A/N: Thanks everyone for all the reviews and favs and follows! This one is all about Reagan, a little flashback to the night she came to get Amy for their first date and to her other two girlfriends. Next chapter, I promise, will be a two-fer: Amy and Reagan's first date AND coffee with Karma.

If there's one thing Reagan knows about herself, it's that she's badass.

Not that she feels it right now, mind you. Not sitting here in her truck in the Raudenfeld-Cooper driveway.

That's what she's been doing for the last five minutes. When she arrived - five minutes ago - she was fifteen minutes early for her first date with Amy. So, she waited. She didn't want to be too early, didn't want to seem too anxious.

Anxious isn't badass.

Sitting alone in her truck, knee jiggling at what feels like about 100mph beneath the steering wheel, fingers tapping out a morse code SOS on the gear shift?

Oh, yeah. That just screams badass.

Her hand leaves the gearshift and grabs the keys, still dangling from the ignition. She hasn't been spotted yet. She can still go.

She can still run. Or drive, you know, seeing as how she's still in the truck.

Start the car, Reagan. Start the car, throw it in reverse, and off we go.

It's not like she'd ever have to see Amy again. Standing her up wouldn't be totally embarrassing. It's not like she'd have to face the blonde again the next day at school.

Seeing her again in the first place was just dumb luck. An accident of fate and timing and a DJ cart run amok.

Only one small problem. Reagan doesn't believe in luck. See, luck doesn't get you out of the house, or get you your own apartment, two jobs that can actually pay your bills, or give you crazy good DJ skills by the time you're nineteen.

Luck doesn't give you hot blondes with your same dorky sense of humor who actually seem, you know, into you.

You can still go. It's not like you'll ever have to see her again.

So, yeah. Go.

But she knows that if she goes, she's going to have to do it while ignoring that pain in her heart, the sharp stick jabbing into her chest at the very thought of never seeing Amy again which, quite honestly scares the shit out of her.

She's terrified at the thought of never seeing Amy again. And the fact that thinking about that hurts this much, this soon.

"I am fierce," she says. "I am badass."

She stares at the house and then drops her head to the steering wheel, banging her against it.

"And I'm talking to myself and totally fucking gone over a girl I've seen in person twice," she mutters into the wheel. "Two times. Two fucking times."

Yeah. Badass. That's me.

Reagan lets go of the keys because, let's face it, she's not going anywhere (including, apparently, to the Raudenfeld-Cooper front door). She's thirty some odd feet away from Shrimp Girl - who sometimes also goes by Amy, you know - and she honestly can't think of anywhere she's wanted to be this much in a very long time.

Which, again - in case you forgot - is what's scaring her. That's what's kept her in the truck for five - check that, seven - minutes.

Her phone buzzes in the cup holder and for a moment she thinks it's Amy. For the last seven days, it almost always has been Amy. They've texted every day and night since the club, and they've actually talked on the phone for something like twenty hours over the last week.

And, if she's this far gone after a few hundred text message and a few hours of phone calls?

Then, badass or not, Reagan knows - she's fucked.

She starts to reach for the keys again, but pauses, then makes a sharp turn for the cup holder and snatches up her phone instead. She ignores the text - probably something work related -and hits 'one' on her speed dial without looking, tapping the speaker button and waiting through the rings.

"Hello?"

"Hey, daddy," she says. "It's me."

If there's one thing Reagan knows about herself, it's that she's badass.

How could she not? For three years, it was drilled into her every morning.

"Repeat after me," her father would say. "I am fierce. I am badass. I am out, I am proud. I am a motherfucking queen!"

If they'd ever met, Reagan's father and Lauren's mother would have loved each other.

The motherfucking mantra, as Reagan came to call it (but only in her head) became their morning routine when she was fifteen, starting the day after she came out to her father.

Her father, Martin, would wake her up and, once she had shuffled angrily into the kitchen - because even fifteen year old Reagan was anything but a morning person - she would sit at the table and he would begin.

"Repeat after me," he'd say, as he poured her cereal or made her eggs or buttered her toast.

And repeat she did. Every day for three years, until the day she moved out.

And the first week she lived in her own place? Martin called her on the phone every morning.

"Repeat after me," he'd say as soon as she'd answer.

It was their time, and Reagan loved it. Her mother lived across town and Reagan saw her once a month, maybe. Her brother Glenn was overseas in the Marines and her father worked two - or more jobs - just to put food on the table. He worked long hours and spent more time out of the house than in it.

But he always made sure he was home for breakfast, always there to send her off to school.

The breakfast was, as a rule, horrible. The cereal was stale (neither of them ever remembered to go get a new box). The eggs were runny and the toast was always - always - burnt. Sometimes, there was OJ, but usually it was water out of the tap or a cup of coffee so strong Reagan wondered if she'd ever be able to sleep again.

But none of that mattered. All that mattered was that he was there. He was always there.

Even if only to remind her how badass she was.

Reagan stares at Amy's house, her eyes boring so hard into the front door that she's almost a little surprised it doesn't suddenly explode.

"So, what's her name?"

She chuckles, not in the least surprised that her father knows exactly why she's calling, but she doesn't give him the satisfaction of caving in immediately. "How do you know there's a 'her'?" she asks. "Maybe I just called because I miss you."

"Rea, it's a Friday night," Martin says. "And the only reason you wouldn't be catering some hoity-toity party or DJ'ing tonight is if there's a girl involved."

Reagan hadn't had a Friday night free of catering or DJ'ing in over a year.

So, yeah, maybe he's got a point.

"Amy," she says softly. "Her name's Amy,"

She can practically hear his smile over the line. "And I'm just guessing here, but you're supposed to be meeting her soon or picking her up and - again, just guessing - you're freaking out a little bit?"

Reagan loves her father. But damn, sometimes he's too smart for his - or her - own good.

"Why would I be freaking out?" she asks, hoping he doesn't notice the way her voice pitches just a little higher. "I've been on dates before. It's no biggie."

Dates. Right. She's been on dates. Four of them, if she remembered correctly.

One with Anna. Three with Shelby. And then it was all relationships and togetherness.

Until it wasn't.

"Let's see," Martin says and Reagan can see him rolling his eyes at her. "Wasn't your last date just about…" His voice trails off as she imagines him doing the mental math. "How long were you with Shelby?"

One day too long, as it turned out.

"OK, you've made your point, old man," she says. "So, how about instead of making me feel bad for my recent lack of a social life, you help me out a little?"

Martin's laugh came across the line and for a moment, Reagan was back in their kitchen eating stale cereal or runny eggs or trying to find a piece of toast that wasn't burned past the point of having flavor.

"Alright," he said. "Repeat after me…"

Reagan came out to her brother first, in a letter. It was easier that way and it felt like something of a practice run. Glenn was half a world away so it would take some time and that was good because, really, she needed a little time.

It wasn't that she needed to get used to being gay, she'd adjusted to that. She'd known since was thirteen and, somehow, had just always been fine with it. There'd been no struggle, no self-loathing, no confusion.

She didn't need time for herself. Everybody else?

Yeah, she was gonna need a minute.

So, she'd picked Glenn as her guinea pig. She'd mailed him a letter, knowing that he would understand that she wanted him to write back, not email or Facebook or Face Time. She wanted pen on paper. It was more personal.

And it would take longer.

It took about two weeks longer, to be exact. Two weeks for her letter and Glenn's response to make their ways across the oceans and deserts and back again. And, by the time Reagan had torn open the envelope with her name scrawled on it in Glenn's barely legible attempt at cursive handwriting, she had come to grips with someone else knowing the one thing she had ever kept a secret.

The letter inside was simple.

Hey Short-Stuff. Glad everything's going well. Thanks for the letter. Send cookies next time. Miss you guys.

Love, Glenn.

P.S. You should call Anna Marquez, from down the street. She told me once at a party that she thought you were hot. She was probably drunk, but whatever.

P.P.S. Try not to steal all the hot babes, OK. I'm not going to be gone forever.

Reagan had laughed herself silly reading and rereading the letter.

And she called Anna Marquez a week later.

Reagan rolls her eyes and groans at the phone. "Seriously,dad? You think I haven't already tried the 'motherfucking mantra?" She leans her head back against her seat and shoves her free hand, the one not holding the phone, into the pocket of her leather jacket.

It's easier to keep from grabbing the keys that way.

"I've said it a hundred times," she says. "And I'm still sitting her in my truck and trust me, I feel anything but fierce."

Martin was silent for a moment and Reagan thinks she might have dropped the call. But then… "You like this girl, don't you?"

Reagan shrugs, forgetting he couldn't see her. "I guess… I mean…" She sighs and taps the phone against her forehead in frustration. "Yes," she says. "I like her. I think I could… really like her."

"Why?"

Reagan stops and stares at the phone. Why? Why?

Why?

"I don't know," she says. "She's just… she's hot, like really hot." It's the first thing to leap to her mind, but even as she says it, Reagan knows Amy's hotness is way down the list of why she likes her. "And she's funny. She's like this total dork, like me. The first time I met her, she ate like twenty shrimp off my platter at a party. And she's shy. It's like she has no idea how awesome she is."

And yeah. She's fucking hot.

"So… if this Amy is all that," Martin says, "why are you still in the truck."

Reagan lets out a deep breath and stares up at the front door again. Amy's up there. Right behind that door. Sixty steps away.

"You know why," she says softly.

And he does know why. And so does Reagan.

Anna was the training-wheels girlfriend, the first try at actually being with a girl. And Reagan knew, right from the first kiss.

It would never last.

It wasn't that Anna wasn't great, because she was. And it wasn't that Reagan didn't like kissing her, because she did. A lot.

A lot a lot.

But there was something missing and they both knew it and they were both fine with it. Anna really did like Reagan and just hanging out with her (and the kissing and the other...stuff… didn't exactly suck) and Reagan got a little bit of a thrill out of dating an older girl - Anna was all of sixteen and a half - and she really liked having someone she could talk to, someone who had already navigated the potential messes of coming out.

Which is why, when Anna told Reagan that she just knew her dad was going to be OK with it, Reagan listened. Though, to be honest, she'd never once thought her father would have any real problem with. Not with her sexuality.

But everything that came with it? Like, the rest of the idiotic homophobic world? The rest of Texas?

That might worry Martin.

Her father wanted nothing more than for his children to be happy, healthy, and safe. Before Reagan came out and the 'motherfucking mantra' became a morning staple, breakfast had always been accompanied by CNN on the thirteen-inch color TV in the kitchen. And Martin would stop talking every time a report on the war came on the screen.

Reagan didn't get it at first. It wasn't like Glenn was going to be on the news, like he was at a football game with his face painted up and holding a John 3:15 sign in the stands. And if something had happened to him, if it turned out that he was going to be gone forever….

That would be a ringing doorbell. That would be men in perfect pristine uniforms.

And if Reagan knew that, then certainly Martin knew that. But he watched anyway, cutting off conversation in the middle of a sentence if he heard 'war' or 'Iraq' or 'Afghanistan'.

"I know we won't see him," he said one morning. "I know we don't even know where he is, exactly. But…" He shrugged and sipped at his coffee. "But… it's all I can do."

It was a week later when Martin walked into the kitchen one morning and found Reagan and Anna sitting at the table, waiting. He was more surprised that Reagan was up first than he was at Anna's presence - because, come on, he wasn't that oblivious - and he sat down without turning on the TV.

It took Reagan five minutes. Five minutes of rambling and metaphors about the heart and spirits and unconditional love and so much touchy-feely bullshit that, finally, even she couldn't listen anymore and she just blurted it out.

"I'm gay" she said. "Anna's my girlfriend. I like girls. Like, a lot."

Martin looked at her, then at Anna, then back to her.

"OK," he said. He stood up, crossed the kitchen, flipped on the TV and turned on the burner on the stove. "I'm making eggs," he said. "Anna, would you like some? Or maybe some toast?"

"Rea?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I tell you something?" After a beat, Martin takes her silence as agreement. "Rea, honey, this Amy… she's not Shelby."

Reagan squeezes her eyes shut and counts to five.

"I know," she says. "But… at the beginning? Shelby wasn't Shelby either."

If Anna was the training-wheels girlfriend, then dating Shelby was like taking off the training wheels and hopping on a Harley the next day.

And Reagan quickly discovered she liked to ride. A lot.

But, the trouble with riding, she discovered, is that sometimes you crash.

Hard.

And, after one year, four months, two weeks, and six days, Reagan had thought she was safe. No need for a helmet.

Not that it would've helped anyway.

"How long?" she asked. "How long has it been going on?"

Shelby had just shrugged, mumbled something about eight months. Maybe nine.

"If I hadn't walked in… if I hadn't found you and him… would you have ever told me?" Then she shook her head. "No, I don't want to know." She stood up from the bed, suddenly conscious of where she was sitting and what she'd just seen on it and she just couldn't be there anymore.

Reagan paced across the room, found herself staring out the window. "Did I… did you…" She didn't even know how to ask, wasn't even sure what she wanted to know. "Was I always just a way to make him jealous?"

And Shelby had shrugged - again - and Reagan hadn't wanted to just rip her fucking arms off so maybe she'd have to answer. But then she'd said it - no, not at first, but then it did make him jealous and then they started up again and before she knew it, it had been going on so long that she just couldn't find a way to tell Reagan and really, she did care about her and never wanted to hurt her…

Reagan was grateful Shelby had never wanted to hurt her. If she'd wanted to, it probably would've killed her.

"So, what, for the last eight months… sorry, maybe nine… you've been with me out of what? Obligation?" She glance back at the bed. The bed she and Shelby had…. and, oh, God… it was all so clear.

"He got off on it," she said. "You'd fuck me and then tell him and …"

She thought she might be sick. And when Shelby didn't disagree, when she didn't say so much as a fucking word, Reagan knew it was true.

"What was I to you?" she asked. "Did I mean anything?"

Yes. Of course. Shelby wasn't a monster. She hadn't been sleeping with Reagan and cuddling with Reagan and holding Reagan and saying 'I love you' to Reagan just to give her boyfriend a little homemade Viagra.

But, in the end, she just wasn't gay.

She'd thought, maybe, at first. But she grew out of it.

It was just a phase.

Reagan reaches for the keys one more time. She can't do it. She can't risk it. Not for Amy. Not for anybody.

"Rea?" Martin's voice is soft and warm and Reagan wishes he was here, right now. "I know it's hard, Reagan. I know it seems like it's just too much."

Her hand catches the key, her foot presses down on the brake.

"But baby, sooner or later, you're going to have to try again."

Later. Later sounds very good.

"And someday, maybe even tonight, you're going to find the girl who falls just as hard for you as you do for her." Martin knows his daughter. He knows how close she is to running. And he knows, if she runs this time?

She might never stop.

"I can't…." She's barely whispering. "I can't go through that again."

"Rea, I don't know this Amy girl. But I knew Shelby." Reagan hears the anger that still rolls through her father's voice every time he says her name. "Rea, she was a bitch from the word 'go'. I knew it. Your brother knew it. Hell, you knew it."

Yeah. She did. But Shelby was beautiful. And sexy. And into her, or so she thought. And that was enough.

Right up until it wasn't.

"Think about this Amy girl for a second, Rea." Martin says. "What's the first thing that comes to mind?"

There are no… boyfriends… around me… right now….

Reagan smiles. Amy had been so beautiful in that dress, so clearly not one of those people, and even though she'd basically gone insane at the party, it had been days before Reagan had gotten Shrimp Girl out of her mind.

Mostly out of her mind. Sort of.

"The first time I met her," she says. "And she walked away and I didn't know if I would ever see her again and all I could think… I didn't think about kissing her or being with her or anything like that…"

"What did you think of?" Martin asks.

"That I didn't get to know her." Reagan says. Her foot eases off the brake. "I didn't get to talk to her or find out what she likes to do or if she's into bowling or if she really loves shrimp or just free food in general." Her hand slips off the keys. "I didn't even know her name..."

"Rea?"

Reagan smiles and laughs, just a little. I'm fierce, she thinks. I'm badass.

She pulls the keys from the ignition, swings open the door, and steps out of the truck. "I gotta go, dad," she says. "I'll call you later."

She hits 'end' before Martin can say anything.

I'm fierce.

She starts up the driveway.

I'm badass.

She tucks her phone in her pocket and straightens her jacket.

I am out. I am proud.

She reaches the front door and, pauses, a finger over the bell, and then she's pressing down on it, and waiting. She's not running. She's not running. She's not.

Though if somebody doesn't hurry up and open the fucking door…

And then, as if on command, it swings open, a petite blonde stands in the doorway, staring art her with judgemental eyes.

"You must be Reagan," Lauren says.

Reagan smiles. I am a motherfucking queen.

"And you must be the spawn of Satan."

.