Pick up, pick up, pick up….

Fuck.

Karma paced across her room, cursing herself and her stupidity and her inability to just say 'no', at least not to Amy or to her lips and yeah, she knew in the end she had said 'no' and she had pushed Amy away but that was in the end and that meant there was a beginning and a middle and let's face it, those were the fucking problem.

Those were why Lauren was gone and those were why Karma was pacing and cursing and pacing and cursing and dialing and praying and then pacing and cursing cause there was no answer (and now it was barely even ringing which meant Lauren wasn't just not answering, she was rejecting) and just…

Fuck

She'd screwed up, she knew that and - again - let's face it, that wasn't exactly something new, Karma knew she screwed up on the regular, or at least she had lately. But this… this wasn't a screw up. Calling this a screw up was like calling the Grand Canyon a big hole or the moon a big… moon… or like saying that she sucked at metaphors.

Massive. Fucking. Understatement.

Karma couldn't think (she could dial and she did over and over and over again) and she could pace and she could mutter increasingly inventive curses at herself but that was about all she could do cause she couldn't think and she couldn't focus and she couldn't calm down enough to be rational, all because Lauren was gone.

And if that all didn't tell Karma all she needed to know about how she felt about the two blondes in her life…

Losing Amy the night of the wedding had reduced her to a blubbering mess, cowering in her mother's lap. Losing Lauren had rendered incapable of doing much more than pacing around her room muttering every dirty word she knew (including more than a few in Portuguese and she could only hope her gam-gam couldn't hear her up in Heaven) and redialing her phone a thousand times (OK, more like twenty, but when love's involved who counts?)

Karma had gotten back up after losing Amy. She'd dragged herself out of bed the next morning and gotten dressed and done her hair and her makeup (and yeah, she'd been kinda worried about running into Liam and not looking her best, but that was neither here nor there nor just shut the fuck up about him, alright?) and marched right over there, without a doubt in her mind she could get things back on track.

She knew she could never really lose Amy (of course, that was pre Reagan and pre Amy fucking Liam - or kinda pre that - and pre Lauren and maybe Karma wasn't quite so sure anymore and even more not so sure that she even cared) but she wasn't nearly so positive that she couldn't lose Lauren.

Her girl (and yes, Karma still thought of Lauren that way, kitchen kisses be damned) was stubborn and prideful and not inclined to give second chances and Karma was pretty sure she'd already gotten one of those and she was probably working on chance number three or four or even five, which was more than she'd ever seen Lauren give anyone.

Karma paced and cursed and dialed and vowed. If she got another chance, she swore, she would make the most of it.

"I'll tell her," she muttered to the air. "I'll tell Amy that it's Lauren and only Lauren and I'll tell Lauren that it's only her and I'll tell the fucking world if she needs me to and…"

She stopped pacing as the phone dialed (again) and rang (again) and then almost immediately disconnected (again).

Karma slumped against the bed and dropped to the floor, pulling her knees to her chest and she sat there, staring at her phone as she dialed again. And again. And again. And again. And…

And she even gave up for a minute and then tried dialing Amy thinking maybe she could at least tell Lauren to answer and yes, Karma was that desperate but Amy didn't answer either and so Karma flipped back to the other number and …

Yeah.

Again.

And nothing. Again.

"Karma?"

She looked up, startled by the voice and even more startled by the face (and mouth and eyes and body) attached to said voice.

"Shane?"

He smiled at her, weakly and that was all it took, one look, one smile, one supportive… something… and Karma cracked, the tears rolling out of her in sobs that shook her body and her phone went flying across the room and then Shane was there, curling around her and holding her tight as she soaked his shirt and sobbed herself hoarse.

Karma didn't know how long she sat there crying and shaking and fisting Shane's polo in her hands. It could have been an hour (it was) or a day (it wasn't) but she did know that she didn't stop until she felt like she'd cried every tear she had, like every bit of sadness had been wrung out of her and all that was left was sniffles and she resisted the urge to wipe her eyes (and her nose) on Shane's shirt and just rested her head on his shoulder, trying to get her breath back.

"You OK?" Shane asked and Karma was surprised (a little) to hear something that sounded like genuine concerns in his voice.

She was sure it had more to do with the sheer volume (like a fucking ocean) of tears and shaking and coughing and gasping than it did with it being her. Not that she really cared.

Any port in a storm, right?

"Karma?" Shane leaned back and put a finger under her chin and tipped her head up so she could look at him. "Amy was here, huh?" She nodded and he frowned. "And I'm guessing Lauren was too and that didn't go so… well?"

Karma nodded again. "How did you…?"

"She told me," Shane said. "Well, actually, she and Reagan told me and - "

"Wait," Karma said, sitting up and back and scooting out of his embrace cause (even before he mentioned Reagan) that was just getting weird. "Reagan?"

Shane nodded. "Yeah," he said, "it was kinda like one big game of telephone."

"Telephone?" Karma asked (not wondering at all why she was suddenly reduced to one word at a time.)

Shane nodded again. "Amy broke up with Reagan and then called me to tell me she broke up with Reagan and to yell at me cause she thought I knew about you and Lauren, which of course I did, but didn't tell her, which of course I didn't." He took a breath. Just one. "And then Reagan called me to tell me Amy broke up with her and to yell at me cause she thought Amy broke up with her becuase of you and Lauren, which of course she did, and because she thought I was the one who told Amy which -"

"Of course you didn't," Karma said (and she was half interrupting just to make him breathe because she was close to passing out and she was only listening.)

"Right," Shane said. "And then she said she thought Amy was on her way over here and then I called Amy and she didn't answer so I called the house and talked to Farrah, and I don't understand how Amy doesn't just love her, and she said Amy was on her way here and I got here just in time to see her leave and she was smiling and then Lauren left and she wasn't and then I thought maybe I should go home cause it was just you and it's not like you and I are friends, but…"

He trailed off (and took a few deep breaths) and sat there on Karma's bed, watching her as she tried (so very hard) to process it all.

"You want to tell me what happened?" he asked.

"Lauren's gone," Karma said simply. That wasn't exactly everything (and even Shane knew that) but it was… well… fuck it… that was everything.

Lauren was gone and Amy had kissed her and Lauren was gone and Amy had declared her love in the kitchen and Lauren was gone and Amy had vowed to win her back (could you win back something you'd never lost or, really, never had?) and Lauren was gone.

That she kept coming back to that did not escape Karma's attention. Not only did it not escape (unlike Lauren) but it didn't run (again, unlike Lauren) or scamper or flutter or hop or skip or even try to move at all, not even a little. That one little fact - Lauren was gone - just fucking sat there, nestling like a rock settling into the earth, just waiting for her to stop on it, with its sharp little pointy edges like fucking fangs, waiting to take a bite out of her and catching her by surprise every fucking time because every time she even tried to think of something else (like following Shane's insane telephone tree), it was always right there, always waiting, always ready to tear away at her all over again.

"Lauren's gone," she said again, her eyes falling to the duvet, to the sheets, to the bed she'd held her girl on less than two hours before. "Amy kissed me and I think Lauren might have seen it and -"

"Amy kissed you?" Shane interrupted and Karma tried to pretend she didn't hear the slight note of pride in his voice, not that she could blame him cause under different circumstances (like it not being her that Amy kissed or Lauren not seeing it) Karma might have been proud of Amy and her sudden burst of self-confidence too.

"Yeah," Karma said. "She kissed me and told me she was going to prove that she and I belong together and…" She stopped and looked up at Shane, his words finally registering. "Wait, you said she was smiling?"

Shane nodded and suddenly that little rock that was Lauren being gone wasn't a rock anymore and it wasn't sitting still and it wasn't waiting for her.

It was taunting her.

It was doing a fucking victory dance and if that dancer was conspicuously uncoordinated and dorky and blonde and had the softest (second softest) pair of lips that Karma had ever felt and if that dancer (and fuck the metaphor, it was Amy) was relishing it, was gloating, was celebrating and reveling and fucking smiling over that kiss and over what it had done and over Lauren being gone…

She could practically hear Amy in her head (which wasn't all that new, she'd been hearing Amy for years, usually when she was about to do something… well… Karma) whispering to her.

Lauren's gone. She ran. She slipped away, she fled. She took off at the first sign of trouble and, really, doesn't that tell you all you need to know about your 'relationship?'

Karma patted the bed around her, desperate to find her phone.

Lauren's gone. She wasn't gay anyway. Lauren? A lesbian? Please.

She found it, half under Shane's ass and she pushed him aside (gently) so she could grab it and dial.

Lauren's gone. She knew the truth. She'd always worried about it, hadn't she? Always worried that you'd leave her for -

"Shut up!" Karma yelled and Shane jumped and she knew she should say she didn't mean him, but he was bright and knew he wasn't speaking and she didn't really have time because there was still no answer (which didn't surprise but did disappoint) and it was just Shane so she didn't spend too much time worrying about it.

Karma ran her thumb across the screen and then dialed the other number, the one she knew by heart, that she could dial blind, that she could recognize just by the sounds of the beeps on her keypad (OK, not really, but she was pissed and she was scared and she was on a roll so let's let that one go, OK?) and brought the phone to her ear, waiting for an answer.

And when that answer didn't come either, when that fucking dancer didn't pick up any more than Lauren had, Karma shoved her phone in her pocket and hopped off the bed, heading for the stairs. Shane was right on her heels as she grabbed the keys to the Good Karma truck and slammed out the front door.

"Karma," he huffed, chasing after her. "Where are you going?"

Karma climbed into the truck and held the door for him. "To get what's mine," she said simply and Shane jumped into the truck without hesitation as Karma shoved it into gear and pulled out. There was, she knew, a chance neither of them would answer her knocks or her frantic (and repeated, oh so fucking repeated) ringing of the doorbell any more than they had their phones. But that, she knew, was OK.

She knew where the key was.