Chapter 70: 70 Suspicious Minds, Part Four

Jin slumped into his seat in the lunch room, tired of running errands for the Major all morning. He wanted to slump all the way onto the table and rest his head on his hands until his headache went away, but she was still watching him and he hated being told to sit up straight as it was.

"Was that everything?" he said.

"There's more than enough work for you to have things to do until night falls. Don't get bored for lack of work yet," she said.

"As if I could!"

She didn't look remorseful at all.

When Freya entered the room he had to swallow hard to hide his relief. Not that he would get ordered around less with her around, but at least it wouldn't be so annoying. She skipped up to his table and leaned over him, hand on the back of his chair so her smell was all around him. He couldn't even say what it was she smelled like that he liked so much. He only knew that he liked it.

Freya smiled and pointed a finger in the air, then said, "I have a plan!"

"I'm listening," he said.

He pushed a chair out so she'd have a place to sit. With her standing up and looming over him it got too hard to think.

When she sat, still with a hand on the back of the chair behind him, Freya said, "I have an idea for how you can make things up with Tabitha."

"I'm not interested."

"I know it bothers you that you fought with her."

"No, it doesn't."

"And Angharad would be so happy if her friends weren't fighting with each other."

"I don't care how she feels."

Freya laughed. Even her laugh felt like sparkling daylight across the water. "We all know that's not true. I know you well enough to know it bothers you that she's upset with you, even if you're too proud to admit it. Come on, I put all that work into making you open up. You can't shut me out now. I know too much about who you are."

"Don't talk like that." He flicked a sideways glance towards the Major, who was watching, sure, though she didn't look particularly interested. She had one side of her mouth up, like she was trying not to laugh. His hair bristled all over. "People will start accusing me of trying to secretly date her again. I don't want that."

"You don't need to worry about that, Jin," said the Major. "I've already realised you and Freya are together."

He squawked. "What?" When he looked over at Freya next to him she was frozen in shock. "No, that's not... Because that would be wrong and..."

The Major stood up. "Don't worry. I'll allow it here. While we're away from the world we know I don't feel like enforcing those rules. Be as open about it as you like. I'll only expect you to hide it when we get home. And we will get home."

"I... Yes, sir," he said.

Freya quickly fumbled to salute as the Major passed them.

"I'll let Maria know you're trying to reach out to Tabitha Speirs," the Major said. "She'll be pleased."

*

When she turned around and saw him Angharad sighed and said, "What is it now?"

But she listened to Freya's idea and smiled, and when Freya lied and said it was Jin's idea and he, like a coward, didn't say otherwise, Angharad made an indecipherable happy noise and threw her arms around him in a hug. He hugged back on reflex. He decided, at that point, that if pretending to be nice got hot girls to hug him he was going to pretend to be nice more often.

Over Angharad's shoulder he saw Freya do a thumbs up and wink at him.

Angharad pulled back from the hug, bounced on her heels and pushed her hair behind her ears. "I just knew you'd come around."

He didn't feel even the slightest bit guilty for letting her think making up with Tabitha was his idea.

"You get the blankets and we'll get the people," Freya said.

He had to force himself not to look around to see if anyone was watching when he took Freya's hand and pushed his fingers between hers, so they could get completely tangled together.

"Really? In public?" Angharad hissed. Of course she'd notice.

Jin could feel his face getting hot.

"Yes, we're now doing this in public, because some people couldn't keep secrets with their eyes," Freya said. "Keep up."

Freya winked, and Angharad laughed, and Jin tugged on Freya's hand and started to walk down the hallway without even asking her to follow.

*

Josephine didn't argue when he ordered her to grab something warm and follow them onto the hospital roof, but she did stare at his hand in Freya's until he glared so hard she trailed off into a nervous laugh and said, "But of course! A night gazing at the stars sounds magnificent!"

She didn't really sound that cheerful.

Eleanor looked confused but she followed them all.

*

Angharad was the one who went to find Tabitha. She was hard to convince. Not that Angharad really bothered trying to convince her so much as wrapped her in a blanket and just sort of forced her to go along until eventually Tabitha said, "Fine," and stopped struggling. That didn’t take long, either. Tabitha was obviously pretty tired.

And what better way to make her feel a little bit more awake than hanging out with friends? Forced socialising could totally be good for people. At least, Angharad hoped so.

Everyone else was already there when they got to the roof, where the night was cool and clear and there was nothing in the way of their view of the sky but the buzzing of the barrier. Angharad steered Tabitha toward the blankets and cushions Freya was arranging for everyone to sit on. Some she'd obviously stolen from unused hospital rooms, but some were new to Angharad, obviously among the stuff that Freya and her boss had retrieved from crafts that had landed on their side of the barrier before everything opened up.

"I'm only doing this under protest," Tabitha said.

"We know," Angharad said. But then Tabitha sighed and leaned against Angharad's shoulder, and Sophie laughed, and everything felt kind of okay again. Not completely okay, not that anything was ever going to be completely okay again, but enough.

When Freya finally sat down next to Jin he blushed as red as somebody's drunk uncle and put his hand against hers. How they'd kept it secret at all before that point, Angharad didn't know, but she wasn't remotely surprised enough people had figured them out that they'd given up trying to keep it hidden.

"Oh!" Sophie said. "Freya is Jin's girlfriend. Now I get it."

"Yes, she is," he said. "Does anyone have a problem with that?"

Tabitha rolled her eyes.

"For myself, I think it is beautiful that you've found love with a comrade in such a desolate place," Josephine said, dramatic as ever. "My only worry is how Angharad might feel about it."

"Me? I've known the whole time," Angharad said.

"Ah, really?" For a long moment Josephine blinked at her. What was that about?

"Yes, but unlike some people, I am actually good at keeping secrets," Angharad said.

Josephine finally looked away. "Ah, indeed you are," she said in a soft voice.

"Well, whatever, I'm just glad I don't have to bother any more," Angharad said.

"I'm surrounded by couples," Tabitha said, her voice a rough murmur against Angharad's shoulder. "It's disgusting."

"I'm single!" Sophie protested. She sounded seriously displeased at the idea that anyone had forgotten.

"We can fix that," Angharad said.

"No, we can't. There's nobody here worthy of you," Tabitha said.

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That was better. That was so much better than the way Tabitha had been the last time they'd talked. Angharad was so happy in that moment that she almost wanted to cry. She grabbed Tabitha around the waist and leaned closer so they could share each other's body warmth and tried to beckon Sophie closer.

"But we can still cuddle," Angharad said.

Sophie got on Tabitha's other side and wrapped another blanket around them. That was even better.

"Your love life is boring and Jin's love life is not a surprise to anyone who knew him on the outside. Surely you can think of something more interesting to talk about," Tabitha said.

"I mean, you knew him in a war. Why would that make any difference?" Angharad asked.

Tabitha was quiet for a while, breathing cool air all over Angharad's neck. And then, "Jin's father was a tile importer. At one point daddy wanted to get the bathrooms in the embassy renovated. We'd met."

Angharad looked at Sophie, who was starting to panic, and felt pretty sure that same vague panic was in her own eyes, too. "Uh..."

"Oh, oh! Let's talk about Angharad's life before Zapville," Sophie said. And then she pulled something out of the pocket at the front of her hoodie. "Like, who are these people?"

"Have you been going through my stuff?" Angharad asked.

"You've been away from the room a lot. I couldn't help it," Sophie said.

That definitely distracted people from Jin and Tabitha's enmity but it mostly made want Angharad want to start some enmity of her own.

"Give those back to me!" Angharad said.

Before Angharad could reach over, Jin grabbed them from Sophie's hands and hid them in his jacket.

"Who was the blonde girl in all the purple clothes?" Sophie demanded, face far too gleeful.

"Oh, whatever. Okay. I guess. That was Katie who I went to a couple of school dances with. She was really into, like, hairstyles of American first ladies as her special interest. It was strange but kind of neat," Angharad said. Jin looked kind of confused. "What? I like nerds. Whatever, I liked her but then her father got a job offer on the other side of the wall and I never saw her again."

"They were politically exiled?" Jin asked.

"What? No. They just moved to Guadalajara. People do that. Why are you so weird?" Angharad asked.

"That's not what I would have expected," Eleanor said.

Jin laughed. "Nobody expects people who have an obsession with the hairstyles of American presidential spouses."

"No, that's not..." Eleanor looked at her knees. Or maybe she looked at Josephine's hand in hers, resting against her thigh. That was kind of a huge difference. Angharad wanted to figure out which it was.

Eleanor breathed in deep like she was psyching herself up to try again. "I would have thought you weren't the sort of person who'd want to know someone like that. You don't look like someone who likes people who are a little bit strange."

"What does that mean?" Angharad asked. "Was I not extremely obvious about also being a nerd?"

"You were extremely obvious," Jin said, and Freya nodded.

"Okay, well, I once heard you say you find Morse code sexy, so I'm not nearly as big a nerd as you, Jin," Angharad said.

"There's nothing wrong with finding it sexy!" he said.

"Never said there was." Angharad had to look away from his face so she wouldn't laugh.

"That's not what I meant," Eleanor said, her voice small but insistent. "It's that you look like someone really well polished who has a well organised future with lots of money."

"Well, good," Angharad said. "I worked hard at looking like that. I'm totally glad it's paying off."

"I used to look like that," Tabitha said, with a low, dark laugh.

"Yeah, but you have no reason to pretend to have your shit together now," Angharad said.

"It is funnier to make people suffer through my suffering," Tabitha said.

Angharad squeezed her tighter.

"I don't think it's funny," Jin said. "I don't think it's funny at all."

Angharad immediately said something ridiculous and frivolous to distract them all.

At the other end of the blanket Eleanor looked sort of unhappy as she looked off into the distance. Somehow she seemed apart from them all even though she sat on the same pile of blankets as they did and had a tight grip on Josephine's hand. Angharad tried not to be obvious about staring, trying to figure her out.

She didn't have to get Eleanor. That wasn't really required. They weren't friends or anything and probably never would be, but there was no reason to think of her like an enemy. Eleanor wasn't really an obstacle to anything, just a person that Angharad didn't understand who shared some of her friends and got to hold Josephine's hand. All that mattered was they were able to be nice when they saw each other.

But why did she stare off into the distance like that? Obviously Eleanor wasn't friends with Angharad and Freya but she knew everyone else well. Did she not like Jin maybe? It wasn't like Angharad thought she had to like him, but Jin was Josephine's good friend, so wasn't that awkward?

But it wasn't her business.

Angharad caught Jin's eye when she looked away and realised he'd noticed her staring a hole in the side of Eleanor's head. She shrugged to say it was nothing without speaking, and accidentally dislodged Tabitha's head from her shoulder.

"So bony," Tabitha said.

"But I am getting fatter. Isn't that right, Jin?" Angharad said.

"That's a trick question. I'm not answering that," he said.

Josephine and Sophie had been chatting and laughing with each other the whole time and noticed none of her contemplation. That was good. There wasn't anything to say about it.

*

After, when they all got too cold and Tabitha's body was shivering too hard to be comfortable to sit next to, and their breath got visible in front of them in the night air, and Sophie started to whine about wanting to go back to bed, as if she'd been out of bed for more than seven hours that day, Angharad watched everyone start to get up and go down the hospital stairs.

Josephine and Eleanor were first, with Eleanor still sort of blank in the face, and Josephine's smile wavering and only returning when Eleanor actually looked at her as if she had something to prove. Sophie hopped up and jogged after them, so fast that Angharad had to yell at her, like someone's mother, to hold the handrail as she went down.

Angharad pulled Tabitha up with her. Tabitha was tired and vicious and her grip on Angharad's arm was too tight, but that was okay.

Jin came up to stand in front of Tabitha, his hands in his pockets.

"I still hate you," he said.

"Mutual," Tabitha said.

"But nobody is allowed to hate me but you," he said.

Tabitha's laugh was caustic, but not as much as usual. "That is not mutual. I'm happy for as many people as possible to hate you. It could be everyone."

The way they were friends was weird, and Angharad was pretty sure they knew it, too.

He took Tabitha's hands away from Angharad's arm and led her down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs Tsuyoshi stood waiting to take Tabitha off Jin's hands. He said something that Angharad couldn't hear but that made Jin clench his fists, so it was probably some toxic aggressive boy nonsense, but his hands were firm as he grabbed one of Tabitha's shoulders over the blanket she'd draped over herself like one of those Roman statues.

Whether it was, he didn't look up the stairs to see Angharad looking at him, and when she looked away she realised Freya was looking at her. People watching Angharad watch people seemed to be the theme of the night.

"Let's leave those idiots to themselves and get out of here, unless you want to stay up here all night," Freya said.

"I do like the quiet," Angharad said. But she went with the pressure of Freya's hand on her back pushing her back down into the sickly lights of the building.

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