amuseoffyre:

I forgot how much S2xe9 absolutely reached into my chest and ripped my heart out.

James and Miranda talking about the past in the previous episodes was hard enough. Throughout the series, the underlying current of Thomas’s death and James’s mission had always been there. She was adrift and alone because he was so caught up on doing what he felt he needed to do in Thomas’s memory.

In those final episodes when they were together, you can see the affection they have for one another. You can see the deep-seated love and even if James did love Thomas, he loved Miranda too in a quieter, steadier way that he never even really appreciated until it was gone.

But it absolutely breaks my heart when you see their last conversation together, when he’s talking about what they will do once they’re done, when he can cast aside ‘Flint’ and just be himself again. She has already seen the clock. She already suspects what happened to Thomas, and she is almost about to say something when they are called to dinner.

I honestly believe she would have stayed silent. If it meant both of them walking out of there and Thomas’s wishes being fulfilled, she would have stayed silent. Just as she sent the letter to Boston, she would have done whatever it took to ensure they both had some kind of life. She saw the clock. She had put two and two together. Look how stiff and tense she is throughout the dinner. She knows, but for James’s sake and James’s life, she was willing to keep it from him.

But then James… James, James, James was told the price to fulfil Thomas’s wishes. He was told the price, and despite all the plans he had spoken of with Miranda, he was immediately ready to drop everything. All in Thomas’s name. He would have turned himself over to be hanged, leaving her alone, bereft, all in the name of their dead love.

Look at her face.

It’s not just the fact that James is doing this for Thomas. It’s the fact that he’s completely disregarding her. Even now, Thomas’s ghost and the sway it holds over James surpasses his feelings for her and that has to be absolutely devastating. She has lived with hardship and squalor and solitude and misery all for the sake of James and his need for vengeance. And now, when all she asks is that they can simply be together, he still chooses to sacrifice his life in Thomas’s name.

It hurts so much, because what happens next, what it leads to, is a revelation for James. It’s only once he loses the person who stood by him and loved him for all his time that he realises how much they lived through together and how much he needed her. She was like air to him, and he never noticed the lack until she was gone, because she had always been there, his quiet and steady anchor.

Did I mention that Thomas/James/Miranda was my OT3? Because it totally is and it will forever be the ruin of me.