A/N: All I have to say, is thank you for those of you sticking with me. You guys are the best, really.

I found I'm scared to know
I'm always on your mind

I would've thought she'd take the time to drive out of the city, there was a gentle determined look on her face that I hadn't noticed in awhile, making various turns without even stopping to check street names, giving me the impression wherever we were going, it was somewhere she went often. There's a band I don't recognize on the radio, and the soft noise in the background calms my heartbeat as I lean back in my seat and resign my tense shoulders; as soon as I do so, her hand lightly squeezes mine. I turn, her eyes are focused on the road. She pulls into a vacant lot of an even more desolate remnant of a park; I try to see what she sees before her hand leaves mine as she wordlessly parks and walks to the still green grass.

If I could, I'd ask her what she sees, what possibly pulled her to this lost child's dream of a playground, out of all the places we could've gone instead. I'm far from complaining, I just wanted to get away, but I can't help but wonder where she wanted to run to. But I can't voice any of these things, so I just follow behind.

Once Manny reaches a dome-shaped jungle gym she turns around to face me, most of the - from what I'm sure, previously bright and vivid - red paint scratched and worn off throughout the years, the cold metallic bars looking nothing close to comfortable. Her silent question makes me shake my head in response almost immediately; I hate heights, even of the little kid variety. I'm sure she's about to say, "I won't let you fall" like anyone else would - but she? She purses her lips and runs a hand through her hair before replying.

"It's gonna hurt if you fall. Everything worthwhile does, but that's why you try."

It's that, if anything else, that makes me take my first step onto the structure, hoisting myself up and taking my time up; Manny scales it with ease, like really anyone else should be able to do, but she keeps her unspoken promise and watches my every move into ascent, and soon my legs are tucked to my chest with my arms wrapped around them. When I face her, I shake my bangs out of my eyes so I can see her properly, or maybe I'm letting her see me. I want to ask. I could, maybe, but would is another question. It's terrifying to have your control taken from you, but I think here, now, is one of those moments where having control of your every action is even more terrifying.

"My dad..." Manny trails off, clearing her throat before continuing, and I sharply take into note every waver of her tone; she hardly ever mentions her home life, and there are whispers, whispers in school corridors that never fully fade. "My dad used to take me here when I was little. He never let me climb up, he said he was too scared I'd fall and hurt myself." She laughs quietly at this, and it's one of those laughs, I think, that hurts more than it frees. "So I'd just make sure he wouldn't see whenever his back was turned, but one day he turned around and I was so surprised at someone seeing me, I fell," a beat of a pause, and I can feel the corners of her lips turn up in a wry smile, "Stay with me here, Darce, my reminiscing has a moral."

I want to nod but all that's running through my head is that she called me Darce, and though she has before it just strikes me now that it's different from how Spinner ever said it.

"Anyway," she carries on, and the amused look has faded from her soft features, "the whole point of the story isn't about a nine year old needing a cast 'cause she didn't listen to her dad. I never even thought about falling until he saw me, and I realized it's easier, so much easier, to take the risk when no one's around to watch." I can't even tell where she's getting at, because no one's been around here for years, I'm sure, but she's here with me, and her eyes on me means more than a hundred. She notices though, always seems to be able to notice the barest flicker of confusion in my slightly furrowed brow, and she answers me without speaking.

She closes her eyes. My breath hitches. And she's said a million things just by the fluttering of her eyelids.

I could do anything now, and Manny knows that. I could slip and break my neck, or trace the jagged cuts in my wrist with my nails. Those are the things everyone else worries about, would worry about if they were here with me, and they wouldn't take their eyes off me in their watch. Loving, but careful. Cautious. And somehow, in the middle of a child's playground, Manny manages to untie the constraining ropes and make the simplest task like climbing a jungle gym feel like I'm scaling Mount Everest. I could do anything. My head spins with scenario after scenario, and it's only when I release my hold from my knees and turn my body to face her, that my mind freezes but the rest of me feels ignited.

I could kiss her.

The thought is alien and comforting at the same time, thrilling but the most horrible idea ever, because that's not me. That thought, those four words that had just so easily slipped into my mind like the rise and fall of my lungs receiving oxygen, it's unwelcome. But it stays anyway, unrepentant and glaringly proud in all display. It's different, more different than I could ever learn to accept within myself, but the dark brown eyes hidden right now make me want to - No. I swallow painfully, shutting down the thought in its tracks.

I don't do much, to be honest. My hand speaks for me as I cup her cheek, letting my thumb brush against soft skin. It warms under my touch, a slight flush of the faintest pink on lightly tanned skin. My heartbeat picks up, not mocking me, encouraging me. I barely notice it either way, but her eyes are still closed and I don't know any other way to get my message across. "Open your eyes," I request, and it shocks me just as much her at how firm my voice is. How sure I really am.

"I want you to see me."

Her eyes open and Manny exhales a shaky breath. "Okay," she says, and my heart doesn't fail to keep stuttering. She catches my hand and holds it there, her hand around mine.

We stay like that until nightfall, looking at each other like our eyes are daring us but our bodies don't dare betray us.