Epilogue

Bridget knew that she should be doing something other than chewing on her lip, but she couldn't. She couldn't force herself to go in the door. Instead, bobbing her foot nervously, she twisted her mouth, looking through the mesh-latticed safety glass window into the library and trying to drum up the courage to go in. Well, more like find the right words. When she knew what she would say, then she would have the courage to go in. She frowned, huffing at herself and shoved into the door, swinging it open. So she would improvise. It would still go okay.

She hoped.

"Hey," the Hunter said hesitantly, putting her bag on the table and pulling out a chair, taking a seat opposite Nixa. Her textbook and various other reference books were spread across the table in front of her. The blonde didn't look at her, or recognise her presence, just kept reading the text book in front of her.

"Hey," Nixa returned eventually, starting to copy something down into her notebook in her precise neat handwriting. "What's up?"

"Nothing. I was just… wondering how you were, that's all." She was crashing and burning. Ugh. Why had she come in here without a plan? What moment of madness had caused this?

"Me? Good. Busy, though. Paper to write." But she had stopped writing now and was just doodling around her notes, looping decorative, curved lines around the words. She still hadn't looked up and Bridget, determinedly keeping her eyes focussed on the lined page in front of her. This was… awkward. And that was her being optimistic. She felt bad about yelling at Bridget on the sidewalk. Her losing control like that was totally not fair. And then she'd just gone to the party and needed rescuing, and Bridget had been there despite their argument. She wouldn't have blamed Bridget if she hadn't bothered to turn up. And yet she'd come through as a friend. She sucked. She really sucked as a person. Bridget was right. She was selfish.

Bridget looked pained at Nixa's blanking of her and began searching for a topic, any topic, to plug the gap in the conversation. Did Nixa still hate her? She had been excessively mean. But she had been mad — surely Nixa had to get that? People said things that they didn't mean all the time when they were mad. She took a breath in to talk, then thought better of it and exhaled again. She began picking her nails. Eventually, the black-haired Hunter hit on a topic and said, "Did you hear about Josh's mom?"

Nixa shook her head. "Nope. I've been kind of avoiding him and anything to do with him." She capped her pen and threw it in her pencil case.

"Ah…" The pauses were starting to irk her, so Bridget only let this one go on for a few seconds before ploughing onwards. "She got sick again. But the doctors think that they can give her chemo, or radiotherapy, now that the cancers have been shrunk. She might actually pull through the mortal way."

"Good for her," Nixa said emotionlessly, closing her notebook at her textbook. She zipped up her pencil case and reached down for her bag. "Anything else? Sorry, I'm just gonna go and find somewhere a little quieter. Biology paper to write and all."

Bridget got up to leave as well. "No, there was nothing else. I just thought you'd like to know that some good came of the whole Josh mess thing. Oh! And, oh…" She reached into her bag and fished out one of Nixa's flip-flops. "You left this in the basement after you, er, left. I thought, you know, you might want it."

"You thought right. Thanks." The blonde offered a smile and took the flip-flop, sliding it into her bag. She picked up her pencil case and crammed it in next to the shoe, then stacked the library books that she had been using.

"No problem. I'll… see you later, then." She turned and left, shouldering her bag and was halfway towards the door when she screwed up her face and stopped. She hadn't come here to give up. Bridget Vance never gave up. She spun on her heel. "I'm sorry," she said suddenly, before she lost all of her nerve. "I'm sorry for calling you selfish and—"

"No, I'm sorry," Nixa said, ramming her book into her bag and standing up. "The way I acted… Not fair. You're right. This is my destiny and, while it sucks, it's… well, my destiny. I've got to accept it and stop whining about it. I mean, look where being normal got me. It nearly got Ben killed…" This felt better. She knew that she was gushing and that that was so unattractive, but it felt good.

"You're right about the balance thing, though," Bridget said, walking closer to Nixa. "I do spend too much of my life hunting. And that party actually looked fun. You know: if you kind of mentally snip out what was going on in the basement. I would have liked to go with you and just have an evening of being normal, and I'm kind of pissed at myself that I screwed it up for me."

"So… I'm the most right one here?" Nixa tried tentatively, amused.

"If it makes you not hate me, then okay."

"I never hated you, Bridget. Our friendship is too string for me to hate you."

"Oh, by the way, please don't let on to anybody that I apologise," Bridget added hastily. "I don't want Ben finding out. I'll never here the last of it. He'll crack wise about me admitting that I'm wrong or something."

"We do owe him some wisecracks though, huh?" Nixa said. "I mean, what with our wisecrack nearly getting his life sucked out and all."

Bridget huffed a sigh and pouted. "I guess… But, you know, he doesn't really have much of a life to suck out. I'm sure that the demon was only minutes away from turning on one of us."

"I think you have to wait at least a week to use that one," Nixa said, laughing and sitting back down. "So, are we friends now?"

Bridget sighed exaggeratedly, hopping up onto the table. "I guess we have to be. I mean, I just returned my bikini and all they'd give me was store credit. And they don't even sell anything useful, like gum, so I have seventy-eight bucks to spend and no clue how to do it."

"Heh. You want a new shirt or something? Because we could do that."

"A shirt!" Bridget yelped disbelievingly. "Seventy-eight bucks is only going to buy me a shirt! I was thinking that that money was an entire new, I dunno, wardrobe! What about weapons? There's this really nice knife at the hunting store!"

Nixa smiled, finishing stuffing her belongings into her bag. When she was done, she linked arms with Bridget, still grinning. "Oh, you're young. You're still learning. Come, let me teach you. If it makes you feel better, we'll hit the sale rack. I can do some more of my freaky math and you might even come out of this with a shirt and a new pair of jeans."

"How's a girl supposed to refuse an offer like that?" Bridget said dryly, allowing herself to be dragged out of the door. "When do we get to go to Dairy Queen?"

Facepalm I can't believe I forgot to post this! Why didn't anyone throw stuff at me! Don't be afraid to poke me, people.

I just want to say thank you all so much for your support on this. I never expected it to be this well-recieved. It was just something I posted because... it was there. Heh. Thank you for making this worthwhile. I'll sacrafice some figurative goats to you all.

Anyhow, Beta must be thanked and honoured as per usual, because this is her work too. Let's say we give her some goats too? Okay? Okay. Good.

Thank you all SO MUCH. Seriously. I can't express that enough. I will get around to replying to your last reviews in time, because right now business is just... busy. So heh. I haven't forgotten any of you. Promise!

Twisted Flame.