Author's note:

SURPRISE! I bet you thought I wouldn't finish this fic, right?

Sorry for the real long wait, I probably lost some of you along the way like I lost my Karmy feels along the way of Season 2. However, I brought myself back to this fandom to finish this story. The lastest episode helped me with that. We're near the end anyway, so yeah, I will definitely finish this.

Hope you enjoy this next chapter.

I woke her four times that night; the second time I felt starved.

It had taken me some time to understand that, though. At first it hadn't been more than a bodily reaction to turn over and try to get comfortable despite my hurting stomach. It was only when I had bumped into something – into her – that my sleep-drunken mind realized what was going on. And more importantly where I was.

I immediately held my breath, the cramp from my stomach taking a hold of my whole body that way. All the while I stared at my best friend through the thick darkness, wondering whether or not I had woken her up.

Just when I thought that I had been saved by the bell, my stomach decided to wail with a feral roar once more.

I hissed sharply, getting desperate for air almost immediately, as I once again listened intensely to the silence. Please don't wake up, I thought while I held my stomach to tame the animal inside of it, Please don't wake up ...

"You've got to be kidding me ..."

... too late.

Amy grumbled, then sighed heavily and rolled over. It could be my imagination, but I felt Amy's burning stare on my face, even though I didn't see much. "I'm really sorry.", I replied asap and closed my eyes to her punishing stare, that I knew was there "Go back to sleep ..."

I turned away from her to emphasize my point. Hopefully I would be able to ignore my aching body and go back to sleep, too. It wasn't morning yet, so I wasn't supposed to confront her just now.

I'm not ready ...

"Like hell I will." Amy's voice wasn't raspy anymore, but steady and loud.

It was so unexpected, I had to open my eyes to see what she was up to. Unfortunately, my timing couldn't have been any worse: "Oh my god!", I yelled and pulled the blanket over my head instinctively as I got blinded by the sudden amount of light that spread through the room.

Amy's laughter traveled through the air around us and despite my hurting eyes and stomach – and really my overall soreness – I smiled, too. The sound of her laugh was the purest and utmost music to my ears.

"That's not funny, buttface!", I protested as I emerged from my cave, grabbed a pillow and threw it blindly into her direction. Amy seemed to have caught it, because when I opened my eyes to small slids, she held it in front of her chest while she offered me her hand.

Her wide smile made her eyes shine and I realized just once again, how stupid I had been, when – in all honesty – I had felt the exact same way she did even the night she told me about her feelings. Because this, the feeling in my stomach when I looked at her, this wasn't something that could just be there from one day to another.

I took her hand and smiled even brighter due to the warmth of her skin. "What are you up to?", I asked while Amy pulled me out of her bed with ease. "Listening to your body's desires," she replied nonchalantly. "Since you won't listen to what you want."

I froze up faster than I could blink my confusion away. Was I dreaming?
"What?" my voice echoed said knot in my brain and Amy, in response, arched an eyebrow.
"You're hungry." – she pointed to my stomach for emphasis – "If you didn't notice."
"I'm ... not–" I stopped my words as soon as I realized what I was about to say and more importantly how dumb it would sound. So instead I settled with giving Amy an indecisive look.
"Who are you trying to fool here?" my friend replied.
"If it's able to break through a camomile induced sleep, I'd say it's pretty serious."

I kept thinking about these two on-point-phrases for what minutes. Amy had no chance of knowing, but her words had hit several nerves in the right spot. Just like the world's best archer would have easily hit the bullseye twice in a row.

Why was I still making excuses for myself? Why not tell her – right here, right now – what I really wanted to say?

"Eat up," a voice ordered; Amy set a plate down right in front of me that moment. We were situated in the Raudenfeld's kitchen. How exactly do I keep ending up in my thoughts for several minutes? I wondered. I can't even remember going down the stairs.

Pushing the dangerous thoughts away, I decided on doing things, starting with fulfilling my best friend's order. A grin spread over my face like wildfire as I tasted the first bite of Amy's priced BLT sandwich. I couldn't think of a better way to get rid of a serious hunger issue after such an eventful day.

"I'm seriously addicted to that stuff," I said with a full mouth and nearly choked on my food when Amy, peering over the kitchen counter, only gave me a puzzled look in return. "When will you finally learn that even I can't understand you, when you're speaking with a full mouth?"

I grinned, but forced myself to keep my lips tied together. I turned my head to the side so that I could finish eating the piece of sandwich without half of it falling out of my mouth in the process. Once I was done, I sighed in relief.

"That was mean," I said and received a cheeky grin in return. "I said it's really good," I repeated, once I was sure of not chocking on my food again, "like always."

Amy's continued to smile just a bit, however, she soon turned around to work on cleaning the kitchen again. "It's just a sandwich ..." I heard her mumble, but shook my head, even though she couldn't even see it. "You made it," I said simply.

Amy suddenly didn't even react to that anymore. Instead, she kept standing hunched over the kitchen counter once she had finished the cleaning. The action – or lack thereof – lapsed us back into another one of those awkward silences; it made my forget about my precious sandwich immediately.

"Hey," I called, clearly sensing that some thought had invaded her mind and had scared off the levity from before. "What's wrong?"

She wouldn't answer me, so I picked up my plate and walked over. As I placed the plate on the part of the kitchen counter Amy was facing, I tilted my head to the side so that I could try and see past her long hair. I emphasized by placing my hand over hers. "Amy?"

"You're worrying me!", she suddenly rushed and nearly made me jump as she spun around. "Why aren't you eating?"
"What?" – that really surprised me – "I just ate."
"I feel like I've been there, every time you ate something in the past few days and that was neither healthy nor enormous amounts of stuff, so ... And now you turn up at my door, in the middle of the night, freezing to the bone and since it all started with ... you know. I kinda feel like it is ... connected."

I shock my head and gripped her hand harder as soon as I understood where this was heading.

"No, no, listen. This is not your fault, ok? I'm fine, I've just ... been busy with thinking about this whole thing. Eating just wasn't my number one priority anymore." – I smiled – "You don't have to worry about it."

"And what about the part where you show up at my door in the middle of the night?" Amy asked. Her face suddenly turned rigid. "I swear, if Liam hurt you–"

"Liam didn't hurt me," I interrupted ...
"So it is about me then, right?" ... and so did she. "Not to sound full of myself, but-ah ... it kinda seems like the only option left. And you didn't deny it yet. Also you're doing the subtle lip biting thing."

I let go of Amy's hand at that; that girl certainly knew me a little too well.

I raked my fingers through my hair and ended up caressing my own cheeks, feeling as though I was about to face a tragedy. And although I was well aware, that Amy had picked up on all of my "you are right, but I'm not ready to admin it yet"-signs – she had even noticed the damn lip biting tick – I continued my feeble attempt.

"This is ... we should really talk about this in the morning," I mumbled insecurely. I would not be able to find the right words this spontaneous, so I had to hope for Amy to back off.

However, my best friend stepped closer. She sort of trapped me in between her body and the kitchen counter. When I realized that I could feel her soft breath on my face now, my heart started racing uncontrollably. It was also the moment I felt lightheaded again.

"Why?" she asked all the while as though this was just a normal conversation. She had clearly found her composure again, maybe precisely because I was in the middle of losing mine. We had always been like salt and pepper or moon and sun. Always balancing each other.

"I want to know now," Amy said and I couldn't help but think how ironic it really was; the reversed roles.
"I already tried to tell you," I recalled. "But–"
"Tell me now."

I looked up, meeting Amy's deep stare. Her eyes seemed wide like the goddamn space now, full of questions but also full of sympathy. I felt the resolve washing over me like I had just been warped under a strong waterfall and no words were left in me. Just a vacuum of feelings, incoherent thoughts and splintered sentences, I had prepared on my way over.

Maybe I didn't need words, it occurred to me.

Amy's even breathing was intoxicating. It even lulled my eyes into sleep and widened my ears so that I could hear my own excited heartbeat now. I felt myself moving closer to my drug – the same one I had tried to get away from just a few seconds ago – until I could taste it properly; the satisfaction, not just the teasing.

I was kissing her.

My hands got warm and touched something silky – her perfect hair – before I pressed my palm to her back to pull her closer. My nose, cheeks and mouth were burning from the sensation, but what really catapulted me into the air was when we were chest to chest. Amy was kissing me back by then.

A tear threatened to escape my eyeball, but before it could happen, Amy let me crash to the ground. She pulled away, only seconds after responding, and simultaneously pushed my back into the sink. A fleeting pain ripped through my lower back and injured hand, but the worst, was my heart breaking. Just like the plate, that flew to the ground and shattered into a million pieces around both our feet.

"What are you doing–" Amy gasped loudly. It felt like I had never heard her shriek in such a panic before.

"Amy–" I stepped closer, but as soon as I did, she took a step back. "N-No," she mumbled, not only stumbling over her words, but her own feet, too. "Stop it! You can't do that!"

Her loud, panicky voice and her darting eyes worried me and so I tried to reach for her arm. I was successful in grabbing her, but before I could say anything, Amy raised her voice again. "I said stop!"

"Please calm down for a moment!" I yelled back. "Let me explain. Please!"

"What the– are you insane?!"

Both of us went silent at the sound of a third voice. I blinked and suddenly Lauren stood in the middle of the staircase. Her hair was messy, way messier than I had ever seen it, and some strange greenish stuff was on her face. Probably some face pack that would make her skin even softer than a newborn's skin.

"It's past midnight on a school's night and you two have nothing better to do than to start a screaming contest in the kitchen? Are you fucking serious?!", Lauren stomped down the last few stairs so that she could stop in front of us and put her hands to her waist to emphasize the lethal stare she was already giving us. "If you want to play games in the middle of the night that's your business, but some of us actually need their sleep. And what is this mess you made on the floor?!"

Instinctively, both Amy and me squatted down and started to collect the broken pieces of the splintered plate. Lauren was good at playing "Commander Mom".

I cut my fingers a few times, but that was nothing compared to the pain that was the vacuum in my chest; Amy had rejected me. But why? Didn't she tell me, just two days ago, that she was in love with me? We suddenly reached for the same piece of broken plate and stopped right before our fingers were about to touch. I lifted my gaze and found Amy already starring at me with an unreadable expression.

"Can we please talk about this?" I whispered hopefully. "Please?"

"No," Amy just replied. I never knew that a simple word could cut this badly.

When we were finished with fixing the kitchen and Lauren had voiced some more of her anger about waking up at an "ungodly hour because of two toddlers", Amy apologized to her for the third time, before she finally turned around and started to climb the stairs.

It felt like she was walking out of my life. I had waited too long and now ...

I sighed heavily, my lungs burning. This is such a mess, I thought bitterly, I think I found hell.

My brain went silent after that and my body certainly followed suit.

"And what about you, are you glued to the ground now or what? Upstairs, bed, now!", Lauren yelled. She was really starting to piss me off with her bossy ways. The only thing that made me obey her – and swallow my pent up frustration instead of blowing up in her face right then and there, for that matter – was Amy.

"She's right", she said while continuing to climb the stairs. Her voice sounded oddly broken again. "We should sleep. Come on."

Author's note:

Uh oh, what's wrong with Amy now? You'll find out in the next/last chapter, but don't worry too much, it's not as bad as Karma thinks.

Hope there's still people reading this. Let me know if they are still in character? It has been some time after all..