AN: all I have to say is, I'm sorry this is so epically late. And I really hope you guys enjoy it! Updates will be slow because this time of year is just... Anyways, thanks for staying with me! You guys are amazing!

Happy Reading!

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Savin' Me

To Annie's eyes, the next few days were both wonderful and strange. To nearly every class she and Auggie walked hand in hand, no matter how out of their way it took them, and every day before lunch they would walk with arms linked to their favorite table. The way he touched her and smiled at her made her feel like her feet were leaving the ground, like her heart would escape her chest, like she could be happy forever, like she was finally over Ben. That very thought shocked her. She had spent so many months of her life dedicated to making Ben happy that when he left she didn't know what to do with herself. But this, what she had with Auggie, was different. It was easy and comfortable and altogether right. Yet, though she couldn't put her finger on it, there was still something in the way.

She gazed at him from her seat at the table, zoning herself out in his warm eyes. She couldn't help but wonder if she should tell him about her previous love interest, after all, Ben was the first and only one she ever gave herself to. It seemed only fair. Then again, they weren't even calling themselves boyfriend-girlfriend yet. Maybe it wasn't time. It was just that she felt so close to uncovering something brilliant between herself and Auggie that the thought of screwing things up was terrifying.

"What do you think, Annie," the voice belonged to Stu, his dark brown eyes waiting expectantly for an answer, in fact, everyone at the table seemed to be looking at her.

"Oh, what was the question," she asked sweetly, hoping no one would realize that she'd been ogling her potential boyfriend.

"New York, concert, two weeks? Ring any bells?"

"Right, the concert," she replied, trying to sound like she understood when honestly she had no idea what he was talking about.

"She has no idea," Auggie chuckled, "She was too busy staring at me."

He gave a wink in her general direction and she immediately felt all the blood in her body rushing to her cheeks. Beneath the table he gave her leg a squeeze.

"Right," Stu smiled impishly before continuing, "We want to go to this concert in New York with the break time we'll have before Thanksgiving. It'll just be us so it's going to be pretty rad, I mean, it also gives the opportunity to go on a road trip. Seriously, it couldn't be any more perfect."

Stu's enthusiasm made Annie feel enthusiastic and she wondered if her parents would let her go, she was all about adventures.

"I say this idea is a win," Conrad announced, "I'm in, we could take my SUV too, that way we won't have to take multiple cars. Plus, GPS!"

"Exactly, man," Stu's smile was so wide, Annie was sure that it would soon split his face. "And if we switch out drivers then we can definitely make it there in one day, we'll split gas and rooming!"

"Hold the phone," Annie interjected, earning amused looks for her vintage euphemism, "I think we're overlooking one of the most important questions here. Who's playing?"

"Only the best artists in existence," Auggie answered, the excitement in his eyes making her smile, "Lost in the Trees is going to be there, Fink, Alanis Morissette and, the best for last, a Mingus tribute group called The Hounds."

"Auggie is obsessed with Mingus," Jamie grinned, rolling his eyes, "That's how he found this thing; he's on The Hounds' email list."

Email? Annie had never really thought of Auggie as a computer guy, he never talked about it and she couldn't honestly say she knew how it was possible for someone without sight to use a computer. A seed of doubt was planted then, how well did she really know this boy? Between his obsession with Mingus and love of technology, she was 0-2. But she was going to change that.

"Sounds great," she decided. It didn't matter how her parents felt about this 'compromising position', as they were sure to call it. She, Anne Catherine Walker, was going to New York with August Anderson.

"Awesome," he smiled at her, that smile he saved only for her. His gaze wandered towards Corrine then, his voice strangely soft, as though if he reached a certain decibel she would shatter. "What say you, Corrine?"

Annie turned to the other girl who was vigorously writing in the journal she'd so desperately been clinging to these past two weeks. Each day she seemed to be more drawn in, like whatever she was writing was swallowing her whole. It was so strange to see the girl silent, save the constant scratch of her ballpoint. Normally she would be the one making the plans and now she couldn't even bother listening to them. There was something so wrong about her that Annie had forgotten about the Halloween shenanigan.

"Hmm," was her reply as she slowly looked up from her writing with her bottom lip lodged in her mouth. Annie couldn't help but notice how tired she looked, how worn. She was pale like a blanket in the sun for too long; this world had bleached her out.

"Do you want to come to the concert? It's in two weeks, it'll be fun," Auggie encouraged. Such a good friend.

"Sure, baby," she smiled tiredly and went back to her work.

For a long moment the table was quiet, watching Corrine with concern and bemusement, but soon life continued and more plans began brewing in the minds of Stu, Conrad and Jamie. But Annie's attention fell back to Auggie. He was lost in his thoughts and once again she found that she was falling in love with a stranger.

xXx

There was singing in the kitchen the next morning and Corrine stood just outside the kitchen to listen. It was a beautiful song, one that pulled up the happiest memories of her short life and her mother was just so beautiful when she sang. From her hiding place, Corrine watched the woman as she moved about the kitchen, her long hair glinting in the sun and thin legs prancing about, dancing. Tears pooled in Corrine's eyes, this was her mother, not that ice queen who possessed her for 364 days of the year. And even though the Schnapps bottle sat a quarter empty on the island, all that mattered was the smile on her mother's face.

"Morning, mom," she said softly as she stepped into the pale early morning light.

The woman spun around, smiling widely at her only daughter, her bright green eyes like lamps. No trace of ice there. She rushed to embrace her with thin arms, pulling her so close that Corrine could smell her shampoo. It had been a full year since they had been this close and she'd forgotten how good it felt.

"Happy birthday, sweetheart," she whispered, stroking Corrine's cheek and holding her at arm's length, "You look beautiful this morning, Corrine. I know I haven't told you in a while, but you really are. You remind me so much of me when I was your age. Oh! Would you like some breakfast? I made Christopher's favorite, banana pancakes!"

Something in Corrine's chest withered a bit.

"Sure," she smiled half-heartedly. "I'd love some."

"You know," her mother continued, blind to her child's distress, "I remember all those birthdays when Chris had to pull you out of bed. He would come downstairs and give his love. Your father's heart, he was. His happiness. Such a good little boy and you- always so difficult."

She looks at Corrine with desperate eyes and Corrine could hear her heart pounding behind her ears, she knew that look and she would have given anything to make it go away. No. This time she would face it.

"Mom," she steeled herself, preparing to hear the words she knew had been on the tip of her mother's tongue for three long years. "Do you wish I had died instead?"

Slowly, her mother approaches, staring into Corrine's identical eyes, tears flooding her own. Her long thin fingers brushed through Corrine's hair, her swimming green eyes staring intently at the gold-brown locks. She looks back at her daughter, holding her gaze in silence for a long time.

"Corrine, I-"

"Just answer me, mother," Corrine cut her off, her voice like the dead.

"Yes," the woman moaned, Her wracking sobs resounded through lifeless house, masking the sound of Corrine's heart breaking in half.

It's anger that hits her first, something she hasn't allowed herself to feel in a long time. In a blur she finds herself up the stairs, her mother's voice echoing empty apologizes after her, but her cries fall on deaf ears. Corrine stared at the girl in the bathroom mirror and saw someone unrecognizable. An adult. All her life she had been vying for mommy's approval but the cold hard truth had punched her in the chest. She would never have it, because it had already been given away.

There were scissors in her hand, though she wasn't sure when she picked them up. But they were the key, the key to the beginning of change and one so desperately needed. With trembling hands, she lifted the scissors to her head, pulling a handful of wheat gold hair towards the twin blades. For eighteen years she hadn't been allowed to cut her hair, her mother forebode it and Corrine complied. No more. With a satisfying snick her hair fell into the sink.

A smile curled her mouth, her eyes bright with wonder at what she had done. Vehemence so strong had grown inside of her and it couldn't be stopped. Finally she was allowing herself to feel the anger she felt towards her mother for breaking, her father for hiding, her best friend for being so damn good and her brother for leaving her alone on her birthday. But most of all, anger at letting herself go, for believing she wasn't good enough and for hating her dead twin brother for taking her parents' love with him.

But she realized that she didn't have to anymore, she could look back on him and love him like he loved – loves – her and why? Because she didn't need her parents to survive even though she would always love them.

This time when she looked in the mirror she saw someone she had been longing to find for a long time. Herself. Finally unmasked from her desperate need for approval and her hatred and her grief. Finally, she could see.

She glanced down at the sink filled with gold, the bonds broken at last. Back up to the mirror and a laugh is yanked from her gut, the most honest thing she's ever heard come out of her mouth. She likes it, so much that she can't stop. That funny girl named Corrine looks at her with a smile and hair that hardly makes it past her chin. She feels like dancing, liking singing in the streets and running for days. But then a feeling sinks to her stomach, solid as a stone. She knows what she must do. Not now, but soon and she knows that it's going to hurt. Only for a while. But it's going too fast for her to stop it now like a boulder rolling down a hill, she can only hope she doesn't leave too much destruction in her wake.

Her smile fades a bit as she stares at this new person, it's been easy so far, after all, she had been so close to the edge already. It wouldn't be like that forever but for now, she would take it.

xXx

It was impossibly difficult for Auggie to get out of bed that morning, it wasn't fatigue, it wasn't the pain between his shoulders or the fact that he'd neglected his physics homework. It could only be described as longing on steroids. There was a time, a life time ago, that he was happy without condition, when everyday felt like Friday and laughter was the tongue of the nations. That was in the distant past, a life style no longer welcome and yet the very memory of it was what was keeping him hidden tightly beneath his covers.

Christopher James Morgan was the missing piece of that fantastic puzzle, the one right in the middle that, no matter how long or hard you search, you just can't find and your puzzle will never be complete. Chris's death was just the straw that broke the camel's back. After he passed, Auggie was in the accident, then he was sick with a brain tumor, his sight was gone, Mr. Morgan left home, Mrs. Morgan broke in two, and Corrine shattered. It was then that Auggie bottled everything up and put a stopper in feeling anything deemed unnecessary. But that damn bottle was ready to burst, he could feel it shaking and swelling and cracking in his chest.

"Son," there were three knocks on the door preceding his father's voice, he meant business. "It's time for school."

"Yea, I'm on it," he groaned at the door, throwing off his comforter and dragging his hands across his face.

Maybe today wouldn't be so bad, he could feel the heat of the sun peeking through his curtains, hear the birds outside his window, and his back wasn't killing him. Aw, who was he kidding? It was Corrine's birthday and worse, it was Chris's. Corrine was always a mess on their birthday and why should this one be any different? College couldn't come soon enough, when he could shed all these woes and he felt badly for thinking it. The guilt cycle was endless. A shower would melt some of this away, definitely. But, much to his disdain, his warning alarm went off, officially telling him that he had ten minutes to get downstairs before Jamie left for school. Damn. So it was one of those days. Bring it on.

Despite the carpet tripping him up on the way out, the car door catching him in the shin and nearly throwing himself down a flight of cement stairs, there was a part deep down inside of Auggie that was looking forward to school and there was only one logical explanation for that. Annie Walker would be there waiting for him.

"Man, you're a freaking mess today," Jamie laughed as Auggie tripped over his untied shoelace. "You sure you don't want me to walk with you to class, you know, just so I know that you've made it there without losing a leg or something?"

"I'm good," Auggie shook his head incredulously, "Annie will be waiting in the foyer anyways."

"So you guys are getting pretty serious then," Jamie asked and Auggie could hear the notes of something extra in his voice.

"Yea," he said slowly, his fingers pausing on his shoe strings. "Why?"

"No reason."

Jamie's voice was stoic as usual but Auggie could hear it, that smile in his voice as his footsteps carried him away. It made Auggie smile too. He stood after tying his shoe more securely this time – and checking the other one for good measure – pulling his cane from his back pocket but, just as he was about to unfold it, the all too familiar sound of cowboy boots reached his ears. He took a big calming breath, preparing himself for whatever she had in store for him this year.

"Hey," she said from behind him.

Something about her voice was different, but he couldn't figure out what.

"Hi," was all he could manage.

"Do you have a minute to talk," she asked, "I have something I want to tell you."

"Uh, sure," he couldn't help but notice his inability to come up with more than two syllables.

"Right, okay," he could hear her shifting but was surprised when she didn't go for a cigarette, "Jesus. You know I'm not good with words or anything, so I'm just going to go for this.

"These past three years and even before then, have been really hard on the both of us but especially you because you've actually been trying to deal and, well, I haven't and you sort of tried to deal for me too and I'm sorry for that and so much else. But anyways, that's really not the point. The point is that all my life you have been there for me and I've taken advantage of that so many times and I mean, even though I think you enjoy it a little, I'm not going to let you save me anymore, August, because I realize the only one who can save me is myself.

"So- are we good?"

It was hard to swallow, everything she'd said and so quickly. His head was spinning, trying to process the mounds of information and he had to reach out for the car beside him to keep from falling on his ass.

"Whoa," he breathed, gathering up the words he wanted to say. This all seemed too good to be true. Who was this girl and where was Corrine? "I-"

"I know this is a lot to take in," she interjected, saving him from stumbling across the English language. "But I realize that I have been a really shitty friend to you and I want that to change. You deserve the best and a best friend that can give you that. Now, I'm not giving up that position, mind you, but I'm going to do a hell of a better job than I have been."

"Corrine," Auggie interrupted before she could load anymore on him, "I don't know what to say, I mean, where is this coming from, what-"

"I know it's confusing," she says softly, laying her hand on his shoulder. Subconsciously he placed his own on top of hers. "I just need you to know, that I'm okay. I learned a lot about myself this morning, some shit hit me – a little late – but it hit me and I hate who I was and what I was doing to both of us. And I'm sorry."

Auggie knew that his mouth was hanging open and that he probably looked like an invalid, but he was at a loss. It was like a philosophical alien had taken over his best friend's body. Not that he was complaining, but still.

"Oh, and one more thing…"

It was a good thing that he was holding onto the car, because what happened next felt like a damn earthquake. All at once she was on him; her mouth warm and plush was pushing into his, her nose pressing softly into his cheek and her lashes tickling his skin, the smell of vanilla and strawberries and everything that made Corrine his Corrine and all he could do was allow his body to respond. It was almost like he was out of sync; he could feel his hands pressing into the small of her back, pulling her in closer, his lips catching hers hungrily. For fourteen years he'd been waiting for this moment, shoving his feelings down because he knew she didn't share them but now that they were here, there was only one thing on his mind. Annie.

He took an unsure step backwards, keeping Corrine close but not too close, both parties breathing softly, like nothing at all had happened.

"You should know that I love you, August," she whispered, her lips still grazing his flesh, "I always have and I always will and don't you ever forget that."

With that she pulled away, her boots crunching on the gravel. He leaned against the car, a strange feeling settling in his stomach. For some reason everything that just happened felt too much like goodbye. Though he wasn't sure what he was saying goodbye to.

"Damn," he murmured, a smile yanking his lips upward. "I've got to find Annie."

xXx

Worry was starting to nag at the back of her mind, they were usually walking to class by now. It wasn't like them – especially Jamie – to be late for school. Annie stood from her seat on the uncomfortable foyer bench – Auggie always teased that even a homeless person wouldn't sleep on those benches – and went outside, hoping to see Jamie's car in the parking lot. A sigh of relief passed through her when she saw Jamie, though it dissipated almost immediately when she noted that Auggie was still MIA.

"Hey Jamie," she called, rushing to meet him at the steps, "How are you?"

"I'm great, Annie," he gave a little knowing smile and nodded towards the parking lot, "He's just a little behind, but he's here."

"Oh, thanks," she smiled, Jamie was always so nice to her, quiet, but nice.

"And Annie," he called, an afterthought, "Look out for him today, will you? He's a little… off."

"Sure," she replied, somewhat confused, to say the least. What did he mean by off?

In her TOMS, she trotted down the steps and into the parking lot. As soon as she reached the lined pavement she could see him talking to a girl who looked a lot like Corrine from this distance. It dawned on her then, it was Corrine. Corrine with short, messy hair. It was so different and yet, she looked more like herself than Annie had ever seen her.

She couldn't help but notice that Auggie looked a bit uncomfortable and Corrine looked a bit- sober? Annie couldn't put her finger on it but there was something very different about the girl – aside from the obvious, of course. She bit her lip, resisting the urge to go down there but she couldn't make herself do it, she didn't want to intrude. And then the world started ripping itself apart.

It felt like she'd been hit by a car, the shock of it stealing the breath from her lungs. They were kissing. Tears pooled in her eyes and she wiped them away though they came back just as quickly.

When they pulled away she hoped that Auggie would push her away, or yell at her or something – anything – but he didn't. They stayed close, intimate and Annie thought that she would be sick. And then, the icing on the cake, as Corrine walked away, he smiled. Dammit, he smiled!

The world jerked beneath her feet and it was all she could do to keep from falling. How could he do that to her? Had this past week meant nothing to him? Anger and disappointment boiled in her chest and she thought she would explode with it. She'd thought he would be different, she'd trusted him, opened up to him and he betrayed her. At least now she knew what was in the way.

He wasn't different. He was just another goddamned Ben Mercer.