"Please don't," Winnie couldn't do this again. It was all just empty words. Even if Dory believed them, she couldn't. She wasn't meant to be more than what she was and she was alright with that. Win had picked herself up out of the ashes after burning bridges, on more than one occasion, she would be able to do it again, but not if everything kept hitting the bottom again.

Arguing with him wouldn't do any good and she didn't know what to say to the last bit either. She couldn't make him see that it wasn't his fault anymore than he would be able to make her stay. The gap between them was just to wide to bridge this time. They wanted such different things out of life and one of them would wind up miserable trying to make the other one happy. Winnie could live with the heartache now knowing that it would only last for so long. In time things would get better. He would move on to someone who could give him the life that he wanted and she would be perfectly fine carrying on the way she always had. Time would fix it, she had to believe that.

"Don't make it any harder than it already is," it wasn't much more than a whisper, but the pleading was there nevertheless. Leaving the first time had been hard enough, this didn't need to be as bad if they could just acknowledge that it was actually the end.