The dam finally broke.

It was the next morning when the damn finally broke for Jeremy.

He missed everything about what they were before this uncertainty creeped in.

He was starting to hate himself for such a small interaction causing such damage.

Yeah Lizzie was a reminder of who he used to be and who he used to need to pretend to be.

She was also a reminder of what he used to have and what changing cost.

But Nate had become too important to let such things ruin, Natalie was too good to him.

Somehow the fear and the memories and the internalized self-hate had overpowered all the good that had happened with natalie and had come from being Jasmine.

The fact that powering through it as Jeremy or experience the world through the emotional stunted and damaged viewpoint of Jeremy just wasn't working was growing ever apparent.

Jeremy was letting fear and self-hate and memories overpower everything good that had happened to overpower even the positive effects in progress made using the Hypno tracks.

That all of the mental walls and Foundations that were fixed, repaired, and made as Jasmine were torn down because Jeremy couldn't handle the truth and the joy that Natalie brought out in them.

The Mask Jeremy had made for the world had become dangerous, being Jeremy had become dangerous.

To himself

To Nate

To Natalie

To herself

Taking all the lessons learned from changing and moving forward the first time, everything it took to finally go and get the gED and get sorted into college.

All that was taken and forced into fixing this.

Resolve doubled upon seeing Natalie next to him in bed trying to be there for him but not wanting to intrude too far only holding hands scared to be more to do more.

There was only one course of action to fix this.

---

"Hey baby, good morning." I whispered into her ear as I pulled her close.

Natalie stiffened for a moment before melting into the embrace with the contented sigh "hmmm" that made my heart ache for what I put her through the last several days all over just running into an ex that had discarded me.

I let her slowly wake up like that wanting her to feel loved as she came to, giving her what I should have been.

"Good morning, this is nice, but what changed," you can tell from the hesitation all the things running through her mind. "I've been doing my best not to crowd you, while you decide what you want out of us. I know you said all you knew was that you wanted me but with your other comments and your other fears I didn't know how to make that work. You looked so fragile I was afraid I would push and you would break."

"Natalie, baby what you were trying to do was so sweet, but I was being stupid, all those things that we broke down in me and fixed? I was clinging to the rubble and acting like that was somehow Noble. What changed was me and for the better because of you, and I'm no longer forgetting that, and I refuse to let my half broken mask drag me away from us towards everything I hated. I won't let who I used to be make me forget."

"Oh, does... Does that mean?..." the cracking hope and the leading question reminded me of who nate was before they came into themselves, when they realized who they wanted and needed to be for us. That scared but brave person willing to push forward and into the unknown because they knew what they wanted.

That person that inspired me, convinced me that I could feel safe around them, and not put on it an act. To be the first person I could feel weak with and still feel safe, " Yes, darling... Natalie... Jasmine would like to come out to play and never be put up again.-"

The person I would lean on again as I use what little strength and bravery I had to reach out and call for help.

To get this beautiful woman I called my girlfriend to take me and make me hers again.

I didn't have the strength or understanding to fix myself or what I had damaged between us, but I did have enough of both to let Natalie pick up the broken pieces again.

"- but baby I need to ask you something because I'm not enough to fix me." Saying all these things I felt, even in this disjointed way, it's almost more than I could handle but I needed to get it out, to let her know.

" I think you don't give yourself enough credit pet, I'm sure with enough time you can figure it out but whatever you need I'm here for you, just tell me, I miss my sweet Jasmine."

She had more faith in me than I did in myself, it made what I was asking next easier oddly enough,"I need you to push me, I need you to push me so hard that I finish breaking so you can put the pieces back together. When I saw Lizzy, something broken and Jagged in me cut into everything we had been building. I can't let my lackluster handle on the Pieces of Me be what breaks us. You were doing so well in control you were helping me so much, I miss it, hell I even miss the Hypno. The effects I was getting from it, I'm missing them and how would they would help me be better for you."

It was that last part, admitting to missing everything that Natalie was scared of, that was her pushing 'too hard', when I felt something click in me.

[ Silly broken thing, ran so hard from her that you couldn't even hear me anymore. Don't worry now that you've come to your senses, I'm back and I can help make you the perfect little thing for her. Like you've always wanted and you've known you've always wanted. God I hope she punishes you for making her worry like this, we deserve better then to be cut away and ran from over something so small]

Maybe it was a phantom of my own mind but it felt like it clicked in her too.

" Oh Jasmine I was scared I'd hurt you, but if you need me to push again, if you need me to take a finer control, if you need me to put you under again and again, I will." She was caressing me and brushing hair out of my face everything felt right in the world again.

What I nearly broke and lost for my hesitation and fear staring me right in the face made slipping into Jasmine, into who I really was, possible for the first time in days "Please Mistress Natalie, take me, break me, remake me, don't ever let me run away like this again. I'm too scared to lose you, don't let me have enough control I can do something like this again, I'm so sorry."

"Don't worry Pet I'll never make that mistake again. Now grab your phone you're calling off work, we both have more important things to do now."