Her:

The last straw was drawn around the time that they, in all their disgustingly cheerful optimism, berated her for her so-called "gloomy attitude towards everything".

After everything that had happened, she expected for them to leave some room for sad feelings, but no – there would be no such thing as negative feelings in their family, absolutely not.

She liked to think of her so-called gloomy attitude as realism, rather than a cluster of dark, depressing thoughts that collected in the back of her skull. That was how they liked to think of her disposition. She, Sabrina Grimm, was a harsh, cold-hearted statue. A sharpened-knife. The rain on their freaking wonderful parade. No matter what brave, noble thing she did, they would always shake their heads at her for the way she still sniffed her food for poisoning during dinner. Or how she got up in the middle of the night three times to check and see if the doors were locked. They couldn't understand how, after the terrible war was finished, she was still worrying over everything.

"Everyone is safe and happy, liebling. Why are you so gloomy at the world? You walk around the house with that frown on your face, all the time." Sweet, kind, misguided Granny Relda. To her, anything could be cured with a sunny attitude and purple pasta. Sure, Granny lived through rough times; they all did. But somehow, with her age came an invisible shield that blocked out all depressing spirits, leaving her in her current state: alive, happy, and immune to anything gloomy. Which sucked, since that was all she seemed to be these days: a walking gloomy machine cycling on repeat.

She knew the rest of them felt the same way about her. Her own family, practically estranged from her through a wall that divided them from achieving a truly perfect life. Daphne had always resented her for her overprotectiveness. That was understandable; Daphne was still young and naïve. She could forgive Daphne for hating her and her depressing presence. She'd hate herself too if she saw herself when she was eight years old and still loved fairy tales.

Her parents, on the other hand, were another story. Parents were supposed to realize that their kids weren't going to stay young and blissfully carefree forever. Yet even her no-nonsense father stopped trying to sympathize with her. The war had the complete opposite effect on him than it had on her; rather than becoming more cautious, he began glancing at the world through a kaleidoscope lens, just like the rest of them. The normally stubborn mule of Henry Grimm was reduced to a passive man who agreed to the words his wife uttered. What Veronica Grimm said was law, and that was that.

And her once insightful mother no longer quite understood her. She knew what resilient Veronica Grimm would say to her now if she got the chance. "Honey, it's alright to be moody or sad sometimes, but after a while, you're going to have to toughen up and look on the bright side. Gain some perspective. I mean, think of how lucky we are to be in this position right now. The town is rebuilding, our family is together again, and we've got a brand new house with three times the amount of security locks we had before!"

The problem wasn't that she wasn't ungrateful for her life; she wasn't pessimistic because she was ungrateful. She was just pessimistic because that was who she was, and that was how she coped.

Also, more security locks sounded more like a bigger headache than a blessing. Seriously, it just made life harder, especially if there was a bathroom emergency involved. And living with Daphne and Puck ensured that one would occur at one moment or another.

The last straw however, was not spent because of Granny Relda or Daphne or her parents or anyone else she expected to make her snap. No, the actual last straw was thrown down the gutter when the stupidest, most pig-headed of them all intercepted her on her way back from buying groceries. The town already had rebuilt what its residents considered to be the essentials: a miniscule grocery store, a gas station, and a three-story coffee house complete with every flavor of jellied donut and variety of coffee bean imaginable.

She set her load of groceries on the grass, pulled out an enormous ring of keys (which had unfortunately become twice as heavy than before) and dejectedly began what she knew would be an hour of unlocking an ungodly amount of locks. Halfway through the thirtieth lock, she saw a strand of her hair move from a stray breeze out of the corner of her eye. Immediately she dropped the keys in her grasp, twirled a bag filled with dog food around her wrist like a lasso, and whirled around to meet a soul-sucking giant-eating beast of a terrifying proportion. Instead she faced something similar: a fair-haired teenage boy-fairy in a filthy green hoodie, doubled over in laughter. A monster of some sort, indeed.

She swore and threw her hastily made weapon on the ground. "Seriously Puck?"

The disgusting boy in question was now rolling around on the grass, staining his hoodie a new shade of green. "Can't. Help it," he gasped in between his giggles. "You're. Too. Easy!"

What did you expect, she told herself as she watched him laugh at her. This was a completely normal interaction between yourself and him. Of course he would laugh at you. Your stupid, fast reflexes you no longer need and shouldn't have anymore are laughable. He's a fairy that clung stubbornly to childhood for four thousand years, and counting; he doesn't care about your nightmares any more than the rest of them do. This was expected; this was normal. This was forgivable. She was probably being too sensitive anyways, like her family was constantly telling her.

She exhaled through her nose, then bent down to pick up the fallen key ring and resume attempt at opening the door before sundown. "Hey!" She only had two more locks to go. Two more locks, and she wouldn't to listen to this thickheaded boy a moment longer.

"Awww, come on Grimm – don't tell me you're mad at me for laughing. It was hilarious!"

"Hilarious to you, of course. Hysterical."

"Exactly! Glad we're on the same page for that," he replied with a grin that, if she didn't know better, looked relieved. "So, how have you been occupying your free time now that we don't have to fight crazy people or slay dragons anymore?" There he went again, saying words that only reminded her of everything bad and hurtful. The war that left her still smarting from the aftershock, even after everyone had moved on. Everyone but her.

She replied with only half the truth. "Just picking up some food for Granny. Running errands and stuff, you know, the usual." The other half of the truth: she had spent her day seeing ghosts. She had passed by a rosebush on the way to the grocery store and could have sworn she saw Briar Rose stooping down to pick up a bloom.

"Wow, that sounds really adventurous," he commented sarcastically with an exaggerated fake yawn. "Seems like something you'd do, though, since you're all weak and mopey these days."

Now he wasn't so forgivable anymore. It didn't matter though; she had opened both locks successfully and was already knocking on the door and announcing to the house she was home, as the final magical enchantment cast on the house required her to fulfill in order to enter. She had one foot inside the house when he said, "I swear, Grimm; you're gonna end up living in this sad town forever, you're so pathetic."

She froze in the doorway, her hands still clenching the groceries, and stopped breathing.

Pathetic. Puck, the Trickster King, the epitome of all things lighthearted and idiotic, had called her pathetic.

It shouldn't have bothered her; really, he was the one that was pathetic. Four thousand years old and still running rampant like he was four? (Never mind his awkward puberty phase and the alternate future time travel where they were supposedly married; he was still an utter child.)

It still burned, though. The boy she had kissed in front of chimpanzees and hugged for warmth in the dark and had fought in a war with, thought she was pathetic. Not strong enough to handle trauma alone. So weak that she couldn't have a prank played on her without having a panic attack. She never thought he would go that far. She never thought he could be that cruel.

She whipped her head around to face him. "I. Am. Not. Pathetic."

His shocked face was visible before she turned around completely and slammed the door in his face. She congratulated herself for lasting long enough to put the groceries away and walk to her room before she let tears slip by on her face. She had tried so hard to cope, to be tough and brave all at once. Apparently she was too weak for them all now.

She shook with fury and long held sobs for a moment longer, then went to her closet. It took a while to find it under her pile of unfolded clothes, but finally she managed to pull out her suitcase and place it on top of her bed.

If Puck had the nerve to tell her she was pathetic and going to be stuck in this town forever, then she would prove him wrong. He was the last straw.

She'd show him. She'd show them all.

A/N: My new multi-chaptered story! The title is based off a poem by Emily Dickinson. Let me know what you think:)