Electra

Stesha got up as well, picking up the test and looking at it. "That's... that looks pretty definite," she ventured, looking at Taylor with concern. "And these tests are supposed to be as accurate as you can get at home. Maybe you should make an appointment with a doctor. Ace would probably know someone with the, hmm, special qualifications you'd need."

"That sounds like fun," Stesha agreed, following Taylor's lead and pretending to ignore the test. "It's been awhile since I've gotten out to the theater. I've heard good things about the Sherlock Holmes movie that just came out, I've been thinking about dragging Derrick out to see it. But I figure that if I go to see it twice, I won't have to be disappointed if he gets called away in the middle for some crisis or other. How were the holidays with your family?"

Stesha set aside the remainder of her eggs, since she was mostly eating them to be sociable anyway. "Maybe I will suggest that Derrick talk to him then. It sounds like it would be right up his alley, especially if it means staying in the city. Do you want to take the test now," she asked, switching topics without a bobble, "or would you rather take it home with you and have some privacy?"

"Half the time I don't think he has any idea what's going on with the people around him," Stesha said fondly, sitting down with her eggs. "He blames himself because he can't figure out what else could be to blame. But he's getting better about it. And you didn't pay attention to Ace's griping even before you hooked up with Jack," Stesha teased. She was glad to see Taylor looking a little less rugged after some food and some tea. "I keep telling Derrick he should join the Freedom League, but I don't think he really wants to be based out in space right now."

"Things are good, really good," Stesha told her from the kitchen, once again putting the kettle on the stove. "After everything that happened in November, I decided to put off taking him to meet my folks. I was just too wrung out to try and deal with any more emotional scenes. There's always Easter, right? But he understood that, and it was fine. He's always got some project or something on the other end of the universe to keep him busy anyway," she joked. "We've been spending a lot of time together, though." She scooped up some runny scrambled eggs for herself, figuring the smell of them probably wasn't a problem, and opened a package of instant apple cinnamon oatmeal for Taylor. "I do think he's a little bummed about not being on a hero team anymore. I don't know how people go about finding those, or how many there are in Freedom City. But having people around to work with makes him happier. I'd like to see him be able to find something."

"Wow, that seems like it would be really uncomfortable," Erin said under her breath, so his parents wouldn't hear. "He's got enough of a presence at school, don't you wind up feeling like he's going to put you in detention for something even in the middle of summer?" She looked up at the picture again, finding it hard to reconcile that smiling figure with the chilly headmaster, then grinned a little herself. "I guess you probably don't need to worry about it that much. Have you ever even been in detention?"

"What money are you using to start it?" Erin asked, taking all that in. It seemed a little shaky, but if there were no laws against it yet, she was pretty sure the first people to do it couldn't get in trouble for it. "Is James putting in the starting money?" Somehow it didn't seem like Alex's allowance was going to fund her plan very quickly, regardless of how clever her investment scheme was. But James had more money than he seemed to know what to do with, or even to care about.

Stesha smoothed a hand nervously over her hair, dislodging a tea rose. "Actually," she admitted, "I have a box of them. I had a late period a couple months ago, but it was nothing. But I was nervous, so I picked up one of those big five-packs and just shoved it in the back of the medicine cabinet afterwards. You won't even have to go out if you don't want to. I'll just make you some oatmeal and you keep drinking your tea. How's your stomach doing?"

"Before you got sick, you mentioned that you were starving," Stesha pointed out. "Was that true, or were you just being polite? If you've been eating more than usual, you've probably been eliminating more than usual too, and just not thinking about it. And hey, you're drinking now, right? On your second glass. I could fix you some oatmeal and you could take a test, and that's one more possibility entirely eliminated, right?"

Stesha shrugged one shoulder. "More things on heaven and earth," she pointed out. "As well you know. You're probably right, it's impossible, but my mom's a midwife and I grew up around this stuff. If anyone else came to see me and said they were exhausted all the time, feeling nauseous in the morning, couldn't stand the smell of greasy food all of a sudden, it's definitely the first question I'd ask. Especially for a newlywed. I guess that means you haven't taken a test?"

Erin laughed. "What rhymes with stygian, anyway? All I can think of pigeon, sort of. And they're probably not dark and tormented enough. Maybe he should get together with Eddie and Zoe and give them some lyrics for their band. Depressing sad music with nonsense lyrics is really popular. And maybe he and Zoe could bond over that or something." She looked again at the long page of rules on the computer screen as Alex accepted the EULA and clicked through to the trading site. "What happens if we get caught doing this, anyway? How much trouble are we likely to be in?"

Stesha poured the hot water from the kettle over the ginger, then added a little honey to make it taste a bit better. She carried it back into the living room and gave it to Taylor, then sat down herself. She waited until Taylor had taken a few sips, hoping it would calm her stomach down a little. "So..." she finally asked, trying for some semblance of casual, "when was your last period?"

Stesha pursed her lips, looking even more concerned. "Hmm. Why don't you come back into the living room and sit down? I've got some ginger in the kitchen, I'll steep you some. It'll help your stomach settle down." She led the way back to the living room, where the broad-leaved plants were still waving their leaves, fanning the bad air out of the apartment. "Have you been sore anywhere lately, have you noticed?" Still listening, Stesha went into the kitchen to grate some ginger. For anyone else in any other situation, she'd have already jumped to one conclusion, but this was Taylor, and the situation was quite unique.

"Um, okay," Erin agreed. She hadn't really thought about getting paid for participating in Alex's scheme, but she wasn't going to say no to it, assuming the whole thing worked. A few hours at eight-fifty an hour wasn't going to put a dent in the nest egg Alex was building, and it sounded like some sort of legal thing anyway. "You'll get to be the first name on my resume," she pointed out, then grinned. "Guess I better do a good job in case I need you for a reference some day. So does Mike let you read his poetry?"

Stesha was waiting with a glass of water, looking very concerned. The smell of sausage had abated significantly, though the apartment was getting sort of cold from all the open windows. Between the cross-breeze and the plants clearing the air, it hardly smelled nauseating at all anymore. "Has that happened before?" she asked, passing over the water.

"Well, that's something, I guess," Stesha said ruefully. "I'd probably feel worse if I was seeing vampires every day and totally ignorant. I'm not sure there's anything more I really want to know about vampires. I think I'll probably deal with vampires by staying very far away from them." Sh cocked her head at Taylor. "Is that going to be a problem?" she asked meaningfully. "I don't want anything to mess things up between you and I, but there's only so far I can go."

Oblivious to Taylor's discomfort, Stesha opened the microwave and took out the defrosted sausages, tossing them into the pan to cook. Soon they were sizzling merrily, releasing the smell of cooking meat into the air. While they cooked, she poured the eggs into another pan and added cheddar cheese and pepper, then scrambled them up. "Maybe it's not a curse," she suggested to Taylor. "Maybe you're not as immune to diseases as you thought you were. Maybe you're immune to most Earth diseases, but there are still some things you can catch." With the eggs cooking, Stesha chanced to look up and catch sight of Taylor's face. "Oh, Taylor, you look awful," she blurted out, putting the backs of her fingers against Taylor's forehead. "Is it getting worse?"

"Okay," Erin agreed with a shrug in return. Even if she didn't really understand, it wasn't any of her business. They seemed to be getting along just fine without any interference. "I didn't know he writes poetry. Just for fun, not for school assignments or anything?" It was an odd concept, especially with a guy like Mike, but everybody had hidden depths. "So when do we start on this big project? Can we do it all during break, or is it for longer?"

"You should teach him how to text message," Stesha suggested, popping the sausages into the microwave to defrost. "At least then he'd be quieter. Or you could just give in and get a good night's sleep in an actual bed. But if teleporting is making you pukey, too, that sounds like something besides being tired." She got out a couple of pans, then started cracking eggs into a bowl. "Who would've put a curse on you since Christmas, though? Have you had any big catches?"

"You haven't told Mike?" Erin asked, surprised. "Don't you think it's gonna cause trouble if you've got this big project going on and you've told Mark and James but not him?" Erin didn't claim to be any kind of expert on relationships, but that sounded like a bad plan to her. Of course, Alex had been wrangling Mike since they were toddlers. Surely she knew what she was doing. "Are you just gonna tell him when you've got the money already?"

"So much for vampire stealth," Stesha replied dryly, digging into her freezer and pulling out a styrofoam tray of sausages. then getting eggs from the fridge. "Go ahead and fill the kettle and put it on the stove, if you would." Stesha's teakettle matched her spoon rest and her hot pads and her trivets, a bright design of abstract sunflowers that was cheerful, but made the little kitchen seem even smaller. "How long has the spell been misfiring? You've been living together for months."

"How many are there in Freedom City?" Stesha asked. "Are there enough that we see them every day and just don't notice it? I never would've thought of Jack as a vampire until he told me. I knew he wasn't human, after the invasion, but it doesn't seem anything like the movies. Are they all over the place and I'm totally ignorant of it?" That was a very unpleasant thought, whether or not her blood tasted bad.

"A lot of supers don't go to college," Erin pointed out. "I mean, if you're going to spend a lifetime hitting people, you don't exactly need a BA. But it'll be nice for her to have the option if she wants it." She wasn't even going to touch the subject of Zoe's relationship with Eddie, because that was a sore point for Alex, and grossed Erin out more the more she thought about it. "And if she doesn't want it, you can always save it for your other kids, or set up a scholarship or something like that. She doesn't know you're doing this at all?"

For all Stesha had been expecting Taylor that morning, she was still rather surprised by her friend's precipitous and unusually ungraceful arrival. A quick wave of her hand had the Christmas tree swinging its branches out of the way before Taylor could stumble into them, a few leftover ornaments clattering to the ground with the sudden motion. Stesha had never been good about getting her Christmas decorations put away on time. "Are you okay?" Stesha asked with concern, hurrying over. "You look exhausted." That was a more politic choice of words than saying "you look terrible," though both were true. "We don't have to go out anywhere if you don't want to. I've got some breakfast food around here, I can put the kettle on."

"Yeah, I've seen him in the daytime," Stesha said ruefully. Remembering that, she suddenly sat up straighter. "Oh. I guess the vampire thing explains a lot about that orgy he wanted all the black roses for. And the girl explaining that the cake was going to be served on the velvet fainting couch. I wonder who the cake was." She grimaced at that, running her hands up and down her arms. "Gross."