It felt a little too fitting that Everleigh's last flight was to Melbourne. A place that a year prior, she would've been scheduling herself with Donny and giving herself time to feel like shit the morning after—to be even more embarrassed because he'd driven 18 hours for one, maybe two nights; Brisbane to Melbourne was a nasty one, but he'd done it enough times it was muscle memory. Maybe when she'd got home she'd actually allow Roman to teach her about F1. Let Australia mean something more to her than some surfer who caught feelings at a time she didn't have any. Everleigh had a death wish—sometimes it seemed all too clear, especially since she started her relationship with Maverick.

She spent so long allowing herself to accept mediocrity that Maverick never felt real. That there was something she was undeserving of because, by God, nobody treated her like a person before that. Maybe that's why it had been a couple weeks since the incident at the hospital and Everleigh still hadn't told him what really happened. Brushed him off with an excuse of tiredness. Said that the twelve-hour shifts were exhausting her and that having to study when she got home was killing her slowly.

("Everleigh, can I help at all?" "Can you study for me?") (Could he never touch her again and maybe it would be too soon and maybe she needed therapy and maybe she had made the wrong call ever joining nursing and maybe she was too much for him and he was just waiting for her to tell him to get out because he was too fucking nice for his own good and Everleigh never deserved that patience from him.) (She was going to text Roman when she wasn't so fucking exhausted because what a shame she was so fucked in the head.)

Everleigh had, mostly, brushed off the incident. Yes, it had happened. Yes, it was disgusting. But she wanted to be a nurse. One in four were assaulted at work. Everleigh was a statistic. A disgusting statistic, but a statistic nonetheless. She'd done statistics in a recording office, listening to her favourite band. Everleigh could cope.

Then she would be at practicum and see an older man and she would press herself against the nearest wall to stay out of his way. To make herself as small as possible. Avoid perception. Stay away from the gaze of anyone who thought that "accidents" like that simply happened and were forgotten about at the end of the day. That "accidents" were playful. That "accidents" were not harassment even if there were clothes on.

When she woke up to the sound of Lost in Translation, Everleigh almost thought it was a dream.

"Hello?" Everleigh's eyes were still closed.

"Everleigh."

"You're on video call, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

Everleigh pulled her phone from her ear and opened one aching eye. She'd never understood the phrase sight for sore eyes until seeing Maverick smile after a 22 hour connecting flight that went from London to Melbourne. "Hiya."

"I'm sorry I woke you up."

Everleigh laughed tiredly, brushed the sleep from her eye. "I've never slept soundly a day in my life, babes."

"We need to talk."

Everleigh's other eye opened. She sat up a little. "Um. Okay."

"Can I reassure you that we're good?"

Her heart returned from its quick trip to her esophagus. Got up from her bed because she needed to pace from the adrenaline of her momentary panic. "Do you promise?"

"I..." Maverick's faltering made her want to vomit. "Yes. I mean. Well, yes, but—"

"But?" Everleigh froze.

"I hate words," Maverick said. "Okay. Yes, we are fine. But, I need to talk to you about something. It has nothing to do with you. But it sort of does? I'm conflicted."

"What's going on?" Everleigh fought the urge to hang up on him and puke her continental breakfast. She tried walking around the room again, ignoring how the walls felt a lot closer than they had before.

"I got a call from my manager," Maverick said. "And I'm up for a residency in Vegas."

"That's amazing."

"It's in January. It's a month long. If the shows do well—"

"Which they will."

"—I could be there for longer."

"What are you thinking?" Everleigh asked. "In general."

"Your graduation is on the twelfth."

"Kingston, what are you thinking?" Everleigh asked. "Not what are you equating to other people. What are you thinking about yourself because this is about you?"

"Believe it or not," Maverick said, "considering your feelings is important to me."

"I—" Everleigh frowned. "It shouldn't be above your feelings."

"Sometimes I think you forget I care about you and it breaks my heart a little more every fucking time you do it."

"I'm considering your feelings because you're avoiding them."

"I'm asking you what you're thinking because I've been sitting here trying to talk it out with a dog for an hour and a half, Everleigh."

"That's not my fault."

"I'm not blaming you," Maverick said, "but you're not here. I can't just nudge you awake and ask."

"This is my last trip," Everleigh said. "You know that. Don't act like I had a choice to be here or that I abandoned you."

"I'm not..." Maverick waved his hand. Everleigh tried not to let her eyes dart to the tattoo film on his bicep. "Can we start over?"

"No, I think we need to figure this out."

"I didn't want this to lead to a fight."

"Are we fighting?"

"I—you—" Maverick frowned. "Please stop being stubborn and tell me how you feel."

"What do you want me to say?"

"Do you want to come to Vegas with me?"

"Is that what you were asking?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"You recognize those are two different questions?"

"What?"

"You asked what I thought of you going," Everleigh said, "and then asked if I want to move to Las Vegas with you."

Maverick considered this. Brow creased with concentration; a doctor dissecting his own sentence, a poet trying to figure out his metaphor. "That's not what I meant."

"Hell of a Freudian slip."

"What if this is the end?" Maverick asked. "What if, you know, I lose my hearing before I manage to finish Superhero?"

"I'd hate to say it—"

"I don't need devil's fucking advocate, Everleigh, I need you."

Everleigh bit her tongue. "You should go."

Maverick looked at her, expression softening. "I should?"

Everleigh hoped her face was neutral enough to not tip him off. She was selfish and wanted him all to herself. January was supposed to be their time together while he recorded his professional samples for You Can't Kill Rock and Roll—Keira had already sent him feedback on Achilles' Heel, Icarus, and Daphne Deserved Better and Maverick cried when he read how positive it was. (Like there was ever any doubt that Everleigh was in love with one of the greatest songwriters of their generation.)

She wanted to look out to the crowd at her graduation after her tassel had switched sides and see his smile, see his face. Everleigh wanted to run up to him in her cap and gown and bury him in a hug and show him her degree and feel like she'd actually done something right. Wanted to move into a bigger flat where he could have a room with his records and they could sign a lease together and there would be space to spread out and buy décor together and it wouldn't simply be him living in a space that was entirely hers, it would be theirs.

But Maverick shone on stage. He needed a crowd and he needed people who sang his songs back to him. Maverick needed a place to let his heart out and to do what he loved. There were millions of people who would fly halfway across the world to get even a nosebleed seat in Vegas, to line up outside and maybe get a glimpse of him leaving from a stage door and getting into a car with tinted windows. He deserved to be adored. Unconditionally. By people who loved him longer than Everleigh had.

"If you're worried about the future, you should do it," Everleigh said. "If this is... the final chapter, why not go out with a bang?"

"What about—"

"Kingston."

"Everleigh."

"If I wasn't in the picture, would you go?"

Maverick bit his lip. Stayed quiet.

"Kingston." Everleigh's stomach twisted. Ready to lose her last meal. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

"In a heartbeat."

"Think that answers that question."

"But you are in the picture."

"Doesn't matter."

"Everleigh, it matters to me."

"It shouldn't."

"I fucking hate that you think I don't care about you."

"I fucking hate that you're using me as a scapegoat." Everleigh was going to vomit.

There was something to say that Maverick had introduced her to a lot of new songs that she never thought she'd enjoy. Taylor Swift, movie soundtracks. There were even a couple boy band songs that stuck out. She'd bob her head along to them like she'd known them since they were released. One of them had always stuck out. If it's you and me forever / if it's you and me right now / that'd be alright / be alright. Everleigh never felt like her and Maverick were going to be anything other than the former. The look on his face said the latter was within reach.

If she was a person who looked into zodiac signs, she'd be able to say that when fire played with fire, everyone got fucking burned.

Icarus stared sternly at them. They didn't heed his warning not to fly too close to the sun. After sculpting each other wings meant to fly around the world a thousand times over, they held hands all the way to their doom. Wax wings melted, plunging into the sea. Twin flames extinguished by salty ocean water. Never to be seen again.

Then again, Everleigh would rather drown with Maverick than breathe with anyone else.

"I'm not using you as a scapegoat, I'm trying to talk it out."

"You seem to have already made that decision," Everleigh said, "I'm not going to stop you from doing something you love."

"I love you, too."

"But if I wasn't here, you would go," Everleigh said. Because she was phenomenal at pushing people away. "We did three months apart, Kingston. We can do another four weeks."

"What if it's longer than that?"

"Then it's longer than that."

"And that doesn't bother you?"

That was a trap. Blaring alarms, raise the shields, pray for mercy kind of fucking trap. "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"No."

"Who does?"

"Kingston—"

"I'm trying to have a real, adult conversation with you because you're my girlfriend and your opinion matters to me and all you want to do is brush me the fuck off," Maverick said. Oh, there it was. The same defensiveness he'd shot at Stevie in New York because he was upset with himself and the situation.

"Brushing you off and letting you make your own decisions are two different things."

"Stop splitting hairs."

"Yeah, you should go," Everleigh spat. A little too venomous. "But know that I can't go with you because I need to be here—there—I—in London."

"Maybe I should."

"Fine. Go."

"I..." Maverick trailed off. Looked away from his phone.

"Don't stop now," Everleigh said. Voice a little too low to be her own.

"So..." Maverick trailed off. His sentence had lost its way. "So what? That's it?"

"That's what?"

"I'm going to Vegas?"

"If that's what you want."

"Without you?"

"Without me."

Maverick swallowed loud enough that Everleigh easily heard it despite the shitty quality of the phone microphone. "Well. Um. Okay... sure. I'll let them know."

"Kingston."

"Yes?"

"I—" Everleigh was going to puke. She bit back don't want you to go because by fucking God she would not be the reason he didn't get to do a farewell tour. Especially when there was no timeline for when his final bow would be. "Never mind."

Maverick nodded once. "Okay."

"Okay."

"And you're okay with it if I miss your graduation because of this?"

"That's fine." Everleigh hated the idea of robbing people of him and his music for one night. Even if she had worked her ass off to get there. She would not be the reason people didn't get to experience Maverick in concert—she already had been too many times.

"It's fine or it's okay?" Maverick asked. "Those are two different things."

"Now who's splitting hairs?"

"Everleigh."

"Kingston."

"Please."

"It's fine."

"That's not what I needed to hear."

"If you needed to hear something—"

"Please stop picking my sentences apart. You're being a—" Maverick caught himself. Looked away like he couldn't even stomach the look of his own face, or hers.

"Go ahead."

"No."

"Tabloids are saying it," Everleigh said, "why not you too?"

"Everleigh, no."

"The word you're looking for is bitch, I believe."

"Cut it out."

"You have my permission."

"I'd rather take a thousand months in Vegas over calling you that."

Everleigh's mouth tasted like vinegar. Like lemon. Like she was drunk on a bleach cocktail. "Everyone else seems to."

Maverick stared at her. Poets always wrote that eyes were the windows to the soul, maybe that was why she could see each shred of shattered heart glowing in those suns. Everleigh was damn good at breaking things.

"I think I should go," Maverick said. "Not—not to Vegas, or whatever. I just... I feel like this phone call needs to end."

"Okay."

"Can you..." Maverick sighed. "If you do... I want to hear from you. If your opinion changes."

"Okay."

"... Okay."

"Okay."

"I—" Maverick stumbled again. "Okay. Bye."

"Bye."

The screen that stared back at Everleigh was enough to make her walk herself to the washroom—Maverick's stupid face in that stupid Ash Williams washroom with that stupid peace sign—and drop to her knees. Do everything she'd promised Maverick she'd work on never doing again. Everleigh was always trying.

When she fell in love with MARS' music, it was a lonely day in 2018, when Everleigh felt like she couldn't breathe. Abstract Blue played on the radio while she drove home from whatever bar she'd sulked in for long enough that she probably shouldn't have been driving. She had pulled over to listen to the lyrics; spent too long in her car downloading Nuclear Fusion and learning the words to songs that described exactly how she'd felt but never knew how to voice herself.

MARS found Everleigh at her loneliest hours and gave her a safe spot to cry. Nuclear Fusion had done it, Escape Velocity had done it. Even Broken Shackles from the Work, Wife soundtrack had done it.

How fitting that The L stormed into her brain while she relapsed all over again. How fitting it was Stevie's verse and not Maverick's. How fitting that the caving walls around her were way too thin and all she wanted was for him to hang around.

Everleigh's phone vibrated on the tiled floor beside her already aching knee. She bit back hot tears and grabbed the phone. Pressed it to her ear before she could stare at his smiling face any longer. (That photo, she'd taken one of the first nights they had Dewey.) (Maverick's smile was contagious.)

"Hello?" Everleigh's voice was shattered, raspy. Bile burned her throat. She hoped he couldn't tell. He probably could.

"Didn't feel right saying goodbye without saying I love you."

Everleigh pressed her fist to her forehead, closing her eyes. God damn it, Kingston Maverick. She rolled into a more comfortable seat, her back pressed against the wall that she wished would collapse onto her.

"I love you, too."

"Talk when you're home?"

"Talk when I'm home."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too."

"I love you."

"I love you."

Everleigh couldn't stomach the idea of looking at the screen again when Maverick hung up.