Chapter 16: A Dark Confession

When Becky poked her head through the doorway, the sight she saw was both relieving and heartbreaking. Fern was sitting up in the bed closest to her while the curtain next to her, fully pulled back, revealed the other bed to be empty. She was wearing a hospital gown and reading one of her Sherlock Holmes books, which Becky figured her parents must have brought for her so she wouldn't be entirely bored. She could only hold it up with one hand though, as her left arm was slack at her side, encased in a thick layer of gauze and held up by a sling. She looked content enough, but seeing her crush injured like this stung Becky emotionally, especially considering that she felt largely responsible for it.

"Fern!" Becky cried upon seeing her there, quickly coming over to her and giving her a hug, careful to avoid her injured arm.

"Becky, hi!" Fern greeted, turning her attention from her book and smiling joyfully, setting her book down and returning Becky's hug as best as she could with one arm. "I'm so glad to see you!"

"You too! I was so relieved to know you're okay!"

"Well, the break was pretty small. I don't even need a full cast, and I'm taking painkillers that are helping a lot. The doctor said they're only keeping me here under observation until tomorrow to be on the safe side."

"That's a relief. I'm glad you'll get to leave tomorrow," Becky said, sitting down in a chair at the side of the bed. "I feel awful though. I wish you didn't have to be here in the first place… I even promised you wouldn't get hurt…"

"It's okay, Becky. We saved the planet from Hacker today - I think one of us getting a tiny little broken arm is a pretty good price to pay… Well, two of us, actually. Digit got his wing slammed in the boiler room door when he tried to stop Buzz from locking us in."

"Ouch!" Becky winced. "I hope he's okay."

"Well, he went back to Cyberspace once we landed, like we said. I'm sure he's getting it taken care of. I've heard birds' bones knit quickly. I don't know how much different his anatomy is, being from another dimension and all, but still."

"Yeah… I still would have taken that break for you if I could have."

"It's really not a big deal, Becky, I promise. I can deal with it. I'm honestly glad this is all I got by the end of all this."

"I was so worried when I saw you there on the side of the ship! I'm amazed you held on!"

"I guess the adrenaline must have helped," Fern pondered. "You know, Becky, it's weird when you go through an experience like I have, where I was honestly pretty close to death. Not just once, but a couple times. It's like I felt that deep, instinctive will to survive that we all have, you know? Like whatever happened, I needed to keep on living… Funny how that can happen to anyone, even if sometimes… you don't necessarily feel that way. It's kind of a wake up call..."

Becky completely understood what Fern meant as she went on. All people were animals, after all, each with their more animalistic instincts, however deep or buried they might be. She grew more concerned as Fern finished her little observation, though. "Fern… What does that mean, exactly?"

Fern sighed. She supposed she would have had to tell Becky about this sometime. "I guess I might as well tell you… but this is something really personal, Becky. I've never told anyone else about it besides George."

Becky nodded encouragingly, gently placing her hand on Fern's good one. "Go on... I promise I won't tell anybody. You can trust me."

Fern smiled sadly. "I know that," she replied, entwining their hands as she went on. "Honestly, Becky... for the past year or so, I've been having these patches of time on and off where I've felt really unhappy. I've had some… really dark thoughts during these times. I don't like to talk about it, mostly because I can barely even explain why I've felt this way at times. I mean, objectively speaking, my life is good. Both my parents are together and love me a lot, I have a few friends, I have a nice home - I don't feel like I have any right to feel the way I've felt, so I've mostly kept it to myself. I hated not telling anyone about it though, so I told George. He's helped a lot, and it hasn't gotten that bad for me for a while now… but it still lingers from time to time. It's even affected my writing. Maybe that's part of why I've been hesitant to let people read it recently. I'm afraid people will read parts of it and realize what's going on in my mind, and it would be so embarrassing to have to explain it… Does any of that make sense?" she asked warily, meeting Becky's eyes.

Becky didn't believe she had ever felt such a crash in her mood as she did as Fern articulated her thoughts. She had hypothesized that Fern had a few issues, of course, but she had no idea she had been depressed enough to think about taking her own life. By the time she finished talking, Becky's mouth was hanging open in shock, her lips quivering as her eyes began welling up with hot tears. Without another word, once again being careful to avoid Fern's injured arm, she wrapped her arms tightly and protectively around her, burying her face into her neck. "Oh Fern, oh my god…" she choked out between heavy sobs. "I'm so sorry…"

"It's okay, Becky… It's not your fault," Fern assured, rubbing Becky's back. She felt awful seeing Becky so upset for her, sadder than she had ever seen her, almost wanting to cry herself. "It's my problem, not yours… and anyway, I'm fine, see? I didn't do it. I'm still here… and now I have you too. You're one more reason for me to want to live."

Becky finally let go, sitting back up and wiping her red eyes, but still sitting close to Fern. "You're darn right you have me now," she replied confidently, taking Fern's free hand in both of her own, grasping it gently but firmly. "I want to be your girlfriend, Fern. I can promise you right now that I'll always be there for you. You'll never have to be alone or feel so sad again. I'll make you feel so loved and happy, you'll never want to think about doing that ever again."

Fern smiled as her face went red, extremely moved by Becky's words. "Thank you so much, Becky. It feels so amazing to hear you say that. And I want to be your girlfriend too…"

Becky beamed, her face blushing to match Fern's. The two girls placed their lips to each other's gingerly for the second time as bright sunlight shone onto them through the room's window. Both were quite happy to know that their first one wouldn't also be their last.

As they pulled back away from each other, they both chuckled contentedly. "This'll be fun to explain to our families, won't it?" Becky asked jokingly.

"You bet. I can't wait," Fern replied with playful sarcasm, pulling Becky back in for a one-armed hug, smushing their cheeks against each other. They already knew they would never get tired of warmly embracing each other.

The rest of the day was rather draining for all five kids, especially considering how tired they were already. Neither Matt, Jackie or Inez could get home without being recognized by people who had seen them on TV that morning. They were each also forced to tell their families what they had been doing up there, and fibbed as convincingly as they could.

After Matt went home to deal with his own family and their inevitable questions, he decided to take the truck back into town and make one quick stop that he felt was necessary. He parked in front of Inez's apartment building and went inside to the right door, knocking and waiting.

Inez grinned upon seeing who had arrived. "Hey, loverboy," she greeted cheekily. "What brings you around these parts?"

"I thought you and I could talk for a little bit about… well…"

"About us?"

"Everything, really. But definitely that too," Matt confirmed, stepping inside, Inez shutting the door behind him. "I hope this isn't a bad time."

Inez shook her head. "Nope. My parents went off to run errands, so it's just me and my abuela right now, and she won't mind that you're here. We can go talk in the kitchen."

"Great," Matt said, giving two thumbs up as he followed Inez into the kitchen. Her pet cat, Gato, strolled about as they stood there. He had gotten older and slower over the past few years, but he remained generally the same otherwise.

"Want anything to drink?" Inez asked.

"Nah, I'm good. I wasn't planning on staying too long. I just wanted to talk for a little while about everything that happened."

"About what, specifically?" Inez asked, confused.

"I don't know," Matt admitted with a shrug. "Don't people usually talk to each other after big things happen? Hacker and Buzz are gone, the Wreaker is destroyed, Delete's switched to our side, we made friends with WordGirl and know her secret identity - That's a lot to unpack, right?"

"You're not wrong," Inez offered, closing the fridge and opening up an orange soda. "I'm still barely convinced Hacker is just… gone. He's the whole reason we came to Cyberspace and got to know each other in the first place…"

"Is that it, then?" Matt asked after a moment. "Are we done? Do you think Motherboard will need us anymore? We're not just gonna stop being the Cybersquad now, are we?"

Inez put down her soda and looked down at her shoes. "I hadn't really thought about that, honestly… I don't think we would have to disband, necessarily. It's not like Hacker caused all the problems we fixed in Cyberspace. Just most of them."

"That's true," Matt agreed, his eyes drifting over to Inez's drink. "You know, now that I think about it, I AM kind of thirsty…"

Inez chuckled and rolled her eyes, reaching back into the fridge and tossing her new boyfriend his own soda.

"Thanks," he said, twisting off the cap and taking a large, refreshing gulp. The caffeine would help him stay awake a bit longer until that night anyway. "Man, could you believe Fern today?"

Inez nodded. "What she did was definitely impressive, without a doubt."

"I can't believe after all this time we've been fighting Hacker, some other kid comes along and defeats him for good. I like her and all, but I kind of feel like she stole our thunder."

"Oh come on, Matt. It's not as if we didn't do anything. We and Delete kept encouraging her and helped her get out of the boiler room. It also would have been hard for her to jump with the parachute and carry the battery with a broken arm all by herself. And to be perfectly fair, she's been through a lot during this whole ordeal, more than any of us have. I think it's fitting that she should be the one to do what she did."

Matt nodded understandingly. He couldn't argue with that. None of them were the one that had been kidnapped or had their arm broken. "She turned out to be tougher than I thought she would be, that's for sure. She looks all cute and innocent, and she kind of is, what with that big red bow on her head and being a bit younger than even you, but she can get the job done when she needs to."

"No argument here," Inez concurred. "In fact, I actually had this idea floating around earlier regarding her."

"What's that?" Matt asked curiously.

Inez shook her head. "I'll tell you another time when Jackie and Digit are around so we can discuss it together, and then we can talk to Motherboard. Soon, though, don't worry."

"Got it," Matt relented, taking another sip of his soda. "You know, Inez… Remember that night last Friday when we went out and got the call from Motherboard?"

"I do, why do you ask?"

"Well, you should probably know that I was actually planning on telling you that night that I like you," Matt explained. "It was so frustrating getting so close to telling you only to be interrupted like that."

Inez smirked impishly. "You're sure you're not just saying that to try and impress me?"

"Please," Matt said, waving his hand dismissively. "I'm impressive enough already."

"Oh do tell," Inez replied dryly.

"Seriously though, I did want to tell you that night. It took me a long time to get the courage to really try and tell you."

Inez smiled, genuinely this time. "I've been wanting to tell you for quite a while, too. Jackie kept encouraging me, but I never got the nerve."

Matt went bug-eyed at this revelation. "She did that to you, too?"

Inez paused, beginning to realize what had been going on this whole time. "Yeah… you?"

"Yeah!" Matt smacked his forehead in disbelief. "Of course! Why WOULDN'T she talk to both of us about it?"

"I guess she really wanted to see it happen already," Inez said with a chuckle. "I'm glad it finally did."

"Me too," Matt agreed. "I'm looking forward to our first official date." He held up his bottle towards her and said, "Hey, let's cheers. To victory!"

Inez smiled and held up her bottle. "To victory!" she repeated as she clinked it against Matt's.

Becky stayed in Fern's hospital room and talked with her as long as she could until it was time for her to be heading back home, promising to come see her at home as soon as she was released from the hospital, which was scheduled for early the next morning. It was a school day after all, and she knew Fern would need help with a lot of things due to her injury.

After arriving home that evening, Becky received calls from both Violet and Scoops, who both had seen the news that day as well and practically demanded an explanation, wondering what Fern could have possibly been doing up on the ship, seemingly fighting alongside her. Luckily since they knew about Becky being WordGirl, she had no need to keep any information from them, and they were able to hear the entire story. They were understandably confused upon hearing their friend's explanation of Cyberspace, but they had no reason to doubt her, so they believed her. They were also both excited to hear that she and Fern had officially gotten together, with Violet in particular pointing out how romantic the entire situation sounded.

The next morning Becky kept her promise and rose early, getting in a quick breakfast before leaving for Fern's house. She came home not long before Becky showed up, explaining that all had gone well at the hospital and she had been released right on schedule. Becky quickly said hello to Fern's parents before they took off, and she happily offered to carry her books for her as they walked to school. Fern had decided she wanted to avoid confronting their peers as long as possible, knowing she would likely be swarmed by them as they asked about the events of the previous day.

"So how's it going, you?" Becky asked sweetly after lightly pecking Fern's cheek and beginning to descend the front steps with her. "Feeling better?"

Fern nodded. "The doctor said I should be able to stop taking the painkillers after a few days, and I should be able to take this stuff off my arm in a couple months at the most."

"Well, I'll help you whatever way you need until that time comes," Becky promised. "Consider me your personal lackey while you're healing."

Fern giggled. "Thanks, Becky. I'm not worried about my arm though. "I'm more worried about getting to school today."

"Why?" Becky asked. "You don't think people will react negatively, do you? Fern, you helped saved the day! You're a hero! You won't even be alone, I'm sure Matt, Jackie and Inez will also have crowds following them around all day!"

"It's just the idea of having all that attention on me," Fern explained as they walked, shivering a bit. This was slightly caused by the brisk chill in the air. Autumn was in full swing now, and it wouldn't be long until winter would be on its way. However, it was also caused by thinking about so many pairs of her classmates' eyes on her. She wasn't used to getting two looks at the same time, let alone dozens.

Becky rubbed her back comfortingly. "You'll be fine, I promise. Just keep calm and don't worry too much about it. I'm sure it'll be totally positive attention. And I'll be by your side as much as possible."

Fern smiled and rested her head on her girlfriend's shoulder. "Thank you, Becky. I don't know what I ever did without you."

"Take a battery out of a moving ship with a broken arm, for starters," Becky answered without missing a beat, though she appreciated the sentiment in Fern's declaration.

Only about five minutes before the bell, the two girls were some of the last people to arrive at the school building. They stopped at the top of the front steps, and Becky turned towards Fern and said, "Alright… You ready?"

Fern breathed deeply and nodded. "Yeah… I'm ready."

Becky smiled and opened the breezeway door for her, and then the main one inside leading into the front hallway. As they both entered, almost every student nearby noticed them and paused, as well as a couple teachers, and the hallway went silent.

Fern glanced around nervously, beads of sweat condensing on her forehead. Becky took her good hand and held it gingerly.

Within moments, almost everyone visible to them crowded around the girls and focused their attention on Fern, spouting praise all at once, barely noticing she and Becky were holding hands.

"Fern! I saw you on TV yesterday!"

"That was incredible, what you did!"

"You were awesome yesterday, Fern!"

"How did you get up there?"

"Were you scared?"

"Did you talk to WordGirl? What's she like?"

"What you did was quite impressive yesterday, Miss Walters! Dangerous, but impressive!"

"I can't believe you did that, and got injured too!"

"I had no idea you were so cool!"

Fern blushed heavily, holding on tight to Becky's hand and wanting to never let go. Part of her wanted to go curl into a ball and hide in the corner, but another part of her was genuinely enjoying the compliments.

"W-well, thank you!" Fern finally replied, glancing around at the several faces circling her and Becky. "It was nothing, though. I was right there nearby and WordGirl needed help…"

"That was hardly nothing!"

"Yeah! That was super brave! I couldn't have done it!"

"You're like a hero!"

It went on like this for Fern for most of the day, being showered with praise from all around as she made her way down the halls and into her classes. Becky moved to sit next to her during algebra that morning, allowing them to help each other out the whole time. She stopped to see her in between their other classes, offering to help her with anything she might need, which often involved carrying something awkward or heavy. She didn't mind though. She considered it repayment for not exactly being able to keep her promise, though Fern continued to insist she had nothing to feel sorry about.

Immediately upon sitting down at lunch with Violet, Scoops and George, another crowd flocked to them, though they quickly dispersed after Becky soon pressured them to do so.

"She's been having to deal with this all day," Becky remarked to her friends, pointing her thumb to Fern.

"I'm not surprised. I suppose it must be one of the perks of being a hero," Violet answered.

"Perks, curses, whichever," Fern said jokingly with a shrug, reaching towards her tray of food.

"Hey! Over here, you two!" someone called out from nearby. Everyone at the table turned their heads to see Matt, Jackie and Inez approaching them.

Becky and Fern smiled, glad to see their new friends. "Hey, guys!" Becky greeted. "Wanna sit down here?"

"That's just what we were going to ask!" Jackie said, and the three of them accepted the offer and sat down.

Violet and Scoops, of course, knew who they were due to Becky's explanation from the previous afternoon. George, on the other hand, only recognized them with minimal context. "Hey, I saw you guys on TV yesterday too, with Fern! And you were the ones with her on the curb when I got there! You were all helping WordGirl too?"

"That's us," Inez confirmed.

"What can we say? Hacker was difficult to take down and WordGirl wanted the help," Matt remarked, glancing momentarily over at Becky and smiling knowingly. She, in turn, rolled her eyes and stifled a laugh.

"Hacker?" George repeated in confusion, having never heard the name before.

"It's a long story. I'm Matt, by the way."

"I'm Jackie."

"And I'm Inez."

"Have you had to deal with swarms of fans, too, like Fern has?" Becky asked.

Jackie nodded. "Yeah. It's both nice as well as annoying, depending on how you look at it."

"Well I have a feeling you guys are only going to get more popular," Scoops spoke up, standing up and pulling out his notepad and leaning over towards the three Cybersquad members. "Todd 'Scoops' Ming, reporter for The Daily Rag. I'd love to interview you all about what happened yesterday. I already talked about it with Becky, but I'd like to hear from your perspectives."

"Isn't that paper worked on at the elementary school?" Inez asked flatly.

"Well I've been working with it for so long, I was promoted to an executive position! Someone older has to help oversee things, you know!"

The three kids begrudgingly agreed, and they as well as Fern all gave Scoops a general retelling of what had occurred the other day, leaving out events that would out Becky as being WordGirl or reveal anything about Cyberspace. Of course, they weren't aware he and Violet already knew of these details.

Scoops finished interviewing them all around the time lunch was coming to a close. He and Violet stood up and left, as well as George, bidding them goodbye, leaving the other five alone, all together for the first time since the previous morning.

"So I think after school, we should all go up into the woods," Becky explained. "I haven't heard anything from Delete, have you guys?"

Everyone shook their heads. He hadn't been seen since taking off towards the wreckage of the Grim Wreaker.

"I'm worried about him," Fern fretted. "You think he's okay?"

"He's probably still up there, if I had to guess," Inez supposed, adjusting her glasses. "We should definitely go check on him. At least he's had time alone to… well… grieve, and to do what he has to do."

"And once we get him, we should all go back to Cyberspace," Matt added. "We can check up on Digit when we get there."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Becky said definitively as they all stood up. "We'll all meet at the door after school, then… Ugh… This won't be too fun…"