Despite it all, despite the ache in her chest and the panic bubbling not far behind, she scoffs out a laugh at that, rolling her eyes as she shakes back her hair. "Because I always go for the good for me option."

But he's not wrong. And it's not that March is bad for her, exactly, but if she never, ever changed, he'd be fine with it. If he never, ever changed, she'd be fine with it. They'd keep each other at the status quo, forever. He accepts her exactly as she is and she doesn't have words for how much she's needed that.

And still she has shifted and changed over the last year; it's strange and terrifying but maybe that's what he means when he talks about what's good for her, because she can draw a direct line from some of those shifts and changes right along the track taken by that glowing red string.

(But maybe she still hasn't changed enough, because her throat closes up at the thought of trying to tell him how much he means, that she'd still do anything for him. That she... loves him, even if she can't say it, even if it's a complicated and multi-shaded kind of love, one grounded more in gold than red.

But he's never needed a string to know how she feels.)