LEO/KARAI

As Leo lowered his unconscious daughter to his mother's bed he tried to pull together where he'd gone wrong. Why hadn't he foreseen the kids pulling something like this? Pinching between his eyes he began to pace as he waited for mother.

"It's not your fault, Leo." Karai sat beside Shen, rubbing her daughter's back.

"Of course, it's my fault! I'm the leader of this family. It's my respons-"

"What? Your responsibility to know the future?" Karai scoffed. "We've got a healer, an empath, a medium, and a literal psychic who didn't see this coming. But we should have. They're the same age we were when we formed a team and went on missions."

"They aren't supposed to have to." Leo groaned, still pacing. "We fought so they wouldn't." He stopped, looked at Karai. "I don't know how many of them did- but several of them crossed the line tonight." He sat beside Karai, hanging his head. "They're never going to be the same."

"They're growing up, Leo. We get the good and the bad with that. We- they have a lot to be proud of too. They did what they had to in an emergency. They protected one another and they called for backup. They may have waited a little too long, but assuming this is their first mission together, three of them were still on their feet when we got there."

Leo thought for a minute, musing aloud. "Who was leading them?"

Karai shrugged. "Ask them when you have your come-to-Leo speech."

"My what?" Leo's head whipped up. Catching the smirk on Karai's lips, he shook his head. "Stop. I'm not as bad as I used to be. Am I?"

Karai stared at him.

"Never mind. If they're going to be a team sneaking off on missions then they're going to have to train as one." Leo glanced at Shen and sighed. Where was his mother?

Suddenly, Karai was on her feet, gripping the sides of his face. "You're going to let them do this?"

"Hopefully they won't want to after what they've been through. But if they persist, if they have any intention of continuing in this capacity at all then they have to train harder. They have to learn to work together the way we all do. I'm proud of us tonight. And I hate to admit it but I'm kinda proud of them too."

Karai kissed his brow then pressed her forehead to his, peering into him. "Then you have to tell them."

CHANE

The first thing Chane knew was pain. Lots of it. In all varieties. Her head pounded, threatening to explode with each beat of her heart. Her bones ached with countless sharp stabs all through her arms, legs and back. The muscles and ligaments of her right leg, screamed in protest of movement she wasn't even trying to make. All so much she could barely breathe. She didn't know what it was to hurt until now. She'd thought she'd known and she had been wrong.

The pain began to fade as though some ephemeral balm seeped through her body, absorbing everything she wished she couldn't feel. As the last phantom ache faded into the ether, she breathed a sigh of relief.

What had happened?

"It's healed, but freshly so and there was a lot. As though she were shattered. Make sure she rests the next couple of days."

Grandmere?

"I will."

Dad?

What... Jem, Shen, Drea, Scout, Alli!

Her eyes snapped open and she tried sitting up, but her father caught her shoulders, gently but firmly pushing her back down.

Her cousins!

Frantic, her eyes sought out her dad. "Are they ok? Did you make it in time?"

He nodded. "Everyone survived."

She went limp in relief. No one had died.

But they could have. She'd led them into total disaster. One that could've been averted had she contacted her father sooner. Scout had the tracker. That was all that was necessary.

But she hadn't wanted to get sidelined. It was her mission. The price of her pride, her ego, had almost been her cousins' lives. Never again.

Her dad ran a hand over her head. "How're you doing?"

She started to say she was fine but realized that wasn't true.

"Not great." Her eyes teared up.

He frowned. "Do you need me to call your Grandmere back?"

She shook her head, sniffling. "I almost got them all killed. I put them in danger. And to fix my mistake...men are dead. Bad men, but..."

It had been easy. Too easy. The kunai slicing into the back of their necks with so little resistance. No chance to fight back or defend themselves. At the time, they weren't people. They were the monsters hurting her family and so many others. But now, now she felt like just as much of a monster.

He clasped his hand around hers. "I know it's your nature, but you can't always take responsibility for your cousins..."

"I was the leader. It was my plan. I could've made different choices. But I put us in danger. Made us killers." She admitted in a hollow voice.

Her dad's eyes widened in surprise before clouding over with something unfamiliar.

Distrust.

He'd always trusted her for as long as she could remember. Until now. Losing that hurt more than she could've anticipated.

Her jaw tightened. No matter what, she'd regain it. She'd find a way to earn that trust back. No matter how long it took.

He took a breath. "We all make mistakes, Nellie. We live with them and we learn from them. It's all we can do."

She looked away. "The lives I've taken..."

"Can't be given back." He finished, giving her hand a squeeze. "But you can do your best to make reparations and good choices in the future. It doesn't make it right. Just better."

Yes. Going forward. She would be better, she promised herself. Much better.

NIK

Nik returned to, if not consciousness, then at least awareness to discover that somehow his head had become trapped in a vice. But didn't a vice push on two sides? All the pressure seemed to be on the back of his skull.

Somewhere people were talking. His parents? Grandmere? Something about there being enough concussions for one lifetime.

Who'd been concussed? Was it Anton again? And why was his head killing him?

Oh. Right. He had the head injury, didn't he?

The memories pieced back together out of a messy jumble. Big Bad had head-punched him.

Yup. That would do it. Hopefully nothing important had been knocked loose.

With a groan, he cracked his eyelids open. At first it was hard to see anything, like there were several layers of varied materials in the way, forming a gauzy haze across his vision. Cotton, polyester, concrete, steel, wood. They each echoed their own energy frequency. Irritated, he peered harder.

Outlines of the auras of several family members appeared. Why did it look like he was floating above them? He tried to reach out for them only to discover some kind of cushy fabric blocking his hand.

Wait. It was a bed. He was lying face down, looking at the floor below. That wasn't a mistake he'd made in a long time. Stupid brain injuries.

He tried pushing up, but a wave of pain and nausea convinced him otherwise and he settled for turning his head sideways on the pillow. The walls were layered with squares and rectangles radiating oil paint. Was this Uncle Arcos's room?

In his line of vision, the shape of his father paced back and forth, a dark cloud of worry fogging up around him. Beneath it, he could see a mishmash of emotions. Anger bubbling up at a low simmer, mixing with the wispy relief rolling off like steam. Sharp chunks of jagged fear embedded throughout amongst a thick, soupy base of sorrow and misery with a deep vein of personal hurt running through the core of it all.

How much of that suffering was his doing? Surely not all. But he must've wrought at least some.

On the side he couldn't see, he felt his mother's presence. Her energy was so strong, it warmed him at this proximity, like rays of sunlight. He found it soothing after the night he'd had.

"Welcome back."

Of course, she'd know that he was awake.

His father immediately stopped and turned to him, all his emotions blending together in a kaleidoscopic swirl. Then his dad armored up, a shell of logic sliding over him, locking all the feelings inside, like a genie in a bottle.

Without a word, his father examined him, checking pulse rate, blood pressure, the usual medical vitals.

"Stop, Dad. I'm fine." His brain felt like it was being juiced but that was otherwise true.

His father's hands stilled in hesitation, that line of hurt cracking his armor and oozing out. "Why didn't you say anything?"

He sighed. "We thought we could find Scout and that you wouldn't let us."

Anger arced up like a solar flare. "So, you lied and stole and endangered your lives."

Nik flinched, sending shooting pain across his skull. "Yeah, we did. Nellie thought our best shot was to use me as bait. Would you have let me if I told you? Could you have found Scout in time if I didn't?"

His father stilled, logos temporarily eclipsing pathos in a frozen, crystalline pause on his emotional landscape as he mentally ran the simulations. And then it thawed into a dark muddle.

"I hadn't considered the course of action because, keeping you safe is my first and most important job. That said, if you'd come to me, presented your case… I might have supported you. Your conjecture is a reasonable one. Maybe I could have found a way to make it safe...or at least safer. Now we'll never know."

Nik could feel the guilt worming its way through his gut. It was true. More than anyone else, his father could be swayed by the presentation of a solid and sensible argument. And he was a problem solver by nature. With his dad's input, things might not have turned into such a huge clusterfuck.

Because honestly, they had lost. Big time. And while the emotional states of the relatives he'd peeked at on the first floor showed none of the grief that the loss of one or more of them would surely cause, he could only credit their survival to the timely arrival of the parents. Under their own power, they'd been sunk.

"And it's not just tonight. Your secret band. The bits of tech, here and there, disappearing from my storeroom. So many lies. Are we, am I, really that untrustworthy? Can't you come to us, come to me, with anything important to you?"

The hurt in his father stretched and grew, twisting with stretchy strands of doubt fractured with brittle lines of self-loathing. All those emotions tied into one ugly knot.

He reached out and grabbed his dad's hand. "It's not like that. I know I'm not smart like you or clever like mom. I know I'm not what either of you wanted. I'll never invent anything amazing and I can't stand the idea of being a concert pianist, even though I know what both of you want for me. I mean, I pretend a bit, so you'll be happy. Proud. But I'm not. I thought if I could do this and other things, then you'd see that I'm capable of doing important stuff, as just me. Guess I didn't prove anything, though."

His mom ran a hand down his spine, pooling a layer of comforting energy into his back, while his dad started, bolts of shock shooting through him.

"Is that what you've thought all this time?" A fresh bloom of regret-laced sorrow blossomed in his father. "I never meant...I suppose I pushed the science because I've always found it fun and wished I could share it with you. You're growing up and... we're very different. I feel like I'm missing out on you sometimes. But I've always been proud of you. You are amazing in your own right. I never intended to make you feel otherwise." His dad gave his hand a squeeze, shining with sadness and sincerity.

Behind him, his mother spoke. "I wasn't trying to push. I thought I was supporting your love of piano. Stupid psychic powers kinda suck at detail and accuracy when I really need it."

His dad flickered with hope. "But we can, all of us, do better. Going forward."

He tried nodding and thought better of it. "Yes. I promise I'll come to you in the future and that I'll be honest. No more lies."

A halo of happiness illuminated his dad and his mother whispered. "Rest now."

Drowsy and content, he sagged into the mattress.

No more lies.