Chapter Text
DAYS UNTIL OPENING: 6
The thing that Gideon liked best about the new shop (her shop, holy shit) was the abundance of light. All of the stores in this area of the shopping district– a hair salon, a cell phone provider, a pet store, a handful of clothing boutiques, two Vietnamese restaurants, and a tattoo parlor– had huge glass windows and doors, but Gideon had been lucky enough to score a corner unit. Admittedly, the view of the traffic intersection was less than desirable, but that wouldn't be a problem after she finished lining every inch of the space with flowers and greenery. Between the windows, the light wood flooring, and the jade stucco walls left behind by the previous owner, it was the perfect starting point for her new venture as a florist.
It might have been that because everything was going so well, that Gideon decided to relax before she should have. Instead of meeting the movers when they arrived at dawn, she decided to leave them a key and catch a few extra hours of sleep in her studio apartment. So, it was with a sense of personal dissatisfaction that she went down to the shop later that morning and discovered that the movers had done a less than stellar job. Gideon's walking cane– carved from oak, with a gently curved handle that fit comfortably in her palm– moved in time with the steps of her left boot as she maneuvered herself gracelessly around the haphazardly stacked boxes and furniture. Whatever, it was fine. It would just take her longer to set up than anticipated, especially since she needed to clear a path for the appliance delivery scheduled for tomorrow.
The bell over the door– another leftover from the previous owner that Gideon wasn't as fond of– clanged as a familiar head of dark, blunt-cut hair entered the shop.
"Yikes," said Camilla, with a notable lack of horror. The late spring weather was warm enough that she wasn't wearing a jacket, leaving her tattoo sleeve on full display. A flock of sleek, black birds in flight encircled her brown arm. She eyed a particularly unfortunate box tower.
"You're telling me," sighed Gideon. "This is what I get for being seduced by the siren call of my slutty, slutty mattress."
"Next time, you'll know better than to let yourself enjoy a bit of rest." Camilla tossed something bright and shining into the air, and Gideon fumbled but caught it before it hit the floor. It was the key that she'd left with the movers.
"Thank you! I asked them to leave it under the doormat. I was worried when it wasn't there."
"No problem, I'm just glad I had an early appointment today. I'm not usually here in the mornings."
"Ugh, who the hell starts their day by paying to get stabbed?" Gideon pocketed the key and leaned heavily on what would be the service counter. "No offense."
"Not a fan of tattoos?" Camilla wandered aimlessly through the shop, stepping as lightly as a cat around the clutter. Gideon had only spoken with her a handful of times, but she could never seem to stand still.
"Not a fan of needles."
"That's a shame," said Camilla. She poked her head into the back room, looking at the walk-in refrigerator and large utility sink. "This used to be an ice cream shop and one of the girls let me trade tattoo work for unlimited soft serve."
"Yeah, I'm not gonna be able to honor any former trade agreements," said Gideon. Now that she was sitting in the middle of everything, the amount of work she had ahead of her was starting to sink in. "Uh, sorry to ask, but would you or anyone you know be interested in helping me set up shop this week? Preferably someone who enjoys lifting things." She added, just so there was no confusion later, "In exchange for cash, not flowers."
Camilla tilted her head thoughtfully and wandered back in Gideon's direction. "I know someone who's looking for a side hustle. She's got good work ethic, but a shitty attitude."
"I stopped listening after 'good work ethic,' so she sounds perfect."
Camilla nodded and Gideon thought she nearly smiled, but it must have been a trick of the light. "I'll send her your way tomorrow."
After Camilla left, Gideon put her cane aside and started moving what she could. Her leg didn't hurt too badly today, but she didn't like to be seen limping. Not that she was ashamed, but non-disabled people often had the effect of making her feel like a wounded deer in front of a pack of wolves.
Despite this small setback, Gideon decided that this was still a good start. She was in a new city, she was starting a new business, and she was already on friendly terms with the hot tattoo artist who worked next door. Gideon did wonder what brand of 'shitty' she had signed up for, but, unbeknownst to Camilla, she actually had an extensive history of putting up with incredibly shitty people.
Everything would be fine.
DAYS UNTIL OPENING: 5
Gideon was crouched behind the service counter, cursing at an overturned box of greeting cards, when she heard the bell on the front door clang.
"Hello?" A clear voice called out.
Gideon took a break from cursing the cards so that she could curse herself. She really should have locked that door. "Sorry, I'm not open yet–"
"Hect sent me."
"Who?"
"Camilla."
"Oh! Right, thanks for coming!" Gideon grabbed onto the edge of the counter and pulled herself upright. "I really appreciate–"
Gideon stopped short, startled into silence. For a wild moment, she thought that she must be dreaming. She must be asleep in bed, having a stress dream about the new shop, because there was no way this could actually be happening. There was no way that she was standing in the same room, breathing the same air, as Harrow Nova.
Harrow's expression was nearly a perfect reflection of Gideon's; eyes wide with shock, lips slightly parted, and staring for too long.
Gideon swallowed, her mouth dry, and broke the spell first. Her voice was barely above a whisper, but it crossed the long stretch of silence between them. "Nova?"
"Fuck," breathed Harrow, like the word had been punched out of her. She turned a perfect one hundred and eighty degrees on her heel and stepped towards the exit.
Gideon went after her, grabbing her cane and nearly tripping over herself as she rounded the counter. "Wait, Nova–"
"I don't need this, Nav." Harrow put her hand on the door.
"Well, I do!" Gideon knew she sounded desperate and tried to dial it down. She stopped an arms length away from Harrow, but did not reach for her. "I mean, you know I need the help. And you need cash for– whatever nefarious shit you've got going on."
Harrow hesitated. Her back was facing Gideon and her hand was on the door, but she hadn't pushed it open. "The shop name…"
Gideon did not want to talk about the shop name. In her defense, she had never expected to see her childhood nemesis again and assumed that there was an absolute zero chance of Harrow ever finding out about it.
"It's just for a week, and then you never have to see me again," said Gideon. "I don't have time to find anyone else." And, "Please."
Slowly, Harrow took her hand off the door and cautiously turned around. Gideon watched a dozen unspoken questions flicker across her face. She voiced none of them, but eventually settled on an expression of grim resignation.
"I suppose I could suffer you for a week."
Gideon let out the breath she had been holding and smiled with relief. "Cool! Love to hear it. I need space cleared for a delivery…"
That first day passed in relative peace, with the exception of Gideon's heart desperately attempting to escape her rib cage every time she so much as glanced in Harrow's direction. This resulted in Gideon trying to look at her as little as possible, which was an entirely different brand of awkward. It was a nearly impossible task since Gideon wanted nothing more than to drink in the sight of her, silently comparing the ways that she had changed and the ways that she had not.
Harrow's face was a little thinner, her high cheekbones sharper, but her eyes didn't seem as hollowed out as they used to be. All of her tattoos and most of the piercings were new. The buzz cut and clothes were not– except for the black bomber jacket, which Harrow removed as physical exertion made her warm. Gideon was certain that she recognized the faded gray t-shirt with the holes in the armpits, so old that the print of the band logo was completely gone. Her biceps were absolutely bigger than they'd been six years ago, and Gideon hated how much she enjoyed watching her pick things up, put things down, wipe the sheen of sweat from her brow onto the back of her arm– helling hell, she needed to get a grip.
The last time Gideon had seen her, Harrow had two piercings in each ear. Now, there was a line of metal studs in both, along with a pair above one eyebrow. She tried to get a better look at the tattoos– all in black ink, none of them colored– but this was impossible to do without being obvious about it. So far, Gideon had been able to catalogue a skull with flowers on her left bicep, a geometric design on the inside of her left wrist, and something on her left hip that Gideon happened to catch a glimpse of when Harrow lifted her arms over her head and her shirt rode up. The old scars on Harrow's back peeked above the collar of her shirt. As though feeling Gideon's eyes on her, Harrow rubbed a hand over her neck before turning around. Gideon shoved her face into a box of water picks to avoid being caught staring.
Gideon wondered if she herself seemed any different to Harrow. She looked at her reflection in the shop window and saw what she always did; a lanky person with broad shoulders and a passably attractive face. Someone largely unremarkable, except for her vibrant red hair.
Gideon was grateful for the midday interruption of the appliance delivery, which kept the space they shared from feeling too intimate. There was nothing that could ruin a mood like a pair of bored, underpaid truck drivers and a running dialogue about where to set up each of the new glass-doored refrigerators.
"Thanks for today." Gideon placed a wad of cash into Harrow's outstretched hand, careful that their fingers did not touch. She hesitated, then asked, "Will you come back tomorrow?"
Harrow counted the bills before shoving them into her pocket. She glanced around the store, then at Gideon, and shrugged. "Sure."
Harrow's shrug was a languid roll of her shoulders and Gideon's eyebrows lifted very slightly. That was new. When they were kids, they had both– although for very different reasons– been extremely uncomfortable in their respective skins. She had always known Harrow to be a stiff, inflexible facsimile of a girl. Gideon was almost jealous of how at ease she seemed in her body now but, mostly, she was just happy for her.
Gideon smiled warmly and almost put her hand out for a handshake or maybe a hug (yikes), but thought better of it and gestured vaguely at the shop before running it distractedly through her mess of hair. "Great! Well, uh, get home safe."
Harrow watched Gideon for a moment, her inscrutable black eyes revealing nothing. Eventually, she nodded and turned to leave.
Gideon wasn't sure why, but she was somehow disappointed. As soon as Harrow was out of sight, there was a gnawing ache in her gut; a growing emptiness that craved something she couldn't give it. Gideon pulled out her phone so that she could order takeout on her way home.
DAYS UNTIL OPENING: 4
Harrow not only came back, she came earlier than she had the day before. Gideon had only just arrived and was checking on the new refrigerators to make sure nothing had gone wrong overnight, when the front door opened. Harrow announced herself over the noise of the clanging bell, and picked up right where she had left off yesterday.
Gideon longed to talk to her, but she understood that their tenuous peace existed only because she respected the distance that Harrow wanted to keep between them. Aside from the occasional box and furniture-related dialogue as they began to unpack the boxes and assemble the furniture, they worked in silence. Despite this, it was nice to simply exist in the same space without clawing at each other's throats. The happiness that swelled Gideon's chest was bittersweet; this was the best that their relationship had ever been. And so, Gideon was rightfully startled when Harrow, completely unprompted, struck up a conversation.
"Why floristry?"
Gideon nearly dropped the glass vase she was holding and set it down on the service counter. Luckily, Harrow wasn't looking at her and instead focused on tightening the screws in a set of shelves she had just put together. Gideon fidgeted with the padded barstool she sat on, gripping the edge of the counter so that she could rotate herself back and forth on the swivel seat. "Why not? I like flowers."
There was a pause, and Gideon thought Harrow might ask about the shop name, but she didn't. Instead, she asked a different, difficult question: "What did you do with the house?"
Gideon stopped moving, but maintained her grip on the counter. She hated that tomb of a mansion. She hated the funeral home run out of the eastern wing, she hated its ancient, creaking floors, and she hated its locked rooms filled with generations of clutter. She especially hated the cemetery that surrounded it, and the family mausoleum. "Sold it."
"Oh."
The 'oh' was devoid of any inflection, which led Gideon to believe that Harrow didn't want her to know that she cared. "I tried to contact you about it, but you not having a cell phone made that difficult. I tried to get in touch when your parents died, too. I reached out to your friend, Palamedes, but he said you'd left the region and that he'd pass the message along."
Harrow moved on to tinkering with the next shelf, still not looking at Gideon. "He did."
"You didn't come back for the funeral."
"No."
Gideon sighed and let go of the counter. She slumped forward onto it, resting her head on folded arms. "I suppose I can't blame you for that."
"Did you?"
"I shouldn't have." Gideon wondered how honest she was allowed to be. "I was– I don't know. Angry, I guess. It was hard to deal with everything by myself. The funeral arrangements, the business, the house."
"It's what they would have wanted."
Gideon raised her head. "What?"
"You were more like a daughter to them than–" Harrow cut herself off, but her voice remained measured and even. "It was better that you handled everything."
"Are you mad at me for selling the house?"
"I thought you wanted to inherit the business," said Harrow, evasively. "Isn't that why you agreed to the apprenticeship?"
"No, I –" Gideon didn't know if she had ever actually wanted to be a mortician. One year of college was all it had taken to convince her that she'd rather do anything else than take over Ninth House Funeral. She did remember that, after her mother's burial, she was grateful to have been taken in by Aiglamene and, by extension, the Noniusvianus household. She was grateful to have the attention of adults who weren't actively trying to kill her. "I was a kid. I just wanted parents. That's all."
Harrow was quiet for so long that Gideon assumed her bout of chattiness had ended, but then she said, "How is Aiglamene?"
"Disturbingly spry. I think she's going to outlive the heat death of the universe." Gideon swallowed. "Do you still hate me?"
Harrow said nothing.
"What happened to you wasn't your fault, but it wasn't my fault either."
Harrow whirled around and her black eyes were incandescent with rage. She snatched the vase off the counter and smashed it onto the ground between them. In the time it took Gideon to flinch at the sound of broken glass, Harrow had crossed the room, burst out the front door, and was gone.
Gideon watched the door as it slowly closed behind her, the clapper rolling around in the hollow of the bell before it settled. She looked down at the broken vase. There were two larger pieces, and about a million tiny shards.
Gideon carefully got up and reached for the broom and dustpan propped against the wall. Despite her caution, she could hear the sound of glass snapping beneath one of her shoes. But, at least she had that. At least, after she cleaned the glass, after she set up the shop, and after every other trace of Harrow was gone from here, she would still be able to find traces of broken glass for weeks to come.
"Fuck," said Gideon. Then, more loudly, "Fuck!" She couldn't do this right now. Her chest was too tight. Gideon traded the broom for her cane and went into the back, where there weren't any windows.
"Fucking stupid," said Gideon as she located a long, wide empty box and opened the top. "Why the fuck did I say that?" She gathered up any available packing materials– bubble wrap, styrofoam peanuts, those weird air-filled mini pillows– and dumped them into the box until it was mostly full. "I'm not wrong! We were just kids." Gideon surveyed her work, turned her back on it, and let herself fall into the box. Her knees were bent over one of the edges, but the rest of her was surprisingly comfortable. She wriggled herself more deeply into the box, the packing supplies conforming to the shape of her body, and sighed. Gideon closed her eyes. She couldn't think about this right now, so she didn't.
Gideon wasn't sure how long she laid there, but it couldn't have been more than an hour. She was debating whether she should try to use an app to hire someone else, when she heard the door bell.
"Closed!" Gideon groaned loudly, without getting up. She needed to lock that frick-fracking door and throw the bell out.
Harrow appeared in the open doorway to the back room, and Gideon hated how her heart came to life again at the sight of her. Harrow regarded Gideon and the box, then came closer and stood over her.
"Are you stuck?" asked Harrow.
Gideon considered her position. "Probably not."
Harrow bent to pick up Gideon's cane, which had been abandoned on the floor, and leaned it against the box so that it was easily within reach. Gideon refused to thank her for this. She was preoccupied with dodging eye contact when Harrow hit her in the chest with something hefty, warm, and wrapped in foil.
"I'll clean up the glass," said Harrow, and left the room.
Gideon picked up the item that Harrow had thrown at her and realized that it was a burrito. She held it to her cheek, feeling its warmth, and listened to the sounds of Harrow cleaning in the next room.
"Thanks for today." Gideon handed Harrow a wad of cash. They had returned to mostly working in silence, but Harrow had stayed.
"Sure," said Harrow. She counted the bills and pocketed them. As she turned to leave, she glanced at Gideon over her shoulder. "See you tomorrow."