Heather drove through midnight. She'd taken to these lonely rides when she couldn't sleep, just herself and her beautiful red baby purring below her, convertible top rolled down and the wind blowing through her streaming hair. It was easier for her when Sherwood was mostly dead to the world, dreams and deep sleep muting people's emotions. She'd go out of town and circle the woods, sometimes turn off the motor and stop in the dark for a while, smelling brooding pine needles and crisp cold air. She congratulated herself that she handled this power much better than J.D.

She frowned as she turned the car, noticed a light in a place there shouldn't be lights. Her grandmother's haunted mansion at the back of town. Make that Heather's mansion: her grandmother had left her everything, in trust until the day she turned eighteen. She'd intended to leave herself everything. Heather's father had already started making noises about deeds of gift to her cousins, especially cousin Samantha who'd done so much for her grandmother. Cousin Samantha was a complete and total kiss-up wet blanket priss, but Heather supposed she hadn't rimmed Grandma's ass solely for the inheritance money, since she acted that way around everyone.

Heather turned off her car lights, turned in the driveway. She walked in the darkness, one hand where she could clutch her can of mace in her handbag. When she was close enough, her power told her there was nothing to worry about.

She opened the door and confronted the intruders in the library.

"An explanation would be nice," Heather said.

J.D. shrugged. "I might have got this job thanks to your nepotism, but at least I'm being diligent."

Heather had made the case to her father: poor orphaned schoolkid, after that unknown and unidentified hit and run driver stole Veronica's car and brutally murdered his father. Cut him a break with rent and give him a job, Daddy. Her father was still happy to do things she asked.

J.D. was supposed to be cataloguing the household goods in Grandma Chandler's house for her father to tick off all the boxes as executor. He was supposed to be doing it in normal hours, and not bringing a friend with him.

Heather Duke was curled up with a heavy book with a dead spider's corpse permanently imprinted on the back of it. "Of course I'm here doing all the research. Someone has to deal with monsters like you. And your grandmother," she added, very much as an afterthought.

I gave up my power and set her free, Heather thought. But that wasn't enough and maybe would never be enough. She'd wanted a follower, not a friend; she'd wanted revenge on Heather Duke for long ago slights that were horribly petty in the cold light of day. She gained that revenge and felt no satisfaction from it.

Heather could feel what she'd done to Duke, over the years. She was a raw mass of bruises inside, bloody-steak red and egg-plant purple and sick festering black. Each new one was flayed still more painfully above old ones that never had a chance to heal. She'd lately found freedom and affection, but it couldn't wipe out the past indignities.

"We had some good times," Heather said. "Usually when we were hurting someone else together. You liked that."

"You're beautiful, Heather. Blame it on me and try to say I'm equally bad. Argue that if you were really dead I'd have taken over and hurt people even worse than you. It's always someone else's fault, isn't it? Even without your power, you can't bear not to win. I'll make sure you and everyone like you loses." Duke smiled a venomous smile, and went back to her book. Heather knew J.D. watched them carefully - mostly in sympathy with Duke, part of him waiting keenly to see what Heather would do, drawn to observe her almost against his will.

"If you want to read my grandmother's shit, you're welcome. I'll even give you your own keys," Heather said. She dropped down to the floor to sit in front of Duke, like equals. "Someone with more patience than me should read this crap and know what to expect when someone else like her shows up. That someone's not going to be me. It's the real world for Heather Chandler, and if you want to play vigilante then sideline support is all you'll get."

Heather could already imagine it like the cover of a bad comic book. Emotion Boy and Powerless Lass - or would the Vomiting Marvel or Bulimia Girl be better titles? - team up against superpowered villains from the shadows, hunting down other murderers in Grandma Chandler's correspondence files. She bit her tongue against making that quip.

"You're not worse than me and I made you what you are," Heather admitted. "Where do we go from here? What do you want, Heather?"

Duke slightly lifted glittering eyes. "Public apology? Get on your knees at a school assembly and tell everyone exactly what you did - all the secrets you ordered me to keep? No one would like you then. You might play at being good for now, Heather, but I know what you really are."

"Maybe I could submit to public humiliation, tell everything to the principal, and do detention until graduation," Heather said. "You could take your pound of flesh from me. You still feel like you want power?"

Duke gave her a bit of a glare. "If knowledge is power, then I'll have a great deal of that. But I've given up on power to the extent that I'll not turn into an emotionless iron giant again. Love was powerful enough to stop that."

A hint of softness crept back into her face. Heather felt the soft, steady glow from Duke at the mention of Veronica, and an opposite, fading twinge in J.D. He'd cared about Veronica, but they'd only dated a few days and he'd spent most of the time lying to her. Mostly because of Heather. She thought he ought to be getting over it by now, and indeed he seemed to be.

"You got a happy ending," Heather said. "I'll leave you alone. I know we were never truly friends. Are those things enough of what you want, to be going on with?" She felt that vein of softness in Duke, opening slightly. Perhaps Veronica, who like Heather had chosen to live in the real world, would over time help her to grow new skin on the damaged parts.

"For now I'll hold my bond," Duke said. "But I'll be watching. A snake can shed one skin but it still grows back."

"They grow, and can't fit back into their old clothes," Heather said.

"Oh, you're a changed soul all right," Duke said, "a sweet little kitten now who wouldn't hurt a fly. Give me a break. And get out of here; we have work to do."

—

Power was like a starfish; even if you cut one limb off, another took its place. Or maybe it grew into two starfishes, giving you even more trouble. Heather's biology grades were never very good.

People still looked for a leader. Heather wasn't sure if standing aside would have been a punishment or a reward, but she felt the emotional currents of Westerburg turn toward her again. Push poll question of the day: if aliens did blow up the world except for you, what would you do then? How would you act if no one was going to punish you for it? Maybe you wouldn't be so concerned with pushing the crabs at the bottom of the bucket back in their place, if you were the only person you had to please.

Snakes grow out of their skins. If nobody changed, I'd still be hitting people over the head with Easy-Bake ovens, Heather thought. Not that the idea didn't still have some appeal to her, sometimes.

She was down at the Snappy Snack Shack, picking up some BQ corn nuts and considering whether to shoplift, as it was clear the middle-aged woman at the counter felt completely indifferent to everything around her.

Then outside the store, there was more. Party trick: independent of walls, Heather could tell exactly who came within a certain radius of her, provided she already knew what they felt like. Not that she'd show it off at any actual parties.

She knew all three of the drunk Remington College boys taking up valuable space on the sidewalk that a dog could've otherwise used to piss on. She watched them from a safe distance. David Harper, Brad Whatshisname, and Jamie-Or-Jeff-Who-Gives-A-Crap. Didn't know the fourth guy. She'd have crossed the other side of the street when seeing people like him, normally - ragged coat, unshaven grey mess of growth on his face, and all too many subtle things wrong about his look that marked him out as some homeless bum begging for spare change.

David was holding up the guy's begging bag. He threw it to Brad while the guy jumped for it. "Mine - mine - mine - " he gabbled.

"Jeez, man, this thing probably has fleas," Jamie-Jeff protested.

"Don't whine. A bet's a bet," David said. He shoved the guy hard, into Brad. The man protested again - mine, mine, then something that sounded disturbingly like I'll kill you.

Behind them, a motorcycle sped up and rattled on the sidewalk. Of course the rider saw the pedestrians, could have driven on the road. But instead it drove straight toward them without faltering - the well-known game of chicken.

There was drunk untouchability on one side, ganging up on a street bum just because they could, rich and careless men out for a night of fun at other people's expense. The struggling guy between them was a mess of fear and confusion and sickness. And on the other side Heather sensed released anger and confidence, fury and calculation and a drive for revenge.

David jumped. The motorbike missed the four by inches. "Dude, what the fuck!"

The biker turned around on a dime. "Isn't that the same as the game you're playing? Thought I'd join in on the fun."

"It's a school night, kid, go home!" Jeff-Jamie jumped as the bike revved again.

"Shit, man, that's enough." David snatched the bag and stepped away.

"Give it back to him." The streetlight caught J.D.'s face on the bike - idiot who thought he was too cool for a helmet.

If Heather still had her power, she'd command the three Remington sophomores to go drown themselves. On second thoughts, she'd heard on a TV show that drowning was a fairly peaceful way to go.

David darted for his car, pulling his friends with him. He revved up. You'd think car would win over bike in a game of street pizza any day -

Heather stepped out into the light. "Hi, ex-lover. Care to give me a ride?"

That brought David to lower the window.

"Look, David, it's your girlfriend! Little Miss Teen Suicide ... she's pretty," drunk Jeff-or-Jamie spewed out.

"She's not dead, is she?" Brad wondered aloud. "Am I drunk enough to see dead hot girls?"

Heather ignored them and zeroed in on her ex. In so many ways he was the worst of the three of them - and yet he still wasn't stronger than her. "I suppose you remember my photography hobby," Heather said, sweetly, thinking of worse vengeances and reluctantly setting them aside. "I have some great candid shots. Chuck that disgusting bag out the window like last week's blow, or else your school might be really interested to see some holiday snaps."

"No more parties for you," David promised. "Don't fuck her, Brad. She's too used-up and you'd catch something."

"I'll send you the burnt-up negatives," Heather promised. Or at least send you a random selection of ashes. She writhed inside at the feeling of deliberately humiliating herself in front of J.D., for the sake of a worthlessly altruistic cause. "Do we have a deal?"

Heather ducked as the bundle almost hit her. The red car got out of there. The homeless guy lunged toward it as it went - his fingers scraped across David's window - then he took a hard fall on the curb.

Remind me to make you pay to disinfect my car seat, Heather thought, glaring in her mirror at the two people in her back seat. And like hell a little drive to the hospital makes any real difference to anything. The man wasn't badly hurt enough to call an ambulance, though his compos mentis was definitely non. She'd no idea what to say herself, but J.D. sat next to the guy and talked to him like he was a real person - made him say he was a vet in Korea, talk about cities they'd both been in, calming down his jitters and some of the yelling and threats. The man's hands knotted and tightened over that bundle.

They dropped him off at the hospital. The most they could do was make with some loose change. Heather was nice enough to drive J.D. back to his bike.

"No such thing as a happy ending," Heather said. She spared a quick glance at the guy beside her. "Come off it; talk to me. It's like you gave me the world's worst STD and we didn't even fuck."

"Quoth she, regretfully?" J.D. said.

"Quoth she, trying to be kind. It's good to embrace new and rare experiences."

He lit a cigarette. "Suppose you want credit for saving poor me from the big drunk college assholes?"

"No, I want credit for saving them from you," Heather said flatly. The cigarette hung from his hand, flashing a tiny red dot in the dark. He listened carefully to her for once in his life.

"I know what you're capable of," she said. "Ram Sweeney's sole contributions to the world were cow tipping and date rape, but you could have stopped him another way. You went straight to murder given the slightest excuse. Martha was right about you. You'd have killed me if she hadn't changed things. That's true, isn't it?"

J.D. didn't answer. He didn't need to.

"People are annoying and stupid," Heather said. "They give me headaches now, and I blame you for it. You set yourself up to lead a new social trend for love and tolerance and suddenly you have poached-egg-for-brains freshmen confiding in you they're worried Mom and Dad will kick them out if they tell they like dick. Stupid! Forget your sexual orientation, you need a goddamn brain! Don't tell people vulnerable secrets unless you have no choice! What the hell could I say?"

A scornful shrug from him. "Looks like you need to keep thinking, Madam President."

"It's not like there's any good answer," Heather sulked. "My mom and dad would just be happy I was happy ... but not everyone's folks were forced by years of exposure to a mind control power to love and give a big allowance." She'd told the kid to stay safe and experiment in college. "I'm tough; there's no non-supernatural monsters that can stand up to me. Did you and your ex's girlfriend find anything interesting hitting the books?"

He didn't take that small reminder as too great a wound, but relaxed a little to talk about it.

"There's a high probability that wendigos are real," J.D. said. "Man-eating ice giants. Your grandmother told us that killing became an addiction - hence the myth about insatiable cannibals. Ever think about taking a road trip to the Great Lakes?"

"I'll think of you when I'm having Sex On The Beach," Heather said. He couldn't hide his tiny mental twitch before he figured out the innuendo. "It's a kind of cocktail, peach schnapps and vodka, orange garnish - it's very. Actual sex on the beach is not very. Sand is unpleasant." Or so she assumed, after a deeply unsatisfying trip to second base in Cancun. She flashed J.D. a grin, knowing that they both knew exactly what she was doing.

You've always noticed I'm pretty, and much more importantly interesting enough to watch like you couldn't take your eyes off me. You like interesting more than pretty. You thought I was awful, but then I started doing heroic shit and you got thrown for a loop. Leaving you utterly confused and still attracted despite your best judgments, Heather thought.

"I might not be up for wendigo hunting, but I could help you avoid committing homicide again," Heather offered. "In return, you can keep me from providing frank and fearless and admittedly true critiques on other people's disgusting habits. It doesn't seem fair, but here we both are."

They were two of a kind, maybe both sitting next to the only other person on the planet who'd really understand and appreciate it. The emotional undercurrents went both ways, flashing as quick as lightning, crossing each other in a strange harmony now.

"It could have gone the other way and you knew it when you gave it to me," Heather said. "You took a risk. I could have used this power to figure out what wounds people the most. I might be the kind of person who'd enjoy feeling them get hurt."

"Are you?"

"You already have your answer," Heather said.

She could feel what J.D. was feeling, but he was still balanced on an edge, like a coin that hadn't decided which way to fall. Roused interest and the sizzling intensity of physical desire mixed with second thoughts and hesitations, depression and uncertainty. And maybe there was something else mixed in there too: a sincere desire for affection to be both given and returned, a choice and bond forged freely between people who felt it was better to be together than alone.

"The position of 'boyfriend Heather Chandler dumped when she went to college' is still vacant," she reminded him.

She pulled over the car; turned off the lights.

"I could say - Given your power, I expect much better than adolescent fumblings from you - " Heather began, breathlessly. Her hands closed around shoulders, sleeves, warmth of touch-after-a-long-time-of-nobody, a clash of will and feeling and desire and yielding. "Or I could say - there's nothing more lamer and sickening-saccharine than admitting you have a feeling, a real feeling - " She stopped talking. She had to.

"You were right," she heard back after a while, the words muffled. "It seems I like fighting with you."

And from anyone else, that would have been a confession. From them, it was enough. A beginning.

—

The End

Thank you for reading!