Nora tossed her head back and let out a sigh, rolling her neck to the side and letting her blond hair slide past her neck and fall across her shoulders. After a moment she opened her eyes, licked her lips and smiled. "One more."

"Coming right up," Sally said, refilling her small shot glass until it was brimming with cinnamon schnapps. Sally poured herself a small shot of butterscotch schnapps instead and lifted it to Nora in a toast.

"To becoming alcoholics," Sally suggested.

Nora made a face, but clinked her glass against Sally's. "Really? I don't think we're that bad. It's only been twice so far this month."

"The way things are going now?" Sally asked, taking her shot in one go and shivering with delight from the warm, sugary rush, "I'm actually totally fine with becoming a bit of an alchy. For a while."

Nora heavily-lidded her eyes and smiled at that, letting her eyes slip shut after a moment as she leaned her head sideways onto her shoulder the way she did when she was buzzing. Sally liked to see her this way—the other woman was so rarely able to unwind and relax. "You feeling good?" Nora asked her, her eyes still shut.

"I'm a total heavy-weight, so I'm gonna have to play catch-up with you a little," Sally noted, taking another swig from the butterscotch bottle to try to match Nora's feel-good level of tipsy.

"Get on it, then!" Nora playfully chastised, sitting upright and looking over at Sally again. "I don't want to be the only alchy here."

"So eager, all of the sudden!" Sally teased.

It was no secret that Josh and Nora had had an argument earlier that day. Sally had heard the unhappy, raised voices in her room down the hall and was certain Aidan, with his super vampire hearing, had gotten wind of it too. Or, he would probably have, if he was paying attention anymore. He seemed perpetually dazed and a little slow now, which she couldn't blame him for.

Nora had approached her later, during what Sally knew to be "feeding time" for the boys, and that was how they'd gotten into the alcohol cabinet at four in the afternoon on a weekday. Nora was already done with her hospital shift, Sally was unemployed as ever, and Josh had slipped away to be alone after leaving Aidan, apparently upset or angry about something. He'd cast the pair of them a look, lingered for just a moment at the sight of them drinking together at the kitchen table, and gave a small two-fingered wave before he shut himself away upstairs. Aidan hadn't been up from the basement yet, either.

"I want to go for a walk," Nora said decisively, getting up and looking around for her jacket. She found it crumpled up on a chair in the living room and went over to snag it. Sally paused for a moment, wondering what to do with her drink, and Sally waved her on. "Brown-bag it!" she said. "No one will care."

"Damn straight," Sally said, doing as she was told and capping the schnapps. A moment later Nora, Sally, and a very stereotypical crumpled-up grocery bag of liquor were walking down the front steps into the overcast autumn afternoon. Without a word they hung a right and started down the sidewalk, their feet carrying them in an undisclosed direction.

For a while everything was perfect. Sally took long, generous drags from her bottle, and the one time Nora asked for a sip the other woman almost spit it out. "Ugh!" she exclaimed, shivering. "Oh, that's way too sweet! How can you drink that?"

"Oh, like you should talk! Your beverage of choice is like willingly doing the cinnamon challenge over and over!"

Nora hadn't known what the "cinnamon challenge" was, and the girls spent a slow-progressing part of their walk looking at videos of people trying, and failing not to throw up after dining on spoonfuls of pure cinnamon. Their uproarious laughter was getting some dirty looks from denizens in nearby apartments and pointed sighs as people on the sidewalk weaved around them.

"Why would someone willingly put themselves through that?" Nora asked, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes as Sally pocketed her phone and finished off the last of her schnapps.

"For one, it's the internet. For another, you're pretty much doing the same thing!"

Sally tossed her empty bottle and bag in a public trash bin as Nora defended her choice of alcohol. They lapsed into a comfortable, buzzy silence as they walked, and Sally noted with deep satisfaction that she'd finally met her freaky new body's inebriation quota. The world swam pleasantly and her extremities felt warm and tingly.

"I just don't know how to deal with him, sometimes," Nora said, seemingly out of nowhere. Sally, though working a good buzz now, didn't even have to think to know who she was talking about. It was unfortunate that a very nice girl's night of drunken frolicking had turned into a discussion about boys, but Sally could hardly deny Nora this when she had so much on her plate.

"It's okay," she said, walking a little unsteadily so she was closer to Nora, and patting her shoulder. "None of us do."

"Aidan does," Nora replied without a beat. Sally paused before continuing, aware again that they were on dangerous ground here.

There was no denying that Aidan and Josh had their weird friendship down to an art, so it would ring false for Sally to try to tell Nora she was wrong. Instead she tried to minimize it, and waved her hand in the air. "Only sometimes. And plus, he's got a good few centuries more of experience with people."

It had been a really good point, but Sally's heart sank when Nora shook her head. "I'm not talking about 'people,' though. I'm talking about Josh." Sally opened her mouth to retort, but Nora put her hand up. "God, I'm sorry. I don't mean to unload on you like this. Or to be so negative. You're just trying to make me feel better, and I love you for it."

Sally's face twisted into an embarrassed, but very pleased smile at the hefty compliment and show of affection. "Don't worry about it. You need someone to talk to. We all do."

Nora gave her a small, sad smile and leaned her shoulder into Sally gently. Sally tried not to topple over, not because Nora had hit her too hard (she hadn't) but because her own feet didn't seem to want to keep her headed on a linear path. Nora, spotting this, chuckled and wrapped an arm around her shoulders while they walked. It was comfortable, natural and calm to sling her arm around the small of Nora's back and walk in sync with her down the sidewalk.

"How've you been?" Nora asked her. "I haven't seen Max around lately."

The mention of the mortician served to puncture a decent-sized hole in Sally's happy bubble, but she did her best to brush it off. "He's around, I'm sure. Just not… around me."

Nora picked up on it immediately and cringed. "Oh, Sally. I'm sorry, I didn't realize." After an uncomfortable pause, Nora ventured, "Do you… want to talk about what happened?"

Sally made a face and twisted a little, not quite a shrug. "I mean, it's no secret. Except, that's exactly it. We broke up because of secrets. Too many of 'em, I guess." Nora was frowning at the side of her face, which Sally could see from the corner of her eye, so she elaborated. "You know, the night with Liam? … Of course you know. Well, thing is, Max was sort of… with me, at the house, when Aidan and Josh got back." She could feel Nora stiffen up with horror beside her and rushed to reassure her. "Don't worry," she said, locking eyes with Nora and putting her free hand up. "He doesn't know anything. He thought maybe they were involved in a shoot-out. Only… because I told him Josh's and Aidan's secrets weren't mine to tell, he… I guess he's fed up now. I haven't heard from him since."

Nora closed her eyes and shook her head, and Sally hurried to shrug. "I can't blame him, honest to God. Lord knows that boy put up with more than enough crap from me."

"No," Nora said with surprising vehemence. It took Sally completely off-guard when Nora stopped them, whirled Sally around to face her, and held her in place with a hard grip on both of her shoulders. "Absolutely not. You are amazing, okay?" At Sally's bewildered, taken aback look, Nora repeated herself again, emphasizing each syllable. "A-ma-zing. He shouldn't have gotten mad at you for protecting information your friends can't share. Especially not after you told him your own most carefully-guarded one. He—he doesn't deserve you." Nora dropped her arms from Sally's shoulders abruptly and turned away, shrugging hard. "Simple as that."

Sally was utterly at a loss for what to say. "Jeez, Nora," she said, trying to keep it light although she was flustered and deeply flattered, "Too bad you're engaged and neither of us is gay. That's gotta be the sweetest thing anyone ever said to me."

"Well, you deserve it," Nora said decisively. "You haven't been lucky, when it comes to significant others."

"Look who's talking!" Sally said, wanting to give Nora some credit here. "Though you lucked out with Josh. He adores you."

Sally had been hoping to get the girlish, heavy-lidded smile Nora sometimes wore when they spoke of Josh, that almost shy look. Instead Nora let out a soft sigh and let the word, "yeah," ride out on the end of it.

Sally studied her profile for a moment, letting her think for a time before she gave her a gentle nudge with her shoulder. "Still upset about Josh and Aidan and their epic bromance?" she teased lightly, though her eyebrows were knitted together with concern.

Nora gave her half a smile and shrugged. "It's almost refreshingly common a problem, isn't it? The fiance feeling threatened by her future husband's best friend. If only there wasn't this supernatural element to it, I could almost deal." She shook her head. "There's… so much to it. I don't want Josh to get hurt. I'm scared to death for Aidan. What if he never gets better?" She glanced up at Sally apologetically, but Sally just nodded. Aidan was a sore subject for all three of them, Josh and herself in particular, but she didn't want to avoid the topic like they could make it go away by not speaking of it. Aidan was in life-threatening danger, and that was all there was to it.

"I can understand why Josh feels the way he does," Sally said. "And I do think he knows himself well enough to be telling the truth when he says he needs to do this."

"I understand that, too," Nora said. "I'm glad he explained it to me that way—that he'd be hurt so much worse in the long run if he didn't keep doing what he's doing. I can certainly relate." She frowned harder and shook her head. "I just… I don't know what will happen if Aidan doesn't make it." Sally felt like she was on the edge of understanding Nora, but wasn't quite there, so she remained quiet and let her continue. "If he dies… I don't see how Josh will ever recover."

"He'll have us," Sally said, reaching out and giving Nora's arm a squeeze. "More importantly, and more specifically, he'll have you."

"He will," Nora affirmed. "Always. But I'm starting to realize, more and more, that… I won't be able to pick up the pieces after Aidan. They have something, the two of them, that Josh and I will never be able to achieve. I don't think I can repair the fallout of that kind of loss."

Sally frowned, shaking her head and picking her words carefully. "... You can't mean that you think Josh and Aidan are closer than you and Josh are."

"Can't I?" Nora asked, not challengingly, but more a simple, confused question.

"You're his future wife. I mean, I assume you and he have plans to make adorable possibly-werewolf possibly-not babies together, do the whole white picket fence thing."

Nora smiled sadly. "Always more of Josh's area of expertise, the whole homemaker thing, but… yeah. That's what he wants for us."

"What about what you want?"

"Don't get me wrong. I want it. I want to be happy with him—I want him to be mine." Sally knew there was a "but" coming, and sure enough: "But honest, Sally? I don't think he is."

It confused her on so many levels, but somewhere inside, on an uncomfortable level, what Nora was saying was ringing true. Still, she couldn't let her friend torture herself without going down swinging. "Josh loves you," Sally said, quietly.

"I know," Nora said, her voice full of feeling. She smiled, finally, that shy, girlish smile with her blonde eyelashes fluttering low over her eyes. "I will never, ever doubt that he loves me." Sally gave her a small smile, already knowing what was coming next. "I only… I just don't think he's mine. If that even makes sense."

Sally realized, with a pang, that even when there were no supernatural secrets between partners, any relationship was bound to be rife with difficulties. The autumn air snuck through her jacket, just a little colder than it had been before, and Sally pulled her coat tighter around her to try to block it out.