AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Hello readers. It's been a while. Last year was a rough one for me, and I just didn't have the time or mental energy to commit to writing. You've all been loyal with your reading and feedback, and many of you have reached out, and I'm sorry I've been out of touch for so long. However, it's a brand new year, and I think it's a great time to continue where I left off. Those of you who have been kept waiting, I hope this isn't disappointing. To new readers, welcome! Please let me know what you think, and I promise the next chapter is going to bring you some focus on the She-Hulk!

"Why are you being so stubborn, Talia?!"

"It's my decision to make!"

Talia had envisioned the reunion between her and Dr. Geoffrey Reid more than a million times in her head between leaving the motel in upstate New York and finally coming face to face with him in Manhattan. Their last conversation, before she had left New York for Vermont, had been anything but cordial, and it continued to play on loop in her head.

She imagined shock, jubilance, anger, confusion, or any combination thereof to be launched at her from Geoffrey - all well deserved, Talia had also convinced herself. He, like her, always did his best to keep the upper hand.

She had not imagined, however, a scenario where he seemed to be completely off his footing from the second he laid eyes upon her. Seeing a ghost would theoretically do that to anybody.

"Talia," said Geoffrey. His lips froze, then opened again in anticipation of words that he intended to say, but nothing came out.

"It's good to see you, Geoffrey," interjected Talia. "Been a long time."

Geoffrey eased, his brain now having a thread to latch on to. "Yes."

The two stood across the room from each other, Geoffrey standing behind his desk, and Talia at the door. Rachel, standing a few feet away, shifted her gaze between the two. Unlike her usual self, she had kept her lips glued together so far, an uncharacteristic behavior that Talia was appreciative of in the moment.

"What am I doing?" said Geoffrey, shaking his head. He rounded the desk and as he headed toward her, he cautiously opened his long arms and wrapped them around Talia, pulling her small frame into his torso. Talia, caught off guard, soon lifted her arms and returned the embrace, drifting into past memories.

"I promise you, a few more tests and we'll be able to find something that'll help you."

"It's too late to help me, Geoff."

His grip loosened, and Talia once more returned to the present. Leaving the hug and holding her at arms left, Geoffrey's eyes widened. "My god, Talia," he said, as she felt his eyes scanning her from head to toe. "You look...unbelievable. The last time I saw you, you were...you were…"

"Not well," she finished.

"All the more reason I can't believe you're standing here," Geoffrey answered, his voice still in a state of surprise. His hands, which had seconds ago been wrapped around her back embracing her, had quickly transitioned to feeling their way over her arms, squeezing her triceps, gripping her shoulders. Measuring her. Studying her. "My god, your body form, your muscle mass, it's... it's like you'd never been sick!" The voice was no longer that of her friend, but that of a scientist - a mental shift that she was very well familiar with doing herself. "You must've found a cure! What treatment did you use? Were there any side effects?"

A few.

Talia closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath in an attempt to calm her heartbeat, which was still racing as it had been when they walked in the door. She was trying to quell her discomfort with his touch, and switch into scientist mode herself. As she did, voices came flooding back in.

"I don't get why you're so angry about this, Geoff. I'm the one who's dying."

"You're abandoning life, abandoning options! All of our work...you're abandoning us."

"Talia?"

"I'm sorry, Geoffrey," Talia said, drawing herself back to the present, and withdrawing her arm from his grip. She forced herself to make eye contact with him. "I promise I'll answer all of your questions in time. I should've reached out much earlier. We could've...talked."

Geoffrey hesitated, a sadness washing over his face. "I'm sure you had more important things to worry about." He took a few steps back, and leaned his body back on his desk, as if it was helping him bear the weight of the moment.

Talia watched the man's eyes scan her body from head to toe, taking her presence in, mentally cataloging the unexpected results the grand experiment of life had just given him, and no doubt taking notes on every way that she looked completely different from when they had parted ways. After all, any good scientist would know change when they saw it.

Or lack thereof. Talia thought Jeffrey looked almost the same as when she had last left him, though maybe more...tired.

"None of that matters now, anyway," Geoffrey continued. "You're here, you're alive, and you're Talia. The details can come later."

"And boy have we got plenty of those for you," chirped Rachel from the side of the room.

Geoffrey's attention moved over to her. "And who's this?"

"Rachel DeLanco," she said excitedly, allowing her silent presence to completely dissolved. Geoffrey lifted a hand slowly, however Rachel immediately grabbed it and pulled him into an embrace. "Nice to meet you, doc."

"Ah, the infamous Rachel," he said, pulling away from Rachel's hug, his eyebrows lifting and his voice growing the slightest bit colder.

Rachel nodded. "That's me, Dr. Geoffrey." She looked over to Talia and winked.

"I'm glad," he said. "And please, call me Geoff. Talia used to."

Geoffrey, too, was again looking at Talia. His fright-inspired complexion had finally regained some color. "Looks like I have a lot to catch up on. And I'm guessing you all traveled a long ways to get here. Can I take you two out to dinner?"

Talia reacted sheepishly, closing her jacket around her torso and wrapping her arms around her stomach. "I'd prefer some place a little more private, Geoffrey, if we can."

Though confused, Geoffrey appeared to take it in stride. "Um, yeah, sure. We can grab food and head back to my apartment?"

Talia nodded. "Is Stanley's Take Out still open?"

Geoffrey's apartment was just how she remembered it.

That was the problem.

"So, I'm just supposed to spend every day now wondering if you're dead or alive?"

"No, Geoffrey, you're supposed to stop wasting your days - your life - worrying about me."

"Talia!"

"Talia?" Geoffrey's voice. "Talia, you OK?"

"Yeah, sorry," she said. Their last argument before she had left New York to head back to Vermont had happened in this apartment, not too far from the couch she was now sitting on. It only made the memories worse. She felt herself getting more upset, more guilty the longer she was next to him. Her emotions wanted to come out to play.

Feigning a smile, she forced herself to switch on scientist mode, then grabbed the slice of pizza on a plate that Geoff was offering her. No emotions tonight, Talia. Emotions bring the change.

Change. So much had changed. Changes plagued her life. But, taking in the scent of the fresh pizza from their old favorite place, Stanley's, she felt her mood lighten slightly. It smelled...delicious. And, when she took a bite, it tasted even better than she remembered. There could be comfort in this place, in the things that hadn't changed. This time, a slight, real smile escaped.

"This...this is wonderful," Talia said through a bite full of gooey cheese. "I don't know how I ever tricked myself into thinking Vermont pizza was anything compared to this."

"Hey," spat Rachel from a chair across the room, taking a small bite of her slice that was obviously too hot for her, as she fumbled with the food in her mouth before swallowing painfully. "We have good cheese up there, at least!"

Geoffrey laughed as he sat down on the couch next to her with a slice of his own, untouched. While his face portrayed joy in her company, Talia looked into his eyes and saw a spot of sadness in there as he made eye contact with her. He, no doubt, would have remembered their last fight here as clearly as she had.

He broke his gaze with her quickly, and took a modest bite of his pizza. "I'm glad there's still a bit of New York in you, Talia," he laughed. "Remember when our lab assistant - was it Peter or David? I forget. Anyway, remember when he was so happy to bring in a pizza lunch for the lab, then proceeded to drop it on the street outside the university?"

"How could I forget?" Talia snickered. "I've never seen so many happy rats in my life!"

The pair let out a genuine laugh, with Rachel attempting to join in with a few snickers. This opened the floodgates for old stories, and as the chattering livened up the living room, one by one the contents of the pizza box vanished, leaving only the grease-stained cardboard on the coffee table.

Talia embraced the surroundings of laughter and warmth, full of familiar pizza and familiar faces. She let her plate come to rest on her lap, and sat back into the couch cushion, hoping to cling onto the moment. There was happiness here. Happy memories with Geoffrey, comforting thoughts of her...old life.

But this was not her current life. She had left this all behind. The guilt and sadness that had temporarily been buried within her began to claw their way back to the surface. Talia was quick to assert control over these feelings, for if they got too strong too quick, it would come out. And, that change was exactly the reason she was here.

"Geoffrey," Talia said softly, before clearing her throat and summoning more resolve. "...Geoff."

The sound of his shortened name coming from Talia's lips made the doctor stop and turn to her. It was a sound he hadn't heard in a long time.

"Geoff, this has been wonderful. It felt exactly like it used to, and..."

"I'm glad, Talia," Geoff interrupted.

"...and I needed that, for a bit," Talia finished. "But, as you've probably been wondering about since I walked through your office door earlier, there's a reason I've come back into your life."

She looked up to his eyes, and there it was. The sadness had crept back into Geoff's face.

"Our research on muscle restoration was everything to me. I wanted to save others in the world from my father's fate. From my fate." She sighed. "As you know, my condition eventually took a turn for the worse, much sooner than expected. Hope was out of reach for me."

A flash of anger leapt across Geoff's eyes as he stared at Talia's seemingly healthy body. "No, it wasn't. Obviously."

"Geoff, I know we've had this argument over and over," Talia argued with a raised voice, before quickly catching herself. "But please, let me finish." Talia looked down. She didn't want to see his reaction.

"At the time, I was resigned to finish out my life and my work in my hometown. I didn't want you to watch me slowly wilt into nothing. That was my choice, not yours, and I stand by it."

Geoff stayed silent.

"I took a job at my alma mater, got some quick grants based off the work we had completed here in New York, and figured I'd try to finish what I could with my part of the research, and have my findings sent back to you when I died.

"But I let my fear of death get the better of me," she continued. "I had the money, I had the research, but I didn't have the time. So I did what scientist is told never to do, and I started to begin testing our theories on myself."

"Talia…" Geoff whispered, his voice pained. Rachel sat gravely silent in her chair.

"I began subjecting myself to extended doses of gamma radiation, which had worked on the animal trials here. The gamma was effective at fighting some of the newer degradation, but it wasn't enough. Then I remembered that your adrenaline trials had been promising. I began to combine the two. When the results weren't what I wanted, I kept increasing the doses to the point where I wasn't even keeping track anymore.

"I figured that dying of radiation poisoning was the worst that could happen to me," Talia said, her voice tinged with rage. "I was wrong."

She looked to Rachel, who had silently fetched her laptop and walked it over. Talia grabbed it from her and flipped open the screen, which had a video cued up on the screen. Geoff's sadness and anger had turned to confusion. "Talia, what are you trying to tell me?"

"I left New York to die. And the Talia Walker you knew is dead. I've come back reborn as a monster. And this is how it happened."

She hit play.