Author's Note- Hello there, sorry it took a while to post this, I've been busy with work and family gubbins. Thanks for reviews and follows/favourites too, means a lot to me. If you've got any opinions on the story, positive or negative, by all means let me know.

This chapter is mostly a bit of character... not so much development as just characters interacting. And guess what? I managed to write Lovino and Antonio in. And I did it without once mentioning tomatoes.

Chapter 4

It hadn't been too bad, not since that binge the other night. Binge. Disgusting word. It brought to mind foul, thick muck, oozing from toilets and drainpipes. Almost like the compost she was currently hauling from the stock room.

Except that wasn't accurate; she liked the compost. It was cool and moist and helped things grow.

That, and dragging around these heavy sacks of it probably burned at least a few calories. Not that she had many to burn.

Thursday: She capped off her day of shame by ridding herself of the small portion of stir fry. Natalya had been in the bathroom, so she resorted to her stash of zip-lock bags under her bed. She had realised, with a wave of nausea not induced via her fingers, that she was building up quite the collection; a mass grave of wasted, partially digested food. She threw it out with the rest of the trash later, declaring that to be that, and lay on her bed, feeling drained.

Friday: No breakfast, just a mug of green tea. Inside, she felt sick and empty, the need for food gnawing at her, but she also felt light. Inside, anyway. A glance in the mirror soon disposed of that feeling. She couldn't quite get out of eating at lunch time; her excuse of leaving her lunch at home prompted Matthew to offer her some of his. She took an apple and thanked him with a smile.

"You can't just have that for lunch, surely?" Matthew asked. She was not proud of herself for snapping.

"Why, do I look like I should be stuffing burgers down my throat instead?" she folded her arms across her heavy breasts and scowled.

"What? No. Besides, I see plenty of that at home." Matthew jerked a thumb in the general direction of the table behind them, where Alfred was, in fact, in the process of stuffing a burger down his throat. "It's just… you can share my sandwich if you want."

Kat stared down at herself, wondering if her shirt was suddenly shrinking or if she was imagining things. She imagined her pale, doughy flesh expanding as though being baked. A fat girl with no self-control and a nasty attitude.

"I'm sorry." She smiled wanly. "Didn't mean to snap, I just don't feel hungry. Big breakfast."

She had managed to get by on that apple until dinner, when her father aimed too high by attempting to make something involving what was supposed to be fish and pastry. The resulting charred block smelled so awful that even Ivan wouldn't touch it, and Kat got away with a small salad, while her father took Ivan and Natalya out for tacos, saying that she had a lot of homework to do.

And today was Saturday. She'd allowed herself three salted almonds that morning, savouring the flavour, then downing a large glass of water, washing away the temptation to eat more. She had reached the stage of hunger where she felt slightly sick, and didn't find the idea of food appealing even if she wanted to eat. She bent over for a moment, hands on her knees, feeling weak.

No, not weak. Strong. But tired. That was all. She felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Kat? Toni says you can take your break now. Hey, are you OK?"

She worked the Saturday shift with Lovino, who was generally nice to her, and shared her interest in gardening. His knowledge in the area seemed to be the only thing qualifying him to work there, given that he divided most of his time between flirting with every female in his line of vision (including Kat herself), and sullenly muttering profanities and acting rather put out whenever asked to do anything by either a male customer, or Toni, the shift supervisor.

Kat stood up, ignoring the buzzing in her head.

"I'm fine, thanks, just a little tired."

Lovino nodded, momentarily distracted by the arrival of Liz.

"Kat! When do you get off?"

Roderich, who had been dragged in behind Liz, feigned interest in a display of garden forks.

"I get off at five, why?"

"Gil's having a party later."

Kat groaned. "Liz, he's-"

"Yeah, I know, he's kind of a jerk sometimes, but come on, he's not going to be the only one there, everyone's going."

"My Dad'll probably say no."

"Just tell him we're having a sleepover."

Kat sighed. "I don't know. Maybe."

"Definitely. Go get your stuff after work and be round mine by six, OK? We'll get ready together. My parents are away at my second cousin's wedding or something, so you can sleep at mine afterwards." Liz turned to Lovino. "Lovi, want to come?" Lovino shook his head.

"Can't."

"Because you hate Gil?"

"No, I don't care if he's a bastard, he's got a nice house and a huge wine cellar, I just have to keep an eye on Feli while Grandpa's off at some stupid work thing."

"So bring him with you. Gil's meant to be looking after Ludwig, and he plans to just order him a pizza and shove him in the den all night, it'll be good for him to have a friend there."

Lovino shrugged. "Can't argue with that. See you later. Feli can sleep over, right?"

"Don't see why not."

"Tell Toni he can come too."

Lovino groaned. "What? Why? I don't need my supervisor breathing down my neck all-"

"He's twenty one" Liz pointed out. "Gil's not going to let us drink all of his Dad's wine cellar, we'll need someone to get drinks."

Toni himself chose that moment to appear. "Kat, you know you can- Oh, hi Liz."

"Toni, Gil's-"

"Yeah, I know, having a party, I'm doing the booze run with Francis. Ten bucks each, OK? Five for Kat and Lovi if they don't say anything to our manager."

Kat laughed. "I wouldn't say anything anyway. Fine, I'll come." It occurred to her that she hadn't spent time with her friends outside of school in a while; she'd dedicated all this time to her school work, and her family, and... well, the other defining issue in her life. She could give herself a night off from all of that. No family there, no homework. So maybe no paralysing guilt either.

"Cool, Mattie's already agreed to come, Vasch can't make it though. Toni, ask Bella and Ned, OK?"

"Already have, they'll be there."

Lovino's eyes lit up at the mention of Bella. "Sounds like a plan, I'll be there around eight."

Roderich snorted. "I wouldn't, it would be just you and Gilbert drinking alone for at least two hours. I'd aim for ten. Hopefully Feliciano and Ludwig will be tired enough by that point to just eat, fall asleep, and miss the worst of it."

"They're not babies, Roddy. Kat, are you going to be needing to use the Beidlschmidt daycare?"

"I doubt it. Dad's home tonight, so Natalya's going to be fine, and Ivan's staying at a friend's house-"

"-wait" interrupted Liz; "Ivan has a friend? No offence, I know he's your brother, but..."

"I was surprised too, but that guy he's doing his history project with asked him to stay over, so I guess he does."

"Cool. OK, see you at about six. Toni, here's the twenty bucks for me and Roddy. Lovi, see you later."]

"I can't believe Roderich's coming to this." Kat dropped her bag on the floor of Liz's kitchen.

"It's no problem, he gets on OK with Gil really." Liz glanced at a note on the fridge. "Cool, my parents left me money for food."

Kat frowned, scanning the unfamiliar words. "Your parents don't write notes in English?" Liz shook her head.

"No. I mean, obviously, they can speak it, but Hungarian's their first language, so that's why they speak it around the house. It's probably a good thing, we only moved here when I was three, so I probably wouldn't have bothered to learn otherwise. Doesn't your Dad speak Russian around you? I mean, you guys only moved here what, three years ago?"

"No. Well, sometimes, but he mostly sticks with English because he wants us to fit in better. And Ivan and Natalya's English wasn't great when we first came here, so it was like immersion learning."

Liz retrieved a cookie from the cupboard and munched it thoughtfully. "Huh. So why do they have stronger accents than you? I mean, you lived there longer."

"I toned mine down. Ivan doesn't see any need to because he's...well... Ivan, and Natalya sometimes speaks in Russian for days at a time if she wants people to leave her alone. Most of her teachers have no idea that she's basically fluent in English."

Liz laughed. "Your siblings are so weird. Not in a bad way, they're actually pretty interesting, just... they're very much their own people, aren't they? They don't care what anyone thinks."

Kat ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. "I wish they'd at least try. Ivan just seems to have no social skills whatsoever; he just assumes that everyone's his friend by default, and doesn't understand that he comes across as overbearing. I mean, how many fights have he and Matthew's brother been in by now? Plenty. And he still says "my friend Alfred" in conversation, even though I'm fairly sure Alfred hates him."

"That's kind of sweet, really, that he sees everyone as a friend."

"Sometimes I wonder if he really does or if he's just fooling himself. He's my brother, and I love him, but he is awful at making friends. Natalya's bad at it too, but that's because she doesn't want friends. She seems to like being on her own, being with Ivan, and sometimes being with me, and that's it. She does care what people think of her, though. I think she wants people to see her as this powerful magical witch. Who does backflips."

Liz laughed. "I keep meaning to talk to her, actually, she's probably OK once you get past the whole..." she cleared her throat and adapted a terrible Russian accent "- I vill crush you viz my mighty beam skills, you capitalist worm".

"Well, let me know if you manage, she was offering to curse Alfred a few nights ago because he threw a textbook at Ivan's head. She even got detention for attacking some boy who said she was pretty."

"Why did she attack him?"

"Because he said she was pretty."

"Which boy was it? Please tell me it was Alfred, apparently he keeps calling her Morticia Addams."

"No, some boy called Toris?"

"Oh, Tolis. He's Eduard's brother. Don't call him Toris though, that's the kind of name you give a dog. Might as well call him Rover. Anyway, my cousin's his best friend."

Eduard was a quiet guy in their year who was rarely seen outside of the computer lab. The rumour was that he was looking at porn in there, although he was actually the one updating the school events calendar. Kat rummaged through her bag. "So I brought these two dresses, which one should I wear?"

They were nice dresses, she decided. A fairly simple robins egg blue one, loose at the top and nipped in with a white belt, and a brown heavy knit sweater dress. Both designed to draw attention away from her body, neither ending above the knee. Liz, however, seemed to disagree.

"Kat, can I be brutally honest with you?"

Kat assumed that she was not going to like what she was about to here. She nodded mutely.

"This one" Liz held up the blue dress- "Makes you look like something out of Little House on the Prairie. And this one-" She gestured to the brown dress "- is hideous and I have had fantasies about burning that thing since you first tried it on and insisted on buying it."

Kat's cheeks felt unnaturally warm. Liz seemed to notice, hopped off the counter, and hugged her.

"I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be a bitch, it's just... you've got such a great figure, I don't get why you go around dressed like my mother. Come on, let me lend you one of mine. It's a little loose around the bust on me, so it'll probably fit you. I'll do your makeup, and you can do one of those fancy braided hairdos on me, OK?"

Liz was a good friend, thought Kat. Such a good friend. She was offering to make her look nice, and all she could think of was "What if they look at me. What if they don't?" She nodded gratefully.

They were nearly ready when Liz reached under her bed and brought out a quiver filled with arrows. Kat raised a (beautifully filled-in) eyebrow.

"Are you sure this is a party, or is it the Hunger Games tribute parade?"

Liz grinned and slid a bottle of wine out from it. "This is where I keep contraband."

"So why do you have arrows in the first place?"

"I used to do archery until a few years ago. I won a few trophies, but figured I'd concentrate on the swimming and school work." She pointed to the shelf practically groaning under the weight of her sporting achievements. Kat fiddled with the hem of her dress.

"Are you sure this dress-"

"No, it doesn't make you look slutty, no, your boobs do not look ridiculous, and yes, you look great. Stop worrying." Liz took a swig of wine from the bottle, and made a face. "Particularly good vintage, some light notes of sandalwood and... I dunno, cake." She handed the bottle to Kat, who took a sip. Merlot. Her father let her have it at dinner sometimes. This was cheap Merlot, but nice enough. Liz wriggled over so she was sitting in front of Kat, and the hair braiding commenced. Kat took another drink of wine, handed the bottle back to Liz, and sighed, looking at the shelf of trophies.

"What's up?"

"Nothing, I just... I suppose I wish I was really good at something."

"You're good at complicated up-dos that take me about a year to undo. Roddy's going to lose it, I don't think he's ever seen me looking so ladylike."

Kat smiled and tucked a bobby pin in. "You two seem so mismatched."

"Yeah, we're very different. He's great though. I thought about dating Gil for a bit, but it's like... you'd never feel like he'd care about you anywhere near as much as he cares about himself, you know? You should see his blog, is almost entirely selfies and him talking about how great he is. Plus, as far as we ever went was a game of doctors and nurses when we were about eight. Funny story, he thought I was a guy until then. Pretty sure Elizaveta's not a common male name in Germany, so asked him why, and he said that he didn't think girls were as good at wrestling as I was."

"Oh please, you could beat him up anyday."

"I have. For all his pec-building crap, he has no idea how to fight. Anyway, Roddy's different. He's fine with me being into sports and stuff and him being into cooking and music. He doesn't see it as him being inferior, so it's not a big deal. He doesn't get some of my interests, but he likes to see me swim, and I like it when he plays his piano. I know he comes across as kind of stuck up or prissy or whatever, but he cares about me." Liz took another drink from the bottle and handed it back to Kat. "He's pretty great really, putting up with me being an uncivilised slob."

Kat shook her head and took a swig. "I don't see you like that."

"No?"

"No. Archery isn't uncivilised. Neither is competitive swimming, or knowing how to do someone's makeup just right, no matter what they look like." Kat inserted the last bobby pin. "And uncivilised slobs would never suit this hairstyle." She held a small mirror behind Liz's head while she faced the full length mirror on her wall.

"That's amazing. It's like hair origami. Hairigami." Liz smiled widely, then frowned. "I'm going to go brush my teeth, probably shouldn't have gone with red wine. Then we'll head off, OK?"

Kat nodded, and observed her reflection in the mirror. For once... she looked nice, she thought. The black dress was slimming, and, even though she hated them, she had been assured by Liz that her breasts looked fine. Liz had even managed to give her cheekbones, she realised, with a light touch to her face. She took a deep breath, and stood up straight. Tonight, she told herself, I am just going to be happy and normal.