Let me go, I don't wanna be your hero. I don't wanna be a big man, just wanna fight like everyone else.

Gunnar hated fighting with Scarlett. It was the very last thing he wanted to do with her. Kiss her, hold her, tell her he loved her until he was blue in the face - sure, he would gladly spend all of his minutes doing any and all of those things with her, but yelling at her the way that he had, it wasn't at all on the agenda. He had been so caught up in the moment and his own emotions that he hadn't even realized that was what was happening until her face had crumpled in that way that girls' faces do right before they're about to start crying, and it killed him when those big crocodile tears came tumbling down her beautifully flushed cheeks a moment later. He felt like an ass.

Scarlett deserved so much better than he had been treating her. She had been put through the wringer since the New Year, and the last thing she needed was another guy letting her down. He hadn't meant anything he had said to her, but that didn't justify his angry words. He's just going through something really hard right now. Gunnar hates that he took it out on her. It made him no better than Avery. That guy was the very antithesis of what Gunnar wanted to be for her, especially right now. He'd kind of just proven her theory that all guys were scum with his behavior. It wasn't looking good.

The thing is that his wanting to be better really comes from a good place. He's seen how being this guy hurts her. Gunnar wants to be better than that, to show up for her and take care of her and just make her happy. This whole career thing, their songwriting partnership, didn't mean anything if they weren't doing it as a team. She was the only reason he had agreed to it in the first place. He could have found someone else to write with or done it on his own, but from that night they sang at the Bluebird together, he had known that their music was special. It had the power to change lives with just a few lyrics and simple vocals and that didn't work without her. He didn't work without her.

So he starts to think about what she has asked of him. Gunnar knows that he doesn't need the accolades or to be well-known He doesn't even really want the fame or the problems that come with it, though the money would be nice. He just needs Scarlett and the music. He somehow believes that the rest will take care of itself.

Your masquerade. I don't wanna be part of your parade. Everyone deserves a chance to walk with everyone else.

Scarlett is still reeling from her fight with Gunnar a few hours later. Somewhere in the past six weeks, she has really lost track of her life, and everything feels like it's in shambles. She sometimes regrets ever showing Gunnar that poem or singing that song in the cafe because it's left her with nothing. She had asked Avery if the cost of his contract was worth losing everything, but what about her? It seemed like she had pretty much lost everything since she had signed that contract last fall. Was it worth it? Would it ever be worth it?

The fact was that Scarlett didn't even want the big public life or the shiny things that came along with it. She just wanted to be with Avery, though she kind of hates herself for it now. She misses the guy that he used to be, the real him, the man that she fell so hopelessly in love with so long ago. It's lonely now that he's gone and even if she sees these occasional glimpses where she's sure that she can get him back, the biggest part of her knows that he's never coming back. That Avery is gone, and all that's left behind is his empty shell of a facade.

It's this knowledge that leaves her feeling some kind of responsibility for JT and the guys. She agrees to the first performance because of it and wants to practice with them later on because she actually enjoys it. It hasn't just been Avery in this. They had all be there with him. Scarlett thought they all deserved a chance to succeed, and she just wanted to do her small part to make that happen. As she pulls open her garage door and sets up the mic stand, she knows that she's not doing this because she feels bad anymore. She's doing this for the good guys because once upon a time, Avery had been one of them.

While holding down a job to keep my girl around and maybe buy me some new strings and her a night out on the weekend.

Deciding that he couldn't stand to be just another guy who let Scarlett down, Gunnar packs up his guitar and his pride and heads over to her house to rehearse. The guys seem less surprised to see her, and his heart twists in a particular way unique to her when she beams up at him with pure joy when he tells her that he wants the good guys to win this time. He's still not sure that it's a good idea, and he is a little worried that it might actually hurt their deal with Whitey. However, he won't voice any of that. She's so damn happy right now, and for once, she deserves to get what she wants.

He watches her sing and dance in the garage, unencumbered and free as he's ever seen her. Gunnar feels so proud that he's the one that has given her this moment. He wanted it so much for her, for them, for himself. He foolishly believes that he is doing a really good job at keeping his personal feelings out of it and that she doesn't suspect that whatever he felt when he kissed her was still lingering around. They're friends, partners, bandmates - it's perfect and platonic just the way she wanted.

Scarlett, however, knows that he wants to be the one to give her this little slice of perfection. She sees right through it and appreciates it more than she could ever say. It's exactly what she should want after everything. If she was on the outside looking in, she knew that it would seem so perfectly right. She'd try to convince all of her girlfriends to go for the good guy, the one who probably would never break her heart and would treat her like a princess and would never make her regret choosing him.

And yet, she can't find it in her to want the perfection. She wants the complications of the imperfection. Scarlett throws herself into the song, moving around to the beat and seemingly putting everything into singing every single syllable of every single word. However, she doesn't feel it. She's outside her body, her mind can't stop moving. She wants Avery still, loves him more than ever, and she can't figure out how that is ever going to stop. Her idea of perfection comes in the form of a broken singer behind the wheel of a classic car. This isn't how any of this was supposed to turn out.

And we can whisper things, secrets from my American dreams. Baby needs some protection, but I'm just a kid like everyone else.

Avery idles at the curb, and he can tell that Scarlett is only pretending to have a good time. It's that same hollow happy he pastes on his face pretty much any time he's around anyone outside of the studio these days. She seems so carefree and beautiful as she sings his song better than he ever could, but he knows that he is the weight that is holding her down. His beautiful, wonderful, perfect Scarlett is sadder than he has ever seen her, and it's all his fault.

She looks up at just the right moment and catches his eye. Her breath catches for a moment and he thinks that she's about to give him away. Instead, she closes her eyes and puts a little more bounce in her movements as if she could literally shake him out of her system. Avery puts his hand on the wheel, about to drive away, but he can't. He's transfixed by her, happily under her spell. The song ends and she says something to JT and then Gunnar before walking down the driveway.

"Hey," she said softly as she opened the door and climbed into the passenger side. Avery smiled at her and nodded slightly in greeting. He can't seem to find his voice, so he decides that it's probably better to just listen instead. "What are you doing here?"

Avery gripped the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles turning white. She notices and reaches up to carefully pry his fingers off the worn leather. "I was headed back to Atlanta and just wanted to stop by to see you," he confessed. "I know I owe you about a billion apologies, but then I got here and the guys... I didn't want to interrupt. You sound amazing, by the way. Your voice, Scar, as gorgeous as the rest of you."

She blushed prettily despite herself. She was still so angry at him, but his compliments always had a way of making her feel so special. "Different, isn't it?" she asked rhetorically. "We played a gig, you know. They want to make it permanent since their last lead singer kind of screwed them over. They asked Gunnar to play guitar."

"Yeah, well, their lead singer sounds like an ass," he admitted as he looked past her at the garage. He knew the guys knew he was here, but for right now, he wasn't concerned with them. He wasn't there for his old band, he had come back for Scarlett. "I messed up so bad. I keep messing up, huh? I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. I wish time could just stop and I could figure this all out. It's just happening so fast."

"You can't blame time, Avery," she told him wisely. "You're the one making all these choices. You made the mistake of believing that this chance would be your only chance. I guess you never believed in yourself as much as I do."

"We both had dreams, Scar," he remembered. "When did I quit remembering ours and only remember my own? It was my job to take care of those dreams, to take care of you, but I failed. I failed you so badly. I hurt you so much..."

Scarlett propped her chin up on her palm and pondered him for a moment. "You couldn't hurt me if I didn't still love you, Avery. You can't be hurt when you don't care. Everything tells me that I should just get over this, but I still keep holding on. I don't know how to let you go."

So let me go. I don't wanna be your hero. I don't wanna be a big man, just wanna fight with everyone else.

A little while later, Scarlett climbs back out of his car and heads back to the garage. The guys ask if she's okay, but she only nods and smiles before taking her place behind the mic. Gunnar looks out back to Avery's car, praying that it'll be gone, but he's watching from his perch on the hood instead. JT counts them off and they go into the first verse of "Kiss." Gunnar tries to catch her eye, but her eyes are closed tightly as she throws herself back into the music once again.

After they finish, the others start to pack their stuff up, and Scarlett pulls Gunnar off to the side. He knows what's coming even before she even starts talking. It isn't anything he hasn't heard her say before. That doesn't make it sting any less.

"I can't be your reason for doing this, Gunnar," she tells him with that thick accent of hers, the one that makes his knees a little weak. "You need to find why you are doing this on your own. You need to be your own cause."

"Scarlett, you're my partner. I'm doing this because we make great music together," he retorted. "So what if you're the reason I showed up today? That's what compromise is all about."

She runs her fingers through her hair and regroups her thoughts. "I know you don't get it, but I love him," she says finally. "Our dreams, the ones that I shared with him, are the whole reason I wanted to make music in the first place. Even though it probably should have, that hasn't changed."

"I don't understand how you could put yourself through this again!"

"You don't have to get it," she murmurs softly. "It doesn't have to make sense to anyone but me, and my heart understands. I get it if you're angry, but it's really better that I'm telling you this now. It'd be so much worse later, Gunnar. You can hold it against me, but if I didn't do this now, it'd be irreparable if I waited. This is what I have to do so that we can all survive in tact. I can't be the one that saves you."

Gunnar just watches her leave then, knowing that she could have never really been his. All those grand dreams he had built up in his head were just that - tiny figments of wishes that would never be granted because their fates were already predestined. She was meant to get back into that car and drive off into the sunset with another man. From where he stood, the good guy wasn't going to win this time. From where she stood, her good guy might need some polishing but he had already won.

Fin.

Author's note: The lyrics of this song come from "Hero" by Family of the Year.