Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

She doesn’t know how she got here, to this point.

       She knows, intellectually. She can follow the series of events. But the past few days feel all like a blur. Like time is passing way too fast and her body can’t catch up.

       Her thoughts are always spinning, always spiraling back to those few moments, watching her mother stand unflinching in front of the Red Queen- uncompromising. And then those words, projected to the entirety of the courtyard. “Treason.”

       The dread hasn’t left her since, sitting heavily in her gut, like she’s always on the verge of throwing up.

       She wants to be done. She wants this to be out of her hands- to go to an adult and have them take over and everything will be okay again. She doesn’t know how to handle this. But she remembers her mother standing unwavering in the face of something so very wrong, and she knows stealing isn’t the answer. Stealing isn’t right.

       “I’d rather be a goody-goody than a bad person,” she grits her teeth.

       “You sound just like your mom,” Red scoffs, and Chloe feels a pang, deep in her gut. Red, who sentenced that very person to death; Red, who stood by and watched as her own mother took all the leaders of Auradon hostage and demanded that they bend the knee.

       Red, who is now arguing that they continue doing bad things- lying and stealing- and not seeing anything wrong with it.

       She thought she was past that. She thought Red was on her side. She saw glimpses of it, of a good person. The way she didn’t hesitate to step up toe-to-toe with a bully. The way she came swooping in to battle Ursala’s eel when terror numbed Chloe’s limbs and kept her from regaining her feet. She thought maybe she could trust Red to do the right thing, to help her fix it. But clearly she was wrong.

       The bubbling in her stomach boils over, but it’s not vomit that comes out. It’s all of the rage and fear and helplessness that has been building since those moments just a few days ago.

       “And you killed her! So who does that make you, huh? She doesn’t do what you want, so off with her head?! I thought maybe you wanted to make things right, maybe you were different than her, but you’re not! You’re evil just like your mom!”

       Red’s expression shutters closed, then, and Chloe’s stomach somehow drops even lower. She hasn’t seen it do that since just before she turned to the courtyard and sealed her mother’s fate. Red’s emotions have been getting slowly more expressive the longer they’ve been here. Now there is nothing.

       It makes something twist in her chest, and something a lot like guilt sour her stomach. Which is ridiculous, because she has nothing to be guilty for. It’s Red who’s the bad person.

       Red nods slowly. “Yeah, maybe,” she confirms what Chloe already knows, now. That Red is bad. “But I am going to get us out of here.” She turns and leaves their room, even though it’s almost curfew and she’s not supposed to.

       Chloe clenches her fists, anger and guilt warring in her, and she throws herself onto her bed.

       She wakes up three times throughout the night, nightmares of watching her mother being beheaded, and her father’s wretched sobs, haunting her. Each time she wakes and turns toward the other bed, it remains empty. And when morning finally comes, its sheets are still undisturbed.

       She shoves down the worry and gets ready for the day with jerky movements, pausing as she’s pulling up her pants. Red is the one who got them new clothes, and Chloe had thought it was sweet that she had gotten something that Chloe would like, catering to her style. Now she realizes that Red probably stole them.

       She grimaces and goes to collect her original outfit, the one she arrived here in. It’s sweaty and disgusting, but she won't be a hypocrite, condoning stealing if it’s for her own comfort.

……………..

Ella is not happy to see Chloe when she shows up at her house again. Her eyes lift to see her, and it’s very apparent that she doesn’t like her as she almost rolls her eyes as she sighs. It… doesn’t feel good, seeing that the younger version of her mom so obviously doesn’t like her.

       “Hey, can I talk to you?” she presses anyway, not knowing who else to go to in this past world where almost everyone she knows doesn’t exist yet (at least doesn’t exist as she knows them). “Normally I’d talk to my mom, but she’s…” Dead. “Far away right now. So.”

       Ella doesn’t say anything as she continues tugging on weeds, but she doesn’t tell Chloe to leave, so she presses on.

       “Say you have a friend- well, not really a friend, but someone you know who is a bad person-”

       Ella stands, walking over to another stone plant bed full of dead things. “How do you know they’re a bad person?” she cuts in.

       “Cause she does bad things. And she says so herself,” Chloe says, seeing again in her brain as Red agrees that she’s acting like her mom, but not caring in the slightest. Not if it gets her what she wants.

       Ella scoffs a short laugh, looking up at Chloe like she’s slow and her slowness is somewhat amusing. “Bad people don’t think that they’re bad,” she says. Then her eyes trail toward the manor.

       “What if she keeps pushing you to do something bad, too, though, even though she says it’s for a good reason?” Chloe presses.

       “Look,” Ella sighs heavily, tugging at a stubborn root with two hands, “your red friend? Cut her some slack. People don’t lose faith in others for no reason.”

       “What do you mean?” Chloe asks, momentarily forgetting that she was trying not to use names. It’s kind of useless, though, when Red is the only one she’s talked to outside of her mom and Bridget.

       “I mean she has it rough at home.”

       Chloe’s thoughts go back to Bridget’s room, Red listing all the things her mother hated about her (which is apparently everything). And the completely wounded look she got when the younger version of her mother said she would be proud to have a daughter like her. 

       Chloe bends down next to the plant bed she’s standing beside, and tugs on a couple weeds with a frown. Her voice is low when she asks, “How do you know?”

       Ella’s eyes dart over to the house again as she plunges her hands further into the dirt to yank up the dead bush.

       “Because she thought being nice makes you weak. Because you were screaming about life being unfair, and she wasn’t. Because you broke a vase, and she was about ready to jump out the window. The fact that you don’t know, says just as much about you as it does her. You got lucky.”

       Chloe isn’t dumb. She understands what Ella’s words imply, and she thinks her mother’s tone is far too casual for such a topic. Matter of fact instead of compassionate. As if it is common, rather than an irregularity. As if it’s obvious and inevitable.

       Chloe doesn’t know this version of her mother. It strikes her again just how different she is from the woman she knows.

       She tugs on a dead stalk, and it hardly even moves the dirt around it. “So you’re saying that lying, cheating, and stealing is okay?” Chloe presses, because she also knows that having a bad home life isn’t an excuse to get away with things.

       “I’m saying ,” Ella reaches over, gripping the same stalk Chloe is struggling with, and Chloe nearly goes toppling as they rip it up together, “things aren’t black and white. Good and Evil, Right and Wrong- there are shades of gray. Sometimes being good and doing everything right isn’t the right thing to do. Sometimes you can’t rely on others to do what’s right. Sometimes you can only rely on yourself. And you are very privileged if you’ve gone your whole life without ever having to realize that. It’s easy to demand other people to always follow the rules when doing so has never screwed you over.”

       Chloe bites her lip, feeling very uncomfortable about her mother’s criticism. She reaches for another weed, thinking over everything that she knows about Red, who she is, and what she wants. How she must have grown up.

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Chloe is so happy, she feels fit to burst, adrenaline still running through her veins. Her muscles burn pleasantly from their many close brushes with death by skewer. Is it… weird that she kind of wants to do it again?

       But also- not. She wants to see her mom first, before she goes another round with enchanted flying swords. They really did it. They got the cookbook. No cookbook, means no prank, means no Bridget turning evil (means her mother is alive).

       “We did it!” Red gasps, like she can’t quite believe it either.

       “We can go back. We can go home!” Chloe feels like she can hardly contain her enthusiasm. She can’t wait to get back to her life. To her compassionate mom, and middle aged dad, and her friends (to classes that don’t involve squeezing plant puss into a pot).

       “Yeah…” Red’s smile melts, eyes lowering back to the cookbook that is the reason for everything. Her finger slowly traces the spine, and Chloe feels her own enthusiasm dimming, too. Red sucks in a breath. “What if we go back and my mom is still… my mom?”

       “What, like it didn’t work?”

       Red’s eyes flick up, and they look a bit wild. “This can’t be it. What, she changes her personality all because of a prank? There has to be something else.”

       “Woah, woah, Red,” Chloe reaches out and grasps Red’s forearms. She doesn’t jerk away like she used to, she leans into Chloe, eyes darting between her’s and seeking reassurance. It’s… strange that she would, after everything Chloe had said to her- called her- yesterday. “Your mom said it herself that she was the way she was because of this specific prank. ‘Turned into a monster at her first dance.’ We stopped it.”

       Red shakes her head and starts to pull away. “No, what if they decide to do something else instead- then everything will still be set in motion-” Chloe holds on, pulling the other girl back toward her.

       “Then we use the pocket watch again and fix that too. Come on, Red, we have to find out one way or the other. Only way to know for sure is to go back.”

       Red stares down at their hands, lips pressed into a very thin line. Chloe’s heart beats unsteadily as she watches her friend’s (and they are friends after all this) fear. “What if she’s always meant to go bad and nothing we do changes it? What if your mom always dies? What if I’m…”

       Chloe reaches up to cup Red’s face and bring their foreheads together. The first time they did this, they were fighting, arguing about what to do. Now it’s just something that Chloe does in this moment. It’s reassuring, in a way. It’s knowing that they aren’t alone in this mess.

       “You’re not evil,” Chloe sighs, hating herself a little. She was angry when she said it, hurting and ignorant, but that wasn’t an excuse. She should never have said it. She had gotten to know Red throughout the week. She knew Red didn’t want what happened to happen. That she was doing everything she could think of- the only way she knew how- to fix it. “And if my mom is meant to die,” Chloe's voice cracks at the thought, “it wasn’t your fault. Your mom would have done it anyway.” She realizes that now. She always knew it, in the back of her mind. Red was just the easiest to blame. The only one she could while trying to navigate the past.

       “Okay,” Red utters reluctantly. “Let’s go home.”

…………….

It’s still the middle of the night, well past curfew, when they sneak into the courtyard, but Chloe can’t bring herself to care. Nervousness has broken out into her stomach, making her nauseous. She leads the way to a secluded location, remembering how they appeared exactly where the watch was activated last time, just twenty years in the past.

       When they trigger the time machine, magic bursts out of it and the world spins away. There are flashes of color and images, and a barrage of sound so chaotic and overlapping it’s impossible to parse through any of it. Every now and then she thinks she might recognize a face in an image, but then it’s already gone.

       It’s as dizzying and disorienting as the first time around, and when the world finally stills, Chloe staggers as a force releases her from her frozen spot. Chloe meets Red’s eyes as her brain skitters away from the irregularities. Daylight shining on them instead of starlight. Ivy, green and in full bloom, instead of wilting and dying. The warmth of full summer, instead of the seeping chill of autumn.

       There is a distant chatter, something familiar and strange, and Chloe finally breaks her gaze at the faint “Uma!” at the end of a song, and applause.

       They both go to the railing, peeking over the edge. Deja vu hits her strongly at the scene, the beginning of their new principal’s speech, but it’s also wrong- at the wrong angle. She feels so very far away from the crowd and the excitement she felt the first time around.

       She’s only dimly aware of Red descending the steps, and Chloe’s body follows on its own, creeping through the scattering of people. Her heart beats loudly; she strains to see.

       And then the Queen of Hearts stands up, just like last time, and it all feels the same when Red staggers forward, as if playing a part and forced to say her lines- the same one’s as last time, said in the same way, “Mom, what are you doing ?” Only it’s different than last time, because Chloe knows her now, knows Red and knows her fear, and she hears heartbreak in her voice.

       But then the queen turns, and it’s like the world splits. Chloe’s breath catches in relief, eyes automatically turning toward her friend to watch her reaction as bubbles float down from the sky.

       Red stares, hardly breathing as she continues forward.

       The queen spots her daughter, and her smile turns even more brilliant, yet Red’s gaze remains fixed, expression blank.

       Chloe dimly thinks she should be grinning wildly. They did it! They changed the past and Red’s mom. Chloe’s heart drops when Bridget reaches for her daughter, and Red flinches. She stands immobile, arms limp at her side as she’s hugged.

       Something unpleasant rises in Chloe’s stomach, something slightly softer than panic- something weary and sad.

       Then her mother steps into her line of sight, and everything else falls away.

       “There you are, Chloe, where’d you disappear to?”

       Her mother- whole and alive and as regal as she ever looked. Her mother exactly as she remembers her. “Mom!” she bursts, lunging into her mother’s arms.

       They immediately wrap around her, even as a puff of air escapes her from the force of Chloe clinging to her. Chloe suppresses a sob, burying her face in her mother’s dress and fingers digging into her back.

       “Chloe? Honey, what’s wrong?” Her hand passes through Chloe’s hair, comforting her without any thought. “Where’s Red?”

       “What?” Chloe sniffles, drawing back.

       “Red- I thought I saw you two go off together. Did you fight?”

       “Um,” Chloe sniffles, rubbing at her eyes. “No.” She didn’t know her mother even knew Red’s name. And why would it matter to her mother if they were fighting. “I just… wanted a hug, I guess. I’m going to miss you.” She wants to hug her mom again. She doesn’t ever want to stop hugging her. But that would probably look weird. She was only gone a moment.

       “I’m going to miss you, too, my Sweet,” her mother says simply, and then embraces her again on her own, squeezing her tightly. It’s one of her favorite hugs, the full body kind that involves gentle rocking, and a hand going up and down her back, and it makes everything in the world feel right. 

       And then Chloe’s eyes find Red and the discomfort squirms back in, because Red looks stiff and lost and uncomfortable. She keeps twitching every time her mother touches her, and her shoulders are slowly rising toward her ears, and Chloe’s stomach turns.

       Chloe breaks her gaze as her mother pulls away. “But I expect you and Red to visit all the time.”

       Chloe bites her lip, trying not to show her confusion. Why would her mom expect Red to visit? She forces a smile, trying to make it seem like she understands what’s going on. “Of course.” She doesn’t know how well she does. She’s never lied to her mom before. Does smiling when she doesn’t mean it count as lying?

       “Now come on,” her mother reaches down to grab her purse. “Let’s go see if they took your things up to your room yet.”

       Chloe’s eyes inevitably drift back toward her friend. “I need to talk to Red, first.”

       Her mother’s eyes pass over the Wonderland natives, seeming to see the same thing Chloe is. The tense shoulders, the frowns, the Red Queen’s mounting concern. Her mother purses her lips. “Let your aunt handle it. Red will be up shortly anyway.”

       Chloe is too stunned by the Queen of Hearts being referred to as her ‘aunt’ to think to protest. She blindly follows her mother in the direction of the dormitories.

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Chloe watches Red stuff her phone between the mattress and bed frame and bites her lip. Red has been acting more erratic than usual, all day.

       And she can’t get it out of her head, that the Queen of Hearts beheaded her own husband- Red’s father. She wonders what he did- what it took. For Chloe’s mom, all it took was refusing to kneel. It was so easy for her to say ‘off with your head!’ to her only friend back in school, like all that history meant nothing.

       She doesn’t know why she’s surprised she did the same to her husband.

       It makes her think about what she’d be willing to do to her daughter. Chloe had blamed Red, at first, for her mother’s temporary death. She was the one who declared treason. But would it have been Red’s head on the chopping block if she hadn’t?

       It bothers Chloe, and she can’t help thinking back to what her mother suggested about Red’s home life. That it was probably worse than them just not getting along. Worse than 'She hates my style, the way I think. You know, everything about me.'

       “Red,” Chloe says as the girl huffs, satisfied with the hiding place, and flops backward onto her bed.

       Red turns her head to look at Chloe. “Yeah?” she says.

       Chloe fidgets for a moment, crossing and uncrossing her legs, before she just pulls them up onto the bed with her. “Are you scared of your mom?”

       Red immediately sits back up, legs dangling over the edge and expression turning weary. “Who isn’t scared of her?”

       “Yeah, but is it ‘off with your head’ scared, for you?”

       Red’s eyes dart to the side, and she hesitates. Chloe hates that the answer isn’t immediately no. “I don’t think she’d actually do it,” she finally says, hands clenching the edge of the mattress. The blanket bunches under her fists. “At least, not for anything small. Probably. I don’t know, she just wants me to be like her so badly, and she gets so angry when I’m not. She’s threatened it, of course, but so far it’s just been some other punishment.”

       “Got,” Chloe says, earning a confused look. “She ‘wanted’ you to be like her. She ‘got’ angry when you weren’t. Past tense. It's different now, right?”

       Red blinks. “Right,” she agrees after a moment, hesitant.

       Chloe’s heart beats unsteadily. Then has to ask, “What kind of punishment?”

       Red stands, wiping her hands along her pants. Her eyes are skittering everywhere, now, when a moment ago they were fixed steadily on Chloe. “Just punishment. It doesn’t matter. You're right- it doesn’t happen here.”

       “How do you know?” she presses. She shouldn’t. She knows that she should back off, but curiosity burns her and her stomach turns and she needs to know.

       “Because my scars are gone,” Red snaps like she’s been snapping all day at everything around her. “They’re all gone,” she glares at Chloe. “So it doesn’t happen here. It never actually happened.”

       …

       “Scars?”

       Chloe's heart is at the bottom of her stomach and sinking lower. Of course her mother was right. Scars is much worse. Scars means plural, more than once, and mean split skin that takes time to knit back together. Scars mean Red was hurt bad enough for the marks to remain years later. 

       “Fuck, Blue,” Red sighs, hands coming up to push back her hair and pull lightly at it. She turns away with a groan, dragging her hands down her face before they drop limply to her sides. “What do you want from me?”

       “Nothing,” Chloe says, surprised. And then she thinks more on the question. “Just. For you to be okay, I guess.”

       Red turns and throws herself back down on the bed. “Then you got your wish. Because we fixed it and everything’s okay now, right?”

       Chloe frowns. “Right,” she agrees doubtfully.

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Red is scowling. Chloe doesn’t know if she knows she is, but she is as she stabs at her food, ignoring everyone who tries to talk to her or draw her into the conversation.

       They’ve mostly given up by now, after she drew blood by biting one person who decided to put their hand on her shoulder. Now they just send the redhead nervous, uncomfortable looks, and keep looking at Chloe pleadingly.

       “What’s going on with Red?” Dizzy asks, ducking close so that the Wonderland girl can’t hear, even though she sits just on the other side of Chloe. Red probably hears anyway, because her fist clenches tighter around her utensils. Of course, that could just be coincidence; her hands have been clenching and unclenching since they sat down. Since they left their room, really.

       “She’s just…” No matter how many times people have asked, she hasn’t found a good response. “Having a hard time right now. Sorry, she asked me not to talk about it.” It’s technically not a lie. Red doesn’t want to tell anyone what they did. Chloe kind of agrees at this point.

       She doesn’t want to tell her mom that she died. That it was her best friend who ordered her execution. And she doesn’t want to hurt Bridget, either.

       Her cousin frowns and looks about ready to risk making another attempt at conversation with the scowling girl, but Celia leans forward at that moment and grabs her attention.

       Chloe looks toward Red, taking in her stiff discomfort, and she thinks maybe they can eat in the room tomorrow for lunch. It would give them less time, but it would be more time for the other girl to actually relax.

       Chloe reaches out and cautiously touches her arm, wondering if she’ll be shrugged off this time or accepted. Red lets go of her fork and threads their fingers together in her lap. Chloe’s face immediately heats up, and she ducks her head as she shovels a bite of spaghetti into her mouth.

       Chloe is the only one she’s seen Red allow to touch her. It makes her stomach squirm from the privilege, though she doesn’t know what she did to earn it (considering she screamed at her and called her evil and questioned her morality just a few days ago).

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“Come on, can we go back to the room now?” Red grumbles, arms crossed as she waits for Chloe to be done at her locker.

       “I have Swords and Shields practice today, remember?” Chloe says, feeling guilty about leaving her friend. Red has been hovering since they got back, and Chloe isn’t sure what’s wrong. Not that she minds, really- she likes spending time with Red, especially when they are alone. She becomes a different person when they are alone. Softer.

       “Right,” Red says, eyes darting behind Chloe, wearily watching Chloe’s friend’s approach. “I’ll see you back at the room, then.”

       “Oh, hey,” Chloe reaches out, stopping her before she makes her retreat. Her eyes swing back around and bore into her. “Do you mind taking my bag back for me?”

       Her expression softens. Chloe’s heart rams into her ribcage. Red reaches out and grasps the strap of Chloe’s bag. “Sure, Princess. I’ll see you later.”

       “Thanks,” she says, staring after her retreating back, stomach feeling weird and fluttery. Chloe forcefully breaks her gaze as her friends pull up beside her.

       “Since when did Red start calling you Princess?” Amara asks, staring after Red with raised eyebrows. “And Blue?”

       Chloe doesn’t know what to say to that. Red has always said anything other than her actual name, from the moment they met. Evidently, childhood best friends Chloe and Red didn’t have any nicknames. “I already told you, she’s just going through some stuff,” Chloe mutters, her go-to excuse for everything having to do with Red.

       “'Going through some stuff.' It can’t be that her mom doesn’t accept her,” Celia muses, leaning heavily against a locker that isn’t hers (and that she’s most definitely blocking for someone else).

       “Yeah,” Amara agrees, “she’s been out for years.”

       “And you two have been dancing around each other for even longer. Everyone knows,” even Dizzy chimes.

       Chloe’s stomach drops out from under her, mind turning at the new flood of information. Information about Red- and information about her- that she, at least, hadn’t known about herself or her friend. It’s too much. It doesn’t seem right for it to all spill out in the open without either of them being part of the process.

       “Stop it!” she bursts, heart pounding. Everyone knows? Everyone knows what? She doesn’t know- she's hardly even let herself think about it yet. “Stop speculating!”

       Her friends blink at her, stunned by her outburst, but she doesn’t know why. How can they just talk about all this out in the open. They are in the hallway, where anyone can hear. Everyone knows? About who? Red, or her? Does Chloe’s mother know?

       God, she wasn’t ready for this conversation.

       “Jeez, Chlo, calm down,” Celia gripes. “What’s wrong with you?”

       “What’s wrong with me, what’s wrong with you?! Red doesn't want you to know, so why don’t you respect her privacy and let her work things out? She will tell you if she wants to tell you.”

       Her friend’s trade looks, and Chloe’s heart is going too fast still. She knows she’s being unreasonable. If one of her friends were acting weird, she’d probably speculate with the others as well. She’d want to know so she could make it better. But this is… it feels wrong. What does everyone know?

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Chloe feels exhausted as she trudges toward the room. Her shirt and leggings stick to her uncomfortably in sweat, and every time she breathes in, she wants to gag on her own smell. Practice was more brutal than usual. She was distracted the whole time, and her coach got angry with her, so he kept pushing and pushing until it was impossible for her mind to wander.

       She just wants to shower and collapse on her bed. She’s starving, but she doesn’t think she has the energy to go down for dinner today.

       Chloe pushes open the door to her room and freezes. It’s like magic the way the exhaustion seems to melt away at the sight of Red humming and… dancing? She might be dancing, but her movements are odd and nothing Chloe has ever seen.

       It makes her chest stir to life and bubble, and an irresistible smile slides onto her face.

       “Is that a Wonderland dance?” she asks, startling her friend.

       “Oh,” she turns to the door, tucking strands of hair behind her ear. “Um, no. I just don’t know how to dance.”

       Chloe laughs and shuts the door. “Oh good. I was afraid I was going to have to learn to dance that way if I ever visit Wonderland.”

       “What, you don’t like it?” Red grins, doing another strange spinning movement and hopping toward Chloe. “I can teach you.”

       “Or,” Chloe laughs, reaching out to catch her friend’s hands. “I can teach you, so you don’t embarrass me or your entire kingdom.” Chloe swings her friend around, guiding her into a proper twirl.

       Red laughs, entire face lighting up as she clutches onto Chloe’s hands, and she can feel her heartbeat in her entire body. She’s buzzing, and she can’t pull her eyes away from Red’s face. From the happiness on it as Chloe tugs her around the room, not really teaching her, but just being goofy.

       Chloe almost can’t believe it. Red is in a good mood right now. Red is happy. It’s a breathtaking sight.

       Red falls against her, giggling. “I don’t think you know how to dance either,” she says.

       “Oh, I don’t,” Chloe laughs, shoulder and face warm where Red’s cheek rests. “I just wanted to see how long it would take you to question it.”

       She feels cold when Red pulls away. “Okay, okay, seriously, you stink. Go shower while I finish setting up. The food is getting cold.”

       “Food?” Chloe finally takes in the rest of the room, and she’s surprised to find to-go containers spread out on one of the tables. The smell finally registers, too, making her stomach growl.

       “Yeah. I know you’ve been having a hard time at practice the last couple times, so I figured… I don’t know; sorry if you don’t like what I grabbed. I tried to pick things I’ve seen you eat before, but if you don’t like it, I can run down and get something else?”

       Chloe’s heart beats in her ears, and the squirming in her stomach that hasn’t stopped since opening the door feels like it’s going to work its way up her throat.

       “No, this is great,” she forces out. It doesn’t matter what Red brought her to eat, just that she thought to get her something at all, to do this… Red can be sweet. Huh. Chloe shakes her head, trying to force it to start working again past this discovery. “And I’m surprised it took you this long to comment on my smell.”

       “It was fine until I put my face on you. That was disgusting.”

       Despite being called disgusting, Chloe can’t wipe the silly smile off her face. “Okay. Give me a couple minutes and then we can eat.”

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“Have you noticed anything different?”

       Chloe looks up from her homework to see Red in a very similar position sprawled across her bed, but her books are still closed and papers unwritten on. She’s staring down at her hands, twisting them back and forth.

       Her red hair spills in waves over her shoulder, obscuring her paper anyway. There is a crack of sunlight peeking through the curtain (Red says Auradon is too bright), and it makes the edges of her form hazy, like she’s not really there, a part of the physical world.

       She looks up when Chloe doesn’t answer right away. “About your body, I mean?”

       “Um,” It takes another couple moments for Chloe’s brain to start working again. To process the questions and think about how odd it is. And then she remembers Red saying that her scars are gone, and the fuzziness in Chloe’s head fades as she frowns. “No.”

       “Oh,” Red says, and then looks back down at her hands. She rubs her fingers together for a moment, before visibly shaking off a thought and finally opening her book. “Okay.”

       “Is your body different?” Chloe asks hurriedly, not willing to let the moment slip away if Red is in a talkative mood. “Other than your scars, I mean.”

       “A little bit,” Red admits. She picks up a pen. “I used to have calluses.”

       Chloe feels a little thrown by that. It seems like such a small thing, something that doesn’t need the deep contemplation that Red appears to be giving it. But it’s clearly not a small thing to Red. It clearly matters to her.

       “Why does that bother you?” Chloe asks.

       That’s when Red clams up again, walls shuttering down into place, face once again wiped of emotion. Chloe hates it when she does that. It makes her stomach drop out.

       “Nevermind,” Red says. This time, Chloe doesn’t press.

.

.

.

.

Chloe blinks her eyes open as her shoulder is shaken, and it takes her a moment to process the person standing over her. When she does, she blinks again and rubs her eyes as she sits up.

       “Red?” she questions, taking in her friend’s fully clothed form.

       “Come on,” she says, pulling Chloe’s blankets back. “I want to show you something.”

       “What, now?” Chloe glances at the glowing numbers on the clock beside her bed, showing that it’s definitely past curfew.

       “Yup, get dressed. Or don’t. But you should probably grab shoes.”

       Chloe moves even as her brain struggles to wake up, struggles to process what’s going on. It’s only after she has her shoes partially on that she realizes what she’s doing. “Wait, no. Red, we can’t be out after curfew.”

       Red kneels down in front of Chloe and starts tying her shoes for her before she can pull them back off.

       “Of course we can. It’s supes easy. Now come on.” She stands and drags Chloe to her feet.

       “Reeeeeed,” Chloe whines as she’s dragged to the door. Paranoia silences her and awakens her all at once as she’s pulled out into the hallway. She’s officially breaking curfew. Not just in a time where she doesn’t exist, but here where she does. Where things can go on her permanent record and where they can call her parents.

       She swallows nervously.

       Red drags her down the hall, and Chloe clings nervously to her friend’s hand. But there aren’t teachers waiting behind every corner, ready to bust them. They don’t come across anyone as Red leads her up flight after flight of stairs, out of the dorm wing and past locked classrooms.

       Chloe can only hold her curiosity and silence up until Red pushes open one of the windows on the top floor and starts climbing out onto the ledge.

       “Red, what are you doing?” she hisses, catching her friend’s wrist. Red looks back at her, a smile playing on her lips and dancing in her eyes.

       “Do you trust me?” she asks, and Chloe’s chest flutters wildly.

       “You know I do,” she says.

       “Then come on.” Red gently pulls her hand away and swings out the window. Her head pops back up a moment later, eyebrow raised and mischievous. “Follow me.”

       Chloe shoves her head out the window and watches her friend balancing on a thin ledge, clinging to the stone walls of the school. She side-steps a couple feet before leaping onto a slanted part of the roof leading even higher.

       Her teeth flash through the dark as she grins back at Chloe.

       Chloe huffs, wondering how she got to this point- sneaking out and breaking probably every safety rule the school has, and climbs out onto the ledge.

       She wobbles when she lands on the roof, but Red steadies her with a hand on her arm. Chloe’s stomach swoops- not for a fear of falling, though. Then she leads them even higher, until they are squeezing between sharp slants of roof and they are so high that Chloe feels dizzy.

       Red finally stops when they emerge onto a mostly flat portion, guarded on all sides by the school's walls, but open to the stars above them. There is a blanket laid out that definitely shouldn’t be up here.

       Red pats it after she settles down on it, looking expectantly up at Chloe. Chloe sits, heart hammering, as Red reclines back with her arms folded beneath her head.

       “This is what you wanted to show me?” she asks. “The roof?”

       “Yup,” Red hums.

       “How did you even find it?”

       “By climbing, duh. Come on, I thought you were supposed to be smart,” Red teases, and Chloe levels an unimpressed look at her, just as she had the first time she said it. Finally, Red breaks her gaze, lifting it to the sky. “Sometimes I can’t sleep. Back home, I’d always sneak out and cause some havoc when I’m having a bad night. You know, break some stuff, throw paint at my mother’s portrait. Can’t really do that here, though. Climbing is nice. I like the stars. Wonderland didn’t have them.”

       Chloe leans back, turning her eyes to the dark sky. She wonders, vaguely, if Red’s ‘bad nights’ mean nightmares. She’s woken a few times to Red’s tossing and turning, but she’s never noticed the other girl sneaking out.

       The night really is beautiful from up there. There is a slight breeze that slips through the cracks of the castle walls. The constellations, entire galaxies, are so clear from being so far away from the populace below. Despite the beauty, Chloe still finds herself watching Red more than the sky.

       Just the sight of the other girl makes her stomach squirm and feel all fluttery. She slowly scoots closer, using the guise of the chilly night, and Red glances over as she does. She smiles again before lifting her finger and pointing up.

       Something pink and glittery shoots up into the sky, and it hangs suspended for a moment before bursting into an explosion like a firework. It takes the shape of a heart before sparkles take a glimmering path back toward the roof and blink out of existence.

       “What was that?” Chloe asks, awed.

       “Magic,” Red laughs.

       “You have fireworks as magic?” Chloe feels her cheeks heat. “Why was it a heart?”

       “I don’t know,” Red shrugs. “It’s just always been that way. Maybe it’s a Princess of Hearts thing?”

       Chloe doesn’t know why she feels startled by that. The thought of Red being a princess. She knew it, of course, but she guesses she’s just never really thought of her as one. She’s so completely different from any princess Chloe has met.

       It’s not a bad thing- Chloe adores Red- but she’s kind of forgotten that she’s set to inherit an entire kingdom. She’s technically even more of a princess than Chloe is! Because, while Chloe is the daughter of royalty, she’s not crown princess. It’s Chad who will inherit the kingdom.

       She can’t really imagine Red being queen one day, and having to conform to expectations and duty. The idea of a restrained, tempered, Red just… seems very wrong to Chloe.

       Red looks over again, grin wide, and her face is so close to Chloe’s that she can feel her warm breath.

       She likes an untempered Red that drags her to do stupid, reckless things in the middle of the night on a whim. Who scowls so freely at people she doesn’t like, but then smiles just as freely when she wants to. Who dances around the room with her without the faintest idea of how to dance, and-

       Oh. That’s what everyone knows.

.

.

.

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Chloe feels exhausted as she pushes into her room, ready to just call it an early night and pass out. She loves her friends, she really does, but it just feels different after everything that happened. Most things are the same, but there are moments... It doesn’t happen often, but there are little things that trip her up- a reference to something that Chloe doesn’t remember, or something that Chloe does remember, but it played out differently.

       She wishes Red would come with her, just spend time with the group and get to know them. She feels like it would be less tiring having someone else who knows what she knows. That Auradon was nearly overthrown. That they changed things.

       It’s nearly always on her mind, what happened and what they did. Alternatively, when she’s not thinking of the past, she’s thinking about Red. Red is doubly nearly always on her mind.

       Chloe flops onto her bed with a heaving sigh.

       Red doesn’t comment because Red isn’t in the room. She ignores the immediate pang of disappointment she felt when she passed through the door, and ignores that searching her out was the first thing she did.

       It’s fine. She can hear the shower running. It’s not like Red is off making new friends and will inevitably leave her behind for someone ‘cooler’ or less ‘goody-goody.’

       Chloe lets her eyes drift shut to the soothing sounds of the shower running. She really is tired, but Red will be out soon and they can go down to dinner together. If Red doesn’t want to join Chloe’s friend group, they can take their food up to their room again. Chloe kind of likes the peace of it, and the way Red changes when not under anyone else’s scrutiny. She’s more open when it’s just the two of them. Less glare-y. Sometimes, she’ll smile.

       Chloe lets herself drift in and out of a light doze, just on the edge of sleep, but aware enough that every now and then a thought will drift by and reawaken her slightly.

       It’s a notion more than a thought, that a long time has passed, that makes her sit up groggily. And when she glances at the clock, she sees that it’s been over a half hour since she collapsed on her bed.

       Chloe frowns and turns toward the bathroom door that still has the sound of running water. Red doesn’t normally take an exorbitantly long time in the shower, and she was in there before Chloe even got back to the room.

       She pushes to her feet and knocks on the door. “Red? You okay?” Chloe waits a moment, and then another, and when she knocks again, her stomach has started twisting uneasily. “Red?”

       A cold feeling seeps into Chloe’s limbs as the silence continues, and she reaches for the door handle. She knows it will open. For some reason, Red doesn’t ever lock doors. “Red? I’m coming in, okay?” She hesitantly pushes the door open a crack and peeks her head in, ready to slam it shut again if the other girl starts yelling.

       The bathroom is quiet, and through the frosted glass, Chloe can see her friend sitting at the bottom of the tub- and that’s weird when you’re not actually taking a bath, and Red hasn’t been answering, and she’s very afraid, suddenly, that her friend passed out and hit her head and maybe she might drown, so Chloe yanks the glass door open.

       It takes her a moment to register what she’s seeing, all the red, red, red, coating her friend- not just her plastered hair or her lips, but coating her arms, the tile, spinning down the drain. Red is drenched in it.

       Chloe screams. She doesn’t mean to. She doesn’t even register it’s her screaming as she yanks the towel off the rod and lunges half into the tub to press it against her friend’s arms. It makes Red finally react, but it’s sluggish and confused. She turns her head toward the sound, blinking slowly like she’s coming out of some sort of daze, and a blade- a switchblade- makes a clank as it falls from her hands.

       It’s only then that Chloe puts together that Red is the cause, Red did this to herself. There are dozens of cuts splitting her arms open, and Chloe doesn’t have enough towel or hands to cover them all.

       Chloe is only dimly aware that she’s sobbing now.

       Help. She needs to get help, but she’s afraid that her friend was trying to kill herself, and what she might continue to do if she leaves.

       “Oh god, oh god,” Chloe doesn’t know that she’s even being useful as her hands flutter and try to press on everything all at once, but there’s too much. The towel keeps slipping and exposing more cuts, and her hands shake too much as she tries to cover them back up. “Oh god- just- just wait here, I’ll- I need to get help- just- hold on, I’ll-”

       Red suddenly comes alive as Chloe jerks to her feet, her sleeves and the side of her head soaked through with icy water.

       Red lurches upright. She half staggers, half falls out of the tub, reaching for Chloe- and it’s wrong- the image and the blood and the wild look that enters Red’s eyes.

       “No, you can’t!” Her shin catches the edge of the tub, and she pitches forward. Chloe sobs as she catches her falling friend, doing her best to lower them both gently to the floor. Her friend is completely naked, and any other time, she’d be a nervous wreck about it and trying not to think about why that is, but it’s all Chloe can do to press the towel back to the arms clinging to her, trying to keep her from leaving. “You can’t tell anyone!”

       “You h-hurt yourself, you’re bleeding ev-everywhere,” Chloe hiccups. “I have to!”

       “Please, Blue, please, you can’t. It was an accident, I promise; I didn’t mean to,” Red begs, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

       “H-how can you not mean to?” Chloe retorts, aghast that her friend can claim that. Maybe one cut, but dozens? On both arms?

       “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, It won’t happen again. I promise, I won’t do it again. This is a one off. You can’t tell anyone. The Red from this timeline never did this. She wouldn’t do this. No one can know.”

       Chloe’s pounding heart plunges to her stomach, and for a moment, her hands freeze. “But you would? You’ve done this before?”

       “A couple times- before,” Red quickly confesses, and then turns her eyes to her arms and frowns. “But… never like this. I didn’t mean to. It just happened.”

       “I think we need to tell. Someone. Anyone. It doesn’t matter if they find out we changed the past-”

       “Yes it does! They can’t know, Chloe-” Chloe blinks. Red has never actually used her name before. It’s always Blue, or Princess. “Please, I promise this was a one time thing. I promise I won’t do it again.”

       Chloe stares, vision blurred as tears keep spilling over. Red doesn’t have any tears. Only earnestness. And exhaustion. Her hair is plastered to the sides of her face and there are dark shadows under her eyes. Why didn’t Chloe see how much she was struggling? Why did she think that a couple, sporadic, good days of Red smiling meant she was adjusting?

       Chloe ducks her head, pressing her lips together and the towel more firmly against Red’s arms. She doesn’t fight it in the slightest. She doesn’t even seem to be aware that Chloe is trying to help, more concerned with just keeping her from leaving.

       Chloe wants to run to her mom. To tell her everything that happened. To have her mother tell her what she should do.

       Red sighs and leans slowly against the cabinets under the sink. She watches Chloe’s hands. They still shake, and it doesn’t stop even when she covers the cuts in gauze wrappings. She uses everything in the first aid kit under the sink. The trembling is in her whole body.

       It’s only when her hands run out of a job that she realizes her friend is sitting naked on the wet bathroom floor, knees curled to her chest. The falling water splashes against the tub and mists out onto the tile floor, adding to the growing puddle. Chloe reaches out and finally turns off the water, and she pushes to her feet.

       “Where are you going?” Red asks, coming to life once more.

       “To get more towels,” Chloe says. She does it quickly, dropping one onto her friend and then going to work mopping up the rest of the floor. There is no saving the first one, so she uses that for any stray streaks of blood. She feels like crying some more.

       When she turns back to her friend, she sees that Red has hardly moved, only just barely started on trying to dry her hair. Chloe thinks she looks awful, pale and shaky, and maybe she lost too much blood.

       The urge to tell claims Chloe again. She hasn’t stopped wanting to tell, but now it’s sharp like panic and it wants to send her out the door right then for help.

       But Red begged her. Red might hate her if she does, and she can’t handle that possibility any more than this horrible situation. Chloe goes to one of Red’s drawers and pulls out a shirt and some underwear and goes back to the bathroom.

       Red doesn’t even attempt to smile as she takes them, and then Chloe doesn’t know what to do after that, so she ends up just standing there, staring at her friend as she heaves herself to her feet and dresses.

       She wobbles a couple times, and then winces as she uses her hand to brace herself against the sink. Chloe hovers as she makes her way to the bed.

       “Promise me you won’t tell,” she demands, catching Chloe’s wrist before she can make a break for the door. She hadn't decided if she was going to, yet.

       Chloe stares back, hating this whole day. “Promise you won’t hurt yourself again,” she retorts. “Even by accident. Promise me.”

       “I promise,” Red says confidently, unhesitatingly. Chloe wishes she could believe her. But she already knows that Red is a liar.