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Julia knew she was being followed.
She knew she was being followed, but she kept her leisurely pace and her eyes ahead the whole while, carefully keeping a calm and collected face, and when she arrived at the door to her apartment, she turned the lock as if nothing was wrong.
“Are you going to just stand there?” Julia said at last, moving through the doorway and turning to face her stalker. “I tire of being kept waiting.”
That was an understatement.
“Sorry,” Carmen said sheepishly. She shoved her hands in her pockets. “My manners must be, uh rusty.”
“I believe isolating oneself and ignoring all their closest friends may result in that.”
Carmen flinched at the ice in the other woman’s voice, and for a single moment, Julia almost wanted to apologize. Almost.
Instead, she turned away and strode over to where two couches gathered around a coffee table, sitting on the far end of one.
“Sit, please.” She was a host, after all.
Carmen obliged, closing the door behind her and taking a seat on the couch opposite Julia. She was lacking her usual composure, Julia noticed.
Carmen wrung her hands and looked down, starting again. "I'm-"
“Sorry?” Julia cut her off. “I believe you mentioned as much, yes.”
“Please, let me just-”
"No, by all means, go ahead, please explain why it is you left for two years without so much as a-"
“Jules-” Carmen looked up, locking eyes with Julia. Those big, grey eyes pleaded, looking every bit like a kicked dog.
“ DON’T .” Julia glared at Carmen, tears quickly filling her eyes. Her cold and indifferent attitude slipped away, leaving nothing but raw heartache behind. “Don’t you dare, Carmen Sandiego.”
Carmen froze, completely caught off guard at the sudden change in demeanor. Rage, she expected. Anger, exasperation, all those she knew how to deal with. She was used to dealing with, even if not from Julia.
Heartbreak, however? She might as well have been fresh off VILE island with how little she knew about navigating that world.
“I thought you were dead, Carmen.”
Carmen sucked in a breath, but refrained from cutting in again. Julia wrapped her arms around herself, tucking her chin in and looking like she was manually trying to keep herself together.
“No note, no call, no way for me to contact you, what exactly was I supposed to think? I spent two years, tormenting myself, imagining every possible scenario, every way they might have caught you, every torture method VILE might have been inflicting on you, all while I was unable to help. I used to stay up every night, staring at my phone and waiting for a call from ACME, saying they found your body. Two. Years.”
Julia paused, lower lip trembling as she remembered the sleepless nights, the therapist, the psychiatrist, the meds. She hated those goddamn meds so much, and now-
“And then, lo and behold, here you come waltzing back into my life, showing up at a crime scene like it was just another Tuesday, content as can be and very much alive. So alive, in fact, you decide to follow me home and, what, apologize ?” She spat that last word out like a curse, and for all she knew, maybe it was a curse to have Carmen Sandiego’s attention, Carmen Sandiego’s affection, which had only ever resulted in heartache on behalf of both parties.
Julia took off her glasses and rubbed at her eyes, attempting to stop the flow of tears but failing miserably. Once she accepted her crying wouldn’t stop just yet, she took a deep breath and said, “Carmen, nothing could have prepared me for the knowledge that you were choosing not to come see me.”
At that, Carmen cracked. Not snapped, that would imply something in her was being set free, some truth that contradicted everything Julia was saying. She cracked, in the way that a hard candy might between someone’s teeth, cold and hard and with no way to deny Julia’s words.
“I’m-” Carmen stopped. No apologies.
“You’re right, Jules-Julia. I did have the choice to come see you. And I don’t have an excuse for not doing so. My intention was never to hurt you– or, at least, not this badly. I thought that by staying away, breaking off contact all at once, it would have spared you some grief. I thought that it would help you move on.” Carmen tore her eyes away from her hands, those thieving, deceitful hands to accompany her thieving, deceitful self, hard and cold and awkward, so painfully awkward.
Neither of them say anything for a while. Outside on the busy street, there are cars rumbling passed. The kids in the apartment next door can be heard roughhousing, laughing. In Julia's kitchen, her sink is leaking, a consistent drip, drip. She forgot to call the plumber again today. Tomorrow, then.
“I guess I was being kinda stupid, huh?” Carmen says, breaking the silence.
Julia scoffed. “Incredibly moronic.”
“Positively imbecilic?” Carmen asked, a hesitant smile finding its way on her face.
“Firmly idiotic,” Julia nodded, schooling her face to seriousness that cracked the moment Carmen winced.
“Ouch, that one was a little harsh, Jules,” Carmen said. “But I’ll allow it, since I agree. Will you ever forgive me?"
“Eventually,” Julia conceded.
"Maybe I can convince you a bit more over coffee tomorrow?" Carmen ventured.
"That depends," Julia answered. "Will you disappear after?"
Carmen shook her head.
"Also..." Julia trailed off and avoided eye contact with Carmen as she chose her following words carefully. "Is it... a date...?"
"Ah-well-you see, um," Carmen stammered. "Do you want it to?"
"I think that it would be for the best if we first tried being friends," Julia admitted.
"That's- Actually a good idea," Carmen said. "Yeah," She nodded. "Friends."