Percy went cold at her words, and before he could stop to think the words were out of his mouth. "I was never your's to lose." The words were quiet but anger simmered behind them. "Don't you understand Maggie? You chose him. You had your happiness, your life to live." Now that the words had started he didn't seem to be able to stop them. "I was left with no one. Nothing. I lost my best friend, my version of the future. So don't tell me that it almost killed you. You know nothing of what I went through." Percy rarely lost his temper, but over a decade of carefully avoiding his emotions on the matter steeled him for such an encounter. He'd never see Maggie again after he left her house, he was sure of that. He'd walk away and that would be that.

But even as he thought it on some level he knew that he couldn't stand the pain on Maggie's face, in her voice, that he'd pick her own happiness over his own and spend another decade buried in work he had never intended to marry.