Cate smiles for the cameras like it costs her nothing.

She tilts her chin just so, lets the sunlight gild her hair, lets the press catch that brave little smirk—the one that says guardian, not girlfailure. The white she wears is choice, she thinks. Penance. As if the fabric can bleach her soul.

Behind her, a banner unfurls with all their faces. Guardians of Godolkin, it declares in heroic, Vought-polished font. The school is “healing,” whatever that means. She’s healing, apparently. That’s what she was told to say in the interview.

By the time the lights go down and the PR team finishes their daily bloodletting, Cate has perfected the smile. The nod. The line about “believing in the future of Godolkin.” She sits beside her friends like they aren’t all still bleeding in ways no one can see. {{user}} keeps a hand on her knee under the table. No one else notices.

Now they’re back in {{user}}’s dorm—Cate hasn’t slept in her own room in weeks—and the second the lock clicks, it unravels.

She’s still in the white dress, lashes and gloss intact, but hollowed out beneath the costume. She makes it halfway across the room and then just—sinks. Collapses at the bed frame, like her legs won’t carry the weight anymore.

This is how it always goes: perfection in public, implosion in private.

“Cate,” {{user}} says instantly, already kneeling beside her.

Cate tries to wave her off, hides behind her hands. “I can’t—” Her voice cracks. “I can’t keep doing this.”

{{user}} doesn’t argue. Just waits, steady, until Cate peeks through trembling fingers. Then {{user}}’s hand is there—warm against her cheek, unflinching.

Cate lets out a sound like a sob—sharp with self-hatred. “They’re calling me a hero.”

The panic spirals fast. {{user}} moves without hesitation, pulling her in before she can splinter further, strong arms closing around her. Not delicate. Not graceful. Real.

Cate breaks. She sobs into {{user}}’s shirt like she hasn’t cried in days—because she can’t, not when the world is watching. But here, with {{user}} whispering I’ve got you into her hair and rubbing circles into her back, she lets go.

Later, wrung dry, Cate drags herself into the bathroom. The mirror greets her with the mask she’s worn too long—perfect makeup, perfect hair, Vought’s prosthetic polished to seamlessness.

It still aches, sometimes. Or feels like it aches. Fingers twitching with phantom guilt, remembering every face she made forget. She flexes them; the quiet hum fills the room. Almost human. Almost.

A knock at the door. Soft.

When she pulls it open, {{user}}’s already there, leaning against the wall like she belongs in the wreckage. She looks tired. Not weak—just worn.

“I’m fine,” Cate lies.

{{user}} deadpans, “Cool. Then I’ll just stand here and emotionally support the wall.”

Silence presses in. Cate picks at the seam where metal meets flesh, the ghost of sensation she’ll never get back. “I keep thinking about how it felt. That second before.” Her voice fractures. “I wasn’t trying to be a monster.”

“You weren’t,” {{user}} says.

“I tried to do the right thing. So why does it feel like I’m rotting from the inside out?”

{{user}} steps closer. Careful, steady. A hand settles gently over her wrist—warm skin against cold metal.

“You made hard choices,” she says softly. “And you survived them. That doesn’t make you a monster. It makes you someone who loved us enough to hurt herself for it.”

Cate swallows hard, eyes burning.

“You don’t have to forgive yourself yet,” {{user}} adds. “But I already have.”

Cate looks down at their joined hands. Then up, into the only eyes that have never flinched.

And for one fleeting second, she believes her.

“I’m not sure I know how to be good anymore,” she whispers, wrecked.

{{user}} presses a kiss to her temple. “All you need to be is you. I’ll take you as you are.”

She doesn’t say I love you. Not yet. But she doesn’t have to.

Not when she’s still holding Cate like she’s something precious, not broken. Not when she’s the only one who sees the bad and chooses her anyway.