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“Oh, so you’re Airman van der Weydin now?” Tallulah asked, with casualness she reserved for people she actually considered friends. She and Kaatje had fought a youma in their pajamas. They were at that stage. “That’s fancy. Congrats. I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. I was in class.” Her course load this semester ran basically uninterrupted from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon, with a break for lunch - she was power-loading to make up for lost time, and not a day went by that Tallulah wasn’t reminded that she should be graduating this year, and not a lowly sophomore.

She was at the bus stop now, waiting with her backpack on her lap to go home, taking the call over her earbuds. “Anyway,” Tallulah continued, “What’s up?” She had to admit that Kaatje was sort of the last person she’d expected to hear from - the other girl was super serious, and their social circles had drifted apart over the years. After coming back from her hospitalization, Tallulah had been almost afraid to face the other girl. Kaatje took senshi duties so seriously, which wasn’t to say Tallulah didn’t, but she felt bad to have gotten sick.

“I mean,” she corrected, “If this is a good time for you to talk? It’s good for me.”

She bit her lip for a moment, agonizing over how she would explain to Kaatje that she’d gotten sick over her own stupid decisions, and nearly died from using herself as a guinea pig. She could almost hear the other girl already: Tallulah, you moron. Then, she said, “It’s really good to hear from you.”

The bus had come while Kaatje was talking, and Tallulah took a moment to get settled before replying. “Yeah, that sounds good,” she said, not sure what Kaatje meant by being “sort of” back in town, but figuring it had something to do with the Air Force rank attached to her last name. There were bases in the area, sort of debatably within city limits. “I’m on my way home right now, but if you want to drop by my parents’ place in, like…” she checked her watch, considered how long her commute would probably take, and made a wild guess. “An hour? That’d be great.”

“I had to move back home,” she added, feeling self-conscious. Twenty-one and still living with her parents. She bet Kaatje was doing way more exciting things with her life. “It’s a long story. I’ll explain when I see you. We’re still at 2097-A East Park Street, but, um, I’ll text you that, too.” Which she did promptly, just to be helpful and on top of things. She debated telling Kaatje that she was probably only marginally more on top of things than the other woman was, but that went back to her illness, and that was just something Tallulah would rather get into in person than over the phone.

She was sort of tempted to just tell Kaatje she’d had lyme disease, like she was telling all of her civilian acquaintances. It seemed more respectable. “But yeah, does that work for you? My parents would probably be thrilled to see you.”

Tallulah pulled the door open, and between the helmet under Kaatje’s arm, the motorcycle parked on the curb, and her honest-to-god leather pants, did the math. “You drive a motorcycle now?” she asked, awed. “Holy s**t, when did you become the coolest person I know? Come in. I mentioned to my dad that you’re in the Air Force, and he wants to show you his tattoo from Vietnam. Do not get him started on war stories, he will never stop, and I have it in good standing that half of them are made up.” And the rest were heavily - heavily - embellished.

And you are living at home, recovering from a self-inflicted wasting disease and three semesters behind in college, she reminded herself, shutting the door behind Kaatje. Way to go, Cowden.

After a brief detour through the living room, where Angus tried his best to offer Kaatje a beer, and succeeded in showing off the bomb-riding pin-up girl on his bicep, Tallulah ushered her back to her bedroom. “Anyway,” she said, shooing out one of the cats and shutting the door. “That sure was my dad. Do you want to get right to business? It’s really good to see you. You look great.”

Tallulah, on the other hand, was certain she still looked frail and sickly, never mind having been back in town for four months and undergone countless hours of physical therapy, strength training, and patrol. Maybe it was all in her head - at this point, she couldn’t be sure.

If Kaatje thought that the only thing wrong with Tallulah was sleep deprivation, then she supposed she looked better than she thought she did. “Megiddo?” she asked, not sure who Kaatje was referring to. She guessed, based on the name, that the person in question was probably a knight, but these things could really go either way a lot of the time. “No, um, I’m fine,” she said. She’d been cutting back on sleep lately as her patrol schedule got back up to normal, but it was still far more than she’d been getting back when she was in peak condition. “I’ve been sick,” she explained. “Kind of a long-term wasting sort of thing. But I’m getting better now. A few more weeks and it’ll be like it never happened.”

Well, she would remember it. Except for the medically induced coma. But yeah, she was just about recovered. All things considered, Tallulah thought, it was a mercy that Kaatje was seeing her now and not back in November, when the fine bones in her wrists were still sticking out and all her clothes were two sizes too big.

“Anyway, yeah, they’re still on the energy-sphere thing,” she said, which she considered a mixed blessing - the death rate was down, but the Negaverse was continuing to grow in strength. She knew Kaatje’s opinions on the matter, anyway: the only good agent of chaos was a dead one. And after her friend’s history with Ares and the BMC, Tallulah understood that. It made more sense than almost anything else lately.

“Though it sounds to me like there’s been a bit of a split between them and the DMC. They’re not playing nicely anymore. The honeymoon’s over and I think they’re about to start attacking each other any day now.” She left out exactly how she knew this, because as much as she knew Kaatje would love to be involved in a strike against the Dark Mirror, she doubted she’d agree to the terms that this one was coming with - and that wasn’t a fight Tallulah wanted to get into right now. Not when she’d already made so many promises and was so close to hitting Leto where it hurt.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t pass along what intel she had. “Ares is gone. No one knows where, but she’s not in charge anymore and no one’s seen her for, I don’t know how long. Ages. They’ve got new royals in her place. Leto and Remarque. I don’t know what their overall numbers are like.” She shrugged. “I’ve only been back since November,” she confessed. “Most of my information comes from Ganymede, and she’s… well, she’s not particularly aggressive.” And to be perfectly honest, Europa probably fell closer to Ganymede than to Gunn. But if she was so committed to this plan, then she was going to have to kill. And Kaatje knew far more about that than practically anyone else. She just had to find the right moment to ask.

“Well, it’s not like I have much of a choice,” Tallulah replied, not sure she wanted to meet Kaatje’s eye and glad that the other girl had busied herself with her shoelaces. At least she hadn’t asked how Tallulah had gone and caught something like that - because she had no plans to tell. Impressing Kaatje was nothing short of impossible, she thought, and the best way to handle her was to just not do anything to make her consider you an idiot. “The cats awaken new senshi as fast as they can, but there’s no power structure. No training. I’ll go weeks sometimes without seeing anyone even approaching me in terms of experience.”

If Kaatje thought that Leto would be an easy kill, well, that was something to consider - but an easy kill for Kaatje wouldn’t necessarily be an easy kill for Tallulah. Of the two girls in the room, only one of them had undergone rigorous military training and was at the peak of human physical perfection, and her name certainly was not Tallulah Cowden.

“Ganymede’s a girl, but yeah, that’s her,” she said, rolling her eyes at the memory. The surrounding had hardly been the Jovians’ finest hour as far as internal senshi politics went. The meeting with Wolframite had been better, but then there’d only been four of them there, and Kallichore had had the good sense to keep her mouth shut.

“You know Leto was my cousin, right?” she asked. “Kat?” It didn’t seem wise to go into details - taking the blame for Leto’s fall didn’t seem like it would do her any favors with Kaatje, even if Tallulah felt it was true. “God, I’d love to see that face-stealing b***h dead.” Just, she was going to leave out the part where it was going to happen sooner rather than later.

There wasn’t any point in trying to qualify that she was doing her part to help less-experienced senshi when, in fact, she hadn’t. Not really. She’d only been back to patrolling for a few weeks, and in that time she’d only really encountered one of the novice senshi, Lysithea. So no, really, she’d been slacking off in the worst way and quite honestly, she wouldn’t blame Kaatje if she exhausted her patience. Tallulah was disappointed in herself, in her own weakness and her inability to act, and she couldn’t begrudge anyone for feeling the same way.

“I’m not saying you should go find her,” she said, imagining how a meeting between Gunn and Ganymede might go over. Disastrously, probably. “She’s just - she’s my teammate and my friend, and even if neither of us agrees with her philosophy, she’s a good set of eyes. She saw everything I missed, and that’s been really valuable information to have. I know the math, and I agree with you.” She was more willing to give credence to purification, but right now - right now she was willing to simplify her own feelings if it meant keeping Kaatje from dismissing her outright. “Ganymede is wrong and she’ll have to get over it, but even though she hasn’t realized her mistake yet, she’s still an extra set of eyes and ears, and she’s a reliable set.”

This balancing act was exhausting. “That’s why I said was,” Tallulah replied. “Kat’s gone. She’s dead. She’s been dead for years, and she’s far beyond the reach of purification.” Not that she agreed that purification was always a waste of time, but here - for sure. “If you get to her before me, then you’re free to do that, but if I get the chance, I’m going to kill her myself.” It wasn’t really a fair wager, thought Tallulah. Not knowing what she knew.

She hadn’t, and Tallulah swallowed a knot of shame forming in her throat. Four years of this, and Kaatje had her pegged exactly for what she was. Well, she’d talked a big game for Wolframite, and it wouldn’t hurt to go and put her money where her mouth was. After all, she was serious about this - right? And her agreement with Wolframite hardly precluded her from killing lieutenants, who were more likely than not to be loyal to the DMC. She needed practice, and she needed Gunn to stand there and make sure she actually got the job done.

“Let’s go,” she said, eyes flashing. “I’m a big girl. I can do it. You want me to prove it? Let’s go. Right now.” She reached for her school bag and dug her henshin pen out of the front pocket. “I’m ready. Are you?”