Long time, no see but glad to be back! If anyone is still here for this, I appreciate you! I know it's been ages. I worked a summer job that left no time or energy for writing but I made feeble attempts to write this the whole time. Thanks to Virtue01, Nameless, and dreamerdash for your reviews!

Recap: It's the day before Wesley's birthday ball/ball celebrating the final four Selected (Eleanor, Veyra, Ophelia, and Vera). Wesley and Lissa kissed, and made a plan to meet at the Observatory. Lissa then talked to Eleanor and decided to leave in order not to hurt Wesley more if word got out that they were involved. She spoke to Wesley's mother before she left and found out what she suspected—that she had prevented their communication following Lissa's departure from Ethan's Selection. Photos and videos of Wesley and Lissa kissing leaked that night.

…

She wasn't coming. And the ball was tomorrow, and he had figured out nothing.

Wesley didn't even know where she was. She was gone. He wondered how long he had to wait until it became truly pathetic. He was pretty sure three hours and half a pack of cigarettes he had sworn off qualified.

At midnight tonight he would turn twenty-two, and tomorrow night they would celebrate it and the final four ladies of the Selection. Celebrating was the last thing on his mind. In the early hours of this morning, the news had leaked with photos of him and Lissa, incriminating the both of them in all sorts of horrible ways. Most of it was falling on her, which he felt horrible for. Some people were even saying that she was the one who leaked the photos to sabotage the Selection. He hadn't even known what was going on until he checked his phone when Lissa hadn't shown up at their agreed meeting time.

He certainly did now. The pathetic only intensified as he continued to sit, a traitorous hope that she would come and meet him, despite the shitshow brewing in the news. It was finally sinking in she wasn't going to show up.

His phone was dead as usual, he ignored all the emails and everyone in the country smearing his name and Lissa's with a million suggestions about what would, should, or could happen now. His strategy was to avoid literally everyone. The Observatory was a good place for that, even if it was by himself.

He was an idiot, he decided. What did he think was going to happen? She would show up and they would what? Confess their love? Yell at each other as mutual heartbreakers? Get engaged? Say goodbye again? It was ridiculous. He ignored the betrayal he felt and told himself it was better this way.

It was a decent hideout until it wasn't. Wesley winced as he heard the sound of someone in high heels approaching, and damn it, that spark of hope flickered deep in his heart. But it wasn't Lissa. It was his mother, and she threw open the door and his sanctuary was no more.

"I had to get palace security to track you down," she said in greeting, running her hands over her slightly rumpled outfit. Wesley blinked, not used to seeing his mother anything less than perfect. The dowager queen Francesca was never not perfect.

He shrugged and went back to looking out the window. "I've been here."

"Have you seen the news?" Francesca demanded, not waiting for an answer. "Wesley, this is out of control. What were you thinking? This whole time, I've told you to stay away from her. Surely you know what this looks like, when you are weeks away from finishing your Selection-"

"Yeah well, she's gone," he snapped at his mom, his emotions threatening to throttle each other and then him. "So, I guess you don't have to worry anymore." He was annoyed to feel the prick of tears in his eyes, coating his voice too. His therapist Dr. Holland would tell him that it was perfectly fine to have emotions but right now, Wesley didn't want to feel anything. He looked up at his mom, and a terrible idea occurred to him. He thought of all the times she had kept them apart. "Maybe you were the one who leaked the pictures, to get rid of her."

She barely moved when Wesley said it, but she looked right at him, her mouth drawing into a tight line. However, he had been her son his whole life and he knew that wasn't an admission of guilt, but rather pure rage.

Francesca spoke evenly like she knew what was coming. "I would never smear this family's name. And you would be remiss to think I would put you through any kind of hardship. I told you to not get involved with her at the beginning of this to protect you."

Wesley wanted to get mad and throw things but that wasn't in his nature. "Protect me?" He curled his hands into fists. "From what-" he sputtered, "a girl who wears high heels and likes to match her nail polish to her outfits? What did you honestly think she was going to do to me?"

She held out her hand, motioning to Wesley sitting in the Observatory waiting and waiting for someone who had decided probably long ago not to show. "This."

This wasn't as harmless. This hurt. This felt like betrayal. This felt like the tiny ember of hope was burning a miniature hole through his body.

Wesley looked away and he felt the fight go out of him. He wanted a drink. "Yeah."

"We need to make an announcement. You will be going to the final three tomorrow night, during the ball," Francesca said, her voice softening a little but it was still an order. "You need to put this behind you."

Somehow, in the midst of this, he still had to do the Selection. It was a depressing thought. Four girls left, soon to be three—and he had no idea who to send home—and an ending he didn't want to figure out. Left with only a flickering candle flame of hope that was quickly burning itself out the longer he sat alone in the Observatory where she was supposed to meet him.

"Okay." He said it so she would leave. He said it so he could pretend to smother the flame. He said it so he could try. Francesca lingered a moment.

"I really am very sorry, Wesley," she said, somewhat stilted. Despite being the baby of the family, their mother was not known for her tenderness. "I only want what is best for you."

He thought of the interim between the first and second time Lissa had kissed him last night. The first, like she couldn't even believe she had, and the second the real one. He thought about how everything made sense at that moment. He thought of holding her in his arms as she told him he was wonderful and saying what felt like another goodbye. Maybe she never intended to come to him today. Maybe they were always going to say goodbye. He thought of the light reflecting in her eyes.

And he realized, he didn't care what was best for him. His mom started to leave, but Wesley spoke up, stopping her.

"I don't think any of those girls will marry me."

"Why not?"

Because he was pretty sure he was in love with someone else. Because he was broken, and he needed her to save him. And no matter how hard they tried, nothing would ever change them.

"I don't know," he said, his voice choked. He gritted his teeth, pushing back his emotions to no avail. He covered his face in his hands and his mother held him as he cried.

…

The sun was going down and Wesley was getting drunk.

It was a terrible feeling, going back to something he knew wasn't going to fix his problems. Here he was, sitting on the floor of the fully decorated Great Room, watching the setting sun dye the world golden for the last few minutes of the day. Here he was, going back to drinking away his problems knowing full well it wasn't going to work. Every time he drank out of the bottle of whisky he wanted to throw up, but he savored that feeling like if he puked, all the bad emotions would come out. He had an announcement to make on the Report in an hour, but currently, he didn't care. It was more of a preview announcement anyway, he would make an actual announcement tomorrow. He had no idea which of the four Selected to send home.

All he wanted to do was replay the previous night, here in this room. How it felt to hold Lissa in his arms, how it felt to dance with her, to make time stop. To see her smile at him, to laugh together. To talk like nothing had ever happened, to wear his heart on his sleeve. To tell her that he could never ever have a chance with her all the while meaning he was begging for just one more.

As it had happened last night too, the doors opened, and Eleanor slipped inside. She was all dressed and ready for the Report, the bright deep blue fabric of her dress shimmering in the sunset glow. Wesley winced, thinking maybe he should puke to get her to leave.

"Thought I might find you here," she said, approaching. He didn't look up, only fixated on the way her heels were impossibly tall and yet somehow, she could walk in them. It reminded him of Lissa.

"Hey," he said in greeting. He expected her to be excited to see him, as usual. To flirt with him like she always did, and he didn't want to deal with it.

Eleanor frowned at his tone. "Are you drunk?"

"Soon enough."

"Aren't you making an announcement on the Report in like an hour?"

"I'm not announcing who the final three are if that's what you came to talk about." It came out harder than he expected.

Eleanor made a scoffing sound. "That's not why I'm here. I wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I'm fine." He said hastily. "Why would I not be fine?"

Probably because he was sitting on the floor of the palace ballroom drinking out of the bottle.

Eleanor sighed. She picked up the hem of her dress, and then sat down next to him, her irritation fading. "You don't have to pretend with me."

"What are you talking about?"

"You and Lissa." She looked down, her hair all curled and on one side of her head, falling over one shoulder. She had bright blue eyeshadow on, that matched her dress. "I…I saw you kissing last night. And I've had a hunch for a while."

Wesley didn't know what he should say. "It's just an old thing, me and her."

She shook her head. "I don't think so. I've seen the way you look at her."

Wesley took another drink.

"I really thought…" he trailed off. He didn't know what he thought either. He was on his way to being drunk. It felt so good he didn't know why he ever stopped.

"You know that necklace you gave me? I knew it was hers." Eleanor said. "I always knew you felt something for her."

"It doesn't matter now, does it?" The deep light of the sunset was coming through the windows of the Great Room. The last sunset of being twenty-one. "No offense, but she's not part of the fucking Selection."

Eleanor laughed. It was loud and brash and so un-Eleanor it caught him off guard. She picked up his whisky and held it up in a toast. "To the fucking Selection." She took a drink.

"I should probably drink to that," Wesley held out his hand for the bottle. Yesterday he probably would have hated himself for it. Yesterday he was a better person.

"Probably," Eleanor idly touched her necklace, the one he had given her for Christmas, not Lissa's. It drew his eye to her lavender nail polish and made him think of Lissa. He didn't want to think of her. It hurt too much.

"I've got something to tell you," Eleanor said, letting out a deep breath, the words coming all in a rush. "A couple of things, actually."

"What?" he forced his mind off Lissa.

"You're going to hate me."

He looked at her, all gracefulness and awkward confidence and for once, not fawning all over him. The setting sun lit up her hair making it all shiny and her dress was in a puddle around her. "That sounds ominous."

"It is," she said, then looked up at him to gauge his reaction. She hesitated, then spoke. "I got Dresden eliminated. At the New Year's Eve party."

Wesley wasn't expecting that at all. He tightened his hand around the whisky bottle but was surprised he felt virtually nothing at her admission of guilt. "You did?"

"We were the ones who planned the party, so I made sure the right people who knew about her were there and they talked to your mother. I know it was awful, I just…" she stopped. "I get jealous."

"I didn't even like Dresden that much," Wesley tried to remember any of their conversations, but his memories were sealed in the alcohol. "Why were you jealous?"

Eleanor was holding one arm over her torso as if she could shield herself from her own emotions. "Maybe not of her, but I figured she had things that could get her eliminated. Mostly, it was the other girls. You barely even notice me. Especially not back then, they were all so exciting. Georgia was a spy; Fallon was the princess of the rebels and Vera's a soldier and you get each other. Veyra always knows what to say and she's funny and even when she fails miserably at this princess stuff you still kept her. Ophelia is perfect and she's as good at all this stuff as I am, so I don't even have that going for me."

He did kind of feel sorry for her as she held her head down. Yeah, sometimes he remembered her profession was a ballerina and her dad had died during the war, but she was right—when she wasn't being annoying and overbearing, he tended to forget about her.

"It doesn't matter now, does it?" Wesley could barely remember talking to Dresden now. She had never been fond of him or his family or the Selection. They had parted on decent terms; she had stuck around longer than the others due to her popularity with the northerners until there were allegations of her smuggling during the war to both sides. The rumors had gotten out to the media—which sounded overly familiar. But it checked out, he remembered Eleanor mentioning Dresden's probable departure on the yacht when he had only barely found out about it himself. He hadn't noticed then.

"I don't know, does it?" Eleanor's gaze flitted to him.

"What's the other thing?" He steeled himself with another drink, the whisky burning his throat. It felt destructive and bad and made him put down the bottle.

She sighed, her forehead creasing as she looked away again. "Do you remember when all those photos of you leaked?"

"Which time?" he mumbled, embarrassed.

"Around the time when you had parties all the time. When the press ripped you apart for not taking the Selection seriously."

"Again, which time?" Wesley asked again.

"It was me."

He thought she was joking at first. He thought he misheard her from drinking, but he sobered up really quick.

"You…you leaked the photos?" He cringed, remembering the headlines and the drunk pictures of him. He remembered how he had talked to everyone to see who had done it, and she had been last, so he was sure it had been her, but she had been so upset when he accused her of it, so much so that he ended up going on a date with her to make up for it. She had also vehemently denied it.

"I'm sorry!" she burst out. "I wanted to make some of the other girls look bad! You seemed like so obsessed with Veyra back then, and she was in the photos, and I was jealous." Her voice was strained. "I never meant it to hurt you."

"Why would you do something like that?" The initial shock had worn off and now he was getting angry. "You totally sabotaged me and my family! And you lied to me about it!" He remembered trying desperately to get her to stop crying when he had pinned his accusations on her.

"It backfired on me," Eleanor tried to explain. "I was so jealous. You acted like you hated me back then. You had taken all the other girls on dates except me."

"So that's a good reason to leak photos to the press of me drunk and looking like a whole mess?" In the back of his mind, he realized it wasn't that bad. He himself had even forgotten some of what had happened. Mostly, he felt his trust broken.

He took a deep breath, trying not to blow up on her. If his emotions weren't already heightened from everything, he probably would handle this better. Eleanor seemed to sense his shift in behavior, and she seemed to calm some too.

"Remember how I told you my mom was in your dad's Selection?"

Wesley nodded reluctantly. "She made it pretty far, didn't she?"

"Sixth to go home," Eleanor said. "So, she's ecstatic that I'm still here."

There was something in her tone, something Wesley couldn't quite put his finger on. "She's ecstatic? What about you?" Eleanor was always over the top, excessive with her emotions, and trying so hard to get him to like her. As dumb as he was, he noticed her choice of words.

Eleanor avoided his eyes. "She's been desperate for me to win this thing the whole time. She wants me to do what she never did. She thinks we all owe it to her or something."

"And what about you?"

Eleanor shrugged. "I was pretty happy being a ballerina in Tammins before all this. I wasn't even picked first; I was the runner-up when the first girl couldn't go. I've always wondered if she had a hand in that." She flung her arms down so they hit her skirts with a resounding slap. "So, when I first got here, I was so out of my depth. And my mom would call me all the time, trying to get me to do all sorts of things to get ahead of the competition. And I listened to her." She looked at him, trying to gauge his reaction. "This probably doesn't make any sense to you."

"Nah, it kind of does." He was thinking about his own mom, and he felt a crumb of sympathy. Reluctantly, he softened his offensive on her. "What did she want you to do?"

"Dresden was the only one I had the guts to do. My mom was the one who dug into her background enough to find something incriminating. But like sabotaging the other girl's dresses and causing fake drama…she even thought I should wear something so scandalous and have a wardrobe malfunction on the Report so the press would love me, and you would feel sorry for me. I didn't do that one." They both smiled at that one, but Wesley wasn't quite ready to forgive her and go back to normal.

"And you never thought to tell me this?"

"How could I?" she said. The setting sun flashed off her eyeshadow. "I wanted you to think I was perfect."

Wesley met her eyes. "Maybe that's why ignored you in the beginning. I didn't want you to be perfect."

Eleanor held his gaze for a long beat, and he had the strangest feeling he didn't know her at all. "I wanted to be." She gathered her dress and stood. "That's all I've ever wanted to be."

Wesley stayed where he was on the floor. "I'm seriously not perfect."

Cautiously, Eleanor broke the quiet that followed. "Are we…are we okay?" she treaded carefully.

Wesley wanted another drink, but he left the bottle where it was. Getting drunk was only going to make it worse.

"I…need to think about this."

Eleanor nodded. "I'll see you on the Report." She turned away in a flurry of blue silk, her heels clattering on the marble floors. She left Wesley alone in the Great Room, the sunset only a glow on the bottom of the windowpanes.

…

Wesley didn't go to the Report.

He found himself up on the top of the palace, on the roof. It was one of his favorite hiding places and no one ever came up here except the occasional guard. He was still terrified someone would find him up here and drag him onto the Report set so to be safe he ditched his phone and sent Nick in a car into town to make it look like he had left. He couldn't do the Report now. He couldn't be under all those lights talking about a Selection he couldn't bring himself to care about. He had ditched the whisky, feeling a tiny bit better for it though he wished he had a cigarette.

He stretched his legs out in front of him. It was a pretty warm night for spring in Angeles, and the temperature reminded him that in a couple of months this whole thing would have taken a year of his life. It was a depressing thought, mostly because he wasn't thinking about the Selection. He was thinking about Lissa.

The last time Wesley had been up here, it had been with her. When Joseph had locked them out for his petty revenge plot, though like Eleanor telling him about Dresden and even her confession about leaking the photos from months ago, none of that seemed to matter anymore. It had been after a storm with rain splattering around, the lights of Angeles sparkling in the sunset below them as it always did when they broke apart. Wesley had given her his suit jacket and told her about Drake. Back then it felt like a secret weight he had to carry when it came to anyone else. It had been another reality, telling each other neither of them regretted it and that they could have made it had things been different. He had kissed her. He had kissed her goodbye.

It was the same time of day, and he could still see the city full of lights. The sky was clear. He half-believed that the door behind him would open and it would be her, in that same dress she had been wearing, her hair blowing around her in the nighttime breeze. Except in his mind, it was always her long hair from when they had been teenagers. There was nothing wrong with her new haircut though- that would have been fine too. He inhaled deeply, and when he let it go, he tried his best to let Lissa Dove go with it. Tomorrow he would go to the ball to celebrate his birthday and the last ladies of the Selection, and she wouldn't be there and he really really really hoped it would be okay. He did it again just to be sure.

He stayed up there a long time until he was sure the Report was good and over, and no one would be waiting for him. He was feeling more hungover than drunk when he left the lights of the city behind. The plan was to sleep and not think about anything. He doubted anything would be better in the morning. Best case scenario he wouldn't see anyone until tomorrow and they couldn't very well yell at him on his birthday now could they.

The hallway was empty, so he quickly ducked into his rooms. Everything felt so confusing, and he welcomed the sanctuary of familiarity. He headed to his bedroom but noticed the light in his office was on. He nudged the door open and looked inside. Vera was sitting on his chair, her bare feet propped up on his desk, clearly waiting for him.

"Hey," he said, but she didn't have a nice greeting for him.

"You're a coward."

He closed the door, rubbing his throbbing head. "I know."

She was still wearing a gown she probably had worn on the Report, but her favorite flannel shirt was now over it, her hair scooped up into a messy pile on top of her head. "It's a little weird for us to be on the Report without you."

"I was supposed to make an announcement and I didn't want to."

"Typical," she inspected her nails, that even with the palace staff on hand, were chipped with black nail polish. "When things get too hard, you drink and you run. You push everyone away every time and yet, you still keep thinking it's going to turn out differently."

Rude of her to assume he wanted therapy right now. From someone who also badly needed therapy.

"Maybe," he said, sitting down on the edge of his desk, his back to her. "Maybe this time it will actually be different."

Behind him, Vera laughed, scoffed really. Wesley lowkey wanted to pull rank on her and tell her to leave.

"I don't think so," she said. "I used to be like you, though. I used to have hope that maybe one day, it would be different, and everything would be okay."

"Why did you stop?" Wesley untied his tie, letting it hang around his neck. He was so, so tired all of the sudden. He had this conversation before with her and it always made him upset.

"It never was," she answered. "Me and the world were just too broken, I guess."

As un-okay as everything was, he didn't believe her. It was all going to be okay, somehow.

He thought back to the night only a few weeks ago before he and Georgia went to Atlin. How scared he was, though he wouldn't admit it. How the amplified fear brought all the bad stuff into sharp focus again until he thought he might break apart. He thought of Lissa, coming to say goodbye.

"I think…" he paused, the words she had said to him sticking in his throat. "We're all broken. But we have to try to put ourselves back together or else we're just going to keep breaking until there's nothing left. We have to try." He gritted his teeth, knowing he had broken bits of himself again today, parts that were glued back together and now scattered on the floor. "It makes you who you are," he continued. "It's…it's how the light gets in."

Barely above a whisper, Vera spoke. "I'm so tired of trying." He looked back at her, at Vera, finding her face streaked with mascara-laden tears that had started to flow silently down her cheeks. The blue of her eyes was more luminous when they were watery, her nose red, and her eyes vacant. Little wisps of hair fell around her face, only making her look more pathetic.

Even in the midst of his sad boy hours, even how badly he wanted someone to tell him it was going to be okay, he thought—that used to be me. And now it's not.

He turned his legs so his body was facing hers and slid off the desk, wrapping his arms tightly around Vera so he could hug her. She clung to him like a lifeline, tucking her head into his shoulder, her frame shuddering as she cried. It broke his heart that she didn't make any sounds while she fell apart in his arms. He held her tighter, smoothing his hand over her hair. Sometimes, a hug was the only way to try to put someone's broken pieces back together.

When she had stopped crying, she slowly relinquished her hold on him, wiping at her nose.

"Chin up, kid," Wesley said, ruffling her hair to tease her. "Sadly, I have no tissues."

Despite it all, Vera smiled. "I'm not enough of a lady to need them," she said, using her sleeve. Her eyes met his, and he was worried for a second that she was going to cry again the way her eyes filled up with tears. "I'm not enough of a lady to marry you either."

"What?" It caught Wesley off guard, to hear her say that.

"You've tried your hardest with me, and for that…for that I sort of love you." Shyly, her eyes met his, and then quickly looked away. "You have so much hope and goodness and you want to make the world better for everyone and sometimes you forget to save yourself too, but you're always going to try."

Her words didn't scare him as much as they would a few months ago when his worst fear was that they would all leave one by one and leave him without any Selected. He thought of what Eleanor had said, how she only wanted to be perfect. Maybe that's why it seemed so easy with Vera—they were the same when it came to being imperfect.

"I think I've been hiding out here, from everything," she admitted. "I don't know how to fix me, but I know it's not going to be here."

"I could help you," he said. But that was the thing. Maybe neither of them was perfect, but Wesley at least wanted to get better. She didn't.

She shook her head, but there was a quiet sort of determination in the way she refused his help. "I'm going to tear you apart more and more. I already am. You're putting yourself back together, Wesley. But you keep stopping to try to do it for everyone else." She paused, considering. "It's something we both gotta do alone. It's something I have to try."

He smiled. He had been through so much with this girl, from meeting her barefoot and holding a wad of her dress so she could walk to surviving the attack on their car in downtown Angeles to breaking her trust when he hadn't told her about the Berlins to comforting in her in the aftermath of the Public Trials.

"Besides," Vera sighed, pulling her knees to her chest and perched in his desk chair. "You need someone who actually likes this stuff or at least is good at it," she said, sounding like her old self. "I hate the dresses and the shoes and being inside all the time, to name a few. I would make a terrible princess."

"And does it look like I'm a good prince?" That got a smile out of her. "Look, nothing's been decided yet. I'm not asking for you to marry me or anything," he said, the marry part coming out all mumbled. "I'm asking you to stay for now. For the ball."

Vera eyed him. "Who were you going to send home before you skipped the announcement?"

"I have no idea," he admitted, not bothering to tell her that was supposed to be tomorrow. "I was going to decide later."

Her smile turned into a laugh, though it was more at him than it was funny. Wesley laughed too, though. Because he was stupid.

"Fine," Vera said, her feet going to the floor as she started to get up. "I'll stay for now. But I warned you." She tugged her flannel closer. "It's late-you can stay up if you want, but I'm going to bed."

"Goodnight, then," Wesley said. Bed sounded nice, he was surprised to find.

She started to leave, then paused. "If you marry Eleanor, I'm not coming to the wedding."

That was not what he was expecting her to say at all. "Uhhh, why?"

Vera shrugged. "I don't trust her."

Wesley was too overwhelmed to talk about anything serious right now, but he realized he did trust Eleanor. Maybe with everything she had confessed, it all made sense. What possible reason would she have for confessing what she had done? He would have to apologize to her tomorrow.

Vera realized he wasn't going to respond to what she had said. "That's all," she leaned over to kiss his cheek. He held onto her wrist, sliding his hand down to her hand but was too confused about literally everything to do much else other than squeeze it. "Get out of here," he joked. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"It is tomorrow."

Wesley glanced at his clock and saw she was right.

"Happy birthday, Wesley."

…