It was her time to blink, silently, at him. He was standing there, for her? In a corner of her mind, she could understand it if the pronouns were reversed. She was always that one - the one who stayed when tears were falling. Even here, even in this apartment, she'd caught Harmonia's. She'd caught Utu's. Always that one. Never... She couldn't process what he was saying. One hand carefully set the tulip-shaker down on the counter. The other threaded itself through her hair in distraction. She kicked her feet against the low rung of the creaky barstool, and winced at the pins that pierced through her muscles.
I've never minded work.
That was a relief. She didn't mind that he'd come to stop her from tormenting his dreamers... In fact, she was glad to know that he'd done it. No human deserved the broken dreams of a goddess. They must have been horrified. But then why else was he here, except for that? Her hands were twisting in the fabric of her dress. She tried - she did try - to sort it out, but came up instead with a tangled mess of thought. Nothing seemed to work out right.
Talk to me.
She swallowed. That, she understood. Only Harm knew.... and she didn't even know everything. But there was a great deal of fear in her at that very moment that she didn't have enough control over herself to tell him... anything. If she had to say the words, if she had to explain... to him... to those gentle eyes... then she didn't know just how well she'd keep herself from sliding into pieces again. And his dreamers didn't want that, didn't need that. Neither did hers. Hers? Oh... Oh, yes. Yes, hers. She swallowed again.
But even the process of trying to sort through all the things that had happened made her raw again, raw to the point of breaking. If she said the one thing, the only thing, that mattered, maybe it would be enough. Maybe if she said it, then the worst would be over. Maybe then, she could keep the rest quiet. The words were over her lips before she could think about it anymore:
"He's gone. He left."
But it set her to shaking, and that alone frightened her pale. She couldn't do this.