Katie swept her legs under Travis's, but he jumped. She pulled his foot, and he fell on the mat face up. Then, she straddled him, pinning his hands next to his head with a triumphant smirk.

"Ha, I win, again!"

"Yeah, yeah, get off of me, Mancini." She helped him up and went back to her fighting stance.

"No, Katie, we're done today. I can only fall on my ass so many times."

"Fine, I'm going to go read a book." She walked up the stairs, and didn't look back. Travis fell back onto the mat with an exasperated sigh. He couldn't believe her. After Connor came home, she completely avoided him, and today, she's pretending like nothing happened.

Katie felt the last of her tears fall out of her eyes. She was still breathing heavily, and she was still hugging Travis, but at least she finished crying. She kept her face buried in the crook of his neck, not wanting to see his pitying expression.

"Hey, you okay?" he asked quietly, resting his head above hers. Katie didn't say anything, but she nodded her head. Katie was completely pissed at herself, she has never cried that long or that hard- not that she could remember anyway.

Travis had no idea how long Katie sat there hugging him, bawling her eyes out, and he was touched that when she did crash, she went to him for comfort. On the other hand, more questions about Katie were shooting through his mind. Each one made him more intrigued to the non-existent answer. He remembered the promise he made to himself and realized that he was slowly inching to breaking down her walls.

Even after Katie stopped crying, she sat hugging Travis, except for now, instead of sitting on the ground next to him, had her legs draped across his to make herself more comfortable. She felt Travis's breath slow down gradually until he was breathing deeply, which confirmed her thoughts that he fell asleep. She didn't try to lift her head and look at him because that would just wake him up, but she smiled into his neck, starting to fall asleep as well.

Connor walked up the stairs in his oddly quiet house suspiciously. Usually when he got home, Katie and Travis were laughing about something or arguing about another. He turned the corner, and his jaw would have hit the floor if he weren't smiling with an evil glint in his eyes. They were sitting on the floor right next to Katie's room, and she was practically sitting on his lap with her arms around his neck. Travis had his head on top of Katie's with a small smile and his arms wrapped around her slim body.

Very slowly, Connor opened the door to his room and started to look around his room for his camera. His smile just grew wider when he found it sitting on top of the nightstand.

Along with the flash, Connor stifling his laughter woke Katie, which in turn woke Travis.

"Connor Stoll get back here this instant!" Katie yelled sprinting after Connor who just cackled in return running away from her.

"What the hell just happened?" Travis asked himself rubbing his tired eyes.

Travis found himself knocking on Katie's bookshelf a few minutes later. She opened the door and smiled. Please stop smiling before I forget what I'm supposed to say.

"Um, hey, what's up?" he asked.

"I just said I was going to read a book," she said and looked at him oddly.

"That's not what I meant, Mancini."

"Then what did you mean?" Travis took a deep breath.

"Yesterday, you were a mess, you cried on me for a couple of hours, and now you're pretending it didn't happen."

"Maybe it didn't."

"Oh, bull."

"Fine, so maybe it did. What about it?"

"Hmm, let's see," said Travis placing a hand under his chin in mock consideration, "yesterday, I figured out that you blame yourself for Peterson and Davis's deaths and for about three hours you cried- which you never do. Let's not forget you completely ignored me after Connor came home. By the way, I got the picture back, in case you were wondering. However, now you are acting like nothing ever happened. I don't get you, Katie."

"Maybe I don't want you to get me. Maybe I do blame myself," she started listing before she could stop herself. "Maybe I cried because I finally crashed. Maybe I want to forget what happened! Maybe I ignored you so I wouldn't have to deal with you feeling sorry for me. Maybe I hate it when people see me at my weakest!

"But you don't think about that, Stoll, do you? You think, 'oh no, there she goes, crying like the rest of them.' Well you didn't see two people get murdered! You don't go to sleep thinking 'what if' every night, but I do!" she yelled. When Travis didn't say anything, Katie just scoffed.

"This, Stoll, is exactly what I'm talking about. You don't understand that it's easier for me to forget."

"Why?"

"'Why?'" she mocked, "because I'm scared, Travis, and I don't want to be scared."