Karen/Mary – Beta theme set
-------------------------------------------------------
#01 – Walking
Whenever she sees Mary amble slowly past the Supermarket with her nose in a book, she'll hurry out after her and make sure she doesn't walk into anything – and sometimes call look out, just to be mean.
#02 – Waltz
"I really think you should go home and sleep when you're this drunk," Mary declares, dropping to her bed, breathless and flushed from being waltzed crazily around the room by Karen.
#03 – Wishes
"Karen, swallowing the worm at the bottom of the tequila bottle symbolizes valour; it doesn't grant you a wish."
#04 – Wonder
The first time they met – through Elli, who had been over to say hello to the new family as soon as she saw a quiet dark-haired girl near her own ten years or age – they both wondered, baffled, where the little brunette got the idea that they would get along really well, because there were hardly two people more different in the world.
#05 – Worry
And even though she never knew just how it happened, her and Mary not getting along all that well because they're just too different went from being a fact to something to worry about.
#06 – Whimsy
"Of course it's silly," Mary huffs; "It's a fairy tale."
#07 - Waste/Wasteland
Mary nods thoughtfully, but still secretly disagrees when Karen flashes back in anger that drinking might be a waste of money, but writing's an even bigger waste of time; at least, when she spends a whole day writing, she has something to show for it besides a huge headache.
#08 - Whiskey and rum
Sometimes, it annoys Karen that she's the avid wine connoisseur, but Mary's the one who can throw back a shot of straight whiskey or rum without coughing and sputtering; other times, she's too busy giggling at the face Mary makes when someone dares her to do it, to care.
#09 – War
Just now, they're not speaking, because Karen's still a little raw over losing Rick's attention to that new girl who's running the farm, and Mary retracted her invitation to go to the fireworks together, because she doesn't like being a consolation prize.
#10 – Weddings
But at least they've made up in time to dance at Elli's wedding beneath the curious, alarmed, amused, or intrigued gazes of the rest of the town, and the beaming delight of the bride, who swears she saw this coming.
#11 – Birthday
Karen gave her a bottle of wine for her birthday last year, so just to get her back, Mary gives her a beautiful hardcover book on the history of winemaking for them to read together; and even though neither of them will ever admit it, both secretly cherished their gifts from the other more than anything else they got.
#12 – Blessing
Somehow, it's a lot easier for her to be happy for Rick and Claire – give her blessing, two old childhood friends joke together – when she remembers that she and Mary planned to meet tomorrow and go looking for grasses.
#13 – Bias
Even though he and Claire are an old married couple by now – six months, after all – Mary still develops a spontaneous craving for barbecued chicken wings, made with the feathered denizens of the Poultry Farm, whenever Rick and Karen laugh and talk like the rest of the world doesn't exist anymore, because how could any man not be madly in love with Karen?
#14 – Burning
"You'd think that even if neither of us can cook, having your mom to help us would make it edible, at least," Karen said mournfully, chin in her hands, as Mary poked at the blackened lump proudly displayed on one of Anna's dainty little cake plates.
#15 – Breathing
The first time Karen kissed her, she felt her heart springing up into her throat, and it took her a long time to remember how to breathe again.
#16 – Breaking
Anna and Sasha are a little worried about them, these two beautiful young women who were children the day before last, because Mary seems so sweet and pliable but becomes more immovable the more she's pushed, and Karen doesn't even try to give the impression that she's agreeable, and everyone knows that what doesn't bend will break; but Jeff isn't so worried, because he thinks that they'll teach one another to bend.
#17 – Belief
Mary isn't completely sure if she really believes in the Harvest Goddess or not; Karen isn't completely sure why Mary's wasting her time worrying about it.
#18 – Balloon
Mary doesn't know why it struck her as so funny, but when she ran into Karen making balloon animals for Stu and May, she spent the rest of the day giggling, despite Karen's angry protests that it's not that funny.
#19 – Balcony
Basil's starting to wish they hadn't added that second-floor balcony, because one of these days, Karen's going to hurt herself scaling it being Mary's Romeo.
#20 – Bane
It's great that Saibara's grandson has this sudden, burning thirst for knowledge and literature, Karen thinks, sulking in the corner of the Supermarket as Gray blushes and stammers his way through a conversation with Mary, but does he have to make it so damn blatant?
#21 – Quiet
Whenever she hears people describing Karen as noisy, she thinks that they should spend a day with her when she's sulking; like today – Mary considers herself lucky to have gotten more than a few words out of her.
#22 – Quirks
"There are some people who thinks quirks like that are cute," Mary informs Ann, blushing brightly and frowning darkly, when the redhead shakes her head with some comment about how Karen's keeping them in business single-handedly.
#23 – Question
Karen thinks she might have to get used to this, Mary's tendency to ask a question just for the sake of asking it, because she's been raised to answer questions when she hears them, even if it's just with an "I don't know, and why does it matter, anyway?"
#24 – Quarrel
And she'd get used to it soon, because even though she doesn't mean it to sound annoyed or dismissive of Mary's thoughts and opinions, it's been the source of more than one fight.
#25 – Quitting
"It's kind of funny," Rick points out, hiding a grin, "that you decided right away that you should change the way you are, and stop doing it if it hurts Mary's feelings – a year ago, you would have said she should just grow a thicker skin and stop being offended by it."
#26 – Jump
It's become Karen's new favourite game, sneaking up on Mary when she's reading intently, deeply immersed in her own little world to the exclusion of this one, and seeing if she how high she'll jump today when Karen brushes a little kiss over the back of her neck.
#27 – Jester
"That wasn't funny," Mary announces, pouting and trying to slow her racing heart; Karen, snickering madly away from her perch on the library desk, seems to disagree.
#28 – Jousting
"There's no way in hell I'm learning jousting," Karen declares flatly when Mary's pink-cheeked, starry-eyed description of the book she'd just finished comes to a close; "I got enough bruises scaling your balcony."
#29 – Jewel
Mary blushes sweetly when Karen gives her the ruby necklace Saibara just finished for her and asks if she'll wear it for their next date; when Karen continues, and nothing else, she turns bright, blazing red, but doesn't refuse.
#30 – Just
However, as she points out to Karen, leaning over the edge of the Hot Spa, chin resting on her hands, it's not fair if she's the only one wandering around with no clothes on.
#31 – Smirk
Karen smirks a little as she starts pulling off her own clothes, but then Mary climbs, dripping wet, out of the steaming water, and Karen gets a good look, and her smirk fades into something dazed, hungry, and a little terrified.
#32 – Sorrow
When Rick finds one of Starrynight Farm's chicken's dead and finds his wife too busy to mourn properly, he seeks out his oldest friend, and ends up being trapped in the middle of a group-hug as Mary and Karen both offer their consolation for the sake of the dear, departed, poorly-named BBQ; and it's just as well that he doesn't notice Karen grabbing Mary's nicely rounded little backside, behind his back.
#33 – Stupidity
"I think it's kind of sweet, actually, the way those chickens mean so much to him," Mary admits once Rick has left, and Karen apologizes for such a fuss over a dumb chicken; and now she's giggling madly as Karen pulls a long face and launches into a requiem mass for BBQ.
#34 – Serenade
She'd be a lot more horrified, that Karen chose to bring the party to her by standing outside her bedroom window and belting out an impassioned love song, if Karen wasn't one of those rare people who sings better with a few pints in her than most people do sober.
#35 – Sarcasm
Between the two of them, Popuri's never entirely sure if she's being made fun of, because it's bad enough that Karen's not being serious more than half the time, without Mary picking up on it too; neither girl has the heart to tell Pops that it's Mary who's passed it onto Karen.
#36 – Sordid
"I dare you to write a really hot, sleazy story about us someday," Karen snickers, and Mary gives her a tranquil little smile and goes home and does it.
#37 – Soliloquy
"But why would he just sit there, pouring out his soul in the middle of an empty park?" Karen asks, baffled, and Mary huffs in annoyance that she's missing the point of a soliloquy.
#38 – Sojourn
"You know," Karen eventually calls mildly after two hours in a bookstore, "this isn't exactly what I had in mind when you invited me on a trip to the city."
#39 – Share
"Wow, you two are so lucky!" Popuri squeals when Mary emerges, hastily dressed, in shorts and a purple vest, and Karen emerges likewise hastily dressed and very annoyed in a blue pleated jumper and blouse; "I can't share clothes with my special someone!"
#40 – Solitary
It would take a very close observer, well familiar with both girls, to know that they're not angry with each other, that they love more devotedly than ever despite the fact that they're a foot apart and not saying a word; each girl wrapped up in her own thoughts, both able to find solitude in the other's presence.
#41 – Nowhere
"I don't know if there's anywhere that would call that appropriate," Mary admits, trying not to laugh, when Karen drags from her closet a nightmarish creation of salmon-pink frills and the occasional grass-green bow that was once a bridesmaid dress for a cousin's wedding, and asks if Mary thinks she'll ever find a place to wear it again.
#42 – Neutral
Kai always likes to say teasingly that it's so hard to know who to side with when they have a fight, because a guy's got to side with the lady, it's only polite, but they're both the lady; Rick, who's known Karen long enough to know better, always sides with Mary.
#43 – Nuance
Karen doesn't read a lot, but she knows good writing when she sees it, and she suspects that it's in all those details Mary throws in.
#44 – Near
"You don't have to talk if you don't want to," Mary sobs, clinging tightly to her lover the day they get the news that Basil's father, after a long illness, has passed away; "Just don't go away."
#45 – Natural
Mary is the only person in Mineral Town who really believes that those gorgeous pale gold highlights in Karen's hair are completely natural; she's also the only person who wouldn't snicker just a little bit at the idea of Karen, who has no time for that crap, using hair dye.
#46 – Horizon
It's beautiful up on Goddess Peak this time of the morning, even if both of them are too occupied with...other things to notice the view.
#47 – Valiant
"Don't be a hero, Karen; she'll look up eventually,but Mary really doesn't like people taking her book," Basil says nervously, rolling up his sleeve to reveal a long, jagged scar when Karen, exasperated by half an hour waiting for her girlfriend to notice her, makes a move to pull that book away from an avidly reading Mary.
#48 – Virtuous
Maybe it's just because she's in a bad mood right now, but Karen strongly suspects that Mary isn't nagging her to give up drinking for her health, but because she doesn't like the idea that her girlfriend is the only person in Mineral Town who can drink Duke, Doug, and Saibara under the table in one night.
#49 – Victory
"Okay, Mary, if it's that important to you, I'll give up wine for a season, just to show you that I can," Karen grumbles good-naturedly, and Mary's satisfied, beaming smile is so fiendishly cute that she ends up feeling like she won, after all.
#50 – Defeat
Mary only had a little bit of time to bask in her victory before the defeat, when Basil offered to buy both girls a drink over at Doug's tonight; and as Karen sends her a hopeful sideways glance, she sighs: Well, it was nice while it lasted...all thirty seconds.
---------------------------------------------------
End Notes: Darnit! I'm really starting to like the lovely Miss Karen. Who woulda thought? Oh, well; I guess there are worse things than liking all the characters. XD