oom: my makeup may be flaking

Heartbreak. Heart break. Steph can see where the word comes from. Her chest hurts, actually physically hurts. She wonders, briefly, how much of it is because she's dead - body an extension of the mind, more than it might otherwise be? - but it's hard to keep her thoughts on track.

She's cleaning. Suite 138 has been showing the effects of neglect for some time; Ed's been busy in his own world for longer than Steph's been staying at ... at Zuko's place. And when she came back, last week, she was - not in the mood to clean. The suite's a mess of pillows, crumpled-up tissues and blankets, cast-aside DVDs and chocolate wrappers. Cassandra the VeryBraveKitten is playing with a crinkled cellophane wrapper that's almost bigger than he is as if it's the most exciting thing Steph's ever owned.

It's cold outside, and when she slides the glass door and curtain open the air rushes in sharp and fresh, and whisks the fug of a week's concentrated moping out into the crisp winter sky. Steph stands in the door and breathes in for a moment, and then turns her attention to the mess.

Shortly - surprisingly shortly - the apartment is clean and airy and fresh, bedclothes spread over the balcony rail to air, dishes washed, dried and put away, carpet vacuumed. It feels like home again.

A home that's not complete without a Superboy poster on one wall, Steph decides, surveying the apartment. (heartbreak.) Kon would want - well, who knows. He's dead now. (All that laughter, all that cockiness, all that fun.) Ed will understand - if he ever comes back...

Steph leaves the door open and jogs down to ask Bar what she can provide.







I think I love you. You should go.

I ... know.






Heartbreak. But it's better this way. More final, more filled with the cold emptiness of endings, but - better.

"I'm tired of playing pretend," he had said, and she had believed him; did that make her a bad person? Or just him a good liar? But it was a lie - it was a lie - he still cared. He just - couldn't stay.

That's - much easier to live with than the thought that it was pretend all along. She can mourn a love lost; a love that once was. The other - was just anger and humiliation and despair, it's always hard to be the one left wanting...

This she can handle. It hurts, but it's a dull, resigned, constant pain, not a sharp and angry tearing.








Bar gives her a poster - in fact, Bar gives her her poster, the one that was pinned in her attic bedroom in a different life, with the squiggle on the bottom and the crease and the coffee-stain and the hole from that crossbow bolt. Kon's grinning lopsidedly and cheekily up at her from the worn paper, and she brushes her fingers across the S on his chest with sorrow.

"Thank you," she whispers to Bar, and then notices the other letter - the letter, and the jewellery.



(Heartbreak.)



Best to let them swim together, isn't it?

Dolphins - ask nothing of each other.


I think I love you.

You should go.



Steph slips the bracelet on, its smooth weight fitting naturally over the curve of her wrist; there's a scar there where another bracelet once melted itself, flash-burned, into her skin. This one hides it, the dolphins tangling and leaping in an endless circle. She's missed wearing it.

Let them swim together.

There's a ring there, too. She hesitates. It's beautiful - heartbreakingly beautiful. It has Zuko's touch in every curve, every silver ridge. She'll never look at it without thinking of him.

If she thinks of him - of what could never have been, of what could never be, of the dream they both had to wake up from - if she's reminded of him every day, she'll never be able to put it all behind her. She's not sure her heart could take that constant reminder that all dreams end, no matter how much fun they were to dream.

Closing her hand over the fragile dolphins, she picks up the poster and escapes back up the stairs to her room.







Stupid fire prince.






There's a box in her bottom drawer; it contains the entirety of the posessions Steph thinks are worth keeping safe. There's not much in it. A pair of Mickey Mouse ears. A tiny crystal bat on a tiny metal tower. Her last explosive batarang. Four well-worn Great Frog cassette tapes. The fragments of a glass robin, wrapped in tissue paper.

Now, a delicate silver ring, with two dolphins swimming side-by-side forever.

Steph closes the box, shuts the drawer, and sits on her freshly-made bed for a moment, eyes closed.




Heart, break.




Then she gets up. She washes her face quickly; she brushes her hair back and ties it neatly at the nape of her neck; she changes her dusty housework-clothes for a clean shirt and jeans; she tucks a comfortingly sleepy kitten into his tiny bed; and she goes down to the bar for her shift.