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Today was already a pretty shitty day for Maebe Grace Bertrand.

But the reasons for what had soured her mood that day were so trivial; so tiny and insignificant compared to what was waiting for her outside the door. She huffed and puffed with jealousy and regret, staring at her phone until it should have exploded into flames. Her tiny little world was so focused, so centered, so selfish.

Fate decided it was probably time to teach her a lesson.

She hopped to the door, and her sour face melted into one of vague apathy coupled with sleepy curiosity. She knew who Bix was, but not for any personal reasons involving the two of them. She was just nosy.

And she knew there was no good reason for him to show up at her door, at any point in time. For the moment, she figured it was work related, and she was just not in the mood.

"Can I help you, sweetheart?" She purred, without the emphatic flirtation of her normal voice. Her heart just wasn't in it, today.

News? Gifts? This didn't sound as work related as she thought - unless the news was 'you owe a million mission reports' and the gifts were the paperwork. If that was the case, she wanted neither one.

"Sure. Come on in, have a seat." She moved out of the doorway to let him come inside, and then closed it quietly behind him. She walked back to her bed, and jumped on it, curling up in pretty much the same position she'd been in when she'd been hating on twitter. The only seat in the room was beside the desk that sat to the left of the bed, so she always let her guests have it and made herself comfortable.

Her eyes were on her phone again, clearly distracted as she checked for new messages one last time. "So, what's the big news?"

Her thumb stopped, frozen just above the letter 'b'. She flickered her eyes up and met Bix's, piercing with cold blue ice.

For a minute, she didn't believe him. It was a first response, and she clung to it like a lifeline. He was handing her a paper, as if papers mattered in moments like this. She did not reach out for it, yet. Instead, her eyes narrowed, and she flipped the phone shut before putting it beside her.

"No he's not." She muttered, her lips pursing with annoyance. "Who told you that? Why would you - " Her eyes finally fell to the bag. Her mind had been filtering the sight of it out, this entire time. Safety precautions were carefully in place, removing the mere idea that Taym's bag was at Bix's feet. Because of course it wasn't. He wasn't Taym. Taym wasn't dead. That bag wasn't there.

But it was.

Her voice had cut short when her mind was over-ridden by the very obvious sight of the bag, and she stared at it for a moment. Then she looked back up at Bix, and down at the bag again. Her hand snatched at the paper, finally interested in what it could have to say that would mean anything at a time like this.

Of course, it was the only paper that could mean anything, at a time like this.

I, Obadiah Ezekiel Thompson, designate this document my last will and testament, in a state of-

"What-"

sound mind and without influence or duress or any of that other s**t that has no relevance in a place with no legal system

"What is this-"

I hereby appoint Ferdinand Wilkins, Jr. (Bix) as Executor. If this Executor is unable-

"What am I reading right now?"

It was more difficult to get through all the big, fancy, pretentious words he was using, through the fogged glass of tears welling in her eyes. She blinked them to get it out, and they fell on the paper, right beside her name.

Her full, complete name.

A wretched sound left her with the last of her breathe, and she dropped the paper to the ground, shaking with anger and sadness and anger and heartbreak and anger.

Suddenly, she wanted it to be mission reports.

She could feel him coming closer, and her first instinct was to pull away and hide, hide from his arms or any kind of gentle, sympathetic touch. She looked up at his hovering hands, and let out a choked snort of sarcasm. "You're the one who needs a hug right now." Her voice was scratchy; she was threatening to break down into sobs any moment. Still, she held on. "He left you the job of telling everybody, didn't he? Like you really wanted to go around watching people break down. Don't kill the messenger, huh?" She reached behind her, to a box that looked almost untouched behind her bed. Inside of it there were cigarettes, and she pulled out one, fingering it anxiously.

"I'm not going to be able to read any of that." She admitted, eyeing the envelope. "If there's something I need to know, you'd better tell me. Just - " She put the cigarette between her lips, and her expression pained with a new stab of misery. "Don't read my name out loud."

You ******** a*****e. She muttered, searching her pockets for his lighter. "You got a light?"

Maebe turned an icy glare at Bix when he said her first name, but he'd caught himself before he continued. She calmed down, and pulled the cigarette out of her mouth to fiddle with it between her fingers. She could have leaned over and searched for the lighter he'd let her take, but that would have used effort she did not feel like expending at that moment.

So she just held an unlit cigarette, and listened.

When it was all over, her head lolled back and she let out an exhausted groan while she stared at the ceiling. It took far too long to be over, but when it was, she snapped back up again and returned to her sullen expression.

"Even in death, he left me work." She complained, though it was the first thing she'd said that didn't sound like she was seconds from bursting into tears. She looked at the bag, but she did not reach for it, yet. It was way too soon for that.

"He was right, you know." Maebe took the cigarette, and placed it behind her ear. "To give it to you. You're probably the only person who could handle this bullshit with any grace. I would have burned that paper the moment I read it." A beat, and then, she finally couldn't help but ask.

"Do you know how it happened?"

"He told me he was going to Australia." Maebe grumbled, pulling her feet up to cradle them tightly against her, in her arms. "But I knew that was just code for running away. He was a shell the last time I saw him - acting like the end of him and America was the end of the world. ********' dramatic. I wouldn't be surprised if he just lost the will to fight his way out of some fight. Maybe saved some kids with some self-sacrificing move. Sounds like the d**k bag-" But that had been the final straw, and the last insult she could muster made her finally break down and throw her face into her hands. She cried, because she'd known this was going to happen. She'd spent an entire night just watching him die on the inside, and when she'd finally left, she should have already known he was gone.

She cried because she needed him; without him, the world didn't make a shred of sense. She needed to hate him, and she needed to bother him. She needed him to raise his voice in frustration and anger at her - but he hadn't yelled once, that last day. She wanted to hear him yell.

She cried because he should have been better, stronger, more resilient. He was supposed to be the one she looked up to. Now all she could do was look down.

She needed Taym to not be dead, somehow.

And she probably needed Bix to give her that hug, now.

She fell into his arms like a crumpled tissue, and cried in a way that she would not be proud of later. She couldn't have helped herself if she tried; even if all of her reasons for mourning were self-centered, her world was shifting two spaces to the right and she was not going to be able to cope.

She just wanted to curse him over and over again until she ran out of expletives to describe him, but instead, all she could do was cry.

And Bix truly was the right man for the job, because he'd held her when she needed it, and would let her go when she needed that, too.

"Hate him." She finally managed out, between sniffly, whiny tears.