One day she realized it had been at least a year since she'd even seen him, and that was the point when Quinn realized that she had probably been shatteringly sad over a lost love long enough.
****
Not that that helped anything, because it didn't change the way she felt. There had been something Miranda said, and it was pathetic that she would have been willing to agree to live a hundred years longer just to be able to say hello for one day.
Which was enormously unhealthy.
Which made the entire thing more pathetic, especially as Quinn didn't expect to make it past her mid-fifties in all realism, and had always resisted anything magically life-extending. She got dealt the cards that she held and that was what she was going to stick to --
-- and that was what made it all so horrible, really, that she could love someone that much that she would compromise that, for a single day, when they hadn't spoken in a while before he was gone, that she had ended up so unusually in love that a year later she found herself unable to move past it, still grieving every day.
She'd given romance one more chance and it had spat on her.
****
Quinn was no idiot; she saw a therapist.
It helped for the duration of the session, maybe a few hours later, and then she wouldn't be able to sleep and would remember how he tried to help by changing the rain patterns, and ...
Then she would stay up all night, maybe two, with Tony, and try her best to forget instead of actually dealing.
****
The man she bought her tea from smiled at her, talked to her, asked her things in a way that indicated a more than shopkeeper's interest; once upon a time, she might have reciprocated it.
He was nice to talk to.
She wasn't giving that sort of thing any more chances, though.
Invariably it went horribly, and trusting it one more time -- multiple times -- had basically broken her.
****
Forgetting was actually dealing. Forgetting was the only thing that worked.
She wasn't forgetting.
She actually wanted to, at this point; not even remembering the relationship had existed would stop her from dwelling on the moments. On everything that reminded her. It was sad how much reminded her, at this point; boardwalks and rainstorms and specific lakes, certain songs and anytime she texted anyone to complain about particular traffic, ever.
(She’d stopped texting that much at all, really.)
****
Complicated grieving was kind of an understatement.
There really were only two solutions: fix it somehow, which wouldn't happen (even if he did reappear, would anything work out? He might not even remember who she was, and as jealous as she was of Miranda -- no, envious -- it was one of them -- that wasn't something she wanted to deal with) or actually, properly move on.
"It would be nice," she told her therapist, "to be able to actually remember the good things without getting trapped in an emotional vice every time. It makes it very difficult to look back."
It wasn't an uncommon problem.
****
The people who said 'don't get attached to people from other worlds because they're just going to disappear someday' had always bothered her, but maybe they were right.
That kind of pessimism had always bothered her.
Able to return, she had chosen to stay in this unusual world, appreciating the additional challenges it brought her. Even to this day, when she could run home and pretend he'd never existed -- there was too much for her here.
That was more important.
And it was enough, until such time came again that she remembered something.
****
"You don't even have any friends outside work, except for Stark and the guy who owns the bar," her assistant pointed out. "You don't have any female friends anymore. How many people are you going to distance yourself with for how long?"
It was unfortunately just a reminder that she'd lost other people, too.
But she saw them when she went home, even if they didn't quite remember.
Somehow it didn't hurt as much, that way.
It was actually kind of nice that for the most part no one she socialized with knew anything about him.
****
One day, she was able to look at a photograph, and smile wistfully, and accept that a good thing had been and it probably was never going to be again -- she couldn't give away that tiny shred of hope that somehow things might get fixed again, because only part of the problem had been them, there'd really been nothing wrong, just not a lot of time and then -- nothing.
External influence.
But that one day she was able to experience a memory and just remember it.
****
Most days she'd do anything to get over it, and couldn't.
Most days she'd do anything to get through it and it was like trying to claw her way out of something impossible to breach -- it hurt, every second, and she just kept pushing despite the fact there was no way to escape.
Every day wasn't most days anymore.
****
Outside, lightning struck Stark Tower.
Inside, Pepper Potts sighed and ignored it as the power flickered and the generators kicked in, putting blankets over Tony and Quinn -- who had passed out in positions they'd regret in the morning on the living room floor.
The rhythmic rainfall on the balcony had been enough to soothe them, apparently.
Pepper turned off the TV.













