𝑾𝑨𝑹 𝑻𝑶𝑹𝑵.

welcome back to gallagher academy, CADEN LUCCA! according to their records, they’re a SECOND year, specializing in DRIVER’S ED + SEDUCTION & FLIRTATION; and they DID NOT go to a spy prep high school. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of (messy brown hair, the slightest bit of stubble, and eyes glazing over in the classroom). when it’s the (leo)’s birthday on 8/15/1996, they always request LOBSTER TAIL WITH BUTTER from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re well on their way to graduation. 

“Hold up, you saw Rihanna?” Whatever depressive moment that she was going through had disappeared, now replacement with complete awe and jealous. “I’m surprised, didn’t take you for much of a music guy.” Didn’t think he liked the music she was in, I mean come on, it was Harper who put him on Megan! Dude was seriously lacking. “Yes that’s her, come on now, you’re acting as if she’s some random person.” To be fair she was a random person to Caden. “I would love that actually, thank you. And politics of course, I don’t have what it takes to enter the fashion world.” And she was fine with that. 

He was smiling, she was trying. She felt foolish standing there, emotions out of controls and thoughts elsewhere. It felt like she was purposely trying to ruin the mood which was not the case. Harper was just… feeling things that she shouldn’t be feeling. Or thinking about, ever. Thoughts and feelings would only get you hurt and crying in the girls bathroom to a bunch of strangers, and Harper was not about that life. Not when Beyoncé was in the same building as her. A mental slap to her face, she was matching his smile the best that she could. “Okay, yeah, Beyoncé being here is what we deserve,” she said. “This definitely beats buying her concert tickets.” A beat. “And it’s good to see you too.” Which was true, it was good to see him again. It was always nice to see and talk to Caden. “Got into grad school in New York with VG, we’re rooming together.”

“yeah, i’m pretty sure her name is jenny, but i think basic is okay.” elliot thought he could be sort of judgmental when it came to names - one of the first things he’d said to her that actually pissed her off was that brandi sounded like a hooker name (or something like that, i’m not putting in the effort to go look and she wouldn’t remember it that well anyway), and rehashing that right now didn’t sound fun to her. “what do you mean?” she laughed, genuinely confused. “should i not say i’ve been to a wedding if i didn’t drink at it?” that couldn’t be what he meant, but it was her best guess. “no, harlowe is busy that weekend, and i guess i could ask someone else, but, like, who really wants to go all the way to new york for the wedding of someone they don’t even know?” all she could really offer a guest was an open bar, though i suppose that’s not nothing. “assuming your birthday is still mid-august,” she really can’t be expected to remember which day exactly, “it’ll probably be the weekend of my brother’s wedding. i’m in d.c. until the 13th, his wedding is the next day.” she’d have to start thinking about what to get him - stealing something wouldn’t be possible, and also wouldn’t be funny a second time. she could always get him nothing, but she liked to think she was a better friend than that, so she had a lot of brainstorming to do. i don’t understand how any sane person could find women in suits not hot?? “a bit of both. i do whatever google maps says, but i’ll take different little detours.” she couldn’t understand why he was laughing and it made her smile, but also helped end her own laughter. “you strike me as the kind of guy who doesn’t like hearing about periods and shit like that, so trust me, you wouldn’t find this funny.” she actually had been laughing about something kass said, or really a whole conversation they’d had. the one where kass suggested that elliot confess her feelings to him seemed pretty funny right about now. and caden did strike her as that kind of guy, so there was only a tiny lie in there. elliot smiled back at him, but she really was going to have to try to not miss him too much, and that was her main problem. “yeah, okay. i won’t be.” she wasn’t sure whether or not she meant that. 

“i think i remember some of it, or at least the beginning.” no one had ever asked her to recite it while drunk, so she wasn’t totally sure. elliot was sort of expecting him to be annoyed, and wasn’t sure if she’d ever heard him say something like ‘my bad.’ it felt strange for him to agree with something she said so quickly. “yes, like gump,” she laughed. “i really don’t know why my mom named him that. like, i think usually siblings have names that, well maybe they don’t go together, but at least they sound good together. but i don’t think ours do.” and it wasn’t like she could ask her mom why. she liked her name, and that was good enough for her. “i’ve only been to one other, but i’m hoping this will be fun. at least i can drink now.” which wasn’t exactly a a healthy attitude for her to have, but that probably surprises no one. “yeah, i’ll have like a week left before next semester starts and i’ll just hang around there.” she wasn’t really sure what she would do in new york, but she liked visiting there so she figured she’d have a nice enough time. “i could probably wear either, but i’m gonna wear a dress. august is too hot for suits, but now that you mention it, i would look great in a tux.” although to be fair, she thought she would look great in anything, and i don’t disagree. “sometimes i take spruce places in bags, but he doesn’t like that any more than the carrier.” he was a very picky boy. “i go a slightly different way every time, but i am good at just, like, coping with being in the car for that long.” she was going to tell him how far reno was from vegas, but then he kept talking, and by the time she had processed his words, she had started laughing. her hand flew to her mouth and she tried to stifle it, but she just couldn’t. of course. of fucking course. she would drive across the country all alone, and he would drive across the country with the girl he loved. something about that was hilarious. she was trying to think of a good excuse for why she found this funny, but nothing was coming to mind. “i don’t, i just- i’m just a little drunk, and i remembered something that kass said. just girl stuff, you wouldn’t find it funny.” elliot would miss him, but she wouldn’t miss this feeling. too bad she won’t get to. “yeah, we should. i should really find suzume.” she sighed and turned towards the entrance, taking one step before turning back to him. “caden-” she opened her mouth to speak and paused before any words could come out. there were a thousand things she wanted to say to him, but her pride was too big a pill to swallow. even if she’d managed to choke it down, there was nothing she could say that didn’t have the potential to end their friendship, and he was far too important to her for her to let that happen. all she could really do was sigh and offer up a flimsy smile. “have a good summer.” he had known what she was thinking enough times that a part of her had started to believe that he could read her mind, and she hoped he could read it now. “try not to miss me too much.” 

“oh,” elliot laughed. she didn’t usually see him get drunk drunk, and she supposed he was just good at hiding it. better then she was, apparently, but while she had had a decent amount to drink, this was probably before she did shots. “z y x w v u t…” and then she was laughing again, too hard to get more letters out. “i memorized the alphabet backwards a long time ago, just in case.” she wasn’t sure what that said about her. “no, no i don’t really,” she insisted, gently pushing his shoulder (elliot’s version of gentle, so perhaps not very). “technically i didn’t start turning people into punching bags until, like, 2002.” but that was just semantics, and she was just a bit of an asshole. i’m literally just talking about her feelings!! she has no way of knowing!! other than the money thing. and i just want to reiterate on the dash that she isn’t going to ghost him this summer. she won’t reach out to him, but if he texts her, she’ll still text back, and probably be way too happy about it. the cleanse could never work. “yeah, forrest is getting married.” she smiled, genuinely excited for him. “literally the day after my internship ends, and i have to drive all the way to new york, but i think it’ll be good. i’m a bridesmaid, or i guess technically a groomsmaid, so i’ll have to stand there. but i don’t think that’ll be too bad.” it ended up being mostly good. mostly. “oh, yeah, you know. athletic equipment and secondhand clothes. trinkets that are probably garbage. the real fancy stuff.” she liked her belongings and they meant a lot to her, and while she wouldn’t normally openly admit that they weren’t particularly nice things, it wasn’t hard for people to guess that. “yeah, they have. i don’t understand what kind of monster would put their dog inside a suitcase. spruce doesn’t even like his carrier, so i don’t force him to be in there if it’s not one hundred percent necessary.” the little dog didn’t particularly love the long drive, but he liked all the new smells. “this will be the fifth.” her drive back to virginia in five weeks would be the sixth and last time, and she was pretty happy about that. she didn’t terribly mind them, but they weren’t something she ever actually wanted to do. “not really. i’ve stopped at the grand canyon, which i’ve told you about.” that was where she thought she saw ghost children. “and i’ve stopped at my aunt’s place in reno. places that aren’t too far out of the way.” but that was the drive to santa rosa, the one to seattle was further north and nowhere near either of those destinations. “usually i just look up pretty fields and decent restaurants within fifteen minutes of the highway. there isn’t much else that seems safe for me to do when i’m in the middle of nowhere all by myself.” she didn’t get nervous, but she also wasn’t trying to tempt fate. 

“It’s fine, I knew that already. Not that it helps.” Every time he sees her, it’s like a wound ripped open again, a wound that never actually healed. “I won’t.” Now that’s a big ass lie, because they’ve already kissed, confessed their feelings to each other. Except, despite the feeling that they just broke up (when they weren’t even dating), he doesn’t regret this. And now he’s sitting here, ordering a glass of straight vodka, because that’s what that moment needs. Levi isn’t on planning on telling Caden any of this. “Long enough? You’re still in your honeymoon phase. She’s bound to find out you’re boring.”

“i do,” she tells him, nodding her head. “it’s an apartment in north greenwich. definitely a step up from a gallagher dormitory.” cora had helped her find a few places, mainly because she couldn’t ask dimitri for help, given that he lived in dc. “you say that as if i will never be back to america,” she teased. “but the fourth of july was my father’s favorite holiday. it wouldn’t be too much to stay.” 

       “ NOT EXACTLY HARD TO DO, ”   he laughs, and for a moment caden feels bitter that so many of his friends are graduating this year, and in september he’ll be stuck returning to the same school with the same four-to-a-room dorms. caden’s going to be turning twenty-five this year ;   some of his friends are proposing to their girlfriends. and here’s caden, living in a dorm still.   “ you gotta stay for it, then, ”   he tells her, nodding his head.   “ what did you and your dad used to do for the fourth ? ”

“But you also deserve something.” It was quiet, what she said, quiet and rushed. As if she didn’t want him to hear it. As if she didn’t want to bring up how it wasn’t just her who went through a lot but also Caden. They both lost someone important to them, so they both deserved something. Too bad she couldn’t give him anything, what would you even give a guy who almost had everything? Harper didn’t know. “I’m heading home for a bit before going back to D.C. But by the end of July, I’m moving out and heading to New York.” 

– ALLIE SMILES WEAKLY IN RESPONSE TO CADEN’S ADVICE. “ i’m not sure that’s such a good idea, i mean…we don’t have the best track record for just saying hi, ” allie admits, because she’s sure caden is aware of how d.c. went down. “ besides, it is his big night. i wouldn’t want to keep him away from all of you guys, but…you can tell him i said congratulations. ” graduating from gallagher is a pretty big achievement, though she’s sure it was no sweat for levi. she’s still thinking about him traversing the world, saving hostages…probably in a suit, too, handsome as ever. she wishes it was easier to daydream about without feeling so out of place in his life. “ okay, good. i’m glad, ” allie smiles slightly, though she can’t imagine that imogen WON’T be affected by seeing caden tonight, and she’s the person who will talk about it with her in the aftermath. it’s hard not to be protective of her after they’ve both lost so much. “ oh, awesome ! ” allie’s smile is genuine, she’s not one to harp on people in a healthy relationship, even if she has her reservations about caden. “ how did you meet ? ” she loves a good love story. 

“Potato potahto, Lucca,” she argues, and will not clarify any further because she thinks that argument is strong enough on its own! And she reaches to touch the necklace. “Just friends,” she repeats, making a face like he’s right. She’s only teasing him at this point, just because his reaction is funny, especially when he just admitted that they weren’t just friends back then. “Try to find? You don’t know where they are?” Her jaw drops, she looks like the Pikachu meme. “Caden! Those are one of the most important things in our Disney trip. Anyway, we’re getting new ones, too. Like a souvenir of sorts, you know. Of course! That goes without saying.” She moves her fingers gently in his hair as she talks. “I will make another one! My skills in videomaking are, like, much better now.” They are still the exact same. “I’m excited for our trip.” She leans up and presses her lips to his. Excited is an understatement. She still watches that video every now and then. Last summer had been one of the most memorable times in her entire life and those memories had been shared with Caden. “Maybe I’ll let you appear a few minutes or something,” she teases. “Do you mean you don’t like sober Noah?” Another Pikachu meme face. She laughs when he pulls away and she reaches for him again wrapping her arms around his waist and looking at him like he’s the only thing in this world. “If we miss Beyonce, it might be the end of our relationship, Caden. Just sayin’,” she jokes. With that, she takes his hand, intertwining their fingers together and giving his hand a gentle squeeze and moving to walk out of the room back to the ballroom.

Against all odds, a weak semblance of a laugh escapes her, and she wonders how he can be so casual about it. But then he says family, and her heart squeezes in her chest, frown pressed tight together to keep from crying as she nods in return to him. “Yeah,” Ruby answers quietly, voice hoarse. “We’re family.” She tries to take a steady breath, though it’s hard. She remembers that she hadn’t told him everything— hell, she’d barely talked to him in the last month and she’d tried to play off what had happened in D.C. like it was no big deal. Now she has to explain both what she hadn’t before, and how wrong she’d been. “Last time… in D.C., there was this man who attacked me and Ophelia and P.J., he tried to take her, and I was… I was so convinced it was about Ophelia, I mean he went for her, he grabbed her,” Ruby explained with growing frustration, needing him to understand that she hadn’t just been blind. But that intensity leaves her just a quickly to remember where she’d fit the pieces together incorrectly. “But I was wrong. It was a mistake. A-And yesterday, I was in Roseville and he came back for me, and I—” Her words hitched for a second, and she has to take another breath. “…He killed Hughes. And he shot Grayson. And I had his gun in my hands and I… I was going to kill him,” Ruby said weakly, but with no room for error in her voice, clear and absolute even in its fragility. She wears a faraway expression that hardly budges as she recollects the memory and the feeling of it all, though her eyes sting. “I thought things could be so simple… I thought you could just choose to be a good person, and that was it. You do the work, you do the right thing, and you just choose good.” Ruby’s vision blurs. “And then I thought this man was going to take away the only the only boy I’ve ever loved, and right or wrong didn’t matter anymore, and I put my finger on the trigger, and I swear to god, Caden… I was going to kill him.” Silently, as her head shakes slightly, small tears fall from her lower lashes and she finally looks back to him again. “And then I couldn’t even do that.”

“you’re not that drunk, you can’t think of an example because they don’t exist.” at least, he didn’t seem that drunk. “well-” now that he mentioned it, a part of elliot was curious as to what caden crying looked like. but she didn’t actually want him to feel bad, that much was true. “i mean, yeah, i guess not.” she shrugged as if she weren’t sure, but quickly followed it with a smile. “i wouldn’t say i beat most of them up, but they did get punched.” okay, maybe a few got beaten up. she was glad that he seemed in support of it, and then she remembered the cecil tape and beating up people who deserved it definitely seemed like something he would get behind. “yeah, it’s… it’s good.” she smiled back at him, and though she knew it was practically nothing to him, it meant everything to her. elliot wasn’t sure of how to let that go. “yeah, of course.” she appreciated the thought, but she knew she wouldn’t be calling or texting him to bitch about her dad. she wouldn’t call or text at all. she couldn’t, if only for her own sanity. she needed to cleanse caden lucca from her system and pray that when they came back in august and she saw his stupid smirk again that it wouldn’t make her feel this way anymore. “yeah, with them, and my sister-in-law.” not all of her friends listened to her closely and she appreciated that he really did. she was more open with him than she was with most people, and he seemed to understand that. she wasn’t sure how open with her he was, but he seemed to trust her, and that was something. “well, yeah, it would be easier. but i can’t fit all my worldly possessions on a plane.” she smiled, aware that he knew full well that her possessions were far from worldly. elliot almost asked him about what he was doing for the summer but remembered that it would involve noah and decided to keep her mouth shut. she didn’t know that the two of them were going on a cross country road trip, and i really hope that if she finds out it’s when she’s in a better place mentally. “plus spruce has never been on a plane, and i have a feeling he would hate it.” to be fair, spruce hated most things. “it’s not that bad, i’m used to it.” elliot wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince him or herself. she had spent the latter half of her childhood all alone, and sometimes she still felt that way. she would definitely feel somewhat alone next year with so few friends left at gallagher, but she’d be fine.

Ruby still can’t bring herself to look at him, guilt holding her down, and she feels like the child she’s always feared she is for choosing to stay hidden in an embrace she doesn’t deserve. “You can’t— You can’t just forgive me like that, Caden,” she hiccups. “I was awful to you. I was supposed to be your friend,” Ruby says between the tears, and a part of this refusal to accept it is due to what she knows about herself now. “I missed you too,” she mumbles, and the words make her slowly lift her head up to him, because he needs to know that she means it. “I was…” she starts, staring up at him with wavering eyes, trying to pull at the memory from last night like it can be distilled into once sentence, like it isn’t the worst thing she’s felt in her whole life. And it all comes wrapped in fear and trauma and helplessness and the horrifying certainty that in that moment, Ruby had made a choice she’d thought she never could. Her breath stills slightly, sobs quieting as she gathers the strength to speak again. “…I almost killed someone yesterday,” Ruby whispers finally, the words barely audible, eyes filled with trembling trepidation to tell him the truth. All that time she’d spent turning a cold shoulder, angry with him for treating her like she was naive, like she didn’t know how the world really worked. And now here she stands, terrified of the way he might look at her, like she’s the disappointment now, like she’s exactly the person she’d made him apologize for becoming. But Caden hadn’t held that knife, and despite what had ended up happening, she’d meant to pull that trigger.

“No,” she said quickly. “I’ll take it, it’s just–” It felt weird, getting so much money from Caden which was so dumb to her. She always received money from Levi and Rafa gave her money for a plane ticket to France– this shouldn’t be any different. Just this time, it came more from the heart than the other two. Which probably made her feel like crap. She could spend time thinking about why, pouring and musing over each and every thought, but she didn’t have time for that. Nor did she want to. Why potentially hurt yourself with thoughts that will make you feel like shit later? It wasn’t worth it, not one bit. “Thank you, Caden, really,” Harper finally said, bringing the card close to her chest. “I don’t think I deserve it but thanks either way.”