Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bridget was halfway down the corridor when her thoughts unexpectedly slipped toward Franky.

She tightened her grip on the papers in her arms, adjusting her pace. The building carried its usual rhythm, doors opening and closing, voices rising and falling, the quiet choreography of people who knew where they were going. She let it steady her.

Then she stopped abruptly.

The painting held the wall ahead of her, commanding space without apology. It didn’t compete with its surroundings. It didn’t need to. It simply waited, certain of being seen.

Bridget felt it before she understood it. Recognition arrived in pieces, assembling itself slowly and deliberately.

It wasn’t likeness that gave it away.

It was suggestion.

A curve implied rather than drawn.

Hands caught mid-motion, all tension and restraint.

And woven through the surface, almost carelessly, was a colour she knew intimately, the soft rose-pink she’d worn the night she’d chosen precision over softness. Here it was diffused, pulled darker, as if memory itself had been worked into the paint.

Her breath caught.

Students moved past her, glanced and continued on. They registered scale, confidence, abstraction. None of them lingered long enough to feel what pressed so insistently against her skin.

Bridget stayed where she was, pulse loud, the unmistakable sensation of being seen settling deeply.

'You like it?' The voice came from behind her, close enough to alter the air.

She turned sharper than she meant to. 'You’re insufferable.'

Franky stood there with infuriating ease, hands loose at her sides, gaze steady and unmistakably pleased. 'And yet,' she said softly, 'you’re still here.'

'This crosses a line.' Bridget kept her voice level professional, which took her effort.

Franky studied the blonde, head tilted slightly. 'It’s paint on canvas, Gidge.'

'You know better than that.'

Something in Franky’s expression shifted, the playfulness thinning, attention sharpening. She looked at Bridget openly now, without deflection. 'Say the word,' she said, lowering her voice. 'I’ll take it down.'

The offer landed between them heavier than either of them pretended.

Bridget hesitated barely a moment, but it was enough for Franky to notice it.

Franky’s mouth curved in certainty. 'That’s what I thought.'

Bridget’s jaw tightened. She turned away, steps measured as she resumed walking, dignity held together by discipline alone.

She didn’t look back.

She didn’t need to.

The painting remained where it was, vivid and unapologetic.

So did the feeling.

The faculty lounge was unusually full that afternoon. Conversations folded over one another in polite half-voices, interrupted by the scrape of chairs and the soft clink of cups.

Bridget stood at the counter, stirring sugar into a coffee she had no intention of finishing, when a colleague came up, smiling with a brightness that felt practiced.

'Bridget,' she said lightly, 'have you seen it?'

'Seen what?'

'One of your students painted you. The piece is hanging in Fine Arts.'

The spoon paused against the porcelain. 'I don’t model for students,' she replied. Her voice was smooth and already guarded.

The colleague smiled, politely. 'Well, intentional or not, they certainly got you right.'

Bridget’s mouth curved automatically. She nodded, as if filing the comment away for later. She set the spoon down with care, wiped her fingers on a napkin she didn’t need, and placed the cup back on the counter, barely touched.

She excused herself without explanation.

By the time she reached the hallway, the noise of the lounge had already thinned behind her. Her steps found their rhythm on their own, familiar and decisive. 

The door slammed harder than Bridget intended. The studio smelled sharp and alive with turpentine and  oils.

Franky stood at an easel near the window, holding a brush in hand, mid-stroke. She didn’t turn around. She didn’t startle. Just finished the line she was working on before setting the brush down. 'Didn’t think it would take you this long, Gidge,' she said calmly.

'Take it down,' Bridget said at once.

Franky glanced at her over her shoulder. 'No hello?'

'This is inappropriate.'

Franky turned fully now, expression unreadable. 'You think I don’t know that?'

'Then why did you do it?'

Franky tilted her head slightly in consideration. 'You really need me to answer that?'

'You are a student, Ms Doyle.' Bridget’s voice sharpened.

'I’m an artist.'

'You are under my jurisdiction,' Bridget said. 'There are policies...'

'Policies against what?' Franky interrupted. 'Painting someone? Is that what this is about?'

'You know exactly what this is about.'

Franky stepped closer. Not invading Bridget’s space, not touching her, but just close enough to be undeniable. 'Do I?'

'This has to stop.'

Franky smiled faintly. '‘This’?'

Bridget’s control slipped just for a second. 'You need to stop this fixation. You need to stop making me...' She stopped herself.

But that was too late. Franky’s expression changed. The smile faded, replaced by something intent and almost careful. 'Making you what, Ms Westfall?' she asked.

Bridget stepped back, more to regain herself than to retreat. 'You don’t take me seriously,' she said. 'That’s the problem, Franky.'

Franky’s answer came without hesitation. 'I take you very seriously, Gidget!'

Bridget felt it then, the way the room seemed to narrow, the way her breath no longer felt entirely under her control. 'If you respect me,' she said quietly, 'you’ll take the painting down.'

The silence that followed stretched. Franky studied the blonde woman, standing in front of her, as if weighing something unseen. 'Alright,' she said at last.

Bridget blinked. 'Alright?'

'I’ll take it down.'

Relief should have followed, but it didn’t. Franky’s eyes were still on her, so steady, and unblinking, intimate in a way that made Bridget’s skin prickle.

Bridget turned toward the door.

'You can take the painting down, Gidge,' Franky said behind her.

Bridget froze.

'But you can’t take me out of your head.'

Bridget closed her eyes, just briefly, then opened the door and left.

Slowly.

Franky noticed the comment when it surfaced among the others. She didn’t react right away. Just sat with it for a moment, phone resting loosely in her hand, a quiet satisfaction settling somewhere beneath her ribs. Then she locked the screen and set it aside. There was nothing she could add without dulling it.

Some invitations worked best when left unanswered.

Weeks passed...

Bridget wandered into the bookstore without quite deciding to. It was late enough that the place felt insulated from the street. She told herself she was looking for something specific, a title she half-remembered, an author she trusted, but her attention drifted.

She saw Franky before she registered the recognition. Curled into a chair near the back, jacket slung over the arm, one leg stretched out, the other bent, a slim poetry book open in her hands. Franky wasn’t absorbed in it. She looked up as Bridget slowed, as if she’d felt the shift before it happened.

Bridget stopped. 'You read?' she asked, the question arriving before she could decide whether she meant it.

Franky’s mouth tipped into a smile that didn’t ask for permission. 'Sometimes.'

Bridget took the chair opposite her. The wood creaked softly under her weight. Neither of them rushed to fill the space that followed. 

'The painting,' Bridget said eventually. 'It was… beautiful.'

'Yeah.' Franky nodded.

Bridget watched her for a moment longer than she needed to. 

'You knew I wasn’t going to forget,' Franky added.

Bridget’s gaze stayed steady. 'I didn’t want you to.'

That was it. The line they’d been walking dissolved without ceremony. They leaned toward each other almost imperceptibly, so it felt inevitable. When their hands brushed, Bridget’s fingers lingered, then shifted, turning her palm upward without looking.

Franky’s breath changed, just slightly. She traced the center of Bridget’s hand with her thumb, unhurried, as if confirming something already decided.

The contact sent a quiet tremor through Bridget’s arm.

'Come with me.' Bridget invited, standing up.

Franky didn’t ask where.

They walked close enough to feel each other’s heat without touching. Bridget turned down a side street she’d never noticed before and stopped.

Franky stopped with her.

For a moment, they just stood there.

Bridget lifted her hand and placed it against Franky’s chest. She felt the heartbeat immediately.

It was quick, present, undeniable.

It settled something in her.

And then she kissed her.

It was the kiss that held, tested, that stayed long enough to decide it was staying. Franky answered it with her whole body, one hand firm at Bridget’s waist, the other steady at her jaw, anchoring her.

Bridget’s fingers tightened in Franky’s jacket, grounding herself. When they broke apart, it was only because breath demanded it. Their foreheads touched.

'We’re doing this,' Franky said quietly.

Bridget smiled against her mouth. 'Definitely, yeah.'

Bridget kissed her again, and this time Franky met her without restraint.

Bridget let herself follow, fully, willingly, with no part of her left holding back.