She had spent a couple nights, restless nights, at the Circle. Mostly in the Mysterium Wing, sleep hadn’t been easy and she had busied herself with studies while her mind only wanted to focus on events of that night and someone breaking into her Sanctum. And she knew she had to go back.
So, she did. To face a decision, one she didn’t want to make, and fear that had been growing inside her.

And there she sat, an empty beer bottle in her hand, a bottle of Absinthe, half empty on the coffee table, and her thoughts scattered. She hadn’t let herself feel the emotions yet, kept pushing them down, keep ignoring them. As she always did. They didn’t matter, she needed to think. Needed to be practical.

‘Been disconnected for so long
And left my mark here along the way
So many years have come and gone
So many fears have remained the same’

Gray eyes sweep around the darkened room, knowing where everything stood without needing light. Which book was on which shelf, which shoes were by the door, what was hanging on the wall.

‘A sea of faith, I swim and play
Yet drowning all possibilities
Beyond what I believe and know
I cut the cord free of home again’

A hand reaches out a touches the weathered and grooved wood of the door she had lovingly turned into a coffee table years ago.

Standing, she walks to the one of the walls, running a hand along the bricks. The bricks she had painstakingly helped restore. Bare feet feel the grain of the hardwood, imperfect in the perfect way, sanded by hand, her hands.

This had been her home…her Sanctum…her safe place for more years than she wanted to admit. And in an instant, it was taken from her. Someone dared enter and try to kill her, make a second attempt on her life.

And now she was left with this fear that she wasn’t safe here. That she would never be safe again. A teat slipped down her cheek and a shaky quickly wiped it away, there couldn’t be any emotions, she couldn’t show any. To show them was a weakness, that the attack on her had gotten through the armor she had built up.

‘It turns to silence
A silence sometimes I can hear
Internal violence
A struggle deep within, what if?’

But could she give up the only home she had ever known?

‘What if I leave, could I still breathe?
What if I breathe, could I still be?
And if I leave, would I be me?’

Who was she if gave into her fear? If she packed this loft up and moved, she let him win, he might be dead, but he would have won.

That was an ending she couldn’t live with, letting him take away not only her sense of safety, but her home as well. She was a goddamn second-degree Master; soon to be third, she was better than him. This was her home.

And with a renewed sense of self and determination, she knows what she needs to do.

'What If' Godsmack