Archive of Our Own

Looking back, Rita should have seen the signs. She should have known how deep Jane would sink after what happened to her; should have anticipated the only option would be to manifest Karen: the worst of them, present only when Jane is buried deep, deep Underground.

While even she can recognize that she is a chronic exaggerator and embellisher, there is nothing aggrandizing in Rita's claim that Karen is the worst of Jane's personalities. Bottle blonde and simpering, she bounces with fake excitement on the balls of her feet, fists quivering over her mouth when she squeals and coos, as if her sugary fickleness can hide the decay beneath. The hair doesn't suit her; the phoniness doesn't suit her. Unlike most of the others who share Jane's body, Karen is invasive and uncooperative, a rotten little tapeworm that infests the mind of anyone who gets too close.

That's not to say Rita lacks an exhaustive list of complaints about Jane herself— she's a temperamental bitch with a potty mouth— it simply pales in comparison. At least Jane's honest about it.

So Rita and Cliff stand outside of Doug's soulless 3:2 house, staring up at the whitewashed soffits as a flash of bright movement in the window signals that Karen is sweeping through the foyer toward them in a summery yellow cocktail dress.

"God," Rita heaves.

Rita knew how to get here. She wrote the address on sticky note from the library, where it remained since the last time she took a call from Karen, in 2012, if she remembers correctly, when she first told Rita that Doug was the love of her life. They met two hours prior in just the sweetest way, sharing a little table at a local bookstore, sipping from each other's coffees and reading their favorite lines of poetry.

Rita scowled then as she's scowling now, painted lip curled with overt disgust, hip cocked to one side. Then she was alone, bottle of wine in tow, regretting letting the cab driver leave the moment she saw Karen's snarling joy in person, mouth doused in pearly lip gloss like blood on a wolf's maw, and how, when she hugged her, she knew it was not at all how Jane would have hugged her. Not that Jane ever had.

"Is this like her boyfriend's place?" Cliff twists at the waist, clanking as he takes in the front yard. "I didn't think Jane was into dudes—"

"That's not Jane. It's Karen," Rita snaps. "And Karen's into anyone who reminds her of Love, Actually."

"Is that a show?"

"God," Rita heaves again. "We'll watch it later, Clifford. You need to be more prepared. Until then, it's showtime."

A shrill greeting pierces the air and Karen rushes her inside, pausing just long enough to insult Cliff and make an extremely unnerving comment about Rita being her best friend. Her stomach plunges into icy water, twisted and chilled on every feasible level, not the least of which is that Jane would sooner die than put that title on her. They are not friends— they are not anything except for housemates and even that's sporadic— the public at large has no words for the sometimes casually amiable, usually antagonistic mutual bullying that has sustained them for over 40 years. 

Last time this happened Rita steeled herself for Jane's manic resurfacing: predicting her standard meanness output, maybe snapping at Rita and calling her a bitch for not doing more to help, then apologizing a few weeks later. Normal things.

But there was nothing normal in the splinter of vulnerability beneath Jane's skin when she returned, ending Karen's tenure with a whimper, not a bang. There were trembling fingertips and wide eyes that looked to Rita for some tenuous connection, then the familiar expression of self-loathing that Rita sees in the mirror most mornings. Wrapped up in her hatred and revulsion, Jane wiped her mouth on the sleeve of a crop-top she would never choose for herself, furious and frenzied, mercilessly removing the last traces of Karen and Doug from her body.

"What the fuck?" she gritted out. "What the fuck did she do to me?"

In the background Rita could hear Doug sobbing, wailing from the living room like he'd been stabbed or his entire family died in a plane crash. A grown man insensate, inconsolable the moment Karen left him. She couldn't wrap her head around his despondency, weak and clingy and embarrassing. Maybe, maybe he really did love Karen the way she claimed.

"Nothing, sweetie," Rita breathed, hands raised to reach out for Jane before she pulled back, arms limp at her side. Jane wouldn't like more hands on her; she didn't need that now. "She didn't get very far before you came back. A kiss. Just— just a stage kiss, nothing real."

"Fuck." Jane's face twisted, lips quivering. Nails dug into the cheap satin choker at her throat, ripping off the dangling silver heart. "Take me home. I don't wanna fucking be here anymore. I don't want him to touch me."

Rita called the cab then too, sitting in the back seat as far from Jane as possible. The autumn foliage blurred outside the window as she concentrated on the oranges and browns, and anything that would keep her from doing Jane the great disservice of witnessing her furtive tears. They rode together without a word until Jane's breath fogged against the window, shuddering out, "I just wanna go home."

And as Rita follows Karen inside for the second time this decade, she thinks she's beginning to understand the sentiment.

"If I get fucked, you get fucked," Hammerhead waves the beer bottle in her face, sneer twisting the scar that runs above her lip.

Rita recoils from the abrasive personality, still somehow less disturbing than Karen's cloying mannerisms, surprised that she managed to wrestle power away for even a moment. Surprised too that she bothered to warn Rita about the mind control in the first place, gravelly alto uneasy and severe. It sounds deceptively like a cry for help— I don't want him to touch me are the unspoken words Rita hears through the snarls and swears— and this tangled mess in Jane's mind knots tighter with every passing second, the rising action of a melodramatic Greek tragedy Rita would never pay to see.

Antigone, maybe, but with more civil disobedience and less moral grandstanding, Rita ponders. That's the closest analogy she can muster on short notice: both of them heroines, resolute and fervent, bent on some warped form of divine law. Willing to end it all to remain true to themselves. Antigone, dead in her cave for it, hung up from stalactites. And Jane, buried deep below, where worms eat at the skin of her soft pink lips.

Rita shakes loose the thought from her mind, quickly snapping back to reality. Hammerhead in a dress is disturbing, all bulk and fury and a little bit of food on her mouth from whatever she managed to dig up from Doug's fridge. Sometimes she flirts with Rita, vulgar and frightening— dainty little face like yours would look better with a pussy riding it— and Jane always apologizes after these comments. Once in 2003, when Jane stayed at the Manor for nearly the entire year, she lounged in the sun room, whipping out her shiny lighter and smoking a joint while Rita finished her trio of martinis, and added, "Sorry about that. You're just pretty and I think it confuses her. Her dick's bigger than her brain."

Squashing the urge to blush or groan her discomfort, Rita tilted up her chin, selecting the words she actually wanted to hear in that sentence and honing in on them. "Oh, go on?"

"I can't tell if you're fishing for compliments or want Hammerhead to hit it," Jane laughed, flint blue smoke funneling from her nose. "Bad look either way."

Rita tsked. "The former. I was more interested in knowing if only Hammerhead has good taste."

At this Jane scoffed, kicking her combat boots up onto the leather arm rest. The joint nestled in the valley of her fingers as her palm flattened against her collarbone, nails scratching one shoulder beneath her shirt. "Like you don't know you're objectively pretty. You were a literal movie star."

Rita sipped her cocktail, shrugging, "It's nice to hear it sometimes, ideally with fewer expletives."

"If that's what you want you're asking the wrong fuckin' girl," said Jane. Her eyes closed with something like sadness, long black lashes shining tangerine with captured sunlight. "Try Penny Farthing."

Rita gazed down her aquiline nose at her, face painted with practiced neutrality. If this were a movie and she was a hero— not that the studio execs of her era would ever agree to that sort of modern feminist thing, not when they have a perfectly good doll who can emote and learn lines and does well with test audiences— she would have made some sweeping proclamation of Jane's importance in her life, or gently whispered the way she clearly favors Jane over the rest of her personalities, special and valued for simply being herself. She would have spoken her fondness in the glistening orange light of day, and there would be a swell of heartfelt string music building behind them as their eyes locked, watery and sentimental.

But instead she sipped her martini again, and said into the silent sun room, "Would if I could, but it looks like I'm stuck with you."

She was not a protagonist, and it wasn't a scene from a romance film, nor a high drama, nor a comedy. So she didn't say anything else, and Jane didn't say anything else, and the next day they both pretended the conversation never happened, opting instead to drive each other completely insane until the end of time.

With a ripple of power washing down her form, Karen regains control in Doug's kitchen, bathing Hammerhead's violence in something far worse. Rita swallows hard, fearing her properly this time, wishing instead that Hammerhead would return to pushing her around and insulting her. Before she didn't understand the depth and subtext of this story— she assumed that Karen manifested because Jane wanted her to manifest, that Karen was the closest thing she had to being happy— but she was just beginning to scratch the surface of the plot unfurling before her. The being in Jane's body relishes the opportunity to exploit and domineer, to implant fake love and reap its adoration, sinister and treacherous in all the ways Jane abhors.

Rita sniffs, swirling the glass of cheap Merlot Karen thrust into her hand, frustrated with her own paltry intuition that it's taken her this long to realize the scope of this fool's paradise. She hasn't figured out yet how Karen does it, or how her powers work so consistently over the boring bearded man in slacks and an Old Navy sweater who follows her like a stray puppy. She swallows with a grimace. The vintage is tannic trash, undoubtedly stolen from poor Doug, perpetually mind-controlled and dominated by Karen's influence over his ravaged brain. Rita stands in his living room, watching as he nuzzles noses with Karen, his eyes vacant and smile wide.

Her stomach churns and Rita breathes deeply through her nose, calming her angry heartbeat as much as she can before half of her face drips away, the precursor to a worse debacle, or, heaven forbid, a full blobbing. But she cannot decide what upsets her more: that Karen is forcing Doug to love her, or that Karen is making a man kiss any part of the body she shares with Jane.

She would hate this, Rita thinks, unable to soften the blow with excuses anymore. It aches down to her toes how little she can do in this moment, how entirely inept she is at stopping Karen and saving Jane and taking all of them away from this godforsaken situation. It's not like they've explicitly planned for this scenario, or talked about much of anything that happened last time, really. Slipping a stockinged foot out of her black heels, Rita rubs the back of one calf and scowls at Karen and Doug as they make loud kissy noises.

It is a hideous thing, what Karen does as a matter of instinct, the hungry way she devours the delusion and defilement. Consent means nothing to her, only ownership, and she giggles into Doug's beard, so pleased with her picture-perfect boy toy, her mindless husk, and the devastation of suburban ennui she tendrils into all their nervous systems. Her awful, taunting gaze drifts over to Rita, eating her discomfort too, daring her to glare back, a snake with an unhinged jaw.

Sour words twist in Rita's mouth and she looks away, but says nothing. She's failed her objective too badly already, passive and useless, simply watching as someone stronger violates them all. The story of her life.

When Jane returns she'll withdraw from the rest of them at the Manor— she might leave the mansion entirely, might make a few mistakes across the country and wait for Niles to bail her out of jail again, except that Niles isn't here, and the next best thing is hardly a comparison because it's Rita, and Rita stands locked in horrified stasis, wishing she could simply disappear from the waking world— and she doesn't blame her a bit for wanting to avoid them.

Rita was the first one Niles brought to the Manor and she knows more than she should about the rest of them, piecing together glimpsed interactions and offhanded remarks. They must all think her shallow and nonthreatening— and she is vain— but she understands emotions and subtext and implications.

She knows Cliff's regrets and Larry's secret. She knows enough of Jane's anger to know what injustices were done to her. Still, she can defend Jane in tiny ways, but she's hardly strong enough to do more, not like Larry and the godlike lightning being inside him, or Cliff with his impervious robot body. Though, she supposes, defending her in little ways is better than not at all, and not at all is the sum of what Jane had before.

Doug kisses Karen again, and Rita toes back into her shoe, eyes fixed on her wine glass, wondering how Jane will cope with what's being done to her body this time, with being touched against her will by this man who had no choice in the matter, who was controlled by a fragment of her own mind. Maybe she'll push it so far down that she hardly recognizes it anymore, a numb little memory that can't hurt her because she won't allow it to sharpen and clarify. Like a film she saw a long, long time ago, not a memory of her own. Like Rita does.

Karen though, wants every part of everyone around her, kindling for her fire, fodder to chew up and spit out, a façade in a perfect black frame, fake as Rita Farr on the silver screen. Desperate for love, manufactured or real, it matters not a bit to her.

Hands shaking, Rita excuses herself to the bathroom, away from this travesty and the comparison she hates her subconsciousness for drawing: she has more in common with Karen than she ever did with Jane. She shuts the hollow door behind her— a cheap veneer, mass-produced and flimsy— crimson nails quivering against the doorknob. This is why Jane mocked her in therapy: for being so self-absorbed, so convinced that her trauma makes the finest performance, for being the narcissist who speaks first and loudest and at length when the subject is Rita Farr.

She dry heaves into the sink, shoulders contracting. At least Jane is strong enough to show her ugliness. Straightforward, honest, a woman holding up her sins because she has no room inside her to keep them. Not at all like Rita, who can fill up her emptiness with lies and betrayals until she balloons and bursts and hopes that no one else will be smothered by the mess she's made. Phony, a sham, a cold, frail frame barely holding it together. There is no warm wood in her, all petrified and cold, not like the dark teak planks of Jane, filled with residual heat long after the sun sets.

She pushes the parallel away, hunching over the sink— I am the person who is breathing, she mentally chants— lest her skin melt like wax from her bones. She'd never hear the end of it from Karen.

Larry went through a culinary phase in 2006, perhaps finally bored with gardening, or perhaps Rita's praise for his home-cooked meals eventually did the trick. So the four of them sat together in the study, eating fresh lasagna and flipping the channels to a documentary about the silver screen starlets of the '50s, Rita included, because she demanded that they watch the premiere as it aired.

She scarfed down her mound of lasagna, eyes glued to the screen, wishing they'd finish with damned Grace Kelly already and move onto her. The segment arrived at last with a distinct tonal shift, a minor key in the background, ominous and tragic, and she set her fork on the plate in her lap, frowning. The talking heads repeated a narrative of an entitled prima donna, a diva with a mean streak: unpleasant to work with, shallow, self-aggrandizing. She will never forget the way the room shifted around her, tense with the eyes that slid to her face, waiting for a response.

But the confessional footage that cut her most deeply was not the litany of people who clearly didn't miss her, but the feature with her first producer, Raymond Welker, once greying hair now snow white. He sat in his penthouse suite in Beverly Hills, framed by the rooftop pool shimmering behind him, and this image was enough to trigger the response they all anticipated from lesser insults. They didn't know him. They didn't know what he did to her.

Welker said something she didn't hear— something disparaging by the look of rage in Jane's expression— but Rita was lost in the memories of his slimy voice breathing into her ear, too close, always too close, "C'mon, Rita. You're not a kid anymore. You know what you need to do to get ahead in the pictures," as his fingers slid beneath the hem of the embroidered shirt she picked out for her audition.

Niles turned off the small television at once, an apology forming in this throat. She covered her melting face with a flat palm, too afraid to move and prompt her leg's inevitable betrayal and response to this agony. Instead she hunched into the sofa as half her face seeped away, oozing and monstrous and ashamed. Tears pooled and fell, dripping through the new creases on her right side.

"Rita—" Larry softly began.

"What a profoundly rude man, undeserving of your talent," growled Niles, as angry as he ever managed.

They didn't know. They couldn't. She never told them.

She'd rather they relegate her to a corner with all the other dramatic little dilettantes, and assume that she was hurting because she was no longer a flower blooming in her prime, but a cancerous mass of tissue, all that comprised an empty woman with a fake name. And that was true too, she couldn't pretend that didn't sting, but that was a chronic ache she'd learned to endure long ago. Her voice died in her throat: she could not bear to explain why this was happening, why Raymond fucking Welker still made her breath choke away into nothingness.

But Jane slouched in the chair across the room, shoulders tense with mounting fury. Her eyes fixed on Rita, apparently unbothered by the disintegration of her face, taking in her body language with the expertise of a woman who understood these sins firsthand, who knew what prompted this shrinking, this self-loathing. Her nostrils flared and she lowly seethed, "Fuck him."

"It's fine," Rita mumbled, words slurred.

"Fuck him!" Jane spat louder, stomping around the living room with balled fists. Her boots thudded against the rug and hardwood, hair whipping around her cheeks as she turned to Rita and bellowed, "I know men like that— I know assholes like that! He can get fucking fucked!"

Rita sniffled again, suddenly embarrassed that Jane saw at once what the others didn't. She knew the truth and burned with rage on her behalf, warming her with secondhand passion. Slowly, slowly Rita's face pulled back into itself, the closest thing to actual healing she could manage.

"Jane—" Niles sighed, but she'd wheeled away from them again, short legs carrying her to the exit.

"No, fuck this!"

She'd left them after shouting matches before, typically smacking of vitriolic abandonment more than purpose. But this time she disappeared like a woman on a mission, and no one expected her to return the way she did, quickly and without explanation: boots clunking up the stairs at 4am, rattling their old pipes as she ran a late night shower.

The next day they sat together again at breakfast, all ignoring Niles' weary sighs about unnecessary outbursts and Rita distinctly remembers even now how Jane watched her the whole time, thoughtfully chewing on her lip between massive bites of French toast. Something dangerous glinted in her brown eyes, knowing and unrepentant.

They watched the news that night— Larry and Niles and Rita, at least, as Jane opted for an earlier bedtime than she typically did— banking on something safe and mundane like the local sports and weather, until the national crime segment covered an unexpected fire: an apparent arson that left Hollywood exec Raymond Welker dead at 84, his massive penthouse inexplicably set aflame like a beacon in the night. Police remained stumped by the lack of leads or motives, or how anyone could bypass Welker's prodigious security system.

The spike beneath Rita's skin was instantaneous and fondly felt, a thorn taken to a wound that needed bleeding, and she exhaled as if for the first time, lips quivering just slightly. Blue eyes fixed on the television, seeing the old photograph of Welker without losing a part of herself in the process. She smiled a little, a micromovement of joy, and in that moment her face belonged to both the movie star Rita Farr, and the young woman she was before, who picked out her favorite embroidered shirt for her audition.

She never asked Jane about it. She never felt the need to, less for plausible deniability— if the documentary proved one thing it was that the world thought she was mercifully dead— and more because she could not bear to betray how much it meant to her that she took revenge for the violence that was done half a century ago. Rita always was too delicate and refined and cowardly to get what she wanted, what she deserved, too frightened to speak it aloud.

But Jane is not soft and formless; she is a blade, sharp and ready, comfortable with drawing blood for her own sake and for Rita's too.

It only stings a little bit when Karen calls her a pathetic, sad, tired old crone well past her prime. This is not hot-off-the-presses news, and the delivery is not so cutting as it should be, so Rita merely sighs and wearily admits that she knows it too.

Honestly, it would hurt far more coming from Jane, who's said worse, even if she didn't mean it. There was the hag comment in '85 and the ugly comment in '96, both of which did reduce her to a bubbling mound of skin and self-loathing, albeit behind closed doors. But most of Jane's insults devolve into mockery and inept imitations of Rita herself, mixed with a touch of Hammerhead's patented profanity. Fuck off and die, Rita, etc. etc. Maybe an eat shit here and there.

Jane usually apologizes for these outbursts, and Rita always forgives her because, while she isn't a particularly kind woman, Rita isn't stupid either. The decades passed and she learned bits and pieces about Jane and the other women in her head— the little girl, Baby Doll, who giggles and tugs at Larry's bandages, and the stammering British one, Penny Farthing, who longs to run away from anyone who stares too long— because Rita knows on some level how it feels to split herself in two and in two again in uncontrollable mitosis, until all the remaining truths are just a big, messy pile, indecipherable and faded.

Rita lingers beside the dining room table, a generic piece undoubtedly picked up on sale from IKEA, and watches Doug's family scream and plead for him to return to his senses. But he can't hear them; he can't see them. There is only Karen and her engagement ring and the claws that sink deeper and deeper into his flesh, amputating his agency. This is her nefarious purpose, her reason for existing in Jane at all: control, dominate, suppress, when all else is lost and weakness means death.

She knew this before she fully understood Jane: people don't fracture themselves without a reason; people don't make a graveyard of their minds unless they've something to bury.

Chills race down Rita's arms, persistent and damning. Gertrude Cramp is the name she won't tell anyone, an ugly name, a name unfit for a marquee, banned by her mother and father since she was 9 years old and her vocal coach insisted that they find her something prettier, something catchier, something for a starlet who'd go far, although she didn't, really.

So Karen's insults mean very little in the long run and, as awful as it is to deal with this flaky, manipulative persona again, Rita can honestly say that she's worked with exactly her type in Hollywood. She can stand around with her cheap wine and witness this bullshit Stepford romcom fantasy, and keep an eye on Jane's body until its rightful owner returns with her standard beleaguered expression. She can't do much else, but she certainly won't leave now. No part of Rita trusts Karen not to do something malicious like take a razor to her own arms just to spite the rest of them, and to lay the groundwork for the sort of tragic romance she's seen in Nicholas Sparks adaptations, slop that they are.

But then paradigm shifts, and Karen is bored of all this screaming. She is ready to further the plot and get her happy ending in whatever form it takes, so she casts a new spell, a bigger one, eyes glowing icy blue until the family's shouting quiets and the whole room loves her like Doug loves her. Rita inhales slowly, jaw clenched in terror and morbid curiosity as the mind control sweeps over Doug's parents and sister, and all of Karen's enemies become her stalwart defenders, the ones who love her most, and she is again praised, beloved, adored.

Rita releases an unsteady exhale. How convenient a power that would be. How deplorable.

Bouncing across the carpet, Karen wraps her arms around Rita's tall frame again, laughing and delighted and reeking of Lovespell, surrounded by her new brainwashed family. Rita shudders at the chill of her embrace, the cavernous emptiness of the space between her arms, and a body pressed against hers that feels less and less like Jane's.

If their roles were reversed Rita would want someone to safeguard her, even if they were afraid and powerless and not-quite-a-friend. She thinks Jane would too, and she knows Jane would stick around for her though she has enough responsibilities on her plate. It swells in Rita's sternum like the first bubbles of a boiling pot that Jane would have found a way to stop this by now, explosive and fiery and zealous, fangs bared, each swear a promise in her mouth.

That is the image that grips her mind when Rita finally steps forward, daring to interrupt Karen's sordid momentum as she manically repeats I do, I do, I do in the mirror, and she snipes out, "If your love is real, then break the spell."

It's a bit of a half-measure, a last-ditch negotiation tactic, and Rita wonders what Jane would think of that sentiment. But she knows the answer in her heart at once: Jane is all fight and flight when Rita has never learned more than freeze and fawn. She wouldn't approve of any form of bargaining or compromise, or anything that remotely aligned with Karen's delusions.

She has no time left to consider it. There is a scowl and a flash of cobalt in Karen's eyes, and Rita is thrust into a darkness so profound even the deepest reaches of her repression couldn't match it. She feels Karen in her mind, puppeting her body so wholly she can barely feel the nausea of being violated swell up in her gut, familiar and repulsive. The control is so pervasive she can't feel herself disappearing.

Jane saves herself in the end, or Hammerhead does.

One of them bursts up and out, an eruption of pain, and pounces on Doug with a fragmented staircase riser in her hand, raised high to stake him through the chest like a vampire. Before the strike lands Karen wrestles back her control, powers rippling and shuddering as they mentally face off in a warped, tumbling mess, until the brain inside her skull is completely overwhelmed by this internal struggle for leadership, and they both vanish entirely, leaving Jane and Jane alone— always responsible for her own self-preservation, always forced to beat the rest into submission when they hurt themselves and others— comatose.

Her eyes roll into the back of her head and she hits the wooden floors hard, too fast for Rita or Cliff to catch her limp form. Rita lurches too, jolted from the sudden release of Karen's grip on her, chilled like a bucket of ice water was dumped on her head— and lonely, so suddenly lonely, the yawning void of a lost love— but she slides ungracefully and instinctively on her knees toward Jane, nails scratching against the lace of Karen's long sleeve wedding dress.

There is a chorus of weeping behind her, the questions and broken voices of Doug and his family as they wake, unable to reconcile what just happened to them with what they now see: an unconscious brunette who looks a great deal like Karen, emotionless and unconscious. Rita doesn't allow herself the time to reel from what happened in her mind; she can't afford the delay of a distraction, can't afford to melt away, not with Jane so vulnerable.

"We have to go," she mumbles, and Cliff scoops Jane into his powerful steel arms at once, pausing only to help Rita to her unsteady feet and rush out the front door.

She slides into a seat on the school bus, cradling Jane's head in her lap as Cliff takes the driver's seat, swearing and shifting it into gear. Brushing away the dark hair that falls across Jane's eyes, Rita fumbles at the contact, her hands shaking faintly: she isn't used to this either, as affectionate as she is, and knows damn well that Jane doesn't like to be touched. Rita would never openly admit her fondness for the woman lying against her— not to her face, at least— but she knows too much of her story to not see a kindred spirit. Niles didn't have to show her the tapes. She screams and recoils and shoves back when strangers accidentally bump into her, a cornered animal with no other recourse. Rita sees in Jane the same things Jane sees in Rita, the same tragedy translated into different languages.

Still, Rita thinks, Jane's touched me before.

Not too much, not too often: a playful push or poke here and there. No part of Jane is affectionate, but once she came home late from some misadventure reeking of alcohol and sweat, and rested her temple against Rita's shoulder, nose turned toward her neck, inhaling deep, steadying breaths. Rita thought the pigtailed one, Baby Doll, was in control at first, the only personality comfortable being held, but Jane's wavy black hair stayed loose against her neck and she muttered, "I'm fuckin' tired."

So Rita wrapped an arm around her waist and brought Jane to her own bedroom down the hall, filled with paints and canvases, because she knew how dreadful it felt to wake up in an unfamiliar place. As Rita tucked her into bed, she resisted the urge to kiss her— just on the forehead, a chaste, simple, loving thing that she didn't have the vocabulary to explain to herself— because the novelty of Jane's sudden vulnerability caught her completely by surprise, endearing and frightening in equal measure.

Pulling her closer, Rita resists that foreign urge again. She contents herself with wrapping her arms around Jane's stomach, limp body heavy against her own. Her hair smells right again, woody and nostalgic, and Rita breathes deeply of it, realizing for the first time how keenly she felt its loss.

When they get back to the Manor, Cliff rests Jane on the cold metal table in the laboratory in the basement, still draped in Karen's awful wedding dress.

Rita talks because that's what she does— it's a touch manic and more than a touch useless— but she doesn't have any other power to fix this at her disposal, and she can see Jane's eyes dancing behind her eyelids, frantic and trapped, so her voice pitches to match— "Jane, are you listening? We really, really, really need you to come out—" and, "Jane, sweetie, blink if you can hear me—" and, "Has anybody seen her like this before?" until at last Vic and Larry and Cliff can't bear her anxiety a moment longer and leave them alone to formulate a plan without her.

Blooming panic fills her stomach and her lips flatten into a thin line of nervousness, but she keeps talking to Jane, whispering things she can't hear that ultimately won't help anyone, futile and desperate. It's all rhetorical, of course. Words to fill the stretching silence that makes Rita so uncomfortable and lonely because no one's known Jane longer than she has except the Chief, and that was only by a matter of hours. Granted, they didn't actually speak to each other until later, but of all the personalities it was Jane she met first and Jane she always liked most, not that she'd ever admitted to liking her at all.

"You look nice," Jane mumbled a week ago, hunched across the aisle of the bus, watching as Rita primped in her compact mirror, before everything fell apart. And she, the fool, unable to bear Jane's unsolicited sincerity, quipped, "Of course I do," because that was safe and empty and brimming with the sort of confidence she could only emulate but never genuinely experience.

The white lace beneath her fingertips feels suddenly coarse, too textured and hard, and she wishes that Jane's arms were bare instead: tan and flushed with feeling, filled with all her usual energy and bravado. Rita takes Jane's right hand into both of her own, hovering over her as she gazes down, finally silent, committed to staying near until this darkness recedes and Jane returns to life like a princess in the storybooks she undoubtedly loathes.

The grandfather clock in the hallway chimes loudly, echoing down the empty foyer.

The blankness of Jane's face is an awful thing, uncharacteristic and all-encompassing, but it gives Rita an opportunity she is rarely afforded: the time to admire the lithe bone structure and coy symmetry of her face without the boys commenting on her fixation. Brushing another stray hair behind Jane's ear, she follows the white lace stretched over her collarbone, eyeing a small waist wrapped in the chiffon of a white wedding dress that Jane would never pick for herself in a million years, no matter how it suited her willowy frame. Granted, her body type could turn a burlap bag haute couture.

Rita tilts her head, thinking that Jane could have been in pictures with a shorter leading man— not that she'd want a man for a co-star— or any leading lady, ideally taller to complement. Rita's height would have suited hers in the frame: a nice gap between them, prettier together than apart.

The notion rings like a klaxon in her head, alarming and irrefutable, and Rita glares at the stark concrete of the basement walls. She can't determine the source or meaning of this thought but neither can she ignore the sentiment, or the pink flush of her cheeks, and she jumps when the boys return, still arguing their plan. She feels Larry watching her beneath his bandages, eyes following her fingers still interlaced with Jane's and the blush that stains her pale skin. He doesn't comment, and she doesn't release her grip.

Her heart skips a beat when Jane wakes, eyes glossy and panicked, but all she can manage is a squeaky, "Welcome back, Jane." It's hollow and inconsequential, and she's smiling at her like a damned idiot because the plan worked after all and Jane is back, here, in the flesh beside her.

Breathing hard, Jane rises mechanically, every step fraught with tension and a mounting need to escape— it's an ugly thing that was done to her, and she flees from it, awake or asleep. Rita doesn't blame her. She knows how it feels to be reduced, violated— so Jane leaves them all behind, shambling to the privacy of her bedroom where no one dares to follow.

And Rita feels her own breath stutter in her chest, trapped and anxious and wishing Jane hadn't pushed her away again, as much as she expected she would. It isn't Karen's residual power lingering and corrupting her emotions: Jane's leaving evokes something new in her this time, a concern that masks loneliness and fondness, and she wishes with a ridiculous sentimentality that she was still holding her hand.

Time slows for Rita after that, when the adrenaline fades and she's alone in her room with the space to breathe— I am the person who is breathing, except that sometimes she is not, and sometimes Karen is inside her, forcing her to look and talk and act a certain way, and it chokes her to her core— and she finds the tears that burn behind her eyelids suddenly hot with the irrational anger of injustice. Rita stands in the shower, unable to scrub herself clean of another violation, of glowing blue eyes and a loss of control of her own body, and the last prickle of numbness in her heart recedes to fury.

She demands an apology; she is owed an apology, if not from Karen then from Jane herself. From Jane who never thanked her, from Jane who never showed an ounce of regret for this mess, from Jane who didn't care that Rita was terrified for her sake, from Jane who left her again.

Her forehead presses to the cold white tiles beneath the showerhead and it isn't until her palm finds unfamiliar warmth beneath her eyes that she realizes she is still worried sick and sobbing, about herself and about Jane and about what it means that she feels filthy and empty and ugly because after everything she did, Jane still didn't want anything to do with her.

The next day she composes herself after her breakdown, like always, prim and meticulous with her hair and makeup. They need to go to Florida, of all cursed places, to help Cliff reconcile with his unknowingly estranged daughter, and Jane's being petty and obstinate about taking them— about letting Flit, who can literally teleport, take them— as if being petulant will overshadow the obvious way she's pretending nothing is wrong. Rita rolls her eyes and curls up her lip, knowing this pent up frustration will burst out of her in a sloppy mess, like everything hideous always does, and at the team meeting she calls herself, because she is determined to do something melodramatic and rash, though she knows it won't do a damned thing to cool the squirming fire in her stomach, she bites out, "Because nobody jumped in to save you when you were in need, right Jane?"

The only noise Jane makes is a little exhale, too quick to contain and too soft to be a scoff. The sound of a person in pain, struck and shocked.

Rita immediately lurches, disgusted with herself on a level she's never known before, "I'm—"

But a ripple of power shimmers down Jane's body and the personality in control shifts to Flit with her teased hair and valley girl accent, and Rita feels like she has let something precious slip between her fingers when she should have been holding her safe. Getting her way has never felt so sickening.

It's not until she's a miserable mosquito-bitten mess paddling along in an aluminum Jon boat that Rita considers that the pit in her stomach is probably not from devouring six orders of sloppy bar hot wings purchased for her by a man named Big D. Cliff wades ahead of her through the murky Florida water, too distracted by his mission and compulsion to notice her plight.

The oar dips into the swamp and Rita considers that she should have given Jane more time, more patience, more support. In the grand scheme of things, Jane always apologizes eventually, no matter how reticent she is about it, or when it wasn't she who committed the crime or spoke the insult. Even in the very first private conversation they ever had, Jane apologized to her.

It was about Larry, of all things. Larry, who half a century later is still testing the water with Rita, reserved and predictably mistrustful. But he always listens when Rita talks and sometimes adds commentary about himself too, and she loves him for his candidness and stability as much as she has ever loved a friend. Then there's Jane, unexpected and invasive, who avoids the water entirely or dives in head-first until they both threaten to drown, and Rita never knows which reaction she's going to get. So it's strange over the years to watch Jane and Larry interact in their limited ways, usually only speaking when Baby Doll and her pigtails poke around in his garden, jabbing at the daffodils and his bandages with her index finger.

Rita thinks they'll size each other up for another hundred years before Jane will bother having more than a monosyllabic conversation with him, culminating like her first attempt did in an offhanded, "Hey. Larry's weird."

Rita hadn't known Jane long at this point, a few sporadic collisions at the Manor over the weeks, and the abrupt, candid remark surprised her. She peered at her over her sunglasses, adjusting the wide-brimmed hat that cast her whole body in shadow— she burned easily, as much as she loved sitting on the porch in the afternoon light— and answered, "Hey yourself. Larry's delightful. You just have to get to know him."

"What's there to know? He's a fucking mummy who gardens."

Rita raised an eyebrow, lazily waving a fan in front of her face. "Have you met any other mummies who garden?"

Jane merely tsked, eyes squinted against the sunset.

Rita resumed her fanning. "Larry is a good person and a good friend. I've no doubt he would be kind to you if you bothered to get to know him."

"What, are you fucking him or something?"

Rather than letting the mortified shock show on her face, Rita chimed a silvery laugh. "No, I'm not Larry's type, if you know what I mean, and he's not mine either."

Jane's eyebrows raised up— looking back Rita thinks this was one of the few times she ever saw her surprised— and she asked, "You're both gay?"

You some kinda dyke? Rita's first agent asked her when he put his hands up her skirt.

The rise and fall of her chest quickened at once, thick with trickling dread.

The threat in that insinuation was still enough to make her panic in those days, too filled with awful memories, pushing her too close to the daunting conclusion that, for all of her exploits— fuel for the gossip rags, most of them untrue— her sexual and romantic inclinations were exclusively for women. She never acted on it, not once, even when opportunities arose, too terrified to jeopardize her career and reputation, too afraid of what the men like Raymond Welker would do to her if they knew. So she stumbled on the idea then, and still does, and maybe that's why she connected so easily with Larry, because she knew without being told that they were both suppressing something very important, something they grew up believing they couldn't have.

Rita tripped on her words, uncharacteristically ineloquent, "I don't— I—"

"Sorry," mumbled Jane. "I wasn't trying to like, pry."

When Rita didn't answer, cheeks burning a mortified red, Jane shifted her weight and crossed her arms. Her voice calcified into something deliberate and cutting, like she was used to sharpening a knife before making the statement, "I'm a lesbian."

The declaration disarmed her— not that she ever had a weapon to lose, especially against Jane— tempting in its fearlessness. Her skin shifted, beginning to melt from her bones, and she slammed the thought away in a well-practiced maneuver. It was too late for Rita and she wasn't certain of her feelings anyway, unsure of her preferences and whether or not she had desire left in her at all when the vessel of her body was so thoroughly ruined. No one would look at her anyway, not when she fell apart, whether or not she dreamed of the softness of their lips. It was pointless.

"Oh," Rita too-casually remarked. "That's— congratulations."

Before stalking away Jane huffed a brief and brittle laugh, as if she didn't quite know how to take that comment, but added, not unkindly, "You're weird too."

It never came up again, even after Jane disappeared and reappeared one year with smeared lipstick stains on her neck, not looking an ounce happier for her new markings. There was a twinge of jealousy, Rita remembers as she rows un-merrily along, though she ascribed it at the time to Jane's ability to safely leave the Manor, to wander out in public and find a willing partner, and have some kind of evening with her, no strings attached. The anxiety of losing control of her powers kept Rita from behaving so cavalierly, and she used to think with haughty superiority that Jane really should take a page from her script and comport herself with more dignity.

She made it about herself, like always, placing Rita-the-made-up-woman at the front and center of every show, hogging the spotlight for pity and attention from a woman far more damaged than she was. As if she could out-suffer the suffering. As if her woe-is-me routine hurt more than Jane's lifetime of trauma.

Jane, who has so much space inside her for others, as reluctant and prickly as she may be about demonstrating compassion for them. Jane, who makes no comment when Rita melts or rambles or feels particularly sensitive that day, devolving into histrionics. Jane, who always gives Rita her leftover food, sliding it toward her and her monstrous metabolism, knowing full well she'll eat every last crumb and saying nothing at all about it.

Except for once in 2013, she added, "Gotta love a woman who can eat," and her voice was so husky that Rita glanced up from shoveling mashed potatoes into her mouth, wondering if Hammerhead or the sultry one had suddenly taken over. But it was Jane smiling down at her from the kitchen sink, a rare playful smirk on her full lips, and it occurred to Rita that they were alone, no Niles or Larry to chaperone. She excused herself in a rush, heartbeat pounding against her ribcage, mashed potatoes suddenly forgotten.

She should have known then which title suited her preferences. She should have been honest with herself. She wants to be honest with herself, but the role is unfamiliar, a script with lines she never had the chance to memorize.

Thinking about Jane flirting— if that was flirting at all— doesn't feel like it did with men: performative, necessary, a chore. Even Mento, who was handsome and kind, and she needed him, she needed the attention and his status and power and the ability to say, "Oh yes, we had a magnificent affair." The compulsion drove her into his arms and she thought that maybe he could fix her, make her normal again, keep her from becoming such an ugly, empty mess of a woman. But he failed and he hurt her, and she was reminded again that she has never felt safe in a man's embrace. She has never craved their affection, not as young as she could remember, when her name was still Gertrude and she pined after all the starlets on the screen and stage until at last she became one.

Having and being are similar, she thinks. Those desires are easily conflated.

All of her insecurities twist into lies and repression, a neatly tied bow of excuses to keep her from facing the truth: she is a rotten rose, wilting and feeble and cold, and she has none of Jane's courage, conviction, or thorns.

So it's there, navigating around a cypress tree in the backwoods of the Everglades, that Rita finds herself unbearably depressed to finally realize that she wishes it was her lipstick staining Jane's neck, and her voice saying I'm a lesbian without the fear of repercussions or subjugation, but she has ruined every chance she has to even be a good friend to Jane, much less whatever she actually wants to be, because her selfishness so heartlessly drove her away.

The sun beats down on her shoulders and Rita floats there in stillness, soaking up the heat, submitting to the burn.

Flit brings them home that evening and says nothing to her— perhaps she doesn't know what was said, sometimes the personalities do, sometimes they don't— and Rita can't take a long enough shower to wash off the grime of her day and the unclean sensation of her own self-disrespect. She cranked up the AC because she never wants to sweat like that again and because her skin is so hot to the touch that maybe it's a punishment too, another way to make herself uncomfortable, on the verge of shivering beneath her silk pajamas, because she doesn't deserve to feel good today. It seems irreparable, what she said to Jane, and for all their decades of gibes and teasing, she's never seen her hurt like that, collapsing back into herself when she was already so small and low. She didn't know she could hurt Jane like that.

So it's past midnight and Rita is laying in bed with an unopened book in her lap, wallowing in her own disappointment, when there is a knock at her door. Her heart flutters at the sound— she knows it's Jane immediately, not one of the boys or any of the other personalities, because she has a cadence to her movement that's a little harsh but not unpleasant, like she's actively trying to soften it— and Rita sweeps open the door without hesitation.

"Hey," says Jane, arms folded protectively in front of her. She wears blue sweatpants and a soft, grey t-shirt, and clearly hasn't slept a wink either.

"Hey yourself," Rita slowly replies.

For once she wears no makeup too, copper hair uncurled and loose about her shoulders. The niggling voice of her mother cracks in her ears— an unpainted face is a closed door— and she shushes her, suppressing the little chill that runs down her spine and threatens her body's solidity. She's had enough open doors, handsy auditions, and casting couches that still make her cry at night, and she's ready for the door to close once and for all, as long as Jane comes inside first.

Jane's gaze bounces around the room, taking in unfamiliar surroundings. All the old movie posters are gone now, a hundred versions of Rita through the years, torn down because she couldn't bear to look at that version of herself anymore, all conceited and self-centered. Jane settles on Rita's real face, clean and unadorned, the only one left in the bare room, and she stares longer than she should, palm rubbing the tan skin of her forearm.

"I saw your light was on," she mutters, waiting for a response.

"Burning the midnight oil," Rita flashes a forced smile.

That's absolutely untrue, and Jane probably knows it even if Rita's presentation is perfectly believable. Jane's lived here long enough; she knows she's always worrying, always replaying what she could have done better, chastising herself for failing. Brown eyes follow the lines of Rita's face, the little wrinkles on her forehead she wishes she could mask with her powers, before drifting to the cotton bedsheets behind her, unwilling to directly ask for an invitation. 

"Some company would be nice," Rita lowly replies. She steps away from the door, retrieving her book from the sheets to make space for Jane, and says, "Here."

Jane props herself up against the pillows, not bothering to get beneath the sheets, legs extended straight out before her as her bare feet tap together with nervous energy. Rita freezes at the sight, thinking for an unhinged second that maybe she should just stand there, hovering over her, before banishing that incredibly awkward thought. It's not like they haven't shared a bed before, albeit they weren't alone or particularly close, and they traded candy— Rita ate most of it— and watched soap operas— Jane was surprisingly more invested— and it wasn't altogether terrible even though they were technically on a stakeout and the boys crammed together like sardines on the double bed beside theirs in the dilapidated motel room.

"You took down your pictures," says Jane.

"They," Rita pauses, lifting the comforter to slide into the other side of the bed, careful not to bump her, "didn't feel like me anymore."

"I get it," Jane sighs.

The silence settles around them, tense and off-putting, and Rita sinks deeper beneath the comforter, wringing her hands. She should say something else, she should beg forgiveness for her mindless selfishness, and for asking Jane to be accountable for someone else's actions when Jane would never, ever do to Rita what Karen did to her—

"I'm really fuckin' sorry about Karen," Jane blurts. "I didn't think she'd use her powers on you and I still feel like shit about it because no one deserves that, but especially you—"

"No, I'm sorry," Rita frowns, face tilted up to her. "Karen's not your responsibility and what I said to you was completely inappropriate and unforgivable—"

"It's fine. I should have thanked you—"

"It's not fine!" Rita huffs.

"Well, it's going to be fine! I was trying to apologize—"

"Well, I was trying to apologize too!"

Frustration plasters against Jane's face and for a moment she so strongly resembles Hammerhead's wild fury that Rita flinches, but she raggedly sighs and rolls her eyes, slouching against the headboard. She groans, "I swear to fucking god, Rita, you drive me absolutely insane."

"The feeling's mutual!" Rita jerks her arms, throwing back the covers to gesture like Vanna White to Jane's reclining form. She flops dramatically back to the mattress, arms crossed over her red polka dots. After a moment her breathing steadies, and her annoyance gives way to the swelling guilt beneath. "I know I asked for an apology, but it's not your fault; it wasn't your fault," Rita murmurs. "But what I said was me, and it was terrible. I'm terrible."

"You're not terrible," Jane shrugs, taut body relaxing. Her voice is as soft as Rita's ever heard it when she says, "You just lashed out after something fucked up happened to you. I'd be a fuckin' hypocrite if I didn't recognize that."

"Jane," her voice wavers when she musters up the courage to speak again, reedy and uncertain, faltering even more when Jane steadily meets her eyes, "I'm so sorry for what I said to you earlier."

Jane chews the inside of her mouth, "It's okay. Really. I'm sorry for making fun of you in therapy. It was a lot. For me— to see you talk like that. It's not a good reason, but I'm having a pretty shitty time."

Rita's heart pounds hard, she didn't think Jane would remember mocking her, degrading her for pouring out her heart and insecurities. But she held it with her and regretted it so much that she brought it up unprompted. Slowly, haltingly, Rita reaches out her hand, resting her fingertips against the warm skin of Jane's forearm.

"Thank you for saying that. And I'm sorry about your, ah," she clearly enunciates the consonants in her classically trained, Mid-Atlantic accent, "shitty time."

Jane breathlessly laughs, pressure relieving with every exhale, and she doesn't pull her arm away. "This is some slumber party bullshit."

"I wouldn't know," Rita says, and perhaps it should make her feel inadequate that she's nearly a century old and has missed out on so many experiences, but it's not so terrible to say it to Jane when she knows it all already.

"Yeah, I mean, me either," she chuckles. She's bright again, sunshiny and carefree, and Rita would swallow her pride and apologize ten thousand more times if she could keep her like this. Then out of the blue Jane adds, "In her fucked up way, I think Karen thought she was giving me something nice. Like all the stuff she thought I missed." Rita shifts a little closer, rolling to one side, left hand pressed between her pillow and cheek. Jane stares at the ceiling, flat on her back, and says, "Like stability and a nice guy and a fairytale or something." Dark brows furrow, "I never even asked for that. I don't want any of it."

Rita sighs, "Oh, neither did I. Though unfortunately my delusions of grandeur far outstripped Karen's. Nothing would do but a mansion and my name up in lights."

"You got the mansion. Kinda," Jane muses. "You were famous too: I watched your movies growing up. Well, not me. But I watched them later too."

"That's bordering on a compliment," Rita prods, tapping her arm with a fingernail.

"Never said they were good."

Rita rolls onto her back in mock dismay, breaking their contact, arm crooked over her forehead. "Alas, it's true. Fame and talent do not equate." When the smile tugging up her lips fades away she adds, "You know, stability might be nice, but not the way she offered it."

"Yeah, that's not," Jane inhales uneasily, as if debating her words, "real? Worth it? I'm sorry she did that to you, Rita. I think, weirdly, she didn't want to." Jane abruptly props herself up onto an elbow, face tense with concern, "Not like in an excuse sort of way; she's a fucking monster and I hate her guts. I will never forgive her for what she did to us, and to that chump, Doug. But she— I don't know, she hesitated with you. She waited much longer than she usually does."

"Why do you think that is?"

"Who knows? She's fuckin' nuts," Jane scoffs. "She probably wanted to be your friend. For real. Like that was the best she could do for anyone, and she still couldn't manage to not turn you into a bimbo zombie."

Rita slaps lightly at her bicep. "Excuse you, I am never a bimbo, even if I am a zombie."

"That's a shame. I'd see that movie." Rita slaps at her again and Jane's expression softens as she scrutinizes her face, gaze drifting down and settling on her lips. Jane's foot brushes against her calf— they are laying very close together, Rita realizes, facing each other, she barely has to reach out to feel her— and she lowly remarks, "You're sunburned."

"I am."

"It looks nice on you."

A giddy trill sings in Rita's head and her lips part just slightly, as if she can't take a deep enough breath for what comes next, for jumping off the deep end and hoping she won't drown. She feels like a teenager even though she's literally 90 years old and she should be past this sort of thing. It's not like she hasn't been kissed before, though she's never had a woman in her bed for any period of time, and they never stare at her like Jane does, like Jane always has, now that she thinks about.

They've muddied the divide between antagonism and friendship, if they could even call it that in the first place, and a warmth blooms low in Rita's stomach, a sensation so powerful she's worried about losing control of her body again, flesh bursting forward and out like a cancer, until at last she tells herself, So what if I do? It's not like Jane hasn't seen it before. And the fear mellows into something normal and surmountable. Jane's already seen the worst of her, a literal blob menacing the streets of Cloverton, crying because she couldn't stop herself and her reputation was ruined and her body was ruined and then the one nice day they were planning to have was ruined too.

But she remembers Jane calling for her, sprinting down the sidewalk in a blur of black leather and distress, and she touched her, even in that hideous form. Jane pressed against her, as if her hands could shape Rita back into the way she was before, into the way she wanted to be, and she panted, "Can you hear me, Rita? It's okay, it's okay, you're okay." It wasn't enough to fix her, of course, but it occurs to her in an alarming rush that Jane is the only person who doesn't recoil from touching her when she's in that state, bubbling and deformed and the embodiment of seventy years of poorly-contained shame.

The line is crossed now. Jane's toe edges toward oblivion, still pressing lightly into Rita's calf, and she looks suddenly young and sweet and uncertain because she complimented Rita and touched Rita, but they're still just lying there in an insufferable silence. Rita's resolve falters and she has to know once and for all what this is, what she is. She has to prove herself and finally be brave enough to ask the question and accept whatever answer she receives.

So she shifts her shoulders and shrugs off as much of seven decades of fear as she can manage, and breathlessly asks, "Are you going to keep staring or are you going to kiss me?"

Surprise flashes in Jane's eyes, replaced by hot need and an intensity that crushes Rita like gravity, and instead of answering, Jane dives in head first. She leans down and kisses Rita fully on the lips.

It's like nothing she's ever known before.

Rita breathes her in, her eyebrows drawn together in pleasure, and she feels like parched earth in a rainstorm, desperate and grateful and so relieved to finally be sated. Jane's lips are chapped and supple, and her breath smells like Colgate, and Rita— who has never liked being kissed— closes her eyes and grabs the sides of her face, reflexively arching up into her as she pulls her down closer, wondering if this is how it was supposed to feel all along. Jane makes a little surprised noise, complying at once, pulling back the covers to lie atop her and pressing her hard into the mattress. Rita hungrily slants their mouths together again, opening wider, greedy for Jane's tongue and the wetness of her mouth, and the mewling noise that sneaks out of Jane, wanton and so sweet.

She flushes with embarrassment, pulling back to whisper, "God damn, Rita. I woulda done this a lot sooner."

"I didn't— know you were interested," Rita murmurs breathlessly.

At this Jane laughs, loud and incredulous, before she tilts down again, kissing and nipping at the long column of Rita's throat. A haze settles over her, muggy and thick, and all she can think is that she wants more, right now.

"I thought for sure you knew," Jane chuckles. "I'm so obvious, and you never— I was so convinced I freaked you out."

Rita thumbs her chin and lips, tilting back her head, and her tongue is in Jane's mouth again, the best reassurance she can give her right now. She spreads her legs and grips the pockets of Jane's sweatpants until they bracket each other's thighs, and Rita pulls her hips down with a ferocity so confident and feral she cannot fathom how she ever suppressed this desire.

It's lust, she realizes. She never knew she could feel the burning, desperate desire for Jane's tongue on her body, arousal that strikes like a whirlwind, sucking the air from her lungs.

"Fuck," Jane moans. She grinds against her, hot with friction and need, and the words fall out of her mouth between wet kisses, "How the fuck do you look so good without makeup? You're so fucking pretty, Rita."

"That's rich, coming from you," Rita's tongue slides against the shell of her ear and she relishes the way Jane shudders against her jawbone before grazing her teeth against any field of flesh she can find— her neck, her collarbone, her cheeks— not to hurt or bite, but to show that she's containing her voracious sharpness just for her, and when her tongue and mouth return to kiss her, Rita presses her lips together in a barely contained sigh. One of Jane's hands finds the top button of her pajamas, opening the fabric to gently lick at the skin of her sternum.

It's so much, all at once. Jane's hands are on her body again and her tongue is in Rita's mouth and it feels so urgent and bold and right, and Rita is suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to cry, drunk on her own arousal. She makes a small noise low in her throat, more whimper than moan, and Jane's fingers curl into her hair, gently scraping her scalp until she pulls back just a little bit, holding either side of Rita's head. Her hips lower and still, body pressing Rita securely against the mattress.

"You okay?" asks Jane, breathless against her lips.

There aren't words to convey what she's feeling, nothing perfectly scripted, no witty rejoinders for more than a lifetime of trauma and repression and a body she sometimes hates, so she shudders and mumbles, "It's been a long time."

It's dim in Rita's room but she can see the sharp brown of Jane's eyes roaming her face with concern, starting at the crown of her head and landing on her parted lips. She kisses Rita again, slow and chaste this time, and the look of sweetness on her is purer than Jane has any right to be, so openly vulnerable that Rita wonders for a moment if a new personality inhabits her mind, someone unafraid and compassionate and loving, but there's no electric swell of her power rippling down both of their bodies, and it's Jane after all; it's always been Jane.

"Same," she breathes. "I, uh, I wanna do more."

"Me too," Rita blurts, fingers tightening on the waistband of her sweatpants with a desperation so obvious Jane exhales a laugh. Her tone isn't mean or mocking, and Rita smiles up at her unabashedly for once.

"I just— I'm not in a good place right now," Jane says, voice cracking. "After everything. But don't get me wrong: you're so fucking hot."

Heat builds in her again, she can hardly stand the praise alone, much less when it's combined with Jane's thigh still pressing between her legs, but she manages to breathe out, "I think you're so effing hot too."

"Effing," Jane repeats, the corners of her mouth turning up.

"Mmhmm." Rita caresses her neck and jaw and cheekbone with the pad of her thumb, relishing how Jane's long eyelashes flutter closed and she swallows thickly, and the weight of her body on Rita's slackens at the touch, comfortably heavy. Rita presses up into her, kissing her again, and says, "We could just do this for a little while. It's been a long day."

A sudden apprehension crosses Jane's face, self-conscious now that she has a moment to breathe and realizes exactly what they've done. "It's been a long life." Jane rolls off of her, laying at her side, and Rita pouts at the loss. Her black hair is mussed and she half-curls into herself, muttering, "I don't have to stay, if you need to sleep." Her words trail off.

They're not close enough for Rita, not nearly close enough— and frankly she doesn't give a damn about second guessing now because nothing in her whole life, not even the spotlight, has felt so good on her skin— so she pulls Jane closer against her chest and wraps the sheets and comforter over them both, looping both arms around her. Jane tenses, then sighs, her muscles relaxing with the confirmation that she is not the only one who wants her there.

"Needy," mumbles Jane. But her fingers tremble against Rita's skin in this embrace, and her ragged exhales stutter into Rita's neck, just on the verge of sobbing.

"I am," Rita hums, smoothing Jane's hair, content to be beneath her again. She rubs her back, nails grazing the nape of her neck, squeezing her tighter because she finally can, after years of ignoring her heart and body and mind. It wouldn't be so terrible to cry a little bit now, she thinks. A bit because it's a release to know this feeling at all, a deep breath after choking, and some because, for the first time, she isn't lying to herself. She can have what she wants, and it is absolute ecstasy. 

Rita sniffles once, giving herself away, but Jane burrows deeper into her neck, hiding the tears that drip down her own cheeks, kissing the salt of them into the skin of Rita's throat. Her arms settle around Jane, their bodies pleasantly tangled, quiet and safe. With a deep inhale, Rita presses a tremulous kiss to her forehead the way she always dreamed, and Jane quivers at the tenderness, kissing her again and again until they fall asleep.

The mattress shifts, and Rita's eyelids fling open to the morning light and two big brown saucer eyes locked on her own. She blinks groggily, and Flit— she's fairly certain it's Flit, the hair is more teased out and there's a perkiness of movement that certainly isn't Jane— stares down at her with unmasked confusion on her face. Her bouncy voice chirps, "Huh."

Then she vanishes with a woosh and a creak of the mattress.

Definitely Flit. Rita flops back down to her pillows with a groan, rebuttoning her partially opened shirt and combing her hair with her fingers. The morning light feels suddenly harsh on her skin, too readily illuminating all of her flaws and that fact that Jane just fled her at the first opportunity, even if it was Flit in control, because there must be some continuation of sentiment between them. Last night was too much— Rita was too much— and Jane probably didn't want something so emotional, someone so emotional—

"God damn it!" Jane bellows two rooms over— not an altogether unheard of thing to drift down the hallway, though it's usually Hammerhead loudly complaining about something— and her feet thud against the hardwood floors, pattering closer until she stands outside, knocking at Rita's door again.

Untwisting from her sheets, Rita scrambles to open it, tangled hair falling into her face. 

"Hey," Jane breathlessly says, as if she's surprised to see Rita answer, much less grin back.

Rita smiles, "Hey yourself."

"Sorry about that."

"It's okay!" Rita winces at her own desperation for only a moment before offering a stilted sweeping gesture, and says much too formally, "Please, come in. Again."

"I— uh, didn't warn anyone that this was— happening. Or, uh, possible? And Flit didn't recognize your room, I think," Jane chews the inside of her mouth. "Without the pictures, I mean. And she's— we're not used to waking up next to someone." 

"It's okay." Rita adds, more softly, "Neither am I."

Jane shifts her weight from leg to leg as a rosy pinkness spreads to her cheeks. Brown eyes fix on the bedspread where they kissed, and the rumpled pillow they shared as they slept.

"It's early still."

Jane nods, "Too fuckin' early."

"Vic won't call for a team meeting for at least an hour. We could," Rita clears her throat, "take a cat nap. Try the whole waking up scene from the top."

Jane smirks, "You just really wanna get me back in bed, huh?"

The flirtation fascinates her, drenches her with the challenging tone she always mistook for Jane's generic volatility, suddenly cast in a new light. Rita sucks on her lower lip for only a moment before deciding that, now that all her cards are on the table and she's doubly emboldened by Jane's return and enthusiasm, there's really no reason not to risk a little more.

"I do," she says, matter-of-factly. "The real question is, are you clever enough to give me what I want?"

At this Jane raises an eyebrow, amusement tugging at her lips. She saunters inside again, intentionally stepping so close to Rita that their noses almost touch, pausing just long enough to say, "I'm a lot of things, but I'm not stupid," before dropping back onto Rita's bed with a cocky grin on her face.

"Look at you, making a smart decision. But," Rita cautions, spreading her arms in a hopeless shrug, "it could have been smarter."

"How's that?"

Rita crawls from the foot of the bed up the length of Jane's body, savoring the way her eyes darken with anticipation and pleasure. "You could have invited me to join you."

Jane leans forward to meet her lips, unable to wait until Rita clears the distance herself. She pulls her down into her lap, softly kissing and nipping at all of her, lightly sucking at the slope of her shoulders between words. "You always have such good ideas. I'll have to keep you around."

"Keep the compliments coming, but you'd better not give me a hickey," Rita admonishes, though there's no heat behind it, and, really, truly, she's not sure she'd mind if Jane did leave a little mark. A tasteful one, at least.

"Yeah," Jane says, laughter ghosting against her neck, "little late for that. You look like you fucked a sucker fish." 

"How coarse, particularly when you are the sucker fish ruining my complexion," Rita laments, baring her neck anyway because she's being kissed again, feather-soft and gentler than last night, and she likes the way Jane pushes up against her chest when she holds her. She likes that she can thread her fingers through Jane's hair and make her shiver and sigh and slow, eventually sinking back into a heavy sleep, still smiling against her skin.

There is a knock at the door, and the decades-long truce between them solidifies into something tangible and clear. She should have known that Jane was reaching out for her, and she was reaching out for Jane, and for all of their exasperated quarreling, their roots were inextricably intertwined.

Looking down, Rita feels her own unfamiliar giddiness reflected back at her, open and unashamed. Jane mirrors her with bright, smiling brown eyes, and a body that shifts against Rita's, curling closer.