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Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 5:51 pm
Every time Aquarius thought that things couldn't get any worse, they did. Once she realized that fact, she made herself stop voicing those thoughts aloud, but that did nothing to improve her situation. It couldn't even improve her mood.
It wasn't enough that she was trapped in a battle she could neither understand nor win. It wasn't enough that her friends and family were being pulled into its event horizon, one by one, as if taunting her. The war was demanding more and more from her, and it refused to be satisfied with the lives of her comrades, or her relationships with everyone she held dear. Her identity as Tara Kavanaugh did nothing to sate it. Nor did the sacrifice of what little meaning the remains of her life might have had.
There was only one thing she had left to give up. One thing she found herself clinging to with everything she had left in her.
Some days went better than others. Then, she could almost pretend that everything was okay. That being stranded millions of miles from the place she still thought of as home was a good thing. That her conversations with Exidor were normal. That she was, if not happy, at least content with the path that she had been shoehorned into. Some days, she was even willing to admit that she chose to be where she was, but even then, she was unable to deal with the implications of that choice.
Other days, the pain and loss she felt was overwhelming. It invaded her dreams, chasing away the sleep that might have helped to restore her mental equilibrium. It was there behind her eyelids every time she blinked, reminding her of everything she tried so hard to forget. No matter how hard she tried to block it out, all it took was a loud noise, or a warm part of the room, and she was back in the past again.
It was dark, even though the science lab had been well lit. She couldn't see the others, but she could hear them breathing, waiting for her to move. They had already gone through their goodbyes, passing along messages to those who would be left behind. There was nothing more to say, or to do, other than get on with it. No amount of delay would help, and if she waited too long, it would be catastrophic for all of them.
The gun was so heavy in her hand. The first time she'd been forced to take it, she had almost dropped it in surprise. It felt much weightier than its size and materials would indicate, especially since, if what they were told was true, there was only one bullet in the chamber. Any moment, one of them would be dead. If not her, another girl her age, another bright mind snuffed out before its time. Could she live with any of those possibilities?
There was one she could not live through, if it happened, and that thought made her shake uncontrollably. She shifted the gun to her other hand, wincing as she brushed the small lump on her wrist with her fingers. If she pulled the trigger, she would die. If she didn't, she would die- and so would all of the others. Usually, she was good at thinking outside the box and coming up with solutions others might not think of. But if a third option existed in this scenario, she was too blinded by fear to see it.
She lifted the gun, still trembling, and pressed it to her temple, as the voice had instructed her to. It was funny- the muzzle felt cold against her head, even as the grip threatened to burn through her palm and sear off her fingers. The other girls had been holding the gun tightly too, in the moments that might have been their last. What were they thinking as they pulled the trigger?
Her hand slipped, out of anxiety or a desperate, unconscious attempt to cheat death, but she would never know which one. Whatever the cause, the bullet went wide, missing her entirely. Someone began to scream. Someone else- or something else- roared angrily. Windows she couldn't see shook in their frames before shattering entirely, and desks rattled together. Ghostly images flickered before her, a movie replaying in patchy slow motion. The gruesome transformation as one girl became something other than human. Another girl flying into a wall, her eyes wide with fright or surprise. The last girl was literally torn to pieces, her blood spraying in an arc across the room before pooling on the floor around her, making her vibrant hair appear to be a dull shade of brown. Something pink and shiny slipped out of her chest, and it was hard to not wonder just which internal organs she was looking at.
Then there were hands- claws- wrapped around her. The screaming intensified as she did her best to pry the claws off, to escape by whatever means she could. It dug its claws into her skin, scratching her, refusing to let go, driving her towards the wall. A blinding pain speared through her head, and she dropped to the floor. With the last of her strength, she reached out once more, trying to grab something, anything.
Her hand closed around something. Something sharp, that bit into her fingers as she squeezed it, but that was so much the better, considering what she wanted to do with it. With everything she had left, she plunged it straight down, hoping to kill the monster, or at least drive it away. Not that it mattered anymore. She was already dead, and so was everyone else, but there was still the rest of the school. Everyone was counting on her. More than that, there was someone important she had to save. She couldn't remember their name, but clung to that sense of urgency as she drove her makeshift implement into the monster with all her might.
An unfamiliar pain jerked Aquarius out of her memories. It took them a few moments to fade, and she looked around, trying to assess her situation. The surroundings indicated she was not in the science lab of a school that never really existed, but the entry hall of an ancient building on the edge of the solar system. There was no gun, and no monster. The bodies were gone, but there were still smears of blood on the tiled floor, which made her start to shake all over again.
The source of the pain was a piece of glass, with jagged edges that were streaked with blood. It probably had a pointed tip, though it was impossible to tell, since it was buried in her calf. She stared at it for several moments before realizing what had happened.
Then she looked up. The room was a mess. Piles of books had toppled over, papers were scattered all over, and the remains of a specimen case lay next to her. Minus one large piece. She could recall the sound of breaking glass, mixed in with everything else that had been going on in her mind.
"There was no monster." Exidor spoke quietly as he watched from the stairs, his expression blank. "What you saw is not what happened."
"No," Aquarius whispered. What she saw was what happened, more or less. Elle and Allie and Esen had all died, in one way or another. And then, after having to watch all of that, she had died as well. Just because it hadn't happened exactly the same way didn't mean the end result wasn't the same.
Except it hadn't ended there. And with everything that she had been through, she had no reason to believe the cycle of suffering and sacrifice would ever end.
Shaking his head, Exidor came down the last couple of stairs. "You view the results through a preferential lens. Your conclusion is skewed because of that."
"You think I prefer this? That my dream is to end up here, seeing everything I care about ripped away from me?" Her hands balled into fists, but there was nothing to fight. Whether the monster had roots in reality or not, it was gone now. Aquarius touched the glass shard in her leg gingerly. Then, in one swift movement, she yanked it out, biting her lip to keep from crying out. It worked, if barely.
It didn't look like there was more glass in her wound, though there was no way to be sure. As it was, a full inch of the sliver she pulled out was slick with blood. She discarded it and let herself relax a bit, leaning against the bookcase. With the main injury taken care of, sort of, she was better able to focus. And to notice that it was not her only wound. Shallow cuts on the fingers and palm of the hand she'd held the glass in told her that it was quite sharp indeed. Beyond that, long scrapes ran across her shoulders and down her arms. Some were raised welts, while others left scratches that bled sluggishly. Traces of blood under her long nails and on her palms showed her where those cuts had come from, crisscrossing older ones she'd gotten in similar ways. A couple of bandaids had been ripped right off, and others were dangling at odd angles, barely clinging to tiny patches of skin. Her sleeves had been ripped off long before, and the ragged holes that were left were stained a dark, muddled red, just like everything else.
"I think you can't see your other options, so you think you have none." As usual, they were arguing, but Exidor always seemed to have a better grip on his temper than she did. His voice was even, his expression bland. "You're so scared you won't find other options that you've stopped looking for them."
"That's not true," Aquarius countered, but there was no conviction behind her words.
"If you must embrace the past, why not go back a little further? To the time when you dared to look beyond what everyone else could see? You've abandoned your gifts, along with everything else."
That was almost amusing, but after what she had just been through, she couldn't even force a laugh. "That's not my gift, Exidor. It's a curse, and so are you. Seeing what nobody else can see is my problem, and those so-called gifts are what got me killed in the first place!" And what forced her to relive every death, hers or not, real or imagined, a thousand times over and more.
While he usually kept a cool head, Exidor was not immune to impatience. He huffed in exasperation and folded his arms. "You're letting your bad experiences overwrite everything else, and by doing so, making yourself unable to experience anything else."
"That doesn't even make any sense!"
"Doesn't it?"
Of course it didn't. Bad things happened regardless of what she thought. Acknowledging that, and preparing accordingly, didn't mean she wasn't able to do anything else. It absolutely didn't.
Exidor rolled his eyes, but remained silent as Aquarius struggled to her feet. It took a couple of tries, and she had to hold onto the bookshelves for support, but she made it, and glared a challenge at the ghost, to see if he was going to continue his criticism.
All he said was, "I think you'll need more than a bandage to patch yourself up."
As he spoke, her leg began to throb, and she clenched her teeth as she hobbled towards the atrium, where the remains of her first aid supplies were. Why, why was Exidor always right?
Most of the serious medical supplies had been brought to the infirmary, back when there were civilians trapped at the Surrounding. Aquarius Outpost had served as the records office, which meant that she had tons of extra paper and pens, but little else. The perishable goods that hadn't been consumed had all perished, and all she had in her first aid kit was a box of bandaids and a bottle of aspirin.
"Fat lot of help that is," Aquarius muttered. She shook the bottle, then popped it open and swallowed a couple of aspirin. Once that was taken care of, she peeked into the bandaid box. It was empty.
"You've used quite a few of those lately," Exidor said, having followed her into the atrium.
"So? What's your point?"
The only response was a pointed glare. Though she couldn't bring herself to admit it to him, she knew what he was driving at. More monsters were attacking lately, and she was getting hurt by her attempts to stop them, or escape.
"That's not what's happening, and you know it."
Of course she knew it. It was obvious that the monsters weren't real, not this time. She was being eaten alive by ghosts. Only that wasn't quite right either. She held up her hands, looking at the blood under her nails and the cuts on her fingers. When had she become her own worst enemy? Hurting herself had never been part of the plan, but there she was, tearing herself apart both figuratively and literally. If she had lost control to that extent, what was preventing her from doing something even worse?
"I'm fine," she said, mostly to try and reassure herself. A few scratches and cuts were a long way from the bleak possibilities she was imagining. "Really, I'm fine."
Exidor didn't respond, leaving Aquarius to wonder how to handle her current problem. She'd been fine ignoring her injuries, and their causes, as long as she could keep them clean and covered. Now that she'd managed to stab herself, however, she couldn't ignore it. For all she knew, there were still splinters of glass in the wound, and she had no antiseptic or bandaids. It could get infected, and then she'd die alone in space. That might be worse than any of the ways she'd died before, if not the methods she'd started to imagine. She had no desire to try it and find out.
"A bit of a melodramatic picture, but I won't argue with it. What do you plan to do?"
Getting help was out. No doctors would look at a senshi, and that was the only identity she had left. But if she could get back to Southern Poultry, she could pick up some ointment and some more bandages, and hopefully that would keep things in check. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it was the best that she could do under the circumstances.
In a matter of moments she had summoned her phone and was trying to tune in to the Earth. For a moment, her focus wavered as she glanced at Exidor. He watched her with an odd expression, as if he wanted to say something, but couldn't find the words.
Before she could ask, the tune in her head became clear, and they both vanished.
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Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 5:53 pm
Southern Poultry was always deserted at night. It almost made Aquarius feel like she was strolling through her own personal pantry, selecting a few things to tide her over until her next visit. The dark and quiet inside the store was almost calming, and made her infrequent trips back to Earth more pleasant than she had initially expected.
Still, she never stayed long, always acutely aware of the moral gray area she was walking in. It was quickest to stay in the same section of the store, where her canned and powdered goods were stocked, and grab as much as she could. That also decreased her chance of detection, though there had been no signs of people or alarms since her initial break-in.
She had never come for first aid supplies before. If it was a half-decent supermarket, it probably had a few, but she had no idea where in the store they were kept. It would take a little time to find them, but that was fine. No one ever bothered her.
"- tell you, Bob, there's no such thing as ghosts!"
Before she had really started moving, Aquarius froze. Even Exidor stopped moving.
"That's what they all say." She could hear footsteps now, coming closer. "But then who's taking the food? Manager says he's cleared all of us, and nobody trips the alarms."
"Ghosts don't need food, nimrod." That voice was even louder. Closer. If she didn't do something, she would be caught red-handed.
"What do you plan to do?" Exidor wasn't speaking, but she could hear his question all the same. He was watching her, waiting for a decision. It wasn't like he would end up in jail, or worse. This was all on her.
Her injured leg almost buckled under her when she tried to run. It took her a couple of tries before she was able to get going, but giving up was not an option. She couldn't let herself be caught here like some common criminal. If she did, she would be endangering everyone around her. After everything she had put into this final hypothesis of hers, she couldn't allow herself to fail.
The footsteps stopped just as her own feet started to move. "Hey," one of the voices sputtered, "what the-?"
Then, as she expected it to, adrenaline kicked in. She sped towards the entrance, ignoring the pain in her leg. The door was locked, but that didn't bother her, since she hadn't planned on using it in the first place.
"Energy Equivalence!"
As it had many weeks before, the window shattered around her. She kept her eyes closed, to protect them from flying glass, while more shards added to her collection of scratches and scrapes on her arms and legs. Not a pleasant experience, but it was over now. Once she got a little more distance, she could focus enough to get back where she belonged.
Except the world outside Southern Poultry was neither dark nor quiet. Neon lights burned into her retinas. Cars raced by. More people than Aquarius had seen in months walked down the street, chatting casually. At least, they did until they noticed the figure standing in the middle of the sidewalk, in a pool of broken glass. Then the chatter quieted, as everyone stared, not sure what to do.
"What do you plan to do?"
Aquarius let go of her magic and jumped. It wasn't a very good jump, but it let her reach the top of Southern Poultry's awning, which she used to launch herself to the top of the building. A little space between her and the crowd was all she needed to pull out her phone and press the Home key. Even getting an infected leg would be better than what might happen if she stayed on Earth.
But no matter how many times she mashed the button, nothing happened. "Work, you stupid thing," she cried. "What's the matter? Why isn't it working? Exidor-"
The ghost was gone. Had that ever happened before? It was hard to remember. Hard to think. Everyone had started talking again, and the chatter rose to an excited roar that told her it wasn't safe to stay there. But nowhere was safe. Not even the Surrounding was safe, but it was better than being here, on the precipice of disaster. It was only a matter of time before someone found her. And then, knowing her luck, they would both be doomed.
"Take it one step at a time."
What was that? Aquarius looked around in surprise, but Exidor still wasn't there. And it wasn't his voice she'd heard, though it sounded familiar for some reason.
An alarm wailed in the distance. It shifted as she listened, into screams. But whose?
She screamed the monster tore Esen in two, dropping each half without ceremony. They landed with a sickening squelching sound. While she and Esen had had their differences, they had still been friends, of a sort. And now one of them was dead.
No, she corrected herself, as the monster turned to face her. Now they were both dead.
Smoke filled the room, and her screams mingled with those of her comrades. The fire raged around them, causing her skin to blister. Parts of the ceiling had fallen down in chunks, and she knew it wouldn't be long before the entire building gave out. They would all be buried by the rubble, their bodies burnt to ash.
Nobody would ever know what had happened. What they were fighting for.
The smoke cleared, revealing another monster, one that looked like it had spent the night in an industrial freezer. It reeled backwards from her hit, but it wasn't finished with her yet. The hole she'd punched in it sprayed her with something that made her whole body burn.
Or was that the fire?
The screams were constant, filling her ears and her brain until there was room for nothing else. Staggering backwards, she turned, knowing that behind her was the evidence that everything she had worked towards was for nothing.
Aquarius ran. She barely saw where she was going, but she ran anyway, from the screams and the sirens and the monsters who wouldn't die. She leaped across gaps between rooftops, and tripped over debris left in her path. The pain in her leg was masked by the phantom remains of burns and a crushing headache that made her feel like a ticking time bomb. Explosion was imminent. All she could do was try to get as far away as possible, so she didn't take any innocent people with her.
If nowhere was safe, it didn't matter where she was going.
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Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 5:57 pm
The weatherman had promised a White Christmas to the citizens of Destiny City. And while he still had a chance to be right, the night of Christmas Eve was gray and dreary. Not a night to be out caroling, or whatever people did outside on Christmas Eve. It was more of a night for staying inside with loved ones, curled up by a fire, protected from the elements and the world at large.
Except Kent didn’t have that option. Tara was still missing. That he now knew where she was didn’t help ease his mind at all. Now he knew that her being missing was only a symptom of the real problem. One that, in spite of his research, he had no idea how to help her with. This was too important to mess up. Again. Whatever he did, he had to get exactly right.
There was no way that he could explain any of that to his parents, though. And no way that he could go home to spend Christmas with them. The thought of another Christmas spent trying to ignore their mutual worst fears was unbearable. His parents hadn’t liked that decision, but short of coming to Destiny City and dragging him back home, there wasn’t much that they could do about it. Not that Kent really put such behavior past them, which was part of the reason why he didn’t go home after work that day.
Instead, as Nazca, he roamed through the city, not quite sure what he was looking for. It was no longer a matter of finding a person or a method of transportation. Now, what he needed was insight. He needed to understand what Tara was going through, in order to figure out how to make her understand him. But how could he understand experiences he didn’t even know about? How could he fully appreciate the agony she was in when to him, the war wasn’t so much a deadly conflict as it was an annoyance?
By midnight, as he walked through one of the city’s many parks, he was growing weary, both in body and mind. In the unlikely event that his parents were trying to ambush him, they would have given up and gone to bed by that point. And he was starting to get a headache, something that happened a lot while he was out searching for answers, but that he was still surprised by. Was he so bad at figuring things out that his head was actually crying out in protest?
When he heard an actual cry- more like a shriek- he thought it was more of the same. His mind playing tricks on him. But just in case, he started walking in the direction he thought it came from. And then running, because if that sound wasn’t a figment of his imagination, then it probably came from someone who needed help. He darted around trees and crashed through bushes, hoping to find the source. Which was hard, since he’d only heard the noise once.
Even when it occurred to Nazca that rampaging like a bull in a china shop would probably scare whoever it was, he couldn’t keep himself from moving quickly. Not when someone might be in trouble. Scenarios flashed through his head as he moved: a rogue teenager showing off their new powers at the expense of others; or maybe a hardened and frightening criminal pursuing a target; or even a big battleground, with no way to tell friend from foe.
Yet in spite of all his mental preparation, what he found still caught him totally by surprise. Crouching behind a bush, fiddling with what looked like a cell phone, was none other than Sailor Aquarius herself.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. He was still doing research, to make sure he didn’t screw things up again. The plan was to go and convince her, once he’d written out a brilliant and inspiring speech, to come back. It was not to bump into her in the middle of what looked like a nervous breakdown. For the briefest of moments, he considered backing away, returning when he was better-prepared for the confrontation that would surely ensue. Then he chided himself for even thinking that. If Tara was here, now, looking like she’d just fought off a lawn mower, then she needed him. Now.
Besides, she had seen him, her eyes widening slowly. If anything, she seemed almost as startled to see him as he was to see her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice raspy. Like she’d been screaming.
This was it. The moment of truth. Nazca opened his mouth, only to realize that he couldn’t think of anything to say.
~*~
The phone wasn’t working. Nothing was working. Even running wasn’t working, since her legs had given out. The fact that she’d been able to run all the way to a park was impressive, and probably due to all of the practice she’d been doing at the Surrounding. But her leg was throbbing, and her lungs felt like they were on fire, and she crumpled behind a bush, hoping that the distance she’d managed to get would be enough. At least until she could figure out how to get back where she belonged.
Exidor was still nowhere to be seen. The one time she wanted to ask something, he was making himself scarce. Aquarius screamed in frustration and mashed the buttons on her phone harder, but nothing had any effect. She couldn’t leave, but she also couldn’t stay. Which left her with no options to pursue.
Dimly, in the back of her head, she registered a powered signature on her mental radar. Something low-level and good. Not Laney, then. Or Zia or Thraen or anyone she was afraid of looking like a wreck in front of. It wasn’t a monster- yet- or an enemy, out to eliminate her. So was there a point to trying to get away, knowing that her chance of succeeding was minimal at best?
She thought about it, rocking back and forth as she hugged her knees. Before she reached a conclusion, he came into view. It was the knight she’d met briefly at the Surrounding, which caught her by surprise. What were the odds of running into someone she knew, if vaguely? What was he even doing there?
“What are you doing here?” she asked, wincing as the words scraped against her raw throat.
The knight seemed to be surprised as well, and it took him a moment to collect himself. Aquarius could sympathize with that. “I could ask you the same thing,” he finally said, sitting down next to her.
It was the perfect opening to run away. Assuming she could run, anyway. Just sitting up was a challenge, so she decided not to try it. “I came for supplies. It didn’t go well. And now I can’t get back.” She shrugged, hoping he wouldn’t press further.
“What about it didn’t go well?” he asked in return, dashing her hopes. “Did someone do that to you?” The knight gestured at her injuries, which she’d been trying so hard to ignore up until then.
Suddenly self-conscious, she covered her bare arms as best she could with her hands. “It’s cold,” she said defensively, even though he hadn’t asked about that. “There was a monster.”
That would have been a good point for him to drop it and move on, but he didn’t seem inclined to do either. “Where was the monster?”
“Why does that matter?”
He shrugged, his voice calm even though he was being screeched at. “I was just wondering. Was the monster here? Or was it up there?”
“They’re everywhere.” Aquarius shivered, not from the cold. “Down here, up there, it doesn’t matter. I thought it did, but I was wrong. Nowhere is safe.”
~*~
She sounded so tired. So resigned. It hurt Nazca to think about what might have made her feel that way, but he knew he had to press on. At the same time, he couldn’t put any more pressure on her. At best, she’d bolt. At worst, he’d do irreparable damage to her already fractured psyche.
So, a way to keep her talking, but without demanding answers. A way to be supportive, without revealing who he was. “I appreciate the warning. I’m still getting used to this whole magical hero business, so every bit of advice helps.”
She gave him a weird look then, like she thought he was making fun of her. “No, really!” he insisted. “It’s clear that you have way more experience than I do. I mean, how long have you been doing this?”
At first, she didn’t answer, and Nazca was afraid he’d said the wrong thing. Then she shrugged. “A few years, I guess. I was fifteen when it all started.”
If he hadn’t been sitting, he would have fallen over at that, from sheer shock. From their last chat, he knew that she had been at it for a long time. He’d suspected that her status as magical girl was somehow connected to her initial disappearance, when she was in high school. But it was one thing to have a hunch, and another to hear confirmation that she had been dealing with these issues for nearly seven years. And for most of that time, he’d been totally clueless. When he finally did put the pieces together, all he managed to do was scare her even more.
How could he have failed her so badly?
~*~
Her admission shocked the knight into silence. Poor guy probably thought he was something special, and then she had to come along and ruin it. But then, ruining things was what she did.
He rallied quickly, though. “That’s amazing. I never knew about all of this until recently. That must be thanks to all the effort you put in, keeping the city safe, huh?”
This guy wasn’t listening to her. “Nowhere is safe,” she repeated, hugging her knees again. “And it’s just a matter of luck that you didn’t find out sooner. I can’t help anyone, so don’t look to me if you’re in trouble.”
Aquarius expected her sharp words to scare him off. Instead, he cocked his head at her. “I don’t know about that. You’ve been pretty helpful to me, telling me all of this.”
“Then let me tell you something else- I’m bad news. A magnet for trouble. You should keep moving, while you have a chance.” And she physically turned away, hoping he would get the message. If he refused to listen, she wouldn’t be held responsible for the consequences.
~*~
There it was again, that self-loathing. Laney had warned him, and he’d seen it for himself, when he went to the Surrounding. He still couldn’t get used to it. Tara was always so confident, so sure of the path she took, even when it diverged from all the others. What could have happened to make her like this?
Nazca couldn’t ask, not without revealing too much about himself. He couldn’t ask why she thought she was such a doombringer either. But he could inquire about a more immediate concern. “What about you? Shouldn’t you keep moving too?”
“Can’t,” she said shortly, waving her phone at him. “It’s broken. Can’t go back.”
What a phone had to do with space travel was beyond him, but there was no point in pushing the issue. “You can’t stay here,” he said instead, looking around them. “Can I escort you somewhere?”
That made her laugh, which wasn’t the outcome he’d been hoping for, but it could have been worse. “I don’t have anywhere else to go. Like I said, nowhere’s safe.”
The place he really wanted to bring her was home, but he knew better to suggest that. And bringing up the hospital would probably just scare her off. “What about friends?” he offered, wondering if Laney would have any better ideas. “Or… family?”
Her whole body tensed up, and Nazca knew that he’d overplayed his hand. “No. I can’t let them see.”
“I’m sure they’re worried about you-”
“And you think that my turning up like this will make them worry less?” Aquarius held out her arms, showing off the numerous cuts and scratches that decorated them. “They can’t help, so there’s no point in upsetting them. I need to figure this out on my own.”
“Figure what out?” he asked quickly, latching onto the new lead.
His enthusiasm seemed to startle her, and she wrapped her arms around her knees again. “Everything. Just… everything.”
~*~
Nothing she said was making the knight leave. She’d warned him about what a disaster zone she was, provided a good reason for why she couldn’t contact anyone, and tried to make it clear that she could handle things. Even though it was becoming increasingly clear that she couldn’t handle anything.
He knew it, too. “Everything is a whole lot for one person to work out on their own.”
There was no good answer for that, so Aquarius didn’t reply.
“And it’s clear you haven’t been having much success at it,” he went on. “Or you wouldn’t be hiding in a bush.”
Again, she couldn’t think of a response. What he was saying was true, even if she didn’t want to admit it. This knight was starting to remind her a lot of Exidor in that respect.
“And I’m sure your friends and family worry anyway. Especially if you’ve been hiding from them. Keeping your distance isn’t shielding them from anything, and it’s cutting you off from help that you look like you could use.”
That was more than Aquarius could let slide. “Don’t talk like you know everything!” she said shrilly. “It’s easy to talk big when you’re totally clueless. You have no idea what I’m fighting!”
“Oh yeah?” he shot back, his cool demeanor slipping. “Then tell me. Tell me what’s worth abandoning everyone you care about, just to live like a hermit. What are you protecting them from?”
Wasn’t it obvious? Hadn’t she given enough warnings? “I’m protecting them from me!”
“By deserting them when they need you most?”
The thought of being needed, valuable in some way, was absurd, and she gave a short bark of laughter. “Nobody needs me. They’re all better off this way, whether they realize it or not.”
The knight stiffened, his expression unreadable. “And what about you? Are you better off?”
~*~
Every new statement was another knife, stabbing Nazca over and over with guilt and shame and anger. He knew he couldn’t let himself fall prey to self-hatred the way she had, but it was hard when with everything she said, he blamed himself anew for letting her feel that way.
And the scary thing was that she didn’t seem to see anything wrong with what she was saying. She was comfortable sacrificing her own happiness and wellbeing, if it meant sparing others from the pain she was feeling. Was that really the right answer? Was he supposed to leave her to fight off her demons by herself?
He thought about it. And realized that she wasn’t answering his question. She was hesitating, fumbling with her phone again. “Are you better off?” he repeated, more quietly.
“It doesn’t matter,” she muttered, looking away.
“It matters to me.” And, he was sure, to a number of other people. Probably the only person who really thought it didn’t matter was Tara, and it was possible even she didn’t really think that.
She didn’t recant, though. “Why should it matter to you?” she demanded, glaring at him.
Their roles were suddenly reversed, and Nazca was the one facing a question he didn’t know how to answer. “I… It matters because I don’t think anyone should feel that way. Alone, and scared. There’s no reason for it.”
“Are you saying that everything I’m doing is meaningless?” The glare intensified, carrying with it the implication that he’d better not be saying that.
“Not meaningless,” he said quickly. “Just… misguided. There are other ways to handle things that don’t involve such brutal self-sacrifice.”
She shook her head, the glare melting into a look of resignation. “I’m done. I can’t explain anymore.”
“Because none of your explanations really make sense.” Anger and frustration were taking over again. If she shut him out now, she’d never take him seriously, and he’d lose his only chance. “You say you want what’s best for everyone, but your methods hurt you, and leave others open to pain that you could protect them from. So what are you really hiding from?”
~*~
He didn’t get it. He just didn’t get it. Aquarius wanted him to leave. She would have left herself, but she wasn’t sure she could get up on her own. Her leg was hurting, and while she’d been keeping her calves pressed together, to try and staunch the bleeding, she wasn’t sure it was doing any good.
The questions almost hurt more, and she put her hands over her ears to try and shut them out. “I’m not hiding from anything!”
“Right,” the knight said sarcastically. “You went all the way to space to not hide.”
Put that way, it did sound stupid. “You just don’t understand! Nobody understands! I don’t even understand, okay?”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. That made it sound like she didn’t know what she was doing. Which wasn’t true. Right?
“Why are you making me doubt everything?” she said angrily, leaning forward far enough to push the knight away. “Just leave me alone!”
“I’m not making you do anything. But if you’re having doubts, you should think about them. If there’s even a chance that you can do things differently, isn’t it worth the risk?” The knight leaned in closer and put his hand on her knee. “If nothing can get worse, why not try to make things better?”
It sounded good, in theory. Easy, even. But there was no way it was as simple as he was making it out to be. If it was, she would have done it already. “I can’t.”
“It’s not easy, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it. Maybe all it means is that you can’t do it alone.”
“Then I can’t,” she said, and that was the end of that, as far as she was concerned.
~*~
The books he’d read and the people he’d talked to had done nothing to prepare Nazca for this. Tara was stuck in a self-destructive cycle and couldn’t see beyond it. He couldn’t break her out, since that would hurt more than help. But none of his attempts at giving her strength to do it herself were succeeding. What was left for him to do?
“I’m willing to help,” he offered hopefully. “Even if nobody else is. So you’re already not alone.”
The only response came from Aquarius pushing his hand off her knee.
“I mean it. I know I’m not much, but I’m here for you. And I’m sure I’m not the only one who wants to help you through this.”
“Go away.”
What could he do if she wasn’t even going to listen? And why was she just tuning him out? Nazca found himself getting angry again, raising his voice. But what he said next was drowned out by a loud roar that made him sit up straighter. That sounded scary. And close.
Aquarius’ eyes were wide and she hunched over, trying to protect herself. “No. Not now. I can’t!”
“What was that?” Nazca asked, frightened for a whole different reason now. For some reason, he’d always assumed that the monsters that Noah had warned him about were metaphorical. Or maybe epithets for the savage teenagers who liked to beat up everyone they came in contact with. There was no such thing as real monsters… was there?
He looked at Tara, and found her looking at him. No, beyond him. “I told you nowhere was safe,” she said in a small voice. “They came for me.”
Slowly he turned, until he could see the figure behind him. Easily eight feet tall, covered with coarse brown hair, with savage-looking horns on its head. It didn’t look like it noticed them, instead focused on the nearby trees. It charged one, ramming it with its horns. The tree’s trunk shook, scattering the last of the dead leaves on its branches.
“You meant real monsters?” he asked, his voice rising in pitch at the word ‘monsters.’ This was not what he’d expected to deal with. Who could fight something like that?
Turning back around, he saw that Tara had curled up into a ball. She was shaking all over, and he couldn’t blame her, but that wouldn’t help either of them right then. “We need to get out of here!” he hissed, shaking her shoulder as gently as he could manage.
“I can’t,” she said again, not looking up. “You should go.”
“No. You have to get up.” If this wasn’t enough to get her to rethink her abilities, what was?
She uncurled a little, enough to stretch her legs out in front of her, wincing. Nazca looked closer, then recoiled at what he saw. “They already got me. I can’t run anymore.”
Aside from a number of superficial scrapes and nicks, there was a much deeper wound in one of her legs. Both of her calves were smeared with blood. How had he not noticed that earlier? What sort of monster could have done that to her?
“You should go,” she repeated. “I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”
Nazca was scared, sad, and confused. But when she spoke again, anger washed over him, drowning all of his other feelings. And now he had an acceptable target, someone to take it out on. His eyes narrowed and he stood up. “I’ll distract him. You get away.”
It was a terrible plan. There was no guarantee that Tara would be able to get away in time, and no guarantee he’d find her afterwards. If there was an afterwards. But in his fury, it was the sole plan that he could see, and he was going to see it through.
~*~
Was that guy insane?
“Have you ever fought a youma before?” Aquarius asked, afraid that she already knew the answer. If he didn’t know that monsters existed, it was unlikely he’d ever thought about how to take them on. And as far as she knew, knights didn’t even have magic to aid them.
Sure enough, the knight shook his head, keeping his eyes trained on the youma. It was coming closer; if they didn’t move, it would trip over them soon. “Don’t worry about me. Take care of yourself.”
“That thing could kill you!” she shouted, then clapped her hands over her mouth. Too late for it to matter. The youma looked in their direction, tilted its head down, and began to charge.
“Just go,” the knight said again, bracing himself for impact. An impact that had nearly toppled a tree, and he expected to survive it? Impossible! But nothing she said was having any effect on this guy. It was like he refused to accept the truth. Or like he was afraid to.
The realization that came with that thought felt like a gong going off in her head. Its vibrations shook her to the core, and the sound traveled to every corner of her being. Everything around her seemed to slow down as her consciousness shifted inwards. That’s me, she heard, a distant voice that she almost recognized. That’s what I’ve been doing.
Everything she had said and thought and believed, for a very long time, was a lie. A well-constructed lie, built to keep her from realizing that it was a lie. Because as scary as the things she’d been forcing herself to accept as the truth were, the real truth scared her still more.
There is something wrong with me, the voice said, a little louder. And I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know if it can be fixed. I don’t know what to do. But I can’t do nothing anymore.
The gong went still and silent, and time resumed its course. In a moment, the youma would crash into the knight who was trying to help her. The time for thought was over.
~*~
There was a small part of Nazca’s brain that wasn’t running on rage right then, that could see what a bad idea this was. But it couldn’t come up with a new plan on its own, and the monster was coming closer. If he could at least take the brunt of the impact, Tara might be able to get away. He closed his eyes and held his arms in an X in front of him, as if that could stop a stampeding monster.
When the hit came, it was much lower than he expected. And from the wrong direction. It collided with him with enough force to topple him over, but aside from being startled and having the breath knocked out of him, he was fine. Which didn’t make a whole lot of sense. He opened his eyes and looked around, spotting the monster with one horn stuck in the trunk of a tree behind him. And Aquarius, with her arms wrapped around his knees, her legs splayed awkwardly on the grass.
“What the hell? What did you do?” Nazca sat up in a hurry and leaned over to make sure that Tara was okay. She wasn’t moving at all, and for a moment he was overcome with fear. Then he saw her shoulder twitch, and he relaxed- slightly. “What kind of stunt was that?”
It took several agonizing moments for her to open her eyes. When she did, she glared at him. “I believe,” she said, wincing as she spoke, “the words you’re looking for are ‘thank you.’”
The fact that she could crack jokes in this situation should have been a relief, but for Nazca it only added fuel to the fire. “You were supposed to run, not crash into me!”
“You would’ve rather been youma roadkill?” she asked, clearly irritated in spite of her exhaustion. It was a struggle for her to pull herself into a sitting position. She wasn’t even attempting to move her legs, which he found worrying.
She did have a point, though. At this rate he’d sabotage everything all over again. “Yes, well, thank you. Now can we leave?”
There was a roar from behind them, and he added quickly, “I don’t think either of us should pull another stunt like that.”
“I don’t think I can stand,” Aquarius said shakily. “You should just-”
“We are not doing that again,” Nazca interrupted, standing up and shaking out his legs. As gently as he could, he wrapped his arms around her frame and lifted. It was much too easy for him to pick her up, and for at least the fifteenth time that night, he wondered how he could have possibly let this happen.
Then the monster wrenched free, and there was no time for thought. “We’re outta here!”
“Jump!” Aquarius shouted at the same time.
“Are you kidding me? I can’t get away by jumping-”
“Just do it!” she insisted, clinging to his shoulder.
The monster was too close to run from now. So, since they were both probably dead anyway, Nazca jumped.
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh!”
~*~
Their escape was disorganized and frantic. Aquarius, looking back later, wouldn’t be able to remember most of it. It involved a lot of jumping, and feeling the breeze on her face. Being constantly jostled wasn’t, since she was pretty sure she had twisted her so-called good leg while tackling the knight, and her other one felt like it was still bleeding. And then things became a blur, until he came to a stop on a rooftop just outside the park and set her down on someone’s deck chair.
“That was wild,” he said, eyes wide, making her cover a smile with her hand. This guy was so new he hadn’t even discovered jumping yet. What a goofball. But his excitement quickly faded, and he turned to her, expression serious. “So.”
“I should go,” she said quickly, knowing full well that it was useless and not caring. Something was wrong with her. She needed to fix it, before it affected anyone else. That was what she was supposed to be doing all along.
Something about that felt wrong. The knight seemed to think so too, snorting derisively. “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what that was all about.” When she didn’t reply- what was he even talking about?- he sighed and sat on the rickety table next to her. “You said before that you couldn’t help anyone. Then you pulled a crazy stunt like that and proved yourself wrong. Clearly you’re capable of more than you’re willing to admit. So what’s the problem?”
“I’m the problem,” she blurted out, clasping her hands in her lap. “Something’s wrong. I need to make it right. That’s all there is to it.”
“And you think the way to make it right is by running away?”
Aquarius could feel her face get red. “I’m not running!”
All the knight did in response to her claim was raise his eyebrows. Something about that felt familiar, for a moment, but she couldn’t make the connection, and then it was gone.
“Okay, fine. I’m running. But I have to, okay? I need to deal with this myself. Nobody else can get inside my head and fix it for me, and they’d just get sucked into it if they try.” If she explained it clearly, he would have to understand and leave her alone. Her logic was totally sound.
~*~
No matter how many times she tried to explain it to him, Nazca didn’t think he’d ever be capable of understanding where Aquarius’ mind was. It seemed so dark and so hopeless there. The opposite of the mindset he was used to associating with Tara. It was almost enough to make him wonder if they were different people after all, but by now he’d seen plenty of convincing evidence to the contrary.
“So, how do you plan to fix this problem of yours?” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm. Non-confrontational. There had been more than enough shouting that night already.
Aquarius shrugged listlessly. “Fight it. That’s all I can do.”
That statement was very revealing, Nazca thought. “You spend an awful lot of time fighting, don’t you?”
“Of course,” she replied, with the patient tone of someone explaining the obvious. “I’m a senshi. That’s what we do, what we’re for.”
And what kind of life was that? Knowing that your existence was based on the existence of darkness that it was your duty to vanquish? “It doesn’t have to be all that you’re for,” he suggested hopefully. “You don’t have to fight all the time.”
“If I don’t fight, I die.” She didn’t sound upset. Just resigned. Like in some ways, she had already given up.
He didn’t think Tara ever gave up.
And that was the answer. Even if he didn’t- couldn’t- understand what Tara was going through, he could remind her of the strength that he always knew she had. The confidence and clarity that continued to inspire him, even when they were twisted and used against him. If his words alone couldn’t reach her, maybe hers could.
~*~
“You know what I think?” the knight said slowly, as if he was trying to put his thoughts together. “I think you’re so used to fighting that you don’t know how to stop.”
That was something Aquarius had heard before. From the therapist, the one who’d told her to stop fighting and everything would be okay. What a quack. “I can’t stop being a senshi. I’ve tried; it doesn’t work. Senshi fight. The end.”
“Senshi don’t fight indiscriminately,” the knight countered, frowning. Something was upsetting him. “Otherwise they wouldn’t be heroes, just mindless machines. They fight the bad things they’re supposed to, but not their allies.”
Was he forgetting who saved his butt not ten minutes ago? He was lucky she was too exhausted to slug him. Though that probably would have just proved his point. “I don’t have any allies to fight,” she said instead.
“No? You’ve fought me trying to help you out. Fought off your friends. Just because you won’t let people get close doesn’t mean you don’t have allies.”
“That’s not true,” Aquarius shot back, but her heart wasn’t in it. She could think of at least one person who kept trying, even when faced with a lost cause.
“And you’re so stuck in this ‘kill or be killed’ mindset that you can’t see anything beyond it. You know what I really think?” the knight asked, folding his arms.
Before she could even think about it, her mouth opened. “What?”
“I think that your worst enemy is yourself. Not because of whatever you think is ‘wrong’ inside your head, but because you’ve convinced yourself that this is the way it has to be. Fighting all the time, even against people who want to help you.” When she started to turn away, he grabbed her by the shoulder and refused to let her dodge his gaze. “If you’re so set on fighting, start by fighting the dumb rules that say that’s your only option. Make your own path!”
That was also something Aquarius had heard before. But where?
“With all the experience you’ve got, there’s nothing to stop you from winning any challenge you like. So why are you wasting your time and energy pushing people away?” As the knight spoke, his voice began to take on a funny, echoing quality, as if another voice was layered over it. “You can do so much more than that. Decide what you really want to do, and knock down anything that gets in your way!”
”Who cares if it’s not possible?” the other voice went on. ”I’ll make it possible! And don’t think that anything’s going to stop me!”
The final pieces clicked into place, and Aquarius’ eyes went wide. Before, realization felt like a gong. Now it was a cannon, shattering each of the poisonous thoughts she had been clinging to, leaving one certainty in their place.
“It was me all along,” she whispered, too shocked to even move. Even think. She couldn’t process what had just happened, and it felt like her whole body was shutting down. Which she couldn’t allow, it wasn’t safe-
Or maybe, finally, it was time. Time to figure out what unfamiliar territory her constant running had left her in, and allow herself to make new decisions.
Aquarius swayed in her seat, then fell over, as everything went dark.
~*~
Nazca hurried to catch her before she fell out of the chair. Something had just happened- something big- but he wasn’t sure what. Was it a good epiphany or a bad one? What was he supposed to do now that she’d apparently passed out?
Several minutes ticked by while he tried to think of how to handle the situation. Nazca absently stroked Aquarius’ hair, looking out over the park, then back at the senshi. Only to find she wasn’t a senshi anymore. There was the sister he’d been trying so desperately to find, wearing the same clothes she’d worn the day she disappeared. Even after he knew that they really were the same person, he sometimes found himself wondering if he’d made a mistake. Now, he could never think of Aquarius as anyone but Tara, and vice versa.
Though she’d disappeared in June, Tara liked to wear layers, so she wasn’t totally exposed in the December winds. Her clothes covered most of her injuries, but he doubted that this transformation was enough to fix them. She needed medical attention. By the look of things, she was long overdue for it.
There was, he knew, the chance that this wouldn’t solve anything. That Tara would wake up in the hospital, panic, and run off again. If she did, it would be harder still to bring her home for good. But not bringing her in would be like admitting she would never come back. And she really needed treatment for her injuries.
It was decision time, and Nazca knew there was only one option. “I believe in you, Tara,” he told her, brushing her hair out of her face. “So let’s work this out, once and for all.”
He picked her up with unsettling ease and started on his first rooftop run, heading towards what he hoped was the solution they both needed.
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Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 5:58 pm
There was nothing, as far as the eye could see.
She took one shaky step forward, then another, not sure where she was trying to go. There was no landscape to navigate, no path to travel. Just emptiness. And fog, which didn’t do much to obscure her vision. Probably because there was nothing to see in the first place.
“So now do you understand?”
Startled, she whirled around. Exidor was standing there, hands on his hips. His outline was blurred by the mist, and even his voice sounded off somehow. He was watching her closely. Waiting for something.
And then she remembered. And finally, she understood.
“You weren’t kidding, were you? You really were me all along.”
Exidor beamed. It was the first time he’d ever smiled in a way that wasn’t snarky or sarcastic. She wished the fog wasn’t getting in the way of her seeing such a rare event. It was thicker now, so that all she could really see was his silhouette, and even that seemed like it was shifting.
“Ah,” she said as the fog began to clear, revealing exactly what she expected to see.
”It took you long enough to figure it out,” Aquarius said in her own voice. The one she had been hearing all this time. It was, now that she realized the truth, so obvious.
Now that her vision’s true form was apparent, it was like looking in a mirror. Or maybe not, she realized, looking down. Even though she last remembered being Aquarius, she was Tara now, small and fragile and clad in a hospital gown. “Aw, hell.”
”Did you really expect to wake up anywhere other than the hospital after what just happened?” the other her asked.
Tara sighed. “I guess not.” And that was a whole other can of worms she’d have to deal with, but not before she sorted out this mess. “So, where do we go from here?”
”Forward, of course.”
Exidor or not, this Aquarius was really obnoxious. “Well yeah, but… what’s the deal? If you were me all along, why did you look like… not-me?”
Aquarius shrugged. ”Because you weren’t listening to yourself. That was the problem. If you didn’t fight what you knew you wanted, it never would have come to this. But you kept tuning yourself out, so those feelings had to manifest in a different way.”
“In wackadoodle hallucinations? Isn’t that kind of a stretch? I mean, that’s not the sort of thing that happens to regular people.”
There was a moment of silence, as Tara realized what she just said. ”No,” Aquarius said simply. ”It’s not.”
“And this doesn’t have anything to do with me being a senshi.” She had been running from the wrong thing this whole time.
Aquarius seemed to hesitate at that. ”I wouldn’t say nothing to do with it.”
“But this isn’t some senshi-induced dream, is it?”
”No, it’s not.”
Something really was wrong with her. Something that skewed her perception of reality to the point that she saw things that weren’t there. Not just Exidor, either. All of the fires and monsters that had been tormenting her since before her arrival in space were figments of her imagination.
“So now what?” Tara tried to smile, even though she was sort of terrified of what the answer would be. “I’m not running anymore. Does that mean that all of this will go away now?”
Aquarius didn’t return her smile. “It’s not that simple. You can’t just flip a switch and put everything back the way it was. But now that you know what you’re dealing with, I have no doubt that you’ll figure it out.”
An instant cure was, Tara supposed, too much to ask for. But the prognosis was promising. “Not just me,” she reminded herself. “I don’t have to do it alone, do I?”
This time, Aquarius did smile. “Now you’ve got the right idea.”
“I think so too.” Tara felt confident, in a way she hadn’t in months. Not fearless- far from it- but strong enough to take the first steps. For now, that was enough. “What about you?”
”What about me?” Aquarius asked, smirking. ”I was here long before your troubles began, and I’ll be here long after.” She stepped forward and tapped Tara’s chest, just above her heart. ”After all, you’re not going anywhere, are you?”
A few hours earlier, Tara wouldn’t have been able to guarantee any such thing. Nothing was certain when your destiny was a death sentence. But now, she nodded calmly. “That’s right, I’m not.” If she said it, and believed it, maybe it would even be true.
”Then I think we’ll be just fine.
The double began to shimmer, then to shine. Tara had to close her eyes to block out the glare, but she could still see it in her mind. It was like looking into the sun, feeling the intense light and heat flooding through her. But there was no pain, just light. It burned away the last of her terror, filling her with a strength that she’d forgotten she had. Even after the star dimmed, the warmth it gave off was still there.
“All right,” Tara murmured, putting one hand over her heart. “Let’s go.”
She opened her eyes, ready to face the world, one step at a time.
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Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 5:59 pm
Her eyes opened on blankness, and for a moment, she wasn’t sure she was awake.
“Tara.”
She wasn’t alone, then. And that voice was very familiar, even though she hadn’t heard it in a long, long time.
Sitting up was too much for her to try right then, but she did manage to turn her head to the side. The blankness disappeared, replaced with the familiar decor of Destiny City Memorial Hospital. She could hear the faint beeping of the monitoring equipment, and the much louder scraping sound that was Kent scootching his chair even closer to the bed. “It’s okay,” he reassured her, keeping his voice low. “You’re okay. Just relax.”
The funny thing was, Tara actually felt like she could. The fear wasn’t completely gone- that would have been too much to hope for- but there was now a window separating her from the bulk of it, allowing her to see what she had to deal with, without being being consumed.
“How long?” she rasped, frowning as her throat scratched painfully. Screaming was hard on the vocal chords.
Kent stopped fussing with his chair and looked at her. “The doctor said you were brought in around one in the morning. It’s a little after seven now.”
So she’d only been out for a few hours. Interesting, but not what she really needed to know. As tempting as it was to let the question go unanswered, she knew she’d have to find out sooner or later. “Since last time,” she corrected.
There was a moment while Kent figured out what that meant. And then how to phrase it. “Let’s just say I’ve got everything on my Christmas list now that you’re here,” he said awkwardly, putting his hands over hers.
Christmas, or somewhere thereabouts. She had left- run away- in June. Six months, give or take. It didn’t really feel like it had been that long, even though her time in space had seemed endless. And if it had felt that way for her, what must her family have gone through? The last time she’d disappeared, it hadn’t been her choice. This time, all of the pain they had dealt with was entirely her fault.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, shutting her eyes.
She could feel Kent squeezing her hand tightly. “I’m sorry too.”
That was weird. She opened her eyes again and blinked at him in confusion. Why did he have anything to be sorry for?
“I pushed you into a corner. That was wrong, and I take responsibility for my mistake.” He smiled hopefully at her. “Forgive me?”
Tara could still remember their last conversation, a little bit. The things he’d said had scared her, that was true enough. But at that point, everything was scaring her. It wasn’t fair to put all of the blame for that on him.
Besides, he was still waiting for her, after everything she had put him through. Not everyone would do that.
“Of course.” She cracked a small smile, enjoying the way it felt. “You?”
“Of course.” Kent squeezed her hands one more time for good measure, then drew away. “Mom and Dad are on their way here. And now that you’re awake, the police will probably want to talk to you, find out where you’ve been.”
The smile vanished. What on earth could she tell the police? The truth wasn’t an option, and she was out of practice when it came to lying. At least, lying to anyone other than herself.
“I know it’ll be hard, but don’t worry,” he went on. “It’s not your fault if you can’t remember who kidnapped you or what happened. Just tell them the truth and it’ll all be fine.”
That was a weird thing to say. Tara wasn’t sure what to think, or how to respond.
“They’ll be disappointed, I’m sure, but they’ll understand. I hear that a lot of kidnapping victims block things out. It’s a natural defense mechanism.”
It was like he was telling her it was okay not to have an answer. She frowned, wondering if there was some hidden meaning to this. “You don’t want to know?”
Kent let out an exasperated breath. “Of course I want to know. But you don’t want to tell me, do you?”
There was no good answer to that one either, so she took his advice and kept her mouth shut.
“And the last time I tried to force the issue, you had a nervous breakdown.” He looked at her pointedly, until she got the idea and her eyes went wide. “Yeah. Well, lesson learned, okay? I won’t push you anymore. Not about this, anyway.”
That was it? No way, that was too easy. There had to be a catch. There was no way he was just going to be okay with not knowing where she had been for the past six months.
“But-”
Ah, there it was.
“But I would like to hear about it, whenever you’re ready to tell me. Okay?”
It sounded so simple, when in reality it was anything but. Tara wasn’t sure she’d ever reach a point where she was comfortable talking to Kent about these things. She still felt that the less he knew about her other life, the safer he’d be. But in the unlikely event that she changed her mind… “Okay.”
“Good girl.” He stroked her hair gently, and she could feel herself nodding off again. Six hours of sleep was nothing, especially if her body was trying to recover from everything she’d done to it.
“Merry Christmas, Tara,” he murmured, continuing the calming movements.
Spending Christmas in the hospital wasn’t her idea of a good time. But it meant that she wasn’t running from her own shadow anymore. That was a pretty good present in its own right, she supposed.
“Merry Christmas, Kent,” she replied, drifting off to sleep once more.
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Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2014 6:00 pm
The next few days were a blur of activity.
Her parents came, of course. There was a lot of crying and hugging and apologizing from all sides. They asked her what happened, and while they weren't thrilled that she "couldn't remember" any of the details, surprisingly, they didn't pressure her. Maybe they felt there was no point. Tara wasn't sure if she was supposed to feel relieved or frustrated about that point of view, but since she could hardly berate them for letting the matter drop, she decided not to worry about it.
The detectives who came to speak with her were less understanding. Judging from the questions they asked, and the looks they gave each other when they thought she wasn't looking, they thought she was hiding something. Fair enough, since she was, but she hated the constant whispering, the feeling that nothing she said was having any impact on them. The fact that, on some level, she was being perceived as a liar. Which, fine, she was, but there was more to the story than that!
When a TV crew from a local station came to do a story on her, a "Christmas Miracle" fluff piece, Tara couldn't take anymore. Just interacting with her family was more socialization than she'd had in months. Adding in the doctors and the detectives and the other people who just happened to be in the hospital, and she was seriously overwhelmed. Spending four days there felt like an eternity, but the doctors wouldn't let her go until she'd been fully checked out. Including, to her mortification, a psychological evaluation.
She still wasn't really thinking about the results of that.
Finally, they released her, with three stitches in her leg, a brace for her sprained ankle, and a regulated diet to address her malnutrition issues. Because her parents didn't want her putting weight on either of her injured legs, they rented a wheelchair and insisted she use it. Which was, as far as Tara was concerned, just plain dumb, but it was a small enough thing, and it made them happy. After everything she'd put them through, she could make a few concessions. Like staying in their hotel suite, where there was room for everyone, instead of going home like she wanted to. And wearing the stupid Christmas dress her mother went out and bought, just for her.
Two days later, she was starting to rethink that. It was heartening to see that they cared so much about her after everything, but they were seriously starting to suffocate her. So, claiming that the fresh air would do her good, she asked Kent to take her out for a walk. Or a roll, she joked. Nobody laughed. Things were still a little too strained for that.
"Did you have anyplace specific in mind?" Kent asked, pushing her chair down the street.
She gave him directions. He raised his eyebrows, but didn't question it.
They wrestled the chair onto a city bus. Tara watched the scenery as it zoomed past, still getting used to the feeling of being back on Earth. Even when it was supposed to be just her and Kent, there was still the bus driver and six other passengers. Plus everyone else they were passing on the street, everyone in the buildings that kept sliding by, and the buildings behind those, and behind those-
"We're here," Kent told her. She tore her eyes away from the window, but her mind was still on the people. So many people. And she had failed all of them.
The cemetery was quiet. Probably a universal feature of cemeteries, Tara thought, wincing as Kent forced her chair over the uneven ground. Grass and wheels did not get along, and she really wanted to just walk the rest of the way. But the one time she'd tried to suggest it, he just frowned at her. So she had ample time to stare at the headstones they passed, looking for familiar names, but not seeing any. Which wasn't surprising. How many of them had she really known that well?
"Is there someone specific you wanted to visit?"
Several names came to mind. Alistair. Hero. Mason. But what would tracking down their graves do? The people were still gone. She hadn't come to mourn any specific individual, but to pay her respects to everyone she had let down.
"I was supposed to be in one of these," she said quietly. "If things had gone just a little bit differently, I would be."
Kent stopped pushing the chair. "But you're not."
"No, I'm not." Tara sighed. "But for a long time, I've felt like I was. Or like it was only a matter of time until I would be." And even though she had stopped shutting the world out because of that fear, she still wasn't totally convinced that she was wrong.
She expected Kent to reassure her that everything would be okay. He didn't. He didn't say anything, and that made her twist around awkwardly in the chair. He was looking at her, biting his lip. "What do you want me to say?"
"I don't know. That wasn't really the point." It was probably for the best that he wasn't giving her empty promises. And she was relieved that he wasn't asking if her feelings had changed. There really wasn't a good response, was there? "I just... this is all I can tell you right now. About why I feel the way I do."
"Ah." He walked around to the front of the chair and took her hand in his. "Thank you. That means a lot."
They stood, and sat, in silence. Tara looked around, fixing the images in her mind. This is not your home, not yet, she told herself firmly. Remember that.
Finally, she nodded. "I think I'm ready to go now."
Kent squeezed her hand before letting it go. It felt tingly as she gripped the arm of the chair, bracing herself for the bumpy movement. As they made their way out, she spotted a familiar name on one of the graves: Barrett.
Whether it was Hero or not, there was no way to know. But Tara still felt a pang, and she put her hand over her heart. I won't give up again. I'll finish what you started. What we all started.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"What was that?" Kent asked, shoving the chair across the last patch of grass.
"Uh... so hey, would you be willing to do me a favor?"
He snorted and pushed her onto the pavement at last. "I thought I was already doing you a favor."
"You are. Because you're an amaaaaaaaaaazing brother." Which was true, especially with how he was handling everything, but it didn't hurt to ham it up a bit. Tara clasped her hands in front of her chest. "Please? It would be such a huge help."
Kent rolled his eyes. "What did you have in mind?"
"Get Mom out of the house tonight?" Of their parents, Melanie was by far the more suffocating. Tara wasn't sure she could sit through another dinner of 'let me cut your meat, dear,' and 'have you finished your vegetables, sweetie?' without resorting to violence.
"How am I supposed to do that?" he demanded, stopping the chair again. "You know Mom. What could possibly drag her away?"
It was a valid question. Melanie loved mothering them. What did she love more? Civil war re-enactments. Lecturing about history. Dressing up- aha! "What about that big New Year's Ball? She'd probably love that!"
"Enough to abandon you on New Year's Eve? And what about Dad?"
Tara laughed. "Dad hates that kind of fancy party. We can stay home, and you guys can go and have a good time!"
"So my head is the only one in the noose." Kent sighed. "Great. Remind me why I'm even considering this?"
"Because you're the best brother ever?" Tara said hopefully.
"Don't count on it," Kent muttered, pushing the chair towards the bus stop.
As they moved away from the cemetery, Tara looked back. The new year was coming, and she couldn't keep dragging old ghosts with her everywhere. Maybe this would be enough for both her and them to be able to move on at last.
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Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2015 6:57 pm
Much to Tara's delight, Melanie loved the idea of going to a fancy New Year's party. She only needed the minimum of convincing to think it was a nice idea. "If it was more than a few floors away, I wouldn't even consider it," she said while surveying her wardrobe. "But it couldn't hurt to stop by and make an appearance, just for a few minutes." Which, Tara knew, meant she had at least two hours of freedom to look forward to.
Much to Kent's delight, Melanie insisted on bringing her husband along. Which wasn't the best outcome for his dad- Gregory Kavanaugh wasn't really a fancy party kind of guy- but he accepted this decision with the grace and resignation of a man who was used to it. Which, after thirty-five years of marriage, he probably was. With only a trace of reluctance, he dug his tuxedo out of the suitcase and sent it off to be pressed. "This is probably why your mother chose this hotel in the first place," he confided to Kent, who couldn't help but snicker. "She was planning to have us go to this all along, but of course nobody could have expected..."
He trailed off, and they both peeked out of the bedroom. Tara was stretched out on the couch, trying not to roll her eyes as her mother held various dresses up to see which one would be best.
"It might not be a bad idea for us to all go together," Gregory suggested. "Make an appearance as a family."
Kent winced. Expecting someone who had been isolated for months to socialize with people she didn't even know was just asking for trouble. "I don't think that's-"
"I'm not leaving this room," Tara announced loudly. "It's too crowded down there."
No one attempted to change her mind. They were still getting used to easing back into their old family positions, and figuring out how their roles had changed. There were battles that would need to be fought, eventually. This was not one of them.
Eventually, Melanie settled on a dress (black, with long sleeves and embroidery around the hem), Gregory's suit came back, and they went off to the party. Late, but as Melanie would say, fashionably so. They left Tara with a reminder to behave, and Kent with a reminder to make sure that she did.
Then they were gone, and Kent and Tara were left alone in the room, wondering what to do next. The television showed a holiday movie, on for one last hurrah, but neither of them paid attention to it.
What did you say to the sister who'd been missing, when you knew more about the circumstances of her disappearance than you were supposed to?
What did you do with the brother you'd run away from, in a misguided attempt to keep him safe, when running was no longer an option?
"Move over," Kent said.
"Make me," Tara replied, shrieking as he came to do exactly that.
Some places were safe, even when everything around them was changing in ways no one could understand.
They wrestled over space on the couch- Kent was careful to keep away from her injuries- and then again, over the remote. The point wasn't to win, but to do something that felt familiar, comfortable. They arranged themselves comfortably, Kent sitting on one side of the couch, Tara resting her legs in his lap, and argued over what to watch.
"It's New Year's," Kent insisted, "and New Year's means the ball drop."
Tara rolled her eyes. "Why? It's not like we're even in New York, so who cares?"
"Did you have a better idea?"
That was a stupid question, and Tara opened her mouth, prepared to show him how wrong he was. Only to realize that she had no ideas at all. It wasn't like she'd been watching much television before she wound up in space. It wasn't like she'd been doing much of anything before she wound up in space.
Catching up on a life she'd been missing from for six months was a daunting enough task. But she'd been missing out on life for far longer than that. How could she hope to catch up with all of that?
The lack of response was making Kent nervous. "Tara?"
"I'm fine," she answered automatically. It was just too much, too fast. One thing at a time, and don't worry about the rest. "We can watch the ball drop. I don't care."
That didn't really sound promising. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, it's fine."
So they watched the ball drop. Or, since there was more than an hour until midnight, watched a bunch of singers they'd never seen before perform songs they'd never heard of, that they couldn't even sing along to.
Anything would be awkward in this situation. This just felt extra awkward, but Kent wasn't really sure why.
"Were you scared?" Tara asked during a commercial break, not looking at Kent as she spoke.
And that made things more awkward. The truth would hurt. Lying would probably hurt more. "Yeah," he finally said. "Were you?"
"Yeah." It was too easy to remember how terrified she'd been, all the time. "I still am."
"Me too," Kent admitted. He had no idea where they were going from here, and knowing that she didn't either didn't make him feel any better.
Of course Kent was scared, Tara realized. This was the second time she'd disappeared on him. He had no guarantee that she'd stick around. And she couldn't give him one, not with the legacy she had to live up to. Just because she was allowing for the possibility that she might outlive her cell phone didn't mean she wouldn't have to disappear again someday.
But in the meantime... "I guess we can be scared together."
Kent looked over at her then, surprised, but pleasantly so. "I guess so," he replied, taking her hand in his and squeezing it once.
They watched the rest of the show in silence, until the countdown began. Tara rolled her eyes when Kent chimed in, but grinned. It felt good to be going into a new year. Maybe this one could be different. Maybe she could be different.
"Three... two... one... Happy New Year!"
On the screen, people began cheering and kissing and waving. Kent leaned over and kissed Tara on the top of her head, grinning as she made faces at him. "Happy New Year!"
"Yeah, yeah," she muttered, trying- but not very hard- to push him away. "Happy New-"
There was a sharp noise from outside. A bang, like a gunshot.
Kent looked towards the window. "Oh hey, there's fireworks!"
But Tara couldn't hear him. She was back in the science lab, holding a smoking gun in her hand. That she wasn't the one who really fired the shot didn't matter. Everyone died- was dying- would die. All because of her.
"Tara?"
"No," she whispered, putting her hands over her ears, as if that would drive the monsters away. "Run, it's not safe!"
When he felt her take her hand away, Kent looked over and frowned, feeling cold all of a sudden. "Tara, what's wrong?"
She didn't answer, but continued to shrink in on herself, like she was trying to hide from something. Her body was trembling; he could feel it in her legs, see it in the way she held her head. Her eyes were shut, and her expression was one of terror.
"Tara," he said, more sharply this time. "Whatever you're seeing, it's not real. Open your eyes."
She couldn't hear the words, but she could tell that someone was speaking to her. But when she uncovered her ears, she was immersed in gunfire again. Shrieking, she curled into a ball and waited for it to all be over.
"I know it's scary, but it isn't real. It's just you and me, in a room at the Umbre Hotel. What you're hearing is the television, and fireworks outside. It's safe, okay? Take a look."
It was a trick. It had to be. Tara knew better than to listen to the promises of the Negaverse. The last time she'd done that, they'd gone and blown up a building.
Talking wasn't working, not if she was trying to tune him out. Kent reached over and took Tara's hands, hoping to pull them away from her ears long enough for his words to have some sort of effect on her.
The monster had her. It was only a matter of time now. "No!" she screamed, wrenching her arms away. But it wouldn't give up. No matter how many times she got free, or tried to claw at the monster, it kept coming at her. How much longer could she keep it at bay?
Her nails had been cut short, partly because they were ragged when she turned up at the hospital, partly because the doctors felt that several of her injuries were self-inflicted. They didn't hurt as they dragged across Kent's arms and hands, but the fact that she was fighting him off so desperately did. Nothing he was doing was helping her at all. How could he get through to her, before she really hurt someone?
"Tara, it's me!" he shouted, pulling her hands away. "Look around. It's just us, no one's after you. It's all okay, I promise. Look at me. Just look at me!"
Tara opened her eyes, determined not to let herself be beaten this time. She could still see it there, green and scaly and waiting for a single moment of weakness. That was all it needed.
"LOOK AT ME!"
The world shifted. She could still see the monster there, poised and ready to strike. But something else was overlaid with it, blurring the edges, making the colors look more intense. She blinked, and the colors and shapes resolved into images she could recognize. A room with beige walls and burgundy drapes. The television, showing crowds of people. Kent, leaning over her, looking as terrified as she felt.
"Oh god... what did I-"
"It's okay," Kent repeated, trying not to move. Not until he was sure she was back in reality. "You're safe. We're both safe."
That wasn't enough to convince her, but she slowly let her arms relax. "Did I hurt you?"
"No." All he had were a few scratches that weren't even skin-deep. "Are you hurt?"
How could she answer that question? She wasn't hurt in the way he meant, not this time. But what about next time, or the time after that? How many times would she have to go through that kind of pain and fear before it was enough?
"I hate this," Tara said quietly. "I hate being broken."
"You're not broken," Kent told her, helping her stretch her legs out again.
Her initial response to that was a snort of disbelief. Hallucinations weren't a symptom of being healthy. "I'm not normal."
Kent raised his eyebrows. "You never were. I didn't think you wanted to be."
"That's different."
"Is it?" He shook his head. "You've always done things your own way. There's absolutely no difference here."
"I don't want this!" Tara shouted, knowing that she was taking her frustration out on the wrong person, and feeling too upset to care.
"So change it!" Kent said, his voice not quite matching hers in volume. "That's what you're good at. Take it apart, learn about it, and change it."
There was no good answer to that. Tara wanted to believe it was that simple, but she couldn't quite make herself feel that. If that was what was keeping her from getting better, she might never be able to fix things.
"Therapy might help. Next week, right?"
She wasn't convinced about that, either. Just the thought of having someone probing into her feelings and fears was almost as frightening as the monster had been, and it made her tense up all over.
Kent could feel it, and he patted her legs gently. "Just see how it goes, okay? One step at a time."
"I can't even walk right now." Which made it kind of hard to appreciate the metaphor.
"But you will," he reassured her. "And I'll help. We'll all help."
He really would, Tara knew. And so would their parents, in their own way. And maybe the therapists- it was technically possible. And her friends. The ones who still cared, anyway. Maybe soon, she would be able to open her world far enough to let them back in.
At least until then, she wasn't alone. Leaning forward, she nudged Kent with the top of her head. "I'm sorry."
"Me too." Tara wasn't the only one who needed help. Next time, he wanted to be able to do better, to remind her of her surroundings without making her freak out anymore. He had a lot of work in front of him. But if she could do it, so could he.
An hour later, their parents came back, looking like a matching pair of wrecks. Tara had fallen asleep on the couch, and Kent, not wanting to move her, was channel surfing. When the door opened, he muted the television and turned around. "How was- what happened?"
"Some sort of terrorist attack," Gregory explained, while Melanie leaned on him, dabbing her eyes. "I didn't see much of it- your mother passed out from the heat, and I was in the infirmary with her- but the ballroom is a disaster zone. Several people were hurt, from what I hear."
"The hotel manager was horrified," Melanie chimed in, her voice weak. "He assured us these things don't happen often, and offered to comp part of our stay to make up for it."
That was a tiny sliver of good news in an otherwise awful report. That there had been a 'terrorist' attack so nearby was disturbing, and Kent knew he'd have to look into it at some point, if only for his own piece of mind. He only hoped Tara didn't learn about it just yet, lest she be moved to do the same.
Since the couch was occupied, Gregory sat in one of the armchairs instead, brushing his hair out of his eyes. "It was so strange. The terrorists seemed to be after specific targets, but why attack in such a public place? The police were there within minutes, they said. It seems like a waste."
Melanie smacked her husband on the shoulder. "Don't tell the terrorists how to do their job properly! I'm just relieved more people weren't hurt. It's a good thing you two didn't come." She walked over to the couch and stroked Tara's hair. "Everything was quiet up here, I trust?"
They would need to know what happened, eventually. But that might suggest that he couldn't handle things on his own. If they didn't trust him, they'd force Tara to go home with them, and she'd panic again. So, while lying was out of the question, he couldn't tell the whole truth either.
"We're both fine," he answered, truly believing it. "Watched the ball drop, saw some fireworks. Nothing the two of us couldn't handle."
And whatever came next, they'd handle that too. Kent just wasn't sure how yet.
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Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 9:23 pm
Despite the machinations of her family, trying to keep bad news at bay, there way no way to keep word of the party fiasco away from Tara. Not when they had to change hotels, so that the damage done to the structure of the building could be repaired. The manager apologized repeatedly, and even comped their entire weeklong stay, as well as finding them a suitable suite at a nearby hotel. As the concierge looked up rates. he chatted her parents up about how crazy the event was. When the shuttle from the other hotel came to get them, all he could talk about was the terrorist attack. And the bellhops there wanted all the details while they helped get the luggage settled.
Every time someone brought the subject up, Tara was reminded of her many failures. Even if she couldn't have stopped this particular plot all by herself, she should have been there. People, including her own parents, were hurt because of her inaction. And it would be weeks yet before she was back in peak physical shape, leaving the Negaverse time to do who-knew-what? Assuming she would even be in Destiny City at that point.
That question was the elephant in the room, the topic nobody wanted to talk about. Tara was afraid her parents would force the issue. They were probably scared that mentioning it would freak her out. And Kent... Tara wasn't quite sure what he was thinking anymore. Was he really okay without knowing where she'd been for six months? Or was he just pretending to be, for her sake?
The first person to ask about her plans wasn't a member of her family, but a therapist she'd been recommended to. Who asked a ton of questions about everything: her friends, her family, her feelings, her dreams- both aspirations and the images she saw at night. Nothing about where she'd been, though. Apparently, for this sort of therapy, they didn't need that information, and Tara was relieved to not have to talk about why she couldn't talk about it, but not being asked was still sort of unnerving. The room wasn't big enough for two elephants.
Even though Kent and her parents had explained it a little before going in, the therapist detailed what was going to happen. Something about using eye movements to lessen her response to triggers. The whole thing seemed really new age-y, complete with a guided meditation at the end that was probably meant to calm her. All it did was make her wonder if this was a waste of time. But this session was basically an evaluation, groundwork for what was to come. Which sounded like a lot. How long would she have to blink at things until she was over this already?
When they got back to their new hotel, while the ladies at the check-in desk chatted her parents up about the ball for the umpteenth time, Tara started to rummage through her coat pockets. She was hoping to find some Skittles or M&Ms, just a little something sweet while no one was watching. Usually, she stocked her pockets with snacks, but since her parents were in charge of her wardrobe, and everything else, there wasn't a trace of sugar anywhere.
What she did find was her cell phone. Her fingers brushed up against the screen, and she froze, thinking back to when Kent gave it to her. Her link to the world outside the hotel, he'd said, whenever she was ready for it. That was three days ago, just after New Year's, and her response had been to shove it back at him. He'd dropped the matter far too easily, only to stash it where he knew she'd find it. Then, the time hadn't been right, but now?
Now, she was ready to open the door just a bit, to spend time with someone besides gossips and elephants.
There were tons of missed calls and voicemails and text messages, which Tara couldn't deal with. It was heartening, she supposed, that people had tried to find her. But how badly had she hurt them? And how many of them still cared?
She scrolled down her contacts list, looking for the one person she knew would answer, no matter what. Laney had never given up on her. She kept coming, even when there really didn't seem to be a point. Never pushing too hard, just quietly letting her know that someone still wanted her to come back. The world was still a scary place, but Laney was a harbor in the neverending storm.
Casting a sideways glance at her parents- would they ever stop gabbing?- she opened a new message and began to type.
I'm really sorry about everything. Can we talk? There was so much more to say, but she had to do this a little at a time. Besides, Laney would respond in a minute or two anyway, giving support, asking for details. Just the thought brought a smile to Tara's face, and she sent the message along.
At the same time, her parents finished their chattering at the clerks and started chattering at her. What a nice hotel this was, everyone was so kind, wanting to make sure their stay was a good one. Tara rolled her eyes and shoved the phone back into her pocket, expecting it to go off any minute.
It didn't.
When she took her coat off, she moved the phone to her sweatshirt pocket. She kept it next to her at dinner, ignoring her mother's jibes that she must be waiting for a call from her boyfriend. It stayed with her while they watched television, and was set to charge on the nightstand, within arm's reach.
The next day, there was still nothing. No missed calls. No messages. No explanation.
At first, Tara was scared. What if something happened to Laney while she was gone? If that was the case, she'd never forgive herself. The whole point of going away had been to protect people. Or at least, that was what she'd believed. If something went wrong, something she could have prevented by being there-
But no, that wasn't possible. Kent mentioned that he'd spoken to Laney in the months that she was gone. Something about coordinating search efforts. If something happened to her, he would have heard it, and tried to hide it. He probably would never have given her phone back if he knew there would be be bad news waiting at the other end of the line.
So Laney was probably fine, which was a relief, but also a puzzle. If she was fine, why was there no answer? Even when she was busy, she always found time to respond, even if it was just with a smiley face. If she wasn't responding at all, then it was because she couldn't... or she didn't want to.
Tara's grip on her phone tightened. "No," she whispered. That couldn't happen. Not with Laney. Everyone else might abandon her, but Laney never would. She just wasn't that kind of person.
But she remembered their last meeting. Not clearly- everything from her time in space was a bit foggy, and it was hard to separate reality from things that merely looked real- but well enough to know how awful she'd been. Pushing Laney away, and hard, when all her friend had wanted to do was help. Making her remember things she would rather have never experienced. Refusing to see how much she was hurting other people with her actions, because she was so blinded by her own pain.
And even after all that, Laney kept coming. It was thankless, hopeless work that she did, and she did it anyway. Was it any wonder that she got tired of it? Decided to find a better use of her time and energy? Could Tara really begrudge her for doing exactly what she'd been told to do? Especially when she was still a millstone, ready to drag down anyone who tried to pull her along? It really wasn't fair to reach out at all, not until she had this under control.
If Laney had found a way to be happy, there was no way she could intrude on that. The only way she could prove how much she cared about Laney was by letting her go.
Her fingers shook as she brought Laney's contact information up on the screen again. A few button presses later, a confirmation box appeared:
DELETE CONTACT
Are you sure you want to delete this contact? This action is permanent and cannot be undone!
YES NO This was for the best, Tara told herself, moving the blinking cursor to YES. By not answering, Laney had given her answer. She needed to honor that decision, or their friendship would be wrecked anyway. Her finger lowered, slowly, slowly...
But she couldn't do it.
Maybe Laney really was sick of her, of being ignored and pushed away. And maybe it was time to let her friend have the freedom she deserved. But there was no way that Tara could just erase her, from her phone or from her life. Even in space, she'd thought about Laney all the time. Kept Laney's notes tucked into her sash until they disintegrated. Wanted to talk to her, if only one more time.
There had to be some sort of compromise, something between resigning herself to life as a smothering wreck or a total recluse. A way to keep things open, so they could be worked out later. Tara quickly selected NO on the screen, and the confirmation box disappeared. The knot in her chest loosened, just a little. There was still a chance to fix things. Theirs was a friendship worth fighting for.
But the ball was in Laney's court now. Maybe she really was too busy to respond, or maybe she was trying to look for a way to cut things off without hurting anyone's feelings. Whatever the situation, Tara would wait, and whatever the decision, she would respect it. It was the absolute least she could do, and far less than what she owed after everything that happened.
Before this, she'd spent a year at Laney's bedside, not knowing if her friend would ever wake up again. There was no way that waiting for a text message could be as bad, especially since she knew that Laney had to be alive and well somewhere. So why, Tara wondered, did she feel ready to explode, just because one friend had better things to do than hang out with an idiot like her?
There were other numbers in her phone, other people she could call. Her social network was small, but it did exist, or at least it had, once upon a time. She brought up Yvette's number, looking at it for a moment, before sighing and putting the phone to charge again. If Laney didn't want to talk to her, who was to say that anyone else would? Her last talk with Yvette had been awful, both of them crying, nobody understanding what was going on. And then there was Zia, who was probably convinced that she was off her rocker, and not totally wrong. Not wrong at all, really.
That knight had told her to let her friends help. But how could they, when they couldn't get inside her head and rearrange things? How could she even ask, when it meant submitting them to the very things she'd spent the past six months running from? Exposing her family to what was going on inside her, even just a little bit, was wreaking havoc on all of them. They couldn't talk about much, and what they did, they argued about. If her friendships went the same way, she really would be all alone, if she wasn't already.
There was only one option left.
"I'll fix this," Tara said, trying to sound confident. "I know I can, now. I'll fix this, and show her I've changed, and maybe we can still..."
It was a long shot. There was no guarantee anyone would be interested in dealing with her, even after she got her demons under control. Assuming the therapy worked, she was looking at weeks, months, before she would be what she considered a functional human being again. But even if no one else was willing to forgive her, Laney would. Possibly. There was, she supposed, only one way to find out.
In the meantime, she would have to make do with gossips and elephants a while longer.
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Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 9:27 pm
"So I found this today."
They were in the room that they shared, finishing getting ready for bed. Tara stopped brushing her hair and looked up at Kent. Or, to be exact, at the phone he was holding out at her. Crap. How the hell had he found that thing? She'd even made sure it was off, so ringing wouldn't give it away!
"It was under the bed," he went on. "How do you think it got there?"
"It must've fallen." That was the other reason she'd chosen to hide it under there, even though it was a pain in the butt to accomplish. There was a perfectly reasonable explanation.
One that Kent didn't believe. "It's possible, but I don't think it's very likely. Do you?"
Tara didn't answer. She was so sick of lying, but she didn't like the truth. And if she didn't like it, he'd hate it.
"Why did you hide your phone, Tara?"
Or he would already know. How, she wasn't sure, but Kent had a knack for putting his nose where it didn't belong. Including under the bed, for some reason. "Why were you looking there?"
That startled him. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times before delivering his non-answer. "Th-that's not the point. The point is that you're doing it again."
"Doing what again?" Tara asked innocently. As if that would stop the shoe from falling.
Kent dropped the phone on the bed and sat down next to Tara. "You're closing yourself off."
"Am not. I'm talking to you, aren't I?"
"Barely. You're going back to how it was before you... before you disappeared." He fidgeted uncomfortably, not sure if it was safe to give her a hug or not. She could see him move in for one and think better of it. "Having you gone was terrifying. I was so sure that something awful'd happened to you. But even before that, you weren't in good shape."
Of course not. Her life had been a mess since her awakening, even if it took her a while to realize it.
Much as Tara hated to admit it to herself, Kent had a point. She was falling back into the pattern she'd set before she left. But how could she not? The situation hadn't changed significantly since then. She was still a wreck, and even though she was willing to concede the possibility that she wasn't some world-ending supernova, she still didn't have the right to ask people to get involved in her inner battles, especially when there really wasn't anything they could do.
Kent wouldn't want to hear that, though. He wouldn't like any answer she could give, so it was time for a subject change. Which made her think about something else he'd said. "You really thought something happened to me?"
"Of course," he said, surprised she would suspect otherwise. "You just up and vanished. What was I supposed to think?"
"But I- I mean, I thought..." Slow down. Play it close to the chest. "I asked someone to give you a message."
That made Kent tense up. She could feel it, just from sitting next to him. "That was a terrorist," he said slowly. "Why would I believe what one of them told me?"
Right. That was the right answer, exactly what Tara wanted: confirmation that Kent had no idea what was really going on in Destiny City. That was part of the reason she went to space in the first place, to keep him safe from all that.
So why was she feeling disappointed?
"Anyway, that's not the point." Kent took her silence as a cue to get back to their other discussion, which wasn't what Tara wanted at all. "You can't be hiding here forever, Tara."
She didn't want to hide forever. Just for a while, until she got things under control. Until she could talk to her friends without worrying that she would drive them away permanently.
He nudged her in the side, gently, to make sure he had her attention. "You and I both know that it's only a matter of time before they ask you to move home with them."
That was something she'd been trying really hard not to think about. Because it was going to be hard, even if she got her way. And if she didn't, what could she do? Running again wasn't an option.
"If you want to stay here- and I'm pretty sure you do- you need to show them that your life is here. But you can't do that if you stay cooped up all the time."
Damn it, why did he have to make sense? "I... I know that." Now that he told her. "It's just hard. I was... I was by myself, most of the time. Talking to people still feels weird." Especially when she wasn't sure if they'd like her afterwards. Kent was different- he had to deal with her, no matter how loopy she got. Her friends, though...
"I never said it would be easy." This time Kent went ahead and put his arm over her shoulders. "Just think about it, okay?"
That was a promise she was willing to make. "Okay."
"And quit hiding your phone under the bed."
"Fine." He was never going to let her forget that, was he?
"And remember- you're a lot tougher than you realize."
She supposed she had to be, or she never would have lasted this long. But she didn't feel tough. Just scared, and alone.
Kent pulled her closer, and Tara relaxed a little, letting her eyes close as she rested her head on his chest. Not entirely alone, then. And not entirely scared, either.
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Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2015 11:58 pm
Even without access to her senshi form, Tara healed more quickly than expected. The doctors had told her it would be six weeks before she could even think about walking on her injured leg. By the third week, she was hobbling around the hotel room while her parents were out, even though it hurt, a tiny rebellion against the restrictions they were putting on her. Sitting on the floor when she was tired, rather than in the chair she’d grown to hate. She couldn’t even leave the hotel without someone accompanying her, and when they did leave, there weren’t many destinations open to her. Therapy. The park. Restaurants. Nowhere interesting, and nowhere she really wanted to be. She knew her parents were only watching out for her, but under their constant supervision she couldn’t help but feel stuck.
Which was laughable when she thought about it. Even the minimal traveling she was able to do still beat the conditions of her self-imposed exile. In space she’d had the run of her Outpost, and the paths of the Surrounding, to wander about freely. But she couldn’t go anywhere else. Couldn’t talk to anyone, except Exidor, and he wasn’t even a real ghost. Just a sign of how far she was running in the wrong direction, to the point that her own self-conscious was screaming at her to stop.
And just who was she supposed to talk to now? Her parents were too afraid of upsetting her to bring up anything important. Which was frustrating, but Tara knew it couldn’t last, and she feared the arguments that would surely follow. Kent was a little easier to deal with, but she had to be wary about how much she shared with him. There was no way she could be fully honest with someone who didn’t know her story, and he was already closer to the truth than she liked. Yvette was out for the same reason. Her last conversation with Zia had gone so poorly that she knew she couldn’t reach out there. Laney would be perfect, but Laney still hadn’t returned her text, and Tara couldn’t bring herself to try again and risk snapping the last threads that kept them connected.
There was no one else, and that was a little shocking. Tara had never been the most popular or well-liked kid around, but she’d never run out of people to talk to before all this. Now there were so few safe topics of conversation that even if she had a hundred friends, she might still find herself without anything to say, or anyone to say it to. And as much as she wanted to blame her circumstances for that, she knew they were only half of the problem.
Even if she was able to admit that, it wouldn’t change her situation. She still had no one to talk to, no one to reassure her that she was going to be okay. Her family had to tell her those things, but they didn’t really know they were talking about. It would be far more comforting to hear it from someone who wasn’t just reading from a script.
And maybe she could, without having to talk to anybody.
Slowly, Tara pulled out her phone. The message icons blinked at her, as they’d done ever since her return. Looking at them still made her anxious and apprehensive, but in that moment she wanted a taste of human contact more than she wanted to feel safe. She mashed a button with her thumb, bringing up the most recent voicemail message. Pressing the button again, she brought the phone to her ear, hand shaking slightly as she listened.
" Hi Tara..... it's me... Yvette. It's a bit after New Year's... I hope you are doing well... keeping safe! As you know... I'm keeping busy with Mystery and Carolynn... Mystery decorated the house in feather boas, so I got to help out with that project. If Mystery lets me borrow her phone, I could show you pictures some time... she has weird tastes for a twelve year old... but it's refreshing! Well... Tara... I hope you get this message... I will call again next week. Um... later!" It felt so good to hear Yvette’s voice. When was the last time they’d spoken? Several months ago, at least. Thinking about that still hurt, so Tara focused on the message instead. She had no idea who Carolynn or Mystery might be- maybe other messages would tell her- but it sounded like Yvette was having fun. Doing well, even without her, just as she’d expected. Well enough to get by without any flaky friends, of course. But if that was the case, why was there a message? More than one, even, by the sound of it. If Yvette was doing so well, why was she wasting time calling someone who’d literally dropped off the face of the earth?
She hesitated then, not sure whether to listen to another message, in the hopes that it might answer her question, or to turn the phone off and pretend none of this had ever happened. Which would leave her right back where she was before, lonely and miserable, but at least she wouldn’t be dragging others down with her. Except that was what she was doing anyway, whether she knew about it or not. So what gave her the right to hide from everything she’d done wrong?
As she debated with herself, the phone beeped, startling Tara into dropping it like a hot potato. Tempting as it was to leave it there, she made herself pick it up again. There was a text on the screen, newly received. While she read it, another one popped up under it, and another one under that. Each one made the knot in her stomach tighten painfully, until she was sure something was going to burst.
>I don’t know if you’re going to get this >I hope you’re okay. >I’m sorry I didn’t have answers. >I’m so sorry I’m a let down, Tara.
How many people’s lives had she wrecked by leaving the way she did? Her family was barely holding itself together. Yvette was wasting her time calling someone who barely existed. Zia thought she was a failure, when it was Tara herself who was the real let down. And Laney… no, it still hurt to think about Laney. It hurt to think about everyone. Loneliness was nothing compared to this.
The phone beeped again, but this time Tara didn’t check it. “I get it, okay?” she said, her voice nearly a scream. “I’ve ruined everything! You don’t have to keep telling me, I know!” Whatever else she read or listened to could only confirm that fact. For a split second she hated everyone who had tried to check in on her, tried to confront her with her mistakes. But that too was wrong, and when she realized what she was thinking, she became more angry and confused than ever.
She couldn’t blame Zia for this, or Yvette, or Laney. They had no way of knowing what effect their messages, or lack thereof, might have. And even though it was probably the right answer, she couldn’t blame herself either, not entirely. Her feelings were what they were. And whose fault was that, if not hers or her friends? Who could she blame for the rock in the pit in her stomach?
The phone was the problem. It was full of expectations she couldn’t fulfill, promises she couldn’t keep. It demanded answers she didn’t have, to problems she wasn’t even able to admit existed.
It kept beeping at her, and it wouldn’t shut up. She dropped it abruptly, but it kept going, trying to tell her there was a new message, something else she couldn’t handle. And why should she have to deal with an obnoxious phone on top of everything else?
Reaching out blindly, Tara grabbed the nearest object- a desk lamp- and brought it down on the phone. The screen cracked, but the beeping persisted, corkscrewing into her brain. In that moment the phone became everything she had been fighting against, an enemy that had to be eliminated if she was going to survive. She brought the lamp down again, harder. And again, harder still. Chips of plastic flew off in different directions, and the beeping became a whine, which, with one more blow, was finally silenced.
Tara expected to feel some relief at that. The monster was vanquished, her job was over. So why was she still hurting? What was she afraid of?
Realization dawned slowly, quietly, as if afraid to startle her further. Her eyes widened, first with understanding, then with horror. She was afraid to acknowledge what had just happened. Afraid to move, or speak, or even think.
So instead she sat there, unmoving, until her parents got back, staring at the shattered remnants of what had once been her life.
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Posted: Sun May 31, 2015 11:25 pm
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Posted: Sun May 31, 2015 11:27 pm
For several weeks after her return, Tara was barely able to think about senshi life. First she was dealing with her hospitalization, then with her parents, then with moving back home, and then with Laney's predicament. And all the while, she was supposed to be focused on her recovery. As if it was possible to really recover from everything she'd been through.
But if it wasn't, then she wouldn't be there. She had to try, and try honestly, or there wouldn't be a point.
So she put her best effort into doing things that had no reason to be frightening and were anyway, and though she hated herself when she reacted badly, she was surprised to find that those times were slowly decreasing in number and severity. It was a slow shift, so slow that she attributed it to margin of error at first. But eventually she had to recognize that things were actually improving. Finally, her life could be said to be on the upswing.
Which made her feel that she ought to be doing more. Which made her think of her senshi duties. Which made her realize that she hadn't seen her henshin pen since her stay at the hospital.
"Hey, Kent?" she shouted, stumbling as she left her room. Her ankle was totally healed, but her ability to pick things up off the floor was as bad as ever, and she winced as she stubbed her toe on a textbook. "Kent?"
"In the kitchen!" he shouted back over the hiss of boiling sauce, listening as she pounded her way in. She was upset for some reason; that much was obvious before she finished stomping in. "What's up?"
She was mad that she didn't have it. That was her pen, her link to a life that she didn't really like, but it was too much a part of her to let it go completely. But there was no reason to be mad at Kent. It wasn't like he was keeping it from her deliberately. "The bag," she said quickly, "from the hospital. With all my clothes and stuff. Where is it?"
Kent had to think about that one. When they'd moved back in, everything had been so unsettled that he'd just dropped stuff wherever. "I don't remember off the top of my head. Why, are you looking for something?"
"My pen. I need my pen." Even if she wasn't planning on running back to space, or a run across rooftops, Tara knew she needed to have it.
"All this over a pen?" Kent raised his eyebrows. "There's like fifty pens in the jar by the phone, Tara."
The fact that he didn't get the pen's importance should have been comforting, but she could only find it frustrating. "I need this pen. It's important."
This time Kent actually rolled his eyes. "C'mon, what could be so important about a... a pen..."
Henshin pens are what a senshi uses to power up, to transform. That was what the alien cat had told him. Was it possible that Tara was looking for that pen? It had to be- nothing else would be so important. But why now, when everything was going well?
"I just need it, okay?" Tara tugged on Kent's sleeve, trying to make him see the urgency of her situation, but also trying to avoid burning either of them on the saucepan.
"Why?" he asked sharply, trying to keep his face, if not his voice, neutral. "Why do you need it so badly?"
Had she overdone it? "I... okay, maybe not need, but I really want it." That was safe, right?
"Well, why do you want it, then?"
"Jeez, do I need a reason?" Tara demanded, hands on her hips. "Just give me the pen, Kent!"
If she was reacting this badly, it had to be that pen. Why did she want it so much? Was she planning on running away again? Or getting into a fight with a monster? Kent couldn't picture any good outcome from letting her get her hands on it. Not when her wounds were still raw.
"You want this pen for something important, you said?"
That was more than he was supposed to know. Tara realized how much she'd let slip, and knew it wasn't safe to answer that question.
"If it's so important, you'll tell me what the reason is. And if it's not, well, you won't mind not having it for a little while longer."
"But Kent-"
He held his hand up to stop her. "Are you going to tell me why you want it so badly?" When he got silence in reply, he shrugged. "Then let me finish making dinner."
He turned back to the pot, ending the conversation that Tara was starting to wish had never happened. If she'd just looked for the pen, she probably could have found it. Now he probably thought it had drugs in it or something, and would hide it- or worse- the next chance he got. Who knew when she'd ever get it back?
And is that such a bad thing? a voice that reminded her of Exidor whispered, making her shudder. But Exidor was usually right, and maybe the voice was too. Maybe it was okay to pretend to be normal for a little while longer. Even though no amount of pretending could make it true.
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Posted: Sun May 31, 2015 11:29 pm
Confusion Reigns[Tara + Nysa + Kent] Tara faces a youma she can't fight, and re-encounters a knight she can't stand.
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Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2015 11:24 pm
Even though she knew it was useless, Tara searched for her pen. She looked in cleverly hidden spots and right out in the open. She looked when Kent was out, at work or class or whatever he did during the day, and when he was home, cooking or watching TV or working on whatever he had to do. It wasn’t a secret, but she never brought the subject up to him again, and if he guessed what she was doing, he never mentioned it.
That she couldn’t find it was maddening. That she kept looking was, in its own way, worse.
Kent’s question had stuck in her consciousness, playing back again and again when she was comfortably thinking about other things. The more she tried to put it out of her mind, the more insistently it repeated itself.
”Well, why do you want it, then?”
There was no way she would be able to come up with an answer that would satisfy him. She’d reacted too intensely to try and play it off as some kind of joke. If she tried to lie, he’d catch her in a heartbeat. And there was no way that she could tell him the truth. Even if she was starting to believe that being a senshi wasn’t necessarily the death sentence she’d first thought it was, she still felt that the safest way to proceed was to keep Kent as far away from anything magical as she possibly could. Which she was kind of failing at, considering he was holding onto a very magical pen, but there was no reason to make a bad situation worse.
No, she was quite comfortable keeping Kent in the dark, at least for the time being. That she didn’t have an answer for him was understandable. What really got to her was the fact that she had no answer for herself.
Why did she want the pen so badly?
Logically, Tara thought, if she wanted an object, it was because she wanted to do something with said object. That much was simple enough. But when she thought about what exactly she wanted to do with it, her thoughts careened into each other in a crash worthy of the five o’clock news. Trying to ignore the problem only made it worse- the question would pop up when she was trying to focus on something important, until it wasn’t just her train of thought getting derailed, but her life. Eventually, it became clear that she would have to solve this particular problem, either by figuring out the riddle or by halting her search, perhaps permanently.
That idea was so distasteful that Tara set aside the book she had been reading and went to her desk. Since she wasn’t enrolled in school, and was unsure when, if ever, she would be able to return, it was used more as storage space than as a workstation. After staring at it for a moment, she shoved a pile of papers, magazines, bits and bobs off to the side, shrugging when half the pile spilled onto the floor, and grabbed an old school newsletter to use as scrap paper.
The blank paper reminded her just how lost and confused she was on this matter, but this time, backing down wasn’t an option. If she couldn’t think of a reason she wanted her pen so badly, she would start by ruling out everything that wasn’t the answer.
For starters, she didn’t want to run back to space. While she did miss the quiet, the space that was solely hers, she had no desire to totally isolate herself again. Not when she was just starting to think that she might recover from some of the things that she’d done to herself. It would be nice to visit her Outpost, to remind herself that she could, and to get some of the things she’d left behind, but she knew she wouldn’t want to stay for very long.
Nor did she have any desire to run out and start kicking evil monster butt. Just because she didn’t flip out every time the news covered another “mysterious attack” or “strange disappearance” didn’t mean that she was ready to face a ruthless organization bent on genocide head-on. She wasn’t even ready to face their minions head-on.
Which left Tara with another paradox, because there were only two things she could do with a henshin pen. She could use it to run away to space, or she could use it to do her goddamn job. And her goddamn job was fighting the forces of evil. That was the way it had always been.
Something sparked in her mind. “The way it’s always been,” she said aloud, trying to grab onto the bit of inspiration she’d sensed, frowning when it remained just out of reach. Until-
“Since when are you one to accept things just because they’ve always been that way?”
It was impossible to tell whether that mental voice had been hers or Exidor’s, though she knew there was no real difference between the two. Her concern over the possibility that she was still hearing him, however, was overshadowed by the implications of what the voice actually said.
“That’s right,” she told herself, trying to get pumped up. “If Galileo had taken for granted that the earth was the center of the universe, we might never have learned the truth. He did a different kind of fighting.” But was there a way to fight the Negaverse differently? Could she find a way to neutralize their threat without taking up arms?
Though she couldn’t think of anything, that didn’t mean it was impossible. All she needed was a lead. Like- like the books in her library! Maybe one of them held a bit of information she could use to turn the whole situation around. And maybe, having given her brain a break from the too-familiar characters of the languages they were written in, maybe she would be able to see things differently enough to finally crack the code.
It wasn’t likely. It wouldn’t be easy. But it was a start. A direction. An answer to the question that had plagued her for weeks, and something new to fight for, once she was ready.
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Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2015 11:27 pm
Be true to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age. It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, “Always do what you are afraid to do.“
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
In many ways, Tara’s life since her return from space had been according to maxims attributed to the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt, Kurt Vonnegut, and Mary Schmich. While she didn’t have to do something that scared her every single day, she had to spend a lot of time focused on the things that scared her, and why, and how to fix that.
It took two weeks before she was able to make hot tea for herself. Kent stood by her while she recoiled from the stovetop, deeply unsettled by even the tiny lights of the gas burner. It took even longer for her to be able to stand next to a smoker without being dragged back to a room full of flames. But it happened, finally. The first time she realized she had walked past a smoker without even flinching, she had felt good about herself for days.
Some of her attempts were more successful than others. She still couldn’t watch crime dramas on television. There were far too many triggers: gunshots, arsonists, hospital rooms that all looked exactly like the ones she’d been in. Her attempt to go see the Fourth of July fireworks had been poorly conceived, especially considering what had happened at New Year’s. The noise had drowned out her shrieking, and she was lucky that the monster she’d hit had turned out to be a tree. Still, it would be a good while before she would repeat that experiment.
She chose her own challenge for the month of August: baking a cake. This seemingly simple act had a number of dangers lurking within it. She would have to use the oven as well as the stove, and for the finale, she would have to light the candles on the cake. Even though the final product wouldn’t be needed until the end of the month, she started on the first, just in case there were problems.
And there were, of course. The first time she opened the oven after preheating it, the hot air it released sent her straight back into the explosion. She burned her hand on the oven door trying to escape, after which Kent banned her from the kitchen until the burn healed. Not that she cared, particularly, since she only worked on this project when he was out of the house, but the bandages made it hard to do anything for several days, and reminded her that she was going about this the wrong way. But she was committed now, and she couldn't stop.
Once she got past the oven problem, which took three more attempts, she had to try the icing recipe. Using the stove wasn’t too difficult for her anymore, though she still had to be careful. The first time she tried using food coloring on it, she accidentally used the red instead of the yellow, and the resulting concoction made her lose her lunch. Before everything happened, the sight of blood had never bothered her. Why was it that becoming a senshi had turned her into a wimp?
“No,” she told herself sternly, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. “You are not broken. You can do this.”
August 31st rolled around much more quickly than Tara would have guessed. By that time, she was able to use both the oven and the stove without too much difficulty. The cake- chocolate fudge with fluffy white frosting and a bright yellow sun piped onto it- looked delicious. But there had been no time to test the candles, and Kent would be home any minute.
“Time to go for it, then.” She jabbed three candles into the cake in a loose triangle- there was no way she was going to try using thirty-three of them- and struck a match. The feel of fire so close to her skin made her shiver, and she dropped the match into the sink, shaking her fingers anxiously.
There was a lighter in the cabinet, she remembered suddenly. Kent used it to light the stove when it misbehaved. It took a few minutes for her to find it, but the long-handled tool solved one of her problems. Someday, she would need to be able to light a match, but today did not have to be that day.
The flame at the tip of the lighter looked a lot like the flames in the stove. Still unsettling, but at a level that she could handle. Her hand shook slightly as she moved the lighter to the tips of the candles. Each flame on its own was fine, but together they looked a lot more threatening. Putting the lighter down helped a little, but not enough to stop her feeling that something horrible was about to happen-
“Tara, I’m home!”
There was no more time. Swallowing her fear, Tara lifted the cake and carried it out to the living room. “Happy Birthday, Kent!”
The flames still looked imposing, and one wrong move could light up the whole apartment. But somehow, seeing Kent’s surprised smile over the tops of the candles made them seem a lot less frightening. Maybe fire didn’t always have to destroy. Just like senshi, if she had her way.
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