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How long had it been?

Too long.

Since the last time Vanessa had been on a dance floor. Since the last time that she had let someone touch her. Since the last time she had indulged in a bit of fun. It killed a part of her to admit that she had been avoiding the bar scene. Only cowards avoided things. But, it hadn't felt right. After Jarias's goodbye text message. The Amazon was a bouncer, for Heaven's sake. Vanessa hadn't wanted to see her as much as she had wanted to see her.

As it happened, that was quite a lot.

It took Jack to get her back there. Jack and a bottle of cheap whine. He'd plied her with it -the way good roommates do- and suggested that she needed to get laid. When she'd laughed at the idea of sleeping with him, he'd insisted that she accompany him to the bar. Help him find another pair of pants to get into, if she refused to share hers. The tighter the better, he had said.

She wore a pair of high-waisted black shorts and a silver sequins crop top. Her hair flowed around her shoulders-- wild as fire, curls thick and dark. There was a light in her eyes, and a straw pressed to her lips. The dance floor was thick with bodies -heat and sweat- and the rhythm of the bass.

Jack came up behind her. His lips hovered near her ear, though they did not make her shiver.

"Your a** looks amazing in those shorts, you know."

Vanessa laughed, reaching up to pry his fingers away from her hips. She wagged her finger at him, accusing.

"You're bad." A little hiccup.

A grin split his face in two.

"So bad," he agreed. "Dance with me."

"Mmmm," Vanessa wandered away with a little smirk on her face. She was headed for the bar, carrying a glass half-full. "Maybe after another drink!"

Vanessa had been careful with Jarias. Careful not to hope or to want too much. She had cared, but she had not pried. Had not pushed back, after Jarias had ended things. Given the choice between the ache of not reaching out and the stab of being ignored-- Vanessa would choose the first. Every time. Better to leave a question wanting for an answer than to ask it and find that the answer was silence.

She did not want to know why Jarias had left her.

Did not wonder. Did not pine. Barely thought about anything at all- definitely not the press of Jarias's hands on her thighs, or the whisper of lips against her throat, or the warmth of cheeks pressed flush together.

Definitely not.

Because she had spent so much time determinedly not thinking about Jarias, Vanessa almost did not pause over the flutter of rainbow in the corner of her eye.

Almost.

Vanessa choked suddenly on her heart. She stared.

The night they'd met she had pushed herself up against without thought or care for consequence. She was open with affection. Gave it freely where she would. When she was very small her parents had had to peel her away from strangers. Since then Vanessa had learned a little about personal boundaries. She understood that Jarias might not even want to see her.

Vanessa stood very still. People -bodies, not really faces- moved around her.

I shouldn't be here. I should go.

She swallowed. Noticed that Jarias was alone and that she looked...

... sad. Maybe-- maybe she needs a friend.

"Barkeep," Vanessa said. There was a subtle tremor in her voice, and a flush in her cheeks. She tried to force them both away when she took up the space next to Jarias at the bar. "I'll have one of whatever she's having."

She bit her lip, and started smiling. It took over her face like a mask. Vanessa bumped Jarias's hip with her hip.

"Long time no see."

How had she been?

A complicated sort of question. Something cousins and aunts asked after an interval of time and distance. Jarias was -had been- her girlfriend. It occurred to Vanessa suddenly that she had no idea where Jarias had been or what she'd gotten up to, since the last time that they'd spoken.

How had she been?

Vanessa felt the question gape between them, as something that you asked a stranger. It unsteadied her. Jerked her back to memories of another lover who came and went like the tide. What am I doing? I shouldn't be here, Van thought, heart screaming for her to flee before Jarias could tell her to go. She doesn't want me.

"I've been okay," Vanessa managed with a smile, fingers curling around the glass of her drink. She bit her lip. Knew that it would be unfair to tell Jarias the truth. That she had cried herself to sleep the night after they'd said goodbye- though they had not really said goodbye. That she had not wanted anyone else to touch her since. That she missed Jarias's laughter, and she was confused about what she had done -about what had happened- to warrant the cancelation of their coupling.

"Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but you look like you've had a bad day." Vanessa tucked a curl of dark fire behind her ear. She breathed deeply. Thought hard about what to say next.

"I can be your friend," she blurted, spreading her fingers out in front of her, "if you need one tonight."

'I don't want you to be my friend.'

The words came for her like a serrated blade-- the second that Jarias had sent her way. Slicing. Not just cutting. She sucked back an inhale, uncertain about what she could possibly offer if Jarias did not even want her friendship.

The fingers that brushed across her cheek soothed the injury the words had done, if only a little. Vanessa murmured a thank you when the bartender returned with her drink. She took it gingerly, sipped from the rim, heart constricting at the next things that Jarias said.

'I'm not a very good friend. Girlfriend. Lover, whatever.'

"Oh, I dunno," she pushed out a giggle, wanting Jarias not to hurt more than anything. They had been good together, hadn't they? For as long as they'd been together. They'd laughed, and kissed and then laughed some more. That wasn't nothing. "You're pretty good with your mouth."

It was supposed to be a joke. Left her feeling a little bit green instead. Vanessa took another sip of her drink, and then jumped at the press of a hand against her side.

Standing on the other side of Vanessa, Jack slipped an arm around her waist. He was smiling like the dog that he was, and gestured at the dance floor with his free hand.

"Come. Dance." He said in her ear. And then, with a glance and a nod at Jarias. "Hey there, Rainbow-brite. Long time no see."

A weight dropped inside of Vanessa when Jarias grabbed her hand. The whole world seemed like more at the touch of those fingers-- it was bigger, somehow, though she could think only about how quickly Jarias had reached for her, and the expression that had passed over her face. But, why?

'Jack.'

He was a fly at Vanessa's ear, grinning at Jarias like a child who could not bring himself to feel shame for being caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He put his hands on Vanessa's hips. Tried to pull her onto the dance floor. As roommates they were friendly and affectionate with one another, though Jack's particular brand of affection tended towards suggestion and sex. They had not slept together. Vanessa did not want that from him, but the flirting was nice. At home she encouraged it. Returned playful barbs and flicked suds at him from the kitchen sink when she was elbow deep in dirty dishes and he slid his fingers down her forearms to join her hands in the water.

She was single. He was single. There was nobody to care where Vanessa drew the line with him, and it. Felt good. To have somebody act like she was beautiful. Colin often said as much, and she loved him dearly, but that was not the same as knowing that somebody would like to tangle you up in their bedsheets. Sometimes she thought that Jack hit on her so much almost out of kindness, because it was he who'd found her crying on the kitchen floor after Jarias's text message.

Vanessa turned. Pushed Jack away with a hand on his chest.

"Don't," she said, because he should have known better. Should have known that this was not the time for that kind of play.

A smirk started on Jack's lips. His eyes flickered from Vanessa to the rainbow Amazon beside her, and then back to Vanessa.He goosed the back of her shorts. Vanessa arched away from his hand, flushing scarlet because Jarias was right there. She pushed harder, and he started to fall back, but was still grinning.

Jack was waiting for it. Goading Jarias on purpose because he'd overheard some of their earlier conversation, and thought that he understood a little something about Jarias's body language. He hadn't known for certain, but he had wondered, and the fist that connected with the side of his face confirmed all of his suspicions with a resounding crack. He swore and stumbled back, teeth slicing into his tongue.

It hurt like of a son of a b***h, but he'd hoped for that. The pain in his jaw was worth the satisfaction of getting a rise out of Jarias. Training with Moonstone had sharpened his reflexes enough that he was upright again in an instant- but there was no fight in him. It did not matter. The Rainbow Amazon had vanished. And with his roommate in tow, it seemed.

A couple of nearby witnesses -men and women who'd watched him seize the back of Vanessa's shorts - were staring at him. He winked at the largest of the men, adjusted the lapels of his jacket, and then disappeared into the crowd.

Outside, Vanessa was wound up and furious. At Jack for touching her, and for provoking Jarias. At Jarias for hitting him, and for pulling her along by the hand as though she were nothing more than a little girl.

'You sure know how to pick a winner.'

"Yeah, well," Vanessa's chest heaved, despite the fresh injury of those words. "I chose y-- oh!"

Whatever Vanessa had meant to say was cut off by the hand that curled in her hair. By the lips that found hers. Jarias's kiss was hard, dripping with a possessiveness that both startled and delighted the girl who had come from the volcano. She made a sound into Jarias's mouth, fingers curling in the front of the other woman's shirt. Vanessa's head tilted backwards slightly, but she was not yielding.

She was exploding. Months of tension and heartache and not-knowing combined with the nerve of Jarias's temper, churning up inside of her like rocks melting in a lava pool. Vanessa swore, and then slammed Jarias back into the brick wall of the bar.

"You don't get to tell me what to do," she whispered, voice rough with a fury all her own. Vanessa did not move away from the wall. Did not let Jarias move either. The hands on Jarias's shoulders fell to the buckle of her jeans. Vanessa exhaled, grazed Jarias's throat with her teeth.

"You miss me," she said.

Nobody had ever missed her so angrily before.

Vanessa arched away from the wall, flushing at the press of her hands -trapped by Jarias's fingers- against the wall. Their hips brushed. She heard the things that Jarias said, and felt like she couldn't breathe. There was a sob in her lungs that refused to come. It suffocated her.

They were too close.

"But you didn't lose yourself, did you?" When she found her voice, at last, it was aching and accusatory. "I lost you."

She struggled against Jarias's hold. Did not feel the scrape of the wall against the backs of her hands when she pulled her hands free, shoving Jarias backwards with more than a little desperation. She couldn't think with all of her so close.

'I kept telling myself it was better, I kept telling myself you were way to ******** good for me, that I didn't deserve you.'

"Don't do that." Vanessa's voice cracked. She pointed at Jarias, and then at herself. "Don't you make decisions for me."

Vanessa had never known a lover who did not, in some form or another, presume to know what was best for her. Blake had pushed for things that she was not sure she wanted to give him. Jarias was different. Jarias had left.

And she wasn't the first.

Vanessa's vision blurred.

"I am sick. Do you hear me? I am sick to death of being too good for everyone. What the ******** does that even mean?"

She started to cry. Pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes. Tried to push back the tears.

Jarias had missed her. Jarias had felt as though her heart would break in two. Jarias thought she was dying. But there had been other feelings too, it seemed.

"Who was she?"

Vulcan stared while Jarias spoke, bright eyes glistening with tears. The ones that she had shed dampened the skin of her cheeks and the palms of her hands. After a time she closed her eyes, and let her head rock back against the wall.

Jarias loved Princess Cosmos, because Verona had loved Princess Cosmos. That was a millennia ago, though it did not matter. Time had done little to dilute the potency of Verona's feeling.

When Vanessa opened her eyes again there was an ache in them. She stepped forwards. Closed the distance between them carefully to reach up and clasp her lover's cheeks with her hands.

"Don't," she murmured, voice cracking with feeling. "Don't hate yourself."

Vanessa tilted Jarias's face towards hers. Swallowed, and then stole a little kiss. It was meant to be comforting. Not really to start anything. Words likes this had always been hard for Vanessa, who did not feel she was smart enough to reassure anyone with eloquence.

"If you love her," she said, breath hitching against Jarias's lips, "then I will love her too."