Lost in the Middle

Two

AN: Hopefully the posting schedule for this will be consistent. My current plan is Wednesday mornings since it's when I posted the first one and I write the most on Tuesday nights during my physics class.

Later that morning, at their Saturday A-Troupe rehearsal, Richelle is doing everything in her power to avoid Noah and Jacquie. They definitely notice, but Noah's known her long enough to know sometimes she does this. Sometimes she needs to be by herself. But that also means he probably knows she was lying last night when she texted him back. She's going to have to eventually talk to them, they have another trio rehearsal in the afternoon. For now though she can keep to herself.

They're only a week away from their competition, so Richelle is currently pretending she doesn't have feelings so she can focus on the dance. She forces a smile and tries to not let her real emotions bleed through at the end. By the end of rehearsal she's mentally exhausted again, physically too, but that was at least expected. When they're done she's packing up her stuff on the couch in the locker room. She kind of zones out, her bag on her lap, still unzipped.

Richelle startles when Noah sets a hand on her shoulder, she hadn't even noticed him sit down next to her. "Jacquie's coming over to watch a movie, do you want to join us? My mom's been asking about you." The earlier start time to rehearsal means they're out earlier than they were yesterday. "I still have your leopard too, if you need it."

Her leopard, well snow leopard technically, is a weighted stuffed animal that Noah got for her when they were kids and she was just starting to struggle with her autism related sensory issues. Except he got two, but he didn't tell her, one for her to keep, and one he's had at his house ever since, just in case she got overstimulated while she was there and didn't have her own. She hasn't needed it at his house in years, but she feels something suspiciously like butterflies in her stomach at the thought that he's kept it that long.

"I'd like that. Thanks. I just need to text Natalie and let her know she doesn't need to come pick me up."

Noah leaves the locker room, presumably to tell Jacquie that Richelle's coming too. But Richelle doesn't move from her spot, she knows Natalie will be happy she's spending time with friends again, a first since her stint in hospital. (She says as much in her response when Richelle texts her.) She can't actually will herself to move though, her bag is fully packed up, she even managed to zip it up finally. She sits there until a few minutes later Noah comes back in, this time with Jacquie, he offers her a hand, and that small gesture is enough to restart her brain and remind her that if she actually wants to watch a movie with them, she has to first make it out of the studio, into Noah's car. She just needed a push (metaphorically) in the right direction; objects at rest and all that.

***

Jacquie can see there's something special about Noah and Richelle's friendship, how Noah immediately rushes upstairs to grab a stuffed animal, her stuffed animal apparently, when they first get to his house. And even though Jacquie knows it's been, probably almost a year since Richelle has been to Noah's house, there's an ease with which she moves through. Even Noah's cat, Montevideo, runs up to her and weaves between her legs, and Jacquie's pretty sure he still doesn't trust her.

When they put the movie on, something Disney they've all seen before, Richelle curls up in the corner of the couch, her leopard in her lap. And Jacquie knows that Richelle must trust her, at least a little bit, to let that much of her guard down and be seen cuddling with a stuffed animal. Noah's couch is long enough that when Jacquie's cuddled up with Noah on the opposite side there's a wide breadth of space between Noah and Richelle.

At some point though Richelle gravitates toward them, eventually mirroring Jacquie on Noah's other side. There are girls who would probably feel threatened by their boyfriend having such a close friendship with another girl. But Jacquie trusts them, and she knows her relationship, Noah's loyal, almost to a fault sometimes. Even though Jacquie hasn't really known Richelle all that long, she knows that Noah is really her only friend (she'd like to think she's Richelle's friend too, but the other girl probably isn't there yet). She seemed to be pretty close with Lola before she left, and she may not know Richelle that well, but she'd venture a guess that their friendship didn't last outside the studio, Richelle spends almost every free moment at TNS.

They're both invited to stay for dinner after the movie is over. Jacquie agrees, mostly because the other option is leftovers at home, Saturdays are "find whatever's still in the fridge from the past week" night. And she notices Richelle hesitate before agreeing. Specifically that she hesitates until Noah's mom tells her what they're having.

After the three of them detangle and get up off the couch Richelle disappears upstairs with her stuffed animal. Jacquie watches her go before turning to Noah, "Is she okay?" In the several months since she started dating Noah, Jacquie had never been upstairs at his house.

"Yeah, she's probably just putting her leopard away, I keep it in my room. And talking to her sister." Jacquie spares another glance up the stairs before following Noah into the dining room.

When Richelle comes back down a few minutes later she feels a little bit more like herself. Natalie was thrilled when Richelle told her she was staying for dinner ("Not because I don't love when you're home with me. But you haven't been out in a while and you need to spend time with people your own age outside of dance"). She doesn't tell Natalie that she almost declined the offer. Noah's family has seen her through a lot, but she doesn't need to ruin her (extremely) tentative friendship with Jacquie by being weird about what she eats.

The only time she hesitates is when she's handed the sauce for the salmon. She takes it when it's offered to her, but she passes it off to Noah's mom without taking any.

"I made it so you could have some if you want it. You may not have been here in a while, but I do still know what you can and can't eat."

Richelle huffs out a small laugh, "Thank you. I forgot you knew, I've mostly stopped telling people, I just deal with it on my own." She accepts the bowl back when it's offered. Cream sauce can really be hit or miss with whether people use flour or not.

When they're all laughing over some story Noah's telling from his English class, Richelle fully realizes how much she's missed this. Ever since they met she'd been practically inseparable from Noah. Right up until he started to have an interest in girls (and boys, but he didn't tell her about that until recently). They'd still hung out sure, but less frequently, especially when high school started and they were no longer together eight plus hours a day.

She'd gone to see him, of course, when he had surgery, but he'd been so focused on Amanda she felt like he didn't want her there at all. And then she had Lola and he had Jacquie when they came back for the next season. They'd been on okay terms when they were both on TNS East, friendly, but not fully friends anymore. It got worse when he replaced her as dance captain, she finally had the one thing she wanted, and Noah took it from her (her head knew that wasn't entirely true, but her heart actually won that battle). When she was the one who got injured and Noah visited her, their friendship had finally started to go back to normal.

AN: Richelle's stuffed snow leopard is a real thing and I wish I had one (They may or may not have actually existed back when Noah supposedly got them but the show doesn't care about continuity so neither do I).

Also, I've decided that Richelle has celiac because I never saw any sort of characters eating gluten-free (that wasn't a joke) in media until a fanfic I read last year and I meant a lot to me, so I'm adding it here in case anyone else needs to read it.