This one's a bit longer (like double) and... stuff... happens. A little funny, a little flashback, a bit of smut. Reviews, comments, and 'how could you?' always welcome!

In the end (not the end end but certainly the beginning of it, the real first step on the slippery slope to sleeping together) when Karma found herself in a NYC alley with her back pressed against a brick building wall with Amy's hands on her hips and Amy's tongue in her mouth, Karma had only one coherent thought.

Maisie had no one to blame but herself.

If she'd left well enough alone, if she'd stayed quiet and out of sight out of mind, if she'd just never called (not Farrah and certainly not Amy) then maybe the dam would've held. Maybe the leaks and the trickles and the the little dents and dings would've never amounted to more than that.

But Maisie didn't and they didn't and in the end, the beginning of it anyway, the dam didn't hold and Karma kissed Amy and Amy kissed back and that was how it all went to hell.

Things were going fine before that. OK. Maybe not fine, maybe not what any sane reasonable, or logical person would've called fine (but when were either of them any of those?) . But it was their version of fine, the version where no one says how they really feel and every word and every sentence is loaded with… hiding.

That's what it all was. Hiding. Meanings hiding behind hints hiding behind half truths (and the occasional outright lie) and all that hiding only makes them wonder.

Did she mean that?

Did she mean it like I think she meant it or did she mean it like she meant it and I'm just reading meaning into her meanings that aren't really there?

So, yeah, it wasn't fine, not by any stretch of anyone's imagination, not even Karma's. It wasn't fine and it wasn't normal and it wasn't going to be fine or normal or anything but what it was (misery and pain and a distance growing between them that Karma could fucking see) until one of them said something. Something they meant and in that way they both understood and left no fucking doubt and opened the can of worms they'd so far kept a super tight lid on.

Karma tried. She tried to say something. Really , she did.

They all said yes. So why didn't you?

She hadn't meant to say it (and there was that whole meaning things, again, and Karma knew one day she was going to have to say something and mean it and mean to say it or else… well… or else Amy would marry someone who wasn't her and that seemed a lot less far fetched and a lot less far off than it had just a couple days ago) . And this time she hadn't meant to say it but she did say it but stupid traffic and stupid people and stupid NYC had covered her words and buried them down deep under passerby chit chat and hustle and bustle and Amy just kept walking as Karma stood there, the crowd flowing around her like a steam around a rock.

Fucking rock.

Once Karma got past the shock of those words actually coming out, she started to think that maybe that was it. Maybe that was the dam bursting, the plug being yanked from the drain, that last proverbial straw. Maybe that moment (even unheard) was the kick in the ass she needed and the point where it all finally got to be too much and she couldn't hold it in anymore.

And then Amy paused on the sidewalk and looked back at her. "You coming?" she asked. "The toys aren't going to play with themselves "

There it was. Opportunity presenting itself, leaping into the middle of the NYC sidewalk and waving hello! This was her chance. This was her moment.

Karma hustled through the intersection and caught up to Amy who bumped her shoulder with her own. "What happened back there? Forget how to walk?"

I was just so stunned that Maisie asked your family and they said yes when clearly they should have known better since you couldn't even give the girl an answer and what's up with that, Amy? You said you you were engaged but you're not and you're here instead of with her and why is that?

"Sorry, " Karma said. "Thought I had something in my shoe. "

Amy nodded and slung her arm back through Karma's and they soldiered on headed for the toys and Karma cursed her total lack of follow though, her complete inability to actually pull the fucking trigger and just smiled weakly at Amy's jokes and listened half heartedly to her discussion of which Star Wars toys she wanted to get Elliot, all the while bemoaning that fucking damn in her head, the one she was sure now would never burst.

And if not for a phone call from Amy's not fiancee maybe it never would have.

So, in the end (or the beginning of it), it really was Maisie's own damn fault. She should have just left well enough alone.

Even Karma had learned that lesson.

In the end (still not the end but maybe a little less the beginning) when she found herself pressing Karma hard against the building and grinding her hips against hers and kissing her back (because Karma had kissed first and Amy knew that was the only way that would have ever happened) Amy knew she had only herself to blame.

It was all her own fault. It was all on her that she was standing there kissing Karma (and fuck all, Karma had learned to kiss since high school not that she was ever bad but this was a whole other level or maybe, Amy thought, it was just that they were both finally into it and this is what it always would have been like and if that's true, then thank God they never did this back then. She would have fucking died) and that was supposed to be the happiest and hottest moment of her life.

And it was.

Amy felt such joy and fulfillment and completion at finally being in that moment that she knew she'd never have adequate words to describe it to Lauren later.

And as for hot…

Amy knew Karma had never been with a girl and she hadn't been with many herself but she knew enough (more than enough if you asked some people) that she was already thinking of every single thing she was going to do with Karma.

Every single thing she was going to do to Karma. And then teach Karma to do to her.

Assuming she could ever stop kissing her and that she could, eventually, trust herself enough to let go of Karma's hips (because she really doubted Karma wanted to be stripped, spun around to face the wall, and then fucked right there on a NYC street) and that either of them would be able to walk back to the apartment under their own power.

Amy was really unsure on that last one. Her knees were already weak.

It was happy and it was hot and it made Amy's heart swell two sizes that day.

And it made her stomach clench and both those sizes crack and break and she knew Karma was going to feel the tears on her cheeks soon and that would be the end of that and that would be good because if it went on much longer Amy really did think she might die.

And not in the good way.

And all that was her own fault, had been her fault since the moment she'd seen the ring and frozen and freaked and been pretty much every proposer's worst nightmare.

Ever since she'd said I'll think about it, since she took the ring and she put it on a chain instead of a finger. She'd taken the ring and left Maisie's apartment (which, let's be real, was their apartment because Amy hadn't spent more than one night a month in her own place since Maisie had moved in) and headed back to campus. She went straight to the library (do not pass go, do not collect an actual fiancée) where it was quiet and isolated and she could hunker down at a corner table with her laptop

And book a ticket.

She was the one who ran. She didn't walk and yes, she did fly (technically) but the flying was really just running and running wasn't just running. The running didn't matter, it was the running to that counted.

She was the one who said 'I'll have to think about it' (have to, not just will, have to) and took the ring and put it on a chain and ran straight to Karma. And she was the one who wasn't surprised by that at all. It was like Amy'd always known she'd do it, eventually, and she didn't know what that said about her but she was sure it was nothing good.

Amy knew she only had herself to blame because she was the one who had lied. She was the one who had gone back to the apartment (their apartment and she fucking knew it) and found Maisie there, sitting on the tiny balcony (in the exact spot she'd been in when she asked and when Amy said 'have to' and then run like a fool) and she was the one who'd seen the hope in Maisie's eyes.

She knew that hope. It was the same hope that had flickered through her eyes when Karma had shown up outside her house the night after the wedding with her guitar in her hand. The same hope that had danced across her face so many times. The same hope from the threesome, from 'we're soulmates', from the pool kiss, and even from 'you can tell me that kiss meant something'.

The same hope that had broken her heart over and over again and the same hope that had just booked a flight to NYC.

Some lessons, Amy knew, took forever to learn.

Maisie looked up at her with that same hope, the hope that 'I'll have to think' had turned into 'I'm so sorry, I was so stupid, of course I'll marry you' (in like two hours) and Amy felt like such shit she couldn't stand it . It was almost enough to make her say yes on the spot.

Almost.

But almost isn't enough and Amy knew it and that had everything to do with that plane ticket and even more to do with why she sat down across from Maisie and couldn't look her in the eye and that was enough, more than enough to wipe that hope away.

"I'm sorry," she said.

Maisie shifted in her chair and pulled her feet back, anything to be as far from Amy as possible and all Amy wanted to do was go to her and hold her and kiss her and beg her to explain how she could love someone who was so clearly a massive fuck up.

But Maisie didn't need holding or kissing (wanted might have been another story) but she did need some clarity. "Sorry because you still don't know?" she asked. "Or sorry because you do?"

And there was that hope again. That hope that screamed 'please please please still be confused because if you're not and you're saying sorry…'

"Sorry for hurting you," Amy said. She wanted to scoot her chair closer and take Maisie's hand but she was pretty sure that was bad form in these situations. "And sorry that I can't… say yes… yet."

She emphasized the 'yet' and even if she didn't know for sure that it was a 'yet' and not a 'never', Amy figured she owed Maisie that much. Even if she also knew that owing wasn't the best way to think of it at all.

"It's fine," Maisie said, as if they both didn't know it was anything but fine. "You're not ready. I jumped the gun. Totally my fault. It's… fine."

Bad form or not (and since when, Amy wondered, had she ever given a fuck about form), Amy pulled her chair close and tried not to let her heart break at the way Maisie pushed back in her own, like she'd be perfectly willing to crawl through the back of it just to get away, and just that twitch, that tiny little movement was enough to keep Amy's hands in her own lap.

"May? Baby? Look at me, please." Maisie pulled her eyes from the table and looked at Amy but it only lasted a second before Maisie was looking past her and around her and over her and everywhere but at her. "This isn't you, it's -"

"Please don't say 'it's me'," Maisie said softly. "Just don't…" She did look at Amy then and Amy could see her knuckles go white as she gripped the armrest of the chair, forcing herself to hold eye contact. "Just be honest," she said. "It is me. I'm not the one you want. I mean… you want me… just… not like that."

Just not like that

There was never a moment in her life when Amy really hated Karma. But if there was? That might well have been it.

"I was stupid," Maisie said. "I knew you hadn't had many relationships and I knew you weren't a U-hauler. And I thought, after two years… I thought we were there. I thought you were there and I…"

Amy understood. She'd thought she was there too. And maybe… fuck.. she didn't know.

"You don't have to say you'll think about it," Maisie said. "You don't have to be nice and fake it to spare my feelings. You can just say no."

Fuck form and fuck confusion and fuck Maisie pulling away, Amy took the other girl's hands in her and clutched them tight. "I know I can," Amy said. "I could have when you asked or I could now. But 'could' and 'can' aren't 'want to' or 'going to'." Maisie stared at their hands and Amy knew (she fucking knew) what Maisie was feeling. That refusal, that stubborn 'I just won't' avoidance of hope. "I love you," she said and Maisie's eyes shut. "And 'I'll think about it doesn't mean no and it doesn't mean I don't and it doesn't mean I won't."

"Then what does it mean?"

Amy let out a slow ragged breath. It means I'm a fucking idiot who can't let go, she thought but she said, "It means I can't. Not just yet. Not until…" She thought of the plane ticket sitting in her email and the charge on her credit card and the call she had to make to tell Karma she was coming.

"It means I have to go," she said. "I have to go home," she lied.

"You're leaving?"

"Not right now," Amy said. "Next weekend, when we're on break from classes. I'm gonna go home for a couple days. I… need to." She'd planned it all out, known exactly the lie she was going to spin.

"I get it," Maisie said. "You need to see your mom." That time it was her that squeezed Amy's hands. "I thought of it when I asked her… you know.. for permission? How many men had asked your Nana for her daughter's hand? You Raudenfelds don't do so well with the whole till death do you part bit."

Amy wanted to die. It was the exact story she'd cooked up, right down to the death do us part line but Maisie didn't just buy it, she knew it because Maisie knew her. She knew her and she loved her and she was willing to fucking wait for her and all Amy could do was run, run to NYC, run after something that didn't exist.

Run after Karma. Again.

"I understand if you want me to stay at my place for a few days -"

Maisie's lips swallowed her words and Amy moaned against her as she curled out of her own chair and into Amy's lap. "No," she mumbled against Amy's lips, even as she peppered them with feverish (and desperate and Amy so got that and it broke her and soaked her all at once) kisses Maisie tipped her head back. "Unless you want to?"

Amy thought again of the ticket and the charge and the call and felt the ring on the chain bouncing against her chest and she hated herself and she didn't know if it was more for what she was doing or what she was about to do.

She wrapped her arms under Maisie's legs and lifted, settling the other girl on the edge of the small coffee table between the chairs, her hands slipping to the waist of Maisie's shorts, already working the button and then the zipper and sliding inside and Maisie moaned against her skin and bit down on Amy's shoulder as the blonde dipped one finger inside her even as she dropped to her knees.

"This is where I want to be," Amy said, staring up at her as Maisie tried to breathe. She slipped her hand free and grabbed the sides of Maisie's shorts, pulling them off and tossing them aside without a second look. "Right here," she moaned, leaning in and swiping her tongue across her girlfriend's clit and Maisie moaned again and tangled her hands in Amy's hair and her thighs clenched around Amy's head and there on the balcony and then later in their bed and then again the next morning… it was almost enough to convince Amy it would all be OK.

Almost.

But if almost was enough, she would have never found herself in an alley pressing herself against Karma, the angry and panicked and heartbroken phone call from her girlfriend all but forgotten.

The call came in the Disney store, in the Star Wars section, just as Amy was holding up a tiny turquoise Rey tee shirt.

"You think Elliot would like this?" she asked and Karma, lost in thought about what she didn't do and what she should have done and what she, maybe, still had time to do, nodded absently, forgetting that this was Amy, who could read her nods like most people could read the alphabet.

Amy hung the shirt back on the rack and ignored the buzzing of her phone in her pocket. "She loves Rey," she said. "I think my mom's already taken her to see Force Awakens five times and since my mother wouldn't know Vader from Van Halen, that's saying something." Karma nodded again and murmured her agreement, idly toying with a plastic lightsaber. "But I think it's just cause she has the hots for the guy at the ticket counter. I'm pretty sure he's gonna be step-pops number six. You know, once he graduates high school."

"That's great," Karma said, smiling. "I'm sure that'll be awesome for her."

Amy sighed and, nof for the first time, wondered if it was that time, if they'd finally reached that point, the moment when the weight of the secrets they were both lugging around had finally dragged them down so far they couldn't even see Karma and Amy anymore, much less be them.

She ignored the phone again and took a step closer to Karma. "Maybe it's time we head back," Amy said. "I think… we… um… there's probably some talking we should…"

Her phone buzzed again, so fucking loudly, and Karma stared at her pocket. "You should probably get that," she said, suddenly focused back on reality again, her mind already plugging the leaks in the dam that had threatened to drown her in the street. "It might be important."

"And it might be a wrong number," Amy said. She didn't know who it was but she knew who it wasn't. Her mother was at sea (literally, for once) and not likely to waste the money to make the call. She just talked to Lauren, Shane hadn't called in months, and Maisie had agreed to give her some time. Some space. A chance to think.

Amy didn't want to think about that.

"Karma," she said, but the redhead was already making her way to a display of Star Wars figures, her eyes scanning the collection for a Rey or that cute little rolling robot all the kids loved.

"It's so cool, don't you think?" she asked, plucking a Han Solo from the first row. "Making the movie with a female lead. Gives all the little girls hope, you know?" She set Han back on his hook. "Hope's a good thing, I think."

"Usually," Amy said. And sometimes hope was a fucking knife poised right over your heart, teasing you with the chance that it wouldn't cut you when you always fucking knew it would.

Her phone buzzed again and then again and then once more. Short quick bursts. Texts, not calls.

"What the fuck…" she muttered, tugging the offending gadget from her pocket and checking the display.

Six missed calls (more than she'd even felt). All from Maisie. Three texts, also from her girlf...fiance… her.

Answer the phone.

Pick up Amy.

I know you're with her. Answer the fucking phone.

Karma turned to see Amy standing there, the color gone from her face and her hand shaking so bad she nearly dropped the phone. She watched as Amy's eyes darted everywhere, like she was running scenarios in her mind, trying to work out the quickest escape route or the most plausible line of bullshit she could conjure out of thin air.

"Amy?"

Amy's head dropped and her hand shot to her mouth, clamping down on the cry-slash-sob-slash-curse-slash you had to know this was going to fucking happen cause it's you that threatened to come bubbling out.

"She knows," Amy finally said, so quietly Karma barely heard. And then Amy looked her right in the eye and Karma put two and two together and every lie, every bit of bullshit, every well practiced moment of faking it and not finishing the fucking thing out of self preservation hung in the air between them and it was all so fucking clear.

"You know," Karma said.

"You know," Amy replied. And she held up the phone, buzzing again in her hand. "And so does she." She turned away and answered the call and drifted off into the store, like she was sinking beneath the waves and Karma wanted to reach out, to give her something to hold onto, a life preserver to pull her back to shore.

She stood there, not moving, because she knew. There was nothing she could do to help Amy.

They'd both done enough already.

Karma found her underneath Cinderella's castle.

She started to say something but, for maybe the first time in her life, Karma's words failed her and she'd heard just enough of the call (and that seemed to be something of a pattern) and Amy's face told her the rest.

Maisie knew. And Maisie wasn't happy and Karma shook her head because wasn't happy was about the most ridiculous understatement of all time and as much as she maybe didn't like (hated) Maisie, she understood how the girl felt.

Karma knew all too well what it was like to lose Amy to another girl. Even if she wasn't sure that was what was happening here.

But there was that hope thing again…

She didn't know exactly what Maisie knew, but Karma had a pretty good idea. She was sure Maisie knew Amy wasn't in Austin, that she wasn't with her mother and her family, and that she was, of all places, with her.

And if Karma could only imagine that Maisie said it like that, like her, like a disease or a murderer or something that got stuck on the underside of your life and you couldn't cut the fucker off without losing too much blood and everything you loved in the first place?

Well, this was one time Karma was pretty sure her imagination was spot fucking on.

She sat down next to Amy beneath the cardboard castle but kept a… respectful wasn't the word… safe… distance. Not letting their hips or legs or shoulders bump, no comforting hand on the arm, no head resting on the shoulder. There might be time for all that (and maybe more) but that was later and this was now and this was Amy, her best friend (and love of her life and that was for later too) and she was in pain.

And for once, Karma thought, it wasn't because of her.

At least not completely.

She stared at the floor, at some spot between their feet, and tried to understand what she was feeling. Amy and Maisie were fighting. Amy and Maisie might have just broken up. Amy was sitting under a castle in the middle of the Disney Store with her and she was fucking broken but Karma was there. She was there to pick up the pieces instead of being the one to shatter Amy into them.

Karma knew she should have been… something. Maybe not happy, cause she would never take pleasure in Amy's pain. And maybe not relieved because just because Amy and Maisie weren't Amy and Maisie anymore (maybe), that didn't mean she and Amy were going to be… them… any time soon. So maybe those particular emotions were off the table. But Karma knew she should be something.

But she wasn't. She wasn't a single fucking thing. She was as empty as Amy looked and she felt like the wind hadn't just been knocked out of her but like it had been sucked straight from her lungs and there was nothing left for her to breathe and Karma didn't know what the fuck that meant.

And Amy wasn't exactly helping.

The blonde kept staring at her phone, clicking the lock screen on and off, on and off, on and off, like somehow it would change, like every click had the chance to make it all so different and Karma could kinda get the need to feel like that right then.

She watched the pictures flip back and forth. The lock screen was them, but not just them, it was all of them. Her and Amy and Lauren and Shane and even Liam and Felix. It was her graduation party, the last time Karma could remember them all being together and she knew it was Amy's favorite picture because it was the only time she ever got her, Lauren, and Shane to pose together and look like they didn't mind.

The home screen… Karma didn't like thinking in metaphors (even though she did so fucking often) but the home screen was exactly that. It was home. Amy and Maisie on the tiny little balcony outside their apartment (and Karma didn't give a single fuck whose name was on the lease, it was theirs). Maisie had moved in eight months after she and Amy became a couple and Amy had followed her and just never left.

"She picked it for me," Amy said quietly, staring down at the picture. "I told her I loved that balcony. That I could see us out there on Sunday mornings having breakfast and drinking those God awful soy latte things she loves in just our jammies and…"

Amy pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers and squeezed her eyes shut. Karma didn't move, she didn't speak, she barely fucking breathed.

"She surprised me with it the next week," Amy said. "She'd signed the lease and even started moving a few things but the first thing she did, the very first fucking thing she did was to go out and buy that little table and those two little chairs. She stayed up the entire night before she showed it to me, painting them and stenciling our initials on them."

Amy tipped the phone so Karma could see the two chairs. She couldn't really make out the one as Amy and Maisie were sharing it, but she could see the bright blue 'A' on the other one. It was silly and dorky and ridiculously childish and exactly the sort of thing Amy would love.

"It was just so goofy and sweet and so… her," Amy said. "Just so…" Her hand drifted to her shirt and Karma watched as she clutched the ring though the fabric. "She did that," Amy said as she gripped that fucking rock even tighter. "She did that and I did this. I fucking did this."

A few mothers and daughters drifted around the castle (it was a major photo op for the tourists) and Karma got the sense they were overstaying their welcome.

"Amy," she said quietly. "Maybe we should talk about this, you know, somewhere else." Karma smiled weakly at one mother who was watching them with a disapproving eye. "Maybe we should just head back to my apartment and we can -"

"And we can what?" Amy asked and there was a tone to it that Karma had never heard and there was that air getting sucked out of her feeling again. "What can we do, Karma? Hmmm?"

"Amy…"

Amy stood, her phone still clutched in her hand and her cheeks still wet with tears she was still crying. "I know," she said. "Maybe we can keep a few more secrets. That's a good start, don't you think?"

Karma side eyed the crowd that was gathering. This was so not the happiest place on Earth.

"Oh!" Amy snapped. "Or maybe you can get hammered again because that's the only way you can be around me. Or, maybe, you can spill your guts in the middle of the night again cause, you know, that worked so well the first time."

Karma bowed her head and didn't even try to fight back. It wasn't the time or the place and, really, Amy had a point. At least a little.

"Yes," Amy said. "Why don't we do that, Karma? Why don't we go back to your place and then we can climb into bed together and while I'm trying not to die because I just ruined everything that mattered to me for someone who supposedly will love me till I do die but can't even tell me, you can hold me and console me and remind me of everything I had with her that I wanted with you. And then? When my tears are dried and there's hope in my soul again, you can do what you do best."

Karma took a deep breath before she asked but she did ask. She had to. "And what's that?"

"You can break my heart. Again."

Amy was out from under the castle and down the escalator and out the front door before Karma had a chance to even… fuck it… before she had a chance to check to make sure she was still breathing, to make sure the pieces of her heart weren't all over the Disney Store floor, before she had a chance to shoot a dirty look at the mother whispering to her daughter about 'deviants'.

And then Karma did what it was she thought she did best.

She went after Amy.

She caught her two blocks down, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her off the sidewalk into an alley and spinning her around. There was rage in Amy's eyes and Karma was pretty sure hers looked much the same and she didn't know if she wanted to hit her or kiss her.

And she came so fucking close to doing both.

"You... how… your heart…" Karma saw a flicker of concern in Amy's eyes cause she was flailing and stammering and flushed and she probably did look like she was stroking out. "You know what, Amy?" Karma got right up in her best friend's face, pushing up on her tip-toes to make up the slight height difference and see right into her eyes.

And the dam, the one she'd held together so fucking long, through Liam and Davis and the others and Reagan and Maisie and fucking Felix and motherfucker it was too fucking much and it all broke.

"Fuck you," Karma said.

Then she kissed her. She took Amy's face between her hands and crashed her lips into the blonde's and she might have crushed their teeth together and there might have been blood and Karma didn't give even the tiniest of fucks because she was kissing Amy and she wasn't faking and she wasn't drunk and she wasn't putting on a show for anyone and she was shaking and she couldn't breathe but she wouldn't stop even if she fucking died.

And then Amy was kissing her back and there was a tongue running along her lips and hands on her hips and she was being backed up and pressed against the alley wall and Karma didn't care if it was an alley or her room or the back of her parent's van or the halls of fucking Hester.

It was her. It was Amy. And that, for the moment (the very long moment she hoped would never end) was enough.

And if that moment had never ended? Maybe it would have been.