Katherine lost track of time as usual, buried in her textbooks until she looked up and found the library empty — except for her, and one of the top students in her year, still hunched over his notes a few tables away. She stretched, wincing at the stiffness in her neck. She'd forgotten to take a break yet again.

She gathered her things and moved through the door. Just as she was about to leave, the classmate stopped her, his voice catching somewhere between casual and nervous. "Um! Katherine? Are you heading out?"

What was his name again? She could never remember. "Yes. It's getting late. Are you staying much longer?" she asked, polite as ever.

He was already on his feet, as if he'd been waiting for the excuse. "No, actually, I was just about to leave. Want to grab something to eat on the way?"

For a brief moment, barely a second, he saw a shift in her expression. Her face flickered between two different emotions. "I'm not hungry, but thank you."

Her smile was radiant, the kind that sent butterflies to his stomach. "Oh... Sure, yeah. Have a good night." He watched the doors swing shut behind her, then muttered to the empty room, "You haven't eaten all day, though."

The night air hit her the moment she stepped outside — cool, fresh. She stopped at the market for a few things, then found herself lingering on the sidewalk after, her face tipped up toward a sky crowded with stars. The further she got from the city, the quieter it became.

She didn't remember deciding to climb the hill instead of taking the shortcut. She was halfway up the street before she noticed, autumn leaves rustling and drifting past her feet.

At the top, there was no one — just wind moving through the trees, and the city glittering far below, close enough to touch and impossibly distant at once. She'd passed here dozens of times before, never long enough to actually look. Tonight she let herself. She closed her eyes, lifted her head, and breathed it in.

A sob broke the silence. Katherine's eyes snapped open, her head tilting toward the sound — a figure hunched on the bench near the edge of the path, shoulders shaking. She didn't need to see the face to know what she was hearing. Someone was crying.

The figure rose. A couple of beer cans clattered off the bench and rolled into the dark. Katherine caught the shape of a dress, the outline of a woman, blond hair loosening in the wind as she staggered toward the railing — and climbed over it.

Katherine's bag hit the ground before she'd decided to drop it. She ran, every instinct screamed at her to shout but she held her tongue, she was afraid a sudden noise might startle the woman into falling. She reached the railing just as the woman stepped into the air.

In one motion, Katherine seized the woman's wrist with one hand and the railing with the other. The impact drove the breath from her lungs; the woman's body slammed hard against the wall below the ledge. Katherine gritted her teeth and held on, pain blooming across her stomach from where she'd hit the bar. The woman hung limp, her head dropped against her own shoulder — unconscious from the collision.

"Miss-" Katherine's voice cracked. "Miss, can you hear me?"

The woman stirred. Her gaze drifted first to the drop beneath her, unfocused, and then — slowly — found Katherine's. For a moment, Katherine couldn't move. She had never seen eyes like that: the most beautiful diamonds, drowning in tears.

There was no fear in them, no. Only disappointment — quiet, bottomless, aimed at nothing Katherine could see. Tear-tracks marked her face like something already decided. Then her eyes slid shut, and her face tilted toward the sky, empty.

Did she give up? Katherine didn't know this woman. Didn't know what had brought her here, to this railing, tonight. But she knew — with a certainty that startled her — that she was not letting go. One last tear slid free and vanished into the abyss. Katherine's chest ached, sharp and sudden, gone as quickly as it came.

She pulled. Quite easily at that, as if the woman were weightless. Bracing against the railing, Katherine hauled her over the edge, and they went down together onto the cold concrete, tangled and breathless. The woman didn't let go. She gently pressed her face into Katherine's shoulder and shook with the aftershock of whatever had carried her to that ledge in the first place.