Chapter Sixteen

A/N: I do not own anything other than my OCs when they come out to play. Everything else is owned by Disney.

Woo! Sorry for the delay in this chapter—with the holiday season coming and getting into full swing, there just hasn't been enough time to really sit down and write. As much as I want to, only so much time in the day! :D

Hard to believe the year's almost over! Hope everyone is being safe out there and enjoying the holidays, no matter what they happen to be!

I'm not going to lie, parts of this chapter were sort of canon wish fulfillment for me. Doug asking if Evie was alright after the trip to the Isle, actually adjusting the dress…just so much canon left off that I think should have been addressed.

Hope you guys enjoy the chapter! Let me know what you think! :D

Mal sighed as she made her way to her dorm, Estelle trotting happily beside her. It wasn't as if she wasn't happy with her dress but…there was a part of her that was dreading wearing it.

Evie's response to her comment about not being able to breathe rang through Mal's head: you can breathe after Cotillion.

E, I love you like a sister but really? Even though you knew I'm part God and it would probably take a lot more than just a dress to take me out, that was probably the worst thing you could have said, Mal thought.

Because had Mal been anyone else, she could have used that innocent little phrase that Evie probably didn't even think twice about and Evie's business would have found itself burnt to the ground. One word about the incident to the wrong set of ears would have been all it taken.

Hell, Audrey probably could have gotten it going viral in an hour, Mal thought, shaking her head slightly. The six months of dealing with Natalie made Mal feel a smidge closer to Audrey. No, they'd never call themselves besties or anything but Mal would settle for not wanting to rip the other girl's head off.

For Ben's sake at least. After all, Audrey was one of his oldest friends.

"Okay, no more delaying the inevitable," Mal muttered to herself as she walked into her dorm, Estelle giving her a doggy grin as he trotted in. Much to Mal's surprise, Evie wasn't alone.

"…Jane? What're you doing here?" Mal asked. "Is everything okay with Carlos?"

Jane chuckled. "First Ben, now you, I need to know if you guys are just determined to make sure my dating life goes off without a hitch."

"Wait a minute!" Evie exclaimed, grinning ear to ear. "Mal didn't mention anything about you dating Carlos! You kept that under wraps, Jane!"

"There were rather pressing matters to attend to Evie," Jane said, shaking her head. After Jane had added Uma, Harry, Gil, and Hadie to the guest list (the last name having been texted to Jane by Lonnie on their way back), Evie had texted her in a full blown panic.

You see, Evie might have been a miracle worker but she was also human. And in her preparations for Uma's dress and Harry's, Gil's, and Hadie's suits, she'd forgotten about one very, very important dress.

Mal's.

And the fact remained that with Mal's hair now purple once more, the gold and blue of the dress clashed horribly with the purple locks.

Plus, if Evie was honest, she felt it looked a bit too…busy. What with the pattern and the cape. She made sure it was her best work as always but it wasn't Mal.

Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time for Evie to whip up two new dresses but she also knew that Mal couldn't go to Cotillion with her hair clashing with her dress. So Evie reached out to a certain half-Fae.

"Wait…did something happen to the dress?" Mal asked, looking between the two of them as Estelle hopped on the bed and gave them all doggy grins. Not that Mal particularly cared about the dress but she knew Evie had worked tirelessly on it.

"We had to make some last minute alterations," Evie explained as she pulled out the dress and Mal gasped.

Instead of the blue and gold strapless dress she'd expected to wear, Evie held up a solid blue dress with hints of purple sparkling throughout. The best part, in Mal's opinion, was that there were now sleeves! Not crazy long ones but enough of a sleeve that her shoulders would be covered.

Plus now there was less of a worry that the dress would, you know, slide down her. Strapless was not exactly Mal's first choice.

"E…" Mal said softly.

"The other color just didn't go with your hair being back to its purple state," Evie told her. "And Jane thought blue would work better for you. It's darker than the yellow was and this way you'd match with Ben and his blue suit."

Plus since your father's Hades, it'd be a subtle nod to him, the blue haired designer thought.

"Try it on," Jane suggested.

Mal nodded before pausing. "Wait…Jane, you changed the color of the dress?"

"My mom's Fairy Godmother," Jane said with a small smile. "I've got magic in me and after the catastrophic events at Ben's coronation, mom decided to teach me about the wand and about my magic. The burst of power that caused the barrier to break and Maleficent to escape? It was a security measure mom put on it after Anastasia Tremaine stole the wand and the Tremaines used it to turn back time and almost ruin Queen Ella's and King Kit's Happily Ever After."

"…didn't she steal it by it flying out of your mother's sleeve?"

"That's besides the point."

Mal nodded but then tilted her head. "But then…why didn't the burst of power continue when I held the wand? I didn't immediately give it back to your mom after all."

"Mom's got a theory about that," Jane said. "Since you were taking it from me, that would have been enough to temporarily quell the security measure until mom could get the wand back. And of course the reason why it didn't go off when Maleficent held it was because Maleficent froze the room with the exception of you guys and her. Once mom got the wand back in her hand, she was able to turn off the security measure without any issue."

"Hence why it didn't continue to go off after your mom unfroze everyone," Mal said, nodding a bit in understanding.

Jane nodded. "Yeah. But anyway, after that lesson, mom taught me a bit. Nothing too much since she still believes that true magic is in the books. But…with my magic coming in, she knew I needed to also control it. You guys remember what I did to Audrey's hair the day of the school festival right?"

"Yeah…isn't that why she went on that spa retreat?" Evie asked.

"I thought that was Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather's doing? Which by the way, how did Merryweather get permission to do that since you know, she's a teacher here?" Mal asked.

"Mom can't ban teachers from spending time with their families. And since Audrey doesn't take Life Skills Without Magic, there's no impropriety to worry about. Merryweather won't appear like she's favoring Audrey over the other students." Jane explained.

"Ah," Mal nodded.

Evie chuckled. "Well no matter how fascinating all this was, you, Mal, need to get into the dress so we can see how it looks on you."

"Okay, okay," Mal said as she shook her head and ducked into the bathroom to change.

Evie sighed in relief as the door closed. "Jane, I owe you like fifty favors for this."

"Hey, it was for Mal. Happy to do it," Jane said. "Besides, dresses are kinda mom's thing after all. One of the first things she taught me how to do though she stressed that it was for emergencies only which I think this counts as one."

"It definitely does," Evie nodded. "Now I just need to get these other dresses over to my customers once we get Mal straightened out and we'll be good to go."

Mal was going to be going on ahead of them while she waited in a private area before being announced to the other Cotillion goers. Evie had to admit, she had been a little envious when she heard that Mal was going to be a member of Ben's court.

Yes Evie had her business and yes she was one of Ben's advisors. But being a member of court was something that she'd been raised to do. Just as Mal had been raised to take over kingdoms, Evie had been raised to rule them.

Just with a slightly pleasant, extremely malleable King as a husband. No man wanted a smart Queen after all.

"Come in," Evie called as a knock on her door broke into her thoughts.

Doug walked in with a small smile as he saw Evie. "Everything go okay? You were gone longer than I thought."

"…Mal was captured," Evie said after a minute as she went to look at Doug. "I thought Carlos and Lonnie ran into you?"

"They did but Carlos tried to give me a lame lie about you going camping," Doug shook his head. "I'm guessing you didn't mention that I already knew?"

"If I did, I don't remember and to be fair to Carlos, he had a lot on his mind," Evie sighed.

Doug looked over at her and rested one of his hands on Evie's "If you want, I can handle the deliveries? You sound exhausted Evie and you should get to enjoy tonight as well."

"Doug, that's such a huge ask though!"

"I'll go with him," Jane said, speaking up and causing Evie and Doug to jump slightly as they'd forgotten she was there.

Evie looked at them both before directing her attention at Doug. "You're sure you're okay with doing the deliveries alone?"

"Evie, you're acting like I've never been to Auradon Prep before," Doug chuckled. "I'll be fine. You just focus on pampering Mal before Cotillion okay? And after, you can fill me in on everything that happened."

Evie smiled and leaned over so that her mouth was by Doug's ear. "I meant what I said a couple of days ago. I don't need a Prince when I've got you," she whispered. "The list of who ordered what is on my desk."

"I'll grab it," Doug said. "And then I'll get the dresses into the garment bags. I'm guessing you're still rattled, you'd normally have that done by now."

"There was an emergency with Mal's dress," Jane said. She didn't know all the specifics but she knew that Doug didn't know about the extra Cotillion goers and therefore didn't want to force Evie to lie to her boyfriend. After all, there had been an emergency with Mal's dress.

"Oh, what happened?"

"Are you asking because you're curious or just being polite?"

Doug shook his head. "Evie's business is important to her and therefore it's important to me. Mal's the biggest client Evie has so if anything went wrong with her dress, it'd have the power to break Evie's business before it had a chance to shine."

"Then luckily for E, it was just a question of the dress being the wrong color," Mal's soft voice called from the doorway to the bathroom. "Got to say, I'm a big fan of the change."

Evie grinned as Mal walked out. "Gods Mal, that looks amazing on you!"

"Tooting your own horn there Evie?" Mal chuckled. "I mean, it's still your work."

"Hush and come over here so I can work on your hair," Evie shook her head as Doug and Jane started to grab the garment bags to put the dresses in. "Do you want a braid? Or maybe just some loose waves? By the way, did Evil Step Mom do your hair because if so she is really stepping up her game!"

"Actually, you want to know something E?" Mal said with a small smile. "Dizzy did this."

"Little Dizzy? Shut up!"

Mal's smile grew as, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Doug and Jane leave with the dresses. Knowing the conversation had become as private as it could be, she said, "I know, right? I'm actually really loving it. It's a lot lighter and—you know she did it on The Lost Revenge?"

"No way, Dizzy did this while on a pirate ship?" Evie gasped, her fingers still running through Mal's hair.

"I'm just as surprised as you are," Mal nodded as Evie grabbed a brush. "But she did a really good job under the circumstances."

Evie smiled as she lightly brushed through Mal's hair. "I'm so proud of her. She's come a long way hasn't she?"

"She has," Mal said with a smile of her own. "She'll be okay E."

"But she could be so much more," Evie sighed but then shook her head. "But enough about that. You haven't told me how you want your hair."

Mal chuckled. "Evie, if there's one thing I know it's this. You won't let me look bad, especially when I'm wearing one of your dresses. I trust you completely. Even if you can't keep a secret to save your life."

"You would have done the same for me, Mal, and you know it," Evie said.

"Hmm…maybe."

"Uh huh. You know I'm right," Evie chuckled. "Now, let's make you look so stunning that Ben will lose all power of speech when he sees you."

Mal smiled and tried to will herself to relax. Which was slightly easier said than done when all Mal could think about was the fact that she was about to spend a night surrounded by her worst fear.

"M? What's wrong? You're super tense," Evie said a few minutes into the beatification. "Is it the dress? Did I not loosen it enough?"

"Huh?" Mal asked and then sighed. "No, no, E. The dress is fine. I was…I was just thinking that's all."

"Well you know, you can tell me anything," Evie told her, setting the brush down and sitting down next to her. "I promise Mal. I may have messed up the last time you told me something but I promise, I'm listening now."

Mal sighed and looked over at her. "I'm…I'm afraid of water."

"Oh…oh!" Evie said, her eyes growing wide. Yes, Jay had told her earlier but it was different coming from Mal's mouth. "Why didn't you…?"

"I didn't want to rock the boat so to speak and Jane said that Cotillion is always on a yacht," Mal sighed. "And I figured I'd be too nervous about messing up the Lady of the Court induction that I forgot about the water until…"

"Until you fell into the Cove," Evie finished, her voice soft.

"Yeah," Mal sighed. "But it's for Ben so I'll suck it up. I mean, that's what we do right? As Auradon girls?"

"But we're not," Evie told her, gently taking her hand and looked Mal in the eye. "Tell Ben, Mal. Or tell Jay. This is your night. Even if they can't block out the water, they can probably do something so you forget you're surrounded by it. Not to mention you'll also be surrounded by people who love you and who'd do anything for you."

Mal gave Evie a weak smile. "How'd I get so lucky to get a best friend like you?"

"You stopped chucking me with smoke bombs and I found out who your father was," Evie reminded her. "But I'm glad it happened. Cause I don't know what'd I do without you, M. I meant what I said, when I helped you get ready for your date with Ben before his coronation. You've got a sister in me."

"And you've got one in me too E," Mal told her.

Evie smiled and stood back up, grabbing the brush. "Now, let's get back to making you look fabulous shall we?"

Mal chuckled. "My hair's fate is in your hands. Even if you're no Dizzy."

"Hey!" Evie chuckled. "Don't anger the person doing your hair!"

"Even if that person's my sister?"

"Even then!"

Estelle gave a small yip and wagged his tail, happy to see his hooman happier than she had been before.

"You know…I've got some left over fabric," Evie said as she looked over at him. "Once we're done here, I'll make some bowties so Estelle can come with us to Cotillion. He's got to look the part after all."

"You think he'd be allowed?" Mal asked.

"I think Ben would fight anyone who said that Estelle couldn't come," Evie told her with a reassuring smile. "He'd probably smuggle him into Cotillion himself."

"You're probably right," Mal chuckled as Estelle yipped again.

Cotillion was definitely going to be interesting, that was for sure.