A/N: Thank you all so much for your incredibly kind words, and for suffering my endless hiatuses! This is the end of this piece for now, though I will go back and fix the beginning a little bit. I hope you enjoy!
Aurora has a final tomorrow.
She has a final tomorrow, and her rent was due two days ago.
She has a final tomorrow morning at 8, her rent was due two days ago, and Aunt Flora won't stop calling her, over and over and over, now of all times.
Now, suddenly, she wants to talk.
It's like she can sense that Aurora is hovering on the precipice of destruction. Aurora can see it now: all she's worked for, gone in a matter of minutes, and she's back to being her aunt's prisoner and listening to how sick and wrong she is.
Aunt Fauna, Flora's younger and much kinder sister, returned Aurora's phone to her about a week after the Incident, with Maleficent's number blocked and some kind of parental controls activated. Aurora very nearly snapped at Aunt Fauna, whose fault it was not, or burst into tears for the sheer injustice of it all. Instead, she held her tongue and handed her phone over to the first tech-savvy classmate who entered her field of vision, who fixed the problem in about two minutes.
The words on the page in front of her blur together, and she scrubs at her eyes with her sleeve. Her phone begins to buzz for the dozenth time, and she picks it up just in time to watch the time change from 11:59 P.M. to 12:00 A.M.
Aurora has a final today. Her rent was due three days ago.
Maleficent works for an electric company. When Aurora finally found out, she laughed until tears filled her eyes, not least because she was relieved to learn that yet another fact related to her mysterious companion was so utterly ordinary. It's like the lady from the movie, with the lightning! she had insisted, and Maleficent had tried very hard to look affronted.
Maleficent does a lot of paperwork, she says, something about 'statistical analysis'. She says she's good at it because she likes to look at cold, hard numbers and find patterns, and to weigh those patterns against one another across weeks and months and years. She says that every huge, overwhelming problem is made up of many, much smaller and more manageable problems, and the trick to solving a huge problem is to break it down into the kinds of problems you can actually handle.
The problem now is not that Aurora's problems are insurmountable, but that the solutions are intolerable to her.
Aurora drags her fingernail along the edge of her phone case idly. This is her last final, and she hasn't studied as much as she should have, but she's not going to learn anything new in this state. She closes her book and opens her laptop. She looks up her bank account. Close, but not enough, and even if she overdraws her account to pay her rent, there remains the fact that she has one lone can of soup in her apartment, she'll have a phone bill due in another week, and the coffee shop cut back her hours, because technically she was never supposed to be working full-time, because technically she is a student who should be studying for her finals.
Aurora closes her laptop and lays her head down on her desk. Just before she loses consciousness, her phone starts buzzing again, somehow louder and more violent than before, and Aurora feels herself beginning to cry.
She scrubs at her eyes in a vain attempt to stay her tears, feels the overwhelming urge to answer in her anger and frustration, to say all the things she holds deep in the darkest corners of her heart, things she doesn't quite believe, but things that would hurt, because Aunt Flora deserves to hurt for what she's doing.
But just as she thinks this, guilt crashes over her in the wave of a stormy sea, and the force of it fuels her exhausted tears. She waits for the phone to stop ringing and then picks it up to dial a different number.
"Shouldn't you be sleeping?" Maleficent answers, not unkindly.
"Did I wake you?" Aurora asks her, as steadily as she can manage, but she knows how she must sound.
"Of course not," says Maleficent, with unmanufactured evenness. "Are you all right?"
"Not really," Aurora replies thinly, and covers her mouth to stifle a fresh sob.
"Shall I bring you something?" Maleficent asks her, tone unchanged. "Coffee? Sleeping pill?"
Aurora's laughter comes out choked and horrible, and she is immediately glad she called. "You don't have to—"
"Nonsense," Maleficent cuts her off airily. "I wouldn't leave a lady in distress. Unless she didn't desire the company, of course?"
"No, I—" Aurora stammers, feels a sick twist of anxiety in her chest. "I'd like to see you," she manages. "Thank you," she amends not a little miserable with embarrassment.
"Not at all," Maleficent replies, and then she's gone, and Aurora is left clutching her phone to her ear like a lifeline.
Her phone starts to buzz again, and Aurora narrowly resists the urge to throw it across the room.
She'll turn it off, she thinks, once Maleficent gets here, come what may in the future. She is trying to turn her huge, overwhelming problems into the kind she can handle, and right now she can handle the future promise of trouble far better than whatever Aunt Flora wants to say to her right now.
Maleficent arrives around half an hour later, bearing, true to form, both coffee and sleeping pills. A gnawing, guilty part of Aurora wishes she'd asked Maleficent to bring food, but she feels horrible for even thinking it.
"How goes the studying?" Maleficent wonders, in the general direction of Aurora's closed textbook.
"Final's at eight," Aurora shrugs, sounding far more nonchalant than she feels. "If I don't know it by now, I'm screwed, anyway."
Maleficent squints curiously. "A noble attitude."
Aurora cracks a mirthless smile. "Also the words started blurring together."
Maleficent offers the sleeping pills. Aurora's laughter hurts somewhere in her chest.
"I don't think I can."
Maleficent doesn't respond. Instead, she surveys the room thoughtfully, like she's looking for something she can use. Aurora waits and watches, and hopes she finds it, because Aurora doesn't know how to help herself.
Before much time passes, though, Aurora's phone begins to buzz again. "Now this I can deal with," she says, and reaches over to turn it off.
"It's rather late," says Maleficent. "Are you sure you hadn't better answer it?"
Horror courses through Aurora's veins, white-hot and blinding, as she considers that the phone call could have nothing to do with her at all, and that she's being remarkably selfish for ignoring a call when something terrible could have happened.
She answers her phone. "Hello?"
"Finally," in her usual tone, decidedly unburdened by grief. "My goodness, Aurora, I've been calling for hours."
"I was studying, Auntie—I have a final in the morning," says Aurora, already feeling acutely tired.
Aunt Flora sighs. "Well, I hope once all this is over, you'll finally get your head on straight."
Aurora closes her eyes tightly. "Did you need something, Auntie?"
"Oh, I was just wondering when you were planning on moving back home," says Aunt Flora airily.
Aurora's stomach twists. "What do you mean?"
"Well, that silly job at the coffee shop can't be paying your rent for much longer, can it? And what havoc it must be wreaking upon your schooling—honestly, I don't know why you even bother, Aurora. Anyway, we're having a party on Friday. Will you be here by then?"
"I'm doing fine, Auntie," says Aurora thinly. "And I bother because—"
"Yes, yes, I'm sure. You just let me know when you're done with all that."
"Auntie—"
"The party, Aurora. There's a fine young gentleman I'd like to introduce to you. Are you coming?"
"No, thank you, Auntie, I don't—"
"Oh, I see," Flora's tone turns dangerous, and Aurora is very nearly too exhausted to care. "You're much too busy for your poor aunties now. You know, Aurora, when I'm dead and gone, I hope you look back on this moment with the common decency to feel ashamed."
"Auntie—!"
Aunt Flora hangs up, and Aurora feels her stomach twist like actual sickness.
"Aurora?" Maleficent prods quietly, gentle as a night breeze.
"It's like—!" Aurora throws her hands out, reaching, faltering. "It's like she plans it! It's like she knows!"
"What happened?" Maleficent asks her, but keeps her distance. Even still, it's like the walls are closing in.
"Oh, she just—!" Aurora flings a hand vaguely at her phone, and tries valiantly to pretend she is not on the verge of tears. "Just called to ask when I'll be moving home, you know, because of course I won't make it on my own much longer, and why do I even bother when there's some nice young man she could introduce me to at some party I'm supposed to go to, and—!"
Aurora very nearly loses the battle with her tears. She crosses her arms over her chest, swallows hard and squeezes her eyes closed a moment. "And does she know?" she wonders tremulously. "Did she choose today on purpose? Is she tracking my bank account? Does she know I can't pay my rent? Does she know the coffee shop won't give me enough hours? Why is this happening today, of all days? And does it even—I mean, can I even... Oh, I don't know what to do!"
Aurora covers her face and does her best to stifle a sob, terrible and wrenching. Does it even matter? What has any of this been for, if her destiny has always been in the hands of another, if her future has always been inevitable? Was there ever any escape? Did Aurora ruin her chances before she even realized it?
"How much is your rent, if I may ask?"
Aurora waves her hand idly in the direction of the bill. More words come, choked and miserable, as though from somewhere outside her body. "She's right, of course. She's right, and I can't just—" Aurora wipes her eyes miserably. "I could overdraw my account to pay it, but then what about food? What about next month? The coffee shop isn't going to just forget that I'm not supposed to be working full-time, and it takes time to find another job, and I like working there, it's just—!"
Her thought is interrupted by the sound of tearing paper. Maleficent lays a check down on the table and puts away her checkbook. It's for Aurora's rent.
"Oh, no, I couldn't," Aurora says, dimly, feeling light-headed and strange.
"It's no trouble, Aurora," says Maleficent with half of a shrug. "You can pay me back sometime, if you like, but you can also consider it an early birthday gift."
"It's too much, please, I can't—" Aurora holds out her hands, feels herself beginning to cry afresh, hot, heavy tears of shame.
"Aurora, you have a problem and I can help you," says Maleficent.
At that very moment, something strange happens: Aurora's capacity to feel sorrow fractures, and her tears dry abruptly. All that remains is a hollow sort of helplessness, and a desperate need to feel like she has control over any one thing in her life.
"Is this what you wanted?" Aurora asks, barely more than a whisper.
"What?"
Aurora looks up, eyes dry and jaw set, but she feels her stomach churning, and her entire body trembles. "Why do you even like me?" she demands, advancing on a stunned Maleficent. "Is it just because I make you feel powerful? Because you get to swoop in and save the day, because the things that could ruin my life mean nothing to you?"
"No," says Maleficent, simply, earnestly, and yet Aurora will not hear it, cannot believe it.
"Is it because I don't make you talk about yourself?" Aurora continues to advance, and Maleficent retreats, hands held up in defense. "So I don't know anything about what makes you, I don't know…flawed, or….or human? So I don't see you for what you really are?"
Maleficent's face changes then, from soft and concerned to hard and cold. She squares her shoulders and draws herself up to her full height. "And what is that?" she asks crisply.
Cruel words catch at the back of Aurora's throat—things she shouldn't say and doesn't mean, but things that would hurt. A coward, or a monster, or a predator. But shame saves her from such a sickening accusation, and she backs down beneath Maleficent's steely gaze.
Maleficent gestures to the side, indicating the check she's left on the table. "The offer stands, Aurora," she says stiffly, and then she leaves, and the only sound in the whole world is the door clicking closed behind her.
It's four in the morning. Aurora has a final in four hours.
She cries some more, the miserable, retching kind of sob that feels like being physically ill, that's far more about being exhausted than about actually being upset any longer, and she barely sleeps. Sometime around six, she uses Maleficent's money to pay her rent, and she buys herself some breakfast. She shows up to her final red-eyed and stuffy-nosed, and her best hope is that some of her answers are remotely coherent. She longs for the distraction of working at the coffee shop, but she's off for two more days.
She falls asleep curled up in a chair in the school library, vaguely aware that her neck is killing her, but unable to summon the strength to adjust.
In her dreams, she is the Princess Aurora from the movie for children, living in a castle and surrounded by people who love her. Everyone is telling her, over and over like a chant, how happy she ought to be. She has nothing to want, nothing to strive for. She need only marry the Prince and live happily ever after.
But they're wrong. Aurora wants a life of her own, and loved ones of her own choosing, who do not tell her what she ought to want. Perhaps some are contented never to long for anything beyond their present circumstances, but Aurora is not among them. What is life, she tries to tell her aunties—who are of course the three fairy godmothers—if not wanting, reaching, longing, striving?
"Well," Aunt Flora sighs, "I hope after the wedding is over, you'll get your head on straight."
And suddenly she is in a bridal gown, face shrouded in filmy white. She is herself and she is someone watching herself, walking down the aisle to marry her Prince, who is of course an approximation of Phillip, the son of a friend of her late father whom Aurora ought therefore to adore.
There is music, she thinks—the kind you would expect at a grand, royal wedding, with rich orchestration and people in beautiful clothes dancing—and somewhere off to the side, there is a shadow of a person, watching, waiting.
Aurora is dancing with her Prince, but her attention is on the shadow. She knows without knowing who it will be, wants without wanting to see her again, feels her cheeks flush with embarrassment for how they parted, even though a part of Aurora knows she is only dreaming, and this version of Maleficent might not even remember, might never have known.
Maleficent emerges, green skin and horned headdress like the villain from the movie, yet somehow still utterly unmistakable, and the room falls silent. No more music, no more laughter, and the people in fancy clothes seem to dim by comparison.
"You're frightened," says Maleficent, in a voice somehow just a little bit more than her own.
"Yes," says Aurora, in a voice that feels vague and distant. "But not of you."
"Are you quite certain?" Maleficent wonders. She extends her hand, draped in a long, black cloak. "Perhaps you should be."
"Perhaps I should," Aurora says simply. She reaches for Maleficent's hand.
Suddenly she is faintly aware of a buzzing noise, utterly out of place in her dreamscape. Maleficent dissolves into smoke before her eyes, and Aurora jolts awake.
Aurora looks at her phone, heart filling up with dizzying hope, but it's just a text saying her payment went through. She sighs heavily and lays her head back down on her arm. She wants to apologize, knows she needs to, and logically she even thinks Maleficent will understand. Still, the thought of facing Maleficent again sends dread coursing through her like ice in her veins.
She's afraid of needing Maleficent, and afraid of losing her. She's afraid of losing that half-spoken thing that hangs between them, that sometimes allows them to share long hours and late nights embracing, that means that if Aurora kisses Maleficent, Maleficent will kiss her back, but she, herself, will only ever kiss Aurora's hands or her forehead or, on a few blissful occasions, her cheek. Once, when they were walking together and Aurora teased her about catching her underneath something that looked vaguely like mistletoe, Maleficent folded her hands behind her back and leaned in to kiss Aurora at the very corner of her lips.
Aurora wants more, she realizes, as though it weren't obvious, but she is afraid of what wanting more will mean. What's more, and what always seems so bizarre to her, is that she's sure Maleficent already knows this, knows far beyond what Aurora has said out loud the reason behind her fears.
You're frightened, said the Maleficent in her dream.
Yes, Aurora had said, but not of you.
Aurora scrubs at her eyes with her sleeve as she sits up, then stretches out her arms and allows herself another heavy sigh. She's done with her finals, come what may, her rent is paid, and she's had a full meal. That's a lot more than she had a few short hours ago.
On the way to the bus stop, Aurora passes by her coffee shop and, on a whim, glances inside. Sure enough, there sits Maleficent, at her preferred table, large black coffee just past the fingertips of one hand while the other scratches in shorthand. Aurora is so captivated by the sight that she barely realizes she's pushed open the door.
Maleficent glances upward briefly, looks down, then looks up again. Her expression is as open as Aurora has ever seen it. She looks a little surprised, and very hesitant. Her fingers curl around her pencil as she brings it to rest at the angle of her jaw.
Aurora approaches, hands folded in front of her. "I'm sorry about this morning," she begins.
"No harm done," says Maleficent, but her expression does not change.
Aurora averts her eyes, overwhelmed by the intensity of Maleficent's gaze. "I didn't even thank you," she shakes her head, feels treacherous tears threatening to form at the corners of her eyes. She blinks them away and looks up. "Thank you," she says, as firmly as she can manage. "You saved me more trouble than you even know."
The corner of Maleficent's lip twitches subtly, and she gestures with her pencil-wielding hand to the empty seat across from her.
"Actually," Aurora looks down at her hands, unaccountably nervous, still so afraid of wanting even something so simple, "are you busy? Could we…go somewhere else?"
Maleficent's eyes narrow subtly, studiously, but she stacks up her papers, puts them into her briefcase, and stands. She glances down at her coffee and turns it around as she picks it up so that Aurora can see the name on the coffee collar.
"Me-li-ficent," Aurora squints as she reads, but she feels her heart lighten at the familiarity of the exchange. "At least they tried," she offers.
Maleficent turns the coffee back around and quirks a brow disapprovingly at it. "Hm," she replies simply. Then, "At your leisure, milady," she says, and gestures that Aurora should lead the way.
It's just starting to feel like spring. A chill lingers in the air, and there's still old snow packed up on the sides of streets. Aurora shoves her hands deep in her pockets to fight the chill, but it does her little good. She wonders what it must be like to be Maleficent, who never says very much, and never seems to want to. Aurora often feels as though she's full to overflowing with words she's afraid to say aloud, so much so that they always end up spilling out, all twisted and wrong and not at all the way she meant them.
"I'm sorry again," Aurora begins at last, slowly, "for how I acted last night."
"It's no trouble, Aurora," says Maleficent.
But it could have been, Aurora does not say. "You were trying to help me, and I lashed out at you. It wasn't your fault I was upset."
"I know that," says Maleficent. "But you weren't unreasonable to question my motives. It's not a bad thing to be cautious with people. I have the luxury of knowing my own intentions, while you do not."
Aurora picks at the cuff of her jacket sleeve. "I wish you'd tell me."
"What," Maleficent wonders, "that I mean you no harm? Even if I said that, you still wouldn't know."
"I suppose you're right," Aurora lets out a little huff of a sigh.
"I expect you're suspicious of assistance because of the way it's been used to control you in the past," says Maleficent. "I'm sure you know that's not an unreasonable parallel to draw."
Aurora looks up, surprised. "I…" she begins, falters, looks away. "It's not the same at all," she says, more to herself than to Maleficent.
"Perhaps not," says Maleficent, "but the body remembers. It troubles you that I don't tell you much about myself, for example. When I think of sharing something that once brought me pain, I still remember that pain, even if the situation is utterly different."
"I know that, I mean I figured that, but…" Aurora gestures vaguely.
"But?" Maleficent presses.
They continue their walk in silence for some time. It's not busy on the street, and the only sounds are of birds chirping and distant cars. Aurora vaguely realizes she's leading them to her apartment.
Aurora thinks about the first time they kissed, and what Maleficent said to her that gave her the courage to go through with it. She said something like, you could spend every day of your life doing what you're supposed to, and bad things would still happen. She said that the likelihood of anything turning out for the best is very small, but…
But if you never try, never risk anything? You lose even that.
Aurora stops walking, and Maleficent follows suit. "Do you like me?" Aurora asks her. "I mean, as more than a friend." The words feel stupid, and awkward, but Aurora holds her head high.
"Of course I do," says Maleficent, stone-faced as ever.
"Then why do you never kiss me first?" The words feel hot and wrong and so, so horribly embarrassing, but Aurora does not stop. "Why—" she falters, inhales sharply. "Why have we never…gone any further than that?"
In the back of her mind, Aurora wonders whether even a few months ago, she would have noticed the way Maleficent's expression changes. It's infinitesimal, not even a change so much as a shift, or a shade, something about the eyes, and the way her lips part ever so slightly while she considers her response.
"I have the luxury," says Maleficent softly, slowly, "of knowing my intentions. "I didn't want you to think…" she averts her eyes swiftly, subtly, just a flick away and back, "To think that I meant you any harm."
Aurora withdraws her hands from her pockets and reaches for Maleficent's. "I don't think that," she says simply.
Maleficent doesn't speak. She takes Aurora's hands, but continues to study her with a strange kind of stillness. Aurora is still nervous, but now she feels unsteady with the rush of relief that comes of speaking one's mind when the words are most difficult.
"Come inside?" Aurora asks her.
Maleficent nods subtly, and the corners of her lips twitch in that almost-smile that sets Aurora's heart aflutter. "If you like," she says quietly.
Aurora turns to lead Maleficent inside, one hand still holding hers, still nervous, still unsteady on her own legs, but buoyed by a wavering, bubbling kind of hope. No sooner has she closed her apartment door than Maleficent takes her firmly by the arms and backs her into it, leaning in and looming over, eyes alight, somehow so much more intense even than before, yet still holding back.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Aurora thinks that perhaps the things that frighten them are not nearly as different as she thought. Her hands find the subtle dip of Maleficent's waist, and she nods subtly. "Please," she breathes.
Maleficent's kiss is overwhelming, like she's somehow blocked out the rest of the world around them, and Aurora surrenders willingly. She'd thought perhaps there would have to be more, that she'd have to stumble over more of her ill-formed thoughts, assert again and again that this is what she wants, and that though she is afraid, it is not because of Maleficent, but rather because of everything else.
Maleficent takes Aurora's face between her hands, and Aurora uses her newly-freed hands to push Maleficent's coat off over her shoulders. She throws her arms around Maleficent's neck and wills her impossibly closer, barely notices the low moan that escapes her when Maleficent threads her fingers through Aurora's hair.
Maleficent kisses Aurora's neck, and the sensation sends a jolt through Aurora's body that causes her to cry out with abandon. She tugs at the buttons on Maleficent's shirt, desperate for more of her, and once she's undone enough of them, she pushes her hands beneath the fabric, relishes the feeling of Maleficent's bare skin beneath her palms.
Maleficent traces her fingertips over Aurora's shoulders, down her arms and then along her sides until she reaches Aurora's hips. She follows Aurora's lead, sliding her hands up under the fabric of Aurora's shirt and running her palms over Aurora's back. She draws the skin of Aurora's neck gently between her teeth, and Aurora digs her nails into Maleficent's back in response.
Maleficent pulls Aurora's shirt over her head with little trouble, and Aurora struggles to push Maleficent's shirt the rest of the way off. Maleficent practically has to kneel to kiss Aurora's breasts, and when Maleficent grasps her by the hips to steady them both, Aurora is sure her feet actually leave the floor at least twice.
It's so different from everything they've shared before, rough and unrestrained, perhaps even desperate. And maybe it should be shocking, or even frightening, but Aurora is surprised by how natural it feels.
Maleficent half-leads, half-carries Aurora to her bed, and she holds a moment, leaning over Aurora in the filtered light of late afternoon, studying her face the same way she was doing earlier, with a kind of happy bewilderment.
Aurora smiles up at her, and reaches up to fix a strand of hair that's fallen out of place. Maleficent catches her hand and kisses her wrist, and Aurora thinks about all the times she's dreamed of this moment, ever since Maleficent was just the mysterious, slightly scary coffee shop lady.
"Are you all right?" Maleficent asks her, drawing a strand of Aurora's hair between her fingers slowly, methodically.
"Why wouldn't I be?" Aurora wonders, with a little huff of laughter.
Maleficent inclines her head thoughtfully. "You've had quite a day," she says.
Aurora scrunches up her nose. "Is that really what you want to talk about right now?"
And then something wonderful happens. Maleficent actually smiles. She tries to hide it, purses her lips and averts her eyes, but she lets out a soft, warm chuckle, and Aurora returns her smile at least a hundredfold.
Aurora pulls Maleficent down into another kiss, softer and slower and warmer than before, and the way it feels to have Maleficent's bare skin against hers is beyond description. Maleficent's fingers trace the waistband of Aurora's pants before she slides the pants over Aurora's hips, slow and methodical even as Aurora feels herself leaning with her entire body into every brush of Maleficent's fingers. When Maleficent pulls away from her, Aurora very nearly drags her back down, can scarcely stand what little distance there is between them.
But Maleficent moves with such deliberation, such certainty, that Aurora cannot imagine how she would protest, and in the end, she is glad she doesn't. Maleficent is watching her intently, studiously, and it's almost too much to bear, but Aurora cannot look away. Maleficent pulls Aurora's underwear down over her hips and leans down, with agonizing slowness, to press a kiss between Aurora's legs.
She wonders whether perhaps she is dreaming, but how could her own mind offer her something so miraculous as this? Aurora inhales sharply, in small, broken little gasps as Maleficent continues, and she reaches down to thread her fingers through Maleficent's hair, to feel the familiar texture and the realness, the solidity of it, to anchor herself to the physical world even as she feels she can never quite return to reality after this.
Maleficent wraps one arm around Aurora's thigh and curls a finger inside of Aurora, and Aurora's body curls up off of the bed as she cries out. Her grip on Maleficent's hair tightens, and she thinks again of all the times she's dreamt of this, and how woefully her imagination has failed her. Maleficent hums softly, perhaps in response to Aurora's grip on her hair, and this subtle sound seems to resonate throughout Aurora's entire body, all the way out to her fingers and down to her toes.
She is close to climax, she can feel it, can feel what remains of the physical realm starting to blur around the edges, and in the end, she doesn't know what does it, whether it's the skill and deliberation of Maleficent's tongue and fingers or just the thought of it, that it is Maleficent here, well and truly, and that she is so much more than a dream.
Aurora realizes sometime later that she is crying—not sobbing, not painfully, just shedding slow, gentle tears, and mouthing words she barely understands. Maleficent is holding her close, stroking her hair and kissing the top of her head.
There is hope, she is saying to herself, over and over and over, barely comprehending. There is hope, there is hope, there is hope, there is hope…
She's finished with her finals, and all but the last one went fine. Maleficent helped her pay her rent this month, and she doesn't have to move back home, or go to a party and meet a boy and try to pretend she's whatever her aunties want her to be.
She has Maleficent, for now, for however long it lasts. She is brave enough to want something, brave enough to allow herself to have it. And Maleficent likes her, so desperately doesn't want to hurt her that the fear seems to paralyze her. It won't be easy for them, but Aurora is beginning to think she understands Maleficent better than she realized.
And there is so much hope. If a moment like this can exist, if Aurora can feel so completely happy, so loved, so free, well then, who's to say what the future will bring?
There is hope, and that's what matters to her now. Things may not be perfect, but there is so much hope.
"What are you saying?" Maleficent asks her softly, and presses another kiss to her forehead.
"Oh," Aurora sniffles, and swipes a hand across her eyes before she buries her head in Maleficent's shoulder once more. "Nothing. Just…"
Maleficent won't ask her, if she wants to keep it for herself. Maleficent won't laugh at her if she wants to say it out loud.
"There's hope," says Aurora, without entirely meaning to, not much louder than before. "There's hope," she says again, squeezing her eyes closed. "There's hope."
"Always," says Maleficent. She pulls Aurora closer and kisses the top of her head again, then again.
There is hope, Aurora thinks, over and over, until she falls asleep. There is hope, there is hope, there is hope.