#god i remember when i first learned. for a fact. that eva + kate were canonically lesbians

[annewritesfic]

Happy Endings Don’t Exist

this au is not dead!!!!!!!!!!!! wow!!!!!!!!!

it has been. a month. i am so sorry.

fun fact: i actually wrote this like a month ago but never actually posted this yes hellbrain is still suffering from writer’s block it’s not wonderful i am fine

uhhhhh word count: 2823

tw: oh god uh, mentions of guns/bullet holes, blood, tyrannical rulers, death, parent death, mentions of stabbing, mentions of hospital rooms, please tell me if i missed anything

Kate ran a hand over the smooth rock that the throne was carved from, relishing the silence. The throne room itself was a mess, furniture still strewn across the floor, marked with bullet holes, and it reeked of the cleaning supplies that had been used to scrub the blood from the floor. Kate’s blood, Levana’s blood, Farrah’s blood, Mattie’s blood… so much blood. But it was quiet and otherwise empty, so Kate had escaped there.

So many things had happened in this room. Kate shivered when they thought about it, about all the people who’d sat in this chair before her. Levana, most recently. Before her, Kate’s own mother. Channary and Levana’s parents, Kate’s grandparents.

Kate thought about Channary a lot. In one of the palace’s hallways, there was a line of holographic portraits of past kings and queens, names Kate didn’t want to know but that their system committed to memory anyway. At the end of the line was Channary Blackburn, and Kate had sat in front of her holographic portrait for an hour, staring at the face of her mother. A woman Kate had no memory of - she’d died just weeks before Kate’s first birthday. She’d been queen for just about two years before she’d died, leaving Levana as queen regent, and Kate’s system had put together an entire file in their head with all the articles and papers and history there was about Queen Channary. But the articles didn’t tell Kate as much as the people who remembered her did.

Queen Channary had died fifteen years ago, so there weren’t many people left who’d also worked under her, but Kate had asked to see everyone who had. There was Clark’s father, Garrison Winslett, a tall palace guard with a soft voice and kind eyes. He’d made Kate feel safe, but he’d refused to share many details, claiming Kate didn’t need to know.

“That’s in the past now, Your Highness,” he’d said. “You need only concern yourself with Luna’s future.”

Which, while that hadn’t told Kate any of the details that they’d been looking for, did say volumes about what kind of queen Channary had been.

As Kate met the rest of Channary’s former subjects, they learned more and more about her. When Kate was a kid, living with Adri, they’d used to spend the bad nights imagining what her mother would have been like before the hover crash she’d been told had killed their parents. She’d imagined a kind, loving woman, with a soft voice and a gentle smile, who’d loved Kate with her entire heart. Kate had imagined walking home from school and telling their mother about their day while she listened attentively, a hand stroking Kate’s hair as they walked together. Snowy days where Kate’s mother would take her sledding at a neighborhood park, then bring her home and wrap them in a blanket and tell stories until Kate fell asleep.

Sitting in that dark, abandoned hallway, face lit up by the gentle light from the hologram, Kate thought about those old daydreams and scoffed a little bit. That’s not who Channary was.

Channary was beautiful and cruel. She was impulsive and vain and saw being queen as a right, not a privilege, not a responsibility. She didn’t care much about improving Luna, about helping the citizens she was sworn to protect. Instead, she threw dozens of lavish parties and flirted with just about every man that entered the palace and left most of the important decisions to the thaumaturges and to her younger sister, Princess Levana.

Honestly, it wasn’t a surprise that Levana had so easily won over the Lunar population. While she was terrifying, murderous, and corrupt, at least at the beginning she’d been dedicated to the job and did help grow Luna’s economy, which was probably a relief after Channary’s lazy, unproductive, brief rule.

Kate had sat alone in the hallway with the smiling image of her mother for exactly an hour, seven minutes, and eighteen seconds, according to their internal clock, before Eva appeared around the corner, calling Kate’s name. Kate glanced up at her, then looked back at Channary, and didn’t watch Eva while she came and sat next to them on the cold marble floor.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Eva asked softly.

Kate didn’t touch her - normally, she was comforting, but Kate couldn’t handle being touched right now. “My mom.”

They didn’t speak for a moment.

“She was a really terrible queen,” Kate murmured eventually. “And a shitty person.”

“I read up a little on her, when I was on the Rampion with you guys,” Eva said softly. “I just… I knew a bunch about your aunt, but not about her, so…”

“I almost did. I was too scared, though.” Kate thought for a moment, then dryly laughed. “I had reason to be scared. She fucking sucked.”

“She sort of did,” Eva agreed.

They were quiet for a few more minutes.

“She looks a lot like me, doesn’t she?” Kate asked softly. “But, like… a thousand times more beautiful.”

“She looks like…” Eva hesitated. “Your glamour. At the ball. When you fell and your glamour came up… you looked like that. Almost exactly.”

“Oh.” Kate hugged their knees, a headache pulsing behind her eyes.

They sat awkwardly in silence for a while, before eventually Kate couldn’t take it anymore. “Can we go?”

Eva let Kate help her to her feet. “Let’s go.”

That was yesterday. Now, Kate sat in the throne room, Luna’s artificial night darkening the corners, a crescent Earth visible in the dark sky beyond the protective dome. Sitting on the throne made Kate think of Channary, wonder how many meetings they’d attended as a baby, but this was also the room where Levana had finally been dethroned.

Those last few minutes were sort of a blur. Kate remembered firing the gun, remembered Levana pretending to surrender, and then there was just a flash of pain through their chest, and warnings flashing across her vision, and Eva screaming, and then… nothing. Waking up in that small, white, sterile room with a stranger bent over her left hand and Eva holding their right.

But Kate was told what happened. That Levana died and Kate didn’t. And Queen Selene finally took her throne.

Kate leaned her head back against the hard marble throne and breathed a shaky sigh.

“I thought you’d be in here,” said a familiar voice. Kate didn’t open their eyes but smiled. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Kate tapped their human fingers against the arm of the throne. “Just… wanted to be alone. Did you know that when you’re a queen, it’s surprisingly hard to find alone time?”

“Crazy,” Eva said flatly. “I never would’ve thought.”

Kate scrunched her nose, eyes still closed. “I mean, I get it. There’s a lot to be done, a lot I’m responsible for fixing, but… I just needed a minute. So I’m hiding.”

Eva laughed a little and walked into the room, her footsteps echoing off the walls. Kate finally looked at her, taking her in, her gentle smile and soft eyes, one hand behind her back. “A hoodie makes a pretty good disguise, you know. Wanna borrow mine?”

“Ugh, please.” Kate tucked their legs up, curling up on the throne. “Did you bring it with you?”

“I did, actually.” Eva shrugged. “It’s, like, a comfort object at this point.” She turned to look out the window, at the view Kate was staring at. “It’s so weird to see Earth where I feel like the moon should be.”

“It’s beautiful.” Kate leaned their head against the chair again, smiling softly when Eva turned back to look at her.

Eva bit her lip. “I have to tell you something.”

Kate’s smile faded. “You’re leaving.”

“Not now. But yeah, I am.” Eva scuffed the floor with her shoe. “My ship is supposed to leave the port in about 46 hours.”

Less than two days.

Kate looked away, at a crack in the wall. Mattie, Farrah, Chess, and Cairo had left yesterday. About a week from now, Annleigh and Clark would leave for their first ambassadorial mission to Earth. And now Eva was leaving, and Kate (and Reese, they supposed) would be left alone.

“I don’t want you to go,” she whispered, angry at how small and pathetic it sounded. “I mean, I know you have to, and you have your own country to worry about, but…”

“I know.” Eva’s voice was gentle and understanding. “I don’t- I’m not looking forward to being so far away from you, but I have to.”

“Sometimes I forget, you know?” Kate admitted. “That we’re… you know. Monarchs. Revolutionaries. Whatever. Like, people know us, know our names, and we’re responsible for them, but it’s hard to remember that sometimes. You’re just… you. You’re just Eva, you’re my girlfriend and you’re dorky and sweet and awkward and I love you, a lot, and I really like it when the world is just you and me.”

“Me, too.” Eva sighed. “Maybe- maybe you should come and visit soon? It could be, like, symbolic of the new alliance, or I could make up some sort of political crisis…?”

Kate smiled. “We’d never pull it off.”

“We could try.”

Kate laughed a little, and Eva did too, and for a second, things were better again, but then the reality crashed right back into Kate like a wave. “I’m going to miss you. So much.”

“Being a queen might not leave much time for being lonely.”

“I doubt that.” Kate suddenly felt awkward sitting on the throne, and stood up, coming to stand beside Eva, close enough to touch - but not quite touching, not yet. Two more days just… wasn’t enough time. Kate wanted more - wanted Eva every damn minute of every day. Wanted to hold her close and never let go. Wanted to grab her and drag her onto a ship and just leave, live forever in the stars, just the two of them.

But they couldn’t.

“You know,” Eva said thoughtfully, slipping her hand into Kate’s, “I spent so long avoiding a marriage alliance with Luna. But now, when it’s no longer necessary, it doesn’t seem so bad anymore.”

Kate lightly nudged her. “Stop that.”

“It’s a shame you can’t blush.” Eva leaned over and brushed a light kiss against Kate’s temple. “I’m not saying I didn’t mean it, though.”

Kate bit their lip and rolled her eyes.

“I have something for you.”

“I swear to fuck, it had better not be an engagement ring,” Kate threatened.

Eva grinned mischieviously and stepped back, kneeling on one knee.

Kate crossed their arms, tamping down the flutter in her stomach. “Eva-”

“I’ve been waiting a long time to give this to you.”

“Eva, wait-”

Eva pulled her hand from behind her back, revealing a small metal foot. A cluster of wires stuck up from the cavity, and the whole thing had smudges of grease.

“I hate you,” Kate muttered.

“Are you, like, disappointed?” Eva asked. “Because if you want, I bet Luna has some great jewelry stores-”

“Shut up.” Kate took the cyborg foot from her, studying it. It was so familiar, yet so foreign. “Why the hell do you even have this?”

“I don’t know, really. I kinda wondered…” Eva went a little bit pink. “I thought maybe if I could find the cyborg who fit this foot, it would be a sign we were meant for each other? But then I realized it would probably only fit an eight-year-old.”

“Eleven.”

“Close enough.” She bit her lip. “But really, I just… it was all I had when I thought you were- when I thought I’d never see you again. I couldn’t let you go that easily.”

Kate studied it for another moment, then glanced up at Eva, one eyebrow raised. “Why are you still kneeling?”

“You’ll have to get used to people kneeling to you. Happens a lot when you’re royalty,” Eva said, standing up.

Kate reached for her hand. “Maybe I should make a rule that the proper way to address your monarch is with a high-five.”

“Genius. I’m gonna do that too.”

Kate stepped closer, just an inch from Eva’s face. “Maybe I’ll also make a rule that the proper way for the queen of Luna to greet the empress of the Eastern Commonwealth is a kiss.”

“Even better.” Eva kissed them, and Kate reveled in it, in the feeling of finally, unapologetically loving Eva the way she wanted to love her, and being loved back just as much. “Although,” Eva murmured as they broke apart, “I doubt it’d be relevant in a hundred years or so. Might be a bit awkward.”

“Actually, about that…” Kate led Eva to the edge of the room and sat down, both of them dangling their legs over the edge of the balcony, over Artemisia Lake. “Can I ask your opinion on something?”

“Anything.”

“I think…” Kate took a deep breath. “I want to dissolve the Lunar monarchy.”

Eva didn’t react with horror or surprise, just smiled and put an arm around Kate and said, “When?”

“Not now. That’s too much of a change, too soon after… you know.” Kate leaned into Eva’s side. “But once things have settled down, started getting better. When I think Luna can handle a change in power. As soon as possible. I don’t- I can’t risk another Levana.” They hesitated. “Or another Channary.”

Eva pressed a kiss into her hair. “It won’t be easy. The people will be pissed. And they have that whole superstition. But you’re right. Luna needs a checks and balances system.”

Kate breathed a sigh of relief and snuggled even closer. “Okay. Thank you.”

“So what are you planning to do after you abdicate?”

Kate blinked. “Oh- I guess I hadn’t really thought that far ahead? Maybe Farrah would want a full time mechanic.”

“Or…” Eva rubbed Kate’s shoulder. “You could come stay in the Eastern Commonwealth as an ambassador. A show of good faith. Prove Luna and Earth can work together, side by side.”

“And be with you?”

“And be with me,” Eva agreed.

Kate considered it. “I think the Eastern Commonwealth hates me.”

“Hates you? You saved them from Levana. I think there’s a toy company that wants to make action figures of you, and Torin just showed me an article suggesting a statue where your booth used to be at the market.”

Kate shuddered.

Eva smiled and kissed the spot right next to Kate’s eye. “I promise, if you decide to come back, you’ll be welcomed with open arms.” She pressed her lips against Kate’s hair. “And if you want to come to the Annual Peace Ball next year, you’ll have hundreds of people begging to take you.”

“Oh, God.”

“I thought I might as well get my name on the list now. Maybe I’ll even have time to teach you to dance.”

Kate tried not to smile.

“Please say yes?”

Kate pretended to consider it. “Do I have to wear a dress?”

“Not if you don’t want to.”

“Maybe I’ll come in cargo pants.”

“I’d be so okay with that.”

Kate made a little humming noise. “Can I bring my friends?”

“Absolutely. I’ll extend a personal invitation to the entire crew.”

“Even Reese? Because there’s a rule against androids coming to the ball.”

“I might know someone who can change that rule.”

Kate couldn’t resist a smile. Going back to the ball, facing all those people who’d so openly hated them for years, should’ve sounded terrifying, but the idea of doing it with Eva sounded perfect. “Yes, I’ll go to the ball with you.”

“What about those dance lessons?”

“Mm, I wouldn’t push your luck if I were you.”

“Fair enough.” They kissed again, and Kate sighed against Eva’s lips, tired but happy.

Eva pulled away eventually and pressed her forehead against Kate’s. “Katie, I know- you’re a great ruler already. You’ll be even better till you abdicate. But… I know you never really wanted this.”

Kate chose to stay quiet.

“But… maybe, one day… would you consider being an empress?”

The silence hung in the air, but wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable.

“Maybe,” Kate eventually assented. “One day.”

Maybe meant yes, and both of them knew it.

Eva was right - Kate didn’t want to be a ruler. Didn’t want to be in that position of power, making real decisions that impacted real people. But Kate did want Eva, more than anything, and Eva came with an entire country, whether or not Kate liked it. And Eva was worth it. Eva was worth anything.

Kate leaned against Eva’s chest and looked back down at the foot. This too small foot had hurt for years, had made it hard to walk, and had represented everything Kate hated about being cyborg. It had never done anything but make Kate feel like shit.

Kate held the cyborg foot over the shining water of Artemisia Lake and let go.

#we are the tigers #the lunar chronicles #kate dalton #eva sanchez #kateva #blood tw #gun tw #stabbing tw #hospital rooms tw #death tw #parents tw #ask to tag #again: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me if i missed anything #anyways i love them so much #they deserve the world