Work Text:
Kate is twelve when her family takes its first (and only) family vacation.
They go to Florida for a week and for Kate, it’s a vast difference from the small hometown she’s used to seeing. Most of her time is spent with her brother while their parents try their hardest to completely forget that they even have kids.
Throughout the week Kate and her brother alternate between time on the beach and at an arcade they find near the beach where Noah uses money earned from his summer job to ensure that Kate can play to her heart's content.
It’s a perfect week that Kate is sad to see end as she sits in the airport with her family to go home.
As it stands, their flight is delayed due to inclement weather, so Kate has resorted to watching the people around her.
There’s the guy a few seats to the left of her mom who has been peacefully reading a book since the delays had been announced.
Then there’s the mom and her two kids a few rows in front of Kate that have been entertaining themselves with a deck of cards. It only hurts Kate a little to see a parent actually interact with their kids in a completely loving manner.
The most interesting group she’s been observing, however, is a family that’s in front of her and to the right. There’s six of them all doing their own thing. The dad is angrily talking into what looks like a Blackberry while (presumably) his wife does what looks like a crossword puzzle. The one boy is occupied bouncing a ball up and down while his one brother watches. The final brother and one sister seem to be deep in conversation. The final member of the family is the one who mostly has Kate’s attention; she has a book open in her hands, but—much like Kate—she’s watching those around her.
The two have made eye contact several times but Kate has immediately looked away each time they have. There’s a feeling that Kate can’t really place when their eyes do meet and she finds the feeling mildly intoxicating. Only briefly does she consider that this is how her friends have mentioned they feel when they’ve had crushes on boys.
Her gaze drifts to the window where the storm that had been running rampant appears to be slowing. The chair she’s been sitting in for the past two hours is growing increasingly uncomfortable, so she turns to her dad. “How much longer do we have to sit here?”
It’s entirely the wrong thing to ask and Kate knows it right away based on the tone and volume of her father’s voice. “Do I look like an incompetent airport worker?”
Kate can usually handle when her dad explodes at her but here, in this airport in front of a bunch of strangers, she can feel the burning sensation in her eyes that only means tears are threatening.
Her father doesn’t stop there, however, as he continues to yell at her. “How about you use your head for once? I’m not the fucking-”
Kate doesn’t wait around to hear what her dad says next. Instead, she gets up and bolts away from her family not having a single clue as to where she’s going. She hears Noah try to call out to her but she doesn’t stop and instead pushes through a crowd of people in an attempt to lose her brother; she knows he’ll find her eventually (he always does). The tears are falling from her eyes freely now as she slips down a deserted hallway of sorts, letting herself slide down the wall, burying her face in her legs so that she can block out the world around her.
Someone slides down beside her, and she naturally assumes it’s her brother.
“Go away Noah.”
“Not Noah,” a distinctly not her brother's voice responds. “But I can go if you want.”
Right away Kate panics at the thought of a stranger talking to her in a place she isn’t at all familiar with. She lifts her head, ready to run away, but she recognizes the person beside her as the girl she had been making eye contact with. The girl is still a stranger, but Kate doesn’t feel panic anymore. “No, you can stay if you want.” Now that she’s closer to this girl, Kate’s struck by how pretty she is and now Kate really doesn’t understand what it is she’s feeling, even if deep down a part of her knows. She wipes at her eyes with the back of her one hand. “Why’d you follow me?”
The girl smiles at her. “You looked like you needed a friend.”
Kate considers the answer, surprised by how genuine the girl sounded with her response. She has no clue what to say besides a quiet “Oh.”
The girl nods and turns to hold out a hand. “I’m Lucy.”
Grabbing Lucy’s hand with the hand she didn’t wipe her tears with, she responds with her own introduction. “I’m Kate.”
“Well Kate, we probably have five minutes before my mom sends a search party for me, so do you want to talk about what’s wrong?” Lucy asks, the rest of what she said matter-of–fact as if she has experience with her mom sending out a search party for her.
Shaking her head to indicate that she doesn’t want to talk about it, Kate’s mouth contradicts the action. “I just asked how much longer we’d be here and my dad just snapped.”
Lucy doesn’t say anything, instead shifting so that she can wrap her arms around Kate in a hug. Something digs into Kate’s side, but she doesn’t pull out of the hug she finds herself in because it feels nice.
Pulling back after a moment, Lucy reaches into the jacket she’s wearing and pulls out a book from an inside pocket. “Sorry, I forgot I shoved it in there when I came after you.” She sets it down beside her as she asks, “So what were you doing in Florida?”
For the first time Kate picks up on a faint Southern accent in Lucy’s voice, although it’s practically nonexistent. She shrugs as an initial response to the question before actually answering the question. “A family vacation of sorts. We’ve never been on one. What about you?”
“My dad had some dumb conference for work and dragged us here with him,” Lucy replies. Her smile slightly disappeared at the statement but then it’s back on her face full force as she continues, “I’m excited to get home though. At least there the beach isn’t something my mom insists I go to every day.”
“You live near a beach?” Kate questions; the events that led up to this whole conversation being able to happen completely forgotten even as tears are drying on her face.
“Sorta,” Lucy starts, toying with the sleeves of her jacket. “Texas has some beaches, but we aren’t really as close to them as when we visit Florida.”
Kate wants to know more, in fact finds herself about to ask another question when a voice comes from the entrance of the hallway.
“Kate! You can’t run off like that even when dad is being a di-” There’s hesitation as whoever—Kate realizes it’s Noah—notices that there’s someone there with her and concern enters his voice. “Oh, there’s someone else.”
Lucy stands up from the floor, and Kate observes just how short her new friend is (it’s quite ridiculous to her). “Hi! I’m Lucy, but I better get going.” She looks back down at Kate and crouches slightly so she can whisper, “I hope you feel a little better, and you’re really pretty by the way.” She offers a smile and then stands back up and hurries away.
There’s a strange feeling in Kate’s chest at being called pretty by Lucy. She watches her go before she glances down and notices the book Lucy had with her is still on the floor. Carefully, she picks it up and studies the cover, noticing the title Annie On My Mind before studying the cover which featured two girls with their foreheads together, hands joined. She opens the cover and sees a simple LT written on the inside of the cover
Noah appears above her. “Come on, we gotta go. Right after you ran off, they announced that we could board. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
Kate looks up at her brother, book in hand. “Lucy forgot her book though.”
Noah crouches down, similar to a catcher’s crouch, and studies the book, smiling slightly at it. “She’s already gone, but maybe the book can be your reminder of her. Who knows, maybe you’ll learn something about yourself reading it.”
“Like what?” Kate questions, wondering what secrets Noah seems to know about the book and what it could mean for her.
Standing, Noah doesn’t really answer the question. “Not my place to say Katie-bug. Just don’t let mom or dad ever see that book though, okay?”
Kate nods even though she has no idea why her parents shouldn’t see it, but she trusts her brother more than anything. She tucks the book into the waistband of her shorts and pulls her shirt over it before standing up beside her brother. She’ll have to sneak it into her suitcase when they return to their parents, but she knows she can do it with no problem; it’s not like they’re ever really paying much attention to her to begin with.
“Ready?” Noah questions, holding his hand out to Kate.
“Yeah,” Kate answers, taking his hand and letting him lead her back to their parents.
——
They’re in Kate’s spare room going through boxes of stuff she hadn’t found a place for when she had moved to Hawai’i and had opted to shove into the closet.
It’s been a few months since she serenaded Lucy, which ultimately restarted their relationship, this time without any secrets. That was the one thing they worked on the most: communicating properly and making sure both felt like they were being heard by the other.
It was a mutual decision to move in together, Lucy moving into Kate’s apartment since it’s larger and closer to work. The decision to live together is why they’re going through the boxes in Kate’s spare closet. As it turns out, it’s hard to combine the belongings of two people who lived by themselves into the belongings of two people who lived together. Needless to say, there was a lot of stuff each found themselves throwing out.
Kate pulls a few things out of the box, mostly stuff that had been Noah’s, but one thing falls out and onto the floor that she knows is hers (at least in theory).
Lucy looks up from the photo album she had been flipping through, her gaze falling on what had fallen. “What’s that?”
“Just a book,” Kate answers even though it’s not just a book considering it was the impetus to her figuring out who she was. The memory of how she got the book—albeit hazy from time gone-by—flashes through her mind and she smiles; it’s been a while since it had crossed her mind, especially since she hasn’t looked at the book since it was put into the box to move to Hawai’i. “It’s not really mine though.”
“Was it Noah’s?” Lucy asks, setting the photo album down and moving closer to Kate.
Looking down at the back cover, Kate shakes her head. “I met someone once and they left it behind.” She looks up at Lucy who has a curious expression on her face, so Kate tells her a little bit more. “I was twelve and having a bad time, so this girl was there for me and when she left, she forgot her book and I never saw her again, so I kept it.”
“Little Whistler was a thief?” Lucy starts, continuing on before Kate can even respond. “Consider me surprised.” She reaches over for the photo album and points to a picture of Kate on the beach. “Speaking of Little Whistler, you looked so much like this girl I met in an airport once.”
A lightbulb flicks on in Kate’s head with a thought that doesn’t seem at all probably. She picks the book up off the floor, careful to keep the front cover from Lucy as she pries for more information. “Oh yeah?”
Lucy nods. “Yeah, I can’t remember when, but it was one of the many times my dad dragged the whole family to Florida while he had business meetings or something like that.”
Kate’s memory of that day has faded with time, but something about what Lucy said makes her all the more certain they’re talking about the same meeting, because there’s no way it’s a coincidence. She makes a gesture towards the photo. “That’s where that picture was taken actually, Florida. Noah had gotten a camera for his birthday and brought it along on our trip.” She smiles sadly as she recalls another photo that she no longer has. “There was a photo of the two of us together. Noah had taken it with him to Iraq to keep close with him, but it never came back with his stuff.”
Lucy’s face softens and she looks back down at the photo album.
“The trip to Florida is where I got this book though,” Kate continues, circling their conversation back to where it had been at. “It happened the day we were leaving.”
Things don’t seem to be clicking for Lucy like they have been for Kate. “What made you keep it?”
Kate shrugs. “Felt like the right thing to do since this girl had chased after me to make sure I was okay. Plus, it was a good book.”
Lucy tries to reach for the book and frowns when Kate holds it out of her reach. “What’s the book?”
Contemplating her next move, Kate asks a question. “Can I tell you the whole story of how I got it first?”
Lucy frowns in confusion, her brow furrowing, but then she nods.
“Alright then,” Kate says, setting the book down on the side of her that isn’t beside Lucy. She reaches out with her other hand and interlocks her finger’s with Lucy’s. “Growing up, we only went on one family vacation and my parents decided to take us to Florida for a week. They went off to do their own thing, leaving Noah to look after me. He was sixteen and I was twelve, both way too young to be in a completely new place by ourselves, but he made sure I was safe and having a good time.”
Lucy gently squeezes Kate’s hand, offering a reassuring smile to Kate.
Kate’s grateful as she continues, “The day we left, we got to the airport only to find out our flight was delayed, so we just went and found a place to sit until we left. At first I just talked to Noah, but after he fell asleep I started to observe the people around us because airports were new to me and it was just interesting to see what other people were doing who were stuck in the same situation.” She takes a breath, focusing on Lucy as she admits, “I honestly don’t remember everyone that was there, but I remember this girl there with her family.”
For the first time a glimmer of recognition and realization appears on Lucy’s face, and Kate so badly wants nothing more than to kiss the look off Lucy’s face, but she has to know if they’re talking about the same moment in time.
“We made eye contact a few times and every time I’d look away because I’d get this weird feeling when she’d look at me, and it wasn’t until a few months later I realized it was because I liked girls.” She tries to collect her thoughts and fragments of memory before she dives into the rest of the story. “I made the mistake of asking my dad how much longer we’d be sitting there and he just lost it on me and I ran away. There was this hallway I found with no one in it so I slid to the floor and let myself cry until this girl sat down right beside me.”
“Wait a second…” Lucy starts but trails off immediately.
Kate rolls with it and finishes the story while realization fully settles into Lucy’s face. “I don’t even know what we talked about, but she gave me a hug and I forgot why I was even crying at all. Noah showed up then and this girl just took off back to her family. It was then,” she picks the book up off the ground with her free hand and holds it out to Lucy who takes it, “that I realized she left this behind with nothing but her initials inside.”
Lucy stares at the book, her mouth dropping open slightly as she flips it open so that the initials written on the inside are visible.
“If I’m recalling it correctly, I think her parting words were that-”
“You were really pretty,” Lucy finishes for Kate. She removes her hand from Kate’s and flips through the book. “I remember crying when I realized I had lost this ‘cause all the comments I made in it.”
“Hope you don’t mind that I added some of my own,” Kate says, trying to recall some of the things she had written, her mind blanking except for two; one she isn’t sure she wants to admit to just yet, and the other being one that isn’t embarrassing to admit to. “It took me a few reads to really accept that I was a lesbian, but once I did, that scene where they exchange Christmas gifts and get each other something similar hit really hard. I wrote something to the effect that I wanted to have that with someone; I wanted to date a girl where we were so connected.”
Lucy looks up from the book, traces of uncertainty on her face. “And are we connected like that?”
Kate recognizes that she’s more likely than not the source of the uncertainty, because even though they’ve managed to have many honest conversations about everything that happened with Cara and the aftermath, she knows that every now and then it’s a source of worry for Lucy. Her solution is to be completely honest with her response. “Lucy, our connection is meant to be, because I swear to whatever higher power there is, you’re the love of my life.”
Any hint of nerves that are on Lucy’s face dissipate at the words and are replaced with a smirk. “Can I have that on a shirt? Love of Kate Whistler’s life? I’d wear it everywhere.”
“I don’t think Tennant would approve of that in the field,” Kate jokes, but she still feels like she needs to reassure Lucy some more. She holds a hand out. “Let me see the book real quick. There’s a comment in it that I think you should see.”
Lucy hands the book over without argument but does ask a question. “What type of comment?”
Kate flips through the pages of the book trying to remember just where it is in the book her comment—a response to one of Lucy’s—is at. “A mildly embarrassing one but you’ll like it.”
“Consider me intrigued,” Lucy responds, leaning over to get a better look at the pages Kate is flipping through.
“And consider me mortified,” Kate says, landing on the page the comment is on and turning the page away from Lucy. “Do you remember the one quote that essentially rehashes the Greek myth about soulmates?”
Lucy’s brow furrows but after a moment, she nods. “Yeah, I think I wrote something about how would someone know if they met their soulmate or not.”
Kate hands the book back to Lucy with it open to that page. “Well here’s the response I had to that.” She looks down at the page as Lucy takes the book and reads the two notes that are there.
if we all have a soulmate, how do we know when we’ve met ours?
Below that message is Kate’s answer to the question.
You’ll never see this, but I think it’s a feeling you get but don’t understand at first. Kind of how I felt when I saw you. It takes a while to process and realize the feeling but when you do, you know. Which is why I wish I could talk to you again because I think you might’ve been mine.
It’s embarrassing for Kate to admit to, but Lucy would’ve seen it eventually and Kate knows that what twelve year old her managed to conclude is the truth. Why she came to that conclusion at that age, she has no recollection, but she can’t deny the pull she feels towards Lucy that she’s never felt towards anyone else.
Lucy looks up at Kate, nothing but love in her eyes. “You thought I was your soulmate at twelve?”
Kate feels heat rise to her cheeks in embarrassment but there’s no going back now. “I didn’t stop thinking about you for months after what happened in that airport. No one except Noah had ever been there for me like that.”
Closing the book, Lucy sets it on the ground and then moves so she’s directly in front of Kate and takes her hands. “Kate Whistler, I know we’ve only been dating for a few months, but I need you to know right now that I plan on marrying you some day. I don’t know when, but I know I will because you are the most hopeless romantic I have ever met and I love you so much for that.”
“I love you too,” Kate replies, pulling Lucy closer since their hands are joined. “And just so we’re clear, I plan on marrying you too.” She smiles before closing the rest of the distance and kissing Lucy.