Chapter Text
As the car rocks, Taylor presses her forehead to the cool glass of the window, trying to ice out the memory of what just occurred.
The press of those—
‘Nope, not even going there.’
She turns to the other woman in the car—who is focused on the street with an intensity that was honestly a bit intimidating. Taylor opens her mouth to say something probably stupid—anything to take her mind off the night’s events but thinks better of it and remains silent.
They reach the stop sign at the end of Emma’s street before she caves—addressing the new elephant in the vehicle.
At least one of them.
“Okay, so what the fuck do we actually do about this?”
Sophia looks about as frustrated at the situation as Taylor feels—eyebrows drawn together in thought. The car pulls forward again—Sophia never having taken her eyes off the road.
“Fuck if I know,” Sophia says after a moment. “Figure I’ll just drag her ass to therapy.”
“That’ll be enough?” Taylor asks—features shifting towards skepticism—the valleys in her face given endless gloomy depth by the streetlight.
Sophia blinks at her.
“—be enough?” Sophia echoes. “The fuck?”
“Yeah, the therapy,” Taylor grumbles tersely—not liking the other woman’s tone.
Sophia breaks abruptly—jerking both of them forward in their seats.
“Okay—y’know what we’re doing this now.” Sophia sighs.
“—what the fuck, Hess? Doing what now?” Taylor questions.
“This.” Sophia frustratedly waves—searching for the words she wants to use. The back of her hand brushes the roof upholstery.
“This?” Taylor repeats slowly—looking at Sophia for all the world like she’s delusional.
Sophia bristles.
“Yes.” She hisses. “Do I have an echo now?” She grumbles before giving much more emphasis to her next statement—next inquiry.
“The fuck do you care, Hebert?”
“What?” Taylor questions—truly lost.
“Why. Do. You. Care?” Sophia asks, really enunciating each word. “Emma’s shit is her own. You could have stayed gone, but you’re here. You could have just not dealt with her tonight and gone home, but you didn’t. Now you’re talking about what WE’RE gonna do to fix this. Since when was there a ‘we’? Since when is it your job to fix Emma?”
Taylor remains quiet—taking a moment for introspection.
“Emma was my friend—” Taylor starts weakly.
“’Was’ is the keyword.” Sophia barks.
Neither of them say anything for a moment. Sophia seems to be looking for something in particular in her expression. Taylor looks out the passenger window instead. That—whatever that was—with Emma—had shaken her badly, and she now feels completely off center.
Unfortunately for her, Sophia seems to find whatever she was looking for because she scoffs a moment later.
“Friend… riiiight. That certainly was friendly.”
“And just what do you mean by that?” Taylor nearly hisses—eyes narrowed dangerously at the implication.
“I don’t know, what do I mean?” Sophia asks rhetorically.
“Oh, fuck you, Hess!” Taylor snaps, taking off the seatbelt—reaching for the door handle.
A little clunk sound betrays the engaging of the door’s locks. She looks back to Hess, apoplectic. Hess, who isn’t looking at her with the expected cruel glee of the past, but with a stone-faced gaze that betrays only minor confusion—as if she, herself, is unsure about what she just did, maybe exactly why she did so. She reaches to flip the manual switch to unlock her door on the handle, but Sophia doubles down. Suddenly the car lurches forward—throwing Taylor back in her seat.
“Let me the fuck out!” She hisses, and before she can even eke out a threat, Sophia visibly deflates. She slows the vehicle once again—pulling off to the side of the road. She releases her white-knuckle grip on the wheel, hands drifting up to instead rub at her forehead.
Taylor wastes no time—leaping out of the car—swiftly starting to walk down the street—not looking back—even when she hears the car creeping up beside her.
“I’m sorry—it’s just… After all she’s—we—did… you were more than just friends, right?”
Taylor doesn’t answer—eyes remaining locked in front of her on the end of the street—flies buzzing through the night and a stop sign reflecting back at her—awash in the glow of the car’s headlights. Despite how she may appear, her focus is locked in on memories that exist far in the past—memories of playground adventures where Emma was a princess and Taylor, her valiant knight—memories of pillow forts and butterfly kisses—then later on, as they got older, actual kisses—memories of her parents talking about non-traditional partnerships and her blurting out that she was going to one day marry Emma—much to their amusement.
She does her best to bury these remembrances back where they belong—coaxing her focus back to the cool night air, and the rumbling whir of Sophia’s car, and the pair of dark eyes she imagines locked on her back—the other woman awaiting an answer that she probably knows she won’t receive.
Taylor keeps walking—breath chuffing mechanically in her ears. Her head feels like it’s a balloon—like if Sophia were to reach out and poke it then it would pop.
“Look, I fucked up… I shouldn’t have done that—I… Fuck.”
‘You think?’ Taylor wants to shout at her, but that would mean opening the door for a response—and Taylor isn’t running away—she’s just…
‘Arrrgh’
She pivots on the balls of her feet—the bottom of her shoes grinding against the asphalt.
“You think?” She spits—her eyes meeting Sophia’s.
The other woman’s gaze is full of regret and frustration, painted with the echoes of hurt.
“Yeah, I do,” Sophia says sincerely. “I… tonight got under my skin. Emma…” She trails off.
Instead of picking up the last thought, she shifts back. “I—I just fucked up, okay.” She reiterates.
“Yeah, okay.” Taylor emptily fires back—turning back to her walk.
“Look, Hebert…” Sophia makes a frustrated noise—Taylor can hear the gears in her brain grind a bit.
“Can I at least drop you somewhere? It’s not safe to be walking around the city after dark.”
“I can handle myself.” Taylor bites out. When the other woman doesn’t pull off—still coasting alongside her—Taylor continues, “I’ll call a cab or something.”
Sophia looks like she wants to argue. The urge to say more dances openly across her face.
“Yeah—yeah okay.” She sighs. She doesn’t pull off, though; instead, she waits a beat. “Y’know, she never got over you, right? It’s always been you with her… She—Emma’s just… not okay.”
Taylor doesn’t say anything as Sophia pulls away—just watches the taillights of her car swim around the corner in the distance.
Taylor absently listens to the hissing and pattering of a shower in the communal bathroom from a stall—where she sits curled over with her head in her arms.
It’s not a dignified location to have a breakdown… but she’s honestly had them in worse places.
Briefly, the steamy fluorescent lights and the overhead ceiling shift to Winslow's within her mind’s eye…
The shower cuts out.
Sophia—Emma—it—they…
She’s honestly not sure where to even begin unpacking all that happened…
‘Why do you care?’
It was honestly a good question.
‘You were more than just friends, right?’
Were they? They had never really discussed it at the time… And certainly hadn’t after. She had just chalked it up to kids being kids over the years and left it at that.
Taylor listens to the woman in the shower humming to herself as she towels off, and then the rattling of the woman’s caddy as she picks it up.
‘She never got over you, right? It’s always been you with her.’
Well… that would… ‘nope, not even going there.’
Just the thought of it makes her green at the gills. And yet like a missing tooth—she can’t help but run her tongue over it to feel the sting. ‘If she felt that way, then why?..’
‘Sometimes when a boy—’ She remembers her father saying—'or girl,’ her mother had cut in from the other room.
‘Or girl—' Danny had chuffed with a roll of the eyes that had sent young Taylor giggling, ‘—likes a girl, then they pull her hair to get her attention.’
Just the thought of it made her ill. She whips around in the stall—head now facing the toilet.
The sound of dry heaving and then dribbling bile hitting the toilet water cuts through the bathroom.
The bathroom door snaps shut with a
Slam!
The other people in the locker room briefly look over at the sound of the locker door slamming shut.
“What’s got you all huffy, puddles? You and your girl break it off?” Hope ribs from somewhere over her shoulder—shrugging into her own kit.
“No.” Taylor grunts. She’s in no mood to deal with this. Not now. Not ever.
“Does this have anything to do with why you vanished into thin air last night?”
“How do you know about that?” Taylor asks—cutting her eyes to the other woman. Hope’s facing away from her—dark hair still a bit mussed from sleep. She’s now slipping into her plate carrier.
“Trade secret!” The other woman turns to smile at her—a smile that quickly evaporates once she sees the other woman’s mood has soured further.
“Oh, c’mon, don’t be like that. Frog told me.” Hope rolls her eyes.
“Well, Frog needs to mind her own business.”
“She was really excited when you transferred in, y’know,” Hope says—stepping into Taylor’s space. “Was really looking forward to spending time with her friend from bootcamp. You’re not an island, Puddles—whatever shit you’re going through, when you bring it back here, it becomes our business. Maybe instead of brooding about whatever the fuck try communicating like an adult.” Hope pauses. “Also, you should consider apologizing. Barnett won’t show it, but you bailing out like that last night really upset her.”
She pats Taylor once on the back before heading towards the door. “Just a consideration.”
The guilt is instantaneous—a churning feeling that compounds with the emotional remnants still lingering from the night before. There’s also a burning indignation that flares up in her chest. It has a hard time finding a single direction.
Sophia, Emma, Ainsley, Hope—‘why does this shit have to be so complicated?’
She grits her teeth—velcroing the tabs on her own carrier.
Every time she so much as tries to talk about things, they seem only to spiral further.
‘Fuck Hope, and her stupid unsolicited advice.’
Securing her duty belt, Taylor prepares to slide her phone into its given pocket.
Perhaps looking for a momentary distraction, she ends up flipping it open.
3 Missed calls and 1 voicemail from Sophia Hess
She snaps the phone shut again. She’ll deal with that after work. She needs her head in the game for what’s coming.
The Empire has kicked up a big stink in response to losing two of their capes—trying to put up a mask of strength to hide their weakness.
Shutting her eyes, Taylor takes a deep breath.
‘I can do this. Everything else comes after.’
By the time Taylor finishes suiting up, she’s the last out of the locker room. If she has a hard time meeting Sharkbait’s eyes on the way over to their transport, well, that’s nobody else’s business but hers.