A/N: There's been lots of talk about Sabrina getting Karma's story. And maybe that was the point. And maybe if Karma had seen that.. Or how Karma comes to play hero for Sabramy while realizing a thing or two herself

You're tugging your tiny suitcase and your guitar and trying not to think about how little you have left, how many of your possessions and mementos and keepsakes are no more, just burned away. You try not to think about the pictures (the ones you so carefully and lovingly rehung on your mirror after the Liam… indiscretion) and the home movies burned and sizzled away inside your laptop hard drive and all the trinkets and toys and treats Amy bought you over the years, now just so much charcoal.

You've got your heart - it's dangling round your neck - and now, more than ever, you know you've still got hers. And so fire be damned cause those are just things (and you've still got more than Zen, anyway) and you've got all of those you need and you've got her and what more do you really need?

(And maybe if you'd thought like that a year ago…)

But now isn't the time for regret and now isn't the time for thinking about woulda coulda shoulda and now, apparently, isn't the time for just being happy (never the time for that, now is it?) cause there she is.

Not the she you want to see (oh, that rhymed) (God, you need some sleep) (a house burning tends to wreck the rem-rest) but that she - even though you know you've got her - is still only barely speaking to you (and you're only barely holding back the oppressive wave of guilt over that) and yeah, she's letting you stay with her but that's only cause it was with her or with Diane.

And no matter how pissed at you she is, Amy's not that mean.

So, no, it's not the she you want… want to see… (like the 'to see' makes it so much better) but, you figure, it's the she you were destined to run into eventually.

Destiny, like the universe, is a fucking dick.

She - Sabrina - is right where you would have thought she'd be, if you'd given her anything more than a passing thought in the last week (like you haven't) (like the deafening silence from Amy and the weird weirdness with Felix and the burning of your house and the thought - over and over and over again - of Amy's face that night hasn't kept her front and fucking center in your mind.)

(Someone's gotta be to blame for it all, right?)

So there she is, right where you'd imagined she'd be staring up at Amy's window, leaning against the tree you hid behind for your… Felix's … grand gesture (though, since you doubt the sincerity of her feelings, you're not sure why you kept imagining her here.)

(And that's a lie.) (You know why you thought she'd be there, of all places.)

(It's where you would have been.)

(And Sabrina is all about you.) (Right?) (Right.)

But you know… fuck where you would have been, it's where you should have been that night, after the shit hit the fan and you'd sent Felix trundling off after Amy. You should have been right there, leaning against that tree, staring up at that window and hoping Amy was OK. Hoping that Felix was being her shoulder to cry on (her pale and not all that strong but honest and there shoulder.) You should have been there and not up there, outside the room, listening and waiting for your moment.

The one where you could jump in and save the day and be that shoulder and yes, you can admit that that is exactly why you were there cause, let's face it, everyone already knows that.

It's not why you were there that matters. It's why that mattered to you, why being that for Amy mattered so much, why you couldn't let Felix do it, why it had to be you. You've thought a lot about that in the last seven days (pretty much every time you've tried to talk to Amy) (and she hasn't talked back) and you know the answer (you've always known it) but knowing why and knowing what (as in what the fuck to do about it) are two different things.

And really, what can you do about it? Tell her? Tell her that she's your best friend and you love her more than anything and maybe (maybe) it's not quite the love you thought it was and that maybe (maybe) seeing her with someone else… made you see it?

(slapped you in the fucking face?)

(kicked you in the ass?)

(broke your already fragile heart and pushed you into being absolutely insane and doing the most ridiculous of things like pretending to be someone else and pretending to be from another country and pretending that every time Felix makes those fucking puppy eyes at you it's actually sweet and adorable and you might actually consider it?)

Yeah. That would be good. You should tell her all that. Tell her all that just a week after the girl she liked (really really liked) (can't forget the really) (or the second one) broke her heart (with a little bit of help) when you know, when you can see it every time you look in Amy's eyes and hear it in every word she doesn't say.

She still likes her. She still really really likes her.

The heart, you've realized, is like the universe and like destiny. A fucking dick.

So, no, there's not much you can do except think about it and fuck all, you're sick of thinking about it and you know what, that's just one more thing you can drop on Sabrina the teenage bitch's blame pile.

(You've been waiting to use that one ever since she showed up.)

(It's somewhat less satisfying than you'd thought.)

There's a moment, as you draw closer (and it isn't fleeting and it isn't short and you know you should feel bad for it cause you know you're supposed to be better than that - than her - but you don't) when you think about saying something. When you think about chastising her and berating her and reminding her that no one hurts Amy on your watch, not even an amiga.

(Unless that amiga is you.)

(Shut the fuck up.)

(Yes, you're talking to yourself now.)

(Fuck.)

And it's in that moment - that not very fleeting one - when an image of Amy's face

(and words) (those words)

(do I look saved to you?)

and her tears and her bloody hand and the pain in her eyes, the same pain you'd once sworn (after the wedding) you'd never again be the cause of (and you aren't) (that was her) (that was all her)

(keep telling yourself that)

flashes through your mind and you keep your mouth shut and walk right on by because taunting her or arguing with her or speaking to her is only going to make everything worse and - seeing as how worse might just kill you - that's one thing you won't do.

"Happy now?"

You won't. She, apparently, will.

(Another thing you can blame her for.)

(You need to start keeping a list.)

Her words come out choked and she has to clear her throat halfway through and you think… yes… she is... she's crying. And she looks like she's been crying (like for a week straight) and you want to feel bad about that, really you do.

(Keep telling yourself that, too.)

You should walk away. You should keep right on going, pulling your suitcase and your guitar and head right into the house, the one where you're still welcome (no matter what you do), the one you'll get to call home, the one where she - the she you want (to see) - is probably waiting for you.

(Cause of course she is. Amy would wait for you for…)

(Fuck)

Yup. You're just so happy.

"Yeah," you mutter. "I'm thrilled. Doing a little happy dance, can't you tell?" You drop the handle of your suitcase and you fist clenches at your side. "My house burned down, my parents are staying with their… girlfriend… and my best friend is inside right now, probably crying and broken and feeling like she's incapable of being loved all because you broke her heart." You want to grab the handle again and turn on your heel and walk off in a huff - mike fucking dropped - but your fingers won't unclench and your feet won't move and fuck all why does she look so fucking destroyed?

She doesn't have the right. She just… doesn't.

"Her heart didn't have to break," Sabrina says softly and that's enough to get you moving again, except it's in the wrong direction and that fist is still clenched and you know this is a bad idea

(like catastrophically monumentally unbelievably sex in a thunderbox bad)

but when has that ever stopped you?

"It didn't have… didn't ha… you're telling me that Amy's…" You stop and take a deep breath, trying to collect yourself enough to maybe actually complete a thought. "You're right. It didn't have to break. And you didn't have to kiss her and you didn't have to tell her your boyfriend didn't exist and you didn't have to do all of that and you didn't have to be such a lying bitch just to try and push me out."

Point, Ashcroft.

"Like you'd have let me stay if I didn't," she says.

Well, that's just clearly not… well, certainly you would… oh, come on, you would have…

Yeah…

Point, Sabrina.

"Look," you say. "Maybe that's true. Maybe I would have been… a little possessive… and maybe I would have made things… a touch difficult for you." You ignore the way her eyebrow arches (and where does Amy find them?) and roll right on. "But if you think that excuses pretending to be gay -"

"Why do you keep insisting I was pretending?" she asks and you can feel the gears grinding in your head, the utter confusion filling your mind, the total inability to believe the sheer audacity of this bitch.

Why do you think she was pretending? Why?

The boyfriend. The lies. The boyfriend. The straight when she fucking got here. The boyfriend. The kissing Amy only when she knew you were watching.

The boyfriend.

"Why do I think you were pretending?" you ask (and you didn't know your voice could get that high.) "I don't know," you say. "Maybe because you were?"

Sabrina starts to say something but then she stops and shakes her head. She doesn't argue or contradict or try to convince you (or herself) (and could she, maybe, teach you how to do that) and she doesn't put up a single bit of fight. She just turns away, but not before casting one last look up at Amy's window. And oh, she's good, like give the girl an Oscar good, so perfectly dramatic with the tears and the longing and you it makes you just want to tweet #sadSabrina to the fucking world. God, if you'd been this good at faking it…

(except you're not sure, like at all, what she's still pretending for)

(the jig is fucking up)

(game fucking over)

(no need to fake it anymore)

(no reason)

(not a one)

(not…)

(fuck)

"You were straight," you say, the words tumbling out before you can stop them. "You were straight." You're not sure why you keep needing to remind her of that (even if it has become something of a habit for you the last year or so.) "You and Amy were together four days and five days before you… before she and you… before Felix and I saw… before… you were straight."

She stops, most likely dazzled by your clearly flawless logic.

Point, you. Again.

"Amy was straight," she says. "She was straight five minutes before she kissed you."

Fuck. Just… fuck.

Point… oh, who the fuck cares. Even you know nobody's winning this.

"But...but…" You're stammering. You're fucking stammering like you're the guilty party here and OK, maybe you didn't handle things perfectly but… "You had a boyfriend."

She nods.

She fucking nods.

Does she not understand how this is supposed to work? Does she not get that she's supposed to fight and argue and kick and scream and cuss you out and and and

(and prove you fucking right?)

"I did," she says (fucking agreeable bitch.) "For eight months. And I had a girlfriend. For four days." She glances back up at the window (and now she's just fucking milking it) and then back to you. "Any guesses which one I miss more?"

This was so not the plan.

The plan was simple. Walk to Amy's house. Drop off your stuff, see if she was home (and maybe speaking to you.) Maybe some House Hunters or some Dance Moms or maybe even the 'break in case of emergency' offer of watching Game of Thrones.

That was the plan. Watch Jon Snow come back from the dead, hope there was a minimal amount of naked breasts (watching boobs with Amy had become like watching them with your mom though now that there was Diane that was even worse) and remind her - with just your unwavering presence - that everything would be alright.

That was the plan. This - sitting in the Brew 'n Chew across a table from… her - was not the fucking plan.

Universe. Dicks.

At least Sabrina seems as confused and unnerved and completely fucking lost as to how you got here (there were tears and a moment of compassion and a decided need to not face Amy right then and there) (not with… doubts) (or, you know, more doubts than usual) as you are. She's taken like two sips of her Moccachino and if there's one thing you do know about her (and you're starting to realize there's a surprising amount you don't) it's that the girl loves her caffeine, so clearly, this is fucking weird.

(It isn't Felix and you weird but then again, what is?)

You stir your coffee (hot, two sugars, extra extra cream) for about the thousandth time and stare at her across the table. In the crappy fluorescent lighting, she looks even worse than she did outside (and no, you're not saying that just to make yourself feel better.) Her phone's on the table in front of her (right across from yours) and just seeing it gives you the icks and you almost ask her to put it away.

If she'd only done that a week ago.

(And yes, you get that for that part - and only that part - you're totes blaming the victim but she hurt Amy so fuck her.)

(And no, you're not thinking, not even a little, about how that probably sounds a lot - or exactly - like what Lauren probably said to Amy right before they turned your humping loose on the entire campus.)

There's this silence and it's not comfortable, it's the exact opposite (so, you know, uncomfortable, but that doesn't nearly do it justice) and it's just sitting there, between you, so you guess that kinda makes it the 'Amy' here and you just can't fucking take it and you need to say something, say anything.

"Tell me about him," you say (anything but that.) "Tell me about the boyfriend you don't miss."

Sabrina runs a finger along the rim of her mug, her eyes darting to the phone and you know she's remembering the same thing you are and probably wishing just as hard that she'd just picked the fucking thing up. "His name is Roy," she says. "We dated for about eight months. He was a great guy and I really… I liked him. I didn't love him and I never told him I did even though he said it to me all the time."

One sided love affair. You know how that goes. Though you suppose you were always the Roy...

"So if you didn't love him then why not break up with him?" you ask. "When you moved here, why did you keep trying the long distance thing?"

Sabrina shrugs and shakes her head and drops her eyes and it - all of it - screams 'I wish I had' and yeah, that would have made things just a little… different. "Because he was a great guy. And those don't grow on trees. And…" She takes a long sip of her drink before setting the mug back down precisely in the same spot. "I didn't know Amy would be here. Or you. Or anyone. And… he loves me and that felt good, and I know… totally selfish… but I thought I'd be alone here and I just…"

Yeah. She just.

You know how that goes too.

"I had four days, Karma. It was a fucking whirlwind, one moment after another and I never saw any of it coming," she says. "Amy gave that speech and then I kissed her and my world… it was like… woah."

When Amy kisses someone, it's always like woah.

You know how that…

(fuck)

"I know why you did what you did and why you thought you had to," Sabrina says, "As much as I hate it and as much as I wanted that night to punch your right in your smug little face…" She wraps both hands around her mug, like she's freezing even though it's in the seventies. "It was my fault. I lied. I didn't tell him and I didn't tell her, but I had four days, that was it. Four days to figure out how to tell… we only told Farrah like an hour before Roy showed up and I never even told my parents." She raises the mug to take another sip but it never reaches her mouth. "I barely even told myself. I didn't know what to tell."

There's a moment when you see Amy in a cheap store bought crown and Farrah with a microphone and you in her arms - staring at him - and… yeah. You get it.

Telling isn't so easy when telling's the truth.

And it's never easy with pressure or with someone (or an entire TV viewing area) watching your every move. Sometimes it takes something more, like a boyfriend showing up (or crawling out from under a table) or someone leaving or a jailhouse speech.

Or a toast.

Fuck.

"But he was here, Sabrina," you say. Your fingers tighten around your mug and you know you're grasping at straws cause you know (you know) and you know more than that (more than what she was and wasn't pretending), you know that you fucked up and it's so much easier to focus on her and her fuck ups (which were many and massive.) "He was in Austin. That hardly seems like someone you weren't trying to be with."

Her eyes snap up from the table and there it is. There's that fire you were hoping for, that anger, that 'proverbial pickle, boo' bullshit. Now she's getting with the program.

Now she can be the bitch and you can be off the hook.

Again.

"When you were pretending to be me," she says, "you know… lying… did you ask him why he was here?" You don't remember for sure (it was all such a panicked blur and then there were accents and Felix being Australian Felix, which was even more ridiculous than regular Felix) so you don't know, but if she's asking…

"No," you say.

The fire dies a little in her eyes and no, no, no, that's the wrong thing. "Yeah," she says. "Didn't think so. Cause if you had… he might have mentioned that we hadn't talked." She shakes her head and stares into her mug. "Not a word. Not a call, not a text, not a fucking smoke signal. Not once in four days."

She leaves it hanging there - four days - and yes, you get it. She hadn't talked to the boyfriend once since she kissed the girlfriend.

And that doesn't make it all better, it barely makes it any better - not for you - but that's the fucking point isn't it?

It isn't about you. It's about what it might have done for her.

And you never gave her (either of them) the chance.

"I didn't know how to tell him," Sabrina says. "I didn't know how to say… I kissed a girl. I kissed her and I have feelings for her and no, I never once even thought I liked girls and no, I never imagined I would kiss one and I know you love me but…"

But.

But. But it was Amy.

(at the risk of being repetitive?) (fuck)

Your phone buzzes on the table and Amy's face lights up your screen and Sabrina makes this… you think it's a sound but you've never heard anything quite like it but it hurts and you snatch the phone off the table and reject Amy

(the call) (you reject the call)

but you're not fast enough because the tears start again and Sabrina's gripping the table edge and her breath is coming in short little hisses like she's in fucking labor and you don't know what to do because you already did it and you can't take it back (and neither can she) and neither of you has even the tiniest clue how to fix it, how to fix what you broke.

How to fix Amy.

(And that's another lie cause your phone's still in your hand and you do have an idea and you know it's the right idea, it really is, it's the one you should have followed in the first place. All you have to do is dial.)

(It's what a friend would do.)

You slip your phone back into your pocket and wait, letting her get it all out.

(Someday, you'll learn and someday you'll get it right.) (Apparently that's not today.)

"Is she OK?" Sabrina asks, through the sniffles. "I mean, I know she's not cause… I know… but is… I never…" she shakes her head. "She told me. About what happened between you two and how she confessed and you…"

Thanks for the reminder, Sabs.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring that up. I'm not trying to… it's not the same," she says and fuck all, will she stop? Stop surprising you and stop making you feel bad and stop being fucking human and not some evil caricature or a goblin queen of the bitches sent here to ruin your life and be some force standing between you and your…

Amy. Between you and your Amy. Because she is yours. And she always will be.

But how?

"I just meant that I know how badly she was hurt before," Sabrina says. "With you and then with Reagan -"

"She told you about that?"

Sabrina nods. "We didn't just spend four days mak…" She glances up and sees the look on your face (and thank God there's no mirrors nearby) and course corrects. "We talked a lot. She understood how confused I was. Like you said, I was with a guy five days before. She understood that and I think… I think she wanted to be better to me than Reagan was to her."

You rejected Amy cause you weren't into girls. Reagan rejected Amy because she wasn't into them enough.

Girl couldn't catch a break. And when she did...

"I never wanted to do that," Sabrina says. "I never wanted to hurt her. I wanted to be close to her and when I realized what was happening...I tried to back off and I tried to just be her friend, even if it meant always playing second string to you. But then there was that speech…"

I started to have hope. Hope that you were realizing that your Prince Charming was Princess Sarcasm.

Yeah, Amy always did have a way with words.

"And then there was the kiss."

Woah…

You know.

Sabrina stands, suddenly, nearly toppling her drink. She's shaking and she can barely bring herself to touch her phone (fucking traitor.) "I've tried to talk to her and she won't take my calls and her mom won't let me in and I know she's just deleting my texts and I…" She blinks back the tears. "You don't know what it's like, to just be… cut off."

Oh, you might have an idea.

"She gave you a second chance and you gave her one," Sabrina says. "And I know… I'm not you. And I don't… I don't deserve a second chance. What I did... "

"You lied," you say and you're not quite sure why you say it or why you say the rest. "You lied about who you were to get closer to someone, to make them feel something for you because you knew it mattered to them. Because you knew it would…"

Because you needed them. Because there was something in you that thought what they thought of you, how they looked at you, the way they cared about you was better than anything you could think or do on your own. Because without them…

Fuck

"I'm sorry," she says (it's more of a blurt, a sob, a fucking retching) and then she's bolting and you raise a hand to stop her but you can't make the words come out and you can't move and you can't you can't

You fucking can't.

You can't because you know if you do, she'll listen. You can't because you know if you do, Amy will give her what she wants (because it's what Amy wants) and if she does that..

Your phone buzzes in your pocket and you know who it is even before you pull it out.

Buttface: Thought you were coming over.

You look back up, your eyes following the path Sabrina too, her words still ringing in your head. She gave you a second chance. You gave her one.

She gave you more than one.

You know what the right thing to do is and you know that even if you do it, there's no guarantee it works out for them, no sure fire fix that makes Amy forgive and forget. She doesn't do that, not very easily.

Not for anyone she doesn't…

(fuck)

She will. You know she will. And it isn't about crush boots and it isn't about who called night duty and who was there first and it isn't about who's between who.

It's about what - who - it should have been about all along.

Your fingers tap out the reply as you head out the door (you're not running, not yet, but that's OK) (Sabrina was crying too hard to move that fast.)

On my way. We should talk.

Someday, you'll learn and someday you'll get it right.

Apparently that is today.