Author's Note: This time, I am sorry.

Oh, and for anyone wondering why this is suddenly chapter fifteen instead of the expected chapter sixteen, I finally found some time (who am I kidding, I finally stopped being lazy is all) to combine chapters two and three because they were both under 2,000 words and neither needed to be and they fit well together. That being said, everything post-chapter two has been moved back a chapter. And FFF, bby don't cry, I'm so sorry~ ;-;

Chapter Fifteen, everyone.

"Emotionally-detached" was scarcely a term I'd use to describe myself. "Emotionally-vulnerable," maybe. I wore my heart underneath my sleeve; meaning that, when somebody said something that got under my skin, either in terms of anger, fear, sadness, whatever it may be, I simply lashed out at them and changed the subject. But I always felt what they said. I just kept my reaction well hidden to those I couldn't fully trust.

Which is why I couldn't understand how I didn't really feel anything when he told me. Not at first, anyway. Not for a while.

Somehow, Sollux slept through my phone ringing when I didn't. It was still dark, which meant it had to be obscenely early for anyone to be calling, but I still found this strange compulsion to answer. Afraid they'd hang up before I picked up, I struggled out from under the blanket and snatched up my phone, answering and whispering, "Hold on," before jogging into the living room. I had to unlock the bedroom door to get out.

Finally, I brought the phone to my ear as I sat heavily on the sofa. "Hello?" I asked groggily, realizing I'd been in too much of a hurry to check the caller ID.

"Karkat?" Now there was a voice I hadn't heard in a while.

"Robert, the fuck are you doing calling me at... whatever the hell time it is? Darktime. Why are you calling me at darktime?"

"Can you stop fucking around for half a second and think about why I would be calling you in the middle of the night? It's not exactly a friendly call." He sounded far more tired than I did. Cold dread sent a shiver down my spine.

"Something's wrong. Someone's hurt. Who's hurt? Is it bad?"

"It's bad."

"How bad?"

"You—" He stopped when his voice cracked, though from exhaustion or impending tears, I couldn't tell — and I was hoping beyond hope that it wasn't the latter. "You know Kanaya, don't you? Kanaya Maryam?"

No.

"Yeah, I know Kanaya, she's like my best friend," I said hurriedly. "What happened? What happened to her? How bad is it, Rob?"

"K-Kanaya Dolorosa Maryam..." His voice cracked again, and this time he let it. "...passed away at two-eighteen this morning."

No.

"I've—" He stopped again and took a deep, shuddering breath. "I've tried to contact her parents, but they're on vacation in Hawaii according to their voicemail, and I can't get through to the number they left. You're listed as an emergency contact, so I thought it would be best if I let you know."

I'd stopped listening after he told me she was gone. Nothing else he could say really seemed important after that. "How did she—?" Who said that? That wasn't me, that wasn't my voice... was it?

"There was an accident. A car wreck. She was driving through the intersection of 63rd and North Portland Avenue and a car slammed into hers from the right side. There were four people in the other car, and they all had B.A.C. levels of at least .08. The two people in the front seat also died—" Also, what also, why was he saying also? "—and the two who were sitting in the back are currently in critical condition. Karkat... the driver of the car that hit her was Trevor."

Here I had thought that this call couldn't have gotten worse. Now that fucker was dead.

"According to a witness, she had the right of way; her light was green and his was red and he shouldn't have hit her. But he was extremely drunk, B.A.C. .13, and was going at least fifteen miles over the speed limit, and I don't think he could have stopped in time anyway."

I didn't say anything else. I couldn't. Words weren't even a concept in my mind. I couldn't control my mouth to form shapes. The only thought in my mind was that she wouldn't have died if she'd stayed here. Hold on, what am I thinking? No. She's not dead. Abso-fucking-lutely not. He has to be wrong. She's not dead. She can't be dead. She isn't dead.

"Are you still there, Karkat?"

"Yeah." Hey, who the fuck keeps saying this shit? 'Cause it isn't me. At least, I don't think it's me. Is it me? I wondered.

"I'm so sorry. I know it can't mean much, but I did everything I could. I tried so hard to keep her with us. It's just that... sometimes, there just isn't anything you can do."

"I know." Whatever. I'm just going to let this voice answer him. It seems to be doing a fine fucking job of it.

"And I'm sorry I woke you up. I would have called later if I'd thought to check the time."

"I know."

"Okay. Try to go back to bed. You sound like you need some sleep," he told me gently.

"Yeah." Just like that, the call was ended. "What an asshole," I said to myself. "That kind of shit's not funny. You can bet your ass I'm gonna give him so much shit for this stupid fucking prank next time I see him. Who even put him on to this?" I walked quietly back into the bedroom and numbly climbed the ladder to my bed, ignoring the strange, tiny puff of dust that rose up when I flopped down on my blanket. I felt weirdly hot, so rather than pulling it back and curling up beneath it, I simply closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

Sleep came frightfully easily.

There's a weird darkness everywhere. It feels heavy, like it's not just darkness, like it's darkness and... something else. What else is still undetermined. The thick darkness fills your lungs, making your breaths slow and labored as you wander through the nothingness. Everything is black. Everything except the tiniest pinprick of light shining in the distance. You aim your footsteps towards it, trying hopelessly to maintain your bearings in the choking blackness. Too many times to count, you fall and have to pause to figure out which way is up before you can keep moving. The light is, very slowly, getting closer, it seems.

Eventually, you make your way over to it. It looks like a window, four panes with two dividers crossing in the middle. You peek through it and your vision is met with an intersection. The signs read "N W 63rd St." and "PORTLAND Ave."

A well-maintained '07 silver Volkswagen Passat pulls smoothly up to the crosswalk on 63rd St., waiting for the red light to change. If you were to look through the window, you could just make out an equally well-maintained twenty-two year old woman with a short, outswept black pixie cut and almost black lipstick with a metallic jade green sheen that only she could pull off. Farther down Portland Ave., too far away to be anywhere near her line of sight, a green Chevy Avalanche speeds along the pavement. Inside the cab, the lights are on, you can hear the music from here, and the people in the back seat are standing up and leaning forward into the front. The driver repeatedly takes his hands off the wheel, and the car continually lurches into the empty oncoming lane until he regains control.

The woman in the other car — someone you think you recognize but can't quite put a name to — slowly accelerates through the crosswalk and into the intersection as her light changes. Too fast, the other car drove up to the intersection. Her light is green. His is red. Something jolts in your heart, but something else tells you you'd rather not try to figure out why. Instead, you watch in enthralled horror as the truck carries on past the streetlight and into the intersection. The screaming of metal against metal meets your ears, along with the screaming of the terrified woman in the silver car.

The truck slams to a halt faster than you thought was possible. The two men in the back crumple against each other and blood splatters the freshly shattered windshield from the man in the front passenger seat. The driver hangs limply over the steering wheel.

The silver Volkswagen spins as it skids down the road, the woman inside clutching the wheel for her life. Time slows down and you're allowed to watch in slow motion everything from the crinkling of the metal as the car wraps itself around an electricity pole to the pole itself snapping wires and falling over her car, crushing in the top.

A lonely brunette with striking blue eyes that cut through the darkness had stopped at the corner to wait for the light to change, and, consequently, she saw whole event. She stares for a moment until the silence broken only by the occasional crackle of electricity bears in on her and she yanks her phone out of her purse, dialing quickly. She speaks frantically into it, craning her neck to get a better view of the wreckage, although what she was saying, you couldn't tell. Everything seemed to be on mute after the violence of what you'd witnessed had played out, anyway. Slowly, the vaguely familiar woman on the sidewalk faded, and then everything around her, from the bloody carnage of the green vehicle to the quiet sense of loss surrounding the silver, faded too.

The last thing to disappear was the oddly soothing orange light of the somehow unscathed streetlamp illuminating the crushed, battered, and broken Passat, and soon you were left in darkness once more.

My eyes shot open and I launched upward with a shout, memories of the call from the previous night immediately flooding back. Robert had told me how Kanaya died. That dream, that nightmare, was just my mind piecing it together. It had to be. It had to be. It had to. There was still this unignorable part of me that wanted to forget, that wanted to forever scratch the memory from all existence and pretend it never even happened, both the dream and the two AM phone call.

But I knew it happened. I knew anyway. I knew he wasn't wrong. I knew he wasn't lying. I knew it wasn't some kind of sick, twisted, terrible prank. Kanaya was dead. She was gone. All because I let her leave. She had been killed by my asshole ex-boyfriend, who had killed himself in killing her and brought some other poor bastard down with him. My asshole ex-boyfriend I couldn't even get back at now because he was already dead. Death was too good a punishment for him, too lenient. He killed Kanaya. He killed someone else. He killed three people, himself included. He deserved worse.

Silence prompted my exit from the room. I walked out to find an empty house and a note on the door that said something about needing eggs. Good, I thought. Eggs sound good for breakfast. How did Kanaya like her eggs? I don't think I ever found out. I pushed the thought away and dropped myself into the couch, the same exact spot I'd been in when I first heard about her death. The TV went on and Dark Alliance went in and before I knew it, I was staring at a dialogue box that told me my character was dead. My options were "Exit to Menu" or "Load."

Why couldn't I reload last night? Just go back to that point when Kanaya walked in and not kiss Sollux right then and then we all could just hang out and she might sleep over and then Trevor would hit some other car that didn't have Kanaya in it and just kill himself and not her. Where was the load option in life? There had to be one somewhere. Maybe in death there was one. Maybe she had reloaded and things had turned out differently somewhere else, in some other plane of existence, some other timeline. She had loaded her life and she was okay and we were all happy and everything was okay.

But that was somewhere else.

In this life, last night hadn't been reloaded and she was gone and nothing was okay. There was no "Load" option. She died and chose "Exit to Menu" and she wasn't coming back. She just... wasn't coming back.

The door opened quickly, the knob banging loudly into the wall, and some painfully lost part of my heart said, "Kanaya's here!" and I almost believed it for a second. Then I heard the rustle of plastic grocery bags and logic overrode hope and I knew it wasn't her, it was just Sollux coming back with those damned eggs he'd gone to get. I quickly pressed load and started playing again, forcing my attention to stay on killing giant rats in the sewers and not drift or stray to thoughts of Kanaya watching Sollux and me plowing through the sewer like it was hardly even a level and killing the goblin king within a couple of minutes, or of Kanaya and Nepeta and Feferi bursting through the door and dragging us away in the middle of the boss to go bowling for Nep's birthday when my rib was still healing. I refused to allow my thoughts to dwell there and instead focused on — shit, I just died again.

"That'th' not right," Sollux commented, taking a seat so close that our legs were brushing as he rested his head on my shoulder. "You never get killed by a giant rat, not even alone. And the death dialogue hath' obviouth'ly been up long enough to have burned into the plath'ma, which meanth' you've been th'itting here for fuck knowth' how long juth't th'taring at it. Th'omething'th' up. You okay?"

"No," I murmured, letting the controller fall to the floor and shifting so that I could curl up in his arm. He followed my actions and moved accordingly, pulling me up onto his lap and holding me tight against him.

"What happened?"

"Kanaya." He stiffened.

"What about her?" The cold tone in his voice dug right into my heart, and I immediately let out a groan and slammed my head into his chest. I didn't say anything, though. Just like last night, on the phone with Robert. I couldn't.

Something seemed to get through to him. His tone softened and he tucked my head under his chin, adjusting his grip and rocking me back and forth. "What about KN?"

"She's gone." The hollow voice that I guess came out of me was hardly a whisper, a scratchy and forlorn one at that.

"Gone?" he asked, stopping and moving his head to look at me. "What do you mean, gone?" Words failed me again and I shook my head, closing my eyes and falling against him. He seemed so sturdy. So strong. He could have protected her, if she'd been here. She wouldn't have gotten hit if she'd been here. He wouldn't have needed to. "You mean gone," he muttered, resuming his gentle rocking.

Suddenly tears were streaming down my face and I was clinging to Sollux for dear life and sobbing like if I didn't cry, I couldn't breathe. "She's gone," I screamed, the hollow whisper my voice had become forcing its way in and turning my scream to nothingness. "She's gone, she's gone and it's my fault, she's gone and she's not coming back, it's my fault she's gone, why is she gone, where did she go? Why is she gone?"

"I don't know, KK," he murmured, slowly carding his fingers through my hair, or scratching my back soothingly, all the while still rocking me. "I'm th'orry. I'm th'o th'orry." And with that, his voice broke and we sat and rocked together on the couch and Sollux broke down and cried with me. "I'm th'o th'orry, KK. I'm th'o, th'o th'orry." Not another word was exchanged between us for at least another hour, or what felt like one anyway. Just tears soaking each other's shirts and the shaking of sob-wracked bodies and a tangle of limbs that somehow equated to two grown men holding each other and crying violently on a couch that held too many memories.

"I can't do this, Sollux, I can't fucking do it," I sobbed.

Sollux had long since stopped actually crying and now resumed his soothing actions and continued to rock me like a child. "What?" he whispered back.

"I can't do this. Whatever this is. Fucking life. Kanaya. Why the fuck did she die? Fuck. Trevor."

"What'th' he got to do with anything?" he asked, his voice higher in bewilderment.

"He did it. He killed her. It's his fault. And now he's dead, too." I closed my eyes again and buried my face in his shirt. "It's my fault, too."

"KK, what the hell even happened?" My bad for assuming he knew how she died, I thought.

"She was driving home from here," I murmured. "She was driving home and he was fucking drunk and he fucking hit her and they fucking died, him and Kanaya and some other asshole who was in the car with him. And the other two guys that were in his car are probably gonna die, too, and none of it would have fucking happened if I hadn't been a greedy little fuck and tried to make you do some stupid gushy romantic shit right when she walked in, 'cause if I hadn't we all would have just hung out and played video games and she would have slept over and not driven home and that dick wouldn't have fucking hit her when he ran that fucking red light and it's all my fucking fault." Tears streamed openly again as I clung tighter to him.

"It'th' not your fault. No matter what, it'th' not your fault. Don't think that."

"But it is my fault," I murmured quietly.

"No, it ith'n't. I'm sure she wouldn't think it ith', either." He kissed the top of my head and readjusted his arms around me, moving so that more of my weight was on a different part of his lap. "I can't believe she'th' actually gone. She wath' juth't here lath't night. Leth' than twenty-four hourth' ago, she wath' th'tanding in our kitchen. And the lath't thing I th'aid to her... the lath't thing I did wath' threaten her for th'omething she didn't even know about. I never even apologized. After she left, I thought, 'There'th' alwayth' tomorrow, I can alwayth' call to apologize tomorrow,' and now there ith' no tomorrow."

He sniffed and I looked up to see tears streaming silently down his cheeks. One dripped off his chin and landed on my hand. I reached up and wiped away another drop, and another, and brushed away more from his cheek and eyelids. Soon my hand was more wet than dry, soaked in his tears for the friend he ended up losing anyway. "What did she do to deth'erve that, Karkat?" he asked softly, pressing his cheek into my hand and screwing up his eyes tightly against the sob building in his chest. "If anyone deth'erved to die lath't night, it would b—"

"Don't. Sollux. Just... don't."

"Okay." I took my palm off his cheek and moved it instead to his hand, grasping it awkwardly but holding it anyway because I felt like he needed that. He squeezed and I squeezed back, and he held me tighter and buried his face in my hair and sobbed silently against me, shaking and holding my hand tightly. Occasionally, he let out this little whimper, and when he did, I just squeezed his hand again and let him squeeze mine back. After a while, he stopped shaking with his sobs, and a few minutes after that, tears stopped coming entirely and we simply sat on the couch.

"What did you get at the store?" I asked quietly.

"Nothing important," he replied, his voice cracked. "Juth't th'ome shit I wath' gonna make breakfath't with." He stared at the TV for a moment before taking the TV controller off the couch and turning it off. "I gueth' I should have figured th'omething wath' wrong when I woke up and you were ath'leep in your own bed. At firth't I thought maybe you were mad at me, but I kinda toth'ed that thought and tried to keep buth'y with other shit, like breakfast." He hesitated before speaking again. "I called her thith' morning, you know. I called her houth'e and left a meth'age apologizing for last night. She'th' never gonna hear it. She'th' never gonna know I didn't mean the shit I th'aid. She'th' not gonna fucking know."

"Sollux."

"I know. It'th' juth't. It'th' hard to come to termth' with."

"Yeah," I agreed. "It really is. I'm not gonna see her anymore. She's never gonna talk to me again, or drag me off to do some convoluted bullshit with her, like this one time she and Nep kidnapped me and made me go shopping with them. She's not gonna come over and have dinner with us anymore... Oh, shit. Our dinners aren't gonna be the same without her. I wonder if Nepeta or Feferi know yet. Probably not."

"How did you find out, anyway?"

"Robert called last night. I'm surprised you slept through it. Speaking of calls, I should probably call Nep. She's gonna wanna know."

"You go do that. I'm th'till gonna make breakfath't, th'o I'll get on cooking while you call her."

"Yeah, okay." With that, I slid off his lap onto the couch then stood up and walked into the bedroom to grab my phone from where I'd set it on the nightstand the night before. I took a deep breath and quickly dialed Nepeta's phone, sitting down on Sollux's bed as I waited for her to answer.

"Karkitty! I haven't heard from you in a while, you never call me! What's up?"

I sighed internally. She sounded like she was in a good mood. I hated to ruin that. "Oh, uh... hey, where are you right now?"

"I'm just at home, sitting on my bed and doodling."

"Okay. Uh... s-something happened."

"Uh, oh. Something bad?"

"Uhm... yeah, something bad." My voice wavered a bit, so I swallowed the knot building in the back of my throat before telling her. "Kanaya was... she came to visit us, last night. She left at, like, ten. You, uh, y-you remember Rob, right? Robert Baas?"

"Yeah, but what does he have to do with Kanaya?"

"He's a doctor, Nep. When Kanaya left last night... there was somebody else on the road. Driving drunk. She pulled into an intersection and he didn't stop at the red light and he broadsided her and... Robert called me this morning. At one in the morning or something. He said that... he told me she passed away."

For a minute, there was nothing. Just silence on the other line. Then out of nowhere came this horrible, screaming cry. The phone made a jumbled crackling noise and the cry came again, farther away sounding. She must have dropped it. Heavy footsteps thudded loud enough that I could hear them through the phone, and I figured my dad had rushed into her room when he heard her.

"Nepeta, sweetie, calm down. What's the matter, honey, what's wrong?" Instead of answering, she scream-sobbed again. I could see her sitting on her bed, hugging her knees to her chest and screaming into them as she rocked herself, and I hated myself for doing that to her. "Is this — hello?" Suddenly my father's voice was in my ear.

"Hey, Dad."

"Karkat? What happened? What did you say to her that would make her cry like this?" he asked sternly.

"I'm just... I'm passing on some bad news. Our friend Kanaya died last night."

"Oh. That's a real shame," he said, his tone softer.

"Yeah. I wanted to let Nep know because they were... we were all really close." Just as I said that, I looked up and caught sight of Kanaya's birthday present to me; that beautifully intricate silver frame around a glossy photo of her, me, and Sollux, and it almost brought me to tears again. "Look, I gotta go," I added, my voice breaking. "Tell Nep I love her, okay?"

"Yeah, sure. We'll talk some other time, you and me."

"Okay. 'Bye, Dad."

"'Bye, Karkat. I love you."

"Love you, too." He ended the call and I set the phone gently back on the nightstand. I glanced back at the photo. "'Bye, Kanaya. Love you."

Review, I guess? Share your tears. I'll share mine, too. :'(

Also this chapter's late because school and COOKIE CLICKER OMFG.