The Sentinels come on, make it easy, say i never mattered.

If he had made a joke out of it, she didn't know how she would react. She was half expecting it, since it was Penn, and Penn was serious even less than she was. Especially nowadays. It occurred to her than Penn might not even know she had a kid, or that she and Bronco had been mates for a while. Barely. Right? She didn't honestly feel like counting it. It had been a lie, in her mind, from the very start. Nothing he'd done or said disproved that.

He didn't. The reason he gave sounded familiar, echoing the reason she'd run when she left Firefly Glen. She'd been scared to find out that Bronco didn't want her there after all. So she'd bounced rather than give him the chance to say it.

She wondered if a part of him had felt good, hurting her, the way a part of her had felt good hurting Bronco. Probably. She remembered somewhat how upset he'd been that she was spending time with her family, and how she hadn't really bothered to wonder why at the time. Fuck.

That couldn't be Bronco's reason though. She'd made it clear that she chose him in a thousand different ways, but none of them had made a difference. Maybe she'd never understand it. Bronco and Penn were fundamentally different in so many ways, and the fact that the hatred had gone both ways should have clued her into that. She had so much in common with Penn; so much for Bronco to hate. Was there anything she shared the other way?

No. There wasn't.

She wasn't dumb enough to think that Penn would stick around forever, or even to bank on it. Hell, she didn't even know if he'd stick around for the day. But realizing how different they were, and how little she'd actually changed, helped. Not enough to make her less sad, but enough to make her less angry. She'd take it.

All of that ran through her mind in an instant, and it took the edge from her responses. Fennec let out a breath, then smirked, deciding to let him off the hook. Makes sense. I could tell you how fucked and stupid that is, but that'd make me the same, and I'm not about to own up to it.

It is kind of funny, though, you thinking that even after all the shit I got for going with you the first time. I thought dad was going to murder you before we even got the chance to ditch out.