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7x06

Things had been a little strained between Finn and Amy ever since her return to A-Troupe, to put it lightly. If Amy wanted to be upset with him for spilling tea all over her in The Next Steep, he could accept that. (That had not been his finest moment...)

But what Finn wouldn't accept was Amy acting like he had no right to be Piper's friend, not when she had been the one who abandoned Piper to join another studio. He hadn't hesitated to call Amy out on her attitude when the opportunity arose, and he had been prepared to accept that they were never going to be friends after that.

So no one was more surprised than Finn when Amy apologized for abandoning Piper and not giving him a chance.

Ever since that afternoon, Finn and Amy weren't exactly friends, but they didn't exactly dislike each other either. It was important to Piper that they get along, so they were trying to put their differences aside and make an effort with each other.

That said, when Piper had to cancel on their plans to hang out in The Next Steep, leaving Finn and Amy alone for the entire afternoon, Finn couldn't exactly say he was thrilled about it.

But there had to be worse ways to spend his afternoon than getting tea with Amy.

Or at least, that's what he kept telling himself until the two of them found themselves sitting in a stony silence in the otherwise bustling café.

At one point in time, he and Amy could have easily found something to talk about, but that was before she had gone to AcroNation. Before she had abandoned Piper and A-Troupe. Now, well... Now it was just awkward, and Finn wondered if they should just call it a day, tell Piper they tried, and head home early.

As Finn drained the last of his Chai tea, Amy twirled her spoon around her own tea, presumably mixing sugar and cream into it. The only thing was- she had been mixing them in for several minutes.

She must have finally deemed her tea drinkable because she finally stopped twirling her spoon around. Instead of setting it on the table, however, she began tapping it repeatedly against the side of the mug. Finn grit his teeth at the sound, glancing over as the tapping continued.

Was she trying to annoy him?

With a sigh, she finally stopped, setting her spoon aside and lifting her gaze to meet his own. Finn immediately averted his gaze. The last thing he needed was Amy thinking he'd been staring at her like some kind of lovesick fool. As if.

"So..." Amy spoke first, shaking her head slowly as if desperately willing a conversation topic to come to her.

"So..." Finn repeated, trailing off as well. Conversation was never usually this difficult for him. He loved talking to people and making new friends.

Apparently, his resentment towards Amy ran a little deeper than he'd thought.

"Um... Do you have any pets?" Amy finally asked. It was blatant small talk, but it was better than sitting in silence.

"Nope. No pets." He paused then asked, "Do you?"

"No," she muttered, tilting her head to the side and looking away again. She was quiet for a moment then, almost reluctantly, added, "My mom doesn't like animals, so..."

Finn hummed to that. He'd always wanted a dog but had never been able to get one because of his mother's allergies, so he could understand the struggle of being deprived of a pet because of a parent. "My mom's allergic to dogs and cats, so..."

"Well, you could get a hairless cat." She tore her gaze from the flowers in the middle of the table to meet his gaze again and gave the smallest of smiles at the look he was giving her. "What? They're cute."

"Have you ever seen one?" Finn asked in disbelief.

"They're so ugly, they're cute."

"No. They're just ugly." He shook his head adamantly, and they both chuckled awkwardly before falling back into awkward silence once more.

Finn glanced around The Next Steep, wracking his mind for anything else they could possibly talk about. "Um, have you checked out that new shopping mall?"

"No. Have you?"

"Nope." Awkward silence again, and then: "Me and Pipes talked about going, but we never did."

"Piper's very attached to the Northwood mall," Amy stated matter-of-factly, referring to the shopping mall that was conveniently located in between Piper's and Finn's neighborhoods.

"Oh, I know. We spent hours there when we went Christmas shopping," Finn said, smiling slightly at the memory. He didn't typically enjoy shopping, but Piper had dragged him around the mall for hours that day, and he had endured every second of it without complaint just because it meant spending time with her.

"She would spend all of her money at Francesca's if she could. And she has," Amy said, smiling fondly and relaxing back into her seat. Noticing the confused look Finn was giving her, she clarified, "You know, the clothing store."

"Oh. We didn't go to that one, but we spent close to half an hour in that one candle store. She was shopping for Summer, but I'm pretty sure she was just scoping them out for herself."

"Oh, she definitely was. She's obsessed with buying candles. She always has to have one for her room, so if you're ever in doubt what to get her for her birthday, just get her a candle, and she'll love you forever."

"Noted," Finn said with a chuckle while pulling his phone out to actually make a note of that. Piper's birthday would be coming up in a few months, and that was incredibly useful information. Maybe having Amy around was good for one thing after all.

They trailed off in silence again, and Finn used the break in conversation to order another drink. He'd already downed two Chai teas and was on to his third, but what could he say? Awkward silences left him desperate to occupy himself with something. Today, it just so happened to be chugging Chai tea like his life depended on it.

Amy raised her eyebrows when he returned to the table with his third drink of the hour and commented casually, "You really like their teas, huh?"

"Not really. Their Chai isn't that bad, but this place is pretty mediocre," Finn retorted before disclosing, "They never steep it at the right temperature."

"What an outrage," Amy commented dryly.

"I know."

Her lips turned up into a smile as she studied him, her brows knitting together curiously. "I didn't realize you were such a tea fanatic."

Finn shrugged to that. "My older sister always kicked me out of her tea parties when we were kids. Something about how I never did it right- as if there's a right way to do tea parties." He rolled his eyes dramatically. "So anyways, I did a bunch of research on tea to spite her. Ayla may know all about the legal system, but I know everything there is to know about tea now, so who's really winning at life?"

Amy giggled at that before she seemed to realize what she was doing and stopped herself. Clearing her throat, she asked, "Okay, Chai Guy, if you know so much about tea, what's your recommendation? I have yet to find something I actually like here."

"It depends what you want really. All of the teas have different kinds of benefits, but I always say you can never go wrong with green tea."

"Because it has the most health benefits?"

"No, because it tastes the best," Finn corrected, "You should really chai it."

He had spent the evening before teaching his younger sisters the art of puns and how to use them to get under their mother's skin, so the cheesy pun slipped out before he could stop it. Piper would have rolled her eyes, but to Finn's utmost surprise, Amy burst into giggles at it. He smiled slightly, relaxing back in his seat, the pride he always felt at successfully making someone laugh surging through him.

The moment was interrupted by both of their phones lighting up with a new text message from Piper. She and James had successfully picked up their grandmother from the airport, and she had texted to let them know that James would drop her back off at the studio soon. Finn was relieved to hear that Piper was coming back. It didn't feel quite as awkward now that he and Amy had found something to talk about, but they would both probably feel more comfortable with their best friend around.

"Did you see Piper's text?" Amy asked, typing back a response before setting her phone aside again.

"Yup."

"Maybe Nonna will send her back with cookies. She makes the best shortbreads."

"You've met her before?" The thought that Amy knew Piper's whole family made Finn a little jealous. He wanted to know Piper's family too. But, he supposed, in Amy's defense, she had known Piper longer.

"Oh yeah," Amy said, smiling fondly as she recalled some distant memory that Finn wasn't a part of. "I spent a week at her house with Piper last summer. She lives in this cute little cottage out in the countryside and taught us how to make her shortbreads. Piper was horrible at it."

Finn couldn't help himself as he smiled at that. "Really?"

"Oh yeah. She burnt them to a crisp, and get this. She mixed up the sugar with the salt. She added three ounces of salt instead of three ounces of sugar."

"No!"

Finn was laughing as Amy nodded, her eyes crinkling as she smiled endearingly. "Yes! They were the worst cookies I've ever had. Piper's terrible in the kitchen. Oh, one time, she was spending the night at my house, and we were baking brownies because that's just what you do at two in the morning, you know?"

"Right, obviously."

"So we put the brownies in the oven, and I was cleaning up the other dishes, and Piper completely forgot to set the timer. So fast forward an hour, and we're sitting there, waiting for our brownies to be ready when we realized that we never set it and there was smoke coming from the oven. And that's when the fire alarm went off."

"At three in the morning?" Finn asked for clarification, and Amy nodded.

"At three in the morning," she confirmed.

Finn laughed again, perfectly imagining the look of horror Piper would have made in that situation as Amy continued. "My parents weren't happy with us, and we ruined my mom's favorite baking pan. Piper hasn't been allowed in our kitchen since."

"You'd think she'd be really good at that kind of stuff. A recipe's like a list, and she loves lists," Finn pointed out, and Amy nodded in agreement.

"Right? But she can't cook to save her life. Have you seen the calendar she has in her room?"

Finn shook his head. "Her mom says I'm not allowed on the second floor."

Amy rolled her eyes, waving a hand dismissively. "That's typical Deborah. Don't take it personally. But anyway, she has this huge calendar above her bed where she writes down literally everything. All of the typical stuff like school assignments and her dance schedule, but recently, she's started getting as detailed as when she's going to shower and eat and brush her teeth. She leaves nothing out anymore."

"That's very thorough."

"Very Piper."

"I binged the last season of Supernova Superstar with her before the new season started, and she literally typed up an entire schedule for when we would start each episode. I mean, she factored in bathroom breaks and snack breaks and everything." Finn shook his head endearingly as he recalled that evening. It had been a few days after Regionals. He had personally found that schedule to be overkill, but it had appeared to give Piper a peace of mind, and after how rough Regionals had been for her, he had been inclined to let her do whatever made her happy.

"Well, that's not surprising. She takes Supernova Superstar very seriously," Amy said with a snort. "But Dancemania is clearly the superior show."

"You're a Dancemaniac too?" Finn asked, perking up, and Amy nodded excitedly.

"Since season one! It's been my dream to perform on the show since I was little," she told him, resting her chin on her fist and smiling dreamily.

"Dancemania's the reason I became a dancer," Finn admitted, and Amy raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"Really?"

"Yeah! I remember watching it for the first time at my grandma's house, and I thought it was so cool. I begged my parents to put me in dance classes until they finally agreed."

"Are you the only dancer in your family?" Amy asked curiously, and Finn nodded.

"Yeah," he answered before correcting himself. "Or I was, but my little sister's taking dance classes now. She's following in my footsteps."

"My sister's the exact opposite. She wanted to 'forge her own path' so she took up soccer instead, and my mom's only just now accepting that Lainey's never going to be a dancer like she dreamed."

"Ah, your mom's one of those parents, eh?"

Amy sighed, frowning slightly. "If you mean overbearing, then yeah. She was set to be a professional dancer, and then an injury in her twenties took her out of dance for good. She wants nothing more than for me and Lainey to have the life she wanted. She means well, but she's a little intense sometimes."

Piper had made comments in the past about Amy's mom being too hard on her, and now, hearing Amy talk about it herself put it much more in perspective. Finn thought of his own father, who had wanted nothing more than for Finn to follow in his own footsteps and manage his own business someday, but Finn had never been interested in that path at all. Amy still seemed to be on relatively good terms with her mother despite it all, but Finn rarely talked to his father except for a few times a year, if even that. It was very different from the relationship Amy was describing, but Finn could still understand the feeling of being pressured into a certain way of life by a parent.

Maybe they had a little more in common than Finn first thought.

"She's not exactly happy that I'm back at The Next Step again, but as long as we do well at Nationals, she'll get over it," Amy continued to say, tearing Finn out of his thoughts. She had taken to twirling her spoon around her teacup again.

Finn watched her spoon rotate in her hands for a moment before saying, "I know Pipes is glad to have you back. She really missed you."

Amy's expression slowly dimmed at that, and she exhaled a deep breath before reluctantly meeting his gaze. "Is her anxiety really bad?" she asked candidly.

Finn took a deep breath before slowly nodding. "Yes. I think so."

He knew Piper hadn't seen a doctor or counselor about the anxiety she had experienced last season with Miss Angela, so she hadn't been given an official diagnosis for an anxiety disorder. He recognized a lot of the symptoms of it in Piper, however. The overthinking. The constant fidgeting. The sleepless nights that she always complained about. The way she sometimes got so trapped in her own thoughts that she couldn't focus on anything else around her.

He'd seen it all in his older sister, who had received an official diagnosis for Generalized Anxiety Disorder when she had been a couple of years older than they were now.

Piper seemed convinced that her anxiety was gone now that she had gotten her aerial. And maybe Finn was wrong. He wanted to be wrong. But somehow, he didn't think it was that simple, and he dreaded to think how Piper would react if a new challenge this season triggered her anxiety all over again.

Amy had returned to frowning into her tea as Finn tried to tell her optimistically, "She's been doing better since Regionals, but..."

She sighed, pursing her lips as she said, "She's always been kind of a nervous person, you know? She's always gotten stressed really easily, but I guess I didn't realize how bad it got last year. I guess I should have known that it was more than just nerves when she missed all those rehearsals with Miss Angela, but..."

Amy trailed off, shaking her head at herself. Finn thought back to Regionals when Piper had been so distraught over her aerial. He could still clearly recall the look of despair that had been in her eyes when she had been trying so hard to land the perfect aerial in the hallway before the finals.

Reluctantly, he told her, "It's not just nerves, you know? It's like she gets a fear stuck in her head, and she can't see anything but that. Regionals was really hard for her, and yeah, she says she's fine now, but she also keeps putting off getting her license because the idea of driving in the city freaks her out so much."

"Yeah, I noticed that- about her license," Amy muttered, "She used to always be so excited to drive because then we wouldn't have to keep riding the bus or depending on our parents for rides." The corners of her lips had twitched up momentarily as she recalled another distant memory, but then it slowly faded away.

Quietly, she murmured, "I should have been there for her. You were right- when you said I wasn't. I left her when she needed me."

If he was being completely honest with himself, there had been a small part of Finn that had resented Amy for leaving Piper last season, and he knew it was because Amy hadn't been around to see the consequences of how her decision had affected Piper. But he had been. He'd seen Piper trying to hold back tears the day Amy left the studio. He'd seen her choose not to go to Noah's birthday party because she had been too upset about Amy competing at Regionals with a rival team. He'd seen the longing look she had gotten in her eye when she'd seen Amy with AcroNation at Regionals. And he had hated that Amy had ever made Piper feel that upset.

But now he was looking at the same girl he'd been resenting for months staring into her tea and looking so guilty that he couldn't help but have a twinge of sympathy for her. Amy loved Piper as much as he did. It was the one thing they had in common. And as much as he had resented her for leaving, he doubted Amy had ever intended to hurt Piper.

And if she was willing to admit when she was wrong, then Finn could respect that because he knew that wasn't easy to do.

So heeding that in mind, he assured her, "You're really important to her. Yeah, me and Pipes got really close while you were gone, but you're always going to be her best friend."

Amy looked up at that, her lips pursed. "Some friend I am. I was so caught up in trying to prove myself that I didn't even see she was struggling."

"She didn't exactly flaunt it, Amy. I just happened to be around every time she cracked."

Amy was quiet at that, eyes squinting at him as if she was seeing him in a new light. Finally, she said, "I never should have left The Next Step. But I'm glad she had someone else to lean on when I did, so... Thank you. For being there for her when I wasn't."

Finn mustered a small smile at that and shrugged, muttering, "It was nothing," even though being the person Piper had often sought for comfort and reassurance last season was actually the most important thing to him in the world. Very few roles in life felt more important than that one.