She stood up and stumbled. People everywhere. Alone. She needed to be alone.

Her eyes were blurry and her mind couldn't fathom anything past her own guilt.

Her own remorse.

Her own love.

She pushed past the soldier standing at the exit, only to find more people milling about.

We could have been happy, Mary.

"Excuse me," she mumbled to the collective, moving through the crowd. Alone.

I really believe that.

Finally she came to a secluded area with no one to watch her as she broke down.

She collapsed on the ground, falling to her knees, covering her face as a sob ripped out of her. There was no possible way anyone could ever feel this much pain. She had lost everything. Everything she had worked for had come to naught. The only person who had ever made her feel anything...

Was gone.

Because of her. Because of one well-placed shot to the heart. Because of an eternity of suffering that she had never been able to suppress unless he was with her, taking her mind off the truth. Off the mines that littered her past and future.

He was gone.

If only you'd let it go.

How far had she gone past sanity? Of course she'd always known something was a little off about her. She was a Crawford, bred and raised, naturally the life of secrecy and dark history was enough to destroy even the strongest person. Even her.

How much longer could she live with the knowledge she had killed him? She had killed people before. She had killed her own father. She never felt anything but coldly proud.

Now, she felt like the world was exploding into thousands of roughly-cut shards, and each one was slowly impaling her skin. Her heart.

The world was gone. She had no concept of where she was, of what she was doing.

She had loved him. Mary Crawford, the cold, nasty bitch, incapable of any emotion other than greed or ambition, she had loved him. She had always loved him. His horrible sense of humor, his grating intelligence, his stupid half-smiles, his smart-ass attitude...she loved all of it. He had been there with her, he had never stopped caring despite her cruelty. She had not had any idea of how to deal with what she felt. All she had ever known was pain and inadequacy. Love would have destroyed everything she had worked for. She could never admit the reality to herself.

She had never felt anything before him. He shattered the steel of her facade. And now she was seething with a darkness she could not explain. Burning. Dying.

You cannot know love until it breaks you.

See. You do love me.

----

Soundtrack: *What It Is to Burn*, Finch -- *The End*, John Murphy