When they knew

Daphne

The first time Daphne ever kisses anyone it's in front of three cameras and twenty people. Her second kiss is about the same, and then the third, and after a while, the mere sight of chick flicks make her feel nauseous with anger, jealousy roiling in her gut. Her whole life is for public consumption from the time she knows how to walk and talk. The concept of privacy is so foreign and something Daphne wants so, so badly but is always out of reach.
So when she joins the team - more like elbows her way in and demands a place - Debbie offers her a room to herself in headquarters and Daphne's jaw hits the floor. The others leave her alone when she says she wants to be left alone, and Nine Ball hijacks every closed-circuit television within a five-mile radius so she's blessedly left off the tabloids for once in over ten years. She starts figuring it out. She starts getting used to it. It's amazing and she's so grateful and it's why she never pries. She swallows down the urge so deeply coded in her bones and never pushes the others to say more about themselves than they want to.
Debbie and Lou, in particular, never mention the elephant in the room. Daphne gets it because she doesn't mention her own, either - avoids Rose's gaze and tries to quell the pang in her heart every time she passes her by in the corridors, trying to figure out what of their month together was truth and what was lie. It's too close for comfort, because Daphne doesn't know, okay? She's never dated, never seen anyone around her have a healthy relationship of any kind, and all she knows of romance is standing under spotlights trying to hit her mark, feeling hot breath on her cheek and screwing her eyes shut and trying to block out the rest of the world. All she knows of romance is watching her films and wondering why it's never felt the way it's filmed.
Every kiss she's ever had has been watched, criticised, picked apart, seen. It's why, when she wakes up in the middle of the night and heads to the kitchen for a drink and sees Debbie and Lou kissing in the hallway, slow and lingering and longing, she freezes and is helpless to do anything but watch, for a good minute.
It is nothing like the chick flicks, and neither is their relationship. It's nothing like anything she's ever had but it's deeply and truly real. And the pieces kind of just fit together, then, for her, and she shakes herself out of it, slips back into the shadows, heads for Rose's room. Knocks on the door, lets Rose open it and see her - really see her.
She doesn't say I love you, because it's not the point. She just pulls her into a hug and she's home.
After - and she doesn't just mean after they kiss or after they make it official, but after everything, after the jewels are all sold off and Claude Becker is behind bars and they're settling down to talk about the future, Debbie and Lou ask them if they want to stay. Everyone glances around at each other and eventually everyone is saying yes, please, always, not necessarily in those words, but close enough. They lean into each other, a little, grin happily, and Debbie calls them family with a smile on her lips, and Lou says she's got a bottle of vodka to celebrate, and they both disappear into the kitchen, not holding hands, but together.
"Just saying, but they're totally married, right?" Daphne asks, because maybe she's starting to get the hang of this - trust, and space, and respect, and friendship. Being herself, and being in love, and being okay with it. Letting herself hold truths in her hands without clutching tight. Letting all of them just be them, together.
"So married," Constance replies cheerfully, tossing some popcorn in her mouth and passing the bowl over to Daphne. "And we're the brood. Mom #1 and Mom #2's adopted chicks. Welcome, little bird."
(Daphne takes this to heart and buys Debbie and Lou matching #1 MOM mugs for Mother's Day. The others laugh themselves to tears and Debbie and Lou roll their eyes, but they put them in the kitchen anyway and make the coffee in them every morning without fail. One day Debbie comes home with a #1 WIFE mug and a ring inside it, and Lou cries, and everything comes full circle, finally falling right into place, where it was always meant to be.)