"... may include headaches, and problems with your memory, judgement, coordination, and balance. Additionally, you..."
I tuned out the doctor.
I'd been out for a day and a half. It could have been longer — weeks or months. Or I could have never woken up, or woken up crippled. That I was up and about already was due to Panacea, who was worthy of her name. She might not be able to fix brain issues, which was why I was getting a lecture on concussion symptoms right now, but she could fix just about anything else short of death... and it was a lot easier for doctors to treat patients in otherwise perfect health. Better than perfect, actually: I felt fantastic.
Physically.
Like I could run forever, or touch the ceiling with a jump, or contort myself into those half-remembered yoga poses. I didn't even need glasses anymore.
She'd really gone all out.
I suppose a villain killing the family of a hero struck a nerve with her: Fleur's murder had destroyed any chance of the New Wave movement going national and driven her uncle into retirement. Unmasked heroes were almost nonexistent today, if you didn't count the ones like Weld who couldn't disguise themselves. It might have started out of concern about the authorities, or a sense of style, or even as a homage to the old depictions of capes before there were real capes. But today, heroes wore masks out of fear, fear for themselves... and fear for their loved ones.
Dad.
The doctor had told me that it would be perfectly normal for me to feel nothing yet, or to feel too much to function, or to swing between the two states, or to feel too little. Since that advice covered every possibility, I wasn't sure that it was even meaningful, let alone helpful. What kind of qualifications did you need to be a PRT doctor anyway? Wouldn't he have spent his education studying medicine, and not psychology? The whole lecture was probably ripped straight from the pages of a self-help book.
He'd also said that I'd probably be avoiding the subject for a while, so maybe he did know a few things about grief.
Eventually he stopped talking and left me alone to rest.
I lasted maybe five minutes before I got up — the combination of being brimful of physical energy, and badly needing something, anything, else to think about made lying in bed intolerable. There were some PRT sweats left out for me, and I was glad to get out of the hospital gown. Five minutes wandering the hallway taught me two things: the PRT base was a maze, and there were regular checkpoints. There were scanners and keypads and probably things I didn't see, but whatever criteria they had, I was confined to a short run of hallway and my room. The view was nice, at least, although probably every room on the floating base with a window also had an ocean view.
Reaching out with my power showed bugs scattered here and there: enough to map out where someone had spilled food and not cleaned it up, not enough to show the whole base. Trying to 'listen' through my bugs only brought on a blinding headache, and a brief snatch of conversation.
"... copier's broken again, so..."
I guess even heroes had paperwork. I went back to my room to get water and some tylenol, which the doctor had thoughtfully left behind, and lay down to close my eyes and wait for the pain to go away.
The few bugs in my vicinity gave warning that someone was approaching — two someones. I opened my eyes: Gallant, in his gunmetal and silver powersuit, and Clockblocker in his skin-tight white suit decorated with clocks. I sat up on the bed. Clockblocker leaned against the door by the wall, while Gallant stood just inside the room.
Gallant started it off. "I am sorry we don't have a familiar face for you to wake up to — that's just how the patrol schedules shook out, and we're the ones off duty and here. We can't quite let you have the run of the base until you actually join the Wards, but we didn't want to have you treated anywhere less secure." He shrugged, apologetically. His voice was rich and soothing, and he sounded like he actually cared. Probably why he'd been assigned this duty.
"And you're here to get me to sign up?"
"It was suggested to me. I'm not sure that's the best course of action." He spread his hands. "Please don't misunderstand — I don't want to discourage you. You did well in what we've seen of you. But you've just been through hell. Take some time to find your balance, to grieve, to figure out who you are and who you will be. We'll be here when you're done."
Clockblocker snorted. "What he's trying to say is, join the Wards today, and you'll be confined to base and in therapy for a month. Take the same month and spend it on a beach somewhere sunny, and you'll get the same effects — but you'll enjoy it a lot more." He dropped his voice to a stage whisper. "And if Piggy ever asks, we tried really hard to get you sign up this very minute."
"Director Piggot is a woman with grave responsibilities, and deserves our courtesy and respect both." The words were stern, but laughter danced in his tone before he grew serious once more. "Hitting you with a hard sell the minute you wake up doesn't sit right with me."
Clockblocker seamlessly continued "And this goofus feels he has to live up to his name all the time." Gallant punched Clockblocker's arm.
I looked back and forth between them.
"Do I even have a choice? I mean, I'm not sure if I'm going into the foster system, or to a relative, or what?"
Gallant spoke "I do not know, and it is likely that no one yet knows. Your choice to join the Wards would give you some leverage there... but that cuts both ways."
I nodded. "Then, before I am confined to base, I'd like to visit my mother's grave. It's..." The words wouldn't come.
They glanced at each other, and Gallant nodded. He stepped to the side of the door and held it for me while Clockblocker started down the hall.
···---···
Annette Rose Hebert
1969-2007
She taught something precious to each of us.
I looked down at the stone, then looked at the empty plot next to the grave.
Then I looked away.
It was a beautiful day. Blue sky, almost cloudless, not really warm yet but enough sun to make you think it was.
Better weather than we usually got in April.
Two kids my age wearing black were picnicking in front of another gravestone fifty feet away, a bright checkered blanket spread on the ground, seated as if the gravestone were the third person at the lunch. Gallant and Clockblocker were standing maybe a hundred yards away under a tree, keeping an eye on me.
Was it wrong that I still didn't feel anything? That this still didn't feel real?
I looked at the stone, and sat down.
I'm not sure how long I sat there. The world felt frozen in time, like the sun had reached its height and just... stopped. That it would never go down, that I'd be sitting there on that patch of green, green grass when the world ended, and even after, floating through the Void on a tiny chunk of rock after Behemoth shattered the Earth, or however the inevitable end went down. Like the Little Prince on his asteroid.
Mom had read me to sleep with that book.
I cried.
···---···
Some time later, a shadow fell across me and I started and looked up. The girl who'd been picknicking. Dirty blonde hair in a tight ponytail, green eyes, black sweater, and dark jeans. Carrying a lunchbox. She reached out a hand to help me up, and I stood, wiping away tears. "Sorry for your loss."
I blinked.
"I'm Lisa. And you're Taylor, of course." She held out the lunchbox to me. I took it, wondering what the hell was going on. It was surprisingly heavy.
"You saved our asses, a couple of nights back, jumping into that fight with Lung, and it cost you. A lot." My brain was slowly rebooting, running through the possibilities.... "Tattletale?"
"Sshh!" She winked, grinning. "I'm in disguise." I looked around, saw the boy who'd been eating with her talking to Clockblocker under the tree, and whirled back, reaching out to gather swarms.
"Relax. He's over there asking for an autograph."
"He what?"
"If you ever get to know his sense of humor, you'll understand why Clockblocker is his all-time favorite hero." Her grin had never wavered — a narrow, vulpine expression just this side of a smirk. "Besides, they may play for the other team, but they're not enemies."
I sat back down, bewildered.
She sat down with me. "Most of us capes, most of the time, are playing the biggest, funnest version of tag ever invented. And then when the Endbringers show up, we stop playing and get serious. Don't get me wrong, there are psychos on both sides like Shadow Stalker..." I held back a flinch. "... and Lung, but sooner or later they end up in the Birdcage. Or dead."
"So, look. Take this as a partial thanks from someone whose life you saved. Take it as proof you made a difference with what you did. And if nothing else, take it from someone else who's been there: cash is freedom for you right now." I opened the lunchbox to find banded stacks of twenties and hundreds, labeled with amounts. Ten thousand dollars?
She stood, dusting herself off. "Look, if we cross paths and you're after us — the Undersiders play hard. But if not, if you ever want to talk, just let me know."
I sat there, thinking, while she collected the young man with curly black hair and left the cemetery. I could have shouted, signaled Gallant and Clockblocker, but... I didn't want a fight here.
What did I want to do? I looked at the stone, and at the empty plot beside it again.
I could go to the Wards. Training and support, companionship, and a worthy cause... but the Protectorate wasn't quite as shining as I'd hoped. Sophia had a place there, and that was probably one of the reasons the school administration kept ignoring what she'd done to me. Gallant — and he did seem to be truly gallant — had been given orders to push me into signing up as a Ward as soon as I woke up. He hadn't liked it. I didn't either, and I liked less what it said about how they operated. Still, most of the heroes I'd met so far had seemed... decent, and that said something about their organization too.
Tattletale had all but invited me to join the Undersiders. She'd been friendly when we'd first met, and while she thought I had saved them from Lung, he would have definitely killed me if they hadn't shown up when they did. And the Undersiders, or at least Tattletale (Lisa couldn't possibly be her real name), had seemed... decent. But while the Undersiders might treat it all as a game, Lung and Bakuda weren't playing around. And besides... I'd wanted to be a hero, not a villain.
But did I have any other choices?
I tapped my fingers on the lunchbox. Freedom, Tattletale had called it. If I were free to do anything, absolutely anything, I wanted... what would I do right now?
Put like that, the answer was simple.