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When Tallulah came home from patrol that night, she found a basket of Easter chocolate on her bed. This was perplexing, as she neither recalled buying an Easter basket, nor even acknowledging the holiday’s existence. Her family was some kind of lapsed Anglican. She personally believed in evolutionary biology and reincarnation (or so she claimed on Facebook.)

Simple deduction lead her to conclude that the mysterious basket was from Kat, as no one else could have gotten into her room. Since it came from Kat, she didn’t feel any kind of reluctance to rip right into it (whereas she might not have been so quick to trust a more mysterious basket) - although, the calorie count on the chocolate rabbit gave her pause.

Tallulah was always a healthy eater, horrible caffeine dependency aside. There was no doubt in her mind that she got plenty of physical activity between lifeguarding and senshi duties - but how many calories, exactly, did a night of patrol burn?

She changed into her summer pajamas before considering the easter basket further. Even before becoming a senshi, Tallulah had never been one of those girls to obsessively keep track of what she consumed. As a high school athlete and a vegetarian, she always assumed that she was doing well as long as her weight was stable. But here she was, sitting on her bed slightly after midnight, pondering whether or not she could justify eating an entire chocolate rabbit.

Patroling, Tallulah reasoned, nibbling an ear, had to take a lot of energy. She knew that her senshi powers drew from some kind of energy pool that could leave her exhausted if she over-exerted herself, but did it burn calories? Roof-running and fighting were absolutely cardio exercise, but did her body even burn calories when she was powered up? Did magic run on whole grains and soy protein?

Crunching into the hollow ear of the rabbit, Tallulah decided that she was just going to cut her losses and assume yes, especially considering that she was dead set on eating this whole rabbit. And when Tallulah set her mind on something, she was going to do it. Even if that something was devouring a chocolate rabbit and catching up on NCIS.

She’d gotten steadily sicker, although it took Tallulah a long time to figure out what was causing her illness. It started as fatigue, and then moved into splitting headaches and abdominal pain that she couldn’t ever quite pin down. The night it finally boiled over and she collapsed on patrol, she couldn’t say for sure how she’d gotten home. Her father said it was a young man in furs and blue, who woke him up and carried Tallulah up the stairs and she shed her henshin as they went, leaving fading blue ribbons in her wake.

In the morning, Angus was by her bedside, looking like he’d hardly slept. “You have a fever,” he said. “And you collapsed. Tallulah, I had half a mind to take you to the hospital when that boy brought you home.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” said Tallulah. Her head was killing her, and she wanted coffee. “Was I – did you see?” Her father’s known about her superhero alias for years now, but she’s never let him see her all powered up. Angus nodded.

“I could hardly believe it was you,” he said, “But I knew it had to be. How long have you been sick?”

She’d shrugged then. She didn’t know and hadn’t been keeping count. “A few weeks, maybe,” she guessed. She’d been so busy she hadn’t even had a free night to visit Europa and check on her projects. The plants had just been coming into harvest last time she’d been, and she didn’t think that the system was to the point that it could sustain itself.

“I’m taking you to the doctor,” said Angus.

The doctor said that Tallulah had symptoms of organ failure. Her father sat with her in the exam room, and Tallulah pulled her paper gown self-consciously close and shrugged tearfully. She did not know what had made her sick. She didn’t know what it would take to get better.

“This war you’re involved in,” said her father quietly. “Is it anywhere else?” Tallulah shook her head no. “Please, Lu,” he continued, “Let’s go away. We’ll get you treatment and you can rest.”

Her immediate response was, “No! My team needs me.” Her father looked… heartbroken.

“I already had to tell my sister that her daughter is missing and presumed dead,” said Angus. “Please don’t let this kill you. Please don’t make me bury you. Because that will kill me, too.”

Tallulah couldn’t bear to see him cry over her. She nodded. “Okay, Dad,” she said. And that was that.

Everything from there on out got more complicated. Once they were transferred to a specialist out-of-state, it took weeks for the doctors to narrow down what was making her sick, and she wasn’t improving at all in that time. By the time they told her, “Trace rare-element poisoning,” Tallulah was in a bad way, but she was still with-it enough for it to dawn on her how she’d made herself sick: by absentmindedly popping Europa-grown pea pods and beans into her mouth.

There was a medically-induced coma at some point, followed by physical therapy for as long as her father could convince the doctors to keep her there. Not as though she didn’t need it - she did! But this recovery had been slow in coming.

Tallulah paced her bedroom in the apartment her parents were renting. She’d been released from the hospital months ago for outpatient therapy and monitoring, and she didn’t like how she looked. She felt gaunt and weak, even though her mother told her daily that she was a portrait of health. Civilian Tallulah always felt weak. She missed the strength that came with Europa’s ruffles and frills. To Henshin here would be pointless – and she’d been reluctant to for a long time, scared it might interfere with her healing process. But now, she thought she could feel her senshi side itching under her skin, silly and metaphorical as that may have been.

Tallulah Cowden had to get back to Destiny City.

Regular - Taking it Slow - Tallulah and Paul - Complete

Tallulah overtires herself at the DCU pool and a handsome med student comes to her rescue.

Regular - Footloose and Fancy Free - Tallulah and Paul - Complete

Paul takes Tallulah out for drinks on her birthday. It is so totally a date.

Regular - Fancy Seeing You Here - Tallulah and Erika - In Progress

The message had appeared as soon as she donned her uniform for the night’s patrol, unfurling out of thin air on paper that seemed impossibly old and musty. She’d heard tell of knights’ ability to send letters through the ether, but had never expected her first experience with it to be nearly so, well… On first read it was merely enigmatic, but on second, it became terrifying. She crouched behind the chimney, scanning the horizon for chaotic signatures. Babylon’s letter mentioned Avalon, and while she’d heard him mention the the fallen knight before, she couldn’t for the life of her think what she could have done to draw attention to herself - especially as Tallulah, not Europa.

Could the general be watching the house? she worried. She didn’t feel any power signatures nearby, chaotic or otherwise. That didn’t rule out civilian observation, Europa frowned, but she felt that for now she was safe to not alert her parents. After all, she didn’t have the full picture, and Babylon had promised to contact her with more information… eventually.

She felt her pulse quicken. Easy, Europa, she cautioned herself, but she would have felt better if she could write Babylon back and demand an explanation here and now. There was no making up for that, but at least she felt relatively certain that her family was safe.

Half an hour later, Europa landed in the alley behind the bowling alley and, after quickly checking her surroundings, powered down. She needed to - she needed to call Paul, to make sure he’d be careful. If Avalon was after her, then how could she be certain that any of her usual contacts wouldn’t be caught up in this mess? She dug her cell phone out of her back pocket and called him, but the call rang out and went to voicemail. Three more tries produced an identical result and she wasn’t going to spend her whole night trying to get ahold of him. On the fourth call, she said, “Paul, it’s me. Give me a call when you get a free moment,” to the answering machine and hung up.

Tallulah clenched and unclenched her hands a few times, trying to clear her head and concentrate. If Babylon meant what he said, then she’d already lingered too long. He’d said nothing about whether or not Avalon had connected her civilian identity to her senshi form, and Europa hoped that if that were in fact the case, then he would have been more explicit. Her anonymity as Europa was her best chance at safety. So while she had no designs for tonight and no goal in particular, she powered up once more and set out, anxiety pounding in her veins.