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Gideon held a bouquet of flowers, snowdrops and dahlias. She stood at Harrow’s door, hesitating for a moment, before knocking gently. It was Valentine’s day after all, she really had no better time than the present.
When Harrow swung open the door, Gideon took a quick inhale. She was gorgeous in her own, almost rat-like way, she always had been, but her face had matured and grown fully. The most beautiful part of her face, her dark eyes, something that Gideon once thought were pure black but now, she could see the dark spots of red in, were full of distrust before she even registered who she was looking at. Gideon paused before holding out the flowers, forcing a smile.
“Hey.”
“You left. For the military,” Harrow said matter-of-factly. “Seven fucking years ago.” There it was, the familiar anger that Gideon had oh so missed. “And now, you’re here? Where did you get my address?”
“Palamedes,” Gideon said because she figured she’d have better chances if she was honest. Apparently, though, that wasn’t the case and Harrow nearly slammed the door in her face before Gideon’s newly refined instincts automatically kicked in. She stuck her foot in the way and Harrow glared at her.
“I don’t want to see you, Nav.” Her last name sounded somehow more personal than her first coming from Harrow. Nav was a cut, a reminder that she was just some random fucking orphan who had nothing left in the world besides the girl she left behind.
“Don’t tell me you’re still seeing that blonde bitch,” Gideon said, like she hadn’t wanted to sleep with Corona. “She was bad for you and you know it.”
“That’s none of your business,” she said before promptly stomping off. Gideon had the decency to close her door for her, though Harrow would have to redo the deadbolts or whatever the fuck her paranoid ass had on the door.
Gideon was climbing a tree, like a fucking child. (She didn’t remember actually climbing trees as a child but she probably did. She didn’t remember much from her childhood besides fighting with Harrow.) She lurched a bit as she threw herself onto the top branch before pulling herself up to sit on it. She unelegantly scooted down to the tip of the branch before knocking on Harrow’s window.
“What the hell do you want?” she asks, opening it with a hiss. Gideon was convinced that Harrow doesn’t ever actually sleep but for once, Gideon couldn’t judge, being the one to knock on her damn window at one in the morning. Actually, it was probably 1:30 by now.
“You’re the one who kissed me at the dance,” Gideon said and Harrow blushed. She wasn’t wearing her thick face paint for once so it was visible, though Gideon was surprised she didn’t wear it to sleep.
“And you’re the one who spiked the punch,” she said, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms over her chest. “I was drunk. It meant nothing.”
“After a sip?”
“Fuck-”
Suddenly, Gideon leaned forward and whispered, “Go downstairs. I’ll wait for you at the front door.”
“And why on The Emperor’s Earth would I do that?” she asked and Gideon shrugged. She let Harrow close the window, however, as she got down from the tree awkwardly. Really, she didn’t think there was an elegant way to get out of a tree. When she did get to the ground, she scurried towards the front door, hoping she hadn’t missed Harrow. The girl could move surprisingly quickly and she never seemed to run out of breath. Maybe it was all that praying she did, making her surprisingly fit.
When Gideon did get to the front door, she paused, disappointed. There was no one there. However, after a second, the door swung open and none other than Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter, was there. (Technically, she should be the Reverend Mother but Gideon could never think of Harrow in such a light.)
“What do you want, heathen?” she asked, voice like knives.
“To take you out on a date.”
Gideon keeps the bouquet. She’s not sentimental, fuck you for even suggesting that, but she keeps the bouquet in her new apartment. After an honorable discharge due to a bullet almost hitting her heart, she didn’t have much left to do in the army so she packed up and moved back to her college town where apparently, her ex-girlfriend still lived. She was studying for her doctorate apparently and was almost done. Gideon, who hadn’t even finished her second year in college, was partially in awe of her.
Gideon: She didn’t want to see me
Sex Pal: I didn’t think she would
Sex Pal: I did warn you
Gideon sighed as she ran her hands through her hair, sighing. She put the bouquet on her cheap coffee table, careful not to crumple the flowers at all. She then turned on the TV and watched some cooking show.
She should text Pash. She was trying to make friends with her cousin but it was hard, especially given that Pash was over thirty. Gideon, even now that she was almost 25, felt like a child and she hated it. She hated how immature she felt. When she was a teen, she felt so old but now, she was just a tall child.
When she was a teen, she still had Harrow by her side. Maybe that was what made it work.
Gideon took Harrow farther than Harrow had ever gone before. Harrow was clearly nervous, chewing on her bottom lip as she stared at Gideon.
“Since when did you have a driver’s licence?” she asked and Gideon shrugged. Driving wasn’t exactly banned, Harrowhark’s family had a car after all, but in such a small, insulated town, no one really knew how to drive. She had learned from the internet of all fucking things but she trusted herself enough to be a tolerable driver, or at least not crash. “Where are you taking me?”
“On a date, Nonagesimus,” she said and Harrow rolled her eyes.
“Where to?”
“That’s for me to know and for you to find out,” Gideon said as she pulled onto the road. She had perfectly memorized the route to a place just out of town that Gideon had never been allowed to go to. No one, not even her, was allowed to leave without adult supervision and the only real adult who would even offer was fucking Ortus.
“You’re obnoxious,” Harrow muttered and Gideon smiled.
“Yet you agreed to go out with me,” she said and Harrow glared at her. They sat in silence for a few minutes before Gideon asked, looking a bit mournful, “Do you ever think about leaving?”
“Yeah, I do,” she said and the admission shocks Gideon so much that she almost veers off the road. Harrow glares at her and Gideon smiles apologetically. “Do you think that I want this? I… I want to go to college. How can we spread the gospel if we never leave this place?”
Of course, she just wanted to leave to spread the gospel, Gideon thought. Still, she wanted to leave. She wanted to see more of this world. “Yeah, so do I.”
“You don’t want to spread anything,” Harrowhark said and Gideon frowned.
“I want to see the world. Tell me that not even a small part of you wants to see more of the world, Harrow,” Gideon said and Harrow frowned, looking near tears for a second, or whatever her version of near tears was. Even for a member of the Ninth House, the last remaining House of their Lord, Harrow showed little emotion.
“The world is so small here,” is all she said and Gideon nodded. “We’re going past any good spots. Where are we going?”
“We’re leaving,” she said before correcting herself and adding, “For the night. We’re going to see more of the world.”
“You’re an idiot, Griddle,” she said and Gideon nodded.
“And yet, you agreed to go out with me,” she said and Harrow nodded.
The rest of the ride was in complete silence and when they arrived, Gideon whispered, “Close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, idiot,” she whispered and Harrow did. Gideon gets out of the car and opens the passenger door, helping Harrow get out of the room. She walked her up the hill and before saying, “Pause. I need to do something really quick.”
She kneels down to the ground and picks out a lock pick, something she had stolen last time she had snuck out. She picked it easily, she was surprisingly good at lock picking, before swinging open the gate.
“This,” Gideon said, “is the arboretum. I figured you might like looking at some flowers.”
“Whoever said I liked flowers?” Harrow asked and Gideon shrugged.
“I think all pretty girls deserve some pretty flowers. Maybe we can even find some dead ones for you,” Gideon joked, causing Harrow to once again roll her eyes. “Are you gonna come in with me?”
“Fine.”
Gideon frowned as she walked up to Pash, trying to pretend that she wasn’t going to cry the moment Harrow’s name was mentioned. Thankfully, Pash didn’t know what she had been planning. She talked to Pash about nothing in particular before it started to get late.
“You’re young,” Pash said, though she would never call herself old. “You should be doing something rather than hanging around here. I’m going out with Camilla soon, you should find something to do too.”
“You’re going out with Camilla?” she asked, wondering where the pair had even met. “Did you really meet up with my friends to fuck them?”
“For your information,” she said, smiling a little bit, “Camilla is ace.”
“Well, metaphysically fucking them,” she said, rolling her eyes a little bit. “But… But I don’t have anything to do, Pash. I tried to ask a girl out but she rejected me.”
Pash frowned before standing up. “Me and Cam will bring you back something, okay? You can stay over here, you’re too shit a driver for me to trust you this late.”
“It’s seven,” she said and Pash smiled a little bit. She didn’t say anything about the driving comment, she really wasn’t a good driver.
“I don’t remember asking,” she said. “I’m gonna go get ready, play the good girlfriend on this shitty holiday.”
“I doubt Cam wants to do anything for Valentine’s any more than you do,” Gideon said and Pash shrugged.
“Palamedes insisted she do something. We’re just going to some cheap dinner with good milkshakes,” Pash said, pulling on a leather jacket as she checked her makeup in the mirror.
“He’s some sort of hopeless romantic,” Gideon said, knowing that there’s no other reason for him to have given her Harrow’s address. “But I hope that you have a good date or whatever.”
“Thanks.”
“Can I kiss you?” Gideon asked, watching as Harrow brushed her fingers over the flowers, taking some petals in between her thumb and forefinger and gently rubbing them, as if they were velvet. Harrow looked up at her and Gideon was about to say something, take it back, but Harrow nodded as he stood up.
She kissed Gideon gently, something that was soft and more loving than Gideon had ever felt before. She melted into Harrow’s touch and when she finally pulled away, she looked at Harrow like she was her forever. She was near tears as she muttered, “I think that I might be in love with you, Harrow.”
Harrow didn’t respond but instead, she kissed Gideon again. In that one moment, Gideon knew that there was nothing left for her besides Harrowhark. She would never lose her, she thought, not if she could do anything to help it.
As Gideon drove Harrow home, she smiled a little bit before dropping her off. “I hope that you sleep well, Harrow.”
“Thank you,” Harrow said before leaning forward to kiss Gideon’s cheek. Gideon blushed a bit before Harrow scurried away and she did the stupidest thing she ever could have done.
She smiled the entire walk back home.