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When Audrey takes the stage to issue a public apology, everyone forgives her. Audrey tells them all that she’d heard Maleficent call her name in that museum and, once she’d gotten her hand on that staff, it took control of her
It’s mostly true, except the staff can only exploit what’s always been there. Audrey kissing Chad in the stands and declaring him her boyfriend without any input from him, Audrey locking him in a closet — well, one’s obviously worse, but the roots are there. The intentions were there. She’d never really stopped to think what Chad wanted.
It’s just weird, because she’d still kind of always thought she’d cared about Chad, in her own selfish way. They’d grown up together, after all. Learned how to ride bikes and learned how to ballroom dance and learned how to play chess side by side. Sure, they’d never been friends, because Audrey had never really needed friends. She’d needed subjects and Chad had been the most loyal one of all. When it came down to it, she thought that would’ve mattered, and it just... hadn’t.
And, yeah, Jane’s always been kind of a loser, right? Like, the Fairy Godmother is a sidekick and a total dork, and Jane is nothing if not her mother’s daughter. But… they’d hung out, when the Isle kids had first gotten there. Sure, eventually Jane chose them over her, but… she’d liked Jane, for a second there. Enough that she should’ve at least been collateral instead of a target.
Jane had been a target. Audrey has cursed everyone at her birthday party with the same spell Maleficent had casted on her mother and Jane had barely escaped and Audrey… if she’d known, she would’ve hunted Jane down. Jane would have been the first one she’d turned to stone.
And then — then — Audrey had been so careful . She’s always been so careful. Avoid spindles. Avoid magic. Marry a prince. Live the life her mother had been supposed to, before her grandmother had disowned her and her father. Audrey hadn’t seen them since she was a kid. It was only ever her and her grandmother, and her grandmother could’ve kicked her out just as easy, and, well, doesn’t she owe her for the life she’s had? Growing up healthy and never wanting for anything. Sure, Aurora and Philip aren’t on the Isle, but they aren’t in a castle, and isn’t that basically the same thing, at the end of the day?
Audrey had been so careful. And the curse had still come for her. And she’d still lost everything — again.
Before the curse had stripped her of her reputation, before she’d lost anything else — she’d lost Ben. To the daughter of the fairy who had ruined her mother’s life, and come on. Come on! She had been right about her! Mal had come to destroy everything they’d ever known! Mal had put a spell on Ben!
And he loves her anyway. Because, well, isn’t that just like him. Every time Audrey pushed him away, he’d held on tighter. Every dismissal, every snark, every sneer disguised as a smile — of course Ben could read her. Of course he’d known what she was doing. But he’d also known about her mother and her father and her grandmother and every panic attack Audrey had in whatever crevice she could hide herself away in until she’d stopped feeling much at all.
Yeah, maybe she and Ben were never really in love, but if she’d ever had a friend, it’d been him. She’d never really made any other ones, but at least she’d had people who wanted to be her friend.
Which. Okay. She still does, kinda, technically, but they want her in all the wrong ways. Before she was pretty or a princess or popular or whatever, which, like, cool! She’d used everyone around her. She always has. Obviously people would always want to use her back, but she’d still had the leverage. Now they want her because they want to figure her out or they want to betray her or, god forbid, they pity her.
God, that’s what she hates most of all. Mal had seen through her mean girl act when Ben had proposed and Audrey had confronted her; the buttons Audrey had pressed no longer connected to anything. Instead, Mal had touched her arm and frowned and walked away. Now that same pity is reflected in the eyes of everyone she sees and she can’t stand it.
::
When she meets Uma, the first thing she says is, “What? I’m supposed to feel sorry for you ?”
Audrey goes to say something, her same practiced, rehearsed speech, equal parts sweet and snide, polite and dismissive, casual and cruel.
Instead, Uma says, “Save the sob story, princess. I don’t wanna hear it.”
And. Well. Doesn’t the rest kind of explain itself?
::
It’s a tricky line to walk, because everyone in Auradon knows too much about Audrey, but she can’t really be seen hanging out with the newer VKs, either. Like, yeah, Helga Sinclair’s son is super hot, and so is Hans’s daughter, in a different way — the kind of way Chad is, all smarmy and smug, but Helga’s son kinda closer to the way Jay is, kinda rugged and dangerous but a little, like, edged, kind of in a kiss you that morning but sell you out that night way —
Anyway. It doesn’t matter. Audrey isn’t allowed to have thoughts like that, even though she might. The point is she can’t hang out with them, but she can’t really hang out with like, Jane or Lonnie either, and being around Chad or Ben makes her feel too guilty.
Weirdly enough, Carlos has been the coldest to her out of everyone. It does make sense, given that she’d hurt his girlfriend and his best friends, but it’s still a little weird. If any of them had any give, she would’ve thought it’d be Carlos.
Evie gives her a little cold shoulder, which is to be expected, but still walks with her to class if anyone is staring too much, and Mal is really trying to be her friend, but just because they’re on equal moral footing doesn’t mean the sight of her doesn’t make Audrey sick, and Jay —
Well. Jay plays interference, more than anything else. He pulls Carlos’s eyes off of her when she walks by, and he pulls Mal away when she tries to talk to Audrey for too long, and he walks next to Evie when Evie decides to walk with Audrey — it’s little things for his friends, not for her, and it’s probably what makes her feel the loneliest.
There aren’t many options left in the friend department, but…
::
Harry Hook starts hanging around her, in a way that makes Jay, Evie, and Mal linger around them. It isn’t really that bad, but Audrey, like, gets it, obviously. He has the whole hook-hand thing and just last year he’d been an enemy of the state, which like, kinda dramatic, but whatever. And Audrey is, you know, Audrey. She’d admittedly been liable to snap in the past, and if she decided to yell at Harry to leave her alone, well —
It had a lot of ways it could go bad, is the point, but it doesn’t.
::
Eventually, Uma caves a little, though she still doesn’t talk to Audrey directly. She sits next to Harry and doesn’t do anything but scoff. It’s kind of annoying, but it isn’t like Audrey doesn’t get it, and it isn’t like she can be really afford to do anything about it.
Harry and Uma still have their Villain reps. They’re still shaking lose little bits of the Isle, just like Mal and all of them had for a while, but they blend enough, and they’re kind of cool because of how unattainable and, like, zoo animal dangerous they are, and, well. It’s the best she can do at this point.
::
One day, Harry leaves them alone in Audrey’s room — he’d been laying in between them on her bed, had to maneuver out from under where her cheek had been on his chest — and they sit there for a while in silence. He’d just been making an excursion to the kitchen, and she doubts he’d been caught sneaking in, but it’s still taking forever , and Uma is still just sitting up and staring at her nails.
Rolling onto her side, Audrey says, “So! How are your classes going, Uma?”
Uma scoffs and starts picking her cuticles.
“Yeah, totally boring, right? I bet the Fairy Godmother’s Goodness classes are, like, miserable.”
Uma scoffs again.
“I had to take a summer course in it, and, like, such a snooze. I can’t imagine a whole semester.”
“I’m surprised they made you take any class at all.” It’s the first thing Uma’s said to her in weeks, probably only the third thing overall.
Audrey’s jaw grinds for just a second before she admits, “Yeah.”
::
Things relax a little after that. They’re not on great terms, but it’s less tense. Sometimes Uma will even join in on Harry and her conversations, if only to make fun.
::
Ben sits with them fairly often at lunch, and obviously Gil joins even more, but it takes a couple of months before Mal starts coming around again, and slowly Evie and Jay trickle in. It’s another week before Carlos joins, only because Jane and Gil pull him along.
It’s weird, watching how Uma, like… blossoms into this complete other person. She’s still a little restrained around Harry and Gil, probably a leftover habit from captaining the crew, and she’d never gotten completely comfortable around Ben, but around Mal…
Yeah, she fucking blooms , and of course it would take Mal being around, but it’s still…
Well, it’s still… interesting to see how Uma smiles and laughs and rolls her eyes lovingly, and it even soothes Uma’s interactions with Ben, polishing away the awkward edges into spirited discussions of policy and morality that Audrey can’t really follow.
It’s interesting, too, seeing the pieces of Isle that still cling to the rest of them. Carlos is more obvious than ever, with the way he watches her carefully, the way he shifts his shoulder in front of Jane when Audrey looks their way — he’s, like, barely her height, and primed for a fight, and it’s weird because this is the same kid Ben had told her was scared of puppies just a couple of years ago.
By contrast, Jay has always been all Isle, and Audrey had never really realized. The way he’d run interference — well, you can’t really know how to avoid trouble if you haven’t gotten into your fair share of it. And Audrey kind of sees it now, the way he’s all coiled up, almost bursting at the seams. The way Gil acts had helped her recognize it more.
Evie, too, had used Auradon to refine her edges, but they’re still there — the way she squints or widens her eyes or smiles with only her mouth or the tone she uses when she’s trying to get her way.
And Mal. Well. Audrey had already understood her more than she would’ve liked to.
::
Mal and Audrey are alone at the table one day. Audrey usually comes with Harry and Uma, but they’d had to run an errand, and she doesn’t really know where anyone else is, and she would go get food but then it would be more noticeable that she isn’t really eating.
It’s not, like, a thing. She has control issues, but, like, she hasn’t really struggled with eating for a good few years. It’s more, like… Maleficent’s kind of magic sort of hollows you out for a while, is all. She eats dinner out of necessity and she’s even been getting hungry for it, but aside from that, she just doesn’t have the energy to do it.
Audrey doesn’t realize that she’s been set up until Mal is saying, “You know, Audrey, it helps to talk.”
Audrey cuts her off with a scoff, saying, “What? To you ?” It isn’t until Mal winces that Audrey realizes she hasn’t really wanted to say that, and she apologizes quickly, mumbling, “Sorry. Old habits.”
“Yeah,” Mal says it like she understands, and more than most, she probably does. “I’m not saying that you have to talk to me. Evie would probably get it more, anyway, and be better at talking about it, but… it helps to have people you can rely on.”
::
Harry does most of the talking when they’re all together. Sometimes he just talks at them, or sometimes he just paces flat lines into Audrey’s carpet, or sometimes they just watch TV or let it play in the background or just, like, sit in silence. Occasionally they show each other music, but they don’t really have the same taste.
Today, Audrey is more tired than usual, so she hasn’t said all that much. She hadn’t even had the energy to do her makeup, and while thankfully the grey tinge to her skin has long since faded, the bags under her eyes haven’t. No one says anything, though both Harry and Uma look at her just a little too long.
Harry is talking over the TV, standing in front of it and gesturing wildly, and Audrey is half-asleep with her eyes half-shut, a large gap meant for him still in between her and Uma.
“I’m still really angry,” Audrey says softly, but Harry gets quiet anyway. Shutting her eyes, she adds, “Not really at Mal anymore. Or even Ben. There kind of isn’t anyone to be angry at anymore, but I’m still… I’m so mad. All the time.”
“Yeah,” Uma says from the other side of the bed. The way she says it makes it feel like Audrey could reach out a hand and feel Uma right under her palm.
Audrey keeps her hands to her sides.
::
Carlos is quicker to anger than Jay is, which is weird, because Jay is just so physical. Always shoving and grabbing and touching, mouth opening too wide when he laughs. Audrey’s been noticing a lot about them, but she forgets about Carlos a lot.
Audrey says something offhandedly to Jane, a joke about a birthday party someone had thrown years ago, and Carlos jumps up suddenly, hands flat on the table. Audrey grabs Harry’s wrist to keep him from standing up.
The thing is that Carlos is always kind of watching her with this barely concealed, like, weird combination of caution and distrust, but now his face is twisted into full on disgust, and she’s staring right into it, rather than seeing it in her peripherals.
“Why would you talk to Jane about birthday parties?”
“Carlos, it’s okay,” Jane is saying, and Ben is standing up to try to smooth everything over, and Jay is all tight again, ready to keep Carlos from doing something stupid, and Evie and Mal are looking at him with concern, and —
Audrey is so cold again, suddenly, so fucking lonely, so stupid for letting her guard down, and, yeah, Harry is trying to pull out of her grip, but, like, no one else here likes her, and he doesn’t even like her, because he barely even knows her, because she’s barely been herself, and it’s so pathetic she wants to throw up.
Harry tears free of her, but is immediately right back down. Audrey looks up to see Uma’s hand on his shoulder, and she’s… she’s standing up.
“Back off, Carlos.” She’s calm, but her eyes are hard. “Audrey didn’t mean anything by it.”
“She didn’t,” Jane adds softly, tugging at his hand again. “It’s okay.”
Carlos settles back into his seat, hard eyes still on Audrey, Jane’s hand still in his, and he accepts it when Ben’s arm goes around his shoulders, and Mal reaches across Ben to put a hand on his knee, and Audrey has to leave before she really does puke.
::
It takes a while for everyone to settle back into lunch. Carlos and Jane disappear for a little bit, and usually Jay isn’t there either, but sometimes he alternates with Evie. They’re obviously splitting time and Audrey doesn’t get it. Everyone else is fine with everyone else. Why not just ask her to leave?
It grates on her, itches under her skin, but she won’t leave until she’s asked to. They can’t take the coward’s way out. If they want her gone, they have to tell her.
They all laugh at something and it sets her on fire. She’s burning up.
“Hey,” Uma says under her breath, hand on Audrey’s elbow. On Uma’s other side, Harry is clearly listening in. “Is everything okay?”
Audrey jerks away, which attracts more attention than she wants, “I’m fine.”
“Come on, Aud, it’s -- “
“My name is Audrey. ”
“Hey!” Ben says, too loud and too happy. Her head is pounding. “Speaking of nicknames! I don’t think I’ve ever heard the story of the nickname Mal used to call you, Uma. What was it again, anyway?"
“Daddy,” Uma says coolly, eyebrows raised.
Mal chokes on her water. Jay smacks her hard on the back, visibly trying not to laugh, while Gil and Harry are making no such strides, mouths wide and stretching.
God. God. Right. Uma and Mal had -- because who doesn’t want Mal, right? They’d dated. Because who hadn’t dated Mal? Because who doesn’t want her? It isn’t magic. It isn’t being the bad girl. Audrey’s tried both and no one wants her. It’s just her. It’s just who Mal is and it’s just who Audrey is. Because Audrey has been trying so hard to be perfect and Mal just is.
They’ve already lapsed back into friendly small talk and Ben had barely even been uncomfortable. What’s wrong with him?
“Don’t you know they dated?” Audrey butts in, cutting someone else off. She doesn’t know who. She doesn’t care.
Eyebrows furrowed and smile still in place, Ben says, “Well, of course, but it’s in the past. I trust Mal. And Uma, too. Jokes don’t bother me.”
“Does anything? ”
“Hey,” Mal says, concerned, but Audrey sees the way she moves closer to Ben, sees the lines of Jay’s shoulders become tighter, and in her peripherals, she sees Harry and Uma looking at her. “What’s wrong, Audrey? Are you okay?”
Like she cares. Like she cares. Like she cares. Like anyone cares! She just doesn’t want Audrey to cause a scene. She’s just protecting her and hers and Audrey is definitely not hers. She isn’t anyone’s. She belongs to no one. No one claims her.
“It’s pathetic, Ben,” Audrey is saying, mouth still going without her trying to move it, red hot rage rolling through her body as she continues, “you’re so pathetic and spineless. What kind of king are you? Probably no kind -- Mal calls all the shots everywhere, I bet, huh? Just like I did. Just like your dad did. Just like everyone else does --”
“That’s enough , Audrey!” Mal slams her hands on the table and Jay is standing now, and there’s no pity in any of their eyes, only anger, and Audrey’s smile is wide and snarling, more a show of teeth than anything else.
Good. Good. They’re done lying. They’re done trying to trick her into trusting them.
“Is it hard to hear, Mal?” Audrey pouts now, batting her eyelashes and lowering her chin. “You’re not subtle, you know. We all know you like people you can kick around. Isn’t that right, Ben?”
“Audrey,” Uma’s voice is low, hand on her arm, “we can just go.”
“Jay?”
“Audrey.”
“Shrimpy? ” Audrey spins on Uma now, whose eyes widen with shock before her face hardens. Audrey’s grin is poisonous. “Isn’t that right, Shrimpy?”
“I think you should go, Audrey,” Mal says, stern, just barely restrained.
“God, finally! It’s about time.” Audrey blows a kiss before she goes.
::
Everyone leaves her alone for a while.
::
After some time passes, there are knocks on her door, steady at first, then scattered, then few and far between, then not at all.
::
Until.
::
Pounding. Someone is pounding on Audrey’s door. It thuds behind her eyelids.
“Audrey! Open up!”
She pulls her pillow over her head and turns up the volume on the TV.
“Audrey!”
There’s more yelling, but eventually the voice quiets, and Audrey thinks she might be left alone.
Then the door is opening. Closing. Weight is shifting on her bed. The TV is shutting off. The pillow taken off her face. Uma is blinking into focus.
“What is your problem?” Uma demands.
“How did you get in here?” Audrey is trying to snap at her, but there’s not enough behind her voice. It just sounds tired.
“You think I don’t know how to pick locks?”
“I don’t really think about you.” It’s a lie.
“See, that right there. That’s what I’m talking about. What’s your deal? ”
“Why do you care?”
“We’re friends. Or I thought we were, at least.”
“You don’t want to be my friend.” Audrey rolls over, pulling her covers up.
Uma pulls them back down. “You don’t get to decide that.”
Audrey sits up sharp, frustrated, her head almost knocking into Uma’s. “You don’t know me! No one knows me. I don’t know me! You can’t like me. You just feel bad for me.”
“I feel bad for you?” Uma snorts. “You’re doing a good enough job of that yourself. I don’t think there’s enough sorry left in the world for someone else to feel it for you.”
“Then what is it? Because I’m pretty? Because you think I know people? I don’t have friends anymore. There’s nothing for you to gain here. Just leave me alone. ”
“I like you,” Uma says calmly, “because you’re strong. And I think it’s funny when you’re snide. And Harry trusts you, which makes it easier for me to trust you. And I like hanging out with you. I like your jokes and when you laugh at my jokes and when Harry tries to make a joke and we look at each other and roll our eyes but we’re both trying not to smile. I hate to break this to you, but we’re friends. You’ve already conned me into liking you. There’s no going back now, princess.”
And. Audrey doesn’t know what it is. She can’t explain it. Uma hadn’t even really said that much about Audrey , really, just what their friendship, but it’s, like -- maybe it’s because she’d even said anything at all, maybe it’s because she’d picked her lock to do it, maybe it’s because she’s here, or maybe it’s just because she’s someone and she happens to be here, but --
Audrey kisses her. Not exactly tentative -- hard and crushing and demanding and desperate, but just faces together, no hands, and then Uma -- Uma is grabbing her shoulders, wrapping her arms around them, then holding her close with one and holding her face with the other, and Audrey clutches her waist like a vise, pulling her closer, her elbows going behind her own back with the force of it, and --
Breathing heavy, Uma asks, “Why did you kiss me?”
A pause. “Does it matter?”
::
It matters.
::
Uma doesn’t talk to Audrey for a while, so she doesn’t see Harry either. Ideally, that would leave she’d be left alone, but unfortunately…
Well, Ben has been checking up on her. He mostly talks at her while she sits there, but he sticks around anyway.
“This is nice. Sitting in silence together. It’s nice. I’m so glad we’re comfortable enough to do that again,” Ben says after maybe fifteen seconds of silence. He makes it through six more before he says again, “Really… nice.”
“You can just leave,” She says, gesturing toward the door.
Ben sits up straighter (on the floor next to her bed, because he cares about boundaries or whatever) and folds his hand into his lap, shaking his head. “Of course not! I’m having a great time!”
“If you have to say you’re having a good time, you’re not having a good time.”
Ben is silent for a beat. “Well, of course it’s going to be a little uncomfortable. We haven’t spent any time alone together since…”
“Since you dumped me for Mal?”
“Well… since we started dating, I think.”
Audrey considers. “Oh… yeah. Oh, wow. Oh god. I was a bad girlfriend, huh?”
“No!” Ben says quickly, going up on his knees and resting his elbows on her bed. “No, of course not!”
“We didn’t even spend time together!”
“Of course we did!”
“When other people weren’t there to see us together?”
Ben pauses.
“Oh god.”
“I’m thinking!”
“I was a bad girlfriend,” Audrey realizes, swallowing hard. “I mean, I knew I was a bad girlfriend to Chad -- the time we dated when I wasn’t possessed -- but, like. It’s Chad. ”
“Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.”
“Yeah, but, like. Chad a little less.”
“... Maybe Chad a little less.”
“Not, like, how I treated him when I was, you know. Possessed. Obviously. Just generally speaking.”
“Of course.”
“Oh, god. I have to apologize to Chad. ”
“You haven’t apologized to Chad?” Ben asks, eyes wide.
“Hey, you know what? You never apologized to me! So I don’t wanna hear that tone.”
“Oh my god. I didn’t, did I? Audrey,” He begins sincerely, reaching out for her hand. She doesn’t give it to him, so he earnestly leans forward instead, continuing, “I am so sorry that you got possessed under my reign. I’m sorry I didn’t see how you were doing and reach out sooner. I’m sorry that I didn’t help you when you most needed it.”
Audrey smacks him on the side of the head.
“Ow!” He recoils, cradling the side she’d hit. “Why would you do that?”
“That’s not what I need an apology for, stupid!” She jabs a finger in his face. “I mean, thank you. I do appreciate that. I was alone for, like, a really long time and no one noticed, but that’s like, not really directly your fault.”
“I’m sorry, Audrey, sincerely, but I can’t… I can’t think of anything else.”
“You know how we broke up?”
“Of course.”
“No, not checking in, like, hey, you know how we broke up? I mean, do you know how we broke up?”
“... Oh my god. I was a bad boyfriend.”
“You were a pretty good boyfriend. You’re just a bad ex-boyfriend.”
“Oh, I humiliated you,” Ben says, covering his face. “I never… I didn’t think about it, because I was under a spell and then you were dating Chad, and then there was the coronation, and then Jane and the wand, but --”
“But you humiliated me. And you never apologized.”
“Oh, Audrey,” He reaches for her hands again. This time she gives him one. “I’m so sorry that I did that to you. Under a love spell or not, the consequences of those actions were still the consequences of my actions, and I never apologized.”
“You sang about loving her before you even broke up with me. And you made me spell her name.”
“Oh my god. I said give me an M and you had to because you’re a cheerleader. Oh my god.” Ben drops his forehead onto their joined hands. She pats him on the head with her free one, and when he lifts it to make eye contact, she leaves her fingers in his hair. “Oh, I’m so, so sorry, Audrey.”
::
One day, Mal comes in Ben’s place, and Audrey doesn’t have much of a choice but to let her in. This doesn’t mean she has to talk to her, of course, so Audrey sits back down on her bed and watches TV. Mal stands awkwardly by the door until Audrey can’t take it anymore.
“You know what sucks the most?” Audrey asks suddenly.
“I have some guesses,” Mal offers.
“I miss the stupid pink hair. I looked really hot.”
It’s kind of a joke, but Mal gets it too much to laugh.
::
Audrey hasn’t left her room to do anything but go to class in weeks, so it kind of sucks that the first place she goes to is Chad’s room, of all places.
He opens the door, sees her, then immediately closes it. Which. Fair.
“Okay,” She says, mostly patient. it’s still, like, annoying, but she gets it. “That’s… understandable. I just wanted to apologize.”
The door slowly creaks back open. “For?”
“For wearing white after labor day, Chad.” She rolls her eyes. “What do you think?”
He starts to close it again but she shoves her foot in the way.
“Okay!” She concedes, holding her hands up. “Okay. You’re right. That was mean.”
“It was,” He says, a little pompous. She wants to snap at him again but his eyes are still a little wild. He’s, like, visibly afraid of her.
When it’s clear he isn’t going to invite her in, she says, “Look, I’m… Chad, I’m really sorry for how I treated you when I had Maleficent’s staff.”
“Well, you were possessed, so…” Chad shrugs, but it’s jerky and abrupt, his tone a little overdramatic. “All’s forgiven! Is that it?”
“Yes.” Audrey nods. He starts to close the door again. “Wait. No. No it isn’t.”
“Alright,” Chad says cautiously, though he leaves the door in it’s half-closed state.
“I was never… nice to you. I mean. You’re not always nice. You know, you didn’t want Lonnie to join the fencing team, and you’ve always been just as nasty as I was to the VK’s, but. I’ve never… treated you well. Even when we were kids. Our relationship was always about me. And the staff… possessed me, yeah, but. It exploited… things about me that already existed. Like, if Ben had gotten it, he probably would’ve, like, violently eliminated global warming or something. So. I would have never locked you in a closet, normally, but. I’m still… accountable? To some extent? I don’t know, it’s so weird, but I’m just… I’m sorry for what I did to you.”
::
The next place she goes is Uma’s dorm.
Gil answers the door with a toothy grin. “Oh, hey! It’s Audrey, right?”
“Yes. Is… Uma around?”
“Uh, I think so, but I think you were the one she doesn’t wanna see,” Gil says, rubbing the back of his neck. Craning his weirdly thick neck around, he calls back into the room, “Audrey is the one you didn’t wanna see, right, Uma?”
“Yes, Gil,” Uma says, overly sweet and obviously irritated. “That’s why you were supposed to tell her that I’m not here. ”
Harry comes strolling up then, almost plastering himself to Gil’s back. “You should go.”
“Harry...” Audrey reaches out then thinks twice about it, clenching her hands into fists at her sides. “I just want to apologize.”
“No one’s buying what you’re selling, hm? If I were you, I’d leave while I still could.”
Which. Yeah. Makes sense. Uma’s his captain. Uma’s his, like, everything. It makes sense.
Still stings, though.
“Uma,” Mal -- Mal -- says, “you should hear her out.”
::
Both Mal and Evie had been in Uma’s room, but they’re gone now. Gil has left, too, off with them to find Jay.
Uma sits down on the bed Audrey hovers in front of, crossing her legs and leaning on her palms. Raising her eyebrows, she says, “Alright. You wanna talk, so talk, princess.”
“We’re all ears with just a dash of teeth. Out with it, princess, ” Harry grins at her, and she’s seen him smile like that before, all kinds of predatory — it usually doesn’t meet his eyes, and it still doesn’t, but it’s different. Usually his eyes are a little edged, a little dangerous. They’re devoid of anything now.
She doesn’t know if that’s worse, but she hopes it isn’t.
“I can handle this, Harry.” Uma holds a hand up toward him and, obediently, he moves from where he stands next to her to lean against the wall.
“I’m… sorry. For kissing you,” Audrey says, hesitant.
“Just what every girl wants to hear.”
“Oh my god, okay, obviously I wanted to kiss you, Uma, but I’m sorry for, like — you know, like, how I did it, and for doing it when I know you and Harry are kind of doing, like, something ? Like, obviously cuddling isn’t a big deal because he’s touchy with, like, everyone, but you… aren’t. So me kissing you is probably kind of major. And. I hurt your feelings by doing it, which I’m really sorry about, and not in the, like, I did something bad to someone so I feel bad about that. It’s like. You’re my friend and I hurt you and I — like, obviously I meant to kiss you, but I didn’t… I shouldn’t have done it just to like, do it, because the reason matters to you and I could’ve, like, asked first, I guess?”
“Oh, you guess?”
“Okay, consent is important, that’s, like, fair, but I… Well. I guess there isn’t really an excuse. I should’ve asked first. Or I just, like, shouldn’t have done it altogether, probably. I just — I don’t — I’m learning. How to have friends. I’ve never had… friends before.” Uma rolls her eyes, so Audrey says more insistently, “I haven’t! I don’t like people. Everyone gets on my nerves and no one really wants to get to know me, anyway, they all want Princess Audrey, and you… you knew me. Know me. You both do.” She looks to Harry then, who stares steadfastly at Uma instead. “I’ve never cared about anyone else like I care about you guys. Not even Ben. It’s freaky and I’m figuring out how to, like. Deal with that. But, like. It isn’t like Harry acts super normal and appropriate, either. Like, he doesn’t like everyone.”
“This isn’t about Harry,” Uma says reproachfully, “and it isn’t about being normal or liking everyone, either. It’s about being loyal to the people you do. Having each other’s backs. I had your back, Audrey.”
Automatically, Audrey tries to think of an excuse, but she fights the instinct, instead admitting, “I know you did.”
“Even after lunch. Even after I took your side even though you were wrong. Even after you called me what you did.”
Winching, Audrey says, “I’m sorry for calling you —”
“I wouldn’t say it again,” Harry interrupts, equal parts threat and sincere warning.
“I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just —”
“I thought I told you before, Audrey, that I don’t want to hear the sob story. If you wanna actually talk about what you went through, we can talk about it, but we’re all going through stuff. Me and Harry grew up on the Isle. We’ve all got shit we don’t know how to talk about. If you aren’t ready to, then don’t, but you can’t keep using it as an excuse with us. Tell it to your grandma or your teachers or whoever else. Not to us. Not to Mal and them. Not to your friends.”
“Mal and I are not friends.”
“Because you don’t wanna be. And maybe you keep feeling that way and it’s fine. But you have people who want to get to know you now. The way that we thought we did.”
Swallowing hard, Audrey says, “You guys know me better than anyone else.”
“That doesn’t mean we really know you.”
“Do you… still want to?”
“Will you let us?” Uma asks, and she’s reaching out for Audrey’s hand, and Audrey’s heart jumps into her throat when she lets Uma take it.