Chương 26: I Could Be Normal, If I Wanted To

People with flashy, dangerous superpowers get a very different sort of attention than ugly disabled girls. I feel like that's a pretty obvious statement to make, but I'm still not used to the difference. I'm much more familiar with the creeping, cloying sort of attention that comes from people who only stare when they think you can't see them, the guilt making their body tense because they know they shouldn't be letting their gaze linger for so long.

But of course, then you have the overcorrectors, the people so awkwardly conspicuous with their attempts to avoid staring that they end up causing exactly the same problem. Either way, I don't really get treated like a person. This new kind of attention is very similar in that regard. I can see it in the stunned faces of everyone watching me, the hint of fear in their eyes as I get closer to where they stand. I'm not a person to them in this moment, not Lia Morgan and certainly not Julietta Monroe.

I'm a marvel, a terror, a threat reminding them that they are small fish in what is ultimately a very small pond. It lacks the pity, disgust, and even the shame of the attention I'm used to, the social part of their minds not currently functional enough to remind them that they should look away. I suppose I'll say that this new kind of staring is better than the old kind, but only just. Still, I've long since stopped expecting others to be better about this.

I refused to let it get to me then, and I refuse to let it get to me now. My options have always been anger or apathy, and anger has traditionally not been the healthy choice for me to make.

"Holy shit, Lia, what was that!?" Christine gapes at me.

"What the fuck was that!?" It does hurt a little when the people I care about treat me that way, though. For all my complaints, I suppose I do care a lot about Christine.

"What was what, exactly?" I ask, my tentacles writhing before splitting back into hair.

"The fight, or the talk with Commander?"

"Yes!" she responds.

"You never did anything like that back in you-know-where!"

"I only had access to a few different bodies, and I wasn't terribly good at modifying them yet," I shrug.

"I'm glad I got to use more of my skills this time around, but I wish Anastasia hadn't pushed herself so hard. As for Commander…" I scratch my cheek, slightly embarrassed.

"... I guess I got a little angry. It won't happen again." She stares at me some more, her expression blank.

"I'm really lucky that you found me, aren't I?" she asks.

"Not just that I was found. But that you found me." I shrug, not really knowing what to say to that.

"Would you and Maria check up on Ana in the infirmary for me?" I ask.

"I still have to go to therapy."

"U-uh, yeah!" Maria chimes in.

"We'd be happy to!"

"Thanks," I nod, and then start walking off the field back to the main complex. I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to talk about in therapy. I usually have to bullshit something or another, but I still feel a little off balance. I don't have a good plan in mind for what to say when I finally find myself sitting down in his office.

"Hello, Ms. Morgan," Dr. Morrison greets me.

"How are you doing today?" I rest my elbows on my knees and my chin on my hands.

"I don't like it when people hurt children," I tell him. He blinks.

"An understandable sentiment," he says, rallying quickly.

"I think just about everybody could agree with that."

"No, I don't think they can," I say.

"I don't think most people agree on what hurting a child even is, let alone if and when you should do it. Because let's be honest here: we as a society have decided that we should do it. Frequently."

"People often make decisions when backed against a wall that they regret after returning to safety," Dr. Morrison says.

"Sometimes there is no right answer. Sometimes, there is a right answer, and we simply fail to find it. In both of these situations, all we can do is allow ourselves forgiveness and learn from our mistakes."

"No," I counter simply.

"No?"

"I don't think I have to forgive anybody," I tell him.

"If the choice is between anger and apathy, then on this I choose anger."

"Forgiveness is not apathy," Dr. Morrison insists.

"Then I've never forgiven anyone in my life." The conversation collapses after that, sputtering and stalling until the topic is ultimately changed to something else entirely. I leave his office, as I always have, feeling like I have completely wasted my time. My first stop is, of course, the infirmary, where I quickly find Christine and Maria chatting with a lively looking Anastasia, the IV drip stuck in her arm being the only sign of her former condition.

"You're here!" she beams when she spots me.

"Of course I am!" I grin back.

"How's my little second-place finisher?" She groans, loud and long.

"Embaaarrassed! I can't believe I lost in such a lame way! I knew I should have kept all the blood between my other matches too, I just thought it would be cheating!"

"There's no sportsmanship in war, I'm afraid," I say, mussing up her hair some more. Her braid has long since been ruined.

"I guess your dreams of a full day of tiger training will have to wait."

"Nooooooooo! Can we just do a little? Just a little?"

"I don't know…"

"Pleeeeease?" she begs, pulling out an expert-level puppy dog face. Now that's a well-practiced manipulation tactic! I guess I should reward her for all the hard work she's put into it.

"Well… okay," I acquiesce, holding my hand out over her bed and repeating the trick where I start forming the new body at the end of the limb rather than modifying the corresponding parts into new versions. Shapeshifting is noticeably faster if I adjust my legs into tiger legs, my hands into tiger paws, my mouth into a tiger mouth, and so on, but I can still form an entirely new body more or less ex nihilo without using up any more materials than any other method.

Unshifting mass seems to put it back into my reserves rather than waste it, which is delightfully convenient. My clothes drop to the floor as the body that was once inside them simply slurps itself up into my tail, which twitches left and right as all four of my paws drop onto Anastasia's bed. She squeals with delight, immediately leaning forward to grab me and scoop me up into her arms. I let out a startled yowl, flailing around a bit but ultimately letting her manhandle me into a firm cuddle.

Christine, meanwhile, kneels down and kindly picks my clothes up off the floor. I guess she's used to this now.

"Is everything alright in here?" a nurse asks, peeking her head in at the noise.

"Tiger!" Anastasia answers succinctly, presenting me like Simba at Pride Rock. I dutifully meow.

"I… see," the nurse says with a strained poker face.

"Please keep still, dear. With wounds like yours—""They're healed already!" Anastasia insists, and I can feel that she isn't lying.

"Can I go eat dinner?"

"... I'll get the doctor," the nurse answers, bravely deciding to make this someone else's problem. Anastasia once again retracts me into a tight cuddle against her chest, her claws dispensing careful scritches behind my ears and down my back. I squirm around a bit until I am maximally comfortable, and then settle in to purr. It's more than a little embarrassing, but after everything I did today I don't have much of an incentive to let embarrassment decide things for me. This feels awesome. Anastasia is happy.

What more do I need? The doctor eventually returns and discharges Anastasia with orders to not strain herself for the rest of the day. We head to the cafeteria, Anastasia holding me in her arms the entire way. I used to be a little afraid of shapeshifting into something this small. After all, I can't fit an adult brain—human or alien—into a kitten's body.

But now I'm not even trying to; this tiger cub has the brain of a tiger cub, something that should be entirely subsapient, yet here I am, thinking all of my usual Julietta thoughts. The kitten's brain is definitely affecting me in much the same way all my other brains affect me—small, quick movements along the ground or in the air catch my attention in an instant, my whole body tightening with excitement—but it clearly isn't performing the core processing behind my conscious mind.

So that leads me to a rather obvious question: what is? I don't know. I'll figure it out sometime I'm not melting from expertly delivered head scratches. And no matter how it works, it's a huge relief to know that it does work. No matter how much I change, I'm still me. We eat together (and I selflessly allow Anastasia to feed me with a little spoon) before we all head back to my and Christine's room.

Christine and Maria have both been largely silent this whole time, which is normal for Christine but definitely a little odd for Maria. I suppose it's entirely understandable, given the circumstances, but I'd still like to know if there's anything I can do to help and I doubt anything meaningful will be accomplished while I'm a tiger. Once Anastasia sits down on my bed, I hop out of her arms, shapeshift into the PG version of Lia's body, and hold up one hand.

Without a word, Christine tosses my clothes at me in one big wad, which I catch and start to dress myself in.

"Awww!" Anastasia whines. Purely to make her feel better and absolutely not for any other reason, I shapeshift my ears into big tiger ears and lean over to let her keep scratching me.

"Are you doing okay, Maria?" I ask." Marias, maybe?" She tenses up, glancing my way. Her eyes flash orange, then green, then pink, then back to blue, all in under a second.

"I'm fine. But yes, it's… much louder in here," she says, motioning to her own head.

"It's a lot to take in at once."

"If it's too loud, you could always externalize some of it," I say.

"Or some of them, as the case may be."

"That would be just as loud, the only difference would be everyone else hearing it too," she disagrees, a self-deprecating fake smile worming its way onto her face. It reminds me of Emily, honestly. Which… I guess is something I still need to talk with her about.

"Would you like to take a short walk?" I ask, retracting my ears back into humanoid versions as I stand up, much to Anastasia's dismay.

"I might be able to clear up at least a little bit of the mess in there, I think."

"Oh! I'll come too!" Anastasia declares.

"Nope, you're with me, kiddo," Christine heroically interjects, picking up on my intentions.

"Allow me to regale you with the story of Char Aznable, a man who has never betrayed anyone in his entire life." I direct Christine a thank-you nod, then smile at Maria as we step out into the hall.

"So," I say.

"The flirting." Maria gives me a startled look.

"…I thought you needed more time to think about that," she says.

"Yeah, and I've had time? It's been over an hour." Maria doesn't seem to have any idea what to say about that, so I decide to just continue.

"We don't have to do this right now if you don't want to, but it could be a good opportunity to get Pink out and test the body-swapping thing you've been doing."

"... Body-swapping?" she asks.

"Your eyes change color," I inform her.

"I assume it corresponds to people other than Blue taking temporary control."

"I… I guess that has happened, now that you mention it," she says hesitantly.

"I and a lot of the others don't necessarily think we're different people, per se, so much as different aspects of the same Maria. But Orange insists she's independent from us, and we keep having different opinions about the same things."

"I don't know if that means anything," I shrug.

"Everybody has nuanced opinions. You can like something and not like it without being more than one person. But if there's somebody in your head insisting they are a different person, I feel like it would be pretty weird not to listen to them. Especially since, y'know, you can literally manifest her as a separate entity who makes her own decisions."

"I guess you have a point," she sighs.

"I don't really want to be an entirely separate person from the others. It feels… wrong. Like I'm missing things that always used to be there."

"Well, I don't know how much I can help you with that," I admit.

"But I know that I worry a lot about what I am and how I work and what that might mean about me. And I really think all of those things would be nice to know, you know? Just so I don't have to worry about them anymore. But when I get those answers… I'm starting to figure out that it doesn't actually change who I am. You're a joy to be around, and whether there's one of you or two of you or twenty of you, I don't see that changing." She stares at me for a little while and then sighs, her eyes flicking pink.

"So?" she asks.

"What are we, then?"

"We're friends," I tell her.

"And for the foreseeable future, I'd like to remain that way. Sorry." Her whole body tenses, a grimace on her face as she swallows down the emotions warring for dominance inside of her.

"... Because you already have a girlfriend?" she asks.

"Emily is extremely important to me," I tell her honestly, "but I don't think I want her as a girlfriend either. I am… not uninterested in romance, but with everything going on with my body, my head, the world, and the child I'm effectively raising, I don't really know how to handle it. I'm…" I don't feel like I'm in control of myself. I don't think I've experienced attraction for long enough to be confident that I can respond maturely to it.

I like Maria a lot for who she is, but I'm used to that being all there is to it. If I'm honest with myself, I'm afraid of my own sexuality. Of suddenly being forced to feel this enormous new aspect of interpersonal relationships and being expected to act like I have any experience with it, any ability at all to know what the fuck I'm supposed to do. My whole life, I've been thankful for getting to skip out on puberty.

For being able to laugh as everyone else around me acts like idiots whenever their genitals take over for their brain. Now I'm in their shoes, and it doesn't seem quite as funny anymore. Most people have their entire childhood to sort this stuff out. I never got a childhood at all. I have no idea what I'm doing, and Maria deserves better than that.

"... I guess I've got a lot of stuff to say that I don't want to say in the hallway of a military base," I continue lamely.

"But I want you to know it's not a lack of interest, or a lack of anything on your part whatsoever. There's a big part of me that wants to give you a very different answer. But I don't think that decision is right for me at this time." She stares at me for a few moments, and then she suddenly catches me off-guard by bursting into laughter. A blush blooms on my cheeks, and I'm too flustered to even think about stopping it.

"W-was that funny?" I ask.

"I didn't intend it to be funny!" Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"It was just a very, very you answer," Pink chuckles, a broad grin on her face. There's also a bit of moisture in her eyes, though I'm not sure whether or not it's just from the laughter.

"Um? Thank you?"

"It's a compliment," she confirms.

"It's just… what do I say to that, you know? You usually talk like a normal person, but it feels like whenever things get serious a switch flips and you start busting out a doctoral thesis. Like, in just one hour you've cataloged your entire emotional spectrum and calculated the best way to let me down easy in two paragraphs. There's no way I could have an argument prepared to match that."

"Um, well, the objective is for you to not have any reason to argue," I explain.

"You were asking me about my feelings. If my answer provokes an argument, it means I have miscommunicated severely enough to offend you, or possibly even changed the topic entirely. Of course I would avoid doing that. Is that… bad?"

"No, it's not bad at all," she says.

"It's just very you. Weird, but effective."

"Well, as long as it's effective, I guess I don't much care if it's weird," I admit.

"We know, Lia," she answers with a smile.

"Everybody knows." I blink. For some reason, I feel slightly offended.

"... I could be normal, if I wanted to," I insist.

"I know how to do that. I'm good at it, even. It just isn't the optimal strategy anymore."

"Sure, Lia," she patronizes me, causing my blush to grow deeper.

"Well, thanks for taking this off my plate. You make a really good point, honestly. We have to figure ourselves out in here before it would be a good idea to get deep into a relationship. But when you figure yourself out a little more, and when I… when we figure ourselves out a little more, would you be open to reconsidering?"

"Well, when the circumstances are different, you should always… I mean, yes. Yes, I would be open to reconsidering."

"Very normal answer," she grins.

"And… thank you. Thank you for treating us like what's happening is… just not a big deal? I'm so afraid that people will think I'm insane, you know? Because I'm afraid I'm insane. I'm scared, because people aren't supposed to be like this. But you act like it isn't even a problem, and that makes me feel… I don't know, like it might not be." I stare at her, taking in her nervous fidgets.

This whole conversation was a point of vulnerability for her, so traditionally the proper response for forging stronger bonds is to reciprocate. That potentially puts me at risk, but… well, I'm going to tell her when I have an opportunity. I want her to know. So a little bit of vulnerability right now isn't likely to be the end of the world.

"I have a lot more experience than you might think when it comes to being something people aren't 'supposed' to be," I tell her.

"But for every rule about what someone can't be because it would be evil or hurtful, there are countless more formed solely from callous disgust. I'm far from immune to it. I've looked in the mirror and thought that the person staring back was too weak, too gross, too useless to be worthy of existence. That's why I can recognize the look on other people's faces so easily. If I let myself become one of those people to someone else, I'm not sure what I'd do."

She stares at me, her smile turning a little sad as she starts trying to work through how to respond.

"I mean, I'd like to point out that you're drop-dead gorgeous, but I know how that…" She slowly cuts herself off, noticing the very, very slight shake of my head.

"... Lia?" Again, my only response is a very slight shake of the head. She mouths 'oh,' but thankfully stops herself before vocalizing anything. The clear shock on her face probably helped keep her quiet.

"I'd love to talk more later, but I should probably get back to my room for now," I tell her.

"Do you think they'll put us in the same boot camp?" It takes her another moment to respond, her mental gears struggling to shift without a clutch.

"... Why wouldn't they?" she asks.

"To reduce the chance of runners," I explain.

"A bunch of people with superpowers who all know each other are much more likely to try their odds with villainy because having allies makes you harder to scare and being harder to scare makes you harder to keep in line. I imagine they'll be splitting us up as much as possible, but I'm not sure if there will be enough new basic training courses starting up at exactly the same time at different bases to split us up completely. It'll be good to know how much they trust us, though."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, let's say there are two supers per camp. If the one you're paired with is a belligerent piece of shit, you're probably there because the brass trusts you to keep her in line. But if the other super is a stuck-up brown-noser, you know that she's there to keep you in line."

"Huh," Maria says.

"Kind of cynical, but it makes sense."

"An ideal I always aspire to keep my thoughts to," I smile at her.

"I'm pretty sure some people still think I'm an Angel in disguise, so I try to keep my finger on the pulse of this stuff."

"... You aren't an Angel in disguise, right?" she asks, and I can tell it is only mostly a joke.

"If I was, would you care as long as I don't kill anybody?" That seems to throw her for a loop.

"I… don't have any idea how to respond to that," she admits.

"I guess… no? Though that would come with a lot of other questions and caveats. You're not though, right? This is all just hypothetical?"

"I am not, and this is all just hypothetical," I confirm.

"As far as I know, I was born a full-blooded human being from my mother's womb."

"Why do you keep putting qualifiers on all this?"

"Because I can grow hydraulic-powered tentacles out of my face."

"... Okay, fair," she admits.

"Well, I guess I should get going too. See you tomorrow, though?"

"See you then," I confirm. And I do. I see her the next day, and the next day, and the day after. Our training continues, but before I know it, it ends. It's an occasion surprisingly devoid of fanfare, not that I can blame the military for wanting to keep ceremonies few and far between while we are pressed for time, resources, and bodies.

But the process of outflowing us is a complex one, as it involves not just our first real break since Chicago exploded, but also our first opportunity to leave the direct watchful eye of the military and see our families again. For me, of course, this opportunity is a mixed bag. Our break will only be three days long. For its duration, we will be required to stay in Columbus, Georgia, a city just twenty minutes north of the base. If our families want to meet with us at that time, they will have to come to us…

but Lia's parents, of course, have absolutely no trouble making a plane flight happen on very short notice. My call with them is brief and cold. Lia's mother wants facts, times, and information, with only a cursory how-are-you to I'm-fine exchange to adhere to the minimum societal expectation of mother-daughter relationships. If she notices that I am an imposter impersonating her flesh and blood, she certainly never mentions it. The call with Emily, meanwhile, is somehow much more lively and much more annoying.

"Hello?"

"Hello Emily, it's—""Emily! Hey! Guess which fucker lived!" Peter yells as I try to address her, shoving himself into my personal space despite the fact that I've put the phone on speaker.

"Peter!?" Emily shouts.

"You fucking cunt, you left us to die!"

"You know, it's funny. Lia said exactly the same thing."

"How the hell did you live!? Like literally, how the actual hell?"

"Come on, Emily! Don't be like that. I'm your last surviving family member," he says, grinning directly at me.

"He got superpowers," I explain.

"They're almost as annoying as he is. Anyway, we'll be free to take a brief break tomorrow and I can't actually stop him from coming with us."

"You just can't come between familial bonds, Lia," he says smugly.

"... Anyway, are you living in Columbus right now?" I ask.

"Yep," she confirms.

"I wanted to stay close."

"Well, that's perfect," I say.

"I'll bring Christine, Ana, and unfortunately Peter. Where do you want to meet up?"

"Well, if we're going to have the talk, I'd prefer to get food first. I've learned to never give anyone bad news on an empty stomach," Emily says.

"Damn, you're getting dumped, Lia," Peter says.

"Not until my parents pay her way out of the military, I'm not," I answer flatly.

"But they won't be flying in until the last day, so I'm afraid I'll have to take you out somewhere a lot less fancy than usual."

"What, you don't have a fancy superhero salary yet?"

"I don't even think I'm legally part of the military yet," I say.

"Except maybe as a material asset."

"Well," Emily says, and I can hear her smirk over the phone, "you certainly have some hefty material assets." Peter busts out laughing, thankfully saving me from having to try to think of a response. Somehow I doubt he's laughing at the double entendre so much as the fact that I just got brazenly hit on by my sister. I suppose it fits our cover story.

"... I'll meet you at your new apartment, then?" I ask.

"Yep. See you tomorrow." When tomorrow comes, our escort into the city is surprisingly light. I'm a little stumped regarding why. They either have tremendous confidence that none of us will run, tremendous confidence that they can catch us if we do, or some… external factor making this the more optimal play. Do they have a power that tracks us? How could they do that if we leave the power's domain? I can't think of another explanation for their weird confidence, though.

If I wanted to sneak away I could turn into a sparrow, fly a few states over, and steal any face I want. Allowing me to leave their direct supervision just seems weird. Still, I suppose it doesn't really matter either way. I'm not planning to desert, so their countermeasures against desertion are not terribly important.

What matters is that after loading us up into black-windowed trucks and taking us on a relatively short drive, Peter, Christine, Anastasia, and I are all unleashed upon the unsuspecting population of Columbus, Georgia. It's… remarkably strange, and surprisingly stressful being in an urban environment again. We're dropped off at six thirty in the morning, so while the town is still largely waking up it's far from empty.

Every movement in the distance triggers my fight-or-flight response, forcing me to switch over to Raptor brain just to assure myself that there are no other aliens nearby. Anastasia nearly cuts herself a few times on instinct, so for the rest of the walk to Emily's apartment I make a point of holding her hand.

"Yer lookin' a little twitchy there," Peter says, but his smile collapses halfway to forming when I grow a constellation of eyes to glare at him with.

"You do not get to joke about this," I threaten him.

"Not now, not ever." He pouts a little and shrugs it off, but keeps his mouth shut until we reach the address. Emily's apartment building is remarkably unimpressive, but I can tell we have the right address the moment I see it leads to a ground-floor studio with a small patio on the opposite side from its entrance, both doors leading to clean escape routes.

It's just like the sort of place she would look for when we were finding houses to hole up in; she just doesn't need an entire house when she's living by herself. The door opens almost immediately after I knock, Emily staring at us in that half-vacant way of hers for a solid five seconds before she lets out a stress-filled sigh.

"... Hey," she greets us.

"It's good to see you're alright."

"Likewise, Em," I nod to her.

"Let's go get some breakfast."

"Emily, Emily!" Anastasia says, jumping up and down with her hands in the air.

"Hey, Ana," she smiles, managing to hoist the kid up into her arms for a hug.

"How have you been holding up during training?"

"It's been fun!" Anastasia declares.

"I'm gonna tear the aliens apart next time I see them, I'm way stronger now! And and and they took big sister to the zoo and now she can turn into all kinds of things like baby tigers and big elephants and birds probably and she really likes octopuses."

"That's true, I do," I nod approvingly.

"Big sister, huh?" Emily smiles.

"Do I get to be a big sister?"

"Hey, yeah, what about me?" Peter butts in.

"Do I get to be big sister?"

"Be quiet, meanie," Anastasia snaps at him.

"I'm talking to my family."

"Ha!" Christine laughs.

"You tell him, Ana."

"... Okay, I appear to have been owned, but do keep in mind that Emily is literally my only surviving family member," Peter says.

"Y'know, unless Lia is actually just Julietta in disguise or something." I glare at him sidelong, and he pretends to ignore me. Bastard. I guess it's not the biggest deal in the world, but I'm planning on explaining it after interrogating Emily about her powers because I feel like my secret is just going to look a lot less important by comparison and I am absolutely not above using Emily as a fall guy for my reputation considering that she's the person insisting that I risk it.

"... Who's Julietta?" Christine asks, and I fail to suppress a full-body twitch as my power twists and tightens my flesh before snapping everything back into place.

"The absolute last fucking name that Peter should have the audacity to let leave his lips," Emily growls, and I genuinely can't tell if she's hamming it up as part of the act or she's actually pissed at him treading over it.

"Seriously, Peter, I know you're legally my only living relative, but you're dead to me after the shit you pulled. I don't know why you bothered to come here."

"Sentimentality, I guess?" he shrugs.

"That's what they call it when you care about someone's well-being but not enough to stick your neck out for them, isn't it? You're the expert, so I figure I should ask."

"You motherf—how dare you! I dragged Julietta's ass out from the wreckage, on my shoulder, and through the fucking incursion zone on foot until we got attacked by a goddamn Behemoth!"

"But did you really do it for her sake, Em?" Peter asks.

"'Cause that's what I'm curious about. That's why I'm here. I'm very interested in hearing the story of how you all made it out alive, because I know I haven't heard the truth yet and I get the impression none of the girls here have either. Say what you will, I know I'm an asshole. But I know my sisters, too, and you're way more like me than you ever were like Julietta." God damn. I stare at him, not entirely sure whether to be pissed off or vaguely impressed. … No, scratch that, I'm pissed off.

I won't lie and act like I haven't been getting bad vibes from Emily for a while now, but I don't see where this fucker gets off acting like it's his business. I open my mouth to tell him to take a long hike off a short bridge, but Anastasia speaks up first.

"Do you think you would die if I drowned you?" she asks. What. The fuck. What has he done to my sweet baby Ana?

"Not that I'd do that," she continues as the rest of us stare at her in shock.

"But I've been wondering about it. It's something that could be good to know. Tac-tick-ally. We should definitely test it sometime, mister Peter. Like maybe next time you say anything mean to my family ever." Peter's face never loses that unflappable confidence, but I can feel that his body grows tense.

"If they're your sisters, then I'm your brother, kiddo," Peter shrugs.

"You don't always get to pick your family, I'm afraid." Anastasia's expression doesn't waver.

"Yes I do." Peter returns her stare for a little while, but then he clicks his tongue and looks away first.

"... I'll stay quiet, then," he tells her.

"Pinky promise." He holds out the offered digit, and after scowling suspiciously at it, Anastasia wraps her pinky finger around his, the two of them shaking on it with an unbreakable playground bond.

"Well!" Emily declares.

"Thank you for that, Ana. I'll have to pick your brain on good ways to shut him up later."

"Being absolutely bloody terrifying probably helps," Christine says.

"Pun intended." Emily facepalms as Anastasia giggles, and I even manage to let out a few genuine chuckles. I had sort of expected this reunion with Emily to be tense, but not like that. I wonder what has Peter so worked up. He normally takes his potshots fairly opportunistically, performing for the amusement of himself or an audience. But it almost sounded like he was honestly invested there, and that raises a few questions. Do he and Emily have something going on that I don't know about?

Did he suspect her of having powers before I figured it out? I wouldn't put it past him. … But also, I'd rather just stop fucking thinking about him at this point and just have a nice meal with someone who, despite all her flaws, I still care about quite a bit.

Emily looks like she's had something of a rough time while we've been away; I was not expecting those of us returning from military murder training to have better mental health after all this time, but hopefully she'll let me help out with whatever problems are keeping her up at night lately. We head back out towards the main street, doing our best to consciously avoid falling into the formation we would use in Chicago. Despite that clinging to the back of our minds, it's a relaxing walk.

Anastasia is clearly overjoyed to see Emily again, and Christine's fairly obvious crush on her is cute in its own way. I'm not really sure what to say to her after all this time—not outside the context of the many, many questions I'm saving for after breakfast—but I'm not the sort of person who needs to fill the air with words in order to enjoy someone's company. About half of my attention is spent on making sure I keep a human enough form to not scare nearby pedestrians, while the other half is spent watching my…

family. Hah. I guess they are my family. I've been treating them that way ever since Anastasia decided that's what she wanted, and somewhere along the line it became true. I've had plenty of different families, so what's one more? Of course, I'm used to 'family' meaning a pair of ineffectual adults and a gaggle of apathetic children, all of which needed to be managed by me but none of which were willing to put up with me acting like I was in charge.

A family was something I carved out a place in with my bare hands, learning to manage the insecurities and neuroses of unreliable people whom I had no choice but to rely on. It has, in retrospect, probably earned me a few insecurities and neuroses of my own. In that light, a family that actually chose me sounds unexpectedly nice. I just… I don't know if we'll get another chance to be a family. We'll be going to war. There's no guarantee we'll even see each other after this. I… no.

I have to find a way to ensure they don't split us apart. I will find a way. If I can just prove myself to be valuable enough…

"There's one," Christine says, pointing down the road.

"And, uh, there's one. …And there's one."

"Wait, what restaurant has three different buildings in the same… oh my god, you are taking me to Waffle House," Emily says.

"We're in Georgia," Christine says.

"Of course she's taking you to Waffle House."

"I won a gift card," I inform her.

"How do they even keep that many different locations in business?" Emily asks.

"Most other food chains went bankrupt and they haven't even closed a single store."

"I don't understand what's confusing about that," Christine says.

"It's Waffle House." We make our way to the closest location and open the doors, finding it surprisingly empty. I don't even see any staff members, which is particularly weird, but maybe they're in the back of the store or in the bathroom because I do see a single customer eating their meal in one of the booths. The lights are on, the music's on, and everything seems open.

"Ah, you made it." The five of us turn towards the store's only other patron, an androgynous-looking person with brown hair in a styled pixie cut that looks fresh out of the barber. They're eating… not a waffle, surprisingly, but instead some kind of breakfast sandwich, which they set down on their plate as they turn towards us, legs stretching out of the booth and into the aisle. I glance at the others, but no one seems to have any idea who this person is.

Yet they look at us with a disturbing familiarity, a too-knowing smile on their face. I genuinely cannot tell if it actually contains any joy.

"Hello Peter, Emily, Christine, Ana," they say, their eyes roving over each and every one of the others before settling on me.

"Hey Jules."