Mary Margaret doesn't want to make a sound. Not really. Doesn't want to be crying, especially when she hadn't yet at all before this. It was like speaking to him made her see more of it. The heart of it all. how it really felt. She can't help thinking, for all her good heart, it's selfish, too. Walking away.

Each time she'd felt happiest near David, it ended in a wave of startling pain and wracking guilt. Leaving now, stopped that, too. Before it could become even more complicated, even more painful.





Mary Margaret gave it another twenty or thirty seconds before she pulled away, gently, just enough, a step back, hands raising, wiping her cheeks and her eyes as she sniffled. Apologetically, ruddy faced even for that effort.

So close to the fault line, at the center of herself, where it might all start again. Even as she said, with some gravel and small breaths in her words, "I should probably go up."

Her house. Her house, with her bed and the thick blankets she'd mentioned earlier so lightly, and not the middle of the street.