Before I was crying, I was storming about, so angry I couldn’t see straight. I’d pummeled the bag with T and Loth watching until I slumped to the floor, and then the clones came down and got me. I guess it’s their turn to make sure I don’t take away like I’ve done in the past. I’d hate to inform them that this I hardly something I’d take off for, especially since they are being so patient with me.

True to form, I have yet to explain why I’m raging. There are a million things it could be, and the one it is makes me even madder at myself. I sniffle, making a god awful snotty noise as all the congestion that’s built up while I cried moves up into my head. Fangy runs his hand over my hair slowly, and Raj rubs my back, neither of them saying a word. They know well enough that I’ll talk when I’m ready.

I wipe my swollen eyes and look up into the sky, searching for answers that I know in my heart aren’t there. Wishing I could say it was the first time I went barreling in blindfolded and came back burnt, I run everything through in my head again, trying to figure out where I screwed up, what I could have done to make things right. But it isn’t the first time, and I know it won’t be the last. My tragic flaw is my ability to not ever learn my lesson, no matter how many times the dog bites my hand, and until they put me in the ground, I’ll be doing it over and over.

At times I wonder if it’s cause I’m masochistic or something. Maybe I revel in all this pain I inevitably go through when I get myself hurt. I could just be twisted and scary and completely unable to stop myself from repeating the same cycle. I sigh and turn my head back to look the clones comforting me and I almost smile. Or it could be that every once in awhile I get it right, and every once in awhile I overstep my bounds.

Fangy sucks in a deep breath and ventures, “So you gonna let us know what the problem is, luv, or do you need to ruin another pair of my pants?”

My answer is a smack on his leg and he chuckles. A heavy silence descends and I can only assume that he is conferring with Raj in that annoying non verbal clone manner.

Raj squeezes my calf, giving me a charley horse and sit up, rubbing my leg and scowling. He chuckles, please with his ruse and I ponder asking Toga for bastard club forms. I don’t respond except to dig my heel into the vicinity of his crotch petulantly. He growls, shifting me out of soprano range. “C’mon Grouchy. Out with it.”

I sense the concern in his voice and crumble, knowing that my misery belongs to every member of my house, and the longer I’m upset, the more worried they’ll be. So I take a deep breath and whisper, “I just hate when things are special, and then they’re not.”

Raj makes a snorting noise, and Fangy snorts back at him, and I wonder about getting two sets of bastard clubs forms if they don’t quit ganging up on me. I frown even more deeply and then glare at them both. “What that’s not good enough for you?”

“Pet, it’s not very specific. We can’t make it better if we don’t know what it is.”

My mate nods his agreement, adding, “Nothing we can pummel from that statement. Gotta give us a name or something.”

I shake my head. “No, no. I don’t want…anything pummeled. I just want…I want it to stop hurting,” I trail off, my hand tracing absently down my chest until it falls onto my lap listlessly.

“Want what to stop hurting?” Fangy asks, his eyes softer than I’ve ever seen them. I sense this is freaking him out just a bit. Usually I’m so tough and scrappy, fighting off the whole world, and suddenly, here’s this blubbering mess. I’m sure he’s got no clue what to do with me like this.

“My heart,” I reply absently, studying my mate’s face as he watches me. I know he knows what’s going on, or has a clue, and truthfully, I haven’t the foggiest what he thinks about it. His face is as enigmatic as it always is, revealing nothing and everything at the same time.

Raj opens his mouth to speak, but decides against it, having said his piece on this long ago. He’d tried to cajole me out of it, distract me, anything to keep me from doing what I always do, but to no avail, my stubbornness and bad judgment prevailed. “What are you going to do about it?” he finally asks.

This brings a fresh round of tears to my eyes and Fangy groans. “Why the bloody hell did you have to ask her that? You knew she didn’t know. I don’t even know why she’s crying and I knew she didn’t know what to do. ”

He shrugs. “She’s gotta figure something out eventually. Now’s as good a time as any. She can’t just collapse like this every time it catches up with her.”

I know he’s right, and it makes the pain resonate even more. I told someone once that broken hearts never mend, and I meant it. It would be scar just like all the others on my heart, but someday, it would hurt less. It wouldn’t matter that things weren’t what they seemed, and I’d been crushed once more. It would only serve as a reminder to keep the walls in place, and not to let people through them so easily.

“This would be so much better if I had something to beat on,” Fangy sighs.

I chuckle softly and they both turn to me, smiles on their handsome faces. I realize that I don’t know what I’ll do tomorrow, and I don’t know how I’ll fix my broken heart, but at that moment, I don’t care. I snuggle back in between them and pull their arms around me, surrounding myself. This time when the tears threaten to spill, it’s out of happiness. Once again, I’ve come full circle.