There were things Lauren knew she was good at. School, for one. Being a daddy's girl, for another. Math and English and Biology for three more. And performing.

She couldn't forget performing.

No matter how hard she tried.

For Lauren, performing wasn't just acting or singing or dancing - not that she didn't kick absolute ass at all of those (and not that she didn't still want to know who the fuck Oliver was) - but, for her, performing had long since stopped being just those moments on the stage or the dance floor, or in front of a microphone.

Performing was Lauren's day. No, not just her day. It was her day after day after every other same motherfucking day. It was every single thing she did, every word she said, and every 'friendship' she made (and those were so much more than air quotes.) Virtually every human interaction she ever had was a performance of one kind or another.

She memorized the lines, learned the steps, found a way to hit all the right notes. She knew what was expected and just how to deliver on all of it. On being the kind of girl - the fucking show pony - her father wanted, or the evil step-sister Amy expected, or the Queen Bee Hester needed (Shane was an excellent Queen, but not the right kind). Lauren mastered the art of showing the world what (who) it wanted, just the way she did in every one of those pageants, when she paraded herself across all those stages, acting for all the world like it wasn't slowly killing her, like she wasn't actively Horcruxing little bits of her soul by letting those fuckwits and asshats judge her.

And there was another of those things she was good at: using terms like fuckwit and asshat.

"It's a skill," she told Karma once. "Do it wrong and you come off juvenile and petty like, you know… Booker."

That they were both mostly undressed - tops undone and bottoms gone and that was as much as they'd ever been at that point - and that Lauren had emphasized that name just a little more than she had to did not escape Karma's attention.

And the utter lack of reaction from the redhead didn't escape Lauren's.

(One point for Karma.) (And yes, Lauren was totally keeping score.)

"You have to mean it," she said, warming to the chance to pass on some of her insult wisdom and to having such an eager (and mostly naked) (can't forget that) pupil. "You've got to live it, which I know sounds so weird, but it's true. Words are weapons."

Karma nodded, only sort of (read: completely) distracted by the way Lauren's fingers - which, apparently, had something of a mind of their own, even then - felt as they gently moved over her… um… you know…. her 'there'… (and that was the only word Karma could even think at that point without blushing beyond her hair.)

"And they're just like any other weapon," Lauren said, seemingly not even realizing what her touch was doing. (And it was just seemingly cause she knew full fucking well.) "It's all in how you use them." The same idea, Karma thought - in those few brief moments (seconds, really) when she could think - could easily be applied to Lauren's fingers. And to her lips. And to her tongue and, oh fuck, pretty much all of her.

(Score one for Lauren.) (Or maybe two, if Karma was lucky.)

(She so was.)

"If," Lauren continued, "you use them wrong, you may as well have brought a squirt gun to a gangland shootout. But use them right... "

Use them right and you'd get the job done and - judging from the way Karma's back arched beneath her and the way her eyes screwed shut like she couldn't stand the light and the way she bit down on Lauren's shoulder to keep from crying out - it was quite obvious that this was one job Lauren had definitely completed.

She took great pride in that, in the finishing of something, anything, really. But it was a special kind of pride this time - and not just because that something she finished was Karma - about a lot more than just an arching back and some screwed shut eyes and bite marks she'd wear like a fucking medal for days. It wasn't all that.

It was after.

It was the moment Karma collapsed back onto her pillow, her eyes still closed and the skin of her chest still flush and her breath still coming in slightly labored shudders. It was the way her hand found Lauren's, the way their fingers slipped together like a key and a lock.

It was the smile that curled her girlfriend's lips as Karma pulled Lauren down to her, wrapping her up tight and mumbling something about 'payback' and 'later' and 'I' and 'you' and that four letter word in the middle and that was something still so fucking new, a four letter word that wasn't meant to cut or wound or damage.

Words, she'd said, are weapons. And seeing them as anything but that…

Well… that was one thing Lauren wasn't quite good at yet.

Not like she was good at letting her words rip like razor blades, like Katana steel slicing through fools like they were tissue paper (cheap Walmart tissue paper too, not the good stuff, like she got at Target or Costco) and oh, how she was good at that. Fuck good, she was great, she was a fucking ninja. But, for all her linguistic ninjitsu skills, Lauren still wasn't all that good with some words, especially not when those words were about or to or for her girlfriend and weren't dirty and extra especially not when those words were the two (not three) she absolutely knew Karma wanted to hear.

"It's your fault, you know," Lauren said and no, those weren't those two words.

That was five, can't you count?

To her credit (and Lauren's amazement) Karma didn't flinch. She didn't bat an eye or arch a brow, hell, she barely looked in Lauren's direction. Instead, she leaned back on the long lounge chair on the deck of the pool, gazing up at the clear blue sky and somehow - Lauren was never quite sure how - not rolling her eyes, not even a little.

If Lauren had been her, her eyes would still be spinning.

Lauren sat in the other lounger, the one across from Karma, her legs all criss cross applesauce and even thinking that just made it all more… ugh.

Seriously? Applesauce? Sauce? Juice or apple - make up your fucking mind.

"I didn't mean that," she said and that did earn her an eye roll, a 'oh, you so fucking did and we both know it' spin and yeah, Lauren knew. She knew all too fucking well. She didn't say things she didn't mean.

Something else she was good at: being honest. Painfully, at times.

Except… well… that wasn't being honest. Because Lauren knew that what she frequently called honesty, other people called being a bitch. Being mean. Being self-centered and dismissive and not giving even the single tiniest of fucks what other people thought or felt and yeah, that was her.

Right up until it wasn't.

"I've always been good at cutting people down," she said, turning away from Karma and staring into the depths of the pool, all the better to avoid the look of sudden surprise criss cross applesaucing its way across her girlfriend's face. "Especially," she said, "when they say something… true. Something right. You know… about me."

She was good at that. It was a skill, one she'd honed from years of having to. For so long, for so very fucking long, Lauren had always lived with knowing that she was one careless whisper, one slipped secret, one wrong choice about who to trust from needing every word to be a weapon.

"It was a shield," she said. She still wouldn't look at Karma, but she could feel the other girl's eyes burning into her and that was wonderful and painful in equal measure. "It was my armor, my protection against…"

Lauren trailed off with a slow shake of her head and a shrug of her shoulders, the 'everyone' that should have ended that sentence fading into the silence between them.

She didn't want to explain and she didn't want to… defend herself. She shouldn't have to. So what if she used her words (knives) and her tone (a razor of sound and sarcasm and snap) and her… herness… to push back against everyone, even those who hadn't once pushed her?

There was a look in her eyes, one Karma could see even then, even when those eyes were dancing across the water. It was a challenge, a dare.

Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me I'm stupid and immature and not giving anyone a chance has always been the single biggest reason I've been so lonely and so lost and there was no reason I ever should have been so afraid.

Go ahead. Tell her. We'll wait.

...

…

…

No? Yeah. Thought so.

Karma sat up in the chair, swinging her legs over the side, fully intent on telling Lauren just exactly that.

But she couldn't. Thoughts of Theo and cop cars and jail cells danced in her mind. Memories of the looks as Lauren ran from the courtyard that day, after outing herself - and who could have known that she'd end up being her own worst enemy? - and yeah, that had turned out… OK… but still…

Karma knew better than most. It's always that 'but still…' that gets you.

"From the moment I was old enough to know anything," Lauren said, "I've known that I'm not like other girls… most other girls, anyway." She ran her bare foot across the cold concrete of the pool deck. "And I've known that, to most people, different does mean less, no matter what my father or the counselors or the afterschool specials tried to tell me."

Karma wanted to argue. She wanted to point out to Lauren how accepting everyone had been, how - once the shock had worn off - so many of their classmates had embraced her. She so very much wanted to say all that. But, for all her faults, Karma's always been smart enough to know one simple thing. Hester might be their world, right now, but it's not the world.

And the world, maybe now more than ever, is, as Amy once said, such a bunch of dicks.

Karma wanted to say all that but she wanted even more than that not to lie, so… "So you learned," she said softly, not really surprised when Lauren still didn't turn her gaze away from the pool. "You figured out that the best defense was a good offense."

Lauren nodded, but inside she knew that it wasn't that simple. A good offense, she knew, was only worth as much as your willingness to use it and to use it early and often and utterly without hesitation or mercy. She'd gotten good at that over the years, good enough that there never were any of those careless whispers or slipped secrets or wrong choices.

Except (and when had her life become filled with so many excepts?) she knew that 'never' wasn't quite true. Not anymore. Not since Theo and Amy and Shane and, God help her, Booker.

Not since Karma.

"I didn't mean it," Lauren said, and this was the truth. "I didn't mean to push you away or focus so much on Amy. I didn't." She looked at Karma then, hoping her girlfriend might be able to just see it in her eyes, like something out of one of those Godawful movies she liked so much. "I've just been so…"

"Broken hearted," Karma whispered and Lauren couldn't help but nod, even if that one little phrase seemed so vastly inadequate. "I get it," Karma said, "I do. I miss her too, you know. I mean she was…" She shook her head, knowing it was the worst thing to say, just about the pettiest way she could imagine putting it, but also the truest. "She was mine first, Lauren. And longer. And… more. So, believe me, I understand. But…"

"But I made my choice," Lauren said, reaching out to take Karma's hand in hers, relieved when the other girl didn't pull away. "And you made yours and Amy made hers."

It was Karma's turn to nod, and she let Lauren hold her hand, but she didn't return the gesture, not just yet. "Yeah," she said. "We all did. But lately… when you're with Shane all the time and the two of you are so obsessed with Amy's new secret girlfriend -"

Lauren's eyes widened, her last oh so carefully guarded secret suddenly spilled out for all the world to see. "You know?"

Karma shrugged. "Like I said," she mumbled softly. "She was mine first. Did you and Shane really think I wouldn't see the same signs? I know sometimes I can be a bit… blind… when it comes to Amy, but even I'm not that oblivious."

That, Lauren knew, was a discussion for a different time.

"You didn't say anything," she said. "I figured you didn't know cause you didn't…"

"Chase after her?" Karma asked, slowly encircling two of Lauren's fingers with her own. "Throw some kind of jealous fit?" She ran her thumb across Lauren's knuckles, a silent admission that yeah, that might not be the most ridiculous thing ever suggested. "Maybe you would've liked it better if I'd sung some ridiculous song under Amy's window? Or maybe shoved some bland as white bread fuckboy at her in a clearly desperate attempt to feel like I wasn't being replaced?"

Lauren shook her head. "No," she said, with a soft chuckle. "But you didn't do… anything or seem like you even cared. Shane and I have been wracking our brains trying to figure out who it is or where Amy could have met someone. We know all the people she knows."

Something flickered behind Karma's eyes, something Lauren couldn't name and maybe, she thought, that was for the best. "Sometimes," Karma said, "it's the people you think you know best that surprise you the most."

And ain't that just the motherfucking truth.

Karma stood from her chair and took the two quick steps to Lauren's lounger, settling down next to the other girl, their entwined hands resting in her lap. "I didn't say anything about it or try to do anything about it because it - she, whoever she is - doesn't matter," She turned on the seat to face Lauren. "At least not to me."

Words. Fucking weapons.

"Karma… it's not like that," Lauren said, except (again with the fucking except) she truthfully couldn't say it wasn't like that cause didn't know what it was like. "This is all new for me," she said. "And I don't mean being with a girl or being with you. I mean being the one who's getting pushed away, the one getting cut off. Being the one someone doesn't…"

Need. Want. Love. Worship or desire or admire or… care for.

Take your fucking pick.

"I don't know why it matters," she said. "Hell, I don't even know when it started to. One day Amy was just there. The girl across the hall, the insta-step-sister, the annoying trespasser fucking up my life. And then…"

And then she'd cared. Amy had cared. It wasn't sudden, it wasn't a flood, it wasn't a dramatic speech or a some ready for the movies moment with swelling music in the background and perfect soft lighting. It was real and Lauren could count on one hand the number of reals she had in her life. It had been nothing but a trickle, a slow and intermittent blip-blop-bloop that had, somewhere along the way, become a steady stream that Lauren had, against her own better judgement and almost with her even knowing, gotten used to it.

She'd come to like it. She'd come, she realized now, to depend on it.

And that was something Lauren wasn't good at. Not at all. She was, in fact, outright fucking bad at it. Almost as bad, as it turns out, as she was at dealing with that - with Amy - being suddenly gone.

Or with it being all her own fault.

"It doesn't matter," Lauren said, slipping her hand free of Karma's and standing up from the lounger, not that she had anywhere to go or anything to do. She just couldn't sit there, letting herself wallow, not for one more minute. "I told you," she said, as if that would put an end to that. "We all made our choices."

Karma looked up at her and what she saw, it was… odd. In all the times she'd hurt Amy, all the times she'd unknowingly driven a wedge between them, Karma couldn't remember ever actually seeing Amy's walls go up.

She couldn't fucking miss Lauren's.

The words were on Karma's tongue - something about yes, they all had, but maybe all of them weren't quite as… comfortable… with those choices as they'd thought - but she didn't say them, she didn't say anything. If there was one thing Karma had learned from Lauren (one thing that didn't involve a much greater lack of clothing) it was that she was right. Words, at least the wrong ones, the not carefully planned and well thought out ones, were weapons.

And maybe, Karma thought, there'd been enough wounds for one day.

"What are you doing here?"

Or, maybe, they were just getting started.

Karma glanced around Lauren to find an incredulous, and somewhat alarmed, Shane standing just over there, a bright blue Speedo dangling from his hand, and oh, how those words - Shane, Speedo, and dangling - were ones Karma hoped to never think together again.

"I live here, Shane," Lauren snapped, the serrated and steely edge back to her words and Karma was almost reassured by that and yeah, that should have made her nervous.

Except Shane seemed to be doing - seemed to be being - that enough for all of them.

He kept glancing back over his shoulder, at the door back into the house, the one he had quite clearly had to come through, which meant he'd been inside and that meant… voices. Behind him. Not hers and not Lauren's and not Shane's. Two of them. Coming from inside the house and the moment she heard them, everything started to make so much more sense to Karma.

Or, you know, not a fucking lick of it, because those voices? Well… that just couldn't be.

Except (fucking except) then she heard them again and couldn't be or didn't want to be or just shouldn't be didn't matter - not even a teeny tiny bit - cause it was painfully clear that it was.

There was a sudden sinking sensation rolling through Karma's stomach, one she hadn't felt in something like forever. This was a very particular, very specific feel. It wasn't the feeling of a betrayed and broken heart crashing down inside her, like when Liam confessed. And it wasn't the rush of anger and terror she'd had when she thought she had lost Lauren.

This was that night. The night of the wedding. The moment when - in one slow aching 'oh my God, how did I miss it' rush - the words of Amy's toast had sunk in. Karma hadn't thought anything could ever feel like that again.

One of these days, she'd get used to being wrong.

"You're supposed to be on the field trip," Shane whispered, ignoring, as Shane would, the very simple fact that so was he and so was Amy even though he was clearly here and - judging by the laughter coming from inside the house - she was too. "You're not supposed to be here," he said to Lauren before looking past her, to Karma. "And you," he said, peeking over his shoulder again in something just short of a panic. "You shouldn't be here."

For once, Karma found herself in complete agreement with Shane.

She stood up from the chair, snatching up Lauren's hand, flush with a sudden desperate urge to be on that trip, to be on any trip, to be anywhere but here. Karma tugged lightly on Lauren's hand, trying to move her. But then they all heard those voices again. Both of them. And any chance she had to make Lauren move fizzled away into the ether.

"She's here," Lauren said. "Mystery girl is here, isn't she?" She wheeled on Shane and oh, Karma had never been so glad to be behind Lauren as she was in that moment. She almost pitied Shane.

If she hadn't been so distracted by that voice (couldn't be) (just… couldn't) she might have even tried to save him.

"She's here," Lauren said - and it was more of a snarl than a said - taking one long step toward Shane before Karma's grip on her hand slowed her progress. "She's here and you're here and that means that you know who she is."

Lauren left off the 'and you didn't fucking tell me and now I'm going to eviscerate you with your own Speedo' but, really? They all got the message. Loud and oh so fucking clear.

"I only found out about her a coup… yesterday," Shane said (like any of them believed that bit o'bullshit.) "And then Amy was all 'come on over and we can hang and skip the stupid trip and it'll be awesome, my two besties meet…"

Until the day he died, Shane was never completely sure if it was the look of sheer unmitigated rage on Lauren's face or the one of total devastation on Karma's face that made him shut up.

Or why he didn't do it sooner.

He opened his mouth (always his first mistake) to say something else, but the sound of those voices cut him of. They were louder, moving, coming closer and closer and then there was the unmistakable sound of Amy's laugh from just inside the door and that sound had never once made Karma want to run and, really, it still didn't.

It made her want to fucking disappear.

If Lauren hadn't been holding so tight to her hand, Karma might well have bolted, making a mad sprinter's dash for the gate at the far end of the fence. As it was, she was desperately wishing that teleporters were real or she had a pair of ruby slippers or knew whatever the fuck spell it was that made Harry Potter vanish in a cloud of smoke. But there was no science for this, no magical spells, and she was fresh out of fancy footwear.

In short, there was nothing to save her.

And then, in shorter, it was too fucking late anyway.

The door swung open and Amy stepped out onto the deck. She took two, maybe three steps, before she froze in place, her eyes locked on her sister and her best friend and Karma had to wonder, not for the first time, if, when this was all said and done, she and Amy would ever think of each other like that again.

And then she remembered what Shane had just said and realized that maybe she ought to be wondering if Amy thought of her like that now.

Shane looked at Amy and then back to Lauren and then back to Amy, before he slowly stepped back, edging his way closer and closer to the fence, like he was seeking any shelter he could find and, really, Karma couldn't blame him. He looked at her and mouthed a silent 'I'm sorry' but it fell on deaf ears.

It wasn't his fault, after all.

"I thought you'd be on the trip," Amy said, the sound snapping Karma's attention back around.

"We skipped," Lauren replied and this time there was no bite, no knife's edge to her voice and her words… they were just words. She smiled at Amy, as real and as genuine and as hopeful as she could manage, and offered a slight shrug. "Great minds, right?"

Amy had just long enough to nod - which was just long enough for Lauren to savor the most communication they'd had in weeks and just long enough for Karma to almost forget what was about to come - before the door swung open behind her, bumping Amy in the back and sending her stumbling forward.

"Oh, I didn't know we were gonna have company. Cool!"

The voice was just as Karma remembered it. Excited and happy and always teetering on the edge of annoyingly chipper and cheery and oh, who the fuck was she kidding? It - she - had toppled over that edge for Karma a long fucking time ago. Karma's hand clamped around Lauren's but her eyes… they only saw Amy. Who, not surprisingly, was doing everything she could to look everywhere but Karma's way.

"Babe," she said, bumping Amy with a hip. A hip in the shortest pair of cut offs Karma had ever seen, just under the best abs she'd seen (this side of Amy's) and of fucking course the years had treated her kindly, if by kindly you meant like a fucking supermodel. "Aren't you going to introduce me?"

Amy looked up and then down and then to Shane (who was intently studying the fence) and then at her and then at Lauren and then, finally, at Karma.

"I didn't know," she said. "I didn't know you'd be here."

Karma could feel Shane's eyes on her and she could see Lauren's looking her way, clearly realizing that she was missing… something. But not for long.

"Karma?" she said. "Oh my God, is that really you?"

Lauren's head swung back around, staring at the new girl and if Shane knowing who she was had been bad... "You two know each other?"

"Of course, we do," she said, before darting across the deck and grabbing Karma up in the most ridiculously over the top hug ever. "It's been so long," she said. "Amy didn't mention you two still hung out."

Words. Weapons. Fucking hell.

Lauren cleared her throat and Karma wasn't sure if she was more annoyed at being the last to know or that she was touching her girlfriend and, really, she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "I get all excited and forget my manners." She released Karma (who resisted, barely, the urge to shudder) and held out a hand to Lauren. "Hi, I'm Amy's girlfriend, Sabrina, and you are?"