“You're not where I thought you'd be But you'll always be a part of me” (from idina menzel’s last time)
Pippa chases her across the world. After graduation--after the fights, the lingering silences, the distance between them growing steadily further and further--she boards her broom, tosses her hair over her shoulder and travels the world.
In Canada she follows a man with Hecate’s dark eyes onto the dance floor. She lets him put his hands on her, keeps waiting for the same rush of butterflies she always felt when Hecate brushed the hair from her face or hugged her when homesickness became too much. The butterflies never came, though, and she left those eyes behind.
In Brazil, she takes a woman to bed who has Hecate’s sharpness. Sharp cheek bones, sharp wit, sharp tongue. It’s sharp, sharp, sharp and even the way she kisses feels like a bite. But there’s nothing soothing afterwards, no gentle smile or drag of fingertips. It’s not quite Hecate and she disappears in the morning and the search continues.
When she finally makes it back to Europe, she chases elements of Hecate in various people--a woman with dark brows and heavily lined eyes, a man who bit his lip in the exact same way she did. But it’s never right, it’s never the same.
She travels the world looking for the parts of her that she’s carried in her heart for so long and when her life leads her right back to Cackle’s Academy, right back into the arms of Hecate--the real Hecate--she knows she’ll never find anyone good enough.
Because Hecate is there in exactly the way she remembers and when they stand close and their fingers brush, butterflies erupt in her stomach; when she peers into those dark eyes of hers, she has to steady herself before she falls forward and presses a kiss to her eyelids; when Hecate pulls her into that abandoned dorm room and the gap that was once between them slowly closes, she watches as Hecate bites her lip in hesitation exactly as she remembers.
It’s then that Pippa decides she won’t content herself carrying bits of memory around in her heart, not when the real thing is right in front of her.
So in a moment of absolute bravery, she surges forward, swallows the surprised eep of Hecate’s and covers her mouth, nipping at the soft flesh of Hecate’s bottom lip before laving the bite with the broadside of her tongue.
Hecate’s hands flutter for a moment before settling on her hips, pulling her closer, slow and shy and steady. For a moment, they are simply pressed lip to toe, and Pippa feels something slide and click into place.
The thing she has been chasing, the thing she has been waiting for, is here in her arms.
She pulls away, breathless, and grins at the dark blush across Hecate’s cheeks, her fingertips tracing the same sharp cheekbones she once chased in Brazil.
“There you are,” she whispers. And Hecate’s brow furrows, has no idea what her Pipsqueak means, but grins anyway. Pippa nuzzles her nose against Hecate’s and kisses her again.
She’s home. Finally, she’s home.
