The cab lurched to a sudden stop behind a fancy town car and Amy fell forward in her seat, Karma's arm shooting out and pressing against her chest, the only thing holding her in place.

Trapping her, basically.

And Amy tried really hard not to think of it like that but it was a losing battle, one she'd been fighting for years but she was tired and her fight was gone. Things were different, they were different and that call and that kiss had changed so much and they both knew it, especially when she pulled away, when she practically crawled into the seat of the cab, as if Karma's touch burned.

Because it did. It always had but now it didn't just burn, it hurt and not in the good way and Amy couldn't help wishing she'd just said yes. Maybe that would have saved them all (except her) (maybe) a whole fuckload of pain. She'd be home, in Cali, curled up in her chair on the balcony, reading a book or studying or just soaking in the sun and knowing Maisie was right there, next to her or in the kitchen or cuddled in their bed and everything would be alright.

But she hadn't said yes and she wasn't home and everything was most definitely not alright and Amy couldn't really see a way it would be again.

She looked out the cab's window (anything to avoid looking at Karma and that feeling, that fear and that… misery… at the thought of looking at the one person who had always owned her heart just about fucking killed Amy) and she slowly realized where they were. She recognized the stretch of streets just two blocks from the main campus and three from the small cluster of freshman dorms. She'd been here before, visiting Karma that first year, but those times weren't the ones that pricked her eyes with tears and made her stomach lurch. They weren't the ones (the one) that made her grab the handle and jump from the still stopped cab and bolt faster than she or Karma even knew she could.

Amy left a confused and startled Karma in her wake, scrambling to pay the fare and then chase after her, yelling at her to stop or slow down or just fucking wait and Amy heard Karma's voice echoing across the concrete but she kept moving, not slowing down, and sure as fuck not waiting because, really, Amy knew that was her whole problem in a fucking nutshell.

She'd waited too long. In more ways the one.

She weaved around people and across streets and through what traffic there was, her broken and battered mind on autopilot and her wounded (fuck that - her broken, shattered, shredded) heart was doing the flying. Amy didn't look back to see Karma, she didn't have to. She knew the other girl was there, chasing but not running, content to follow Amy but not crowd her and if either of them had stopped to think about it, they'd have realized how fucking ridiculous that was now.

Maybe if either of them had done a little more crowding (or a lot fucking less) earlier on, they wouldn't have been there then, maybe things would have been different.

But probably not.

Amy saw more and more that she recognized, more and more of the tiny patch of campus set aside for the newbies, the ones who were from out of town, the ones who needed some time and some help to adjust to the city and the life. Karma had lived here her freshman year, though she honestly didn't need to. Her parents (read: Lucas because Molly had never doubted, not for a second) had worried, had been so sure Karma wouldn't last, that she'd make it a week or maybe two, and then she'd be on the first flight back to Austin, to the safety and (sometimes) loving bosom of her family where she belonged.

Amy hadn't thought so. She didn't think the city was too much for Karma, she thought it was probably exactly what her best friend needed. Amy was sure the city was going to make like Redbull and give Karma wings and Amy couldn't wait to see her fly, even if her father wasn't so sure.

"Zen goes to the Peace Corps and ends up washing out like a punk and my father thinks I'll be just like him," Karma said to Amy a week before they left for school. They had flights out scheduled for the same day, twenty minutes apart, neither one wanting to be alone in Austin any longer than they had to.

"And what do you think?" Amy asked her. They were laying on her bed, staring up at the stars on the ceiling, shoulders and legs pressed together, fingers entwined, as close as lovers even if there was so much metaphorical space between them they could have choked on it, but for them it was like it was all the most normal thing in the world. It had been a long road back to that and Amy, for one, thanked God every day they'd somehow made it.

"If I didn't think I could handle it," Karma said, "I wouldn't go." She turned her head to look at Amy even if she couldn't quite see her. "I'm excited and it'll be awesome and I can't wait, but…" Karma turned onto her side, her head resting on Amy's chest and whispered into the dark. "I still wish we were going to Clement."

Amy wrapped an arm around Karma, holding her tight. "I know you do," she said. "So do I. But Cal gave me a scholarship and Clement didn't and Cal took me now and not on the waiting list…" She shrugged and her duvet bunched under her shoulders and her eyes never left the stars and she swore they were all shining so much fucking brighter than usual, casting their light of truth on all her lies.

She was such an overdramatic shit sometimes.

Karma nodded against Amy's chest and she never saw the look on Amy's face in the dark or the light of truth or any light at all. She never saw the 'I'm so lying to you right now but it's not because I want to, it's because I have to but you'll never understand the difference and that's half the reason I'm doing it' look. And that was good because she wouldn't have understood and she would have lost it and their last week together might really have been their last week together.

And Amy couldn't have lived with that.

It had been a year then, more than that actually. More than a year since Amy had left with Pussy Explosion and it had taken time, more than either of them had expected, for things to settle and get back to what passed for normal with them and that time had helped Amy, it had helped her to come to certain… realizations… about what normal meant.

For her, normal meant loving Karma. It meant being in love with Karma. And no trips, no three months on a bus with a band, no failed attempts at hopping off that looping track through her heart was going to change that. And if all that had done nothing, if sleeping with Liam and loving Reagan and traveling with the Pussies and a few meaningless on-the-road hookups and months of tension and unresolved anger when she came back had done nothing to make her love Kamra even a tiny bit less?

Four years together at college wouldn't do a thing, except make it worse.

Going to Clement together had been the dream but somewhere along the way (right about the moment she kissed Karma or maybe, if she was honest, even before that) that dream had become Amy's nightmare and so, if she lied just a little, if she fudged and didn't let slip that Cal only gave her a partial ride (and Clement a full one), if she left out that she barely got into Cal (and only because Bruce knew someone who knew someone who knew someone and he still felt like Amy was his enough to help) it kinda made sense.

As much sense as any of Amy's lies ever made.

She needed time, real time. Not a summer, not a few months, not a limited time offer that she knew would end with her riding back into town and then standing on the Ashcroft's front step with butterflies in her stomach and the urge to kiss Karma until neither of them could stand. Amy had finally figured out that what she needed wasn't a break, it was a life. One that included Karma but wasn't about Karma, one that involved Karma but didn't revolve around her, one that Karma always had a place in. Just not the place. Just not the one that took up Amy's whole heart and her whole mind and made her deliriously happy and, far too often, just fucking delirious.

That year, their first time really apart, was Amy's first real chance at getting over Karma like she knew she had to, and she knew she was finally getting what she had always needed. Time.

She got three whole weeks of it.

As she moved through the traffic and the people and the streets on that day, Amy remembered those three weeks in a blur. She remembered how hopeful she'd been as her flight took off, how many times she told herself over and over and over again that this was it. This was what Reagan and that summer and every other so-called way to move on had never been. She remembered the feel of the California sun on her skin as she left the airport, the way it felt hot, but so different than Texas hot, the bright and open and 'I'm not a fucking loner weirdo you're gonna be scared of in like two minutes' smile she'd given Jodi, her roomie.

Amy remembered it in a whiplashing blur that raced through her mind like the people passing her on the streets and she'd be fucked if she could pick out more than one or two or maybe (maybe) three moments that really stood out from those weeks. Moments that stood out for anything other than making her miserable or making her feel lost and empty or making her miss Karma even when they talked at least twice a day and it was always Karma's voice she heard last at night and almost always her voice she heard first in the morning.

Three weeks was all it took. Three weeks made Amy realize that time was fucking endless and that a life that didn't revolve around Karma was fucking pointless and it didn't matter if she was under the California sun and it didn't matter if it wasn't Texas hot and it didn't matter if Jodi was awesome and knew every lesbian bar in a ten mile radius and it didn't matter, it didn't matter, it just didn't fucking matter.

None of it mattered. Not without Karma.

"This is insane," Jodi said as she watched Amy pack a bag at a breakneck pace, probably forgetting half of what she needed, but that didn't matter because she was going to the only thing she really needed. "You haven't even been here a month," she said. "At least come out with me once. Hit the bars, a couple clubs. Find a girl, have a random hook up and sneak out of someone's room at two in the morning and then, if you still can't get Kara out of your mind, I'll drive you to the airport myself."

It sounded good (except for the Kara part, but that was the closest Jodi had come to getting the name right in three weeks so Amy took what she could get.) It sounded logical. It sounded like the smart thing to do and Amy knew it was all of those. But that was the problem. She'd done that. She'd done good, she'd done logical, she'd done smart.

She'd put her feelings away after the wedding and tried (so fucking hard with Brazilian girls and being by herself and pretending nothing hurt) to move on. She'd given Karma to Liam to save their friendship and heal her best friend's heart (before she and Liam, of course, shattered it again.) She'd loved Reagan as best she could and she'd buried every fucking thought of Karma and when none of that worked, she fucking left. She'd split town for three months with no one and nothing but a camera and a seat on a bus.

And she'd gone to California. She'd thrown away Clement and the dream and she'd put an entire country between them and it had only taken three weeks (weeks) before she couldn't take it anymore.

"You're right," she told Jodi. "This is insane. And that's why it's the only thing I can do."

So she booked a flight and called a cab and hopped a plane and crossed that country she'd put between them and then took another cab and found Karma's dorm.

And waited.

On an unseasonably cool Thursday in September, Amy Raudenfeld sat on the front step of Loyola Hall and watched the students file in and out and out and in and she waited. She tried to plan a speech to pass the time. It had to be something suitably romantic, obviously. It had to be something Karma wouldn't see coming, maybe something from the McConaughey oeuvre (which would tell Karma everything about how desperate Amy was.) A romantic comedy missive of the kind of tear jerking epic proportions that would make Karma's knees buckle and her heart swell and if there was even the tiniest bit of love in Karma's heart, if she felt even a fraction of what Amy felt, it would be enough.

She tried. Really. But her speech, such as it was (McConaughey had nothing to fear from Raudenfeld) kept getting interrupted by her fantasy, by her visions of how it all would go. Karma spotting her from a distance, breaking into a run and embracing her, practically tackling her to the ground and smothering her with kisses in between mutterings of 'Thank God' and 'I was coming to you, I even had a ticket' and then more kisses and giggles and everyone around them doing a slow clap and music swelling in the background and a fade to black on their smiling faces.

On an unseasonably cool day in September, Amy realized she'd become Karma and she was oddly OK with that because that fantasy was just about perfect.

And on that day, as she finally reached the cold concrete in front of Loyola Hall with Karma at her heels and Maisie's words ringing in her head, Amy remembered that more than anything.

It was a fantasy. And nothing more.

That day in September, Amy had waited. And waited. And the breeze blew and she wished she'd brought a sweater or a light jacket or something. And she waited.

She waited till she saw her, till Karma came into view, just across the way. She was wearing a sundress and a pair of boots (boots that made Amy really appreciate her legs cause, yeah, like it took boots for that to happen) and smiling as if she didn't feel the chill and Amy marveled at how you could take the girl out of Texas but you couldn't take Texas out of the girl.

Karma was talking and smiling and laughing with some guy and Amy almost didn't even notice him at first. He was just a guy. A guy with three or four days worth of scruff on his cheeks and long hair tied back in a sleek ponytail and wearing the tightest pair of jeans Amy had ever seen on a guy, the kind of jeans Shane would have loved and other guys (other Texans) would have kicked his ass for even wearing.

He wasn't Steve or Ryan or Jorge, he wasn't any of the guys Karma had talked about from the dorm because she'd told Amy all about them and she'd even seen Jorge once during a Skype chat (and Karma was sure Shane would've been more Jorge's type than she was) and this… guy… he wasn't any of them.

He was just a guy.

A guy. Karma was talking and laughing and flirting with a guy and Amy heard Molly Ashcroft's voice in her head, reminding an entire PFLAG meeting that her daughter would never ever be a lesbian.

Amy heard it and ignored it because she knew (knew) it wasn't true, not in the way that mattered anyway. Maybe Karma would never be a lesbian (sleeping with a guy wasn't a deal breaker, she was proof of that, but Karma didn't seem quite as over that as Amy was) but she didn't have to be.

Lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, Amysexual, it didn't fucking matter. Love is love and love was love and Karmy was love and that was all there was to it. And if she kept telling herself that while Karma kept talking to that guy, Amy figured maybe she'd actually believe it..

She watched as Karma smiled at him and laughed at something he said and touched his arm above the elbow (which was something Jodi said mattered but Amy had never heard of it so she didn't know but right then she fucking knew) and people passed around them and crowded and bumped and Karma had to step closer, his hand drifting to her hip and she was so close and it all looked so… and then she turned into him and when she did, when she moved into him, her head turned and she looked at the steps, she looked at the front of her door, her eyes falling onto that spot, that place where Amy waited.

And then they looked away.

Karma turned her eyes back to the guy and Amy waited. She waited for it to hit her, for Karma's brain to catch up to her eyes and for her to do the classic movie double take and run. Run to her and run from him and then there'd be the tackling and the smothering and the muttering and the clapping and fading to black and all would be right with the world.

Amy waited. And waited. And waited until Karma turned and took his hand and together they walked off (not off into the sunset, so hey, there was that) and she waited till they were lost in the shuffle and bustle and she couldn't make out Karma's figure anymore or the red of her hair or the brown of those boots or….

Anything.

"You never even saw me."

"What?" Karma was out of breath and trying to act like she wasn't but she'd just chased Amy for like eight blocks and she wasn't nearly in good enough shape for that. "I never what?"

"You never even saw me," Amy repeated and yes, she was talking about that September day but she knew it was more than just that. "I waited for you and I had a speech and… I waited and you left with him and you never even told me about him . You never so much as mentioned him so he was nothing, in the end, but you left with him and I waited and you never even saw me."

"Umm… OK?" Karma was lost. She'd felt that way a lot that last few days, lost in her feelings and then her pain and then in Amy's kiss and she was tired of being spun round and round and being so fucking dizzy.

"It was nothing but it was everything," Amy said and she knew she wasn't making even the tiniest bit of sense but that didn't matter, not even a little. Sense was overrated and she'd honestly had just about enough of it. "You never saw me. Not until…"

"Until what?" Karma asked but Amy shook her head, suddenly afraid to finish because she knew if she did, that might really be what this was. A finish. "Until what, Amy?" Karma pressed because now she had an idea where this was going and she knew they needed it, all of it, out there on the table or it would all just lay in wait and sneak up on them like it had in the store or on the street. "Say it. Fucking grow a pair and say it."

Amy stared at that step, the one she'd sat on for another hour after Karma and that guy had walked off together, the one where she'd sat as she finally called Jodi and asked her if she could pick her up at the airport and no, it wasn't anything bad, she'd just changed her mind and realized how insane it all was and no, she didn't really want to talk about it and yes, she'd call with her flight info. She stared at that step and it was all so fucking clear she didn't understand how she'd never seen it before.

Except she knew that she had. She wasn't the one who couldn't see. She was just the one who ignored.

"You never saw me," Amy said softly, without a trace of anger in her voice.. She was too far gone for that anymore. "You never saw me until Reagan. Or the prom or Felix or the bus or…" She hung her head and pulled the chain and the ring from under her shirt. "Or until now. You never saw me and that was never your fault."

Karma didn't know what to say. She wanted to argue, to deny, to say it wasn't so. But she knew it was, even if she didn't think that was bad. It was just her, it was how she was, it was how she always was. It didn't change her feelings, it didn't change her heart.

But that was easy for her to believe. After all, she lived with her heart.

Amy didn't.

"You never saw me," Amy said, her knuckles going white around the ring. "But I always saw you. I knew, Karma. Do you understand that? I knew what you would do. The second Maisie asked me, I knew what you would do. Maybe not confessions in the night or kisses on the street but I knew you'd do something and I came here because I knew."

Karma kept her distance and nothing had ever hurt her that much. She wanted (all she wanted) was to take Amy in her arms and make it better, to heal her and love her and be with her, but that…

She wasn't sure that wouldn't kill them both.

"I knew what you'd do and I came here anyway," Amy said. "I couldn't let go. I never could, no matter how many times… no matter how many times you made me, no matter how many times or how many ways you told me, I couldn't let go and I made you…" She tipped her head back and shook. "I even you believe, somehow. I kept pushing and pushing and I came here and you were with him and I knew it then. I knew it and I still couldn't let go."

"Knew what?" Karma asked. She still didn't understand who he was or when Amy had come or any of it but she was pretty sure none of that really mattered.

"Knew that you weren't me," Amy said. She turned and looked at Karma, the ring dropping from her hand and settling against her chest. "I couldn't last three weeks, but you… I was right," she said. "You were flying and it was… you were so beautiful and God, I loved…"

Karma took a step towards her but Amy held up a hand and she stopped.

"It could've been done," Amy said. "It could've… should've… been done but I couldn't… I knew, Karma. I knew what you'd do and it was what I'd wanted for so long and it was this perfect fantasy and I just couldn't…"

The air rushed out of Karma's lungs and that dizzy feeling swept over her again and it was all she could to stay standing. "You couldn't what?" she asked.

"I couldn't resist," Amy said. "I threw it all away, I ruined everything… me and Maisie, you and me… all of it, because I couldn't resist living in my fantasy one last time." She was crying again, silent tears that rolled down her face and fell to the concrete. "And I'm sorrier for that than you will ever know," she said. "But I just… I waited Karma and I just… I couldn't wait anymore because time, it just never fucking stops and it was just never fucking enough and now… now I've got it."

Amy walked forward, stopping just in front of Karma, in that same spot she'd seen her on that cool September day. Amy ran a hand along Karma's arm and up to her shoulder and then to her face, cupping the other girl's cheek as she leaned in, pressing one soft kiss against Karma's lips.

"I needed time," Amy said as she rested her forehead against Karma's. "And now I've got it, now I've got all the time in world and that's all I've got and it's my fault and don't you ever think otherwise."

She kissed Karma again, quickly, and then she was gone and all Karma could do was watch her as she disappeared into the people, never once looking back.

According to my original plan, there's only two chapters left of this story. Except... I do have some ideas I could play with, if people wanted me to. Or I could stick with the original ending...