Lottie was oddly quiet on the way home, despite Clio and Archie asking her over and over if she was okay. She had risen on her own, holding her arm and wincing, but otherwise seemingly okay.

"Charlotte, this isn't the time to be brave," Clio admonished as the cab sat at a red light. Her father and sister had stayed with the field trip, since there was no one to take over their chaperoning duties, so it was fortuitous that Clio was available to take her home. "If you just didn't want dad to know how badly you were hurt, that's understandable, knowing how upset he gets, but it's just us now, so you have to tell me."

But Lottie steadfastly shook her head, reddish brown curls shaking. "No, I'm really okay," she said. "I'm probably going to have a bruise, but that's all."

"What happened?" Archie asked for the third or fourth time. "One minute you were zooming around backwards, and the next you were flying off into the wall."

"I don't know," Lottie responded. "Our hands slipped, I guess. Like I was saying, I didn't know how to stop, you know?"

They got back to the Santangelos' apartment, where a worried Daisy looked at her daughter's arm and decided that a trip to Urgent Care for X-rays wasn't warranted.

"So whose hand were you holding?" she asked as she put a compress on Lottie's arm.

"Archie's friend, Willow. She was teaching us how to skate backwards, and we just slipped, I told you." Lottie lay back against the cushions on the living room sofa while Della sniffed at her in concern. Her human children rarely came home in the middle of the day to recline on the couch. Even Cina came out of the warm laundry room to fuss around her before finally curling up between Lottie's legs.

Clio got the feeling there was something her sister wasn't telling her, but she didn't want to make a big deal out of it, especially not in front of Archie and her mother. However, there was a look Lottie got, where her eyebrows arched a particular way, that let Clio know something else was on her mind.

"You guys can go back," Lottie was saying to Archie as he sat next to her. "I'm sorry I interrupted your fun skating time."

"No, skating time's over for us by now anyway," Archie assured her with a grin. "We're not missing anything.

"Besides," he added, taking Clio's hand, "we just wanted to spend time together. We don't care where we do it."

"I'm sure it doesn't hurt that we've missed all of one class and most of our other class for today," Clio added drily as she patted Archie's hand.

"Really?" Lottie laughed from her place on the couch. "You guys missed class because of me and my arm? How great is that?"

"Really, really great," Daisy called from the kitchen, where she was preparing a late lunch for everyone. "So glad you're taking your education so seriously, Clio. Dad's and my money clearly well spent."

Lottie made a face as she looked at Clio and Archie. "Sorry, you guys," she said, her voice softer. "I didn't know she could hear us."

"Its okay," Clio laughed. "We weren't doing much today, anyway."

"Well, Zeke and Willow looked sad to see you go," Lottie said, shifting the compress to a better position.

Willow had apologized, over and over. "God, I'm so sorry, I don't know what happened," she said to Pete and Clio as they helped Lottie up. "One second she was there, and the next second she was plowing into the barrier. I'm really, really sorry."

"It's okay, I know it was an accident," Pete had told her, giving his full attention to his injured daughter as Brina hovered in his wake, looking worried and scared.

"I'm surprised Zeke hasn't called or texted you yet to check on her," Archie said to Clio with a knowing smile.

"Come on, he's gotten so much better," Clio answered, shaking her head.

"Please, Clio, he's still so in love with you," Archie replied with a head shake of his own. "You can see it in his eyes whenever he looks at you." With those words he rose to help Daisy in the kitchen.

Lottie nodded in agreement from her place on the couch. Of course, this was nothing new to her; the entire family had known about Zeke's feelings for Clio since they were small children.

"Clio, you're so lucky to have so many nice guys in love with you," Lottie said, careful to keep her voice down this time. "Brina and I talk about it all the time. Francie is just as smart and nice, but she attracts so many icky guys, where you just get the really great ones like Zeke and Archie."

She leaned toward her big sister and lowered her voice even more. "Brina and I worry sometimes, though, that we won't attract any kind of guys, you know? I mean, what if no one likes us?" She looked intently at Clio, brown eyes wide.

"Well, Lottie, you know that it's not about whom you attract, right?" Clio admonished, smoothing her sister's riotous, springy curls away from her forehead. "It's about what people you like, too. Not who chooses you, necessarily, but whom you choose?"

Lottie nodded. "But a little is about the other thing, though," she insisted determinedly. "If you like someone who doesn't like you back, well, that doesn't do you any good, you know?" She grasped Clio's hand. "You and Francie have been pretty your whole lives, but sometimes Sabrina and I don't feel that pretty."

Clio was shocked.

"Why?"

"Well, Brina's always complaining about her red hair and freckles, I don't like how my hair is kind of rust-colored," Lottie confessed. "Plus, I think my mouth is too big when I smile. I hate my smile."

"I'll talk to Sabrina later, so let's just deal with you for now," Clio said, taking Lottie's other hand so she was clasping both. "You are so, completely beautiful, just as you are, Lottie. Your hair is one of the most darling things about you. It's unusual, and the curls are so tight and tiny, not frizzy or wavy like mine. And you know that you're the only one of us kids who's never going to need braces, right?"

Clio smiled at her younger sister, who smiled back at her as she nodded.

"That's because your teeth are damned near perfect, you lucky duck. I mean, look at poor little Finn, he's probably going to need braces starting next year!"

Again, Lottie smiled.

"And you know how many times mom and dad have turned modeling agents away on your behalf, right?" Clio continued, stroking Lottie's cheek. "Because they didn't want that weird, skewed way of looking at people's physicality to become yours, right? And not to say that all models are beautiful, or that only models are beautiful, but you think Francie and I are beautiful, and you know how many times we've been scouted by agents?"

Clio held up her hand in the shape of of a circle. "None. Goose eggs. No one's ever wanted to pay us to take our photographs, Lottie Banana, only you." And she bopped Lottie's nose as she said the last word.

And Lottie knew her sister's words were true. She'd been at a studio before, watching her father shoot something, when a modeling agent had approached him about taking some test shots of Lottie for possible representation. And she knew that that wasn't the only time it had happened.

"What are you two talking about so seriously in here?" their mother asked as she came in bearing soup and sandwiches on a tray. Archie followed behind her with a tray of drinks for everyone.

"Nothing, just sister stuff," Clio said, rising from her place next to Lottie on the sofa.

She and Archie ate lunch with her mother and sister, then left to go to his apartment to study.

"Right, don't study too hard," Daisy said as she saw them out.

"Mother!" Clio was mortified.

"Oh god, do not 'mother' me," Daisy responded drily. "I remember what it was like to be young and in love and to want to study, okay? See you later, text when you're on your way home, please." And she gave Clio a little swat on her bottom as the elevator doors closed.

Archie was laughing all the way down in the elevator, and on the subway to his apartment.

"I mean, she's not wrong, is she?" he said to Clio as they stood on the crowded, swaying subway car. "She knows exactly what we're going to do, doesn't she?"

"I suppose so," Clio answered, slipping her arms around Archie's thin body to brace herself as the train took a curve and everyone lurched to the side. She laid her head on his chest. "That's hardly the point, though, is it? She doesn't have to go out of her way to embarrass me, right?"

"Oh, were you embarrassed?" Archie smiled, looking down at her. "What were you and Lottie talking about while I was in the kitchen?"

"Well, I wanted to ask what was worrying her, because something's definitely on her mind," Clio explained as they climbed the steps at Columbus Circle and walked east along Central Park South toward Archie's apartment. She explained how they'd ended up talking about looks and beauty instead.

"I had no idea she felt this way," Clio went on as they got in the elevator at his building. "She's stunning, you know? I mean, my parents raised her with no relevance given to her skin color at all, but she's an incredibly beautiful mixture of genetics. They got a lot of shit from lots of people for not putting enough emphasis on her ethnicity, or whatever, but they thought that was bullshit, and wanted her to feel like a part of our family more than anything. They figured that she could find out about her heritage as an adult if she wanted to; they just wanted her to know first and foremost that she was a Santangelo above all."

By now they were walking down the hallway toward his apartment.

"Yeah, she's a beautiful little girl," Archie agreed. "How could she possibly look at herself in the mirror and think otherwise?"

They came around the corner and stopped in their tracks.

Willow was leaning against Archie's door, looking as though she'd been there for a while. She was holding a bunch of sunflowers which she held out as an offering.

"Hi, I just wanted to see how little Lottie was doing?" she said.

She rose, her expression one of wariness, which Clio thought rather strange. If she wanted to ask about Lottie, shouldn't she look concerned, or apologetic, or a mixture of both? And, if she was so worried about her, wouldn't she be at Clio's house, rather than Archie's?

"You could've texted, you didn't have to hang about my door all afternoon," Archie was saying to her.

"I wanted to ask in person," Willow explained.

"Well, she's fine, you needn't have worried," Archie said, his manner and tone jocular and easy. He made no move to open the door, however, and the three of them stood awkwardly in the hall.

"Did she say anything? About--how it happened or anything?" Willow pressed.

Clio shook her head. "She just said your hands must've slipped," she supplied.

"Yeah, that must be what happened," Willow agreed with a nod. "Because you know I'd never do that on purpose, right?"

Clio stared at Willow.

"My sister was hurt today, luckily not seriously, but still, she's bruised, and all you can think about is what we might think of you?"

"Hold on," Archie said, holding a hand up. "I'm sure that's not what she meant, darling. She brought flowers, after all, I'm sure she meant well."

Clio looked at the flowers and at Willow's anxious face, and finally relented.

"Thank you for being concerned enough to come here and ask about her," she said in as civil a tone as she could manage as she took the proffered flowers.

"Okay, I guess I'll be going now," Willow finally said, moving around the couple and walking down the hall.

And even Archie let out a sigh of relief as he unlocked his apartment and let himself and Clio into his apartment.