Glimmer sat on an old wooden table and watched as a two girls took turns kicking a ball into a large net. The one would kick it, sending it flying into the air, and the other would try to block the shot. Kick and block, block and kick. One girl would triumph each time, but at the cost of their friends' frustration. Except they seemed like they were having fun and this game she played with her mother was anything but.
She tried to grade Angella on a curve. Because, obviously, as parents went, she was far better than most. Just look at Catra and Adora! Or Mermista's dad, dumping a crumbling kingdom on her and bailing. Then there was Hordak and the number Prime had done on him and his "brothers." Even Bow's dads, who were amazing and sweet, had somehow missed that they were making their son miserable, crushed under the weight of their expectations for years. Heck, most of the princesses had grown up with no parents at all.
Comparatively, her mom was pretty great, wasn't she?
Glimmer watched as the ball flew again, tumbling black over white, and tried to remember the last positive interaction she'd had with her mother that wasn't tied to something else. That dinner they'd had the night she was glitching, that had been nice, but it only happened because she'd been tortured until her powers broke. There'd been that tea party in her room, the one Adora crashed with Swift Wind and Bow, but even that was mostly her mom's way of apologizing for shouting and grounding her for saving Plumeria. Every pleasant moment they'd had those last few years felt like that, like it was only possible because something terrible had happened first.
Why didn't they ever just have the nice tea party? Why did there always have to be screaming and fighting first?
Glimmer loved her mother. She missed her. Those things were true. But so was the fact that they fought. A lot. Her mother didn't really listen, didn't trust her and never had. She made these cutting comments out of nowhere about her hair, her room, her clothes, her choices. Tiny wounds delivered with a sweet smile that came from a place of love, she guessed, but still fucking hurt like hell. And sometimes, yeah, Glimmer exploded over nothing, but it wasn't really over nothing. It was because all those little wounds were still there, amplifying everything.
That was the reason she'd latched onto Bow like she did. Even when she was little, before she understood either or her mother or herself as well as she did now, she knew he was on her side in a way her mother wasn't. He trusted her. Not blindly! He'd still call her out on her bullshit. But it always came from a foundation that assumed she was competent and intelligent, the exact opposite of how her mother seemed to view her.
It was like that thing he'd said in the car. Whether it meant following her to the middle of the Whispering Woods on some crazy mission or giving a thumb up to some ill advised haircut or crazy mismatch outfit she'd assembled to annoy her mother, Bow was always Team Glimmer.
And it felt like her mother never was.
It wasn't like any of this was new. This was all stuff that had always driven her crazy about her mom, things she'd been ranting to Bow about since she was a kid. But somehow, since her mother had disappeared into the portal, she'd convinced herself that if she could just see her again, it would all be better. That this time her mother would magically respect her and she'd be the even-tempered daughter her mother wanted. They'd be able to move past all the old wounds festering between them and be the kinds of mothers and daughters she'd envied in the storybooks her nannies read her.
But instead, they were still the same people they'd always been.
It hurt. Knowing that when she got her mom, her real mom, back from the portal after all these years of wishing and wanting, things would still be as bad between them as they always were. Maybe even worse. It had been horrible when her mom disappeared, but it had meant growth, growth that had changed who she was. What would her mother even make of this Glimmer? If the interaction she'd just had with the version in this world was any indication, not much.
Tears dotted the skirt of her dress and she tried to dry her eyes with the back of her hand. There was time enough to figure out how to talk to Etheria's Angella once she got her back. Right now, she had bigger problems.
The adrenalin of pushing her way out of her mother's office and taking out her frustrations out on this world's facsimile of Prime had faded leaving a dull ache halfway between anger and sadness. When she'd come out and found the other Bow gone too and it was just another thing to add to the growing list of things she'd royally fucked up as only Queen Glimmer could to do.
The LAST thing she wanted to do was hang around and give Prime or— godsforbid the other Angella— the chance to follow her out there. So she'd kept walking, storming past the entrance of the building and then on until the paved path became to a smaller dirt one. It wasn't until the drab rectangular buildings gave way to trees that she could breathe again. This was a strange wood, surrounded by busy transport roads, with winding paths marked by colored markers, but it held its own kind of peace that reminded her of the one at home.
She hadn't walked long until she'd found this field, some kind of play-structure for children alongside. And here she'd sat for who knew how long, watching the girls play their ball game and wonder what the hell she was going to do now.
If she had it to do over… but she didn't. She'd had one chance and blown it. Come all this way for nothing. Which hurt enough without the realization that she may be stuck here forever. She hadn't calculated the exact range on the pullback, but it certainly wouldn't reach this far, especially in a world without magic. If she didn't get back to that apartment before tomorrow morning, she might never get home.
And she couldn't stay here. Not when the other Glimmer's life was an even bigger mess than it had been when she got here. She didn't even fully know what the situation was with her, her mother and Prime, and had still made it so much worse. And then there was Bow, wherever he was.
The girls had finished their game. They high-fived and exchanged a quick kiss before grabbing their ball and heading for their transports. In a moment, they were pulling back onto the road, shouting taunts about racing each other home.
Home. Glimmer sighed and got to her feet, starting down the path she'd taken to get up here. She'd head back to the transport. If Bow was there... well, that felt like a pretty big if right now. She'd just have to figure out how to work it herself. Or maybe she could ask Juliet for help, though the idea of stepping foot back into the building and facing the other Glimmer's mother or Prime again made her want to vomit.
"Glimmer?"
"Bow?" She looked around and then upward, finally spotting him perched halfway up a tree, lounging against a thick branch with one knee up like it was a deck chair. It was such a familiar sight, something so like what her Bow would do, that she smiled despite everything. "What are you doing up there?"
"Just... thinking, I guess." He gave a last look at the patch of skyline visible through the trees and shifted himself into a sitting position. Of course, he'd gone to the woods to think, just like she had. She should have realized. "Did everything with your mom go OK?"
"No. Not really." She tried to put on a brave face, but a sob bubbled up anyway. Bow didn't reply, just climbed down until he landed on the ground with a crunch of leaves. When he didn't move to comfort her, it only made it worse because she remembered how badly she'd screwed things up with him before. "Bow, I'm sorry. For dragging you all the way down here, for screwing up stuff with your job, for acting weird. When I got out to the car and you were gone... I thought you'd left. Like, LEFT left and I was all alone—"
"I texted you." He exhaled, clearly agitated, and started walking down the path at a fast enough clip that she had to scramble to keep up. "I said I was going for a walk and to let me know when you were done."
"I—" I don't know what that means. But if he was already mad, if he'd figured it all out because of her stupid comment before, admitting the words "I texted you" might as well be First Ones language for all the sense they made to her wouldn't help.
"Look." He had that frayed edge to his voice he got when he was stressing out. "Before, in the car—"
"I can explain!" she blurted, even though she had absolutely NO idea how she was going to talk her way out of this one.
"No, please, let me finish." They'd reached the end of the path, her mother's building visible in the distance. Bow stopped and leaned against a tree, his foot tapping against it. "When you said that before, about why would you… you know… with Catra instead of... yeah."
Fuck. She'd really blown it with that comment, hadn't she? He cleared his throat, clearly bashful about it. She would think it was adorable if she wasn't completely freaking out.
"It made me do some thinking. Because you've been acting strange lately. Like all this stuff with your mom. It's not like you."
Oh shit, he knew. How the fuck was she going to explain? She scrambled frantically for a lie that could possibly cover all of this.
"I mean, I know you, Glimmer. Really well. And you know me better than anyone, better than my family, that's for sure." He blew out a puff of air. "And you and me... like, of course, I'd figure it out, right?"
What was he saying? That it hadn't been the thing in the car? That he'd known the entire time?
"And I kept telling myself it couldn't be that. Over and over. Looking for other explanations, you know? Except… well, it would make everything make a lot more sense. Would explain how you've been acting, for one. But, I don't know. The whole thing feels impossible."
Holy shit, he knew. He'd figured it out. The whole thing. The switch, the two worlds, who she really was. Of course he had. Bow was so smart.
"I know this whole thing is completely nuts. But, Bow, believe me, unbelievable as it seems, it's not impossible. It's real."
"Then why didn't you just tell me?"
"I wanted to! But I was scared. I mean... it's crazy, right? I didn't know how you'd react!"
"I understand that, believe me I do, but…" He was watching her, chewing at his nails. Finally, he shook his head. "I want to just say it out loud, but it feels like once it's out there, there's no going back."
"It's OK." She reached for his hand, tugging him closer. "This whole thing is terrifying and complicated and so WEIRD, but it's still you and me. We deal with everything together, don't we? We can deal with this too."
"OK." He smiled at her, his fingers brushing against her hair. Probably finally noticing how different it was from the other Glimmer's. She looked up into his eyes, warm and open and finally free of all that suspicion they'd held before. Gods, this was going to be so much easier now that he knew what was actually going on.
Then he closed the distance between them and she barely had a chance to throw her hand between their mouths before his kiss connected.
"Oh no. No no no." She pulled back abruptly, taking a step back. "I can't kiss you! I'm so sorry, but it would be wrong."
"Because you don't feel that way about me." Bow deflated. "Yeah, that's... that's what I was afraid of, why I never said anything, but I thought maybe I misunderstood and the way you've been acting meant you'd also always... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that."
Shit. Shit shit shit shit. He turned and walked away, in the opposite direction they needed to go to get back to his transport. The transport that was her only chance of getting back home.
"Bow! Wait, please! You don't understand. It's not you, it's me!"
"I know. It's my fault for… anyway, you did nothing wrong." He glanced back at her and the broken-hearted look on his face ripped her heart in two. He took his keys out of his pocket and tossed them to her. "You should take the car back home... I'll catch a bus or something. I just need a little time alone."
"You can't go!" Oh, fuck. This was bad. This was very very bad. Now she hadn't just screwed up everything with this Glimmer's mom, she'd wrecked everything with her Bow too. "Please, Bow, you don't understand."
But he kept walking, his hands dug so deeply into his pockets it left him hunched over.
"I'm not your Glimmer! I'm not her!" she called desperately. His steps faltered, and she followed, talking frantically. "We got switched. That's what I thought you were talking about before. And your Glimmer, she's stuck in my world and I'm stuck here and I know this doesn't make sense, but you've got to believe me, please. Because I can switch us back, but I can't do it without you. I need you, Bow! She needs you!"
He stopped. Glimmer waited for what felt like an eternity, staring at his back. Should she say something else? Who was she kidding? She'd probably made everything a million times worse. Just when she got truly desperate and was ready to hang off his leg or something to stop him from leaving, Bow turned very slowly to look at her.
"What?" Bow was staring at her like he wasn't sure if she was full of shit or the absolute worse person he'd ever met. She swallowed, knowing this was her very last chance but at a complete loss for what to say. But before she could even open her mouth, a familiar voice came from behind her.
"Ah. When I found the car empty, I hoped I might find you here." Her mother had appeared at the end of the small path that led back to the building, looking uncharacteristically small and out of place surrounded by trees. "You always did seem drawn to the woods, the both of you."
"Mom?" That same shot to the heart of seeing her mother again immediately turned to tension when she remembered what had happened at their last meeting. Glimmer crossed her arms over her chest, absolutely not ready to deal with this too. "What do you want?"
"I was... unsettled about how we left things back there. Particularly that disgusting display in the lobby."
Here we fucking go! "Look, mom, I'm sorry but—"
"I don't mean you. I mean that absolutely revolting man touching my daughter like that as if he had any RIGHT to even speak to you after everything he—" Angella's nostrils flared with rage and she set her jaw for a moment as she composed herself. Glimmer blinking, trying to digest that her mother was apparently not mad at her for a change. "In light of given events, I have terminated our contracts with HP's company henceforth and will certainly not be entering into any partnership with him. Which means that my afternoon is now unexpectedly free, and I thought, perhaps, you might like to join me for lunch and we could... try again?"
"Um..." Glimmer glanced over at Bow, half expecting to him to have left already. She hated the distrust in his eyes when he looked at her, like she was a stranger, but he was still here, so that had to count for something.
"Bow, you would be welcome as well, of course." Angella had never looked so contrite, almost like she was nervous. "I believe I owe you your own ample share of apologies in this matter."
Glimmer hesitated, looking from Angella to Bow. A second chance. She wanted it desperately. But she'd just dropped a bomb on Bow and now he didn't trust her. What if he told her mother the truth, that she wasn't the real Glimmer? That would ruin everything!
"What do you say?" her mother asked, looking between the two of them.
"Uh… lunch sounds good to me. Bow?" She met his eyes, which held a cold, unfamiliar look she'd never seen before, not even when he was furious at her in space. Please, Bow. Please. I know I don't deserve it. I'm a stranger to you and I have done nothing but screw this up so far, but please, please, just play along and don't leave me because I can't do this without you.
Bow exhaled, rubbing his face with both hands. Glimmer braced herself for the worst, for him to tell her mother that she was a fake from another world or, worse, crazy and making up wild stories. She wouldn't blame him. She lied to him, screwed things up with his job, broken his heart. He had no reason in the world to trust her right now. When he finally lowered his hands, she braced herself for the worst.
Instead, all he did was shake his head slightly, his face drawn. "Yeah. Sure. Why not?"