AN: This picks up immediately after 3.17, Black to White. It will probably make no sense if you've yet to read it.

RILEY'S RESIDENCE

LA

Thirty-nine minutes after she'd sent that text to Jill and Beth, Riley padded out of her bedroom, in stylish geometric-print pyjama pants and a comfy T-shirt with a stylized motherboard on it that Bozer had given her for Christmas with her hair in a messy half-bun, half-ponytail monstrosity that kept it off her face, and opened her front door. Standing on the other side was Beth, wearing a soft-looking flannel dress over leggings with her hair in two braids and carrying a giant navy canvas tote bag.

The doctor gave a slightly awkward, but sad and sweet little smile, and held up her arms.

'Do you want a hug? The oxytocin might make you feel a little better…'

Riley just stepped forward and hugged her. Beth rubbed her back, and let her hold on as long as she wanted.

After she let go of the smaller woman, Riley ambled back over to the couch, rearranging some of the cushions absent-mindedly and pulling out a throw blanket from under the coffee table.

Meanwhile, Beth took off her boots and started unpacking her truly huge bag. She pulled out six Tupperware containers of mac'n'cheese (without kale), an insulated lunch box into which she'd packed no fewer than five pints of Ben & Jerry's along with two ice blocks, a Thermos that contained the horchata she'd made according to the recipe given to her by a med school friend, a Thermos that contained the best approximation of Bozer's secret-recipe special hot chocolate she could manage, a tightly-rolled set of PJs, her purse (which Riley knew contained not only the stuff you might expect a woman to carry in there– phone, wallet, tissues, lip balm, hand lotion etc. – but also a first aid kit, and a pretty good one too) and what looked like a mini mani-pedi kit with three colours of nail polish.

Riley just stared incredulously at the array of items that'd appeared on her kitchen counter.

(How in the world had Beth fit all of that in the bag, large as it was?)

The doctor noticed her looking as she finished putting the ice-cream in the freezer and gave a little shrug and a smile, half-sheepish, half-proud.

'I'm pretty good at packing…'

Riley looked at the pile of stuff again in disbelief.

'Yeah…I can see that.'

Beth pulled out a mug from one of the cupboards and poured a generous measure of hot chocolate into it, before passing the mug to Riley, who smiled in thanks and took a sip.

(It wasn't quite as good as Bozer's, but Beth made a great hot chocolate.)

She held up her neatly-rolled pyjamas.

'The PJs were a requirement for the evening, right?'

Riley gave a solemn little nod, a smile playing on the corners of her lips, and Beth smiled back and headed to the bathroom to change.

A couple of minutes later, Beth, now wearing light blue pyjama pants adorned with navy hearts and a T-shirt that said, 'Obey gravity. It's the law!', walked out of the bathroom, just as Riley opened the door for Jill, in yoga pants and a T-shirt and carrying a six-pack of Mike's Hard Lemonade and a family-sized bag of pretzels.

The blonde analyst grinned at the doctor.

'I love your T-shirt!'

Riley just shook her head with a fond, teasing little smile.

'Nerds.'

Jill put a hand on her hip and cocked it, raising an eyebrow.

'Said the pot to the kettle.'

THIRTY MINUTES LATER

There were three empty bowls that'd once held mac'n'cheese on the coffee table, along with the lids to three bottles of Mike's Hard Lemonade and the opened packet of pretzels.

Jill, wearing a flannel PJ set with a unicorn print, the top open to reveal the purple tank-top she had on underneath, pointed very seriously at Beth.

(Favourite MCU movie was a very serious topic. One that merited not giving Iron Man – which was playing in the background on Riley's TV – their full attention. )

'The Avengers, of course!'

Riley pursed her lips in thought for a moment, before giving a very dry response.

'Not Age of Ultron.' The other two made noises of agreement. 'Ant-Man is pretty awesome…' She made a face. 'At least until I realized how much Kurt looks like a certain nemesis of Mac's…' She could see the moment the realization hit the other two women, who both made hilariously-similar faces of disgust. Jill tossed a cushion at her from the other end of the couch. From the nest she'd made for herself on the floor with a couple of cushions and the throw blanket, Beth narrowed her eyes at the dark-haired hacker. Riley just held up her hands. 'Hey, if I have to live with it, so do you.'

Beth sucked the last of the spoonful of Bourbon Pecan Pie ice-cream off her spoon, then took the cutlery out of her mouth and pointed at Riley with it.

'…Peter Parker has a seriously incredible T-shirt collection and is also adorable.'

The mention of Spider-Man's T-shirt collection brought a little laugh to Riley (of course Beth would say something like that, given her own science-joke T-shirt collection), but after taking another bite of Chocolate Therapy, she pointed back at the doctor with her own spoon.

'He's also kinda an idiot.'

Jill nodded, but felt compelled to add something after swallowing her mouthful of Cherry Garcia.

'He's a fifteen-year-old boy. They're all idiots at that age.'

(Jack's neighbour's son Thomas was a case in point.)

Beth swiped her spoon across the top of her pint of ice-cream, watching Captain America: The First Avenger out of the corner of her eye as she replied.

(Apparently, even someone who had to have seen a lot of half-naked and naked males of the species – and some really fine specimens at that; Jill was right about them working with an uncommonly large number of attractive people – was not completely immune to the wonder that was shirtless Chris Evans.)

(Riley and Jill looked too, of course. Though there was a little something in the blonde analyst's eyes that Riley was definitely not going to ask about.)

(She was sure Alex looked very good shirtless, but there were some things she'd really rather not know.)

'To be fair, most fifteen year olds, regardless of gender, are.'

Riley gave a little snort.

'Oh, yeah, I can tell you stories from when I was fifteen…'

As the closing credits for Captain America: The First Avengers played, Beth and Jill were locked in an honestly pretty pointless (but highly amusing to Riley) debate.

'…well, yes, it's not a great film when you watch it the first time, but after you return to it after the sequels-'

'But that doesn't make it a great film when you watch it on its own! Ergo, it is not a great film-'

'It was never meant to stand alone, so-'

Riley, as she made her way back over from the kitchen with three warmed mugs of horchata, decided to intervene, before this got really out of hand.

'Well, if we're talking origin stories…how amazing was Captain Marvel?'

There were now three empty bottles of Mike's Hard Lemonade on the coffee table, and The Avengers was playing in the background.

'…the concept of the nation-state is fundamentally flawed.'

'In the sense that you can divide every so-called nation into continually smaller nations?'

'I'm still not sold on the idea that the concept of the nation-state is responsible for much of the conflict in the world today; I'd argue that even prior to the existence of such a concept, people have always used the whole they're-different-from-us argument as a smokescreen and an excuse for conflict…'

'While really fighting over resources?'

'Exactly.'

'…He keeps stealing them!' Jill was holding a bobby pin between her thumb and her forefinger as she complained about Alex's bad habit. 'I bought a whole new box last month, and they're all gone!'

Beth and Riley winced in sympathy. Bobby pins inevitably went missing, but a whole box in a month? That was something else.

The doctor tilted her head a little to the left.

'Have you tried buying him his own supply?'

Jill nodded, rolling her eyes with very exasperated affection.

'He still prefers to steal mine.'

Riley, meanwhile, smirked teasingly and tossed the half-empty bag of pretzels at the brunette.

'You're going to be putting up with that…and worse, one day. Hopefully soon.' Beth blushed furiously and just took a large handful of pretzels, stuffing a couple into her mouth. Jill giggled, a teasing look on her own face, as Riley's smirk widened for a bit, before she pointed at the doctor. 'You know, you could stop waiting for Mac to stop being a stupid genius and just ask him out yourself. It's the 21st century!'

Jill nodded in agreement.

'You go, girl!'

(She was a little tipsy. She'd had two hard lemonades and not that much of the mac'n'cheese. Riley was either going to have to call Alex to come get her or Jill would be crashing on her couch.)

Beth shook her head.

'I can't-'

'You are an amazing, brilliant, strong, beautiful-'

Beth shook her head again, cutting Jill off.

'No, I really, really can't. Ethically…even taking a loose definition, I am sometimes his doctor…'

Riley's expression grew very serious.

'If you can't say yes, you need to let him know, before…'

She trailed off. It was probably too late to save Mac from being broken-hearted. Cage had been very right, he was further gone than he realized.

But, of course, she had to try. He was family.

Beth shook her head in a way that seemed gentle, smiling at Riley for a moment, something soft in her eyes, before her expression grew more serious.

'I would, I swear, if…' Her cheeks pinked again, even as she kept looking Riley in the eye, face still serious. '…well, if I had to say no.' She gave a slightly awkward shrug. 'I know it seems arbitrary and doesn't make much sense, but…I'm drawing the line at asking, initiating or…pursuing. The Phoenix is special. Normal hospital and medical rules can't apply. With the pressure and the secrets and the danger, we're family. And…and I know now, that's a good thing; it can't be wrong. Ergo, neither are my…' Her cheeks darkened more. '…feelings.' Riley hid a smile behind her hand. Beth was really far gone too. The doctor gave a half-shrug. 'And anyway…either way, I'm emotionally compromised. As Dr Farnham puts it, if I kept trying to keep my distance and said no, all I'd be doing is denying myself happiness.'

Riley nodded.

'Fair enough. You are in an ethically difficult position.'

(And Mac really was a stupid genius, so this was going to take ages.)

(They'd probably go past adorable and into infuriating.)

(Maybe she should help Bozer out with his plot to lock them in the Phoenix's evidence locker.)

(It was the only place that Mac had ever taken more than half an hour to escape from that they had access to.)

Jill held a hand out for the pretzels, which Beth passed to her.

'Seriously, you are really, really good at compartmentalizing. I couldn't do it.'

Beth ducked her head at the praise, then shook it, self-deprecatingly, even a touch awkwardly.

'It's part of our training…'

As the end-credits shawarma scene played, Riley and Jill were slumped across the couch, and Beth had curled herself into a little ball in her nest.

Jill raised her head.

'This was an awesome girls' night in.'

Beth nodded in agreement.

'We should really do this again.' She glanced at Riley sheepishly. 'Minus the whole post-break-up portion, of course, sorry, Riley.'

The dark-haired woman just smiled and nodded.

'Yeah. Thanks for coming, guys.'

Beth and Jill exchanged a glance, then spoke in unison.

'What are girlfriends for?'

AN: I had to write a girls' night in story, I really had to! And yes, Murdoc is played by the same guy who plays Kurt in Ant-Man. You have no idea how much I freaked out when I discovered that. And it was so weird watching Ant-Man and the Wasp, seeing 'Murdoc' saying things like 'if it walks like duck and talks like duck, is duck' and being terrified of Baba Yaga.