{SE} what'll you fall for?

I get them all worked up and down on their knees, you see

"It wasn't how you made him feel when you left, Phoebe. That's not what I'm referring to." The Nightshade replies coolly. No, that isn't it at all. Maeve knows that she couldn't help that. It was what she did when she came back. How she handled it. What she said. What she chose to do. That's what Maeve had a problem with now. "You've made him feel like no matter what he chooses he's the bad guy." His words ring in her head from that day on the beach. The day he fell apart in her arms; cracking, breaking, fracturing splinters through his crystalline that were nigh impossible for her to put back together, but Maeve was determined to do just that.

She'd never let him shatter. She'd never be so careless with his heart the way so many others had been in the past. Intentional or not.

"Moving on from you now makes him bad. Not being there from dusk till dawn with Jude makes him a bad father, but not giving you space to accept that you two won't be together makes him a bad person too. On top of feeling like a bad partner for not being with me and our family. Can't you see what you've done? What you're doing to him?"

Maeve shakes her head, drawing in a breath as she looks at her in disbelief, unable to find it in herself to feel guilty over the tears that her shared news has caused the former Madame. "Ask him if you must, Phoebe. We've made our choice. We're just waiting."

Maeve