(Mal)

Mal had reached a point in her studying where the sound of her pencil scraping over the paper irritated her beyond belief, and she couldn't remember why she had wanted to actually do the assignments. Groaning, she set her pencil down before she snapped it in half, leaning her elbows on the surface of the table and threading her fingers through her purple hair as she tried to relax enough to continue. I can do this. It shouldn't be this difficult. Only, it was, and she couldn't help but feel incompetent for being a seventeen-year old who could barely even write a single sentence without wanting to murder someone.

It didn't help that her mind kept wandering to the horrors that haunted her subconscious, the memories that bombarded her mind whenever she closed her eyes and allowed sleep to take over. She wouldn't be surprised if someone told her she looked worse for wear despite being well on the way to recovery – at least, that's what she was told – and it was solely because her nightmares kept getting worse. Ever since she had learned that Head was growing impatient she had been watching everything more closely, waiting for him to make his next move, determined to be well prepared for whatever disaster he brought with him. However, constantly expecting trouble was becoming consistently more difficult as she finally gave into the luring of the peaceful and welcoming life she now lived, her friends calming her and making her feel nothing but secure and protected. She knew that wasn't her reality, though, she knew something would eventually come to shatter everything that had been built here, and she definitely wasn't excited for it to happen. But still; she needed to be prepared because, whatever Head was planning, it wouldn't be small.

She let another sigh fall passed her lips as her eyelids fluttered to obscure her green eyes. I need to learn how to concentrate. The fact that the blue-haired princess who had crawled into her daily life never seemed to leave her mind didn't help because, whenever she wasn't worrying about her past life merging with the present, she was too caught up in confusing thoughts of the beautiful girl. She didn't know what to think around the girl, let alone how to act, and she was still trying to figure out how one person could melt her straight into nonexistence as simply as Evie did.

Needless to say, concentration was no longer a strong point for Mal.

"Difficult problem?"

The sound of the deep, smooth voice that belonged to the girl who had just been flashing through her mind startled Mal, and she snapped her head up so quickly that she tweaked her neck, and she found her hand reaching to the back of her neck to rub the victimized area as her green eyes locked on the unique red-brown of Evie's. She couldn't see herself, but she knew she looked terrified and flushed, the idea of the girl appearing when she had been all but daydreaming about her not sitting well with her, especially given the fact that the girl could often read everything going through her head.

"You could say that," Mal replied, fingers still digging gently into the muscle she had abused.

Evie studied her for a moment, red-brown eyes flickering over her in a way that made Mal feel as though she were completely exposed – and yet it was in a way that gave her comfort. Again, another thing she failed to understand.

"Anything I could possibly help with?" Evie asked as she set her bag on the end of her bed.

I'm sure you could help with any problem on this damned worksheet. Mal loosed a breath. "More than likely, but you don't…"

Evie shushed her as she moved toward the table, grabbing hold of the unoccupied chair and pulling it closer to Mal's – too close, almost. Mal forced herself to breathe evenly as the warmth of the girl's body radiated onto her side, not wanting to be questioned about any unnatural behavior. She still wasn't entirely sure how this type of thing worked, but she was sure the way her body always acted around Evie wasn't the usual response for friends.

It was only then – only after the girl had gotten close – that Mal realized she hadn't felt the warning the magical connection gave of Evie's approach, the warmth that always spread through her when she was within twenty-feet of the girl completely dormant as she entered. It was why the girl had been able to startle her. She pushed the thought aside, figuring she had just been too caught up in her own mind to notice any shift in energy.

Mal watched as Evie gracefully plucked the abandoned pencil from the table and pressed the tip against the paper, her heart fluttering when the girl cast a glance over her shoulder.

"Are you paying attention?" Evie questioned, lips curved into a smile that made it difficult for Mal to focus on anything else.

Mal nodded, not knowing if her voice would work. And she tried – to the best of her ability – to pay attention, but the warmth of the girl as her arm brushed lightly against Mal's chest and the way blue hair perfectly framed a remarkable jawline, it was all too distracting; the girl was too distracting. It drove Mal insane.

It had all started after the first time she had allowed herself to accept the comfort of Evie's arms, the day the girl had discovered the scars circling her wrists and she had attempted to shut her out by locking herself in the bathroom. Something had shifted between them, shifted inside Mal, and it had failed to dissipate over the two weeks it had been since that morning. The tug she had always felt toward Evie due to the connection was now a constant lure, her mind and body craving constant unbreakable contact with the girl, craving everything to do with her. Where she had been wary and adroit, she was now content and inept; where she had been frustrated and aggressive, she was now euphoric and passive. And she wouldn't think anything of it had the shift occurred between everyone she had grown close to, but it hadn't; only with Evie, it was always only with Evie. She could call it friendship, but something about that word didn't exactly feel right when thinking about the elegant and beautiful princess beside her, and yet she had nothing else to title it; she was left hopelessly uncertain of everything she felt when it came to Evie.

"Did you get that?" Evie asked, glancing back over her shoulder with an arched eyebrow.

Frantically, Mal nodded, though something inside her told her that Evie already knew she definitely hadn't heard a single word she had said. With the heat settling beneath her skin she wondered how red she had turned, and she only felt Evie's giggle to be confirmation that she appeared as ashamed and embarrassed as she felt.

She cleared her throat, knowing she couldn't lie to Evie, not when the girl always seemed to know the truth. "I'm sorry. I spaced out."

"Is math really that boring to you?" Evie questioned with another entrancing giggle, shifting back in her seat so that her arm pressed against Mal's. "Or am I that boring?"

"No!" Mal panicked, the solo word ripping from her lips a little too quickly. "I just… I haven't really gone to school before. I don't…" she trailed off for a moment, not wanting the girl to know how truly incompetent she was. "I don't even know how to do the simplest equations."

"That's not an issue," Evie smiled at her brightly, and she nearly choked on her own spit in surprise, having not expected the girl to brush the new information off her shoulders as if it were completely normal. "Here, let me show you everything."

"Is it a lot?" Mal questioned, swallowing the thick lump that had formed in her throat.

Evie laughed, tilting her head back with the action. "It's almost too much."

"Oh," Mal breathed out, not sure what else to say.

Not knowing what else to do – and not being able to tear her gaze from the mesmerizing girl beside her – Mal watched as Evie leaned over the table and slid a pile of unused papers closer to her, grabbing the one on top and placing it over the assignment in front of them. She studied the way long eyelashes curled; she studied the way tan skin moved over a strong jaw whenever the muscle underneath shifted; she studied the way glossed lips formed the sound of different numbers as an elegant hand printed them onto the smooth surface of the paper. But the numbers weren't her concern, and she didn't glance down once to see if she could recognize any of them, instead watching as slender fingers reached upward to tuck the hair that had broken free from its restraints to fall over a flawless face back behind a small ear. What is happening to me? She asked herself, forcing herself to look away from the gorgeous girl and toward the door as she shut her eyes in attempt to ignore every foreign feeling living deep in her veins.

"Okay, if you take these two numbers and add them together, what do you get?"

Green eyes slid over the paper before her, focusing on the two numbers Evie had elegantly crafted with looped lines. Even her writing is beautiful, Mal groaned internally, starting to wonder if she was even awake, or if everything she had lived through in Auradon was merely a dream. She forced herself to focus, taking in the numbers on the page and working her mind to figure out the answer.

"Eight?" Mal guessed, starting to worry that she didn't understand the question asked.

"See, you're better than you thought," Evie announced, her radiant smile reaching her eyes.

"I am?" Mal asked, arching her eyebrow at the girl, not entirely sure she believed her.

Evie nodded, shifting back in her chair as she turned to look at Mal over her shoulder once again, the two movements together proving to be a strain on Mal's heart when she felt heated breath dancing over her lips. She didn't know if the world had stopped, but everything that wasn't Evie seemed to blur into nothing until she was left to helplessly drown in the unique coloring of the eyes that seemed to push a missing part of her soul into her body; and she found herself wondering if this feeling was what Carlos had been hinting at weeks ago when discussing relationships. And maybe – she wondered as she strangely found herself wanting to know what it would feel like to lean further forward – it wasn't as nauseating as she had thought while observing those other people. Maybe it was an exhilarating way to excuse forgetting everything including your own name.

(Evie)

Desire and reason tore brutally at Evie's mind in an endless war, each trying to force her further in one direction; but she couldn't decide which was more convincing. Well, that was a lie. The desire pulsing through her was definitely more convincing, and she wanted nothing more than to tear down those last few inches and figure out what Mal's lips tasted like. However, reason stamped its foot down in front of her, reminding her that a romantic relationship might not be what the other girl wanted right now, not with everything she's been going through. Think quickly, Evie. She wondered if she should let Mal make the decision, but a voice in the back of her mind shouted at her to just severe the intimacy between them before anything could happen. The only issue was that she really didn't want to listen to logic in this moment, she wanted to be reckless, for once she wanted to throw herself off the cliff and worry later whether there was a net at the bottom to catch her, or if it was just a rocky abyss.

She was hopelessly torn between two paths, and for what felt like the first time in her life she didn't know the correct answer to the problem presented in front of her.

Evie wanted to show Mal just how beautiful and intelligent she was, that it wasn't only about being able to solve mathematical problems and knowing how to properly mix chemicals; she wanted to prove to the girl that intelligence ran so much deeper than the things learned in school. Logic told her that all of it could be accomplished without pressuring the girl by making her desires known, but she still couldn't bring herself to turn away because her heart told her that there was nothing more right than this, than them. There had been a moment in her life where she had believed she would never find her own fairytale ending, that she would never find true love, or a handsome prince that would treat her like a queen, but only the last piece held true. She didn't care what anyone said, she had found true love; she had it right in front of her. It wasn't picture perfect like every storybook promised it would be, it wasn't supposed to be, the only thing that mattered was that it was perfect to her. The fairytales depicted in the stories didn't exist, details were left out. Love wasn't an everlasting happiness, it wasn't a perfectly smooth track, it wasn't made of smiles that never failed and delights that never faded. It was so much more than that. Love was a beautiful mix of good and bad; it was the shared smiles and the mixed tears, the romantic moments and the painful fights, it was the undeniable desire to fight through anything and everything to collide with each other. No two people fit together perfectly in every aspect, compromises were made for their lives to mold together in an imperfect beauty.

And if there was one thing in her life she was absolutely sure of it was that she was in love with Mal. She felt the complete rush of the joy and the intimacy; she felt the pain of the fighting and the barriers; she felt the beauty of the vulnerable moments; she felt the fear of the trying moments. She felt it all with Mal, every caress and every sting of life, but through it all she never once wondered if it wasn't worth the struggle because she knew that she would do anything to be with Mal, and she knew – she could feel – that Mal would do the same.

But it wasn't her decision to make. It wasn't up to her to decide when Mal was ready to submerge herself in the electricity that encased them.

That's why she forced herself to increase the distance between them, why she shifted forward in her chair and pulled her gaze from the fierce green eyes that always penetrated further than any blade could. That's why she cleared her throat quietly and pressed the tip of the pencil into the paper directly below the first problem she had written, quickly shaping another.

"And this?" Evie's voice was substantially quieter than it had been before as she forced those two words passed her lips.

She could feel the heat of Mal's stare on the side of her face, and she focused on tracing the curves of her writing over and over, well aware that if she were to allow herself to get lost in the girl's eyes another time she wouldn't be able to stop herself from making that next step. But the gaze never left, and Mal never gave her an answer, so she chanced an innocent glance over her shoulder to find the green eyes she adored glowing with a bright gleam she had never seen inside them, and her heart fluttered with the knowledge that she had been the one to place that look of pure joy and content in the girl's eyes. Was it the right move to pull away? Now she was doubting herself.

"It doesn't seem fair," Mal spoke softly; and when she wasn't speaking her lips remained the slightest bit parted, tempting her.

Evie sighed; you're really trying to make this difficult, aren't you? "What?"

"The fact that you're always doing things for me, but I've nothing to offer you," Mal answered, and Evie tried her best to not overanalyze the amount of affection lacing the girl's voice.

Really, she did.

"Well, you don't…"

"I could teach you how to channel and control your magic."

Why would she…? Oh, right, Evie remembered; I have magic I never knew about until recently. She still couldn't get the image of her hand surrounded by bright blue electricity out of her head, and she wasn't entirely sure she even believed she had magic – really it could just be the necklace – but she stopped herself before she could deny the offer, a smile curving her lips at the idea of spending even more time alone with the girl.

"I'd like that," Evie replied, the smile still gracing her features.

At that, Mal's smile brightened, and Evie could feel herself internally melting at the sight. However, when something came to mind her smile quickly fell into a smirk as she turned back toward the papers scattering the table, gently flipping her hair over her shoulder as she let the teasing words slip passed her lips.

"Though I'm sure you'll find that I'm much better at paying attention to my teachers."