Time-Out

by Reyna_is_epic

Summary:

“Anne?”

The air is permeated with a light, insistent beeping. Nothing intrusive, nothing that should even carry over the couple dozen yards between them, but its sound is unmistakable. So is the red light beaming from the wrist of one very familiar-looking, very human girl.
___

It's hard to keep track of time in Amphibia, but timers only come in when you turn fourteen. So when Anne wakes up one morning to find numbers inscribed into her wrist she knows she's been here for much longer than she intended. She only hopes she can make it home before the timer goes down.

Chapter 1: I

A year isn't nearly as long as you think it is.

 

That's not to say it's a short chunk of time, it isn't, but it isn't a lifetime either. It's just a sliver of time with no more significance to it than an hour, day, week, month, so on and so forth.

 

A year is just a year, no more, no less.

 

Still, a year passing without your input, without you even noticing it happen is a bit too much. Time may be a human construct, but the passage of it is an undeniable fact. Time can never be taken back once it is gone.

 

Anne has been in Wartwood for a year.

 

Originally it was supposed to be a few months, just until the ice surrounding the valley melted, but that year turned out to be a particularly harsh winter with a summer that only lasted about two weeks. The ice never even got a chance to melt before it was cold again.

 

The days had blurred together. Months had gone by in the blink of an eye. Anne would never have even noticed that a year had passed if it weren't for one thing:

 

Timers came in on your fourteenth birthday.

 

No one knew the origin of the marks or exactly how they worked, but none of that really mattered in the grand scheme of things, especially to Anne. All that mattered was the fact that the numbers staring back at her from her wrist just cemented what she'd already been suspecting:

 

She's been here much too long.

 

“Anne!” Sprig yells from somewhere above and she has to consciously force herself to tear her eyes from the black numbers where there had been none the night before. His head hangs over the lip of the trapdoor in a way that suggests he’s lying on his stomach. “Hurry up already! We’re gonna be late!”

 

“Coming…” Anne tries to call, but her voice is hoarser than she was expecting and that’s when she realizes that there’s something wet running down her face. It’s too late for her to try and hide it so she watches as Sprig’s expression contorts into a frown and he flops down from the trapdoor.

 

Actually, flop is a bit of a generous word. He leans further and further forward from his spot on the floor above until gravity takes over and pulls him down, causing him to land on his back on the stairs and slide down them head-first. By the time he reaches the floor Anne can’t help but be a bit concerned he might’ve given himself a concussion. However, he springs up and rushes over to her bed without so much as a single stumble.

 

Frog bodies.

 

“Everything okay?”

 

Anne feels a snicker pushing up her throat, but she tries her best to push it back down. She can’t tell if it's just at the absurdity that is Sprig, or the bitter feeling clawing through her chest. Sprig’s eyes catch on the black numbers emblazoned on her wrist, still for now but only because they’re so large, and widen.

 

“Woah, what the heck is that?!”

 

The laughter does manage to escape her this time and she reaches up to brush the warm wetness from her face.

 

“It’s a soul-timer, Sprig,” she mutters only to receive a blank stare in response.

 

She sighs and explains. It wasn't a painful process or a long one, just an undeniable one. As long as anyone could remember on a human's fourteenth anniversary of their birth a timer would appear engraved into their right wrist. The black numbers ticked down until the exact moment you met your soulmate and could range anywhere from a few hours to years. Sometimes decades if you were particularly unlucky. Once it reached zero the numbers would flash red and emit a light beeping noise that dissipated after a few seconds. Just enough to be undeniable.

 

Sprig tries his best to give her his attention throughout her explanation, but she can see a question forming as she goes.

 

“Wait, so that,” he places a cool fingertip against her wrist, “is counting down until you meet your future boyfriend?”

 

Anne tries her hardest not to make a face.

 

“Something like that.”

 

Now he looks really confused.

 

“Why is this a bad thing?”

 

Anne shakes her head.

 

“It’s not, it’s just…” she trails off, casting another glance at the numbers on her wrist. 6 months, 12 days, and 4 hours. “Marks only come in on your fourteenth birthday. I had just turned 13 when I got here…”

 

Sprig still doesn’t look like he gets it.

 

“I’ve been here a year, Sprig.” The words come out in a whisper, like she’s sharing a secret. Sprig just nods.

 

“Yeah, it’s been the best year of my life!” He bounces on his toes a little and Anne can’t help but chuckle, reaching up to ruffle his hair.

 

“I know, I know, it’s just…” she sighs, “what am I gonna tell my parents?”

 

That seems to finally get it through to him. His bouncing stops abruptly, a frown coming back to his face.

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yeah,” Anne breathes, taking her hand back from his head, “oh.”

 

They’re quiet for a few moments, just letting each other stew in solemn silence. Upstairs, Anne can vaguely hear Hop-Pop pottering about in the kitchen and Polly running around the house like a hyperactive cat at three in the morning.

 

“Well,” Sprig starts eventually, “You’re the only human in Amphibia, right?”

 

Anne blinks, confused.

 

“…probably?” she answers. She’d thought, originally, that Sasha and Marcy must’ve been transported with her, but after all the craziness she’s seen over the past year without hearing hide nor hair of either of them she’d come to accept she was alone.

 

“Then you can’t meet your soulmate until you get back,” he assures, “so your timer should tell you when you’ll be home by.”

 

Anne makes a face.

 

“You don’t know that. Maybe my soulmate is a particularly gallant Newt from Newtopia.”

 

Sprig raises his brows, deadpan.

 

“Do you really wanna grow up and marry a Newt?”

 

Anne remembers, barely, the sensation of hugging Sprig for the first time and the cold, mucus-y feeling that had taken so very long to get used to.

 

“No thanks.”

 

“Then human world it is!” He proclaims, sounding quite proud of himself. He puffs his throat out in the croak he’d spend a month trying to perfect. Anne presses her pointer finger into the extended flesh, cutting the croak off halfway through. He stumbles back, spluttering, and she snickers.

 

“I appreciate the optimism.”

 

He sticks his tongue out at her.

 

“I appreciate you not trying to choke me!”

 

Anne rolls her eyes.

 

“You’re not gonna suffocate from a bad croak. Trust me, I’ve seen you do it enough times.”

 

Sprig’s eyes narrow into what she thinks is supposed to be a stink eye.

 

“I think I liked you better before you understood frog anatomy.”

 

“You love me.”

 

“Prove it, foul beast.”

 

Without any further prompting, Anne scoops Sprig up beneath his arms, spinning him around with ease. She’s not entirely sure if genetics or the Amphibian diet is to blame, but the past year has given her quite the growth spurt and Sprig was never very heavy to begin with. He laughs with the motion and Anne can’t help but let herself laugh too.

 

The one good thing about being stuck in Amphibia for a year was the Plantars, and the entirety of Wartwood if she were feeling generous. Sure, she missed her parents and her friends, but she wouldn’t trade her year in Amphibia for the world.

 

 

~

 

 

“Anne?”

 

The air is permeated with a light, insistent beeping. Nothing intrusive, nothing that should even carry over the couple dozen yards between them, but its sound is unmistakable. So is the red light beaming from the wrist of one very familiar-looking, very human girl.

 

Sasha looks like something straight out of a dream. Perfect, immaculate blonde hair, bronze armour polished to a shine, dark cloak thrown over shoulders that have only gotten broader and more defined in the intervening year and four months.

 

Anne feels something like the crazed swamp creature that the residents of Wartwood suspected she was when they first found her, with her poof of overgrown hair and cobbled together clothing she’d salvaged from whatever she could find in town that would fit her after she’d outgrown her school uniform. Her bare feet and stitched trousers that barely make it down to her shins certainly don’t help. Neither does her conspicuously not-beeping, not-flashing wrist.

 

Sasha doesn’t seem to notice though. A bright, almost manic, grin has stretched over her face and she’s closed the distance between them before Anne even has a chance to breathe, all but tackling her in a hug. Instead, she lifts her--much too easily-- and spins her in a bone-crushing embrace that has a pained wheeze escaping Anne’s lips before anything even resembling intelligible.

 

“Holy shit, it’s actually you!”

 

Sasha’s voice rattles around in Anne’s head like a clapper in a bell, chased by the still insistent beeping of the timer embedded into Sasha’s wrist.

 

Something awfully cold and hard is sinking in Anne’s stomach. It just manages to make it to her toes when Sasha finally sets her down. The beeping finally stops, the red flashing disappearing as the numbers fade into Anne’s name, emblazoned on Sasha’s skin in a permanent declaration. Sasha still doesn’t seem to notice. Her hands slide up Anne’s sides to rest on her cheeks. Her eager, smiling face comes to rest just inches from her own.

 

“I… I can’t believe it’s actually you…” Sasha’s words are more breath than voice, fondness and relief painting her brow in equal measure. Anne feels like she’s going to be sick.

 

 

~

 

 

They’re halfway to Toad Tower, sitting in an ornate carriage with as many normal-looking snacks and drinks a human could want, and Sasha still hasn’t noticed.

 

Their timers don’t match.

 

Anne had checked the moment she was able to get out of Sasha’s line of sight and, sure enough, the black numbers were still blinking downwards. 1 month, 27 days, and 16 hours.

 

They don’t match.

 

Anne’s only ever heard of timers not matching in storybooks. Fairy-tales, movies, comics, anime, video games for fucks sake. 

 

She knows it’s possible, that there’s always a news story out there about an unrequited soulmate, but it is rare. So rare that in olden times it was considered a sign of witchcraft. A curse. An act of God.

 

It’s not supposed to happen to her.

 

Anne can’t claim to be normal, that ship sailed right out the window the moment she got sucked into a world of anthropomorphic frogs, but even she can’t be this unlucky.

 

Or, well, she guesses that Sasha’s the unlucky one here.

 

Even just the concept of Sasha being unlucky feels like a cardinal sin.

 

All Anne can really do is sit there and try her best to make it look like she’s paying attention as Sasha drones on and on about one thing or another, playing with their intertwined fingers and occasionally brushing Anne’s hand against her lips. She’s yet to stop smiling.

 

To be fair to Sasha, Anne is trying to hide it. She wrapped her wrist in bandages the moment she saw that their timers didn’t match and their time in Amphibia, even if apart, has taught them both that bandages wrapped around something mean not to touch it.

 

That hadn’t stopped Sasha’s fingers from wrapping around her wrist after finding her and tugging her into a fierce kiss that left her ears ringing. Anne hadn’t exactly been kissed before, but she imagines that the sensation of teeth clicking together isn’t one that’s supposed to happen. It was… nice, she guessed. She didn’t really get what all the hype was about, other than her heart trying to make a mad escape from her chest and heat rapidly invading her cheeks afterwards. Sasha seemed satisfied though.

 

They don’t match. She still can’t believe it.

 

On some level she had expected her timer to count down to either Marcy or Sasha. She knows it’s uncommon for soulmates to meet before they get their marks, but she also knew there was something special about their bond. Something about both Sasha and Marcy that made her feel whole. When she’d first entered Amphibia and spent those first few months without them she’d felt… not empty, but incomplete in some capacity. It had taken almost the full first year for her to start to feel like she was a whole person outside of them. 

 

Wait… if Sasha was here then…

 

“Marcy!” 

 

Sasha cuts herself off mid-sentence, looking up at her like she just shouted that the sky was green.

 

“What?”

 

Colour rushes into Anne’s cheeks and she clears her throat.

 

“I, uh… I just realized that if you’re here then that means…”

 

Sasha just keeps staring at her like she’s the dumbest person alive.

 

“Yeah, and?” she questions.

 

“I uh,” Anne blinks. Did Sasha not think this was a big deal? “I thought that…”

 

The flat look dissipates, replaced with one that is bordering on pitying.

 

“Is that why you’ve been so quiet?” Sasha sits up, removing her head from Anne’s lap for the first time since they climbed in the carriage. She keeps their fingers linked though. “You thought you were stuck here alone?”

 

Unable to try and voice the real reason her throat feels like it's going to sever the arteries between her brain and heart, Anne nods.

 

Something between a coo and a chuckle bubbles from Sasha’s throat and she finally releases Anne’s hand, but only so she can cup Anne’s cheeks.

 

“Oh, Anne, I’m sorry. We really should’ve come after the rebellion in Wartwood earlier.”

 

Anne blinks.

 

“The what?”

 

She doesn’t get an answer. Sasha leans in close and presses her lips to Anne’s, eliciting a startled squeak and a jumping sensation in her chest. When she’s finally released, Anne’s too busy trying to remember how to breathe to question anything. Sasha launches into another tale of some adventure or another, Anne honestly has barely heard a word she’s said this entire time.

 

 

~

 

 

“Anne!”

 

Anne may have several grievances with Sasha, the least of which being the last half-an-hour or so, but she is still her friend. Mismatched soulmarks or attempted murder of her adoptive frog family non-withstanding. One incredibly bad day or series of bad choices don’t erase thirteen years of (mostly) happy memories.

 

She doesn’t want to see Sasha die.

 

“Sasha!” She’s half-running, half-crawling her way towards the end of the rapidly crumbling roof even before the word rips from her throat, hands reaching without second thought. She catches her, barely, fingers just managing to wrap around Sasha’s before she escapes her grasp. With a grunt of exertion, Anne braces her legs against the roof, trying to find the strength in her core to pull the both of them upwards. Sasha is heavier than Sprig, though, and she can’t quite manage it.

 

Sasha’s eyes are wide, a mixture of shock, fear, regret, and lingering betrayal swirling in their depths as she dangles there, her only hope for survival a girl she tried to stab into submission just a few moments prior. There are choruses of shouting in the background, the patter of feet and Toads raining down from unstable parts of the tower.

 

The muscles in Anne’s arm tighten and the bandages she’d wrapped there unwind, already loosened from the battle prior. The stone Anne was bracing against comes loose and she slips forwards, a shriek jumping out just as hands wrap around her ankles. Somewhere above she can hear Sprig assuring that he’s got her.

 

She doesn’t notice the bandages falling away or the expression of realization that blooms over Sasha’s face. All she notices is the trembling of the ground beneath her and the straining of her family behind her trying their best to keep them from falling.

 

“You’re gonna be fine,” she assures, though she doesn’t really believe it, and tries with all her might to bend her knees, her hips, anything that’ll bring them away from the edge, “I promise, I promise we’re gonna be okay, just hang on!”

 

“Guys!” Polly shouts and the tower gives another violent jerk. “We’ve got a situation!”

 

Anne gives another heave, to no avail other than sore muscles, and Sasha lets out a laugh.

 

“Hey, Anne…” It’s a whisper, but they’re close enough that Anne can hear her. She finally looks back at Sasha’s face only to find tears streaming down her cheeks and her arm, with the still ticking timer, bared for the world to see. Sasha smiles, something soft and sad and accepting. “It’s ok. You weren’t meant for me.”

 

“Wait, Sasha, no-”

 

“It’s alright.” Sasha reaches up with her free hand and pries Anne’s fingers away. “You’re better off without me.”

 

She lets go.

 

 

~

 

 

“Anne...”

 

Anne doesn’t look up from her task, wrapping the bands of leather, one over the other, careful to make sure that the band is impenetrable by water or grime or eyes. It needs to be perfect so she’ll never have to take it off.

 

“Anne.”

 

She holds it up next to her arm. Still too small. A curse pushes from her lips and she grabs another handful of leather strips, beginning to weave them in as well.

 

“Anne, you can’t just make it go away-”

 

“Watch me.”

 

Her mouth tastes bitter, or maybe that’s just because her lips are salty. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the gauntlet is almost done and once it is she won't have to look at those stupid, traitorous numbers anymore.

 

A slimy red hand lands over her own, gently pulling them away from the leather straps and Anne can’t help but remember calloused fingers prying her own away. Her vision blurs and she reaches up to scrub at her eyes. 

 

Hop-Pop sighs.

 

“Anne, this isn’t gonna fix anything.”

 

Anne swallows the lump forming in her throat and shakes her head, trying her hardest to dismiss the pressure building behind her eyes.

 

“I don’t care,” she whispers, “I just… I can’t keep looking at it.”

 

It’s been two days since the fall of Toad Tower, but her hands still ache from scratching against the stone. Her knees are still bruised and scraped. Her voice is still hoarse from crying. The stupid timer is still ticking down.

 

“It’s ok. You weren’t meant for me.”

 

Sasha had smiled as she fell. Her tears had fallen, but she was smiling. Hair whipped around her face and her lips turned upwards as her eyes closed, prepared for an imminent impact with the ground.

 

“You’re better off without me.”

 

Anne still sees her smiling, almost peaceful, face when she closes her eyes.

 

The Plantars had to keep her from jumping after her.

 

She didn’t see her touch down, but there was no body by the time the Plantars got her down the stairs so Anne was relatively certain she hadn’t died. That wasn’t exactly comforting, it just meant she was either out there in the wilderness, alone, or she’d run off with Grime.

 

The trek home was an exhausted, numb blur. It wasn’t until the morning afterwards, waking up in her room beneath the Plantar’s house, that it finally all sank in.

 

She was Sasha’s soulmate, but Sasha wasn’t hers, and Sasha hadn’t let go until she’d seen that. Sasha was willing to fight her, attempt to kill her family, hurt her friends all under the pretence that Anne was her soulmate. But the moment she learned that Anne wasn’t bound to her, the moment she learned that Anne wouldn’t bow to her, she’d let go.

 

She’d decided almost certain death was the better option.

 

And that stupid fucking timer was still ticking down, like all of that meant nothing.

 

Anne couldn’t stand it.

 

She’d contemplated, for a long thoughtful second, trying to scratch it off, but ultimately decided that was a bit extreme. It wouldn’t be fair to whoever was on the other side of it, it wasn’t their fault that the gods or universe or whatever decided that Anne’s life was some kind of big cosmic joke.

 

Gently, carefully, Hop-Pop takes the hands from Anne’s face and Anne, with little to no resistance left in her, leans forwards to place her face in his shoulder. The tears aren’t stopping. They won’t, no matter what. It feels like all she’s done in the past two days is cry. Hop-Pop lets her though. He doesn’t condemn her grief, doesn’t comment on all of the things Sasha’s done to warrant a lack of sympathy. He just holds her, lets her sob and shake and try her hardest not to scream.

 

Anne misses her parents sometimes. She misses them intensely and fiercely and painfully, especially her mother and her terrible singing, her father and his utter lack of understanding when it came to her math homework, her brothers and their playful teasing. She misses them, tries her hardest to not let herself forget their faces, their voices, their names, but the Plantars are just as good.

 

It’s not a replacement, otherwise, it wouldn’t hurt as much, but Hop-Pop’s hugs are just as familiar as her mother’s were. Sprig’s earnest questions and Polly’s chaotic ideas are just as amusing as Jackson’s ineptness in the kitchen. It’s as familiar as being with her family always was.

 

It doesn’t change the fact that when she cries into Hop-Pop’s shoulder his skin is cold and his arms don’t quite reach all the way around her shoulders. She is other, different, wrong. This isn’t her world and it will never be, no matter what she does. No matter if the townsfolk accept her or not.

 

“They’re just slimy little frogs Anne, they don’t matter!”

 

Anne hadn’t agreed with her, the Plantars mattered very much to her, but Sasha wasn’t entirely wrong. She can’t stay here.

 

The timer is just further proof of that.

 

Eventually, she pulls away from Hop-Pop, tears dried but throat still sore and shoulders still shaking. Hop-Pop watches her, brows all but meeting.

 

“Please,” he says, “stop torturing yourself.”

 

Anne laughs, wet and soft.

 

“I know. I’m sorry Hop-Pop,” she whispers and goes back to her task.

 

The gauntlet is finished by dinner and secured shortly afterwards.

 

 

~

 

 

Hours turn to days turn to weeks. Anne has already been in Amphibia for so long that she almost doesn’t notice the seasons change and has to be reminded by Sprig that she was supposed to be going somewhere during the summer months. Even so, the journey isn’t much different than living in Wartwood was.

 

They’re attacked at least once a day, have near-death experiences at least once a week, and manage to acquire a new set of scars every hour or so. 

 

Let it be known that life in Amphibia is anything but uneventful.

 

Anne thinks that Amphibia has done its best to try and turn her into someone who doesn’t dwell on the past. You can’t when every second, every minute, every breath might be your last. All the same, she can’t help but feel the weight of the gauntlet wrapped around her arm like a ball and chain. She won’t take it off, no matter how many pitying gazes Hop-Pop sends her, or the questioning looks Sprig shoots when she wraps a blindfold over her eyes before she bathes. If she knows what it says under there she won’t be able to forgive herself, it doesn’t matter who is on the other side of it.

 

It won’t be Sasha.

 

She’s heard whispers in their travels. Tales of a strange long-limbed creature with golden hair and the disgraced fugitive Grime aren’t easy to overlook, especially when you look somewhat similar to the said long-limbed creature. At the very least, she knows she’s alive.

 

Even if she wants nothing to do with her.

 

Newtopia is getting closer with each passing day and Anne can’t help but wonder if it’s even worth it anymore. So much has happened, so much time has passed, what would going home even feel like? Would it even matter?

 

How does she even get home without Sasha and Marcy?

 

She doesn’t know, and it keeps her awake at night.

 

 

~

 

 

“Hop-Pop!” Anne lunges forwards, arms wrapping around the elderly frog’s midsection as a giant crow attempts to lift him by the scruff of his neck. Another set of arms, probably Sprig’s, wrap around her knees as they play another game of tug-o-war with this week’s attempted predator.

 

Actually, that mantis showed up like two days ago… she needs to start making a list or a calendar or something on the amount of times they’ve almost been eaten. It’s honestly getting impressive.

 

The crow lets out a loud squawk in frustration and drops Hop-Pop, leaving the four of them-- how the hell did Polly even get up here?-- to go tumbling from the top of the Fwagon and down the side of the hill.

 

“Tuck and roll kids!” Hop-Pop shouts, partially muffled against Anne’s chest and somehow not smushed by her wildly flailing limbs. 

 

They come to a stop a few seconds later after slamming into what Anne can only hope is a tree and not a rock. Black dots dance in front of her eyes. She’d be more concerned if this wasn’t the fifth almost-concussion she’s had since arriving in Amphibia.

 

“Everyone’s limbs intact?!” Sprig yells from somewhere to her left. Anne sits up with a  groan and an assurance on her lips only to be interrupted by another loud squawk.

 

“Guys! It’s circling back!” Polly shouts somewhere to her right.

 

Anne barely has time to blink the spots out of her eyes before she can see a pair of talons the size of her torso plunging towards her. She yelps and brings her arms up to try and shield her face, only for the talons to curl around her forearm and yank her up into the air.

 

“Anne!”

 

It’s always a strange sensation, dangling in open air. Unfortunately, it's quickly becoming one she’s familiar with. Panic is only a distant sensation now, which she’s not entirely sure is a good thing.

 

She grits her teeth as the talons dig into the skin of her arm, snapping through the leather bindings like toilet paper. Without missing a beat she drags in a breath and swings her weight. One of her feet lodges into the Crow’s beak and she wrenches it downwards. The bird squawks in protest and drops her almost immediately.

 

This would be great if she weren’t already several feet off the ground.

 

Maybe this time she’ll actually get a concussion. That’ll be her, what, third? Or maybe she’ll just crack her spine in half.

 

Yeah, that sounds about right.

 

A scream rips itself from her throat, acceptance of her impending injury or not, and she finds herself curling into a ball before she can do anything else. Air whistles past her ears, pulls at the edges of her air and seams of her clothes. She tumbles, over and over, unsure of which direction is the sky and the ground.

 

Vaguely, she wonders if this is how she dies.

 

Then a familiar sensation of something warm and wet wraps around her waist and she’s pulled from her descent. She lands next to Hop-Pop atop a grassy null with little more than a couple bruises and a particularly airy ‘oof’ as the breath is knocked out of her.

 

No concussion today, yaaay.

 

The crow gives a final angry squawk before apparently judging them to be more work than worth it and retreating to one of the many scraggly cliffs. Several pairs of arms tuck themselves beneath her shoulders and help her sit up as she attempts to reacquaint herself with the sensation of gravity.

 

“That was so cool-”

 

“Anne can you hear me-”

 

“You need to work on your spatial awareness girl-”

 

The words buzz around her head like a cloud of particularly annoying gnats. She doesn’t really have the presence of mind to try and assign them to the corresponding frog while her vision swims hazily from side to side and her ears continue emitting a high-pitched whining noise.

 

Maybe there is a concussion today?

 

Shit.

 

“Anne?” A voice asks, Hop-Pop she thinks, and she narrows her eyes to try and force them to focus. It takes a few seconds but eventually the image of three worried pinkish faces coalesce before her.

 

“Ow,” She says.

 

They all collectively heave a sigh of relief.

 

Anne reaches up to press her hand against the side of her head, only to pause and wince at the sensation of the leather straps of her gauntlet brushing over torn skin. Through the slits of her eyes, she can see Sprig reaching for it and beginning to undo the straps.

 

She jerks her arm away but only succeeds in wrenching one of the straps off in a violent painful snap. The leather falls away and she’s left with a mess of blood and dead skin and black numbers still ticking down.

 

The breath leaves Anne’s lungs.

 

23:45:02

 

Oh.

 

Oh fuck.

 

~

 

“Anne…” Hop-Pop pleads from somewhere on the other side of her blanket cocoon, “Anne you can’t hide in there forever.”

 

“Jus waff meh,” she mumbles back, muffled by the layer of cotton.

 

Hop-Pop heaves a sigh and begins tugging at the blanket.

 

“Anne we’re just outside of Newtopia, as much as it pains me to say it, you can’t run from your destiny.”

 

“Desbiny cab go scht-uck ob a Toad.”

 

“That’s offensive to Toads.”

 

“ You’re obbensive to Toads.”

 

Hop-Pop finally wrestles the blanket away from her, revealing the swollen eyed, tear-stained face below. Anne pouts, though there’s no real energy in it. She’s already cried all of the fight out of her.

 

“Anne I don’t ask this often, but please act your age.”

 

If possible, Anne’s expression flattens.

 

“I am acting my age! I’m fourteen!”

 

“That’s not what I--,” Hop-Pop heaves a sigh and drags one of his hands over his face, “Look: I know this is a lot for you to take in, but this…” he gestures in the vague direction of her wrist, “isn’t the end of the world.”

 

“No,” Anne agrees, petulant, “Just the possibility of me ever patching my relationship with Sasha.”

 

He throws his hands up, frustration finally boiling over.

 

“Oh for the love of- Sasha is not the only person in your life!”

 

“She’s-”

 

“A friend!” Hop-Pop cuts her off. “And I hate to break it to you, but friends don’t last forever!”

 

Silence falls over the Fwagon.

 

Sprig and Polly are outside, they’ve been outside ever since it became clear that Anne wasn’t going to be much for conversation today. Leaning on others for support wasn’t a skill she’d managed to master and a year and some change in Amphibia hasn’t changed that. So they don’t get to see when Anne’s face twists into something open and vulnerable and younger than she’s looked in a long time. They don’t get to see when Hop-Pop’s age falls over his shoulders with enough force to flatten him.

 

“Relationships aren’t stone, Anne,” he whispers, gentle, “they come and go, shape and warp. Someone can be your best-friend one day and your worst enemy another. Your brother can become your captor, your daughter a stranger. They change overtime and all you can do is try your hardest to adapt with them.”

 

“But…” Anne wants to argue, wants to shout at Hop-Pop that she’s known Sasha since she was three and they’re never, ever going to stop being friends no matter what, but he just shakes his head. Slow and sad.

 

“I’m sorry Anne,” he says, “but you can’t live your life around someone else, it’ll eat you alive. I’m tired of watching you beat yourself up over something that isn’t your responsibility: Sasha is not your responsibility.”

 

“Her wrist-”

 

“It what?” He asks, “beeped when she saw you? You’re going to tell me that in the entire human history there’s never been a case of Soulmates being bad for each other? There’s never been a case of Soulmates who just didn’t work?”

 

Anne doesn’t answer.

 

Hop-Pop bows his head.

 

“I’m sorry that things have worked out this way, and I’m sorry that you’re having to go through all of this so young, but we cannot control the cards that life deals us. We can only decide what to do with our hands.”

 

Anne stares for a long, thoughtful moment at her arm. The timer is still ticking down, now at just over twelve hours, and wonders for a moment how the hell Sasha dealt with this. She hadn’t been hiding her timer as far as she knew so she had to have known it was ticking down as she got closer to Wartwood, had to have known it was ticking down the entire time she was planning scheming with Grime.

 

How the hell hadn’t she gone insane?

 

Maybe she had.

 

“Anne,” Hop-Pop pleads, “sometimes you just have to let life happen. If you spend all your energy trying to shape it into something it’s not all you’re going to do is exhaust yourself.”

 

I’m already exhausted, she thinks.

 

That night, once the hard conversations have all been had, once the sun has disappeared over the horizon, and the Plantars have all but bedded down for the night, Anne can’t help but watch her wrist. The black numbers are still ticking, it’s almost hypnotic. Not a second goes unaccounted for, not an instant isn’t displayed proudly.

 

For a moment she tries to imagine an existence like the Plantars, like all of the people in Amphibia. One where there isn’t such concrete, irrefutable proof of who she’s supposed to spend her life with. She tries to imagine a world where she’d get to choose, get to figure it out for herself.

 

She wonders if that’d be easier.

 

Probably not, but maybe it wouldn’t hurt at much.

 

~

 

Anne tries her hardest not to glance down at her wrist every three seconds but it’s becoming increasingly difficult as they approach Newtopia.

 

Logically, she knows there’s  a total of three options of what is going to happen:

1. Her soulmate was a Newt, which-- all things considered-- wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to happen on this trip.
2. The king of Newtopia would be able to send her home in time for her timer to go off right upon her arrival in the human world. (She highly doubted that one if only because she knew her luck wasn’t that good.)
3. Her soulmate was--

 

“Uh… do you guys feel that?”

 

The ground gives a violent jerk beneath her feet and Anne is forced to stop staring at her rapidly ticking wrist if only so she can keep her balance. Slowly, different points of earth are beginning to rise, large antennae poking through the mud.

 

She takes a few steps back, instinctually putting herself between the oncoming threat and Spig.

 

Ants larger than they have any right to be, rise to their full height (about five of them, Anne counts) and start to surround them. One of Hop-Pop’s hands curls in the fabric of Anne’s t-shirt, pulling her back until she’s practically flush with the Fwagon. Vaguely, she hears Bessie give out a whimper as she curls back into her shell.

 

“Anyone else feeling a bit antsy?” she grumbles, mostly to herself, and receives an elbow in her knee for her trouble.

 

Something makes a loud impact with the water and she watches, dumbfounded, as a ring of some dark brown sludge quickly forms between the ants and the Fwagon before being set ablaze with an arrow. The ants let out a shriek at the sudden light and quickly retreat into their burrows, the fire dissipating almost as quickly as it appeared.

 

“What…?” 

 

It takes more effort than it should to turn her head and try to parse where the arrow came from. A tall, thin, hooded figure stands atop Newtopia’s wall, right art outstretched with what looks to be a crossbow atop. An arrow flies out, rope attached, and buries itself into one of the Fwagon’s wheels. Polly shouts something, excited, and the figure jumps onto the line they created, ziplining down like they do this every day.

 

Only for the line to snap literal seconds later.

 

Anne can’t help but wince when the figure all but belly-flops into the surf, a gurgled cry following them down into the water.

 

“Oof-”

 

“Been there-”

 

“Didn’t really stick the landing-”

 

“Wait a second,” Anne presses forwards. She recognizes that particular way of landing.

 

“Okay, so… Newtopian rope can hold an average human girl for about… 2.3 seconds…” The figure pulls herself up from the water, uncaring as she drips all over the composition notebook clutched in her sopping wet hands. A pen is already scratching over the paper in a motion that is no doubt smudging more than it is actually marking anything.

 

“...maybe I could reinforce the rope with iron-spider silk to increase the tensile strength…” the figure pauses in her rambling, bringing the pen up to her mouth and biting down on the Cam. Only one person that Anne’s ever met was that utterly unbothered by ruining their stuff.

 

“...Marcy…?”

 

BEEP

 

Oh.

 

The hooded figure turns on her heel, reaching up to pull down her hood but a bright red flash comes from her wrist, lighting up the face beneath it even before the shadow has a chance to retract.

 

BEEP

 

“Anne?”

 

Oh no.

Chapter 2: II

Anne’s mouth opens but no sound comes out. All she can think of is the last time this happened. How Sasha’s hug had felt at once like coming home and also like being strangled. How that first kiss had stolen her breath and taken her mind with it, leaving her to stumble around unthinking until the reality of what Sasha had been planning to do came crashing down over her head. How utterly terrified and helpless and sad she’d felt, how it’d all turned to a burning, boiling anger that felt like it would never leave. How it’d evaporated the moment Sasha screamed her name as the tower crumbled, how she’d clutched onto her so desperately she’d actually dislocated her shoulder.

 

How Sasha had smiled before she let go of her hand.

 

Marcy doesn’t look like she knows how to react either, she’s still holding her cloak-hood, brows risen, and a deep flush spreading over her cheeks. Anne watches as it starts to creep down her neck as well.

 

Something prods her in the back.

 

She stumbles, her knees all but locked, and face-plants directly into Marcy. Both of them go crashing into the surf. Marcy’s arms wrap around her, but otherwise, all she gets for her trouble is a wheeze.

 

Neither of them speak, still too shocked to so much as look each other in the eyes.

 

BEEP

 

BEEP

 

BEEP

 

Their wrists flash in tandem, staining the water a dim red with their reflection, their quiet shrieking slowly petering off until the only sound Anne can hear is Marcy’s stuttered breathing and the shift of the water around them.

 

She doesn’t look at her wrist, she knows exactly what it’ll say.

 

Eventually, Marcy sits up and, well, with Anne laying on her chest she’s forced to come with her. She lands in her lap and finally finds herself face to face with her soulmate.

 

Marcy doesn’t look that much different than she did back home, same dark hair and eyes, same rounded cheeks, same small button nose, but her jaw has gotten just a tad more defined. The muscles in her neck are just a bit more prominent. There’s a little scar just to the right of her chin that wasn’t there before, a matching one on the left eyebrow. Her hair has grown out over the year and six months they’ve been apart, just like Anne’s has, and she’s pulled it back into a low ponytail. A few stubborn strands have been cut shorter than the rest and fall to frame her face in choppy, uneven locks.

 

They do nothing to hide the blush still very prominent on her cheeks or the shy smile trying its hardest to curl the corners of her mouth.

 

“Uh… hi…”

 

It’s said so softly, so gently, almost like she’s afraid she’ll startle a small animal.

 

Anne’s sure she looks like it.

 

“..hi...” She chokes the word out and tries her hardest not to dwell on the fact it tastes like iron. Or how tight the muscles in her spine are.

 

Something shifts in Marcy’s expression, a question forming.

 

“Anne..?” The arms keeping her in place slide up to rest on her shoulders, “Are you okay?”

 

Goosebumps shoot up Anne’s back and she’s reminded none-too-kindly of the sensation of Sasha grabbing her by the wrist and tugging her in. She jerks back, effectively distancing herself from Marcy and sliding off her lap with a splash. Water slips over her field of vision before her head makes a painful connection with the ground and she’s forced to sit back up spluttering and clutching her skull.

 

“Oh Jeez,” Marcy’s voice says somewhere from her right, “Are you-”

 

“Fine!” Anne coughs. Water dribbles down her chin. “Fine! Fine- I...” she trails off, still not entirely sure what she’s trying to say and blinking water from her eyes. “You… we… uh…”

 

A hand lands on her shoulder and Anne’s halfway to jerking away and back into the water before she recognises it as too small and too cold to belong to a human. Sprig’s eyes are narrowed and what little he has that resembles a brow is drawn up in an approximation of a scowl. He stares Marcy down, throat partially puffed up in what might be deemed to be a threatening display.

 

Hop-Pop lightly cuffs him over the top of the head.

 

“Play nice, Sprig,” he admonishes and then switches to his best, most innocent smile. “And Anne, why don’t you introduce us to your friend?”

 

A panicked look must flash over her face because Hop-Pop’s smile drops faster than a brick.

 

She snaps her gaze away and back to Marcy only to find that confused expression steadily forming into a concerned one.

 

“She-” Anne splutters, still feeling like the earth has tilted ninety degrees to the right, “Marcy.. I...” She waves a hand helpfully, “...Plantars?!”

 

Now everyone is staring at her like she grew a second head.

 

Hop-Pop opens his mouth, probably to question if she hit her head, but is interrupted by Marcy slowly raising her hand like she’s been suddenly transported back to middle school and not in the middle of a swamp in an entire other dimension. To her credit, it does get everyone’s attention.

 

“Hi, uh, Marcy…” she volunteers and then flickers her eyes between Anne and the Plantars, “Question: what is going on here?”

 

The Plantars exchange glances and then look back over at Anne, but she hardly even notices. Her eyes have zeroed in on Marcy’s bare wrist, which clearly states her name in bold black letters.

 

Anne Boonchuy.

 

“So Sasha really was just the unlucky one.”

 

Marcy’s eyebrows attempt a mad escape from her forehead followed by her eyelids.

 

“What?!”

 

Anne feels a weight drop in her stomach.

 

“Fuck, I said that out-loud?!”

 

“Anne!” Hop-Pop chastises, “Language!”

 

“Hop-Pop what does ‘fuck’ mean?” Polly asks.

 

“Oh boy,” Sprig summarizes.

 

 

~

 

 

“So, let me see if I got this straight.” Marcy’s lips have pressed themselves into a thin line and her brows are following a similar pattern.

 

She’s removed her cloak, mostly because it kept catching fire, and her arms are crossed over her chest as she paces back and forth, kicking up water as she goes.

 

God, Anne hopes those boots are waterproof.

 

“You ran into Sasha, whose timer went off indicating you were her soulmate, you panicked and didn’t tell her she wasn’t yours. She then proceeded to take you, your family, and your entire town on a several hour journey to her home which was a military instillation, all the while acting very couple-y with you. Then told you she intended to kill your family, was somehow surprised when you decided not to let her do that and fought her. The tower then proceeded to crumple, you tried to save her despite the fact she’d just got done trying to grievously harm you and your family, she realized you weren’t her soulmate, and she then decided to let herself fall to almost certain death.”

 

“Sounds about right.” Anne’s knees are drawn up to her chest, Sprig and Hop-Pop on either side of her, Polly firmly seated atop her head. It takes conscious effort to keep her gaze away from her shoes and, even then, it keeps straying to Marcy’s wrist where it’s tucked against her chest. She still can’t bring herself to look at her own.

 

Marcy stops pacing, turns to face Anne, and stares at her for a solid ten seconds without saying a word.

 

Just when Anne’s starting to get concerned Marcy sucks in a breath.

 

“Are you okay?!”

 

Sprig snorts.

 

Anne shrugs before she can stop herself.

 

“It was, like, two months ago…” she mutters lamely.

 

Hop-Pop gives her an unimpressed look.

 

“But-” Marcy splutters, “But you- she- what the heck, Anne?!”

 

“It’s whatever,” she grumbles and forces her legs to push herself into a standing position. Polly makes a squeak from atop her head and she reaches up to remove her. “Shit happens.”

 

“Anne,” Hop-Pop admonishes.

 

“I know, I know, language.” Carefully, gently, she deposits Polly into Hop-Pop’s waiting arms and does her best not to wince when she meets Marcy’s concerned gaze. “Look, it was a lot… is a lot, I know, but…” she sighs, “it is what it is. I can’t… we can’t change fate, we have to live with it.”

 

Marcy’s brows do an interesting little dance before settling back into a scowl.

 

“Fate-schmate,” she takes a step forward and Anne, without missing a beat, steps back in tandem. Marcy freezes, expression softening with realization and then hardening once more, “Sasha doesn’t get a free pass just because you’re her soulmate.”

 

Anne has to suppress the urge to sigh.

 

“I know. Okay, can we not do this right now? You can psychoanalyze me all you want once we get into Newtopia, but right now we’ve got bigger problems.”

 

Marcy looks like she wants to argue, but she glances meaningfully in the direction of the mounds of dirt the ants left behind.

 

“Come on,” she grumbles, any trace of good humour or excitement gone as she starts trudging around the side of Newtopia’s walls.

 

 

~

 

There’s a rock crumpling overhead, Anne’s legs are moving before she can stop herself and she’s got her arms wrapped around Marcy’s shoulders, legs intertwined as they go rolling across the cavern floor.

 

The Ant Queen lets out a screech at the noise of both their impact and the stalagmite hitting the floor and she’s hauling Marcy behind the stalagmite. Their skin touches only for the barest of moments but it's enough to make something like nausea creep beneath Anne’s skin.

 

~

 

“I can still save him-”

 

“No!” Anne’s hand lashes out before she can stop it and next thing she knows it’s resting on Marcy’s shoulder. It feels like a thousand tongues of electricity are licking up her arms. “I’ll do it, you just… stay here.”

 

“Anne!” Marcy turns in her hold, a groan in her voice as she plants her hands on Anne’s shoulders. A shock runs down her spine and it’s fear alone that keeps her from retreating. “Only I studied Barbariant biology! It has to be me!

 

“No, it doesn’t!” Marcy’s grip on her shoulders loosens and Anne grabs her arms before she can pull away entirely, even if it makes her stomach turn. “I can handle it!”

 

Frustration flashes over Marcy’s face.

 

“Urgh! Why won’t you just let me go?!”

 

“Because I just got you back, okay!” Anne can feel her eyes ache with tears she refuses to let fall. “And I don’t…” she trails off, Marcy’s expression has turned to one of surprise which is honestly kind of stupid because, hey, they’re supposed to be soulmates or whatever. God forbid Anne doesn’t want to see someone else she cares about put themselves in danger because of her. Maybe it's frustration talking, maybe it's the fact that every time she touches Marcy she keeps expecting her to turn around and wrench her into something she isn’t prepared for. “I don’t want to lose you again.”

 

Marcy stares at her for a moment longer than she was expecting, something clicking in her, and her whole posture softens. She takes her hands, Anne forces herself not to pull away. Marcy doesn’t entwine their fingers.

 

“You won’t. I promise.”

 

When Anne pulls her hands away it is slow and deliberate. 

 

 

~

 

 

“So…” Marcy stands beside her, hands tucked into her pockets and nervously shuffling her feet. “Do you…”

 

Anne sighs and sinks against one of the many statues. Newtopia is just as pretty and decorated as she was expecting with all the trimmings and guards that go with a fantasy kingdom of its size and grandeur. However, it feels strangely empty. Like it’s missing something, or rather, someone.

 

It’s a familiar feeling.

 

“I should’ve told her,” she concedes and pointedly keeps her gaze on the pond in front of her. She’d given up on shoes about three months into her stay with the Plantars, they just got too dirty and too wet to be practical for any long span of time and so she’d taken to going barefoot instead. As it is, all she has to do is pull the legs of her pants up to her knees and slip her feet into the water. “I know. Maybe things would’ve turned out differently, maybe she would’ve come clean earlier or not gone through with it or… I don’t know. I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to screw things up so badly-”

 

“Anne.”

 

Marcy can be serious when she needs to be, but Anne doesn’t think she’s ever heard that particular tone of voice from her before.

 

“It’s not your fault.”

 

Anne scoffs.

 

“Right, Sasha should’ve just magically been able to read my mind and understand that I wa-”

 

“You’re not responsible for Sasha’s actions, Anne.” Marcy breaks in. “She had no right to treat you like that, regardless of if you were her soulmate or not. Just because ‘fate’ or ‘destiny’ or whatever tied the two of you together doesn’t give her the right to treat you like garbage.”

 

Anne slowly drags her gaze from the water to search Marcy’s. She’s looking at her with imploring, open eyes, but her hands are still firmly planted inside of her pockets. Her shoulders are tense and there’s something in her posture like at the slightest provocation she’ll go running.

 

“You’re just saying that because I’m tied to you now.”

 

Marcy’s face falls, some of the tension leaves her and her shoulders sag like some kind of weight was draped over them. They heave as she tugs in a breath and, carefully, settles herself next to Anne on the side of the pond. She takes her right wrist from her pocket and shows Anne the name inscribed there and then gently reaches for Anne’s, stopping just short of actually grabbing it. When Anne fixes her with a confused look, Marcy bites down on her bottom lip.

 

“You keep jumping…” she offers, and a sick feeling twists in Anne’s gut.

 

Frog, she needs help.

 

She lets Marcy take her hand and the skin only crawls a little at the touch. Settled side by side it’s easy to see how they go together, cream and burnt-sierra together in an almost perfect gradient of colour. Anne’s eyes skip over her own mark, the familiar curve of letters she’s seen shaped a million times before, and instead linger on the fact that Marcy doesn’t lace their fingers together. She doesn’t even hold her wrist any longer than it takes to put them side by side. 

 

She’d never noticed before, but even though Marcy’s hands are just a tad smaller than her own, her fingers are longer. Her own hand looks almost comical next to the elegance of Marcy’s. Her palm is much shorter and larger, her fingers rounder and more crooked. She’s built up callouses from farmwork with the Plantar’s, and her thumb has a little x over where she’d accidentally cut herself with a trowel. Marcy’s hand is calloused too, but in different places and with different intensities, and there’s several new marks on the tips of her fingers and along her knuckles. There’s a noticeable scar on the inside of her wrist that ends just before where Anne’s name begins.

 

Their names do match, just as perfectly as Anne had dreamed of as a child. Marcy’s small handwriting leaving her name almost the exact opposite of the large, childish signature of Anne’s own, but it’s almost an afterthought. Especially when Anne slowly turns her hand over and, almost on autopilot, interlocks her fingers with Marcy’s.

 

They don’t fit together like puzzle pieces.

 

Their callouses rub against each other. Marcy’s fingers are much thinner than Anne’s and slide between hers like strings. Anne’s thumb doesn’t bend all the way like it used to and so it only manages to partially wrap around Marcy’s.

 

“The name isn’t a claim, Anne.” Marcy whispers and Anne finally manages to tear her gaze from their hands. Marcy is smiling, soft and gentle. “It’s a suggestion. This,” she shakes their entwined hands just a bit for emphasis, “has to be worked for. It doesn’t just come because God or the universe or whatever said so.”

 

It takes Anne a minute to respond and once she does her voice has gone suspiciously hoarse.

 

“What happens if it doesn’t work?”

 

Marcy is quiet, then she shrugs.

 

“I dunno, guess we’ll have to find out together.”

 

 

~

 

Anne never fully understood the concept of soulmates. Oh, she understood it on a basic level:

 

Person A meets Person B, their timers go off, they find out they’re compatible in more ways than they could ever imagine, and fall in love. End of story.

 

But she didn’t really… get it.

 

How? How do the timers know what person A needs in a partner? How do the timers know that person B is going to be good for person A? What happens if it doesn’t work? What happens if Person A and Person B decide they don’t like each other? What if Person A isn’t looking for a relationship? What if Person B is a homicidal maniac?

 

Her parents had always told her she’d understand when she was older. That fate just knew, the timers knew, what you needed.

 

Anne often forgets that she knew Marcy first.

 

It’s just that it’s been Anne, Marcy, and Sasha for so long. The three amigos, the three musketeers: unbeatable, untamable, unbreakable. They were a complete set. The other two did not exist without the third, there was no contest.

 

But Anne met Sasha when she was three, she’s known Marcy since before she could talk.

 

Something about their parents being in the same parenting class at the local community college or whatever. The result had been that Anne grew up with Marcy as a permanent fixture of her life. Long before there was Anne, Marcy, and Sasha, there was just Anne and Marcy.

 

It has been so long since it’s been just Anne and Marcy.

 

And now it’s supposed to be Anne and Marcy until the end of time.

 

Person A meets Person B, end of story.

 

Anne meets Marcy, and she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do.

 

Not all soulmates are romantic, she knows that. Of course, the romantic narrative is the most common one, the one that got drilled into her head over and over through every single piece of mainstream media she ever consumed. There’s always the exceptions, the stories that try to make things more complicated on purpose for drama or whatever, but it remains that almost every pair of soulmates that Anne has met in her relatively short life have been romantic. If not in the present, then in the past, or in the future.

 

Marcy assures her they can take things slow, that she doesn’t really care too much about all of that because they’re just Marcy and Anne. A new mystical tattoo doesn’t change that. Anne wants to agree with her. She wants to so desperately because the mess of emotions that Sasha gave her is still writhing around in her gut and making it hard for her to look Marcy in the eyes.

 

She still jumps every time their skin touches.

 

But unfortunately, what was only a year and a half apart feels closer to a decade and before Anne even has a chance to take a breath she finds herself at Marcy’s side more often than not. Leaning over her shoulder, listening to her rambles, smiling at inside jokes so old she’s forgotten their original context. 

 

Anne wants to be able to just sit back and let life happen around her for once. She wants to be able to close her eyes and rest for just a little while, but her damn heart won’t let her.

 

And she knows it's stupid to be upset about having a crush feelings for her soulmate. It’s normal, expected, the most normal thing to happen to her in over a year, but it is frustrating beyond all belief.

 

Marcy doesn’t help with her goofy smile and bouncy nature. Her kind eyes and fidgety hands. Anne finds herself mirroring her more often than not, tapping her fingers in tandem with whatever rhythm Marcy has decided on for today’s research spree. Clicking their feet together when Marcy swings them back and forth as she absentmindedly takes a bite of the sandwich Anne had placed in her hand thirty minutes earlier and she’s just realized was there. Finishing her sentence when she fumbles for a word, stuttering over it and snapping her fingers in frustration. Smiling when she does that cute little thing where she scrunches her nose and bites her bottom lip.

 

They don’t talk about it, they have bigger fish to fry, but Anne knows that Marcy is just as aware of the weird tension between them. She can see it when she goes to grab her hand only to stop herself at the last second.

 

Anne has to be the one to initiate any kind of physical contact.

 

 

~

 

 

“Anne?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

Anne pries her eyes open and raises an arm to shield them from the candlelight.

 

It’s late, she really shouldn’t be in the Newtopian Royal Library at this hour, but Marcy had assured her that she was close to a breakthrough and just needed the moral support. Living on the farm with the Plantars has forced her to adopt something approaching a normal circadian rhythm, however, and so the moment the clock dipped past ten she was fighting to keep her eyes open.

 

The frantic run around the city she’d had to do earlier trying to keep Polly and Sprig out of trouble certainly hadn’t helped.

 

Marcy is watching her, a smile on her lips that speaks of a fondness much older than the half-a-month that Anne’s been in Newtopia.

 

“You good?”

 

Anne blinks. It’s a long, slow thing, like a cat curled in a pool of sunlight. The world is warm and dry like it hasn’t been in the better part of two years. The candle that Marcy has been using to read by paints her face a warm golden hue and douses everything with the scent of smoke that she’s come to associate with campfires and fireplaces. The safety of fire is a fragile one, but one that she is familiar with like the fingers that rest next to hers on the polished wooden surface she’s using for a pillow.

 

Curling her hand around Marcy’s is like second nature and she closes her eyes with another hum of acknowledgement.

 

Marcy chuckles in return, soft, but doesn’t pull away. She can hear the flip of a page in her current book and the scratch of a quill on parchment.

 

The silence of the library is comforting, if only because of how rare it is. Anne used to hate silence, used to do anything in her power to avoid it. The hectic life of Amphibia has taught her to take solace in it when she can, to cherish the quiet moments just as much as the loud ones. And so, even as she hovers in the place between rest and wakefulness, she notices when Marcy breaks it.

 

“I’ve missed this.”

 

She doesn’t have it in her to respond, she’s too far gone. Not quite asleep, much too tired to be awake.

 

“Not holding hands,” Marcy starts, then quickly backtracks “uh, I mean, I guess that’s nice too…”

 

She sighs and the hand in Anne’s flexes, lifting her left cheek slightly. She grunts her discontent.

 

“Sorry.” 

 

Anne grumbles but ultimately settles back down.

 

“I just…” the sound of a quill scraping across paper grows more insistent for a second. “I’ve missed feeling… calm.”

 

The quill stops. The world stills. Anne can hear the distant shouting of crickets in the palace gardens. Even further out she can hear the hustle and bustle of city nightlife. 

 

“Huh…” Marcy mutters, “I… I didn’t realize that I… hmm.”

 

The air hangs silent for a couple seconds, then the hand in Anne’s gently pries itself loose. Before she can voice a protest though it lands in her hair and begins gently combing through.

 

A sigh of contentment escapes her.

 

“I guess that’s the point of these things…” She whispers like she’s afraid to be heard, “To bring out the best in each other... balance each other out... I never thought that…” 

 

The fingers still.

 

“It’s just that I always knew that you were different.”

 

They start moving again.

 

“Sasha too, but even then there was something about you… but I’m not sure I like chalking it all up to fate or destiny or, or…” She lets out a breath, disturbing the hair atop Anne’s head.

 

“I’m overthinking this. I always overthink stuff like this. That’s me, Marcy, the overthinker.”

 

The fingers in her hair close around something and pull it loose. Even in her half-conscious state, Anne knows it to be a leaf. She expects an incredulous chuckle or tut of disapproval. What she gets instead is a long, weighted silence.

 

“Overthinker until it actually matters…” Marcy whispers.

 

Anne feels her brows press together, but before she can gather enough confusion to ask the question Marcy’s other hand smooths over it. The fingers begin twisting through her hair again.

 

“I’m sorry about all this, Anne. I promise I’ll get you home. I owe you that much.”

 

She wants to question that, but Marcy goes back to quietly taking notes. Words spent. Fingers continue to dance through her hair as the night grows long. The motion eventually lulls her to sleep.

Notes:

I know this is short, but I think it's better than the alternative (me ending this at True Colors). I'll probably circle back around to this later (once season 3 has dropped and I have a better idea of what direction the story is going in) but for now, this is it. See you guys around. :) -Reyna

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 4 of Soulmate AUs