Warning: Use of language in this chapter.


Sifting through mail always reminded Benny of sifting through rocks, trying to find that perfect one. Most of the time, they were ugly and cracked or of no real use. And then there was the sharp ones, the ones you cut yourself on unexpectedly, not noticing the blood until it's already halfway down your arm.

He found such a rock the morning after receiving a call from yet another wrong number. For a moment, he'd hung back, the stupid thought that it might be Beth hanging in his mind. But it hadn't been: Beth had something to say, she said it, and to hell with the cons

It didn't matter anyway. He was fine without her. Just fine, fine, fine.

This most damaging piece of mail was a pamphlet, one of those cheap, mass-produced ones that were good for moping up spills when you ran out of kitchen towel; from the Christian Crusaders. He must have still been on their mailing list, he figured as he scanned the pages out of sheer boredom, waiting for his measly breakfast of day-old bagel and cold coffee.

Something caught his eye. It was a name. Just a name, simple, not very long. Her name, of course.

'Our most glorious organization has been struck down most disgracefully by a woman we once held as a child of God. As of this week, Miss Harmon terminated her contract with this establishment and claimed the most dreadful things about religion and letting people believe what they wanted to. As if there is anyone to believe in but God! At least now we can use our precious money in the name of our Lord, and do some actual good rather than funding trips for a woman who shouldn't even be playing chess in the first place. She's unnatural and it is a real shame that not even God could turn her into a respectable Christian.'

If it had been another time, Benny would have laughed, would have thought, 'Good on you, Harmon. Good for you not taking their crap.' He would have said that, if she had had thousands in the bank, if she could afford to insult those kinds of people. But she didn't. And know she wouldn't be able to go to Russia.

And for what? To prove a point? To prove that she didn't need anyone else's help, that she was fine all on her own, thank you very much? Was she really that stupid, that arrogant? How could she throw away the chance of a lifetime just because she didn't want her name at the end of a few articles or whatever they'd likely made her agree to.

Pride be damned, relationship be damned, Benny had to sort this out. So, he did the only thing he could: he broke the silence. Tossing the pamphlet into the bin, watching as it sailed and made a home amid the sea of empty take-out containers and newspapers he hadn't even bothered to read, Benny braced himself.

He tried to stay calm. Tried to remain in control, unflappable, resolute in the face of adversity. But the sound of her voice, he lost any and all semblance of calm.

"What the actual fuck do you think you're doing, Elizabeth?" he barked at her as she answered after the first ring.

For a moment, she paused, like she didn't quite believe it was him. Then she sniped, "I don't know, Benjamin, why don't you enlighten me as to what's go you so pissed off?"

"What do you think! Russia, Beth. You have to go to Russia. You have to. And they were the only way you were going to get there, since I don't suppose the State Department were helpful in allocating funds. Jesus Christ, Beth, how could you do this, do this to yourself? Are you really that far gone that you don't care about your career anymore? Is beating Borgov not important anymore?"

In his heart, he didn't know what he wanted her to say. Maybe that yes, chess wasn't everything anymore, that she was sorry and that she'd missed him and that maybe they could figure something out, together. But that was a fantasy, make believe nonsense. Because it didn't matter about him, didn't matter that these past few weeks had been a torturous hell of missing her and then hating himself for missing her, her career and her potential would always come first to him, even if she broke his heart to get there.

Luckily, Benny didn't have to wait long. "Of course I still want to beat Borgov," she replied, an annoyed edge creeping into her voice, "and I won't stop til I've got him. And as for being, 'far gone,' I don't think it's your place anymore to pass judgement on that. But I won't be someone's puppet, Benny. I won't let people use me, use chess, to push their agenda. It's not right and it's not fair. And if you didn't have such a stick up your ass, you'd agree with me."

"Yeah, well, life isn't fair, Beth, and you shouldn't expect it to be," Benny growled, gripping the cord in his hand, practically strangling it. "You're broke, and there is no chance in hell that you could play enough kiddie-league tournaments to get that kind of cash in time. So, I hope you're proud of yourself. I hope you feel real righteous. I hope the feeling lasts, because otherwise you're gonna wake up one day soon and realize you just made the biggest mistake of your career. I don't know why I even bothered."

Benny was the first to put down the phone, not wanting to hear whatever paltry excuses she'd throw at him. Why was she so stubborn? Why did she have to do this to him?

But she wasn't doing anything to him, he realized. He'd been the one to call her, not the other way around. He'd run to the phone like an idiot, a pathetic puppy-dog-eyed loser who got all twisted up over a girl.

Benny Watts let the truth sink in, a dam finally letting the water in: he wasn't fine.


"Wow, I must say, you've built quite the palace for yourself, kid. If I didn't know that no one could put up with your 'tude for more than five minutes, I'd be expecting to see butlers and chamber maids comin' round the corner," Jolene smirked, plunking herself down on the couch without even being invited in. Not that Beth minded. Closing the door, Beth joined her on the couch, a flurry of mixed emotions. It had been so long, so very, very long since she'd last seen her best friend -her only friend, really, since Benny didn't fit in that category any longer and they had never been just friends anyway-and she was happy to see her. Yet looking at her now, how put-together she seemed, how comfortable and confident...it made Beth realize how much she herself had changed, and not for the better. Maybe that was exactly what she needed, though.

So the chess queen put her heels up on the coffee table and threw her an equally teasing smirk. "What can I say? Once a menace always a menace." The smirk soon slid off her face, though. "The house isn't mine, not always" she admitted quietly. "It was Alma's, the woman who adopted me. But she died. Last year. She died and her husband wanted it back but I took it. I guess I wanted to keep some part of her alive. I did redecorate, but most of it's the same. I didn't realize how difficult it would be to look after a house when there's only one person in it."

Jolene took her hand, eyes soft and sympathetic. "I'm sorry, honey. That really, really sucks."

Beth swiped at her eyes with her free hand. "It sure does." Pulling out of the comforting touch, Beth squared her shoulders. "Why are you here, Jo?"

"'Here' as in, my destiny in life? Or 'here' as in this fine plush couch of yours?"

Beth gave her an unimpressed glare.

Jolene rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "Good to see you've grown a sense of humour in our years apart. Not," she joked, yet there was a hard edge to it, something brittle and forced. Jolene blew out a breath. "I heard about what happened, that last game of yours that almost sunk faster than a marble statue in a kiddie pool. And I'm here because... because I've got some news for you, and I wanted you to here it in person, from me."

"What do I need to know?"

"Mr Shaibel died."


Jolene DeWitt knew what pain felt like, the pain of never being accepted, the pain of constantly having to fight for your place in the world and to have your voice heard, to matter, she'd even felt the pain of being abandoned although she had never known who did the abandoning. But she didn't think she'd ever felt pain like Beth Harmon was felling now as she finally drifted off in Jolene's arms, tears still clinging to her lashes like fallen stars. That was what Elizabeth Harmon was: a fallen star, shut up here with her pain and her addiction, addiction she was trying to beat, ghosts she was trying to run from. But Beth had never been good at running, this Jolene was well aware of. You couldn't outrun something that was an intrinsic part of you. Jolene suspected, on some level, that Beth didn't want to run away from it, that the addiction and the feelings behind it were so strong because they were so familiar, a constant, the only in her life, it seemed. Apart from her chess. God, if she'd only known her best friend would grow up and set the world on fire...she could have got some designer dresses out of it.

She was proud of her. Like a mother and her child, since she'd raised Beth in the ways of being an orphan, the ways of surviving a place like Methuen, maybe she kinda was. And she wanted to take care of her. Jesus Christ, she really did. But if what Beth had said about Benny was true, then she couldn't. Beth had to do this herself. No hand-holding, no silver spoons for Harmon. No, cause if she did, Beth wouldn't be able to stand on her own, would slip right back down again. There'd been a Math problem at Methuen about a frog in a whole and it jumps a foot or something every day, and how many days would it take it to jump out of the hole was what you had to figure out. Jolene thought the answer was mean to be about a month or something; what she knew for certain was that it would take Beth a hell of a lot longer than that. Now with Mr Shaibel gone...the world really liked dumping crap on this kid, didn't it?

"You must have been a real hellraiser in another life, Cracker," Jolene murmured to her sleeping form. Figuring she could do with some sleep of her own, Jolene folded back the covers and rolled them over her friend, turning out the light she'd left on. Jo had offered to take the couch, but Beth had insisted she would most certainly not let her best friend sleep on that thing, that it was awful for your back and such. Jolene knew she was talking from experience, that there must have been nights when Beth never made it to her bed, passed out drunk or high or both. That was no way to live.

Padding over the carpet to her borrowed room, Jolene assessed the state Beth had left it in, clothes still draped over a chair, makeup left out on the dresser, a shrine to her departed adopted mother. It felt weird, too weird and intimate to be in here, like this was something not meant for her eyes. She sure as hell wasn't sleeping in that bed, no matter how comfy it looked. She would not disturb Beth's ghosts; she'd just make room for them.


Beth couldn't move. She was hiding, that was what she was doing. Her down comforter pulled up over her head, breathing in her own air, she couldn't even turn her head. There was such nothingness in her, such a ringing, droning silence, like a swarm of angry bees trying to knock down her mental walls, sting her with their sharp words and sharper regrets.

Mr Shaibel had died, and she hadn't been there.

She'd never paid him his money back.

It wasn't that she hadn't wanted to, hadn't planned to, it was just...

Bullshit. There was no excuse, really. She'd let the game and prestige and wonder go to her head like she'd let the wine and the drugs go to her head. He'd gotten her started, and then she was off running the race herself, never looking back to the one person she couldn't have crossed the finish line without. Beth may have learned from Harry and from him -she couldn't even think his name at the minute- but he'd turned Elizabeth Harmon into Beth Harmon, and she hadn't even given him the courtesy and the respect to pay him back, or to so much as call or visit. She was a sham, a fraud. If he could see her now, he'd be so disappointed. Or would he understand, since he had had demons of his own? Would he not be surprised by her self-destructive nature, knowing what she'd come from and what she'd grown up in?

In her heart, she didn't want him to understand. Beth would have rather had him furious, for at least that would mean he was still alive to rage at her.

She could hear Jolene pottering about in the kitchen, the smells of actual food and not something wrapped in tin foil making her stomach growl painfully. When was the last time she'd eaten a proper meal, cooked herself one? He'd always made sure she ate something half healthy and not covered in sugar, despite him downing a million cups of coffee a day. She wanted to call him again. Beth knew, somehow, that he'd understand, that he'd put aside their fight for this, that he'd comfort her and make her feel safe. She did not deserve those things, and would not ask him for them.

Beth burrowed further under the covers, suddenly tired all the way to the marrow of her bones.

"Get up."

She hadn't heard Jo come up the stairs.

"Get up."

Like hell she would. Beth told her as much.

"Elizabeth Harmon you get your sorry ass outta that bed right now."

Jolene had always had more fire than she did.

"No, I won't."

Her best friend insisted, "You have to."

Beth yanked the covers from her head, knowing her hair was sticking up every which way, that she was still in her rumpled clothes from the day before and was not intimidating or commanding in the least. The comforter pulled around her waist as she sat up and said, "Why?"

Jolene rolled her eyes. "Because you have to-"

"Why? Why do I have to do anything? No one wants me, Jo, no one. Everyone's left, and I'm not surprised. I'm glad. People shouldn't be around someone like me. I'm a waste, I'm nothing. Why should I even play chess anymore, why should I go out there to appease people I don't know and will never know? Why should I sit for interviews and let people examine me like I'm some new scientific discovery when all I've discovered about myself is that I'm a drunken, addicted failure and the world's better off without me? It is, it's better off."

Jolene didn't say a word. She just looked at her, looked like she'd never seen her before. Leaving the room, she came back seconds later with a chess board, pieces set up, seeming to glare and laugh and mock her as she remained on the bed. Her fingers itched to touch them, to make them sing, but she did not appease them.

"This is why," Jolene murmured.

Slowly, deliberately, she moved the pieces, following some plan in her head. After two moves, she recognized the pattern. It was the strategy she'd used to win against Harry, all those years ago at the Kentucky State Championship.

"This is why."

Jolene recreated her win against Benny, each move synchronized and utterly perfect.

"This is why."

She played out her defeat at the hands of Borgov.

"Why would you-"

"Because you're not done, Beth," Jolene cut in, placing the board on the bed. "You're not done, you'll never be done. This is you, what makes you up, what makes you happy. Your heart is this game, sweets, and it ain't done beatin', beating other people."

Beth scrubbed at her face, at the tears pooling in her eyes, making them shine like brown lakes. "But it's cost me so much. It costs so much. I'm broke, Jo. I can't afford to go to Russia."

"I'll pay. Did you forget, I'm kind of a hot-shot lawyer now?" she teased with a smile. "Or will be. I've got enough," Jolene assured her, as if that was the problem.

The chess queen shook her head, so violently she almost tipped off the bed. "No. Never. Never. I will not take your money. That is yours. You've earned it. Jo, you've fought so hard for it, why would I ever take that away?"

"You can't take something when it's being given to you, dummy." Jolene swung her legs up onto the bed, gripping Beth's hands as she sat cross-legged. The white queen on the board fell at the motion, but Beth didn't bother to right it. "Those moves back there? Took me ages to remember them all. I got real confused, but I didn't give up. I wanted you to see how amazing you are, sugar, how hard you've fought. Money is just money; I'll make more of it. And I'd rather I spent it on something good, something right, than two hundred pairs of shoes I'll wear once and then never wear again."

She had to roll her eyes at that. "There isn't anything I could possibly say or do to change your mind, is there?" Beth guessed astutely.

"Damn right you are, kiddo. Damn right you are."

Leaping off the bed, Jolene pulled her with her, smoothing her hair like a mother, like Alma. "You hungry?" Beth knew she wasn't just talking about food.

The queen smiled. "Starving."


Author's Note: Look who's back! Hi, it's me, with an update. It's been forever, I know, I apologize, I'm awful. But, good news...tis story is almost done. I'd say two, maybe three chapters at most, then I'll work on updating 'A Perfect Match.' I've just got so many fics, it's really hard to navigate, and find time to read. But that's my problem, not yours. I'd love it if you left a review and shared your thoughts.

Thank you so much for reading!

All my love, Temperance Cain