Oh my god, it's Part IV! Sorry it's taken a minute, guys... as we've said before, perfection takes time. ;) You'll probably all be happy to know that, overall, Part IV is not as dark as Part III. Not entirely. Stick with us. Surprising things happen. ;) We love you and we love your comments. Thanks for still being here!

Part IV: When You're Not Here With Me

Chapter 1 - I Cram It In

To her credit, my mother hugged me before she started the interrogation. She hugged me as though I'd been lost at sea for years and had somehow, miraculously, shown up at her door. But just seconds later, as I dragged my heavy bags up to my childhood bedroom, she was hot on my heels, barraging me with questions. Why hadn't I called, what was going on, what about school, why was I home so suddenly. . . it was all I could do not to snap at her. I answered as best I could, but my answers sounded robotic even to me and my heart was filled with lead.

"Mom," I started, after the eleventh question, "I'm really tired."

"Well, are you going back? With the band? Where are they?" I looked at the date on my cellphone, recalling the tour schedule with a sharp ache in my chest.

"I guess they'd be in Amsterdam by now," I sighed, sitting down on the edge of my old single bed. My mother stood in the doorway, wanting more.

"Well, did something happen? Why are you home? Is the tour finished?" The thought of explaining it all, at that moment, nearly made me cry again.

"No, the tour's not finished, but. . ." I started to say. I just wanted to lie down and close my eyes forever and not answer these questions, but I guess my having disappeared for over a month made me feel like I owed her some kind of explanation. "I'm not. . . with them. . ."

"Well, I can see that," she said. "Good grief, you look terrible." It was as if she'd just noticed.

"I'm tired," I repeated, and it was true. I hadn't slept, I'd hardly eaten, and I'd drunk about a litre of wine on the plane, which I'd never done before. I'd also spent a large portion of the last twenty-four hours in tears, and I wondered if and when the numbness would start.

"Well, I'll make you something to eat. . ."

"I'm tired, mom, not hungry. I just want to sleep," I said. She looked worried, dubious, but she agreed that I should sleep and that we would speak in the morning, and left, closing the door behind her.

I turned off the light and lay down on my bed, my head aching, my stomach twisted. I was dead tired. It felt like the first time I'd been stationary for ages and I didn't like it. Lying there, I took a quick inventory of my life. I had absolutely nothing left. I couldn't bear to think about it. Before I drifted down into sleep, I saw two versions of Tegan's face: first, my mind was kind to me, and I saw Tegan's eyes, that first morning when I woke up and she was looking at me, warm and curious; immediately after, those same eyes, filled with so much pain, because of me. And I felt like such an idiot, crying there in my creaky childhood bed, while Tegan's face looked down on me from the walls. You betrayed me, her eyes said. I never want to see you again.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Ted pls check on Tegan thx. That was the message Ted got from Sara as he sat with the rest of the band and crew on the bus a few hours after the abrupt ending of the Amsterdam show. He should have been sleeping, but he still couldn't relax after all that had happened; instead he was watching season three of Six Feet Under with Jeremy, Johnny, and Nick.

Sure. But what's up? Where are you?

Need to be alone for a while.

R U OK?

Yes but pls check on Tegan asap, ok? This urgent politeness gave him an uneasy feeling.

Ok.

He knocked for a moment before boarding the little bus. The first thing he noticed was the smell of some kind of cleaning product; he could see from the kitchen area that the light was on in the bathroom

"Tegan?" Ted called hesitantly, and quietly approached. He could hear the sounds of scrubbing within. He peeked in the doorway of the bathroom and saw Tegan in the shower, yellow rubber gloves on, scrubbing the glass wall of the shower stall. "Um. . . hey Teegs," Ted said to her cautiously, puzzled. "You okay?" She gave him a quick glance, but did not cease her scrubbing.

"Sure. Why?" she asked, her tone breezy, almost chipper. Ted frowned as he watched her vigorous, almost manic scrubbing.

"Sara asked me to check on you. . . I thought something might be wrong?"

"Oh, that was nice of her. Let her know I'm totally fine. And thanks for her concern," Tegan said brightly, unconvincingly.

"Uh. . . okay. . ." he said as she continued her cleaning.

"Shit, soap scum is a bitch to get off of these walls," she muttered, stopping to look over her work.

"Do you maybe want to. . . have a drink? Sit down and chat?" Ted asked her, tentative, leaning on the door frame and watching her a little anxiously.

"Well, this place is so dirty. . ." she said, stepping out of the shower to rinse her sponge at the sink.

"It. . . looks pretty clean to me. . ." Ted mused, taking a quick look around. "Um, Tegan, maybe I'm way off base but. . . are you sure you're okay? Because . . . I don't know. . ." Tegan rinsed out the sponge and took a quick look around.

"Does it really look clean in here to you?" she asked.

"Yeah, it really does," Ted replied. Tegan looked a little doubtful, but nodded.

"Okay, well. . . I guess we could sit down, maybe watch a DVD or. . ." she said, peeling off the rubber gloves and dropping them in the sink. "Want a drink?" she asked when she brushed past him and headed for the kitchen.

"Sure, if you have any beer. . ." Tegan grabbed two beers from the fridge and ushered him over to the TV area. She handed him one of the beers and then turned on the TV. "I was watching The Sopranos. . ." She pressed play on the DVD player and sat down next to Ted on the sofa, her eyes on the screen. "Can you open mine too? I don't know who ever thought that these were twist-off. Only in a world where 'twist-off' means 'you can twist it off if you don't mind losing most of the skin on your fingers.'" Ted twisted the cap off of Tegan's bottle and handed it to her. Sitting close to Ted, Tegan put her feet up on the coffee table and for a while, they said nothing. When one of the characters got shot and thrown off a boat, Tegan recoiled, shocked.

"Holy fuck! That's. . . that's why I love this show. That guy was like one of the main characters and now he's just dead! Just like that!" Tegan shook her head, took a long sip of beer.

"Tegan, honey," Ted said suddenly, softly; the tenderness in his tone made Tegan glance at him, surprised, before quickly looking back at the TV.

"Hmm?" she asked, eyes back on the screen.

"Well, I think. . . I want to be able to help and I think it will be. . . I mean I think it's time I should tell you. . ."

"What's that?" she asked casually, sipping more beer.

"Tegan, I know. About you and Sara." Ted sat still, quiet, waiting for a response. He watched Tegan's face out of the corner of his eye. Her eyes remained on the screen, her fake smile frozen, for a moment. He watched it crumble, a little, the corner of her mouth twitching. She blinked.

"Uh. . ." she started, fiddling with the remote. "I've seen this episode so many times, it's like. . ." her voice trailed off, and Ted watched her hands, the remote trembling in her palm as she searched through the menus.

"Tegan," Ted said softly.

"But I think this is the one where. . . um. . ." she stuttered, looking down at the remote in her hands, her fingers trembling, clumsy.

"It's okay. I've known for months and nothing has changed. I love you and support you and I always will." He gave her time to hear it, to process it. She chewed on her lower lip, fidgeted with the remote, her eyes still on her hands.

"Uh. . ." she tried to say, her voice shaking a little, like her hands.

"You don't even need to explain. I saw you in a park one night. . . I saw you kiss. I was shocked, for a while. I mean, now, I think it was the sweetest thing I've seen in my life. And that's it. It's fine." He turned his face to Tegan; the colour was rising in her face and she kept her eyes on her hands. Ted waited while she took a trembling breath, shook her head. "And so. . . what happened, Tegan? Why did Sara want me to check on you?" Tegan's eyes were on the TV again, and Ted could see her try to harden up, but she never had figured out how to do it like Sara could. She swallowed, blinked. Her hands gave her away, though. She opened her mouth to speak; closed it again. She looked back at the remote.

"Do you know how to change the aspect ratio on this TV? I tried but it's like. . ." Ted lay one steady hand over Tegan's trembling one, gently, and slowly pulled the remote away from her and put it on the side table.

"What happened, Tegan?" Ted asked her, and after a moment, she shrugged slowly.

"Um. . . well, I. . . she fucked a fangirl in my bed while we were out," Tegan said, lightly, with another shrug, her fake-indifferent look a very thin disguise. Ted looked at her, shocked. "Oh, that reminds me. She forgot some of her stuff here. . ." Tegan got up quickly and went to the bedroom at the back of the bus.

"Tegan. . ." Ted said after her, setting his bottle down and following her. In the back room, he found her, pulling the duvet off the bed and throwing it on the floor. She grabbed the corner of the bedsheet and started violently tugging at it.

"Can you grab the other end of this?" she asked, and the sheet was free of the mattress, she twisted it into a ball and threw it on the floor.

"There's a bag in here somewhere", she muttered, quickly going to the closet, rummaging around at the bottom. "Maybe you could bring some of this stuff to her when you leave? I won't be needing it. . ." Tegan said, grabbing a few pairs of shoes and tossing them behind her. "Shoes. . . shoes. . ." she muttered before finding a blue plastic Ikea bag and opening it up. Ted was behind her, gathering up the shoes and bed sheets. Tegan handed him the bag and she went back into the closet.

"Tegan, take it easy-"

"Just look at all of this," Tegan said, turning around with hands full of underwear and socks. She threw them at the bag on the floor. "And this," she went on, her energy becoming more and more manic as she pulled an arm-load of t-shirts out of a drawer and threw them on the pile. "This one is mine, though. . ." She grabbed one shirt from the pile. "It probably. . . fucking. . . smells like her and. . ." Ted stood by and watched, as Tegan became more and more agitated. She held the shirt to her face for a moment and when she threw it back in the closet, her eyes were shining, her face red.

"Hey, come on, Tegan. Just talk to me-"

"And this," Tegan said, grabbing the strap-on from the floor by its leather harness and holding it up. "Why did she leave this here? To remind me? As if I could fucking forget?"

"I don't-"

"Nightmare. She said. . . with me. . . a nightmare. That's what she said." The words spilled out, her face reddening further as she threw the strap-on in the bag.

"She didn't mean it like that, Tegan-"

"Maybe she wanted me to wash that bitch off of it for her? I don't think I will, though. I thought it over and decided not to." She went quickly to Sara's nightstand and opened the top drawer. "She might be too busy fucking groupies to read but you never know. . ." Tegan threw several books into the bag before going back to the closet. She opened a drawer at the bottom and started digging around in it, ranting to herself while she pulled clothing and various personal items out, throwing them on the floor around her. "If it was such a nightmare, why was she here with me? As a favour? Did I force her?" Ted shook his head. Tegan wasn't talking to him anyway. Not really. "God, this must be so disgusting to you. . ." she said, her head still inside the closet. She emerged with a dildo in her hand, smaller than the one that was in the harness.

"Tegan, it's not. . ." Ted murmured softly, his eyes sad.

"I bought this for Sara. Because she was scared of the other one," Tegan told him, unflinching, almost challenging, but her red face and her eyes shining gave her away. Ted nodded.

"Okay," he said calmly. He could see Tegan's panic rising; her breaths quickened, her blush deepened. He could see it: pain, shame, fear. She was laying it all out there for him, challenging him to be disgusted, to be ashamed for her. She was giving him a reason to leave too.

"I mean, can you believe it? I bought this because I wanted to fuck my sister with it."

"Tegan. . . I'm sorry this is happening to you. . ." Ted said softly. Tegan's challenging glare faltered as she held it up, in front of him. Failing to get a response, she threw it in the bag on top of the other one.

"Maybe she'll want the next girl to use it on her. I mean, it didn't go so well when I tried it but maybe that's because with me, it was a nightmare. But I guess I deserve it. I mean, Jamie used it on me and Sara used it on that whore, and that's the fucking same thing!" Ted looked back at her, his gaze calm, sympathetic. Tegan pushed harder. "Did you know that? Did you know that I fucked Jamie? For like two weeks straight? Did she tell you?" she asked him, trembling.

"She told me you two had slept together, yeah," he said softly. "She needed someone to talk to."

"Did you get all the hot details? Did you guys get a good laugh out if it, out of me, and my fucking disaster of a life, maybe how I was fucking falling apart and she. . . and we. . ." Tegan couldn't finish. She'd run into a dead end, her own words ringing false.

"God, no," Ted said. "Tegan, Jamie loves you. She could never laugh at you. . . hurting like that."

"Yeah, so, one night I'm there crying because my fucking heart is broken, because of my fucking sister, which is just disgusting enough already, and then the next morning I'm fucking the first girl that's in bed with me. That's really good of me, right? I'm just such a great person that I just. . . used her because she was there, and she didn't ask for that, for any of it!"

"I don't think that's what happened," Ted said softly.

"And then I made her touch me, even though I knew how. . . how. . . fucking dirty and sick I am," Tegan continued, her face twisting, remembering.

"I don't think that's how Jamie saw it," Ted answered. Tegan continued ranting, ignoring him.

"And then I betray my. . . I cheat on Sara by just letting Jamie fuck me until I couldn't even remember my own name at one point, let alone my fucked up life. . . Did she tell you she strapped on? Did she tell you how?" Ted shook his head.

"Tegan, no. What are you doing? Are you trying to shock me? It's not working." She met his eyes, for a long moment, his warm, calm response taking the voice out of her anger. Her gaze faltered and she looked down at her hands.

"She. . . actually, she was a lot. . . sweeter to me than I fucking deserved. She like. . . she took care of me and I. . . the way she wanted me. . . it made me feel like. . . fucking human again. And. . . then I told her I never wanted to see her again." She looked at Ted, her eyes inviting his disapproval, asking for it, afraid of it.

"We all say things we regret. You were going through something. . . pretty. . ."

"I think I. . . fucking. . . broke the heart of like the gentlest person I've. . . I'm. . . God," Tegan winced, shook her head, red-eyed, red-faced.

"Well. . ." Ted started, "think of what Sara said to you tonight. "And if she came to you now and apologized, you'd forgive her, wouldn't you?" He looked at her face. She hesitated, and said nothing, but turned away and kneeled again and her head was in the closet again, rooting through the bottom drawer as though she hadn't heard him. "Some of this shit is mine and-" She stopped. Ted stood behind her, quietly watching as she knelt, bent over the bottom drawer. "She just takes. . . she goes in my closet and like, she takes my. . . my stuff. . . and she wears it and doesn't wash it and just fucking puts it back unwashed, in my drawers. . ." Ted came closer, and looked over her shoulder. "And then the stuff. . . it fucking. . . smells like her and I. . . it's. . ." She stopped her digging around in the drawer at that moment; Ted watched her kneel there, frozen, a t-shirt in her hands. It looked old, and it had a picture of a tiger on the front. "She. . . wears it. . . and then. . . puts it. . . back!" Her tears came then, quickly and intensely enough to startle Ted. She doubled over, pressed the shirt to her face, and wailed into it. "She puts it back and it fucking smells like her! God!"

"Tegan, hey-" Ted said, kneeling next to her in front of the closet and putting one hand on her back.

"Nightmare, oh God-" she cried, her anguish pricking at Ted's eyes as he put an arm around her shoulders.

"No, Tegan, hey. . ."

"She did!" Tegan cried. "She said it!"

"Come here," Ted murmured, putting both arms around her, and she fell against his chest, sobbing. "Hey, shh. . ."

"Nightmare," Tegan repeated, against his chest. With one arm around her shoulders, his other hand cradled her head against his body.

"No, Tegan. . . she didn't mean it like that. . ." Ted murmured.

"She doesn't. . . she can't. . . she said, never again. . ." She stopped, her tears soaking into his sweater, her voice shaking as she trembled against him. "It's all over, everything. . . everything's. . . it's all fucked up, it's all finished. . ."

"Shhh, no. It's not true. . ." Ted said, as Tegan's sobs against him intensified, and he wrapped both arms around her tightly. "Hey, hey," he said to her softly. "You're hyperventilating. . ." Tegan tried to match the rhythm of his breathing, but the spasms in her chest continued. "We have three weeks off. Shows are postponed, okay? Maybe you and Sara just. . . need to talk. " Tegan sniffed, breathing a little erratically still.

"She won't . . . she can't even be in a room with me. . ." Tegan stammered.

"I think she feels just the same as you do right now."

"No, it's all over. . . everything. . . why am I still alive? God. . ." Tegan sobbed again, clutching the front of his shirt with one hand, twisting it as she pressed her face there to muffle her sobs.

"Just go to her and talk to her, Tegan. Don't listen to her anger. You know how she is. You know her better than anyone. She's just scared." Tegan shook her head against his chest.

"I'm sorry. . . I can't. . . stop. . . shaking," she said.

"It's okay. Stop fighting it."

"I'm sorry," she said.

"What for? Come on," Ted murmured.

"I've. . . Sara and I. . . we've. . . fucked everything all up. We. . . couldn't help it,"

"You haven't," Ted said.

"It's over, all of it. . ."

"No, shh,"

"Oh my God. . ." she cried.

"Hey, no. . ."

"Our mom. . . God. . . I can't answer my phone," she very nearly wailed.

"Don't think about that now. One thing at a time. . ." Ted said, at a loss.

"She's. . . she'll just. . . oh fuck, why? Why can't we. . . why couldn't we. . . stop it?"

"You can't help who you are, sweetheart."

"I want to die," she said, and Ted's heart ached because she meant it.

"No you don't. No, Tegan."

He held her like that for a long time, on the floor in front of the closet, until her sobs receded and she cried silently. Then he picked her up and lay her down on the bare mattress and covered her with the duvet.

"Ted, I can't stand it. . ." she said as he stood, trying to decide what to do. "I don't think I'm going to survive." She didn't look at him as she said it, her tone a mix of weariness and desperation. He stood, watching her for a moment, before laying down on the bed next to her.

"I'm staying with you, okay?" he said. Tegan was quiet now; she lay still, curled on her side, tears flowing continuously onto her pillow. Ted lay with his head on the other pillow, watching her face.

"I'm so sorry this is happening to you, sweetheart," he said and she closed her eyes, more tears slipping out.

"I'm done, Ted."

"No. . . things will get better. You need to hang in there," Ted said.

"I have nothing. I'm alone."

"No, you aren't," Ted said, gently smoothing her hair back from her face. "She loves you more than everything and everyone else in the world combined."

"She fucked that girl in my bed. She wanted me to see. Why?"

"She's scared and confused, just like you are."

"She wasn't sorry. She dropped the. . . she took it off and dropped it on the floor and. . . it's like she didn't care about all. . . all the things we. . . about anything. And about me. She's my whole soul and I'm just nothing. . ."

"You're wrong. Impossible," Ted said softly as her face twisted again in anguish, more tears coming. "Right now she is alone, somewhere, crying over you," he said gently, putting his arm around her waist and kissing her forehead. She shook her head against her pillow and didn't speak.