Summary: Naomi's family is moving away, and she decides to give her friends more personal goodbyes before the formal send-off. Mateo doesn't handle this well, until he does.

So she was leaving, after all.

Telling Elena that her family's move was going ahead as planned had been hard. Naomi had to drag the words out of her mouth like they were anchored in her stomach, and it pained her to say them out loud, like doing so was what made it all real. She'd spent most of the morning fighting back tears as the two of them reminisced on every adventure they'd had since they met and promised a hundred times over that they'd write.

Telling Gabe after Elena had rushed off to make final preparations for the formal goodbye had been marginally easier, if just because Naomi had ripped the bandage off once already. They could joke about it, too, in a way she just didn't with her other friends, poking fun without fear of bruising or tripping over some critical royal protocol mistake. Humor made the deed lighter, and with a promise he'd be there for the send off, she went on her way.

But she had no idea how she was going to tell Mateo. She'd barely seen him all week, and it was possible he didn't even know about the move at all, let alone that it was happening that day. Naomi dragged her feet as she headed to the workshop, like if she just took long enough getting there, maybe her parents would forget the whole thing. Maybe she could at least delay the inevitable. When she arrived in the library, she took a deep breath and rapped on the edge of the open painting frame.

"I'm here, you can come in," Mateo called from inside. He looked a bit ruffled as she entered, like she'd startled him, but he was still a good deal more composed than she knew she looked, blotchy and miserable, the salt of dried tears stinging on her cheeks. His expression shifted after one look at her, twisting in silent apology. "I don't actually think I can freeze the whole bay," he said, "or stop all the wind. I could probably sink your mom's ship, but, uh…"

Naomi grimaced. "Yeah, please don't." She sighed, crossing her arms like she was cold. "So, I take it you've heard the news, then?"

"Elena came by after you went home last night."

Well, that was one load off Naomi's back. She didn't have to actually break the news to him. Unfortunately, it wouldn't make saying goodbye any easier. Wandering closer to the worktable, she pretended she was fascinated by the spellbook he'd been studying, watching as he rolled his pen back and forth under his fingers.

"I don't suppose you guys came up with any out-of-the-box solutions to get my parents to stay, did you?" she asked. "Maybe… a suggestion spell or something? Something to make them believe it's just a better idea to stay here?"

The pen stilled. "What, like mind control?"

There was a warning in his tone, suspicious and taut, and Naomi chanced looking up at him to catch his wary expression. She shrugged. "Maybe like… mind nudging?"

He stiffened, his eyebrows scrunching together. "Even if I knew any spells like that, that's malvago stuff. You can't seriously expect me to—"

"No, no, I know." Sighing, she began to droop down toward the table, her throat tight and tears threatening to well up again. "I'm just… we're leaving today. As soon as Elena's done getting everything ready, we're all gonna gather in the ballroom, and then," she swallowed, "and then that's it."

Another farewell. Another reset. She'd been starting to believe this part of her life was behind her.

Mateo's stance relaxed by a fraction, and his voice was soft when he spoke again. "I'm sorry. I wish I could do more to help, but I don't know any spells that wouldn't just make things worse." Reaching out, he set a hand on her shoulder, the touch feather-light, like he thought any pressure might make her disappear. "So I guess just telling your parents you wanted to stay didn't work, then, huh?"

She shrugged again, shaking her head. "I actually didn't tell them."

His hand flinched away, and he tucked it against his chest like she'd slapped it. "What do you mean, you didn't tell them?" He sounded confused, and almost offended, and Naomi looked back up, perplexed.

"I mean I didn't tell them," she said. "They're so excited about this. How could I?"

"How could you not?" He'd taken a step back, his face pinched like he was in pain. "You don't actually want to leave, do you?"

"Of course not!" The idea was downright insulting. Avalor had become her home, more so than any other place she'd lived, and she couldn't imagine wanting to leave it. That Mateo would suggest otherwise set her blood boiling. "How can you even ask that?"

The bite in her voice was enough to put him on the defensive, and his own tone sharpened as well. "Because you could've stopped your family from leaving, and you didn't even try!"

Reeling from the accusation, Naomi pushed back, her voice rising. "You really think I didn't try? Elena and I did everything we could think of to change my mom's mind—"

Mateo was rolling his eyes. "Except talking to her, apparently—"

"You're acting like I'm doing this on purpose!"

"You literally are!" He spread his arms, incredulous. "You said you didn't talk to your parents about it!"

"Because I can't!" Her mother's fiddle tune from the night before still echoed in her ears, alongside her parents' laughter, her dad's heavy footfalls as he twirled her around. They were happy, and together—this was important to them, perhaps more than anything else. "They've wanted this for so long. What am I supposed to do, tell them that it'll make me miserable?"

He scoffed. "What, now all of a sudden you can't tell people what you think? They're your parents!"

Some screw in her mind, over-tightened by stress and impending loneliness, finally stripped out. Naomi pushed around the table, jabbing a finger against his chest. "I don't need to hear that from the guy that used to sneak out of his house rather than tell his mom he was a wizard!"

He recoiled, aghast, and swatted her hand away. "That's completely different! That was for her safety!"

"And this is for my family's happiness!"

"Well, what about the rest of us? How are we supposed to feel?" He pressed a palm to his chest. "How am I supposed to feel?"

"Why are you mad at me about this?" Dimly, she noticed that her eyes were tearing up again. She was well and truly yelling, now, rage at the unfairness of it all ripping out of her throat. "You're not the one that has to leave! You're still gonna be here with Gabe and Elena!"

"And you would be, too, if you actually cared!"

Naomi felt the bottom drop out of her stomach, a swooping, sinking dread. It settled like something cold, a reminder of her seemingly permanent outsider status, and she swallowed a frustrated sob that made her voice shake anyway. "Well, I'm sorry you're just so inconvenienced by this. Maybe I do want to leave, if sticking around means putting up with you."

Mateo froze. His arms hung at his sides, and he worked his jaw like he physically couldn't get words out, catching on the same distressed syllable. Naomi felt a brief pang of guilt, but smothered it as he finally found his voice, almost spitting out his bitter response. "Okay, fine. If you want to leave so badly, then go right ahead."

She grit her teeth. "Fine." And she turned, and left.

She marched down the hallway, anger churning in her head like thunder. Pretty soon, this wouldn't mean anything. So what did it matter if her insides felt like they were being compressed, if her stress had turned to nausea? Maybe this was a sign, a final push to make the departure less overwhelming. One less person to worry about. Barely ten feet away from the library, though, a sudden thud sounded from inside and Mateo came stumbling out after her, tripping over the threshold.

"Naomi! Naomi, wait!"

Turning around, she fixed her best glare on him as he picked himself back up, her eyes narrow and her mouth tight. Her expression softened, though, when she saw how devastated he looked, a weary sadness in his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice forlorn. "I didn't mean any of that. I don't want our last conversation to be a fight."

Any snarky reply she might have prepared withered away, and the storm clouds in her head turned into a downpour. This really was their last conversation, wasn't it? Who knew when they'd see each other again, if ever. Mateo was one of the first people she'd really met in the country, and one of the only people that had carried over from her time Before Elena to After Elena. The idea of leaving any of her new friends felt like ripping away a piece of herself, but Mateo had been a constant, and the threat of that loss hit her with just how much she was truly leaving behind.

A year and a half. Avalor wasn't just another rest stop anymore, and hadn't been for a long time. It felt like home. It was home. The fact that she'd been able to make friends here at all was a testament to that duration, an implausible length in the face of all her family's other, more temporary residences. The first time in years where she felt like she could really establish herself, and it was all being uprooted overnight.

A fresh wave of renewed grief washed over her, and she struggled to speak through a suddenly clogged throat. "Me, neither," she croaked. "I'm not actually mad at you, I promise, I just—"

She couldn't take it anymore. She surged forward for a hug, grabbing Mateo even as he startled at the sudden motion.

"I swear, I don't actually want to move," she said. "But my parents have wanted this for so long, and if we don't go my mom might have to leave again, and I—" She swallowed thickly. "How selfish would it be of me if I didn't let this happen?"

"Probably not that selfish," Mateo replied, sounding petulant. He returned the hug with a sniffle, though, and continued, "I'm not mad either, I just really, really don't want you to go. I—I'm the one being selfish."

"But probably not that selfish," Naomi echoed with a watery laugh. "I think it's pretty normal to not want a friend to move away."

"I shouldn't have yelled at you, though. Or acted like you didn't care. It's just that—" He squeezed her a little tighter, and when he continued, his voice was a hoarse whisper. "I only have so many friends. And Elena and Gabe are great, and I wouldn't trade them for anything, but they don't, um…" He squirmed his way out of the hug like saying something uncomfortable carried over to the contact and stood within an arm's length, chewing his lip. Naomi watched the battle play out on his face as he tried to find a tactful way to conclude.

"They weren't there for, you know, everything," was what he finally settled on. "There's a lot that I haven't told them about, that I'm not sure they'd really get. When you leave, I'm not sure how I'm going to—how I'm—" He cut off, wringing his hands together.

And there it was again: that history, that constant. Naomi's stomach gave another painful, guilty lurch as she thought about it.

"Eh, you're smart," she finally said with a half-hearted shrug, unable to offer much more. "You'll figure it out."

The tiniest of sad smiles appeared on his face. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "I'm just really going to miss you, and I don't know how to deal with that."

"Me, too," she said, the words catching on another sniffle. "I'm sorry, and I'm gonna miss you."

He shifted his feet. "And… we're still friends?"

She laughed, the sound coming out wobbly. "Always, you dork."

As difficult as the individual goodbyes had been, Naomi was glad she'd gone through with them. She had a hard enough time getting through the formal send-off without breaking down. If she hadn't gotten the worst of the despair dredged up beforehand, she wouldn't have been able to take it, and holding it together in front of her parents was the far more important thing.

Mateo remained remarkably composed during the ceremony, as well. He kept up a placid smile and returned Gabe's good-natured teasing, and he'd held a straight face even as Gabe started to get teary-eyed. He did get visibly more anxious as they headed for the docks, worrying at the strap of his tamborita holster, but he didn't say a word. Naomi only barely registered it—there was a lot going on, and a lot of other people demanding her attention, and a lot of her own worries to keep leashed.

So it wasn't until after her mom cut the send off short, after the farewell party spontaneously transformed into a homecoming party instead, after Gabe had scooped her up into a hug and Elena had pulled her into a dance and her parents had cracked open a barrel of juice, that she noticed Mateo had disappeared.

It stung a little, that he'd made such a big deal about her leaving but couldn't be bothered to stick around once it was decided she'd stay. But in the back of her mind, a worry twinged alongside the hurt, that he was still upset with her after all. She slipped away after the upteenth toast in her family's name, wishing she could bottle that feeling of being loved and wanted and save it for a rainy day, and after grabbing an extra drink, went to look for him.

She'd perhaps underestimated how easy he'd be to find. The sun was starting to set, painting the docks in alternate stripes of shadow and gold, and a cool breeze blew in from the bay, as if trying to coax her back to the center of the party. Drawing her arms closer to stave off the slight evening chill, she pressed on anyway, the lively music and conversation growing muffled under the sounds of the regular port workers wrapping up for the day. Near the end of the docks, she was starting to feel a bit silly—if Mateo hadn't wanted to stay at the party, then why would he still be hanging around the harbor?—until she spotted a pair of boots kicking over the water, their occupant hidden behind a barrel.

For once, she managed not to startle him. He craned his neck around as she got close, before she even had to wonder which greeting would be least likely to launch him into the ocean.

"Hey," she said, "mind if I join you? I, um, brought a peace offering." She held out the extra cup.

Mateo blinked. "Why would you need…" It dawned on his face a moment later, and he waved a hand. "I'm not mad at you. Today was just a lot, and I needed some quiet."

"Oh, okay." Withdrawing her arm, Naomi shuffled her feet. And then, "Do you want some juice anyway? I don't really need two cups of it."

"Oh! Uh, sure!" He made a show of scooting aside. Unnecessary—there was already plenty of room for Naomi—but it served as a clear enough invitation for her to join him. Sitting down, she handed him the cup, and the two drank in the relative quiet for a moment, watching the sunset glint off the water and listening to the music drift down from the other end of the harbor.

It was Mateo that finally broke the silence. "So, I guess you're staying after all?"

Naomi let out a dry snort. "Not too disappointed, I hope."

"Of course not! I'm beyond relieved." Sighing, he slouched down, watching his feet swing below them. "I… I really am sorry about blowing up at you earlier," he said. He sounded ashamed, and with the way the fading light played out on his face, he looked exhausted, like that argument had been enough to drain him completely.

"Hey, we're already past that," Naomi said, shaking her head. She took a sip of her drink to give herself a moment to find her next words, her own remorse rising to the surface like a bubble. "Besides," she finally said, her voice low, "I wasn't acting much better. And when you really think about it, we were both upset for the same reason. So," she raised her cup, "how about we agree to put it behind us, and be less of jerks to each other in the future?"

Mateo smiled. "Sounds like a plan." And he raised his own cup to hers.

They toasted to the Turner family, and to Avalor, and to each other, and to their friendship, and when the juice was gone they just sat and talked. They talked about the last week and all the weeks they would have from then on, until Mateo laughed so hard at one of his own jokes that he almost fell off the pier, and Naomi had to pull him back upright under his arms. When the wind got too cold, they finally decided to return to the party, still snickering amongst themselves, and despite the setting sun, the world felt lighter than it had all day.

You ever say something to a friend in the heat of the moment that you regret like immediately afterward? Yeah.

Fun fact! Mateo actually does straight up disappear from the crowd at the end of the episode, when they're all seeing the Turners off. He's there in one shot and then in the next he's mysteriously vanished. ...And then he's back again in the next because it was probably just an animation error and not an attempt to make a statement about how Mateo was reacting to the whole thing. But I decided to roll with it. This chapter in general is brought to you by me wondering why Mateo in particular seemed so completely unfazed by the move relative to the other amigos. I refuse to believe that it's bc he and Naomi just aren't as close as the other amigo duos so that he just didn't care as much or something - *gestures to this entire fic* - so the way I interpreted it is, I guess, "he was deliberately putting on a calm front bc they had a fight that morning and he still felt guilty about it".