Chapter Text
There was a time when you would often find yourself leaping up the familiar stairs towards this towering, brooding mansion, full of helium and excitement like a child who had found her way to Disneyland, instead of the private quarters of the head of a mafia organisation.
There was a time when you remembered the maze of hallways and rooms so vividly that you would simply run and let muscle memory take you to where you needed to be. In the kitchen, where the cabinets were stocked with a mix of the bare necessities and expensive ingredients. In the armory, filled with arrays of exquisite and vintage gun collections. In the guest bathroom, where the first-aid-kit was safely tucked away for private emergencies. In the security room, when you needed the wall of brightly glaring monitors to locate the pesky mechanical crow that had made off with yet another of your shiny gifts. In his room, on his favourite armchair, and in his arms, where you had once felt the safest.
There was a time when you believed it would all work out. That as long as you loved him as much as he loved you, then you’d be able to figure things out along the way. Solve the problems as they come. Weather the inevitable, passing storms.
And then the time came when the bubble finally popped. When the rose-tinted glasses came off, you saw the road ahead; your future, for what it was: a gaping, empty hole.
That was when you learned that not everyone could have a happy ending, no matter how much you hoped for it. That not even someone like him could give you everything you could ever want.
In the end, you knew you had to walk away. So you did exactly that, cementing your resolve to not look back.
After all, the sand in the hourglass would eventually run out. You might as well beat it to the bottom.