Not the last chapter. Got a few ideas so we'll go for at least one more.

As they walked (read: Karma dragged) arm and arm down the sidewalk, passing by the people laughing and talking and heading from one bar to the next, Maisie told Karma about her and Amy.

Mostly cause Karma wouldn't stop walking till she did and it did seem, to Maisie at least, to be the fair thing to do. Two years, one 'I'll have to think about it" (or two, if you counted the one she said to Amy), and one giant Raudenfeld lie later, Maisie would be hard pressed to give even one miniscule fuck about being fair to Karma.

They met, Maisie said, in Creative Writing 107, which was part of Amy's major and a total lark for Maisie. She was a SCIENCE MAJOR and Karma could hear it, all caps and all big thinking and hard working and going to do something great someday, not like some major hopping, plan changing, can't make up my mind about anything people she might know.

Karma glanced over at Maisie (who had, at least, stopped actively trying to tug her arm free) and yeah, she could see it. Karma could totally picture her in a pristine white lab coat with the ID tag clipped to the pocket and safety glasses perched on her head like the world's dorkiest shades. And then Karma had a brief (but not nearly brief enough) vision of Maisie standing at the end of Amy's bed in nothing but that lab coat and that made her face flush and her breathing come just a little harder than she'd like and Karma turned away, looking forward again, at the pair of staggeringly drunk sorority girls in front of them.

"I almost didn't take the class," Maisie said. "It didn't really fit in my schedule but my advisor said I needed something to show grad schools I could be well rounded and give the other parts of my brain a chance to… exercise."

Karma nodded as if that made all the sense in the world and it kinda did, after all what was her stream of ever changing majors and plans if not a little exercise for her brain?

The reached a corner some four or five (or was it six or maybe seven?) streets from the bar and Karma wouldn't admit it, but she was fucking lost and it was Maisie who took the lead then, pulling Karma this time, through a crosswalk and back over to the beach. "I know a spot," she said and the tone, the way her voice deepened and dipped and rolled out of her like a wave crashing onto the beach made Karma think some kinda way about that spot.

Either they were going to make out or Maisie was going to kill her and dump the body.

Neither would have surprised her at that point and Karma wasn't sure which prospect terrified her more.

Maisie led her to the spot, a little rough of beach in front of a dune that was more like a 'du', really, like a bee sting in the sand, and they sat and Karma tried to ignore the way the sand crept up under the cuffs of her too-tight jeans (she'd been dressed to impress - Amy or boys or both - not beachcombing) as she fidgeted to get comfortable.

"I grew up here," Maisie said. "About a mile that way." She pointed into the distance and Karma could only nod because, really, a mile that way could have been San Francisco or Timbuktu or the fucking Cazbah and she wouldn't have known the difference. They stared out at the water and Karma tried to figure out what the hell she'd been thinking when she said 'we should talk.'

Except she knew. Karma knew what she'd been thinking, it was all about what Amy had been thinking. "Four months," Karma said. "You've been together four months and I was here two months ago and she never mentioned you once." Maisie didn't say anything and Karma didn't know what that meant and so she did what Karma always did and kept going cause it was either that or…

Well.

Yeah.

Karma didn't have an 'or' cause she was in a different state and Amy wasn't around and she was lost and she'd left her phone at the bar and yeah, Maisie could totally dump the body.

She knew science.

"So," Karma said. "She didn't tell me about you, which makes me think maybe she didn't tell you abo -"

"You're her best friend," Maisie said, cutting Karma off. "You have been since you were kids when you met in a ball pit. You went through a painted unicorn phase, your song is Straight Up, you once pretended to be lesbians, you were her first kiss and her first heartbreak, and you have ridiculously bad taste in men."

Karma's eyes widened and she opened her mouth with every intention of arguing but, really, what could she say?

"I'm not Reagan," Maisie said (and if Karma's eyes hadn't already been saucers…) "and Amy isn't sixteen and trying to find a life outside of you." She leaned back in the sand, stretching her arms out behind her for support. "She and I don't have secrets."

"Maybe you don't have them," Karma said though she knew she shouldn't. "But you were one. For four months. And you're going to tell me that it didn't bother you that I didn't even know you existed before tonight?"

Maisie didn't look at her and Karma tried to keep that from flustering her (how can you read someone if said someone refuses to open their fucking book to you?) but it was all so clear when she spoke. "Amy did," Maisie said. "Amy knew I existed and Amy knew who I was and Amy knew… knows… how I feel." She sat up and brushed the sand off on her jeans. "Maybe you notice the theme, there? Amy." Maisie stood and looked down at Karma, still sitting in the sand.

"I know who Amy is," Karma said. She refused to stand and get into a toe-to-toe with the other girl (especially since Maisie had a good four inches on her). "She's my best friend."

"And she's my girlfriend," Maisie said and there was no worry or concern in her voice, not even the tiniest hint of either, she didn't even emphasize the 'girlfriend', like it wasn't a point to be made (or won), like it was just a fact. Plain. Simple. "I'm dating her, Karma, I'm not dating you or some date a Raudenfeld get an Ashcroft free package purchase."

Maisie turned to walk away and Karma hopped to her feet, cursing the clingy sand. "You think I don't know that?" she called after her and Maisie stopped, just at the edge of the beach.

"I don't know," she said. "And I don't really care. Because Amy does know it and that's the only thing that matters." Maisie tipped her head toward the street. "We should probably head back before she starts worrying I sold you into some human trafficking ring." She shook her head and waited for Karma to catch up. "That girl watches entirely too much Netflix."

Maisie didn't talk much on the way back, she didn't give Karma any more of the details of the courtship of Amy Raudenfeld and she didn't fill in even one of the blanks doing pirouettes in Karma's head and yeah, that might have been (so not might) intentional.

She was OK with Karma not knowing about her till tonight, really she was. But being OK didn't mean she wasn't just a little… pissed.

So Maisie didn't say much (and Amy didn't say much either, later, even back in her room when Karma refused to go to bed and pouted her best pout right up until Amy reminded her that if push came to shove there was another room and bed Amy could sleep in) but, if Maisie had been so inclined, this might have been what she'd said.

She and Amy had hung out together from the second week in class, right after the Thursday morning they were the only two to get the "Bueller… Bueller…" joke during attendance. They had lunch together that day, coffee the next, brunch on Sunday, and by the end of the next week Maisie's roomie was making U-Haul jokes whenever Amy was within earshot.

It was, at first, platonic. They hung together and worked on their stories and writing ideas. Amy managed to keep Maisie from turning hers into a Clexa fanfic and Maisie kept Amy from writing about doomed lesbian love (or at least just about that) and they got to be friends.

"Good friends," Maisie would have said if she'd said anything to Karma and Karma would, no doubt, have wanted to comment on the difference between good and best but then she would have remembered Maisie wasn't the one kept in the dark for four months and would have decided the semantics of 'good' and 'best' weren't the most salient point right then.

If Maisie had said anything.

They (Maisie and Amy) stayed friends for a month before anything happened, before anything even sorta happened.

It was late and they'd given up on writing. Amy could go for hours but if Maisie got tired it turned into pulling teeth and every word she typed seemed wrong and she'd been up since six for an early lab and when Amy saw Maisie about to stab her laptop screen with a pencil, she had called it. And that was when writing had turned to watching and they were huddled (not cuddled) on Amy's bed, watching Netflix on her laptop.

The show finished (and if she'd said anything to Karma, Maisie still wouldn't have said the name of the show cause she didn't remember it then and she didn't remember it on Amy's bed four months earlier cause she had totally not been watching the show.) They stayed there, talking (Amy) and staring (Maisie) and the screensaver kicked on and the pictures floated by.

Amy. Lauren. Shane. Life in Texas. Farrah and Bruce and then Farrah and Lauren and then Shane and Amy and Lauren and Lizbeth and Leila and then Karma. And Karma. And Karma.

And Karma.

Maisie asked (though she didn't want to) and she didn't think she had to cause it was painfully obvious, if not from the number of pictures then from the look on Amy's face in all of them, in the way she was always staring at Karma even when she was trying not to.

"Ex?" Maisie asked. "Current?"

If she'd said anything and if she was being honest (which she usually was, but when it came to this and came to Karma and talking to Karma about Karma, Maisie would have found honesty totally fucking overrated), she'd have admitted there was something behind the question. A little hope, a little chance. A little thought, just the beginning of one, that maybe she and Amy...

Just the beginning?

Fuck that.

Maisie had been crushing for weeks and she knew it and she knew it was getting to the point where it was obviously more than crushing cause Amy was gorgeous and funny and just the right amount of dork and gay and that wasn't an everyday combo in Maisie's experience. So it was passing crush and heading full on into 'I actually know the girl and she's as awesome as she is hot and if there's a 'current', I better find out now before I'm too far gone.'

She already was.

"Neither," Amy said. And if Maisie didn't believe her right then… well.. she didn't exactly believe her any more a half hour later after the blonde had explained faking it and Karma and Reagan and the summer apart and all the rest.

Maisie got it. She immediately got what Amy didn't like to get and what Karma never even thought to get.

They (Karma and Amy) had been a couple for years. Maybe a couple without kissing for most of that time and without sex for all of it, but Karma and Amy had been together. But now they weren't. Because Amy told Maisie about that unseasonably cool September day and the long flight back to Cali and all the time she'd had to think about her and Karma and two paths diverging in a wood (Maisie snorted and Amy smiled and they both wanted that to happen a lot more often) and maybe Amy never used the word, but she answered the question just the same.

Ex.

Maisie read the moment and leaned in and she felt Amy's hand on her chest (and that was fast but she wasn't complaining) but then that hand was pushing her away and Amy was shaking her head and Maisie blushed and started to pull away, thinking she'd read it all wrong.

"I'm sorry," she stammered. "I thought… I… uh… I should… um… yeah...I'll.."

"Stay," Amy said.

"What?"

"You'll stay," Amy said. "It's late and you're tired and it's like a twenty minute walk back to your dorm and…"

She trailed off and Maisie tried not to push, really she did. But…

"And?"

(it was just a gentle push)

"And I want to kiss you," Amy said and Maisie was both elated and absolutely fucking lost. "I've wanted to kiss you since Sunday brunch cause who the hell does brunch unless there's gonna be some possible kisses, but I don't want to kiss you now. Not right now. Not after Karma and my history and…"

Amy took Maisie's hand and tugged her back close to snuggle into her side and Maisie gave in (so easily) and curled against her.

"I'm going to kiss you, Maisie Martin," Amy said. "And it's gonna be good and you're gonna like it and you're gonna wonder how you ever survived this long without being kissed like that."

Maisie curled tighter and rested her head against Amy's chest. "Pretty sure of yourself, Raudenfeld."

Amy buried her face in Maisie's hair and laughed. "Not even a little," she said. "Sounded good though, didn't it?" Maisie nodded and the smell of her shampoo (sunflowers and berries) filled Amy's nose. "I'm going to kiss you," she said again. "But when I do? It's gonna be just you and me here or there or wherever we are."

"I like that," Maisie said and she snuggled even closer and her eyes were already starting to shut. "Just don't make me wait too long."

"I won't," Amy said.

And she didn't.

Amy leaned against the railing outside the bar and watched the crowd.

She hoped Maisie would come back and she hoped Karma would come back and, of the two, she had little doubt about one and whole truckload about the other and if you'd asked her right then, put a gun to her head and had her make a choice?

She'd have picked the doubts. Because the truth was, Amy had no doubt Karma would come back (she always did) and that was only number one on the lengthy list of things she had no doubt about when it came to her best friend, not the least of which was that Karma would never feel for her the way Maisie did and the strongest of which was that the longer they were gone, the more likely Maisie was never coming back.

So Amy leaned and she watched and she waited and she hoped and when the others left she waved goodbye and gave Becks a hug and told Jess to call her for lunch and reminded Jodi they had a date with the new documentary at the Palace that week.

And she waited. And watched.

And remembered.

If Amy had been inclined to talk to Karma that night, she might have mentioned that railing she was leaning on. She might have mentioned that her and Maisie's second official date (the first that Jodi and Becks hadn't chaperoned) had been at that bar. And Amy might have mentioned seeing Maisie waiting for her after she'd paid the check and she might have mentioned how she'd stopped next to the bar and watched.

She'd had the perfect vantage point, out the front door and off to the side and she could see Maisie, but unless Maisie looked, unless she turned her head and maybe even took a step to the side, she wouldn't see Amy, not in the dark of the bar, not with the sunset dripping pink and orange behind her.

Amy stood there and she didn't notice if it was unseasonably cool or typically warm or something in between. She didn't notice the crowd of 'college' kids (not a one of whom could have been more than an hour over sixteen) trying to get in. She didn't notice the sounds of reggae music coming from the beach or the rhythmic bass thump from the dance club two doors down.

She did notice Maisie and Amy was sure (so sure) she wasn't the only one. She couldn't be, cause there was no way anyone could not notice her, not in those shorts that (in Amy's totally not professional opinion) weren't nearly short enough but still showed enough leg to make supermodels jealous. And not in that strappy little top (though, again, not little enough) and Amy had never considered herself a breast woman (Reagan's had been nice, but they had nothing on her ass) but… fuck… the way that top hung off the curves of Maisie's chest…

Amy hadn't been on a lot of dates but she was pretty sure drooling was at least a no-no until the third or fourth and she was even more sure that whole thing about it just being her and Maisie and no one else around when they kissed was about to go out the fucking window.

If Amy had talked to Karma, she'd have laughed as she told her how she walked right out of that bar and right over to the railing Maisie was leaning on, and the only thought in her mind was that she hoped (hoped) she didn't have bad breath (she was already regretting the nachos at the bar) and that she hoped she didn't use too much tongue or should she not use any at all and fuck that was something that maybe she should have thought about before she was almost there

and way before she stopped paying attention (cause thinking) and not seeing Maisie turn and spot her and move toward her, just in time for Amy to lean in and for their heads to crack together and for all those 'college' kids (still trying to get in) to 'ooooh' at the sound and the way they both staggered back.

Amy rubbed her head and looked at Maisie, doing the same thing. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I wasn't looking and -"

"Yes, you were," Maisie said. She checked the her head one last time and leaned back against the railing. "You were looking and you had your 'thinking way too much about something you should just be doing face on."

Amy blinked her eyes against the sunset and took a step closer, letting her hands fall to the railing on either side of Maisie's hips. "I have a face for that?"

Maisie nodded. "Yup. One of your cuter ones, actually." She slipped her arms around Amy's waist, locking her fingers across the small of the blonde's back. "And if you were thinking about what I was thinking about?" Maisie tugged Amy closer. "You really should've just been doing -"

Her words were swallowed by Amy's lips and if Amy had told Karma about that kiss, she'd have said there was no 'woah' and no 'I know' and no 'yup, totally gay' (Reagan) and all there was?

Was a smile.

The moment their lips met and Amy felt Maisie kissing her back and felt her heart racing in her chest and then slow itself and steady as the most perfect fucking sense of calm washed over her (like home) Amy smiled. She smiled into the kiss and she felt Maisie smile back and she kept smiling and kissing and smiling and kissing and those 'college' kids (at least the guys) let out another chorus of 'oooooh' and Amy and Maisie both flipped them off without ever once breaking the kiss.

Or the smile.

And then some four months later, Amy waited and she watched and she finally saw the two of them breaking through the crowd and coming toward her and Karma was frowning and straining to keep up and totally pissed but Maisie saw the railing and then she saw Amy, waiting for her, and she smiled.

And the smile Amy gave her back? Total no doubter.

It had been thirty… no… forty seconds and Maisie hadn't disconnected the call and Karma had to think of that as something of a win.

"You thought we should talk," Maisie said, her voice tinny and flat through Karma's laptop speakers but, yeah, there was no mistaking that tone. "You. Thought we should talk."

Karma nodded. "About Am -"

"I know about what, Karma," Maisie snapped. "I'm not a fucking idiot, despite what my… what Amy may think right now."

"She doesn -"

Maisie cut her off again (and if she was gonna keep that up, it was going to be a short conversation.) "Don't tell me what Amy thinks, Karma,' she said. "Cause if you're calling me, then that means you've got even less of an idea about that than I do."

Karma could have argued. There were a million reasons why she might've called Maisie. Maybe Amy wanted to end it and she couldn't say the words herself or maybe she was hoping that Karma could help Maisie to understand their connection and their bond and why two years and a fucking rock could never measure up.

Or, maybe Karma thought, I could be calling to beg her to let Amy go.

Except that would never happen. The letting go part. The begging? Karma couldn't be sure that wouldn't happen in the first three minutes of the conversation.

Karma thought, briefly, of pointing out to Maisie that she did have an idea, a very good one, actually, one Amy had given her, one the blonde had spelled out for her in no uncertain terms.

Except Karma knew better because she was talking to Maisie and Maisie knew Amy and that meant Maisie knew.

When it came to Amy?

Nothing was ever certain.

So Karma didn't say any of that and she didn't beg and she didn't cry and she didn't plead.

"I love her," she said. "I love Amy. I'm in love with her and I will do anything for her. Will you?"