To Valentina's chagrin, Allison was the first to find her. Valentina stumbled out of the bathroom, toilet paper still wrapped around her wrist. She'd managed to stop most of the bleeding, but needed to keep it under control while she looked for a bandage in Mom's medical supplies. It wasn't too bad, just a bit of red staining the paper as she pressed it to her wrist.

It wasn't bad, but it was bad enough for Allison, coming down the hall from their childhood bedrooms, to stop and stare at Valentina. At her bleeding wrist.

Valentina pulled her wrist closer to her stomach, trying to hide it, but Allison had already seen. She stepped forward, grabbing at Valentina's arm. "What happened?" she demanded, her voice going soft, as though she's talking to her daughter and not her sister.

Valentina jerked her arm back, away from Allison. "It's fine," she said. "Don't worry about it, it's not your problem."

Allison's face hardened at the same time that her eyes softened. "Of course it is, Val," she said. She wasn't using the toddler voice anymore, which Valentina was glad for. "You're my sister, I care about you."

Valentina rolled her eyes, pressing down a little on the makeshift bandage. "Right. Sure. Now you care about being my sister."

A hurt look crossed Allison's face as she jerked back. "What's that supposed to mean?" she snapped.

Valentina couldn't help but scoff. Like Allison didn't know. Like there was no reason for Valentina to be a little bitter towards her. She pressed down harder on her wrist, ignoring the pain. She'd felt worse. "Come on, Allison," she said. "You're not exactly the best sister. I mean, who skips out on their own sister's wedding? It's not like you were filming, I checked."

Allison crossed her arms and adjusted her stance so her weight was on one leg. "Val, I didn't-"

"Don't bother making excuses," Valentina said, cutting her off. "I won't believe them anyway. It's just- it was really shitty of you, you know that?" She could feel the venom on her tongue. It felt good. "You hurt me, Allison. And you know, I'm not sure what else I expected." She laughed, a bitter thing that she was more than used to.

"I have a life, Val," Allison said, sighing like Valentina was being difficult. Like she didn't know that, and didn't plan her wedding so as many of her siblings as possible could attend. She'd wanted her family there. Of course she did. She loved them.

Allison shook her head. "Look, you can't expect me to come to yours when you didn't come to mine."

Valentina gaped. "Your wedding was in Greece. I couldn't fucking afford to go to your wedding! It's not even the fucking same-" She cut herself off, clenching both fists. "God, Allison, not everything is about you." She wanted to punch the wall. She really, really did.

But she didn't.

She didn't, because it was much more Diego's style than her own, and because she knew it wouldn't help anything. Another lesson learned from therapy, and one she rarely needed to remember. But she did now.

Valentina relaxed her hands as Allison said, "What's that supposed to mean?" in a voice higher than her usual. Valentina didn't answer her, or even look at her, as she turned to face Katya, who'd come out of Valentina's old room and was now looking between the sisters with a look of concern on her face.

Her voice was blissfully soft. "What's going on? Are you okay Vallie?"

Valentina took a deep breath. "Yeah, I'm okay. I uh," she looked down at her wrist. "I think I need your help with this, though."

Allison was still sputtering. Neither Kayta nor Valentina paid attention to her. Katya stepped forward and took Valentina's hand, lifting the toilet paper compress away from her wrist. She sucked in a breath between her teeth, gently touching a finger to the bloody scratches. "Let's get this taken care of," she said quietly. "Then some food."

In the background, Allison stormed away. Valentina didn't care as long as Katya was there.

—

Katya kissed the inside of Valentina's wrist as she tied off the bandage. It made Valentina blush, her cheeks turning pink and she struggled to contain a smile. "Katydid," she said, "come on."

Katya looked up at her. "What?" she asked, her voice soft. They were in the small infirmary, surrounded by medical supplies and equipment. Valentina sat on a table, the same one Mom used to use to patch them up on after missions, while Katya sat on a chair in front of her, at lap-height. She was beautiful. Katya would always be beautiful to her.

She leaned down, pressing her lips to Katya's forehead. "You're such a romantic," she whispered, unable to hide her smile. It was true—and it was something Valentina loved about her wife.

"And is that a problem?" Katya asked. She took Valentina's hand into her own fully and kissed the top. "Last I checked, you like me being romantic."

Valentina couldn't help giggling like the girl she was when they met. "That's true. I love you for it." She nudged Katya with her knees, though. "You did say something about food... and I love that a lot too."

That made Katya laugh, as Valentina knew it would. She knew her wife well enough to know what would make her laugh and smile. Katya laughed, and she stood up, packing away the medical supplies she'd used to clean Valentina's wrist. "Come on then," she said. "Klaus mentioned sandwiches earlier and I've been craving one ever since."

Valentina pushed herself off the table, reaching for Katya's hand. "Let's go find out if Mom can make you one, then," she said. "It sounds good right about now."

Hand in hand, they left the infirmary. For once in that house, Valentina was happy

—

988 words.
This chapter is both incredibly short and took me for fucking ever to write. My original planned ending was different, but at this point I'm just done with it, lol.
I do hope you like it! I've missed writing katya and valentina.
💛mags