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The night was quiet, and, it seemed, chilly for April. Perhaps she was only imagining that, of course, thought Europa, as she hopped along the rooftops. But it was a weird night nonetheless - She'd no sooner powered up than she'd received Babylon's message, warning her of Negaverse danger not to her powered identity, which she would have expected, but to Tallulah, who was meek and mild-mannered and had, since the age of seventeen, kept her nose out of anything supernatural. Further information was pending, and she wasn't a knight, so it wasn't like she could write Babylon back and demand to know what the hell he was talking about.

Oh, and Paul wasn't returning her calls. So, this was all sort of weird and worrying.

The last thing she wanted to do tonight was run into a youma or a chaos agent who wanted to fight - she was feeling pretty down on herself about that, too. In fact, everything was an awful debacle, and she didn't really want to think about... anything, really. Europa thrived on plans and reason and goals, and without anything to work off - she was as good as lost. Which really ******** sucked.

She was about to turn around when she felt the order signature up ahead, because she only wanted to talk to someone from her side marginally more than she wanted to fight tonight. But the senshi ahead, in the light of the 24-Hour Waffle House sign, struck her as familiar and nostalgic all at once. A mane of blond hair? Brown and gold? Completely unnecessary lion accessories?

Much like highlander, there could only be one.

Europa sighed, steeling herself, and closed the distance between them. "Regulus," she said uncertainly. "Hi."

In a perfect world, she would have prepared herself more for this moment. Three years was a long time to go without seeing someone, and Europa had spent countless hours thinking of what she could have done differently, what she could have said to save the relationship - and then, once she'd managed to come to terms with the fact that it was over and probably wasn't meant to last in the first place, what she could have said to make the end of it hurt less.

Of course, in predictable fashion, she'd forgotten almost all of that the moment she actually laid eyes on Regulus. Not that she'd really been thinking about it lately, even before tonight. Sure, it had taken her longer than most, but she'd finally gotten over her high school boyfriend. So maybe meeting up with him again now was fortuitous, she thought. Maybe it was well-timed, that she could go into this with a clear head, unclouded by previous events--

Or she could hear his voice for the first time in three years and have at least a portion of her personality revert to being sixteen years old. She'd liked him for sure, even loved him for a while, as much as she could understand that feeling at the time. But it had gone away and she was over it, regardless of the part of her brain that insisted that she look at how tall he'd gotten, how chiseled his jawline was now, and she'd fallen for him because he was cute but he was handsome now- because she knew it wasn't going to work. It wasn't meant to work. You've been down this road before, Cowden, she thought sternly. And you've got other things going for you now. Better things.

And that was okay. That was how life worked.

Say something, she thought furiously at herself. Say something about his buttwings.

"Eternal's a good look for you," she said, awkwardly. They'd both been super, last time-

Say something about his buttwings that doesn't sound like you're flirting with him!

"How've you been?" she asked, still awkward.

This was - yeah, this was every bit as awkward as seeing your ex for the first time in three years was probably supposed to be, super-powers or no, and it was probably better that he'd called her on it, because that meant they could skip the small talk. And while she'd been meaning to keep the disturbing letter to herself, when he asked if something was wrong, Europa realized she'd been secretly hoping she might get a chance to bring it up.

"I'm having a weird night," she sighed, which was an understatement, and summoned her senshi phone, where she'd tucked the letter into the hinge. She passed the paper over to Regulus.

"I got that about an hour ago," she said, "And nothing since. I don't know if I should have told my parents to leave the house for the night, or if they're in danger, or if it's just me." She shrugged helplessly. Paul's radio silence had her equally worried, but she wasn't sure if that was even something she wanted to go into with Regulus. It wasn't like Europa was here to gloat about how great she was doing - because she wasn't doing that great.

"So I don't know what's going on, I don't know what to do, normally I'd go home and stay up until four watching Law and Order on Netflix and pretend it wasn't happening, but even that's out of the question right now." Which was an awful lot to dump on him after three years of not talking. "Sorry," she added. "I wasn't really looking for you. I just had to go somewhere and you're the first person I ran into."

Maybe she'd go crash at Paul's house? No. If Avalon was after her, then she couldn't risk-- This sucked. This really, well and truly sucked.

She wondered, briefly, if he and Bell were dating. She knew that Bell had ended things with Xavier, or something, but - could you really consider a friend group to have gotten incestuous and weird when you weren't part of that group anymore? Like, it had been three years. She was no longer allowed to hold any judgement against Regulus if he wanted to mack on one of her former best friends. Besides, he and Bell probably deserved each other. They were both senshi. They were both experienced. Ganymede had already spent enough time making it clear that there were advantages to dating within Order that Europa was in no place to argue that it wasn't a good idea.

But that didn't mean she was going to ask.

"Yeah, Avalon. She, uh. Corruption and Purification are a two-way street," said Europa. "But I've never even really met her, so I don't know - I don't know why she'd be after me. And even if I had met her, I don't know why she'd only be after Tallulah and not Europa. Babylon would have told me if she'd puzzled out the connection between the two."

Which meant - who or what was Tallulah involved with that had Avalon so pissed off all of a sudden? For what felt like the first time in her life, this was a conclusion that she really didn't want to jump to, because there were only so many new factors in her life that she could really examine like that.

"If you could stop by and tell my parents to be careful, I'd really appreciate it," she said, tucking the letter back into her phone and vanishing it again. "I'd do it myself but - I'm scared there might be someone watching the house. But I couldn't impede on you like that." It just seemed super-awkward. "Space is a good idea. The Surrounding, or - I could stock up on things and go to Europa."

Assuming it was in decent shape - which she couldn't be sure of, since she hadn't been there in almost two years.

"Thanks, Reg," said Europa, smiling tiredly at him. "And - I'm really sorry. About everything."

Europa's expression softened into a relieved smile. "Thanks," she said. "If you tell my dad you're there on Spider-Man business, he'll probably offer you a beer." In her experience, Angus had realized long ago that he could not stop her or any of her friends from running around a a bunch of costumed crusaders, but he could at least support them.

"I don't mean about tonight." She frowned. Maybe she'd been too ambiguous. "I mean about three years ago. I'm sorry. Looking back on everything, I was being a brat. And I'm sorry." She'd been bossy, and he'd deserved better, and there was more to it than that, but if you oversimplified things then she felt that her own actions were largely to blame.

"I'll text you when I find out anything new," Europa shrugged finally. Even if knowing what was going on presented a whole new can of issues to work through, at least she'd know. She'd have something to work off of. "I guess I'll see you around?"

Kids. Right. Europa nodded, feeling lighter for having had this conversation. It was true - even just three years later, she could look back and reflect on how young they'd been, how much maturity and experience they'd lacked for. (And in three years more, she'd probably look back on tonight much the same way.)

"Yeah," she said, raising her hand in a careful salute. "I'll be sure to. And you too."

She watched him go, and then pondered the horizon. "Okay," Europa said to herself. "Where to next?"