Beatrice gets her up early in the morning for kickboxing class. “But it’s a holiday,” says Gemma blearily, and Beatrice comes back with something about starting the new year right and a pointed look that makes her voice die in her throat. It goes without saying that her stepmother knows she’d abandoned her patrol group last night - now it’s just a question of when the shoe will fall.

After class, they stop for coffee and scones, still with no mention of the previous evening’s events, and Gemma wonders if Beatrice is practicing some exquisite new form of torture.

Finally, in the car, Beatrice says, “I’m going to assume that last night was an accident.”

Gemma nods. It had been, sort of. She hadn’t meant to teleport, but she’d wanted so desperately to be anywhere but there and then. “I was scared,” she says quietly.

“Of course you were,” says Beatrice, and there’s something in her voice that is not sympathetic. “It’s because you’re poorly trained. That would have been your first kill, wouldn’t it?”

Gemma stares anxiously at the dashboard. “I… I’ve taken starseeds,” she says, feeling like she’s choking. She’s never killed a senshi or a knight before. She dioesn’t think she wanted to. Not girls who look and feel/i] like Colchis, like her friend.

“If you were training here, you’d have killed in your first week as an officer,” says Beatrice. “Honestly, I don’t see how they could have possibly thought you were fit for captaincy.”

Gemma sinks her teeth into the inside of her cheek and concentrates on not crying. Maybe if she stops answering, Beatrice will stop talking to her, she thinks. Maybe she can be forgiven and let to go home in peace. Her visit’s over tomorrow - she just has to make it until then.

But Beatrice doesn’t stop. “You’re not incapable, Astrophyllite,” she says, and Gemma shrinks away from the name that she has always loved for its mystique and its soft Ls. “I know that, given the proper opportunities, you will blossom.”

And if it’s a lie, it’s a lie Gemma desperately wants to believe - but not here, not from Beatrice’s lips.

“You are running out of time to reach your true potential,” says Beatrice. “And I can only help you if you allow yourself to be helped. Your father and I have been more than generous in waiting for you to make a decision, but there are applications that must be processed. Dues to be paid. Your indecision will cripple you if you let it.”

“I need more time to think,” says Gemma, pulling her knees to her chest. She feels very near to tears, and because of that, she feels babyish and she’s worried that Beatrice will think of her that way as well. “I’m sorry.”

“I need your word by March first,” says Beatrice. “Don’t disappoint me again.”

Mercifully, there is no patrol call that night, and Gemma locks the door to her bedroom and breathes in big, hiccupping sobs. Avalon would know what to do, she thinks. Avalon could save me.

She boards the train to Destiny City in the morning, and feels the sword hanging over her head.