Archive of Our Own

"I'm sorry, can we stop?" Cairo says as she pauses the test recording and pulls off her headphones. She grimaces when a strand of her hair gets caught in the motion.

It's extremely reminiscent of the first time Kate and Cairo were trying to record an episode. Except back then, Cairo was tired of listening to Kate's monotone read verbatim off a script and made that clear, and Kate still thought everyone and everything in the world was out to make specifically her life as miserable as could be.

"What?" Kate snapped, eyes flicking up to Cairo who was still detangling her hair.

"This—" Cairo motioned vaguely in Kate's direction, "—isn't going to work."

"You're going to have to be a little more specific." Kate could already feel a migraine coming along. The way Cairo pinched the bridge of her nose, she probably felt one herself.

"You are the flattest reader I've ever heard. Honestly, I used to wonder why you weren't on the debate team, but now I can understand why."

"We can't all love hearing the sound of our own voices, Cai," Kate snarked, using a tone familiar to Cairo's best friend.

Cairo narrowed her eyes. "Don't call me that," she said, the firmest Kate had ever heard her. No sarcasm, no room for arguing. Kate bit her tongue and didn't push. "Why are you co-hosting a podcast if you don't want to hear yourself talk?"

"I didn't realize there would be so much playback involved."

"There's not going to be any playback if you don't add some sort of inflection to your voice. You speak like you've never heard of an exclamation point in your life!"

"This script," Kate motioned to the paper on the table in front of her, "doesn't have any exclamation points in it."

"You can't improvise a little?"

"What the hell is the point of the script if I start improvising?"

Cairo let out a melodramatic sigh, snatching the script up and leafing through it. "Like this," she said, clearing her throat. Then, as if she got replaced by someone else, she suddenly and perfectly embodied a theatre student doing a dramatic monologue audition for their school's production of The Lion King. "'"Aimee was found in a ditch off the side of Lake Drive, only 2 miles away from where her boyfriend lived." Oh my god! Not Samuel! "The police were only able to identify her because of the clothes she was wearing, the denim jacket with all her patches giving her away. Her face was mutilated beyond recognition!" Jesus, that's awful! "The scar slashed deeply across her neck resembled a tiger with its maw wide open." Can you believe that, Lorelai?' Like that," Cairo said, flipping off her storytelling voice.

"That wasn't scary as hell," Kate told her, and Cairo shrugged.

"A podcast isn't just about the content. It's about the charisma the hosts have. We're as much of the product as what we're talking about is."

"That's not capitalistic at all."

"It's the truth," Cairo insisted. "What's something all the horror podcasts you listed off to me the other day have in common?"

"They're all horror podcasts," Kate said flatly.

Cairo rolled her eyes the hardest she had in months. "No. All of the hosts grab the listeners' attention within the first 10 seconds. You can't expect an audience to stay unless you give them a reason to. If they want to click off before you can even get the story started, you're not getting anyone to even care about what they're missing."

Kate sighed, recognizing defeat. "Fine," she said, readjusting her microphone. "I'll try it. But I'm not doing whatever thing with your voice that you just did."

Cairo flashed a smile at her, perfectly white teeth pressed into something too sarcastic to be sincere. "We'll see how you do. Otherwise, I'll have to go looking for someone else to co-host with."

That had been almost three years ago, the summer before Cairo's senior year of high school. The very unlikely duo knew each other from suffering together the previous year on the GCHS cheer team, but Cairo had been wanting to get into podcasting for a while. When she heard The Magnus Archives blasting loudly through Kate's earbuds on the way back from their latest away game, Cairo had cornered her after and asked if she would be interested in working together. Kate begrudgingly agreed, but not before Cairo had asked her again two times after that. Cairo was used to getting what she wanted, and this was no exception.

"What's up?" Kate asks, flicking her eyes up from the note she's jotting down to Cairo's face.

"I just— I'll be fine in a minute. I just got taken out of the moment." Cairo yanks at the hair still trapped in her headphones. She ends up just breaking the strand.

"You're usually really into it. What's up?"

Cairo chews her lip. "I got a text from Riley."

Kate stills. The last time she had heard from Riley was after her last game as cheer captain, when, surprise, the Tigers had lost pathetically. Riley had plastered on one of those wide, fake smiles she always did and told the team they had done their best and that was enough. Everyone pretended they didn't see her white-knuckled grip on her pom-poms while she said that.

Cairo had talked with her over the summer, texted her when Riley left for college but Cairo didn't. She hadn't heard from her at all once Riley started leaving her on read a few weeks into the semester.

"What did she say?" Kate asks carefully.

Cairo glares at her phone screen. "She's giving me that 'Hey it's been so long! How have you been?' bullshit." Cairo throws her phone down on the couch.

Kate thinks that if she received that text from Chess right now, she'd be texting back immediately. Of course, their situations are different. Chess keeps in touch when she can, but she's busy keeping up with all of her classes and being vice-president of her college dance club. It's not like Kate's schedule isn't packed either; double majoring in unrelated fields is no joke. Plus her and Cairo's podcast has been expanding throughout the years, and she's been managing to keep up with weekly updates despite the distance between her and Cairo while on campus. Cairo and Riley's relationship had been on the rocks all of their senior year, and Kate kept her opinions to herself as she saw the two drift apart more and more as the school year went on.

Kate has always wondered if her and Cairo's partnership had anything to do with Riley's distaste for her, or why Cairo never seemed to hang out with Riley much once the podcast became a staple part of her routine.

"Are you going to respond?" Kate asks, crossing out a repeat sentence. When Cairo doesn't reply, Kate puts the pencil down and walks over to Cairo, putting a hand on her shoulder.

Three years ago this wouldn't have happened. Cairo wouldn't be telling Kate her problems at all, just be more unbearable to be around to match her own bad mood. Kate wouldn't have tried to comfort her even if Cairo had told her what she was dealing with; she knew she was bad at it. Though she tried and failed miserably to console her closest friends, she certainly wouldn't try for Cairo.

"Do you think it's worth it?" Cairo asks sincerely, eyes wide and vulnerable in a way Kate so seldomly sees from the girl.

Kate counters, "Do you?"

"I've been thinking of what to say if she ever reached out like this," Cairo confesses. "I didn't think it ever would actually happen."

"What do you say to her when you imagine it?"

"Basically we just catch up. Plan to meet. She apologizes for losing touch with some lame excuse, but I buy it. I get years of my friendship back with her that I lost. Everything's… Normal again."

Kate nods. "'Normal' like, senior year of high school normal? Or 'normal' like everything is like it is now, just with Riley in it?"

"…I guess I never really differentiated the two."

"And that's fine," Kate told her. "You don't have to. And you don't even have to respond, if you don't want to."

Cairo takes in a deep breath and stands up taller. "I don't even want to think of that right now, honestly. I just want to get this damn episode recorded."

"I can get on board with that," Kate laughs, handing Cairo back her headphones. "Have you ever considered earbuds, by the way?"

Cairo throws a weak elbow at Kate's ribs, who just laughs and brushes her to the side.

"You got tabs on Mattie? Shouldn't she have been here like, 10 minutes ago?" Kate asks, looking at the clock on the wall.

"The only text I've gotten recently has been from you-know-who."

Kate sits down and picks her notes back up. "Well, I guess that leaves more time for us to discuss the final plot points of next week's episode. We were both on board with Inez revealing that Aimee's death was the catalyst for the ritual, right?"

"I thought we changed it to Lorelai," Cairo says, brow furrowing. "For character motivation."

"Right, right," Kate scratches another line out. She jots this adjustment down. "And we for sure want the ritual to be a time travel thing? That's how we're ending this?"

"Yes," Cairo says instantly, though her voice wavers.

Kate raises an eyebrow, pencil pausing. "You sure?"

Cairo fiddles with the chord on her headphones, hunched over in her seat. "I'm fine with that being how it ends. I just… Don't want it to end."

"Oh," Kate says quietly. After a moment, she adds, "I don't think I want it to either."

"It's been such a huge part of my life for the past three years. I don't know what I'll do when it ends. And it's something we've done together for so long. We're both getting busier, and we might not have time to call every week if we don't have the podcast to keep going, so…"

"Hey," Kate says, and Cairo looks up at her, worry etched into her features. "I will call you every damn day if you want. Even if it's just for 5 minutes. I'm still gonna be here for you when this story ends."

Cairo's face breaks out into a grin. "I'm gonna hold you to that, Dalton."

"Wouldn't expect anything less from you, Cai. And hey, whose to say we can't just make up another story to come back to every week? Once this one's done, we have the whole summer to brainstorm ideas for something new."

"I was actually talking with Farrah about that the other day. It just came up when we ran into each other at Target. But she's been hoping we might do something else she could make the official art for, so…"

"Maybe this one Annleigh will actually listen to!" Kate laughs.

"If we don't make it vaguely satanic again."

"Maybe we'll make it even more satanic, just for her."

"I'm sure she would appreciate that."

At this moment, there's a thumping on the closet door. Cairo and Kate exchange glances before Cairo gets up to answer it. She swings the door open to reveal Mattie, looking vaguely frazzled and holding a cardboard drink holder with both hands.

"Sorry!" she squeaks, trying to keep her balance. "There was a huge line. All the college kids back from their spring break taking up valuable time and space at the coffee shop, you know how it is." She shoots a playful glare Kate's way.

"Hey, Mattie," Kate says. Mattie sets down the drinks on the coffee table before pulling Kate into a hug.

"Ugh, it's been so long! You'll be in town this summer, right?"

"For sure," Kate grins. "We gotta make your senior summer memorable."

"You going to teach me to break and enter?" Mattie asks, a jab hidden underneath her sweet voice.

"For the last time, I wasn't breaking and entering, Eva gave me a key!"

"Close enough with the way she's always double-checked her locks after that."

"Wait, did you get these for us?" Cairo asks, holding up a coffee cup.

"Yup!" Mattie chirps.

"You didn't have to do that," Kate tries to admonish, but Mattie holds her hand up to stop her as she slings her backpack off.

"We gotta celebrate you guys wrapping up somehow. Plus, I've got a job—well, two, technically—so don't even think about trying to pay me back. It's my treat."

Cairo takes a sip of her chai, brewed just the way she likes it. "Thank you, Mattie," she says, handing Kate her macchiato.

"I should be thanking you guys! I didn't expect to get paid for this gig, plus it's given me something to do in my free time and go on my college resumes."

Kate sighs. "Mattie, you've gotta set higher expectations. With the work you do for us, it'd be cruel if we didn't pay you for your time."

"I'm just glad you both are here in person for these last episodes. It is so much easier to mix audio when… I don't have to," Mattie laughs. She makes a grab for her strawberry matcha, takes a long sip as she assesses it, then asks, "You guys ready to start?"

"This episode? For sure," Kate answers.

"And next episode?"

Kate and Cairo exchange looks. "We're getting there," Cairo says.

"Well, you have a week. A lot can happen in that amount of time, I guess."

Kate stretches out on her couch. "Yeah, and I got the whole week to finish messing with the script, so I'm sure it'll be fine by Saturday."

"You weren't assigned anything over your break?" Mattie asks.

"I just got done with midterms. I have a couple of things I need to read before I go back, but that's easy."

"Lucky! Oh, and when you've got the time, I've got a couple of questions to ask you about your psych major."

"I've probably got some answers for you," Kate shrugs. "I'll be here all week, so whenever's good for you."

"All week? Cairo's letting you sit on that couch that long?" Mattie giggles.

"She's allowed to leave the closet and go to the actual bedroom," Cairo says.

"Cairo's letting me out of the closet! The world can finally know I'm gay!" Kate cheers.

"Oh, shut the fuck up," Cairo boos.

Kate rolls her eyes and tells Mattie, "She's just mad I figured it out before her." Kate covers her drink when Cairo chucks a pillow at her. "Hey! If you don't want me staining the couch you can't throw things at me!"

"I'm just glad your break worked out so perfectly for the end of this series. It's good that we can all be together for it," Cairo says.

Kate smiles, genuine and bright. "Me too."

Mattie makes her way to her little corner with all her things and plugs her ports into her laptop. Typing away, she completely blocks everything out as she pulls her normal plugins and setup. Cairo fondly watches Mattie deftly navigate this and remembers her first day on the job.

"Ok," Mattie said, her fingers shaking slightly. "I think I'm ready."

Kate tilted her head. "You sure? That was fast."

"Mhm. I've got it all ready. From what you described that you wanted, at least."

"Cool," Cairo said.

Mattie nodded her head quickly, averting her eyes back to her computer screen, firmly gluing them there as she scrolled through her interface.

The podcast had been going for about 6 months already. It had picked up a lot of traction online, and was even generating some revenue that Cairo and Kate could split between them. The two were on friendlier terms, now that they had been working together for a while. They might even actually call the other their friend, if someone asked. No one ever asked, so they didn't.

Cairo and Kate had gone out of their way to get Mattie to join their production team. The poor girl was still extremely timid despite spending half a year at GCHS and being on the cheerleading squad. It was by chance that when Riley's phone wasn't hooking up to the gym speakers during a practice, Mattie had figured out the source of the problem in less than 3 minutes, and even made it so that the speakers on the left side of the gymnasium didn't blast twice as loud as the ones on the right like it normally did.

They had, in retrospect, made the poor decision of confronting her on her way out, and she looked like Cairo and Kate had just offered her to hold a bomb for them instead of working on a podcast together. She had relaxed a little, at least, when they told her the name of their podcast.

"Oh, yeah, I know that one," Mattie said, biting her lip. "I didn't know you guys wrote that. It's really good."

Eventually, Mattie seemed receptive to being their audio mixer. She seemed more open to the idea they suggested that if she didn't like it, she didn't have to go back a second time.

When asked how she got audio engineering, Mattie had shrugged and said, "I have a lot of free time and mostly just watch YouTube. I like music and podcasts and stuff, so getting to see the behind-the-scenes of production was interesting to learn." She hunched her shoulders up as she added, "This is my first time doing this for another person, so it might be a little rough."

"Don't worry. We're used to things being a little rough," Kate told her.

"Yeah, it can't be any worse than it already is," Cairo said.

Mattie smiled a little at that. "I guess we'll see."

When Mattie arrived at Cairo's house later that week, she walked through the door shaking like the last leaf on a tree in the middle of a hurricane. It was almost as bad as she had been at the sleepover when they first met her, but at least this time Farrah hadn't passed out drunk on the couch right in front of her.

Mattie's eyes bugged out when Cairo opened the door of her closet. "This is where you guys record?"

"Pretty cool, right?" Kate asked with a wide grin.

After two months and inconsistent audio, Cairo had decided to redo her bedroom's walk-in closet as a recording booth. Her clothes had moved to newly acquired armoires and dressers in her bedroom, and she and Kate had lugged in two loveseats and a coffee table for their new setup. There was still some more they could do, like add additional seats by the desk other than the bar stool that had temporarily taken residence in their writing area. They had also gotten really lazy when it came to putting up the soundproof paneling, giving up halfway and saying it was good enough. Their two microphones were clipped onto swivels that stood next to their respective seats. And above all, there was a printer on their cluttered writing desk for their scripts when they were recording.

"Yeah," Mattie agreed, scanning the area. She paused when her eyes fell on the paneling by their microphones. "You're never gonna get equal balance when one of you has more paneling than the other, though."

"Oh," Kate said.

"We're working on it," Cairo said, and Kate nodded to back her up. Neither of them had touched the paneling in over a month.

When the two had settled into their seats, Mattie gave a thumbs up for them to start. "Can you give me an audio check?"

Kate leans into the microphone and says, "Testing, test, 1, 2, 3…"

Mattie groans dramatically. "Do you have to do that every time?"

"Wouldn't be me if I didn't," Kate grins, then looks at Cairo.

Cairo rolls her eyes, but she has a fond smile on her face. "It really wouldn't."

"You liked it the first time," Kate reminds Mattie, whose eye roll is as powerful as Cairo's. Kate doesn't mention how funny it is that Mattie picked that up from the older girl along with her confidence with the time she's spent with them.

"That was ages ago. After hearing it every week, I'm getting pretty sick of it." Mattie types something in. "Can you move the mic a half inch away from your face?"

Kate does so, then says, "Testing, testing, 1, 2—"

"Please," Mattie says, trying to suppress her smile. "Alright, you two are good. Whenever you're ready."

Recording flies by. It always does when it's the three of them. Kate and Cairo have gotten really good at embodying their characters, adding small lines not originally in their script but fit perfectly all the same. Mattie adjusts sliders like it's nobody's business, adding sound effects in when she feels a scene calls for it. Neither Kate or Cairo ever have to tell her what to add when; it's like all three of them share the same wavelength whenever the recording session starts.

As they near the end of the episode, Kate and Cairo become a little more emotional than the script calls for.

"'I miss Aimee,'" Cairo says quietly. "'I really, really miss her.'"

"'It's okay to miss her, Inez. What happened wasn't fair,'" Kate replies.

"'I feel like I should be over it already.'"

"'There's not a time limit on how you're supposed to feel. You can be as sad or as angry as you want for as long as you want, and I won't hold that against you.'"

Cairo takes a shuddering breath in. "'Thanks, Lorelai. I really needed to hear that.'"

"'Anytime. Now, can you hand me that knife?'"

"'I pick up the knife, spinning it around in my hand. This is the tool of mass destruction, that took my home and my life from me. This is the tool we're going to use to save everyone. I carefully give it Lorelai, who inspects it like she hopes to find something wrong with it. I ask her, "You remember how to complete the ritual?"'" Cairo grins.

"'Do the Tiger carvings have stripes?'"

"'Yeah, they—'"

"'It was a hypothetical, Inez.'"

Kate reads her narration that the two have poured the most detail into aloud. "'I hold the carving knife tight in my grip, scratching the carving that's haunted me since that very first time I saw it three years ago into the stone under my feet. As I work, I think more about the ritual. If it really sends us back in time, if it really allows us to save Aimee, Inez and I won't remember each other once we finish this. We might finally get our lives back, might finally crawl out of the hellhole we've dug ourselves into willingly, but it won't be the same. How do you erase three whole years of your life and start again, just like that? Inez must be thinking the exact same thing, because she asks—'"

"'Do you really think this will send us back in time?'"

"'Her faulty confidence is unheard of. I look at her. Really look at her.'"

"'I mean, we wouldn't be doing this if we didn't, right?'" Cairo laughs nervously.

"'If what the Oracle said was true, if all the books we read and translated are correct, this will send us back in time to before the ritual began. We can fix this, Inez.'"

"'And then we'll forget everything we've done until now. Everything we've done together.'"

"'I slow my carving on my final mark. If I complete the last stripe on the Tiger, the ritual will begin. But I just can't bring myself to drag my blade against the stone again. I don't know if I can do this. I say as much out loud to Inez.'"

"'You don't want to save Aimee?'" Cairo asks, no blame in her voice.

"'Of course I do, Inez! I don't want the fucking world to end! But there has to be another way!'" Kate answers.

Cairo shakes her head. "'There's not another way Lorelai. We both know that.'"

"This is bullshit."

"This is real life."

"Why does it have to be? Why do things have to end? I can't lose you."

"You're not losing me, Lorelai. I'll always be here for you."

"It won't be the same. It won't be like before."

"Even if I don't remember you, I'll always be your friend."

"I wish moments like this could last forever."

"If they did, they wouldn't matter as much to us."

Kate sighs, letting the moment still. She can almost feel the wind that Mattie's playing on her end whipping against her skin. "'Let's finish this fucking thing.'"

"'I watch Lorelai stab the knife into the ground, etching the last stripe into the Tiger. Once it's there, the sigil burns a bright red, the ground beneath us shakes, and everything seems to freeze. Then, in a sudden burst of supernatural energy, everything comes crashing in. I think I hear Lorelai screaming before I realize I'm screaming too, and then neither of our feet is on the earth and we're floating and twisting and the universe is collapsing in on us.'" Breathlessly, Cairo continues, "'And then I open my eyes, and I see my neighborhood, untouched by the Rust. And I know we're back on the day it all started.'"

Together, Cairo and Kate say, "'It's the beginning of the end.'"

A moment of silence passes over the room. A quiet beep as the recording comes to an end. Then Mattie yanks her headphones off and cheers. "Oh my god! That was so awesome, you guys!"

Cairo and Kate look at each other, and they just start laughing. Cairo moves to Kate's couch just to lean against her, and Mattie quickly joins the two and pulls them both into a hug, and they're all laughing and laughing at nothing and everything.

"God," Kate says, wiping a tear from her eye. "We did it!"

"One episode to go," Cairo says like she can't believe it.

"You guys did that shit!" Mattie exclaims.

Kate says, "You did that shit, Mattie! The audio you chose for the ritual? That was insane! I thought I was actually about to have an out of body experience!"

"Hooray! I think?"

"Can you guys believe how far we've come?" Cairo asks quietly, the sudden burst of energy leaving her, making way for nostalgia.

Kate lets out a low whistle. "If you told me three years ago you two would be some of my closest friends, I definitely wouldn't have believed you."

"Honestly? Same," Mattie says. "I thought you guys were so cool you were intimidating when we first met."

"You don't think we're cool anymore?" Kate ruffles Mattie's hair.

"No way! I know you guys are huge dorks now!"

"Take that back!"

"Dorks who can't even finish putting up their soundproof panels by themselves! I was 14 when you guys made me do that! That's creeping into child labor laws!"

"That's what you get for having a late birthday," Cairo teases.

"Speaking of, what do you want for your birthday?" Kate asks. "It's coming up in a couple of months."

"Honestly? Just a nice dinner out with you guys would be great." Then Mattie grins, and it's a little shit-eating. Cairo doesn't say anything about how Mattie picked that up from Kate, along with her confidence over the years. "Maybe we could even take some time to discuss your next podcast project I heard you two talking about when I got here."

"You eavesdropper!" Kate gasps dramatically.

Mattie glares at her and chides, "Only because you guys didn't hear me knock the first time."

The trio all start laughing again. Eventually they'll get up, stretch out, an re-listen to what they just recorded. Potentially start brainstorming their next ideas, where Mattie will have more creative input than she does already. But for right now, they stay huddled up together on the couch. In this moment, texts from former friends, chapters that need read, shifts that need to be attended, and next week's episodes that aren't finished don't exist at all. It's just them on a couch, in a closet, together.

Moments like this don't last forever, but Cairo is just grateful they can manage to exist in the first place.