Chapter Text
Alice should be in bed - needs to be in bed actually, her test tomorrow is going to kick her ass if she doesn’t get sleep - but she’s not. Instead she’s laying on the soft grass in the middle of the quad and staring at the stars.
It’s 2 am and the not-silence is deafening.
She can hear the shrill giggles of drunk Kappa Gamma Phi girls walking through campus, the police siren cutting through the air, the thumping music from the women's swim team’s house that’s close enough she can tell there’s a full blown party on a Wednesday night. She can hear them but they feel far away, like she’s in another world floating above this one, experiencing a detached reality. The thoughts racing through her head have been going nonstop for hours, making her chest constrict and her eyes water. Her breathing has been slowly evening out over the past 20 minutes and she’s taking that as a good sign. She presses her palms into her eyes, trying to stop the tears from coming, and to hopefully steady the shaking. It’s not working. She moves her hands away and starts to scrunch and relax her face. One.. Two.. Three.. Four.. In and out, tight and relaxed. She starts to count the stars, a fruitless but calming activity, and gets all the way up to 45 before...
Thump.
She abruptly turns her head to the right and becomes face to face with a bright white smile and large brown eyes. She turns her head back to the sky and lets out a loud laugh. She can hear the person next to her start saying something, which causes her to laugh even more. Even harder. The creases on her forehead smooth out and her mouth curls into a smile and she can’t stop.
This time she can feel her chest constricting in a different way. From the action of not breathing-in long enough from joy, not anxiety. Humor not sadness. The person next her lets out a strangled laugh of their own, an air of confusion in their voice, but before long she can hear the tinkling of their own laughter next to her.
She always hated that saying “laughter is the best medicine”. It made no sense to her. If she was sick the last thing she wanted to do was laugh. Laughing could induce vomit during a stomach flu, a coughing fit during a cold, a hammer and nail like pain during a migraine. It was illogical. But now, now she gets it. She gets how her cheeks hurt from smiling - something she hadn’t done in at least a day -, how her stomach aches like she just did a tummy toning workout, how the only thing now in her head is how damn beautiful the stars really looks tonight. She stretches her short arms up, like she’s trying to grab them. She wants to grab them. She wants to grab them and throw them over the beautiful stranger next to her. They didn’t outright do anything, but they did so much. She breathes in the scent of grass, darkness, even taking in the stale stench of beer the Kappa Gamma Phi girls left in their wake. It washes over her, melting into her skin, muscles, and bones. She slowly turns her head back towards them and reaches her hand out.
“Alice” She says breathlessly, still getting over the ridiculous fit of laughter that happened only minutes ago. The person gives the striking toothy smile again and takes her hand, giving it a loose shake.
“I’m Georgie.” Georgie shifts back until she’s facing the stars and then starts talking again.
“I’ve been thinking about spiderwebs a lot lately. They’re things of pure beauty and wonder. How do spiders even create such masterpieces? Only a smidgen of humans take the time to create masterpieces, but it’s a spider's second nature. And we never take a step back to appreciate these webs because the fear of spiders also automatically causes people to fear spiderwebs,” She stops for only a second to take a deep breath, “They’re not only beautiful though, they’re so ridiculously useful. Spiders have the parts programmed in to create traps for food and survival! Humans and many other living things have to use outside resources to gain our food and help our survival! It’s just.. Amazing honestly.” She reaches her hands behind her head. “Lightning bugs baffle me also. Nature is so interesting. Did you know they have no idea they light up? Imagine meeting someone who had no idea their ass blinked light on and off every few seconds. Man that would be weird.” She lets out a light chuckle. “If I ever wrote a book I think I would write a kids book about weird shit bugs do. It’s all so interesting. Well that or a book about random comic facts. Did you know that canonically wolverine is 5’3”? I think Hugh Jackman plays him really well, but it would be so strange to see him being played by someone 5’3” in the movies! Oh! And the Incredible Hulk was actually originally supposed to be grey, but they changed it because of problems with ink. Also, batman has 8 batcaves! Eight of them! Well, when you're rich you can have anything but still! Eight is a little excessive buddy.” She squints at her watch glowing in the dark. “Anyways I have to get to bed but thanks.” She turns to pat Alice on the shoulder and stands up. She turns like she’s about to walk away but then changes her mind and moves to stand in front of Alice.
“Did it help?”
Alice blinks and looks up at her. “I’m sorry, did what help?”
“You looked.. Like you were in a bad place.. Did anything I just do help?”
Alice smiles. “Yeah, it helped.” Happy with that answer Georgie starts walking away. Before she gets too far Alice hops up and calls after her “Thank you!” Georgie stops walking for a second and yells back “I hope we run into each other again soon.” Then keeps walking.
_X_ <3 _X_ <3 _X_
Georges alarm clock starts screaming at 7:30AM, after she had hit snooze already twice this morning, and she grunts, rolls over, and slams her hand onto the desk right next to her bed. She says silent apologies to her roommate, who just shuffles in her sleep. Throwing open her drawer she tugs on her sports bra, sweatshirt, and pair of dirty workout shorts, while simultaneously wrestling her unwashed, unbrushed hair into a high ponytail. She grabs her cellphone, which has been sitting on the floor under her bed for 2 days -sorry mom-, flips out the keyboard and sends off a quick on my way text to Tits and immediately receives a Taylor is gonna give you so much shit hurry up in reply.
She takes the stairs two at a time and runs out of the dorm building, trying to get to Billings as soon as she can. She’s late for the second time in a week and her captain is going to wring her out like a sweat soaked towel. Billings is on the other side of campus, but her legs are long and she’s fast, until she runs right into another student. They both fall like dominoes and she can feel her knee pushing into the girl’s arm as she tries to get her grip and stand up. Thankfully the backpack cushioned the fall for the student, but George had no such luck and she can feel large bruises already start to form on her elbows and hip.
“Fuck!” Is the first thing that comes out of her mouth, much to the other students chagrin, so she tries to backtrack and sputters “Are you hurt, do you need help with anything, god I’m so sorry.” She braces herself to get yelled at, she’s fully aware she wasn’t paying attention and knows the fault is all hers. Instead she gets a warm hand clasping her arm and a “Ohmygod are you okay?” She flashes a smile that she prays doesn’t make her look constipated, and huffs out “Fine!” before turning and continuing her mad dash to get to the rink. She looks back for a few seconds to watch the girl shake her head and brush the dirt off her knees, but turns back around and tries to pay attention to where she’s going this time thankyoverymuch.
She finally pushes open the large glass door to Billings and rushes through the back hallway to get to the workout room. As soon as the door opens she can see her captain whip around faster than you can say ‘whiplash’.
“George.” Taylor fixes her face into a tight frown. She then gestures around the room and clears her throat to get everyone’s attention. “Guys. We are a team. Teams rely on one another for everything, from winning a game to emotional support. I expect you to be here, be a team, and be responsible enough to show me that there’s a reason and you are deserving of being here on my team.” A wolf whistle comes from Ducky as Tits claps George on the back.
George pulls her sweatshirt off and starts her stretches as Taylor walks over to her and whispers “Stay after.” She huffs out a sigh and walks back toward her mat and weights.
George puts her head in her hands before she starts the grueling cardio routine. She tries not to think about the gnawing feeling in her gut as her routine nears the end. She can see the girls all around her start to do their cool down stretches, wipe sweat off their foreheads, grab a gulp of water. She presses her eyes shut and keeps pushing through. She prepares herself to get fully chewed out, roughed up a bit, not in a mean way but a ‘I’m scaring you because this is important for both of us’ way. The rest of the team starts filing out, chattering amongst themselves about homework, cute people around campus and in classes, life in general. She ends in child's pose, breathing heavily and letting her body relax into the thick mat beneath her. She can hear the soft squeak of Taylor's gym shoes before the cracking of joints as she sits in front of her, waiting. Taking a deep breath she sits up, and sighs. Taylor's eyes are wide and her mouth is quirked into a sour look. She looks more disappointed than angry, which stings George deeper than if she was angry.
“Georgia. You are a vital part of this team! Probably the most deserving and qualified member of us, and I’m doing this because we both know it’s not fun to be ‘talked to’ by Coach Hanley. But if you want to be a member of this team you need to be responsible. I know workouts and team dinners might not seem as important as practices and games but there’s a reason we do them. If you don’t get your shit together or next time it will be Hanley.” She shakes her head and smiles. “Now go shower and get your ass to class. Don’t dissapoint me girl, I’m on your side.” George forces a smile and rushes to gather her stuff and hightail it out of there. She feels worthless and upset, so she does what any 18 year old who’s left home for the first time does - calls her mother. She barely gets through the dialing process.. Fingers hovered over the green call button when she hears someone yelling something behind her.
“SPIDERWEBS!” The girl sounds out of breath. “What.. are your thoughts.. On spiderwebs.”
George shifts her body so she’s kinda-sorta facing this student, still not sure if any of this was directed at her. She comes to look at the girl she rammed into only an hour earlier.
“Didn’t I run into you earlier?” George asks, still worried about fucking up some stranger.
“That doesn’t matter! I’m fine! It’s cool!! I just.. Never mind, I thought you might be someone.” The girl is flushed and has a smile that’s dimming fast. She can hear a mumble of it was probably a dream .
“I think spiderwebs are totally underappreciated.” And suddenly she’s flooded with memories of last night.
“And and, ummm what was it? How many.. Uh batcaves are there?” The smile is replaced with a look of recollection - or at least attempt.
“Eight,” Starts George, a smile starting to spread on both of their faces. “Frankly I think it’s a little -”
“EXCESSIVE” The girl shouts triumphantly. “I knew it wasn’t a dream.”
“Alice?”
“Georgie!!”
George cringes at that name. “Is that really the name I told you? I kind of hate that nickname.”
Alice’s eyes widen “I’m -- oh I’m so sorry, I didn’t, I mean it is all you gave me.” She’s tripping over words like they’re loose cords scattered all over the sidewalk.
“No, it’s fine, my name is George. And it’s nice to finally get a good look at you.” She winks and then immediately regrets it. It was a friendly wink, not a flirty wink. Unless.. Alice wanted it to be a flirty wink? What if Alice didn’t like girls? What if Alice liked girls but hated her. God she needs to get herself together. She blows the hair out of her eyes, trying to snap back out of her head and focus on this sweet girl in front of her.
“Are you okay by the way? I’m sorry I left so suddenly, I didn’t want to sleep in and be late for training - which I was, but um that’s well obviously no one’s fault but my own so..” She trails off, inwardly groaning, what the fuck is she thinking? This girl does not need this? “Anyways,” She jerks her thumb in the direction of Kinsley Hall and shuffles her feet. “I have to get to class but we should hang together sometime.” She smiles and starts walking but feels a warm hand is tugging her arm.
“I would love that.” Alice beams before turning and walking to class herself.