A/N: This is the fourth and last part to my Take... series. I wrote TItH fuelled by my emotions after Snapchatgate. I never expected to continue it or to turn it into a series, but my writing often has a mind of its own. I'm not totally happy with the way this fic turned out, but you can't have it all haha. It's been an emotional ride writing these four shots, thanks for coming along with me!

The sun has risen by the time Tiffany returns to the dorm, steps heavy and chest even heavier. She can no longer feel her heart beat stay; she can no longer feel it at all, but she can feel the weight of it drag her down.

“You’re back,” comes a disembodied voice in the darkness. Tiffany would have started but she feels too heavy to move, can only slowly and painstakingly drag her feet forward like there’s a ball and chain shackled to them.

“I’m back,” she says after a moment.

She expects Taeyeon to ask where she was, why she stayed away for so long, but Taeyeon only asks, “Did you sleep?”

“Yeah. I actually got a good night’s sleep.”

“That’s good,” Taeyeon says, so sincerely that Tiffany feels like her shackles double in weight. “So you had a good time with Jessica then?”

She does start this time. “How did you know I was…”

Taeyeon rolls her eyes. At least Tiffany thinks she does; she can’t actually make out Taeyeon’s features in the dark. “Who else would you have gone to?”

“You sound like I have no friends,” Tiffany says lightly.

“You have plenty of friends, but…” Taeyeon trails off there, and Tiffany’s mind trips over itself trying to fill in the end of the sentence. You have plenty of friends, but Jessica’s not just your friend is she? You have plenty of friends, but only one Jessica. You have plenty of friends, but. “Anyway, as long as you feel better.”

“Yeah.” Tiffany puts on a broad, bright smile, even though she knows Taeyeon can’t see her either. “I feel great.”

If Taeyeon sees through her lie, she doesn’t say anything.

Jessica stares into the bathroom mirror, toothpaste foam dribbling from the corner of her lips like she’s some rabid animal frothing at the mouth. Her face looks blotchy; she blames it on the pizza. Extra cheese – what had she been thinking?

Well, it’s clear that she hasn’t been doing much of that, because if she had, she probably wouldn’t be standing here staring into the bathroom mirror like she expects to see more than her pallid reflection looking back.

She wipes the toothpaste foam off and washes her face again, like she can scrub the exhaustion right off it.

Didn’t you wash your face already?

I, um, do it twice now. Juhyun advised it.

Jessica tries to open her moisturizer but her fingers won’t obey her, staying stiff and still like a corpse setting into rigor mortis. She gives up and puts it back on the counter, knocking down her soap bottle in the process, a chain of dominos toppling over.

Careful, Steph. Watch what you’re picking up. I mean, not that I have anything dangerous here, but still.

She puts her toothbrush into its holder, which looks glaringly empty even though it’s always just held hers. Maybe emptiness is just something that your eyes get used to, something that your heart gets used to.

Judging from the burn in both her eyes and her chest, she feels like she’s not doing very well in that.

“Fany, you’re back.”

Sunkyu’s voice isn’t any louder than usual, but it makes Tiffany physically jolt like her words had tapped Tiffany on the shoulder.

“Sorry, did I scare you?”

“I’ve been a bit jumpy lately,” Tiffany says. “It’s not you, it’s me.”

Sunkyu’s mouth quirks up at the corner. “Do you use that line a lot?”

“Yes,” Tiffany says with a dry laugh. “It’s in my phrase handbook.”

“Did you use that handbook when you were with her?” Sunkyu asks conversationally.

Tiffany plays dumb. “Who’s ‘her’?”

“Fany.”

“Did Taeyeon tell—”

“Taeyeon didn’t tell me anything,” Sunkyu says. “She doesn’t have to. I notice things, you know.”

“Am I…noticeable?”

“You’re really not,” Sunkyu says mildly. “You’re probably the best at this out of all of us.”

“Am I?” Tiffany murmurs. If she were so good at this, then she wouldn’t be where she is now. “But you – I mean, you knew where I was last night. You and Taeyeon both did.”

“It wasn’t hard to guess,” Sunkyu says with a shrug.

“Do you think I shouldn’t have gone?” Tiffany asks, her voice coming out very small.

Sunkyu studies her for a moment. “Did it make you feel better?”

Tiffany doesn’t know how to reply to that. She doesn’t know whether she feels better or worse. Both, maybe. Neither, maybe. She just feels—she feels, period.

“That’s what we want, Fany,” Sunkyu says, her voice very gentle. “For you to feel better. We want to help you. But if we can’t, then I’m glad that Jessica can. That she did.”

“I don’t know how I feel now,” Tiffany says, barely a whisper.

“Do you feel like a hug?”

When she nods, Sunkyu opens her arms and Tiffany steps into them. Sunkyu is shorter than her, but somehow she feels taller right now, like she can easily hold Tiffany up. That’s good – Tiffany needs someone to hold her up right now, given the weight inside her dragging her down.

It feels an awful lot like regret.

It’s the flash of pink that catches Jessica’s eye. She’s too keenly attuned to the colour, even though she owns very little of it – or maybe because of that. The pink is from a phone on her coffee table. An iPhone in a bright pink case. It’s not hers.

Jessica stares at it for a long time, not making a move to reach for it. The phone – Tiffany’s phone – lights up with a notification, and Jessica wonders for a moment whether Tiffany still has the same passcode, whether Jessica can unlock it. Then she almost laughs at herself. What would she do even if she could? It’s not like Jessica wants her phone; Jessica wants her… Full stop.

She turns the phone over in her hand a few times, doing it very carefully so it doesn’t end up as the next domino. They have the same phone and a similar style of case, but Tiffany’s phone feels different in Jessica’s hand. Heavier and lighter at the same time, with an air bubble at the left edge of her screen protector. Jessica automatically tries to squeeze it out before she catches herself and stops. This isn’t her phone, after all. This is Tiffany’s phone, and Tiffany is going to need it, is maybe looking for it right now.

Jessica thinks about it for either far too long or entirely not long enough. She knows that Tiffany needs her phone – phones are an absolute necessity in life, after all – but she also knows that she’s fooling herself if she thinks that’s the reason she’s heading toward the door. She’s always been good at fooling the world, but never herself.

She leaves her apartment with two phones in her pockets and her heart beating a hollow tempo.

Of all the people to open the door, it has to be her.

“What are you doing here?” Taeyeon doesn’t sound angry or accusative, just weary, but Jessica bristles anyway.

“I’m not here for you,” she says, not even bothering to make her voice friendly. “I’m here for my—” She breaks off, unsure what to say here. What is Tiffany to her? Her girlfriend? Well they’re not dating. Her friend? That’s not nearly enough of a word. Her lover? They don’t live in a romance novel there’s no way she’s saying that.

“Your what?” Taeyeon asks.

“My Tiffany.”

Jessica can’t read Taeyeon’s expression. “She’s sleeping.”

“Okay, maybe that excuse would work if it were me—”

“It’s not an excuse. I wouldn’t lie to you about this.” Taeyeon looks at her without any animosity. “Look Jessica, we didn’t always get along but we’re not enemies.”

Jessica’s lips pinch into a taut line.

“She hasn’t slept properly in days, and she’s finally catching up on some sleep now. I don’t want to wake her.” Taeyeon steps aside and opens the door a little wider. “You can come in and wait.”

Jessica hadn’t expected that in the slightest – she would have been less surprised if Taeyeon had slammed the door in her face – and just stands there, frozen.

“This used to be your home too,” Taeyeon says, softer than Jessica has heard from her in a very long time. “I’m not going to tell you to get out.”

“You could.”

“I could,” she agrees, “but I wouldn’t. Besides, you’re Tiffany’s…”

“Tiffany’s what?”

“You’re Tiffany’s,” Taeyeon says simply. Jessica has no idea what to say to that, and they just end up looking at each other across the tiny but vast space of the doorway.

“Taeyeon, why didn’t you wak—oh.”

“We have a visitor,” Taeyeon says, jerking her chin toward Jessica, who finally gathers enough of her wits to step inside. The door closes behind them, probably shut by Taeyeon; Jessica doesn’t care enough to look back.

Tiffany looks like she just woke up, her hair still ruffled and her eyes squinty with sleep. Jessica hasn’t seen her so—unpolished in a long time. She’s missed seeing Tiffany like this, wishes that she could have woken up to Tiffany like this.

“Jessi,” Tiffany says, slightly dazed, like she’s not really awake. Jessica vaguely registers Taeyeon walking away and then the sound of another door closing.

“You left this here,” Jessica says, holding out Tiffany’s phone.

“Oh, I totally didn’t realize.” Tiffany takes it from her. “Thank you.”

Tiffany isn’t as addicted as Jessica is to her phone, but she relies on it enough that she should have noticed immediately when she didn’t have it. Jessica can only think that she’s probably staying away from the Internet right now, from Instagram and Snapchat, from the world in a way. Jessica must be naïve to think that she’s somehow an exception to the world.

“It’s nothing,” Jessica says, a lump in .

“It’s not nothing to me.” Tiffany breaks into a smile, and Jessica’s breath catches. “This conversation sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”

Jessica stares at her so intently that the smile falls off her face. Jessica doesn’t know what’s worse: Tiffany stoic and unsmiling or putting on that idol smile like a mask that’s harder to take off each time.

Don’t do this, she wants to say again, but she doesn’t know if those words will work by this point.

“Sorry,” Tiffany says unexpectedly. “It’s a force of habit.” She drags a hand across her face. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

“I can leave—”

“Don’t.” Tiffany catches her wrist. “Stay.”

Her grip is so light that Jessica could easily shrug it off, but she doesn’t try. Tiffany has a hold on her much stronger than touch.

“Jessi.” She hesitates. “Can I tell you something?”

“Have you ever needed to ask?”

“I didn’t forget my phone at your place.”

“…Is this not your phone?”

“I mean – I left it there on purpose.”

“Oh.” Jessica pauses. “Why?”

Tiffany bites her lip. “So I had an excuse to see you again.”

“You don’t need an excuse to see me.”

“I know, but. I.”

“I want to see you too. My eyes didn’t want to get off your face.”

Tiffany laughs. “They can stay there. I don’t mind.”

“Okay,” Jessica says, and stares at Tiffany until the burn returns to her eyes, only this time it’s from lack of blinking.

“You can blink, you know,” Tiffany says. “We’re not having a staring contest.”

“I want to look at you for as long as possible,” Jessica says without thinking. “That way if you…”

She doesn’t finish the sentence, but she doesn’t need to. They both know what she was going to say. That way if you leave me again, I’ll have more of you to last me. Not that memories could ever be enough to Jessica.

“I’m sorry I left,” Tiffany says in a small voice. “I didn’t want to.”

Then why did you? Jessica thinks, but she only asks, “Are you going to leave now?”

“We’re in my apartment,” Tiffany says. “Well, our apartment.”

Jessica knows that ‘our’ doesn’t include her, and it shouldn’t sting but. “You can still leave your apartment.”

“I’m not going to leave again,” Tiffany says, soft but firm, and it doesn’t sound like she’s just talking about location.

“Good,” Jessica says before she can help it.

“I went about it all wrong,” Tiffany says, lowering her eyes. “I was trying to be strong – or what I thought was strong. And then I realized that I had a totally wrong idea of strength.”

Jessica’s eyebrows knit together. “You left because you were trying to be strong?”

“I was trying to be Tiffany.” She smiles, and it’s so, so tired. “I thought that they were the same thing but. It’s tiring, being Tiffany.”

Jessica reaches for her, and Tiffany sighs, resting her head against Jessica’s shoulder. Her body falls limp, like a marionette with its strings cut, the curtains pulling shut at last.

“You don’t have to be her, Steph,” Jessica says quietly. “Not all the time. Not here.”

“I know,” Tiffany murmurs. “Or well, I’m learning. I’m trying.”

“You’re stronger than you know, either way.”

“I don’t feel very strong right now.” Tiffany’s voice is so quiet that the syllables seem to trickle away as she says them. “I feel…”

“What?”

“You…”

“You feel me?” Jessica blinks. “I’m not an emotion though.”

Tiffany laughs so hard that Jessica feels it too. “That wasn’t the same sentence.”

“Oh.”

“I do feel you though,” Tiffany says with a smile.

“How do I feel?”

Tiffany makes a thoughtful sound. “Like…happy but also a bit sad. Like you’re looking back but facing forward.”

Jessica can only think to say, “I sound like a complicated feeling.”

Tiffany laughs again, soft and warm and familiar, like slipping into a favourite sweater at the end of a long day. “You feel like home.”

“Oh,” Jessica repeats. “I do?”

“Mm hmm.” Tiffany curls up against her, like she’s settling in for the night, and Jessica wraps an arm around her. “How do I feel to you?”

Jessica thinks about that for a moment. “You feel like Steph.”

Tiffany doesn’t ask what that means. Jessica thinks she knows.

They end up curled up together on the couch, for so long that Jessica feels like her limbs have fallen asleep but her heart is more awake than ever. Tiffany fell asleep quite a while ago, and Jessica feels creepy watching her sleep so she lets her eyes drift around the apartment instead. There haven’t been too many changes; she doesn’t know why a part of her had expected everything to look different.

“Hey.”

She stares, wide-eyed, at Sunkyu, who had materialized like an apparition. Mercifully, Jessica hadn’t moved and jolted Tiffany from her sleep.

“I keep scaring people today,” Sunkyu says musingly. “Maybe I should make a career out of being a spy.”

“Are you here to spy on us?”

“No, I just wanted to check on Fany.”

“Well, she’s…here,” Jessica says lamely.

“I can see that,” Sunkyu says wryly. “You’re here too.”

“Am I…” Jessica swallows. Am I unwelcome? Am I a bother?

Sunkyu smiles and it’s worn but honest. “I told you, right? If you ever feel tired or alone, you can always come back home.”

Jessica swallows, the burn returning to her eyes. “Sunkyu…”

Sunkyu makes a face. “But not if you call me that.”

Jessica gives a weak smile. “I don’t think that Taeyeon would like it very much if I regularly came to visit.”

“You wouldn’t be visiting,” Sunkyu says. “People don’t visit their home, right? They come back to their home. That’s what you would be doing.”

“Sunkyu.” Jessica isn’t trying to be annoying or anything; she just…genuinely doesn’t know what else to say.

“Your apartment is sweet though. You’d better invite me over one of these days.”

Jessica laughs. “Of course I will. I’ll restock my alcohol cabinet just for you.”

Sunkyu smiles, and Jessica returns the expression. “Oh and, this feels a bit awkward to say, but you know, thanks.”

“For what?”

“For taking care of Fany.”

Jessica blinks. “Why would you need to thank me for that?”

“I know I don’t,” Sunkyu says. “It’s just… You don’t know what it’s been like these days, seeing her like this. We all tried to help her as much as we could, but…you know how she gets like.”

Yes, Jessica knows very well. As soon as the news had broken out, she knew that she had to find Tiffany. It wasn’t a matter of desire or even obligation; it was a matter of need.

“You sound like I was a miracle cure or something,” she says with a quirk of . “It wasn’t like that.”

“Well, whatever it was like, I’m happy she has you. And that you have her too. That you have each other.”

Jessica thinks about saying something like “you sound like you’re giving a wedding toast,” but then she looks at Tiffany, who has her face tucked against Jessica’s shoulder and hand bunched in Jessica’s shirt. Her breathing is even and her expression looks peaceful, like the ghosts that have been haunting her nightmares have finally been exorcised. Jessica hopes that the peace in her sleeping face will remain once she wakes.

“Sica?”

“I’m happy too,” she says quietly, feeling warmth start to chase away the emptiness, which slinks away reluctantly but surely, unable to compete. Maybe she can get used to this feeling, this strange and elusive thing called happiness.

Tiffany wakes up feeling well-rested for once, surrounded by something warm and soft, and then she realizes that something is Jessica.

“Hi,” she says, unsure if this is a dream for a second.

“Hi yourself.” Jessica tucks a lock of Tiffany’s hair behind her ear, like she had been itching to do it for a long time. “How do you feel?”

“You.”

“Is that the end of your sentence or…”

Tiffany smiles. “Guess.”

“I think you feel…like cooking me breakfast.”

Tiffany laughs. “Wow, you’re a psychic. You totally read my mind.”

“Maybe I should set up one of those fortune-telling booths.”

“I think you should,” Tiffany says. “Can you tell me my future?”

“Give me your hand,” Jessica says, and Tiffany does so without hesitation. Jessica looks down at her palm seriously, like she’s examining the lines there.

“What do you see?”

Jessica smiles, and Tiffany wonders how she ever managed to walk away from her. Promises never to do it again.

“Us,” Jessica says, and seals their future with a kiss.

A/N: This started off so heavy and got so fluffy lmao. My heart just couldn’t bear to give them any more pain. Also writing TaengSic’s interaction here hurt, and writing SunSic’s hurt in another way. This fic once again proves that I just can’t do without a happy ending, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing because we could all use some more happy endings.

I posted two deleted scenes here, if anyone is interested.