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Harrow sat at her desk, trying her best to ignore the occasional buzz of her phone sitting on the wood. Thrice now it had lit up with an unread message, buzzing across the polished wood surface. She’d read the first one and then dropped it back to the wood as if it had scalded her. She imagined the other two messages were much the same.
The first still sat open, she never even bothered with closing the app.
Sextus: We’re picking Gideon up in ten minutes, are you coming to the party tonight?
She’d known this day was coming and yet still felt woefully underprepared for it.
So she did what she did best.
She avoided it.
Her phone sat unanswered for the rest of the night. Several calls and even more messages made the device dance across the carefully polished surface and Harrow eventually turned it off and moved to lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling of her bedroom. Eventually, her gaze was drawn, almost against her will to the pile of letters laying on her bedside table. The ones at the bottom of the pile were crinkled and worn with age and her constant refolding them after many rereadings. They became less wrinkled and worn the higher up the stack they went. Ones that were newer and she hadn’t yet had the time to read over and over. Now she didn’t really have to. Gideon was back and Harrow could speak to her face to face.
Except she would not be doing that if she could help it. She could not bare it.
How could she?
Two years. It had been an entire two years since she had last laid her eyes on Gideon Nav.
Two years since Harrow had sat in the middle of the courtroom and watched Gideon be sentenced to two years in prison.
For a crime that Harrow had committed.
At the time, she hadn't even considered the consequences of her actions. Her family's business was failing and her parents had hung themselves only three months prior. If she didn't do something it would fail and everyone involved would be broke and jobless.
It had started very small. A few corrections to the books here and there to buy a little more time. Then a little more and a little more until she was neck deep in it.
It was a victimless crime really… till Gideon.
Fraud, tax evasion, embezzlement. All words that got thrown around at the trial.
The worst part was that Harrow hadn't even been a suspect to start.
After a year, her numbers tricks had helped turn things around for them and were no longer necessary and she forgot about them.
Till the IRS came calling and wanted to see those books. The ones her managers signed off on at the end of the month. The ones Gideon had mindlessly signed off on without bothering to do the math. Harrow had always done it, so why would she bother? She knew Palamedes would so she'd specifically kept him off those shifts.
Harrow hadn't even been in the country when it started. Palamedes had called her the day Gideon had been arrested.
By the time it was all said and done, Gideon had been sentenced to five years, bargained down to three for pleading guilty.
A pit opened up in her stomach every time she thought about that day, which was nearly every day that had followed it. What truly tore her apart had been the look on her longtime rival and friend's face as they had handed down her sentence.
Harrow had expected righteous and deserved anger for her wrongful imprisonment but the look on her face. It was just… resigned. Like she would take her fate as it was handed to her and not question it. She’d never in all her life seen the fiery and willful Gideon so complacent and it had struck at something deep in Harrow’s core.
Had lashed at her insides, severing arteries and muscles, leaving her feeling gutted and lame.
As if that had not been hard enough. Then the letters started coming.
About two weeks after the sentencing, the first letter came. Harrow had come home and nearly choked on her own tongue as she flipped through her mail and stopped on a crisp white envelope, addressed to her from the Mithraeum Federal Women’s Penitentiary.
She was ashamed to admit that it had taken her the better part of two weeks before she could bring herself to open that first letter. Her guilt had stayed her hand every time she thought of Gideon sitting in prison, unknowing that it had been Harrow’s actions that had put her there.
Or worse yet. That she did know. That and the rightful hatred she assumed was contained within that envelope.
She'd known Gideon longer than she cared to admit most days and their… relationship had been fraught with highs and lows as deep as the Mariana trench. Only growth, on both their parts in adulthood, had softened all the edges they had for each other. The ones in youth they had sharpened to paper thin razors with which they used to gouge and bleed each other.
College and life and years apart had dulled them to nubs. They were both different people than when they'd last seen each other at graduation.
Griddle had turned into someone that spending time with did not feel like the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard.
She would admit that she had changed some as well.
Though as Gideon put it: ' Not half as mega bitch as you used to be!'
Which should not have been as endearing as it was.
She would, if pressed, call them friends. She would not, however, under threat, admit to the other feelings that had started to bubble up. She quickly did her best to cover those. She tried to bury them. Now she wanted to smother them, drown them, slit their throats and leave them by the roadside. There was no place for those. Not now.
Finally, she opened it.
There were no bitter accusations, no venomous declarations of hatred, or anything of the sort.
It was just two pages of Gideon telling her about prison. How the orange jumpsuit clashed with her hair, the workout room she got to use. Her cellmate, who was cool but she hadn’t yet decided if she would stab Gideon in her sleep or not.
A thought that did not comfort Harrow in the slightest. She debated for days whether or not she would answer. Eventually, guilt and the idea that she could at least give Gideon a letter to look forward to during her time inside won out and she wrote back. She wrote back about unimportant things. How business was going, their friends and herself… only because Gideon asked, and if nothing else, Harrow would not deny her. Over two years and many letters, the elephant in the room went untalked about or even hinted at.
Gideon never accused her or even asked about it. She did ask how she was, and how their friends were doing. They often included their own letters with hers.
Then, last month, Harrow had received her customary weekly letter, it was short, sweet, and to the point.
“Getting out on good behavior at the end of July! See ya soon, sugarlips! ~ love, G. N.”
Harrow knew that eventually, Gideon would get out, had anticipated it but a year early had taken her by surprise. She’d been counting on that time to prepare herself to face the woman whose life she had ruined.
Now it was here and she didn’t know what to do.
She didn’t turn her phone on again till the next morning.
She had several missed calls and texts.
Including one from a number she didn’t know.
‘Unknown: Hey, got a new phone and number. Old one got disconnected while I was in the clink. Imagine that, lol. You missed the party last night, I hoped to see ya. Call me and we’ll get together!’
Harrow’s chest seized. She knew exactly who it was from.
Dread trickled down Harrow’s spine like ice water. She wasn’t ready to face her. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready. How long could she really hide for? How long would she be able to stand the sight of her own face and cowardice in the mirror before it crippled her?
Three weeks, as it turned out.
Harrow avoided Gideon for a solid three weeks. The rest of their friends that worked in the office building hadn’t gotten the memo and brought Gideon around, presumably to see Harrow almost every other day.
She’d climbed down the fire escape and out windows, dashed into the janitor’s closet hidden in the bathroom and under the desk.
That in particular had been a close call.
She was minding her own business when the voice of Palamedes had come to the door with a gentle knock.
"Harrow, can I come in? There's someone here who wants to see you…."
It had been pure instinct that had made her throw herself to the floor and scoot into the empty space beneath her desk. She waited a handful of seconds, not making a sound, scarcely even breathing. She just knew who it was, even without him saying as much.
Sure enough, a few seconds later the door opened unbidden and Harrow held her breath, her heart beating in her ears like a drum.
"Huh… she was in here ten minutes ago…," Palamedes's voice drifted into the room.
"It's okay Sexpal, I'll get ahold of her," Another voice chipped in and it took all her willpower not to gasp at the voice that she had not heard in person in two years. Luckily she managed to keep herself still as stone until she heard the click of the door shut.
That had only been the first time.
In the three weeks that followed she'd done all sorts of ridiculous and acrobatic maneuvers to avoid coming face to face with Gideon Nav.
She snuck into her office long before sunrise on Monday morning. She had to. At least twice now as she had approached the building in her car, she had spotted a familiar, cropped head of red hair waiting outside the office building.
She nearly slid onto the floorboard when she drove by and didn’t stop till she was safely home again and called her PA, Ortus, to tell him that she would work from home that day.
It was still pitch black out as she slipped into her office and set her bag on the table, letting out a relieved sigh as she flipped on the lamp on her desk. The pale yellow light filled one half of the room and she sighed, rubbing at her eye with a fist.
She needed coffee and Ortus wouldn’t be in yet for some time so she would have to start the pot in the employee lounge herself. She turned and screamed as she came face to face with familiar, golden, cat-like eyes. Appropriate considering the mouse had finally been caught.
“Finally got cha’.” Gideon grinned at her, never mind that Harrow’s heart had jumped up into her throat.
“Fucking Christ, Nav!” Harrow shrieked, back pressed against her desk as she stared up at Gideon, willing her heart rate to come back down out of stroke range. “You- when- how-...”
“Sexpal let me in yesterday before he left, I slept here,” she said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. And for Gideon Nav, that was a completely normal thing to say and do.
“Wh-” She didn’t even get to finish the question before Gideon was leaning further into her space, all traces of good humor gone from her face.
“Because you’re avoiding me, Nonageismus!” she snarled, and years of living in tandem with her and that bulging little vein on the side of her neck told Harrow that she was, in Gideon’s own favored teenage phrase: ‘big time mad’.
She bit off the words of denial before they could even think to crawl up her throat. She’d been avoiding her, yes and they both knew it. Harrow would not further her current disgrace nor Gideon’s by spitting in her face with a bald-faced lie.
“Yes…,” she said simply instead.
Gideon had, apparently, not been ready for such an easy confession as the admission seemed to take some of the hot wind out of her sails.
“You…” her voice petered out, unsure what to say in response to that. “I kinda figured you’d deny it…” She cocked her head as she stared down at Harrow. “You gonna tell me why? I just finished two years in federal prison for you and you won’t even look me in the eye.”
“You knew it was me…” It wasn’t even a question.
Gideon just snorted. “Of course I knew it was you. Pal and I never worked on the books at the same time and Pal is a lot of things but a liar isn’t one of them. He’d have been the first person calling attention to the discrepancies.” Gideon leaned back against one of the chairs in front of Harrow’s desk and crossed her arms.
“You knew the whole time and you.., I… why…!” In a rare show, Harrow could not find the words, she wasn’t even sure what she wanted to yell at the stupid muscled redhead in front of her. “You confessed!” she finally shouted, making Gideon blink at her, her face arranged into her patented ‘no shit’ look that normally would have made Harrow froth at the mouth. Well, it still did but for entirely different reasons than it used to. Or maybe not so different reasons after all.
“Why!? Why would you confess and go to prison for a crime you didn’t commit?!”
There it was. The thing they had both been dancing around in their letters. The thing that had been driving Harrow up a wall for the last seven-hundred and thirty days.
Gideon looked nonplussed by the yelling. More infuriating than that was how she just gave a little shrug. Before Harrow could tackle her to the floor and beat her skull in, she spoke.
“So you wouldn’t.”
Harrow felt her whole body go limp as the words sunk in.
“What?” was the only thing Harrow could get to come out of her mouth and Gideon heaved a big dramatic sigh like this should have been the most obvious thing in the world and Harrow was just not understanding that two plus two was fish.
“You think you would have survived prison?” she asked, arms still crossed as she leaned forward. “Someone would have made you their little girlfriend on the first day… or they would have shanked you after you said something smart to them,” Gideon explained. “I confessed to the charges so you wouldn't end up a piece of swiss cheese in Mithraeum.”
If possible, Harrow understood less now than she had five minutes ago. It didn’t help when Gideon leaned in just a little closer and in that familiar, condescending tone went: “You’re welcome.”
Then Harrow did tackle her to the floor.
They went tumbling to the wine-dark carpet in a flurry of limbs and yelping.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Gideon yelled, shielding her face from Harrow’s small fists.
“You! You have always been wrong with me!” She screamed, pounding her fists against Gideon’s solid brown arms. “Two years! For two years I have spent every day eaten alive by guilt, for ruining your life and you say you did it for me!?”
“Of course I did it for you!” Gideon managed to snatch both Harrow’s wrists in her own fists, holding her steady even as Harrow yanked and snarled. “Everything you did was to keep this place working and keep us paid! This place was fucking sinking and we all knew it, Harrow!”
Harrow’s struggling ceased but Gideon didn’t release her, just glared up at her from the floor.
“You knew…”
“I may not do math as well as Sexpal but I did it. I saw the steady decline in our monthly revenue… then the slow uptick in numbers even though we weren’t really doing any more business than normal.” She confirmed and Harrow’s body went slack in her grip. “At first I just thought you were embezzling. I wouldn’t put it past you…” Harrow ignored that. “… then I realized it was just to keep the lights on and all of us paid… so I kept my mouth shut. Then things eventually got better and I forgot all about it… till ya know… I got arrested.”
“Why?” The words ripped out of Harrow’s throat with a desperate whine that under any other circumstances would have embarrassed her. “You spent two years of your life in prison and for what…?”
Gideon only looked mildly annoyed.
“I already told you why. To keep you out of prison. To protect you, ya little gothic shit,” she snapped but the harsh lines around her mouth softened as she stared into Harrow’s dark, confused eyes and sighed. “You think any of us know how to run this place?” she asked. “Without you, me and Pal would have driven it into the damn ground and then not only would you be in jail for nothing, all the rest of us would be up shit creek too.” She let go of Harrow’s wrists and sat up, letting the smaller woman slide back into her lap. “We gotta have you and you were not going to make it in prison. I almost got stabbed twice,” she chuckled like that was something to be amused by.
Harrow stared back at her for several long moments before she slumped forward and buried her face into Gideon’s chest. Yellow eyes blinked down at the head of black hair buried into her front, unsure what to do. Then she felt the hot breath against her collarbone.
“I’m sorry…” It was garbled by Gideon’s skin but there all the same. “I'm sorry…”
Strong arms wrapped around her trembling back and held.
“You stuck your neck out for all of us… for me. Only fair that I stuck mine out for you… and it wasn’t all that bad. I got to work out a lot and… I had your and everyone else's letters to look forward to.” She shrugged but then felt the first drops of water against her skin and realized that Harrow was crying. Gideon just squeezed her closer.
“Hey, I’m the one that just got out of prison, what are you crying for?” she asked gently. Harrow just sniffled and Gideon reached up to card her fingers through the black locks. They sat on the carpet like that for a good five minutes before Harrow finally pulled back, letting Gideon see her red-rimmed and puffy eyes. Gideon didn’t say anything at first, just reached up to wipe a stray tear from her cheek with a thumb.
Harrow wanted to say how terrible she felt. How she was responsible and Gideon should never have taken the fall for her misdeeds. She wanted to tell her what an idiot she was. Instead, in a whisper, she said:
“I missed you…”
Gideon slapped a hand to her chest and gasped in mock surprise.
“You missed me? Why be still my heart! Harrowhark Nonagesimus missed me!” Gideon crowed, looking far too pleased with herself at this revelation. Harrow pursed her lips and if she could bare to detangle herself from Gideon at that moment, would have already been out the door. Gideon’s maniacal grin simmered into that familiar, heart-achingly familiar, and lopsided smile before she pressed her forehead against Harrow’s.
“I missed you too.”