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"Six days ago." Maebe corrected, unable to stop shaking. "I know Taym. I know what I'd be doing if I was him. I know what I was already ready to do a minute ago before I realized he'd gotten to it first." She blinked up at him, still confused, still terrified. "They? Edith didn't tell me not to warn anybody. How did you even find out about her? Who told you? Did they tell you not to talk about it?"

Something was starting to mix in with the look of terror in her eyes. Her brows furrowed as she looked up at him. Maebe had never asked that many questions at once in her life, and sometimes about it empowered her into believing that this was Important. Dawson was trying to remain calm about it - or maybe just try to keep her calm. She wanted to believe that was all he was doing.

But Maebe was suspicious by nature. And her eyes stared down at his fingers, running over her thumb. They lifted back up to meet his eyes.

Immediately, the thought was abolished. He wasn't a clone, because they'd just had a spar, and there was no way she would have survived that. He was safe from that, but that didn't mean there wasn't something affecting his decisions.

She brought her hands up, and put his together between them. Then she put them on one side of her cheek.

"What do you think about all of this?"

She should have expected it by now. If she'd been keeping count, she should have known that whatever the worst possible outcome was, would come true in her life. There was no halfway point. No leeway. Find the worst path, and be confident in the knowledge that there was no other future but that one.

She should have seen it coming, but it was still a surprise, every time.

She stared at him, trying to decipher what could be affecting him in such a negative way. Dawson wasn't the brightest person she'd ever met, but he knew better than this. He did. She had so much trouble trying to resolve why he would make such an unfounded decision, that she couldn't even be angry at him for a moment.

But that moment passed. And the fire lit up in her eyes.

"I'm going to try to be as careful as possible with my words here." She murmured, her voice as tense as a tightrope. "Because you are the most important person in my life right now, and I know how bad you react when I get angry. So I'm going to try. I'm going to try not to - " Her hands clenched, nails desperate to dig in to something, and she had to work to let them relax.

She rubbed her face with one hand, and then paused, realizing who she looked like when she did it. God, that was the worst part of all. She was becoming the grouchy hobo. That was all she needed. "So let me just take what you've said, and put it in another way. As carefully as I can."

She looked away, because it was easier not to get mad at him when she looked in his eyes and saw a man who thought he was doing something good. "My name is Dawson. I just found out that someone I thought was my friend, is actually missing, probably in trouble, and in her place is an evil, deadly clone. Everyone I know warned me to stay away from the clone. My superior ordered me to do this. But I think it's important to ignore everyone I care about and also my boss, in order to hang out with the clone and make sure nobody else walks in on it. Oh, did I mention the two people who used to live in that house are now missing for almost a week? Haha, yeah, this is definitely the right decision."

She bit her tongue - she could tell the sarcasm was begging to be released. I'm such a smart and good guy! I'll sacrifice myself for others! It probably won't help because none of the other people saved anyone but hey, who cares about that! I know what I'm doing! I've never made a mistake in my life! She wanted to ******** rake him over the coals for his stupidity. She wanted to -

No. She was angry. But worse than that, she was disappointed. Her respect for Dawson was ebbing away, and she felt the loss as vividly as if she was bleeding it herself.

"You love to protect people. I know that's what's driving this stupid, wrong decision, Dawson. I know. But you seem to be a little misguided. If you're dead, who's going to stop her from killing the rest of us? She can snap your neck in seconds. And she invited you to live with her. Doesn't that sound the least bit fishy to you? Doesn't that ring any alarm bells? You're not going to save anyone. You're abandoning me, Horace, and every single person you should actually be protecting, in order to be a lamb for the slaughter. You should be here. With us. Where you can actually do some good."

Something snapped. It was ugly, and raw, and she felt it crawling out of her skin like a monster.

"My name is Maebe." She seethed, showing too much teeth. He'd turned her into this. She'd been so good at keeping it down, keeping it sane, keeping herself calm. She'd fought so hard for it.

"And people know me as that b***h who makes bad, bad decisions. I almost started to think that wasn't me. I've been trying real hard, Dawson. But this is the line." Her eyes narrowed. "And you're pushing me over it."

Her hands snapped out of his. "I've already made my point. I needed you with me. I needed you to help me find America, not babysit something that doesn't need babysitting. But if you abandon me now, and make no mistake, that is exactly what you are doing, no matter how much you keep trying to convince yourself you are helping anyone - if you abandon me now, then your life isn't the one that's going to be in danger. If you can live with that, then I misjudged how much you cared about me. I made a big mistake."

She pushed her way past him, heading for the door. She could feel the tearing, ripping, gnawing inside. She knew that every building block she'd carefully been able to place since Dawson had come into her life, was about to come tumbling down.

She was disgusted by the fact that she'd given him this much power over her life, just by trusting him to do the right thing.

"I love America." She muttered, her hands clenching tightly with agony as the tears began to fall. "But I love you more. So I won't let you do this. Even if it means endangering her. I can stop this. Right here, right now."

She opened the door and already started out of it. "You've inspired me. If you can convince yourself that you're doing the right thing by throwing your life away, hey. So can I. We're Moons, right? We shield." She stared at the door she held, and knocked on it.

"So I'm going to go hang out with America to protect you. Because that's clearly the right thing to do." The quotation marks her fingers made exposed just how right she thought any of this was, and the word hang was used loosely. Or, perhaps, just used in a different way than it should have been intended. If anyone was going to hang, she'd made the decision of who it was going to be. She was the only one who had nothing left to lose.

She felt that realization settle quietly within her. It soothed her, numbed her. She was suddenly glad Otto had found Chance. She was glad Dawson didn't want her. She was glad Taym had disappeared and Shiloh was too busy for her and Jude was nowhere to be seen and Lucky was falling out of helicopters to chase after other women. Everything her life had thrown at her added up to one thing.

It would be easier if she just wasn't here anymore.

She heard his hot breath bearing down on her as he held her still, clamped like some kind of trap. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought it funny that she found nothing appealing about the way he held her, or the way he breathed down her neck. There was nothing sexy about it. Nothing she wanted. She was registering his feelings through it, though, and in the end, she found herself selfishly glad that at least she could make him feel something. Even if that something was a far cry from what she'd ever wanted.

"I can't fight you, Dawson." She murmured softly. "But you can't keep me away forever."

"I said I'm not arguing this anymore." She turned around, her face just as masterfully stubborn as his. She looked up at him, and realized she was seeing something in him that she'd always seen in herself. She never wanted to see herself in Dawson, even if it was just her stubborn nature.

"Every time you say that, you're trying to convince yourself just as much as you're trying to convince me. And you can't, because you've always known better. Even now, I have to believe that deep down you know better. But babysitting a grenade doesn't make it any less inclined to explode. All you want to do is put your body on top of it, and guess what? Once it blows, it's still there, and you're not. You can't stop anything by being there, as much as you wish you could. You'll be helping all of nobody. And worst of all-" She crunched up her face, angry only at herself now. "God damnit, I just said I wasn't going to - just, forget it. I know when I'm talking to a wall."

She struggled to get away from him, but her struggles merely had her shirt ripping with force. "You already made your decision." She growled out. He'd been the only thing keeping her afloat for months now, and yet it was his hands pushing her back underwater. Her self-destructive nature was the only thing coming back up for air. "So this is all I have left."

She wanted to be angry at him. She wanted to yell it all in his face. Instead, her voice was just as soft and numb as the rest of her. Once she'd cracked, it had become impossible to feel. To think. To be rational.

That is the fundamental essence of beauty, Lawr'd told her. In pinning them down in permanence you make them immortal. The key is to do so at their most perfect so they are maintained at a high note.

She put her hand on top of his, and tried to gently pry his fingers off of her. "I'm going. Like it or not, I'm going. Better me, than you." She informed him. There would be no one to stop him from his grand, masterful plan of moving in with a murderous clone, once she was dead; but by then, she wouldn't have to care anymore. That was all that mattered.

Somehow, she'd known since the day she'd met them, that she'd die at the hand of clones. Maybe that was why she was more scared of them than anything else; even the darkness. They were the only thing left to be scared of, anymore. And now, she wasn't scared of them either.

She wasn't scared of anything but letting him go.

I'm perfect now. She convinced herself. It's time to pin me to the wall.

Maebe stared at the hand pinned between his, and wondered at the lack of thrill from it. Where had it all gone?

She was able to look up into his eyes again, and watched the tears fall, each of them forcing the previous one further down his cheek. She watched them fall, and squished up her face in confusion. She knew her heart should have been breaking, watching that.

This felt like strange, unwanted deja vu.

"You're only doing this because you knew I would die." She murmured, that soft lilt of numbness now completely overtaking her voice. "You don't think you're stupid. You don't think you're wrong. Hum."

She used her free hand to reach up, and brush the tears away from his face. She did it because she knew it was what she was supposed to do. This was all she'd asked him for. All she'd fought for. She just wanted him safe, because he was too important for her to lose. This was all she'd wanted. And yet.

And yet.

If he expected that anger, that emotion that had been in her eyes just a few moments before she'd broken, and the sweet, blissful numbing had begun to take over, he was going to be disappointed.

"I don't know how to feel, anymore."

There was so much else to focus on, that it made sense that Dawson did not realize she knew exactly how much damage to her shirt had been caused, and she didn't care. It was better not to notice the little things, as there were too many of them and they all added up to a solution no one but her would ever be prepared for.

When he made up migraines, she let out a soft sigh of relief, and then another when she realized that she was relieved. She cared, however little, and she clutched on to that tiny spark of feeling before it was snuffed away.

"I don't want a slave." She grumbled out, her lips turning down in a frown. "I want." She wanted to feel something again. But even in this state, she was not telling Dawson that. She knew exactly the kind of selfish, terrifying road that would lead down. It was a road better suited for a man like Lawr, and never, ever for a man like Dawson.

"I want you to wrap around me like a big coat and. And." And what else? What could she possibly ask for? She wanted nothing. She wanted an end.

It was hard to look at him, but when her eyes finally lifted, she couldn't help but shrug.

She'd cared so much, a few minutes ago. About him. About America. About Taym. About herself. She was so different from the girl who'd first come to Deus.

Until now.

"This was dumb." Maebe sighed out. "All of it."