?” Hazel asks. 

“One second!” Red calls over, casting a look down to her sketchbook and the half-done drawing on the page. 

She bites her lip, erasing a certain curve, adding shading. 

“Red!” 

“Okay! Coming!” 

She sets it down and goes over to do as bid, but two days later, when she finishes, she leaves the drawing on Chloe’s bed. A pencil sketch of her sat in her hoodie, hair pulled back from her face, firelit. She’s got a half-smile and a half-dimple pushing at her left cheek, a little wrinkle to her brow that she only gets when she’s trying to figure out what someone’s talking about but is having a good time doing so. It’s one of Red’s favorite looks. 

It’s not Captain Chloe, not Princess Chloe. It’s just Chloe, her roommate, her best friend. It’s clear, she’s not perfect. To Chloe, she wouldn’t think herself perfect, if she saw it. She would find something to pick apart. But this is how Red sees her—beautiful and happy and bright and good. 

And she knows it’s not enough. She knows it won’t cure all the doubts, but she hopes, anyway, Chloe understands what she means by leaving it. By showing it.

And two days after that, coming back from a full day of classes, when Red throws her bag on the floor and then herself onto her bed, she almost doesn’t see it. She has a headache pulsing behind her eyes and wants nothing more than to sleep. The pain is making her vision hazy. 

She turns her head on her pillow, covers her face, rolls fully onto her side, and huffs. She swipes hair off her forehead, looks blearily at Chloe’s neat, undisturbed bed, and only, then, moving back, does she notice. There, on Chloe’s nightstand, in a glass picture frame, is her drawing. And stuck to the edge of it is a small sticky note with Chloe’s neat handwriting. The two words are in French. 

mon cœur

Red smiles, and as she drifts off into a nap, she makes the mental note to look up the meaning later. Though the quiet, lingering glow in her chest might be sufficient enough to let her know.