First Faking It story- set after 1x08.

Karmy in a way.

Please enjoy- reviews welcome!

Amy had been tossing and turning for the best part of four hours. It'd been exactly six hours and eighteen, no, nineteen minutes since she had drunkenly blurted out the utterance that seemed to have destroyed everything she'd ever known. It had been three hours since she had kicked a not-so-drunk, and oh so douchey, Liam out of her bedroom, with his tail between his legs- so to speak.

And she had finally fallen asleep.

The glow of the stars on her ceiling provided just enough light that it was possible to navigate the floor of Amy's bedroom with minimal damage. The subtle glow was just light enough to dodge the upturned kitten heel, that Amy had been convinced to wear less than three minutes before the ceremony, that lay abandoned on the floor. And it was more than enough to see the pile of

used tissues that had accumulated on the floor on Amy's side of the bed.

The floorboard next to Amy's bed creaked. Rookie mistake, Karma, she thought. She knew this room like it was her own. Amy mumbled something sleepily, and turned her head in Karma's general direction before lolling back over.

"It's okay," she whispered, "it's only me."

Less cautious now, Karma slipped off her jeans- she didn't even recall changing out of her dress- and slid her bra out from underneath her shirt. Clad now it an old t-shirt, underwear and socks, she pulled back the covers on her side of the bed and eased herself between the sheets.

"I don't want to talk about it."

Karma nodded. She'd guessed this would happen. Amy may not have cared what everyone else thought of her, but she valued Karma's opinion of her more than anything else in the world. Amy, the girl with the impenetrable walls built up around her, had poured her heart out, a blubbering mess, and Karma had just walked away.

"Okay."

Amy rolled over, not daring to so much as look at Karma. They lay side by side, their feet and knees almost touching, staring straight up.

"Are you still awake, Aimes?" Karma whispered. She had no idea quite how long she'd been laying there, but the silence was killing her.

"How could I possibly be asleep when you're thinking so loudly?" Amy whispered back.

Karma laughed. A genuine, quiet, Karma laugh. One Amy hadn't heard since before the whole lesbian fiasco had started.

"What's going on in that head of yours?"

That was Karma's favourite thing about Amy- her selflessness. It was Amy who had been rejected. It was Amy that had cried herself to sleep over what Karma had said. And Karma knew that, in Amy's ideal world, she would bury that conversation between deep under the mess of emotional debris that had accumulated from her mothers many marriages and her father's abandonment of her.

But Amy knew that Karma had to talk. So, she did.

"I'm so sorry, Amy."

Amy shook her head.

"And don't say I have nothing to apologise for, because I do. For months, I have dragged you along from scheme to scheme, putting you in ridiculous situations to try and make us popular when I knew that you didn't even want it. I mean, you came out to your mom on national television because I wanted to wear a tiara for the evening.

"You've done so much for me, and I was so self absorbed that I didn't even notice that you've been hiding what you felt since that day in the gym. I'm so sorry, Aimes."

"It's more like years."

"What?"

Amy laughed. "You said that you'd dragged me through your crazy schemes for months. It's more like years."

"Shut up." Karma laughed. "And I never said 'crazy'."

The pregnant silence was back.

Karma rolled over, her face now mere inches away from Amy's, their knees resting against each other in their respective fetal positions. Amy's eyes were fluttering closed, then half open, then closed again as Karma watched intently. It occurred to her that she'd never noticed the freckle under Amy's left ear before, or the tiny scar just shy of her collar bone. Her eyes scanned Amy's face and neck, mapping her features out in her mind, searing the image of the birthmark on the left of her neck into her mind, plotting it five inches below the nape of her neck, where her hair was surprisingly dark.

Suddenly, she was seeing Amy. Really seeing her.

She thought about how she knew almost everything about the girl feigning sleep beside her. She thought about how much better she liked waking up and seeing her face than waking up alone. Late night conversation after late night conversation, filled with vulnerability in the darkness, flew through her mind. The time they went in search of Amy's dad, when they were thirteen, and how when they reached his house Amy had puked on the sidewalk and ran for twelve blocks straight, and Karma had told her that her dad was an idiot if he didn't want her in his life.

She thought about how much better everything seemed with Amy. Ice cream tasted better, Lauren was more tolerable, homework was less mundane, even Netflix was more exciting.

All of a sudden, Karma felt as though she couldn't breathe.

Tears began flowing solidly down her face. Her breath hitched and her vague attempts to speak all faded into a high pitched keening noise that she was sure no-one, in the history of the world, had ever made before. She was shaking and crying and whimpering.

Amy wrapped her arms around her tightly, pulling Karma's body weight onto her chest and squeezing her until Karma was sure that she wasn't going anywhere. Long after the worst of her sobs had subsided, she held her still, stroking her hair and rocking her gently against her.

Out of nowhere, Karma turned and pressed her wet, trembling lips against Amy's.

The kiss was neither romantic nor pleasant, and as soon as it had begun, it was over. Karma pushed herself off of Amy, a sheepish look in her eyes as tears began to fall from them again.

"I'm s-sorry," Karma stuttered, "I j-just…"

Amy nodded sadly, tears beginning to slip out from the sides of her eyes as she tried to blink them back.

Softly, Amy leaned forward and pressed a shaky kiss against Karma's mouth. Both were now crying uncontrollably, clutching at each others hands and clothes, their thighs pressed against each other and their feet in a tangled mess.

Clumsily, Karma leaned her forehead against Amy's, bumping their noses against each other.

"We're going to be okay." Amy whispered, the tears slowing their freefall across her face. Karma breathed deeply, the overwhelming salty taste of tears flooding her senses. Her grip on her best friend tightened. Overwhelmed, confused and anxious, she rested her face against Amy's, still clutching onto her for dear life.

"I know."