"Loving someone is giving them the power to break your heart, but trusting them not to."
― Julianne Moore
Chapter 9
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Evie padded through the carpeted hallways of Auradon, heading towards Ben's room to pick up Mal and Carlos. Over two weeks had passed since their trip to the beach. The two weeks had been filled with giggles and pictures and tears and memories that Evie knew she would cherish. Doug and his new friend, Kevin, had been working diligently on the program, enjoying the unique challenge it provided. If you asked Evie, she was pretty sure that they were just trying to show off their programing skills to each other.
Evie wished that she could help with the programing, but computers had never been her thing. Give her a chemistry, physics, or math problem and she'd destroy it, but she just hadn't found the time to learn the intricacies of programming and the subsequent languages that went with it. She loved listening to Kevin and Doug ramble about it, picking up a few stray facts and slowly piecing together a better understanding of their project.
In those two and a half weeks, Evie was supposed to have talked with Jane, however she hadn't and her hesitancy was confusing to her. Evie was confident that her reservations weren't from lingering annoyance at their prank, so she ruled that out completely. Perhaps Evie was nervous because talking to Jane meant change. Evie had only just adjusted to this new reality, and soon it would be shattered and she'd have to figure everything out again.
Evie just wanted a nice stable life, but she knew that her background would guarantee her anything but that. Mostly Evie was just confused about the whole thing so she tried not to think about it very often. Sometimes though, in the quiet hallways in the evening, those type of thoughts snuck up on her and demanded her attention.
Before she had given any real attention to her ponderings, she arrived at Ben's dorm and knocked on the door before letting herself in. Ben looked up at her from where he was relaxed on his bed and paused in the middle of turning the page of his book. Mal was curled up on his lap, sucking on her thumb while she peacefully slumbered. Carlos was flipping through a children's book, spending enough time on each page that it was possible that he was actually reading the words instead of just absorbing the images.
Ben smiled, bookmarked his page, and set his book down on the bedside table. He shifted Mal gently so he could pick her up and she grumbled softly in her sleep. The look of fondness that Ben cast upon her tugged at Evie's emotions. It was the same look she gave Doug when he was rambling about something that excited him. It was the same look of absolute adoration that Jay gave Carlos when he thought no one was looking. In its purest form, it was love so palpable that Evie swore she could feel it from across the room.
Carlos hopped off the bed, book in one hand and Susan in the other, breaking the spell. Evie accepted Mal from Ben and locked eyes with the king for a brief moment before bidding him good night and ensuring that Carlos followed her down the hallways. Evie knew that she couldn't put off her conversation with Jane much longer. She knew she was confused by the situation, but she couldn't imagine how much more difficult these past few weeks had been for Ben as he helped take care of his girlfriend who didn't know him like she did as her older self.
When she arrived back at their room, she handed a mostly asleep Mal off to Jay to tuck into bed while she ushered Carlos into the bathroom to brush his teeth. She heard Jay speaking in the other room, probably urging Mal to go back to sleep, though his voice was muffled enough that Evie couldn't really tell.
"Jay?"
Jay pulled the covers up to Mal's shoulders, an action that he'd never expect getting used to in their time at Auradon. "What's up, buttercup?" he popped, brushing a strand of hair from her forehead.
"I need your help," she murmured, groggily enough that Jay wasn't sure if she was awake of talking in her sleep.
"With what?"
"You know how you keep me and puppy and Evie safe?" Mal asked, yawning near the end and blinking heavily, fighting against gravity to keep her eyes open.
"Mhmm," Jay was entertaining her, debating on whether she was being serious or trying to trick him into letting her stay awake longer.
"Can you do that for Ben too?"
Jay paused in his motions, realizing that she was probably serious. "Does Ben need protecting?"
"No," Mal shook her head sluggishly but earnestly. "I'm just too little to keep him safe and I don't want anything to happen to him ever."
Jay nodded once, "I'll keep an eye out for him then."
"He makes me feel happier than strawberries do. When I'm older again I'm gonna tell him that." She yawned again, this time letting her eyes flutter shut and sinking back into her peaceful sleep.
Jay felt a smile threatening to quirk on his face. "Don't worry, I'll keep him safe for you, little grape."
Evie intertwined her fingers with Doug's, smiling at him as they walked along the grounds. They'd finished eating lunch early and Doug had asked if she'd wanted to go for a stroll. Jay waved her off, telling her that she needed some 'boy-toy time' at which Evie had raised an eyebrow and Doug had blushed furiously.
Currently he was recounting a childhood story where he'd gotten trapped in the mines his father and uncles worked in. "I thought that I was a goner, even though I was like ten feet from the entrance, but in my defense it was dark and I was young," He broke off to laugh at the memory and Evie giggled with him.
She paused when she saw Jane and Audrey sitting at a picnic table across the lawn. Doug turned when he felt resistance on his arm, realizing that Evie wasn't keeping pace. "What's up?" He asked her, tucking a blue curl behind her ear.
"Jane's over there," she stated, then sighed. "I really should talk to her. I've been putting it off for too long."
"You know, I could talk to her if you really don't want to," Doug offered.
"No, I'll do it. I did volunteer after all. You don't mind if I cut our walk a little short do you?" Evie asked him, peering up through her lashes.
Doug leaned down and gave her a brief but tender kiss, "As long as you show up this afternoon so Kevin and I can show off our program, then it's okay."
Evie's lips curled into a wide smile, "I'm so lucky to have you."
"Yes, yes you are." Doug gave her another peck before disentangling their fingers and saying, "Go talk to her. You can do it."
Evie nodded and waved behind her as she strode across the grass towards the two girls. When she approached she noticed that something wasn't right. Audrey's shoulders were curved inward and her face was buried in her hands, mumbling something to Jane. Jane had an arm around Audrey, holding the taller girl.
"Is everything alright?" Evie asked, unsure if she should interject herself into the situation.
Audrey snapped her head up and gave Evie a look so fierce that if it weren't for the puffiness of her eyes, she never would've suspected that Audrey was upset.
"It's none of your business," Audrey bit, the sniffed.
Evie took another step forward. "Chad isn't worth your tears." Evie guessed at what was bothering Audrey, and by how the brunette's eyes widened, Evie must have gotten something right. Evie had accidentally overheard an argument between Audrey and Chad a few days ago, one that didn't sound easy to recover from.
Audrey flicked her eyes away from Evie, electing not to respond but still confirming Evie's suspicion. Jane was the one who broke the silence first. "Why'd you come over here?"
Evie fiddled with the straps of her purse and answered, "I needed to talk to you for a moment, Jane."
"I can go." Audrey spoke softly, her voice more broken than Evie expected. Jane made to protest but Audrey insisted, "It's alright. I'll text you, Jane." Audrey met Evie's eyes again. "And thanks Evie. You're probably right. Chad's a jerk." She gave a watery laugh and stood up to return to the castle.
Evie sat down next to Jane, choosing the seat that Audrey had just vacated. Jane sighed, watching Audrey's figure grow smaller as she walked further away.
"Jane, I need your help with something," Evie started. "Do you remember any of the words used in the spell or potion? Anything you can recall would be really helpful."
Jane remained quiet, eyes trained on the castle and Evie wasn't sure if Jane had even heard her request. She patiently waited for a few minutes, before sighing and giving up. Just as Evie had taken a few steps back towards the school, Jane spoke, her words barely reaching Evie's ears.
"Retro annis semper."
"What?" Evie turned back to Jane.
"Retro annis semper. That was what the potion was called that I used. The spell and instructions were all under that heading," Jane clarified, refusing to look at Evie. "The name stuck out to me because it was Latin when the rest of the book was in English."
Evie nodded, thanking Jane and leaving. There wasn't much more Jane could help with, or at least would want to help with so Evie accepted her small victory and headed back indoors. She pulled out her phone and sent a quick text to Doug with the words and felt as if a heavy load that she had realized she'd been carrying was lifted.
Doug leaned back in his computer chair, allowing his momentum to cause the chair to swivel and pulling his legs close to control the motion. When the chair stopped moving he had a nice view of his bed where Evie and Mal were reclined, Evie working on homework and Mal working on a word search. Doug removed his headphones and Kevin did likewise from beside him. They'd been working on the program since practice let out and Doug wanted to let his eyes rest for a few moments. Staring at his screen for too long always made his eyes dry and uncomfortable.
Evie looked up and met Doug's eyes, giving him the smile that made Doug feel as if butterflies had taken over his body, not just his stomach. She returned to her homework and Doug sighed softly, letting his eyes take in her beauty, take in how much he was absolutely head over heels for her.
"Hey, lover boy," Kevin tossed a sock at Doug to get his attention. Doug brushed the sock off his chair and told himself not to think about the origins of the dirty sock. "It's buggin' again. It doesn't like the newest grammar rule we added."
"Ugh."
"Same thought."
The program had turned out to be more of a beast than the two boys had predicted. Translating the runes wouldn't have been difficult if all the program required were simple 'if-then' statements, equating a rune to a letter. However, translating alphabets were never that simple and they had discovered in their research that in Taleth, when certain runes were next to each other, the made a new rune which translated to something completely different than either of the two original rules.
And that wasn't even taking into account that the runes took on another shape when punctuation was added into the mix. Doug and Kevin had photocopied pages from Mal's book, blown up the images of individual runes, before attempting to coax the program to understand what the rune meant.
Doug was glad now that they had given the others a definitive timeline because they didn't pester him so long as he gave them periodic updates on their progress. Also because he'd originally thought that the program would take a week tops, but then he remembered that grammar existed and here they were three weeks later.
Doug scanned his eyes over the coding, trying to figure out what miniscule error was the culprit causing the program to freak out. After both Kevin and Doug scrutinized the section that wasn't working, they discovered that they'd forgotten to end one of the statements with a semicolon. Kevin groaned aloud at their basic coding mistake and Doug found he shared the sentiment.
"Everything okay over there?" Evie's melodic voice floated across the room.
"We forgot a semicolon," Kevin despaired and Doug gestured vaguely, attempted to show that what Kevin said was true.
"Ouch that's rough," Evie laughed, but not cruelly. She knew enough about programing now to understand why they were reacting in such fashion. She'd slowly been picking up a better understanding of what Kevin and Doug were trying to do. Doug admired her desire to learn. He'd decided that her quest for knowledge was one of the traits that made his list of favorite things about Evie. She acknowledged when she didn't know things, but always asked questions and listened closely so that she could learn.
Doug even found himself asking Evie for help when he got stuck on a homework problem because Evie didn't just want to know things, she wanted to understand completely and Doug knew that her explanations were more beneficial for his own understanding than any given by his teachers. And the occasional kisses for encouragement didn't hurt either.
"Do you want some good news?"
Doug blinked, returning from his musings to the real world, and gave Evie a tired smile. "I think we could use some good news."
Kevin grunted in agreement, and when Doug looked over at him, he had to stifle a laugh. Sometime while Doug was wrapped up in his thoughts, Kevin had slid out of his chair and was lying face down on the floor, the literal image of despondence.
"Well, there are two parts. The first one is from Lonnie," Evie scrolled through her phone, pulling up the text conversation. "She and Carlos made cookies and she said they made too many so she's bringing us some and will be here once they're done cleaning up."
Doug heard a muffled 'Hallelujah' from Kevin and asked, "What's the second part?"
"Jay and Ben are in the library translating the title Jane gave us into Taleth. They translated it into English, well sort of. They're mostly sure that it means something like 'reverse the years, but not forever' or maybe 'not always' or something. But! The good news is, they spent so long in the languages aisle that the librarian came to check and see if they were okay." Evie paused to giggle at the image of the librarian checking on Jay and Ben in the library. "It turns out that she's a linguist and speaks five different languages. None of them are Taleth, but she's helping them figure out how to make the conversions."
"Jay texted you all that?" Doug asked, surprised at the information overload.
Evie rolled onto her stomach, kicking her feet lazily. "Not at once. Jay's been giving me a running commentary on their library adventure and I figured I should share the news so far with you guys."
Doug felt a small smile crawl onto his face. Her news didn't change his exhaustion levels, but he felt renewed somehow, almost hopeful. Jay and Ben were working too, Doug knew he couldn't let the program best him yet.
"How's the word search going, Mal?" Doug asked, remembering the small girl who'd been working diligently as well, though for a different purpose.
"I'm winning," She responded simply and smugly, pencil scratching against the paper as she found another word. After pausing for another beat, she asked, "What's a Kepler?"
Evie sat up, excited because she knew the answer to the question, a fact that Doug found very attractive. The word searches he'd printed out for Mal were themed around physics. Doug had been tickled by the idea of them when he stumbled across them online and was also as delighted as Evie that Mal was asking questions.
"Johannes Kepler is a famous physicist," Evie explained. "Kepler figured out that the planets don't move in circles but in ellipses around the sun. He also figured out that they move at different velocities and the magnitude of their velocity is dependent on their position relative to the sun."
"Oh," Mal scrunched her nose. She looked like she was about to give up on understanding Evie's answer and return to her word search when she suddenly asked, "What's a velocity?"
Evie chattered away and Doug watched as she attempted to explain the fundamentals of kinematic physics to a four-year-old. Doug shifted his eyes from his girlfriend to his friend who'd recently taken up residence on Doug's floor. Doug stretched out his leg and poked Kevin square in the shoulder blades.
"Come on," Doug encouraged Kevin with his words and his socked foot. "Let's get the computer to understand what happens when the Othila rune is followed by a Jera and then we can call it a night, yeah?"
A knock sounded on the door and Kevin sprung up. "If that's the angel with cookies, then it's a plan Doug-man."
Doug and Evie laughed as Kevin answered the door and embraced Lonnie who was in turn very surprised. Lonnie let Kevin remove the tray of cookies from her grasp and closed the door after making sure that Carlos was inside the room. Lonnie flopped on the bed next to Evie, almost landing on top of her.
"Hey there," Lonnie wiggled her eyebrows and both girls giggled. "We have plans this Friday."
"We do?" Evie arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "And they are?"
"You and me and Jane and Audrey are having a girls night. There's no backing out. I'd invite Mal if she weren't four." Lonnie shrugged.
Evie held out her hand, "Wait. Why? We're supposed to be mad at them. Well not mad anymore, but we're not on good terms with them yet."
"Okay, this is true. But Evie, this is important. Chad dumped Audrey for another girl. This is the second boyfriend that's done that to her within a year. She needs a girl intervention where we do what we want and not a single boy is mentioned for at least twelve hours. We're about the pass the Bechdel test so hard, girl." Lonnie explained, tapping her finger on Mal's word search to point out a word that she found. Mal circled the word, nodding her thanks.
"And Jane and Audrey will be okay with me being there?"
"Jane requested that you show up actually."
"What?"
Lonnie shrugged and pursed her lips, "Idk Evie, but it's happening. We're going to eat pizza and watch Netflix and play board games, mmm and eat pizza."
Carlos had grown bored of the boys and was climbing onto the bed to join the girls. "Hiya!" He greeted Evie and Mal.
"Hey there sweetheart," Evie ruffled his hair. "How was baking with Lonnie?"
"It was great!" Carlos burbled, sitting next to Mal and playing with her hair, a habit he'd recently developed after watching Jay braid her purple locks some mornings. "I got to pour in all the stuff and help mix it too! We made some of them look like hearts! We gave those to Jay and Ben before we got here though." Carlos nodded to himself, pleased. He looked down at Mal's word search. "What's a Kepler?" He asked and Evie let out a laugh as Mal started to explain to him before anyone else could.
The next day, as Lonnie promised, Evie was dragged to Lonnie's room where Jane and Audrey were already waiting in their pajamas, perusing movies on Netflix.
"Hey girls!" Lonnie greeted them. "Did you find a movie yet?"
Evie settled herself on the floor next to Audrey and was delightfully surprised that the atmosphere was relaxed and comfortable. Jane was filling Lonnie in on what movies she and Audrey had ruled out already.
"Evie," Audrey spoke, turning towards her. "Thanks for coming."
Evie shrugged, "It wasn't difficult. All I had to do was show up."
"Yeah, but you're one of the few girls who can relate to, you know," She gestured vaguely and Evie knew she meant Chad.
"Don't worry about it." Evie offered her a gentle smile, then joined in with Lonnie and Jane. "I think we should watch whatever while we wait for pizza to arrive and then eat it. Then I think we should bring out Ticket to Ride."
"What's that?" Audrey scrunched her perfect eyebrows together.
"Only the best train themed board game ever," Lonnie drawled, digging under her bed for a moment and holding up the box. "I just got the Europe version with train stations. I'm so excited! You'll love it Audrey, you too Jane. It's easy to learn—oh!" Lonnie broke herself off and grabbed her cell phone. "Let me order some pizza first though."
Evie clapped her hands together in excitement as Jane settled on a documentary about the world's most unnecessary animals. "Oh that sounds really fascinating," Evie said, applauding Jane's choice. Jane, in return, offered Evie a genuine smile.
Evie had a lot of realizations that night. As they happily ate the cheesy pizza and commented on the documentary, Evie realized that she was having a lot of fun. She also realized that she was comfortable with Jane and Audrey and she was grateful that Lonnie had forced her to go. She realized that this documentary was probably the coolest thing ever and she was going to have to watch more on her own time too.
However, just because she was on friendly terms with Jane and Audrey now didn't mean that she could let them beat her at Ticket to Ride. No way.
Ben couldn't stop laughing. He fell onto Jay's bed and clutched his sides as he wheezed, desperate to refill his lungs with air. Evie giggled madly. Every time she thought that she'd calmed down, the giggles came back.
"I c-can't believe that sh-she—ha!" Ben gasped, attempting to communicate. "Oh my God." He took a deep breath, tears of mirth streaming down his face. Evie had just shown him the costumes that his mother had included in the box of clothes given to them over two months ago.
Evie nodded, "Uh huh!" She giggled again and then said, "We need to get pictures."
"Yes." Ben agreed. His eyes roamed over the Dalmatian onesie and the pink fairy wings. "It's so funny, it's almost rude." He laid a hand on his stomach, sore from how much laughing he'd just done.
"I've been trying to convince Jay to let me put them in them, but he's a grump," Evie said, admiring the glitter on the dress paired with the wings.
"Maybe with two of us we can convince him, yeah?" Ben suggested, wiggling his eyebrows comically.
"When they're back from the playground, we'll pounce," Evie said and put her hand out. "Team Scrapbook on three?"
Ben snorted at her mimicry of the tourney team's cheer and the fit of laughter started all over again. Ben stretched, feeling the soreness in his stomach muscles, finally calming down as Evie's phone started to ring.
"Oh, it's Doug!" Evie smiled at the screen. "I'm putting it on speaker phone, kay?"
Ben nodded and Evie clicked the appropriate buttons.
"WE DID IT!" A triumphant chorus of Doug and Kevin's voices blared from her phone. Evie was glad that she had put it on speaker phone instead of holding it to her ear.
"Did what?" Ben asked, meeting Evie's eyes hopefully.
"We know the spell!" and "We found it!" was intermingled with "Our program worked!" and "We're geniuses!"
Evie sucked in a breath, shocked and Ben covered his mouth with his hand as if afraid of his own response. It was official. Depending on the counter spell, Mal and Carlos could be returned to their own ages maybe even as soon as by the end of the week.
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Ayyyee guess which girl did really well on her Physics final? :D In celebration of bringing up my GPA, I wrote a little more in this chapter than I normally do. Also there's lots of fluff and time skips. BUT! We're finally there! Mal and Carlos will be turned back soon! :o But the story isn't over yet, not even close. I have plans, dear readers, plans.
I want to warn you that I might be a little late on next week's update (not sure). I'm a counselor for this camping trip my college does for incoming freshman so this entire week I will be without a laptop or even internet connection. I will do my best to get a chapter done, but the next chapter is kind of important so I want to take some time writing it. I promise to do my best, but please don't get mad if I'm not on time. :(
Also thank you so much for your reviews! I love all of them, they mean so much to me!
Question: If you could choose an AU to live your life in, which one would you choose?
I would definitely go coffee shop AU. I literally went to the same coffee shop every morning this summer but other than one of the baristas complimenting my eyeliner, I didn't get a coffee shop AU. :( Well there's always next semester right?
Updates on Sundays!
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