It has been a few weeks since Harry's departure and Peter finds her crying in her room and pulls her hands from her eyes tentatively. She stares up at him, letting tears dribble down her cheeks. "He hasn't written," she says, wishing the burn in her throat would go away.

"He's angry," Peter tells her, reminding himself as well. "Not at you or me. At his dad for sending him to boarding school."

Colleen's hands curl until her knuckles turn white. "I'm angry too." Her shoulders sag and she leans against Peter. "More than anything, I miss him. Pete, I miss him so much. If he doesn't write back...what happens? Will we ever see him again?" Privately she thinks that she doesn't want to live in a world where she can't see Harry.

"Of course we'll get to see him again, Col," Peter says, wrapping an arm around her. He has always known how to make her feel better. "But for now... I think maybe you should give him some space."

Surprised and almost affronted, she pulls away from Peter. "What do you mean?"

Peter doesn't look at her. "It's like when my mom and dad died," he says quietly, and Colleen's expression falls. "I didn't want to talk to anyone or do anything or be reminded of what had to do with that. With Harry, 'that' means us."

Tears well up in her eyes again and she rubs them away with the heels of her hands. "I don't want that to mean us! He can't forget about us!"

"It'll be fine, Col," Peter tells her, but he won't look at her, so she doesn't really believe him.

"I'm still going to write him," she says stubbornly, deciding that even if he didn't write back, she wanted Harry to know she was thinking about him.