The Sapphire Soldier

Mending Ties

"MJ?" I called as I walked back inside.

I found her sitting at the desk, completely still.

There were pictures spread out in front of her.

At first I didn't understand what I was looking at. Then I saw them.
Us.

My stomach dropped.

There were pictures of MJ, Ned, Peter, and me. Pictures I'd taken years ago, before everything had changed. In one of them, Peter stood in the middle wearing his Spider-Man suit, posing like an idiot while Ned and I stood on either side of him.

We looked happy.
We looked like we belonged together.
Like nothing could ever take that away from us.

MJ slowly looked up at me, and something in her expression made my heart sink.

She knew. Or at least, she knew enough.

I'd completely forgotten about the photographs I'd kept. Of course I had. I'd spent so much time making sure no one remembered me that I'd forgotten I still had pieces of that life sitting around my own home.

MJ lifted one of the pictures between her fingers. "Did you want me to find these?"

My throat tightened. "No." I shook my head quickly. "No, no, God, no. I can explain."

She looked at me for a long moment, then set the picture down. "Drop the shield."

I froze.

"I deserve to have this conversation with the girl in this photo." There was no anger in her voice. Not really. That somehow made it worse.

I took a slow breath, then let my powers fall away. The invisible shield I'd kept around myself disappeared, and for the first time since she'd met me, MJ was looking at Elizabeth.

Not Sapphire. Not the woman she'd seen flying through the city.

Me. The girl she'd known.

Her eyes widened slightly. "You came to the donut shop," she said quietly. "The year I went off to school."

"Yeah." The word barely left my mouth.

"Why?" She looked down at the photographs again before meeting my eyes. "Why don't I remember?"

I swallowed. "We - I had to keep you safe."

MJ gave a small, humorless laugh. "I've almost died five times in the last twenty-four hours, so it's not working very well."

I winced.

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

"I- " I stopped. There wasn't a good answer. "You were happy," I finally whispered. "I couldn't."

Her eyebrows pulled together. "So you just decided that for me?"

"I'm sorry-"

"I don't need you to keep saying you're sorry." The words hit harder than she'd probably intended.

I looked down at my hands. "I don't really know what you want me to tell you, then."

"I want you to tell me why you would do this to me."

I looked at her. Really looked at her. And suddenly four years felt like nothing.

"I lost a lot of people," I said quietly. "People who should still be here. People I should've been able to save, and I couldn't." My voice cracked slightly, but I kept going. "And I couldn't let that happen to you. Or Ned. Or anyone else I cared about."