29

FRI FEB 25

I took a step back as my mind cascaded through worst-case scenarios. Was Emma here? Was she missing? Was she dead? Had she decided she couldn't hurt me anymore, and killed herself, framing me for it as one final middle finger digging into the old wounds she'd inflicted over the past two years? My senses roved the blocks around, my mind picking out anything that looked vaguely like a female human and checking it against what I remembered of the trio. I couldn't find them.

"Taylor? Are you okay?" Dad asked, snapping me back to the present.

"I… what?" I muttered. He was worried, and so were Amy and Vicky. They'd come up beside me, hands comfortingly resting on my arm and shoulder.

Dad wasn't sure what was going on, but pressed on. "Have you heard from Emma, lately? I know that with the move to Arcadia you'd see her less often, but…"

I shook my head. "No, I…" I didn't want to think about Emma. I'd wanted to just put all of Winslow behind me. I hadn't lied to dad, but… I hadn't wanted to talk about it. I guess that wasn't an option, anymore. "Emma… hasn't been my friend since before Winslow, dad."

The sisters tensed, their worry giving way to fury as Amy recognized the name, and Vicky figured out who I must be talking about. Alan was confused, but unsurprised. Maybe Emma hadn't said anything? At the very least, she probably lied. I don't see her actually admitting to perpetrating an extended campaign of harassment and abuse going over well. "But, that…" Dad stopped, closing his eyes as shock and horror rippled through his system. He tensed, clamping down on the rage that followed. "She wouldn't…?" Dad asked, but seemed to already know the answer. Alan turned back, confused.

I nodded anyway, curling in on myself a bit, which prompted the sisters to cuddle closer to support me.

Dad's hands trembled in his lap from the white-knuckle grip he was using to bleed off some of his anger. "I think you should leave, Alan." He stated, far more calmly than he felt.

"What, why?" He asked, in the breathy plea of the increasingly desperate.

"I need to have a talk with my daughter, which will probably require a bit more privacy." Dad's tone was cold, but polite. The same sort he used with clients who'd screwed the DWA in the past, but kept coming back with jobs that didn't pay nothing. It was becoming distressingly common, even in his calls while working from home.

"But…" Alan's eyes darted over us, and I was pretty sure he recognized the sisters by now. "We were going to rally the boys, gather up a search party and find-"

Dad's fist slammed down on the table, neatly interrupting him. The coffee in the mugs sloshed a bit, and one of the nearly empty beer bottles toppled over. Dad liked sturdy furniture, and he'd jokingly referred to it as 'the Hebert aesthetic' to mom more than once. Moments like this were why. Better to take your anger out on something you know can take it, rather than take a swing at someone that might break.

"If what I suspect is true," Dad said, fist trembling with rage and pain, now. "then I'm going to find myself hard-pressed not to call in every favor I have, and a fair few I don't, to make sure you and everyone you work for can't find union boys for your troubles until the 20's are back in." The glare he leveled at his friend was sad, but stern. "Please, leave."

Alan's fear and anxiety ratcheted up, closely followed by a building indignant fury. "You can't do that!" He snapped, pushing himself to his feet, his voice slightly shrill, full as it was of his tumultuous emotions.

I didn't think Dad actually had that kind of pull in the city, favors or not. He didn't seem to be lying, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was too angry to realize it wasn't true, just throwing out whatever threat sounded the worst. Dad chuckled, but there wasn't much mirth in it. "You're right." He waved his hands in a 'what can you do?' shrug. "I really shouldn't."

The continuing threat to the words seemed to take Alan aback. He was desperate, searching for anything to stand on, as far on the back foot as he was. He looked to us again, and I glanced away, unwilling to meet his eyes. Amy was giving him a disapproving glower while she leaned into me protectively. Vicky had stepped away a little, and I wasn't sure if it was just her aura leaking out again, or if it was the known brute cracking her knuckles ominously, but that seemed to be the last straw. He slipped around the chair, rushed past us, and was out the door so fast it slammed behind him.

There was a beat as I watched Alan flee to his car, while the sisters stood confused but resolute in their support, and Dad took a moment to breathe, before that simmering fury turned on me. "Honey, please tell me why I just kicked one of my best friends out of our house, when all he wanted was help finding his missing daughter?"

I'd wanted to just... move on with my life. Ignoring Emma, and everything she'd done. Let her have her petty kingdom without me, not letting it touch what I had now. I liked my life now. I was having a bad day, which made it harder to believe, but intellectually I knew I was happier these days. Having friends again, working to be a hero and make the city better... I had purpose again. I didn't want to rip the scab off again, but watching Alan breaking down in the driver seat of his car, I couldn't help but think that sometimes life was going to shit all over you, whether you were ready for it or not. It wouldn't be fun, but... looking back, it was probably inevitable.

I'd closed my eyes and hissed out a sigh, to give myself the time to mentally ramble for a bit. When they opened, I met Dad's stern look with a sad one. "I, uh... probably easier to just show you." I shook my head and peeled away from Amy. "Just a sec."

I made my way up the stairs, and heard "Hey, mister Hebert! I'm Victoria..." behind me. I snorted, and smirked. Vicky really couldn't handle tense silence well at all. It only took me half a minute to dig out what I was looking for.

I came back down with my abuse journals, all three of them. The first had been about two-thirds full when Emma or Madison dumped juice on me from another bathroom stall while I was updating it… which meant I'd needed to copy everything over to the second, from memory and prompting from the smudged and leaked ink. The pencil parts were legible enough, though. The third notebook was only about a third of the way full, by the time the Locker happened. I had a sheaf of papers stapled and clipped together as thick as any of them, full of printed out emails and the odd piece of homework photocopied post-vandalization.

When I came into the kitchen, the sisters were at the table, having gone through the introduction dance and settled into a much less tense silence while they waited. I held the journals to my chest like a shield, as I cleared my throat. "I, uh..." the attention of the room turned to me, and I closed my eyes and took a deeper breath. It didn't help me imagine they weren't there anymore, with my senses... but the action still calmed me down a little. "About half a year after the bullying started, I started writing down what happened. What I could remember of what'd already happened, and anything new that they threw at me." I sat the stuff down on the table and backed away, trying to supplement emotional distance with the physical version.

Vicky, ever curious with a dearth of hesitation, was the first to reach out to the pile. She grabbed the first notebook. "What? I don't..." She muttered, flipping through pages of bled ink that were only legible to me because I wrote them. She quickly came to one of the points where the trio had stolen my writing tools, and I'd had to borrow pencils to do my work. Pen always seemed more final than pencil, harder to erase if they found it. I hadn't realized how easy ink was to destroy if you didn't care about hiding that something had been there, at the time.

Dad grabbed the second, while Amy was glancing between the third and the sheaf of emails. "I had to start over after that one." With the other two still deathly silent, I answered Vicky just to have something to do besides standing around fidgeting. "It was too sticky to get the pages apart, so I washed it... made it worse." I still felt stupid about that, but I was panicking at the time.

I could tell they were all angry, and getting worse. Vicky read through the first page she found, then flipped through until she found ink again. She turned back to the last full pages of penciled notes and stopped, staring at the page. Her hands began to tremble as her fingers clenched around the edge of the pages, and her aura started ramping up. "Vicky, aura." I muttered, but she didn't hear me. She was gritting her teeth, trembling in fury, and I could see the binding of the notebook starting to come apart in her hands. "Vicky!"

She glanced my way. "Taylor, I..." She looked back and saw the damage she'd been doing, shaking her hands loose and dropping the journal like it was on fire. "Shit, sorry." She started hugging herself, gripping at her arms and curling in on herself a little. Tensing and pulling at herself- the only thing in the room she knew she couldn't break.

Amy was still muttering darkly while going over the entries and emails, but Dad set his down. He scooted it away from himself, and I got the feeling he wanted to throw it across the room. "Why didn't you tell me?" The strain in his voice belied the calm tone. He didn't like yelling at me, but it was getting to be a near thing.

Vicky seemed to be swiftly crashing into a sadness spiral that reminded me of depression, while Amy looked up at Dad's tone, furious and sad, but now also curious. I sighed. "I didn't want to bother you. It was my problem, I thought I was handling it." I forced the words out in a half-dazed monotone. Locking up and shutting down would just make everything worse. I had to push on.

He groaned, rubbing at his face and trying to force his temper down. "Taylor, we've been over this. You're my daughter. Your problems are my problems."

I winced, and shook my head. "I didn't want it to come between you and Alan."

He snorted, which continued into a half-mad laugh. "Fuck Alan!" He shouted, causing all of us to jump. Vicky was floating a bit, having pushed her chair back nearly to the point of falling over, and staring at him. "I don't care about him! They hurt you, Taylor! They..." He slapped his fingers down on the notebook a couple times. "This is not okay!"

I flinched back, then watched him start to crumble in on himself. Then his words sank in, and I saw red. "You think I don't know that?" I quietly snarled. "You think I liked what they were doing to me?" My voice picked up, and I stalked closer, prodding my finger down at the journals. "I hated every second of it! I might have come to you with my problems, if you weren't a half-dead lump who could barely drag himself to work every day!" I was shouting by the end, watching Dad glare back, his emotions flickering between rage and shame. I heaved in a couple deep breaths and continued. "Mom died, and you broke. Drinking for months, avoiding everything, avoiding me. It took an intervention just to get you to start buying food again! You think I could trust you after that!?" Dad shut his eyes, grimacing hard enough to show his clenched teeth. "Even after that, you were just going through the motions, barely enough to get by. When Emma turned on me, you know what I thought?" I slammed my hands down on the table. "I can't tell Dad! He'll either break down again, or explode and make everything worse! Tell me I was wrong, dad! Lie to my face and tell me I was wrong!" This time when I slammed my hands down, my fists splintered the wood, and loud sickening cracks rang through the room. I jumped back, startled, and stared down in horror at what I'd done. Two small craters sat in the solid wooden surface, spikes of wood pulling up at the edges. One of the thick legs had split, the others digging into the wood of the floor instead.

It took me a second to realize the keening whine I heard was coming from me.

"Oh god." I whispered, raising my hands to my mouth and backing away. "Oh god, I'm sorry." I kept backing up until I hit the counter, then I slid to the floor. "I'm so sorry." I broke our table. "I'm sorry." The table we ate nearly every meal at. "I'm sorry!" The table we ate with mom at.

"It's fine." Dad said, staring down at the damage. "It's just a table."

"But, but it's our..." I tried to blubber out.

"It's just a table, Taylor!" He snapped, causing me to flinch. He shook his head, staring down at me with wet eyes. "We can fix this." I didn't think he was talking about the table. I sniffled up the snot threatening to escape, and watched him shake his head and wipe his face. "We can fix it, it's fine."

The hand on my shoulder startled me back into focus. I'd forgotten all about the sisters, during my rant. Amy was knelt beside me, full of compassion and worry. Vicky floated behind her, fists clasped protectively over her chest as she watched me with a soft frown and sad eyes. "I'm sorry." I muttered again, to the girls this time. I wiped the tears from my eyes and cheeks, leaning forward and trying to clamber to my feet. I stumbled a bit, my legs not wanting to carry my weight. Amy caught me, and held me for a moment, before she helped me to my feet.

Dad pulled himself slowly from his chair, took his time piling the journals up, then looked over to us. By then, Amy was glaring at him for upsetting me, and Vicky looked like she was torn between doing the same, and floating over to start fussing over me. "Taylor," Dad started, slowly and sadly, tapping the journals again. "is there anything else I should know about?"

This set the Dallons against him again, Vicky joining in the glare, and Amy looking about ready to snap at him. I patted her shoulder to get her attention, and shook my head. "Vicky knows. About my powers."

He glanced over at her, and nodded. "That everything?" I answered with a nod, and he responded in kind. He felt conflicted for a moment, as he looked over the three of us. "Take care of her, please?"

The sisters hesitated for a moment, before both agreed. Dad wandered over to the phone and dug into the pile of notes and phone numbers next to it. Amy started leading us to the stairs, before I stopped, and she halted with me. "Hey, Dad?" He hummed in response, looking up from dialing the phone. "You'd tell me, right? If there was anything important you were hiding, too?"

He cringed a little. "Yes, Taylor." He didn't seem to be lying, just... tired. Burnt out, a lot like I felt. He felt conflicted for a bit, before he continued. "Unless it was someone else's secret... even then, maybe. If it was important enough."

I glanced away and hummed, feeling like a heel. I couldn't tell if that one was a lie, but it didn't really matter. I nodded, and let Amy tug me towards the stairs as Vicky floated after us.

As we ascended, I heard Dad talking on the phone. "Yeah, Detective. It's Danny Hebert. ...turns out I've got something I can add to the case, after all."

I groaned to myself, my body feeling like lead as I trudged after Amy.

I flopped down on my bed as soon as we were in my room. Amy took my desk chair, and Vicky closed the door after us. Face-down in my pillow as I was, I couldn't actually 'see' Vicky. Amy seemed to be having a silent conversation with her though, from the way she was mouthing things and gesturing. I still hadn't mastered reading lips, and couldn't bring myself to care to try right now. Even with my senses not taking up my attention anymore, I still needed to push my brain a little to recognize new things. As it stood though, even watching Amy sit and gesture, seeing Dad pace a bit on the phone until he started looking through the journals again, probably relaying some of what was in them, even tracking the rolling blur that was Alan's car across town… I was mostly focused on not focusing on anything, to give myself a few minutes to recharge.

A little over a minute into my floppening- by my reckoning- it was interrupted by Vicky softly setting down beside me on my bed. She was sitting by my stomach, one leg curled under her so she could point toward my head. One hand gently sat itself on my shoulder, while the other began to softly pet my hair. "Taylor? Are you okay?"

"Hmmmurglflurph." Was my elegant reply, directed straight into my pillow.

Vicky glanced at Amy, who shrugged. "Are you okay?" She reiterated a little more firmly, when she turned back to me.

I sighed, turning my head toward them so that I could actually speak. I wanted to say 'yes' or 'I'm fine' or… any of the other usual deflective lies. I didn't want to lie, though. "I don't know." I muttered, instead. "I'll be fine. I'm sorry… about all that."

"Is he… always like that?" Vicky asked, her hands pressing a bit more forcefully as she split her attention between talking and continuing her comforting ministrations.

"What?" I had to admit, this sort of comforting platonic touch felt… nice. It took me a moment to realize what she meant. "Wait, no. Dad's fine, he hasn't yelled at me like that in… years." I was honestly having trouble remembering it. "This was... I don't even know what this was. Two years of problems all exploding at once, maybe."

I wasn't looking right at her, but I could feel her grimace through my contact with her hands. "That sucks, I'm sorry." She chewed her lip for a bit, glancing around. Amy was still sitting at the desk, feeling worried, lost, a little... jealous? Envious? I still had trouble telling those apart, sometimes. Amy was prickly, and she knew it. It made sense she'd let Vicky take the reigns trying to comfort me. I could grok wanting to be better at something outside your comfort zone. "So, you wanted to talk cape stuff?"

I knew Vicky was trying to distract me, but honestly I welcomed it. "Yeah. I'm... not really low-profile anymore. I'm not sure how to handle it."

She bit back a scoff, but didn't hide her grin. "That's an understatement." She turned to her sister. "Bring up her thread?" Amy rolled her eyes, but started digging out her phone. "You're... not really an outgoing sort." She said to me. "I can see why being famous would be scary, for you. You can't shy away from it, though. Either you own it, get someone else to handle it, or the media will start saying whatever they want about you."

My face turned back into my pillow and I let out a thunderous groan. "Gram said the same thing..."

Pretty sure what Vicky just confusedly mouthed to Amy was 'Grandmother?' which... yeah. Probably not normal for your grandma to know about your caping. Amy rolled her eyes and gave an exaggerated nod. "Well," Vicky continued, "she sounds like she knows her stuff." She let out a surprised squawk when Amy beaned her with her phone, but she caught it and flipped through the page that was up a little. "Okay, here." She showed me the start of the 'Terraform' thread on PHO, just the first half of the original post, and the page selections. I barely budged her as I tried to reflexively jump up, letting out a couple strangled surprised noises.

"Four hundred pages?" I squeaked.

Vicky chuckled, as she let me sit up properly. "That's what happens when you get out-of-towners flocking in." She shook her head wistfully and nodded to herself. "The first step to being famous right, is being seen. If you're too shy, you'll just invite speculation. The second is having a voice, so people know they can't say whatever they want without a fight. After that is..." She thought for a moment. "...I dunno what carries over next. Was going to say PR stunts and autographs, but... baby steps."

Despite myself, I chuckled. "Not everyone's you, Vicky."

She smirked and shrugged. "Anyway, I've got New Wave to handle a lot of my PR. Without a team, you're gonna need to do a lot of it, or get help. You want me to handle it, for a while?"

I blinked, and then met Amy's eyes over her sister's lap. She hesitated for a moment, before she nodded. "I... have a team, Vicky."

"Wait, really? Who?"

"Just..." I shook my head. "Myself, another independent..." It didn't sound like much of a team yet, but...

"And me." Amy stated. I hadn't wanted to throw her name in without her approval, but if she was willing to admit it?

"Yeah." I muttered, as Vicky glanced between us.

"Amy, you...?" Vicky whispered, her mind whirling as she settled on staring at her sister. "What?"

She shook her head. "I don't... think I want to stay with New Wave. I like Taylor." Her heart picked up a bit, but this was a pretty stressful topic. "I want to help her. Be on her team."

"But what about-"

"Carol." Amy stated, cutting her sister off.

Vicky winced, but nodded. "I'm... I'm sorry, Ames."

Amy shook her head. "It's not you, Vicky. I just... don't want to stay. I'll still be a hero, I'll still be around. Just... not with New Wave."

Vicky's mood had tanked with the revelation, and just seemed to get worse as she nodded. I reached up to rub at her shoulder, trying to return some of the comfort she'd been lavishing on me. She glanced my way and smiled sadly, then turned away to stare at the floor in thought. Eventually, her emotions firmed into determination, and she nodded. "I'm in, too."

"What?" Amy and I asked simultaneously, then she continued. "But, what about New Wave? I'm adopted, if they aren't expecting me to leave by now, they're stupid... but they're your actual, biological family."

Vicky shook her head. "Who said anything about leaving? If Narwhal can be the leader of the Guild and the head of a Protectorate team, I don't see why I can't be on two different hero teams." She smiled at her. "Amy, you're my sister. Blood or not, I still love you. I'm going to do whatever I can to help you be happy."

Amy started tearing up. "Vicky..."

She shrugged. "Besides, you're going to need help smoothing things over. Mom and Aunt Sarah will be happier with me keeping you safe." From the way Amy's mood dipped, I felt like I was missing something, but she nodded.

Right, well. New teammate. I should be happier about this, I think, but decided to blame my mood swings the past few days. "Okay, if you're going to be on my team, the first thing you need to do is learn to control your aura." I stated firmly.

"...and your temper." Amy sniped, causing her sister to flinch. I could tell there was a story there, but they were heroes in good standing, so it couldn't be that bad, right? I decided to leave it be for now.

"...Alright, what do you want me to do?" Vicky cautiously asked.

"I've been teaching Amy to meditate, and I think it's been helping her mood." Amy gave a small shrug and a nod at my words. "I'm hoping it'd help you control your aura more, and I know it's good for anger issues, if that's a thing."

Vicky nodded, but Amy cut in. "Before that, though, there's something I want to take care of." She got up and came over to retrieve her phone, lighting up the screen again to show the PHO page. "Vicky has a point about PR. We really need to get you your own account, and it's a good idea from an optics standpoint to get your actual name for your account, if you can. Terraform's been offline for months, we can put in a request to claim the name for your account."

"Ooh! Ooh!" Vicky hopped excitedly. "We can take a picture! Prove she's her, and that we're asking for her. Plus we can use it to prove we know her, and try to wrangle PR for her, for a bit."

Amy rolled her eyes. "Or we could just make an account for her, so she can do it."

Her sister deflated a little. "Oh, right."

I gave a hesitant chuckle. "No, it's fine. If you're that excited about it, I don't mind. I think... I probably should be the one asking about the name change, though."

Amy nodded. "Okay, temporary name while the claim goes through... Terraform BB sound okay?"

I nodded, and she started the process of making the new account for me from her phone. "Ooh!" Vicky chimed in again happily. "For the picture, I was thinking we could take a flying selfie. You could do a powers thing, and I'd be flying. You can do water or something, right?" I stared blankly at her for a moment, before I clapped my hands together and slowly drew them apart, forming a burbling ball of fire roughly the size of her head between my palms. Her grin was... actually a little unsettling. "That's so cool! That's perfect!"

With a scoff, I let the fire snuff itself out. Vicky was just so... cheerful. "Whatever's fine." I got up and headed to my closet to start suiting up.

Vicky stayed on my bed, vibrating excitedly, while Amy finished setting stuff up on her phone. "Alright, account is made. 'Terraform underscore B, underscore B', assholes took the other two versions I tried, already. Password is '9270381', remember to change it sometime over the weekend, Taylor."

Her sister fiddled with her own phone a bit. "Aaand logged in. We can just attach the picture from my phone when we're done." Vicky chirped happily.

Amy groaned. "Should send an admin a message or something, letting them know what's going on so Taylor doesn't get in trouble for sock-puppeting..." She tapped away for a bit, before humming. "Ehh, Tin Mom's on. She's usually pretty cool."

I shook my head, a little amazed by the back-and-forth the sisters had going. I'd just finished putting on my masks and overcoat, dropping my pants to shimmy into my costume ones. Amy must have caught the motion in the corner of her eye, because I felt her glance my way and stare a bit as I leaned over to put them on. I mean... she was a lesbian, and I was a girl. If she liked looking at girl butts, I was a girl and had a butt... I pushed down the little thrill that she might actually find me attractive. She wouldn't even see my panties, with the low cut of the coat. I just happened to be the only girl partially undressing in the same room as a lesbian, that was all it was. When I had the pants up and fastening, Amy glanced back at her sister, who was giving her a bright Cheshire grin. She scoffed and looked away, probably blushing a little.

"Okay!" I said, turning around. By then Amy was back to normal, tapping away at that message she was sending. "So, uh. Back door, Vicky?" She nodded and hopped to her feet, following me down the stairs and into the back yard. We dodged Dad, who was sitting in the living room watching the news, with the journals on the coffee table. Probably waiting for someone to drop by for them, I thought. I steadfastly declared it no longer my problem, and turned back to my friend. "So, do we just...?"

She grinned and pounced, pulling me into her arms and leaping straight into the air. A few minutes later, we were well into the air, centered more over the Boardwalk. Now that the wind wasn't whipping in my ears, I could actually hear her. "Alright, let me just..." She muttered, leaning back in the air and settling me into her lap and on her stomach. She started digging into her pockets and purse, pulling out and handing me her phone, along with an honest-to-god selfie stick. She quickly assembled them, setting her phone to take pictures on a timer, and prodding the thing, pointing it back down at us with Brockton Bay in the background below. "Okay, do your fire thing." She said, counting down seconds until the picture happened. I did as requested, and she asked, "You know Amy likes you, right?"

The fire stuttered in my hands as the picture sound snapped. She chuckled and pulled the stick in, checking the picture. The flare was... interesting. I didn't think it was a very good shot, though. She seemed to agree, because she started setting up for another. "I mean... she's my best friend?" I tried, but she shook her head.

"Nah, I mean she has a crush on you." I sucked in a breath, nearly losing control of the fire in my hands. Breath is the soul of fire, breath gives the fire life. I pushed all else from my mind, focusing on my breathing, and not the nuclear blush behind my mask. The picture sound snapped again, and Vicky pulled the phone back down.

"I..." I could tell she wasn't lying, or at least thought that she was right. It was hard not to, since she was the only thing I could feel, up here in the air. "...believe that you believe that. And anyway, she..." could do so much better than me. I shook my head. "...it doesn't matter anyway, because I'm straight."

"Really?" She asked, a touch incredulously.

I groaned. "Yes, really." Why was it so hard to believe? It was honestly getting to be a bit frustrating. Maybe I should try to act more girly, if this was what everyone thought of me.

"Well, okay." She chirped, not seeming to give my sexual identity much thought beyond taking me at my word. "One more, just in case." She prodded the camera button and forced another chipper smile. I held up another fireball, and the phone snapped another picture. "That one was pretty good." Vicky said, as we looked at it.

I grunted an agreement. "Hey," I said, and she hummed. "I... people keep thinking I'm gay because I'm not girly enough. I was wondering... if you could maybe help me with that?"

She paused in her disassembly of her selfie kit. "You want me to...?" Her confusion quickly gave way to amusement, as she snorted. "Yeah, I think I can help with that, Tay." She chuckled to herself, and I started wondering if I'd made a mistake. It wasn't like I'd asked her to go shoppi- ah, shit. I just asked her to take me shopping, didn't I? I groaned, and she giggled harder. I was actually starting to worry about unbalancing on top of her, even though I knew she could catch me. We were still a startling ways up, now that I actually looked down and considered it.

"Can we... go down, now?" I whined.

She snorted. "Asking a girl to go down is hardly helping your case, there."

It took me a second, but I blushed, and shouted. "Vicky!"

She just started laughing, finally getting everything put away, and starting to fall out from under me. I shrieked, and she took hold of me again. "Don't worry, flying down feels like falling!"

It took me a moment to calm down and realize she was mostly right. I could tell we were accelerating slightly, going down a little faster than gravity was pulling us. She was still in control, we were fine. Flying was starting to feel a little less amazing now, though. Without being absolutely sure it was safe, it seemed like a pretty terrible power, honestly. It took us longer to get home safely than it did flying into the air, but we managed it. We dodged Dad again, since he hadn't moved. We'd only been gone fifteen minutes or so, and he was still waiting downstairs.

When we got back to my room, Amy was still typing up messages on her phone. She seemed pretty agitated, actually. "Are you still writing up that email?" I asked, before moving to start taking my costume off.

"PM, and no." Amy answered. "By the way, what were the names of those ringleader girls?"

I paused. "Uhm. Emma, Sophia, Madison? Why?"

"Full names, spell them, please." She replied curtly.

I stopped disrobing entirely, turning back to her with my ceramic mask off, and my coat unzipped to show my shirt underneath. "Why?" I asked more firmly.

She looked up at me, her emotions flaring indignantly. "I'm adding them to my List."

"Oooh," Vicky hissed. "Are you sure, Ames?"

Amy nodded, and I was sure I was missing something. "What list?"

"The list of people the hospital won't even bother trying to get me to heal, because I'd just refuse, anyway." She replied darkly, with a satisfied smirk. "Every non-villain healer has one, though not everyone uses theirs. They're managed by the PRT, who work with the hospitals we heal at, and since I'm a minor, mine's curated by Carol." She took the time to finish her text, and turned back, in full lecture mode. "Right, you're a healer too, so you should know this stuff. There was a healer around when we were born, off in... Seattle, I think. Her name was Perseid, and she was a hydrokinetic whose power worked best on blood. She could stop bleeding, pull blood out of the brain in an aneurysm, things like that. She had an argument, where she refused to heal someone. Got so bad she just walked out, and there were three other deaths they thought she could have prevented that day, if she'd stayed. They tried to sue her over it, and she won the cases. Leviathan killed her a few years later, but the public outcry at the time was bad enough that the PRT set up the No-Heal lists to try and keep it from happening again."

"Question!" Vicky popped in, when Amy paused. We turned to her, and she motioned at me. "You're a healer?"

"Uhh, yeah." I muttered. "I can use water to heal people."

Her jaw worked for a moment, before she groaned. "Did you just get all the powers, or something?"

I shook my head, grimacing a little. "Not really, the healing's a little weird, actually. Most of my powers make sense, but the healing is more... push energy in through the water, and manipulate them until the wounds are gone."

Vicky chuckled. "Your powers are nuts..." I smiled wryly, but didn't disagree.

Amy cleared her throat. "Anyway, Carol's agreed to add the girls who... hospitalized," I'm pretty sure she'd wanted to say 'triggered' there, but I don't think she wanted Vicky to know her parents had known my status before she did. "my best friend. I'm trying to get her to add their immediate families, just to make a point, but she's being stubborn. So, names?"

I gave them, while I finished changing. I spelled them when asked, and by the time I'd finished swapping back to house clothes, Vicky was done messing with the picture, too.

"Alright, I've got it uploaded, and the link saved. Now we just need to PM the admin about it." Vicky said, showing me her phone. There were a couple messages to someone called 'Tin_Mother', one I assumed was from Amy, saying that Panacea and Glory Girl were helping set up the account, so it might show up from the same device IDs for a bit. There was a reply acknowledging it, and then the message Vicky had written up. It looked fine, just a request to get the account name changed, with a link to the picture to prove I was who I said.

"Seems fine?" I said, and she nodded and sent it.

"So," Amy said after a moment's silence. "meditating?"

After everyone got comfortable, I went through the basics for Vicky's benefit. Early on in the explanation, a car I was pretty sure was a police cruiser pulled up, and a man came to the door to talk to Dad for a bit. He handed off the journals and signed some forms, keeping one of the sheets. I put it out of my mind after that, with Dad going back to working from home for now.

About an hour later, he came in to ask if we wanted dinner. No one felt much like cooking, so we wound up ordering pizza again. With food taken care of, we went back to practice, spending the next few hours sans food, bathroom, and texting breaks, working on getting Vicky up to speed on the basics.

It was well after dark when they left, with Amy promising to meet me early tomorrow, and keep Vicky from slacking too hard on meditation practice.