A/N: Whoops, I made the title a reference to my conductor's favorite saying.

Summary: She watches her childhood all over again and it's the worst feeling.

i. your little girl meets her and there's something like fire

Her story had not gotten a happily ever after and yet she so foolishly told fairy tales to her little angel with Cory Matthews. She had always seen the twisting, writhing, the longing in their eyes. Even once they had confided their overness with the subject, it remained. It didn't take words for her to know. All it had ever taken was their eyes.

Riley Matthews and Maya Hart are no different.

From the moment they meet, Topanga Matthews can see it. Burning. Blazing. Thriving.

(She winces when she sees the ashes flash by.)

These stories never end well.

"Mama, what does love feel like?" whispers the Angel from the dinner table.

"It feels like fire from behind eyes," murmurs the Tender Shepherd before she wipes crumbs away from curious lips.

ii. the pencils they break with the heartache

She can hear the pencils snapping from the kitchen as she cuts up a snack for them. Her Angel has done nothing but talkandtalkandtalk of some Silly Little Boy she says she loves.

With the pencils, she hears the cracking and fracturing of the blonde's heart. Her eyes force in images of fresh, beating, pulsing pink and she can almost swear she hears Shawn's whisperquiet sobs and Cory's pillowmuffled tears.

The knife slices through her palm and she doesn't flinch at the blood. She flinches at her pity for the Other Little Girl.

That knight, singing a soft lullaby to the Angel, she feels her throat crack at the thought of telling her how the Other Little Girl feels the same, how their eyes share the fire.

She finds that she cannot find the words and so she merely tucks her daughter in and sighs at the door frame.

Ifonlyifonlyifonly.

(Why does she feel more helpless than before?)

"Mommy, what does love feel like?" whispers the Angel from her bedspread.

"It feels like pink beating lines," murmurs the Tender Shepherd before she shuts the door neatly.

iii. demons hide in locked hearts that hide in shut closets

Her lips itch to spill all she has known to Cory. YoubothstillloveeachotherMayaandRileyloveeachotherIcandonothing. Instead she watches as the Angel skips through the door and hums of feelings that are tucked in her eyes.

She says she thinks she loves another Silly Little Boy.

Her eyes say her heart is sewn into the sleeve of her best friend and sealed with a chaste kiss.

Those starry doe eyes are tootoo familiar and she recognizes the nights Cory still had those. (Sometimes, her mind believes Shawn had them once too before they broke and shattered.) They shine with feelings for another but still burns brightly the feelings for her.

It's only a few years before she announces he likes boys and boys alone (as the Shepherd had much suspected in the way his eyes glistened). The Angel sobs that night and she knows now that her little girl doesn't know what to believe about her feelings.

She scrambles to find the key but she's misplaced it (it's between the teeth of her really) and the little girl's heart stays locked up too tightly for the entire night. Fresh in her eyes are the reflections of her scratched up heart with the Demon's claws bleeding from the wounds. It occurs to her that she shouldn't be checking the closet for monsters.

All she'll find is an Angel with a crown of confusion and big starry eyes asking why they've built her inside such a small space.

(There's a single loose brick she could push out of place but she doesn't ever see it.)

"Mommy, what does love feel like?" whispers the Angel from inside the brick closet.

"It feels like torn up insides and hidden away keys," murmurs the Tender Shepherd from just outside.

iv. she keeps her feelings boxed neatly on a shelf

Sixth grade is the first time she suspects the Angel is only pretending to like a Silly Little Boy.

Her eyes aren't quite glistening the way they should. Cory's eyes were still pure starlight at this age (Shawn's were halfway dead as she recalls and she'd tried to help but really she couldn't do a damn thing). The Angel's eyes should be worn but starry, not forcing themselves to shineandshinebright.

Brunette locks are curled delicately and quirks are squished down in the contents of her heart.

(They're still there, she just wants them gone.)

Her room is too neat and her everything is color coded and in perfect place. The Angel is beginning to learn how much that word means. She doesn't like what it does.

Questions are exchanged and answers are given too formally (to everyone but the Other Little Girl she suspects) for her heart to truly leap at the Silly Little Boy's smile.

She briefly believes Shawn reached this phase once but can't be sure.

(All she really remembers is being helpless to save anyone.)

"Mom, what does love feel like?" whispers the Angel from her pretty little boxes.

"It doesn't feel like neat organization, it's chaos," murmurs the Tender Shepherd from the derailed fairy tale.

v. they lacklacklack that burning in their eyes

The Angel finds a Prince instead of a Silly Little Boy this time. He's charming as can be and everything she could ask for for her little girl. But she doesn't quite see the fire in their eyes or the ripples in their touches.

(Perhaps this empty thatsnotright feeling ached in Shawn's bones once upon a time.)

She doesn't want to imagine how tossed aside the Other Little Girl feels behind that pearly little smile. But it flickers in her bones and she almost cries for her Other Little Girl. Instead she burns the proud smile on her lips that kills her just a tad.

All the Angel wants is Mommy and Daddy's approval, she knows this. It had been all Cory wanted when he'd had those starry eyes with the white hot burning. (She'd never gotten to ask Shawn what he had wanted. She'd only seen the hurting in those burning eyes at the sight of welded hands and fingers.)

She gives the heavens and the constellations her prayers for a happy ending this time.

It hurts them both that the Prince won't grant it.

"Mom, what does love feel like?" whispers the Angel from under his arm.

"It feels like what you two have," murmurs the Tender Shepherd from the bottom of her heart.

vi. it's all sparkles and mascara tears

She's back to another Silly Little Boy (but this one is not so little and not so boyish). This one the Shepherd can see is only going to bring heartbreak and ruin though she can still say nothing. The Angel will not listen and the Other Little Girl will not hear.

All her silent warnings have fallen on deaf ears.

She waits in silence, her hand gripping and clinging to Cory's. Shawn tells her not to worry so much, heseemslikeanicekid. A nice kid with no luster to his eyes, no fire to his veins, no heart to his chest. The Shepherd can only see the ending of this story as she watches the door for her Angel's return (she prays it will be with the Other Little Girl).

It's not the fairy tale ending either of them deserve. Hers has not been the fairy tale ending she had once imagined. She knows how badly this will hurt the Angel. She knows not how much this will kill and torture the Other Little Girl. She still has not asked Shawn.

(She keeps forgetting to remember how to speak when she wants to.)

It kills her when she's right and the Angel is sobbing into the Other Little Girl who is bloodied and bruised from acts she will not speak of. Their eyes are both firey and broken tonight.

But there is the slightest trace of hope in the Other Little Girl's as the Angel nuzzles into her.

"Mom, what does love feel like?" whispers the Angel from the back of her choked throat.

"It feels like mascara and hope," murmurs the Tender Shepherd from the center of her weighted heart.

vii. he's almost familiar until she sees his eyes

Her next Silly Little Boy is close. Not close to the Prince but to the Other Little Girl. He's much too tall and broadened but he is close. Welded in him is the same inferno as in her. But his eyes are not right.

His eyes do not burn. Not even a little. They have intentions she does not wish to see in anyone's eyes. Intentions the not so boyish Silly Little Boy had had.

Screams of warnings are lost in her throat quickly though.

Gammy is dying.

When she is dead, the Silly Little Boy does not come to comfort the Angel or show his respects to the Other Little Girl. She knows the Angel has asked him. She knows he promised he would. She knows he will lie as to why he didn't.

Her voice will not let her warn the Angel.

The angel clings to the prince and the other little girl and Minkus' son. It's more than just Gammy and grief and heartache. It is betrayal and confusion and loathing and past broken hearts and urges to kiss the Other Little Girl. Still she can say nothing.

Instead she prays the Other Little Girl will know and they can be happy.

(It doesn't work that way and even when the Silly Little Boy cheats he is granted a second chance because he is almost like the Other Little Girl.)

Shawn and Cory were the same way.

"Mommy, what does love feel like?" whispers the Angel from behind a closed door.

"It feels like always being there," murmurs the Tender Shepherd from the floor.

viii. she goes far far away to find her kingdom

The Shepherd only receives messages about what is happening while her Angel is away. Minkus' son has grown to be a Prince (she is not surprised, she had seen it the day they had gone to prom together). He has had the fire in his eyes for quite some time.

She's almost pleased.

Almost.

(But the Angel does not return the fire to him and the Other Little Girl is broken in pieces with the Other Prince.)

From what she is relayed, they are happy and perfect and dancing and smiling. From the Other Little Girl's eyes, it is all true. From her Angel's eyes, she is still inloveinloveinlove and she thinks she understands now.

The Shepherd knows she doesn't.

She would be with the Other Little Girl if that were true. The same way Shawn and Cory would have been together if they had understood they both had (have) the fire in their eyes. (Briefly she wonders if they see the fire in the little girls' eyes.)

Her thoughts leave a bitter taste in her mouth. She drowns with a bottle of Shawn's favorite liquor. A drunken haze of rights and wrongs and wishes that it was black and white and moments she should have said it and moments she lied by omission swirl in the bottle.

It leaves her wondering where she would be left if Shawn and Cory had. Where she'll be if the Angel and the Other Little Girl do.

Nowhere.

She is nothing without them. They will leave her. Of course, they will leave her. She will be nothing. She would've been nothing. Alone. Loveless. On her own, with just a bottle of liquor to soothe her.

On second thought, it's not all that soothing and she can't see why it's his crutch.

Fairy tales, she decides, fairy tales are much better.

(The angel has been using them for far too long.)

"Mommy, what does love feel like?" whispers the Angel on the phone in a giggling fit.

"It feels like your kingdom," the Tender Shepherd murmurs with alcohol in her veins.

viv. the look in her eyes is that of his all those years ago

It's her wedding day. The Shepherd knows this is meant to be the happiest day of her entire life. It's supposed to be her fairy tale ending. Isn't it happily ever after from here?

I wish, I wish, she muses. Hers hasn't been. Even though she thinks she can see the burning in Cory's eyes for her.

The Angel twirls in her dress and asks, "is it alright?"

She nods, tears in her eyes and her arms around the angel. "You look so beautiful. Just try not to cry too much, you'll ruin your make up."

"It's okay, Maya prepared me, it's all waterproof," she laughs, that bigbigbig goofy grin on her face.

The Shepherd still sees her longing glances at the Other Little Girl. The Shepherd still sees the sadness in her eyes. The Shepherd still sees the burning. In both of them. Prince Charming, the one she never thought was a Silly Little Boy, doesn't notice.

(Or he does like she did and pretends not to.

He'll hate himself later, if that's the case.

She suspects it is.)

There's the briefest of broken fire in Cory and Shawn's eyes as they look at each other. It almost breaks her. But it's her little girl's big day, she can't linger on the past. Or the present.

Or the tears her Other Little Girl is biting back.

Prince Charming and the Angel kiss and all should be well now. Why isn't it? Why couldn't the Angel see the Other Little Girl loves her too? Why couldn't Cory and Shawn be happy? Why couldn't the Shepherd be enough? All she ever had to do was speak now.

"Forever holding your peace, Maya?"

With a tear stained shake of her head, the Other Little Girl breaks down. It's only a second and then it's gone.

"It's okay, I'll never know how badly it hurts you but I know you just want her to be happy. Don't you deserve happiness too?" She wishes she would shut up.

"I dunno. Maybe. With Minkus, if he still likes me. Or Josh. I still like him," she admits softly.

"You do. My little girls both deserve the world. Go get it, hon. You're pretty fierce," the Shepherd says with a sort of finality. The Other Little Girl is quick to lose herself in a hug, or maybe in the memories. The Shepherd can never tell.

Later, as they dance, as they have something like happiness (she prays it won't be the last bit), she walks to Shawn. She asks him how it felt. How it hurt. She thinks it's for the Other Little Girl but maybe it's for her.

"Like having my heart ripped out . . . And giving it to him. To both of you," he murmurs over a cup of champagne.

"Put the drink down, honey," she pleads. It clinks against the table. His head falls in place on her shoulder. They both cry. "Do . . . Do you think Lucas will hate himself too?" She whispers.

(They both know the answer.)

"Mama . . . What does love feel like?" whispers the Angel in her wedding dress, with tears in her eyes.

"It feels hopeless," murmurs the Tender Shepherd.

"Oh," the brunette says. The Shepherd can hear her heart breaking.

reviews are love. apparently everyone needs some.