A/N: The best way to understand Gabbi's aesthetics? Stream folklore by Taylor Swift.

The Thing About Pressure

The thing about pressure was, there was always a tipping point.

A moment, a split-second tipping point when everything, that culmination of stress now cracking, creaking, became a little too much and everything just -

The cuff on Gabbi's arm beeped.

The pressure lifted.

"One-fifty-two over eighty-eight," the doctor said, clicking her tongue. Gabbi used to put forth the effort to learn their names, but now, she didn't care. They all sounded the same. "A little high today, Your Highness. Have you been taking your beta blockers?"

"Yep," Gabbi replied, popping the "p". No matter what she said, the doctors never believed her. She hated her beta blockers anyway. They made her nauseous and dizzy and if she stood too quickly after taking them she saw stars.

"I think it might be a good idea to start you on a supplementary therapy."

"The last meds nearly wiped out my kidneys. I had to pee through a straw."

"Catheter," the doctor corrected, not bothering to entertain Gabbi's dramatics. "It would be a different kind this time."

Gabbi shrugged, indifferent. They had tried her on what felt like every regimen known to man kind; she was surprised there were any options left. It wasn't like anzything they gave her could save her. All they could do was buy her more time.

"Am I good to go?" Gabbi asked, rolling down her sleeve. Technically, this was her space, her room. Gabbi should be asking the doctor to go, but when the doctors were there, it felt less like her room and more like the basement infirmary. Gabbi would rather be the one doing the leaving. Gave her practice, at least.

"As good as can be expected, Your Highness." The intense look of disapproval the doctor was doing a poor job of disguising told Gabbi that there were other words to describe her current heath besides good. But this woman wanted to keep her job, unlike the previous four cardiologists Gabbi had fired in the past year, so she refrained from any lectures in the spirit of concern.

The silence paved the way for a new kind of pressure, the insidious kind that came with guilt. Gabbi knew what the doctor was gearing up to say before the words left the woman's suspiciously thin lips.

"At some point, we will have to discuss palliative care options. Preferably with your parents."

Preferably never, Gabbi wanted to say.

"Some point. Not today," Gabbi said instead, her standard answer.

"The longer you wait, the harder - "

"Not today!"

Just because she wasn't afraid of death didn't mean she wanted to spend her precious minutes talking about it. She would acknowledge her mortality the second it became relevant: on her death bed and not a moment sooner. Deep down, she knew that was a selfish want, but she had so little control over anything. She wanted control over this one thing, and she would have it.

Riding the high of this surge of determination, Gabbi did the most defiant thing she could think of: she left her room.

The doors swung open with less drama than expected. Kind of anticlimactic during this pivotal moment of breaking quarantine, but for the best since no guards came running down the hall to shove her fragile body back inside its bubble. The doctor would probably rat her out, but Gabbi figured she had a good hour before hell rained down upon her head.

And she was starving.

No guards stood at the entry to the dining room. Good, no family inside. It wasn't early enough for breakfast to still be served, but not late enough for the plates to have been cleared. Gabbi was so caught up at the sight of food that she completely missed the not-so-stranger sitting at the end of the table.

Mouth half-full of blueberry muffin, Gabbi apologized, "Sorry. I'll just come back later - "

"It's fine," Ezra insisted, gesturing to the many open seats. "I would hate to be the reason you missed breakfast."

Gabbi didn't have to be told twice. She finished loading up her plate with more food than she would ever eat - she always had eyes bigger than her stomach, even before the meds made her nauseous - and took the seat directly across from Ezra. He was dressed down again in a threadbare teeshirt and well-washed jeans, his hair an absolute mess like he forgot to run a comb through it. He didn't seem to be in any rush to make himself look more presentable.

"I didn't think any Selected would still be hanging around."

Ezra's cheery disposition darkened just a little. "The princess stood us up...again."

"Whoa, that sucks." Gabbi couldn't say she was surprised, but she was a little disappointed in Delia. "How many times does that make this now?"

"I lost count after the second day, to be honest." Ezra shrugged, trying to pretend that didn't bother him. He was a terrible actor. "I thought she was playing hard to get."

"Maybe," Gabbi shrugged, wondering how much she should interfere and eventually settling on lending Ezra a hand because she had never seen someone with such pathetic wounded puppy eyes, and she lived with Hayden. "Nothing with Delia - Princess Delia - is ever straightforward. She's probably scared or something."

"Scared?" Ezra repeated, incredulous. Gabbi didn't fault him for not believing her. "She seems like she isn't scared of anything, least of all what people think."

"When people are scared, they push everyone away. They do things, say things, in the hope it scares them off," Gabbi said, thinking about how she was speaking more about herself than Delia. "Just, uh, don't be so quick to judge a book by it's cover, you know?"

Ezra was quiet for a moment, thoughtful. "You sure know a whole lot about the princess."

"Perks of living here, I guess. You get to know everyone."

"And what about you?" Ezra asked, cocking his head to the side with a winning smile. "Who gets to know Gabbi Leger?"

Gabbi swallowed the rest of her croissant, mouth suddenly dry. She didn't like to talk about herself. People only wanted to know one thing anyway.

"I'm not that interesting."

"Oh? Sounds like something an interesting person would say." Ezra pushed back his chair to go sit in the one next to hers. Reflexes of warning people to stay six feet away played on the tip of Gabbi's tongue, but she held it. She liked pretending to be normal. It was more thrilling than walking out on her doctor. "How about this? I ask one question about you, and you can ask a question about me. Tit for tat, so to speak."

That sounded like a horrible idea, but Ezra looked so eager it was hard to say no. The pressure to rise to the challenge simmered.

"Okay...fine, I'll bite." She took a chunk out of a blueberry muffin for good measure.

Ezra's grin was as wide as the cat who caught the canary.

"What is your favorite color?"

"Yellow." Maybe this wasn't too terrible, Gabbi conceded. So long as they stayed on safe topics. "And yours?"

"Orange." The answer was instantaneous, expected. "Best part about living in the palace?"

More like a prison, Gabbi thought. but she couldn't say that, not when Ezra looked at everything with wide, wondrous eyes. "The gardens."

"Oooo good one," Ezra said thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair as if reminiscing. "I need to get out there again, really appreciate them."

"And maybe not get caught sneaking around this time."

"Hey! I was not intentionally being a creeper."

"Sure," Gabbi conceded, a smirk on her lips. "Are the gardens your favorite as well?"

"Is that your question?" The pressure went from a simmer to low heat. Gabbi didn't know what that meant. She didn't say anything, just kept maintaining eye contact with Ezra until he answered. "Nah. My favorite part is the food. Breakfast this morning was just...wow. I need to get my hands on the pastry chef because those lemon-ginger scones were heavenly."

He rubbed his belly, grinning something fierce. Gabbi should have known that grin only spelled trouble.

"What are you most scared of?"

So much for safe topics.

"Spiders."

"Everyone's afraid of spiders. That doesn't count."

"It's a legitimate fear." Gabbi didn't know what the big deal was. Why wouldn't he let this one go?

"And I'm afraid of small yippy dogs taking me down by the ankles, but that's lame! Anyone could say that. I want to know what you, Gabbi Leger, are truly afraid of. Planes falling out of the sky, that clown that's really an alien from outer space - "

"Leaving a legacy," she cut him off, the truth out of her mouth before she could stop it. Only the General knew this fear of hers, or at least suspected it after the hard hinting she had done in the graveyard. "Or not leaving a legacy. I'm afraid I'll die before I leave my mark on the world."

"You don't want to be forgotten."

"No one wants to be forgotten. In a way, that's even worse than dying."

The silence stretched as Ezra thought. If he was disturbed at the dark turn of the conversation, if she was raining on his sunshine parade, he didn't say.

"You are one morbid woman, anyone ever tell you that?"

"Part of my angsty seventeen-year-old vibe," Gabbi said glibly. She didn't really care what Ezra thought of her. There wasn't enough time left to care about what other people thought. "So what are you afraid of, for real? Or are yippy dogs your kryptonite?"

Ezra laughed, but it was short-lived and tinged with something serious, sad.

"Sometimes I have these nightmares. I wake up and I'm ten years old and back in the system. I wake up in this crowded room, it's dark and cold and I don't know anyone's name. I'm crying for help and no one can hear me. I'm completely alone." Ezra tipped his head to the side, smiling through it all, though it barely pulled at the corners of his mouth. "I guess I'm most afraid of waking up and having my whole life be a dream."

That was...not what Gabbi was expecting. And a whole lot to dump on a total stranger. Why was he telling her this? What did he want from her? Gabbi wasn't exactly the best at comfort. So, she aimed to lighten the mood instead.

"Anyone ever tell you, you are one morbid dude?"

Ezra's smile brightened. "They usually tell me the opposite, actually."

"Hmmm so I'm the lucky one who gets to hear all your morbid thoughts...or do you open up the dark corners of your mind to every stranger you meet?"

"Just you. The kids I work with have to deal with enough dark stuff, their parents too."

The kids?

"What do you do?" Gabbi asked, realizing they'd skipped over the basic 'get to know you' questions and jumped straight to the deep stuff.

"I'm a nurse in the oncology wing of the Medical University of Sota Children's Hospital."

Gabbi could have laughed at the sheer irony of the situation. It wouldn't be her life if everyone she knew wasn't somehow touched by death.

"Ah. That explains it. You're used to hanging around the dead."

"Hey! They're not dead. They're fighting. Surviving. Every day is a celebration of life."

Spoken like someone who's never had to face it.

Gabbi snorted. "Everyone must love your unfailing optimism."

"Certainly doesn't hurt my chances at winning Employee of the Month." With that bright white smile, who wouldn't want to vote for him? It was a lot to have focused on her, made her want to look away. "What about you?"

"Do I look old enough to be part of the work force?" Gabbi asked. She knew the dark circles under her eyes aged her a few years, but not enough to jump into the next decade.

Ezra raised his hands in surrender. "Surely you want to be something when you pull on your big girl pants and grow up."

"I don't know. Haven't given it much thought."

"Really?"

"No point," Gabbi shrugged. "I guess I always thought I'd join the family business."

"Military?"

Dying tragically at a ridiculously young age.

"Something like that." She picked at the grains in the table, furrowing her brow. She had never been asked what her plans for the future were. No one really cared what she did with her life; even if she were perfectly healthy, her only job would be to smile for cameras and not cause the family any more scandal. Be a good princess. Gabbi knew, deep down, if she could live out the rest of her years, that would never satisfy her. "If I had to choose, when I really think about it, I would have loved to be an actress."

"You still can be," Ezra said. Gabbi huffed a laugh and rolled her eyes but that did not deter Ezra. "No, I'm serious. You've got this whole vibe going on, like a shy librarian who is actually a badass ninja warrior."

"Call Spielberg. You've just come up with his next blockbuster," Gabbi joked, and they both laughed and laughed and laughed until laughter faded to companionable silence. Gabbi was surprised that none of the guards had come in to end the party. Or maybe, just maybe, the universe had gifted her some happiness for once.

And then, Ezra had to ruin it.

"So...what do you think?"

"Excuse me?"

"Do you think I have a chance at sticking through this thing? I mean, I can't be that off-putting. You seem to like me enough."

Oh, right. The Selection. Gabbi had almost forgotten.

"Hmmm, I don't know. I felt a lot of peer pressure to divulge my deep dark secrets. I had no idea what you would do if I didn't answer - "

"Ha ha, very funny," Ezra laughed a little and rolled his eyes. "But seriously."

"Seriously? You really want to fall in love with the princess? Be a prince?" No offense to Delia, but that was very hard to believe. She tried to imagine her sister with someone like Ezra and it just...didn't click.

"Yes...no...maybe?" Gabbi gave Ezra a look that spoke to just how confused and unimpressed she was. "Okay, time to give up another secret. I'm not really here to woo the princess and live happily ever after."

"Shocker." Given Delia's nature, she didn't blame Ezra for having an ulterior motive. Many of the guys probably did. "Then why are you here?"

"The money." He said 'money' like it was a dirty word, like he was ashamed. "I know it's a terrible reason, but I'm buried in mountains of student debt, and my moms...they do their best, but it's just...it's not enough sometimes. The stipend for being in the Selection is insane. It's more than enough to cover the bills and my loan payments. Between Mom losing her job and me being out of work for this, it's kind of the only thing keeping us afloat right now."

Gabbi had heard a lot of sad stories. There was that time Mom signed her up for that support group, which lasted for all of half a meeting before Gabbi couldn't stand the sheer amount of self-pity in the room. But there was no wallowing, no woe-is-me from Ezra. Only a determination to do what he had to for his family, and an unfailing optimism that somehow, everything could turn out okay.

How did he do that? Keep holding on to the positive? It was infuriating.

"Fuck. I'm going to get in so much trouble for this," Gabbi muttered under her breath. Then, she squared her jaw and looked Ezra dead in the eye. "I'll help you."

"What?"

"I'll help you win the Selection. Or, at least win over Delia so she doesn't want to kick you to the curb."

Ezra's eyes grew two times their size. If it were possible, his jaw would have unhinged itself and fell to the floor. "Is that even allowed?"

"Not at all."

For the first time, Ezra looked genuinely mad. "I don't want your pity. That's not why I told you."

"It's not pity. After all we shared, I consider us friends, and friends help other friends during their time of need. So let me help you." Let me help you before I change my mind. Let me help you because this is the best worst mistake I could possibly make. "Besides, I'm Gabbi Sch-Leger. I do what I want and damn the consequences."

There were no consequences; Gabbi was pretty sure she could commit murder get away with it, but Ezra didn't know that.

"Wow. There are some serious perks to befriending the royals."

"Yeah. Sure are." Some serious drawbacks too, but he would find those out much later, once all the damage was done. "Now, get out of here. Rest up. Because Operation Woo the Princess starts tomorrow, noon sharp - "

"I have Selected class at noon."

" - one sharp. The rose garden. Don't be late, or I will leave you there."

"Aye aye, captain!"

Then, strangest of all, Ezra lunged forward and pulled Gabbi into a tight hug. She was so shocked, she barely remembered that she needed to respond, move her arms, do anything other than stand there stiff as a board. But...when was the last time she had been hugged by someone who wasn't her family? When was the last time anyone in her family hadn't been afraid to hug her at all? The General was receptive to her hugs, but that was different. That was the General. This was...this was tight and warm and strange...and good.

So good.

Gabbi relaxed all at once, letting her weight fall onto Ezra. He didn't seem to mind that he was doing all the work, letting her hands run over where the smooth cotton of his tee-shirt pulled across his shoulder blades. Ezra wasn't all that much taller than Gabbi, the perfect height for Gabbi to rest her head on his shoulder.

She closed her eyes for one beat, two beats, three.

Then, she pulled away.

The cool air of the room snapped around her vulnerable frame. She wasn't aware of how warm Ezra's hug - any hug - was until she was suddenly without it. She would do anything, anything to get that back. Her body swayed towards Ezra just a little, against her will, but she held herself at bay. This was the first friend she had made since childhood. No need to scare him off with her freakishness just yet.

By the time her mind stopped floundering, Ezra had already left and taken all the warmth with him.

Gabbi stared back down at her plate. The food that looked so good before now seemed dull and uninteresting. Her head hurt from all the laughing, smiling, thinking. She felt tired. A nap was a good idea. The doctor should have cleared out of her room, and there was a good chance that if she left now, her verbal lashing would amount to a minimum.

She was in the middle of wrapping strawberries in a napkin for later when the doors opened back up.

Had Ezra forgotten something? Had had changed his mind?

But it was not Ezra at all. It was Hayden. Gabbi hadn't seen her since that awkward family breakfast, and Hayden was looking at Gabbi like she was some great surprise. As if Gabbi still didn't live here.

"What are you doing down here? If Mom sees, she'll freak."

"I figured that lights off meant it was safe to sneak into society."

Hayden did not look convinced, but she made no move to call the guards. "I'm not taking the fall for this."

"Didn't ask you to." The strawberries had gone slightly sour from exposure, but Gabbi popped two in her mouth. "What are you doing down here? I thought you were allergic to carbs."

There was no way Hayden was there to sample the tarts, not dressed in designer clothes from head to toe like she was about to step out onto a runway. Her heels were pointed enough to be daggers, the jewels on wrist and neck heavy enough to pack a punch. Maybe to an outsider it could be missed, but to Gabbi, it was obvious: Hayden had dressed to kill.

"I'm looking for Delia. My favorite pashmina has gone missing, and I know she took it."

"If Delia has it, you sure you want it back? Last time she turned your sweater into a micro dress and returned it covered in no less than three different unidentifiable substances."

"Don't remind me," Hayden grumbled. "Her last casualty was my eyeshadow."

Gabbi felt bad for Hayden, she really did. Delia never took Gabbi's clothes, which she supposed she should be grateful for. But that was probably only because Gabbi's clothes were under lockdown in her room, and the trouble of retrieving and then returning them would be too great. Also, the "risk of contamination" lecture from Mom was not worth any of Gabbi's oversized, overworn cardigans.

"You think she does it on purpose?"

"I know she does it on purpose," Hayden huffed, murder in her eyes. "Just like I'm going to rip her hair out when I find her, on purpose."

"She might have beat you to that punch. Rumor is she gave herself some nasty looking bangs."

Hayden snorted. "Then she won't miss a few more patches."

She knew that Hayden meant it too. Hands would be thrown at some point, hair would go flying, and Gabbi would hear about the winner's victory through the gossip mill the next day. Sometimes, Kase would come by to give her the 411 when he wasn't flying off the handle and around the world, but that hadn't happened in a long time.

"Why do you need a pashmina anyway? There some fancy dinner coming up that I need to avoid?"

"Just doing inventory of my wardrobe," Hayden dismissed in that way she did when she was hiding something. "With Auden gone, I figured she wouldn't mind if I moved a few of my things into her closet."

"Just a few?" Gabbi teased, earning an eye roll from Hayden. Once upon a time, Hayden would punch Gabbi in the arm, but Gabbi was getting easier and easier to bruise these days. "It's weird with her being gone, different than when Kase runs away. Feels like something is missing."

Hayden hummed in agreement, staring off into space. "I miss her."

"I miss her too," Gabbi replied, knowing that however she missed her sister, Hayden was feeling the loss of her twin ten fold. "We should get the whole fam on a video chat or something. I think she'd like that."

"The whole family? That might take a miracle these days."

"Yeah. But we should still try." Gabbi wondered why this was suddenly so important, until she realized it had always been important. "Things are changing. Who knows how much longer we have until..."

"Hey. You're fine," Hayden said with an intensity she reserved for fighting lines at designer sales. "Don't make me miss you too."

For a moment, Gabbi thought this was going to turn into a touching sibling moment. But this was Hayden Gabbi was dealing with. She should have seen it coming when Hayden stormed out of the dining hall, a storm of Chanel-scented fury.

Maybe it would take a miracle to get the whole family together after all.