February 23rd, 1891 — Quidditch Pitch

Alice rarely ventured out of the castle outside of her class work and game days. After the terrifying events of the pumpkin patch and beyond, she didn't trust the grounds not to swallow her whole. That being said, she couldn't allow another minute to pass with Sloane believing she wished for a choice to be made. Sloane and Cameron could do as they pleased, it made no difference to her.

(She was also still reeling from the revelation of how little she meant to Cameron and didn't know where else to go.)

"Sloane!" She called from the bottom of the pitch. Alice hadn't yet spotted her friend, but the seeker wasn't in the common room or at dinner. There were only so many other places to look. "Sloane? I need to talk to you!"

  

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Amazing set by Bee!

Sloane's only place of solace these days was the pitch. At odd hours of course, the teams, including her own needed to practice after all. Lester had already figured it out, had right after her fight with Cam, naturally.

Apparently Alice had also figured it out. She heard her friend's unexpected voice from across the pitch and the tone did nothing but ramp up her already heightened anxiety. This was going to be ugly, she just knew it.

Landing easily near to her friend, Sloane shouldered her broom and approached cautiously. "Everything okay?" She asked, though she already felt like she knew the answer.

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"Not really, no." She admitted with a sigh. Enough time had passed that she no longer had steam blowing from her ears, but she was still frustrated and upset beyond belief. "Cameron is of the belief that I'm forcing you to chose between he and I. Is that true?" The boundaries had become a fight, but Alice had meant it when she said things with her and Sloane were fine.

"Because I'm not, for the record." She added with a half hearted shrug.

  

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Amazing set by Bee!

With furrowed brows, a look of confusion crossed her face. "What? I never said that! I know you're not, I'm trying to respect what you said." In fact, she had been pretty straightforward about telling Cam it was him who was forcing the choice currently. "We... fought, bad," She'd blown up a little too much, but she hadn't said anything she didn't mean, either.

"I just can't understand why he won't even try to apologise to you. He knows what he said wasn't fair." Sloane had to believe that was true, he'd told her that he'd said things he didn't mean. Why could he admit that to her, but not Alice? "What happened?"

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She slammed her arms down against her sides. Well, at least Sloane wasn't angry with her. That was a win, she supposed. Still, it didn't help that Cameron was aiming to pit the pair against one another.

"He can't apologize because he doesn't even know what he did." Alice groaned in frustration. "He thinks I've been ignoring him for no reason, just happily distant." She kicked the dirt beneath her feet and sighed. Really, she didn't mean to unload this onto Sloane. All she wanted to know was whether or not Sloane believed there to be a finite choice rather than some muddy awkwardness. Alice kicked the dirt again.

  

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Amazing set by Bee!

Relieved that Alice seemed to believe her, Sloane didn't have much time to enjoy the feeling as something else was bubbling up right behind it.

"He knows, he told he knew he said things he shouldn't have. Why, why is that so hard?" Frustration leaked into her words. "This is exactly what we fought about." She huffed out an exasperated sigh. "I just wanted him to try and reach out. I'm so tired of being in the middle." Maybe that was a little selfish of her, but it honestly wouldn't have killed him to actually give it some effort when he knew if he was as careful with his words to her as he was to Alice, there might have been some positive progress.

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Any additional arguments died instantly in Alice's throat at Sloane's complaint. Being in the middle of her argument with Cameron was exactly why Alice hadn't spoken to Sloane for months — it was the exact burden she wished to avoid. Shame burned through her as she turned her head from Sloane to look at the great expanse of the pitch. She shouldn't have looked to talk to Sloane about this.

Frowning, Alice struggled to look back towards Sloane. "Sorry." She murmured. "I just wanted to make sure you knew I wasn't angry with you."

  

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Amazing set by Bee!

Sloane sighed heavily, the frustration of everything bubbling up again. "Don't be sorry. I'm sorry." She said earnestly, pressing the heel of her hands against her eyes for a moment. "I thought he could do it, but clearly he can't. It's his own fault and there's nothing I can do about it." She really wished he would just make a real effort.

"I know you're not mad at me, you know I'm not mad at you, right?" She was mad at Cameron though. He was being irrationally stubborn about this and she just could not wrap her brain around how he knew he'd made a mistake and wouldn't fix it. Sloane was starting to think she didn't know him as well as she thought she did.

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There was nothing to be done as far as Alice was concerned. However, that truth existed well before Cameron approached her with his accusations and insults. Alice couldn't imagine how their friendship could be salvaged when the amount of hurt existed between them. More importantly, Alice didn't think she wanted to mend their friendship.

"I know now," she replied, electing to avoid discussing Cameron further. Alice still couldn't manage eye contact with Sloane. "We're okay then."

  

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Amazing set by Bee!

Sloane could feel tears prickling at the corners of her eyes and not for the first time recently. She'd spent far to much time crying lately and she hated it. "Good, I really need us to be okay, you're one of my best friends." Her voice caught just a little as she sighed. She couldn't handle another one of her friends not talking to her for some indeterminable amount of time again.

After letting loose on Hatch, Sloane had started to see that things were possibly too damaged to fix and it still pained her to know that, but it had also been made pretty clear that there wasn't much she could do anymore. The guilt she still felt would probably never go away, but she was just going to have to learn to deal with it and accept the new normal. The problem was, she didn't know if she could.

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Alice bit her lip as Sloane's voice caught on, presumably, unshed emotion. This was her fault, she shouldn't have started the fight with Cameron. She shouldn't have said what she did to provoke him. She shouldn't have sought Sloane out. Now Sloane was going to cry and it was her fault too.

Bridging the distance between them, Alice enveloped her friend in a tight hug. "You're one of my best friends, too." She promised quietly.

  

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Amazing set by Bee!