Pete and Steve arrived at the airport together to pick up the girls. Myka hadn't expected both of them, but was so relieved to see their familiar, warm faces.

"Quick! Get in! If this cop sees me stopped here again, he's gonna freak out, I'm not kidding."

Pete was sitting in the driver's seat, peering around dodgily.

"You're allowed to stop, Pete." Myka laughed at him while rushing to put the bags in the trunk. Helena slunk into the back seat without saying hello.

"Dude. We've circled around like eight times and that's only because he keeps waving us off. I'm serious. He's gonna kill me. Why was your flight so late?"

Myka ignored him, hoping that Helena would answer his question. Steve shut the trunk and pulled Myka into a hug, speaking into her ear so the others wouldn't hear. "It's good to see you. You okay?"

"I'm okay."

"She okay?"

"She'll get there."

Steve got into the front passenger seat and Myka collapsed in the back, grateful to be home. Helena scooted closer to her and locked their arms, putting her head on Myka's shoulder.

They drove back in relative silence, other than Pete yelling an occasional curse at a driver he felt was in his way.

The boys helped the girls bring in their bags and said their goodnights to Helena. As he was walking out the door, Pete hesitated and then doubled back, sweeping Helena into a hug. Without asking, he just did.

"I'm really glad you're here, Helena."

She was taken aback. The most she had ever gotten out of Pete was a fist-bump. And she fought the instinct to shrug him off or pull away. It's not pity, he missed you. She gave him a quick, tentative squeeze and then turned to her bed, pretending to need something from her suitcase.

Baby steps.

Myka walked Pete and Steve back to their room. Helena knew they were going to talk about her, but it was inevitable, so she just went back to unpacking in earnest.

"Mykes, why the radio silence since you left? I was kinda freaking out." Pete had so many questions to ask her.

"Radio silence? No, I e-mailed you when we got there and then I e-mailed you again yesterday!"

"You e-mailed me to pick you up."

"Yes. E-mail. Communication. Not silence." Pete looked at her flatly, while she threw her arms out, already annoyed to be arguing with him. Steve just walked along taking it all in. Ah, they were back.

"Point is, what the what, man? How is she? I mean, she's back, that's good."

Myka nodded while Steve unlocked the door to their room and they all moved in. "Yeah, it is good that she's back. She's not great. But she's here. Just, do me a favor? Try not to treat this like it's a big thing…"

"Yeah, we won't, because it's a HUGE thing." Pete was flabbergasted.

"I know, Pete. But she didn't even want to come back because she doesn't want to be pitied. She almost stayed in England. So, just…"

"We'll do our best, Myka." Steve gave her a side hug and moved over to the couch.

"Okay, good. Thanks." Myka gave him a second look. "Wait, Steve… what are you doing here? Why aren't you home for the end of spring break?"

"I was, but Pete and I decided we both wanted to be here when you got back."

Pete already had his mouth full of food so it was hard to understand his next few sentences, "Yeah, and Claudia's gonna be back in the morning. She's got homework for you guys."

"She's got mine too? I just asked her to get Helena's notes, I didn't expect her to…"

"Yeah, she got yours too. Mykes, you got people, okay? What's that saying? It takes a village?" Pete stuffed another handful of potato chips into his mouth in the middle of his thought.

"The rest of that sentence is 'to raise a child,' Pete, so if we're talking about you, then yes, I understand what you're saying."

He just smiled while he chewed open-mouthed, giving her a nice view, to which she covered her eyes and punched him light-heartedly.

"Yeah, well. You know the drill." Pete moved around and sat on the couch with Steve, pulling out his laptop while Steve looked for something to watch on tv. "Breakfast in the morning?"

"I don't know, I'm pretty tired, and Helena might just want to stay in bed too."

"Mykes, when I said morning, I meant like 11. I'm not getting up at the crack of dawn just because you're back."

Steve looked over his shoulder to share a look with Myka. Sometimes she felt like they were Pete's parents. But thank God for him. Thank God for good friends.

The days went on, each one slightly better than the one before. It had been the right decision for Helena to come back. She knew that. At the time, all she had wanted to do was surround herself with the memories of her father. But she knew what that really meant was surrounding herself with the memories she would never have because he left too soon.

Here, she had friends. She had Steve, who would gladly sit or take silent walks together. He had even offered her a few books on meditation which she took without outwardly mocking the idea. She had Claudia, who caught her up with goings-on over in the science building, including the fact that one of the groups in their robotics class had started a fire during the lab that she missed. And then there was Pete.

Pete was always good for a distraction and had given her some surprisingly good comic books, so they even had those to talk about. She would never have thought herself a comic book person. Though she would never have thought herself a Pete person either, but he understood what she was going through more than the others. They had never spoken about his father one-on-one, though Myka had mentioned it. More than a few times since they had returned from England, in fact. Her intention was not lost on Helena. And Myka was right, there was solidarity in stupid, senseless loss. On the days when she started to feel the anxiety, the itch to get away, on the days when she felt like she was letting herself sink back into dark, she knew that she shouldn't be alone. So she sought out Pete.

She had been sitting on the floor in his room, leafing through his copy of Watchmen on one of those day.

"Stop! H.G.! You're gonna spoil it! Just read it from the beginning!"

"Sometimes I like seeing how things are going to end before I start them."

"Why? Why would you do that?! The suspense! The drama!" Pete jumped from his chair and stood over Helena, acting it out.

"Things hurt less when you know that they're coming."

Gut punch.

"Ah. Right. Yeah." Pete awkwardly stood above her until Helena continued to flip through and settled on the last handful of pages. He couldn't stand it. He put his hand over the page and continued talking. "While, I totally get that… I'd say in this case… you should just read the story. The surprise could be a good surprise. I mean, it's actually not really a good surprise, it's kind of awful, but it's good in a 'Didn't see that coming, amazeballs!' kinda way."

Helena looked up from the book, forehead scrunched.

"Amazeballs?"

"Yes. It is totally amazeballs, H.G."

"Don't let Myka catch you calling me H.G. Next time, she's gonna do more than just punch you."

"She threatened to drop a dictionary on my crotch once."

A few days later Helena returned 'Watchmen,' to Pete, having read it straight-through, only stopping for class and work and homework. Myka had been happy to see her so engrossed in something.

"So, whadya think?"

Helena shook her head. "You didn't see that coming, Pete? You truly didn't see that coming? It was telegraphed through the whole thing."

"Oh, come on! You didn't like it?!"

"Oh no, I liked it very much. It was, in fact, 'amazeballs.'"

"Knew it!"

He turned back to put the book on his shelf and she stayed at the door. "Thank you, Pete."

"Yeah, sure, whatever, you can take whatever you want, that's why they're here."

"No, I meant…" What did she mean? Was she thanking him for being supportive without being pushy? Was she thanking him for distracting her from her own brain? Or was she thanking him for having lost too? He turned back and saw her struggling.

"I get it… No sweat. I just, uh…" Talking was easy for Pete until the words really mattered. "I just want you to know that it doesn't go away. But it dulls. With the good stuff. And there's plenty of good stuff. Liiiiike…" Pete took a series of comics off of his shelf "the 'Sandman' series, READ THEM."

Another thing that Helena had - school work that didn't relent just because she had other things to think about. When she had returned, she had fought going back to class. She didn't want people asking questions or offering condolences. Myka had basically had to get her dressed and walk her all the way to the door of her class to make sure that she actually went. She had felt like a small child being dragged to school for the first time - not wanting to leave the safety of her home and being unwillingly thrown into a hostile environment. But to her surprise, no one really said anything. They were all too focused on their own things. She had gotten behind, so the workload was heavier than usual, which actually gave her plenty to distract herself. Maybe Myka had been right to urge her back into the normalcy.

Though it felt like a stab every time a topic of traumatic brain injury came up. Which was often since she worked with Dr. Frederic so heavily. At least she had finally pared down her work schedule to just assisting in the lab and acting as Dr. Frederic's office assistant. There were, after all, still bills at home even if they were now coming in at a much less exhaustive rate.

Back to class, back to work, back to life.

It was odd how the world did keep moving and she along with it, however slowly.

A number of weeks after they returned, each of the girls were sitting at their desks, doing homework. It almost felt like things were back to normal, at least tonight.

Myka saw the light flashing on her phone, meaning she had an e-mail. It was from Professor Nielsen.

"Myka,

I was hoping to have a response from you about your intentions for the summer by now. I understand that things have been difficult for some time now, but I'd like the opportunity to ask one of your fellow students to assist me on my 'Decameron' research if you do not wish to come to Italy. Please respond ASAP.

Professor Nielsen."

Myka remembered the last time she had thought about her summer plans, right before their world had been flipped.

She turned to look at Helena and saw her leaning on her left hand, reading, and typing with her right hand. Why had they never moved their desks so that they could see one another's faces? If she couldn't see Helena's face, she didn't know if this was a good time to bring up summer plans.

She stopped what she was doing and went to lie down on their bed. The bed Myka used to sleep on had literally just become their second bookshelf at this point. It was currently covered in a number of 'Sandman' comics that didn't fit on their shelves. Helena looked tired, but no more so than usual. And she also looked bored.

"I do not know how many ways one person can say that time-space mappings in the mind are not unidirectional and that memories can't be trusted, but I'm fairly certain this man has hit the magic number."

That probably wasn't the best thing for Helena to be thinking about. When memories are all you have, it seems pretty mean to point out that they're false. So, maybe it would be all right to talk about the summer.

"Hey, Helena, I just got an e-mail from Professor Nielsen and he wants to know if I'm going to Italy with him this summer."

Helena snapped her head up to look at Myka.

"I haven't responded yet. I just wanted to talk to you first." Helena's body was becoming visibly tense. "I wanted to know what you thought about it so we can make the decision together, okay?" Myka sat up and took Helena's hand and the girl relaxed.

"I'm sorry, I didn't meant to respond that way…"

"It's fine, Helena. Look, I wasn't planning on going anyway. He had mentioned it in passing. Honestly I thought he was joking, but I'm not sure that he jokes… Anyway. The point is, I wanted to know what you were going to do. And what you wanted me to do."

"I suppose I hadn't thought about it much."

"I know," She squeezed Helena's hand, "I know, but it's getting close and he wants an answer." Myka looked down. She felt like an ass for bringing this up right now, but Professor Nielsen didn't much care if it was inconvenient timing. He had work to do.

"I got the internship at MIT."

Myka stood up. "What? That's fantastic! Helena that's amazing." She tried to pull the girl up to hug her, but Helena resisted.

"I told them no."

"What?" Myka froze. "I don't understand… I mean, I know I don't know a lot about cognitive science, but I'm fairly certain that that's one of the most competitive internships in the country."

"Myka? Every reminder just brings it back. I just need a break, okay? I just need to not think about it. I just need to be a person for a little while, instead of the person everyone wants me to be. Okay?"

Myka smiled and gave Helena a reassuring kiss. "Okay."