{Enigma} or concerto for the fatal in Ab

we grow forests in our bones so our memories can't find us

she is an ocean of strength, steady and beautiful and powerful and vast

It's two AM when the phone rings and Avalon is startled awake, scrambling to cease the loud jangling and vibrating on the bar stool next to her bed. Echo raises her head from where she's curled up on the foot of Ava's bed.

She swipes a finger across the screen, not looking at the caller ID, not knowing whose voice to expect on the other line.

"It's two in the fucking morning this had better be good," she rasps, because yeah she's a night owl, but it's technically morning and she needs to be awake and functional in four hours.

It's silent as first and Ava is tempted to repeat herself, but then there's the tiniest cough and a frustrated sigh and what she believes to be a sob, meets her ears.

"Hey, Ava, uh. Sorry to wake you."

Cat doesn't party much, never really wanted to, but Chris does. Chris who she is only dating because she's too afraid to tell her parents about her sexuality. For Cat, Chris is safe.

"You need a ride?"

There's a pause, and when Cat finally speaks again, Ava turns her gaze to Echo, watching the gentle rise and fall of her German Shepard's chest on her bed, half on top of her laptop, the other half on her jersey from where she carelessly tossed it when she got home from practice.

"I don't know - I mean, if it's not too much trouble."

Ava knows the Catherine could call a cab, but this is her life, and it's kind of fucked up right now. She doesn't need any unnecessary undated recognition of her stupid decisions, doesn't need whatever cab driver exists in Bend looking at the mascara smeared under her eyes and "aren't you Cora Sanchez's daughter..."

Ava and Cat stopped being friends a long time ago, sometime after a drunken confession where Cat fell into Ava's arms at some ungodly hour and sobbed for three hours about how she could never be who she wanted to be because her mother needed to raise a proper Latina, straight, daughter and her dating her best friend would ruin it. No, they haven't been friends since then. They've been something more.

Cat and Ava both know that Cora would rather they call Cat's other friends from school, but she would find out the truth about Ava. Mel would fuss and hover and tell Cora about Catherine Sanchez's hot new toy. Cat doesn't want Lucas to know about this, anyways. Lucas is the closest thing she has to a sibling and Cat looks up to both of them and every shortcoming in her personal life makes her feel like a fuck up when compared with her best friends, who have a literal fairy tale perfect relationship.

And she hides the fact that she's dating Ava in case her mother does find out. Neither of them need that shit show.

"I really am sorry, I didn't want to wake you. I know you have to get up grossly early for school because you have a class first thing in the morning and your opens are after lunch. I know that you got home from practice late..."

Ava rubs a hand over her face, her golden hair tangled and framing her face, the moonlight making her look like some sort of angel. "Seriously, Cat, don't worry about it. I can be there in thirty, twenty if I break some speeding laws. He drag you to Velvet again?"

Cat sobs, and then abruptly tries to pretend she didn't. Ava knows better. "Yeah."

Ava's already slipping on her Slytherin sweat pants and checking that she has the keys to her car and not Merlyn's or her father's. She stops for a second. Her father would be up grading papers. Her brother would probably be playing some video game. She wouldn't be missed. They're used to her vanishing from the house to go pick up Cat.