Electra
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Erin gave the screen another dubious look, hoping that Alex would provide detailed and simple instructions for what a market fluctuation was supposed to look like. "I'm sure he'll help, when he knows it's for a good cause," Erin agreed. "It isn't like you're just trying to get rich for the heck of it. College is really expensive." She leaned back in her chair. "Have you checked with Zoe to see where she wants to go?"
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The dinner was great, and even if everyone gathering around the table to play Jenga seemed a little weird to Erin, it was kind of fun. It was different enough from holidays she remembered that it didn't feel bad, and that was nice. And she was exceptionally good at Jenga, so that helped too. Mark, of course, was also extremely good at the game, managing to pull off some exceedingly risky draws without toppling the tower. Eventually his folks withdrew from the game entirely, leaving the two of them to build a tower that rose several tottering feet from the table before Mark's golden retriever tipped the whole thing over with a careless swish of the tail. They called it a draw.
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Erin studied the chart for a minute. "I have no idea what any of this means," she admitted. "I don't even pay attention to the market reports on the news. But if you and Mark and James are all working on it, you're guaranteed to make a mint. And the losses are to keep anybody from paying too much attention to some company that always guesses right?" She handed back the notebook and looked again at the screen. "What do you need me for?"
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"I'm still not sure I understand what you're trying to do," Erin told Alex as they sat together in front of Alex's computer. "I mean, I get it in general, but not really. How are you going to play the stock market when you can't even buy stocks? I'm pretty sure they don't sell to teenagers." The start of Christmas break meant they all had more time on their hands, time for all sorts of extracurricular activities. Erin had mostly intended to spend her break catching up on television, but Alex had other ideas. Erin studied the voluminous page of trading terms and conditions that Alex was scanning through, but couldn't make heads or tails of it. She suspected it was in English, it was just that the sentences didn't line up into any sort of rational order. "And how can you be sure you're going to make money off of it?"
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"Sounds like fun," Erin replied, pouring gravy over her mashed potatoes. She wasn't sure why Mark would want a memento of the baseball robot debacle, but then, he'd come out of that one pretty well. She also wasn't sure that something capable of slicing open the fabric of reality was appropriate for table service. It didn't seem to bother anyone else. "I don't think I've heard of the Dolorite Man before." The resulting story gave her a chance to enjoy the excellent food, and not have to worry about fielding much conversation. She decided she liked Mark's family.
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Once the first dances were over and Jack and Taylor had relinquished the floor to the audience, Stesha nudged Derrick out onto the parquet dance floor with the other couples. "We'll say hello in a minute," she promised, "but if something does crop up for either of us, I don't want to miss the chance to dance with you." Neither of them were very good dancers, but it hardly mattered when they were just one more couple having a good time at a wedding. "I've never tried to get a reception together in two weeks before, but it was worth it. Look how happy everyone is." She sighed, her romantic heart pleased, even if she still wasn't at all sure about half the reason for the whole party. "I love weddings."
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"So he knocked it off because I tasted bad?" The look on Stesha's face was hard to interpret. "That's... interesting, I guess. Knowing about what he is does explain a lot of what confused me about that night." Just thinking of Jack as an asshole had left a few holes in the narrative still, knowing that he was both an asshole and a vampire looking for a meal pretty much explained everything, as little as she wanted to think about it. She wasn't going to share that insight with Taylor, though, because that would be rude. "Has he bitten anyone we know besides me, and you, and Scarab, and maybe Moira?"
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Erin put her napkin in her lap and passed the food around, filling her plate while Mark's dad cut the turkey. Everything looked and smelled really good, better than most of the stuff at school, that was for sure. It was a lucky coincidence that someone who loved to cook was also apparently very good at it. "That's an interesting knife," she said curiously, "is there a story with it?" It didn't exactly look like the sort of thing you bought at the store, or off a late-night commercial.
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"Good deal," Erin agreed, "thanks." She took the fork and tasted the stuffing, which was heavy on the sage and rosemary in true Thanksgiving fashion. "It's good," she decided. "I used to get Andi comics sometimes in my birthday presents from my grandparents when I was a little kid. I think my grandpa read them when he was young. It's interesting to meet the person who writes them now. How long have you been doing it for?" Small talk was good, and distracting, and if she wasn't careful she was going to end up with dumplings instead of gravy. She went back to stirring the pot.
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Armed with a whisk, Erin carefully stirred a pan of gravy base while Martha carried an amazing-smelling turkey over to the counter and moved it to a tray to cool. It was a very homey chore, the sort that she might have done in the kitchen at home, and between the sights and the smells of the holiday, suddenly far too many memories were pouring in. Erin pushed them away to concentrate on the present, just like Dr. Marquez had drilled into her. "Mark lent me some of your comics," she told Martha. "They're funny. Where do you get your ideas?"
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Erin shook his hand firmly, careful not to squeeze too hard. "It's nice to meet you," she replied. "I've heard a lot of exciting stories from Mark. Thank you very much for having me over for dinner tonight." There, that was easy enough, she remembered how to do that. It wasn't like she'd never been over to a friend's house before, it had just been a long time. "Um, anything I can do to help get ready?"
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There was no class on Thursday, obviously, with everyone released for the holiday. Erin kept herself busy most of the day, just so she wouldn't worry so much about the evening. She spent most of her time on the agility course, finishing up early enough to take a shower and put on some of the new clothes she'd gotten for her birthday from Roger and Clarissa. It was easier to think of them that way now, though she wasn't really sure why. They'd sent a gift card instead of clothes this time, which meant that the red sweater and dark slacks actually fit her properly. She was very pleased with them. Oliver had already anointed the pants with orange cat hair, but a little scotch tape had taken care of that. With map in hand, she climbed into her truck just after five and joined the parade of holiday traffic wending its way through Freedom City. Driving in traffic was still enough of a strange novelty to keep her attention the whole way, so that she didn't even really start worrying again until she turned down Mark's street and pulled into the driveway, a few minutes before six. Erin got out of the truck and stood in the driveway for a minute, just standing and staring and hesitating. It was silly to be so nervous. They were nice people, and she was doing much better with dealing with nice people these days.
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"Okay, that sounds good," Erin said, relaxing a little even as Oliver tried to climb up her shoulder to get the pillow. "I like old movies." Even if Mark was a little weird, he was nice, and his family had to be okay. Alex had seemed to have a decent time when she went to meet him, and this wasn't even going to be some kind of girlfriend audition. Sure, maybe the fact that she was a charity case instead made her a little uncomfortable, but after a year, she was starting to get used to it. "You can give me directions and I'll be there at six. Did you put any catnip in this thing?" she asked, waving the pillow a little as the cat lunged at it.
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"That sounds fine," Erin said, a little cautiously. It all still sounded sort of strange and awkward to her, but if she turned down the invitation, she'd be sitting alone in her room on Thanksgiving and probably wishing she wasn't. It was better to try something, she figured. "Should I bring something, like some kind of food or dessert?" She remembered Thanksgivings with her extended family and how everyone always brought something along. She wondered if there were any recipes she could make with pilfered granola bars over Alex's hot plate. Probably not.
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Erin was a little startled by the sudden exuberance, but managed to tamp down the instinctive urge to jerk backwards. "It'll be okay," she told Mark again, a little awkwardly as she glanced over at James. With a bit of effort, she managed to extricate herself from the hug with a little bit of grace. "You'd have done the same for us, right? Because we're a team." Truthfully, she had no idea what she'd actually done, but she was glad that Mark seemed a little more like himself again.
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Erin chuckled at that, holding up the pillow so Oliver would stretch up and play with the tassels. "I hope that's a Ford Escort you're talking about," she joked. She was quiet for a minute then, thinking about her options. "I'd like to come, if it's all right with your folks," she told him. "But I think I'd be better off driving myself. I might have to leave sometime during the evening, and then you wouldn't have to drive me back." She could run back to the school, of course, but taking the truck did make things seem more, well, normal, for lack of a better word.
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"All right then." Stesha let out a long breath, a little overwhelmed, as usual, by Moira's presence. "Then it's okay. If you've worked it through with Taylor, there's no reason to think about it anymore. I still need to hear about what you did while you were away. It must've been so strange, being so far away for so long."
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Stesha continued fussing uncomfortably with her hair while Taylor spoke, strands beginning to work their way free of the braid from her twiddling. "I remember him jerking back," she admitted when Taylor was finished. "And then he just took me home. I don't think I could've stopped him after he bit me. Why did he stop?" If Jack had had some sort of odd crisis of conscience, she wasn't sure she wanted to know, but it did seem like an important piece of the puzzle.
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Stesha tugged on her hair uncomfortably, wrapping the thick braid around her hand a few times as she considered whether or not to even ask. She didn't really like questions where she had to worry that the answer would just make things worse. But it was time to try and get a little clarity. "When he, you know, when he bit me, I don't really remember any of it. The before and after, but I don't remember it hurting. Can he mess with people's minds like the vampires in movies, to make them not feel things, or not remember them afterwards? And how long does that last?"
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"Maybe it's hard because you're too hard on yourself," Stesha suggested, finally going back and taking a seat on the couch. "None of us are so innocent or pure of heart as you make us out to be. I'm no Centurion, and I doubt anyone you know is going to claim to be, either. That requires something that's probably more than human, not just human. Do you think it might be that you feel so comfortable with Jack because you know what he is and feel that he has no room to judge you the way you judge yourself?"
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"Here you go, here you go, no grabbing!" Stesha admonished, handing out slices of pizza as fast as she could and not bothering about the mess the alien children were making on the tiles, between water, cheese and tomato sauce. They were obviously very hungry, and not terribly concerned at all about what toppings were on the pizza. She was a little concerned that Bitey was going to choke himself in his greed, but by the time he was inhaling his second piece, his neck already seemed to be getting a little thicker beneath his square head. Clingy was eating with a smidgen more decorum, but still managed to smear her face, hands and front with tomato sauce, while Wingy was the only one who seemed to instinctively grasp the mechanics of pizza. Stesha picked up a piece and took a few bites from it the proper way, which seemed to help get the idea across. "If anybody else wants some pizza, you better get it while the getting's good," she laughed, nudging the untouched box out of the way of hungry little hands. "And you might want to get a bucket or a hose or something, Taylor, I don't think you're going to want to let these guys back in the pool like this."
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Stesha pursed her lips, trying to hold onto what seemed like an entirely justified anger, but it was so hard to stay mad at Moira when she was being penitent. And anyway, she didn't really want to hold onto the anger, what good did it do her? It wasn't going to change anything that was already done. She made a little bit of an effort anyway. "I find it hard to believe you lied to me in the first place to try and help me out, so much as to smooth things over without any effort. But I should've talked to you for longer before I asked you to speak with Taylor. I know you were trying to help there, I just didn't realize what the situation actually was. No more lies, okay? Not even if you think it's better for me. Promise?"
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Stesha was silent for a long few moments, turning the flower over in her hands. "Maybe you're right that I can't understand," she admitted. "I know all of you operate on a different level than I do. I just hero on evenings and weekends, and I like it that way. I don't want to have to save the world every day. Maybe that means I'll never quite be one of the club. But I think you're underestimating your friends if you think only Jack can understand doing your duty when it's hard and it takes sacrifices and you don't want to." She sighed, putting the flower back into its vase and ignoring its momentary attempt to lunge back into her hands before it quieted. "I want you to be happy, Taylor. If Jack makes you happy, then I'm happy for you. But everything I've seen of him tells me that he's not going to make you happy in the long run. This all happened so fast, and maybe not for the right reasons, and sometimes people who are good heroes are still not good people. I just... I think you should think about it, and make sure this is what you want. I don't want him to hurt you."
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Stesha stepped aside to let other people offer congratulations to the bride, just in time to catch Derrick coming up. She stepped aside to intercept him, her heels letting her kiss him without standing on tiptoe for once. "You look great," she told him warmly, giving his tie a quick adjustment and brushing the shoulders of his suitcoat into place. "I was worried you weren't going to be able to make it. Doesn't Taylor look wonderful?" She took his arm and rejoined the queue around the happy couple.
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"Being human isn't just a matter of your body's processes, Taylor," Stesha replied softly, turning to look back at her. "How many of us are in that same boat, to a greater or lesser extent? Look at me, I don't need to eat or sleep, I can't even breathe oxygen anymore. Derrick doesn't even have a body most of the time, and he's spent the past few decades exploring places no other human being might ever go. Maybe that makes us different than human, I guess, but that doesn't make us good or bad. It's what we do consciously that makes us that." She pulled a long-stemmed tiger lily from a vase and played with it idly, the flower's petals brightening and unfurling as she spoke. "You might be inhuman in some ways, but it's ways that don't matter, like how often you breathe or when you eat. Jack's inhumanity is that he doesn't care about humanity, or only cares on a very abstract level, and that's really a different thing entirely. I know you care, I saw how you agonized over what to do when Moira disappeared, and I know sometimes the work you do is impossibly hard. But you don't have to let it isolate you. Nobody should get married to anyone just because they're afraid of being alone. You have friends and family, people who care about you very much. But you have to reach out, too."