Angie stirred in her sleep, rubbing sleepily at her eyes before clutching hold of the blanket and wrapping herself in tighter, Bette caught Lottie’s stare as they both looked on, fascinated by Angie’s dreamy movements,

Eyes met eyes, one pair dark like Sao Tome chocolate, the others as blue as the sky on a clear summers day. Bette sighed at the pain and hurt hidden behind those bright expressive eyes staring straight back at her,

“Not long now …” Bette mouthed, as Lottie still had her earphones in,

Lottie nodded, continuing to look directly at Bette,

Her gaze unsettled Bette, it said there was so much more to say, to do, that the weekend in Virginia had really just been a beginning, that somehow now they had to find a way to fit into each others lives, that together they’d agreed to take on a huge responsibility, that together they’d vowed to take their family’s trust in the direction Maxine had always dreamt of,

Bette’s eyes glazed over, Lottie watched intently, knowing she was going over their many conversations in her mind, was she remembering how Lottie had yelled at her, how Lottie had cried, was she remembering Rogers words of how Maxine had been banished for loving someone different, for just loving someone at all,

Bette thought about every word, she hated what she knew of their history, her grandfather ‘the Admiral’ who’d disowned his own daughter and continued to make her pay right up until her death, when it really became too late to say he was sorry. Bette was shocked, even in her letters Maxine had sounded like she forgave him, sounded like she even thought he might one day see fit to accept the life she’d had before,

Only he died before the chance arose, Bette couldn’t decide if she was relieved or not, whether an opportunity was really missed if it only carried the potential to hurt more people,

So their history basically blew, and there they were, roughly thirty years apart, trying to forge a relationship off the back of a history which had done nothing but try and keep them separate, but now they were just two adults, two equals in the world, with no one left to stand in their way,