Talking to Rachel was an easier prospect than getting answers out of Gabriel, in part due to the fact that up until the Pairing, they'd all been encouraged to divide themselves by gender, and that meant that both Rosa and Tab had actually talked to Rachel in the past more often, and that they were more comfortable doing so in the present. That gendered divide served to create a sense of mystery - boys were weird and different, so said that ingrained feeling, even if girls could be precisely as mysterious - and also discouraged attempts to bridge that divide.
And so, Rosaline and Tabbitha - though Tabbitha was blushing furiously - picked up Rachel bodily at dinner, carrying her to their table, careful not to upend her tray of teriyaki tofu and seaweed salad. This proved to be a unique engineering challenge, due to Rosa and Tab's positions at opposite ends of the height spectrum in their class, and Rachel occupying the precise middle of it, but Rachel played along and kicked her calves back so she didn't touch the ground, though it was still an uneven enough carry that her fluffy blond hair smushed into the side of Rosaline's face.
Once they were all sitting down at the booth, a long, awkward pause took over the interaction, until Rachel grinned widely. "I didn't know I was in such high demand. How's it going?" Her grin broke into a smile, and then a laugh, which spread infectiously. And in response, Rosaline tried to explain just why they'd, essentially, kidnapped her.
"So you're saying that Elza's been acting weird, you asked Alex to tell you about it, and he started acting weird, and now you're trying to figure out a way of getting in touch with someone, anyone who might be able to assure you that things will return to normal soon, and if not, help you make sure they do?"
Rosaline blinked. She'd always seen Rachel as more chipper than clever, but that was surprisingly astute.
"Yes!" Tabbitha exclaimed, reaching across the table and snatching Rachel's hands away from her utensils. Tabbitha's hands encompassed Rachel's entirely, and the sudden physicality made Rachel shy away, if only for a moment - there always was something to Tabbitha that made you want to go along with whatever she was doing, and so, Rachel, despite a brief twitch, stayed.
"Well, dang," she said, catching Rosaline's intense gaze. "I'd tell you what I knew if I knew anything, but they're a mystery to me. I've got my hands full dealing with how cute Gabriel is."
"W-what?" Rosaline stammered. That was... direct.
"Oh yeah," Rachel said. "Like, I know we're supposed to like our Pairs and all, but I dunno, I have a hard time even talking to him. Maybe they matched us a little too well - at least, I hope so. I guess I'll find out when we actually start talking," she said, with a shrug and a laugh.
"Oh," Tabbitha said, slipping her slender hands away from Rachel.
The three of them, all now knowing that the purpose of their meeting was in effect, bunk, ate in silence.
A minute later, Tabbitha spoke up. "Why'd you sit with us at the Dance of the Pairs, anyway?"
Rachel paused, and then twirled a strand of her hair around her right pointer finger, casting her eyes off to the ceiling. "Well, two reasons, I guess. First off, I usually spend time with Aleste, Yura, and Gwendolyn, but for some reason Lucas thought that he should butt in. Sure, he's Yura's Pair, but I dunno, I felt like we needed to be able to retreat away from our Pairs? I think he was pressured into it, but either way, it made things really awkward. It just wasn't my scene."
"So that was why you left," Rosaline said, "But why'd you end up with us?"
Rachel smiled. "If I was going to spend time with anyone else, it'd be with Elza and her friends. She's a good person, one of the best of us."
The corners of Tabbitha's mouth turned up. "Most people don't see that," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Yeah, but I do, so, here I was, and I guess here I am," she said. "Between being Gabriel's Pair and Elza's... hopefully future friend, maybe, I'm invested." Rachel thumped her elbows on the table, and leaned across it towards Tab and Rosa. "So, what do we want to do about this?"
Rosaline could feel Tab's eyes drilling a hole in the side of her head, but there was, of course, only one real answer. "We need to interrogate Maxwell," she said, and Tabbitha grabbed her wrist for stabilization purposes.
"Oh, goodie," Rachel said. "That sounds fun!"
The next day, they put their plan into action. It rubbed Rosaline the wrong way to use Tabbitha as bait, but she said she was okay with it, and Rachel thought it was a brilliant idea (admittedly, because she proposed it), so Rosa found herself outvoted.
So, Rosa and Rachel left their History class the second the bell rang, pushing out past all the students taking even the slightest amount of time, and hid around the corner, in a side corridor of the academic building, leading to a machine room and a few janitorial closets, and they waited. Rosaline amplified her hearing, and tuned out, as best she could, the voices of the dozens of other students vacating their classrooms, mirroring the sensation of hearing Tabbitha's voice in order to try and pull her words out of the chaos.
"C-can we talk?" Tabbitha said. "No, I mean... like... privately? N-no, don't worry, it's, um... Please?"
Getting only half of the conversation was giving Rosaline more anxiety than she'd bargained for. Rachel must have seen her fretting, and placed a hand on Rosa's shoulder, as if to hold her in place, to keep her from bolting to Tabbitha's side. People underestimated Rosa for her size, but she could easily wrench that wrist of Rachel's and flip her over her shoulder, and a part of her that she had to consciously not listen to insisted that she did.
"Just wait for her," Rachel said, and Rosaline, while she let out a grumble, did so.
The slow shuffling of students through the halls slowed the process, but eventually, Tabbitha and Maxwell turned the corner, neither of them seeing Rachel and Rosaline lying in wait, due to both of them keeping their eyes firmly focused on the floor. Well, Maxwell's eyes were on Tabbitha's feet, and Tabbitha's on Maxwell's, as a compromise between averting their eyes as much as possible and still watching each other closely.
When Tabbitha stopped walking, it took Maxwell a few steps to realize it, but he, too, stopped, and turned towards her without looking up. "So, uh... What did you want to talk about?" he said, sheepishly.
Rachel grinned, and strode towards Maxwell, pressing her hand against his chest and shoving him back into the nearest wall, which he hit with a yelp. "The real question is what do we want to talk about?" Maxwell, finally, looked up, seeing the three girls together, and opened his mouth, presumably to make some kind of alarmed noise, but Rachel put her whole hand over his mouth, stifling what, if he could suck in any air, would have probably grown into a scream.
"Shhh, we won't hurt you. Much," she said, showing a few too many teeth. "But we know what you did."
Maxwell's eyes went wide, and his face went white. It looked like he might pass out.
Then, she found Tabbitha tugging on one sleeve, and Rosaline on the other.
"Was that a bit much?" Rachel asked.
"Yes," Rosaline said, flatly.
"My bad!" Rachel said, beaming, and snuck a few feet backwards. When no one came forward to fill the gap, she added "C'mon, keep it going!"
Rosaline struck a wide, intimidating stance in front of Maxwell, while lamenting that Rachel was throwing off Rosa's whole rhythm - even if she appreciated the energy and commitment she was bringing to their endeavor.
"I swear I- there's no way of proving- nothing's happening, I promise, it's all-" Maxwell stammered in a panic. "Hey," Rosa said, "we aren't here to hurt you, we just want answers," but that didn't turn Max into any less of an incoherent mess. She gestured over to Tabbitha, implicitly asking her to try her hand at this.
"Max?" she said. Rosaline was always astounded at just how soft Tabbitha's voice could be - like you could just melt into her, like a hug that never ended, but for your ears, like - what was she even thinking?
"Y-yeah?" Max said.
"Do you know what's been going on with Alex and Elza lately? They've been acting strange," Tabbitha said. She had the slightest hint of a pout on her lips, and if Rosa didn't know how painfully honest Tabbitha was, she'd think that something so ridiculously endearing was manufactured.
Maxwell's eyes went, if possible, even wider, and his jaw dropped open. "Oh!" he exclaimed. "That's what you're asking about?"
"Yeah!" Rachel said, and slammed into the wall next to him with her elbow, leaning on it, propping up her chin on her palm. He yelped, again, and Rosa could understand, at least on an academic level, how someone so easily flustered could be considered cute. "Spill the beans!"
A surprising amount of tension had left Maxwell - perhaps because of the fact that he wasn't being solely confronted by his Pair. One on one Pair interactions, after all, did carry a certain weight to them. It wasn't like they were expected to bear children, like lay couples, and it was probably impossible for them to do so, but the idea of spending time alone with someone who was supposed to be your... partner... Well, it was safe to say that Rosaline was avoiding her Pair, Nicolas, and would do so until her mind was sufficiently warped to understand.
"Uh, well," Maxwell said, looking from girl to girl to girl, "I've been worried about Alex lately, too. You're probably more worried about Elza, but... Well..."
"Yes?" Rosaline asked, skeptically. She sensed an insult incoming.
"She's always been weird, hasn't she?" Max said.
That wasn't an insult, that was just true. "Yes," Rosa said, "But she's been strange even for her."
"Huh," Maxwell said. "Maybe Alex has been a bad influence on her? Not that Alex is bad or anything, but, you know, they're very... different."
That was an understatement, Rosaline thought. "So, let's establish something."
"Yes?" he asked, making direct eye contact with Rosaline for the first time.
"You want Alex to be at his best. We want Elza to be at her best. They're Paired, and so, wanting to help one is wanting to help the other. So we've got the same goal. Can you agree?"
Maxwell nodded.
"Good. Now," she said, "I'd been talking to Alex for a few weeks about Elza, and suddenly, he stopped talking to me. Have you noticed anything about him change that recently?"
Maxwell actually smiled. "Yeah! He's been clamming up for the last week or so... like, he barely talks with anyone anymore."
Why? she thought. "Have you any idea as to the reason?"
Maxwell looked at her apologetically. "If I knew, I'd tell you."
Rosaline racked her brain. There had to be something she could ask him that could give them a lead. Something. Anything.
"Was he worried about anything recently?" Tabbitha asked.
What a smart girl, Rosaline thought. Solid phrasing - she could hug her, if Rosa wasn't busy trying to look tough.
Maxwell thought this over. "Well... he was worried about Elza, too. He talked to me about it, but he wasn't getting anywhere with it, either. Though..." Max trailed off.
"Though?" Rachel said.
"I think he said that he was going to ask their Guardian for advice?" Maxwell cocked his head to the side. "Come to think of it, that was the last time that he talked to me about her. Maybe his Guardian said something that cleared it up for him."
Shoot. "Max, you can go," she said, and he scampered off. Tabbitha looked at her expectantly, while Rachel looked at her more with confusion than anything else.
That was it, Rosaline thought. There were two courses of action left to her and one was still, as always, directly confronting Elza about why she'd been avoiding them, telling her that it was obvious that she was hiding something worrisome from them by saying that she "just needed some space", but that was dangerous. And the other was... well, what Alexander had apparently done.
"Why'd you just let him go like that?" Rachel asked.
Rosaline sighed. "I don't think he knows anything. But he gave us our next lead."
Rachel immediately brightened up. "Oooh? Where are we headed next?"
"Not you," Rosa said, shaking her head. "Me and Tab."
Tabbitha sidled over to Rosa, and grabbed her wrist. She was always a bit needy for assurance, but Rosaline liked that. It made her feel like she was helping someone in a real, direct way.
"Yeah?" Tabbitha whispered. She had to lean over a little just to get it into Rosa's ear.
"Yeah," Rosaline confirmed. "Our peers don't have the answers. We need to appeal to a higher authority."
Rachel gasped, and Tabbitha squeaked. "B-b-but-" Tabbitha stammered, "I, uh, pray a lot, but, uh-" she looked nervously to the other two, and then to the ground, "I don't get much of a response... or, uh, any response..."
Rosaline laughed, against her kinder instincts. "I don't think God talks to anyone other than the Pope, don't worry about it." The other two sighed in relief. "I mean a Guardian," Rosa clarified.
"Uh, which?" Tabbitha asked.
Considering that Rosaline's was absolutely terrifying, she had one clear answer. "Yours. Tessawyn."