Victoire and Gallagher were more careful after that, which unfortunately meant going multiple days without seeing each other at all and having less private time when they did. Fred's sympathy had been extremely limited; Juliet's family events were not something that she'd been able to wriggle out of, and she and Fred had been monitored far, far more closely during the time they did manage to spend together than Victoire and Gallagher were.
On the brighter side, her mother's prediction about Micah and Lexy was turning out to be fairly accurate. In the days following Christmas, Victoire had a few short-but-pleasant converations with Lexy using their tablets, and her giggles during a lengthy conversation with Micah one evening annoyed her family so much that Dominique sent her to her room.
Less welcome was the consensus decision to ring in the new year together at Gallagher's place, on the grounds that his bedroom was the biggest.
Victoire was considering starting the process of getting out of bed on New Year's Eve when her mother knocked on the door. "Vic? Your father and I would like to talk to you at some point this morning."
"Okay, Mum," she said, anxiety starting to build up in her stomach. After dawdling as much as possible in the shower, she tossed on a sweater and leggings. On her way down the stairs, she heard her father call, "Vic, is that you?" from their bedroom.
She steeled herself and then turned around to go down to the door at the very end of the hall. When she walked in, she found her father was sitting in the armchair next to their window and her mother sitting cross-legged at the foot of their bed. "Um - Mum said you wanted to talk?"
Her mother nodded and patted the bed beside her. As soon as she sat down, Victoire drew her knees up to her chest and twisted herself into something roughly resembling a pretzel.
"You're not in trouble, Vic," her father said gently. "Try to relax. If we were going to punish you, we would've done so when you got home, not two days before you left to go back to school."
Victoire made herself uncoil a little, and her mother patted her hand. "Victoire," she said, the traces of a French lilt still in her voice, "we understand that you have - trouble, sometimes - with - with impulse control, and boredom. And we want to make sure that we are not -"
She paused and looked at Victoire's father, who made a face. "Setting you up for failure, we guess."
"We want to help you do things you are passionate about, within reason." Her parents exchanged a maddeningly prolonged glance, seemingly oblivious to how fast her heart was racing. "So we have spoken with your professor, and with each other, and we have decided to allow you to visit your - banshee - friend."
Victoire shot bolt upright. "Wait, seriously? Oh my god, thank -"
Her father held up a hand. "With conditions." His voice was very firm.
She immediately slumped back again. "What are the conditions?"
He held up a finger. "You will approach this as an - independent study, your professor called it. That means that you will work out a schedule with him that he feels is safe and that does not interfere with your other courses, and you will stick to it. You will take every precaution he tells you to, meet with him after each time you go out there, and write up a synopsis of any content that could be interesting to the magizoology field overall."
She couldn't tell from his tone whether her farther was reluctantly agreeing to this or whether he was genuinely okay with it, which was very disconcerting - he was usually fairly easy to read.
"We also expect you to check in with us regularly," her mother said, handing her a small, bright blue sleeve. When Victoire unzipped it, she found a tablet inside. It was similar to the one Fred had made their group of friends, but it was noticeably smaller and darker.
"We asked Fred to make us three of these rather than put new buttons on the one you already have, so we don't intrude on your space," her father said. "We don't expect you to use it for everything, but we do expect you to keep us aprised of what you're doing with this. If we feel that you're not being honest with us or that it's gotten too dangerous, we will end this experiment."
Victoire nodded mutely.
"If there are things you would prefer to talk to only one of us about, we will do our best to keep that confidence unless we truly cannot," her mother added, and Victoire felt her face start to get hot. "But we need you to make an effort to talk to both of us about most things. Do you understand? Will you do this?"
Victoire nodded again.
Her father clapped his hands to his knees. "And that's my cue to leave." He paused on the way to put a hand on her shoulder. "I love you, Vic. Once I get over the stress that this entire thing has caused, I'm even going to be proud of you." She jerked her head up to look at him, and found to her immense relief that he was finally smiling.
She got up and threw her arms around him. "I love you, too, Dad."
When he'd closed the door behind him, her mother sighed. "I am - very interested to see what you find. But Victoire - if it is the veela blood that draws the banshee to you, and it does exacerbate those things, I want you to keep in mind that you do not necessarily know what aspects it will draw out, and that those changes might be permanent."
She forced herself to keep eye contact with her mother. "I know, Mum."
The sympathy in her mother's face was vaguely comforting. "And also that it might make dating - more difficult," she continued. "People are sometimes frightened of things that they do not understand, and people also do not always - react to us reasonably, at the best of times. Men especially. It is not fair, but it is true."
"I know," Victoire said. "I do, I'm not just blowing you off. I just - I really, really want to know."
Her mother put a hand on her cheek. "I know you do. I think that your curiosity might get you in trouble some day, but I am also proud that you want so badly to know things. But please, Vic - keep me updated." She shook her head. "You can go get ready for your friends' party now."
Victoire's conversation with her mother was still on her mind when she got to Gallagher's a few hours later. "Can we talk?" she asked after he'd closed the door behind him.
Alarm flashed across his face. "Sure."
She sat down on his bed, kicked her shoes off, and then realized that he was standing next to the couch. "G, why are you over there?"
Some of the alarm had changed to confusion. "Well - I mean, 'can we talk?' usually seems to mean 'I want to stop doing this,' and I thought that my bed really wasn't a great place for that kind of conversation."
She stared at him. Her heart was pounding again. "No!" she exclaimed, and she was surprised at how visibly she could see the tension leave his body. "No, I - no! Come over here." As soon as he'd joined her on the bed, she threw herself in his arms and kissed him.
When they pulled apart, he was smiling again. "Well, that did make me feel a lot better. Now that you're given me a fucking heart attack, what's up?"
It was hard to get the words out, but she made herself do it anyway. "This whole thing - you liking me, I mean - it's not because of the banshee, right?"
He didn't say anything for a moment, and then he sighed. "Vic, look at me, okay?" When she met his gaze, anxiety she hadn't even realized she was feeling started to ease before he'd even said anything. "It's not because of the banshee. It's not like it was some strange or mystical experience - I knew exactly what was going on, I just didn't understand why my compartmentalizing wasn't working as well as it used to. Does that make sense?"
She nodded.
He let his hand drop down to take hers. "Vic, it didn't put anything there that wasn't there all along - I think the only reason it hit me hard enough that I registered it at all is because there were already a lot of cracks for it to get through that most other people didn't have. Vic, it's a lot easier to be into you than it is to not be into you." His arms closed around her again, and she closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth that was starting to flow through her. "Vic, you've been my friend for more than five years, and you being ridiculously hot is not a new thought for me. It might stop me from repressing it, but no amount of banshee hangouts is going to actually change how I feel about you."
"Oh," she said, realizing that there was something else that probably warranted being brought up. "Well - er, I'm glad you feel that way, because my parents just okayed my banshee visits if I follow a bunch of rules Goldstein gives me."
He jerked back to stare at her. "I'm sorry, what?"
a/n: thanks so much for reading, and i hope y'all are staying safe in these times! reviews and faves are always appreciated. :) - branwen