A/N: 3 of 4! The next one will be the last, and hopefully it's not very far away. By the end of this week at the latest. Enjoy.

"You don't have to do this if you don't want to." Taeyeon woke from her daze at Tiffany's words, turning her attention to her, perched behind the steering wheel of her car. "It's a big step to take, we can go home and start smaller if you want. With a call, or maybe even a text."

Tiffany's hand found the back of her neck, and she treaded her fingers through Taeyeon's hair, lightly scraping at her skin. "I don't know," Taeyeon huffed. "I don't know why I'm so scared. It's not like I have anything to lose by doing this." Tiffany's hand slid down her shoulder, over her arm. "What if she doesn't want to see me?"

"Why else would she call you?" Tiffany asked, smiling softly.

"I don't know," Taeyeon shrugged. "Maybe she wanted to tell me to come clean up the rest of my stuff from her place."

Tiffany pulled her up leg underneath her, turning to face Taeyeon better. "She's called you fourteen times over the past three weeks," she stated. "You don't do that if you don't really want to get in touch with someone."

And of course Taeyeon knew that already, but she was scared that her mother still had that ability to humiliate her and push her down. They hadn't spoken since Taeyeon came home to get her things, and Taeyeon hadn't thought they would ever talk again, but here they were. With fourteen missed calls from her mother on her phone, trembling slightly in Tiffany's car outside of her mother's apartment, with the first signs of spring blooming outside. Things had been different last time they saw each other, but to say Taeyeon had healed and gotten over it fully would be to lie.

"Besides, I think it's better to see her in real life than over the phone. It's too easy to just hang up on someone when they piss you off," Tiffany said with a laugh.

Taeyeon laughed with her. "I guess you would know." Tiffany nodded; she had kept her job at Line 49 alone, while Yuri had quit several months earlier. Tiffany told Taeyeon that Yuri had always hated the job anyway, and after everything that had happened she could barely think of anything else while at work. Taeyeon, if anyone, understood her fully.

"So, I say you go in there and give her a piece of your mind," Tiffany said. "But if you don't want to, I completely understand. After what she did to you, you don't owe her anything."

Taeyeon clenched her teeth. "Walk me to the door and make sure she doesn't kill me on the spot?"

Tiffany smiled at her. "Happy to," she said, leaning forward to press a quick peck to the other girl's lips.

They stepped out on her mother's driveway, Taeyeon in her sneakers now that the last traces of snow were melting away. She hadn't even seen her mother yet, and she already felt down, slightly humiliated. She supposed that as long as that feeling remained, she still had some things to work through. Tiffany hurried around the car to take her hand, and then they walked towards the front door, unlocked as usual.

Taeyeon dragged her feet up the stairs to the second floor, with Tiffany as the only force pulling her forward. Most of all she wanted to turn around and run back down the stairs, forget this place, forget that any of this had ever happened, but she knew it was impossible. She needed to do this.

When they stopped outside her mother's door, Taeyeon felt numb at heart. She stared ahead, unable to bring herself to press the doorbell or utter a word. "Are you ready?" Tiffany asked her, hand cupping her cheek, and Taeyeon shrugged. Without another word, Tiffany pressed the doorbell and let her hand fall down to grab Taeyeon’s hand again. The rings reached them faintly, and Taeyeon's mind raced as she wondered how many times she had heard the sound throughout her life, how many times she had been the person to open the door instead of the one who stood outside of it with fear raiding her heart.

The door opened, and Taeyeon didn't want to believe the calm expression on her mother's face when their eyes met. They stood there in silence as Mrs. Kim shifted her gaze from Taeyeon to Tiffany, back again, from side to side in silence.

"You... you called me," Taeyeon said eventually.

Her mother nodded. "Come in," she said, and Taeyeon turned to Tiffany. The other's normally warm eyes were suddenly cold and heart, but the icy look in them melted as she looked back at her.

"I'll wait outside," Tiffany said, giving her a chaste kiss on her cheek before her hand slid out of Taeyeon's. Taeyeon gave her mother a nervous look, but Mrs. Kim was simply staring at her shoes, her face not showing disgust or regret or anything else. Tiffany disappeared down the stairs, and Mrs. Kim disappeared into the kitchen as Taeyeon walked inside, closing the door carefully behind her.

"We need to talk," her mother called from the kitchen as she leaned down to remove her shoes, and Taeyeon tensed up at the words. "I wish you would have called me back instead of putting me on the spot like this, but come sit down."

Taeyeon hurried to kick her shoes off and did as she was told. Already annoyed with her mother's words, she sat down opposite her by the kitchen table, not looking up to meet her eyes. "What is it?" she asked simply. "Why did you call me?"

Her mother sighed, cleared and clasping her hands on the table. "First of all, I just want you to know that this is very difficult for me to say." Taeyeon stared at her, eyebrow raised and anger already pumping through her blood. Difficult for her?

"Okay?"

"I have decided that even though you are going against my beliefs, that's not all there is to you," her mother continued, voice choked and eyes small. "You are still my daughter, and my response to your immoral actions shouldn't be to sink to that level."

Taeyeon felt like she couldn't breathe. "That's great, mom," she said, suddenly awkward to use the word.

Her mother nodded, not catching the resentment in her words. "So, I'd like for you to come back home."

"No," Taeyeon said.

Her mother widened her eyes in surprise. "What do you mean, no?" she asked, sounding outraged. "I'm trying to find a compromise here—"

"A compromise?" Taeyeon repeated. "Where I can keep up my 'immortal actions' and you pretend like you don't know about it?" Her mother stared at her blankly, seemingly not knowing what to reply. "You know what, mom? Screw you," she said, and her mother's mouth fell open. "You can't compromise away a big chunk of who I am just because you don't like it."

Taeyeon got up, considered leaving, and her mother's look was both exasperated and pleading, and Taeyeon knew she couldn't leave like this. It wouldn't make anything better, neither for her mother nor herself. So she sunk back down, avoiding hitting her head on the lamp above the table.

"Why are you so hostile?" her mother asked, and Taeyeon's blood boiled again. "I'm trying to solve this—"

"No, you're not solving anything!" Taeyeon tried to keep her voice down, but it was futile. "What should be solved is your attitude towards gay people, nothing else!" Mrs. Kim's expression soured, and she chewed on the inside of her lip. "How dare you demand I change just because you can't understand me?"

Taeyeon could hear her mother's heavy breathing from across the table, and she felt a little smug despite trying to keep the feeling at bay, happy that she managed to spark a reaction. Mrs. Kim clutched at her own fingers. "I just..." she tried calmly, "don't see why a person would... want to be like that." Her gaze flickered over Taeyeon's face for a moment.

"It's not a choice," Taeyeon bit out.

"It is," her mother argued. "Some people have these feelings, but choose not to act—"

"But they can't choose not to feel it," Taeyeon interrupted. Though she had prided herself on not being bitter so far, that was exactly what she felt in that moment. "I'm won't pretend to be someone I'm not, do you understand?" she asked, staring her mother down to show just how serious she was.

Her mother stretched her back. "Taeyeon," she said, and Taeyeon cringed at her authoritative tone. "Have you even tried to not be this way?"

"For years," Taeyeon growled. "Do you think I wanted to be like this? Do you think I wanted to be gay when you forgot you were my mother and kicked me out into the street?"

Mrs. Kim closed her eyes. "You're still young, Taeyeon," she said, lips twitching. "If you could promise you will try to—"

"No!" Taeyeon yelled again. "If you want me back in your life, you're going to have to accept me as I am without trying to change me." She felt her breath shake in , chest rising and sinking rapidly, so angry she felt as if she would combust. "I don't understand you," she continued, unsure of what to do with her quivering hands. "You kicked me out! You left me on my own for months! You didn't even know if I lived or died, but you didn't care, and now you call me to say you want me to change so I can fit into your life, and you don't even apologize for what you did? You're my mother, the one I depended on the most, and you just let me—"

"Enough!" her mother yelled, voice high pitched and breaking. "Enough." 

Silence fell. Words were still bubbling up to Taeyeon's lips, threatening to spill over, unstoppable like she was vomiting it all out, but she managed to get a hold of herself.  She felt hopeless, and she wished Tiffany was there to support her, to help her convince her mother that being gay was not a bad thing, just as she had convinced Taeyeon of the same thing months earlier.

"That girl you brought here," her mother said eventually, staring down into the table. "Is she..."

"Yes, she's my girlfriend," Taeyeon replied, enunciating the last word as clearly as she could. Her mother closed her eyes again, as if she had just found out about the death of a family member, and Taeyeon wondered if maybe that was what it felt like for the woman in front of her.

Mrs. Kim sighed. "I don't appreciate you putting all the blame on me."

Taeyeon shook her head in disbelief. "Well, to be honest, mom, I don't care what you appreciate and not."

"Taeyeon, I wish you would come home again," her mother continued as if she hadn't heard her. Taeyeon wanted to stand up and scream again, but she stayed put, not replying. "You are still my daughter and I am still your mother. We aren't supposed to be like this."

Ah, there is it, Taeyeon thought – this was all about what it looked like from the outside. As usual. It always was with her. "You decided this," she spat.

"And now I have decided I want you to come home." They stared at each other. Taeyeon felt cold. "I realize that it was wrong of me to do what I did."

"Are you ever going to apologize for it?" Taeyeon asked emotionlessly. Her mother's nostrils flared.

"I'm sorry," she said. An unidentified airy feeling filled Taeyeon's chest, and she didn't know what to do with it. "But you have to understand that I was shocked. I had never thought..."

"You were doing so well," Taeyeon sighed. "Don't ruin the moment."

Her mother fell silent for a while again. "I just want us to go back to how we were when you were younger," she said then, sounding sad for the first time that day. "When you were still my little girl."

"Mom," Taeyeon said, almost whined, "I was like this back then, too. Only, because you taught me to hate gay people, I hated myself."

The sadness spread to Mrs. Kim's eyes as she looked her daughter over. For the first time, Taeyeon felt like her mother was actually trying to understand her. "Are you saying you've always been this way?"

"Always," Taeyeon confirmed. "For as long as I can remember. You know, you used to always scold me for being so shy, so quiet, and since you kicked me out, I'm not. Because I've accepted myself and learned to love every part of me."

Her mother sat unmoving and unreadable on her chair. "And this is really you speaking?" she said then. "This is not something that girl has told you?"

Taeyeon flared up again. "You don't get to talk about her like that," she said. "Not until you accept me like she does. She's the one who has been taking care of me, all of me, like you never have."

"Now you're being truly unfair," her mother said then. "I gave you everything I had for eighteen years!"

"Okay," Taeyeon said, holding her hands up, backing down. "I'll take that back. But the truth is you only cared for the parts of me that you liked. You didn't love unconditionally."

"I did," her mother hissed.

"You didn't," Taeyeon said, calmly shaking her head. "There were conditions. Otherwise you wouldn't have thrown me out."

Mrs. Kim hesitated again, and Taeyeon felt that same erse pride again, only this time she felt a little bad about it. At least the woman seemed to be trying now, and not just for her own sake.

"So, if I say I will try to... understand this business of yours—"

"Loving somebody, mom," Taeyeon interrupted. "I'm in love with somebody who loves me."

"If I say I will try for your sake," her mother continued with her gaze averted, "will you come back home?"

Taeyeon considered it for the briefest of moments. "No."

Her mother looked taken aback. "Why?"

"Because I don't trust you yet," Taeyeon said, still not caring if her words hurt. "I won't jump at the chance to live with someone who sees me as someone I'm not." Mrs. Kim looked like she had been slapped across the face, her courage fading as she stared out the window by the table. Taeyeon sighed, not wanting to be the bigger person, now or later, but she knew someone had to take the first step. "Let's start smaller, okay?" she offered. Her mother's eyes shot back to her. "I will meet you whenever you want, and we can talk. Maybe we'll figure things out at some point, I don't know." She leaned on her elbows on the able, shaking her head in disbelief at her own words. "I don't think you understand what it did to me... that you kicked me out."

"You know I'm sorry, Taeyeon."

"Yeah, well, sorry doesn't really cut it," she replied. "I just don't think you understand yet. But I'm willing to try if you are."

"I am," she nodded. "Of course I am."

And Taeyeon knew she would have to be patient, to help her mother along the way to understanding, and she still didn't want to. She didn't want to spell things she thought were obvious to someone so closed-minded, but at the end of the day, the reason why she was hurt by her mother's actions was because she wanted her acceptance. She wanted change, in both her mother's and others' attitudes. And she supposed she had to start somewhere.

It was yet another lesson learned for Taeyeon. She used to house a paralyzing fear of things going wrong, until she learned that nothing is so bad she would simply drop dead. And some things, against all odds, can still be fixed.

That last part still remained to be seen, though. But she had hope, and that was all that really mattered.

When she left the apartment, Tiffany was leaning against the door to her car. In her hand was a pile of small rocks, which she was chucking out one by one, throwing them restlessly against the asphalt below. When Taeyeon walked out the door, she dropped them all at once, standing up straight with a worried expression on her face. "How did it go?" she asked when Taeyeon reached her.

"Better than I thought," Taeyeon said, and burst into tears, crushing the other in a smothering hug. Tiffany caught her, holding both of their weights up as she the other's back, a smile playing on her lips.

"Oh, love," she mumbled, leaning her face into Taeyeon's hair. "That's wonderful. I'm proud of you."

Taeyeon's tears would stop quickly, and she thought that maybe, if Tiffany wouldn't have been there, that wouldn't have been true. The past few months had been terribly difficult; she had been tense and on edge around the other girl at first, but as time went on, she saw the way Tiffany stayed close to her and gave her everything whenever Taeyeon needed her, in times like this. Gradually, she had to realize that what had happened between the two of them would not be repeated.

"Thank you," Taeyeon said when her tears had stopped and she pulled back. The short meltdown was all she had needed, and she felt better now, like the space the tears had taken up in her had been filled up with nothingness, and the areas in her brain that wasn't taken by happiness were vacant.

"Don't be silly," Tiffany said, wiping the tears off her cheeks before kissing her. "I'm just happy she's finally coming to her senses." She ran her hands up Taeyeon's body to let them rest on her shoulders as she kissed her again, this time on the lips, and then ran them down her body once more. "Let's go home to my place so you can tell me what happened, alright?"

Taeyeon nodded, and Tiffany gave her a warm smile before she made to walk around the car to the driver's seat. And Taeyeon's heart got caught in as she walked away, her long black hair swaying behind her, because Tiffany was still trying so hard to prove that she was trust-worthy, walking on eggshells around Taeyeon in a way that was beautiful, but heartbreaking. They could have so much that they still hadn't experienced, and the only thing that was standing in the way as of that moment was Taeyeon herself.

So, she drew a deep breath, deciding that she needed to give the other girl what she deserved.

"Tiffany," she called, and the other stopped in front of the car, curious, beautiful as ever.

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

She was happy.