Disclaimer: I don't own anything. If you don't like a ship, please remember that you decided to click on this, not me.

Fabian Rutter pulls a dictionary off the shelf and Nina Martin's shrieks fill her room as he twirls her and exclaims at only one of her many strokes of brilliance yet to come, "A dictionary! You genius, genius, genius, genius girl!"

Except the shrieks are only a faint memory now, and this bedroom hasn't been inhabited by Nina in over a year. The dictionary he throws into the box doesn't even hold a significant connection to her, all of her remaining material possessions have since been removed. But if he pauses long enough, it still feels as though she's about to walk in and help him, as if she never left. And sometimes, if he inhales deep enough, he can still smell her scent tucked away in the deep recesses of the room. Even worst still, every. bloody. time. he catches himself frowning because he's concentrating, Nina's soft giggles pierce his eardrums.

And there has not been one day since he bought her that cocoa, that Fabian has gotten a break from feeling guilty.

Because the girl he's helping pack, his girlfriend going off to Uni with him in a few months time, she's absolutely brilliant in her own right.

He really envies her, Mara Jaffray. Not just because she's the Valedictorian but also because right now, he can hear her laughing and crying with Joy Mercer in the next room over and none of it has a thing to do with Jerome Clarke. She's learned to forgive and better yet to forget. And you would think that polite Fabian would have those skills stored away right next to memorizing pi or the periodic table of elements but he hasn't gotten there quite yet. On certain days, he's not even sure that he wants to even though he hasn't heard from Nina since her letter.

So when he tucks away the last book on the shelf, he sits beside the bare bed and lets himself just soak it all in…the lifetime of memories and adventure and lessons he may never have a chance to come back and recover ever again.

Nearly ten minutes have passed when Eddie Miller finds him staring blankly toward the window. Not even out of it, just toward the space beneath the sill. The silence is awkward and he wastes no time shattering it.

"There you are roomie! Or well, you know…ex-roomie soon, I guess. Been looking all over for you, I didn't know Mara had put you to work. A few months in and you're already whipped!"

"Oh hey, Eddie," Fabian laughs, as he turns to find him leaning in the doorway. "Come on in, I'm just packing up a few things I offered to take care of. I heard Joy could use the extra set of hands over there…"

The ex-Osirian struts in with a scoff, and isn't it crazy how everything can change in one week, Fabian thinks.

"So you volunteered to be put to work? Again…whipped!"

"Ha ha, I suppose I could be. That, and I just needed a chance to say goodbye to this room…" he trails off as he looks around.

"I hear you, Man," Eddie sighs with a wiggle of his eyebrows and flops back onto Patricia's bed.

Fabian's face turns a bright shade of red instantly and he stutters before he's able to finally burst, "Well, thank you for that bit of information, Eddie! It's not like Patricia is practically my sister or anything!"

Eddie laughs because Fabian is still the Fabian Rutter he met on day one and will probably always be that Fabian as long as he'll know him, "Nah, I'm just messing with you, Dude! I actually came to give you something."

"Oh, you mean besides the mentally scarring images?"

"Come on! I told you I was just playing, I'm trying to be serious now. Give me serious Fabian."

He picks himself up off the floor and Eddie follows suit. The American runs his fingers through his hair as if he's not entirely sure of his actions. And admittedly, he may not be, but he continues anyway.

"I found something in our room that I think you should have… Don't go down there any time soon, by the way… I may have trashed the place." Fabian starts to object but is silenced, "But don't worry about that, I'll fix it before you know it! I just figured that…since I'm not the Osirian anymore, this should go to somebody that it really means something to…"

Fabian grimaces when Eddie pulls out Nina's locket; it's a bittersweet gesture to say the least. While he would like the physical reminder of her and of Sibuna and everything he had been through in the last few years, he wasn't sure that he needed it. After all, wasn't that his current problem…he wasn't able to completely forget?

"I-I don't think I should take that…you're the leader. It's yours," Fabian argues even as Eddie drops it into his hand.

"Was, Fabian. I was the leader. Now though, I'm just Eddie. You're the brains behind Sibuna…always have been, it should be yours. And you know, I'm not really supposed to bring it up, but the whole Nina thing…"

"Nope. Nope, I can't, Eddie. Here, take it."

"Dude, it's okay to still think about her," Eddie shoves his hand away, "Mara gets it, everyone does. Just keep it, alright. And do me a favor, if you ever do decide you need to get rid of it, mail it to Amber…she kinda called dibs on it behind you…"

Eddie smirks and Fabian guesses they must've planned it this way, all of them together…his best friends and partners in crime, or erm, heroics. He runs a thumb over the face of it and just nods.

The silence is as awkward to him as when he arrived so Eddie slaps him on the back and he begins his escape, "See you tonight in the attic for the last meeting in this place, alright Buddy?"

Fabian barely hears him and by the time he calls out to him he's already gone, "Thank you? …I guess?"

He moves to sit on Mara's bed, locket still in hand. He shouldn't be staring at it, but he just can't help it. It is quite literally the key to all of Sibuna's mysteries, all of their adventures and secrets together. And it has just hit home to him that everything it's ever stood for is in the past. Finished.

And he doesn't see or hear when Mara creeps in on him either; perhaps they've all gotten a little too stealthy for their own good. So she clears her throat and announces that Joy is finally packed up and ready to go while Fabian tries snatching the locket out of sight, failing miserably.

"Whatcha got there, Mr. Rutter?"

He gives a sheepish half smile and brings his hand back up pitifully as she sits down beside him.

"It's uh, Nina's locket…um, Eddie brought it up to me."

She nods and he's not sure how she feels about the situation until she speaks, "Could I take a better look at it? I didn't exactly get to see it in action because somebody," she knocks her shoulder in his with a grin that he misses, "didn't want me in Sibuna…"

"Mara, that's not—" he starts emphatically before he sees her perfectly shaped lips curled up on either side. Her brown eyes bat up at him and she turns back to the locket.

"It's pretty…but I suppose it was even more beautiful lit up, yeah? Do you still miss her?"

She says it so abruptly that it catches him off guard.

"Who, Sarah?" he asks stupidly as he grabs the photo Mara is staring at to avoid his eyes.

She exhales loudly and tugs at the locket's chain to pull it from his hands. He knew that wasn't who she was referring to, even before he sees her cock her head to the side and give him her signature 'really' look.

"I'm sorry… I-I shouldn't have taken it. I'll let Amber have it."

"Fabian," her face falls soft again and she puts a comforting hand on his knee, "It's fine if you do."

"No, Mara, of course it isn't! It isn't fair that sometimes when I'm with you I still think about… Because you, you know, you…y-you're over Jerome but some days I'm still here stuck on…" And he's the one to sigh now.

"Go on," she tucks the chain into his hand and squeezes.

He shakes his head and frowns, "What kind of person talks to his girlfriend about his past relationships?"

Her face breaks into a warm smile at the meekness in his voice, "Well… I suppose the kind who have girlfriends that have already seen the whole relationship play out anyhow…"

Fabian shoots a look of doubt that is erased when Mara pecks his lips and puffs her minty breath against his cheek as she shies away with a cheeky grin. Thoughts of Nina have never intruded in on these moments between them so maybe, just maybe, he's a little better off than he actually realizes.

Mara hops up and onto the bed to reach the tallest shelf on the wall behind them. She pulls down what looks to be a jewelry box and sets it safely behind Fabian so she can clear the shelf.

"You're not upset or jealous? I'm still fairly new to all of this, but I imagine I would probably be jealous…"

"Well, maybe…but being jealous has never gotten me very far before has it?"

"I guess not but—"

"First loves are a bit weird, Fabian," she begins as she climbs down and moves the objects to sit. "It's all about chemicals in the brain reacting to an unfamiliar experience and exciting new impulses. The novelty of it is stored deep within your memory to serve as a means of comparison in future scenarios and to mark a special milestone in your life. Most firsts work that way…you're always going to have that."

He catches a whiff of her perfume as she grabs for her jewelry box and for one split second he forgets that they're even talking about Nina. Because he's convinced that he's dating an actual genius and he loves it when she rattles facts off of the top of her head as if she's reading them from an encyclopedia.

"Where do you keep all of this knowledge of yours? It's no wonder you scored higher marks than me…I think you have a sort of unfair advantage or something."

He chuckles and she hides her smile as she swipes the dust off of her box because it's been a little more than a week now but they still regularly taunt one another over the Valedictorian thing. It's sort of become a sincere way of flirting.

And while they're on the subject of love being a weird thing, there has to be some kind of scientific explanation for how a silent—but mutually understood—academic competition turned into years of unresolved sexual tension between the two of them seemingly overnight. But they have never questioned it out loud, because she thinks it's cute when he blushes or stutters and he has yet to engage in a conversation with her that she has found boring.

"I think my advantage had a little something to do with that, Mr. Rutter," he follows her eye gesture to the locket and his face falls again. It feels like a mistake to him now that Sibuna never utilized her more than they did. "I wasn't going to say, but if it will make you feel better, I still keep this around."

Mara pulls out the 'friendship' bracelet given to her by Mick Campbell years ago and sets it atop the jewelry box in her lap.

"It doesn't mean I still feel the same way I used to about Mick or that I'm still holding onto him. Sometimes, it's just good to remember what I used to be like and to see how much my priorities have changed since my first relationship. It's like a little piece of personal data that I can pull up when I need to reference it. …You're a good guy, Fabian. And I know that if you didn't like me or you weren't ready to move on yet, you wouldn't be with me. What kind of girlfriend would I be if I held your memories against you?"

"Y-Yeah, absolutely! I-I mean that's true. I do want to date you, and I just want to think about you. But I mean, are you certain it's normal to…"

He doesn't notice that he's tracing over her features with his eyes or that they're hovering on her lips a split second longer than they need to be. And he could not possibly know that he's looking at her the same way she used to see him look at Nina…but Mara does, and this moment has just turned serious.

"Positive." she whispers, knowing exactly what message she's sending when her eyes flick down to his lips…she's been known to study the odd bit of body language in her free time as well.

And for the first time in their relationship, Fabian initiates the kiss. It isn't exceptionally different, but at the same time it also is. For once, he's not even worrying about how much of her lip gloss is transferring onto his mouth.

So when he finds himself trying to deepen it, he pulls back in embarrassment and clears his throat.

Mara plasters a smile across her face because sometimes, she thinks about her other relationships too and neither one of them were like this. Fabian is a true gentleman, he is her equal and every. single. time. he hesitates out of respect for her, she appreciates the breath of fresh air.

"U-um," he tries, needing to clear his voice again, "that's still a fair amount of boxes…maybe we should uh, you know…get back to work? I-If that's okay, I mean. Patricia still has to get things sorted yet…"

"Sure," she grins, and Fabian nods back and smiles.

When he stuffs the locket into his pocket, it doesn't even register that it used to belong to Nina.

"Well, that is the last of it, Mr. Rutter…we make a pretty good team, don't we?"

"That we do, Miss Valedictorian, that we do. Now it is just a matter of getting it all downstairs…"

"Ah, yes. All in due time. For now though, I'm going to go get something to drink. Would you like me to bring you up anything?"

"Nah, you go ahead. I'll be down in a minute, but Mara, thank you…"

"Okay," she smiles softly as she realizes his double meaning.

He takes a deep breath as he watches her walk away and is relieved when he's not confronted by any ghosts from his past. Because maybe, he now realizes, the only way he's going to kick them for good will be to make new memories without constantly feeling guilty about the old ones. Admittedly, that sounds like a tough feat to Fabian Rutter, but with Mara Jaffray by his side, he doesn't think it's such a bad deal.

Because now he knows that Nina Martin was right; she was his first love…and nothing, and no one will ever change that.

But he also knows that her leaving was an ending, and a beginning, all at once.

And he dates really, really genius girls.

A/N: Again, no ship wars please. I ship Fabian Rutter and happiness. If he's happy with the decision he made, I'm happy. This is another fic that is part of a multimedia set of posts...look for the video and gif set still to come in various parts of the fandom. Operation "Mabina" ruins Katie's life is go.