(A/N): We're back with Evie and Pip (Lou is mentioned to be close by, but isn't actual present in this chapter, and Vi and Hettie are only mentioned in passing). So, I finished writing this year's chapters on 19/4/24, took a two week break, and wrote the first two chapters for 2025 on 3/5/24. I working on the third one currently, with a new pov (I'm 99% sure, at least), and they're being... a little difficult.

Trigger Warnings: Once again, the subtext becomes text. Pip is as blunt as he knows how to be about what they think happened to Evie, so obviously, references and mentions/discussion of possible (but not actual) sexual assault/rape. Evie misinterprets their concerns and thinks it's about her hiding her sexuality, so she's worried about being outed/found out, and her reaction to finding out that it isn't that is an inappropriate one, given the actual subject at hand.

January 16th, 1966

Evie

When I emerged from my bedroom a second time, wearing a plush jumper I'm pretty sure I'd 'borrowed' from Pip a while back, the door at the end of the hallway- once my parent's bedroom, now our designated 'guest' bedroom- was closed, which meant that Lou had followed mine and Vi's orders, and gone off to bed. None of them liked using that room- especially Pip- and Vi and I weren't particularly happy about it either, but in situations like this where there was a risk of multiple people needing access to the other bedrooms- for sleeping or other reasons- there wasn't really any other option. I made my way down the stairs, and sure enough, Pip was sheepishly leaning against the wall right next to them, waiting for me. "Hey, Evie."

"Hi, Pip." We stared at each other for a few seconds, far more awkwardly than we ever usually would. Not knowing how else to break the thin ice I was on, I said, "Ruthie told me to let you know that the light in the hallway went out again." He blinked heavily, as if taken aback by this- he really shouldn't have been, that darn thing went out at least once a month, nowadays.

"...right," He said slowly, as if he was trying to decode some sort of secret message hidden in my words. "I'll... be sure to go over there and fix that, later today." This struck me as odd, at first- Pip normally didn't leave anyone waiting, especially not Ruthie, and especially not with something that could be fixed as quickly as this- but then I realised that he was putting it off in order to deal with the far more pressing issue... me. "Evie-"

I cut him off- or, well, to be more accurate, he cut himself off, too stunned to continue speaking as I simply walked around him, making my way toward the kitchen at the back of the house. There was a second where I imagine he must have been frozen in shock, before I heard him rush to follow me, his longer legs allowing him to catch up almost instantly. "Did any of you put the leftovers away?" I asked as I saw his mouth open in my peripheral vision, and it hung slack for a second in surprise. "I'll take that as a no. Come on, you can help me lift Big Girl."

His jaw snapped shut with a click of his teeth, and I had the distinct feeling he was biting the inside of his cheek as the inability to say what he wanted to say to me wore on him. "...yeah, okay." I think he hoped that I might be in more of a mood to talk after the job was done- or maybe that he could get me to listen to whatever he had to say while we were working. Unfortunately for him, I wasn't in much of a mood to discuss anything more involved than the weather, so one of us was going to find ourselves severely disappointed- and given that I suspected myself to be far more determined to get what I wanted right now than Pip was, I believed it would be him.

The food from last night was handled easily enough, packed into containers and hidden away in the refrigerator for later consumption, and I thanked Pip for his help. "Wow, that was a lot easier with you holding the pot, Pip- usually I get Vi or Lou to help me, and we have to take a bunch of breaks when their arms start to shake too much." He shot me a pained look as he leaned heavily against the counter, then held up a shaky hand demonstratively.

"I didn't realise I was allowed to ask for a time out," He said, and I frowned.

"Of course you are," I told him easily. "Everyone needs a break now and then, no shame in that." He smiled slightly, softly, then quirked an eyebrow at me in a way that really shouldn't have read as gentle, but somehow did so anyway.

"Even you?" He asked pointedly, but it was a point without an edge. Hm... maybe it was just 'blunt', then, in that case.

Either way, I couldn't help the groan that escaped me, and I shot him a dark look that was immediately mitigated by his sunny disposition. "Pip," I said, and the corner of his mouth lifted in amusement at my clear frustration. "I'm fine." He continued to stare at me as though he didn't believe me, but was more than willing to let me make a fool of myself trying to prove it. "You- I know you were all worried, but there's nothing to be worried about." He frowned slightly, and suddenly looked far less amused.

"Evie, a man was stabbed." Well... he had a bit of a point, there. Not that that had anything to do with me, really, but still. "And you said you know we were worried... clearly you don't realise that we still are." This wasn't all that surprising to me, knowing them as well as I did, but it was still a little confusing.

"Why?" I asked. "I'm here, I'm home- I'm with you guys, and I'm safe. What could possibly have you all so worried about me that you're taking it in turns to give me the third degree?"

The look he gave me was wary, and full of regret- for their actions, or the cause behind them? Or possibly, for having to be the one to explain it to me? "Evie..." He hesitated, fingers of the hand he'd shown me twitching as though he would quite like to grab mine- I reached out and made the connection for him, which he certainly seemed to appreciate. "Look, we... The circumstances of your sudden disappearance weren't great, and we made some assumptions based on those circumstances." Assumptions? What kind of assumptions? "And despite everything you've said since you got back, unfortunately... you haven't really alleviated those concerns." Were they assumptions, or were they concerns? "This isn't just me slipping into the overprotective big brother role, either." He had a fond twinkle in his eyes as he said it, even if the surrounding subject matter wasn't great. "The girls were worried too, and we- We've tried tiptoeing around it, and it isn't working-" Uh oh. Suddenly, what Vi had said in my bedroom about doing her best to tiptoe around the 'sore subject' of my romantic leanings came to mind, and I panicked. "-so let me be the one to come right out and say it." Oh, God, no...

"Or we could not," I blurted desperately, and Pip shot me a truly apologetic look before he said,

"Evie... did they- Did he- Did anyone- Have you been-" He hesitated, wincing roughly, and confusion set in as I struggled to connect the dots between whatever he was trying to say, and how it might relate to my... secret. "Were you interfered with, in any way?" Seeing my confusion grow, he sighed heavily, then forced out through partially gritted teeth, "Did someone perhaps try to do something to you, s-sexually, that maybe you weren't all that keen on them doing?"

It took a second for me to realise what he was trying to say- what he was alluding to, and the fact that it had nothing to do with what I was so desperately trying to hide- before relief flooded my system and rather inappropriately, I burst out laughing.

(A/N): Evie isn't laughing at the idea that she was sexually assaulted/raped, she's laughing because she's so relieved that she wasn't found out/outed.

'Big Girl' - Big Girl is what Vi and Evie call the particular oversized cooking pot they inherited from their parents, because when they were young, their mother always used to caution them about being careful around it/not trying to pick it up on their own even when it was empty, because it was far too large for little girls to handle. It was a pot for 'big girls', and throughout the years it went from being the 'big girl pot' to just being referred to, in and of itself, as 'Big Girl'. This is sort of a reference to the large cooking pot my family has, and any other large item we might come across, which are all referred to as 'Big Bertha'- including my dad's large welder.

Evie and Vi's parents' room is empty (obviously), and has been for quite a few years at this point, but Hettie, Lou, and Pip don't like staying in there because it's just kind of uncomfortable for them, because it very clearly still belongs to them. As exemplified by the fact that Evie refers to it as 'once my parent's bedroom', before she says it's the 'designated guest room'. Pip in particular finds it uncomfortable partially because he's the one that knew the elder Wright's the least, and because he feels extra weird about being the only guy and sleeping in their mother's old bed. He prefers to sleep on the couch rather than take up room in a bed that one of the girls could take up (since he also prefers not to sleep in the same bed as any of the girls, not because he thinks it's inappropriate, exactly, but because he doesn't want other people to question the girls' honor, basically, if they were to find out. He definitely has slept in a bed with each of the girls, but he avoids it as much as he can), but the couch is a bit short for him and not very comfortable, hence Evie's concern about it. Lou isn't sleeping in Vi or Evie's bed because they all slept in Evie's bed last night and they didn't want to take her room from her today, and Vi, Hettie, and Pip didn't get much sleep, so if they were to sleep, Vi and Hettie would likely share Vi's bed, and again, Pip would take the sofa (Evie would fight him on this, and he'd likely end up sleeping in her bed, but that's not the point).