Hello Readers!

Okay, I know I said that I would update on Wednesday, but you guys are killing me with the begging. Hopefully this will hold you off until the next; since I've moved Wednesday's to today, I'm going to have to move the next update to Friday, since I haven't written it yet ^_^;; It takes a while for me to detach myself from other projects, so please bear with me!

I know I say this everytime, but thank you thank you THANK YOU GUYS for all the reviews! Y'all are so good at giving me the fuzzies .

This rabbit's going to go sleep now so, until the next, I remain,

HYUN.

CHAPTER 5

It's a long while before I stop crying. Bonnie hasn't let go of me since she's woken up, and Ravi just sits nearby, watching. Each time I tried to stop crying, I kept seeing the images of what-ifs in my head and I started again. Bonnie kept stroking my hair, patting me on the back, rocking me back and forth, and I clung how I'd wanted to for months. I clung, and it felt so... raw, almost unfamiliar.

Finally, I stop crying, gently prying myself away from Bonnie to look at her. Ravi sighs, and waves goodbye as she leaves. She's going to have a talking to with me later, I know it, but for now, I'm just glad Bonnie's safe.

"Are you going to tell me why you were crying?"

I shake my head, not taking my eyes off her. Bonnie sighs and wipes away the remaining tears from my face. I hold her by the wrist and put her hand down, by her side. It's so easy to read her; as I move her hand away from my face, her lips tremble slightly. I smile to reassure her. For a moment, she stays as she is, searching for more than reassurance from me, then, as if she's gotten what she can, she smiles back tightly, and gets up.

"I have to continue working, I was just taking a break." With her back to me, she asks "...Will you...tomorrow..." Will I be the same tomorrow, she wants to ask, or will I return to how I was.

"I'm okay now." The pause in her movement tells me that she's relieved. She goes to the easel closest to us, and sits on the stool in front of it, picking up a clean brush.

I move from the ground to the couch she was sleeping on, and make myself comfortable, when I feel a pang in my left hand. I forgot I'd cut open the wound again. There's probably blood spots on my shirt, but I'm wearing burgundy, so it probably doesn't show much. I clench my fist so that the pain is a little more durable. I don't want to leave just yet. I watch her work, watch her mix various colours on her palette, adding more and more until she's satisfied, watch as her hair gets dissheveled, watch the frown on her face disappear then reappear as she continues to create and remake the world she paints.

Hours pass, and I watch as she repeats her movements, adding pauses and changes in between them. It's soothing, somehow, watching her. I think maybe the distance I put in between us is the reason for that, but that's all over now. What a nightmare tonight has been...it feels like so long ago, as though it's been months since I was racing to see her, distraught, out of my mind, but not even a day has passed. Still, I feel displaced, somehow, but I've learned that whatever I feel, whatever I may go through because of how I feel, I can't stay away from her, because what I'll feel then, is incomparable. Tonight was a testament to that.

I just have to be careful not to affect her with how I feel. Bonnie getting hurt is one thing, but getting hurt because of me is -

-but you have been hurting her...

That's right. I have been hurting her, because I was blinded by how I felt, by what I wanted.

I don't realise that Bonnie has left the easel and is standing right in front of me until she grabs my face and turns it up towards her.

"-Earth to Marceline?" She leans down and speaks right into my ear, "I repeat, can you hear me," and when she does, I jerk my head away. She flinches, and her hands move from my face as if they'd been shocked.

"Are you hungry? I'll get you something to eat." I move to get up, and she steps away from me so as to make room. Her hands are now clasped in front of her, fidgeting. There is still some uncertainty left on her face, almost fearful.

I did this to her.

But I can't not. Being around her, being close to her, it still drives me insane. My hands twitch, and in my mind, they've reached for her in a thousand different ways, all ways to drag her in, to feel her, to - and I've stopped myself a thousand different times, knowing this isn't right, that my feelings are mine to deal with, and because I know what it's like to have someone else's feelings dumped on you, because they thought it was their right, that somehow, they were entitled to how they felt about you, and it was your job to know. I know how suffocating it is.

I don't want to lose Bonnie, but moreso, I don't want Bonnie to feel what I felt, I don't want to make Bonnie feel like she can't be what she wants to be with me. I don't want to suffocate her. I don't want to lose her. I can't. I refuse to. I won't.

I was stupid before, thinking that all I had to do was be away from her, and that somehow I could get rid of these feelings, manage on my own, but it hadn't worked, and I'd missed her more and more every day I was away from her. I'd gone to her dorm room door night after night, after I knew she'd fallen asleep, and just sat there, just to be near her.

How did it get to this?

"I promise. I'll be right back." I reach my right hand out to her, just like we'd always done, as she had done a week ago.

She takes my hand in hers and smiles, and it's not pained, it's not reluctant, it's not held back. Bonnie smiles freely, and widely, and my throat wells up that much more, because I did this to her.

I smile back at her as well as I can, before I let go and leave the room for the kitchen. There should be a first aid kit there too. I have to redress the wound before Bonnie sees. I've done enough damage, I'm not going to make her worry about me too.