Mariela stared at Gauche, jaw still hanging open slightly. He'd just kissed her. She'd told him not to pretend to like her, and he'd kissed her.

And now he was refusing to meet her eyes.

"I probably shouldn't have done that," Gauche mumbled, and something in Mariela snapped. Grabbing the scrap of fabric she'd been using to bite down on out of her lap, she stood and started to wrap her more damaged right hand. Staring fixedly at it, she moved to walk past him up the alley.

"Where are you going?" Mariela froze as Gauche grabbed the edge of her ripped skirts to stop her. When she looked at him, he still wouldn't meet her eyes—but his grip only got tighter when she tried to tug her dress out of his hand.

"I'm tired," Mariela said wearily. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly before adding, "I just want to get back to my bed."

"Why do you think it's your fault that I shouldn't have kissed you?"

Mariela barked out a laugh before she could help herself and moved to cover her mouth quickly, worried that she might wake someone in the church. When she had a better grip on herself, she asked quietly, working valiantly to keep the sarcasm out of her voice, "What else would it be, Gauche?"

"It isn't you." Frustration was creeping into his tone, and Mariela had to grit her teeth to calm herself down. This was a worthless conversation, and she wasn't about to make her current relationship status with Gauche the focus of her night—she just didn't have it in her. But when she tried to move away again, Gauche gripped her skirts even tighter to keep her from moving any further away. Looking up and finally meeting her eyes, he continued, "I don't have any space in my life for anyone but Marie. You get that, right?"

"Then let go," Mariela snapped, unable to play nice any longer. Finally, she reached down and wrenched her dress out of his fist. Without wasting another second, she turned on her heel and hurried up the alley, suddenly determined to get back to her room as quickly as possible.

Maybe he's right, Mariela thought to herself, the desperation she'd been feeling before slowly seeping back into her thoughts. Maybe I won't get arrested. Owen would vouch for me. Maybe I can convince him to tell them to let me work for him for free. Maybe I can work off any debt that I built up to society while I was with Derick and his hellhounds.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Mariela's gut clenched violently. Dropping to her knees in the middle of the cobblestone street, she had the hazy thought that she was glad it was late enough out that no one was in the streets near the church. More pressingly, however, she couldn't help but remember how her own father had dropped to his knees, once, in the middle of the street after her mother's medication had gone up in flames. What was she thinking—that the Magic Knights would go out of their way for some worthless criminal from the Forsaken Realm? Even if—and it was a big if— the Black Bulls would be on her side, they weren't exactly the most respected members of society themselves. Even if Owen would be on her side, was it really enough to make up for all that she'd done when she'd been with those damned bandits?

If you had the kind of luck that could save you, she thought to herself acidly, your cousin wouldn't have been there when Derick finally found you again, would she have?

The look on Mimosa's face—the look on her perfect cousin's perfect face when Mariela had met her eyes from across the bar. It had been… pity. There had been pity in those eyes.

There wouldn't have been if she'd known who I was. Mariela closed her eyes and dropped her head into her hands, totally forgetting where she was. She didn't care. She couldn't make herself get to her feet. She couldn't make herself think past the look in those green eyes, now that she'd remembered them. We would have been raised together. My mom loved her mom so much. And her mother left my mother out in the middle of the Forsaken Realm to rot, just like the rest of them.

"… Mariela?"

The soft, almost whispered word made Mariela jump. She pulled her hands back from her face and hurried to her feet, casting big eyes up at the absolute last person she wanted to see in that moment.

"Mi…Mimosa?"

Clearly uncomfortable and barely able to make eye contact with her, Mimosa gave a small nod. For a long, agonizing moment the two stood in the street together in silence. Mariela was sure that if she reached out into the short space between them, she'd be able to feel the tension running through her fingers.

And then, without warning, Mimosa hurried forward and threw her arms around her, squeezing Mariela as tight as her rigid form would allow her.

"Ex-excuse me?" It took all of Mariela's willpower not to wrench herself away from Mimosa with a hard shove. Instead, she stood completely frozen and totally unsure of what she was supposed to do. Years—what felt like a lifetime—of bitterness seemed to disappear, replaced immediately by total bewilderment. Bewilderment that was not made any better when Mariela realized that her steadily dampening shoulder could only mean that Mimosa was crying.

"I'm so sorry," Mimosa said hurriedly, pulling away quickly and wiping her eyes. She gave Mariela a shaky smile. "I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry."

Mariela grit her teeth, the moment suddenly much less heavy and much more annoying—she was getting very, very tired of having people tell her that they shouldn't have done things after touching her without her permission.

As if she could read her mind, Mimosa slowly let go of Mariela's arms and took a step back. "You know who I am," she said after an uncomfortable moment. Her green eyes still shone with tears. "That means that you know about our family, right?"

Mariela scowled, unable to help herself. "Yes," she said tersely, taking a step back. "If you wouldn't mind—"

"Please, hear me out."

Mariela consciously snapped her mouth shut—she was sure otherwise that her jaw would have dropped. What on earth could this woman want with her? If she didn't know any better—if she were slightly more paranoid—she would assume this were a trap of some kind. But Mimosa's face was totally earnest, her hands clamped in front of her as she shifted nervously. Slowly, Mariela asked, "What do you want with me?"

Mimosa winced. "I don't suppose the fact that we're family is enough of an answer?"

Mariela snorted, unable to help herself. "No," she said flatly, "it isn't."

A look of profound sadness came over Mimosa, and she nodded slowly. "Yes," she said softly. "I didn't think that it would be."

The two stood in silence, and Mariela did her best not to bolt. After a long, excruciating second, she asked awkwardly, "How do you know who I am?"

Despite the uncomfortable moment, Mimosa smiled. "My mother talks about your mother all the time, actually. She has a picture of the two of them when they were about our age; you look just like her."

Mariela felt her stomach lurch like she'd been shoved off a cliff—she would have preferred being shoved off a cliff. Her throat tight, she choked out, "Thank you. For that."

Mimosa's smile disappeared. "I'm sorry—"

"What do you want from me?" Mariela cut her off, unwilling to hear whatever was coming next. Clearing her throat, she asked, "Why are you here?"

Mimosa shifted uncomfortably, twirling a curl of her auburn hair around a finger. Her eyes darting in every direction but Mariela's, she said quietly, "I asked Charmy about you. About why you were here, I mean. When I recognized you and figured out how I knew you."

"And?" Mariela didn't mean to snap, but she couldn't help herself. This was very quickly becoming too much. "What, are you going to rat me out and get me kicked out of the city?"

Mimosa's eyes went huge and her lovely face paled. Hands flying up in front of her, she said quickly, "Of course not, I would never do anything like that. I promise, you won't be forced to leave, you wouldn't even if the rest of the family found out you were here."

Mariela's jaw clenched. Her hands fisting at her sides, she said stiffly, "Alright then, if you wouldn't mind, I'd rather not have this conversation."

"Please—"

"What? What do you want from me? You asked Charmy why I was here when you recognized me, okay, fine. If you're not here to tell me that I need to leave, why are you here right now?" Mariela had to stop herself from adding the hopeless, obvious question: Has tonight not been enough?

Mimosa opened her mouth but closed it abruptly before she could say anything. After another excruciating moment, she said finally, "My mother regrets never going out to see your mother. She regrets that she didn't try to get her to come back from the Forsaken Realm."

"How wonderful of your mother," Mariela hissed. She could feel her face heating at the indignity of it all. "Did Charmy happen to tell you why I left the Forsaken Realm myself? My mother is dead." Mimosa flinched and opened her mouth to say something, but Mariela cut her off. "My father is dead. My brother is comatic. The illness that got us all disowned from your family is currently killing me. And him."

"I know," Mimosa hurried to say in the brief pause that Mariela took to take a deep, shaky breath. "I know, Charmy told me. It isn't—it isn't fair. What happened to you all wasn't fair. My mother said that my aunty… your mother wanted to live out in the Forsaken Realm, didn't she? Didn't her and your father prefer living out in the Forsaken Realm, away from all the people here?"

Mariela opened her mouth to snap again but closed it instead and grit her teeth. The truth of the matter was, her mother had wanted to live out in the Forsaken Realm. But it had only been because of the way that they'd all been treated in the capital. Finally, she ground out, "Do you really think that my mother not wanting to live in a place like this, that treated her the way that it did, really excuses the fact that her entire family left her out in the Forsaken Realm to rot without another thought? Your mother included, as far as I'm concerned, seeing as she never came out at any point to see us. Couldn't be bothered, I'm sure."

"That isn't true—"

"So you're saying that you came out to visit? You're saying your mother came out to visit?" Mariela gave Mimosa a scathing look. "Out of curiosity, how are the rest of the family members from my branch doing? The ones who stayed?"

Mimosa dropped her eyes. "No one stayed," she whispered. "It took a few years, but my mother said everyone left. Eventually."

"Now why did they leave, Mimosa?" Mariela's voice was thick with sarcasm. "From what I understand, my parents left immediately. But why did the rest of the family leave? If they hadn't left immediately, it must have meant that at least some of them wanted to stay. Why did they leave?"

"I'm sorry!" Mimosa squeezed her eyes shut and bit down hard on her lip. When she opened her eyes again, Mariela was glaring daggers at her. Taking a deep breath, she said shakily, "You're right. I don't have any excuses for our family. I only… I only wanted to tell you that I'm sorry. And that I don't want you to be alone here, anymore."

"I haven't been alone," Mariela snapped immediately, though there was less fire in it. "The Black Bulls have taken care of me. I've gotten work with the Wizard King's personal healer. I am fine. I don't need anyone's pity, especially not yours."

"I know," Mimosa said quickly. "I know you don't need my pity, and that's not what I'm offering. I'm… I'm trying to make amends. I don't know if there's anything I could ever do—I don't know if there's anything any of us could ever do—but I want to make amends for what our family did. The generation before us… they were wrong for what they did to you. Please, let me correct it. Let me at least try."

Mariela studied Mimosa's face for a long moment, unsure what to think—unsure what to feel. Her cousin's green eyes were huge, and her face was earnest, and all of it made Mariela want to scream. To tear into someone from the family that had hurt hers so badly. To turn on her heel and leave Mimosa and that awful, hopeful look on her face in the dust behind herself.

But instead, she burst into tears and doubled over, her body convulsing as sobs wracked it.

x

Gauche crossed his arms, the scowl on his face fading as he watched Mariela collapse into her cousin's arms. After watching Mimosa hold onto her tightly for a long moment, he turned and started back up the road, sticking to the shadows as much as he could. Regardless of how little attention Mariela was paying to her surroundings, he didn't want to risk her seeing him and getting even more upset.

Why did I say that. The thought had been going through his head constantly since Mariela had told him off and disappeared, leaving him totally shellshocked in the alley by the church. It wasn't like he had regretted kissing her—well, not the way that she thought he had, anyway. He was just not so much of a creep that he didn't realize kissing her in the middle of what was probably the worst night of her life since she'd left those bandits was kind of… well, selfish.

But, apparently, so was not being clear about how he felt about her… again.

"You could learn a thing or two from that girl."

Gauche's head snapped up and he locked eyes with Sister Theresa, standing on the other side of the street and watching him. He scowled at her. "Beat it, old hag, I'm not in the mood for whatever lesson you think you're going to teach me."

"I heard the conversation you two had," Sister Theresa said without preamble, completely ignoring what he'd said.

Gauche grit his teeth and ground out, "Isn't eavesdropping a sin?"

The nun shrugged. "Don't have loud conversations right outside my church window if you don't want to be overheard."

"We weren't being loud," Gauche snapped. "And you're acting like it's my history that was being discussed, or my secrets that you were listening to without permission, you old hag. If you heard our conversation, you know that Mariela wasn't exactly telling me about happy times."

Sister Theresa's face, neutral and proud as always, fell immediately into a look of complete sadness. She walked over to his side of the road and nodded up it, back toward the church. "Be a decent young man for once in your life and walk an old woman back to her church."

Gauche bit his tongue to keep himself from telling her just how little he wanted to do that, instead just following her as she started back toward the church.

"As I was saying," Sister Theresa said after a moment of walking in silence, "You could learn a thing or two from that girl."

"I get it," Gauche snapped, "Mariela's too good for me. Why don't you tell me something that's actually useful?"

"I meant Mimosa."

Gauche rolled his eyes. "Are you talking about the Vermillion that we just left Mariela with? I don't think there's anything that I have to learn from that family." There sure as hell wasn't anything he wanted to learn from the family that was behind so much of Mariela's pain.

"Watch your tongue," Sister Theresa snapped, and Gauche leveled a glare at her.

"I don't owe them anything."

"You don't feel like you owe anyone anything, you degenerate. It's why you act like a thug, and it's also why you pushed Mariela away from you when she clearly needed someone to be there for her."

"You don't know what you're talking about, old woman." Gauche grit his teeth. "Why do you think I could learn anything from the Vermillions, anyway?"

"Not the Vermillions," Theresa corrected. "Mimosa. The person who is currently taking care of Mariela during a time where she very obviously needs someone to take care of her, regardless of the fact that it would be easier for her to run away from all the bad blood between the two of them."

Gauche looked at the nun, already annoyed at the direction this was taking. "What exactly are you trying to say? Spit it out, old hag."

Sister Theresa threw him a withering glare. "Do you remember when I told you not to hurt that girl?"

"Yes," Gauche mumbled.

"When I told you to leave her alone if you had no intention of supporting her?"

"Yes," Gauche snapped, losing his temper. He got it—he was an asshole. Did it really have to be a whole process to remind him of that? "Spit it out."

They came up to the front doors of the church, and Theresa stopped. Planting her cane in front of her with a dull thud, she studied him for a moment. With a sigh, she asked, "Do you care about her, Gauche?"

"What do you mean by that?" he asked immediately—and defensively.

Sister Theresa hmphed and rolled her eyes. "Aren't you tired of always letting the worst of your nature drag you around by the neck?"

Gauche narrowed his eyes. "I'm leaving if you don't stop speaking in riddles. I got you to your church, in case you haven't noticed."

Sister Theresa raised an eyebrow. "You would leave, right now, just because you don't want to talk about how you feel about Mariela? No arguments?"

Instead of answering, Gauche huffed, turned on his heel, and started back down the road.

"So, I suppose you don't want to see Marie?"

Stumbling over his next step, Gauche's head snapped back around to look at the nun with wide eyes. Before he could ask if she was being serious, however, he caught the smirk on her face. Scowling back at her, he hissed, "Are you going to let me see my precious sister or not?"

Instead of answering, Sister Theresa just gave Gauche a smile—and walked into her church, closing the door firmly behind her.

x

((author's note: so sorry for the hiatus! i am lame, but i should be back to regular uploads. :) &while i'm writing a post-script, i wanted to say thank you for the kind comments&suggestions i've gotten. it's really motivating, and i really appreciate it.))