Author's Note: Red in her ledger.

She says the words like they are a shield.

Pain has been a friend to her, and happiness a forgotten acquaintance. She wears bullet holes and black eyes more often than diamonds, and her hands will always itch when idle, but there is one thing she has never reconciled with: hope.

She was taught never to have it, never to rely on its false promise. What aid does hope grant when bleeding and bruised and clawing for an exit? What help can possibly come from the simple belief that something good will happen, that magically, a hand will stretch out to save you?

Now, she feels the pain and it is as familiar as ever, but there is something beyond it, something intangible that she almost wants to reach for.

This something is eating away at her shield, ever so slowly. She says the words, means them to be an end to a discussion, but even as they tumble from her lips, she knows they are no longer entirely true. She's spoken more falsehoods in her life than she can count, but this one makes her mouth dry and her tongue bitter.

She is telling most of the truth, is she not?

They ask her why, he asks her why, and suddenly those words aren't enough. Because Christ, that stupid feeling she has, that thing close to what he calls hope, is gouging away at her, peeling back parts of her that she clings tightly to.

And it fucking hurts.

More than anything she's ever experienced. Is this what hope is? A dagger to your gut when you look at someone and see a goodness you wish you had? When you listen to them, and you hear the optimism of faith? Is hope the feeling she gets when he looks at her, and she sees no sign of hatred, or fear in his eyes?

Goddammit, hope is eating at her shield.

She can hide behind that shield, she can keep emotionless and calm behind those words. But now, with that something else, those words aren't a shield. They are a lie. Just another lie she is telling (herself) to keep safe.

There's red in her ledger.

Hope is why she fights beside him.