Nancy would not have attributed her recent unhappiness to guilt. She was in a land where the sun barely shone during winter. Besides, she was helping solve a kidnapping case, which benefitted a lot more people than a simple anniversary celebration.

She never understood why people prioritized those types of things, anyway. It had been years since she'd celebrated her birthday, and now leaping from corner to distant corner of the world it really felt like every day was her birthday.

Specifically, she really never understood why Ned always flew off the handle about things like this. If she did understand it, she wouldn't keep saying the wrong things. Feeling the need to apologize and having no idea why.

When she found herself staring at the Northern Lights for minutes at a time, she chalked it up to a lack of sunshine and a brittle town of people who gave her the cold shoulder before she ever opened her mouth to ask questions.

It was those things, she told herself, not the fact that she just hung up on her boyfriend without being able to tell him she loved him.

Hanging up just now amidst a sudden gust of ice breeze made her feel a little sad, and mostly numb, but not for the reason she expected.

Because this little voice kept telling her she really didn't.

It was weird how in just a few years she could go from completely certain to completely confused. Lately she'd been getting irritated with Ned for things like this, but lots of little things too. Like the fact that no matter what Nancy said, he always expected her to say something else. Her temper started to flash at every hesitation Ned took, how he only supported her sleuthing when it was convenient to him.

At this Nancy shook her head furiously, only then hearing the clatter of her teeth at the slightest movement of her jaw. That wasn't fair of her. He'd supported her in Scotland even when her father couldn't see past his fears.

And Ned so rarely got angry anymore. Most of the time he just sounded tired. Nancy couldn't blame him for that, and she didn't, but she knew she was every bit as tired as he was with all the travel.

This time was especially bad. Most people were friendly if she was friendly to them and respectful of their culture.

Not these people.

It was hard not to take offense to the claim that she didn't have any friends. It was even harder to ignore or brush off such a claim, which reallyground Nancy's gears.

Especially since the memory of Gunnar's words made a certain section of a certain story stick to her mind.

Balling her hands into fists to warm her fingers, Nancy tried once again to banish the image of herself as a gold-hearted cyborg—and failed—as she pondered it again, wanting to think that Gunnar had talked to Sonny Joon to make him write something stupid like experts said he didn't have any friends. That he kept telling himself he was worthless. Nancy had almost convinced herself of the fact, too. Just as she straightened a little in posture, triumphant, it dawned on her that even Gunnar wasn't quite cruel enough to tell a person he was worthless.

Sonny then must have reached his own conclusions, and that made her angrier than anything Ned had said to her in the past month. That even the most vibrant people had uncharted darkness.

She had to be angrier, definitely, because the steamy fog in her head was convincing her to do something she definitely shouldn't do.

She wasn't thinking straight, Nancy told herself. She just had to finish this case and get a good night's sleep. After that last night in New Zealand she shouldn't have even been thinking about him, let alone thinking about…

But, cyborg and dragon forms aside, Nancy got the feeling while reading Sonny's story that he actually pegged her pretty right.

A lot of it was flattery, definitely, but she couldn't complain. Lately she'd been wondering about herself. Earlier, Dagny had proved to be a small solace while Nancy was fixing the heater, reassuring her that young adult international sleuths were interesting.

And Ned had just told her he thought she was going to save the world someday.

Her jaw tightened.

And she couldn't even tell him she loved him.

In her own misery, Nancy suddenly returned to Sonny's, and the thoughts started coming faster than she could keep track of them. Soon she was pulling out her phone and scrolling through her contacts.

She didn't care that she didn't know where he was and it might have been the middle of the night for him. After hovering over the "Call" button for just a few seconds, her thumb pounched. The rings didn't even register with her, and sooner than she could take a breath he was already on the phone.

"Nancy?"

God, how she missed his voice. She'd hoped she wouldn't have, that this was just some stupid fluke just like that kiss in New Zealand was. Of course that couldn't really have been a fluke if this wasn't, but she wouldn't worry about that right now, or she couldn't. Inwardly she raged over not thinking this through before doing it. And so, to prevent more silence from passing, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Why do you tell yourself you're worthless?"

Nancy froze. Then she ended the call before he could reply, sinking into snow as all the air left her body.

Honestly she wouldn't have minded so much if she hadn't sounded so angry when she said it. If some semblance of that statement could be translated as, "Of course you have friends," which was her original intent.

Or, "Why the hell do you think you're worthless?"

She sighed.

Back to square one.

There were so many other things she wanted to tell him but probably shouldn't, like the fact that New Zealand didn't technically mean anything, couldn't possibly have technically meant anything, since she was still…

Quickly Nancy's palm and fingers became sore, and she realized she had gripped her phone too tightly. No matter how many times she thought about it, she still couldn't figure it out. How her argument with Ned had not been a breakup. How he ended up calling her that night after she'd gone back to her tent, taking back loose words, leaving her with a tight nausea and a thick, cold blanket of sweat. How she could so easily lie to Bess when she asked what was wrong, attributing it to unpleasant thoughts of her last case and her mother's scorching absence.

In the end, it all came down to the fact that Nancy had just been so tired that "Let's both be realistic about this; you don't care about me as much as I care about you," had sounded like a breakup to her. She could have called him after that, only she didn't care enough to do it.

She still hated thinking about the saccharine letter she wrote to Ned two days after that.

Before she could start on that track, her phone started ringing again.

Nancy could only believe the picture a second after it flashed across the screen. Blue-and-purple hair, peace sign from each hand, a smile more sincere than all the time he spent being infuriatingly vague about what was going on.

Her eyes darted up to the snow that surrounded Magnus' cabin, and she briefly thought about hurling her phone into the white abyss.

Surprising herself, Nancy muttered an expletive under her breath and accepted the call.

No hello. No demand for an explanation. Just, "You're in Skipbrot, aren't you?"

A quiet realization.

And a smile in his voice.

Nancy blinked.

"Be careful."

That was it. Nancy pulled the phone away from her ear and saw that he'd already hung up. But the small smile spreading on her face told her it was enough.

She'd have to talk to Ned when she got back. Get him a tasteful anniversary souvenir, not too thoughtless or too ostentatious, tell him about how some people grew apart. Nancy suspected that he didn't really love her as much as he thought he did, or at least that he shouldn't love her nearly that much.

And it was the most freeing thought she'd had in days.

… except Ned broke up with her instead because he's gay. With Henry. But rooming with Burt makes him realize it. Oops. Spoiler alert. Well, not actually. It's not canon.

This piece is a salve for a wounded heart. Specifically, Sonny's. I must confess that my own heart shattered after reading "The Adventures of Sonny Joon and Cyborg Nancy." I know that many of those most depressed appear to be the happiest and most vibrant, but it legitimately never crossed my mind that Sonny would struggle with this kind of stuff. I absolutely hated reading that he ever told himself that he was worthless, much less that he had repeated telling it to himself. And his speculation on whether or not he had friends. Hopefully it's just SAD amidst polar night, but my gut tells me it isn't-not with the negative self-talk already present in MED. Having said all that, I loved reading that comic on the whole, and it's probably my favorite thing he's written in the games so far. Comedy and character development ahoy!

Another thing I tried with this story: I noticed a pretty big oversight soon after planning Answers and playing MED a million times: Nancy writes her conclusion letter to Ned after MED, so they could not have broken up before that story took place. And since I really hate the implications that Nancy's a cheater, I took an out as soon as I saw it. Hopefully it's fairly credible, especially in light of some of Nancy's arguments with Ned. I like to follow canon as much as I can, but it's not always possible when breaking up a canon couple. This is where I'm going to leave it, though. SEA seems like a good stopping point for Ned and Nancy-to me, anyway.

Okay, this is it for a while. For one-not writing anything else for SEA since I found the game pretty disappointing overall. The plot got so contrived. For two-I didn't edit this piece (typos galore) and my writing is still suffering. The cliché title is an indication.