Dad looked gaunt, almost skeletal, but he had skin in all the places he was supposed to have it, and Panacea had even grown hair in his bald spot. It had taken three days for him to be healthy enough to leave the Bacta tank for treatment, and apparently she had regained her good humor in that time.

Or maybe she blamed me but not him. She'd left my hair short, which I suspected was an intentional dig at me; after all, I'd always thought my hair was my one good feature.

Dad' had still been bad enough when he came out of the tank that it had taken her more than an hour to finish with him; apparently she was using some kind of biomass to replace his missing flesh, a concoction supplied by Leet that she seemed intrigued by.

"How long until he wakes up?" I asked.

"It'll happen when it happens," she said. She looked tired, but not nearly as tired as she had when she'd finished healing me. "He literally threw himself into a fire, so his mind may not want to face waking up just yet."

"My mind worked just fine," I said.

"Yes, and you are a freak of nature," she said. "You know that the normal response to being burned is to pull back, right?"

"I thought I could take it," I said. "And I didn't want to let everyone else down."

Panacea was silent for a moment. "You had to have been in an incredible amount of pain; didn't it occur to you to back off and try something else?"

"My muscles seized up," I admitted.

"Don't you fly by willpower?" she asked. "Why didn't you do that?"

I stared at her. Backing away had never even occurred to me, not even when I was dying. Was that a flaw endemic to my family? Was that why so many of them had died horribly over the centuries? Or was it something wrong with me?

Finally I shrugged. "It didn't occur to me."

"Try running away next time... you might actually get to fight again if you don't actually die." She froze suddenly, sniffed and then wrinkled her nose. "You need a bath."

"I've been sitting here for the last three days," I said. "Just in case he should wake up. I owe him that much."

I'd missed a day of school, but I doubted Dad would care about that. The important thing was that he was alive and that he would continue to be alive. The thought that I might have lost him, that it would have been my fault... again... I'm not sure what I would have done, but I doubted it would have been good.

"I was surprised not to see you at the Simurgh attack in Germany on Saturday," Panacea said. He glanced at my Dad.

"Nobody told me," I said, surprised.

It was probably for the best considering the state of mind I was in. I no longer felt like the invincible powerhouse I'd once thought I was, but I was still probably powerful enough to kill most Capes. Letting the Simurgh get into my head wasn't a good idea.

Before the Ash Beast I'd have insisted on going, no matter what; now I only felt relieved.

I suspected that Garrett had chosen not to tell me, probably because he hadn't wanted me to be torn between my duty and my family. Maybe he'd been afraid that I would be enough of an idiot that I'd go rushing out to fight something that was stronger than Alexandria without thinking about it.

Never again.

There might be times where I was forced to fight beings stronger than I was, but never again would I simply rush in without a plan. The Protectorate had a wealth of experience in parahuman tactics, experience that I could squeeze out of them, assuming that I could ever get them to forgive me.

I felt ashamed; the thought of going back and facing Armsmaster and the other Wards was excruciating. They'd tried to tell me I was wrong, but I hadn't listened. Even standing here under Panacea's judging gaze was intensely uncomfortable.

I blinked as I realized that Panacea was no longer looking at me. She was staring at the Bacta tank.

Leet and Garrett had set up fake walls all around us to that it looked like we were in a nondescript room. They'd done a good job at making this place look like any other hospital room, although all it would take was a good push to knock one of the walls down. Even Panacea probably could have done it. They'd warned me repeatedly not to lean against the walls or let her do it.

The only technology that was out of place was the Bacta tank in the corner. They'd teleported Panacea directly into the room and she had no idea where we were now. I wasn't sure if they were going to all this effort because they didn't trust Panacea, or simply because they were afraid that she would have blabbed about some of the things she saw in the lab.

I was proof that a teenage girl could be trusted not to say anything... although I hadn't actually had a chance to leave the lab yet. Did Leet think I was going to run to my non-existent friends and gossip about him?

"I wouldn't have thought your father would have made it three minutes, much less three days. If your friends could mass manufacture those things I might be out of business."

There was almost a sound of longing in her voice.

"No," I said. "The tank could keep him alive, but without you or someone like you Dad would have ended up a quadriplegic, requiring artificial limbs."

Leet had been quite emphatic about that, before yelling at me for being crazy and an idiot. It was almost enough to make me think that he actually cared.

"Which your friend could no doubt build," she said. "Even so, this is an amazing breakthrough that could help a lot of people. Why haven't we seen this in every hospital?"

"He's still got to maintain all this stuff," I said. "He can't mass produce things like that one Tinker."

Technically his machines could make all of them he wanted; maintaining them was an entirely different story. Garrett said that Leet had nightmares about being forced to do nothing but maintain his own machines day after day, year after year, never building anything new again.

The Bacta tanks were exactly the kind of things people would expect him to give up his life for. Day after day, a never-ending horde of needy people with expectations. It would be enough to break anyone.

I glanced at Panacea. Was that what it was like for Panacea? Swarmed by the sick, overwhelmed like someone being clawed at by zombies, yet unable to stop because people would always expect more?

Maybe this was why Leet was being so cautious. All it would take was for Panacea to say something in the wrong ear, and the Protectorate would try to take this. They'd try to force him too. It was a sign of just how much Dad meant to him that he would even make the effort.

At least Leet getting to enjoy going out as a hero using his remote piloted devices. It was just dangerous enough to be thrilling without the risk of actually dying.

"Dragon?"

It took me a moment to realize who she was talking about. Oh... the Tinker. Who was the mass production guy? I couldn't quite remember. I wasn't likely to ever have to fight him, so I hadn't paid that much attention to him.

"No, the other one."

"Maybe he should work with that guy," Panacea said. "Build a few hundred of these, and you'd change the world."

"That would probably get him a visit from the Slaughterhouse," I said. "You've heard that Mannequin goes after Tinkers who make a difference."

Considering that Leet wasn't the bravest man around, even with his remote controlled avatars, I doubted that he'd be willing to make himself that kind of target.

Panacea shuddered and looked down.

"Even telling people about this might bring them here," I said. I might as well do Leet a favor after everything he had done for me. Especially since what I was saying was true. "After all, I've heard that the PRT has a lot of leaks."

Panacea scowled. "You think they won't be coming when they hear about the giant monkey?"

"I'm going to fight them sooner or later," I said. "And if the Siberian beat Alexandria, I doubt there's anything I'll be able to do against him."

"Kill them," she said suddenly. "People like that deserve to die."

I stared at her, startled. Where had that come from?

"What?"

"The things they do... create monsters, turn people into things... they might as well be the Simurgh, but they've actually got souls."

"I think Bonesaw would be jealous," I said without thinking.

"What?" she asked. The color drained from her face.

"Of your power," I said. "I mean she can do surgery but you can just touch people and make things happen right away, much easier than she can."

"I can't make monsters," she whispered.

"You stopped me from growing a tail," I said. "That means you could actually make me grow a tail if you wanted to."

"I'll give you a bald spot and a pot belly if you don't shut up!" she snapped. "Comparing me to Bonesaw... you might as well say that I'm a better artist than Hitler."

"Well aren't you?" I asked. "His art was probably pretty crappy, or he'd have become an artist instead of a genocidal dictator."

"You don't compare people to Hitler, or Bonesaw or any of the Nine," she insisted. "It's like saying that I could be one of the Nine if I just went a little bad."

"You don't I'd be good at being one of the Nine?" I asked quietly.

"What?" she asked, startled.

"I'm powerful... more so now than ever. I don't have a lot of friends or a lot of connections. If Dad and Gar... Uber died who would I have to care about? Even after what just happened to me I like to fight, and I've got a lot of anger in me that's just waiting to be let out. Doesn't that sound like a perfect candidate?"

She stared at me.

"I could end the world," she said finally. "All it. It'd be easy. Take someone with the flu, twist it around a little... make it always fatal, highly infectious, but not showing symptoms for a month so that they'd spread it far and wide. Do you see why I never want the Slaughterhouse to even think about me?"

Now it was my turn to stare. "You'd never do that, would you?"

She was silent for a long, uncomfortable moment. "I have nightmares about it sometimes... about the Earth becoming a graveyard with me as the only survivor. I can kill the viruses and bacteria that contact me so I'd be fine... alone for the rest of my life."

Free was the word she always seemed to be wanting to say. Free of expectations, free of the constant demands people placed on her.

"Don't worry," I said. "I'll kill you before I let you go down that path."

She looked up at me and she said, "You would, wouldn't you."

For the first time she smiled. It seemed like an odd response to someone claiming they were going to kill you, but maybe I'd said something right?

"I'll kill you too," she said. "If you ever threaten the world."

We were both silent for a long time, a silence that was growing increasingly uncomfortable.

"Did Leet participate in the fight?" I asked, as much to find something to fill the silence as out of any real interest.

"Yeah. He went as a robot painted red and gold," she said. "He got his head knocked off early in the fight, and the Simurgh pulled his arms and legs off and used them to beat other people."

To Leet it would have been like losing at a video game, other than the inconvenience of having to rebuild his avatar. From what I was hearing, his machines were doing most of the rebuilding these days anyway.

He still had to do the maintenance, which was an inconvenience to him, since he was always interested in building new things instead of refining the old ones.

"I'm sorry for what I put everyone through," I said, after a another long moment of silence. "I'm going to do better."

"I hope you are better at that than my sister," Panacea said, looking frustrated, "although she never tried to burn herself alive either."

"Well," I said. "I'm stronger now at least... and not just a little stronger. That's something at least."

Panacea looked at me strangely. "I'm glad my sister doesn't have your power. She'd be doing all kinds of idiotic things to get stronger."

"Like jumping into a fire without sticking a hand in to see if you can take it?" I asked.

"Maybe a finger next time," she said. "One you don't need."

"Like this one?" I asked, flipping her off.

"This is Brockton Bay," she said dryly. "That's your most important finger."

We both chuckled. She seemed a little less hostile than she had when the conversation first started, and I wasn't really sure why. Maybe this was part of my being bad with people; even when I did something tight I didn't know what I had done, which meant that I couldn't repeat it.

I'd certainly done things wrong often enough without knowing what I'd done. If I'd been more socially skilled would I have been able to turn Emma back into herself again? I still had no idea why she turned from my sweet friend into a raging bitch.

Maybe Sophia knew. If she was still talking to me, maybe I could get her to spill the beans, or at least explain what I had done wrong. She was just cruel enough that she wouldn't worry about sparing my feelings, and I wasn't sure that she was even talking to Emma any more, so there might not be loyalty there.

"Thanks again for what you did for me and my Dad," I said after another awkward silence. "I really am going to try to be a different kind of hero."

"Even when you are as strong as Alexandria?"

"Oh, I'm going to be stronger than her," I assured her. "Otherwise, what's the point of all of this? You don't think I jumped in the fire just because I'm stupid, do you?"

She looked at me like I was crazy. "I thought you were an arrogant power junkie," she admitted finally.

"Maybe I was..." I said. Truthfully, for all my regret I couldn't say that I wasn't going to keep grabbing for power. It was all I had that I was good at. "But I'm planning on being a smart power junkie in the future. Well, smarter at least."

"I'm glad to hear that," I heard a weak voice say from the bed.

My head snapped around to look at Dad. He looked weak and exhausted, even though I suspected that he too was a lot stronger than he had been. Panacea had been forced to use his bodies reserves to rebuild him, which meant both of us were going to have to eat a lot over the next few days.

"You nearly got us both killed, Kiddo," he said. "Even after I told you what was going to happen."

His voice wasn't judgmental, but he looked like he could barely keep his eyes open. He looked vastly tired, more than I had been when I'd woken from Panacea's ministrations. Was that because he'd been hurt worse, or was he feeling more depressed than I was?

It hadn't been long since he'd barely been able to go to work in the aftermath of Mom's death. He'd regained his zest for life since I'd started all of this; the thought that I might have started him sliding down that path again was terrifying.

I nodded, then looked down at my hands. "I'm really sorry."

Looking him in the eye was almost impossible. I wanted Dad to think well of me more than anyone, and this had to have been a huge disappointment. He'd predicted everything that had happened when he told me about his family, about all the things that he'd left behind to be with Mom.

Yet if anyone could understand the temptations I was under, it had to be him. He had to be much stronger now, and it was possible that it was like giving alcohol to a drunk who hadn't had any in thirty years.

All we had was each other.

I reached out finally and grabbed his hand. He didn't flinch, even though I'd probably have crushed a normal person's hand.

I had a feeling I'd be saying sorry a lot over the next few days. The Wards, the Protectorate... I'd cost Armsmaster a Halberd, I'd almost lost Dad.

Getting stronger wasn't going to be enough. I needed to get smarter too, smart enough that I could protect everyone. After all, Alexandria wasn't just a brute, she was one of the smartest Capes around. I'd forgotten about that for a while.

I wasn't going to forget it again.