Sure enough, Luz materializes the next day like clockwork. She knocks on the door the same way she does most things, eagerly and with fervor. Amity doesn't mind, she's ready for her this time! She uses her crutches and moves herself to her bedroom door so she can listen in.
Determined to catch the whole conversation this time, she twists the doorknob and pulls it open a fraction, leaning against the wall. They've already begun speaking so she's missed the beginning, but it seems like her mother just asked Luz what she's doing there.
"I brought Amity her school work for the week!"
"Weren't you here yesterday?"
"Uhhhh yes ma'am. My locker wouldn't give me the school work back yesterday. I guess I should've known better than to put it away in the first place."
There's a long pause. Amity can only imagine the look of contempt her mother must be giving right now. Lips curling into a nasty snarl, her eyebrows furrowing. Amity crosses her fingers that her eager friend isn't about to be turned away.
"Alright, I'll take you upstairs."
Amity lets out the breath she didn't realize she was holding, and since she's actually prepared this time she smoothly moves back to her bed. She places the crutches against the wall and gives her penstagram a quick read as she waits. Yes, she is much better off this time, there will be no embarrassing near falls or stumbling over words.
Her mother barely enters the room this time, just opening the door wide enough so Luz can step inside and then shutting it with a firm click. Luz doesn't seem to mind, her face lighting up when she sees Amity.
"Hi Amity!" She does a cute little wave with her right hand, a bundle of papers clutched in her left. "How's your foot today?"
Amity glances down at her feet and gives them a small wiggle. "Same as usual, I guess. I'm just lying here." She motions to her right where the textbooks from yesterday have been neatly stacked. "I read a few chapters from our literature textbook, thanks again for bringing them." Luz is still standing by the door, maybe she's a bit nervous despite barging in the previous day. "You could come sit with me if you want." Amity hopes her face isn't as red as it feels, it's completely innocent to invite someone to sit on a bed with you!
Luz doesn't seem to notice as she accepts with a smile and crosses the room. She plops down on the bed, her posture slouching as she relaxes. "You shouldn't thank me. I brought the books but I didn't actually bring any of the school work!" Luz holds out the papers clenched in her hands. "I put them in my locker yesterday but it wouldn't cough them back up until this morning. They got a little crumpled in the scuffle, but now you can actually get grades and stuff."
Honestly, it hasn't even occurred to Amity about the classwork outside of the readings. Normally she's all over that, it's her casts fault for being so distracting. That, and she's been thinking about Luz's visit all day. Not too much thinking though, just the normal amount of thinking done when someone visits, perfectly normal levels of thinking.
Amity shakes her head to clear her thoughts, and when she refocuses her eyes lock with Luz's. She's tilting her head slightly to the left, patiently waiting for Amity to respond. Her eyes are so wide and eager Amity loses herself in them for a moment.
Her penstagram scroll is lying forgotten in her lap, and it flashes purple to show one of her friends made a new post. The light distracts her, causing her to break eye contact and end their moment. If you can really call it a moment, it was really just a long awkward pause that Amity created herself.
Either way, she seizes the opportunity and opens up her scroll. Boscha's face fills most of the screen, coupled with food of some kind. She clicks the scroll shut; she should have guess that it would have been Boscha. Her eyes flick back up to Luz who is now checking out her own hands.
"Thanks for bringing them." She finally breaks their silence. "I'll get started tonight."
"If you're going to start tonight…" Luz starts shuffling through the papers rapidly, her eyes glinting mischievously. "There's this one question that I'm having trouble with, maybe you can walk me through it?"
Amity can't say no to that face.
Amity's not sure how she does it, but each day Luz returns to the Blight household with a new reason that she needs to see Amity. On the third day she mentions a research paper that she needs Amity's help with. She lucks out that Amity happens to have the history books needed for the paper. On day 4 she tells Amity's mother that she needs to pick up the completed schoolwork to turn in the following day. On day 5 she insists that Friday is the weekly meeting for their book club, of which they are the only two members.
"It's not a very well kept secret if you tell my mother about it." Amity points out as Luz lazes at the foot of her bed, arms dangling off the left side and legs dangling off the right. Her copy of The Good Witch book 1 is open in her hands and is pretty close to touching the floor.
"She promised she wouldn't tell anyone." Luz replies confidently, once again blindly trusting in other witches. "Besides, maybe she'll want to join! The more the merrier."
Amity shakes her head, "I don't think we want her to join."
She gets a half shrug in response. "Where's your book anyway? I can grab it for you if it's on a shelf."
"My Azura books are all at the library." Amity frowns. "I want to re-read them, but it's too difficult for me to get there right now."
Luz shuts her book with a resounding snap and sits up so they're face to face. "That's an easy fix! I'll go get them for you!" She reaches out playfully and boops Amity gently on the nose. "You should have asked sooner, silly."
Amity can feel a hot blush splash across her cheeks and she shifts her gaze to the bed to avoid eye contact. "I don't want to be a bother, you're very busy and taking time out of your day to come see me."
"I'd do anything for you, Amity." Luz's voice sounds surprisingly serious, and it does nothing but make Amity's blush worse from the kindness. She then ruins it, "this is a noble quest and I accept."
She returns the following day with a giant stack of books in hand, claiming to Amity's mother that yes, yesterday was book club, however it had to be postponed due to Amity not having any of her books.
The following days go by too slow, but also too fast. Amity sits around all day doing school work, scrolling through penstagram, and just waiting for Luz to show up. It is by far the single greatest hour of her day, and while she won't admit that out loud, she will admit it to herself.
Luz's excuses start to get more creative, and Amity wonders if she'll hit her breaking point with her mother. That Sunday she shows up with a bowl of soup, claiming that Amity is "sick." Amity's mother points out that Amity merely broke her foot and isn't actually sick, but Luz insists that she needs the soup and amazingly enough that gets her in the door. The soup is quite good.
The following week she brings by more school work, comes with the completed abomination spell that she started the previous week, and even a pencil which she claims she found on the ground and wants to see if it's Amity's.
"The pencil is chewed on." Amity points to the end where teeth marks mar the wood.
"Yeah… sorry about that." Luz responds sheepishly. "I got a little anxious during class."
Anxious? What could the most headstrong and optimistic human on the planet be anxious about. Amity turns on her bed so she's fully facing her friend. "What's bothering you?" She holds out the pencil. "Also, you can keep this."
Luz accepts it back and slides it behind her ear. "Well, tomorrow is our class field trip." Luz glances towards the door before continuing, "I honestly don't want to go, not with everything that's happened between Eda and the emperor's coven."
Amity understands the concern, it can be difficult to choose between two conflicting parties. Her heart warms that Luz is confiding in her, they haven't spoken like this since right before the grudgby match. She wants to reach out and place her hand over Luz's, but she wonders if it would be going too far. It definitely would be too much for her heart which is already accelerating at the thought.
You know what, she's going to go for it. Before she can change her mind, she reaches out and gently places her fingers on the back of Luz's left hand, applying pressure softly so Luz can pull away if she's uncomfortable. If anything, Luz seems to lean into the touch and gosh her heart is beating even faster now.
"At the end of the day, it's up to you." Amity speaks slowly and clearly. "But if you want my opinion, I think you should go. I know that things are tough right now but seeing the inside of the emperor's palace can only help you learn. I wish I were going…" She trails off, realizing that she's twisted the conversation to make it about her by mistake. "No one will judge you either way."
Luz's eyes are on their touching hands, but she looks up as the aquamarine haired girl finishes speaking. She smiles softer than on previous visits, "Thanks Amity. I'll tell you all about it!"
The next day Amity eagerly awaits to hear about Luz's adventures at the emperor's palace. The teen however, does not show up.
Amity figures the field trip must be running long, and that makes sense! She'll come tomorrow and fill her in on all the details. Amity chides herself for being impatient and picks up the fourth book in the Good Witch series. No need to think too much about the field trip she didn't get to go on, missing out on getting to explore her dream job arm in arm with her crush.
Okay, maybe not arm in arm but at least she'd be nearby. Amity opens the book with a huff.
The following day is Friday, the supposed day of their "book club." The family doctor visits that morning to check in on her. He decides that she isn't being still enough and rectifies it with a leg sling dangling from her ceiling. It does elevate her leg further, but she can barely move now. The only thing that curbs her irritation is knowing that Luz is coming later, but at 4:15 PM a live news update blasts to her oracle orb and dashes her hopes.
"Eda Clawthorne has been captured and will be petrified for her crimes."
Amity's heart plummets as the news caster continues to announce that the petrification will take place later that day. She clicks into penstagram and into Willow's account to see if there's anything from today to ease her worries, but her green haired friend only has one post and it's a long distance shot of the emperor's palace from the prior morning.
Amity hits the button to call Willow without hesitation. Luz is never far from her friends.
The scroll rings three times, then Willow's voicemail starts. "Hello, this is Willow. Uh, please leave a message. Thanks!"
Amity takes a deep breath and waits for the beep. "Hey Willow, this is Amity. I know we are still kind of working through things, but I was wondering if you were with Luz. No big deal, please just call me back." She hangs up abruptly, already embarrassed at her own inability to talk. It's over now, hopefully Willow will return her call soon.
She picks up the Azura book she had started the previous day, but the words swim on the page. She can't focus and turns the news back on. Right now they're showing a re-run of an old grudgby match, but the banner along the bottom of the screen assures her that the petrification will be at 7:00 pm on the dot.
Time crawls along, and soon it's 6:55. She never gets a call back from Willow, and she watches in horror as a monster they claim is Eda rises from the ground inside of a giant cage. The creature reminds Amity nothing of Luz's sassy mentor. Gus comes on screen, everyone starts cheering, and within the span of a few minutes Luz pops out of the ground and the group flies off into the distance.
Amity feels the tension drain from her body as they disappear over the arena walls. They're safe. Sure, that was extremely reckless and dangerous, but at least they made it out.
Amity doesn't get a visit that day, though Willow does call her back that night with a fervent apology.
Luz shows up early the next morning, telling Amity's mother that she'd like to treat Amity to breakfast in bed. She's cradling a picnic basket in her hands, and after a few minutes of chit chat she's worked her way through the house and into Amity's room.
She motions to the picnic basket and grins sheepishly, "I brought breakfast."
Amity knows she should be mad at Luz for her recklessness the previous day, and she spent all of last night thinking about what she'd say the next time they met. Seeing her now though, that anger melts away and all it leaves is concern and warmth from her presence. She pats the bed next to her. "Come sit. You'll have a little less room now because of my new sling."
Luz oohs and ahhs as she comes over to the bed. "Is this because you were walking around too much?"
"I think it's because the doctor hates me." Amity states even though she knows that isn't the case. "What did you bring?"
Luz places the basket between them as she sits on the side of the bed. She turns so she can sit crosslegged and face Amity. The basket is opened and out comes a set of paper plates, napkins, and silverware. She then pulls out blueberry muffins and places one on a plate for Amity. "I made these this morning!"
Amity holds the muffin up to her face to give it a close inspection. "This morning? What time did you get up? It's only 8:30."
"I had a hard time sleeping last night." Luz admits as she pulls out a muffin for herself. "Anyway, let's dig in!"
Amity sticks her fork into the muffin, and surprisingly it's pretty soft. It's pretty good too, though she shouldn't be too surprised, Luz can do anything when she puts her mind to it. Speaking of doing anything… "So, I saw you on my scroll yesterday."
Luz nearly spits out her muffin, "Oh! Haha yeah, you saw that? It was no big deal."
Amity narrows her eyes at her nonchalance. "Breaking into the Conformatorium to rescue Eda wasn't a big deal? Luz…"
Luz looks up from her muffin but shies away from making eye contact. Her lips are pulled down in a slight frown. "Everything worked out, we rescued Eda and that's what matters." She huffs.
"Right…" Amity pauses to take another bite of her muffin. She wants to get her opinion across without scaring her away. "Maybe it's not my place to say this, but as someone who has gotten to know you better, I just want you to be safe."
"I want you to be safe too!" Luz chimes back, "and don't worry I'm always very careful. Ok well, I'm mostly very careful."
Amity nods, "I'm not here to beat you up about it. I just…. Next time you scheme, I want in." Her ever taunting blush spills onto her face at the confession. "So I can keep an eye on you and all that. You need someone like me to keep you out of danger."
Luz's expression immediately flips, her eyes brightening and a smile splashing across her face. "Yes! That sounds great we can be a daring duo! Amity and Luz, conquering the quests, all the quests!"
Amity wonders what she's getting herself into as Luz continues to beam at her. She knows that their relationship has a long way to go, but they're getting there, one day at a time.
Thank you for reading!
I definitely feel like Amity's parents would not want Luz in their house. I feel like they'd tolerate it while she's in the cast, but afterwards they'd have a stern talking with her and she'd have to overcome them. I didn't want to cover that in this fic, I just wanted good and happy feelings.