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Not going to lie, Jack. This year has quite nearly crushed our soul.

From the start, it felt like every time we tried to take one step forward, life or fate or god or whatever seemed to push us a thousand steps back. You weren't around. Our career stagnated through no fault of our own. Nothing made any sense. And during the past twelve months, only one of those seems to be resolved. The rest? Lawd, the fucking rest.

Honestly, the only thing that kept us together for a bit was Bucky. He's the greatest boy. When we didn't get up, he jumped on our head like he was fucking Mario and we were a Koopa Troopa. He made us walk him and feed him and give a shit about something besides us. Of course, that's easy to do when they give a shit about you.

We don't know what's up with us, love. It might be an existential crisis. But we cannot help but think. Are our best days behind us? Is any of this worth it? Are we worth it? We like to think it is. We like to think we're doing right by you, by our students, by everything we're building here. Most of the time, though, we're not so sure. We've lost ourselves somewhere in the midst of this and there's one thing for an absolute certainty.

We just want to have fun with this shit again.

Problem is can we go back to having fun without the accolades? We don't know. We've been getting vague whiffs of it, here and there. Yet it feels so elusive. So…fleeting. Beyond fleeting, even. Just when we get the taste of it, it disappears again. There's a hunger for it somewhere in the back stuffed deep in the clusterfucked fridge of our head. And yes, we are messing around with the metaphors. Shut up!

Do you want to know the last time the fun lasted? Where everything felt good and worth a damn for longer than six seconds? It was when we were teaming up with you, ya shitlord. It always was just being with you.

But we refuse to use you as a crutch, even though we know you'd be game for it. You don't deserve the burden, love, and we need to figure it out. Our whole situation has changed.

“Annie?”

Hmm?

“There isn't going to be a single second where I'm not in your corner.”

We know. You and us have been a team since the first second we saw each other. It’s just a different kind and it took this long to fully comprehend it. Funny. We're the Time Lord and yet we're kinda lagging at that shit. The mental bit. It feels like we're finally catching up some. It is what it is and what it is kinda sucks.

“You know what you need? You need to take a leap of faith. Just go with max effort.”

Hm. You would know something about that.

“Well, yeah. I took one with you. Haven't regret a single second. And you did it with me. With the Glass Jaw stuff. Why can't you do it with yourself?”

…

…

Shit. We dunno.

Happy birthday, Jacky.

“Happy birthday, Annie. Love ya!”

We love you too. Now flip the damn prawns before you burn them.

(He's cute when he's a bit panicky.)