Magenta has spent so much time trying to convince herself that she hates Columbia, that she almost begins to believe it. She almost means it when she tells her brother she's sick of the girl, complains of all the nonsense conversations they've had, all the times Columbia has stopped her from sleeping with her questions about Transylvania, all the rubbish she's filled their room with (her room, she states, and she almost means it, almost believes that she was better off alone). She's so convincing in her denial of feelings for her, in the way she describes her loathing for the girl, that Riff is satisfied, and stops asking her. She stops noticing the jealousy in his eyes when she kisses him goodnight and slinks off into their room.
(Columbia curls up to her and she kisses her forehead, and Magenta tells herself it's a reflex. Having her in her bed is a fix to a problem; two problems in fact. She gets the warmth of an extra body, an extra blanket, and Columbia stops fussing. It has nothing to do with enjoying the feeling of her, the smell of her. The sound of her heartbeat, the softness of her breathing; they do nothing for Magenta. Nothing at all.)
She knows she's made the girl's life hell since she moved in. She's forever shouting at her, calling her names, telling her off for whining, for making noises, for fidgeting... for breathing out of turn. But it's never met with anything but apologies. She sees – no, feels – a fondness in Columbia that she's never got from anyone before, not even Riff. Magenta could call her every name under the sun, and Columbia would still love her. It's a loyalty she doesn't understand. She detests the girl, after all.
(She doesn't. She loves her. She doesn't believe in the word love, but she knows she feels it for this strange little earth girl. It aches in her heart and tugs at the corners of her lips even when Columbia is at her most infuriating).
It's a game, an experiment. She pushes as hard as she can to see what happens. She thinks maybe one day Columbia will snap, and that's almost what she wants. She's weak. She doesn't stand up for herself. She lets herself be walked all over. By Frank, by Riff, by Magenta. Everybody. Magenta tells herself she's only doing it because she's bored, because she needs something to do, and Columbia might as well be her project if she has nothing else. Something has to see her through the achingly long time she has to spend away from home.
(She wouldn't spend so much time on Columbia if she didn't see potential in her. If it didn't hurt her heart thinking about all the things Frank has done to her, continues to do to her. Just snap already she thinks, begs, pleads. Columbia is too good for all the things this world has given her. Maybe if Magenta just pushes hard enough...)
One night she returns to her bedroom to find Columbia curled up in her bed, sobbing her heart out. Magenta wants to slap her. She wants to tell her to get the hell out of her bed and go back to her own, or better yet, get out of the room entirely. She can't. Her heart aches too much.
She climbs in beside her, and Columbia's shivering, gulping for air, blinking through tears. She's trembling. When she eventually looks at Magenta, her eyes are dark and round and lined with red. She looks at her like she knows she's about to be pushed away, yelled at, scorned, told to grow up.
Magenta wraps her arms around her, cradles her close, kisses her forehead over and over until she stops crying and her breathing evens out.
"Do you think I'm pretty, Mags?" Columbia says after a moment, and her voice is so low, so broken that it makes Magenta's heart pound.
"You're beautiful," Magenta tells her, sincerely, holding her tight.
"Frank said-"
"Frank is a soulless bastard."
Columbia sighs, her whole body heaving against Magenta's, and the older girl just holds her tighter, stroking her hair, rocking her gently.
Eventually, Columbia falls asleep.
The next time Riff asks about her, Magenta can't quite bring herself to lie. She says nothing, and Riff goes off in a foul mood, but something inside of Magenta is a little more whole. She will still tease Columbia, still complain about her high pitched whining and her fidgeting in the night, but she's not lying to herself anymore.
Earth will never be home, but maybe – just maybe – Columbia is.