A/N: In honor of finishing Fixing on the Hour, I'm now going to indulge in writing fanfic for my fanfic. The real-life Bing (yes, Bing is inspired by one of my friends) grows roses, which is, of course, a very Bing thing to do. So here you are =)

Bing has a rose garden.

Massachusetts isn't known for its roses. (Yet.)

Of course, it doesn't last long—they move to Boston, as her father's job moves up, and for a while Bing doesn't do much with roses. She starts up with window boxes, though, when she decides that Boston needs roses as much as any place in the world.

It's around the same time she decides that growing up doesn't have to be the same thing as growing old.

.

Cal wasn't always like that.

.

Bing wants to marry a man with kind eyes.

.

Bing thought Daniel, who had kind eyes and lived down the road from the Lees at the old house, was the one.

.

In college, Bing studies art. She has so many words that she sometimes wonders if they do any good. They spill out of her more easily with thick swirls of paint, splashes of pigment that yawn as bright as sunsets, smudges of charcoal that dirty her fingers but leave her heart feeling washed clean.

In college, Bing meets Darcy.

.

The first time she sees Darcy, Darcy looks a bit like a bat.

This is not as mean as it sounds. It would be hard to explain, though, so Bing never tells her. But there was something magnetic, enigmatic, and just plain interesting about the folded-up figure in black. A charcoal smudge amid the wide sunshine on the quad.

The second thing Bing notices about Darcy is her eyebrows. They're terrifying.

She decides that they will be best friends.

.

"I don't get drunk," Bing says, as she sprawled on Darcy's bed. It has a quilt from Bing's grandmother on it. Bing's grandmother made two. "It seems sloppy, and…unkind. To me, and to everyone else. Why don't you?"

Darcy regards her blankly. "Because I cry when I'm drunk," she says, and then her expression closes like a book.

.

"Can I draw you?"

"If you want." A pause. "I don't know why you'd want to."

"You're so interesting, and pretty!" Bing is amazed. How can Darcy not know?

The eyebrows again. The eyebrows, always. "If you must."

She draws Darcy in pen and ink. Darcy makes sense in black and white.

Bing makes sure to give the drawing depth.

.

Darcy's parents are dead. Bing's brothers are strangers. Everyone has their own tragedy.

"I'm glad we're friends," Darcy says one day, shortly before graduation. It's abrupt; Darcy is often abrupt.

Bing is smiling because Darcy said it first. Bing says it all the time. But then, she is always overflowing with words.

.

Darcy goes to law school.

Bing almost loses her. Not because of anything between them, but because of what is between Darcy and the world. Darcy breaks like empires fall: always from the inside.

Bing, though. Bing has decided that she is the sky, all wide sunrays—she will not fade from view.

.

They marry brothers. One with kind eyes, and one with terrifying eyebrows.

Bing plants a garden. It isn't known for its roses.

(Yet.)