DISCLAIMER: Abby, Kate and all things NCIS belong to... umm... the people that also own JAG, I guess. Certainly not I at any rate, or certain things would be very different. This is lesbian as are all my stories, and also I have not watched enough of the show to know more than a few snippets about the characters backgrounds. I have taken those snippets and then invented my own, which I'm sure has nothing in common with the official story. Oh well.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.

A girl with a fish and a smile
By Carola "Ryûchan" Eriksson

 

It had taken Special Agent Kate Todd the better part of the afternoon to sneak two measly pictures from a set heading to the case file archive away from under her male boss and colleagues that were, she felt sure, watching her like hawks, and delete the evidence of their existence. In the case of the former, Kate's much respected boss was simply an extremely observant man which made the task difficult, in the case of the latter, well... Tony DiNozzo just had to be Earth's most annoying person and had made it his personal goal in life to go through whatever belonged to her in search of snippets of her personal life, just to make that life living hell. It didn't matter if that meant going through her garbage, her purse or her laptop – DiNozzo had and would go through them all.

Was it worth all the hassle?

In the immediate sense, as in was the pictures worth an afternoon's worth of stress, oh yes. Kate looked at one, where the image of Abby Sciuto on her back, holding a dead fish, grinned toothily up at her. Unconsciously the smile was returned. Oh yes.

In the long term sense, was the hassle and the stress of having, and keeping, her professional life and personal life at least mostly apart – not to mention withstanding the never relenting treatment from DiNozzo – worth it? That was the crucial question, wasn't it?

Kate wasn't sure of the answer anymore, and she wasn't entirely sure why. Her work as a special agent of NCIS had certainly not been what she expected, but it was rewarding.

Clutching the printed photographs – she knew she had been foolish to print them and thereby make them all the more easy for DiNozzo to find, but Abby's smile had a way of touching spots inside that felt cold for far too long – Kate sank down into the corner of her couch, watching the shadows play across her apartment as she looked back on her life.

Her childhood was quickly passed through as unremarkable, although growing up with no less than three older brothers that were all cut from the same cloth as her current-day nemesis DiNozzo had not been easy, and had played a large part in why she grew up to be something of a tomboy, not to mention a very private person. No, her current dilemma with her work could, if one wanted to, ironically be traced back to the reasons she quit her former occupation.

Kate allowed herself a small pang of bitterness at the memory, then thought it through. She never did like loose ends, it was probably one of the reasons she was fairly well suited for her job as a NCIS agent, she figured. But it had not been her first choice.

Oh no, Caithlin Todd had been a Secret Service agent hand-picked to serve the president as a bodyguard. She had a certain pride in her skills, and knew without question that if it came to that, she would not hesitate to take that bullet. Kate was good at her job.

Unfortunately for her, Kate was also a lesbian... something she had been well aware of ever since a brawl with her brother over a pretty girl they both liked had ended in her getting 'The Talk' with her at the tender age of eleven. It had led to endless ribbing from her brothers once they were old enough to understand what it meant, and many a long-suffering sigh and eye-rolls from her mother over the years, but her family was surprisingly OK with it. Certainly, her brothers still occasionally press-ganged her into going on dates with their friends, but it was always with a shrug and a pleading 'get him off my back' kind of attitude, so she forgave them. Mostly.

Because Kate was private and perhaps not the most socially active person in the neighbourhood, the matter of her sexual orientation was unintentionally kept secret into adulthood, although granted attending a Catholic school had helped stem any 'acting out' she might have considered. By then Kate had made her career choice and the words 'don't ask, don't tell' were something Kate thought she could live by. It didn't seem like that big a deal.

It hadn't been... until she, as a bodyguard, had the misfortune of getting an immediate superior who took more than a professional interest in her.

He took the rejection badly and working with him was... tense after that, but Kate wouldn't have dreamt that the man would go to the lengths he did. Apparently he first located her apartment and then went through her things. Fortunately for Kate, being the computer nerd she had to admit she truly was deep down, all the incriminating things were safely tucked away on her computer where her boss at the time had no access. Unfortunately, he located one of her brothers instead, and a phonecall or two was all it took.

To this day Kate never even knew just what kind of evidence had been gathered, or even what the man had told his superior in turn, she just saw the triumphant smirk on his face as he issued the ultimatum – quit or get fired. And she had quit, signed her papers and delivered the excuse many used in her line of work. The irony of it was that even though she indeed had not and would not vote for the current president, it had meant nothing for her job performance. She was sworn to her duties, and Kate took such things very seriously.

She wasn't entirely sure how she had really been re-assigned to NCIS, Kate had barely had time to blink before she was facing her new boss, Jethro Gibbs.

Sure, Kate had taken a lot of ribbing to begin with for the fact that she was not from the Navy, but she had made herself at home fairly quickly. She had the utmost respect for her superior, Gibbs, the most she could remember feeling for any one person before in her life, and his opinion of her meant a lot. So when gradually it became clear that Kate had somehow gotten the hard-won approval and perhaps even some respect from her boss, she swore not to let him down. Little things like her always being assigned with him unless there was an obvious and tangible reason for her not to be on various tasks meant impossibly much... just like it smarted badly whenever DiNozzo managed to drag her into his childish squabbles and Gibbs reprimanded them. Kate could probably count the times she had gotten a serious reprimand from Gibbs on one hand and still have fingers to spare, but each time it had happened her shame and disappointment in herself had been... immense. It hit her so badly her instinctive reaction had on each occasion to throw up. Somehow, during a relatively short period of time, Jethro Gibbs opinion of her had become more important to her than even her own father's was. It was... puzzling.

The others... well. Kate had determined that Tony DiNozzo was simply the bane of her existence, and there was not much more to say in that matter. She had tried to earn his respect – and obviously failed, he was not the type to respect much – and she had tried to be his friend. She had tried to reach out on his level, but nothing worked. All that happened if she tried was that he used it against her, and yet, like a fool, she kept trying every so often.

Ducky, their quirky, knowledgeable and quite charming colleague that insisted that the corpses he performed autopsies on spoke to him, had indeed charmed Kate right away. That the sweet old man had reached this age as single and living with his positively ancient mother – and a pack of corgis – was inconceivable to Kate. Well, Kate had to acknowledge that she had no idea what a straight woman might look for in a man to begin with, it was just another of life's many mysteries. Kind of like how she could have gone through all those years at a Catholic school without anyone noticing her secret, but nonetheless... it had nothing to do with her current situation, she supposed.

Probie, err, Tim McGee was something of a sore spot with Kate. The fumbling, naïve and generally kind man that were DiNozzo's second favourite victim should, under other circumstances, have inspired more friendship and certainly better treatment from Kate. As it was Kate was often ashamed of her treatment of him even though she truly did try not to stoop to... well, DiNozzo's level. She was just so conflicted regarding their latest addition to the team, and she knew herself well enough to admit that it really had nothing at all to do with McGee himself.

The reason was simply that he had been Abby's lover, and no matter how hard Kate tried, she couldn't quite erase that part of herself that wanted to viciously stab out his eyes with a stapling machine. Or a pencil holder. Or whatever else that was handy.

Abigail Sciuto.

Kate's first meeting with their resident forensic genius had been fairly... well, at least to begin with it had been the typical reaction Abby would get from people that met her for the first time. Kate had entered the lab to introduce herself to the forensics specialist of whom her boss spoke so highly, and besides knowing that Abby Sciuto was, obviously, female and also a miracle worker in her field, Kate knew nothing at all about her.

Abby had been wearing her goggles, in the middle of performing some experiment or other which Kate has long since forgotten, when Kate entered and introduced herself. She had been quite shocked when the younger woman turned around and took her goggles off... Kate had seen the black hair, the hint of tattoos peeking out from the edges of the labcoat, the goth makeup and jewellery and faintly felt as if she had taken a turn into the Twilight Zone somehow. She was nothing at all like Kate might have expected.

Then Abby smiled that quirky grin of hers in welcoming, and Kate found herself feeling slightly faint, period.

It didn't take long before Kate had decided that Abby must be at least partly some fairy-tale creature, because the more Kate got to know her, the more entranced with this fascinating woman she became. Abby was quite plainly unlike anyone Kate had ever known. In fact Kate strongly suspected that Abby was unlike anyone else on the planet.

When did the warning bells first go off in Kate's mind that what she was feeling towards her new colleague was something more than just friendship? Possibly after Abby had that nightmare that made her frightened to go to the morgue alone and Abby asked Kate to keep her company. Kate was sure that her reaction to the innocent request had not been visible to Abby, but it had been rather... telling, to herself. She tried to keep some distance between them after that.

Even though being a NCIS special agent had not been Kate's first choice, it was job she had come to love. Even with DiNozzo there and her ambiguous feelings towards McGee, Kate loved being part of the team, loved the work they did... no matter what other job she might find, it would never be the same. Kate couldn't face having to leave that behind too.

But that was not the only reason she tried to keep her distance to Abby.

It became pretty apparent fairly early on in their growing friendship that Abby was a girl who had tried it all, at least once and probably twice as well. Abby had not been secretive about the fact that she had taken female lovers as well as male over the years, a casual comment on the subject even suggested that Abby personally thought that generally speaking her female lovers had been... better experiences on the whole, but that had not really been encouraging to Kate. Abby had a tendency to go through her lovers at an alarming rate, no strings attached and no attachment at all it seemed to Kate, all of which left Kate fairly terrified of being just another number in Abby's book of exes.

Kate just couldn't afford to take the chance, not professionally and not privately, and she couldn't even decide which damage would be worse.

Kate and Abby remained friends, and if Abby ever noticed the feelings that Kate fought so hard to keep in check she never said anything. Somehow, their relationship changed anyway.

Abby, who had previously told Kate far more than Kate was quite willing to hear about her then on-again relationship with McGee, found an opportunity to inform Kate that she and McGee was through, and for good this time. Sensing perhaps that Kate did not entirely allow herself to believe it, Abby then found an opportunity to prove it to Kate – and McGee as well in the process. She also made a point of informing Kate that her after-work activities did not include seeing anyone, not even casually.

The bewildered Kate began back-paddling at that point, finally beginning to grasp that the decision that Kate herself had made much earlier, that she would not try to pursue Abby... was hers alone and Abby had not been asked and therefore never agreed.

Some time passed this way, with Kate nervously skirting the issue and trying to avoid topics that were not professional with Abby, while Abby on her part would be much the same as before... only with the occasionally flirty remark and the occasional look in Kate's direction that made Kate feel decidedly faint and overheated. Kate would practically run to the safety of her desk each time, fighting the urge to just lay down her head on the hard surface and moan pitifully.

The day that things changed was an otherwise quiet one, a day when Gibbs had sent DiNozzo and McGee out on a wasted errand to get them from underfoot, then spent a few hours with Ducky before he simply disappeared, leaving a note for Kate to contact him if needed. Abby summoned Kate down to the lab, and Kate, having nothing better to do, complied.

She had definitely not been prepared to be met by a giggling Abby who pulled her inside the small locker-room where Abby changed in and out of her lab clothes, and then proceeded to kiss Kate senseless.

And senseless Kate was. Her first coherent thought was that she had never kissed a woman with a tongue piercing before, the second, a moment later, was that they shouldn't be doing this at work. The third thought reminded her that at work meant cameras, and with that thought came a wave of panic.

She broke the kiss at that point, but the protest she intended became a tiny whimper as Abby took the opportunity to expertly kiss Kate's ear and whisper her appreciation of Kate's choice of clothing that day. Kate could feel her knees wanting to buckle right then, and Abby took a few small steps back.

Watching Kate and waiting for her reaction.

It must have taken a lot more patience than Kate would have thought Abby capable of to first wait a long moment before Kate was even able to speak, then calmly answer Kate's worried question regarding the cameras. There were of course no cameras angled into Abby's tiny dressing room, and even if there had been, Abby would have made sure to shut them down beforehand. She knew Kate's desire to keep her private life... private.

Getting to the 'why' was more complicated.

Abby was, not surprisingly, very candid about her reasons. She didn't use words like love or claimed to be in love with Kate, oh no. She was very honest about how she cared a great deal about Kate, that she thought they were good friends with the potential for something more. How she was very attracted to Kate, not just on a physical level although she found Kate to be an unusually attractive woman. And finally she added that she had felt that Kate was interested in her as well, and while they could both not let it affect their work Abby thought it was something worth exploring.

Even though it was more or less what Kate had expected, hearing it spoken out loud by Abby had felt very much like being drop-kicked in the chest. Kate couldn't breathe and for a moment the world slipped away from her. She didn't faint but found herself almost doubled over in that small space, clutching her chest.

Abby had looked terrified and, surprisingly, even more pale than usual. It wasn't until Abby lifted her hand to – just barely – touch her cheek that Kate realised that she was crying.

She spun around and fled. Left the lab, the office and the building, not even bothering to return for her beloved and otherwise ever-present palm pilot, Kate just ran to her car and drove home.

She found out next day that Abby had somehow covered for her when Gibbs returned, and it made Kate feel childish in the extreme for her lack of self control. Abby avoided contact for the following days, remaining skittish and quiet in Kate's presence. That the usually so bubbling and enthusiastic woman would act that way of course caught Gibbs' notice, even though they were in the middle of an investigation at the time. That she was moody when Kate was not around, and Kate was so clearly bewildered probably made him pay even more attention. Kate was sure neither of them neglected their duties, and the case came to a close.

Then Gibbs called them both on the carpet, in presence of DiNozzo, McGee and Ducky no less, and ordered them to work out whatever they were fighting over. He gave them both a stern and warning glare and then assigned them both on a 24 hour surveillance job that had been so low key they had intended to just rig a few cameras and wire the feed to the office. McGee spoke up in the stunned silence, stuttering out a protest that it was not really in Abby's job description, and the glare re-directed at him so fast that Kate could almost hear the whiplash sound from Gibbs' neck before he dismissed them all and stormed out.

Ducky's murmured 'oh dear' was silently echoed in Kate's head when she realised that she had just been ordered to spend 24 hours in a very small, very bare, apartment with Abby... without even the slightest hope of any distractions besides the initial installation process.

She winced when DiNozzo turned towards her with a growing smirk and look of curiosity on his face. She steeled herself for the onslaught as he opened his mouth and... to her surprise just blinked a few times, staring at her shoulder.

Not at her shoulder, Kate then realised with some shock, but at Abby who had stepped close enough to brush Kate's arm with the back of her own. And, what had stopped DiNozzo short was the fact that Abby wasn't smiling. In fact, Abby looked at him so sternly, an eyebrow raised as if in warning, and the whole thing was so foreign from her usually cheerful tolerance that it probably scared DiNozzo speechless.

Ducky stepped in at that point, steering both speechless young men away while filling the air with his chatter. For once in all the time that Kate had known Ducky she didn't listen to a word of it. Instead she focused on the brief but encouraging glance the old man sent over his shoulder... directed not at her, but at Abby.

Confused Kate turned to Abby to offer a way out of the assignment, but Abby brusquely waved her off, gesturing for them to get moving. Later on Abby would tell Kate that at times when Abby get very upset she tends to stop talking, something that has remained with her from her childhood. To witness the otherwise so talkative and sunny dispositioned woman grow so quiet was a disturbing experience that Kate promised herself she would try to avoid repeating.

Not a word was spoken between them as Kate drove them both to the apartment and they installed the equipment. Once Abby had wired the feed from the various cameras and microphones back to the office and Kate personally verified that the target was present and accounted for, there really was nothing for them to do except talk. And they needed to.

Abby, having shaken off her silent spell, started. A simple one worded question without elaboration that had a complicated answer.

The words, the entire exchange between them would always remain crystal clear in Kate's memory afterwards.

"Because I'm not a toy." Kate had begun, quietly, begging Abby with her eyes and her tone of voice to understand. "I couldn't be something... a toy, a hobby... that you spent some time on until you lost interest or found something more fun to do." She had tried to apologise with a self-depreciating shrug. "I couldn't take that."

Abby looked hurt and began protesting but Kate cut her off with a sad little smile. "It is what you do, Abby."

"It's ok for most people you seem to date, I think, because they do the same thing." Again Kate shrugged. "I'm not like them. I'm not like that."

Abby looked away. "So. This is the lets just be friends speech, huh? I've heard it before."

"And how did that make you feel?" Kate desperately wanted her to understand.

Abby shrugged. "It wasn't a big deal. Friends remained friends and others disappeared." A quirked eyebrow in the direction of the tiny apartment's only bed. "And it didn't necessarily mean no..." The gleam in her eyes finished the sentence for her and brought a bright blush to Kate's cheeks.

Kate cleared her throat and, for a moment, answered Abby's tiny grin with a smile of her own. "And what about now, if we were to be 'just friends'?" After a moments consideration. "The no sex kind."

"It... matters." Abby said after a moment, frowning. "It matters a lot."

The blush returned to full force and then some as Kate considered what she had to say. "With me, Abby, it wouldn't be about sex... about having fun. I'd want to love, and to be loved."

She looked into the other woman's eyes with her own completely unguarded. "I'd love you Abby."

An embarrassed half-smile. "All that bothersome mushy stuff you don't like."

"I..." Abby blinked and looked almost shy. "I didn't like it with McGee... but if it were you..." A breath. "I would."

Kate stopped breathing at that point.

Abby stepped closer, until they were almost touching. "Would you... teach me?" Kate could never recall a time when Abby had looked so honestly pleading before. "Would you teach me the... mushy stuff?"

Reasons why it was a bad idea flashed through Kate's mind, loosing her job being the foremost one with getting her heart broken right on its tail. She ignored it all and just, for once, stopped thinking.

Completely ignoring the fact that they were standing right in front of a window, fully visible from outside, even as their passion had Kate pressed against the cold of the windowpane. Ignoring whatever faint voice of reason that tried to object, to say that it was too soon, as after some time – hours? An eternity? Kate had no idea – spent in front of that window they, by silent mutual consent, moved over to the bed.

It was startling, more than a little frightening, but mostly amusing when Kate roughly a week later met the target she and Abby were supposedly watching and the man told her he had been suspicious of her at first, but then been fooled when he saw her making out with her girlfriend in the window. Kate had been terrified that he would tell one of the others, but no-one mentioned anything and the case was closed, the bad guy locked away. They were off the hook and Kate could laugh about it.

The 24 hours alone proved heavenly. They gorged themselves on Chinese takeout and spent most of the time in bed, talking, cuddling and loving... Kate learned how to play 'trace the tattoo', and Abby found out where Kate's mysterious second gun was located. They also discovered that the pleasure-hound Abby simply loved cuddling, and Kate was more than happy to oblige.

Two days later while playing around in Kate's bed, Abby called Kate her girlfriend for the first time, and Kate's heart nearly burst with the joy of that moment. She the patience to wait and now she had hope to go along with it.

Gibbs was pleased as well, when the two of them came in to work the morning after their assignment ended and appeared to be better friends than ever. When he caught Kate getting lunch for the both of them Gibbs even threw a speculative glance in DiNozzo's direction, but Kate hurried to put her foot down there. 24 hours alone in a room with Tony DiNozzo would end up with her shooting either him or herself, and nothing would change that, even if they did occasionally get along... for a minute or two... every odd week when the moon was full.

Although Abby and Kate's relationship started off on a rocky, fragile ground it became fairly solid rather quickly. Although those particular and by Kate much longed for words had not been exchanged, they shared everything else... which led Kate into situations she would never have thought herself to be in.

Like in a small booth at a Japanese karaoke bar, praying silently that Abby was right in that only the birds could watch in through the windows at that height and that the walls were fully sound-proofed, because Kate felt absolutely certain there existed no song with "Oh god, Abby!" in the refrain... although she thought there should.

They had from the start agreed not to let their relationship affect their work, but Kate quickly discovered that 'not affecting' was not the same as keeping it off the workplace entirely – at least not to Abby. It had bothered Kate at first, but she was relieved to find that Abby was very careful not to let anyone catch either of them flirting... or more.

It had nearly stopped her heart when she, DiNozzo and McGee had been in the lab one day to get information from Abby, and Kate discovered that the braided remains of her underwear from the previous day dangled in a small loop next to Abby's computer. The pink silk material could no longer be identified as a former pair of panties, so Kate tried to relax. At least she did until DiNozzo asked Abby about her new art decorations in the lab, and Kate, nearly fainting from the discovery, found framed pictures from Abby's quirky take on playing 'doctor' the day before.

Extreme blow-ups of various body parts in neon lighting or X-ray imitation effects could no longer be recognised as what they were though, not unless one had been the actual motif and seen the pictures in the raw first. Abby gleefully pointed out the picture she also kept as her desktop image to DiNozzo, explaining to him that it was the greatest beauty the world had created – a strange picture of Kate's cells as seen through Abby's big microscope – which Kate had found to be an incredibly romantic, if slightly, well, Abby, thing to say.

Kate made sure Abby knew just how much she appreciated it later that day, after work.

Months passed, and an unexpected pinnacle was reached. Early on Kate had told Abby that under no circumstances would she ever share that coffin Abby used for a bed, not even to simply sleep in. Kate was perhaps not the most typical of Catholics, but she was certainly Catholic enough not to set foot in a coffin until she was put there by someone else and would not be able to get out on her own.

Abby had never pushed the issue even though she loved her unorthodox bed, and several months later she led Kate inside her apartment with a blindfold over Kate's eyes. To say that Kate was shocked to find a nice, queen-sized bed standing where Abby's prized and polished black coffin used to be would be an understatement. Kate knew full well that getting rid of the coffin was not something Abby would consider doing for a temporary lover... it was not even something Abby would consider doing for someone she thought she might be in a relationship with for a year or so.

Abby's slightly embarrassed question whether Kate liked the bed or not was really asking Kate if she understood the message it was meant to convey, and if was alright. Abby had committed to her.

So Kate had replied in the best way that she could think of. She hugged Abby tightly and, once she let go, used sign language to show that she loved it. At Abby's shocked look Kate explained that she had been taking lessons in sign language, leaving it obvious but unspoken that she had done it so that she could talk to Abby's deaf parents if Abby ever brought her over to introduce Kate to them.

It was then, sitting on the edge of Abby's brand new bed, that Kate had first spoken words of love to Abby, even though she had been in love with the other woman for a long time. It was also the first time that Abby, with tears in her eyes, had returned the declaration and professed to love Kate back.

It was a very sweet and special moment, and it changed their relationship further. The pictures that Kate had gone through such trouble to secure were taken, by herself of course, mere days afterwards. One image was of Abby as she just came out from under a car, holding a dead fish that had been stuck there, with a cute goofy grin on her face and such a tender look in her eyes. Kate had been holding the camera right at that moment and never even thought about it, she just snapped a picture of her beguiling siren, goggles and all. The other picture was of Abby leaning back against her, looking right up into the camera with the most intensely loving look Kate could imagine. Not only could she not let anyone at work see those pictures, but Kate would be damned before she let go of such beautiful pictures of her love.

Which led to the reason Kate had been sitting on her couch, staring at nothing and thinking probably far too much about her past.

Kate had come to the realisation that her feelings for Abby were so strong now that no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't hide them anymore. And that meant that if they hadn't already suspected something, the rest of the team would figure things out pretty soon.

Now Kate was sure Ducky already knew, although the sweet old man never said a word. Somehow he just managed to exude both approval and support anyway, and Abby had giggled so hard she nearly fell out of her chair when Kate had mentioned that to her, so yes, Kate assumed Ducky knew.

Abby was also firmly convinced that as long as they did not let it interfere with their work, Gibbs wouldn't be bothered by their relationship either. Kate hoped Abby was right, but then again Abby had a rather unique understanding of their boss, rivalled only by Ducky's own. So the problem would be McGee, who still carried a torch for Abby, and DiNozzo... oh Kate did not look forward to DiNozzo's reaction at all. She had heard enough of his despicable comments to know just about what his view of 'women like that' was, though he was careful not to let on in front of Gibbs.

The more she thought about it, the more the solution seemed simple to Kate.

So, McGee would have to grin and bear it, so what? So had she, and she wouldn't feel bad about being in love. DiNozzo, well... she would just tell Gibbs the truth, all of it, and then whatever DiNozzo did would be up to Gibbs to respond to, wouldn't it?

She loved her work, yes, but there were other things she could do for a living, even if it wouldn't be the same. She could work in security, or go back to law school if need be, she had enough skills to work in the computer business... heck, she could work as a kickass meter maid if it meant keeping Abby in her life. How her world had changed.

Kate nodded to herself. She would talk to Gibbs at first opportunity tomorrow, then leave the decision up to him. Then...

She looked around, noticing for the first time how dark it had gotten and hurried over to turn on the lights and checked her watch. Abby would be here any minute to pick her up and Kate still hadn't changed clothes.

Then...

Kate grinned to herself as she walked across the room. Then she would ask Abby what she thought about moving in together.

Her world had changed indeed. And what had it taken to change her world?

Kate glanced at her coffee table where the photographs now rested on the polished surface. The smile that spread across her features began someplace at her very centre, warming her throughout. The answer was easy. What did it really take to change the world?

A girl with a fish and a smile.

The End

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