Electra

"Oh, I work as head of security at HAX, Halloman Advanced Experts," Erin explained. "It's a tech company, but they basically concentrate on finding specific problems and solving them. Like if a company comes to them and they can't get their product built right, HAX will design the assembly line, or if a car company needs a new kind of airbag, HAX will figure out how to make it work. And then they're all inventing stuff all the time, and we in security are responsible for making sure nobody manages to blow themselves up in their own enthusiasm." She chuckled. "And do the normal security stuff too, keep the building safe, stop thieves, all of that. I didn't go to college, and neither did most of my security team, but that's okay, cause there are more than enough smart people around. It's a good job."

"Maybe I can ask at work for you," Erin decided. "You can't walk ten steps without running into an engineer, and this is the sort of thing they like to do for fun in their spare time." Erin shrugged her incomprehension of this, despite the fact that she spent half her days off tinkering with cars in her garage. "I guess there were only a couple like that when I went to Claremont, and one was a total sleazeball I wouldn't have touched with the far end of my bat, and the other one turned into some kind of temporal police officer. Maybe most super-engineer types come into their powers later. Or they just don't go to high school at all," she supposed aloud.

"Maybe you can figure out who the technogeeks are in your class and ask one of them to make you a super-strong videogame controller," Erin suggested with a small smile. "Lots of fighting video games, you'd probably like them if you like action movies. And maybe you could figure out how to get a television and gaming setup down there in one of the dry buildings, show your friends what you did on your study abroad." She finished her drink and the last of her french fries, then sat back looking about as relaxed as she ever looked in public. "Maybe someday you'll be an ambassador or something."

~All right honey, let's not make her too mad,~ Paige reminded Richard, but she was also more than a little surprised to see the venerable villainess done up in modern garb for a modern production. "We definitely weren't expecting to see you here," she agreed aloud, with her long-bladed scissors held down along her leg. "I'm guessing this is some Hannibal Lecter setup, and that's certainly beautifully sinister, but this is a long way from your usual oeuvre. I remember my father talking about you when I was young, he always admired the purity of your approach."

Miss A winced a little bit at Terrifica's tactless handling of the scientist, moving in to try and salvage relations. "That's wonderful, it sounds like you've been able to minimize and contain any damage for the moment. "As for the satellite uplink, it looks as though you were using at least some ArcheTech equipment in your setup? I may be able to remotely kill it through a debugging back door without alerting VI. I'd rather not try it unless it starts to look like VI is going to try something, there's no point in tipping our hand too early. In the meantime, having a look at those files sounds good. I can handle the French, and with Terrifica to consult, I think we should be able to get a handle on them within a couple of hours."

Stesha giggled, putting a hand up to cover her mouth as she listened to Gabriel's horrified retelling. "Oh wow, I did hear about that, I forgot it was you that got mobbed by the amorous soccer moms. You poor, poor man." She took another bite of cookie and seemed to enjoy it a bit more this time. "I was asked to do a panel at a convention for the League a while back, but I turned it down. I have hardly any free time as it is, and I don't want to have to answer in person some of the questions people send in on my fan page. Though I have had people thank me for having a costume that's easy to cosplay, so I guess that's something?" She looked down at the faded pink and yellow sweatsuit she'd donned after shedding her damaged uniform and shrugged. "They should've seen me when I started out, patrolling in jeans and a green hoodie. God, it seems like a hundred years ago. But it's not even six." Her face fell as she considered all that had happened in those eventful years. "Who'd have guessed we'd all end up where we are today?"

"Now that sounds like another story to hear," Stesha commented, her lips curving just a bit. Despite everything, it was hard not to feel a little bit better when someone like Carson was trying so hard to cheer her up. She didn't even think he was using his powers, it was just the kind of guy he was. She picked up another cookie, this one a green Christmas tree, and nibbled on the edge as she leaned against the counter. "If you're not going to tell me about the one with the bishop's lawn, it seems like you at least owe me this one."

Exactly at the appointed hour, a knothole in the tree next to to Asad's bench yawned open like a door, letting Fleur de Joie step out. She was definitely not a child, a quick visual estimate marked her as in her late twenties at least, and with the self-possessed air of a woman comfortable in her power. Fleur wore her typical heroin uniform, green shirt and pants with sturdy brown boots, and a brown cowl jacket with a hood to cover her hair, though she'd eschewed her mask for this meeting. After a moment to get her bearings, she turned to the bench. She smiled at him when she saw him, extending a brown-gloved hand. "Asad? It's so nice to meet you, I'm Fleur de Joie. Thank you so much for meeting with me today."

Stesha gave him a watery smile. "If anybody can shut them up, it's probably you," she agreed, wiping her eyes with the edge of a dishcloth. "And maybe I'm blowing things out of proportion, maybe people won't even be interested. I can't keep up with what people are interested in these days. Have you ever been to one of those superhero fan conventions? Kind of a surreal experience. I haven't been for years, but I think some of those people know more about my friends than I do. At least their professional lives. And I've got a little plush Fleur de Joie somebody made and sent me through the League. Ammy's got it in her doll collection now. But this isn't my hero life. It's just my life."

Gina ducked her head, reluctant as always to accept a compliment, but she was smiling as she headed for the living room. "You know," she called back, "one of these days you're actually going to open up and use one of those laptops I keep giving you instead of giving them away, and then you're going to understand the wonder and beauty of never having to leave the house!" By the time he arrived with the popcorn, she'd curled up with a fuzzy blanket on the overstuffed sofa and was channel surfing. It was a mark of her great affection that she lifted a corner of the blanket to let him slide under as well.

"I'll think about it," Stesha murmured into her mug. "Part of me, and I know it's probably stupid, but part of me says that I should file it myself because it's the least I deserve. God, I- I didn't think it would blindside him the way it did. I don't understand how he didn't even seem to realize anything was wrong. I mean, by the end I almost hated talking to him on the phone because I hated how nagging and bitchy I'm sure I sounded, wondering where he was, wondering when he would be home again. How could he have not noticed how bad things were getting? But then he was standing there, and he couldn't even change back into human form right away because it had been so long, and he didn't realize he'd been gone two whole years, and he acted like we'd just pick up where he left off. And I know I really hurt him." She closed her eyes, as though that would keep her from remembering Derrick's face. "And it was my decision, and I made it happen, and maybe I deserve whatever fallout I get over it. But I don't want it to touch Ammy, or the work here on Sanctuary."

Miss Americana had spent most of the previous night on one of ArcheTech's private jets, flying halfway around the world, but she still looked almost startlingly fresh and well put-together when compared to the MIT team. "Are you sure it's locked down?" she asked, keeping her eyes on her tablet as she worked one hand rapidly over the keypad. "Locked down all the wireless signals coming from the facility so that it can't use your computers to access the internet? Was any of your equipment satellite capable?" The very slight edge to her dulcet voice suggested she might share some of Terrifica's feelings, but her lovely face was as calm as ever. "We'll want to be able to get into the system ourselves, but for it to get out could be extremely problematic."

"I think that's where they're from," she pointed out, and this time at least her laugh was a little closer to real. "Would explain a lot, anyway." Stesha sighed and looked into her now-empty cup. "I'm just so tired, and I don't want to think about any of this stuff anymore," she admitted. "I just... I want to sleep for days, and eat an entire cheesecake and drink a whole bottle of wine, but the last time I did that I wound up throwing up on Avenger's lawn and becoming immortal, and it didn't even make me feel better." She looked up and gave Carson a crooked smile. "Guess that's another story I haven't shared, but you probably don't wanna hear it. Thank god nobody cared who I was back then." Rising, she carried her mug to the sink she'd finally gotten properly plumbed and rinsed it out, then filled it with water. "Maybe you're right about the lawyer, but it's- it's very hard to talk about with anyone, much less a stranger. I used forms I found online and figured he wouldn't contest anything because there's nothing to contest." She sighed, sipped. "And I guess maybe I hoped that if the judge or the clerk or whoever saw who I was, they'd make it easier, because the rules don't work the same way for people who don't even live on Earth. But that's eating my cake and having it too, I suppose."

"Everyone's going to know," Stesha corrected him quietly, "no matter what you say or don't say. The hero community's just like any other small community, and the League even more so. Half the main League, plus Max Atom and a couple of other assorted hangers-on saw me and Derrick meeting up, and I swear to God they had a better bead on the situation than he did." She shook her head and began picking cinnamon pastilles off her cookie. "And I will bet everything I own that he didn't even touch down on Earth before he took off again. Everyone knows." She rubbed her forehead tiredly. "I'm just hoping it doesn't make the gossip magazines when I go to file.on Monday. I can cover my hair and ask for a gag order, but my secret identity is... not so good." She almost laughed, but the sound that came out was too painful to make the grade. "The wedding coverage was so lovely, and when Amaryllis was born and Derrick decided to announce it on the moon... everyone's going to have an opinion, and I don't know if I can take it. People know Dark Star is a hero, so why would I leave him, right?" She drank her coffee like medicine, shuddering a little at the alcohol and cookie sweetness. "Maybe I can just stay off Prime for awhile. There's plenty to do here."

She barely seemed to be listening to him, a distinct change for the normally very attentive Stesha. In most of her conversations, she seemed to look for ways to center the conversation on other people rather than herself, but right now she seemed to barely have the energy to sit at the counter. Breaking an edge off her cookie, she dipped it into her coffee and watched it begin to dissolve into crumbs. "I thought I'd done all the crying I was going to do about him. When Ammy was a baby, every week he was gone, then every month, I was so disillusioned. I had this dream of how it was going to be, and that's been gone for years, so you'd think it wouldn't hurt so much, right? But actually seeing him again..." She swallowed hard, slow tears trickling down her cheeks as she stared fiercely into her cup. "But it wasn't ever going to get any better. He can't not be who he is, and the longer he was away from us, the thinner the connection got. I could've given him an ultimatum, stay here with us or else, but what would be the good in that?" Stesha sighed as the bit of cookie broke apart in her hand, dissolving into a soggy mess and slipping into the coffee cup. "Some part of me knew it was coming for a long time. Did I ever tell you what happened to me during the time slips, back when I was pregnant with Ammy? I got sucked into one, bounced a thousand years into the future on Sanctuary." She smiled a broken little smile. "It was beautiful, even the ocean was clean by then, and the bees had their own city. And Dark Star was waiting for me there. He said I had told him about coming into the future in a thousand years, and he'd come to this spot and waited for a decade for me to arrive, just so he could apologize for everything that was going to happen. I think some part of me then knew that things weren't going to improve between us. You don't wait a thousand years to say you're sorry for a few months of not being around." She pressed her fingers into her forehead. "I... I forgave him, and I went home and tried to forget anything had happened. I didn't want to believe that there's any future that can't be changed. But part of me knew."

Stesha took a sip and nodded at the taste, then set it aside and turned away. "It's..." she began, then trailed off for a minute. "It's nothing you can help with." Pursing her lips, she opened one of the large blossoms on her counter, reaching inside to pull out a tray of decorated sugar cookies. Judging by the decor, half had been done by Stesha with her artist's eye, half by Ammy with her great enthusiasm for sprinkles. She set the tray of cookies in front of Carson, selected an Ammy creation for herself, then sat down on one of the kitchen stools. "You know Derrick and I were having problems," she blurted suddenly, not quite meeting his eyes. "Well, we're... we're over. It's done." Her voice hitched and she took another drink of coffee. "I just have to file the papers."

Stesha stared at him for a minute, looking uncomprehending, then took a deep breath. She built herself up almost visibly, first straightening her back, then her head, then assuming the air of calm, very casual authority that served her well as the administrator of the ever-growing Sanctuary. It was all a facade, but it was a good one, nearly convincing if it weren't for the disaster of her blotchy face. "Yeah, sure, come on in." She drew back from the door and let him inside, switching on a few lamps as she went. The house still had Christmas clutter in the main room, toys and wrapping paper that spoke to an interrupted family time when she'd been called up to the Lighthouse, and a small pile of photo albums on the couch. "I'll give the Stephensons a call and have them send Ammy to the creche school in the morning, she shouldn't miss and it'll give them a respite," she decided aloud, walking into the kitchen and taking two mugs off the shelf there. "It's lucky no one was badly hurt, that was a hard fight. Let's go ahead and deal with the administrivia, get it off the table so I can sleep for three days straight without guilt." Her lips quirked in a smile, but her eyes were too full of misery for it to be convincing. "Want a cookie?"

Stesha took a thoughtful bite of her ice cream, licking her spoon clean. "Well," she began, "Ammy and I don't live in Freedom City right now, we live in an alternate Earth dimension called Sanctuary. I found it a few years ago when I was learning to hop dimensions, and it was in very bad shape, so I sort of adopted it as my sandbox. " She grinned. "For some reason, people didn't like it when I tried large-scale landscaping changes in the middle of Freedom City, but that place was so blasted there was nothing I could do to hurt it. So it became my weekend project, go out to Sanctuary and basically terraform it back into something habitable and nice. Then I realized there were actually people still living on that world, terrible as it was, so I invited them to come live in my little green space and helped them set up a farming colony." She reached out with a napkin to wipe Ammy's face, just in time to keep ice cream from dripping off the little girl's chin. "And my archnemesis, that's a long story, he went to prison and left his entire colony of giant fire-breathing bees with nobody to take care of them, so I brought them all to Sanctuary and set them up with some help from my friend Gaian Knight. So they live there now too, and so do a few of my hero friends, and a colony of monks and some scientists who like to research weird places and interesting cultural practices, and now about ten thousand Terminus refugees as well. It's an interesting place." She raised her eyebrows at Maybelle, silently inquiring whether her story passed muster.

Stesha's home was, as might be expected, the greenest and lushest place on Sanctuary. That was saying something for an enclave that boasted a lot of very nice, sometimes extremely large flora. Even in the wintertime, grass grew under its dusting of snow, flowers nodded their heads along the crushed-stone walkway, and the house itself was a thousand shades of leafy green. It was quiet today though, very quiet, with no noise of Ammy running through the rooms, no music playing, no television sounds even when he was right up at the door. His knock was met with silence too, till it almost seemed as though nobody was home at all. Several minutes, and several more knocks, passed before the door finally inched open. "Did you need something?" Stesha asked through the narrow gap in the door, barely peeking her face out. She looked pretty terrible, swollen red eyes and a blotchy face, for all it looked as though she'd hastily scrubbed herself with a cold washcloth. "I know I turned my comm off, I'm sorry. Have we been recalled to duty?"

Erin opened the door for Thaelia and walked with her back into the restaurant, where luckily the waitress had not yet bused their table. Nobody had seemed to really notice their brief departure. She resumed her seat and had another sip of her drink. "So you've probably had a chance to take in some movies and television while you've been up in the surface world," she commented, easing the conversation to something that would hopefully be much lighter. "I imagine the pop culture is very different up here from where you come from. What do you think about it? Got any favorites so far?"

"They're from Earth Prime, right?" Erin shrugged. "They aren't ever going to understand, not completely. They think they know because their world has been in danger so many times, they think they understand hard times and hard choices. But they've always won. Maybe it took huge sacrifices and maybe it was right at the last minute, but they always pull it out of the fire. Its not until you lose that you really understand. You and I see things differently because we lost our whole worlds, and we got stuck into situations where there were no good choices, just different kinds of bad. And if you get out of it, you'd do just about anything to keep it from happening again." She ran a hand through her auburn hair and stared out at nothing. "And I'm grateful my friends don't understand, I hope they never have to, because I love them. But it means that people like us are the ones who have to adjust to their shiny world, even if it chafes. You're not really lying to them if you tell them an edited truth that they can live with. Tell them it won't happen again, and hope like hell that it's really true, that you never come up against another situation where there's no other choice."

"Okay," she replied, knitting and unknitting her fingers. "I meant what I said about you being welcome on Sanctuary," she told him. "I'm sure Ammy would be thrilled to see you in person, while you're in the neighborhood." The idea of bringing Derrick home like this, for this, was a knife in the heart, but she'd do it for her daughter's sake. "That's good to know," he replied, voice going echoey now as the darkness covered his throat and his voicebox converted to energy. "I'll do my best, but I don't know what the Alliance is going to ask me to do next. There are a lot of trouble spots still being threatened by the Communion." He had to use his telekinesis to hold the papers and pen to sign them, which he did while the last of his face finished converting. He looked at her, his eyes white and empty, and floated the paperwork back to her. "Soon, though. Tell her I'll visit soon." "I will," Stesha lied in a whisper. "We should go back to the debriefing," he told her. "I'm sure it's not over yet, there's so much that needs to be discussed." He nodded towards the door. "I... I can't," she told him, shaking her head almost violently. "I have to go. Tell them I had an emergency. Goodbye." She put both hands over her face and was instantly swallowed back to Earth by a giant snapdragon, finally escaping the darkness and the silence after a battle that had gone on much too long.

"I didn't mean- that wasn't what I- I'm sorry," he finally said, shaking his head and staying on his side of the room. "I know you wouldn't have." His legs were starting to give way, but not by buckling. It looked as though they were being gradually obscured by a dark shadow, till it was hard to see his feet at all. He looked at the papers in his hands, then back at her. "What about Ammy? What are you going to tell her?" "For now, the same thing I've always told her," Stesha replied, her voice softening in response to his. "That her daddy is a hero who saves people on worlds that are very far away, but he'll come and see her when he can. You'll always be welcome to visit Sanctuary when you're on Earth." She knew that some of the friends with whom she shared Sanctuary might not have the same opinion, but she'd... do something. Talk to them. "I have some of your things, books mostly, in a box in my Freedom City apartment. I gave the clothes to a group of refugees last year, I didn't know when you'd actually need them again, and most of them were getting dated anyway. There's not really anything else for joint assets, the SCC stopped paying you when you didn't come back to Earth regularly, so the bank account is empty, and I don't plan on asking for any child support, so things should all be very straightforward..." She trailed off and they just stared at each other for a little while, lost in the surreality of the moment as dark energy crept up Derrick's body, past his waist and over his shoulders. "Keep them," he finally told her in a hollow voice, "give them to someone who can use them. They wouldn't survive my kind of travel anyway. Not much does."

Derrick was starting to look stunned, almost shocky. His voice was a bare rasp now, sandpaper on wood. "How can I possibly let go of you?" "I..." She swallowed. "I guess you'll just keep doing what you're doing. You have so much to do out there, you don't need the ties holding you to Earth. After awhile, you'll... you'll probably hardly remember." With a hand that trembled just a little, she bloomed a flower on her palm and reached into it, pulling out a thick manilla envelope. "I have- there are some papers to sign." He seemed to shake himself, drawing himself up and staring at her. "You have divorce papers already prepared?" he demanded, though there wasn't a lot of force in it. "Stesha... is there someone else? I think I deserve to know." She stared at him dumbly for a moment, then practically shoved the papers into his chest. "God, Derrick! Of course there's no one else. I have been faithful to you every single lonely night for five years while I waited for you to come home! You were my first and my only, and I don't know if there's ever going to be another, but I will not live like this anymore and I am getting the hell out while Ammy is too young to be hurt by it!" She retreated halfway across the room, hugging her own elbows like it was the only thing keeping her from flying apart.

"I don't think it's selfish to want to have a life," Stesha retorted, the edge creeping back into her voice. "It's what keeps us sane, makes us remember what we're fighting for. I have filled my time with so many things. My work on Sanctuary, taking care of Ammy, gardening in the parks, spending time with friends, but none of it fills the hole. Do you think less of me because I don't put Amaryllis with a foster family and spend all my waking hours with hero work?" "It's not the same thing." "It's close enough. It's the road you've chosen, isn't it? Push your family away so you can devote your entire attention to the good fight." Her breath hitched and she stopped for a moment, fought for calm. "You're a hero, all the time, but I didn't stand in that church and marry Dark Star. And I can't go on pretending that you're ever going to change." "Then what are we supposed to do?" he asked softly, sounding nearly afraid. "I can't hold you on Earth," she told him quietly, looking into his eyes. Studying them, remembering them. "If this past four years have taught me nothing else, I know that much. Your destiny and your heart are out there in the stars, and I can't keep you from it and I can't go with you. My roots are here, and I'd wither and die away from them. You can't hold onto me from so far away, in a grip so light I can't even feel it. It's not fair to you or me, and it's not fair to Ammy to put her through all the waiting and the not understanding." She sighed, letting the tears go where they would. "I love you, Derrick, and I think part of me will always love you, but we deserve better."