a/n: hi all,

It's a multi-chapter week again. Here's another to start off the weekend. I expect to wrap up another bit on Sunday and, with any luck, finish the rest of the term by next weekend. Enjoy!

Cheers,

EQT.95


Kate was not in a good mood. She hadn't been for the entire day. The day before had ended with her escorting a cadet to medical, whose overzealous sparring partner didn't know his own strength. One x-ray and two hours later, the cadet's collarbone was being set in a brace and Kate was fielding messages from Reyes who was demanding she see him first thing the next morning.

What ensued was a ten minute lecture that rolled into a forty minute argument about Kate's perceived negligence in allowing such an avoidable injury to occur. Kate seethed as Reyes accused her of skimping on her duties. The rational side of Kate knew Reyes was prodding her for a reaction and silence was her ally, but she took the bait and engaged. It did nothing for the situation, and she left running late for a chemistry exam.

She'd barely had time to squeeze in studies the night prior before she eventually passed out from the rigor of her schedule. Underprepared and twenty minutes late, she knew she'd just landed her worst mark of the semester as she returned her exam book at the last possible second. Her professor offered a sympathetic look as she handed it in which only infuriated her more. That she wasn't more on top of her schedule was only one of many aspects that left her regularly frustrated, but today was setting a new standard.

It had become fairly well known by cadets and faculty alike that Kate's schedule was untenable, and she hated the remorseful looks from her professors who offered her extensions. The stubborn streak in her rejected this every time, but even the pragmatic side knew they were a short-sighted and preposterous offers: it would only cause a semester-long domino effect where eventually every assignment, report, and exam would be pushed until she'd be taking her final exams in August. That no one seemed to comprehend that logic only bothered her more.

From there she squeezed out as many spare moments in the corridor outside of her next class to skim through the readings she was supposed to have completed. The extra thirty minutes of sleep the night before meant she'd have to skip lunch if she hoped to stay on top of the slowly accumulating list of papers she needed to sort through. She spent the next hour reading three articles on Douglas MacArthur's contributions to the military only to check the syllabus as she walked into the classroom and realize the lecture would be on the U.S. Army's Chief of Staff from 1939-1945, not 1930-1935. Her head dropped in exasperation as the professor began roll call.

Over the next ninety minutes, Professor Chambers managed to quickly discern Kate was not familiar with General George C. Marshall Jr.'s curriculum vitae and made it a point to call attention to it with every passing opportunity, peppering her with preposterously specific questions.

"And who can tell me what Winston Churchill's view of General Marshall was? Cadet Kane, perhaps?"

"No, sir, I couldn't tell you," Kate sighed for the third time.

"Pity. Anyone else? How about Cadet Moore."

She tried sneaking her way out of the class as it ended but was caught and received a stern reminder by Chambers of her floundering performance. This made her fifteen minutes tardy for her afternoon training session. Her mood soured further when Melvin was nowhere to be found and the cadets had been left to their own devices, milling about with absolutely no order. She scanned the grounds before sighing, resigned by her fate. It was only when she released the cadets for a brief five minute break that he appeared.

"Hey, sorry, I'm la-"

"Where were you?" Kate interrupted, not caring to hear an apology.

"Reyes called me in," he said quickly, correctly interpreting Kate's shortness as a sign of impatient moodiness.

"And?"

"Twenty minute lecture about the importance of integrity and persistence. I tried telling him we had a session, but the irony of the moment was totally lost on him; I got here as fast as I could."

The remaining three hours passed without good or bad, leaving Kate's mood to stay the course. It was when the second session of cadets came in that her mood soured further. She expected lackluster performance from the first years, but there were base standards she held for the third years. That she had worked most closely with the second years, she had established them as a benchmark for development, and her annoyance at the lack of performance by the third years was grinding at her thinning patience. This wasn't the only group of noncommittal third years, nor was it the first week they'd underperformed, but it was the first time she let her impatience with the situation show. Even Sarah couldn't weasel her way through Kate's moody temperament, try as she might:

"Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning," Sarah said, sidling up to Kate with a quick smirk. "You keep glaring like that and your face will get stuck that way."

"I'm not glaring."

"Fine. Brooding then. You've been in a mood all day."

"I suggest you spend more time focusing on your follow through than on me."

"I know what you need," Sarah said lightly, taking the brief pause allotted to the cadets between drills to interrogate Kate's demeanor.

"Not interested in wh-"

"You need a break."

"That's what this is," Kate said, surveying the squad of third years lingering about.

"No, I mean a real break. Like a trip to the beach-"

"It's 40 degrees out."

"Or a spa day or… I don't know. You're working too much. You should take a break."

"Yea? You think I need a break?"

"Yes! Exactly," Sarah replied eagerly, not picking up on the non-joking nature of Kate's tone.

"I'll be sure to let Reyes know one of the underperforming third years thinks I deserve a break," Kate said, her tone trending toward impatience.

"Ouch."

"I don't get to just throw in the towel on a bad day."

"Hey dude, chill. It was just a suggestion. Go keep being a groucho if you want," Sarah said, raising her hands to admit surrender.

"Break's over," Kate called, leaving Sarah's comment unaddressed.

All of that combined into a short fuse by the time her final session of the day began. It started typically enough: Sophie arrived exactly on time, there was a terse dispute about whether she would wear the pads or not, and then Kate began the same process she'd undertaken each previous week. It was the same regiment Jacob had used on her when he began training her to fight at fourteen. Personally, she considered it controversial. Memories of Jacob stoically knocking her to the ground over and over flooded her mind each week. The difference now was that she was playing the part of her father.

She could see where Sophie was falling short, but like Jacob so many years earlier, she remained silent, waiting for her to discover it for herself. The problem was that Kate knew this wasn't how Sophie functioned. At least not yet. She knew Sophie could see where she was failing, but Sophie's response wasn't about slight adjustments, it was to overthink entirely. She didn't see how much she was holding herself back by getting lost in those thoughts, and it certainly didn't help that she was so obviously distracted during their hour-long sessions either.

It took only fifteen minutes for Sophie to interject with commentary Kate had heard half a dozen times over.

"I'm not asking to be best friends, Kate," Sophie said mid-monologue, her voice steady with conviction as she lifted herself from the mat; she'd not bothered to defend the attack from Kate moments earlier that easily toppled her, and that alone made Kate even more irate. "I just don't understand why we need to be strangers. We aren't even on other sides of the country or an ocean or the world. You're literally standing in front of me."

"Sophie," Kate finally interrupted. "How many times are you going to do this? Give it a rest."

"Fine," Sophie conceded, reading all the cues of annoyance Kate was giving off.

It was the fastest she'd ever surrendered their weekly debate, and, of all things, this set off Kate's mood even more. Any other day this would have been music to her ears, but today it struck her in all the wrong ways. She wanted to argue - needed to argue, and somehow Sophie's unwillingness to put up a fight set off the perfect storm in Kate's mind. The surrender sent Kate back to three months earlier when Sophie had given up for the first time without a fight. Kate's temper lashed out as she heard the words replay in her mind:

"No, you're the one being short-sighted. This was never going to work."

"I don't understand why you won't fight for this. We're both on the same page about our feelings, right?"

"Kate, don't do this."

"Then let's figure out a way. It doesn't have to be like this. There can be a compromise."

"Be serious, Kate. People compromise on things like paint color or where to go for dinner."

"Fine, but we still have three years to figure this ou-"

"Kate, enough. It's over."

And then Kate did something Jacob never did: she lost control.

xx

"Sophie? Soph?"

The voice was strained and laced with worry. The first thing she felt was the warmth of a hand against her cheek, and the first thing she saw when her eyes opened was a set of piercing green ones staring back in alarm.

Sophie blinked and realized she was viewing the gym front a very familiar position: face up on the mat. However, this time, she didn't remember how she got there, and if Kate's reaction was any indication, it was a shock to both of them.

"I'm so sorry," Kate said, now scanning Sophie for a sign of injury. "I wasn't… it was such a stupid thing to do. Are you-?"

"Wh-yea," Sophie said, shifting to sit up on the back of her elbows. Her movement caused Kate's hand to recoil. She felt a pain on the side of her head and raised her fingers to it, trying to recall how it came to be. "What happened?"

"I wasn't, fuck, Soph, I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking and I… we should get you to medical," Kate said, racked with guilt.

"What? No, I'm fine," Sophie insisted, sitting up fully, fighting a wave of dizziness.

"Are you sure?"

"How long was I out?"

"I-I don't know… maybe a minute? I… maybe less?"

Sophie nodded, blinking back her confusion.

"Is that bad?" Kate asked nervously, still not trusting Sophie's words.

Sophie shrugged. "No idea."

"Are you sure you don't want to go to medical? It's not far and they might still be open. It's only-"

"Kate."

"Yea?" Kate replied, a slight panic still in her voice.

"I'm fine."

"You don't know that. And I… I wasn't going easy on you."

Images of moments earlier hazily appeared through the fog of Sophie's memory. She flinched as the look on Kate's face appeared clearly in her mind right before she said one word: again.

A flash later and Sophie understood why she was on the mat. She blinked slowly, not sure what to say. The shock of Kate knocking her out was having more of an impact on her than the dull pain pulsing in her head. She risked a glance toward Kate and was met with the same terrified look from moments earlier.

"It's ok," she said simply. "I'm fine."

Kate looked like she might argue but simply nodded her gaze falling in remorse as Sophie sat up properly.

"Maybe we should call it an early night though," Sophie offered. She didn't actually know what time it was but imagined another minute longer and she'd have to tap out voluntarily.

"Yea, yea… of course," Kate said in agreement. She climbed to her feet and hesitantly extended a hand to offer Sophie help up. "Are you ok to-to…?"

"Yea," Sophie said, ignoring Kate's hand and lifting herself off the mat. She shook away the wave of nausea that came with it and focused her attention on the locker room.

For once it was Kate who lingered behind, using the pads as an excuse. When she cautiously made her way back to the locker room she noted with some relief that Sophie was already changed, sitting on one of the benches as she cinched up her bag.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" she asked, looking up at Kate as she entered.

The question caught Kate off guard, and her cheeks burned with guilt. "I was… I wasn't thinking."

"Right, but what happened?" Sophie repeated.

"I… I'm sorry, Sophie. Really, I… I shouldn't have-"

"Kate, I don't care about that," Sophie interrupted. "Are you ok?"

"What? That… of course. You're the one who… who..." Kate said, fading into silence as she turned toward her locker. Sophie stood to follow her.

"Look, I don't want to so-sound…"

A noise caused Kate to look back and she felt her throat tighten in fear and her heart skip a beat.

"Hey, hey," she called as she watched Sophie slide down the wall to the ground. Kate was next to her in a flash. "Ok, no. We need to get you checked out," she said quickly, her face the picture of fear and lacking any indication of her usual stoicism.

"I'm fine. It's probably just a concussion," Sophie explained easily, trying to stand but was met with the resistance of Kate's hand on her shoulder

"Just a… concussions aren't something you take lightly," Kate scowled in disbelief.

"It's fine. I got them when I played soccer, too."

"Wait, what? Are you serious?"

"It's why I stopped competing. Apparently I'm more susceptible to them," Sophie said as though it was as common as being able to roll her tongue.

"That is becoming really apparent," Kate said, her voice straining to remain calm.

"So it's fine," Sophie continued, trying again to stand and meeting the same stubborn resistance. "Kate, I'm fine."

"You just fell. No way, you're not going anywhere."

"I didn't fall. It was a controlled slide," Sophie tried to argue back.

"No, that's not going to work," Kate said, concern and stubbornness weaving into her tone.

"So I'm just supposed to sleep in the locker room?" Sophie asked, perturbed by Kate's insistence. This wasn't her first rodeo, and it definitely wasn't the worst head injury she'd ever had. That she was dizzy didn't feel uncommon for her; it was a normal symptom relative to her past experiences.

"Wh-no. I didn't mean that, I just… are you ok to walk?"

Sophie was about to fire off a sarcastic response when she caught Kate's gaze and realized that there was genuine worry etched on her face, and she faltered. The concern had been there all along but it was the first time Sophie really registered it. It wasn't that she thought Kate had stopped caring completely, but the last few weeks of indifference had left her beginning to wonder if that's the direction their relationship was heading. A nagging truth that kept Sophie from giving this too much thought even now was that this was how Kate would react to anyone in her situation. Sophie wasn't a special case.

"Yea, I think so," Sophie said after a moment.

"We can wait. There's no rush," Kate clarified, falling back from her crouched position to sit across from Sophie.

"You don't need to stay. Actually, you should go-"

"I'm not leaving you, Sophie."

Sophie felt a tightness in her chest at this. The nuance of Kate's use of 'Sophie' was a subtle reminder of where their relationship stood. In the midst of everything earlier, she'd heard Kate slip up and felt an echo of hope but quickly realized that's all it was: a slip up from a still unbroken habit.

Resigned to this fact, Sophie fell into a practiced tone as she negotiated her freedom. It was another ten minutes before she managed to convince Kate that she was ok to stand, let alone walk back to the dorms. That took another five minutes and a promise to say something if she needed a break. The trek back to the dorms was completed in silence with Kate watching Sophie like a hawk for any sign she was unwell.

"Where's Riley?" Kate asked as Sophie pushed the dorm's door open.

"Well, it's Thursday so-"

"Wilfred."

"-Wilfred, yea," Sophie said, dropping her bag at her feet. "Thanks for the walk and, uh, well everything."

"No, it… I'm the reason for this in the first place," Kate said darkly, leaning against the doorway and looking into the room she once called home as a distraction. It wasn't much different from the semester before: Sophie's side was entirely unchanged from the organized, immaculate version Kate had come to know. Riley's was the biggest difference: while still a sight for sore eyes, it was clear an effort had been made to contain the chaos. There weren't forgotten food wrappers in every corner, and her dirty laundry seemed consolidated to a single pile instead of the extents of her side.

"That's not really true," Sophie said thoughtfully. "You're only doing any of this because I messed up."

"So, uhm, what's the protocol now?" Kate asked, tearing her gaze away from surveying the room.

"What?" Sophie asked.

"The… with your concussion."

"Oh, uh, well, assuming I even have one, and if you go off what the doctors say-"

"Which is usually my preference-" Kate interjected as a warning.

"Then I shouldn't sleep for more than an hour uninterrupted. At least that's what they always told my parents."

"Ok."

"So I'll just set an alarm when I go to sleep, and it'll be fine."

Kate nodded before a small scowl furrowed her brow. "But what if you don't wake up?"

"What?"

"I just mean, are you supposed to be interrupted for some reason?"

"Oh, uh, well…"

"Yes?"

"It's fine."

"Ok, no," Kate said, pulling out her phone.

"What are you doing?"

"Asking the internet."

"It's ok, really. The alarm is fine."

"That's not what the internet says."

"You can't trust everything on that."

"Are your pupils dilated?" Kate asked as she scanned the medical website for information.

"How would I know?"

"I've just never dealt with this before. I need you to help me out here a bit," Kate explained, scanning through the article she'd found.

"I already told you-"

"Yes, but I need some honesty, Sophie," Kate interrupted more sternly.

"Kate, please-"

"It says symptoms will appear in the first six hours."

"That's an exaggeration," Sophie insisted.

"Ok, no, you're not staying alone."

"Kate, it's fine. The internet blows everything out of proportion."

"Well you've given me absolutely no reason to believe you," Kate shot back, silencing Sophie.

Sophie stared in surprise, unsure how to negotiate the situation. She retraced the last few minutes of their conversation and began peeling back the nuances to realize something very familiar about Kate's tone. She'd experienced it once before months earlier the night Nathan Bentley's nose was broken: Kate was scared. More than that though, she was racked with guilt over what she had just done to Sophie, and for all the other times Kate had the answer, this time she was at a loss for how to fix it.

"Kate," Sophie said, quickly piecing it all together.

"What?"

"I'm not even going to bed yet."

"That's fine," Kate said, walking into the room and collapsing into Riley's desk chair. "I'm staying till Riley gets back though."

"Kate, please it's fine. You can go. I'm really ok."

"No," Kate said, her tone showing little room for negotiating as she reached for one of Riley's rarely used textbooks.

"Don't you have homework to do?"

"Yes," Kate replied, flipping through the pages.

"At least go get that so you aren't wasting time."

"So you can lock me out? Not a chance," Kate shot back.

Sophie's eyes were wide with surprise, unable to formulate a coherent retort. Instead she settled on the only alternative she could think of: "I'm going to Melvin's."

"Great, I'll be here."

"You'll what?" Sophie asked, not expecting this string of unrelenting bullheadedness.

"I'm not leaving," Kate said with finality.

Sophie seethed as she latched the door behind her, frustrated by how Kate always seemed to insert her at the worst times, especially now when they weren't even dating or roommates or… friends?

"She's what?"

"In my room," Sophie repeated.

"But that's… good, right?" Melvin asked, perplexed by Sophie's frustration. "Why are you here?"

"Because I want her to leave."

"Did you ask her?"

"I - yes."

"You could always just sleep here," Melvin offered.

"That's not the point," Sophie scowled.

"I don't understand. What is the point?"

"She wants Kate to stay," James chimed in from behind the screen.

"You want her to stay?" Melvin asked, more confused.

"I… I don't know. I don't know what I want."

"Is that a symptom of concussions?" Melvin offered.

"She wants old Kate to stay," James clarified. "And she's conflicted because she can't have that Kate, so now she doesn't know if she'd rather have no Kate or this moody version of Kate."

Sophie and Melvin gaped at the pinpoint accuracy of James' words. He looked up at them with a small scowl. "What?"

"That was… very articulate, James," Melvin commented.

"I'm not an idiot," James said tersely. "It's almost mundanely obvious."

Mundanely? Melvin mouthed to Sophie.

"Good word, right?" James said, his attention back to the screen. "Kate taught me it."

xx

"Here," Sophie said, dropping Kate's bag next to Riley's desk.

"Is that my stuff?" Kate asked in surprise.

"If you're going to waste your time here, you might as well do something with it," Sophie explained. After leaving Melvin's room, she'd made a brief detour to 409 and was relieved when Chelsea answered the door and enthusiastically accepted Sophie's request for Kate's bookbag.

"I was wondering if she'd be back tonight," Chelsea explained. "She's rarely here anymore. You two studying again? That's so great. We were all a little worried."

The flood of words caught Sophie by surprise and all she could manage in reply was "Really?"

"Oh yea. I asked James and he said you two had a bit of a falling out at the end of last term. I'm glad you worked it out though," Chelsea said with an eager smile.

"Uh, thanks," Kate said in surprise before hesitantly digging into it.

"Maybe start with General Marshall," Sophie offered lightly which only caused Kate to double down on her look of surprise.

She moved back to her side of the room where she set up shop at her desk. Silence fell between them as they worked in parallel quiet. It was only when the first hour passed that Kate spoke again.

"You're not asleep, but… how are you feeling?"

"I already told you. I'm fine," Sophie replied.

"Ok," Kate nodded.

"You really don't have to stay," Sophie offered again.

"I already told you. I'm staying."

"Ok."

Another hour passed in similar silence. This time it was Sophie who broke it.

"So what happened today?"

"Hm?"

"With you."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Kate lied.

"You were late to the chem exam this morning, you let Professor Chambers get under your skin this afternoon, and you tried to decapitate me tonight," Sophie rattled off cautiously.

"My aim was too high to decapitate," Kate muttered lamely.

Sophie glanced expectantly toward Kate who sighed in exasperation. "It was just a bad day."

"Ok," Sophie said, taking the hint and returning to her reading.

Over the course of the third hour Sophie noted all the familiar habits of Kate shift from heavy concentration to fighting of sleep: the soft muttering of Kate reading aloud when she was focusing dissolved into her fingers gripping her short hair into disarray as she struggled to understand something which transitioned into the way she adjusted and readjusted in her seat every few minutes to stay awake.

It was as commonplace as anything else Sophie had come to know, and she found herself cherishing the fleeting moments that would inevitably expire and send them back onto their regularly scheduled trajectory of not speaking.

xx

"What does it mean?"

The sound of Sophie's voice caused Kate to jolt her eyes open. She shook her head, realizing she'd dozed in Riley's chair.

"Sorry?" she asked, unsure she'd even heard Sophie's original question correctly.

"Your tattoo. It's Hebrew, right?"

"Yea," Kate said, rubbing her eyes to fight off the sting of sleep. She glanced at the clock for the time and noted it was 12:45; fifteen minutes had elapsed since she last looked. Sophie was still at her desk working with the same unwavering diligence, and Kate was struggling mightily to keep her own eyes open.

"It's a poem?" Sophie continued, daringly.

"It's just some words," Kate said, deflecting as she blinked her eyes open to refocus on her half-complete assignment, "that's all."

Kate could feel Sophie scowling from her desk, weighing whether to push back on Kate's ambiguity and felt a tinge of sadness when she remained silent.

"It's been nearly three hours. You should go."

"The internet says six."

"The internet also says bigfoot exists."

"That's because he does," Kate replied, not looking up from her notes.

The retort caught Sophie off guard, and a smile broke over her face before she could stop it. She glanced over at Kate before returning her gaze to her notes, trying to hide it at the risk of earning a scowl from her former roommate. It took a minute but she was finally able to shake it away.

"Riley never stays out past two anymore," Sophie began again.

"So?"

"So, you can leave now, and I'll message Riley to wake me up if I'm asleep when she gets back."

"You expect me to trust Riley Thomas?" Kate said, baffled by the proposal.

"She's been a lot better."

"Since when?"

"Since… well, since you stopped hanging around," Sophie confessed.

Kate nodded, trying to hide the surprise of disappointment at Sophie's words.

Silence fell once more between them as Kate waffled with her own thoughts. She waited until a few minutes after one before leaning back in the chair with a sigh.

"You're sure she'll be back by two?"

"Riley?" Sophie asked, "Yea, that's been the new norm."

"And you'll message her?" Kate pressed.

"Yes," Sophie said, surprised by Kate's willingness to hang up her stubbornness. "Honestly, I wake up when she gets in anyway. She's not exactly known for her subtlety."

Kate nodded in fake thought, as though weighing the information like her mind hadn't been made up twenty minutes earlier. "Ok, fine. If anything happens, let me know."

"You mean like if I die?" Sophie joked, but sobered at the glare Kate shot her. "Yes, ok," she quickly added as Kate returned her study materials to her bag.

Kate let out a tired sigh as she lifted herself from the desk and trapsed towards the door.

"It's about an apple, right?"

"What?" Kate asked, freezing midstep.

"I… I tried to remember the characters. One of the words is apple?"

Kate didn't answer, and Sophie worried she'd just pushed too far.

"Yehuda Amichai."

"What?"

"He's an Israeli poet," Kate said, turning back to face Sophie.

Sophie waited, seeing the gears in Kate's mind churn deciding how forthcoming to be.

"My mom used to read his work to us before bed. I was too young to get the nuances at the time. I still probably don't get all of them."

"What does it say?"

"That you shouldn't be so nosy."

"He doesn't sound like a very good poet."

Sophie felt a tiny burst of excitement as her retort was met with a small smile and chuckle from Kate. It faded as quickly as it came, but Sophie clung to the sound of it as silence overcame them again.

"About earlier… I-I didn't mean to... I promise it won't ever happen again," Kate said, lingering at the door a moment longer.

Sophie offered a small smile of reassurance. "Don't worry, you've already made up for it."

Kate nodded uncomfortably as she pulled the door open.

"Goodnight, Sophie."

"Goodnight, Kate."