#allisonfemslashweek

It's the first time in months that Allison thinks of Kate. It's been a long time since sophomore year, and she's put a lot of effort into clearing her mind of the dreams and the darkness, practicing meditation and trying to bring that single-minded focus she gets when she shoots into her sleeping state. She doesn't think she'll ever forgive the woman who was more like a sister than anything else, but-

Kate would be good here. She can see it so clearly: the way Kate would laugh, nudging her brother like she thought he was being stuffy.

"At least she won't accidentally get pregnant," Allison hears her say, "Unless there's something else you haven't told us." How they'd grin at each other and smile, say no, and besides they wouldn't want kids in college.

"Smart girls," Kate would say, and ask Braeden about the gun strapped near-invisibly to her hip, and-

"Ally. Allison."

She blinks back awake to Braeden standing in front of her, feeling her girlfriend's hands cupping her face. Her thumb is slowly smoothing her jaw, and she closes her eyes just long enough to take a deep breath. She hadn't realised how fast her heartbeat was.

She wonders if being with her family will ever stop being tainted with the ghosts of the ones who've left them.

"It's okay," Braeden reassures, looking towards her parents. "It happens sometimes."

"We know," Dad says. Her mother's lips have thinned; she doesn't look amused anymore, even slightly.

"So this is Braeden," she says, needing to break the silence that is rapidly stretching out between them. It's almost worse than when she introduced Scott, the first time. Nothing could compare to the second.

She never wants to do that again.

"Allison," her dad says, and there's a warning in there that she chooses to ignore. She hadn't thought they would be completely fine with it, purposely hadn't gotten her hopes up, just in case. But her parents had really taken to Scott eventually, inviting him to dinner and making minimal references to all the guns they own and how good they are at using them.

Maybe she had gotten her hopes up.

"Chris," her mom says, touching her husbands arm. Something wordless passes between them, briefr and intangible, and she feels a fondness for them she probably shouldn't be feeling right now, what with their less than enthusiastic response to her finding love.

You can't show your weakness, Allison, Kate says, and she pushes her aunt firmly out of her mind. She has no place here.

"Allison, we've talked about this." Her mother smiles, as if the bare warmth of it will make her see reason.

It doesn't.

"No, we didn't. You said no boys until after college," Allison throws back, her chin lifted firmly and her feet holding her ground. They had sat her down the morning after she and Scott had broken up, and she had nodded. Back then, it didn't feel like she'd ever want to date anyone else ever again, so it hadn't mattered. Now, it does.

"I love her. And the only reason I never mentioned her before is because I was afraid you'd act like this."

The ensuing silence is almost worse than the one that came before.

She meets Braeden's eyes, asking for a permission she knows she'll be given, and the look she gets in return makes her remember why she's doing this in the first place. They'd talked about this, how they wanted to be in each other's lives, and how important Allison's family is to her, no matter what has happened in the past.

"I don't have any family, babe, but you do. You get to choose how we handle it."

They're almost to the door before her dad clears his throat. Allison stops, pulling Braeden closer to her, but she doesn't dare hope. SHe knows how well that worked out last time.

"So, Braeden, what do you do? You don't seem like you're in college." There's still that same disapproval and caution in his tone, but it's a start. And, she thinks privately, her parents and her girlfriend have more in common than they think.

"She used to be a hunter. Like us," she reminds them.

"And now I do some freelance work," Braeden finishes. "Girl's gotta eat."

If she hadn't been watching her parents so closely, she would have missed the slip of a smile flash briefly on her mother's face, and she squeezes Braeden's hand. One, two, three.

I love you.

One. 

Malia nips at Allison's bottom lip, dragging it in between her teeth, and reveling in Allison's responding moan. Malia focuses on the moment, on the way Allison's lips feel against hers, on the hot press of Allison's fingers against the skin of her back where Allison's hands have slipped under tank top. She knows it's all going to be over soon and she wants to remember this. 

When the door opens, Malia gets in one last lingering kiss, ignoring the wolf whistles from the rest of the partygoers and then breaks away and walks off without looking back. The thought of never getting to do that again is already starting to hurt and she just wants to leave. She finds Kira talking to Derek in the back of the room and says, "Can we go?" 

Kira takes one look at her and nods. "Yeah, sure." She turns back to Derek and presses up on her tiptoes, giving him a kiss on the cheek and saying, "I'll call you tomorrow."

Derek nods, and then looks over at Malia. "Is everything alright?" 

"I'm fine. I'm just done with the whole group socializing thing." 

Derek nods, and Malia nods back at him before following Kira out of the room. 

***

"I just don't understand why we get crushes on people who don't like us back," Malia says. "It's stupid. Crushes are stupid." 

"It is," Kira agrees and Malia glares over at her. 

"Please," she says. "You and my dumb cousin are perfect for each other you don't get to mope about crushes being stupid when you're lucky enough to be dating yours." 

Kira laughs, and says, "Okay, point taken. But are you so sure your crush isn't reciprocated. I'm telling you Allison is one of the only people in school who actually goes to football games and I'm pretty sure she didn't start going until after you joined the team. And whenever you make a tackle or a touchdown the only people who cheer harder than her for you are me and Derek."

"Don't get my hopes up. It's cruel," Malia says, scrunching up her face and flopping backwards onto Kira's bed. 

"I'm serious," Kira says. "You guys made out tonight, right? Did she seem into it?" 

"I don't know. Maybe," Malia concedes. "But she probably just likes kissing. Kissing is awesome so just because she kissed me back doesn't mean anything. We were playing a stupid game."  

"I still think you should talk to her," Kira says. 

"Maybe," Malia says. "Can we just watch a movie?" 

"Yeah, whatever you want," Kira agrees, getting up to pick one out. 

***

Malia's sitting at a picnic table outside of school by herself on Monday morning, trying to finish up her Algebra homework, a look of frustration on her face when someone abruptly plops down beside her. 

"Need some help?" A familiar voice asks and Malia looks up to see Allison sitting beside her, looking as beautiful as ever. 

"I'm terrible at Algebra," Malia admits, scrunching her face up in disgust. 

"Math sucks," Allison says. "The only reason I understand it at all is thanks to my friend Lydia. She's kind of a math genius." 

Malia nods, not sure why Allison is here or where this is going, and then Allison says, "So, you left the party pretty quickly the other day."

"Yeah," Malia says. "I was just kind of tired." 

"Yeah, well I was kind of bummed," Allison says. 

"Why?" 

"Because I was hoping maybe we could make out some more," Allison says. 

"Really?" 

"Yeah, really. I've kind of had a crush on you forever." 

"Oh," Malia says, trying to reign in the smile that's taking over her face. 

"Do you want to go out on Friday? I know there's a football game, but I thought maybe I could go and then afterwards we could go somewhere to eat. If you don't already have plans." 

"I don't. I usually go out with Kira and Derek after games, but they'll be fine with me skipping out once." 

"Are you sure, because we could go on Saturday instead." 

"I'm sure," Malia says. 

"Great," Allison says, a giant smile taking over her face. "You want some help with that math homework?" 

"Please," Malia says. 

She’s not that blunt about it, though.

“Lydia, we’re in France,” she beings. “That means the road signs are in French, and you don’t speak French. I do.”

“And you’ll be right there in the passenger seat to translate for me. It’s not like I have to drive on the left side of the road or anything,” Lydia argues. “Besides, I’ve spent the last two months learning plenty of helpful French phrases.”

Allison knows this; she’s been helping her practice, first in their apartment during the last month of classes, and then over Skype when Allison returned to France for summer break. But most of Lydia’s useful phrases are for stuff like finding a bathroom and ordering more wine. Those aren’t exactly applicable in this situation.

Lydia Martin is stubborn, though, and Allison hopes that if she gets her girlfriend’s mind off of this now, she won’t bring it up again until she’s already seated in the passenger seat. After that, all Allison has to do is make sure she gets back in the car first when they stop for breaks.

Luckily, it’s not hard for Allison to think of the perfect distraction.

She gets up from her desk chair and lies on the bed so she’s facing Lydia. Slowly, she kisses Lydia on the lips.

“Why don’t we practice some of those other French phrases you’ve been working on,” she says in a tone she hopes matches Lydia’s from earlier. She’s not as good at suggestive as Lydia is, generally preferring the more direct route of ‘I’d like to rip your clothes off now, please,’ but that might be a little too obvious right now.

Lydia easily picks up on the fact that she’s not referring to anything like ‘How do I get to the nearest metro station?’

“Il y a une fete dans mon slip et je t’ye invite,” Lydia says in passably decent French.

Allison holds back a giggle. Clearly Lydia’s been getting her sexy French vocab lessons from Stiles, because he’s the only one who would think ‘There’s a party in my pants and you’re invited,’ has any potential.

Still, Allison finds Lydia sexy even when she sounds like Stiles, who is pretty much the opposite of sexy, as far as she’s concerned. She leans in again for another kiss, deepening it, and running her hand up Lydia’s bare thigh. They’ve got an hour until they have to leave for a big family dinner at Allison’s cousin’s house and she intends to make the most of that time.

--

“If we get married, could I get French citizenship?” Lydia turns down the music blaring through the car to ask.

If Allison didn’t have better self-control, she’d be at a serious risk of running the car off the road due to surprise.

“I don’t even have French citizenship,” she eventually manages to reply, although the strain is evident in her voice.

Lydia smiles and shrugs like she doesn’t notice the effect of her statement on Allison, “It’s so beautiful here, I just wanted to know my options. Don’t worry,” she leans off to path Allison sympathetically on the shoulder, “I don’t plan on proposing any time soon.”

Allison laughs and a large part of her is relieved. She’s only twenty and, as great as things are with Lydia, marriage is pretty much the furthest thing from her mind. She still needs to finish her degree, get a job, and find a place to live (preferably one that doesn’t include six roommates like her current living arrangement does) before she would feel comfortable so much as thinking about marriage.

She figures there could be worse ways to live than with Lydia in a small house in a small French town. Although she’s having a hard time picturing Lydia living anywhere that doesn’t move at a breakneck pace. She really loves hustle and bustle.

“Your grandmother hates me, though,” Lydia says absently, like it doesn’t bother her. Allison knows better, though. If Lydia had her way, she’d be loved by all. Or at least envied.

“Grand-mère is actually my great-grandmother, and she hates everyone,” Allison reassures her. “At least any American who isn’t a blood relative. According to my dad, she’s still bitter about her son getting married and leaving the country, and it’s been over fifty years.”

“Talk about holding a grudge,” Lydia rolls her she fishes her cell phone out of her bag. They’ve already passed five identical farm pastures, but Lydia takes photos of all of them.

“She hated my mom, too,” Allison admits quietly.

Abruptly, Lydia drops the phone in her lap and turns to face Allison. She knows how rare it is for Allison to talk about her mother.

“What a bitch,” Lydia raises her nose in disgust.

“Whenever my father flies out to visit, she tries to set him up with local women,” Allison tells her. “She even did it when my mom was still alive. That’s why we never visited much.”

Lydia chuckles at this, “I assume she wasn’t very successful.”

Moving to New York for college was an easy decision for Allison. She wanted to go back to the country she few up in, even if she was raised on the opposite coast. But New York City is where her parents met, when her father was there on family business. Getting accepted to Columbia, he mother’s alma mater, had been a dream. Getting away from her overbearing grand-mère and her snide comments about Allison’s mom was icing on the cake.

Meeting Lydia was a blessing.

“I’m not sure I want to come back here after graduation,” Allison admits.

Actually, she’s nearly positive that she doesn’t want to. Of course, that doesn’t mean she has a single clue about what she does want to do. With less than two years until graduation, the future is looming ominously.

“That’s good,” Lydia leans over to peck Allison on the check. “There are plenty of good universities in France, but even with two years of practice, I don’t think I could do an entire PhD program in French. Latin maybe, but that doesn’t matter.”

Allison’s dad once referred to her girlfriend as Hurricane Lydia. And most of the time Allison’s happy to get swept up in her plans. She knows that, wherever Lydia ends up, there will be a space for her too.

“I was thinking maybe Berkley,” Lydia continues. “Columbia has a great program, but I want a change of scenery. Maybe Yale, or even Oxford. I could definitely leave the country for England.”

"Listen," the guys says. "Can we just talk for a minute?" 

"Matt, no, I really don't have anything to say to you," Allison replies, turning toward him briefly to shake her head. 

"Come on, just one minute," Matt says. 

Allison shakes her head again, and Matt opens his mouth to say something else, but before he can, Derek suddenly speaks, "Fuck man, give it up. She doesn't want to talk to you. Please go away. You're embarrassing yourself." 

Allison tries to hide her snort of laughter at that, but doesn't do a very good job, and Matt turns a furious shade of red before walking away. 

"Thank you," Allison says, turning to Derek. "I think he needed to hear that. And thank you," she says, turning back to Kira. "That guy literally stalked me for a while in high school and I was hoping if I was making out with someone he wouldn't even bother talking to me, but apparently that was a tad too optimistic." 

"Oh, wow, well it was no problem really. Are you here alone? You should hang out with us. You really don't need to be alone with him around. I'm sure you can take care of yourself, but you'd be safer with us." 

"I don't want to intrude. My friends should be here soon." 

"It's no big deal, really. Derek is about to ditch me anyway. I just saw his boyfriend come through the door and I could use some company until my friend Malia gets here. Especially company in the form of a pretty girl who is a very good kisser," Kira says. Her false bravado is probably obvious from the way she's flushing slightly, but this might be her only chance with Allison and she doesn't want to lose out by being too shy. 

"Oh," Allison says. She smiles hugely and Kira notices her dimples for the first time. "In that case, yeah, I'll hang out with you." 

Derek gets up then, and kisses Kira on the cheek. "Well," he says. "As you pointed out, Scott is here now. So I'm gonna go, but it seems like you're in good hands. I'll talk to you later." 

Kira nods, and as he walks away, she turns toward Allison. 

"So," she says. "Wanna dance?"