"Sometimes," Quinn answered. Ben just looked ill. Join the club, she thought. "Kara, this wasn't something that we just did on the fly. We've been working toward it since you left. We just needed some time to pull it together." Kara hated that tiny little bit of her heart that fluttered at what he was saying, and she ruthlessly pushed it down. It really didn't matter. What mattered is what they had done. They didn't trust her to be their partner. They didn't care about her feelings. They had treated her like so much garbage again and again. Nobody who really loved someone could do that. What was love without respect, communication, and basic fucking caring? She wanted what her parents had. Hell, despite everything, Jim had treated her better. He had been fucking nice to her.
They had to leave. She was getting close to feeling again. She had spent months closed up in this house, telling everyone that she had an artistic epiphany that she was working on for an upcoming show and she couldn't be disturbed. They'd believed her, thinking she had just gotten back from New Mexico after having taught a class. Instead she just curled up and died a little more each day. She had to get rid of them before the same thing happened to her again.
"You need to leave."
"Didn't you hear us? We've been working on this since almost the day you left, sweetheart," Quinn walked over to her and stood a foot in front of her. "It was always our plan for us to be together."
"Then you should have let me stay," she said in a clipped tone. "Now leave." Quinn reached out for her, and she side stepped him. "Please, don't touch me."
"Kara, you aren't listening-"
"No! You aren't listening, Quinn! I asked you to leave. I told you that we're through. I explained why."
"But, baby, you haven't." The man was clearly bewildered. Jesus, he couldn't even buy a clue. She looked over at Ben and saw that he understood it all. But she had strongly suspected he had understood even while it was happening, which made everything even worse. It was like she was being beaten, while he just looked on.
"I asked to stay. I was an adult. I knew the risks that you lived with. I told you I could handle them. I told you that even if I left I would still love you and worry about you, but I just wouldn't get to be with, live with you, love you. You sent me away despite my wishes. You threw me away, Quinn." She bit out the last words, working so hard to keep her voice emotionless, yet still explaining things to him.
"But we had a plan." His voice sounded weaker. He looked at her, really looked at her, like he was beginning to comprehend what she was saying.
"Your plan didn't matter. What you did mattered. Now you understand. This time, you understand. This time you need to leave." She strode to the front door and flung it open. Quinn followed and grabbed her arm.
"You can't actually mean to throw us away, throw everything we mean to each other away, now can you?" There were the words. How could he have possibly used those words?
"Throw us away? I'm not throwing us away! You threw me away like garbage! I begged to stay, Quinn. I begged and I cried. I actually begged and cried. And you told me it was for the best. You treated me like I didn't matter. You were so mean to me. I've never had someone be so mean to me in my life, and the fact that it was the man I loved?" She was yelling now, but then came the tears.
"No, Kara, you couldn't believe that."
"Leave. Are you actually going to make me beg you to leave my own damn house?" she asked incredulously. She stood there quivering, tears falling down her face.
"Sweetheart, I swear to the Creator you are the last person on this earth that I would ever want to be mean to." She saw the dumbfounded look on Quinn's face. She really couldn't handle it. It was all too much. It had been too much when he had made her leave. Too much when she was actually throwing up in the plane's tiny little bathroom on the way home.
"I know what I know. I know that you couldn't have hurt me more if you had actually beaten me." Her voice was quiet, but filled with utter conviction. She wasn't looking at him, but she heard a sound between a gasp and a groan. Quinn attempted to pull her into his strong arms, but she wrenched free and fell to her knees on the floor, holding her arms around herself. "Now, I'm begging, please, leave! Quinn, please." The sobs had started. She felt the snot coming out of her nose and she so didn't care. She just wanted Quinn and Ben to get out of her house and out of her life, forever.
When Quinn tried to wrap his arms around her again, she dropped down further, lying on the floor, daring him to find a way to hug her while she was wrapped up in a ball. But she had underestimated him. He simply picked her up, took her over to the couch, and gently placed her onto it. She couldn't stop crying.
* * * *
He'd been working for two straight days to get her to show some sort of emotion, anything, anything at all, to prove that they hadn't lost her forever. But nothing had prepared him for this. Watching this strong woman inwardly collapse in grief was worse than the day his dad had died.
"Kara." He got down on his knees to wrap her in his arms, and she yanked away from him so hard she stuffed her face into the back of the couch, sobbing. Again, he reached out.
"No!" she screamed. "Don't touch me!" He could barely make out the last three words, but her meaning was clear. He looked up helplessly at Ben. He sat down beside her, his hand hovering over her head, afraid to touch her, afraid to make things even worse.
Ben sat down on the floor with his back against the couch, his head between his arms resting on his knees slumped down. They both just waited. After an interminable amount of time, her sobs changed to hiccups and she pushed herself up, wiping her eyes on the cuffs of her sweatshirt.
"Are you satisfied now, Quinn?" Her voice a hoarse whisper. "You were right. I do feel something after all. I feel pain, a whole hell of a lot of pain. You said you were hoping for hate, because there is a thin line between love and hate. What's on the other side of the pain line? There's a fine line between pain and-what?"
"Pleasure, Kara," Ben answered quietly. He continued to look at the floor.
"Kara, you know we love you. You know that's why we're here. We want to make a life with you."
"For the moment you do. Go back to your hotel, or I'm going back to Jess. I can't do this right now."
"No, Kara. I know you're hurting, but we need to hear it all now, while you're actually talking." Ben still didn't lift his head.
"You just want me to talk? You're not going to say anything?"
"Why should I start now?" Ben asked in a defeated tone. "I fucked up a year and a half ago, didn't I, Kara? I followed Quinn's lead. I went against my instincts. Say what you have to say to Quinn, argue it out with him, but I'll always know the real fault is mine for not having followed you. It's my fault for not having told Quinn to piss up a rope and brought you back, because you were meant to be ours and you could have handled it. You trusted me to know you, to know your soul, and I failed you. Explain it to him, but I already know, Kara. I already know." He turned his head and she saw the silver trails on his face. He was exactly right. She looked at Quinn, who was staring at both of them in confusion.
"Kara, I know you're mad about it taking so long for us to get it worked out so we could be together. But you understood why we had to do it this way. We talked about it." She was getting such a bad headache from crying, and now this stupid conversation. It had to end so she could take some aspirin and go to bed.
"We didn't talk. Words were exchanged, Quinn. Big difference. You told me what you thought you needed to do and why. I vehemently disagreed, and I told you why. You thought you'd won the argument, but you hadn't. I just got tired. I threw in the towel. I never really agreed with you." She turned away from his stunned expression and faced Ben.
"You're right, Ben. I think I'm madder at you. He didn't see it, you did. Get out, both of you get out, now." She watched as Ben got up off the floor and turned to his brother.
"Quinn, it's time to leave."
"But-"
"Let's go, brother. Look at her, she's exhausted." They both turned and looked at Kara.
"Do you promise to go to bed?" Quinn asked as he trailed his knuckles down her cheek. She shut her eyes, unable to stop from savoring the caress.
"I promise." He got up from the sofa and stood by his brother.
"I never threw you away. How could I throw away the other half of my soul?" Quinn asked, right before he turned to leave.
"Kara, you'll never know how sorry I am for letting you down, for letting all three of us down. But I'm not walking away this time. I know you think it's too late, but I'm listening to my instincts this time, and they're telling me it's not too late." Ben bent down and brushed a kiss across her forehead. He followed his brother out the front door.