"Hunter-I just can't go on like this. We can't go on like this." Her throat tightened and she released his hand. "We need to-just end it. Us."

Hunter blinked. "I don't understand," he said. "We can't end us. Us is a fact of life."

"But not for the lives we're living now." Morgan couldn't even look at him.

"Morgan, breaking up isn't the answer. We love each other too much. You're my muirn beatha dan-we're soul mates."

That did it. A single tear escaped Morgan's eye and rolled down her cheek. She sniffled.

"I know," she said in frustration. "But trying to be together isn't working either. We never see each other, our lives are going in two different directions-how can we have a future? Trying to pretend there is one is bogging us both down. If we really, really say this is it, then we'll both be free to do what we want, without even pretending that we have to take the other one into consideration."

Hunter was silent, looking first at Morgan, then around at the little tea shop, then out the black window with the rain streaking down.

"Is that what you want?" he asked slowly. "For us to go our own separate ways without even pretending we have to think of each other?"

"It's what we're already doing," Morgan said, feeling as if she was going to break apart from grief. "I'm not saying we don't love each other. We do-we always will. I just can't take hoping or wishing for something different. It's not going to be different." That was when her voice broke. She leaned her head against her hand and took some deep breaths.

Hunter's finger absently traced a pattern on the tabletop, and after a moment Morgan recognized it as a rune. The rune for strength. "So we'll make lives without each other, we'll commit to other people, we won't ever be lovers again."

His quiet, deliberate words felt like nails piercing her heart, her mind. Goddess, just get me through this. Get me through this, she thought. Morgan nodded, blinking in an unsuccessful attempt to keep more tears from coming to her eyes.