all the angels

December 20th, 1992 

“Oh, God,” Alicent breathes out, her voice laced with panic. She scrambles back, crashing into Rhaenyra as she does so, her chest heaving. The face of Father Lawson flickers and changes—it’s David, it’s David again. Another flicker and it’s Rhaenyra, but that’s not right because Rhaenyra is right behind her. Behind her, holding her. Alicent’s knees buckle and Rhaenyra catches her, pulling her out of the room. “We need to—we need to call—”

“Alicent, Alicent,” Rhaenyrea coos in her ear, the two of them on the floor with Alicent half pulled into Rhaenyra’s lap. There’s still blood on her shoe, the door hanging open, creaking on its hinges. Father Lawson’s lifeless face stares back at her through the door and all Alicent can hear in her mind over and over again why hast thou abandoned me why hast thou abandoned me? “Alicent, the phone is in the office, I can’t go in there. I need to go find a payphone.” 

Rhaenyra can’t leave. Alicent doesn’t want the woman out of her sight. She can’t breathe. Her chest heaves as she tears herself away from Rhaenyra, crawling backwards against the floor until her back hits the altar. Her shoe has dragged a trail of blood across her path. She watches as Rhaenyra crawls onto her knees, approaching Alicent slowly, timidly as if she were a scared animal. 

Her chest is still heaving when Rhaenyra reaches out, her hand hovering by Alicent’s face as if hesitant to touch her, but Alicent can see it on her face—in her wide, worried eyes, approaching slowly, but surely. Alicent just stares at her, struggling to catch her breath. A beat passes before Rhaenyra leans forward, allowing her hand to cup Alicent’s cheek, steadying her with the simplest of touches. 

“Alicent, stay here and make sure the killer doesn’t come back to the scene. I’m going to go find a payphone and get the cops here, okay? I’ll be okay,” Rhaenyra’s voice is soft, gentle as if scared she’ll speak too loudly and Alicent will startle—which, she’s not convinced she won’t. 

Alicent brings her hand up, covering Rhaenyra’s with her own and interlocking their fingers, desperate to just hold her, to feel her. Her breathing starts to even out, slowing down back to its normal pace as she continues gazing into Rhaenyra’s eyes. Rhaenyra just nods slowly, mimicking evenly paced breaths for Alicent to follow. For a moment, everything around them begins to fade and Alicent can feel her heart rate beginning to slow down, her body starting to relax with the comfort of Rhaenyra’s touch. 

“Okay,” she finds herself saying, nodding slightly, but unwilling to tear her hand away from Rhaenyra’s. She doesn’t know what it means, but she knows she craves it—for the first time in her life, she finds herself seeking out the touch of another. The touch of Rhaenyra. It’s all so foreign to her, yet the comfort in the hand on her cheek feels a lot like coming home. “Just—come right back, okay?”

Rhaenyra nods, eyes darting down to her lips for the briefest flicker of a moment and Alicent sucks in a breath. She nods her head and slowly backs up from Rhaenyra so the woman can stand up, but she already misses the warmth of the hand on her cheek. Rhaenyra turns and offers a hand to help Alicent up, which she takes without hesitation, hand clasping Rhaenyra’s wrist as the woman pulls her up from the carpeted floor. 

She looks at Alicent as if to say something, still panting slightly as she looks her up and down. Before any words leave her mouth, though, she looks over at the crime scene through the half-open door, seemingly reminding herself of what’s actually going on. Alicent can admit to herself that for a moment, she got lost in Rhaenyra, that the world around them had completely faded. But her boot is still covered in a dead man’s blood and they still don’t know the source of the noise that alerted them to the scene. Alicent just nods towards the doors of the church, pulling out her service revolver and signalling for Rhaenyra to go. They need to get someone on the scene sooner rather than later—they’ve already technically tampered since Alicent has trailed blood all the way up the altar. Fitting, she thinks. A sacrifice—only for what, she doesn’t know. 

Not a sacrifice—a crucifixion. A punishment. Even though she’s not the one on the cross, she can’t help but feel like this one was a message for her. That she needs to be punished. Punished for these thoughts and feelings she dare not name. She can practically hear her father’s voice in her mind— you must say your prayers and then you will be clean. You must be clean. She stares down at the blood, feels the cool weight of the gun in her hands. You are unclean. 

Rhaenyra leaves. She knows she should be investigating the church further, trying to see if the killer—or, killers, are still there, but her fear roots her to the ground. All Alicent can do is watch the door until Rhaenyra returns. It hangs ajar, sunlight streaming down the aisle, highlighting the deep wood of the pews. Alicent isn’t sure she breathes. 

She sucks in a deep breath, trying to will herself out of her stillness. Her head turns towards the open door, no sound in the church save for the steady dripping of fresh blood. Alicent shudders as she pushes against the door with her knuckles, revolver still in hand. She doesn’t step inside, but she looks around with her barrel out, ready for the slightest movement. The office is small—only meant really for changing into one's vestments or meeting with engaged couples in the church. Alicent can’t help but think about Elia Torrance—the sacrificial lamb. How she sat in this room with her fiancé, eight years her senior. 

Maybe this church has made them blind—too obsessed with looking inside its doors, maybe they need to look elsewhere. But it’s difficult to ignore the church when the building itself haunts this case—every victim stepped foot somewhere in these halls, their blood stains these walls. Alicent can’t help but wonder if she’s getting swallowed up by this place along with the rest.

She hears the creaking of the door and Alicent whips around, grateful to see Rhaenyra running back into the church, out of breath. She stops halfway up the aisle, hands on her hips as she leans over and catches her breath. “God, I’ve been lax with my training recently.” 

Strangely, Alicent lets out a warped laugh, the sound distorted like it was never meant to come out. She brings a hand to her lips, resisting the urge to keep chuckling as she walks down the aisle to meet Rhaenyra at the halfway point. 

“Cops are on their way. Hear anything go bump in the night?” Rhaenyra asks, standing up straight and meeting Alicent’s eyes. Neither of them seem to be willing to acknowledge the moment they shared, but Alicent certainly isn’t going to be the one to bring it up. She’s simply going to bury it deep along with everything else she knows she’s not allowed to feel.

Alicent shakes her head, “No, no, that must have been them leaving. When we get into the scene, we’ll have to see if maybe there’s a back door or some other way to get out of here because there’s no way they snuck out of that front door while we were heading towards the basement.”

Rhaenyra nods, taking in the information as she looks around the church. “I feel like I saw an entrance to the basement out around back, but I could be wrong. Might be worth checking out while we wait for the cops.” 

Alicent is quick in her vehement disagreement. “No. I think we need to stay with the body. I don’t—I don’t trust it. I don’t like any of this. There’s a solid chance they could just be waiting down there for us and I—no.”

She can feel herself starting to panic again, but it seems Rhaenyra recognizes it just as quickly as she does. Rhaenyra reaches out and grips her forearm, leaning down so she’s eye level with Alicent’s downcast gaze. Alicent reaches for her wrist, feeling the way Rhaenyra’s jacket gives around her fingers, the way she can feel the warmth of her flesh beneath it. 

Alicent catches her breath, meeting Rhaenyra’s eyes. “We should stay with the body. I don’t… I don’t think we should move. I just get a feeling—”

“Okay, okay,” Rhaenyra nods immediately, her voice assuring and comforting as she rubs Alicent’s forearm softly. “We’ll stay here. I’m not going anywhere else.” 

I’m not going anywhere else. She hates the way Rhaenyra seems to know exactly what to say to her, exactly the right thing to make her feel better—exactly the right thing to feel feel feel. She isn’t sure how much longer she can take it. 

Alicent tears herself away from Rhaenyra, forcing herself to head back over to the door. Father Lawson’s eyes stare back at her—glassy and empty. She wonders if that’s what her mother looked like when she died. Empty. Her father had insisted on a closed casket—the children were too young, they shouldn’t have to remember their mother like that. Alicent always remembers her laughing—her smile in a rare sun. Perhaps, that was the one kind thing he ever gave her.  

“Alicent, what’s wrong?”

“One of our biggest leads is dead, that’s what’s wrong. He’s fucking crucified and we could be standing on top of our killers right now, but we can’t do anything because—because I have a bad feeling. We should—we should go down there. We could split up. You take the back and I head down the front that way we can—”

“Alicent,” Rhaenyra cuts her off and Alicent stops. She stares straight down the aisle, her eyes watching the way the stained glass streams colored sun across the altar. “Don’t let Harrold hear me say this, but I’d rather they get away right now than either one of us rush into danger. The cops are on their way, we’re not even sure there’s a back door, there’s no reason for us to move.”

Despite this, she heads towards the basement door anyway, her revolver still clutched in sweaty palms. She swallows the lump in her throat, a swirling pit of dread forming in the bottom of her stomach, dragging her down like thick mud. She can hear Rhaenyra behind her, following slowly, her footsteps unsure. 

“Alicent, if you don’t think we should go down there, I don’t care what reason, I trust you.” I trust you. Trust. Would she trust Alicent if she knew what Alicent thought of her? If she knew the things the depths of her subconscious concocted while she slept? If she knew Alicent were unclean? She wouldn’t trust her. She’d despise her. Alicent reaches for the handle of the basement door. 

She can practically hear Rhaenyra’s bated breath behind her—close, but not as close as she had been when they found Father Lawson. Alicent misses it, she misses her warmth. She needs her near, but she can’t bear it. Not right now. Not when she feels so… feels so dirty. She tugs on the handle, but it doesn’t budge.

“Locked,” Alicent whispers, hating the way relief stings at her skin. She turns back to Rhaenyra. “It’s locked anyway, we’ll have to break it down.” 

“We—” Rhaenyra starts to say until they hear the sirens. Alicent turns back to the main door, watching the sunlight give way to flashing red and blue. She can see the way Rhaenyra visibly relaxes, turning back to Alicent with a concerned glance. “What’s wrong? It’s something other than Father Lawson, isn’t it?”

Alicent won’t meet her gaze. “Don’t worry about it. We need to focus on the case, this puts a huge wrench in everything. I mean—we only had this warrant because he was a suspect and now he’s dead—”

“Police! Hands in the—oh, agents,” Officer Brandino relaxes as soon as he sees the two of them. “Where is he?”

Rhaenyra just grimaces and points to the office, greeting the other officers with a nod of her head, “We were here serving a search warrant and, well—we certainly found something.” 

“Jesus Christ,” Officer Brandino gasps as soon as he sees the body. “That’s fresh, too. Did you investigate elsewhere?”

Rhaenyra shakes her head as Alicent stands in the back, hovering by the basement door like a ghost. “Basement door’s locked, we figured the keys were somewhere in the office, but we didn’t want to disturb the scene, not without proper gear. I didn’t bring any gloves or anything because, well, I didn’t think we’d be finding a body.” 

“Alright, well, we’ll get our crime scene guys in there and have them send everything over. Here—take some gloves, you two should get in there. God knows you more about this case than we do.”

“Eh, I’m not sure about that,” Rhaenyra grumbles, taking gloves from the crime scene investigators before handing some over to Alicent. 

She hesitantly puts away her service revolver, that aching feeling in her stomach not quite going away even with the arrival of the officers, taking the gloves. For the first time, they push fully into the office and a chill runs down her spine. She carefully sidesteps the blood, watching as the crime scene investigator puts a number down next to it. Sunlight seems to bleed into the office for the first time, casting Father Lawrence’s body in a bleary haze. The sun against the snow is so bright, it almost feels fluorescent in nature. 

“Must have taken a hell of a lot of strength to get him up there. You guys know what kinda guy you’re looking for?”

“We’re not open to discussing case details,” Rhaenyra mutters as Alicent kneels down next to the body. 

“His feet are on the floor,” Alicent comments, looking up at Rhaenyra. “That’s a hell of a lot less strength needed than holding him up there to nail him in would be. I mean, they used wire to get David up, they had leverage, but this—this they just held him up and nailed him in.”

Above her, Rhaenyra looks at his hands. “I don’t even think these are nails—they almost look like… like something you’d stake a tent with. He had to have been already dead by the time they stuck these in, look at the bleeding.” 

Alicent stands, her shoulder brushing Rhaenyra’s as they both stare at the hands. “You’re right. He needs to have another wound somewhere, something that actually killed him.” 

“I think I have an idea,” Rhaenyra grimaces, looking at where it would seem two of his buttons are undone. She’s careful with the fabric, pushing it aside where Alicent realizes it’s soaked through with blood. Beneath his shirt is a wound so wide and gaping, she can see the bloodied wood of the cross behind it. “Jesus, that’s through and through.” 

“Rhaenyra, with his feet on the floor, two people could have easily pushed him up here. One holds him down, one nails him in,” Alicent murmurs, careful to keep her voice low around the cops. The last thing she needs is a small town cop hearing they’re accusing teenage girls of murder.

“I know.”

“No keys anywhere,” one of the officers says, “We can break down the basement door for you ladies probably.”

Alicent can see the way Rhaenyra’s expression shifts at the comment and she wouldn’t be surprised if Rhaenyra went and busted the door right now just to spite him. Instead, though, she says, “No, we’ll come back and take a look at it tomorrow. I want to just get this scene cleared and go over some things back at the office. Thanks, though. How… considerate.”

“No problem, agent,” he smiles, completely unaware of Rhaenyra’s sarcasm. Rhaenyra just nods slowly, taking another sweeping look around the scene. 

“No tracks, nothing, just you,” Rhaenyra mutters, before saying, “Oh—you guys might want a copy of her boot print, we accidentally, um… stepped in a bit of… priest.” 

“Rhaenyra,” Alicent chastises, rolling her eyes as she holds up her boot for the investigator to get a photograph before finally wiping the blood off with her sleeve—maybe not the best choice, but she just wants it off. She can wash her jacket and wipe everything when she gets home. God knows she’s going to sit in the shower until her skin burns. 

“What? You did,” she huffs, bumping Alicent’s shoulder casually with her own. She continues poking around the scene, but Alicent just finds herself standing there, staring at the gaping wound in his chest. There’s something peculiar about it, something that she can’t quite put her finger on. Then— “Rhaenyra. They didn’t go through his chest. They carved it.”

“What do you mean?” Rhaenyra hums, turning around and coming back to stand beside Alicent. 

Alicent kneels down a bit, bending to really look at it, confirming her theory before she says it out loud. “His heart. It’s gone.” 

***

“You sure you’re okay to go home?” Rhaenyra asks back at the office. The Litchfield police department has already sent over the printed photos, which Alicent is grateful for. Right now, everything is pointing to the twins—they just have to catch them. “Today was pretty tough, maybe you should just come to mine, we can have a beer and watch Miami Vice reruns or something.” 

Alicent shakes her head fervently. “No, no, I need—I need to clean up and—and there’s things I need to do. I’ll be fine, Rhaenyra, I’m an adult who does this for a living. I can handle a body.”

Rhaenyra just fixes her a look and Alicent sighs. “This isn’t just any case and you know it.”

Of course, this isn’t just any case. It’s a case perfectly crafted from Alicent’s nightmares, crafted for Alicent. Which makes it all the more annoying that she can’t solve it. This is also the case that brought her the biggest horror of all—her eyes flick back up to Rhaenyra. Desire. The unnamed feeling she’s worked so hard to swallow these last few days. 

“I’ll be fine, Rhaenyra,” Alicent reassures her one more time, even though her voice is wavering and they both know it. Alicent can’t tell her that she needs to sit beneath a burning spray of water until her skin is so red she thinks it may slough off altogether. That she needs to bash her head against a wall until it rids itself of these thoughts, these images she’s managed to craft. Desire is not her friend, lust is not her friend. It’ll ruin her. Rhaenyra is going to ruin her. She already has and she doesn’t even know—staring at Alicent now with her wide and concerned eyes, her furrowed brow and barely open lips. 

Alicent can’t stop thinking about that moment in the church. Rhaenyra’s hand on her face, their gazes connected as if there was not a thing in the world that could pull them apart. It was unlike anything Alicent has ever felt in her life. 

“Well, if you end up not fine, you know you can call,” Rhaenyra says, her voice huffy as if she were frustrated with Alicent. People being frustrated with her is not something new to Alicent—frustration she can handle; anger even better. “That was… that was certainly a scene today.”

“They always are,” Alicent hums, trying her best to appear casual as she shrugs on her coat, reaching for the carton of cigarettes she’s taken to keeping in the pocket. She heads for the door and Rhaenyra follows not far behind, though when they reach the parking lot, Alicent stops and lights up a cigarette. Her hands have been shaking for one ever since they left the scene, but she couldn’t, not until now. 

The sun has set, but Alicent can still feel it warming her skin as she had stared at Father Lawson’s gaping chest. Another trophy, this one worse than the last. Leona Gould and the priest were personal. This much they know. For the first time in this entire case, Alicent feels sure of something—she just wishes she felt better about it. She can’t help but wonder what could cause two young girls to even begin to do something like this, let alone have it escalate to this magnitude. It’s unheard of. 

“Alicent,” Rhaenyra calls from down on the sidewalk. “Just come over.”

“I’m fine, Rhaenyra,” Alicent spits, smoke billowing from her lips. She steadies herself in the soft crinkle of the paper burning, the feeling of the smoke in her lungs. “You don’t need to babysit me.”

“I’m not—I’m not trying to,” she groans. “You’re my friend. I care about you.”

The words burn along with the smoke. She watches pieces of ash drop down into the snow. “I’ll call if I need you.”

“Thank you,” Rhaenyra huffs, running a hand through her hair. “That’s all I needed to hear. Goodnight, Alicent.”

“Night, Rhaenyra,” Alicent calls out, but her voice is distant as she finishes her cigarette. She begins to walk to her car, but every time her boot crushes the snow beneath her foot, she just feels the squelch of blood soaking into the carpet. Again and again and again. She shivers, trying her best to breathe through it as she walks to her car.

She watches as Rhaenyra drives away, waiting until her car pulls out of the lot. Sitting in her slowly heating car, she rests with her hand against the wheel, her head back against the seat. She’s so tired. So tired of this case. She likes this work, she does this work because she craves it, but this case… this case is something else entirely. Rhaenyra was right. This isn’t just any case and she can feel the way it seems to be whittling down her bones, sharpening them into knives, prodding into her at all hours of the day. 

Alicent doesn’t know how long she sits there, but eventually her car feels warm enough for her to begin backing up. She drives home quicker than she probably should given the state of the roads, but she needs to be home, she needs to be clean. She can’t do this much longer. New Haven becomes a blur to her as she drives through a rare clear night. She hopes the snow will clear soon, but this isn’t her first winter in Connecticut. She knows the real storm is only just beginning. 

She takes a steady breath as she takes her keys in her hand, standing on her stoop as she takes off her boots in front of the open door, shrugging off her jacket all the same before allowing herself to step inside. She doesn’t stop, she doesn’t do anything but head straight for the shower. 

Alicent undresses herself slowly, staring at her reflection as if her sin would show itself on her body. She can’t think this way, she can’t feel this way. None of it is right, none of it is good for her. She turns on the water, waiting for it to start to burn. When it’s hot enough, she steps in, breathing a deep sigh of relief as soon as it begins to coat her. She sits down on the cold tile, a chill coursing through her despite the heat of the water, curling into a ball beneath the spray. 

Only a few minutes under burning water and she already starts to feel better, scratching absentmindedly at her skin with no real malice behind her touch, not yet. Just a light scrubbing, begging it all to wash away. 

Then—she hears something. Something that’s barely there over the spray of the water, but she hears it nonetheless. Alicent stands quickly, every hair on the back of her neck standing on end. Did she lock her door? She can’t remember locking her door. Her mind is a mess right now, it’s all Rhaenyra Rhaenyra Rhaenyra. She slowly shuts off the water, reaching for a towel and stepping out. She doesn’t bother drying off properly, water dropping onto the tile. She wraps the towel around herself, pulling her revolver out of the holster she left on the counter—thank God she went straight to the shower instead of dropping everything off in the bedroom like she usually does.

She opens her door, one hand on her gun and the other holding her towel, trailing wet footprints through her bedroom as she begins to investigate. There isn’t another noise but she knows, she knows she heard something. 

Alicent clears her bedroom and closet, gripping her towel tightly as she steps out into the living room. She peers around every corner, the same way she did when she found the poppy on her doorstep. The kitchen is empty, the living room empty, everything empty. 

Her front door is wide open. Alicent stares into the night, feeling the chill of the cold creeping into the house. If they left, they left in a rush. Or maybe they wanted Alicent to know they were here. She runs up and closes the door, feeling the slam of it in her bones. She locks it and checks the house again, feeling her pulse rate quicken, feeling panic start to settle in again. The house—her house. The urge to get on her knees and start cleaning is overwhelming, but she can’t, not know. 

She stares out her living room window, the lights in the room making it impossible to see anything outside, but she can’t shake the unmistakable feeling of being watched. 

Alicent slowly walks back to her bedroom, dressing herself carefully, not caring about the droplets of water clinging to her skin, the way her hair soaks the back of her FBI training t-shirt like an open and bleeding wound. She doesn’t stop to call, she just grabs her jacket and heads to the door with her keys and gun in hand. She leaves the house with it pointed, prepared for anything to jump out at her. When nothing does, she unlocks her car and starts it up, ripping out of her driveway before it can warm up. 

She checks for headlights following her, for the glint of another car beneath moonlight, but there’s nothing. Her grip is white-knuckled on the steering wheel. She doesn’t think, she just drives. One detective is better than two. She won’t sit alone in her house like an animal in a cage, waiting to be euthanized. She’s better than this. 

She pulls up outside of Rhaenyra’s house, pistol still out and low in her hand as she runs up to the door, knocking in a way that she hopes conveys urgency without making her seem like a crazy person—though, at this point, she’s not so sure she isn’t crazy. She left the door unlocked. How the fuck did she leave the door unlocked?

The door swings open and Rhaenyra stands there in an old sweatshirt and sweatpants and it’s so odd to see her look so casual, even though Alicent has seen it before, the image of it still doesn’t quite coalesce in her mind with the image she has of Rhaenyra. “Well, well, well—wait, why do you have your revolver?”

“Because someone was in my fucking house,” Alicent curses, shooting one last look at the surrounding area before pushing inside. As soon as she’s inside, she tucks her gun into the waistband of her sweats. She pushes into her living room, turning on her heel to look at Rhaenyra. “Huh—you have so much more furniture now. It’s nice. Someone was in my house, Rhaenyra. And I know it for a fact this time.” 

“Okay,” Rhaenyra breathes out, locking the front door behind her and leaning against it with her arms crossed. “And you came here.”

“I came here.” 

“You’re okay? You didn’t see anyone?”

Alicent shakes her head. “I was—I was in the shower when I heard something and I came out, the front door was open. I cleared the house twice, there was no one, not a trace of anything. I think if I hadn’t heard it and gotten out of the shower… I don’t know, Rhaenyra. I don’t know.” 

Rhaenyra looks at her, nodding slowly. “But you’re okay.”

Alicent furrows her brow. “Yeah—yeah, I’m okay. I’m right here, Rhaenyra.”

Rhaenyra nods, biting her lip and looking as if to contemplate something for a moment. She pushes off the door, approaching Alicent in two short steps before her arms are wrapping around her and tugging her closer. Alicent expects herself to freeze, but instead, she just melts into it, letting her head settle against Rhaenyra’s chest and wrapping her arms around her waist. Her hair is still wet and she’s still cold from outside, but Rhaenyra is so warm and so there. 

Alicent pulls away, but not entirely, just enough so she can look Rhaenyra in the eyes. She doesn’t know why, but she feels a need to repeat herself. “I’m okay, Rhaenyra.” 

Rhaenyra looks down at her, eyes wide and her grip on Alicent tight, protective. Her eyes flicker down to Alicent’s lips and she’s so close , Alicent can feel her breath on her lips and she wants. Alicent takes a deep, shuddering breath.

She leans forward. Rhaenyra doesn’t move, she just lets Alicent’s lips brush against hers—slowly, tentative. She’s so warm. Her lips are soft, softer than they should be in a cold like this, a winter as brutal as this. It’s a breath before she’s kissing Alicent back, hands shifting to tangle in her wet hair, pushing against Alicent as the kiss deepens. Alicent gasps into it, a sob in her throat as she clings to Rhaenyra, tasting her for the first time. She keeps expecting herself to wake up, for it to be just another dream, but it’s not. It’s real, it’s real and it feels good. 

Rhaenyra moans against her lips and Alicent hates the way her body reacts to the sound, hands fisting in Rhaenyra’s sweatshirt as they stand there in the middle of the living room. Rhaenyra’s hands lower, clinging to her waist and tugging Alicent close. The kiss devolves into something carnal, the basest of desires Alicent has been trying so hard to shove down ever since something awakened in her—something monstrous. 

Rhaenyra’s hands sneak beneath the hem of her t-shirt, feeling the bare skin of her back, climbing up, up— Alicent shoves her back, heaving. 

“Don’t touch me,” she breathes out, her voice ragged and lips kiss-bitten. “Not there, please.” 

“Okay,” Rhaenyra nods, not a lick of hesitation in her voice. She’s holding out a hand, the same way she did in the church this morning. “Alicent, I—let’s talk about this.”

“I can’t,” she spits, beginning to pace in circles around the living room. Rhaenyra picked out a nice couch—it’s a soft velvet in a dark burnt orange color. It reminds Alicent of the seventies. She likes it. She thinks about the couch. She can’t think about Rhaenyra standing there watching her. She can’t think about Rhaenyra’s lips on hers—how right it felt. How she felt more alive than she ever has the few times she attempted anything with men. It didn’t feel like an obligation, like the next step, it—it called to her. It called to her the same way the church does, the same way this case does. She can’t figure out if that’s a good thing. Perhaps it’s just another sign that Rhaenyra is going to be her undoing. “I can’t talk about this, Rhaenyra.” 

“Alicent,” Rhaenyra tries again and Alicent can’t breathe when Rhaenyra says her name like that. 

Alicent just shakes her head, her breaths short and panicked. “No, no. You’re my friend, you said it yourself today. We’re friends, this case is just—it’s screwing with my brain. I’m getting confused and I—I can’t, Rhaenyra. Don’t you understand that?”

“Okay, okay,” Rhaenyra just nods again, approaching Alicent timidly. Eventually, Alicent stops pacing and she allows Rhaenyra to stand face to face with her. Tentatively, Rhaenyra reaches out, her hands wrapping softly around Alicent’s forearms. “I—I call you my friend because I didn’t know you wanted to… to be anything else, but I—”

“I don’t,” Alicent says before she can help it. As soon as she says it, she closes her eyes and groans. “No—that’s not—I can’t, Rhaenyra. I can’t want this. This is just the case messing with me. Like you said, we spend a lot of time together, it’s only natural for these… I can’t.”

“What’s stopping you?” Rhaenyra asks, her voice barely a whisper as her forehead hangs low, nearly brushing against Alicent’s. 

Alicent pulls back, shaking her head as she turns around. She can’t look at Rhaenyra because if she looks at her, she might kiss her again. Once is a mistake, but a second time? She can’t come back from that. She won’t allow herself to do it again. But now she knows. Now she knows what Rhaenyra tastes like. She thinks her mind has already committed it to memory, finger already tracing her lips as if she can still feel it. 

“Rhaenyra, you know.” 

“I know.” 

The two of them stand in silence like that for a while—Rhaenyra watching her back, Alicent watching the wall. 

After a while, Rhaenyra speaks. “It’s been a long day. Get some sleep. I’ll take the couch.”

“Rhaenyra—”

“Don’t fight me on this. Not now.” 

Alicent turns to look at her, tears welling in her eyes. She wipes them quickly and nods, crossing her arms against her chest. “Fine. Thank you.”

“Yeah,” Rhaenyra grits out and Alicent wishes she could reach out. 

What’s stopping you? The question repeats in Alicent’s mind as she stands there and she can’t think of the answer. Her hand moves, cupping Rhaenyra’s cheek the same way Rhaenyra did to her that morning. Rhaenyra sucks in a breath, Alicent’s thumb caressing her face, and whispers, “Alicent.” 

Alicent pulls her hand away. She turns towards the bedroom door, the hallway looming before her, Rhaenyra looming behind her. Her own fingers brush against her lips once more. She misses the warmth. 

“Goodnight, Rhaenyra. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Rhaenyra says, her next word a whispered prayer, “Please.” 

Alicent wipes her eyes once more. She casts one more glance towards Rhaenyra. She opens her mouth to say something, but no words come out. The weight of the day bears down on her through Rhaenyra’s gaze. She hates how much she wants to kiss her again. 

She can’t say another word, so she turns around and heads for the bedroom—closing the door behind her.