The two girls emerged groggily from their bedroom in the middle of the afternoon, having booked another flight for tomorrow and contacted their respective workplaces. The effects of the alcohol from the night before which had been consumed over many hours, combined with the truncated sleep, had left the girls feeling far more tired than when they first went to bed. "It's the walking dead!" Lita said in a panicked voice.

"Hey, Lita," Chloe said sleepily.

"What smells so good?" Max asked.

"Got some burritos in the oven for a bit later. Perfect for a recovery," the older girl smiled.

"Not too much later, I hope," Max grinned, the smell making her ravenous.

"Hey girls," Annie said from the far corner of the lounge room as she cleaned.

"Oh, hey there," Chloe said, turning in surprise.

"Told you she was a saint," Lita smiled. "Coffee?"

~oOo~

Annie left and the girls sat on the white leather lounge, hot drinks in hand. "Dom had to leave about an hour ago, but she wanted me to tell you she thought you were both great," Lita said. "Also, the tattoo is gonna happen...and next time she's in Portland, look out."

"She's so fucking cool, dude," Chloe smiled.

"Yep. Special chick," Lita agreed.

"So...have you even slept?" Max asked, staring at Lita, who seemed to function as though the night before hadn't even happened.

"Nah, no need," Lita smiled, sipping on her coffee.

"No need?" Max laughed. "It's sleep. I didn't think you had a choice."

"That perfect eight hours you try to get each night? Bigger myth than the moon landing," Lita said with a straight face.

"Um..." Chloe interjected.

"Fucking kidding," Lita laughed. "But I sleep when I'm tired. I wake up when I'm not. If you let yourself conform to your body, rather than try and conform your body to an arbitrary and bullshit number and time, it's much more productive."

"And you still function ok?" Max asked.

"I think I've done alright," Lita grinned. "I trade off the fact that sometimes I need to nap for an hour or two in the afternoon to get through, when it means I can be up doing shit all night. I'll trade one occasional inconvenient hour for eight useless ones any day."

"Yeah...you've done alright," Chloe agreed, smiling.

~oOo~

They sat and ate burritos a little while later, cooked with the same uncompromising skill that Lita applied to everything she did.

"They were fucking heavenly," Chloe said, enjoying the void in her stomach being deliciously filled. "Now I know why you're still single." Chloe worded the sentence in a deliberately cryptic way, testing the older girl's sleepless acuity. Max coughed as she chewed, missing the intent and wondering why her partner would say something so callous.

Lita understood both the obvious flippancy and the deeper intimation, perfectly, "Thanks, sweetness," she smiled. "It's not for a thousand fucking suitors, that's for sure. But no matter how amazing a few of them have been, they weren't a Sam...or a Max. I mean...they were. They totally were. But, not for me." She grabbed the empty plates, taking them to the kitchen. "Another coffee? I'm going to need more wine if you guys intend to D.M. me tonight." Lita could see the direction of the conversation ahead before either other girl even knew themselves what they were going to ask.

~oOo~

The girls sat on the couch with their coffee, Lita with her wine, "So, are you girls going to ask, or should I just start answering away?"

"Um..." Max said as a place-holder while her mind struggled to catch up to a conversation that she felt she was already miles behind. "So...how did you get to...all this?" She waved her arm around the spectacular, art-filled room.

"Smart investments," Lita smiled. "When I meet people who are going places, who have ideas and the talent to follow them, I...invest. I might buy cheap prints from young artists," she said with a grin, "Or I might throw money into a start-up...or maybe just help someone reach what they're aspiring to. It's not always about money. It all depends on the person and the situation. Upward trends, if you want to be clinical." Max knew that the older girl's answer was somewhat of an onion skin to her complex and multi-layered personality. It wasn't exactly what the younger girl was after, so she decided to to be more direct.

"I sort of get the whole trend thing, but that doesn't mean I could actually do it," she probed. "How do you, like...understand people so well in the first place? It's like we're photos and all you need to do is look, and you know who we are."

"I couldn't have said it any better," Lita said, impressed with the analogy. "That's how I see. Now you know my super-power." The red-haired girl smiled, knowing her comment was abstruse enough to sound humorous, at the same time being completely overt. Having more experience with 'super-powers' than most, Max and Chloe picked up on her wording, casting an almost imperceptible glance at one another. Lita saw the look like she saw everything else. She'd fished for it deliberately. "I fucking knew it. Max, right?" Max couldn't help but nod her head. Chloe watched her do it. Such a subtle motion, telling of so much. "I could never quite finish my image of you. That's why I knew there was something special there. Normally the pictures complete themselves, but with you it was like some pieces didn't fit how they should."

"How did you learn to...'paint'...or 'jigsaw', or whatever?" Max asked her, stunned at the candour and hoping to find out more about her own powers somehow.

"If you're going to sound crazy, might as well push all-in," Lita smiled, taking a drink of wine. "Chloe, roll one up. I'm going to the ladies'."

~oOo~

"Shit! Should I have said anything?" Max asked in a whisper.

"Do you trust her?" Chloe answered with a question.

"Of course! But-" Max said quickly.

"But, nothing," Chloe interrupted. "What's she going to do, call us crazy? And if she does, I'll probably believe her."

~oOo~

Lita returned a few moments later and sat on the arm of the couch as Chloe sealed and lit the joint. "Hope you girls appreciate this. I decided a long time ago not to talk about all this shit since people would just end up telling me I was crazy. But here goes," the red-haired girl began. "When I was seventeen, I'd pretty much hit rock bottom. Life was fucked and I was angry, but I was just...over it. I came home one day and my uncle gets up in my shit, drunk as all fuck. Anyway he punches me and I saw red. Literally...like, blazing colour...energy. I was so close to swinging back and levelling him, but instead I ran to my room and cried. The rage died away, but...it left the colour behind. I couldn't shake it, no matter what. A couple of hours later I decided to go for a walk to get some fresh air. When I walk through the living room to the front door my uncle yells at me, 'Where the fuck are you going?' I heard him, but I heard like...other voices too. All of them his, all simultaneous. Saying things like 'I'm so sorry, Lita' and 'I'm worthless, I need to die'. I turned around and looked at him, not sure what the fuck was going on. He's sitting there same as ever. 'The fuck are you looking at?' he yells, but when he does, all these other quieter voices talk at the same time. 'Leave me before I make things worse'. 'You deserve so much better'. 'I'm sorry your mom died. She loved you so much.' I was fucking messed up. I felt like I wanted to hug him, but the drunk fuck would have beaten the shit out of me...and regretted it the whole time. I went out for some air and everyone I walked past, whether they said 'hello' or not...I thought they were all speaking to me. But they were saying stupid things like 'Finally, things are working out,' or 'Is she staring at me? Do I look weird?' I thought I was concussed for a while, but when it didn't go away I worried that maybe I was going nuts. That I had some sort of brain damage."

Max and Chloe were both transfixed by what the red-haired girl was saying and only noticed they were when Lita broke the spell to pause and take a drink. "Anyway, I went to a couple of shrinks, but I think that only made it worse. I'd hear them rattling through these mundane check-lists of questions in their heads, trying to compartmentalise what I was saying. I could hear them tell me they had no fucking clue, even though they never once used the words...verbally at least. It was like they painted by numbers and had no idea how to create a picture of their own. As the days went on, I slowly felt like my brain was being shaken apart by the constant flood of information. Like it was going to drive me insane. Then, one night...it was the weirdest thing."

"What happened?" Max urged.

"I just...had this fucking strange dream," Lita continued, thinking about how best to describe it. "Basically, this homeless woman tells me that I'm special...that I have a gift. All I need to do is focus and everything will make sense. I had no fucking clue what it all meant though, or what I was supposed to do."

"Did she...look like you?" Max asked and Lita fidgeted slightly.

"Fuck...I forgot about that," the older girl said, a little shaken. "Just for an instant...the very first time I saw her. I just got chills, dude," she said at the very moment that Max shivered. All three noticed the synergy. "So you've seen-"

"Yeah," Max answered the unfinished question. "But please, go on. I need to know what happened."

Lita had another drink of wine and resumed her story. "So anyway, I tried for ages to work out what it all meant and how I was supposed to concentrate. Nothing worked. Finally I had another dream. I pushed the old lady directly for answers, but every time she'd just say, 'Watch people when they speak. But never the mouth.' Nothing else. It took me weeks before things finally clicked. I basically learned to meditate...filter, but to do it constantly. In the background. All of a sudden, I found I could almost physically see the words flowing from people. Not the everyday vocal ones, all the quieter supporting ones. The subtext. But now, instead of all the words pouring from their mouths in a mangled blur, they came with clarity, out of every single little nuance. From slumped shoulders or a confident stance. Fuck, I really do sound like a lunatic when I try to describe it!" Lita laughed, but the two younger girls were too enthralled to join her.

"You sound like a genius," Chloe said, wanting nothing more than for Lita to continue talking.

"The fine line, huh?" Lita smiled. "So yeah, basically every time you have an itch, every time a piece of music starts playing, whether good or bad, when you hear a dog bark or when you step out into sunlight from a darkened room...every piece of stimulus, no matter how minuscule, creates a reaction. Every reaction tells a story about a person, both deep and shallow. Apparently I see them all, but most people don't. I start by using generalisations like everybody else does, which I fucking hate...to work out some of the obvious pieces. But as you get more information, the building blocks get much finer and you can start to create the detail. Being able to judge how much pain someone has been through, and in what way, based on the pleasure they derive, and what from. Things like that. It's a toolkit with a million different little tools all working at once."

"So, you're doing this all the time?" Max asked. "How do you cope with crowds?"

"Experience," Lita replied. "Sadly, a lot of people out there give off some kind of tell almost immediately that says 'I just need to belong.' Hardly any of them will go out and do something amazing with their lives. As soon as I get the tell, I sort of paint them with a brown smudge, and if they have a smudge I kind of shut them out. Crowds very quickly become unimportant masses which are dotted by vibrantly coloured souls. Occasionally people do something surprising and I might have to change the image a bit, but the beauty of dealing with tacit conversations rather than verbal ones, is that the silent ones never lie."

~oOo~

Lita walked over to the kitchen and poured herself another glass of wine. It had felt good to unburden herself in a way she'd never been able to do before, in the company of two very special people. People who could actually understand her. She also knew she had to be this forthcoming if she was to hope to get answers to the questions that she wanted to ask in return. "Sure you don't want some?" the red-haired girl offered.

"Actually, I think I might join you," Chloe said, needing a drink to slow her mind.

"Same," Max agreed, getting up and collecting the glasses for herself and her partner.

~oOo~

"So, Max," Lita said as she walked back to the couch, "What do you do?" She asked directly, her intent eyes studying the young enigma closely. Max reached over and clasped Chloe's hand, which the older girl squeezed reassuringly. "It's that big? Spit it, sister," the older girl pushed.

"I can...rewind time," Max admitted, saying words which, in this time-line had never been spoken to anyone but her lover.

"Whoa...Jesus, Max! That's...something," Lita said, surprised. Having read so many things in so many people, it was rare that anybody could rattle her understanding. For all the perception she had, what Max had just told her existed in another realm entirely. "So it's not just a latent thing then."

"Sorry?" Max asked, unsure what she meant.

"Well what I do is perceive, not affect," Lita said, thinking aloud as much as answering the question. "Most people I've noticed that operate on a higher plane, they have a heightened awareness in some small way. They grasp a few of the threads that I see. I've never met someone who can project though...alter things. It makes sense now, why your pieces were kind of messed up. Your 'time' is slightly different, for want of a better word."

"I've never told anybody, obviously," Max said, "And yet you're so...calm about it!"

"That's because I can see it's true," Lita smiled. "No need for hysterics, just processing. So, how do you do it?"

"I just...hold out my hand," Max said, going through the motion which she'd not even mimicked since the storm. "And I...focus. I can only go back a few minutes or so. I held time in place once, but it nearly killed me."

"How did you first realise? Trauma?" the older girl asked.

"I guess so," Max said, thinking back to the day which started it all. "Not physical, but emotional. I heard someone get shot in the bathroom at school and some instinct just made me hold out my hand. I was back in class and back in time, so I went to the bathroom and triggered a fire alarm. I didn't even know it was Chloe at the time, but it was."

"Yes you did," Lita smiled.

"No, really. I had no idea-" Max said, before Lita cut her off.

"I'm reading here, Max. Please don't argue," the red-haired girl said, flashing her a grin. "You want to tell me that even after five years apart, you didn't know Chloe's voice? You'd know her anywhere, at any time. If it had been anyone but Chloe, you wouldn't even know about your power. You'd be a traumatised girl who was witness to a school shooting. You'd always be special, but you might never have realised how special you really are."

"Fucking hell. I've never felt more like a side-kick in my entire life," Chloe said with a smile. "Why don't I get a super-power?"

"Says the twenty-one year old star," Lita laughed. "They're not super-powers, they're skills that everybody's capable of. There are probably millions of machinations and Max and I have seen two."

"Yeah, but I want to shoot mind-bullets," Chloe joked. "Seriously though, I wish I could see things the way you guys do."

"It's just about functioning on a higher level, and you my darling, certainly do that," Lita said, squeezing Chloe's hand. "I've told you before that I see you like a younger me, right?"

"Yeah," the blue-haired girl answered. Lita paused for an almost indiscernible moment, but in that instant Chloe realised what the older girl was saying. Her eyes opened wider and she went to speak, but Lita continued instead.

"Exactly," she smiled. "It's not something I said lightly...or that I've ever said before. Trust me, I see the pieces. Everything about you is so similar, I half expected you to tell me that you read people the same way too." Lita thought for a moment, studying Chloe and smiling when she came to a realisation. "Ok, think about this. Since Max came back to you and saved your life with her rewind, look at how differently you've approached things. I didn't know you back then, but Max, I'm sure you've noticed. You don't go from de-railed punk, to someone who produces that butterfly...or the tiger, without some kind of awakening. Just sit back and actually consider for a minute how surgical and precise your thoughts have become lately." Max sat there thinking about her lover and the things she'd done since they'd been re-united.

"It's true babe," the younger girl said, staring at her partner admiringly. "I've told you so many times now that I don't know how you could be so perfect, and I've meant it literally. You've been everything I need, every time I've needed anything. You saved me when I blamed myself for the storm, while your whole life was in ruins. You cleared away bodies to get me to my parents' house...and even then, you knew the route in your head. Nothing could stop you. Remember when you took me for that drive along the Columbia River? I got a portfolio worth of photos that day and they're still some of my favourite pieces. They re-started my career. But that wasn't enough for you. You took me to the very spot that Lily White had taken her photo from, so that I could catch that perfect image. Look at how you were when we held the wake. Aside from being the perfect host, some of those things you said to people were so beautiful that it'll change their lives. And Hoss. InkedIn..."

"Ok, I get it," Chloe smiled slightly uncomfortably.

"Uncompromising functionality. There's your super-power," Lita laughed, joined by the two younger girls. "Or we're all just fucking crazy."

"Here's to the crazy ones," Max smiled, raising her wine glass.