It was a cold February day on the seaside. A day where the sun didn't shine. A day where the wind blew. A day that would freeze your nose shut at the very first sign of weakness… Something I now got to experience for the first, and hopefully last, time in my life while I stood in someone's backyard, naked except for a pair of shorts, while a tiny blonde girl sprayed me down with a hose.

"This is degrading. Inhuman," I said what everyone there already knew before I snorted, clearing the ice that had lodged itself in my nostrils. Not that they seemed to mind much as even Amy, who was idly kicking her legs on the porch swing with a mug of coffee in hand, gave me an appreciative up and down as the ice-cold water on my body turned to steam. "There was a reason why man stopped bathing outside, and this is it."

I could actually feel how cold it was right now. Not just the dull, yet refreshing chill of standing in ice water. Actual cold...which meant only one thing and one thing only… It was really fucking cold out here...and I wanted a blanket. I hadn't needed one of those in months, holy fuck.

"Oh be quiet, you big baby. You can take it," Lisa said with far too much glee in her voice to be natural, just before the hose's spray hit me in the face full on, clogging my nose again with wet and the closest thing to the deathly chill of my impending mortality and mid-life crisis that she could get...and now I felt old. Shit. "Hold your breath!"

… Valentine's day was coming up, and Lisa was making it really hard for me to not 'forget'. I swear. You bring someone 200k in assorted bills, a briefcase full of sensitive documents, and some barebones info that basically led up to Max being desperate as fuck...and all that goodwill goes up in smoke as soon as you hug someone in a bloody, soot-covered panda suit.

People could be so ungrateful...and cars filled with drugs and guns were surprisingly flammable. I'd learned things today.

The hose moved out of my face and I didn't even get the chance to get back into complaining before I started windmilling my arms and shrieking. Pretty much flailing, if I was honest, as a full-blast stream of frigid water blasted me right in the sack. Turned my junk into the closest thing to an innie that I could imagine this body of mine ever doing as I tried not to fall...and I tried to breathe through the ice crystals that might have been forming in my nose and melting a little too slowly for me to be comfortable with.

"... I'm not sure how to feel, now that I can see your anatomy at something approaching normal, human, size," Lisa mused about my current...dilemma...before running the hose over my legs. "On one hand it's normal. Still porn-star sized, but normal. I could deal with that realistically. On the other hand…"

"Fuck realism!"

"Right," Lisa easily acknowledged her fellow blonde, whose head had been sticking out of the kitchen window before she'd pulled back to make some more hot chocolate, with a nod. "What Vicky said. Fuck realism. It's boring. You don't get to see stuff like this every day, and it's not like I needed working hips in my old age or anything anyway." Lisa started tapping her chin. "Or do I...? You always make me ask the most interesting questions."

With another snort, I readied myself to say something as scathing as I could possibly get away with without being banished to the couch...and found myself coming up empty when Lisa gave me the gimlet eye. A piercing stare that reached right into my soul as the clothes she'd been wearing, and my panda suit, dripped and fluttered on the line behind her for emphasis.

Some people. So ungrateful.

"Hey. Lisa. Stop messing with the guy, and let's go inside before body parts start turning blue. He's clean enough. You can't even smell the kerosene anymore," Amy, my savior, said as she forced the porch swing to a stop and kicked right off of it, with an empty mug in hand. "I can fix frostbite, sure, but I can't fix stupid. If I have to treat anyone for the first, that implies that the second is a pre-existing condition. Get me?"

I blinked at that and, for a dark moment, I expected to see Lisa's face pulling up into that foxy smirk she took on before she got cruel. Before the secrets came out and her words flayed Amy alive. Just a moment, come and gone as she laughed at what Amy had said and waved her off, waiting for the brunette to get inside before she started turning the nearby tap, leaving me to steam in peace.

… Lisa had grown up. A lot, if canon (and wasn't that timeline dead and gone) had been any clue... How dense was I, that I'd missed this happening? How had it happened at all? In that other timeline, it had taken her months, years, to get even a fraction of this sort of maturity and self-control.

Once again I had to admit, if only to myself, that I was a decent guy. Not a great influence or role-model. What had I changed? Beyond the obvious?

A giant splash as the almost slush on my shoulders slid down my arms and onto the floor. Droplets turning to what might as well have been pea-sized, liquid daggers as they hit the ground... And promptly bounced back up into my body to start the cycle once more, all while Lisa laughed at me. All nice and dry in her thick, blue jacket and a pair of Amy's jeans with Victoria's boots...and I considered rolling face down into the nearest puddle as the embarrassment tried to melt my face.

It was only the fact that I knew that it would disappear as soon as I tried, due to evaporation, that kept me from doing it at all. Stupid, magical, far above boiling body temperature...making me face my problems. Oh well. If all else failed, I could get a job as a water heater or something. On hand tea boiler. Something.

I sighed again as I made my way to the back door, with Lisa already there. On the welcome mat, with a towel at hand as she finished cleaning her feet and turned right around on her heel, grinding the mud that she'd left there into the material with a grin as she handed me said towel.

Warm. Fluffy. Probably fresh out of the dryer. "Thanks, hon." She knew just what to do to make my day better, I swear. "You're an angel..."

"I'm having twins."

And, suddenly, that feeling that I had water in my nose completely vanished. Most likely because it actually had, seeing as the towel in my hands was now completely soaked as I tried not to die of shock. Because, seriously, what? Who just came out and said it like that!? And twins?!

"You didn't think I was kidding when I called you 'daddy' that one time, right? Because, if you did…" Lisa wrapped an arm around her middle and moved some hair behind her ear, chewing on her lower lip and looking painfully vulnerable in a way I'd never seen from her before. "Surprise." She gave me a weak shrug. "Amy says they're doing well, by-the-by. They kind of scare her, actually."

"They?" I croaked. "Scared?" Lisa was just stacking on the damage at this point. If this had been a game, I'd be well past the yellow and deep into the red. "Why would she be…?" Oh, god. Did I…?

"It's just that fear people have when something smaller than them could probably pop their head off if it tried. But that's not important, beyond the fact that you have scary strong kids." Lisa poked me in the side, walked around me, and plopped her butt down on the porch swing where she kicked her legs. "Take a seat. Let's talk."

My eyes flicked down to the porch swing, made of wood and base metal, then right back to her. I was in shock. I wasn't catatonic.

"It's Vicky-proof, Moss."

… That was okay then.

"You've got questions. Lots of questions. Worries," Lisa said, her legs still fluttering in the air even after I'd gingerly taken a seat at her side with my heart in my throat. "Let's talk about them."

"How!?" Was the first thing to come out of my mouth. It was stupid, but it was true, and it was a question that I had to ask even as Lisa gave me a half-lidded, exasperated look. Shock was funny like that. Made you dumb...er. That. Yeah. "I mean…"

"You know how, Mr. Full-Time." Lisa, for visuals, made an O with one hand and pumped three of her fingers through it, rapidly, with the other… How crude. Not wrong though. "They don't make condoms in your size, the pill wasn't made to handle you, and I didn't put on elf ears and leather because I hate having sex with you. Being what might as well be a different species doesn't matter for jack or shit in this equation. Next question."

Instead of blurting out the first thing that came to mind, like an idiot, I stared at my hands. Big, green, lightly calloused. Not human, like she'd said...and, yeah. At this point, it didn't really matter, beyond how it had come to be. I liked being what I was now. The whole strength, toughness, and being able to live off of beer thing was pretty sweet.

Not being able to eat bacon anymore sucked, but the trade-offs were worth it. Not really much else I could say about that… Depending on whether one of my bigger worries was actually something I had to worry about or not. I'd see...after a few more questions.

"Amy. Victoria. Are they pregnant too, or...?" The second biggest question of the day. By far.

"From what I understand, they've dealt with it in their own way," Lisa admitted, the casual way she'd said it making something hot and irrational burst into life in my chest before I tamped it down with the emotional equivalent of a warhammer. Right now, my inner orc could fuck right off...and the raised brow on Lisa said that she hadn't missed it. "They've got an Amy, so it wasn't hard."

"Oh, thank the Lord." I was already sweating my balls off over Lisa. Having to take care of two other girls (more than I already was) as well would have killed me. It wasn't like gang money just fell out of trees, you know? "Alright. Great. Super." I clapped my hands together probably just a little too hard, seeing how the tree ten feet in front of me swayed in a different direction to the wind. "Okay…" I blinked, feeling lightheaded all of a sudden. "Wow. Okay."

"A real load off your back, huh?"

"You have no idea. I think I almost threw up," I murmured as I ran a hand over the top of my head, just sort of enjoying the feel of growing stubble as Lisa quietly scooted a little closer to my side of the bench. Not all that far, seeing how much space I took...but close enough for me to feel the heat of her body, slight as it was. "I've got a hundred problems, and Nazis are one."

Lisa, with one more scoot, so that she could mold herself to my side, snickered. "Those guys are so fucked… Did you know they've been raising funds by stealing Medhall vehicles and equipment and then claiming the insurance?"

"I might have had an idea, yes. I can read, you know?"

"...'See Spot Run' isn't exactly high literature, yeah, but good job," Lisa said, the amused tone of her voice all I needed to know she was making a joke at my expense. "I always knew you could break through that glass ceiling if you just tried hard enough."

"Hey. No. None of that. No dumb Brute jokes. That's capist." A boop on her nose made her squeak and slap at my hand...and almost make me forget that I still had, at least, one more question to ask. "One last question, alright? A big one."

"Uh-huh..."

"Am I a Master?"

Lisa stiffened up like she'd just touched a live power line and said something under her breath that sounded a lot like 'shit'...and here came the sweats and existential fear. Again. "Okay. Look. Hear me out. Full transparency."

"... That isn't what a man who's wondering if he's an accidental rapist wants to hear, Lisa," I said tightly as I indulged on a nervous habit I'd thought I'd broken years ago, pulling on the fingers of my hands until they popped. Each one went off like a gunshot, with the first even making Lisa jump...and now I felt even worse. Didn't know that could happen, but that really showed me, huh? "Please. Explain."

"... Alright, first off, before you decide to go live in the nearby woods and stir up the bigfoot hunters, it isn't as bad as you think!" Lisa said hurriedly as she grabbed at one my hands, pulling it down before I could get started on that set of fingers. "It's like a social lubricant! A drink or two during dinner! Not a roofie on the rocks!"

"You're not helping, Lisa!"

"Forget I said that then! Think back, okay? To a month and a bit ago, when I picked you up off the side of the road. Got that picture in your head?"

I nodded, not trusting my voice at the moment.

"How long did it take after that for you to get into my pants? A week? Two?"

I held up a single finger...and she blushed.

"Okay. Just one week," Lisa caved. "But I had four years worth of sexual frustration built up and you'd brought me money. I have a price, I'll say it...and it starts at five digits and basic human decency." Lisa sucked in a deep breath, then let it go. "I don't get much of either of those and, in my opinion, it was totally fucking worth it, just for the end of my headaches." She shivered. "I can't even believe I used to live like that… I should talk to Amy about my liver, not even kidding. That many painkillers couldn't have been healthy."

"What about Victoria? Or Amy?" I interjected. "Was it worth it for them?"

"... Honestly? Yes. Even if they hadn't thought it was, and I hadn't pushed them as hard as I did, it still would have been."

All I could do for a moment was stare at her. Was she trying to make this worse? "Are you saying you were trying to make me a harem!? What the hell is wrong with you!?"

"No! I'm saying that I can only spend so much time with my ankles over my head, Moss! I have things to do! I! Have! A! Job!" Lisa snapped at me as she returned my stare without even flinching. "At first, that was pretty much the whole point! Get some friends, introduce you, let nature take its course so that I can keep my legs! But that changed really fucking quick!" Then Lisa started speaking under her breath with a glance at the open kitchen window, forcing me to strain to hear her every word. "And do you know how close Amy was to killing us all? Really close, Moss!"

My heart, which had been lodged in my throat since I'd come home, sank into my stomach… That was right, wasn't it? Canon Lisa had just sped up Amy's unraveling, not started it. The girl had been on a timer from the get-go, and it had only been getting worse.

"It was a two-for-one, Moss! One or none!" She started jabbing me in the chest with the tip of her nail, not allowing me the chance to get a word in edgewise. "If Vicky had come with by herself, which she would have if we'd only just asked, it would have broken Amy's heart like a strand of spaghetti, setting her off! If Vicky hadn't joined in then Amy wouldn't have, and she'd still be low-key planning the genocide of the entire eastern seaboard! I'm thinking zombies, personally! If Bonesaw can do it, and I know she can, Amy can do it better!"

I rolled my eyes as soon as I was sure she couldn't see me. Canon was shot to hell, but I knew Amy, as well as anyone that had read about her, could have. It had taken Lisa deciding to run her mouth, an Endbringer, the goddamn Slaughterhouse 9, and a couple of lost fingers before she'd broken. And, even then, Vicky had been okay. Physically. Mostly. I think… I'd never gotten the chance to look up Ward before Melinda had tried to cut my head off with a katana like a giant weeb, so I couldn't say that with complete confidence.

Blargh… I'd just have to hope that I'd inadvertently prevented the Vicky Blob, at the very least. Lots of hope. Besides that though, Lisa was exaggerating and the post-apocalyptic zombie future could wait a little while longer...at least long enough for me to understand just how fucked I was.

"Alright, fine. Whatever." I sighed, cutting Lisa off before she could get herself into a rant as I rubbed my face. If there was one thing Lisa liked to do, even with my existence, it was talk. I knew that well. "I'm not happy about it, but I can see where you were going with that. I think..."

"Also, Carol's marriage isn't doing too well, partly due to Mark's depression. She's got untreated PTSD and is just a massive bitch as well, which is a big part of the reason why Amy was planning on mass murder, besides hospital burnout. I'm thinking you could help them with that, get some of that stress out of both their lives. So, I'm thinking that I can get Mark out of the house for a while, while you-"

"We're getting a hotel room. Today." I cut her off, full-stop while continuing to rub my face. If I'd cut myself on my tusks more than once while I did so, I considered it well worth it. "I've already slept with both the man's daughters. I'm not blonde, or tanned, or asshole enough to sleep with his wife as well."

That was a level of NTR I just wasn't comfortable with. At all. Mark wasn't Max. Fuck Max...and besides. This was Carol. Brandish. Even if I had been comfortable with...whatever it was I had going on, which I really fucking wasn't, holy shit, I wouldn't have brought her in. That sort of evil energy could have only brought bad things to the mess that was my life.

… What even was my life now that my problems were actual problems? This was just like one of my Japanese animes, I swear...

"You're no fun," Lisa said with a pout and a hum before, after a short pause, she gave me a bemused double take. "And what does being blonde and tanned have to do with anything? That makes no sense."

"Don't think about it too hard, Lisa. It's not important… Unless you meet someone like that and they're being weirdly friendly or close. Tell me if that happens and I'll beat them to death, for the greater good of relationships everywhere." I pulled my hands away from my face with another sigh, ignoring the scratches I'd left in my palms as I did so. Couldn't be too careful these days. "Anyway, last question."

"You already said that, Moss," Lisa pointed out dryly.

"Yeah, well… I guess I lied. I just have to ask." Another sigh slipped past my lips as I forced myself to sit up straight, making the supposedly Vicky-proof swing creak loudly under the stress that simple action had put on it. "What do we have here? Between us?" I pointed at her then at myself for emphasis. "What is there besides sex and me 'socially lubricating' you? How do you feel about me? Honestly?"

"... That's a lot more than one question. And you're not making this easy, you know? But, sure. I'll be honest." Lisa cupped her chin in both hands and did little more than stare out at the yard and the miniature ice rink forming there, seemingly uncaring of just how ominous she'd sounded just now. "At first, you were what I said the first time we met. My Bodyguard. Someone I could use when I broke off from Coil or Coil decided I was too much of a problem to keep around...but things changed."

"You were nice to me, stupid as it sounds. You cared, and that's more than I can say for anyone I've ever met, let alone my parents, all by itself." Lisa, her legs still kicking fruitlessly, patted me on the leg until I started doing it too, finally getting the swing to move under our combined weight. If it broke, that was fine. The money I'd brought in earlier could buy a thousand of the damn things if it had to. "Then you started laying it on. Being all emotionally supportive and crap. Providing for me, making me laugh...being willing to kill for me if you had to." Her lips turned up into a full smile, that sharp grin she took up whenever she was about to say something mean or embarrassing, often both at once. "And then you made me a woman and it was all uphill from there."

With one last kick, she slid off the bench at almost the perfect time. Almost, if only because she wasn't able to get out of the way before it smacked her in the bottom, nearly pushing her down if not for the railing in front of her… If we hadn't been having such a serious talk I would have laughed, that glare of hers daring me to do it or not… But we were talking, and so I didn't. Simple.

"We just met a little over a month ago. I don't love you. No matter how good you smell," Lisa continued in the face of the pang that gave me and the painful twisting of my features. Didn't matter whether you were expecting it or not. Didn't matter if that was actually what you wanted to hear. Words like that hurt. "But you make me happy. You make me feel safe. Marriages, let alone cape marriages, have been built on a lot less than that... Families too. We'll see what happens."

With those last, promising words, Lisa started tugging insistently at my hands. "Now, come on. Let's go before the chocolate gets cold or Amy does something weird to it." Pulling at me until I stood up, then again when I didn't make it towards the back door fast enough for her liking. "We can look for a hotel after that, I guess."

"... A good one, right?" I mumbled, choked up as...not everything was how I wanted it, but enough that, as Lisa had said, I didn't feel like riling up the Bigfoot hunters at the moment. "Honeymoon suite?"

"We have over two-hundred thousand dollars just lying around, Moss. Think big. After something like this, we're getting the penthouse or bust."

"Thought so."