There is an odd layering of relief in his outrage, his anger and anguish. He took the last step, and said words that mean she won't have to risk him somehow ever hearing and taking notice. She's layered enough hints, enough oblique remarks over time that at one point, the light of the truth would hit just the right angle, cast through each one to form the correct shadow on the wall. He's wrenched her the rest of the way open, she's vivisected again, and all she can think is finally.

Someone finally hates her as they should. Why does she feel like she can breathe easier?

Hawk asks for a minute, and he'll have as long as he wants. She's silent, contained, accepting his words without any rebuttal of her own. The answer is a foregone conclusion for her. It's the equivalent of closing one's eyes before a candle's blown out, adjusting to darkness so that the transition is not so sudden. Don't look at him. Don't move. Don't ask for him to say anything more than a request to keep her distance. That's fair. That's reasoned. That's more than she deserves.

A better woman would have destroyed herself by now. A better woman would leave his space, and remove herself from his life. She can only bring herself to keep breathing. Even if she abandoned all weapons and sealed away her magic and cloistered herself from any other soul, it wouldn't change what happened. Just because the graves don't exist in this world doesn't mean they don't exist. Hells, a better woman would have kept herself away from him, protected him from ever drawing near. And here she was, staying near anyway.

Gods. She wouldn't doubt if the first thing he does after telling her to go is to take a shower and scrub away everywhere they ever touched. He should forget her name, remove it from his mind, shrapnel out of a wound. It will heal over.