A/N: Just to clear up any confusion: no, this isn’t done, yet. I guess the ending of the last chapter threw some people. So, here’s the next one with fetus Karmy and some hints at upcoming angst. Hope you like it!
Previous Chapters
Amy is nine the first time Karma makes her cry.
It wasn’t intentional, Amy knows. Even at nine, she realizes one very important truth about her best friend - Karma never means to hurt anyone.
Which, of course, doesn’t make anything she does hurt any less.
Karma arrives at the Raudenfeld front door, her tiny pink suitcase in tow. She’s run away from home which, to anyone who knows Karma - even the nine year old version of her - isn’t much of a surprise.
It’s more of a surprise that this is the first time she’s done it.
The suitcase is crammed full, too full really, with everything Karma thinks she will truly need if she never returns home, which is her plan. Even at nine, Karma always has a plan, always written out, this time on a tiny sheet of Hello Kitty stationairy her Gam-Gam got her for her eighth birthday.
As Karma schemes go, this one is fairly straight forward.
She’ll live with Amy until they graduate high school. There’s an empty bedroom across the hall and it’s not like anyone will be using that, right?
They’ll go to college together - Karma will let Amy choose, unless she picks one of those little tiny schools no one has ever heard of, and and then all bets are off - and after they graduate, they’ll move to NYC or Paris, or some other exotic city she hasn’t learned about in school yet.
Then they’ll settle down, in cute little houses next door to each other. They’ll marry brothers - Karma will, of course, take the older, more handsome one - and they’ll have exactly five kids between them.
The only unsettled part of the plan? Who will have how many of those kids?
She’s leaning towards four for Amy and one for her.
Amy’s an only child. Karma has Zen.
And since he’s the reason she’s currently standing on Amy’s front step, Karma thinks maybe one will be enough for her.
So, in the suitcase, she’s got everything she can imagine needing. Her clothes - the ones that don’t scream ‘my parents are new age whackadoos with a juice truck and some oddly smelling brownies’ (so, not an extensive wardrobe) - her box of trinkets and play jewlerey from her Gam-Gam, her magazines - fashion, entertainment, and music, naturally - half a dozen CDs, and her journal.
Karma has resigned herself to never seeing the rest of her worldly possessions, such as they are, again.
But, she reasons, that’s a small price to pay for being somewhere she will be loved, somewhere she will be wanted, somewhere, she thinks, where she will be appreciated.
Farrah opens the front door and stares down at her.
"Oh, Karma," she says. "What a surprise.”
At nine, Karma doesn’t yet have enough experience with sarcasm - even with Amy as her best friend - to pick up on the eye roll or the tone.
She also doesn’t know that Farrah’s actually been expecting her for the last twenty minutes, ever since Molly called.
"She left a note," Molly said, sounding far more excited, intrigued - maybe even proud? - about her daughter wandering off that Farrah - or most reasonable people - would have expected.
Molly read the note to Farrah in the way some parents might recite their child’s report card.
To whom it may concern,
(such good manners and proper grammar, Molly points out)
I have left. Do not try to find me. You will never figure out where I have gone.
(Farrah was glad, at that moment, that eye rolls aren’t visible over phone lines)
I will not stay where I am not wanted.
(Farrah wondered if it was possible for one to roll one’s eyes hard enough that they actually get stuck)
Good-bye,
Karma
P.S. Please wish Zen a happy birthday for me
That last line brought Molly to tears. “She’s just so thoughtful,” Karma’s mother said. “Even in her pain, she’s always thinking of others.”
Years later, after Amy returns home early from a party at Shane’s house with a bruised and bloody hand, a seriously pissed off girlfriend, and a sobbing Lauren, Farrah will recall this conversation.
And she’ll wonder what how so much can change in just a few years.
Of course, Karma’s claims aside, both women knew where the little girl was going. So, when the knock had finally come, Farrah hadn’t been surprised.
Karma draws herself up to her full height, putting on a brave face, refusing to let her best friend’s mother see her looking a mess.
"Hello, Mrs. Raudenfeld," the young girls says. Her try at a formal, grown-up tone comes across as more of a slightly stilted bad British accent, but Farrah is used to Karma’s affectations, so she just rolls with it.
She nods at the suitcase behind Karma. “Going somewhere, sweetie?”
"Yes," Karma replies immediately and then, suddenly she realizes her plan - as brilliant as it may be - has one potentially fatal flaw.
Farrah.
Nine-year-old Karma may not recognize sarcasm, but she does know when she’s not someone’s favorite person.
And she’s never been Farrah’s favorite. And even at nine, Karma’s pretty sure she never will be.
"I’m going… somewhere," Karma says. She’s worried, but not horribly so. Amy will let her stay and Amy will convince Farrah. "I can’t tell you where, though," Karma rolls on, whispering conspiratorially. "You might tell Molly and Lucas."
Karma heard a girl in a movie call her parents by their first names. She tried it out for a few weeks, but it didn’t stick. Now, she just uses them when she’s mad, when her parents have disappointed her.
"Got it," Farrah says, nodding. "Well, I think Amy is up in her room if you wanted to say good-bye before you head off… somewhere."
Karma nods her thanks - always polite, even in her pain - and heads for the stairs, still trying to drag the little pink case behind her.
"You can leave that there, Karma," Farrah says. "I’ll keep an eye on it."
"Thank you," Karma says, but the words are already fading as she dashes up the stairs and through her best friend’s bedroom door. Amy is sitting on the edge of the bed, just waiting.
"Amy," Karma says, slightly winded from the stairs. "I ran away from home."
Amy regards her for a moment.
In the years to come, Karma will recognize that look. She will - in fact - call it The Look.
As in, ‘you’re giving me The Look again.’
Or, ‘Faking blindness is a brilliant plan and stop giving me The Look.’
Or, eventually, ‘Liam Booker will love me and we will have little Bookers and you’ll be Aunt Amy and will you stop giving me The Fucking Look!’
And, in the years to come, Amy will realize that The Look is usually followed by a shrug - and sometimes a resigned sigh - both from her. And then some obviously ridiculous scheme that will end with one (usually Amy) or both of them in significant trouble and Karma giving Amy her own version of The Look:
A sheepish grin. A tilt of the head. A wouldn’t-it-have-been-better-to-think-of-this-first apology.
Amy just shrugs.
"My mom said you could stay the night," Amy says. "And she said we could go get ice cream after dinner, but only if you call your parents to tell them you’re OK."
Karma glances around behind her, wondering if Farrah has slipped in and she missed it.
"She said that? When?”
"A few minutes ago, Amy says." "Right after your mom called. She found your note." Amy hops off the bed and wraps her best friend in a hug. "What happened?"
Karma frowns. “Zen,” she says simply, as if that explains it all. And it sort of does. “He won’t let me come to his birthday party. It’s boys only.”
Amy stays silent and continues to hug Karma tightly. Mostly because she loves her best friend.
But, also, it conveniently hides rolling eyes.
"And then when I got mad," Karma says, "he started yelling at me. He said I would ruin the party."
Amy still says nothing and now it’s because she knows where this is going. The same place it always goes when Karma and Zen fight.
"And then he said that he deserved a special party because Molly and Lucas chose him.”
Amy can recite it in her head, word for word.
Of all the babies in all the world, they picked me. Most parents never get to pick the kid they want. But ours did.
Once.
Amy was only seven when she concluded - and rightly so - that Zen was a massive dick.
"I’m sorry, Karma," she says. "But it was nice of you to wish him a happy birthday even after he was mean."
Karma rests her head on Amy’s shoulder. “He’s still my brother,” she says. “Even if he is a buttface.”
Amy leans back, an evil glint in her eye. “You’re a buttface,” she says. And then she suddenly dashes back to the bed, diving onto it. “So whatcha wanna do, buttface?”
And that sets Karma off, as Amy knew it would. There’s TV or a dance party, or figuring out the floor plans of their future matching houses, or planning how to embarrass Zen at school on Monday or…
Or Karma plops down on the bed next to Amy and squeezes her tight. “I love you, you know.”
Amy nods and Karma smiles.
Maybe her parents didn’t choose her. But Amy did.
And Karma’s pretty sure - no, she’s positive - that’s all that will ever matter to her.
Amy can’t bring herself to knock.
To hell with knocking. She can’t bring herself to get out of the truck and walk to the door.
And sure, there’s been plenty of times over the last couple of months when she couldn’t bring herself to get out of Lightning, but most of those times involved Reagan’s lips on hers and hands roaming a bit and all sorts of things that most definitely should not happen in the Ashcroft’s driveway.
So, she can’t bring herself to knock. And she sits in the passenger seat, staring at the Ashcroft’s front door like it’s the Hellmouth itself, about to open up and unleash all manner of death, destruction, and pain.
Maybe, she thinks, I should stop being so over-dramatic.
Or maybe she should just stop binge watching Buffy when she’s fighting with Karma.
And she wonders, then, if they’re even fighting. After all, it wasn’t Amy who was vicious and mean. It wasn’t Amy who was territorial.
In Karma’s mind - a place Amy is sometimes frightened to admit that she knows as well as she does - it’s Reagan who’s the enemy.
Yeah, she thinks. That’ll last about five minutes. Right up to the point where Amy doesn’t agree that Reagan is Satan and must be cast out of their lives immediately.
Is it any wonder she can’t knock?
Reagan regards her girlfriend from behind the wheel and resists the urge to ask her - for at least the twentieth time - if she’s sure about this. She knows Amy feels the need to talk to Karma, the need to try and work it all out.
But some things, Reagan knows, can’t be worked out in an afternoon.
Or at all.
"You don’t actually have to do this, now, you know,” Reagan says, breaking the silence. “I know she said you two have to talk, but there’s nothing that says you have to do it now.”
Maybe, Reagan thinks, later would be better.
Give Karma some time to cool off. Some time to forget.
I’d never tell you anything again
OK, so maybe forgetting is off the table.
"Maybe," Reagan says," you’d be better off if you just gave her a little space. A little time to, you know, process. She’s had a lot dumped on her in the last twenty-four hours.”
Amy shakes her head, still staring at the door. “Karma’s like wine,” she says. “You have to let her age just right. Too little time… and you end up in aborted threesomes and getting labelled a sex addict. Too much time, you end up faking being a fake lesbian.”
Reagan arches an eyebrow that Amy can practically hear creeping up.
"It’s a tricky process," she says. "Like the three little bears and their porridge. You’ve got to get it just right."
Reagan shakes her head. Being Karma’s friend sounds like more work than it’s worth.
"It’s not as bad as it sounds." Amy says, like she can read Reagan’s mind. "Yeah, it can be exhausting. And aggravating. And frustrating." She laughs. "OK, maybe it is as bad as it sounds, sometimes.”
"But you’re still going to go in there and talk to her, aren’t you?"
Amy glances at her quickly and then turns back to the front door.
"I was ten," she says, "the first time I walked in without knocking. I just strolled in, walked right past Molly and Lucas, flipped off Zen as I went up the stairs. Walked into her room and plopped down on the bed."
Reagan smiles at the image of ten-year-old Amy giving Zen the finger.
"Thing was," Amy says. "Karma had forgotten to mention she wasn’t going to be home. She was visiting her Gam-Gam. So, when she did get home, she found me curled up on her bed, with one of her stupid teenie-bopper magazines under my face." Amy smiles lightly at the memory. "I had drooled all over a picture of Lance Bass. Karma thought it meant I had a crush on him."
Reagan can’t help but laugh. “Gaydar at an early age, Shrimps.”
Amy rolls her eyes. “I never liked him,” she says. “Or any of them. Karma liked Joey Fatone.” A smirk steals across the blonde’s face. “I used to call him Joey Fat-One just to piss her off.”
Back then, Amy had to listen to an entire Justin Timberlake CD to get Karma to forgive her.
She doesn’t expect it to be that easy this time.
"Molly offered to give me a key once," Amy says. "I turned her down. That would have been weird.”
Yeah, she thinks, a key would’ve been weird.
Everything else? Perfectly normal.
Like sitting here, in the driveway, unable to move, unable to go knock on a door she’s banged on a thousand times in her life.
When, Amy wonders, did things get this weird?
Let’s be lesbians!
Oh, yeah.
"You know, Shrimps… talking to her would be a lot easier if you actually, you know, got out of the truck?"
Amy nods, but doesn’t move. Her eyes catch sight of the dashboard, of the suddenly empty spot where their picture used to be. “Hey,” she says. “What happened to our picture?”
"What?" Reagan says. "Oh, that. I was loading up some equipment in here the other night and I tore it with a speaker. No biggie. I’ll just print another one.”
Amy nods. It’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.
One that would ring so much truer if she hadn’t seen the picture yesterday.
Before Karma.
Farrah stares at Karma, and sighs. This, she thinks, is what happens with permissive parents.
"Karma, your parents are downstairs. They let you stay the night, but now they want you to come home."
Karma shakes her head, and red curls spark all over. In her haste to escape Zen and his meanness, she forgot to pack her hairbrush, and none of Amy’s are tough enough to make it through the jungle that is nine-year-old Karma’s hair.
"Karma, sweetie," Farrah says, trying to maintain her patience. "They’re not asking you to come home. They’re tell…” she trails off as her eyes land on Karma’s arm. “Karma, what’s that around your wrist?”
"A belt," Karma answers. Farrah takes a moment to recognize it’s the simplest answer the girl’s ever given her.
She waits a moment more to see if there’s going to be any more explanation and when none comes… “And why is it looped around Amy’s bed-post?”
"I’m a bed-hugger," Karma says, as if that simply answers that.
Farrah turns to Amy. It’s not the first time she’s needed her daughter’s help in translating Karma-ese. “Amy?”
"We saw a documentary in science," Amy says, her eyes lighting up at the d-word. "There were these people that were protesting trees getting cut down and they used chains to tie themselves to the trees. They were called -"
"Tree huggers," Farrah says. "Got it." She looks at Karma, considering her options. "So, what’s the plan, Karma? You’re just going to belt yourself to Amy’s bed until your parents leave?"
Karma nods. Silence, she’s decided is more ‘protest’-appropriate.
"OK, then," Farrah says. "I’m going to go talk to your parents. Amy? If you could?" She nods in Karma’s direction and Amy understands.
Talk some sense into your friend. Get her to stop being so ridiculous.
It’s not the first time someone’s asked that of Amy. And, even at nine, she knows it won’t be the last.
Once Farrah is out of the room, Amy kneels down in front of Karma, poking her in the leg.
"You know this is kinda crazy, right Karms?" she aks. Karma simply stares straight ahead. "I mean you know I love you and you can stay here whenever, but they’re still your parents and you know they lov-"
"I don’t know,” Karma says. “And you don’t either.”
Amy falls back at the tone in her best friend’s voice. Karma’s never yelled at her, she’s never even snapped at her.
"I don’t know what, Karma?"
"You don’t know what it’s like," Karma snaps. She’s heard Zen’s little ‘they chose me’ bit one too many times. And it’s sunk in so badly, the young girl has actually started to believe it.
Amy reaches out for her hand, but Karma snatches it back.
"You don’t know what it’s like to not be good enough," the redhead says. "You don’t know what it’s like to not be enough for your own parents, for them to actually want you…"
Karma trails off as she sees the change coming over Amy’s face. She’s nine, so she doesn’t know for sure what the word ‘crumbles’ means, but she’s got a pretty good idea that thing her best friend’s face is doing right now fits the word.
She’s only seen Amy look like that once before. But that was when her father…
Oh.
Oh, no.
It hits Karma then, an eighteen-wheeler spinning out and slamming into her heart as she realizes just what she said. Her hands fly to the belt hooking her to Amy’s bed and she’s scrambling to undo it even as Amy crumples to the floor, her stare gone vacant and lost.
Even at nine, Karma knows her friend isn’t there right now.
Free of the belt, she dives across the floor, wrapping her arms around Amy and pulling her close. “I’m so sorry, Aimes. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean…”
It’s the first time Karma every says those words to Amy.
It won’t be the last.
And Amy’s silence breaks - as she does - the quiet punctured by a pair of howl-like sobs as Amy shakes and buries her face in Karma’s neck.
Farrah, Molly, and Lucas are through the door before the second sob has even finished echoing in the room. Karma releases Amy, allowing Farrah to scoop her up, and runs to her father, who lifts her off the floor into his arms.
"I’m sorry," Karma says. "I didn’t mean…"
She looks back at her broken friend, still quaking in Farrah’s arms. Karma knows she isn’t the one who did it. It might have been her words, but this was all about Jack, because he was the one who left.
And Karma knows that will never be her. Because she can’t understand how anyone could ever leave Amy.
But seeing her friend - her best friend - like that still hurts Karma in a way she’s never felt before.
A way she hopes she never feels again.
As Farrah soothes Amy, and the blonde’s tears slow to a trickle and her body stills in her mother’s arms, Karma turns to Lucas.
"Daddy, you chose Zen." she says. "And you adopted him. Can we do that for Amy too? Because you chose him, right? And I can do that," Karma says. "I can make sure Amy always has a family.”
Karma looks back at Amy and Farrah. She can’t see her friend’s face and she can’t read the look on Farrah’s.
"I can choose her," Karma says. "I do. I choose her. Always.”
Her face buried in the crook of her mother’s neck, Amy smiles a small smile.
They sound good, Karma’s words. And she knows Karma means them.
And Amy wishes it was that simple. As simple as always choosing each other.
But she knows something it will take Karma years to figure out. Something that will finally only click for Karma after she feels the sting of Amy’s hand across her cheek and hears the last four words she ever expected to hear.
Even at nine, Amy understands.
It’s never that simple.
This, Amy thinks, is how it starts.
A simple little lie of omission. A tiny white lie to keep the peace.
No big lies. No giant cover-ups. Those come later.
It starts like this. With the little things.
"It’s just a picture, Amy," Reagan says.
It was just a kiss. Just a dance. Just a song.
A kiss that changes everything. A dance that outs you to your mother. A song that should have been for you.
The little things.
"This is how it starts," Amy says softly. She runs a finger across the spot where the photo once hung. "You think that’s all it is. It’s just a picture. And then, before you know it, it’s just thinks you never expected.”
It’s just a threesome. It’s just a confession.
It’s just sleeping with Liam.
Reagan hangs her head. “Shrimps…”
"It’s OK," Amy says. "I know what you’re trying to do. And I appreciate it." She sighs and shakes her head. "This is why I didn’t tell Karma,” she says. “Because this is what happens. All this fucking drama and lies and everybody trying to make things OK even when they’re not.”
Amy looks up then, spots Karma standing in the open front door. She sees the look on her best friend’s face. The way she’s staring at Reagan.
"I chose me." she says quietly.
"What?" Reagan asks, confused.
"The night at the rave," Amy says. "I didn’t choose you. I didn’t know you. I wanted to, but I didn’t, not yet.”
Karma’s glare shifts, slides from Reagan to Amy.
"But I chose, that night. I chose to stop waiting for something that was never going to happen," Amy says. "I chose to stop being just her best friend.”
Karma blinks. She can’t hear them, Amy knows that.
But they’ve never needed words, have they?
"For the first time, ever," Amy says, "I chose me. Instead of her. And I’ve done it every day since. Every time I didn’t tell her. Every time I kept you a secret.”
Reagan reaches over and laces her fingers with Amy’s. She never once looks at Karma.
"I don’t want to keep you a secret anymore," Amy says. Both girls laugh lightly, knowing that ship has sailed, but knowing what Amy means nonetheless. "I want Karma in my life. I’m not ready to just cut her loose, you have to know that."
Amy tears her eyes from Karma and looks at Reagan, who simply nods.
"But if it comes to it?" Amy says. "If I have to? I’m choosing me,” she says. “I’m choosing us.”
Amy leans over, gives Reagan a quick kiss and slips out Lightning’s door. She looks up and sees the Ashcroft’s front door still open, but Karma is gone.
Amy was nine the first time Karma made her cry.
It wasn’t intentional, Amy knows that.
She can only hope Karma knows that works both ways. That Karma knows Amy never meant to hurt her.
Even if that doesn’t make it hurt any less.