I was listening to the Mass Effect 3 sound track while writing this. Powerful music. Brings me to tears every time. Heartbreaking. This is named after a song from the OST. Please listen to it. Please.

It is far too easy for me to write AT fanfics. It just comes out so easily. Just like that.

It was raining. Pouring. The sky seemed to be bawling, trying to flood the entire world and wash away everything. Maybe it wanted a fresh start; maybe it wanted a clean slate. Maybe it knew her heart was breaking and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

The cold chilled her to the bone and the wind cut through her coat like it was threadbare, but neither of them were what made her shiver uncontrollably. She held in the tears through a force of will she never even knew she had. This couldn't be happening. Her eyes had to be deceiving her. Surely. Not.

No.

But the woman before her didn't cry. She didn't say anything. She didn't even smile. Bonnie already missed her smile. It was the kind of smile that warmed her soul and made her tingle. Her friend's eyes were sad, but she didn't cry, just looked mournfully at Bonnie and stood there. In the doorway to her balcony. Waiting.

She was drenched, but she didn't come in. And Bonnie didn't ask her in. She clutched at her dress, hands knotted so painfully in the fabric that her knuckles creaked. She wanted to speak, to say something, anything. But the words wouldn't come. They couldn't get out past the lump in her throat. She couldn't speak for the dryness in the back of her mouth. She could barely stand for the wobbling in her legs.

Had she really said those things? Had they really argued over something so stupid? Had she actually used those words?

Yes.

Yes she had. And it killed her. Her stomach felt like a hole, a hole through which everything was being sucked.

"I'm sorry," she finally whispered. Her heart thudded so loudly in her chest it hurt. Her chest hurt. Like a thousand spears were being plunged into it repeatedly. She couldn't breathe. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes but she blinked them back stubbornly. "I'm sorry."

The words weren't enough and she knew it. Nothing would ever be enough.

"I can't stay Bonnie," her friend murmured. Her eyes were mesmerising, even now. Even after all this time they captivated her. They made her heart tremble and her soul weep. They shouldn't look so sad, that expression didn't sit right in their crimson depths. "You told me so yourself."

"I didn't mean it."

"Yes you did. We both know you did." She sighed. The rain kept falling on her but she didn't care. What did the dead care for a little rain? "We've both known I couldn't stay. I can't stay and you can't tell them. Vampires aren't allowed in the Candy Kingdom."

That's right. They weren't. A law had been passed. No vampires. Execution on sight for any who ignored it.

There were words she'd been meaning to say. Words she'd never been able to say. Words that would now, never be said. Not aloud.

"I don't hate you," Bonnie said. "I'll never hate you." That was the closest she'd ever come to those words. And that wasn't ok. It could never be ok.

Marceline smiled. It wasn't a real smile, but it was crooked in the way Bonnibel loved. The way that made her heart skip a beat.

"I don't hate you either, Bonnie," she replied. That sorrow in her eyes was the worst. She wanted to run over to her friend and wrap her arms around her and never let go. But she couldn't move. "I could never hate you. No matter what."

"One day…" she didn't finish that sentence. There wouldn't be a 'one day'. Not unless, by some miracle, every last person in the kingdom forgot about how the vampires had run rampant for years, killing as they saw fit. A new monarch couldn't change the peoples' minds. No one even knew who that monarch was. Or what their Rule had been. "Will you visit?" she said instead.

Marceline shook her head. "No, Bonnie. I won't be back."

Her heart cracked.

How could she live without her best friend?

"You never break a promise…" Her throat was clogged, full of wool and pain. "I'll miss you." That was three words. They were the wrong three words.

The smile on Marceline's face wavered and for a moment it looked as if she'd changed her mind. There was no more smile. She lifted off the ground slowly as if every inch she moved was agonising, as if every inch was one she hoped would take her closer to Bonnie. It never did.

"I'll miss you too, Glasses." Her voice cracked and suddenly Bonnibel was convinced that it wasn't just rain running down her friend's cheeks. There were tears there. Then they were leaking down Bonnie's cheeks too and she finally managed to step towards the balcony.

"No, Bonnie," she said, floating up over the railing. "Not this time." Bonnibel froze and they were there like that for a long moment. Just staring at each other and crying. Bonnie felt her jaw drop. Reality slugged her hard in the stomach and she gasped for air. This was actually happening.

"Goodbye, Princess."

Marceline shot out into the rain without a backwards glance.

With a cry of anguish she'd never known she raced out into the downpour after her friend. The rain swallowed up Marceline's shadow and she disappeared. Bonnie stood there, grasping the railing between icy fingers for what felt like hours, waiting for Marceline to come back. To come back and tell her it was just a joke. Marceline always came back. Always.

But the rain didn't let up and the best friend she'd ever had didn't return.

The tears finally got the best of her and she broke down, crying so hard it hurt. It hurt from her eyes, to the back of her rasping throat, right down to her stomach. It hurt her knees when she hit the tiles hard, it hurt her fingers as they scrabbled in the wet, it hurt her head as it crashed against the railing.

But most of all, it hurt as her heart splintered into a thousand tiny pieces.

It hurt knowing that those three words she'd said weren't the ones she'd wanted to speak. It was agonising. Her heart stopped beating.

"I love you," she cried into her sodden dress. But Marceline wasn't there to hear it and she still didn't come back. She never would. Marceline always kept her word.

Bonnibel lay there on the tiles for hours, completely ignoring the rain. She lay there mourning a loss so great it was incomprehensible even to her mind. She was still lying among the tatters of her heart hours later, when the rain finally stopped.

The moon rose, bright and full. It made her heart wail, it made her throat clench. The moon.

Marceline wasn't coming back.

She kept crying.