Cate opened her eyes slowly, feeling an intense pain on the back of her neck. Sleeping in airplanes was never comfortable, she knew that well enough by now. She raised her hand to massage the back of her neck softly without opening her eyes. She was fully aware of where she was even though she had just woken up.

She wanted to believe that it had all just been a bad dream but the images that kept coming to her mind were too real to ignore. The only thing that made her feel remotely better was that it hadn't gone as bad as she had feared. She'd thought that she wouldn't be able to go through with it, that she'd break down and start crying as soon as she'd have to tell Rooney what was going to happen. At least she'd pulled through. She had thought that she wouldn't be able to let go of Rooney once she took her in her arms but she had managed to do it, even though it had taken a great effort.

How cold she must have seemed to Rooney. How heartless she must have thought she was. Just two days ago they were together, Cate was telling her how much she loved her and after all that, she had left just like that. It must have seemed to Rooney like it had been a simple thing for her to do, that's what she had said, but only Cate could know how difficult it had been. The woman didn't mind one bit though, it was the way she had wanted it to happen after all; she didn't want Rooney to understand how difficult it had been for her because she would have tried to stop her. And if there was one good thing that she could say about herself, it was that she was a good actress in her work but in her life as well.

She had learnt from a very early age how to hide her emotions, even though that had brought on pretending that she didn't have any and soon enough she had forgotten how to feel. She hadn't always been like that but she knew that after her father's death, she'd never been the same. It had been so sudden, so unpredictable, that neither her nor her family had known how to handle it. She had only been ten years old at the time but she had felt that she had to take care of her family. She knew that her mother was struggling, not only economically but emotionally as well. She knew that she was trying to not show her sadness and her grief so that Cate and her siblings wouldn't feel worse than they already did. But Cate could see it. Even though her mother always tried to hide it, she could see the sadness that hid behind her smile. For a long time after her father had died, she could hear her mother crying in her room, late at night, even though she had never told her so. At that point, she had felt that she had to be strong for her mother and her siblings. She supported her little sister as much as she could, she defended her brother fiercely whenever other kids made fun of him because of his disability and she tried to help her mother as much as she could. She couldn't let her sadness show because she knew that it would burden her mother, her own sadness would make her mom sad and that was the last thing she wanted. Soon enough she realized that happiness wasn't really worth it either because it never lasted. So she stopped showing her emotions and after a while, she stopped feeling them.

The only thing that brought her happiness after a point, real, raw happiness was theater. Acting. From the very beginning of her career, people had been talking about how real her emotions seemed on the stage or on the screen, how it all felt like it was actually happening to her and not her character. No one had ever realized that it had actually been her. It was only when she acted that she lived. She wasn't afraid to show her emotions when she acted; she could pour out everything that had been building up inside her for so long and people always thought it was a character. Every play, every movie had a beginning and an end. No matter the intensity of the emotions that her portrayal required, she knew that it would always come to an end. Because that's what always happened; everything always came to an end. Anyone that believed otherwise was either too young to know better or a fool. She had come to believe that maybe even her life had come to an end. Not in the literary sense, but still. When she had married Andrew she had thought that her life was just beginning and recently she had realized that it had somehow passed her by. Sure, she wasn't exactly old now but she was too old to start over.

She was now only the shell of a person and Rooney deserved more than that. She deserved more than a person who got scared when emotions got too strong. She was a coward, Rooney had even said so herself. But Rooney had also managed to do what no one else had done in a very long time; she had managed to penetrate her walls, to tear them down and make her feel again. After so many years, she had finally felt alive again with another person. But with life comes pain. And after many years, Cate could feel it again. Pain had slowly but steadily started to burn her insides for the past few hours and she was trying to remember how to make it stop. How to shut it down. But her pain was the only thing that she had left of Rooney. It was the only thing that she had to remind her of how important everything that they'd shared had been and more importantly, it was the only thing that reminded her that it had all been real.

A few hours later, they were finally landing at Sydney. She had never felt so bad coming home before. Most times she had been away for that long, she kept waiting for that moment to come; the moment that she would get off the plane and finally see her family. However, this time she wanted more than anything to go back. For the first time she felt like she had not landed home because she knew, even though she kept denying it, that her home was now where Rooney was. Where they could be together.

As she was walking out of the airport, she spotted her husband. He hadn't seen her yet and for a split second she considered going home by herself, pretending that she hadn't seen him either. But she saw with the corner of her eyes that there were some paparazzi some distance away, so she knew exactly what to do. The way she was expected to behave.

"Hi, Andrew," she said as soon as she reached him, forcing herself to smile.

Smiling broadly, he gave her a hug. His smile didn't seem forced; on the contrary, it seemed very genuine. Almost relieved, as if he thought that Cate would never come back. He put his hand on her waist and leaned in to give her a kiss on the lips.

"People are taking pictures," he whispered to explain himself because he thought that Cate had been taken aback.

She wasn't surprised about the kiss; she had expected it to happen at some point. She was surprised about how strange it felt, the thing that seemed so natural to her for so many years. And even though she knew it was stupid, she had wanted to avoid having to kiss Andrew. She wanted the last lips that she had kissed to be Rooney's.

They started walking out of the airport holding hands. Andrew kept talking about various things but she couldn't pay attention to anything he was saying. She could see people taking pictures, so she at least made an effort to look engaged in a conversation but the truth was that she couldn't care less about what the man was saying. All she could thing about was Rooney. Where was she now? Was she alright? Did she know how much she was missing her?

"The boys are really happy that you're back. It's a great thing you're shooting 'Truth' here. We'll get to spend a lot more time together than we did these past few months."

"We will but by we I mean the boys and myself, not the two of us."

"Cate, come on now, don't be silly..."

"Andrew, our problem all this time was not distance and we both know it. On the contrary, distance seems to be the only solution."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

She knew that she had left Rooney in order to try and make things work with her family. She had done the right thing. The sensible thing. But now that she was actually going through with it, it all felt wrong. She felt like her hand was trapped in Andrew's grasp. She suddenly remembered the happiness she felt whenever she held Rooney's hand. The warmth of her touch, the feeling that she never wanted to let go. It was nothing like that now. Andrew's hand was sweaty, the warmth of his hand made her feel suffocated, trapped; she felt like a wild animal who had known freedom and had voluntarily decided to walk back into its cage. How could she have believed that she could ever be as happy as she'd been with Rooney? Or even be as she was before? But it didn't matter. That was what she had chosen. She had thought it through.

"Nothing. I'm just tired. Let's go home."

Home. The place where they were going felt nothing like home anymore.

...-...-...-...-...

She had been trying to convince herself to get up from the bed for the past twenty minutes or so. She didn't feel physically tired but she had spent most of her day sleeping. She was emotionally exhausted and even though she knew that she was fooling herself, she kept thinking that postponing going back to reality would allow her to pretend that her last talk with Cate had been a bad dream. But she couldn't do that anymore. Sarah had stopped by her room a little while after Cate had left and Rooney had told her what had happened. Doing so, she had allowed the whole situation to sink in. She had told Sarah everything without any emotion at all. She had not cried again, she had not been angry, nothing. She felt like she had been a spectator of the whole situation, like it had been a breakup scene in a movie, like it had all happened to someone else and she had just witnessed it. Even though Sarah had not said anything, Rooney had gotten that she was disappointed with what Cate had done, to say the least. 'I didn't expect her to do something like this', the woman had said. And even though Rooney could say the same, even though she still couldn't believe it, she kept finding herself wanting to make excuses for Cate, to explain that she had her reasons to do what she had done.

At some point, she finally got up from the bed and with very slow movements, she started packing her things. Her hotel room was making her sick; no matter where she turned to look, she remembered something that Cate had done or said in there. She thought of what Cate had said, that ending their relationship in the way that they had, it would at least be a good memory for them. It seemed impossible to her. How would it ever be just a good memory? When would it stop hurting, when would the sound of Cate's voice or the mention of her name stop making Rooney's heart skip a beat? Was it even possible that at some point she'd stop loving Cate the way that she did?

After a few hours, she had finally packed her bags. Her hotel room was empty, like she had never been inside it, like nothing had ever happened there. It all seemed like a dream. She wanted to avoid seeing anyone but she knew that she couldn't just leave like that. She walked to where the sets were because she had to at least say goodbye to Todd.

Rooney saw people walking around, carrying things, speaking to each other and laughing. It all seemed strange to her. Why hadn't the world stopped? How could they go on with their lives? Hadn't they realized that it had all ended? Nothing mattered anymore and Rooney thought it was odd that she was the only one who could see that.

"You don't look good. Is everything okay?" Todd said with a worried look, just as Rooney reached him.

"Yeah, just tired. Didn't sleep very well," she said, not recognizing the sound of her own voice.

"Are you leaving?"

"Yeah, I'm going back to New York. I just came to say goodbye."

"We'll see each other again soon," he said and gave her a hug.

"Bye, Todd. We'll talk."

"Yeah. And Rooney... cheer up. I don't like seeing you like that. We're all sad when filming ends but that's how it is. Every good thing comes to an end so that we can search for it again. Everything comes full circle, remember?" he said with a chuckle.

"Yeah. It really does."

Notes: Thanks for reading, everyone! I hope you liked it, leave a review to tell me what you think if you feel like it! :))