Chương 194: Book 3 Chapter 31.2: A Once and Future Thing

"Okay, journey of rediscovery step one," Harley said.

"Consult beloved friends and allies. Specifically the ones who know how to do magic." Kim, Skye, and Goldie sat in Harley's dorm, across the living room from Lee.

"We really need a backup magic expert, shit," Harley said.

"I think maybe I should disqualify myself, also," Kim said.

"In retrospect, I sort of do the same thing Lee's already doing." Kim had never been to concerned about the dichotomous balance of willpower and discipline. Since she had a metal body, she could use pyrokinesis without fear of burning herself. All the strength of willpower, none of the control from discipline.

"Well, maybe that's good," Harley said.

"I don't think we can make Lee immune to explosions the way I'm immune to fire," Kim said.

"Noted. You are dismissed, unless you wish to offer emotional support."

"I would, but we still do have to have someone on hand for the thing," Kim said. Skye and Goldie shared a look. This was not the first time 'the thing' had been referenced, but never explained. Kim excused herself to deal with 'the thing", but gave Lee a quick hug before she did so.

"Either of you two want to be excused?"

"I'm worried my understanding of magic might be a little academic, but I'm here to help," Goldie said.

"I'll do whatever I can too," Skye agreed.

"Okay them, first step: Professor Yafeng said this sort of thing was pretty common, but it usually happens to young people," Harley said, as Lee nodded in agreement.

"How'd you handle the angsty teenage phase?"

"I started studying magic as an adult, actually," Skye said.

"Well, at nineteen, technically, but I was mostly done being hormonal by then."

"What about that college party you told me-""I said mostly," Skye snapped at Vell. He shut up while Skye went red in the face.

"Well, I will be burning with curiosity about that all day," Harley said.

"Goldie, what about you, you ever get any angst?"

"Some."

"How'd you deal with it?"

"Methods that may not be repeatable," Goldie mumbled.

"Speaking of parties…" Harley had been holding up a notebook to try and make this whole process look more official, but she discarded any pretenses in a second.

"Did you figure out your magic by getting banged at a party?"

"It wasn't sexual," Goldie insisted.

"Mostly. Just a very intense kiss in a closet at a party."

"And that helped you figure out your magic?"

"It helped me figure out a lot of things," Goldie said.

"Mostly being into girls, which then cascaded into a lot of revelations about my relationships with my parents, friends, and my plan for the future."

"Noteworthy, but you're right, maybe not repeatable," Lee said.

"I'm already quite confident in my lesbianism."

"Something life-affirming might be a good idea, though," Vell said.

"You know, something that makes you feel like you definitely know what you're doing."

"I agree, but the question becomes what to do," Lee said. Skye crossed her legs thoughtfully and looked out the window, at the ocean.

"You ever gone surfing, Lee?" Fifteen minutes of preparation and five seconds of actual surfing later, Lee washed up facedown on the beach.

"Maybe we should've worked on balance before we tried surfing," Skye said.

"My fault," Lee mumbled. She pulled herself out of the wet sand and brushed her face clean.

"I vastly overestimated how good my balance had gotten." The inhumanly poised posture her parents had insisted upon had left Lee mostly unable to walk like a normal human being, and though she'd been correcting her posture over the years, she still tripped over her own feet from time to time. Her long record of improvement, and her newfound freedom, had led her to overestimate just how good her balance had become. A quick splash in the ocean had disavowed her of any such confidence.

"I should've gone for something a bit less physical," Skye said.

"Nonsense, this was a good idea," Lee said.

"I do love the ocean, and this is something my parents never would've let me do. I'll have to try again, some other time."

"What's the rush? I can make another wave whenever we want."

"There's a slight element of time-sensitivity," Vell said.

"And repeated failures won't particularly help the situation."

"Another thing you're not going to be able to explain to me?"

"Yes."

"You're lucky I like you guys so much, or this would all be very suspicious," Skye said. She gave Vell a kiss on the cheek and then reclaimed her surfboard from Lee.

"Good luck with your mysterious time sensitive thingy." After doubling back to Harley's dorm to ditch Lee's wetsuit for a fresh change of clothes and dry her off, the group had moved on to the next idea on the list: Vell's. Lee sat in front of a stack of academic journals and perused her fifth one of the day. Harley perused her phone for the fifteen thousandth time.

"Feeling any more magical yet?"

"Not particularly, but some of these firsthand accounts are very illuminating," Lee said.

"I think I'm getting a handle on the broader philosophies at play."

"Cool, can you do magic yet?"

"Be patient, Harley," Vell said.

"I have been sitting here doing nothing while she silently reads books for two and a half hours," Harley whined.

"That is very patient by Harley standards."

"And that's impressive, but we have to understand the situation," Vell said.

"We can't just bash Lee's head against the problem until it gets fixed."

"Bashing works most of the time," Harley mumbled.

"But yeah, fine. Can we at least do a progress check? Lee, snap your fingers again, see if you explode."

"Harley."

"She's not wrong," Lee said.

"We have a ticking clock to deal with, it might be a good time for a progress check." She snapped her fingers, trying to repeat the simple light spell she'd tried earlier. Once again, the spell fizzled into a shower of multicolored sparks rather than coalescing into the usual violet light.

"Nothing," Lee said. She'd had the forethought to make the spell even weaker, at least, to avoid burning her fingers.

"Let me think a moment and try again."

"I think there was something about this in one of the books I was scanning, hold on," Vell said. He'd been perusing a few of the same academic tomes as Lee, looking for any relevant info.

"In the meantime, can't hurt to try again," Harley said.

"Maybe you can learn more about what's going wrong." Lee snapped her fingers once more, to the same fizzling results. While repeating the spell with one hand, she clenched the other into a fist. A few days ago she'd been able to do spells as simple as this without thinking. She snapped her fingers again, and failed again. Yesterday, magic had come to her as easily as blinking or breathing. Lee snapped her fingers again, and failed again.

Harley watched with idle curiosity as the sparks shooting out of Lee's hands got a little brighter.

"Hey, uh, Lee-" With one last snap, the sparks burst into a conflagration of red. Lee panicked at the burning and once again put her fingers into her mouth, just as before. It took a second for her to realize the situation might not be quite the same as before. She could taste blood. The medical biology student pulled Lee's hand out of the whirring device and removed some of the plastic shells they'd put on her fingertips.

The healed wounds were slightly pink, but otherwise the small chunks of her fingertips that had been blown off were completely restored.

"There you go. Fingerprints might be slightly different than before, but otherwise, good as new," the student said.

"I wouldn't do anything too rough with them, but you should be good to go for the day to day stuff. Writing, turning pages, picking your nose-""Thank you, sir." Harley poked the inactive machine and examined Lee's new fingertips.

"Why do you have a dedicated finger regeneration device anyway?"

"Have you seen this school?" the med student scoffed.

"This is the second time we've had to use this today." Having a device dedicated to all the scorched, slashed, and severed fingers the school had to offer was just pragmatic, given the daily routine of Einstein-Odinson students. A nearby student held up a small sign that read "It has been '00' Hours since we had to fix a finger".

"You measure it in hours, huh?"

"Once upon a time we made it all the way to thirty-six," the med student sighed. At this point, the trio decided it was time to get out of their hair, and left the med lab behind. Lee flexed her newly healed fingertips and found that she barely felt different at all.

"Feeling good, Lee?"

"The same as before, at least," Lee said. She wasn't quite sure she could describe it as "good".

"Sorry," Harley mumbled.

"It was my dumb idea to keep trying the same stupid thing."

"It's not your fault, Harley," Lee insisted.

"I let myself get distracted. Aggravated. It's my fault."

"I'd like to say we should take a break," Vell said.

"But we're down to about an hour before Merlin shows up."

"I think perhaps you should join Kim and the others in exploring alternatives," Lee said.

"I'll keep my distance." After a quick exchange of knowing glances, Vell and Harley huddled in close to either side of Lee.

"You know, magic or not, we still need you," Vell said.

"Yeah, you're in charge for a reason, and the fact that you can blast people with crazy magic ain't it," Harley said.

"You're still super smart and good at telling us what to do."

"And right now I'm telling you that I'm more of a liability than an asset," Lee said.

"You can handle this without me. I'll be better off not having a ticking clock on my mental health anyway." A quick and entirely nonverbal exchange happened between Vell and Harley, as they managed to have an entire debate in the form of concerned glances.

"Alright, sure," Harley said.

"I guess this will be a lot easier with the pressure off."

"Take the rest of the day and relax," Vell said.

"We got this."

"You know this means you're in charge again, right?"

"Fuck." The burden of leadership weighed heavily on Vell's shoulders as he shambled off with Harley in tow. Now that she was alone, Lee stood in silence and thought about what she wanted to do, and where she wanted to go. Her feet trudged along familiar pathways on instinct, and she only realized where exactly she was headed when she saw the caution tape across the door. She'd wandered back to her old dorm out of habit. Lee turned back and headed for Harley's dorm instead.

There was nothing left in that room that mattered now. Once she had found her way to the right place, Lee laid down on the couch that was now her bed, and tried to get comfortable. She had no complaints about staying in Harley's dorm, but change of any kind always required adjustment. She kept repeating that to herself as she laid in silence. It was change. A big change. One she'd get used to over time. She knew people who'd gone through much worse.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Lee's brow furrowed, and she sat up to dig through her purse and find her phone. She knew someone who'd gone through a much, much bigger change. And she needed someone to talk to anyway. Her hand briefly flitted over the call button, before twitching over to the video chat option instead, as Lee dialed up Joan Marsh. To Lee's surprise, she answered almost instantly, filling the phone's screen with a bright, excited smile.

"Lee! I've been wanting to talk to you all day," Joan said.

"I would've called, but I figured you'd be busy partying or burning your parents shit down, or something." Joan had been the recipient of a few informative texts –the first Lee had sent to anyone regarding her new life circumstances—but had yet to receive a proper rundown. Lee almost launched into the story, but got distracted by the eyes staring so intently at her.

"Your eyes are different."

"Hm? Oh, yeah," Joan said, as she brushed a finger near her own eyes for a second. The artificial eyes she wore, formerly a vibrant red, were now an equally bright shade of violet.

"They're pretty easy to change, and I just figured red wasn't really my color anymore, you know?"

"I suppose," Lee said.

"It looks good on you."

"Thanks. But come on, don't hold out on me," Joan said.

"What's the story? I heard you blew a hole in a wall, is that true?"

"Entirely. Launched my parents right out of it, too." Joan could not suppress a chuckle at the thought of Noel Burrows being hurled through the air, though she did suppress her curiosity at how badly he had gotten hurt. She was trying not to be sadistic, and doing a good job of it. Lee being happy was the focus, not Noel being hurt. With that focus in mind, Joan could not help but notice that Lee was not quite so enthusiastic as Joan had expected.

"Everything alright, Lee? Has being broke got you down?"

"I will admit the loss of money is unpleasant, but hardly heartbreaking," Lee said. The pervasive evils of capitalism aside, having a lot of money had been very nice.

"It's nothing. Minor inconveniences, really." Joan knew Lee well enough to know she was lying when she said "minor".

"What's going on, Lee? Anything I can help with?"

"Maybe." Lee recapped the circumstances of her chaotic magic, and Professor Yafeng's explanation of the willpower/discipline divide, once again. Joan nodded along with the drawn-out explanation.

"Sounds familiar," Joan said.

"Had to deal with some of the same problems when I stopped using... well, you know." Joan had once been a practitioner of black magic, using another living thing's soul as a shortcut to magical power, but had given it up as part of her attempt at reformation. She'd had to relearn the basics, and still wasn't anywhere close to where she had been, but she considered the effort worth it.

"How did you manage?"

"Well, I had a therapist, for starters," Joan said.

"She gave me some advice, and, I don't know, I guess I could tell you? We are pretty similar." Though in very different ways, Joan and Lee's lives had both been shaped by the evils of the Burrows dynasty. Their mutual hatred for Lee's parents had been one of the building blocks of their friendship.

"It can't hurt."

"Right, okay, one second," Joan said.

"Wrote this all down in a journal somewhere, give me a second." Joan set her phone down and started scrounging around her room. Lee took the time to examine Joan's far-flung bedroom.

"You really need to clean your room, dear."

"Lee, I am working on a lot of things about myself, organizational skills are slightly lower on the list," Joan said.

"I promise I'll clean it later. Just a sec." Joan scanned a bookshelf, and then scanned a dresser near the bookshelf, displacing a stack of academic textbooks as she did so. She triumphantly snatched a leather-bound journal out of the stack and started flipping through pages as she sat down in front of her phone again.

"Let's see, intrusive thoughts, impulse control, respectful relationship boundaries... man, I know I got a lot of issues, but scanning through this whole thing really drives it home."

"A diamond with rough edges is still a diamond, dear," Lee said. Joan held the journal in front of her face to hide an awkward grin and then continued flipping the pages.

"Alright, here we are, personal discipline," Joan said. She scanned the pages to figure out how best to explain what she'd written down. Joan used some personal shorthand with her notes that didn't exactly translate well to an outside observer.

"What we talked about is how the perception of boundaries can be negatively affected by hostile circumstances." Lee cocked her head to the side. She didn't quite know what to make of that.

"Everyone has barriers around themselves. The line between what they will or won't do, what they want or don't want. When you're dealing with hatred, hostility, or fear, those boundaries are shaped to protect yourself," Joan said.

"They exist to give you something to hide behind. The concept of a boundary becomes like an electric fence, something you're afraid to brush against. But personal boundaries and walls are necessary, even in happiness." Joan flipped the page and started decoding her own notes again.

"When we're doing better, those boundaries stop being a shell to hide in and start being guidelines," Joan said.

"Not a cage we're trapped in, but more like a mold to fill. A way to shape ourselves into the person we want to be." Joan snapped the book shut. There were a few more thoughts on the topic, but she didn't exactly want Lee to hear those ones.

"And that's all I wrote down on that topic, the next page is all relationship stuff," Joan said.

"Unless you want dating advice?"

"I probably need some, but let's table that for later," Lee said.

"So... what did you do with that advice, Joan? What's your 'mold' to fill?"

"Oh, I don't uh... it probably wouldn't apply for you."

"Please, Joan. When it comes to this rage surrounding everything to do with my parents, you understand me better than anyone. I want your perspective."

"Okay. Sure." The thoughts she'd left unspoken were still sitting in the diary, but Joan didn't need to reopen it to call them to mind. This particular aspiration was something that lived in her head every day -though thinking about it did make Joan blush almost as red as her eyes had once been.

"What I'm trying to do is... I'm trying to be the person you think I am," Joan said. She tried to lock violet eyes on Lee, but bashfully averted them.

"I'm trying to earn the trust you give me."

"Joan... you don't have to-""I know I don't. Or, at least I hope I don't," Joan said. She felt more doubt than she'd ever admit.

"But I have to try." Lee almost spoke up, but the words caught in her throat. She paused and thought for a moment.

"I hope that helps," Joan said.

"And if it doesn't, just say the word, and I'll try something else."

"I think," Lee said.

"That I need to go try something." Vell put the finishing touches on a rune and set in place while Hawke came running around the corner. For some reason he had a frog in his hand.

"Hawke, everything go alright? What's with the frog?"

"Oh, that's Samson," Hawke said.

"Merlin turned us into frogs."

"Us? You're not a frog," Harley noted.

"It's a temporary spell, I just got better faster" Hawke said.

"Once you transition genders, transitioning between anything else gets a little easier too."

"How's that work?"

"You're not trans, you wouldn't get it."

"Okay, uh, sure," Vell said.

"Samson, you good? One ribbit for yes, two ribbits for no."

"Ribbit."

"Cool. Kim still doing her thing?"

"Yep, leading Merlin this way right now," Hawke said.

"Everything good here?"

"Should be," Vell said.

"It's a bit jury-rigged, but it should work." Vell and Harley had worked together to harness the leftovers of the EMMP from the paintball game. The Electro-Magnetic Magical Pulse generator had been focused and contained to affect only a small area, which would hopefully fry Merlin's magical abilities once he came through it. It would require a little bit of luck and some precise timing, but they'd pulled off crazier plans.

"We got this," Harley said.

"You get out of here and run Samson under a sink or something, frogs need water on their skin."

"Ribbit ribbit."

"Oh shit, on it!" Hawke scampered off, and Vell and Harley took their positions around the magical trap. It was a narrow access way between two buildings, that was already low traffic even when two weirdos weren't building an elaborate magical booby trap in it. Most students who came this way immediately turned around and headed the other direction when they saw Harley's contraption. All except one.

"Harley? Vell?"

"Lee?" Both jumped out of their hiding places, and Lee made a beeline for them.

"Weren't you supposed to be resting?"

"Yeah, we got this all set up," Vell said.

"If you need to, you can-" Lee shut Vell up by grabbing him by the shoulder and yanking him into a tight hug, along with Harley. Both dropped whatever they had been doing or thinking to return the embrace. They could tell Lee needed this. She rested her head on their shoulders, and relaxed in the embrace of two people who were always willing to drop everything to give her the care and attention she needed. She squeezed them both a little tighter and focused on one idea." All I want," she thought to herself."

Is to be worthy of this love." The sounds of approaching chaos and violence did nothing to disrupt the hug, nor to stop Lee from following her desires to their only logical conclusion." I already am." The chaotic clash reached a crescendo as a speeding cannonball of flaming fists and metal legs careened around the corner at top speed, followed shortly thereafter by a multicolored shower of unrestrained magical energy. Lee released both her friends and stepped between them, hands at the ready.

"Out of the way," Kim shouted.

"Angry wizard coming though!" Kim stopped dead in her tracks as the magical storm of energy behind her was matched by an even larger storm ahead of her. She hit the ground and covered her head, but the oncoming surge arced over and around her anyway. Lee would never hurt a friend. She'd absolutely hurt an angry wizard, though, as Merlin soon found out.

The torrent of violet magical energy hit him like a truck, and thanks to an ostentatious and entirely unnecessary levitation spell he'd cast on himself, sent him careening through the air. Merlin slammed into a wall hard enough to crack it, marking the second time in as many days that Lee had caused structural damage. She didn't much care. Violet energy was crackling around Lee's fingertips, and she had an almost manic smile on her face.

"Cool! Magic's back," Harley said.

"Indeed," Lee said.

"On that note, I have to beat up an old man. Talk to you in a moment, dears." Merlin had already picked himself up off the ground and dusted off his tattered robe, setting the stage for a future thrashing. He brandished his reclaimed staff in Lee's direction and postured threateningly.

"I was wondering where thou hadst gone, wench," Merlin said.

"With mine staff reclaimed, even you are no match for me!"

"Please decide whether you're using 'you' or 'thou', that shakespearean nonsense is bad enough when it's consistent," Lee pleaded.

"Never! Energy blast!" An explosive surge of bright red energy blasted in Lee's direction. She swatted it away with the back of her hand, sending the bolt careening into the ocean.

"Shouting your spell names? Really?"

"Tis the way things are rightly done! Chain Lightning!" Merlin pointed his staff in Lee's direction, and blasted her with a ray of concentrated electrical power. Thanks to having advance warning on the attack, Lee held up a quick shield of magical energy and absorbed the lightning.

"It's just a really bad idea, dear," Lee said. She snapped her fingers, and an arcane spark appeared on her fingertips, to no obvious effect.

"See? Now you have no idea what I just did."

"Any spell you cast will be in vain, foul witch," Merlin cried.

"Reunited with my staff, my magic is all-powerful! Explosive Blast!" Lee looked down at her feet just in time to see the massive explosion blossom and erupt, consuming her entirely. Some of the nearby students who had gathered to watch the spectacle gasped with shock. Harley and Vell didn't even blink. A few seconds later, Lee stepped out of the smoking crater, completely untouched. She kicked some ash off her heels and then turned to glare at Merlin.

"You- very well then! Hellfire Storm!" Merlin raised his staff once more, and an arcane sigil appeared in the air above Lee's head. The symbol exploded into a white-hot portal that shot down a beam of blindingly brilliant fire. The beam of incineration washed over Lee for a solid twenty seconds, after which she stepped out of the ray, completely unharmed.

"Your shielding is impressive, you vile wench," Merlin snapped.

"Again, get more insults," Harley said.

"But no shielding can save you from... Obagot's All-Consuming Orb of Absolute Obliteration!" Merlin raised his staff once more, and an orb of red light surrounded Lee. The sphere gave off a searing light and scalding heat, and was buzzing at a high frequency. When the sphere finally vanished, everything within it had been entirely obliterated -except for Lee, who was attempting to clean something out from under her fingernails.

"What? How? You- What have you done," Merlin gasped.

"What devilry have you unleashed? What forbidden powers have you tapped into? What have you done?'

"I cast an illusion spell." The voice came from behind Merlin -as did the purse swinging towards the back of his head. It impacted with a dull thud and bowled Merlin forward, knocking the staff from his hands. The illusory Lee waved goodbye and vanished as the real Lee snapped back into visibility.

"And an invisibility spell," Lee said. She put her purse back on her shoulder and shrugged it slightly.

"I also hit you with my purse."

"I noticed," Merlin mumbled, through a mouthful of grass. He tried to recover and stand just in time to see Lee snatch the staff away from him.

"Blast and damn it all," Merlin said.

"You've won again, foul wench. But when next-""No, Merlin," Lee said.

"There is no 'next' for us. I've stopped seeing the humor in humoring people like you. I'm going to make sure you never bother me again." Lee brandished the staff, and Merlin gasped in horror.

"You intend to kill me?"

"No, you imbecile," Lee said.

"I'm going to take away your reason to bother me again." Lee took the staff in both hands and held it in a firm grip, then started to bend it in the middle. The aged wood started to creak as the center gave out.

"You fool!" Merlin said.

"My staff is an artifact of power beyond thine comprehension! The magical forces contained could destroy this entire island!" Lee raised an eyebrow, flexed her grip, and snapped the staff in two. As promised, an explosion of magical energy followed. It burst outwards with apocalyptic force for approximately half a second before Lee grabbed the expanding sphere of magic in both hands and closed her grip around it, compressing the massive explosion into a sphere of energy about the size of a baseball.

The magical energy raged against containment, but Lee held it firmly in her hands and kept the destructive force in check. Merlin glanced at the orb of destructive power, looked down at his broken staff, and then started to sweat.

"Now, with your staff destroyed, I imagine you should have very little reason to bother me or my friends, but just in case," Lee said. She held up the sphere of magical destruction and waved it in Merlin's direction.

"If I ever see you, or King Arthur, or hear that you have been harassing anyone I care about-" Lee grabbed Merlin by the robe, pulled him close, and pressed the destructive sphere to his nose, letting him feel the heat contained within.

"-I'm going to shove this up your ass. Am I clear?" Merlin never responded, but from the way he hiked up his robe and started running away at top speed, Lee assumed he got the picture. Satisfied, she bounced the orb from hand to hand and turned back to her friends, to see their smiling faces.

"Kickass job," Harley said.

"I liked the part where you said you'd shove it up his ass."

"I'll do it, too," Lee said. She deposited the magic sphere in her purse for safekeeping and potential future ass-shoving.

"He better not test me. On that note, where is Arthur?"

"Oh I kicked his butt already," Kim said.

"I can handle a dude with a sword, it's the wizard that's the problem."

"Well, that's why I'm here," Lee said.

"Anything else I missed?"

"Samson may or may not still be a frog," Vell said.

"I can sort that out," Lee said. Defrogification was a basic spell.

"And after that, Harley, Vell, if you have the evening free, I do have an idea."

"Well, come on, you've bragged enough," Joan said.

"Show me the goods."

"Alright, alright," Lee said. She turned her shoulder towards the camera and started to roll up her sleeve. The skin on her shoulder was still a bit sore, but the tattoo had mostly healed. Though still a little red around the edges, the image of three suns arranged in a triangle was clear and vibrant. The bottom left sun on Lee's shoulder was colored in a brilliant sapphire hue, while the other two were colorless.

"Harley has the right sun colored in, while Vell has the one on top," Lee explained.

"All randomly selected, of course. But we make a nice matching set."

"Interesting. Why three suns, though?"

"It's a long story," Lee said.

"You had to be there." That exclusivity was part of the reason Lee had thought of the three suns as a design. Their trio were likely the only humans who ever had or ever would see the three sapphire suns of the Butterfly Guy's lair. It was a moment the three of them were privileged to share, and one that had played no small part in shaping Lee's current path.

"Well, I'll take your word for it," Joan said.

"So what do you think? Too much for you, or are you going to get another one?"

"I don't think I'll ever catch up to you, dear," Lee said. Joan flexed and showed off some of the tattoos on her arms.

"But I may get another, if inspiration strikes."

"Well, feel free to borrow one of mine," Joan said.

"I wouldn't mind having a matching set with you too."

"I'll keep it in mind," Lee said.

"For now, I think I'm keeping Harley awake."

"No no, please continue, I'm doing just fine," Harley snapped from her bedroom.

"She's a little cranky because of the tattoo needle," Lee whispered.

"Good night, Joan."

"Night, Lee." Lee hung up the call, wrapped her blankets around herself, and curled up on the couch for a long, peaceful night of sleep.