Tatum had been regretting the fight pretty much since it had happened, but her stubbornness had kept her from admitting it to her girlfriend. Instead, she had done her own share of moping, hanging out in her room and lazing around after classes, catching up on video games and internet hijinks. While that had been amusing for a while, it wasn't keeping Mack off of her mind, and it wasn't helping her feel better about pushing away the one person she had left. Hadn't that been the whole reason for the fight, that Mack was all she had and she couldn't stand to lose her?

Whether she lost her in some duel against a dastardly villain, or she lost her over a stupid fight, she would still be gone. She had said harsh things that she had felt bad about almost immediately, but still she couldn't stand to make herself back down. She was worried sick and terrified about losing the other girl, of seeing her get hurt, and even if the watch duty was just supposed to be an observe and report mission with lots of staff, there was still that chance. Tatum's anxiety, and therefore her life, revolved around the idea of chances, the mere chances of what if. Anything bad could, and often would, happen. She had always been a strong believer in Murphy's law.

She had been wanting to apologize, even if she wasn't ready to drop the subject of watch duty, for a day or two now. Curled on her side on her bed, she had her hood pulled up and her eyes focused on the game in her hands when Mack knocked on her door, making the redhead tense up a little. She wondered who it might be, but she had a feeling she knew, and it made her heart skip a little beat despite herself. When the blonde spoke, she felt relief washing over her, even if she knew the talk they were about to have might not end any well than their earlier talk on text.

"D-Doors open," she called back after a few moments of quiet consideration, clearing her throat a bit and beginning to scoot herself up, finding a half-sitting position leaned back on her headboard. She just kept playing her game, watching that instead of waiting for the older girl to let herself in. She didn't want to back down right away and run right into the blonde's arms. She was still mad at the core of everything, despite the other emotions tugging and pulling on her.

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Mack wondered if this was what a heart attack felt like, her heart both stopped and pounded in her chest when the redhead spoke. It wasn't the kind of greeting she had hoped for, to be honest. She had at least hoped that Tatum would come to the door. She decided to hold onto the fact that Tatum was at least talking to her. Things could be worse, and Mackenzie took that to heart as she opened the younger girls door cautiously.

"Hey," Mack greeted the other girl. She sounded as if she was at someone's death bed, and swallowed to try to stop the dryness of her throat. She walked over to girl's bed and sat at the foot of it anxiously. She didn't know where to begin, and she watched Tatum play her game for a few minutes in silence.

"Can you like, put that away?" She asked finally, her eye twitching slightly. She wanted to talk to the other girl, but not if she was going to have that stupid game in her face the whole time. She could feel her irritation boiling up again. Her fuse had been even shorter than usual since their fight. "I want to talk to you Tatum, not to your DS."

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She shifted uncomfortably as Mack continued to watch her playing the DS, she couldn't really focus on what she had been doing in the game with the older girl watching her that way, but her eyes still stayed focused on the screen. When Mack spoke, she heard the irritation and decided to look up a little, meeting her girlfriend's gaze briefly before glancing away. "I w-was in the middle of something," she muttered, closing the console with a crack and tossing it to the foot of the bed beside Mack instead.

"What d-do you want to talk about?" she asked, scooting her knees up more. It wasn't as if she didn't know, but she wasn't apologizing first, even if she probably should have.

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Mackenzie grimaced as Tatum closed her DS and tossed it down beside her. She wasn't sure what the redhead's intention had been, but she wouldn't have been totally surprised if the younger girl was trying to bean her with the device. The brief flash as she met Tatum's eyes had a fire behind it. The younger girl wasn't going to let her off easy.

Rubbing the back of her neck moodily, Mack frowned and stared at Tatum. "Are you really asking me that?" She asked. Tatum couldn't be serious, could she? Mackenzie wanted to let herself blow up at the redhead once again. It was what the blonde knew, it was her easy way out. She didn't want to start another fight with Tatum however, that hadn't been why she came over. Taking a deep breath, she ran her hands over her face and tried again.

"I'm here 'cause I want to talk about the other day," she exhaled, feeling as though she had just admitted partial defeat. "I said some things that I didn't mean, and I'm sorry T. I really don't..." She struggled to get the words out. "I really don't want you to go back. You mean so much to me, I don't want to be without you." She wanted to say again, but she couldn't bring herself to reveal that much. She couldn't admit how much she needed the other girl, not yet.

Sighing and looking up at the redhead dejectedly, she frowned a little bit deeper. "I'm going out in a watch team on Friday though T. I'm sorry but I have to, I hope you can try to understand why."

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Tatum just stared rather blankly at the older girl as she questioned her, and she sunk a little further against her knees, feeling like the blonde was on the edge of blowing up at her. But then it was gone as quick as it had come, and Mack seemed to have control of herself again, making relief wash over the redhead. She really hadn't been looking forward to another verbal sparing match, in person would have been even worse than over text message, though her courage over text was much higher. She always ended up saying more things she would regret when she didn't have to actually speak to the person.

"I-I'm sorry too," she quickly admitted once Mack had them out, shaking her head a little as she looked over at the blonde, studying her a bit before she spoke again. "I-I don't really want to go.. I can't do that, n-not be myself. I've only been.. I mean, it's only b-been since Christmas and I feel like I'm l-living this whole life I n-never got to have before. It's like, I know w-what people are talking about now.. w-with all of that s-stupid romantic comedy bullshit," the redhead murmured, equally dejected as she brought her eyes to meet Mack's as she looked up.

She frowned right back as the older girl told her what was going to happen, but she did sort of know from the start that things would probably end up that way. Mack was stubborn, even more stubborn than her or maybe more stubborn even than Sera, and Tatum had known there was probably no way she was going to shake the older girl out of doing a good deed. Especially if she had Hunter egging her on from the sidelines. "I k-knew you would whether I said you could or n-not," she admitted weakly. "I u-understand but it d-doesn't make me any less scared. I know you w-wanna help, but the road to h-hell is paved with good intentions, b-babe.. just s-saying."

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Mackenzie felt a wave of relief hit her as Tatum apologized and admitted she didn't really want to go back. It had been the thing that the blonde was most afraid of happening. All of Mackenzie's insecurity melted away as she locked eye's with Tatum, it was going to be okay. She waited until Tatum had finished talking before she scooted across the bed to be closer to the girl. She barely cared that Tatum had sort of given her the okay to do the watch, it couldn't hold a candle to knowing that she wasn't going to lose the younger girl.

She reached out timidly, and brushed the girl's hood off her head so she could see her face fully. Laying her hand on the girl's knee when she was done, she looked at the redhead very seriously. "I'm scared too, you know." She admitted quietly, her thumb drawing circles on Tatum's leg. "Someone had the nerve to come into our home and violate it. I...there aren't a lot of places I feel safe. This used to be one of them. But now...now I can't feel safe until we catch this son of a bitch. I can't trust that the people I love will be safe."

Breaking their eye contact, Mack stared at a spot on the wall opposite Tatum's bed with particular interest. It wasn't something she usually did, admitting that she was afraid. She knew that she had to let Tatum in a little bit for this to work though. She needed the other girl to know it wasn't just about doing whatever she wanted because she could. "It's not because I want to be a hero, you need to know that. It's not about being flashy or doing things just because I can. It's like that on the surface, but I have...other reasons as well."

She knew she was breaking the biggest rule of her friendship with Hunter, but it was a desperate situation. Michi had known them for years, knew the subtle nuances of their relationship. She knew not to question the older girl's reasoning and to trust them when it came to things like this. She knew that they had a very private, deeper level to their friendship, and was okay with leaving it to them. Tatum, however, didn't know any of these things. Mackenzie knew that, in time, she would come to understand them the way that Michi did, but it wasn't soon enough. She needed Tatum to be able to trust in their friendship now. She needed Tatum to trust or at least have a better understanding of why she knew Hunter wouldn't let anything bad happen to her.

"Hunt and I, we didn't really have a great family experience growing up, as I'm sure you know a little bit of by now." She began softly, biting her lip in apprehension. "Between my father leaving us and her brother dying, we had a lot of pain. We didn't get a lot of love growing up, we're probably some shrinks idea of a gold mine when it comes to hang ups and disorders. We had each other though, and that was all we had for a very long time. We built a tree house in the woods behind my house. It was our safe haven, we could let down our walls there and be safe. I can't tell you much about it, but we spent more time there than at home mostly." She took a shaky breath and gave Tatum a weak smile, squeezing her knee. It was more to reassure herself that the girl was real and sitting in front of her more than anything else.

"One day, I was afraid that Hunt and I wouldn't be friends one day. That was before we got our letters. We decided to become blood brothers, you know? Wizarding blood is stronger than muggle blood, I figured it could bond us in a way that words couldn't. We both made a vow that day, that we would protect each other no matter what." She smiled fondly, remembering the incident. She wondered if that paper was still hanging in their tree house. In all of the confusion and drama over break, she hadn't had an opportunity to hike out to their old safe house. "But we also promised that we would protect what was ours. We probably didn't really get it then, we must have been ten or somethin', but we knew subconsciously that we would have people who loved us back one day. So we made a pact that when we had a family, we would protect them no matter the circumstances. We would never abandon them. We didn't want to be our parents."

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Mackenzie laughed bitterly, thinking of her mother and father. Kate might have come around since she had grown up a bit, but she still didn't think of the woman as her mother. She had abandoned Mackenzie as a far as the blonde was concerned. Adam wasn't even in the picture anymore. "You can't ever tell Hunter I told you any of that, it's not something I'm allowed to tell." She felt drained, vulnerable. She had never let anyone in as far as she had just let Tatum, but she trusted the redhead to protect her as well. "I know you don't really get Hunt and I yet, and that's okay. We put up a pretty big act, Michi and Sera are really the only two people who see past it most of the time. That's only because they've known us forever, and you'll start seeing it too, once you've been around us long enough."

Mackenzie looked back up at the redhead, her insecurity back in a different way now. "I just wanted you to know I'm not running into this like an idiot. I have reasons beyond what I say, and I hope that it can reassure you that I might be inclined to think twice before I act." She gave the younger girl a nervous but sincere smile. "I have someone to come home to now, and I don't really intend to mess that up."

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She felt better immediately when Mackenzie moved closer to her and touched her knee, and she found herself straightening up a bit once her hood was pulled away, looking back seriously at the blonde girl. She thought for a moment that she had heard wrong when Mack admitted that she was scared too, it wasn't really something she had considered with all of the bravado and courage that her girlfriend always seemed to show. They knew a lot of things about each other, but their beginning had been a bit rushed and they were still learning to completely understand each other.

When Mack spoke and began to tell her story, Tatum listened closely, a sad smile beginning slowly to cross her face as the blonde went on. It was quickly making her tear up a little, and the redhead lifted one hand, wiping her eyes quickly as she turned her head slightly away from Mack. "T-That's cute," she murmured, "You two.. I-I mean, I know you c-care a lot about each other but-- it's n-not perfect, no one is p-perfect, not even y-you.. but I guess that this is j-just the beginning, right?"

She exhaled shakily, looking back at the blonde with slightly watery eyes. "T-This is your job.. your d-dream, I guess. I c-can't help it that I'm.. s-scared of my own shadow, but y-you're not and you s-shouldn't be.. b-because of me. You're the t-type of person who can be u-useful to people, and you.. w-well, I know you're not a-an idiot so I guess y-you'll come home," she relented quietly, her mind still running over everything that the older girl had just told her. She was pretty honored with the way Mack had opened up with such ease, something she hadn't really done a lot of so far. It made her feel special, that the blonde trusted her, that she wanted her and wanted her to be a part of her life and the little family that she had established.

"I w-won't tell her, and Michi and me are gonna have to like.. c-cut you guys if you f-fuck up," she warned, leaning forward over her knees a bit, going half way for a kiss.

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At Tatum's words, Mackenzie just smiled like an idiot and tried to hide the fact that her own eyes were starting to fill with tears. She didn't know where she had gotten so lucky to find someone who cared about her the way Tatum did. It all seemed like an impossible dream that she would be waking up from any minute.

"I promise we won't," she said hoarsely. She cupped the girl's cheek and pulled her in for a passionate kiss. She had never been good at expressing herself in words. She tried to convey every feeling of love that she could to the younger girl, her thumb rubbing softly at Tatum's skin. She pulled away from the kiss once air became an issue, but didn't pull away from the girl just yet.

"I'd never leave you Tatum," she whispered softly. Her head rested against the girl's forehead and she kept her eyes closed. She couldn't handle saying any of these things while looking into the girl's eyes. Not yet anyway. "I would death itself to get to you. No matter what it took, I wouldn't let anything tear me away from you."

She brought their lips closer again, letting them almost touch. "I'm yours, forever if that's what you want. At least for as long as you'll have me." She wanted to tell the other girl that she loved her, because by this point she was almost positive that she did. She couldn't get herself to say it however, as hard as she tried. It just wouldn't come out.

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