Xena and Gabrielle's "first date" as their teammates had deemed it ended shortly after the play did. Gabrielle introduced Xena to Euripides, who she found to be an intensely serious boy. She assumed that for Gabrielle's sake he was downplaying that he clearly knew her from somewhere. She appreciated that for her's and Gabrielle's sake.

She and Gabrielle walked around the edge of the park and went to the gazebo bar to get another drink. They sat at one of the tables that was raised slightly above the manicured greenery of the park. They talked about nothing of real importance, which Xena found nice. Everything seemed more causal and free flowing than she had anticipated.

After a brief but incredibly awkward conversation about numbers of roommates and adjoining hotel rooms, they decided to go home alone. Besides, they would be seeing each other in less three weeks when they reported for the week-long camp before the CONCACAF semi-final game against Jamaica.

They kissed on the sidewalk beside the park as Gabrielle's Uber pulled around the corner. Xena gave a pleased laugh as she pulled away from her. "This was fun," Xena told her. "I hope we can do it again sometime."

Gabrielle mind was still a bit too blown to react like a functioning person to anything that had happened that night. But through her smile, she managed to tell her, "Yeah, me too."

Xena walked the few blocks back to her hotel room and felt rather pleased with herself. Part of it was a bit of smug pride that she had been mature and restrained and not the reckless idiot her teammates apparently thought she was. She also had feelings for Gabrielle, damn did she have feelings for Gabrielle. And now she had gotten to know her better and nothing had changed. She kept her smug grin as she took the elevator up to her room, went inside, and made sure the internal door to Amarice's room was locked.

She sat on the foot of the bed and leaned back. She closed her eyes in the darkness since she had not turned any lights on. Her phone began to buzz in her pocket. She pulled it out and held it above her face. She peered up at it confused. Skype call from Lao Ma? Her mind ran through multiple possibilities at once, but her main justification for answering was that Skype was cheaper and faster than an international call and maybe something was wrong. She answered. It lagged for a moment and then the opposite of what she was expecting appeared on the screen.

"Ha, it work!" Ming Tien called excited.

"Buddy, what the?" Xena blurted in reply as she nearly jumped off the bed, turned the bedside lamp on and sat on the side of the bed.

"Jiang's father works in America and I told him my mom works in America and he showed me Skype. I call you with Skype," he explained, pleased with himself.

"Buddy," Xena uttered covering her face with her hand for a moment as she tried to figure out how she was supposed to respond to this.

"I watch you play," he told her excited. "Against that flower team. You score big. The talking people, they say you score big. I scored too when I played."

"Yeah?" Xena questioned and he nodded excitedly. "Tell me."

"Okay," he replied as she bounced in his seat. He recounted seemingly every detail of his game and slipped into Mandarin after a while getting too happy and enthusiastic.

It was during his game recap that Xena heard Lao Ma's muffled voice in the distance.

"Darling, who are you talking to?" Lao Ma asked in Mandarin, which Xena spoke fluently so she dreaded where this interaction would be going.

"No," he called loudly as he tried to cover the screen with his hands. "No one. I'm not talking to anyone."

"Don't lie to you mother, buddy," Xena replied in Mandarin, making sure to be loud enough that Lao Ma could hear.

Ming Tien looked between the both of them and grunted in frustration. "I hate both of you!" he shouted in Mandarin and got up from the computer desk and stormed away.

Xena was left awkwardly staring at Lao Ma's torso for a moment until she decided to sit down in front of the computer. Xena bit her lower lip and shrugged. "I'm sorry," she told her. "He's signed into your account. I thought the call was from you."

Lao Ma peered at her for a moment and then nodded, looking as unsure about how to deal with this as Xena had felt.

"What was he saying to you?" she asked in general interest with no accusation or anger.

Xena shrugged. "His friend Jiang taught him how to use Skype. He saw me play against Portland yesterday and wanted to tell me about his goal."

Lao Ma huffed and pressed her lips together. "Perfectly innocent conversation. That makes it much harder to be angry with either of you."

"He did use the internet without your permission," Xena stated. "He knows that is against the rules."

Lao Ma peered at her with an expression Xena could not fully read. It was some sort of mixture between annoyance, longing, and confusion. "Xena," she stated.

Her tone put the expression into perspective for Xena. "Fuck, yeah, okay. I'm sorry. I ain't his parent anymore. I have not place to reminding you of what the rules are. I've overstepped."

Lao Ma was silent for a very long moment and it was only the subtle movement of her eyes that told Xena that the feed had not frozen. "I don't know if you have, Xena. If the laws of both our countries were not so…restrictive—"

"Stupid," Xena corrected.

Lao Ma nodded. "Yes."

They had gotten married in Illinois, which legalized same-gender marriage a year before the entire United States did in 2015. But their marriage had never been recognized in China. And since neither Lao Ma or Ming Tien were U.S. citizens. Xena could not be recognized as Ming Tien's adoptive parent in China or the United States.

"If the laws were not so stupid," Lao Ma continued, "These Skype calls would probably be court-mandated."

Xena felt a twist in her stomach. She did not want to disappoint her anymore than she already had. "I won't pick up again, not if you don't want me to."

Lao Ma peered at her for a long moment. "No," she eventually said shaking her head. "You're his mother too. And if he wants to call you from the other side of world to tell you about a goal, I should not stop him."

"It sounded like a very good goal," Xena stated.

Lao Ma smiled. "It was." She paused for a moment. "I guess, I will talk to you later, Xena."

"Yeah," Xena replied. "See ya later, Lao Ma."

They both lingered in silence for a moment and then closed their Skype call.

Xena held her phone against her forehead as she leaned forward and cupped her face in her hands. "Ahh, fuck," she called to herself in her hotel room. She had really not expected her night to end up here.

Over the next few days, Gabrielle was preparing for Stanford's upcoming game against BYU as Xena was ramping up for the Red Star's second match up of the season against Orlando. The two of them had been texting nearly constantly since they parted outside the park in Stanford.

Gabrielle: Oh goddess, help me. Two of my roommates went in for actual cable for some reason, like we are 100 years old.

Xena: What's this got to do with anything?

X: Oh shit, you got Lifetime now?

G: Yes. And though some of those movies can be fun, them watching you and teasing me incessantly is not

X: Well, you know Twitch has been causing me similar woes

G: Oh shit, I forgot. I should not even be complaining. I'm sorry :)

X: Might want to hold off on that. I've got ESPN+ now and I'm sharing the account with my mom and… my mom's bar.

G: I'm glad my popularity is contained to a bottle shop in Kentucky and a winery in Texas.

X: I don't think that's true. You've capped too many times. Twitter's got its hooks in you now.

Two times Gabrielle began typing something and then deleted it.

X: Sorry. I should stop making some many jokes. I was young and innocent once too

G: It was just a really long time ago?

X: Any old jokes, Gabrielle is just setting you up for a grave robbing joke.

G: Good luck against your baby cousin, old woman.

X: Good luck against them religious freaks, kid.

Xena had a much easier time with her opponent than Gabrielle did. Orlando was never all that good, but sometimes they could be okay. But without Terries on the back line, Xena was able to make quick work of their defense. Ephiny kept everything secured in the midfield and stopped the ball getting past her to Eve and Orlando's front line for most of the game.

Once an Orlando midfielder was brave enough to go up for a hard challenge with Ephiny and managed to head the ball forward to Eve. She managed to split two defenders and was heading straight for Amarice in Chicago's goal when she felt a hand clasp around her shoulder, an elbow in her side, and a foot in front of her ankle that she tripped over and went colliding ungracefully onto the grass.

The ref ran up blowing a whistle and pointing at the penalty shot.

Xena strode forward and watched Amarice say 'fuck' under her breath. The young Chicagoland center back, who had committed the foul walked outside of the penalty area with a red face and an awkward stance. Xena knew as the captain that she should go up an reassure her, but that was a stupid fucking foul. Especially against a team that had a player like Eve to take set-pieces and PKs. Xena trusted Eve's skills about as much as she trusted Amarice's and had literally no idea how this would end up. Xena knew this national team match up mattered on a grander scale but for the sake of this game the Red Stars were already up 3-0 so an 85' minute PK was not going to change anything.

Xena's loyalties were torn as she watched the match up. She wanted Amarice to keep her clean-sheet and stopping a PK was always impressive but she also wanted Eve to score probably the only goal Orlando would have in the game and prove to the national team and Athena that she was good in PK situations. In the end, Eve excellently lofted the ball over Amarice, who had guessed and dove the right way but not high enough to stop the ball. It hit the right corner of the frame and bounded speedily backward into the goal. Xena had to remind herself of her loyalties and stop herself from running at her cousin excitedly. It was a beautiful strike. The game ended eight minutes later with a score of 3-1.

"Cousin Eve score good," Ming Tien stated over his Skype call with Xena later that night. "It go whoosh, plank, boom into back of net," he said mimicking the path of the ball with his arm.

Xena laughed at his excitement. "Who ya cheering for here, buddy?" she questioned leaning forward toward the laptop on the coffee table in her apartment in Chicago. "I thought the Red Stars were your favorite team?"

He shook his head with a smile. "I have no favorite team. I like all teams that have players I like. Red Stars for you," he told her pulling the logo on the front of his t-shirt into the frame. He took off his scarf and held it in front of the camera. "Orlando rainbow team for Eve. And…," he looked over his shoulder and then quickly turned out of his chair and ran away from the computer.

"Careful," Lao Ma's muffled voice called from nearby as Xena watched him nearly tripped.

"And Dalian," he told Xena as he crashed back into the chair holding up a youth sized jersey that had Lao Ma's number, but her name was replaced with the Mandarin characters for "mama."

"That's a pretty cool jersey," Xena told him with a nod.

He started explaining how he had gotten it when Xena's phone alarm went off. It was louder than she had anticipated, and she jumped slightly as she picked it up from the coffee table beside the laptop. She was holding it in view of Ming Tien when she silenced it.

"Do you have to go somewhere?" he asked with a hint of nerves in his voice as he peered over his shoulder at Lao Ma who had come into Xena's view.

Xena shook her head. "No," she told him with a smile. "I just needed to remember something," she explained as she reached for her TV remote on the table and pulled up the Stanford-BYU game on ESPN+.

Lao Ma placed her hand on his shoulder. "It has been more than an hour, darling," she told him. "Maybe you should let Mom go."

He peered at her looking sad for a moment but then nodded, now understanding that he would get another call soon. "Okay," he stated. "Good-bye, Mom. I love you," he told Xena.

"Love you too, buddy," Xena told him.

He turned to Lao Ma. "I can go play outside."

"Yes," she told him with a nod and he quickly got up and headed for the doors to the backyard.

Lao Ma sat down in his place. Xena was peered over her computer screen to where Lao Ma knew her TV was. "Who's playing?" she asked.

Xena scoffed as she turned her attention back to the screen. "Uh," Xena rolled her shoulders and ran a hand through her hair. "Stanford."

"Ah," Lao Ma replied with a thin smile. "Is she starting?"

Xena felt like she was being called out, but she was not really sure for what. "Yeah, she always starts."

"I best be letting you go then, Xena," Lao Ma replied.

"Yeah, I guess you should," Xena replied, really feeling like they were no longer talking about the Skpye call.

"We will see you next week then," Lao Ma stated.

"Yeah," Xena grunted in reply. "See ya then."

They ended the Skype call and Xena peered at her computer in confusion for a moment.

Well, that was fucking weird. It had felt a bit like jealously, but Lao Ma had always been too graceful for that.

Xena shook her head, trying to put the awkward interaction out of her mind as she unmuted her TV and leaned back to settle in for Gabrielle's game.

After the first 20 minutes, Xena worried how it was going to go for Stanford. Through Gabrielle stood out as the player creating the most chances while also doing the most on defense, her team was struggling against BYU's defense. Gabrielle seemed to play extremely well with the brunette center back with a long scar down her face and the tall, blonde defensive midfielder that Xena recognized from the last U-23 World Cup, which Eve and Varia had played in before their main national team call ups.

The three of them were creating multiple changes out of the back but the front line was struggling to capitalize on any of them. In the 73' minute, one of Gabrielle's passes landed at the feet of a midfielder with a good amount of space in front of her. She charged forward and booted a long ball toward the goal. It took an awkward defection and floated pass the goalkeeper, who had lunged in the other direction.

"Yes," Xena yelled jumping up from her coach alone in her apartment. "Yes," she called again as she sat back down.

For a brief moment, she wondered if she should be concerned about how invested she was feeling. But she ignored it and intensely watched the rest of the game. It was after 11 p.m. when the game ended.

Xena: Told ya you're the most important part of that team, kid. Good job. Can't wait to see you in camp.

Xena sent the text while she could still see Gabrielle on her TV, so she was not expecting a response. She went to bed so she could get enough sleep before practice in the morning. She awoke in the middle of the night to a sound outside. She reached for her phone and would have groaned more at it being 3:05 in the morning but she had a text from Gabrielle.

Gabrielle: Thanks! You did pretty good today too, Grandma. And camp can't get here fast enough.

Xena gave a pleased smirk, set her phone down, and fell back asleep, thinking of Gabrielle.