No sooner had we cleared the exterior chain-link fence then Lisa turned to me, her expression uncharacteristically sober.

"A pretty tremendous 'thank you' hug seemed in order, but you seem to have something else on your mind," she said. "What happened?"

I waved her down a nearby alley. On top of everything else, publicly picking a fight with my own partner would be the coup de grace.

"Seriously, what's up?" Lisa asked as she kicked a crumpled-up beer can out of her path. "Look, I get that you're pissed. I fucked up big-time not telling you where I was going. I should have kept you in the loop. I admit it, it was a major screw-up. But all's well that ends we-"

"Just don't, okay?" I said. My hand trembled as I reached for the paper. "Don't psychoanalyze me. Please don't use your power on me. I need to have a real conversation with you, not a dissection."

Lisa paused in mid-sentence, looking wounded. Her brow knitted in concern, and she raised her hands. "I'm not, honest. I'd like to think I know my friend well enough to tell when she's pissed off at me without needing to rely on my superpowers."

Did I believe her? I couldn't even tell. I pulled out Lisa's file on me, unfolded the paper, and handed it to her without saying a word. My bugs buzzed frantically at the edges of my consciousness.

Lisa's lips tightened as she took the paper and scanned it. She let out a low groan.

"Fuck me. Look, it's not what it looks like-"

"Isn't it? Because to me, it looks like I was just some sick fucking psychological experiment to the one person I thought I could trust. Here I was thinking maybe someone actually saw me as anything other than something to scrape off their fucking shoe. How stupid was I, right? You should know how hard trusting anyone was for me better than anyone, especially if you've been analyzing me like some psych ward patient." The buzzing grew louder in my eardrums, and my voice half-cracked with rage. "How could you do this to me? I feel like I'm going to be sick."

Lisa froze for a moment, seeming to think over her next words carefully. My whole body churned with a bilious mixture of nausea and white-hot anger. I wanted to hit her in the face, to break down and sob, to freeze up on the spot, to run in every different direction at once.

After a short eternity, Lisa spoke up. "First, before I say anything else, I need you to know that I'm trying really, really hard to stuff my power away and sit on it. You know it doesn't always work like that, but I'm trying. Okay? You're right. We do need to have an equal conversation about this." She took a deep breath, then continued.

"You deserve the full truth, so I'm gonna put all my cards on the table. But before I do that, I have to say this. You're my friend. You're not an experiment, you're not some mind game or some kind of sick puppet. You're the only person in this whole shitheap of a city who cared enough about me to find my stupid ass and bail it out of my own mess. That means everything to me. I don't think I could make it on my own. I need people. I need you. I've been happier these last few months than I've been in a long time, and it's all thanks to you. That day you came to me was the best thing that could've happened to me."

I shifted my weight, uncertain. "How can I believe any of that? That's exactly what your power would tell you to say, right? You can pick me apart like if my thoughts were projected like in a fucking comic book. That's what you've been doing for months, isn't it? Because you thought I was going to kill myself? For all I know, you're doing it right now."

Lisa pinched the bridge of her her nose. "I know, I know. I'm not. I know there's probably no way I can convince you that's true, but I'm not. And I haven't been doing it to you before today, either."

I flung a hand out at the piece of paper.

"What, so I just imagined that? Don't expect me to believe that you're some saint in all this. You wrote a note to monitor me, like you're my fucking case worker. How can you stand there and tell me with a straight face that you're my friend?"

The green of Lisa's eyes swirled with agitation.

"I was worried about you, okay? Of course I used my power on you when you first showed up. You were some stranger asking me to take a case. You would've expected me to do it. That's when I learned that you had powers, right in the middle of that conversation."

"And that I'm apparently going to throw myself off of a bridge?" My voice dripped with bitter sarcasm.

"Christ, no, Flutter, no. You were a brand-new cape intent on throwing yourself head-first into this gangster-ridden cesspit with zero experience and zero backup. With everything you'd been through, and with how you went after Shadow Stalker with zero hesitation, I thought that you might have some kind of a death wish. And yes, I'll admit, that concerned me."

I took a step towards her. "I'm still here, aren't I? I was never going to kill myself. It's fucked that you even thought that. And I tackled Shadow Stalker to save you. You're even the one who got shot! How can you possibly use that to justify screwing with my head?"

"That's not-" Lisa cut herself off and composed herself. "Yes, I was wrong, and I'm sorry," she said. "I know that. Which is why you're not some experiment to me. You're my friend. I'm not looking to save you from a problem you don't even have."

"Why were you ever? You don't get to play with my life to make yourself feel better."

Lisa whirled on me. Her eyes flashed as they met my gaze.

"We were about helping people, right? That's what you wanted to do with me, isn't it? Stop bad guys, save lives? Well, that's what I wanted to do for you, if you needed it. Once we had that run-in with Rune, though, I realized that you didn't need me to help you out of some mental trap. You just needed somebody to watch your back." She jerked a thumb at herself. "And I wanted to be that person, because I could already tell you were going to be one hell of a cape, and I was lonely. Meeting people for my cases helped, but those weren't meaningful relationships. I didn't have anybody I could dump all my crap on when it got to be too much for me." Lisa smiled weakly. "I'm not like you, Flutter. I can't internalize all that shit and plow on through it like you can. So, along you came, and you needed some help, and so did I, and I thought, why the hell not? And I asked you to be my partner. I might've told myself at the time that I was reaching down for you, but if I'm being truly honest, I think I was reaching up."

A crackle of energy shot through her voice.

"So, it makes me feel like garbage to know that I might've blown up the only meaningful relationship I have because I was too much of an idiot to level with you in the first place. I know it was a fuckup, but I don't think I could ever impress on you how much just having you around has made my life so, so much better." She snorted sadly and shook her head. "It's funny, but I'm more frightened now than I was when that sociopath took over my body. Go figure, right? Anyways, for what it's worth, that's my piece. I'm going to shut up and listen to you now."

True to her word, she fell silent. Under the circumstances, and especially for Lisa, that was no mean feat. I let the silence envelop the both of us as I digested her words. One way or another, I had to sort out my own feelings towards her.

I still felt betrayed, lied to. That hadn't changed, and I don't think Lisa could have said anything to make it. Even if she truly had abandoned her scheme just a week or so after I'd met her, the whole foundation of our friendship remained rotten.

But, if I was so angry about being lied to, I couldn't lie to myself in turn. Lisa wasn't Emma. Even if she had initially been driven by some patronizing sense of concern, Lisa had been there for me at the lowest point in my life. Working with me had gotten her shot, stabbed, and very nearly killed, and now subjected to what must have been the awful torture of being a prisoner in her own body.

Did that mean anything, though, if she'd done it for herself, not out of real friendship? My stomach churned.

Lisa watched me expectantly, hands deep in her pockets, the brim of her hat tilted low over her eyes. Her ponytail drooped raggedly to one side. She held her silence, only giving me a tight smile.

I thought back again on everything we'd done these past couple of months. No, I couldn't honestly say it felt fake, even now. But I needed more than that. I looked at Lisa, wishing I could pull off my hood. This wasn't the kind of conversation to have through mirrored lenses.

I took a deep breath. I knew what I had to say.

"You're my friend. You were there for me when nobody else was. My life is better because of you. That counts for a lot. But I want to know," I said. "If I'm going to get past this, I have to know."

Lisa quirked an eyebrow. "To know what?"

"You called how people get powers a 'trigger event', right? Like me getting shut in that locker? I want to know what happened to you."

Lisa's eyes widened, and she took a half-step back. Either she really was suppressing her power, or she was selling the charade with aplomb. She looked slightly queasy.

"I don't know if I can, Flutter," she said. "It's…not something I like to think about, much less talk about."

I shook my head. "I'm sorry, but that's not good enough anymore. You've known about all of my own fucked-up shit probably for months now. Meanwhile, you get to play all your own cards close to the vest. If you also want us to still be partners, to still be friends, you have to prove you're willing to really let me in. You have to prove you actually trust me, and that I can trust you. I can't be friends with someone who won't tell me about her own problems, who just ices me out. I won't do that again. Either let me in now, or I have to walk. That's it."

Lisa's jaw tightened. Her fingernails dug into her palms. "Okay," she said finally. "Okay, I think I can do it. I honestly do. But I'm not going to do it here. I hope you can understand why."

I nodded. "That's fine. Let's use the office."

With my stomach still roiling, we began the walk back to the office. The silence hung between us the entire way.

Lisa leaned back in her chair and ran a hand over her hair. "Well, fuck me," she said. "That's the whole fucked-up story, with no omissions." She met my gaze, and her voice caught slightly. "I'm not trying to justify what I did, but I hope you can understand where I was coming from, at least. I like to think that I put up a good front, but I've got just as many ridiculously deep-seated issues as anyone else in this biz."

I took a deep breath, and attempted to process the information about her trigger which Lisa had just shared with me. To be honest, and more than a little bit to my shame, I had never put much thought into the subject of Lisa's family. Of course she must have had one, and of course things must have gone pretty badly for her to be out here on her own at this age, but I was so wrapped up in my own problems that I had never bothered to think the implications through fully. No, I had been so absorbed in my own world that I had found no time whatsoever for considering hers.

My anger still simmered below the surface, but had been heavily diluted by a profound feeling of guilt and empathy for Lisa. I knew all too well what it was like to lose someone so close to you, to spend endless nights asking yourself what you could have done differently to nudge events just far enough off-course to change. Under those circumstances, extreme reactions were inevitable.

Lisa eyed me expectantly, but said nothing.

Finally, I spoke up.

"Thank you for telling me. I'm sure that was a hard thing to do, and I'm glad that you did it."

"You're welcome," Lisa mumbled. "If you still want to leave, I'll understand."

I thought it over for another moment. I had reached a decision.

I took a seat behind my desk.

"I understand where you were coming from," I said. "I still don't like it, and I'm still pretty upset about it. But," I said, "you're my friend, and, well, the thought of losing that is even more upsetting. You've done more for me than anyone has in years, even if you weren't coming from the greatest place initially. If I throw that all away because of my own fucked-up past problems, I'm not going to make myself any happier."

The stiffness seeped out of Lisa's posture. She exhaled in relief.

"I don't deserve a friend as good as you. Honestly, I mean that," she said. "You're like some kind of saint with how much of my bullshit you've put up with over the past couple months."

I smiled wryly and shook my head. "That might be overselling my qualities just a bit, I think."

In the end, the decision hadn't been as hard as I had thought. At first, I thought I had unwittingly walked into another fake friendship, genuinely pouring my heart out to someone who didn't really give a damn about me. Emma had thrown away our relationship just when I had needed her for reasons which remained a mystery to me. Lisa, on the other hand, had been there to pick me up, and had put herself in danger again and again for my sake. Stifling my outrage in order to acknowledge this truth had been difficult, but I couldn't deny it.

With that relieved, almost goofy smile still plastered on her face, Lisa swung away from me to grab one of her many wayward laptops. The office still had yet to recover fully from the havoc wreaked on it by Ms. Readman's paper tornado. Probably a project for another weekend.

Lisa cracked open the laptop and booted it up. "I'm going to find us a real case this time," she said with a smile. "I don't think I'm being too hard on myself when I say that I've made a real mess of these last few ones."

A smile of my own spread across my face. I leaned back in my chair, put my feet up on my desk, and looked up at the ceiling, where the fan spun in its long, languid circles.

"That's all water under the bridge," I said.

Lisa leaned back herself, and watched my bugs flit by.

The next few days passed uneventfully. With my phone still in the office and an uncharacteristic lack of midday appearances at Arcadia, I didn't see much of Lisa aside from the occasional PHO chat. I assumed she was simply giving me some space. That might have been understandable, but it did feel a little excessive. I'd forgiven her, after all, hadn't I? Now that we were finally on an even footing, I wanted nothing more than for things to go back to the way they'd been.

Having resolved on the way to the cafeteria to talk to Lisa about it, I wasn't particularly surprised when she once more dropped into the seat next to mine at a once-again otherwise empty table, this time holding a sizable carton of cafeteria fries. She pushed the fries across the table towards me.

"Heya, partner," she said with a wink. "Sorry for the radio silence. It won't happen again, promise. I was just…working out some of my own shit." She smiled, a little weakly. "This may surprise you, but I have some issues with opening up. I'm working on it, really."

"As well as you're working on not doing your Holmes routine?" I inquired mildly before taking a bite out of my sandwich.

Lisa stiffened for a moment, then chuckled. "Hey, keep honing your skills like that and I may end up begging you to be merciful with the banter. Who'da thunk, huh?"

"I've learned from the best," I said.

Lisa chuckled, then grew serious. "Look, Taylor, I wanted to say again, well, sorry. I think a lot more groveling is in order, in fact, especially after you pulled my bacon out of the fire like that. You came through for me in such a huge way, and I just let you down over and over again. You deserve better, and-"

I cut her off with a wave of my hand. "Seriously, don't worry about it," I said. "I understand where you were coming from, I really do. Thanks for letting me in. I know it wasn't easy, but it meant a lot to me."

Lisa nodded. "And unburdening myself made me feel better as well, of course, like I always knew it would."

I raised an eyebrow. She smiled sheepishly.

"Well, just because I knew it doesn't mean I could make myself do it, you know? Emotions are hard. You know, you're getting pretty combative for the Watson, don't you think?"

I snagged a particularly large cockroach and scurried it over Lisa's shoe. She yelped, scowled, and half-heartedly flipped a fry at me as I smirked.

"I swear, one of these days I'm going to break my gross-out reflex just to stop you from holding that over my head all the time," she said.

"There's always bigger bugs," I said mildly. With the hubbub of the lunchroom providing adequate-enough cover, I leaned in somewhat conspiratorially. "So, what's our next case?"

That vulpine grin spread lazily across Lisa's face. "I thought you'd never ask," she said. She rummaged in the backpack next to her feet, pulled out a thinly rolled-up paper, and thwapped it onto the table in front of me. "My article finally got published. Whaddya say we go hit the streets and dig up some local dirt for the next one? Who knows, maybe it'll be about us. I think we could cut a pretty dashing figure for the press, don't you?"

"Maybe if I stayed out of frame," I said. Lisa snorted and flicked another fry.

After that, we just chatted and laughed about the usual high school inanities: classes, weird teachers, who I thought was cute, until the bell rang.

It felt good.

A/N:

Well, folks, as promised, that brings us to the end of the Taylor PoV chapters! Thanks for sticking with me this far. There'll be two more epilogue chapters to round things out.