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Traveling was exhausting. Traveling was exhausting and humiliating when your father insisted on pushing you around the airport in a wheelchair when you were more than capable of walking on your own two feet. By the time Tallulah's father parked the car in the driveway, she was sick and tired of being ferried around and treated like an invalid - even if she was still recovering from a life-threatening illness.

"I can do it," she said stubbornly, and insisted on taking her suitcase from the trunk on her own and hauling it up the front steps and back to her bedroom. And then, to show that she still wasn't tired, she made a show out of unpacking all of her clothes and putting them back where they belonged.

"I think I might see if any of my friends want to hang out tonight," she mentioned to her mother, once she was done organizing and decided to go see what dinner was. (Some kind of casserole.) What Tallulah really meant was that she was thinking of going on patrol - her henshin pen felt warm in her hands when she took it out of her bedside drawer, even after a year of disuse.

"You're not leaving the house," Angus called from the living room. Tallulah sighed. Sighed, and then called Paris.

"Hey," she said, "I'm back in town and grounded for life, never mind that I'm almost twenty-one." Oh, the indignity! "Do you want to come over and do, I don't know, pedicures and Legally Blonde or something so I can prove to my parents that I'm not up to no good?"

Well, thought Tallulah, as she watched the driveway from her spot on the living room sofa, calling Paris was one way to make a girl feel adored. It seemed like her ears had only just stopped ringing when Paris's car pulled into the driveway. Tallulah hurried to open the door before the other girl could have a chance to knock.

"Oh my god," she squealed, pulling Paris into a hug. While they'd never spent a lot of time together in their civilian forms before Tallulah's illness, all the fondness that Sailor Europa felt for Sailor Ganymede translated pretty clearly across glamours. That, and they'd been Skype calling each other a lot. "Come in, come in," she added, waving Paris inside and closing the door. It was chilly out, even for mid-November.

After making the requisite introductions to her parents, Tallulah lead Paris upstairs to the den and turned on the television. "You look really great," she said, flopping onto the couch. She didn't feel tired yet, but she knew it was only a matter of time - take it easy, she reminded herself. You're getting over a small case of organ failure! "And you've gotta fill me in on everything! I've been gone too long. I've missed too much!"

Sure, she'd tried to keep track of everyone's happenings and keep up with as many people as she could, but there were always people who would slip through the cracks, people whose civilian names she didn't know.

"I'd love to go on patrol tonight but I think my dad would have a coronary if I even thought of leaving the house," she sighed. "What movies did you bring?"

Tallulah nodded and shuffled through the movies, looking through all the options. If she and Paris were going to gab through half of it anyway, then she wanted to watch something she'd seen before. "Thanks so much for coming over," she said, picking Moulin Rouge off the pile. She flashed the cover at Paris. "Yes? Yes. Okay. It's good music, at least, and Ewan McGregor is adorable in this. I saw a preview for August: Osage County on TV while I was in the hospital and he's gotten really old-looking."

She pushed herself up from the couch, leaning a bit heavily on the arm rest, and went to go set up the DVD. "You," she listed off. "Um. Pasiphae. Kalli, a little bit. Vindemiatrix. Babylon, at first, but he kinda stopped texting after a while. I assume he's okay. He's the one who brought me home the night I passed out on patrol. Last I heard he was out of town. Is he back?"

She made her way back to the couch and settled down beside Paris. "Congrats on the wedding, by the way. I kept meaning to send a card and the time just kept getting away from me." She frowned. "But seriously, look at you being all grown up and settled and then here's me who hasn't had a date since she broke up with her high school boyfriend and took a gay sophomore to prom." A sophomore who was dating someone else at the time, just for the record.

"I mean, not that there are a lot of eligible bachelors in the infectious diseases ward," sighed Tallulah. She propped her feet up on the coffee table and sighed at her bare toenails. It wasn't the sort of weather that anyone would see her pedicure, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to go all-out. Focusing on painting her nails would be a nice distraction from pretty much anything else.

"Did I tell you - my dad saw me in my senshi uniform?" she asked, flexing her feet. "The night I collapsed. I always thought he might see me eventually but - I didn't want it to be like that."

"Yeah, well," sighed Tallulah, sorting through the bottles of polish in front of her. She picked out a coppery metallic orange, and a metallic blue as well - the colors of Sailor Europa's fuku. "You can show me pictures, and then I'll ooh and ahh and compliment you a whole lot, okay?" She held the bottles up for Paris's perusal. "What if I alternated these?"

She pulled a knee up to her chest and inspected her toenails, running a thumb over the ends of them. "I'll need to file these down, anyway, before I can do anything. It's good he's okay - I'll see if he'll reply later. I wasn't sure he really wanted to talk to anyone after a while. It kind of seemed like he was trying to get away from everything? I think he kept in touch with Vin, though." Like Babylon would ever not keep in touch with Vindemiatrix. They were practically joined at the hip when they were in the same physical location, in a way that made Tallulah sort of jealous.

"I'd kind of - I'd told him, when he wanted to know why I was turning down a college acceptance out of state," she explained, trying to smile at Paris. "And because my cousin - when she corrupted, her civilian form vanished. I didn't tell him everything about what happened to her, but I told him some. We haven't talked much about it since."

She shrugged. "I always figured he'd see me eventually. I just wish he'd seen me like, triumphant and powerful. Not passed out and weak. I haven't henshined since that night and I just feel... really weak."

Blushing, Tallulah shook her head. "What? Me? Brave?" Paris's statement seemed ridiculous - she certainly didn't feel brave after what she'd been through. Someone brave wouldn't have gotten sick. If she were really brave, she would have been better than that, wouldn't have been scared that she would die and not be able to finish the fight. "No I'm not," she insisted. "You and Valhalla and everyone who's been here fighting are brave. I haven't done anything for a year and a half - I've just been sick and useless. That's not brave."

Tallulah leaned over and began to file the nails on her right foot. "Taking it slow's just so frustrating, though," she sighed. "I mean, no way am I going out on patrol tonight, Dad's gonna check on me like every thirty minutes or something endearingly overprotective like that. Probably not for a few nights at least. Gotta convince him I'm all dedicated to my health." From the tone of her voice, it was clear that Tallulah was less than dedicated. "I mean, I guess I kind of owe it to him to rest for a while. After all, he let me come back here at all. It's just that after a year and a half out - I'm really antsy."

At least, she thought, trying to console herself, she hadn't missed too much - or maybe Paris was just downplaying the scale of events. A general having Chris's starseed didn't sound like nothing.

"He's okay, right?" she asked, happy to be distracted from her own stewing misery, if only for someone else's. "I mean, that's dangerous, but I figure - he got it back, right?" Which was an obvious question, but she just had to be sure.

"Crazy ladies bent on conquering the earth," she said, and hummed with mock serenity. "Seems to be a running theme. Remember the snow globes? Big lady made of ice? I'm pretty sure I got a concussion in the middle of that. Or maybe that was in the final battle of Elysium? I got a concussion during something, that much I'm sure of." Tallulah shrugged and reached for a foam separator. She threaded it through her toes.

"I'm sorry if I'm being kind of morose," she apologized. "I swear I'm really, really glad you're here."

"Yeah, it was a long time ago," Tallulah nodded. Three years now, just about, she figured. She was pretty sure she'd still been just a Super-ranked senshi then. And it must have been about that long ago if they hadn't met yet. "We met in - Elysium, wasn't it?" she asked. So much had happened during those nighttime battles that the timeline was hazy to her - but reminiscing was fun.

"Sometimes it's a little scary how big and small Destiny City is at the same time," she agreed. After it had turned out that so many of her close friends were also senshi, the world had seemed very small. But then, it was also possible that more of her acquaintances were indoctrinated into more chaotic factions. You could never be sure. "I mean, everyone is so necessarily secretive, so you can never be completely sure someone is who they say they are if you only know them in one form or the other and not both."

She appreciated Paris's open ears more than words could fully express. "Seriously, thanks," she said. "And it is really weird, but I'm determined to get back into the action. They had me doing physical therapy when I was still in the hospital, and I'm going to get back into swimming." She'd missed swimming almost as much as henshining up and running around as Eternal Sailor Europa. Paris's suggestion was welcome, though - with classes not starting until January, Tallulah wanted to keep busy, and she'd read about the health benefits Pilates could provide.

"I'd like going to Pilates with you," she said with a smile, shaking the bottle of orange polish. "But you'd have to show me what to do. I've never really done dance or yoga or anything like that before. And thanks, mom," she joked. "I'm not going to be ready for anything like that for a few weeks, anyway. "I'll be sure to call you or Penelope or Krysta before I go running around the city in my buttwings and frills."

She made sure to grin at Paris, just to prove that she was really, really happy right now. "Seriously. Thanks. For everything."

Tallulah blushed at Paris's gratitude, which she felt was perhaps a bit more than she deserved. On the other hand, it was nice to be given credit for her hard work once in a while. She stayed in the hug for a long time, because Paris was warm and smelled nice and Tallulah had missed having friends and not feeling like people were afraid to touch her or she might break. "I'd've had a way harder time if not for you and the rest of our friends, too," she said. Without friends, well... she didn't know what would have happened to her. Without Babylon she'd never have gotten home the night she collapsed. She'd never liked being a solitary senshi, even when she was just starting out - teams had always been her saving grace.

Then, Paris trailed off but Tallulah kept thinking. "If I'd never come back?" she asked. "My dad didn't want me to. He wanted me to get out while I could." Her brow furrowed. "Or you mean... if I'd died?" That seemed more par for worst case scenario thinking. Tallulah shifted awkwardly, pulling away from Paris's embrace ever so gently.

"I was close, Paris," she admitted, looking away towards the television. "I almost died a few times." There were whole months of the last year and a half that she barely remembered, because she'd been in and out of consciousness and medically-induced comas. But now she was back, on the mend and expected to recover in full - so it wasn't all bad. "But," Tallulah continued, turning back to Paris and managing to smile. "I didn't. And I'm not going to. And in the long run, that's what counts, right?"

This was depressing.

"Hey, tell me about how your wedding was," she suggested, changing the subject.

"Why the rush?" Tallulah asked. She was sure Paris was a beautiful bride, and that the party was probably lavish and extravagant in all the ways Paris and Chris seemed like they should be but weren't. She leaned forward to look at the pictures, and her expectations were proven correct. "I love your dress. Definitely more you," she agreed. Paris looked stunning in her cocktail-length dress, and the party decorations she was posing against looked glamorous.

Then, Paris flashed some serious bling. Tallulah took her friend's outstretched hand in her fingers and investigated the ring. Of course Paris would have a pink diamond. Of course. "It's beautiful," Tallulah gushed. "Like, just a really classic design." Paris made a good point about her age, but then it wasn't every nineteen-year-old girl who went and got married. The pair of them had probably experienced more at their respective, young ages than most of them would experience in their lives.

"Did I ever tell you, a boy gave me a ring once?" Tallulah asked, letting go of Paris's hand. She barely remembered what that ring looked like any more, just that she'd felt very mature and very overwhelmed to receive it, and cried for days after she gave it back. "Like, not an engagement ring or anything, because I was like eighteen and didn't want it to be an engagement ring. But I got a ring and then I gave it back."

She could hear her mother calling up from the kitchen, something about dinner being ready. Tallulah was grateful for the distraction, and her toes were dry enough to walk around. "Seriously, congrats," she said to Paris, getting up from the couch as gracefully as she could. "Hope you like macaroni casserole."