if you love me, don't let go

Protection

A/N: Oh my god, this chapter was such a bitch to write. The words did not flow right all, it's so clumsy. So huge apology in advance.

TW: there's a brief mention of drug overdose in this chapter

. . .

"For a long time after his rescue, Buck did not like Thornton to get out of his sight. From the moment he left the tent to when he entered it again, Buck would follow at his heels. His transient masters since he had come into the Northland had bred in him a fear that no master could be permanent. He was afraid that Thornton would pass out of his life as Perrault and Francois and the Scotch half-breed had passed out. Even in the night, in his dreams, he was haunted by this fear. At such times he would shake off sleep and creep through the chill to the flap of the tent, where he would stand and listen to the sound of his master's breathing."

- The Call of the Wild by Jack London

. . .

Magna had never been good at romantic relationships. They were too . . . messy. Too complicated. Too many ways for things to go wrong. She and Miko hadn't even been together for a year and a half and it was still the longest any of her relationships - if you could even call them that - had lasted. In a way, she'd been waiting for it all to fall apart from the moment it started.

Friendship, she could do. She knew how to be a friend - she'd been doing it for over a decade. She knew better how to deal with those expectations.

But the way that sometimes she felt like she couldn't breathe when Miko was away from her, the punch of air back into her lungs when they touched, the constant need. . .

She didn't know how to deal with that. Wasn't comfortable dealing with that. Or that ever-present fear at the back of her mind: what would she do if one day Miko went away and never came back?

(she wondered if her mother had felt the same way about her father once

- recoiled)

It was illogical, but a part of Magna hoped that if she could just put a little distance between them, if she could push them back over that line they'd dared to cross, then maybe it wouldn't hurt as much when she finally lost her.

Stupid.

She suspected she would always feel this way about Yumiko, whether they were friends or lovers . . . or even if one day they became strangers to each other. Her heart wasn't good at letting people go. It was hard to find a way in, but once someone did . . . they never left. And maybe she resented Miko for how deeply she'd buried herself. Just how far she'd gotten in. So far that the way out was no longer visible. But Magna had let her do it. Miko hadn't forced her way in - she wouldn't - she didn't have to. She had kept to the edges patiently. . . until slowly, inch by inch, Magna had opened the door for her.

She'd been the first person Magna had learnt to trust again after prison. In truth, she'd made it possible for her to go on to trust others. Connie, Kelly, and Luke - hell even Bernie - hadn't had to wait nearly as long. She was still unsure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Whether it made her weaker or stronger. It certainly provided her with more to lose, more room for betrayal.

But it did make life easier to bear in a way.

Gave her a reason to be.

Magna had grown up looking after her brother and cousins. In prison and after, she'd floundered somewhat without that purpose. When they'd formed their group, which had been so much larger than it eventually would become, she'd fallen back into her old role.

She'd found that purpose again.

But just as she'd failed to protect her cousin, she'd also failed to protect Bernie and Connie, and everyone else in their group who had fallen over the years. The people who Magna hadn't known quite as well or been nearly as attached to but still felt responsible for.