"I think we need to talk about what's going on between us."

It wasn't a lie. Even after tonight, which had been amazing to put it in the most casual and bland of terms, fall out and make up sex wasn't a decent or moral way of fixing things. After these past few weeks - ever since they had been kicked out of the serpents, actually - there had been been too much of a lack of conversation. A lot fall out and make up sex, which neither exactly disliked, but very little actual talking and a limited amount of discussion over anything altogether. It was like there had been no chance. But how could there not have been much talking when they were spending every single spare moment together? It was like there was no excuse, yet at the same time there was nothing to excuse.

Toni gazed at Cheryl, watching closely as the redhead shifted uncomfortably in her seat, clearly at unease with the way the conversation was going. There was a hint at confusion there as well.

"What- what is that, exactly?" the redhead asked quietly. Whether the confusion had been real or not, there was no denying that Cheryl knew just what they were talking about, but it really made the fact that she didn't seem to want to talk about it clear as day. Just how it had been so many times in the past few weeks. But this time it was real. This time they weren't avoiding this long and reluctantly needed conversation because if they did avoid it then god knows what would become of their relationship in the future? Would it even last much longer? There were so many things poking holes in it already and Toni was sure that if they just kept ignoring those things it would just collapse into a thousand hard to pick up pieces.

Which was why it made it so important to have this talk now. Because the redhead had suffered so many losses in her life, so many cases of rejection and so many falls and so many rejections of love that Toni didn't know how much more the redhead might be able to take, and from what she had heard from the taller girl and those who had known her for longer than she did, Cheryl never had dealt with loss all so healthily. The tale of her suicide attempt and the way that she'd doused Thornhill in gasoline and threw an open flame on the floor just after that sprung to mind.

Well, how the fuck else was she supposed to have healthy, working hoping mechanisms with the way she had been raised?

Toni sighed, pushing that thought to the back of her head before looking back up to the redhead.

Say it as it is. Say it as you feel. There's no point hiding how you feel because, as mentioned before, it isn't going to do any wonders.

"I think you have a problem with the Poisons because for once I'm in charge of something and you're not."

She exhaled, waiting for the redhead to respond and watching in dread as her face twisted and she sat up straight on the bar stool with an expression she hadn't seen for a very long time.

And when she spoke... when she spoke, her words were no longer soft and sweet and caring, but full of malice and bitterness, so similar to how she'd been before that night at the cinema, the front back as strongly as ever. This whole mean girl facade they'd spent so much time trying to break down was built back up in an instance, and it was haunting, shaking Toni to the core as she watched on in horror. She shook her head in response.

"Cheryl, I love you."

The redhead shook her head and Toni bit her lip when she noticed the tears pooling in her eyes. The front was just what she knew it would be; a way for the redhead to try and shut her out from her emotions which would never fully work because both girls knew that Toni wasn't blind in any way.

"And yet?"

Noticing the pain radiating off the other girl, a sore reminder yet again of her experience of rejection and the negative reaction she was aware the redhead had during arguments, Toni didn't hesitate in softening her tone. There was no need for her not to.

"I can't spend all my time cooped up in that house, Cheryl," she sighed, "in your bedroom. It's not wh-"

"Our bedroom," the other girl exaggerated, a tear rolling down her cheek which she immediately brushed away but not before Toni could see it.

"And that's exactly it. It isn't our bedroom, Cheryl. It doesn't feel like it. It feels like it's entirely yours - your space, your things-"

"It sounds, Toni, that you regret moving in with me."

Nothing could have prepared Toni for that tone of voice which interrupted her with nothing short of a snap once again, all emotion seemingly gone and replaced with venom and anger which tried so hard to push her away, and it was making it so hard to continue the conversation which she'd hoped would remain neutral and calm (to some extent, at least) in the way she had hoped. Instead, Toni gazed down at her lap, her long hair acting as a shield from the other girl to stop her from looking up and changing the topic entirely to something nicer, something better, and just kept talking.

"Well, maybe it was too soon... too fast..."

She swallowed hard and kept her head down throughout the long pause between the two girls, still trying her hardest not to look up as she waited for the other girl's response. If she did, she'd say something to get them back to square one, leading them back to the tension between them now but with even more cracks and fissures in their relationship at that point and leaving more damage to repair.

"Well in that case, maybe moving out is exactly what needs to happen!" Cheryl snapped, pushing her chair out and starting to leave the speakeasy and Toni could only sit there unable to do anything else and fear and dread flooded her head, the door slamming behind the redhead as she stomped up the stairs, the words between them leaving both sides of the relationship feeling lonelier than they had ever felt before.

Cheryl spent most of the first night alone staring at Toni's pillow, reminiscing over the image of her wavy pink and brown hair splayed out on the red silk that she'd grown so used to recently. Now she was gone. She didn't know if she would see that beautiful sight again. She doubted it, really. She pushed everyone away. Nobody wanted to be with her. Toni was probably glad to have been given the chance to wash her hands of the redhead.

"You've never known love, Cheryl. Except to rip it apart."

Her mother was right. She always had been right. She had been the one to destroy what they had. She had been the one going around and acting so recklessly, so selfishly... so deviant.

That word made her burst into tears, a sob bubbling up from her chest and she let the tears run down her cheeks with no effort being made to wipe them away.

Toni used to wipe her tears away. Every time the redhead would have a flashback to when she was in the hands of that dreadful woman who had given birth to her. Every time she told Toni about something horrible her parents had done to her on those days where she just overthought every little unscrupulous detail. Every time she had woken up gasping for air after a nightmare, too broken and too afraid of her past to speak about the memories of that night she'd been assaulted by Nick St Clair, or those weeks she'd spent locked in the prison once called the Sisters Of Quiet Mercy and the corporal punishment she got for being in love with who she was.

And the person she loved was Toni. It had been then and it still was now, and she was sure that would never change. That's what hurt the most. That, and the way that it had all happened so quickly, so suddenly. One second Toni had been here, every second she could be, but then she'd been drifting away and now she was gone, god knows where, and Cheryl had never felt so lost and alone in her life; not even after Jason died, and not even when she found out that the person who had taken her twin away from her had been her own father, who had later killed himself...

No, Cheryl. No. What would Toni say?

She tried to think about the brunette again but it only ended with more tears, the redhead crying so hard now into the other girl's pillow that she couldn't breathe with how fast the sobs were coming out, so hard that her head began to throb from the dehydration. She hadn't bothered taking her makeup off and she knew that the pillows would be ruined and her skin would be dreadful in the morning because of it, but she didn't care. She couldn't care. After all, that was selfish considering she had been the one to drive her away. She drove everyone away. It was inevitable that the brunette would only be added to the list at some point.

Eventually exhaustion overwhelmed her and she fell into restless sleep on Toni's side of the bed.

Toni tossed and turned all night after their argument, occasionally reaching over to grab her phone and open up to Cheryl's messages, fingers hovering over the keyboard as she tried to find something to say but giving up when she realised it wouldn't be right to.

They needed this. They needed this break right now. They needed time apart to think over things and truly miss each other, a weak attempt to try and build themselves back up but a better attempt than they'd tried up until this point.

At least she had the knowledge that they were trying to fix things. That she'd got things off her chest, and that she could give the redhead time to think over them without being there to overwhelm her or rush her into a black or white decision. And the circumstances were shit, very shit, but if it meant that they could get less shit in the future then so much the better.

Maybe they had moved too quickly. They were only seventeen, after all. Still in high school with the pressures of college to creep up on them sooner or later, and that was overwhelming enough.

Those pressures already had. They'd been one of the turning points in their relationship recently; Cheryl's mothers distaste for her daughter's success and happiness and hopes and dreams leading her to take her anger out in a way that Toni didn't agree with. They were juniors, for god's sake, and Toni was already worried about what would happen when they got to college.

She hadn't bothered collecting her belongings from Thistlehouse because deep down she was hoping that would never need to happen; a delusional thought she wished would become more than a wish, already knowing full well that the best thing between them right now was space. After a few moments of panic as she locked up the speakeasy as she had promised Veronica earlier that night (thank the lord that Veronica had to go home early with Betty staying at hers for the time being or something like that, meaning that she immediately was trusted with a set of keys to the place to fulfill that job), Toni making extra sure to double check in case Cheryl decided to come by and work off her frustration over that night with that - she hated that she even had to consider that but did the even blame the girl? - the brunette had eventually decided to try her luck with her uncle until she found somewhere more stable and less of a risk to herself later on. He had let her in after the fourth bash of the door with a few comments and threats she was still trying to forget about which only exaggerated further how hastily she'd have to take up anything she could in regards to somewhere to stay. She was sure there wouldn't be a time that he wouldn't make her feel uneasy.

She thought about Cheryl. She considered calling her again when she realised that how shit she probably felt right now, but she had an inkling that she wouldn't answer to her tonight so there really was very little point. She'd be going to her house in the morning before school, anyway. In the end, she pulled the stained duvet tighter over her and tried to go to sleep with an ear open for her uncle, just in case his drunken habits got the better of him.

God, without Cheryl she was here, putting herself in danger once again. If this was the case for her, she dreaded to think just how much the redhead wasn't holding up.

She collected her stuff the next morning. Cheryl was there in her bedroom the whole time, a book in her hands and her eyes angled straight at the words on the page, but both girls knew that nothing would be going on. Toni knew that every time she turned back to the wardrobe, Cheryl would look at her. She could feel her eyes burning into her spine. She tried her hardest to ignore the pain she felt with that.

Neither of them wanted this, and that was written in black ink which stained the shattered pieces of their relationship which had crumbled just like that, but at the time time it had happened, it was continuing like this, and neither girl was speaking against what had happened. Mainly because Toni's gesture at fixing things between them - or at least trying to fix things between them - and Cheryl had found herself going right into flight mode (gratitude to Clifford and Penelope Blossom for making that her typical response to things in the home) rather than fight mode, fighting for this relationship to stick together, had been the thing which had turned the fractures in their relationship into one clean break.

Communication turned out not to be their strong point and no other strong as steel factors could make up for that in a relationship. Considering both of their far than perfect pasts, communication was needed beyond the norm for any other couple.

Toni swallowed hard in the memory of that time she tried to bring up the topic of Cheryl perhaps seeking a therapist after one of her more recent 'episodes'. The redhead had shut down the idea immediately. She'd shut down that idea every single time it came up.

Of course she did. She'd spent her life being told something was wrong with her by her mother regarding her sexuality so of course Toni's concern for her actual mental health was rejected in the same way. She didn't blame her. Nobody could. And as far as the redhead knew, there was no difference between 'therapy' and 'conversion therapy', regardless of how many times Toni would tell her that she'd never let her go back to that place or any place like that, and how many times Cheryl told her that she knew that she wouldn't.

Toni sniffled and blinked back tears at the memory of what had happened just over a year ago now. She'd spent hours leaving voice messages over the period she was gone for, telling her that she'd never be alone again, holding her close as they cried together every night for weeks after that ordeal. And now she was alone. They both were alone now. They were broken up and no longer living together. They'd wake up alone, the other side of the bed (or any piece of furniture which was free in Toni's case) cold and empty, a reminder of what had once been there but no longer was. Cheryl wouldn't have anyone to comfort her after a particularly bad nightmare and-

"Are you sure you're going to be okay on your own?" she asked quietly, unsure what to say but not wanting to say nothing. Toni watched as Cheryl kept her eyes glued to the page of her book, unable to miss the tears which were trailing down the girl's cheeks which broke her heart even more than it already was.

"I'll be fine," the redhead replied monotonously.

Hauntingly monotonously.

If they were still together Toni would have called her out on bullshit, but right now... right now she just couldn't. They couldn't face another deadly confrontation after all the other ones had done no good.

"Well, if you need anything, just text me," Toni said softly, pursing her lips and trying to blink away the tears which threatened to fall, "or Veronica, or Josie, or Archie or-"

"I'm fine."

No, Cheryl, you're not fine. Because if I'm not fine then you're definitely not fine. This whole front emphasises that, not to mention her puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks giving away that major clue.

She turned back, glancing at the empty part of her wardrobe where her clothes had once hung, now a spare rail which would probably end up filled again soon with something probably to do with Cheryl, before zipping up her duffel bag and flinging it over her shoulder.

"Well, remember what I said at least."

Another silence. Toni took that as her prompt to leave. Everything about the redhead's body language told her that she wasn't welcome here. She stopped in the doorway, soaking up their room for one last time before exhaling a deep breath and promptly leaving.

Because the thing was, it wasn't even their room anymore. And had it ever been their room, or had it just been Cheryl's room which she lived in? It was hard to tell.

There you are, Topaz - another home you're no longer welcome to live in.

But this time, it hurt more than anything. Because she still loved the girl she was leaving here. She didn't think she'd ever stop loving her. Maybe she'd have to try to stop loving her. That was the part that hurt the most.

As the door slammed, the key not turning this time because it had been left on the the redhead's bedside table rather than remaining in the brunette's hand - another reminder that her ex-girlfriend was exactly that now, Cheryl dropped the book she'd been pretending to read, curled into a ball and the floodgates opened once again.

A musical seemed like a good way for the redhead to conceal her pain. Some stupid play being performed by some stupid cult which the school was for some reason allowing to function more than gangs which didn't really, well, gang anymore, and, well, Cheryl wasn't going to let that happen. Thankfully, Kevin didn't need much persuasion; apparently nobody messed with her after she had endured some sort of emotional pain. Nobody messed with her any other time, really, but now?

Now was just like when Jason had died. Like when his body had been found by Kevin himself, in fact, and she was pretty sure that was one of the reasons why he was being lax on her now. Like after that night at the open house... with... with Nick. Like with the Sisters Of Quiet Mercy...

It had been just after the Sisters Of Quiet Mercy that she'd announced to him that she would be taking the role of Carrie White in the innocent school extracurricular turns musical of nightmares. Her and Toni had kissed that night. She was dealing with emotional trauma those weeks where the musical was being rehearsed and her lead role was one of the main things keeping her going then, stopping her from thinking too deeply about the things which had happened recent to then. Until they weren't. The sandbag incident had resulted in the memories flooding back. Her mother had taken the musical from her grasp. It hadn't been perfect, or anywhere near perfect looking back on the events of opening night and the load of shit which came following that, but playing the role of Carrie White had been a coping mechanism for her through one of the darkest chapters of her life. That, and Toni, of course...

But this year she didn't have Toni. The lack of Toni in fact was the reason behind her pain right now. But maybe the musical would fill the hole in her heart that Toni had left. Like it had been a distraction for her after the Sisters Of Quiet Mercy, a chance to prove that she was doing okay when really she was just dying inside... Toni had only played a minor role last year with much persuasion from her girlfriend and Fangs who had been co-producing or whatever... she hadn't seen her name on the sign up sheets...

That was it. The musical would be a distraction. Learning her lines, going to rehearsals, etc. were all things which didn't involve Toni in physical form, or Cheryl thinking about Toni, or anything to do with Toni for a matter of fact. Or at least that was the case until it wasn't.

"What the fuck?" Cheryl yelled the second she had digested Kevin's words of introduction and taken in the image of her ex-girlfriend on stage (the 'ex' part still made her heart throb with pain she couldn't get to simmer down and she was sure at this stage that the pain would never leave her, but she had to at least pretend that it would because there were a dozen other individuals in this room and she couldn't break down in front of any of them, especially not Toni). She tensed up immediately, shooting her head back from Toni to Kevin's direction quick enough to give her whiplash but not before giving the shorter girl the deadliest glare she had ever given. "Kevin, what the fuck is she do-"

Kevin raised a hand to try and calm the redhead, which clearly wasn't going to do the job but anyhow- "I asked her, Cheryl, and she said yes. We needed a River Vixen who wasn't already playing a significant part in the play who would be capable of the job and-"

Cheryl felt her heart clench tighter together as her head snapped back to Toni, not even bothering to listen to what Kevin had to say, the pain taking over her beginning to become to much and she didn't know how much more of this she could take... she'd done this... she'd demanded this musical as a way to forget Toni at it had failed... just like her attempts to fix it with Toni...

The redhead gritted her teeth.

"No," she repeated with as much power as she could muster, struggling to keep her voice calm and steady. "No. Kevin, I'm not dealing with this. I'm not dealing with her playing any role in this musical, am I clear?"

Out of the corner of her eye she could still see Toni stood there on stage, her expression which had only a minute ago been cheery and optimistic - god, how, though? How was she coping? Did she even care? - had turned upside down, the brunette now stood there on the stage awkwardly, clearly not keen on being the centre of attention in such a negative occasion, staring down at her script and not looking at Cheryl at all.

"Cheryl, if you want to play Heather Chandler in this, you will have to put your differences apart," Kevin continued firmly, "you won't get anywhere if you don't co-operate. If you're going to have this attitude then I have no motives to let you fulfil your role and it will be passed down to someone else..."

He was taking the role away from her. He couldn't take her role away from her. No... no, no, no...

She bit down hard on her lip as tears sprung to her eyes and in a split second decision she stood up, grabbing her bag before shooting Toni, who was standing there seemingly shell-shocked a glare, and she stormed out of the theatre, Kevin's calls after her going in one ear and going out the other.

No... no, no, this couldn't be happening...

The rest of the rehearsal went on as scheduled, Cheryl's disappearance apparently not affecting Kevin and Evelyn's plans in any significant way. They read through their lines. Evelyn filled in for Cheryl, much to Toni's distaste - that girl was definitely not a quarter as innocent as she seemed and she didn't like the way she was getting so involved in this musical - and that was when Toni knew that the only personal suitable for the role was in fact Cheryl... nothing else seemed right. Nothing else was right...

God, she'd ruined that for the redhead now as well.

She spent most of the first rehearsal staring at that piece of masking tape on the floor in front of her chair, barely listening to the others as they went through their lines as she tried to think of something to help the situation. Thank god her character only had, like, two lines.

Kevin sighed as he watched the cast pack up at the end of rehearsal, making his way towards Toni with a pitiful expression and a comment about him talking to Cheryl or something. She nodded, already feeling like the centre of attention. It wasn't easy when you only had two friends in the musical. Was friends even the right word? More like acquaintances, really. Besides that there were three serpents, two of whom had been her best friends forever and just weren't anymore, gone just like that from something stupid she'd done, just like her girlfriend had gone with one simple, half-hearted, reluctantly spoken comment. She had been the reason why Cheryl had spiralled and fled just now. And she felt shit about it.

Because she was probably the only one in this room who knew that act wasn't just about Cheryl going off on one, some tantrum of kinds to try and get Kevin to give her her own way. It wasn't like that at all. Toni knew that there was something deeper than that. The fact that she had probably caused the other girl to run away from the scene of action, flight mode in full swing, heading to god knows where right now, which made her feel sick with guilt.

What made her feel even more sick was the fact that she couldn't just follow her, run after her and comfort her. They were no longer together and that was taking a lot out of both of them, things which would usually be solved between them.

It was a fucking stupid idea to drive home in the state she was, Cheryl knew it. She'd barely given her the time to catch her breath before reversing out of her parking lot and heading straight for Thistlehouse, barely even acknowledging how much she hated it there without Toni, how much pain those suffocating walls filled her with due to all the memories she'd shared with Toni there...

Many of those memories had been good... more recently they had been bad, but even more had been good... good memories...

But these walls around her were suffocating, and not in the 'downsized from Thornhill', selfish, privileged bitch sort of way. She'd laid in bed all of last night thinking about how they spent most of their time there, most of the time in that in Cheryl's bedroom, so much time together spent on that bed...

She parked her car and darted straight to the front door, having already made a plan to head immediately in the direction of her bedroom, her one remaining safe space, once again (Toni had been the other) a sob caught in her throat which she had to keep in as not to worry Nana Rose and burden her with her relationship troubles until she was out of hearing distance, but she'd barely locked the door when she heard a floorboard creek behind her.

She spun around and the air was knocked from her lungs by the person stood in front of her-

Her mother grinned wickedly at her daughter, smirking at her before stepping closer, the teen stepping back with the movement.

"I heard about your devastating breakup with that girl you were with. News really does fly in this town."

Cheryl whimpered. She hadn't seen her mother for a while - not for the past few weeks at least. She hadn't been alone with her mother since - damn - last musical. And that had been fine. She was emancipated now, free from her 'care' if you could even call it that. With every interaction since she'd had Toni by her side, and that had given her the strength and moral support she had needed to face her mother.

And now she wasn't.

Toni wasn't here, she probably never would be again, and here she was, on the verge of another mental breakdown, her mother just inches away from her face now and she was alone.

"W-what are you doing h-here?" she asked with a trembling voice, unable to meet her mother's gaze as her heart thumped in her chest, her throat starting to close up. "What... h-how did you get in?"

She was trembling, her whole body shaking in fear triggered by the older woman.

"That is not a topic of your concern," Penelope smirked. "I purely came along to see how you were doing after such a tragedy, as you might exaggerate. You are still my daughter after all."

She was... she was her daughter, and Penelope was her mother, but that didn't make her a good mother by any means and it didn't mean that she got to fulfil those roles of motherly duties just when she wanted to.

"Get out."

Cheryl struggled to get the words out, her throat closing up and making it impossible to speak. And, of course, Penelope clearly wanted to take advantage of that scenario.

"I only just got here, Cheryl. And I made tea. You cannot ask me to leave, surely?"

It was a blur but Cheryl found herself sat on the settee opposite her mother, refusing to drink the tea she had brewed after what happened last time her mother had made tea for a Blossom as well as the whispers sounding around town that a few Blossom family deaths weren't so tragic as they seemed, still shaking and still holding back tears as her mother smirked.

"I did warn you, Cheryl," Penelope said cruelly, "that girl was always going to leave you. It's what people like her do. She was always going to break your heart one day, Cheryl, and that's what you failed to believe."

The redhead's eyes were welling with tears which were bound to fall at some point. She swallowed hard.

"Toni loves me."

Penelope cackled. "Loves you? She loves you, Cheryl? You do make me laugh."

For the first time in a long time, her mother was making her feel like nothing. Her mother was taking power over her and her feelings and Cheryl just didn't have the energy to stop it, the tears finally falling and she couldn't be bothered to wipe them away.

It was pointless. This was all pointless. Life was pointless. It wasn't worth living without anyone to live for... life wasn't worth it without Toni, and now Toni was never coming back...

"You're delirious," the older woman continued with a scoff. "You really believe that girl loves you? I did warn you, Cheryl, but you ignored me. Now look at you!" Penelope paused. "Or was it you who drove her away?"

Those words stung even more. Those words were the truth. She shook her head as a sob was pulled from her chest, and she tried to speak but the words just weren't coming out... she couldn't... she couldn't fucking answer to her mother, her mother was winning...

She'd right, Cheryl. She's right. You drove Toni away. You were the one suffocating her, going against everything she said, refusing to acknowledge your problems, and you drove her away. You drove the one person who ever loved you, who ever had faith in you, who ever wanted to be by your side, away.

Did she even love her? Did Toni love her? Or-

"You're loveless, Cheryl," Penelope growled in such a way that Cheryl proceeded to cover her ears with her hands and shut her eyes tightly. "You're incapable of love, and you tried to disguise that... you tried to disguise that by choosing to love a girl, for goodness sake, rather than a boy!"

She's lying, Cheryl. You know that she's lying, so why are you listening to her? She's just trying to hurt you... she's doing this to make you suffer even more than you already have...

And it continued like that. Ten minutes of torture, hands over her hears and doing everything in her power to not listen but still never being shielded enough from her words, them still going into her head and messing with her. Ten minutes of her mother tormenting her, breaking her down, right down, right to the bottom where she could no longer bear it anymore and running to her bedroom, screaming at her mother to get the hell out of her house through her tears before collapsing on the bed and crying her whole damn heart out.

She was broken... she was loveless... she was deviant. She wasn't sensational; that had been a lie she had been telling herself for too long now.

For some reason she said yes to Evelyn's mystery invitation to the cast of the musical production to the farm. She didn't have an inkling as to why she said yes. She assumed that it would perhaps be a distraction from Toni or something like that, even though she knew the point of it was as some random get-together and that Toni would definitely be there.

Apparently the part of the sentence mentioning the Sisters Of Quiet Mercy had also gone ignored. Either that or she had been out of her mind when that part had been uttered.

Not too surprising then, she thought to herself.

You're crazy. You're crazy, and stupid, and deviant, and loveless. You drive people - everyone - away.

At some point she had left the room Kevin and Betty and Evelyn and everyone else had been in, nobody noticing since she'd been sat on the sidelines the entire time with everyone else just ignoring her anyway, and found herself wandering down the halls of the old asylum.

She walked and walked, no clue where she was going or what horrors she could find there, until she got to a corridor which was all too familiar to her in the most horrible, disturbing way imaginable.

"You poor child..."

She swallowed hard, shaking her head quickly and trying to disregard that thought as quickly as it arrived, but she was long gone.

The movie theatre with that projected which cracked like a whip was to her left.

Underneath her feet was where she used to haul sandbags, day in, day out.

She whimpered, biting the inside of her lips so hard that she tasted blood on her tongue.

"You don't have to be afraid..."

But she was afraid. She was afraid, and that level of fear peaked, leaving her out of breath and gasping for air, the sounds of her sobs echoing off the high ceilings, and she began to shake violently, so violently that her knees couldn't hold her weight anymore and she collapsed against the wall with a loud cry, pulling her knees up to her chest and just breaking down.

She couldn't fucking breathe...

"Cheryl?"

It's a flashback... remember, right behind the wall behind your back was where she rescued you... you kissed there... and now you're alone, and that's all you're fault, and you're imagining all of this...

That was until she felt a hand on her shoulder, and she sobbed even louder.

It wasn't real. I couldn't be real. No... it was a delusion. This place... it did that... it made you imagine things, like the stained and mouldy walls were just there for your insanity to rebound off, smacking back into you like the hand of one of the nuns... the nuns now haunting the whole place...

"Cheryl? Cheryl, oh my god-"

She couldn't open her eyes. She couldn't. She didn't want to. What if when she opened them she was greeted with a lie? She couldn't deal with that. This place... this place, it messed with people's heads, it messed with her head, it was fucking torture.

She heard footsteps running further down the fall and she flinched away harshly.

No.

"Hey-" she heard that familiar voice beside her once again but the echoes and how loud it was told her that the other person wasn't talking to her. "Hey, stay back, give her space... she- she's frightened."

This isn't real... this isn't real, she'd not there, you broke up... she broke up with you, or you broke up with her, or... either way, she doesn't want you anymore.

Cheryl felt like she was going to throw up or pass out from her lack of oxygen.

"Cheryl, please," the voice in front of her encouraged. "You're okay. You're okay... breathe... in and out, hm? You're okay... it's alright, you're safe, I promise... please just open your eyes..."

She sounded like she was underwater, her heart thumping in her ears and her stomach in her throat-

"Open your eyes, honey, please, it's me..."

Her voice was so soft... she'd missed it. She's missed Toni's voice... god, what would she do if this suddenly wasn't real?

She opened her eyes after a few moments, still trembling but somehow mustering the courage to try and get out of that state.

Cheryl choked on another sob the second the saw the face of her ex-girlfriend and the tears in her eyes as she gazed at her.

"T-"

"Shh... breathe, Cheryl."

The redhead continued to cry, this time tears of relief more than anything, relief that she wasn't alone, relief that she wasn't alone is this horrible place. She still couldn't function but it didn't seem all that impossible to now that she wasn't alone.

"You're okay... you're okay, I promise, we're getting you out of here right now, shh..."

Toni glanced back down the corridor, giving the person at the end of it a nod, Cheryl following her eyes until through the tears she could make out the bleary figure of Archie Andrews walking briskly over to her, the concern mixed with relief written on his face a mirror image to that day at the river...

She'd been thinking about that day a lot recently...

Toni clearly picked up on her quickening pants for air, rubbing her hand up and down Cheryl's arm comfortingly and continuing to try and hush the redhead and calm her breathing, Archie now at the brunettes side and trying to offer support as well. When she was a little more stable, no longer gasping for the oxygen which her lungs refused to take in, he helped Cheryl stand on shaking legs, eventually giving in to carrying her bridal style out this corridor, out of the building, and gently resting her on the backseat of his truck with Toni jumping in alongside, but to Cheryl that was all a hysterical blur, her eyes shut half the time to try and keep out any of those god awful memories.

She shifted to Toni's side once again, and the shorter girl enveloped her in a hug before exhaustion began to pull down on her eyelids and she dozed off just as Archie turned the ignition.

Cheryl hated the way she would clutch to people in times like this, at her most vulnerable.

One of the main reasons for that was that when she did, the other person would only give her what she needed for a short while before going off in the end. It had happened so many times before. Jason was the first which came to mind. He had been her only light, and then he had left... died... been brutally murdered. The next was probably Veronica. Veronica had been the only person she had bothered texting before she dragged her body out to the frozen river which ran along the town and gave it its name, and the only person who had been there for her... and then she'd left just like everyone else had, gone to the jubilee as if it had never happened. She was still her friend, sure, but she wasn't enough.

Until Toni had come into her life. And she'd stayed the longest. For so much of that time the redhead hadn't for a second doubted that she could leave, but as times got tougher she began to doubt what they had even more. Every single little bicker felt like the very end for the redhead, like this world was ending, that there wouldn't be anything left for her anymore...

It had taken Toni a while to understand that in full. She always had a feeling that something like that was going on in the other girl's head, but it wasn't until recently that she'd begun to realise the extent of it - the extent of the damage caused as a result of being raised in the Blossom household.

The redhead gazed down sadly at the mug of hot chocolate in her hand which Archie had made before he headed back to the Sisters Of Quiet Mercy to see what trouble the rest of the cast was up to... Toni didn't even want to know, judging by the calamity she'd looked over earlier before she realised Cheryl was nowhere to be seen, which had in turn led to this right now.

This... the two girls sat on the four-poster bed in Cheryl's bedroom, Cheryl sat with the covers pulled up to her waist, and Toni sat opposite her at the end of the bed cross-legged. It felt just like before but at the same time, not.

Of course it wasn't the same. The second to last time they'd been in this room together it had been as girlfriends, and now, well, they weren't. And quite frankly none of the reasons - if you could even call them that - behind the case seemed valid.

This whole break up didn't make any sense. Was it even a break up? Toni thought it hadn't been intended as that, and it was literally just a discussion about what was happening that had caused it... and what the hell had been happening between them?

But of course Cheryl saw it as a break up, because that was all she had known. Abandonment was all the redhead had ever know.

"We need to talk..." Toni hesitated. "What's been going on? What happened between us?"

The redhead shrugged, refusing to meet the other girl's gaze until Toni leaned over and placed a finger under her chin. She sighed.

"I'm not leaving... I'm not leaving until you let me in. I can't let you go over something so petty like whatever the hell we've even been arguing about - was there even a reason for that? - when I love you the way I do."

Cheryl shrugged.

"I thought you were leaving me..." she croaked out, tears welling in her eyes as she averted her gaze again. "I thought y-you didn't want to be with my anymore, that I had p-pushed you away or- or you didn't love me-"

The brunette felt her heart break as Cheryl finished with a heart-wrenching sob and she pulled the redhead close to her chest, hushing her as she cried.

"I love you," she told the redhead firmly. "I love you, and I always have loved you, and it's impossible to even try and stop loving you. I'm not leaving any time soon so please, Cheryl, you have to stop pushing me away and ending conversations or acting the way you have instead of just talking to me. I'm here to listen, whatever it is, and you know that."

Cheryl whimpered out her apologies and confessions of love and more apologies like a mantra, each apology disregarded by Toni with a simple shake of her head which the redhead could feel but the 'I love you's she soaked up, each one feeling just like the first time.

"Shh... hey, I'm here now. I'm here. You're not- you'll never be alone again, Cheryl-"

You're not alone. Not ever again.

So much fucking deja-vu, everything blurring into one from the exhaustion and the alcohol and the euphoria of their pure and unlost love, but the sensation of her lips of Cheryl's felt so far from that stage of mind in every damn incredible way possible, and slowly but surely the cracks in their hearts and their relationship and their individual selves began to bind back together, stronger than ever, with the knowledge that nothing would easily break what they had.