Part Two: Loss of Family

The night the uniforms came, Katie slept but didn't understand how or why. Mom didn't, a loss that big too profound for her to do anything but pace up and down the house, her mind consumed with what had just happened. Katie understood that there was no way Mom could be expected to handle... the arrangements...

And so, less than twelve hours after hearing the words, "They're gone," Katie had scoured the house for every scrap of mail, every phone number she could come up with and spent the morning making calls. She was forced to say, "My dad and brother passed away," over and over in rapid succession, tears streaming down her face as she asked what she was supposed to do and what they were supposed to know. Insurances, billing companies, utilities, creditors. Katie was surrounded with papers and notes and new lists to do. She looked up and called a funeral home, making the appointment and sick to her stomach that she would have to drag her mother along.

The work kept her mind active, and in that respect she did it gladly, but she also knew that if she left it to Mom nothing would get done, because she would be so slow about it.

Mom didn't speak much – a relief at first – and Katie did as much as she feasibly could with the reprieve. After Matt's rough introduction to financing (re: his plans for the Escape, and God damn him (not really, please don't damn him) for giving her that much hope and now having it all taken away) she dug through the bank books. Going through all the paperwork was a mess – Dad was a lot of things but organized wasn't one of them; Katie found papers in every room of the house, his car, under beds, in closets, everywhere. Some of the papers dated back to before she was born – she found the original mortgage of the house, and her and Matt's birth certificates, medical records and immunizations.

She also discovered that Mom and Dad had refinanced no less than four times over the course of her life, always to eliminate debt. They had refinanced just last year, and by Katie's calculation were already 30,000 under water. That made her look back at the credit card bills – jewelry, shoes, a dozen different brand names – and she realized why they refinanced all the time. All those times Katie got her clothes at consignment, all those times she was told they couldn't afford new laptops or circuitboards, all those times they put off doing work around the house because the money wasn't there, all those times Mom said the money was dedicated to the mortgage and cars... it was all a lie.

Katie was numb with the revelation while they went to the funeral home. After two days of minimal interaction, the funeral director gently guided Mom into talking about Dad and Matt, and Katie watched her mother's subfunctions slowly activate. She watched her mom slowly realize that someone was asking her to talk about herself, and even under all the grief and shock, something in Mom glowed at the chance to be the center of attention, and she came alive, giving all the gory details of her marriage with Dad, and her pride of her son, and her feeling of utter betrayal now that they were gone.

She did it again with the priest, talked all about her skewed memories of events, and again at the receiving line. She was the center of attention, labelling Dad's giving nature as selfishness, marking Matt's intelligence as a lack of self-awareness, and Katie could only stare at her phone as her mother commanded so much attention. Mom picked the prayers for the service, and Katie, while Mom was talking unendingly to anyone who would listen, quietly wrote the eulogy for her father and brother and read it to the assembled. Katie was numb by then, empty of tears even though she wanted to cry desperately.

Once the service was over, she and her mother went back to the house, and any chance to going outside the house was forfeit. Katie got up early, and now she couldn't even share the responsibility of the chores – she did everything: cooking, cleaning, laundry, while Mom whiled away her time on her computer, expressing her grief to her online friends and soaking up the well-wishes and thoughts and prayers. A week after the service one of the appliances broke, and the obvious string of bad luck was a sign that God hated Mom and was cursing her and she cried and wailed for hours. Katie had to call a repairman – only he couldn't fix it and the damn thing was no longer under warranty. Katie, fourteen, bought the replacement and handled it being installed.

She added it to the debt.

For a little while, the hurt was so raw for both of them that Katie thought they might actually be honest with one another, that the tragedy might turn into something positive: i.e. a functioning relationship with her mother. The Stages of Grief were universal – everybody went through it and maybe they could go through it together. Katie was a little scared, because her analysis of Mom's algorithms told her that Anger and Depression would stick the longest, and neither of those were pleasant to go through, but she thought maybe Acceptance could be something bigger, better, and make things turn a corner.

Katie failed to realize that her parents' fights were more than just horrible to listen to, it made Dad the central target of all of Mom's dark projections.

Mom was talking to Katie in her rocking chair, Katie listening with only half an ear (which was very dangerous to do but Katie was still trying to figure out how to curb her mother's spending until all the money issues leveled out) as she grieved the loss of Dad, saying how their marriage wasn't perfect and he wasn't always there, but it was better than nothing and now she had nothing. Katie hummed agreement at all the right places, nodded when she needed to and gave a full sentence when necessary, but suddenly Mom switched to Anger, and Katie's attention rapidly narrowed when the voice started to rise.

"... and he was evil, and ugly, and a narcissist! And right now, I hate to say it, but right now I feel like your father was the Anti-Christ!"

Katie stared at her mother, the words burning into her ears and burrowing deep into her brain, and in a fit of insanity, Katie didn't nod and agree, Katie didn't try to deflect or downgrade the comment, Katie didn't let the statement slide.

Instead, numb, Katie closed her laptop, got up, and went to her room.

Some self-preservation did still exist, because when she did so she locked the door.

Abandoning Mom at such a moment was tantamount to suicide – leaving Mom when she was expressing her opinion, was explaining her emotional abuse, was expecting validation for every feeling she ever felt and did, was the absolute worst thing to do; and Katie sat behind her bed and listened as her mother was first shocked that Katie had left, demanding to know where she was going, and then being furious.

"You're selfish!" Mom shouted from the other side of the door, twisting at the lock and banging on the wood panelling. "You self-righteous bitch! You ungrateful bitch! After everything I sacrificed for you! I should have beaten you as a child! I wish I never gave birth to you! Your father raped me to get you!"

Katie rocked back and forth slightly, unable to unhear it, unable to escape the onslaught, having only the wood door nominally protect her from what was happening. This was the pillar of pain, this was Mom unleashing all her negative emotions and damn the consequences and damn the people in the line of fire. Katie knew that a few hours later, when Mom calmed down, there would be an explanation of the lead-up of events, of Mom asking Katie why she abandoned her when she needed her, or pointing out that when an animal is caught in a trap it will lash out but that the right thing to do is still treat the animal's pain, all the justifications in the world as to why Katie shouldn't have left.

And whether Katie wanted to or not she would agree with everything her mother would say, apologize for being so self-centered and self-serving.

But she knew she would do it again.

And again.

… They were dead. Nobody said bad things about the dead, but Mom never had personal boundaries, so... why start now?

Two days after that she finally went back to school, and she got as far as her locker before she burst into tears. Somebody touched her shoulders and she was guided into the Guidance Office, and the guidance counselor let her have her cry before asking if she missed her family.

Katie couldn't even comprehend the question.

"This isn't about that," she said, gesturing vaguely to her tears, "It's about Mom – she needs me to be perfect and I can't be perfect!"

The counselor was gentle. "No mother expects their child to be perfect, and you've been through a great tragedy."

"No," Katie insisted, inconsolable, "You don't understand – I have to do everything, and if I do even one little thing wrong it all ends so badly! Now Matt and Dad aren't here to share the blame, it's going to be all on me! She's going to leech all her emotional support off of me, and I have to give it whether I have it or not and I don't know how I'm going to get through this!"

Years and years later, Katie would recognize that the counselor didn't understand. How could anybody that had a functioning and healthy childhood understand? How could anybody know what it was like to live in a house silently worrying when – not if, when – the witch subfunction would activate? How could anybody know what Mom was like when she never, ever, ever showed it in public and rationally explained how justified her reactions were?

"I'm going to call home," the counselor said, "Let's send you home for the day."

The thought of Mom knowing that Katie was so upset as to be sent home was untenable, and Katie begged and begged, "Please, don't send me home! I don't want to spend time with her, I want to be away from her!"

But Katie was fourteen, not yet an adult, and adults didn't listen to children the same way they listened to other adults. Katie was helpless, could only sit in the counselor's office and wait for her mother to come pick her up and put herself back together as fast as possible. She pulled out her laptop and started playing a game, some thing mindless that required just enough of her attention that the tears dried out and a semblance of calm could settle over her; survival had taught her to pick herself up as quickly as possible, and she new all the ways to distract herself until her brain could come back online and silently curse the guidance counselor's decision.

Matt had warned her of this, had told her that adults wouldn't believe them if they talked about Mom. He had tried once, and the parent meeting that was called and the aftermath afterwards was decidedly not worth it. Katie had lived off of his experience, but now she had her own experience, her own memory to call up and remember why talking about her Mom didn't do any good.

The counselor talked to Mom before she let Katie go home, and Katie in turn waited for the shoe to drop. The drive home was filled with Mom telling her, "Sweetie, you don't have to be perfect for me. We're both suffering right now, it's okay to have an off day."

If it's okay to have an off day, Katie silently wondered, then what about me leaving when you needed me? Was THAT okay? Oh, wait, it wasn't, and you said... Katie shut down the thought before she actually said something. She spent the day in her room, door closed but not locked (never locked, it was foolhardy to think Mom couldn't and didn't interrupt any activity she and Matt were doing and it would all have to be put on pause to listen to whatever she wanted to talk about). She reformatted hard drives and created partitions, downloaded two gigs worth of music to play in her headphones, anything to make herself seem unavailable. She barely said two words at dinner, just listened with one ear as Mom said all the right words about support – she probably meant well, probably even meant everything she said, but Katie knew it wasn't actually true, because everything would be null and void when the witch came out.

That night her phone vibrated, and she looked at the sender and quickly covered her mouth.

Matt Holt.

Katie curled into herself, containing her reaction (not out loud not out loud notoutloud). Once her adrenal levels were back to normal she opened up the message.

Hey, Pigeon!

We're three days out from landing on Kerberos. Not much to report for now. Shiro says I can try to send a video when we land. Dad's getting giddy about landing.

So this is the countdown: Three!

Matt

Katie looked at the date, two weeks before the reported crash. … What?

She was online until two in the morning, went to school on three hours sleep and ignored everything going on in class to research the puzzle that had just landed on her lap. She had known that messages could only travel so fast, and that further and further away from earth the longer and longer it would take, but now she needed to figure out exactly how long, what the factors were that inhibited or encouraged travel, specs on the Garrison technology and how it projected their messages, solar storms and meteor showers, nonEuclidean math which she was rusty on. The message told her the send date, and Katie knew the receive date, but now she needed to predict how long to wait for the next message. Matt messaged her every day, and if this message was three days out, then there were two other messages that were coming, and Katie wanted to know when they were coming.

When she got home she was perfectly content to go back to her room and work but Mom was already at the door: "They're going to repossess the cars!"

Katie blinked, the sentence so random it took a minute for her to process. "What?"

And that was how she learned that the bank that held the loans on the car payments had put leans on the cars and demanded the rest of the money owed immediately – they would no longer take monthly payments. They didn't outright say they would repossess the cars, but the subtext was very clear.

Since Katie was responsible for all phone calls and had easily made four dozen since it all started, she called the bank and asked for options on what to do. She made the mistake of putting the call on speaker – ostensibly so Mom could watch Katie work but in reality to let Mom know that Katie was busy and couldn't be distracted. The bank wasn't a bank but a loan company with the word bank in its title – as far as Katie could tell – and the lean had been made the day Katie had called everyone to inform them of Dad and Matt's deaths. She tried her best, she really did, but the deadline for payment was only a few days away.

"You heartless bitch!" Mom shouted suddenly, startling Katie from taking notes during her conversation. "I've just been widowed! I don't deserve this!"

Katie quickly took the phone off speaker and pulled it to her ear. "I'm sorry," she said quickly, "I'm going to have to call you back." She might have heard an, "I understand," from the other end, but she couldn't be sure. Instead she looked up and realized that Mom's witch was active, and it was looking at Katie.

"Why did you apologize?" she shouted.

"Uh..." Katie said, rapidly cycling through possible responses that could deescalate. "It was habit? You did such a good job raising me that you taught me about common courtesy and it just sort of fell out of my mouth?"

"They don't deserve courtesy!" Mom shouted. "They were heartless! You apologized because of me! You just made me look like a crazy person! You put the blame on me and I'm not to blame!"

"No, of course not, I never said you were to blame," Katie said, carefully not leaning back in her chair and voice perfectly calm and level.

"You implied it when you apologized! Apologizing means taking the blame, and I am not to blame for those spawns of Satan repossessing MY cars!"

"I understand how you feel," Katie said quickly. Calmly. "That woman was very clinical and did not express a lot of compassion. I understand that it didn't sound very emotionally supportive and I understand why that would make you feel upset."

"Then why did you apologize?"

"Because you're such a great mom: You made sure I knew how to be courteous and polite and you made sure it was automatic. I didn't even think when I said sorry, my primary focus was to hang up and be there for you and give you emotional support."

A pause drew out, Mom scrutinizing the explanation and looking for a fault. Katie was an expert, however, at deflecting the witch sub-function, and Katie wasn't really who Mom was mad at. At length, nothing. Then;

"I can't believe those loan-sharks are threatening to repossess the cars!"

Katie displayed no outward signs of course, but inside she breathed a huge sigh of relief at dodging that bullet. She spent the rest of the afternoon listening to Mom rail at the injustice, helped her write a letter to the head of the loan company, full of aggressive and unhelpful language that Katie carefully tried to reword to something stern instead of something accusatory. And then Mom wrote out checks for paying off the cars, and Katie added it to the debt.

By Katie's calculations, she would receive the next message from Matt at the end of next week. Being only Tuesday, she had plenty of time to mentally prepare herself for it. She had already resolutely decided that Mom wouldn't see these messages, Mom pervaded every facet of Katie's life and this was something so personal, so intimate, that she couldn't bring herself to tell her – family related or not. There was also, she reasoned, the possibility of Matt saying something about the doomed Plan, and she couldn't risk Mom knowing about something that was never going to happen.

That didn't mean her two weeks weren't stressful, however. The guidance counselor called her in every day for grief counseling – which seemed silly to Katie because all she could think about was her mom and how to stay under the radar as the woman was even more emotionally sensitive than normal. She was worried about the debt and figuring out how to make Mom pay off all the credit cards especially now that the checking accounts were so much less after paying off the cars. They had gotten a letter from their bank (money bank, not the people who traumatized Mom over the cars) that the bank had been bought out – that there would be changes the next month, and Katie knew very, very, well that change was a four letter word in Mom's vocabulary. There was also schoolwork, but that was so far down the priority lists that Katie looked up at one point and wondered what she was even doing at school.

Except now Galaxy Garrison was her only hope. She absolutely had to get in, then she could be away from Mom months at a time. And then she would graduate and be in space and then...

Why was she deluding herself? Mom would actually have to take care of herself, and Katie wasn't sure she could.

Especially when she came home that Friday and found Mom unconscious on the kitchen floor. Katie fell to her knees to check for a pulse or something, but Mom felt the touch and started screaming, jolting Katie back to the other end of the kitchen. When the screaming stopped Katie crawled forward more carefully, and saw the wandering eyes and twitchy eyebrows.

"Mom," Katie said carefully, "You are in a diabetic reaction. Do you understand?"

No response.

Sighing, Katie went up the the master bedroom and grabbed the testing kit. Mom's blood sugars were not low, as Katie had expected, but rather high – the reader came back 999, the highest number it could register, and Katie realized that since the news Mom hadn't taken any insulin. Emergency glucose was the opposite of what was necessary, instead Katie called for an ambulance.

Fourteen year old Katie had to tell the emergency room what their insurance was by bringing her mother's purse and dumping it upside down on the receptionist desk so they could look for the right cards, recite what she knew of her mother's medical history, and sit for two hours in the main lobby, before going in to the ER to a smaller waiting room and waiting another two hours. The doctors explained that while they could control the blood sugars, there was something else wrong with her, and that she was "very, very sick. That's two verys." Katie nodded and sat in her mother's ER bay, watching all the monitors and blood pressure and heart rate.

Katie had to take a cab home, she wasn't old enough to drive. Being home alone was... Katie did everything anyway so the only change was that she didn't have to worry about Mom interrupting to talk about something. It... was actually a relief, and when Katie realized she had that thought she hated herself.

For four days Katie lived life normally – waking up, getting breakfast, going to school (and asking the office about free and reduced lunch programs), coming home to do the laundry, cleaning house, mowing the lawn, getting dinner, doing homework numbly. By ten or eleven she would move to her math project about Matt's messages, and even though she roughly knew when the message was coming she went over the math again, or reread the Garrison report on what they knew of the crash and jotting down the details. She looked up parts to make a dish that would better receive the signal – she couldn't outright buy one with the debt they had but she had a new project for her focus on.

Over the weekend she called a lawyer to start handling probate – she would have rather done it herself to save money, but as smart as Katie was the language of the probate documents whistled over her. The lawyer also said he did other things, and Katie asked about medical power of attorney and power of attorney. With Katie being the only family Mom had she was the only person who could make medical decisions for her, and if she had power of attorney then maybe she could sign checks so Mom wouldn't have to worry about the bills and Katie's growing stress over all the debt. God knew if Mom realized she couldn't spend money the emotional firestorm would last for days.

She also visited her mom, bringing her laptop and still doing her work, glancing up occasionally to mark heart rate and blood pressure, to look over the two catheters that had zillions of wires coming out of them, morbidly looking at the extremities that had ballooned up because of the medications, watch the diabetic face twitches.

After four days the doctors explained that they had diagnosed the problem – Mom had somehow contracted a fungal infection. How was anybody's guess. For now it was best to keep her under while they treated the problem. Katie looked at her mother, her swollen hands and open eyes, and for a brief moment she wished...

But she shook the thought off, horrified that she had even had it; instead she thanked the doctors and went home.

Two days later she got Matt's next message:

Pigeon,

I've never seen Dad so excited – it's like he's literally vibrating in his chair. We can finally see Kerberos on our sensors. Tomorrow we'll be able get a visual Shiro says. Dad actually tried to get him to speed up, but Shiro laughed him off and said he was responsible for keeping all of us safe, so no can do. You can see him smile, though, when no one's looking – he's just as excited.

Finally got your message about picking an apartment – great choice, I was leaning to it, too. I checked it out on the drive to the launch site. Dad was surprised to know I was looking, and I explained the Plan. I know you wanted me to keep it under wraps, but we were going to be sitting on each other for two months just to GET to Kerberos. He said it was a very mature decision, and that if we had any trouble he would try to help financially. He even offered to tell Mom it was HIS idea!

I know you're worried but it will all work out great. You'll see!

Countdown: Two!

Matt

Katie stared at the message for a long, long time, dissecting every word and typo and comma. She took the whole day to come to terms with everything that was said, all the hope her brother had and the final good deed her father had done. She hurt. Like, she hurt everywhere, and with Mom in the hospital she could take the time to feel everything, lay out on Matt's bed and stare at the ceiling and dream of what could have been.

She missed him. She missed her brother so much it was like all her energy was sapped away. She was moving from one crisis to the next and she had no idea what she was supposed to think or feel or do. Once the adrenaline faded she was so tired and so lost, and she ached for her brother to be there to help her. She missed her Dad, too, but he could be away for a year at a time in space and she was... used to the absence. Matt had been the only source of sanity in her life; the only person who could give her all the support she needed in a single look. He was the only one who knew exactly what she was going through, because he went through it too.

She thought about all the times they would talk in the dead of night when the parents were asleep, just moan and complain about Mom and her being like she was. She thought of all the turns they took as no-good children and the unseen displays of solidarity. She thought of the rare times they were free, when Dad was home and they could run around and act like children. She thought about when they could have hacking contests, trying to break into each others laptops and do something silly like change backgrounds or play stupid chimes when programs were opened.

Katie wanted to go back to that, but she couldn't.

He was gone.

They were gone.

And they weren't the ones she wanted gone.

But she didn't dwell on that thought too much, because if she did she wasn't sure she could survive whatever it took to get herself into the Garrison. She had been foolish in even deluding herself into thinking escape was possible. The only way she would ever be free would be when Mom passed away, and Katie was going to be a shriveled old woman when that happened.

The next day she went to the hospital, numb and a little tired, to see that Mom was awake. She couldn't talk, the doctors explained that she was dehydrated, and needed ice chips. She fed her mom dutifully – more than the doctors recommended because Mom kept asking (even as weak as she was, Katie knew in her bones that it would be safer to do as her Mom asked).

By the next week she was out of the hospital, and their first stop was to the pharmacy to get a truckload of medications.

That was when Katie learned that the insurance had run out.

"... What?" she had asked.

"I'm sorry," the pharmacist said. "You all were on your father's family insurance, and now that he's... passed... the insurance ran out at the turn of the month."

Katie blinked. "But... that was two days after Mom went to the hospital," she said. "She's been in there for eleven days!" She was already spending money on the lawyer, and the cars had just been paid off... they literally didn't have enough money in the accounts!

"We did what we could, Katie," the pharmacist said. "We filled all of her prescriptions the last day of her insurance, so she should have enough for the next month or so. We didn't know she was in the hospital, though."

Katie hummed, the enormity of what had just landed on her shoulders overwhelming her. There was no way... there was no freaking way they could pay off whatever the hospital bill was going to be and pay off the debt and pay the bills...! Mom's paycheck was pittance when she switched to working at home and she hadn't even gone back to work yet before going to the hospital and Katie couldn't get a job – let alone maintain it on top of everything else she was doing and...!

She held her head for a second, lost in the all the paths and sub paths of the problem, still trying to process what she could possibly do before she realized where she was: in public, and quickly detached.

"Thanks for letting me know," she said, and if her voice was a little watery, the pharmacist didn't say anything.

Mom was too out of it to explain, and Katie dreaded the day she would have to do it besides for the emotional turmoil her mother would churn up. Instead she helped her mother into the house, helped her change into night clothes, and put her to bed. Then she went to her room for yet another list of calls.

The insurance company explained the entire process gently but wouldn't budge on extending the coverage for another month – they would have to sign up all over again. Other insurance companies were happy to take their money and sign them up, but not back-date the coverage because of the hospital stay. She called the lawyer she had made an appointment with just because she didn't have any other ideas. The lawyer said the bill hadn't come yet and to therefore not worry about it.

Right. Like Katie had the option of not worrying about it.

Instead she distracted herself with doing the calculations necessary to figure out when Matt's last transmission would come. If she had at least one day to look forward to, maybe she could get through this day.

Mom's recovery was steady from the weakness treating the infection had let her, and on her third day home Katie braced herself and went to the master bedroom. She kept her voice calm, neutral (she didn't have energy to fake being reassuring) as she explained the debt and the bills of both the cars and the lawyer and now nine of the eleven days of the hospital bill, all on top of the debt Mom had already incurred with all of her spending.

Mom's response:

"I don't believe it! How could your father do this to me? How could he leave me all this?!"

And then she fainted, because her body wasn't strong enough for her emotional histrionics. Katie blinked, a little surprised, a little scared. She tittered for several seconds on what to do before training took over and she bent over her mother, shaking her shoulder and asking if she was okay.

"No... this isn't happening..." her mother said, and she opened her eyes and just... went away.

Mom talked about how she used to do this as a child, after her parent's divorce and when the bullying got so bad; how she would sit on her front steps and pretend to be in a happy world. Katie had never seen her mother actually do it, and for the next twenty minutes she just sat by her mother's side, waiting for her to come back. When she did Mom explained for the next hour everything that lead up to it, her anger at Dad for leaving her in the lurch like this, her hatred of the medical profession and the insurance companies who just wanted everyone's money, her hatred of herself and that she was the way she was. The Hermit and Waif sub-functions were warring with each other, and Katie sat and listened to it dutifully, nodding and talking when she needed to but mostly sitting at her mother's feet with her head down.

It was the next day, when Katie was back from school and doing her next round of calls, when her phone buzzed. She recognized the number as one of the hundreds of calls she'd made in the last month, and quickly picked it up.

It was one of the insurance companies – not the health ones, though, to Katie's disappointment. Life insurance. They explained that after looking into her father's records he had two plans under them, and rattled off the numbers for both payouts. Katie's voice cracked as she repeated the numbers back. Five hundred thousand... One hundred thousand... The numbers blurred as her eyes watered, and she thanked the person on the other line over and over. She went to Mom immediately with the good news.

"I don't know what the hospital bill will be but this will cover all the debt and that bill!" she said excitedly.

"That's wonderful!" Mom said, and for a brief moment they were both happy.

The payouts, however, when they came in the mail were made in the estate of Samuel Holt, not made out to Mom in name. Katie called the lawyer, confused, and he explained that the checks couldn't be deposited until after probate. Well, that was okay, Katie figured, and passed the information along. Mom was immediately worried that something would go wrong, because everything always went wrong I never have any luck because god hates me and enjoys seeing me suffer!

"It won't be that bad, Mom," Katie replied, "Once the lawyer signs off we can deposit the check and pay off all the debt and probably have a little left over to tide us over until we know what we can afford. I can say that all the brand name spending is now a thing of the past."

She waited, expecting some kind of blow up, but Mom simply nodded. "That makes sense," she said, "Until our finances settle we shouldn't spend unwisely."

Katie blinked, surprised her mother sounded so... mature.

She wondered how long it would last.

Katie took an absence in school to go to probate, laptop in hand to take notes with the lawyer. The meeting lasted almost two hours, the lawyer going over everything in Dad's name – he didn't have enough assets to merit opening an estate (barely), but there were the two life insurance policies and the pension he garnered from his service in the military, which was generous given that he was part of the space program and one of their most experienced veterans. A lot of paperwork was signed, and Katie thought things were looking up. And they were, but the lawyer had one extra thing to say:

"And Katie, I know when you first called about getting some kind of power of attorney over your mother for when she's sick. It's a nice sentiment and a good decision, but you're not an adult yet. I can make the forms but your mother is going to have to choose someone else."

"But there isn't anyone else," Katie said, "Mom doesn't have any friends."

"Katie!"

"She's been alone since she moved down here for Dad's job and everyone she's talked to either weren't interested or were falsely judging her or accused her of-" Katie finally caught herself, changed her wording quickly "-of stuff. She works from home and doesn't leave the house. There is literally no one else."

"I'll find someone," Mom said quickly, all smiles and charm, and Katie knew the drive home was going to be terrible. "Don't worry about it. I'll call you later."

The meeting adjourned and Katie closed her notebook, trudging to the car and waiting.

"What were you thinking telling the lawyer all those things about me?" Mom demanded.

"But it's the truth!" Katie said, knowing she was right and still upset the lawyer had told her no. "You always told us that the move down here was great for everyone except you! You had the story about Ginny Grouser who you would talk to after church but she always wanted to talk about herself – or that secretary at the church who got the priest to call you and tell you never to call again because you were abusive – or all the events you would go to and then moan about how they were inconvenient times or that they didn't involve the participant or that they were disrespectful to spouses like you – or that time Matt tried to join band and you made him stop because the shows didn't have a lot of adults to interact with!"

"But that's not his business!" Mom shouted back. "Now that lawyer is going to think what's wrong with me that I can't make friends!"

"But you can't make friends," Katie pressed, "That's not inaccurate, and that's why I have to be the one with-"

"I'm not the one who can't make friends!" Mom shouted, the small space of the car making it seem even louder. "I tried! I put in the effort! People here are all so self-centered! They have their own cliques and won't let anyone else in! All of the events and parties are at their convenience, not their guests! I have nothing to do with it and you made it sound like I did! You're just as self-serving as everyone here!"

"How is my wanting power of attorney over you to tell doctors how to help you self-serving?" Katie demanded. "How is wanting power of attorney to do the work for you so you don't have to sacrifice any more than you already have self-serving?"

"Because you're not doing it for me!" Mom shouted. "You're doing it for yourself! Honestly, how many times to I have to explain this? If you love someone, really love them, you include them in your thoughts. You ask their opinion about an idea you had, you arrive at the conclusion together! Your father never understood that and I guess you don't either."

Katie was beyond her borders. "So I'm like Dad now?" she asked. "Does this mean I'm evil, and ugly, and a narcissist, and the Anti-Christ?"

"I never said that!"

"Not today, do you want to know how many times you have said that?"

"You ungrateful bitch!"

Mom pulled over the car, so quickly that it clipped the curb and made it bounce; and Katie's mind finally caught up with her emotions, and she realized she was in trouble. Once the car was stopped Mom spun around in her seat and slapped Katie straight across the face.

"Look what you made me do! If there's a scratch on this car your paying for it! In fact, you can pay your own way for everything! You can pay your school bills and hand over the cash for your phone and for your laptop! You may live in my house but you are dead to me! I'll never speak to you again! I'll never drive you to school again! You want so badly to be on your own? Fine! You're on your own! I'm not your mother anymore! Why didn't I die in that coma?"

There were other things Mom said, but Katie's ears were burning too much and she barely saw her mother burst into tears for the pain the woman felt. They sat in the car for a long time, Mom sobbing and sobbing, and Katie staying as still and silent as possible, wondering if this is what her mother felt when grandma was drunk and driving. She didn't even hold her cheek, as much as it burned, just kept her head down and said nothing. She watched as her mother finally put the car in gear, still sniffling, and finishing the drive home, and Katie was out the door and to her room before the car was even put in park. The rest of the day was silent, until dinner.

"You can have your dinner," she said in a cold, accusatory voice. "I'm not going to eat. In fact, I'm going to stop taking my insulin. So you just go and have your supper."

Katie rubbed her forehead. "Mom, please don't say that."

"I can say whatever I want, it's not like you care."

"Mom, I do care, I promise!"

"You just proved to me this afternoon that you don't, so you go and have your supper. I'm not going to eat! I'm not going to take insulin!"

"Mom, I heard you the first time. I don't think sacrificing your health is a good idea. We don't need another hospital bill." Katie grit her teeth. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry I was so selfish earlier, and that I didn't see it right away. I was just really obsessed over the power of attorney thing, because I wanted to be able to do right by you, and I just got stuck in that way of thinking. I shouldn't have said the things I said, and I should have realized what I did wrong right away. I'd be really grateful if you decided you would be my mother again. I'll try to be more thoughtful of your feelings in the future."

Katie had said these words, in some form or other, all her life, but it didn't stop the feelings attached to the words.

"Well," her mother said, "I accept your apology, but we'll just have to wait and see about the rest. He said he'd think about my feelings, too. He promised over and over, and he always broke his promise. We'll see how you do."

Mom did decide to have dinner, and she did take her insulin. That moment crystallized for Katie, because she realized that Mom got what she wanted, she got Katie to apologize and say she would never hurt her mother like that again. The threat was a manipulation, a way to get what she needed from Katie. The talk of never being her mother again was never brought up, the slap to her face was completely forgotten about, then or any other time Mom made that threat.

And Katie didn't pick up on the deathwish until later.

It took a few days for Katie's mom to ring out the emotional onslaught the post-lawyer drive home had been. She spent many hours talking to Katie and repeating the story of her childhood and why she was so emotionally needy.

"What you don't understand, what you've never understood, is that I suffered abuse as a child," Mom said. "My mother was an alcoholic, my father emotionally abandoned me, I was bullied in school. Even your father abused me, it's been the story of my life. I know pain – deep, deep pain. And yes, that makes me sensitive, and I hate that about myself. But if you know this about a person, then wouldn't the natural reaction to seeing them in pain be to ask what's wrong? To ask what you can do to help? And Katie, you don't do that. You never do that."

"Yes, I do."

"You may think you do, but I never receive that message. Unlike your father I know you love me, but sometimes Katie you do things so opposite to that I question it."

"Then I'll just have to be better."

Katie endured the one-sided conversations until she felt safe enough to suggest they actually cash the checks so that they could pay off their substantial debt. Mom agreed and Katie risked thinking her Mom could deposit checks at the bank while she went to school. She stayed up until three in the morning catching up on homework and making a few cursory pokes at the calculations for the third message.

At school she turned in all her work and apologized to all her teachers. The grief counselor still wanted to talk, and Katie was starting to like it because it was the one safe place she could could think about her dad and brother without it being tainted by Mom. She didn't talk about the post-mortem messages, she didn't want her Mom finding out about them, and of course she didn't talk about the heavy stuff, about how Matt helped her when she was the no-good child and visa versa, but she could talk about what life was like when Dad was home from space, how happy those times where, and for one period a day it felt good instead of sad.

She actually had a conversation at lunch, someone asked about all the assorted parts at her table and she giddily explained that she was making a satellite dish to better hear communications from space. All her technobabble scared the person off, but it was nice to interact with someone her age, she hadn't done that since before the crash.

Then the last period of the day came, and Katie started looking to going home and the positive feelings bled out of her as she quietly started praying that everything went okay at the bank. She sort of remembered them being bought out, reading letters saying the name was changing and a new computer system was going to be launched. The more she thought about it the more she realized that a hundred things could possibly go wrong, and she silently hoped that she was wrong.

Except she wasn't.

Mom was sobbing when she came home, and eager to give the lurid story of what happened at the bank: they wouldn't accept her depositing the checks because it was made out to the "Estate of Samuel Holt," i.e. not in her name. An estate would have to be opened. But they didn't need an estate, Mom explained, the lawyer had said the assets too small to open one. She had even called the lawyer.

"He explained it over the phone," Mom said, "Said my certificate of release was a legal document. The bank still said no! They were saying no to a legal document – that's illegal! What other illegal things are they doing that we don't know about? Are they taking my money without knowing it? Now I have to go to another bank! How will my finances ever be settled at this rate? I'll be dead before they settle! Oh, why didn't I die in that coma! I should have died first!"

Katie listened to all of it, picking out the relevant details before calling the bank to confirm the story – not that she didn't believe Mom, but her story was dripping with bias and Katie wanted a more analytical interpretation of events. (Though, the idea of Mom's witch subfunction activating in public had never happened before and was cringe worthy to even imagine. Katie wasn't sure she'd ever be able to go to the bank again.) She called the lawyer and asked what they were supposed to do.

"I don't know," the lawyer said. "There's no legal reason for them to refuse the check, but financial institutions can change their internal rules without outside legislation, and if they've gotten that strict then litigation is sure to follow."

Her mother found that very unhelpful. "We pay him all that money and he won't even help us? What good was he to begin with?"

"He settled all of our probate stuff," Katie said, rubbing her eyes and so, so tired. "And he released all of Dad's assets."

"But what good is it? We'll just have to live in debt now! I'll have to give up my car, all my clothes. I'll become a pauper because of your damn father! He must be laughing at me right now, and I hope he's burning in hell!"

"You don't mean that," Katie said, digging through her phone numbers for options.

"Of course I mean it! You father never loved me, he only ever tolerated me! He hated me, and now I hate him for what he's done to us! He made sure my life would be over if he died! He's got his revenge! He's made sure I suffer!"

"I doubt that," Katie said.

"Because you don't understand!"

And Katie was fed up. "No, you don't understand," she said, finally turning to face her mother. "Dad did everything he could to take care of you. He stayed home after going to space so you wouldn't feel lonely. He covered for you when you had a bout of histrionics. Those aren't the actions of someone who hated you and wanted to see you suffer."

"And now I see whose side you were really on!" Mom shouted, and Katie belatedly realized her mistake: she didn't show Mom unwavering emotional support. "You hate me as much as your father did!"

"Mom," she said quickly, raising her voice to be heard, "I'm trying to fix this. I can't do that and be there for you at the same time."

"You falsely judged me! Just like everybody else!"

"Mom...!" But Katie knew she was past the point of no return, and even pulling back and being rational wouldn't deescalate the situation. The Witch sub-function had been activated, and Katie grabbed her laptop and phone and marched upstairs, yet again committing the sin of leaving her mother when she needed her, locked the door for the second time in her life, and sat behind her bed.

"You did it again!" she could hear, "I should have beaten you as a child! Then you'd show respect! Open this door right now!"

This time her mother did not just shout at the door. This time she banged and twisted at the lock, the noise startling Katie and making her (more) scared. She tried to think abut solutions to the actual problem – finding a new bank or figuring out a way to deposit the estate checks – but the pounding and shouting and swearing were very, very hard to tune out. Katie eventually gave up and put her phone and computer down, just sitting in listening as her mother hurtled mean and nasty insults. Katie recited the list she had been told most of her life when the witch was active: she was insensitive, heartless, thoughtless, irresponsible, disrespectful, had no compassion, self-centered, self-absorbed, narcissistic like her father. Katie had heard them so many times that the words were almost meaningless.

Almost.

Katie pressed her forehead into her knees and waited for the storm to abate, listened to the twisting and fisting of the door, tried to dig herself deep into her brain where she couldn't hear the vitriol.

And then the door opened.

Katie spun around, shocked that the lock had failed, shocked that her one barrier to her mother had failed.

Mom burst into the room, just as shocked as Katie, but Katie recovered first.

"Are you done hurting me?" she asked, voice deliberately calm even though her insides were shaking. She would have to walk the line very, very carefully.

"You left!" Mom accused.

"You accused me of taking Dad's side when I've told you for as long as I can remember that I'm on your side. You wished you had beaten me as a child."

"But you caused it! You caused it by leaving me when I needed you most!"

"Those two things were said before I left," Katie said. "Those were the things that made me leave."

"That's a lie! All of those things happened after you left!"

"Then why did I leave?" Katie asked carefully. "What thing was said?"

"Stop twisting this around!" Mom shouted.

"I'm not." Calm voice, keep a calm voice; be logical and factual, sound as dry as possible. "You were upset about the check, and the lawyer explained that the bank probably instituted a new policy about accepting estate checks. You had every right to be upset, you had every right to feel frustrated and want to express it. You said it was Dad's fault and that he wanted you to suffer. I tried to correct you and say that Dad loved you. I understand that you didn't always feel it and that right now with the stages of grief it's really hard to see past the pain, and I understand why you would want to blame him, but if Dad really wanted to see you suffer he wouldn't have done the things I talked about: staying home so you weren't lonely, giving you those huge life insurance policies, looking after you when you were in the hospital. Your pain was too strong, though," Careful, careful... don't make an accusation, this is the trickiest part... "And I know that you've said you always struggle to see how Dad loves you. You accused me of being on his side and that I hated you, both of which are not true. I understand why it might have looked that way, and I could have worded it better, but my attention was split between trying to fix the problem and trying to be there for you emotionally like you need. I explained that to you and then you accused me of falsely judging you and said you should have beaten me. That hurt me, and I left instead of trying to defend myself and make things worse."

Katie held her breath, mentally checking off that she did everything she could to deescalate the witch and shut it down. If it worked, Mom would come back with...

"But you have to understand," Katie mentally sighed in relief. "My childhood was nothing but pain and misery. I can't help the way that I am – believe me if I could I would. I hate myself so much, but I can't stop it. If the dog downstairs was caught in a trap, he would be barking left and right, trying to bite at any hand that tried to help him. Does that mean you run away from the dog?"

Katie looked down, knowing where this was going. "No," she muttered.

"Exactly! You work past the bite and help the dog out of the trap. He'd be grateful for the help and love you. That's me! You have to show me support and be there for me, but when you leave me when I need you the most that cuts right to the core of my childhood. It's like I'm being punched in the heart, and that just makes everything worse!"

"So I have to listen to you threatening to beat me?" Katie asked. "I have to listen to you say that Dad raped you to have me?"

"I never said that!" Mom gasped. "What an ugly lie to say!"

"You did," Katie answered, mentally wincing that she had even opened her mouth. "The first time I locked myself up here."

"I most certainly did not!"

"Well, that's the memory in my head," Katie said. "It hurt a lot to hear that, the same way it hurts to hear that I should never have been born or that I should have been beaten. I'd really rather not hear those things."

"Then don't cause it!" Mom shouted. "Don't leave me when I need you the most!"

Katie gave up the fight after that. Fights always ended like this, where Katie(/Matt/Dad) were in the wrong and the thing that should have been done was to smile and nod through the terrible things, to say "Yes, I understand, I would feel that way too," irregardless of if they did or not, and listen to her as she ranted and raved at whatever thing was causing her the most frustration, tell her it was okay to be upset and that she had every right to feel whatever feeling she had, reassure her that the worst case scenario wasn't going to happen (irregardless of if they even knew whether it would or not) and tell her everything would work out.

And then it was up to them to find a solution to make everything work out, because if it didn't she would hold that over their heads. That was Katie's current priority.

Two hours later, after Mom felt better, Katie opened up her laptop and put her headphones on, cranking the music up (no matter how dangerous that was if Mom needed to get her attention) to turn off her feelings and started researching banks.

Pigeon:

OH MY GOD WE CAN SEE KERBEROS ON THE VISUAL SCANNERS. It's been getting bigger all day and I actually saw Dad GIGGLE in excitement. He filled out almost an entire notebook of data from the readings he's been getting and we haven't even landed yet. He's looking forward to getting ice samples and scans of the trace atmo and all he can talk about is carbon levels. You know how he is.

Shiro's actually gotten super-focused. He said landing is the most important thing a pilot can do and he's been pouring over all the readouts and the pictures to find a decent spot to land. Spent half the day in back checking the engines and the propulsion. Dad and I have a bet – the second he lands he's going to giggle just like Dad did.

Hoping Mom isn't abusing you too much – and yes, it's abuse. I can read your mind that you don't want to use a word so strong, but we have to call a spade a spade. No normal person says the things she does when she's mad, and no normal person gets as mad she does over the stuff she gets mad at. Two years and one month. It's the other, top-secret countdown, okay?

Speaking of: Countdown: one!

Shiro says if I send a video it'll take like a year to get to you, but I will try to snap a pic – file size will be smaller and you can show Mom that we all landed safe and she can stop imagining us being captured by aliens or something.

"See" you tomorrow!

Matt

Katie got the message in the middle of school. She saw the name and quickly asked to go to the bathroom. She read it three times, soaking up the words. It wasn't until a teacher came in looking for her that she realized how long she had been sitting there staring at the text, apologizing quickly and darting back to class. She spent all of her study hall processing and dissecting every word of text. This was the second time Matt had talked about the pilot Shiro being careful about landing – and going over that made Katie feel confused. How bad was the crash pilot error if this Shiro guy was being so careful about the landing...? But it didn't matter, wondering about it wouldn't change fate, and this was the last message from her brother. Nothing would be coming after this and something deep inside her ached to know these were his last words. She went to the guidance office of her own free will to talk about it. She talked about the messages from Matt, the plans they made (generally, no specifics), the time it took to arrive. How she felt about getting them.

After school she took her bike and visited three different banks. She explained about the probate and the estate checks and what the current bank was doing. Two of the banks were very honest, saying that they couldn't deposit the checks without opening estate. The third understood the circumstances and would gladly bend the rules for their circumstances.

Katie sighed in relief and opened her own account, transferred all her money from her college fund from her old bank, and then went over to said old bank to close her account there. She went home to explain the good news, and two days later she went with her mother to the new bank to open her accounts. The old account had to stay open until all the bills that were auto-draws were fully transferred. It was after business hours by the time they got home, and Katie spent the next afternoon making yet another round of calls to update billing information instead of doing homework.

… Why didn't Mom do this again?

Right, it was too hard because people were incompetent and everyone falsely-judged her.

She sighed.

The school year was coming to a close now; everyone was talking about their summer plans and the fun they were going to have. Katie knew her summer wasn't going to be fun, because with all the free time she would now be fully resourced to doing things for Mom. Day trips to the coast, visits to museums, taking tours of Galaxy Garrison; none of it would happen because Mom's hermit function would keep both of them home. Katie could only bike so far in the suburbia that they lived in – enough to go to the market for food shopping and enough to the thrift store if she needed clothes or spare parts for her laptop of her dish-

Except she should probably just stop constructing it. She'd already received his last transmission, what was the point of finishing it...?

Katie shook her head. She had to finish it, if only to distract her from her mother. She would need every project she could think of to survive the summer. She still had a year before she was old enough for Garrison and she had to put every inch of focus necessary into getting in. A year and nine months: 21 months. She repeated it to herself, over and over.

Wow, it had been four months since everything had happened...

And Mom hadn't gone back to work...

Katie started as she realized her mother hadn't gone back to work yet. That sent her diving back to the books to confirm – yeah, no paychecks for Mom. Only two of the widower checks from the government. Two days later the hospital bill came in and Katie realized that however generous the life insurance had been, the hospital bill still took a good twenty percent of it and that it wasn't going to last the fifty-odd years Mom still had in her – and this wasn't even getting into her spending habits. Mom had to go back to work.

Katie took a deep breath and spent the first week of summer building her case. In between mowing the two-acre property and doing the laundry and cooking all three meals for both of them and cleaning the house from top to bottom – windows and all, she made a small presentation of her mother's financial state. She showed it to her on a Saturday and didn't even get to the third slide.

"I have the benefit checks," her mother said, visibly upset, "and the life insurance policies. That was supposed to set me up for life!"

"It would," Katie said, "If we invested it properly and didn't spend wastefully and you went back to work."

"But I thought I didn't have to go back to work."

Katie bit the inside of her cheek to prevent the first three things she thought of. "Nobody ever said that," she said very carefully.

"They did!" Mom denied. "You did! You said this would handle all the bills."

"No," Katie corrected, "I said it would handle the hospital bill."

"That's not what I remember, I remember you said specifically that this would handle all the bills, and now it's all changed again! I'm trying so hard to get settled, I just want a little stability in my life – but no, God has other plans. 'Screw you!' He says, 'I'm going to make sure you suffer!' God's just saying, 'Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!' " Mom made the corresponding gesture in her anger, and while Katie couldn't turn off her ears she did avert her eyes, not wanting to witness the vulgarity.

"Oh, get over yourself!" her mother said, retaliating to the one small defense Katie had afforded herself.

"Mom, I don't think God appreciates things like that being said about Him."

"Like He even cares!"

The next hour was spent with Katie passively listening as her mother explained why her life was one big joke to God and why her childhood damaged her so badly. Katie reassured her that no, of course that wasn't the case, God was probably just busy managing new galaxies or playing with Dark Matter or quarks. Katie promised she would research more, but Mom didn't promise to go back to work, only that she would have to think about it as she muttered about the incompetence of the lawyer.

And Katie tried to do her research – she really did. But the stock market made no sense to her. The numbers were all well and good – she understood percents since she was, like, four, but the market fluctuating up and down because of things like holidays and politics whistled over her head and she had no idea what to do about investing the left over insurance money. She spent a week watching 24 hour consumer news stations, trying to absorb by osmosis what the market was like, but there were so many abbreviations and slang words and definitions and formulae that were talked about but never actually shown... Katie had no idea what to do and less idea on who to go to to ask for help. She finally called the bank to ask for direction. Her voice was watery again, and she stepped out onto the back deck in case of the off chance of Mom hearing her stress.

The person at the other line was very gentle. "I'm going tell you something I'm not supposed to," she said, "As a bank we do offer the kind of financing you're looking for, but the first thing you learn in this business is diversification. Look up a money manager so your eggs aren't being guarded in one basket."

Fourteen year old Katie had never heard of a money manager before, and when the call ended looked it up on her phone and started running searches on local managers and their review ratings. In a week she had a name on the way to the Garrison. She set up an appointment and grabbed every scrap of paper that had dollar amounts on it to take with her.

Mom was "too busy working" to help her (Katie saw social media windows. She knew what that meant.) so Katie took a deep breath and changed into her gym clothes for the four hour bike ride to the money manager. Panting and covered in sweat, she went to the nearest bathroom and changed into a green summer dress, pulled out her ponytail and all but dumped her head under the sink, getting water on it and her bare arms and legs to wash as much of the sweat out as she could. Fresh deodorant and a quick french braid later she was still flushed but had much more control over her breathing and didn't smell as bad. She took a slow, deep breath and exhaled. Katie threw her clothes into her bag and pulled out her accordion binder of paperwork, as ready for the meeting as she could be.

The secretary greeted her warmly and asked if she wanted anything. Katie got a bottle of water that she chugged immediately in one long gulp before asking for another for the trip home. As soon as she sat down she realized her legs were absolute rubber and she dreaded the thought of getting up – which she did exactly five minutes later when a man with dark skin and a very nice suit came up and introduced himself and Mr. Benegyani. She was ushered to a small conference room and set in a plush leather chair, Mr. Benegyani sitting across from her.

"Now," he said warmly, "What can I do for you?"

The question didn't immediately hit the correct center of her brain, because the first sentence that came to mind was, Please get me away from my mother, but she self-corrected before she even opened her mouth.

"My father and brother passed away earlier this year, and I don't know what to do with the finances. Mom can't do it because... because she can't and I've been trying for two weeks and I just don't understand what I'm doing – I mean the percents make sense, I'll be taking Calculus III next year and I understand all the math but it's all the other stuff that's driving me up the well – like everything is in abbreviations and that probably made sense in the olden days when computer tracking was from the stone age and could only be measured in megabytes but now it looks like code that I don't have a parser for and even trying to reverse engineer one didn't help because I realized some of these markets are in different languages and there's this weird human element; well, I say it's weird because everything is supposed to be automated now but if that were the case anybody with a basic knowledge of programming could ride the market and they don't so there are factors I'm probably not considering and-"

Benegyani held up a hand, soft smile on his mouth. "Your mother's obviously lucky to have someone as smart you to help her," he said gently.

Katie blinked, her thoughts skittering to a halt. She was used to people telling her she was smart, but it never occurred to her that her mother was lucky to have her. Katie had always assumed she was a burden. She shook the thought off for later dissection, instead explaining everything that had happened since the news of her father and brother's death.

The loan sharks – as Mom called them – who had caused so much trouble over the cars were well known for similar acts to other clients of Mr. Benegyani's, and he wasn't surprised at all a bank had refused a released check for deposit because it was made out to an estate.

"It sounds like you've been through a lot," he said, his dark chocolate skin making the whites of his eyes pronounced and gentle at the same time. "It's a lot for someone your age to be handling; I can't even imagine how much your mother is struggling to lean on you so heavily."

Katie shrugged. "It's nothing really new," she said, rubbing her forehead. "I've been doing this since I was eight."

The response was a long stretch of silent, and Katie looked up to see a weird look on the money manager's face. Katie quickly switched her gaze to his shoulder, and held herself very still, instinct making her as passive as possible to survive whatever was about to happen next.

Instead, a warm, dark hand reached slowly across the table and wrapped around hers, a squeeze so strong and so gentle that Katie didn't know what she was supposed to do with it. She looked up and the weird look had changed to something much softer – a look she only ever saw on her brother and her father: understanding.

"Since you were eight?" he prompted gently.

Katie had no idea what to do with the question, a hundred different impulses firing through her nervous system in rapid succession. She realized her mistake immediately, and was cursing herself that she had just let someone in on one small piece of her life. But another, larger, overwhelming part of her wanted so badly to talk about it, to shout from on high what her life was like in the hopes that someone believed her, understood her, knew how to help her.

She needed help. She needed help so badly and she didn't know where to go or what to do to get it.

"... yes?"

Her voice was small and confused, and honestly that was her life in a microcosm, and something big was happening and she was still trying to figure out if it was good or bad and how to react to it safely.

"Child," Mr. Benegyani said, "When I was your age I was trying to find a girlfriend and deciding on which sleepover to go to. You shouldn't be in charge of things this big."

Katie blinked, shocked to hear the echo of her brother in this man. She realized belatedly he wore glasses, and they were the same frame style as Matt's and his eyes were so warm...

"... it's fine," she said, her words no longer quick and concise. "I mean, life is so hard for her and she's been through so much, and-"

The warm hand squeezed again. "That's what she's told you," he said, "But are there other kids your age worrying about the things you're worrying about? For as long as you?"

Katie blinked, really thinking about the question. "... no..."

"Doesn't that tell you something?" Mr. Benegyani asked. "Do you think it's normal to be taking care of your mother at this age?"

No normal person says the things she does when she's mad, and no normal person gets as mad she does over the stuff she gets mad at.

"But..." Katie started to say, and she was thinking so hard she didn't even realize she was staring at Mr. Benegyani. All she could think about was Matt and his change while he was going to Galaxy Garrison, the freedom he talked about and the Plan to give her that freedom – him asking why she got Mom's prescriptions and pointing out what normal adults did versus their mother – remembering all the times she was the no-good child and how they all blurred together because no matter how all-good she was it was never enough and she could never completely avoid the witch function no matter how much work she did on the algorithm. She remembered the day she realized her life wasn't normal and how long she mourned it, and those feelings combined with all of the feelings she had over Matt's last message and what happened with him and Dad in space and how much she missed them and how tired she was all the time trying to keep track of everything and how intensely sad she was that she couldn't share all of this even with the school counselor who was supposed to help with this kind of thing.

When she finally came out of her own head her cheeks were wet, and there was a strong arm wrapped around her shoulders that weren't Matt's, and that's what made her finally look up to see Mr. Benegyani had sat next to her and rocking her back and forth. She felt safe in that arm, safe in a way that she never had before, and she was terrified that she was feeling this way about a complete stranger. Just how desperate was she? Words poured out of her, things only Matt and Dad knew, and a piece of her mind was screaming at her to shut up, that this guy didn't know anything and wouldn't believe her – or worse, that he would pass it on to Mom and she would blow up – but her need to tell someone, anyone, about what her life was like had completely overtaken her and it poured out of her, one gory detail after the next.

"Child," Mr. Benegyani said, "You do realize there are shelters for people like you, right?"

The question seared through her brain so suddenly it hurt, and she looked up dumbfounded.

"... what?" she asked, voice rough.

"There are shelters for children like you," he repeated.

Katie shook her head. "But... I'm not abused. She doesn't beat me, I don't have broken bones and stuff..."

"No you weren't beaten," he said. "But you shouldn't minimize what's happening to you; and you shouldn't think physical abuse is the only kind that can be measured."

Katie heard the words but didn't understand them, couldn't comprehend that the word her brother had used so emphatically in his last message to her could be used by someone totally outside of her life, someone who didn't know her from a hole in the wall. The thought was so profound she didn't know what to do or say or think or react. She shrank from the thought, not ready to have it yet.

Mr. Benegyani sensed the change, withdrew his arm and took his original seat, looping his warm fingers together and taking a breath. "Well, then," he said, "I'm not the person who can convince you. But I hope you at least think about it. Do you want to show me what finances you have? That I'm an expert on."

He didn't bring up her break down for the rest of the meeting, and he never once asked a leading question about Mom, for which Katie was eternally grateful. He explained what he could and couldn't do, and very gently let her know that because she was a minor she would have to bring in her mother for a proper meeting.

After that was another four hour bike ride to the house, and between the exertion and the emotional roller coaster Katie microwaved a dinner and ate in her room before collapsing to bed.

The next morning she explained the meeting to her mother, and they made a new appointment. Mom was hesitant to go, her hermit function and her waif working together to make her almost back out of the meeting. It was so far away, and what if the man judged her? What if she didn't understand what he was talking about? What if she was too stupid to understand?

Katie listened to all of it and, quietly, insistently, reminded her of the appointment and that she shouldn't break it.

While she waited for the day to arrive she kept tinkering with her satellite dish. The hardware was all assembled but there must have been some bug in the software, because she kept getting this weird feedback loop; a repeating signal that she couldn't identify once she eliminated white noise and other variables. It was a problem that niggled in the back of her mind, but she put it away as she sat in the back with the hair dryers and the medication and the spare clothes in case the car broke down and they had to stay somewhere overnight. She followed her mother up to the office and Mr. Benegyani took them immediately. Katie very carefully said nothing, did not want to bring up her break-down with her mother sitting right next to her.

The money manager made his case, explained what he could do. "Your husband obviously loved you," he said, "Because of the things he did to make sure you were taken care of after he was gone."

"That makes me happy," Mom said, "I just wish he looked after my emotional needs as much as my physical needs, but he was always like that."

Katie bit her lip.

"Well, the good news is that this money will last you a good thirty years, and it's my job to make it last more than that. Your daughter said you work?"

"Not since my husband and son died," Mom said. "I haven't been able to bring myself to work."

"I can understand that. It takes time, and young Katie said it was several months ago. How many sick days are you allotted?"

Mom blinked. "What does that matter?"

"I'm just surprised a workplace is so generous with their sick days, unless your coworkers are pooling their sick days to cover for you. Either way, it must be a wonderful place to work."

"It's a horrible place to work," Mom corrected. "The manager is abusive, and everyone's in their own clique, and if you work form home like me you're screwed over."

Mr. Benegyani shrugged his shoulders. "It was just a question. Still, one of the best things to do to make this money last is to start drawing your paycheck again. Between that and the survivor pension you have enough to finish paying off the house and pay all of your bills. The rest of this can be sunk into the market and grow so you can have a comfortable retirement."

"And what if I don't want to go back to work?" Mom asked, and Katie was suddenly paying acute attention.

"If that's your choice we can do that, too; but Mrs. Holt you're still young and obviously healthy, I wouldn't recommend such an early retirement."

"Mom," Katie said, "We can't afford it. We have to make that money last, you have to go back to work."

Katie saw the switch flip immediately, she turned and looked at her daughter, looked like she did when she broke down the door or when she was yelling at Dad when he was still alive. Katie had falsely-judged her, somehow, and she was going to pay the price on the drive home. The fourteen-year-old stopped taking notes, survival instincts pulling her eyes down to stare at the table and be as still as possible, her ears burned and filled with static, all she wanted to do was ask what she did wrong so she could backtrack and save face somehow, deescalate the raised voice before it even rose.

Mom signed a lot of digital forms, her voice was cool and she ignored Katie completely – easy to do, because Katie had stopped talking and was being as still as possible. The meeting must have looked great to an outsider, but Katie was ticking down the clock to them being alone – would it be in the hallway? Or the car? Or would Katie get the silent treatment until dinner? She preciverated in her head, and when they left she cast one desperate look to Mr. Benegyani, who had listened to everything she had confessed, who understood. He put a warm hand on her shoulder, and mouthed something, but Katie couldn't read the lips. She shook her head, communicating she didn't understand, desperate for something, anything.

"Katie, come on," her mother said.

And just like that her chance was gone, she had to follow. She kept her eyes to her shoes as she followed Mom to the car, listened to the deafening silence on the ride home, and was allowed to go to her room. She didn't dare lock the door, instead put on her headphones and tried to distract herself until the explosion came.

At five-thirty Katie got up and started cooking supper, and she knew it would be any minute that Mom would come down and start talking at her, and Katie would be locked in front of the stove cooking, unable to escape, and forced to interact with her when the witch subfunction was active.

"Katie, I want to talk to you."

She took a deep breath. "Yeah?" she asked, sounding calm. She didn't turn from the cookpot.

Her mother sighed. "Katie, I know you're young, and that you don't have any real life experience. I've tried to teach you about it by explaining my childhood and the abuse I went through, but someday I'll have to learn that until you live it you will never understand it. I have to come to terms with the fact that you'll never understand me – I understand that. But you have no right whatsoever to dictate my life to me like you did today."

Katie played at being confused, even though she now knew exactly what had upset her mother so much. "How did I dictate your life?" she asked.

"When you ordered me to go back to work," her mother said. "The money manager was explaining how I had enough that I didn't need to go back to work and you turned and looked at me with such hatred, such contempt, and demanded that I had to go back to work. You said we couldn't afford it like you know anything about my finances."

"Mom," Katie said, "I do know about your finances, I've been going through them since the crash. I know all about the refinancing and the debt and the loans – it was my idea to go to the money manager in the first place."

"You think you know," her mother corrected, and Katie kept her eyes to the floor. "But I will repeat, you don't have the life experience. You haven't paid bills, you have it easy right now. You have no right to judge whether or not I should go back to work. You know how abusive they are at the lab, it's why I decided to work from home in the first place. I told you the stories about Mohrety deliberately switching vials to make people look bad, I told you the story about me crying in the break room, I told you about how they all talked behind my back when I decided to work from home. I tell you and tell you and tell you but you just proved today that you didn't believe one word I said."

"I do believe you, Mom," Katie said, "I promise. I can recite all the stories chapter and verse, and I understand how all of those things affected you, and you have every right to feel stressed at the thought of going back to work – but Mr. Benegyani said it would be better if you go back to work, and I know you spend enough that we have to make all that money last and it would be easier to do it if you went back to work."

"That I spend enough?" her mother said, tone changing immediately. Katie cursed at herself. "You make me sound like some aristocrat that doesn't know money!"

"Mom, there's no reason to keep buying brand names if you're not going out anymore – there's no one to impress and it makes more financial sense to be frugal!" … Why was she defending herself? Why was she trying to prove she was right to her mother? This was going to end badly, but why was she still trying?

"You think I do this to impress people?"

"No, Mom, that wasn't what I meant-"

"You judge me like everybody else!"

"No, Mom, I'm just saying-!"

"That's it! We're through! I am not your mother any more! You're dead to me! You can live in this house but I'll never speak to you again! You can have you're supper, I'm not going to eat. In fact, I'm going to stop taking insulin! I'll just go into a coma and die like I should have!"

"Mom, I'm trying to say-"

But her mother moved to the kitchen drawers and pulled out a steak knife, holding it over her wrist. Katie reacted before she even had time to process the image, let alone think about what was happening. She jumped forward and wrapped her fist around the blade; Mom pulled back, the knife scrapping against the inside of Katie's fingers but she held firm through the blood and wrapped her other hand around her mother's, struggling for several seconds to get it out of her hand before she succeeded. The knife clattered to the floor and her mother wailed.

"Please God!" she shouted, "Strike me down now! Let me die! Free me from this world of pain!"

Katie hugged her mother tightly, hoping that would prevent her from doing anything else, afraid to say anything to make it worse.

Mom crumpled into sobs and wails, and Katie held her, rubbing her shoulders and back, careful not to get her bloody fingers to stain her mother's expensive blouse. They stayed that way for... who knew how long, but Mom had her supper and through her tears talked about her abusive childhood, about how she had no control of her life then, and no control of her life now. She talked about how she loathed having more control taken from her, how she didn't completely trust the money manager no matter how well the meeting went because she was giving up control of her money to him. She talked about how her own daughter tried to control her, tried to tell her to go back to a place that made her miserable an how deeply, deeply hurt she was. She talked about how that pain added up and how she couldn't take it anymore.

"That's why it's so important," she said. "That's why it's so important that you understand. You are the only reason I'm hanging on. You are the only reason I'm still alive. You are my sole source of happiness."

And all Katie could feel were chains around her neck and wrists, because now she knew if she wasn't perfect she would be responsible for her mother's suicide. She couldn't call a helpline, the betrayal that would cause would be irrevocable, and she couldn't ask for help without her mother finding out she was airing dirty laundry. She was the only one who kept her mother alive, and Katie hated the new burden that had been put on her shoulders.

But she nodded and listened, knowing she would effectively never be allowed to defend herself again for fear of another stunt like this.

… why didn't Mom care about how this affected her daughter?

But Katie knew better than to ask, and when she went to bed that night she prayed for a deep, dreamless sleep.

Right up until her phone vibrated at 2 a.m.

Even with her late nights Katie's phone never went off simply because nobody else was up at that hour, and hearing it vibrate was a strange enough sound that she woke up, grabbing it from her nightstand and activating the screen.

Email: We made it Pigeon!

She blinked, staring at the notification with an empty head, unable to comprehend what she was reading. She sat up slowly, wincing at the gauze and tape on her fingers pulled at the knife cuts, unlocking her phone and opening the app. There was no text, just the subject line and an attachment. Her fingers were trembling, her phone was shaking, she was shaking as she stared at the mail, so many emotions filtering through her she didn't quite know what to do. She could only perciverate for so long, though, before she pulled her hair back to make sure she had a clear view of her phone as she opened the attachment.

It was a photo. Time and distance had made it dithered, pixelated, partially corrupt. There were lines of noise, lost data still flying through space somewhere, but Katie could make out three very distinct space suits taking a selfie – not in a compartment of the shuttle, but against a black backdrop of space, the white ice landscape being only one possible place: Kerberos.

They... they made it.

There was no pilot error.

Captain Shirogane didn't crash the ship.

Oh my god...

"Mom!"

Author's Notes: This chapter is the most painful to read, because the dialogue is pulled from actual conversations/fights that we had in our lives. The drive home from the bank where Katie is slapped across the face? The threat to repossess cars and being yelled at for simply hanging up a phone? Not being able to deposit a check because it's made to an estate that was never opened? The hospital stay was much earlier though, in our lives, and was covered by insurance. The one-off hospital stay for low blood sugar levels, though, was done on the last day of the insurance coverage. The debt was real, so much of ourselves is in this chapter that we're not really reading fanfiction, we're reading a heavily edited documentary of our lives.

Because it's a fic we could only squish all of these events down to a microcosm, it's hard to understand that those deescalation techniques that Pidge/Katie does to prevent the worst from happening were weekly, sometimes daily occurrences. It's hard to articulate how long those days are, when the witch is active and hours, even days are spend trying to shut down the subfunction; how stressful and miserable life gets when those moments happen.

We're not cruel to Katie/Pidge, however. She does get a grief counselor, something that doesn't parallel us because Katie is much younger when she loses her father, and schools are very sensitive to things like a child's mental health after a loss like that. As consumed as Katie/Pidge is she at least has one safe space to talk. She doesn't understand that this is the place to talk about everything, but we ourselves didn't learn that until we were much, much older.

Because everything that happens is so condensed, and most especially because Pidge/Katie is so young, there are some things that just can't translate over. One thing we couldn't reasonably establish is to get her to learn the name of her mother's dysfunction, but we did work it into the title of the fic and one reviewer has already picked up on it.

Next chapter: The Green Paladin is inquisitive and daring - and Pidge does the most daring thing in her life.

PS: OMG season four dropped last night and THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH WORDS to describe the feels of Pidge's episode! I didn't think we could make that many squealy-happy-noises!