Chapter Text
The injury to Hecate’s wrist is just a sprain in the end, a persistent ache that seizes up with the rain and makes bending her fingers excruciating.
As the eve of Ostara draws near, bringing with it a smattering of dew each morning and a renewed sense of possibility that saturates the air, she’s fed up to the teeth with it all.
In a never-before seen triumph of peskiness, Mildred insists on being helpful. Hecate discovers, quickly, that Mildred being helpful is equivalent to anyone else doing their level worst.
Like a bad case of shingles, she crops up out of nowhere and everywhere, getting right under Hecate’s skin.
The daily procession of flowers is forgivable. And the illegible apology letters, smudged though they are. Hecate knows the shackling burden of guilt all too well, so she does her best to make allowances.
The main hurdle is the hyper-vigilant mollycoddling that Mildred now exercises at every turn. As soon as Hecate moves, or blinks, or breathes, she surfaces like an apparition to assist.
It’s the bane of Hecate’s life.
She’s not cut out for this. Yes, she appreciates the thought, but it has become a real millstone.
Mildred’s grasp on logic seems to have a loose relationship with existing in this realm, and Hecate is loath to dole out the same refresher on what is and is not appropriate for the umpteenth time.
Even weekend breakfasts in the dining hall come with their share of minefields.
Zoning out of Mr Daisy’s fifth tale about leeches in the lake, Hecate’s eyes scan the groups of raucous students until they lock with Mildred’s.
Mildred straightens in her seat with a crooked smile, raising her hand to wave. Against her better judgment, Hecate issues a half-hearted wave back.
“Earth to Hecate,” Dimity ribs, loading more fruit into her bowl. She tips her head in Mr Daisy’s direction. “This lummox just suggested that we take the third-years scuba diving. It would be fab if you could weigh in right about now.”
Hecate glooms.
“That is one of your most farcical ideas yet,” she mutters, still distracted. “The paperwork alone would be…”
She nurses her coffee in her hand, staring at the bubbles.
Pippa slices her bagel in half, sliding the seeded part onto a plate in front of Hecate.
“You can invite her to sit with us if you like,” Pippa whispers, nudging Hecate’s arm and grinning.
Hecate glooms even more.
“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” she bristles. “And besides, if you haven’t noticed, this is the staff table.”
“Funny,” Pippa counters, smirking that smirk that makes Hecate’s knees go weak. “I don’t work here.”
Okay, so they’re saying the quiet part out loud.
Dimity, who must have a death wish, snorts. “The more the merrier.”
Hecate folds her arms, sulking.
The platitude must resonate around them like a sonar pulse because the newest member of staff, Mr Goran, plops down into a chair on the other side of Pippa.
“Mind if I sneak in?”
Hecate stiffens, her spine bolting together.
She sulks harder.
Mr Goran, whom she abhorred upon sight, consists of enough hair gel to slick back a Persian cat and enough slimy pickup lines to put a brothel out of business.
And he has the moxie to make Pippa laugh, which curdles in Hecate’s gut like old milk. She hasn’t bothered to learn his first name on principle.
Pippa butters Hecate’s half of the bagel absently, not pausing in her conversation with Ada.
Dimity is blathering on about a conference, which honestly Hecate isn’t keeping up with. She observes Mr Goran in her periphery, leaning over to utter something smarmy to Gwen.
Gwen blushes, chuckling, and dabs at the corner of her mouth with a napkin.
Hecate feels boiling.
Pippa’s ponytail glitters in the soft light and there’s cream cheese on her top lip and Hecate digs her fingernails into her thigh to stop herself from reaching out to swipe it away.
Waggling her eyebrows, Dimity cocks her head. She taps Pippa’s hand, getting her attention, and raises her voice, as though for Mr Goran’s benefit.
“There will be lots of folk of all varieties in attendance.” Dimity giggles, wrinkling her nose. “What do you say, Pippa? Fancy seeing if there are any eligible candidates worth pursuing?”
Ada grimaces, shooting Dimity one of those looks.
Hecate’s temples throb. Her mind feels fuzzy.
“You may,” Pippa says, laughing, pressing her teeth into a dreamy smile. She winks at Dimity. “I’m already with someone, as you are well aware.”
The bottom drops away in Hecate’s stomach.
Dimity babbles a series of words that she doesn’t process. Something inside of her shrivels, withers, her body fading into nothing more than a dull, booming drone.
No.
It can’t be.
Not Mr Goran.
Not Leopold bloody Goran, because, yes, of course she knows his first name.
Mildred, whose timing is always impeccable, selects this opportune moment to sidle over.
“HB,” she begins, squeezing a book against her chest. “Mr Bloom put this back in my locker. He said it wasn’t from the library, and I was wondering if—”
“You can give that to me,” Ada interjects rather hastily. She snaps her fingers and it disappears out of view.
Mildred opens her mouth to comment but her jaw shuts again with a click.
Under different circumstances, Hecate might have clocked this as a subject warranting further review.
Given the casserole of information rolling around in her brain, however, she’s a bit too unbalanced for rational lines of enquiry.
“You have quite a glow about you this morning, Hecate,” Mr Goran notes, the whites of his teeth flashing like moonstones.
She ignores him.
“Mhmm,” Dimity goes on, resuming the previous topic. She bites off the tip of a strawberry, fluttering her eyelashes. “Hecate? Any interest in mingling?”
Pippa is still smiling, and Hecate’s eyes prickle.
“Oh,” Hecate answers, hazy, reeling from Pippa’s declaration and feeling suddenly, violently sick. “I—I, um, hadn’t really thought about it.” It sounds as if she has swallowed as many words as she’s spoken. She looks down at her hands. “I—I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to meet someone.”
The knife Pippa’s been holding clatters against the table. Her smile vanishes. The curve of her throat moves in and out.
“W-what?” Dimity squeaks. Her teeth are clamped together, lips pulled back in a wince, and her skin has turned ashen.
Ada closes her eyes.
Pippa surveys the group, betrayal stark along her features, and smacks down a palm onto the tablecloth.
“Hecate is not available,” she seethes, her tone an octave lower than Hecate has ever heard it. Her face is pale, and twisted, and she seems completely livid.
Hecate blinks. Frowns. Holds her breath until her ears ring.
She regards Pippa with abject confusion.
Did they all just fall into a portal?
As if she has any interest in that reprehensible lout.
“Excuse me?” Hecate’s chest tightens like a vice as the next question leaves her lips. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“What?” Pippa asks her, her voice tiny and broken and stained with hurt. Tears lurk along the rims of her eyes. She studies Hecate, frozen, as if the wheels in her mind are spinning. “Are you joking?”
Mildred’s fingers land on Hecate’s shoulder, hovering there, before bearing down with more purpose.
Hecate whips around to see Mildred skulking behind her like she wants to say something, but her expression is set in rigor mortis.
Helpful. Very helpful.
Oxygen deprivation might have killed off a few brain cells because Hecate doesn’t have the faintest about what is transpiring.
“What?” Hecate echoes back, genuinely lost. She touches Pippa’s cuff, begging for understanding, but Pippa trembles and snatches her arm away.
Ada shakes her head at a snail’s pace, unimpressed.
“No matter,” Pippa hisses. Her chair screeches across the floor. “I think I’ll be going now. Thank you for your hospitality.”
Hecate doesn’t know whether the latter is addressed to her or Ada, but the pit inside of her chest expands and expands, leaking blackness throughout her body.
She scratches a nail over the crust of her bagel, picking at the seeds.
When she glances back up, Dimity’s mouth is bobbing like a goldfish, and Ada appears sympathetic, nodding sagely towards the door, and Pippa’s seat is empty, empty, empty.
Mildred has moved around the table. She glowers at Hecate, offering her a thumbs down.
“Why are adults so thick?” Mildred admonishes, stamping her foot, which Hecate can’t really find fault with. “You’ve made a right pig’s ear of that.”
Great powers of deduction.
Hecate’s in a tight spot on the rebuttal front. It’s evident that she’s made a hash of things. She just isn’t sure how.
“Useless,” Mildred mutters, not very subtly. “Go and follow your wife.”
Stricken, Hecate shows no signs of action. Mildred huffs. She swings around, scampering off in the direction of the exit, and turns to beckon towards Hecate in emphasis.
It all hits her like a hammer to the skull.
Pippa’s seat is empty.
Hecate totters to her feet, more doddery than she’d like to admit, and squints over at Ada.
“Should I—?”
“Yes,” Ada sighs, lifting up her glasses to scrub the bridge of her nose. Hecate catches the tail end of her speech as she rushes out after Mildred. “Good grief. May we all be thankful that we are not teaching Affairs of the Heart to our pupils.”
Hecate finds the dynamic duo outside by the west wall.
Mildred has her fingers on Pippa’s back, rubbing up and down, glaring at Hecate as she approaches. She stills her ministrations, half-shielding Pippa with her frame.
The grass below Hecate’s boots feels as if it’s sinking beneath her, tugging her underground. Her nerves spark as Pippa sniffs, wiping the heel of her hand across her cheek, and spins to view their audience.
When she sees Hecate, Pippa ducks her chin, turning back around.
“Thank you, Millie,” Pippa says, the words a gentle cue for her to disappear, and she buries her face in her palms as Mildred hugs her from behind.
Mildred finally lets go, eyeing Hecate crossly.
“Don’t stuff it up,” she mouths, though she pats Hecate’s sleeve as she departs.
As Mildred’s shoes pad across the ground, Pippa hunches. She refuses to look at Hecate, her fingers braced against the wall like it’s the only thing keeping her upright.
“Go back inside, Hecate.”
The brickwork is still damp from the morning’s showers and the air is bitter. Clouds of breath linger around them.
“You’ll freeze out here,” Hecate says quietly.
“Here’s hoping,” Pippa replies, her voice monotone and blunted. She scoffs. “Mildred cast a warming spell. I’m quite alright.”
Hecate squeezes her elbows, regretting her own lack of outerwear. “But—”
“Go away.”
Everything Hecate tries to say feels pithy on her tongue. Her heart punches behind her ribs, clotting up her throat.
Even so, she won’t leave. She’s chosen cowardice one too many times. More than that, if she’s honest.
She’s staying. She owes this much to Pippa, and to herself.
She stubs her toe into the dirt. Stalling.
“Pippa, did I…did I do something?”
Pippa snorts, self-deprecating and miserable. “Are you an idiot?” She mops at her cheek with her cuff. “Sorry. You don’t need to answer that.”
God, Hecate has definitely flubbed this somehow. The finer details are mostly academic at this point.
“Possibly,” she says, stung, scraping at her knuckles.
A smothered laugh spills out from Pippa’s mouth.
“I was rather under the impression that…” Her voice is a wet wobble. She lets out a strangled sob, clenching a fist against the wall. “I apologise if I embarrassed you.”
The brickwork blurs. Any semblance of solid reasoning sieves away.
“Embarrassed me?” Hecate searches for a mental foothold, some indication of what this is about, but she draws a blank. “Pipsqueak—”
She brushes Pippa’s fingers, trying to clasp them, but Pippa rips her hand out of reach.
“Don’t! I’ve been making you uncomfortable,” Pippa splutters, swivelling around and swatting at her face. “I’ve been making you uncomfortable for weeks and you never said a word.”
“No! I wasn’t…” Pippa narrows her eyes at her and Hecate trails off, biting her lip. She won’t lie to Pippa. Not now. “Yes, I was uncomfortable, but not because—”
“I’m sorry,” Pippa wheezes. She looks crestfallen, and so, so small.
Girls are beginning to appear from the dining hall, their laughter resounding along the corridors and pushing through the windows as they make their way outdoors, but Hecate doesn’t flinch.
She circles her arms around slim shoulders, pulling Pippa against her chest.
Hecate’s body is resistant even as she tries to soften it, pointy and spiked in all the wrong places, but Pippa’s damp nose presses into her neck and she can feel the ghost of her lips startled open over her skin.
“I’m afraid that I’ve been making a terrible fool of myself,” Pippa murmurs, stilted, her voice little more than a breeze.
“You haven’t,” Hecate promises. She strokes Pippa’s hair as hands splay across her spine. “You couldn’t.”
“I should have said something to you,” Pippa whispers, arching back, running a knuckle beneath her eyes, “but I thought—I’m so sorry.”
She sags again, Hecate’s arms preventing her knees from meeting the grass, and Hecate is shocked to taste her own tears.
“I’m the one who should be sorry,” she wrenches out. “I’m sorry, Pipsqueak. I’ve been taking up your time and getting in the way and coming between you and whoever you’re—you’re…”
Merlin, she’s no good at this.
She’s never been good with emotions. Good at having them, yes, good at feeling everything deeply and with every fibre of her being, but never at sharing them.
The sentence dies out. She champs down on her cheek so hard that her teeth click in the middle.
It isn’t Christmas anymore. The moratorium on murder no longer applies.
She will kill Mr Goran if necessary, regardless of Ada’s take on the matter. This has to be a moral grey area.
So mote it be.
Pippa’s brow creases. With a shaking hand, she wipes the sheen from her chin. “What are you talking about?”
“This…person, that you’re dating,” Hecate spits out, the words sticking to the roof of her mouth.
The light drains out of Pippa’s eyes.
“Are you trying to humiliate me further?” Her lower lip quivers. She releases another sob, a strange, muffled thing that bleeds straight through Hecate’s veins.
Panic compresses her lungs. The universe feels as if it is shrinking around her, shredding every secret pipe dream one by one.
She gathers up her courage, forcing it through a funnel.
“This person—”
“Don’t you dare mock me, Hecate Hardbroom!” Pippa growls, loud enough for every member of the student body to hear, but Hecate’s in the thick of it now, too distraught to care.
“Pipsqueak, I don’t know what you mean,” Hecate says, frantic, taking Pippa’s hands in her own. “Please. If you wish for me to leave again, I will. I don’t know what I’ve done to upset you, but…”
Pippa scowls at her, stopping her short.
This cloddish approach isn’t working.
Hecate’s thoughts are like the bubbles in her coffee, bursting each time she endeavours to catch one.
“What you’ve done to upset me,” Pippa reiterates coldly, a distorted chuckle chasing her voice even as she cries. “Forgive me. Finding out the person you believed you were in a relationship with isn’t that keen on you is rather devastating.”
Hecate pictures Mr Goran’s smug face, sweet-talking Gwen and making some comment about her appearance. She pictures Pippa’s expression darkening, losing every trace of the Pippa she knows, and she feels like she’s still losing her, piece by piece.
“What can I do?” Hecate asks, pleading, rubbing Pippa’s knuckles. “If there’s anything, anything at all, I’ll do it. Mr Goran is—”
“Leopold?”
Hecate winces at the name. She avoids Pippa’s gaze, peering at their fingers instead.
“This person, they must—surely they must…” Tears scale up her throat and it welds shut. “Pipsqueak, you’re the worthiest witch in the world, the very best, and this person is quite clearly—”
“—you,” Pippa finishes, clamping a hand over her mouth and sobbing with more force.
Hecate’s knees buckle. Her heart convulses, pitchpoling behind her ribs.
“What?”
She needs to get better at listening, because—
“The person is you,” Pippa repeats, indignant, her eyes fastening on Hecate’s and filled with something molten.
“What?”
“What do you mean, ‘What’?”
Hecate stares at her, completely, utterly stunned.
“We’ve…we’ve never even kissed,” Hecate mumbles, which is such a pathetic contribution that her cheeks flame.
“Yes, we have! I don’t believe this,” Pippa shouts, pacing on the spot. “What are you—”
“But—but that was mistletoe,” Hecate argues. It occurs to her, fairly late in the game, that this maybe isn’t the linchpin to end all linchpins, but she’s too far gone. Her mind has latched on to this irrelevant sticking point, so she might as well commit. “And it was Christmas, and I…”
Pippa curls her arms around herself. “I didn’t know there was mistletoe! And I’ve kissed you dozens of times besides.”
Hecate’s face is so hot by this interval that her skin might be melting off. “Well, yes, but not…” She snags her lip between her teeth, her pulse sprinting at a mile a minute. “I didn’t realise that those were—”
“Even you cannot be so monumentally dim, Hiccup, and I thought that we were—I thought…” Pippa bends almost in half, clutching a palm against her stomach. “I can’t do this again.”
Again?
Oh goddess.
Oh goddess, oh goddess, Hecate has butchered this beyond belief.
Pippa’s posture unfurls. She still seems tiny standing in front of Hecate, every inch of her shuddering, but she lifts her chin and graces Hecate with a failing smile. “You must know how much I love you. I’ve never been any good at hiding it.”
Her eyes stay fixed on Hecate’s face, defiant, as if she isn’t confessing to the most world-altering, impossible thing imaginable.
As if it has been obvious this whole time and Hecate considers, with a clang of sharp, sweet clarity, that maybe it has.
To be fair, a bunch of things now make a bunch more sense.
She remembers.
She remembers late-night fairy tales and tea parties in the dark and Pippa’s head in her lap as they made up constellations.
She remembers, “it’s just so splendid that the two of you are together,” and, “I’ll always find you,” and, “Go and follow your wife.”
She remembers Pippa hauling Claudia over the coals and sprinting across the grounds drenched and appearing in only her nightgown, delirious with worry.
Something cataclysmic shifts inside of Hecate’s heart and shunts into place with a clink.
In spite of everything, every screeching siren and every flashing warning and every ounce of disbelief swarming inside of Hecate’s cells, she starts to laugh. A silly, crisp laugh that whistles around them like a spring wind.
“Stop making fun of me,” Pippa demands, outraged, tears rolling down her cheeks and dripping off her jaw as she moves. “This is mortifying enough as it is, and you have the audacity to—”
Hecate does the most reckless, exhilarating thing she’s ever done, pinning Pippa against the wall and kissing her.
Pippa exhales against her mouth, gasping, her eyelashes tickling Hecate’s skin as she fumbles closer. Nails track a path over the ridges of Hecate’s ribs. The pads of Pippa’s thumbs are soft and warm as they come up, brushing along Hecate’s jaw, settling just below her ears.
Hecate’s hands tuck under the belt at Pippa’s waist, folding around the fabric, anchoring her steady. Pippa is making these little noises, low, shaky sounds that coil around Hecate’s spine and surge up to her chest.
It doesn’t feel as new as Hecate expects, even though her heart cracks open and happiness keeps spilling out. Even though Pippa’s smile when she teeters back, breathless, is the most blinding she’s ever seen.
It’s only an unfolding, an extension of gentle touches and caring, thoughtful gestures, and it’s them.
Just them.
“You idiot,” Pippa says, her lips swollen and rosy. “You absolute idiot.”
Pippa yanks her forwards, raking her fingers through Hecate’s hair, and kisses her again. Again and again and again until Hecate leans back, swooning.
“I’m not available,” she states, seeing the scene through a sort of grainy lens, and Pippa giggles against her mouth, clear and high and wet. Her arms hoop around Hecate’s neck as she drops her head, laughing and beaming and crying.
Their chests are flush and Hecate can feel Pippa’s heartbeat racing, the dependable whir sending Hecate’s own into a frenzy.
“We’re together,” Hecate acknowledges slowly, testing out the phrase on her tongue, and Pippa peeks up at her on her tiptoes. Her eyes blaze with fondness, as dark and dazzling as the night sky.
“Mine.” Their noses bump as Pippa presses their foreheads against each other. There is a quietness to this embrace, something safe and restorative and healing. “My Hiccup.”
With the truth unburied, a fresh hue colours everything. There’s no hesitation for Hecate anymore, no second guessing.
She isn’t scared. She’s braver than she thought possible.
“Yes,” she agrees.
She feels nothing but brightness when she mumbles, “I love you, Pipsqueak,” against Pippa’s smile.
They are a bit clumsy on their feet as they balance against each other, trying to get their breath back.
Hecate’s arm slips around Pippa’s waist as the latter shifts with a happy sigh, resting her head on Hecate’s shoulder and laying a hand over her heart.
“Do you think they will need thirty years to get their acts together?” Pippa asks wryly, glancing up at Hecate and then nodding towards the trees.
Mildred and Enid are huddled on a picnic blanket, sprawled out on their fronts as they flick through a magazine. Their legs are bent up behind them, the tops of their shoulders grazing each time one of them turns a page.
“By conservative estimate,” Hecate replies. She flushes, realising just how out in the open they’ve been for the last half an hour, but Pippa grins.
After a few beats, Enid shuffles. She tucks a curl behind Mildred’s ear, kissing her cheek, and they both giggle in the distance.
Hecate prays to the goddesses that neither of them are as slow on the uptake as her.
“They make a winsome pair,” Pippa says. The sun has come out from behind the clouds and the rays cast shadows along her nose.
She gets more beautiful every day.
She stretches, leaving the imprint of her lips against Hecate’s jaw, and Hecate can’t do anything but hum.
“The second best couple at Cackle’s,” Hecate whispers, the corner of her mouth twitching up, and Pippa laughs, tilting her face into Hecate’s neck.
“Idiot. I love you,” Pippa says, like an oath, and Hecate believes her. Believes that this will last.
Hecate’s timepiece ticks between them, the position of the hands unimportant.
They have all the time in the world.