Don't have Legacy with me, but I'll just try my best to write this from memory. Which means it's entirely different.

Fix-it fic, 3rd Sophitz week prompt!! This one is gonna be that One Scene where Fitz finds out Sophie and Keefe let Alvar go in exchange for information... except I Fixed It.

Angst with a happy ending!!! Or maybe not. I haven't decided. No one's gonna die tho soooo ig that's all you can ask for from me

"You let him go?" Fitz's face was deadly calm, sharp enough to slice. "You know that he was lying, right?"

Sophie bit her lip nervously, shifting on her feet. "I don't know, Fitz. He looked like he was telling the truth."

"Are you out of your mind?" Fitz snapped, and Sophie saw his fists clench and unclench rapidly at his sides. "He was lying. He always lies, it's what he does."

Something laced his voice, weaving with the anger. Almost unnoticeable, but definitely there.

Sophie couldn't quite tell what it was.

"We needed that information, Fitz—" she started, but he interrupted her.

"We. Right, you went with Keefe." Bitterness replaced anger, but that other feeling was still there. That resigned, guilty weight that Sophie knew pressed harder on Fitz's shoulders every day.

Guilt, she realized. That was what it was.

"What's wrong with going with Keefe?"

"Nothing."

Lie. She could always tell when he was lying.

"I just..." Fitz sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Alvar is my responsibility. I was working with Cassius— which wasn't an easy choice, by the way— and I was going to get that information and..."

"Save everyone?" Sophie asked, her tone sharper than she meant it to be. He didn't say anything, and she continued, "Believe me, I know how it feels to want to do that, but—"

"You don't." He spoke the words softly, but they struck something in Sophie. Something that clanged and echoed and reverberated over and over again.

"What?"

"You don't know what... this is like." Fitz raised his voice slightly, lifting his head to stare her straight in the eye. Emotions mixed in the creases of his eyes, making her almost want to take a step back; desperation, guilt, anger, sadness, regret, determination, all of it mixed and blended together.

"I know you're angry with Alvar for betraying us," Sophie started cautiously. "But does it matter now that he's so weak? He won't be bothering any of us, not from what we saw."

"We can't be sure," Fitz pointed out. "I should've been the one to... I have to be the one to... end it. But I messed up. And maybe that makes me a terrible person, that I tried and I wish I hadn't failed."

"Fitz..." Sophie whispered.

"I am a terrible person, aren't I," he said, something almost pleading in his voice. As if he were waiting for her to agree, and he was hoping beyond everything that she wouldn't. "I know I am. Because I know that he's so weak and dying and I did it and it was me. And elves are supposed to feel guilt but I don't feel any, not about that. I don't... I have no pity for him. No sympathy left. And I know I'm horrible because of it."

"Then..." She mustered up the shreds of her courage, stepping forward to place a gentle hand on his cheek. He stared at her with those eyes, the ones she'd fallen for so long ago. The eyes she was still in love with. The eyes that were haunted with memories of a body floating in the darkness, and fluid spilling out of a shattered tank. "Why are you guilty, Fitz? If it's not about what happened?"

About what happened. About what he did.

What they'd all done. What they'd watched him do.

"I..." his voice trailed off, and she stepped a little closer, searching his face for the truth. His throat bobbed as her thumb whisked against his neck. "I know that it's my fault he joined the Neverseen."

Sophie's eyes widened, but he wasn't done yet, and he continued staring at her as he said, "I was the reason he joined the Neverseen. And then I didn't notice anything different, any change. My fault we allowed him so close and my fault it hurt so badly when he actually..."

"Fitz," Sophie whispered, but he shook his head, taking a step back, away from her.

"I didn't recognize my own brother turning into a murderer, Sophie." His face was so, so guilty, so angry, so regretful.

Her hand fell away from his face, and she clenched it at her side as he said, barely audible, "And I know I'm turning into him. I know I'm going to turn out just as bad."

"Why on earth would you think that?" Sophie asked, resisting the urge to reach for his hand. "Fitz?"

"Alvar was my idol, you know." He didn't look at her. "I looked up to him more than anyone. More than my dad, than any of my relatives or role models. I wanted to be him. And then he betrayed me. Betrayed all of us. He hates me, and the worst part is... I don't want him to."

The words left his mouth like a sigh, like a confession, like a drop of water from a cloud. The kind that leaves endless ripples when it falls.

"I just want my brother back," Fitz whispered, although it sounded more like a sob. And then Sophie did reach for his hand, twining their fingers together. He looked at the way their fingers wove so perfectly into each other's palm and shook his head. 

But he didn't let go of her hand.

"I want him back," Fitz admitted, and Sophie watched a tear slide down his cheek. She brushed it away with her thumb, and then her palm stayed on his cheek, and they were inches away, staring at each other with all their pain and understanding written across their faces. "I want him to be my big brother again. I don't want to have to worry that I'm turning out just like him."

"I know," Sophie murmured, and she reached out another hand to cup both of his cheeks, pulling him closer still. "None of this is fair."

Fitz huffed a short laugh, and she could feel his breath on her cheeks. "Nothing ever is."

"What you have to question within yourself is not fair, and won't ever be," she continued, trying not to lose her train of thought as she realized Fitz's gaze was trained on her lips. Her voice lowered a few decibels as she breathed, "But you are not like him. And you will never be."

Their lips brushed once, then again, and then they were pressed together harder until Sophie's arms locked around Fitz's neck and his fingers tangled in her hair as one arm went around her waist, lifting her a few inches off the ground.

And there was only this and them and his beating heart against hers and her toes barely brushing the ground and them and him and oh god she was drowning, drowning in sensation and feeling and heat and she couldn't breathe but she never wanted to breathe again, never needed to breathe again.

They broke apart, and it took a moment before Sophie remembered how to think, how to move, how to inhale and exhale and function.

Her hands twisted in Fitz's hair, running the short strands through her fingers as he slowly lowered her back onto the ground, setting her down.

He didn't take his arms from around her, though. He didn't let go of her.

"Did you... mean that?" he asked hoarsely, searching her eyes. "That I'm not like him? Even after everything I've done?"

She raised herself onto her tiptoes, pressing a quick kiss to his mouth. "You are your own person, Fitz," she murmured against his lips before pulling back to smile softly at him. "And you are a million times better than Alvar could ever hope to be."

....ehhhh.....