(NERVOUSLY SETS DOWN DRABBLE AND BACKS AWAY)

She starts to realize it when she's fourteen.

Suddenly sleepovers with the girls aren't fun like they're supposed to be. Suddenly everything isn't stupid games of truth or dare (then again, Jacqueline's not sure that's ever been fun so much as it's tedious and terrifying) — it's about boys now and that's just not fun.

And sure, there's always at least Maka who looks remotely as uncomfortable as she does, but Maka always looks uncomfortable when the conversations go from whimsical animated films to secrets and feelings. Maka buries her nose in a book and attempts to hide away until Liz gets on her about scythes and red eyes — and then Maka is her fiercest ally, because Maka huffs and puffs and demands they do something else because Death, didn't they arrange the sleepover to get away from their partners?

Maka won't be her ally forever, she realizes, because even as she scolds the eldest Thompson and slams her book shut, there's a dusting of pink along her fair cheeks. She's changing, too, and if Maka's changing, then Jacqueline knows there's something wrong with her if she's still lagging behind.

She'd much rather go back to watching old episodes of Rugrats and mocking parenting styles and watching Patti stuff popcorn up her nose, and that's worrying in itself.

Kim sends her a twinkling, grinning look and Jacqueline squirms where she sits. Something within her stirs, unsettled and wonderful and scary as all hell.

She knows what's wrong when she's sixteen.

Gentle, sweet Tsubaki is gushing about her new found partnership with her partner and the talk doesn't excite her the way it excites the other girls.

Seeing Ox and Kim mash their faces together does not make her shake her head and smile the way it should, either. She knows it should because it makes the rest of the girls grin for a moment before they decide that their PDA is a little too, erm, exuberant for comfort.

Ox is gross, Jackie decides. When she pipes up and mentions it, Kim sends her a dirty look and Maka nods, humming in agreement.

Jackie knows Maka isn't agreeing for the same reasons, though. Maka doesn't see Ox swapping spit with her partner and want to snap his neck off. It's unreasonable, because Kim is happy (she seems happy, anyway and her soul always does a warm little hum when he's nearby and it makes Jackie want to cry).

She thinks once that maybe Harvar would understand — his partner is busy kissing too, after all! — but he always looks so bored.

And when Maka finally — finally, sadly — cracks and becomes one of them,Jackie knows what's wrong.

Because if disenfranchised, ball-busting Maka Albarn owns up to crushing on her weapon, then Jackie knows for sure that she's gay. Because there's no other solution why she's the only one of them that's completely disgusted with the idea of getting into any guy's pants.

Kim looks up from texting Ox (again) and the warmth in her throat makes her want to gag.

She feels bad when everyone tries to set her up with Harvar.

They're pairing the spares, or trying to make her feel included, or whatever, but she wishes they wouldn't because she's uncomfortable and she doesn't, won't, can't feel the same way as the rest of the girls do about men.

Kim notices the disturbance, the mania in her soul and tells everyone to back off. Jackie wishes she'd notice the same happens every time she holds Ox's hand, but she knows her partner is too caught up with the more masculine way his knuckles brush up against her thigh and the way his fingers feel between hers.

Jackie wishes she'd hold her hand more often. Like more than just when they were resonating.

The breakup is awful, and Kim is fiery and passionate and Death, she's hot when she's mad.

Kim's seventeen and she's barely eighteen, and her partner is ranting and pacing and Jackie knows she shouldn't be watching the way her hips move when she stomps but it's so damn distracting.

Liz chirps up with suggestions (she knows people who can fuck Ox up, apparently) and Maka offers to neuter him (somehow Jackie doesn't think Soul would like knowing Maka's offering up his slicing services for such obscene things) but Kim shakes her head.

Tsubaki points out that Kim was the one to break up with him and not the other way around, and everyone shushes her but Jackie, because she's too busy being caught between grinning like a fool and crying.

Her partner is upset and she gets that, she really does, so she tries her best to mask her elation at the end of her other partnership with by combing her fingers through her too-long hair and nodding along with whatever Liz is saying. And Kim seems okay with that, and sated for the moment, because she's calmed own and that delicious little quirk in her brow that she always gets whenever she's impassioned has simmered so Jackie can look her in the face again. So that's good.

"I don't know what I'd do without you guys," Kim sighs (so dramatically — she sees Maka roll her eyes) and flops back against Jackie's lap. Her heart gallops into her stomach.