#cloward

Kat giggled, moving along a little from where she’d been leaning on the bar to give Anna room to join her. “Hello Anna,” she replied, “how come you’re here? You love these events I thought you’d be dancing?”

Anna shook her head, standing beside Kat with their shoulders just touching as she sighed a little. “You know how it is babes, I can’t go on dancing forever. Gotta give all of them a break,” she said, giving Kat a wink.

“I guess that’s only fair,” Kat played on, blushing a little as she thought of Anna’s ‘dance so hard I’m causing a sensation’ line in the show and how true it was to real life. Especially when she was wearing the suit and extremely low cut black lace top she was currently wearing. It made Kat feel a little underdressed in her purple skater dress with her customary choker, but she felt comfortable in it and that was most important to her.

They fell into a comfortable silence for a moment, enjoying each other’s company as they watched their friends from the cast and crew of the show having the night of fun they’d all worked so hard for and deserved so much. “I like people watching during nights like this,” Kat said after a while, “it’s nice watching people letting loose a bit.”

Anna hummed in agreement, pointing with her free hand to draw Kat’s attention to a point in the crowd. “They’re definitely letting loose a bit,” she sniggered, and Kat looked over to where Anne and Cathy were dancing close together in the centre of the dance floor. They were both dressed a little more casually than Anna was – Cathy was wearing a long-sleeved crop top with navy blue flared trousers, and Anne in very see-through chiffon top with a short black skirt and fishnets – but they still looked not only very pretty but very happy.

After waving at the pair of them when they glanced her way, Kat set about looking for their other two members in the club. Jane and Aragon were a lot easier to find since they were sat together at the other bar on the opposite side of the room; Jane in a blue summery dress which she’d proudly boasted to them earlier that had pockets, and Aragon in a long gold dress which clung to her form and made her look like a queen. They were both drinking glasses of wine and giggling happily together which made Kat smile.

“Aw, look at those two,” Anna said as she caught sight of them too.

Kat nodded. “They look happy,” she said, and Anna hummed in agreement.

At a huff of laughter from Anna, Kat glanced over at her with a curious expression and head tilted in question. “I was just thinking about the times we used to do this back in the old days. Stand on the edge and just watch people when our feet got too tired to dance.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Kat said with a wistful smile that turned mischievous after a second. “You had a little too much to drink at that New Years’ Eve celebration and spent an hour trying to explain to the Duchess of Norfolk what a Christmas tree was.”

“You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

Kat shook her head. “Nope,” she said, popping the ‘p’ for emphasis as the met Anna’s exasperated sigh with a grin.

“I was just trying to be a trendsetter babes, not my fault you English lot didn’t catch on for another three hundred years,” Anna retorted lightly, but the defensiveness in her words was ruined by the smile that she couldn’t quite stifle.

Laughing, Kat bumped her shoulder against Anna’s as she replied in a voice that dripped with sarcasm. “I suppose Queen Victoria just had more luck than you did.”

Anna’s howling laughter made a few people on the edge of the dancefloor turn to look their way, but Kat was having enough fun that she didn’t care at all. “Alright you, save some of that sass for the show,” she said with a beaming grin on her face.

“You didn’t really pick the best person to pitch that idea though, honestly,” Kat continued, her face scrunching a little as she thought of the Duchess of Norfolk and how she’d always looked down her nose at Kat every time they’d crossed paths. “She never really liked either of us very much.”

“No no, that was exactly why I picked her. I wanted to see if she thought I was having her on or not,” Anna explained, giving Kat a wink.

Kat shook her head slightly at her friend’s antics, before sobering up a little. “I never have thanked you enough for sticking by my side back then,” she said as she met Anna’s gaze, finding her hand and giving it a grateful squeeze. “You were the truest friend I ever had and I never forgot it.”

Anna smiled, squeezing Kat’s fingers back before moving closer to drape an arm around her shoulders. “I was only doing what any decent person should have done,” she said, a note of dark insistence in her voice only just obscured behind her easy-going demeanour. “You were so young and so alone and you needed a friend, anyone could see that. I’m glad I could make a difference, only wish I’d-“

“No,” Kat interrupted firmly, knowing exactly where Anna’s words had been heading. She wriggled out from under Anna’s arm and took her champagne flute from her to place it on the bar so she could grab both her hands, looking at her earnestly as she said “Anna, there’s nothing at all you could have done. If you’d interfered then the same might have happened to you and it was bad enough without knowing that I’d dragged my only friend down with me too. So no, please.”

After Anna nodded reluctantly she added “We’re here now and that’s all that matters, can’t we just enjoy the present?”

It was a few moments before Anna managed to smile again, and Kat gave her an encouraging grin at the first sign of joy returning to her face. “That’s what I’ll never be able to get over with you. How you can get dragged through hell and back and still just see the good in everything,” Anna said in a voice slightly choked up with alcohol-fuelled emotion, pulling Kat into a tight hug.

Kat giggled sheepishly as she wrapped her arms around Anna’s waist, as always feeling completely safe in her oldest friend’s embrace. Coming to terms with her crushing guilt over Kat’s death had been a 500-year journey for Anna which still wasn’t quite over yet, but Kat would always be there to reassure her again and again whenever she needed it.

“Enough being sad tonight,” Anna said as they parted, the cheeky glint returning to her eyes as she held out her hand to Kat. “Miss Howard, may I have this dance?” she asked, using the same method of referring to Kat as she’d done to start the conversation and offering the same thing she’d done on that New Year’s Eve night so long ago.