Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Once upon a time there was a girl and a boy and they were both alone, but together they became rebels.

"D'you ever think about where we might've been if you hadn't sent me on that job?"

Ashe leers at the question. Her gut says no: that she should tell him that, so the thorn'll dig in a little bit. Hell, maybe she should say yes to make him feel those same bitter depths – but the belligerence becomes a sigh, 'cause the truth of it is, that it's all the damn time.

That's what really gets her, when she thinks about it. She sent Cole out, and in her confidence had believed nothing could go awry to tear their kingdom down – but it had. If she's Deadlock's protector, the one that leads them right, that means it's her fault… twenty years spent on that penance. So he'd have something to come back to. Yeah. She broke her own heart. Not him.

That's shirking him of his later actions though and he doesn't deserve to get away with it, and Ashe frowns. "Now, Cole?" she asks, dryly. "Really not the time."

He laughs. "I figure with someone else shootin' at us, that you'll be less inclined to point your gun at me."

"You're putting a lot of faith in my restraint," she deflects. Really it's all empty words, even his, because she's had the opportunity and if she hasn't done it by now she knows as damn well as he does that she never will. Besides, tonight she needs him. They have an accord, and she isn't giving him the easy way out by allowing him to break it.

It's only 'cause of the interlude he spoke. Until recently, under siege by a chorus of gunfire outside the room they've barricaded. Oh, their pursuers have tried – shot in the interior windows not-so-bulletproof and attempted to flush them out by show of force, some of it grenades, but they weren't expecting the capability of the Calamity and her former gunslinger. That's the thing, about being undercover: you don't exactly keep your reputation on you.

They're learning about it now. Ashe cranes her neck and glances over the wall of upturned desks and office debris crowding the dead console, still sputtering sparks, eyes narrowed against the dusty gloom. This lull'll end soon enough and good as she and Cole are, they can't outlast sheer numbers, which would make this an opportune time for their inevitable break out, if it weren't for the kid.

She's plopped down between them, hugging her knees, leaving imprints of her teddy bear's nose on her elbows. She hasn't moved an inch since Ashe told her not to, and she's eerily quiet, in that way kids always get when they know the threat's real. She deserves… so much better than what's happening to her right now. All of them do. Did. Why do parents always have to get themselves involved in risky business and leave their children to its mercy—

Except Scamp's parents actually care about her. It's why they stuck her here with them.

Slight upheaval from not too far away. Movement. If she's hoping to do something and have it stick, it's now. Ashe offers Scamp a lopsided smile, not at all forced which she faintly returns, and then looks more seriously at Cole.

He's taking the downtime productively, counting bullets into his revolver, spun back into place once he's done, and it's an old habit that hasn't changed. He catches the tail-end of her observance; also something she used to do. Her patience before a perfect heist begins and hitting a target can extend forever but in the moment, it takes her mind off the inbetween waits.

"Cole," she says – and it's the first time she's said it as a name, and not with attached vitriol. "Can you trust me just this once?"

For one night she's willing to put aside the resentment if he is; she doesn't want to. But Scamp's more important.

His brows furrow. Thinking about it. It's a loaded question, same as a gun, not at all simple. Louder clamouring starts from outside their cocoon, as though whatever they've been waiting on for their belayed assault has finally arrived, and both of them look cautiously out and back in again.

"Can you trust me?"

"No," she says, shaking her head. He should know better than to ask: that's never been how this works. "Look after the kid."

Whatever he's thinking's sidelined, because he knows what a statement like that usually entails, and he's right about some things of her never changing.

"Ashe—"

"Cole," she says again, and this time it's with grit, the bridled anger. "You better not. Don't you dare leave her."

It ain't Scamp she's talking about, and he lapses, folding himself away into discontent. She can't wholly read him anymore, but part of her wishes she couldn't. How it'd all have been better if she'd never met him the day of her graduation—

No. She doesn't wish that. Ashe can imagine the look on Amélie's face, same as every other time she's stated she never wants to see his stupid mug ever again, that he's not invited to the wedding, that if she was less sentimental he'd already be dead in the ground – all of them lies.

God. Amélie. She'll spare a single second on her. Has to, her spider folded away in her heart. She wouldn't like the repeat recklessness of this gambit either. At any moment the girl of her dreams might appear on the other side of that wall and these mooks dealt the hand they deserve – but she hasn't. Nobody's coming. And Ashe isn't in the habit of waiting to be rescued.

Far better to save a stupid ass who left her and a kid she refuses to do the same thing to by doing something brash where she's the one put into trouble, not him.

He's watching her think. Seeing the anger, the distraction, the realignment back to resolve.

"You remember, don't you?" Ashe asks him.

"It's your way," Cole repeats. As if it's something he doesn't like, that he hates to be confined by, and it pricks the reopened wounds her heart has still – or maybe he just wishes he had a better idea.

She'll ignore it. Focus on the end result you want, not the middling difficulties. "And my way says we're all getting out of this alive," she reaffirms, with an old, familiar, surefire grin. "So you better be there waiting for me in the end when it's over."

Chapter Text

Far as decisions go, the writing's on the wall.

There's only so many times you can rearrange a warehouse full of a haul everyone's too damn scared to buy. There's no more calls to make. They tried – Vegas was her last shot, and after their run in with Null Sector, there's been something much more prevalent on her mind.

Ashe hunkers herself lower in the corner of the garage by one of the bikes, radio playing something old and tinny, drowning out the final dregs of summer's heat sticking to her hair and on her face. In her fingers she's got a bullet casing, messing with it as she walks it back and forth across her knuckles. Helps her think. The sides are starting to take shape. One of them, no. She'd never bend to them, and after what happened with Amélie, well. They're sideliners, don't attach a name to it. But money to finance Null Sector's objectives don't just appear from nowhere. She's been in this game too long to not miss that little detail. As for the other… call it standards or pride but she's not going there. That means independence. There's still one final thing left she could have Deadlock collectively do, and that's disappearing. Not from their home here at the Gorge, no, but, going falsely under – boarding up the windows, building a fortress.

The bullet briefly stalls. They're not getting to what's hers. She could spend her remaining favours on that. She'd succeed at it, too. But what happens then? What happens when Null Sector finally comes here after the world's choking on fire and blows those walls right open?

She knows what she needs to do. One last stand… she can't go as herself. Too conspicuous. Too soft. It's not honest or virtuous. It'll get her half way, wanting the same thing they do, almost, which is a darn sight closer to reestablishment, and more importantly—

Ashe is aware Bob's there before she hears him. He's always had a knack for finding her when she's trying to hide, and she can't help but smile as his shadow falls over her.

"Sit with me," she gestures. He does. There's no visual tell on her face, never on his, but he's worried about her. It was always the two of them: right from the start, beginning to end. And now he's here she won't tell him to leave. It's crowded and cramped in this little corner of the garage, but doing something solo by herself never excluded Bob.

Until now.

They sit in silence. A full song plays. She's working on her nerve, and he knows the inevitable.

Ashe picks up her knees, resting her elbows over them as she leans forward and rolls the bullet casing into her palm.

"You can't come with me. Not this time. If you do I can't protect you," she says, and her voice barely cracks on her insistence, shaking her head softly at his objection with her name in his hands. She knows how far he'd go. So she'll never be alone. That's why. "I need you and that's why I can't." She inhales. She can't cry, she won't. "…I need you to stay safe, you and everyone else. If there's another attack, I—"

She rests her hand over his.

"It's you that they'll want."

'You'll be in danger.'

She always is, ain't she? She's in charge. She has to roll with the punches; gotta be strong enough and if she's not she'll project it. Won't send anyone else out and put them at risk, if it's something she can do herself.

But it's Bob's duty to stop her doing anything too reckless. He made his choice. The trauma he went through during the Crisis he keeps close to his chest. She's probably the only one that knows; her the one thing that keeps him going… and she's asking him, in not so many words, to go against everything he swore to stand for.

"I'll be fine," she smiles, weakly. "Much tougher than I look."

He knows well as she does, that when her mind's made up, it doesn't matter what he says.

"It won't be like last time. I promise. We'll see each other every day. We can definitely get some channel up and running before I go. Feel kinda bad, though," she exhales, looking down at the linoleum, the fresh wash of guilt. It's a weird feeling she doesn't like wearing it. He's too easy to talk to, always has been. Deserves transparency at least. "Is it even right of me to ask her to compromise on everything she's made herself for me?"

Worse than guilt, it makes her heart ache. 'Cause she can't do this by herself. It's the rule but, the only way it works she has a second, and if Bob can't be that, the only one she wants is—

Living without both of them would be—

Bob's bulky hand closes around hers, though he lets it go to speak.

'Amélie would be sad if she knew your thoughts.'

Ashe chuckles. "She would, wouldn't she. It's just…" Hard. Like a lump in her throat. She's not trying to keep secrets – she just doesn't want to hurt either of them more than they already have been. And yet, if she's not the picture of confidence she's painted in their minds, how can they follow her anywhere? "The three of us, all of us, we're unstoppable. I know it. I'd do anything for that, no matter how rough. So we can keep our home and our family together." She laughs at herself, clicking her tongue between her teeth. "Listen to me. I sound like I'm seventy, not forty. You gonna be okay, big guy?"

She hasn't said it, but the guilt's for him too. The only thing he wants is to be by her side, to protect what matters. It's where she's learned it from. She doesn't want to force him into it, but—

It's the only way she can be sure.

Bob nods, and Ashe has a mind to gesture again but she doesn't have to, because they both need this hug, to make up for all those they're going to miss.

She'll play the game. If she wants in she has to bring them something: equitable exchange. She needs on-the-ground intel. So she'll listen. She'll find the right person to wrangle by doing so. It's risky, but she and her fiancé are more than capable. She'll situate herself right in the middle of that supply line, and get them everything they need.

Wherever you go, the omnic underground's not that hard to find.

She comes to her to confide in.

I want you to do something for me but I don't know how to ask.

She is not being fired from a gun. If death would solve the conundrum Deadlock finds itself in, she'd do it. Her request is more complex than that. Complicated. Not the closing of an act, but a bridge— strategically laid out brick by brick, well planned, as every heist is; and burdened alone, when she wishes she wouldn't.

But perhaps Ashe is learning, as she did, to rely on at least one more person.

What she offers is not all sadness. There will not be surveillance every hour of every day. The idea sounds… exciting. To try on the people they could never be, to do things she had thought she would segregate herself away from forever… and to be wanted so much that she is the one she asks to be her pillar, the source of resolve, when he who always has been cannot…

She does not think there are words to describe the intensity of the emotion risen in her chest, but yearning might do it.

This family is important to the Calamity. They love her, and she loves them. The memory of an old war has been stirred and her heart once again bleeds, and a spider's happiness is wherever she goes. If this is what needs to be done, she will help her. Unerringly. The same way her outlaw has a thousand times before; as her partner, as a rebel, and as someone who…

There are some things you do not have to understand. You simply have to… be there. And that is enough. Love, in its most, devoted form.

Elizabeth Caledonia Ashe is worth waiting for.

And when she has the assurances she needs, they will come home.

And she will marry her.

It is easier than people believe, to discard a life.

Ashe hasn't stopped. Of course not. There is always something to do. For an identity that is supposed to not attract attention, her outlaw is hardly inclined to leave much of her current one behind. No matter how thorough her preparations are she would be a fool to not anticipate an inevitable altercation, and it has led to many long, gruelling hours deliberating her loadout, because where they are going, Viper shouldn't, and the rifle's such a permanent, defining feature of herself that it feels wrong to leave it behind.

And then sense kicks in. Followed by sentiment. Annoyance. A steady stream of emotion. Cannot take everything. Simply what she can carry. The guns Ashe had compromised on were a pair of pistols but, everything else is still very much a work in progress.

The deadline looms. Amélie stands in the middle of their room, bathed in warm sunlight. A sanctuary. Bed made up in sheets they never use; chaise by the window. Still warm tea set on the table that will undoubtedly be cleared away after they are gone. In her arms she's holding him, her one and only dilemma.

She doesn't need to. Not like she did. But it feels wrong to discard him a second time… a difficult emotion to figure out, because…

Across the room Ashe shuts the last of their many, many suitcases, and puts her hands on her hips and sighs with the relief of finally being done, no more doubting, giving the bedroom a sweeping glance.

"This is somehow worse than when I left for those months in Paris," she muses. It would be. She's surrendering the last of what she still has to lose in order to keep it. Ashe lifts her arms up from her waist and begins to one handedly scratch her nails against the fabric on the opposing elbow – a not so unfamiliar mannerism of the last few days, even if the slant of her eyes and her focus are entirely on the photoframe Amélie's still holding.

She knows what she thinks. What it looks like. It is part of it, but it isn't the reason. It isn't a contest. She's made that perfectly clear – and after she brought them to his grave, she knows Ashe believes it. Her outlaw is strong in the face of her feelings; defiant. She has to find an answer to all their problems and she has. Whatever she puts her mind to, Ashe will succeed. But a part of her will forever want to beg to be the only love in her heart, and then she feels at fault for being so cruelly selfish. It's a leftover – of needing that assurance she never got, of having to grow up with the knowledge that she was always second best.

Emotions are complicated. Ashe lets it settle, feeling it, but does not act on it. The wellbeing of her lover more important to her.

She runs her tongue over her lips. "You can bring him if you want to," Ashe says, her peaceable, managed smile faltering at the end. "If you need to. I know I said not to bring mementos but given I already sneakily packed some of ours, I can't really be one to judge…"

She murmurs, glancing away. Amélie smiles. Yes, she thought that she might. She isn't embarrassed but she is flushed: so reliably sweet. She goes back to itching indents into her skin, and Amélie finally looks down.

She hasn't… really looked… since the day after she said her last goodbye, when they watched the morning arrive together at sunrise. And she still appears like someone else, a joyous girl with her life still ahead of her; but the difference is she doesn't long to be her. She runs a finger past Gérard's face and hers, to the bouquet in her hands. The next time she'll hold one, she'll be marrying Ashe.

The impatience to do so is a feeling she had forgotten and yet is so, so familiar.

If Ashe is over there, she is too far away. Amélie places the photoframe on top of the suitcase, outcome yet undecided – but resolved about her, and takes the hand that's still scratching away with one of her own.

"You have to stop doing that," she says, with a frown.

"Yeah but it stings something fierce," Ashe grumbles, now using her elbow to slide over her adjacent wrist until Amélie claims the other hand so she can do nothing, and Ashe pouts, exhaling irritation through her nose. "Now that just ain't fair, honey."

"It's made you stop," Amélie reasons, her eyebrow raising. "Bob would never forgive me if any harm came to you."

"What Bob doesn't know won't hurt him," Ashe petulantly counters. But she sees the melancholy, the blooming fear, intimate as the spider is with the imminent probability of loss. He cannot go with her. He always does. Her uncertainty was never just about the gun. She has to keep him safe; if they disappear into a false life and she brings Gérard whilst Ashe is without her constant, how is that fair? It isn't. That is why it is difficult. And Bob won't know. He won't be there. Ashe tries to smile through it, but it's shaky. "This felt more possible when it was all still hypotheticals… and my blasted arm won't stop itching…"

She shows her teeth, tugging pointlessly at Amélie's fingers, not that she lets her go. Instead Amélie rolls back Ashe's sleeve, over once and smoothly along her forearm, eyes following the coil of familiar old ink.

Roses. Thorns. Deadlock Rebel. And something new; pink and red and angry from all the aggression.

"Were you as bad the other times?" Amélie asks, still looking.

"Worse. The first time we went I had to hold his hand, and he had the nerve to call me pathetic… and that was before he passed out the second the needle touched him," she snickers. She means Cole Cassidy, from a time where she wasn't mad at him – where for a moment she misses who they had been, not allowed to be anything more than that.

Amélie presses her finger to it, lightly tracing the small spider that's situated on the vine, similarly styled to the one that's on her back. A past marked, and a future promised. Wound to her forever.

She drapes her wrist on hers. Inked black rose and spider, together; and she can sense Ashe watching, can feel the quickening of her pulse against hers from what the sight of that does.

She barely laughs in wonder, even if her voice is thick. "We match."

It's not the first time she's said it, but Amélie still smiles as she looks up at her. "We do," she affirms. "Ma chérie."

"…I'm glad we did this before we left," Ashe furthers. "I mean, we could do it there, just, this way it's like… taking you with me."

"I am going with you."

Ashe shakes her head. "Everywhere I go," she clarifies. "I'm lucky to have a girl who won't let me be in that big, scary city all by myself."

She enunciates each syllable deliberately for effect – and Amélie rolls her eyes, and Ashe boldly laughs. "Whilst you were repacking," she says. "You didn't forget that it will be cold, did you?"

"Oh, I've got plenty of sweaters," Ashe dismisses. "I'm looking forward to holding your hands in them."

"And that's any different from normal?"

"Associations. It makes me think of Paris. It makes me think of you. And aside from our return trip, there hasn't been enough of an opportunity to make good on having a viable excuse to hold your hand when we live out in the desert."

She does have a point. In the more than a year that she's been here, Deadlock Gorge does seem to apply variants upon one season only.

Yet still she smiles coyly at her, musing. "I thought you didn't enjoy the cold."

Ashe finally reclaims her hands, to instantly tip back her chin. "I've gotten used to it," she says, in that slow, seductive, husky way of hers; laboriously looking her over, that would make anyone shudder. Amélie Lacroix isn't anyone, and instead just blinks slowly – and yet Ashe still grins, because she knows her well enough that that's effectively the same. "You settled on your cover name, Blue?"

She nods. Hers is a play on meanings, on who and what she is. Ashe's, in comparison, seems… lazy.

"Ashley Jane," Amélie says. "You really think that will fool anyone?"

"It ain't about fooling. It's about being easy to remember in the heat of the moment – I'm already forsaking enough. I'm even leaving my hat here, and you know how I feel about that…"

She does. It's already gone, back in their closet with the rest of her usual suit and vest and boots.

"And your looks?"

White hair. Blood red eyes.

"Keeping those."

Amélie's eyes slant, and her head drops, angling her lips against Ashe's fingers still rested on her face. "And these?"

Ashe chuckles, because she knows what she's really looking for. "Always mine," she assures. "Melanie Hunter."

And then she kisses her, not blind anymore. Elegant and bittersweet and soft, as she plays with her hands, always leading back to the ring that she presented to her, that sometimes Amélie finds Ashe staring at like she can't believe her luck that what grew between them is real, the most frightening, amazing thing in the world. But Ashe is done with sweetness and she makes to pull her near and closer, fingers lacing at her neck as she kisses her intensely, and Amélie just enjoys the ride.

"That'll do for now," Ashe murmurs on her mouth as she begins to withdraw despite Amélie chasing another, grinning. "Wouldn't want to mess us both up too much before we're out of here entirely."

Amélie hums, thoughtfully. "If you did, I am still willing to reapply yours," she says, eyeing her mouth like her lipstick isn't already partly smudged, and Ashe snickers, rubbing at the corner with her thumbnail.

"Might need it for the car," she says. "Expecting waterworks downstairs."

She says it as though she's implying the triplets, though Amélie suspects it will also be herself. It is going to be difficult. Regardless of if it was family, she feels everything so keenly. So in exchange she will do whatever she can; for now, a kiss on the cheek to show she is with her, wherever she might lead, and Ashe is left pondering it as Amélie finally resolves herself.

Silently she picks up the memory of a bride and a groom again, not without feeling, giving it one last lingering look – and returns it to its place on the dresser.

He will still be here when she returns… all the more reason to. As he was, not fragments. This place is a home she does not intend to abandon. And Ashe's eyebrows knit together, surprised.

"You sure?"

She nods. "Let's go," she says, folding her arms as she takes a step back. Before she has a change of heart. So long as she has Ashe— she's counting on that, as the outlaw gently leads her to the open door, almost right into Bob.

Ashe tuts. "How long have you been standing there?" she inquires, but Bob doesn't dignify it with a response – which says to Amélie it was long enough, perhaps even before the kiss and that he was just being polite, allowing them the time that they needed. Ashe knows it too, shaking her head at his retreating back, already stacking up suitcases to carry down with him. "You want a hand with that?"

The omnic shakes his head, turning briefly to show a placed hand over his chest. A familiar gesture: one of the first he ever did in Amélie's presence. About what was important… how she felt. So many meanings, and Ashe throws her hands up in the air back at him. "Yeah I'm about to," she says, irate at being coddled, stomping out of the room and away down the hallway, muttering to herself the whole time. "I'm not the type of girl who leaves without so much as a goodbye…"

This is the part she's least looking forward to, Amélie knows: and it won't even be the last one. Bob holds that honour, once he's driven them far enough out to where the vehicle Bez got is waiting, where they'll make the remainder of the journey for themselves.

Bob hasn't returned to his task. Watching Amélie watching Ashe go – and Amélie doesn't need him to sign anything to know, that he wants to follow. It breaks his mechanical heart. It… would stop hers entirely if Ashe had asked her to remain behind.

And— he wants her to follow Ashe. He trusts that she will. No matter what happens next.

Maybe she should say something. How do you even offer thoughtful assurances that are meaningful enough, when Ashe's wellbeing is literally his purpose? She cannot possibly imagine the emotional bargaining he's gone through. That he's even surrendering it to the woman Ashe has chosen to love to begin with… how do you pick up the shattered pieces of a self and put them back together? You will never find everything. There will always be some piece of the mirror missing. What do you fill it with? Poison? Lead? The memory, or new ones? She is glad it is him and not her. The guilt of it seeps. For herself she had to learn to feel again – and now she must feel it for everyone else. Amélie shuffles from one foot to the other, the heavy wanted weight of it – finding that, with everything else, she doesn't want to let Bob down.

"I'll be there for her," she says. It needs more. "I'll do what I can." Better. And Bob… smiles at her in that expressionless way of his, knowing how hard she's trying; and he nods, and Amélie turns and walks away after Ashe before it even gets too much for her to handle.

Since she remembered how to cry, it… it happens. Not so much as her soon-to-be wife, provoked at the slightest of things. But there'll be times she sees or hears something, thinks something, and all the tears she'd failed to shed creep out. It doesn't help. Not really. It still feels weak of her to do. Something she denied for so long—

And now she's confronting it, because out by the saloon all three of the triplets are crowding their leader and wiping away at red tearstained eyes in yesterday's clothes and blubbering indecipherably about how much they don't want her to go.

"Hey, hey," Ashe says, trying to dislodge herself free. "What's all this crying over me? It's almost like I've never been away before," she adds, casting the latter to Amélie over her shoulder. "I thought you three wanted to be in charge? We'll be back before you know it and you'll be wishing me gone again."

There's a ripple of agreement, but it's mostly drowned out by sniffling. And then all three of them notice her, and all Amélie can do is steel herself for the inevitable.

As it is, they realise. Different boundaries. Surrounding her in a half-circle with a token escape is enough, and they look to one another, considering something they've talked about amongst themselves. Zeke takes the initiative and holds out his hand first, a target to rally around; and P.T. follows, placing down his palm, and last but not least Terran – and there they wait, as Amélie eyes go wide.

Part of the gang.

Part of their family.

Part of—

She ducks her head. Overwhelmed by it as she hides her face, inhaling deep: and Ashe's hand is on her shoulder, and when she is strong enough to look up again the outlaw's hand is beneath the three of theirs.

"Well, don't leave them hanging, Ms. Deadlock Rebel," Ashe prompts, her smile encouraging. And she is that, she is one of them and theirs, not just an ally or a teammate but a part of their family, like she's past thinking she doesn't deserve.

…maybe she does need this. Maybe she didn't know it was something to miss.

It matters. And when Amélie does place her hand on top of theirs in a tower there's delight and they laugh as they communally cheer, celebrating what and who they are together, that they wish them well and they'll see her again soon following success, and it's a good memory to keep.

To her credit, Ashe holds it together far past what Amélie had anticipated. It is not the departure from the Gorge, where she instead sticks up her middle finger through the rear window and cackles as her crew jeers at her exit, and it is not when they say goodbye to Bob at a dusty windswept layby, the omnic and the outlaw giving each other the longest, silent embrace and it feels inherently shattering somehow to see it end. "Don't go nowhere," Ashe implores of him quietly, but she still hears. Her phrasing holds meaning to them, Amélie does not know why. She has her guesses. No, it is when they're safely in the car and driving down the interstate – after Ashe has asked her to drive instead – that the outlaw finally sniffs and drops her head into her knees, for all that she's leaving behind.

It's the only way. Ashe knows that. She chose that.

Sirens echoing in the distance
His blood not yet dry on her hands—

It doesn't mean it's not hard.

Amélie's hand drifts from the steering wheel and laces, into the one that's already seeking hers. It's all right, because she still, and always, has her.

Chapter Text

There must be something of a requirement for bars that dabble at being lounges to loop soft jazz over the speakers in the afternoons.

It's the same thing, day in day out. The candid empty hour or so before opening, when the lights are still up, soft unintrusive jazz playing over the damn speakers, and it's her job to keep and clean down the countertop – paid to look busy by using the provided grubby cloth to whisk it around every perfectly polished glass in case anyone chances to look in whilst they're walking on by. They're well stocked with booze, as they are every night – for both human and omnic consumption; she'd never pick a place that wasn't – and as stimulating as this task is, Ashe sighs, bored.

It's all part of the show. It'll be more interesting later, when there's people in the mix. For now, just her, dressed in a button down shirt with cuffs tightly pulled over her wrists and fitting black trousers, her hair spilling out from where it's sloppily tied back, walking the line between 'refined, but approachable' so punters will be more inclined to spill their little secrets… or it just makes her face look slightly different at first glance.

As she said back at the Gorge, she hadn't changed a single thing about her looks. No, Miss Ashley Jane was a simple mixologist making her way through life who had never amounted to much more… but she could provide you scintillating company and a shoulder to cry on. But if you were looking for anything more than that, forget it, because this girl was spoken for, and her fiancée's right on the other side of the room.

Melanie Hunter. The name tastes good in her mouth. She's in the middle of tuning the piano, breaking the monotonous lull by running her fingers over the keys every now and then, talking to the owner of this up-market yet intimate bar-cross-lounge about something. He's very, has always been, extremely adamant about Amélie doing more in her performances and keeps trying to get her to sing – each time he's asked she's refused, saying her melodies are stirring enough as they are, not to mention, the only thing she signed on for.

As employers go, he's nice enough, Ashe supposes. The attacks Null Sector percolated happened everywhere: even now a few months on there's plenty of talk about purple ships darkening skies. It's left a very mellow mood hanging over this city, and made a lot of people insular. A lot of omnics have gone to ground, and made a lot of humans less accepting – but not him, which means he has more than a stake in it. She just isn't sure quite how much yet.

She chose her location deliberately. There's a supply line in this city, one that's inadvertently winding up at Null Sector's feet. She wants it. To divert it, and make a profit off it – and if it debilitates the leader of this so-called liberation's cause in doing so, good. Two birds, same stone. And whilst she spends her days off getting that bartering chip based off Frankie's intel, she'll get her foot in the door with the people she intends to take it too… nice, simple steps to a score. Albeit a long one and a lot of nights spent waiting, literally.

Ashe puts the latest of the dozens of shot glasses down on the wooden bartop. It's where people congregate. Where they let down their guards. Haven is a fitting name. When she thinks about it, it's funny. She's an old southern girl from a rich family, and her mind wanders into saloons. Fact is she never imagined herself working behind one, or Bob teaching her the basics over encrypted calls, but, it also ain't too bad.

Their boss is talking to Amélie about setlists now, from what little of the conversation she can catch and Amélie's timely nods of agreement, but as Ashe keeps a fond eye on her girlfriend she's not the only one with an audience.

He has a daughter, the boss. He brings her here a lot in the afternoons after school and she stays most of the nights. She hasn't spent a lot of prolonged time around children but if she had to guess, she'd say she's maybe seven or nine, quiet, and polite, and— for some, unknown reason, absolutely fascinated by her. She sits kicking her tiny legs against the barstool, watching her every move in something close to rapture. It's not… that she dislikes kids, but they're immovable obstacles, the big saucer eyes troublesome 'cause she can't figure out the intent of what's going on behind them. It could be innocent interest. Or manipulation and cruel planning of the best way to single her out and ruin her day…

Probably not. Still, her own youth is the last real experience Ashe had and she's not afraid, not ever, it just dregs up a lot of bad memories. Makes her miss Bob even more. It's miles different from the harmful idiots of her day, like the time those two boys had turned a knife on her and then gone crying about it to the sheriff when he showed up that it was her doing all along—

That started everything, really. Even if it had been comin' for years. Ashe drops her next cloth-swathed glass down with a little more oomph and turns and meets the girl's inquisitive stare head-on with a slight jut of her head, daring her to say something, and she immediately hops down from the bar and scampers away in the direction of her father.

Ashe hears a wispy chuckle, one she'd recognise anywhere, as Amélie rests her elbow on the bar across from her, fingers winding up into her hairline, watching the girl retreat.

"You have a fan," she muses, as the girl reaches the piano and her father helps her up onto the stool: where she starts clattering keys, poorly.

"Don't want one," Ashe rebukes, and Amélie shakes her head at her, amused.

"She asks too many questions, though she listens well enough." A glowing endorsement, all things considered. "You should try talking to her."

Ashe makes extra work of the glass in her hand, swiping at a particular stubborn spot, whilst Amélie looks at her more pointedly. Her attention's entirely on what she's doing, but she can make her out in the periphery, filling in the details of what she's wearing because she picked it out with her this morning. Button jacket. Skirt. Fish nets, stockings. Hair tied back in a high ponytail, and Ashe had braided it for her. Melanie Hunter is suave, and if either of them are the perceived cool adult in a child's eyes, she'd say that it was her; talented, intentional in her words, but no-nonsense, with a small following that's grown who come back night after night to listen to her play. They have no idea: if a recital on stage can stir such emotion in them, just wait until they see her dance.

Not that she will. That's just for her, when they want to, night after night in their apartment. Anywhere they want.

It ain't so bad, leading this doubled life.

"I'm happy with the distance we have right now," Ashe says, the kid forcing her way back into her thoughts, because the punctuating, repeated pressing of sharps, one after another, is never good. "Less so ours," she adds, offering up the flirt – and she actually receives one in return.

"You should take me in your arms," her spider paints the perfect picture – attention finally just hers, and Ashe chuckles. "It's too bad we have to be here early."

"Last day of the weekend and all. And well, there's always tomorrow." Two days off side by side, and she has plans, thoughts, ideas, none at all related to undergrounds and supply lines and winning people over – unless it's herself, or them. She smiles, gone and back again, tongue stuck through her teeth as she entertains her wayward daydreams. "You wanna go somewhere?"

Amélie blinks innocuously at her, even as she accompanies it with a conscious lean in her direction, a polite stop shy of her lips before she pulls away again, smirking. "I have somewhere to be."

"What a coincidence," Ashe snickers. "So do I."

"I hear this date of yours is beautiful."

"Oh, she is," Ashe enthuses, almost too fast, but Amélie regardless rests her fingers beneath her chin, still charmed. "You should know, when she's you."

She'll never successfully make her blush, but Ashe likes to think she gets closer to it every time, Amélie's eyes so in love.

"You still want to arrive separately?"

Ashe nods. It's a silly thing, to play at a first date – it makes her feel so giddy, like she's eighteen and in love for the first time. It's a chance she don't want to miss, and she wants it to be exactly like those ideal movie scenarios, where she arrives and she's wowed by her, by what she's wearing and the faraway look on her face, instantly drawn to her.

Although that did kind of happen. She even asked her to dance.

Amélie's still smiling at her, fondly. Watching her go through life and all of her plans, how much she still wants to be at her side. Ashe runs her knuckles over the bridge of her nose, to hide the spackled bits of red. "It's fun though, ain't it? We never get to do normal things. Might as well whilst we're alone and we have the chance."

Amélie's eyes scour the room, to the parent and child oblivious: and up to the security cameras, which have long irritated her. "Careful, chérie…"

"I'm always careful, Mel."

It's not quite a new term of affection. Just a shortening of the name that she's presently wearing, but Amélie's nose still scrunches, the small lines around her mouth pronounced. It's a learned look, one she often wears when someone calls her it and her answer doesn't have to be seen, having to stay that someone else, and Ashe finds herself curious.

"Still don't like it?"

"For you, I, am unsure," she says back slowly, with a small sigh. "It is very… familiar. Informal, I suppose."

Makes sense. Rich people pick long names to call their children by which they doggedly refuse to shorten, nor use the ones they prefer. Amélie's used to her name in lights. She never quite successfully swapped out the latter for her husband's with the pedigree Guillard bought. It is a name the world knew her by, as the small smattering of besotted patrons in her audience knows her by another one. She's always commanded people's focus. The evenings where it's overcrowded, her playing becomes more stilted – hesitant, almost, because they're not here to listen, and she doesn't know what to do with that, doesn't like that they aren't, when her entire art is about making people notice.

But she persists. Night after night she doesn't like. Because Ashe asked if she would.

She owes her a lot, though not in the way that usually works. "Then I'll stick to Melanie. Though personally, I like Blue better," she offers, which gets her the warmth she's looking for. But it doesn't last, as Amélie sighs again.

"I mean it, about being careful. And I know that you are… but I would like you to be more."

Ashe frowns. "I handled plenty of undertakings just fine before I knew you, sugar."

"I know you did," Amélie says. "But I would rather not see you hurt."

She isn't planning to be. She might yet, but that still isn't what she means. It's almost… if she knows her, and she does… it like what's really bothering her, about the busy nights, is that she can't account for every member of the crowd. That she can't know their intent, can't watch them all – can't make her way from one side of the room to the other in a blink of an eye to be with her.

Even weaponless as they decided to be, Amélie will always be one.

Ashe's mouth pops open. Closes it again. How did she manage to find one person, let alone two, that loves her so much that they'd make it their duty? The thrill's where she thrives – she's an outlaw, she's designed to get hurt. They'll both make certain she doesn't. Air right now feels thick. Can't do much more than nod an agreement, much as she wants to debate it further.

Amélie's inspecting the glass Ashe last put down, running her finger along its rim. "You knew what you were getting into with me," she adds quietly, as if it'll explain and account for everything. And in a way, it does: she'd held on. Even after all her warnings.

"Hey," Ashe says softly, to encourage her to look up. "Don't you go thinking it's a bad thing. 'Cause you know how far I'm going. Don't you?"

Her girl thinks, but only for a moment. She wants her hand now. She'll have it.

"I do," she says. They're magic words. Soon, now; so very soon.

"Good," Ashe says, remembering to breathe. "But you're right about the need for a change in subject, so… what's with the books?"

She nods towards the slim stack of covered sheet music she's placed on the counter. An unnecessary undertaking: when Amélie sees and takes note of something, she doesn't forget. Ashe wouldn't be surprised if her memory, for all its gaps, had become more… eidetic with so many fissures for it to fill. Sometimes it causes her pain. And other times she uses it to shut down disagreements about who was the last one to eat an item in the fridge in an instant as she doesn't forget the minutiae either.

Amélie looks at her pile, pulling it toward where she's sitting, in exchange for pushing the glass toward the upside down tower that Ashe has been subconsciously building. "Running errands before opening," she says. "I need to buy more. I've been told I should expand upon my repertoire beyond a mere ballad."

"But that's what they're here for," Ashe says with a grimace, annoyed, confrontational and knee jerk, and she gives their employer a bitter glance and an unseen scowl, because how dare he not think it's good enough.

"He has his point," Amélie says. "Bringing more people in and having them stay increases profits."

Ashe mutters her disagreement under her breath. Sure she don't run a bar for her living, but she runs her own business, thank you very much and— she would care more about the profit line and ask her pianists to play other things if she were in his position, fine. "I guess it's best to keep him happy. But just so you know, I like the ballads."

Where it's just her, and the piano, and her thoughts.

"I know," Amélie says. "That's why I play them."

She really does see her for who she is and the gentle love it brings flung right toward her heart, and it aches, and there's really only one thing Ashe wants to do.

"'Fore you go, kiss me."

So she'll be there on her mouth and on her mind in the half dozen blocks and back again, but mostly just because—

Amélie leans across the bar to meet her in her descent, soft and chaste and bittersweet, wanting so much more and for it to last.

And once they part they simultaneously look out across the sea of tables and chairs, because the kid has long since lost interest in a poorly played piano, her father gone somewhere, and she's now just watching them kiss.

Ashe spirits another fierce expression and she quickly departs, falling over her feet; less scared, like it's a game of pretend, and Amélie shakes her head at Ashe as the girl goes.

"I think you like her too."

Oh, why did she ever want her to perceive her. "I'm not here to make friends, Blue," she says sombrely.

She's here for Deadlock—

For herself, and Bob—

And for Amélie.

Chapter Text

For such a timid thing she's surprisingly brazen, sliding the money forward before Ashe can put her own down.

She smiles, the same bewitching candour in red lips and black eyeliner. "Thanks, kitten, but I'm waiting for someone."

The girl's shoulders droop. Likely a little embarrassed as she rescinds and scoots on her way – unable to resist peeking over her shoulder at her from the other end of the occupied counter, Ashe anticipating it, leaving her with a timely parting grin.

It doesn't help. She doesn't expect that it will. She knows what people see: confidence and charisma, the promise of mystery and rebellion tied up with unyielding dedication. If she'd come along earlier she would have taken this kitten up on her overtures; seduced her, if she wanted that. It was how it worked. For the next few hours she'd give an experience of her they'd never forget – never seeking permanence, and it had suited her just fine.

She went back to someone once. A mistake. The first and only time: returning to the hideout after waking up in the dead of night alone and it wasn't Bob that she found comfort in, but Cole. Cole who had warned her and she'd ignored it and gone and done it anyway, 'cause no one told her what to do anymore – believing this guy really truly liked her, when in fact all he wanted was the boast, that he'd bedded a gang leader. Cole who listened although she didn't speak, weeping silently into tissues that he brought her without a word, who'd rustled up a blanket when she'd finally passed out next to him on the sofa at the back of the hideout.

Ashe never looked into it. But she wouldn't be surprised if Cole Cassidy had paid that man a visit, because they'd never been any record left of him to find. People didn't think it, but from the beginning the man she'd allied herself with had had that dark aspect of him, where he wasn't afraid of sullying his own two hands if he thought it was just.

After that, she wove in her rules, playing games with definitive ends. Relationships had never been a long term fixture of the Calamity. She didn't want them to be. Because the longer they went, the more calamitous they got. Too needy, too much, too many thorns to get stuck over. Until Amélie.

They played games too. Both pretending it was something they could have in the company of someone else so lonely and she knew she had to be something sinister and grey, she just didn't know what: until the truth wormed its way in but by then it was already too late. Dreams ain't beholden to the usual rules. If she were someone come to kill her she'd seen her exist in other ways; framed in windows, in melancholy and yearning, pressed against her mouth in the winter dark – and one night Amélie had let her robe fall to the floor when she was particularly afraid of losing her, not that Ashe knew it then, and she said—

The woman in her bed said, I love you. Like it was a surprise. A gift. She could have said it back… they could stay in that little lie. When she confronted it, it didn't break apart. Maybe because she'd shown her she felt like she could ask for it.

She wanted her to prove her wrong. That after she woke up, she'd still be there.

It's nearing two years now. Long enough to feel like lifetimes ago… the best mistake she's ever made. They danced those same steps in parallel games, and they were ready to walk away… until they weren't, and Ashe had said—

Stay.

…she's really looking forward to marrying the love of her life.

She's made reservations here tonight at this restaurant, and Ashe waits for her, one leg tucked beneath the other as she sits on a low backed couch the same colour of void as the coffee table. She usually gravitates towards something fancier on dates but tonight she's elected for something a little more casual – a long sleeved red blouse embracing her shoulders, top button undone, sat snug on the hilt of her waist, paired off with a red belt and deep blue jeans over her boots. She was gonna wear a jacket with it, but she couldn't find it in time. She wonders if Amélie'll like the ensemble, if it'll make her pause a second herself when she sees her… she's also late, but that's her prerogative, Ashe supposes. Making her wait. Making her think about her ensuing grand entrance, safely the only thing on her mind, and the possibilities are entertaining as she flips through the list of overpriced cocktails on offer.

People come and go. It's popular here. Place is booked out for months. Ashe keeps her eye on the point of entry; a server drifts back a couple of times intending to keep her watered, but not yet. She's got gooseflesh down her arms, she can't wait to see her. She's gonna take her breath away, she just knows it— honey please just walk through that damn door, she's ready to receive you—

And then she's there. Amélie Lacroix. Wearing a dress smooth as velvet in midnight blue, studded with what might actually be a galaxy of stars taken right out of the sky to make it. The dress catches against every angle from her ankles to her neck, fishnets underneath. She hasn't bothered with an overcoat, but that jacket she's wearing? Hers. She should've known; life has a funny way of bringing things back to you. Once, she didn't like wearing anything that was hers. How times have changed. She has be aware of the effect she has, a further share of onlookers gained from nearby drinkers, human and omnic alike.

And this terrible, dangerous creature soaks in the room, looking for its prey.

Found it.

She walks directly to her, and Ashe just gawps.

"Holy shit," she manages when Amélie's close enough to hear. She's entirely speech-less, at a loss for any further of a coherent thought – and Amélie chuckles at her, tilting her head the opposing way, to better show off her neck, covered in glitter. "Shit, you're gorgeous."

It amuses her. Reaching down toward her face and taking locks of Ashe's hair in her fingers to tuck behind one ear, thumb gliding down her neck – her own words, that she looks nice herself. "Weren't you planning to say something different to me?"

Oh, right. The full patented roguish romantic routine she'd first treated her to in the Cabaret, when she hadn't known her, but would have liked to. And why not? In these borrowed lives, why not do some more pretending? Why not do it again?

Ashe clears her throat, and stands – much more like herself – holding out rough hands hewn from being an outlaw in her spider's direction, and Amélie takes them, smoother.

"I've got some champagne on hold. Just needs a pretty woman to drink it."

"And that works?"

"It does. You can't resist me." She sounds so assured that Amélie laughs, galled or disbelief or both— or just simply, actually charmed. "Confidence could take us lots of different places, me and you…" Ashe sways a little bit, buoyant in her heeled boots, her thought in her smile as well as on the tip of her tongue. "Or I could hold off and dance with you first."

Her beloved rolls her eyes, because she's skipping steps. "Ashe."

"I'll rethink of the rest," she breathes, "whilst I'm dancing with you."

She thinks. Accepts by reclaiming her lead, because as impatient and restless as the outlaw can be her girl knows she's always thorough when she aims her heart toward something, and more than that, Amélie doesn't deny herself her own dreams anymore, and Ashe grins, full of teeth and glee, following her to the middle of the open floor.

No one else is dancing: it's an expensive place, orchestral and classic, even has that bit of foliage with a waterfall right in the middle of it— but everyone sticks to the same gummed rules, that you eat your food and pay for it through the nose and go. And she'll be doing that herself just like the rest, sure, at a quiet private table somewhere in a corner, but first—

Slender fingers settle. One hand on her waist, the other meeting hers: and Ashe very slowly, very deliberately twines the two of them together, fingers running against the ring Amélie hasn't neglected to wear. Her spider, her Widowmaker. Hers, even here, so far away from the rest of the people and things that matter.

Not so far from her. She never used to dance slow, least not like this. In a ballet dancer's eyes, perhaps she's become somewhat passable. And despite her predisposition to lead, Amélie doesn't take it. Oh. There's a surprise. It's a good thing she performs well under pressure, adapting to the soft accompaniment.

"Everyone's looking," Amélie voices, stepping closer.

"Don't focus on them," Ashe says, not quite possessive, but almost. "Just me."

Aim high, they said.

She's several glasses of champagne and cocktails deep and not entirely sober, and the greatest enjoyment in the world right now is fighting against Amélie's fingers on the tabletop for dominance – although to her mild annoyance, her girlfriend keeps sufficiently pinning them.

She frowns. During appetisers Amélie decided her shoulders were a better place to discard the borrowed jacket, and the weight's giving her unfair disadvantage, has to be. She tugs fingers loose and tries again, and Amélie's only getting more insufferable in that silent gloat of me being better than you, particularly as she fails fruitlessly against her.

"I told you," she says, as Ashe struggles. "I am not letting you go."

"At least give me a chance," Ashe slurs. "At this rate I'm not going to get to pick."

Between courses they've been naming places – countries, cities, middle-of-nowhere's – the places they've most wanted to see by themselves or with others but never quite managed. But they will, after they're married. Ashe'll make sure of that.

"I might gift one to you," Amélie muses, idly. "If you're nice."

Ashe tuts. "I'm always nice." Which is in itself a lie, because it's not for just anyone… but if niceness is what it takes to get her what she wants, then sure, she'll play. "I'll steal if I have to."

"No work," Amélie reminds. "You promised."

"Not that. Something much closer to home. I just want to steal away you."

"Don't you already have me?"

Amélie is shaking her head, ever so slight… lonely, again, and Ashe is inches from her lips, desperately wanting to kiss her – she can't, not yet.

"Do I?"

"Yes," Amélie exhales, equally looking, betraying what she wants of her too. "And me, for you?"

"Yeah," Ashe says. "You got me." How many courses left? One? Two? Just dessert? How long does she have to fight the want blooming inside her, until she can have her completely? Too many calculations. She runs her tongue over her unkissed lips and withdraws, then swallows, testing her luck. "Do you wanna go make a mess with me, sugar?"

Amélie's eyes are stationary as she contemplates, like she isn't breathing. Not that she really needs to. And then—

"Your place or mine?"

She undresses her until her heart's bare. Where she's just Ashe, and she's just Amélie.

But slowly. So slow: accessories first. The necklace and its barely audible clasp as she relieves her of it; the armlet, the bracelet. The ring stays, even as she thumbs her way thoughtfully across it, displaced enough for Amélie to look, to think about it again.

—dates are overrated, even if this still is one.

Next is the dress.

She tips well. She persuades the fabric away from skin and places her lips delicately against her neck – not to bite, but to leave the mark there, visible from certain angles of light, like this one. Past her shoulder as she simultaneously helps her out of it, one kiss after another in a sensual march, and she never breaks the connection between them, always keeping it, watching her watching her. Even Amélie's affected by it; Ashe can tell.

"I haven't seen you this way for a while," Amélie says, interrupting the silence that isn't just laboured, concentrated breathing. "What's the occasion?"

She smiles up at her, crooked. "You are," she affirms, and she doesn't look away. "My beautiful wife."

"We aren't married yet."

"But we will be," she muses, short. "Won't we?"

It's rhetoric. Rhetoric as she hastens her way back up, kissing overlong the place where her neck meets her shoulder and Amélie holds her breath, pouting, soft lips parting ever so slightly.

"We really—" she starts, but has to stop, and Ashe feels elation as she struggles to stay evenly composed, "—really must do something about this mouth of yours, chérie…"

"Then stop me," Ashe says, knowing she won't.

So charming. So slow, taking her time with it – holding her arm out as she trails her way down, smudging red lipstick as she goes. She deserves to be adored. She's perfect. Her nimble fingers have found where they need to go, revealing cleavage and hints of lingerie. Her favourite, she thinks, as she spares it a momentary glance: smile curling as she looks back up at her lover, sufficiently ensnared.

"Sometimes I can't believe you're real and with me," she says, quietly. "That you love me… and everyone can see it, knowing how beautiful you are. But they don't know you like I do."

She's just talking. Sentiment, even making its way here. She feels like she can with her. She can: it's been long enough that she knows Amélie likes listening to her heart's desire, the deepest secrets she keeps.

It's done, and Ashe helps her step out of it, a puddle of dress shaped fabric at the foot of their bed. She's overdressed in comparison now. They both know it. She doesn't stay that way, and Amélie helps: lifting the remaining articles up and over her head, hair ruffled and in disarray and she doesn't care to fix it, not when it's entirely too long without her hands against the clandestine cold of her skin. The rest has to go. All of it. Everything. Where she's just Ashe, and she's just Amélie. And at last all those minor inconveniences to getting what she wants are removed and she feels so—

There's something else. Something that's been hung around her neck for a while, and not just when they're this.

"I know I've said I want you to feel it, Amélie," Ashe says quietly, from over her. It's important. She doesn't remember the between and how they got there, just that she is, that it was inevitable. "And I always do. But I want you to know what I… what I feel, what I'm feeling, the way I feel when I'm here with you."

It's so honest, and her breath shakes – and then she's resolved, meaning it. Wanting, helping her to feel is one thing, and this is… it's enough as they are, but if she can show, if she can truly understand, and feel what she does—

To be completely open with her. To let her in. It's such a pronounced longing, and Amélie weighs it –lives in it if only for a moment, the undying love Ashe carries for her.

Her eyes are intense.

"Share it with me."

Ashe kisses her, this night where she has so much to learn.

Say it.

Say it again.

Say her name and tell her you love her and that you're hers and always will be.

Once upon a time there was a girl who loved a girl and she asked her to marry her and she said

Yes.

And by the end, when they've been everywhere, she knows.