"Lucy?"

I whipped my head up at the sound of my name, nearly dropping the pair of lacy underpants in my hands. My panic wasn't ill-founded—Holly Munro was standing not even a meter behind me, her facial expression a mixture of curious and dumbfounded. Who could blame her, though? Neither of us expected to chance upon the other in the lingerie section of a department store, of all places.

"Holly!" I had trouble regulating my volume and tone in my shocked state, so it came out more like a harsh whisper than the nonchalant greeting I wanted. "What're you doing here?"

She blinked at me, apparently unsure how she should state the obvious. "Oh, I needed to get some new tights. My favorite pair got a run down the side."

I hastily shoved the lacy underpants back into the clearance bin I'd pulled them from, trying to use the second it bought me to recover my wits. "Oh, that's too bad. I don't wear tights for that same reason, actually." That was only partially a lie—the other part was because most tights wouldn't go over my hips without cutting off circulation to the entire lower half of my body, but she didn't have to know that.

"I'm just looking around, myself," I supplied, finally managing to get my voice to sound even slightly unruffled. Holly looked unconvinced but thankfully didn't say anything.

"I'm actually kind of glad to run into you here, Lucy," she said, glancing at a rack of camisoles. "I've wanted to go shopping together with you for a while. Like a girl's day, you know?"

A girl's day? With me and Holly Munro? If it were a race between that and the end of the Problem, I would bet my money on the latter. Sure, my initial suspicion and dislike of Holly had more or less dissipated by this point, but we weren't exactly best pals, either. But then again, she was still technically my closest female friend—if only because I didn't have any others. (And no, Flo didn't count. My relationship with Flo was more like estranged sisters-in-law than anything else; we only really met because of George or Lockwood, never on own accord.)

"A girl's day," I echoed, unenthusiastic. "Yeah."

A large part of me wanted to simply say a hurried goodbye and sprint out of there never to speak of the moment again, but I still needed to replace my now ruined outfit from the previous night's case (a denim skirt, faux vintage t-shirt, and my favorite sports bra had all gotten stained with ectoplasm and a spilled soda, if you're wondering) and this was the cheapest option within a half hour from Portland Row. So, against my better judgment, Holly and I walked around the department store together.

We made quite a pair—Holly in a stylish cropped jumper over a high-waisted navy skirt and ankle boots; me in my standard combination of black leggings, faded plaid skirt, ragged trainers, and a thrifted grey turtleneck that had seen better days. I hadn't even bothered to put some curling mousse through my hair that morning, so I looked a tad more ragamuffin than usual. It was even more pronounced when walking beside Holly's perfectly tousled French braid, which I couldn't help but eye enviously.

Holly found the exact type, color, and size of tights she needed within moments, and we left the lingerie section without further ado (no matter how friendly Holly and I were, there was no way in hell I would try on bras with another person present, so I resolved to come back on my own later). While I was looking for replacements to a newly depleted wardrobe, Holly was apparently just looking for something new, and so she more or less followed my lead as I wandered through the junior's section. For a little while, I pointedly ignored the clearance racks, trying to at least give the impression that I was above them—but I quickly gave that up when Holly helpfully pointed them out.

"You shop in the clearance racks too, Holly?" I asked as I sifted through the medium sized t-shirts. Holly was in the next aisle over, going over a selection of petite cardigans.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She glanced up to arch an eyebrow at me.

"Nothing," I said quickly, trying to sound ameliorating. "I just never pictured you going through them, I guess."

"Well, I'm not rich, if that's what you were thinking." She huffed a laugh as if she'd told an inside joke. "As much as I like working for Lockwood & Co., it's not like we make enough cash to shop any other way."

"You got that right," I muttered, withdrawing a potential t-shirt from the rack for closer inspection. It was a dark heather grey with the words NOT YOUR PROBLEM printed in a pale blue on the front. Deeming it a potential match, I tossed it over one arm.

"Hey, what do you think of this one?" Holly asked, putting a floral print cardigan to her chest for me to see.

I tried to look at it objectively, instead of following my instincts and rejecting it outright. Just because it would look lurid on me didn't mean it would look bad on Holly, and I was above trying to sabotage her. (At least, I was above it now.)

"Hmm… I think it could work," I said, unable to give any more solid fashion advice. "But I don't know why you'd ask me. You're like a zillion times better at this fashion stuff than I am."

"Oh, please," she scoffed, but a small smile betrayed her pride. "We just have different tastes, is all."

Couldn't argue with her there. "If you say so."

We continued browsing for a few minutes in silence, absorbed in flicking through the items in front of us. My mind was a constant stream of "No, no, too short, too many sequins, wrong size, no, too sheer, maybe if it were black, no, too many holes, too orange, no, no, no…" ad nauseum, until Holly mercifully interrupted.

"Oh, I think this would look great on you, Luce!" she said enthusiastically, holding out a rose-colored long sleeve shirt with a black floral print. It was kind of cute, actually, and I reached out to pluck it from her hands—when I caught sight of the size on the label.

"Oh, um. That won't fit me," I said flatly, dropping my hand to my side. "Too small."

"Oh!" Holly said, flushing a little. "I didn't realize. Sorry, Luce." She placed the shirt back on the rack in a hurry, offering me a grimace instead.

"No, it's fine," I sighed, already flicking back through the shirts on my end of the rack. "I just don't have your sort of effortless physique, I'm afraid. I'm too fond of crisps and biscuits."

I was past getting upset that I didn't fit in the petite sizes. At least when it came to shirts I could still fit in the junior's medium and large sizes—when it came to skirts, I had to look in the women's section to get waistbands that could fit over my hips. Admittedly, I was still a little salty about that one.

I was broken from my thoughts to see Holly pursing her lips, staring into the middle distance.

"Holly?"

She exhaled sharply, resting her hand on a hanger.

"You know, it's not actually effortless," she said, and I could tell she was trying to sound unaffected. In fact, she sounded quite tired all of a sudden. "I put a lot of work into this."

"Really?" She could've fooled me.

"Of course! You think it's easy to eat salads and chia seed smoothies when I work at Portland Row? It takes a lot of self discipline."

I admit George was trying rather hard to get her to join us in our hedonistic love of donuts, pastries, and other generally unhealthy foods. Still didn't see the appeal to eating chia seeds, though. "I suppose you're right. So why do you do it, then?"

"Because I like being in control of my body," she replied, draping a pastel yellow jumper over one arm. "Well, I like being in control generally."

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

Holly magnanimously ignored my sarcasm, continuing. "With the Problem being what it is, it's really easy to feel like the world is spiraling into chaos. I realized that there's only so much in life that I actually have a say in, and my appearance is one of those things."

"Huh." When she put it like that, it made an awful lot of sense. Part of me was a tad disappointed with that revelation – I guess deep down I was still a little resentful that Holly seemed so put together when I didn't.

"I admit it's flattering that you think I'm naturally like this, but that's because you don't see how it takes me two hours to get ready each morning, plus an hour before bed."

"What?" I asked, jerking my head up from the array of shirts to stare at her dumbly. "Two hours?"

She nodded solemnly, and I blew a heavy breath through my cheeks. My daily routine took roughly half an hour on a slow day—ten, if I was running late. I dragged a hand through my bangs, noting with vague disappointment how they weren't growing out as quickly as I wanted.

"So," I said as I moved on to the women's section of the store to look for a new skirt, "You're saying you get zits like everyone else?" Holly followed me only somewhat reluctantly, more to correct my misconceptions than anything else.

"More or less, yes. Although a good facial regimen does wonders."

She had an answer for every misfortune that could ever befall someone in the looks department. On my part, I racked my brain for something, anything that she didn't include in her self-care regimen. It was apparently on the same level as a doomsday prepper's plans for the apocalypse.

"What about bad hair days?"

"Dry shampoo helps with mine. And mousse."

"Hangnails?"

"Weekly manicures with my flatmate and daily lotion application."

"Eye bags?"

"Face masks during the manicures."

"Stretch marks?"

"I'm pretty sure everyone gets those, but creams can help."

"Warts?"

"Warts? I think that's a general hygiene thing. But no, I suppose I don't get warts."

That was an odd note to end on, but I couldn't think of anything else to drill her on. At this point I had three shirts and four skirts ready to try on.

"Wow, Hol. You really like to plan for everything, don't you?"

"Is that a bad thing?" she asked while I tried to locate the changing rooms. She nudged my arm and pointed to a corner off to our right.

"Guess not." I shrugged. "I think part of why I didn't like you much at first was because I thought you were too perfect. At least now I know how hard you work for it."

"Huh." Now it was Holly's turn to look surprised. "I thought you didn't like me because I was in the way of you and Lockwood."

A little strangled noise escaped me, and Holly tried valiantly not to laugh at my expression. "Was not," was all I could get out as a flush rose up my neck. She'd already told me months ago that she wasn't interested in him (and since told me who she really had her sights on), but it was still embarrassing to think about how jealous I'd gotten.

"Sure," Holly said, her tone placating even as her eyes told me she didn't believe me in the slightest. She took the little placard from the clerk manning the changing rooms and we stepped into adjoining stalls.

The conversation halted for a minute as we began trying on our finds, but Holly quickly shattered the silence.

"Speaking of Lockwood," she said, cracking the door to her stall and peeking out at me. "How far have you two gone?"

I let out an undignified squawk, and Holly simply burst into a fit of giggles and closed the door, leaving me to try and cool down the embarrassment.

"If that's the conversation you want to have, we're never doing 'girl's day' ever again!"

A/N: I didn't expect this to be the longest one shot so far? I'm just a sucker for female bonding and Lucy getting over her internalized misogyny. While we're at it, I really wish Holly and Lucy'd had a canon conversation along these lines, instead of ignoring how Lucy unfairly judged Holly based on her looks. Oh well. That's what fanfic is for, I suppose.