With thirty-eight million three hundred thousand dollars in your pocket, the world is an open door: opportunities flow at your feet and you can pick and choose and change your mind a thousand times, because there will always be an alternative, another road to take, a better twist, a fresher start.

Lou is very familiar with fresh starts: she's had several in her life, and each of them was as much a failure as the previous. The thing is, you can't really start anew if you have too strong boundaries with what you're trying to leave behind.

And this it. This is the story of how Lou Miller met Debbie Ocean and was indissolubly bound to her ever since.

And Lou is not the type of person who believes in kindred spirits, or soulmates, or destiny, but when she thinks back to what she and Debbie have gone through together, a part of her knows they wouldn't have made it this far with someone else by their sides.

The problem, with Debbie, is that she is too long-sighted: she only sees what she needs to reach for and rarely realises what she already has.

So Lou guesses it was about time for her to take some distance, now that she has the time and resources. The few weeks she's just spent with Debbie reminded her of the old times, when they slept in the same bed, shared the same meals, got drunk together, and stumbled over too many almosts: they almost unravelled their messed up feelings; they almost said the right thing at the right time; they almost kissed; they almost fell in love.

Lou was tired of almosts and Debbie's terrible taste in toxic relationships, so here she is.

Finally free.

Finally, finally breathing.

The Californian coastline is hers, and it's good.

California is good.

Not perfect, but good.

Lou loves California.

Loves its breath-taking coastal roads and immense skies and loves it even more at night, when she can roam and wander for hours and meet no one, alone and undisturbed. It's liberating. It's like being truly alive for the first time in forever, and Lou is firmly convinced this long due solitary trip will do her good.

Until Debbie Ocean breaks the spell by appearing out of thin air at Lou's hotel in a pretty little village by the ocean.

It's a Saturday night and Lou finds her waiting for her at the bar where she was going to get a drink. She's just sitting there, a Martini On The Rocks in her hand, and when she smiles and waves at Lou, so confidently and casually, for a split second Lou can't help but wonder if they were supposed to meet here and she has forgotten.

"Hello, stranger," she greets, taking in the unusual casual attire Debbie is sporting. Jeans and a jacket? That's very unlike her. It suits her, though. In this sort of clothes, Debbie could easily hop behind Lou on her bike and follow her wherever they want to go.

It's never going to happen, of course, but this doesn't stop Lou from dreaming.

She's been dreaming an awful lot, since Debbie came out of jail. A single look was enough for her to instantly erase the five years she's spent trying to detox from that stupid tug in her chest that Debbie's mere name has always caused. She had fantasised that, after the MET job, they would get away together, spend some time on their own, making up for the all too long time they've spent apart.

But it never happened.

Debbie had a brother to mourn and Lou big plans to fulfil. Somehow, there is always something keeping Debbie from Lou – something else, someone else – and Lou doesn't actually believe it's ever going to change.

"Hello you," Debbie smiles as Lou sits in front of her, still slightly bewildered by this unexpected surprise.

When the waiter comes, she absentmindedly orders a beer, which she hardly likes, but Debbie is here and the whole world seems to have shifted a little to accommodate this huge change in the atmosphere, so who cares about drinks?

"How did you find me?" Lou asks, though she is aware this is not a question to ask Debbie Ocean, because the woman has countless resources and, really, if there's one person in the world Debbie knows better than herself, that's certainly Lou.

"You're an easy target, babe," Debbie smirks, winks at her in a way that has always made Lou's stomach fill with butterflies. Butterflies with razor-sharp wings, sometimes. "If you didn't want to be found so easily you should have been less you. I mean," she glances around the hotel bar with a pointed look. "This shack is so much your style I almost thought you couldn't be this predictable."

Lou takes a generous sip of her beer, scrutinises Deb from over the glass. It springs a soft warmth in her heart to know that Debbie could easily spot her across the universe, if she knew what caused Lou to move in the first place.

"I like to think I still can hold secrets from you," Lou quips, and she instantly regrets it, because there is one secrets she has, in fact, been keeping from Debbie all these years, and apparently this one isn't obvious enough for Deb to just figure out. "So," she adds quickly, before Debbie can comment. "To what do I owe the honour of your presence?"

"I missed you," Debbie says with a shrug, eyes too busy studying the ice floating in her Martini to look Lou in the face.

Lou has spent the best part of the last five years missing Deb. For once, it's nice to hear it's the other way around.

A shy grin spread over Lou's lips. "I've only been gone for a week."

Debbie blushes imperceptibly but doesn't blink: "I've been missing you for a week," she retorts in a tone that expects to settle everything. Lou rolls her eyes and melts a little on the inside.

"I raised a softie."

Debbie points the stick with the two olives towards Lou: "Watch your mouth, kid. I'm older than you. I raised you."

"Oh, honey," Lou stares at her in mock pity. "You're a clever little princess, but I've always been the one with the street smarts. You would have been lost without me."

Debbie smiles at that and Lou laughs, expecting Debbie to laugh along, but she doesn't. Her face slowly changes: the amusement washes away, her brows contact slightly, and suddenly she's looking at Lou like she doesn't really know who she is.

"I would have been lost without you," she whispers, eyes sliding sideways, like she's musing to herself. There's marvel in her voice. Love.

Love.

Lou's chest feels too tight to contain what she's feeling right now. Her ribs seem to pierce through her heart, which is mysteriously soaring and aching at the same time.

"I would have been lost without you, too," she whispers in return before she even realises it. She almost hopes Deb won't hear it.

What she means is I love you, but you don't say things like that so light-heartedly to someone who doesn't return you feelings. You don't say that at all. You just keep your mouth shut, swallow the bitterness and carry on with your silent pining, sweeping the pieces of your broken heart under the nearest carpet to pretend everything is alright.

By now, there are so many shards beneath Lou's carpet that she wouldn't even know where to begin to build herself whole again.

Except when she's with Debbie.

Except that when Debbie is with her she feels like she has everything she needs at arm's reach, yet completely out of her league.

"I'm in love with you."

It comes out of nowhere, a thunder in a cloudless sky, and Lou doesn't even recognise her own voice as she blurts her most treasured and dangerous secret to the very last person she would have wanted to hear it.

She wants to take it back, to rewind time and cut out the frames of the last few seconds to burn them away and never face their consequences. But it's too late. Time won't answer her prayer and what is done cannot be undone.

Debbie is staring at her with a blank face, her drink clutched in her hand an inch above the table. Her lips barely move when she breathes: "What?"

It's done. What took them years and a lot of shared hardship to build, now is rattling like a house of cards in the wind – and Lou knows the wind always, always wins.

It's done, so it's pointless to deny.

Lou downs the rest of her beer in one gulp and slams the empty glass on the table while shooting a daring glance at Debbie and her speechless face. Her heart is racing so fast she can barely feel it.

"I'm in love with you."

Debbie gapes. She's pale and wide-eyed.

"I'd heard you the first time," she mutters, with a vibe that sounds dreadfully uncomfortable. "Just... what? Lou, we've known each other for ages. Why all of a sudden– "

Lou scoffs, half in disbelief, half hurt by the fact that, of course, Debbie is utterly clueless. "Seriously, Ocean? All of a sudden? I haven't exactly been subtle."

She's angry, now. Not just wounded because of Debbie's cold-blooded reaction, but angry because, apparently, Lou being in love with her doesn't even make sense to Debbie. And what Debbie says next is the final straw:

"You're drunk."

Drunk.

A sour laugh escapes Lou's dry lips. "Wow." She shakes her head disbelievingly, unable to accept that Debbie would rather think she's drunk – against all evidence – than acknowledge her feelings. "Wow. This is... great. Just great."

There's a knot in her throat that's making it very hard to breathe. She feels humiliated, and betrayed by the momentary failure of her own filters.

"Lou…"

"No, really. So good for my fear of rejection."

"Lou, please, this is not– " Debbie tries to take her hand, but Lou snatches it away.

"Don't Lou please me, Deb," she snaps, more harshly than maybe she intended. "Just don't. And stop giving me that apologetic look," she adds with a sorrowful grimace. "It makes me sick. I can't take it right now."

"Lou, I'm sor– "

"You're sorry?" Lou's eyes flare. "I tell you I'm in love with you and all you have to say is I'm sorry? How flattering!"

The music and the general chatter are too loud for anyone to catch their conversation, but Lou doesn't care if anyone hears them. Debbie, on the other hand, seems to be quite uneasy: she looks around them like they're discussing a high profile heist and she's afraid of getting busted.

Lou wants so badly to tell her it was a mistake, that she didn't expect to confess any of that, but you don't tell people you love them and then claim it was an accident. It doesn't exactly help your cause. Besides, she's kept this burden long enough and it's a relief to finally know she doesn't have to pretend any longer.

When Debbie finally looks at Lou, her face is unreadable: "You just drop a bomb like that out of the blue and... what exactly did you expect?"

Lou doesn't know. Doesn't even give a fuck.

"Okay, you know what? Never mind, just…" She jolts up from her chair and raises her hands defeatedly. Something inside her has cracked and she needs to leave before it all falls to pieces. "Forget it. Forget I said anything."

She doesn't look at Debbie when she turns her back to her, nor Debbie tries to follow her. Lou only hears her voice, distant and a little irritated, calling after her:

"Where are you going?"

All Debbie gets in return is a middle finger as Lou strides away through the crowd and disappears, never looking back.

The wheels bite the road in an angry roar that shatters the beautiful peace of the night.

Lou isn't looking for peace. Lou is looking for relief and, this time, it's going to take more than a wild ride to nowhere to soothe the storm raging inside her.

That's the problem with California: no matter how far you try to run, the ocean is always right there, at your feet or on the horizon.

And this is so awfully ironic Lou almost feels like laughing. It's almost fun, almost cute, how, in a way, Debbie never really leaves her alone, not even when she's trying her best to leave her behind. Or maybe it's Lou who never seems to be able to really leave her behind.

Lou lives by the ocean, for fuck's sake, and if that isn't pathetic, then what is?

A part of her wants to cry, another part wants to go back to Debbie, slam her into a wall and scream into her face what she's been holding back for years, if not decades. It's been too long since she's been in love with Deb. Too long and too painful. And beautiful, as well.

Oh, it's such a mess, between Debbie and her. Such a big, big mess.

Lou can't even remember what life was like without this nasty, dull ache at the bottom of her heart. Sometimes, she feels claustrophobic in her own feelings, oppressed by the strength of them and by the sickening awareness that they are never to be returned.

She pushes the bike to top speed over a straight tract, the cool wind wheezing all around, the moon and the stars above and nothing ahead.

Nothing.

Lou discovered at a very young age what it means to like girls who like boys. By the age of twelve she had already lost count of the times she'd had her heart broken, but since Debbie came into the picture… it's been a constant shift between bliss and heartbreak, and now it's starting to wear her out.

Maybe this is why she blurted everything. Maybe she's just tired of useless pining and chains of stupid hope around her neck.

When she realises her hands are shaking and her knees feel boneless, Lou begrudgingly pulls over, frustrated and a little scared. If she stops now, she may fall apart.

She takes the helmet off and the fresh night air fills her lungs and eases, at least in part, the unpleasant lump burning in her throat. The darkness is deep and beautiful and the sound of the waves behind her seems to be there to remind her that, no, she has no escape. The ocean will always find her.

When she puts down the helmet on the bike seat, she stares at the picture in front of her for a moment. She imagines another helmet beside hers, someone smiling at her beneath the stars, and suddenly it's there again – the ferocious, sharp throb in her chest. The Debbie Ocean effect.

A drop falls on the polished lacquer of the helmet. Then another one. Lou gazes up looking for clouds and rain, but the sky is terse. She brings a gloved hand to her cheek and scoffs when the leather comes back wet.

She rubs her fingers together with a frustrated sniffle and throws her head back, struggling to blink the tears away. The lump in her throat is almost choking her, but she cannot let herself cry. She needs to move on. She needs to but doesn't know how.

She never planned telling Debbie about her feelings, but she had always believed that spilling it would at least give her some closure, set her free.

It didn't work.

She said she's sorry.

If anything, Lou feels like she's lost the only thing that ever really mattered to her.

I told Debbie I love her and she said she's sorry.

She inhales deeply, the salty air of the ocean mixing with the salty taste of her tears, and thinks of the irony of this whole situation.

She thought – naively – that telling Debbie how she feels about her would release her from a cage of lies and unspoken truths, but all it did was tie the noose tighter around her neck.

It's not like she didn't know before that Debbie didn't feel the same way about her… what did she think that hearing it would do?

Make it alright or shatter the world.

"So much for compulsive honesty," she says to no one, eyes flickering over the beach before her. How romantic and symbolic it would be if she could dive into the glittering waters and dissolve into their depths.

She inhales again, deeply, and when she lets the air out it's like a broken sigh. "What did I even expect…"

Her eyes are closed when she hears a car approach and pull over. She has a feeling.

When she hears the door slam closed and the car drive away, she doesn't need to open her eyes to know who has arrived. She recognises the sound of the heels steeping towards her. She knows the perfume drifting through the air.

What is she even doing here?

Lou crosses her arms and turns around to arch an eyebrow at Debbie's insufferable smug face.

"Really?"

Debbie stuffs her hands in her pockets, smiles awkwardly. Her shoulders are tense. "As I said, easy target."

Lou tilts her head to one side in an unspoken question.

"You wouldn't have gone South," Debbie explains. "Big cities, lots of noise… not your thing, especially when you're upset. And by the way you dumped me over there, you were very upset."

Very upset was a monumental understatement, to which Lou would respond with a snarky comment, if only Deb wasn't looking at her with those doe eyes so full of shame and regret.

Lou has never mastered the fine art of staying mad at Debbie for longer than a couple of hours. Deb has this power, this glamour in her eyes, that never fails to pierce through Lou's walls like they weren't even there.

"I know it was my fault," Debbie recognises after a moment. "I shouldn't have– It was all so sudden and shocking…"

Lou closes the distance between them, gives her a lopsided half smile. "I wasn't thinking straight."

"You obviously weren't." Debbie chuckles mischievously, and Lou bites her tongue, because of course Debbie wouldn't miss such a golden opportunity to pull jokes.

"It's not funny," Lou replies, and she has the nerve to roll her eyes even as she giggles. She has no idea where this is going, but Debbie joking is a good sign. Perhaps they can really carry on like Lou's stupid slip never happened.

"It kinda is," Debbie insists, and the way she crinkles her nose ignites something in Lou's blood. "Hey," Debbie steps ahead, takes Lou's hands in her own and stares at them with the ghost of a smile. When she looks up, her eyes are glistening. "I wasn't thinking straight, either."

Lou falters. Is Debbie trying to say what she thinks she's trying to say?

"Literally or figuratively?"

"Both," sighs Debbie after what feels like forever. She's looking at Lou with a tenderness Lou has never seen before. "Come on, Lou, you couldn't expect me not to freak out. You must admit it was a little blunt."

"It was horribly blunt," concedes Lou. "I regretted it the moment I said it."

"I didn't have the time to process it. You caught me completely off guard."

Debbie is right about the bluntness, but Lou can't believe she never picked up anything, never even questioned…

"Seriously, Debs: in all these years you never noticed…?"

"No. I just…" Debbie purses her lips, glances down just for a second. "You were acting around me just as I was acting around you. I saw no difference, so why would I suspect anything?"

Oh, it hurts.

It hurts like hell to learn that Debbie never even considered that Lou's loving – and longing – looks might mean anything more.

Lou raises her hand to stop her, swallowing dry. "Just so you know," she can barely murmur. "What you're so nonchalantly implying is really, really painful to take."

Debbie scowls. She doesn't get it. Can't get it.

Lou makes to turn away, but Debbie grabs her wrist and makes turn around again.

"What I'm implying," she says, a stubborn edge to her tone. "Is that there was never any difference in the way we acted around each other, and when you said…" A small smile tugs at her lips as her cheeks turn slightly pink. "When you said you loved me, I had this epiphany…"

Lou playfully arches her eyebrows at the term epiphany, which earns her a scolding glare from Debbie, who continues with an exasperated sigh: "I realised… there was no difference, because there wasn't any difference."

"I must be missing something, here, because, despite the crushing logic behind your statement, you're still making very little sense."

Debbie groans and mutters something unintelligible that completely gets lost between the hum of the waves and the wind.

"I'm sorry, I still don't speak Ukrainian."

Debbie gives her a dreadfully irked glare. "Fine."

For a moment, Lou thinks Debbie is going to punch her or something, but all she feels next is softness.

The softness of Debbie's embrace as she pulls Lou close.

The softness of Debbie's lips as she leans in to kiss her.

The softness in Debbie's eyes as she slowly pulls back, just a little, to whisper: "I'm in love with a jerk."

And Lou, whose heart is beating so fast it's deafening, can only give in to the smile surfacing from deep inside her and lean into the hand Debbie has cupped over her cheek. Lou basks into her touch and in the echo of her words, replaying them over and over in her head, trying to find a catch, but there isn't any.

There isn't.

There isn't.

"Wouldn't be the first time," she quips, and catches a shade of guilt passing across Debbie's face right before a cocky grin replaces it.

"Oh, but you can bet it's the last."

"Was that supposed to be offensive or flattering?"

Debbie snorts a laugh. The love in her eyes is overwhelming.

"Shut up," she orders as she grabs Lou by her scarf to pull her down into another kiss.

And it's a fleeting thought in Lou's hazed mind, but Debbie's kisses are urgent and frantic, like she's running out of time. Perhaps it's the novelty of the feeling. Perhaps it's to make up for all the time they've wasted without kisses.

Whatever it is, Lou wants to drown in it.

Hungrily, her hands find their way to Debbie's waist as the kiss deepens and she feels like they're breathing each other rather than the air around them.

Suddenly, California is perfect.

Just like she pictured. Just like she dreamed it.

She has her bike and the road.

She has the night and the moon and the stars.

And she has the ocean.

She has her Ocean.

And this is it.

This is it.

Notes:

I don't even know what to say. Just a couple of scenes of these two and I was triggered so hard... I needed to write something, and I'm so in love with Lou, and I just... This damn movie will be my undoing. These two will be my undowing.
I need help, here.
Anyways, please note that English isn't my native language and, despite my proofreading, something might have escaped my attention, so sorry for any typo or mistake, I apologise in advance.