Chapter Thirty-One: The World Keeps Turning

March 19, 2011

"Is this the only market in Brockton Bay?" Fi asked Taylor as they walked through the edges of the Marketplace. After the impromptu commemoration, Fi had stood silently for a long while, and then slowly wandered back into the stalls of the Market.

At Fi's insistence, Jason and Taylor were both walking to her right, so that she could see them both at the same time. Intrepid sort of wished they could bracket her, but he understood why Contract didn't want to have anyone, even a teammate, walking directly in her blind spot, and it was far easier to read their lips when they were both walking on the same side of her.

"Um, I think there's an Asian market for fresh fish and whatever, but I've never been."

"Could we go?" Contract asked casually, and Intrepid shared a glance with Beetle.

"Um, it's kinda in ABB territory," Beetle ventured.

"I don't want to make a fuss. But I could do with some good, hot chicken feet about now."

"Really?" Intrepid interjected, before he caught himself. "I mean, you like that stuff?"

"Sure. It's a very unique texture. And many markets sell fresh or cooked food in addition to groceries and the like."

Beetle and Intrepid shared another glance and, and Beetle shrugged. Intrepid pulled out his phone to text Clockblocker to get his opinion on a shopping trip in enemy territory, when Beetle suddenly stiffened.

A regular-looking guy had just turned away from a stall on their left, and his eyes were wide. He put out a hand, and Contract saw it out of the corner of her eye. They all stopped, tense, but the man wasn't a threat.

"Are you Contract?" he whispered reverently.

"I am," she said, her tone even and her body tense.

"Bless you, child," he whispered, and it was nearly lost in the sudden rustling of noises and voices that had picked up.

A moment ago they'd been three figures wandering with the direction of the crowd, dressed colorfully but acting so casually that they'd been sort of over-looked before people even really noticed them. Now they were a stationary object in the middle of the road, and human eyes were picking them out easily through the contrast.

Within moments, there was a swell of thank yous, well wishes, sympathies, and gratitude being poured out, as people reached out to touch them, shake their hands, and generally crowd up close. Intrepid held down the home button on his phone to send out a panic call.

Contract smiled, nodded at various people, but pressed back toward Beetle. Still, the crowd grew bolder, inflating in size as people started actively moving in their direction, following rumors or just to generally investigating the uproar.

Contract's shoulders were tense, her weight balanced, her eyes darting from face to face as she swung her head around, trying to track the crowd even as she kept smiling. Intrepid didn't think it was coincidence that Contract had put her back to her teammates. She was entering fight-or-flight mode, and was really only considering the first option.

Then there was a buzzing that had nothing to do with human voices, and it was like an insect swarm just burst out of the ground beneath their feet, flying up between the Wards and the crowd. The front people pulled back reflexively, but the burst was over in just a second. In the pause that followed, Beetle's voice carried without her having to shout.

"I'm terribly sorry about that, folks. It's just that I'm afraid we're a bit late for an important meeting, so we really do need to be going. Thank you for all of your support." Beetle had an arm around Contract and was pulling her forward even as she finished the short little speech, and the crowd parted around her, still a little startled.

Intrepid dropped behind the girls, covering their backs, and nodded and smiled to the people who let them through. He received mostly sheepish smiles or awed looks in return. In his left hand, he pressed his phone's home button over and over in a steady rhythm, to cut off the panic signal. Even so, by the time they made it to the end of the Market, Miss Militia and a PRT squad were waiting for them with a transport van.

Contract didn't protest or hesitate to climb inside, which said something about how shaken she felt.

"Next time, we go for obscurity," Beetle joked. Contract smiled, and it was less fake but more tired than the ones she had offered to the crowd. They'd gone out in costume, on the logic that they would be free to use their powers if they ran into trouble. They hadn't considered that the costumes might be the trouble.

"Lesson learned," Intrepid quipped back, which made Contract laugh a little. It was hard to tell, but it looked like maybe Miss Militia's eyes had crinkled too.

After returning to the Ward's base and debriefing on the panic signal and surrounding situation, Clockblocker invited Contract into the Wards' private office. With a tip of her head, she invited Intrepid to join them, and he did.

As soon as the door was shut, Dennis pulled his mask off and Fi and Jason followed his example. "How are you doing, Phoenix?"

"Okay. For now, at least. I've done what I can do, what I had to do, and… I don't know. I'm functioning."

"That's good to hear. I've got a couple updates for you. Do you care where we start?"

"Yeah. I do." She swallowed, glanced at Jason, then turned her shoulders so she squarely faced Dennis. "I understand why you froze me last night. It's your power, so it's your judgment call. Whatever. I know that I can't tell you never to do it again. But don't you dare do it lightly."

Dennis blinked, obviously not expecting to have this particular conversation right now. "You, ah, know about that?"

"I figured it out."

Dennis nodded, slowly, like he was thinking. "I never wanted to hurt you."

"It didn't hurt, exactly. Like I said, I can rationalize the decision. But I could also rationalize why you were being a jerk when I first showed up. I didn't like the attitude then and I don't like the decision now. So don't do it again without a damned good reason."

"I promise." They held eye contact for a while, staring into each other's faces, and then Fi nodded and sat back.

"So what did you want to talk about?"

"I was going to tell you about some of the stuff we've been handling, so it doesn't catch you by surprise. Media, world attention, speculation, things like that."

Fi nodded again, and this time she was the one looking thoughtful. "No further sign of any of the Endbringers, I take it?"

"No," Dennis reassured her. "And best as we can guess, we won't see them again. Especially since we've tied Eidolon to their reappearance, however loosely, if it does happen."

"Okay. What else?"

"The President called. He wants to meet you and give you a medal, I think. I was with Armsmaster when Dragon patched the call to him. Evidently, Armsmaster is your legal guardian.

"Armsmaster told him that you're doing alright, but you weren't interested in visitors or taking any trips just yet. He promised to set something up at a more convenient time. I think I heard the president giving Armsmaster some sort of personal or priority number in case he needed anything, but I'm not positive. So that's one satisfied customer.

"Director Costa-Brown was a minute behind him, and then the Australian and Canadian Prime Ministers got in on the act. I left at that point to coordinate other parts of the response. Armsmaster tried to talk Dragon into helping him write a form letter he could email to the United Nations, but she told him that he had to take at least a couple more calls in person. I think she was already screening them down to the highest priority, though."

Fi looked stunned, absolutely shocked, at this news. "The President of the United States? POTUS? That President?"

Dennis opened his mouth to speak, then took in her face, and answered more slowly. "What did you expect? You just destroyed the entities that destroy countries. You proved that it wasn't a one-time trick or an act. The satellite video of the Simurgh vanishing has gone viral. There's already a dozen memes about you."

Fi's jaw hung open completely, and it looked just as awkward in real life as it did in cartoons. "But, we made it clear that Eidolon helped."

Dennis was looking just as confused as Fi, now. "No, Fi, we said that you tapped into Eidolon like you tapped into Behemoth. Behemoth didn't defeat himself, and a lot of people aren't giving that much credit to Eidolon, either. I mean, yeah, he's getting credit and accolades. A ton of people who said he was losing his touch are now screaming his praises, because he had a dynokinesis on par with Behemoth's, but in their minds you're the one that killed them."

Fi shut her eyes and tipped back her head, breathing through her nose as she internalized everything they'd just said. With her senses thus cut off, Jason talked to Dennis while watching Fi just in case. "Did you know Armsmaster was her legal guardian?"

"He didn't know until this morning. Did she know? She didn't flinch."

"I don't think she cares. It doesn't mean anything to her yet." Jason stopped talking as she tipped her head back down to look at Dennis again.

"Okay, tell me the bad news."

Dennis shrugged. "There's relatively little bad news. There are the occasional people who say that it's your fault that the Simurgh was early, or wondering if we've just traded three known Endbringers for six more unknown ones that will attack even faster, but they're shot down really fast. The public is overwhelmingly on your side.

"Before the Simurgh vanished, there were a couple news sources that were criticizing you for not being there in Canberra, even though the death toll was really low. Four of those news websites were crashed before the Simurgh disappeared, from all sorts of people spamming the comments, trolling the servers, and just generally expressing their displeasure. After the Simurgh was gone, the rest went down pretty fast. General consensus was already speculating that you'd done something even before we got word out."

Dennis took a deep breath, and tried to judge Fi's mood, but she was just sitting and listening. After a beat he continued. "Both your interviews have gone completely viral as well, with very positive feedback. There's even an online drive to fund the ferry rebuild project, and it's getting a lot of money. After it hit a million dollars, someone pointed out that nearly every city has a project like that, or a school like Winslow.

"Immediately, there were funds set up for Winslow and the fifty worst high schools around the country, as well as various other projects, mostly in major cities. They're calling them 'capeless' funds, on the idea that this is a way for 'capeless heroes' to make a difference. The numbers are climbing so fast it's hard to keep track. Three construction companies have already stepped up to do infrastructure work for reduced prices in Boston, LA, and New York."

"You're back to the positives," Fi cut in with a confused frown. "Tell me about the crises. What needs to be done?"

"Nothing," Dennis said, equally confused. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. It's all good so far. Or near enough."

Fi stared at him for a long moment, and then she crumpled, crying. Jason was half-expecting it, and moved his chair over so that he could put a hand across her back.

She'd been fine as long as there was something to do: confronting the Triumvirate, planning Ash's commemoration, talking to the reporters, talking to Dragon, remembering Ash. Now that it was over, she didn't have anything to hold onto.

Fi buried her head in her hands, and Jason looked up at Dennis without breaking the rhythm he was slowly rubbing into her shoulders. "This is good, I think. It means she feels safe."

Dennis slowly sank back into his seat, looking less alarmed, and then he came around the desk and knelt beside Fi. "It's okay," his whispered and he put a hand on her knee.

Awkwardly, Jason cleared his throat. "She can't hear you."

Dennis grimaced. "That is way too easy to forget."

Jason wanted to say that it wasn't, really, but he didn't. Jason himself had forgotten that Fi was being held against her will mere hours after she'd laid out her reasons for all to see. No one was perfect, and all they could each do was their best.

"She wanted to go to an Asian food market," Jason said, while Fi sobbed between them. He kept up the steady circles, because he thought he could hear her sobs starting to synch up with them. If they did, he might be able to slowly calm her down after she cried herself out for a while.

"The one on Canton? It's practically on Lung's front door."

"We could go in civilian dress."

"No less than four Wards. You, Taylor, me, and either Dean or Missy."

"That will make us more conspicuous, and leave us hesitant to power up."

Dennis chewed his lower lip. "It's dangerous."

"You realize that Taylor basically already lives in ABB territory? And I'm not far from the center of the Empire for that matter. Practically the whole city belongs to somebody."

"That's why Armsmaster let her move into the PRT," Dennis explained patiently, and Jason realized that he hadn't told Dennis anything that the long-time Brockton Bay Ward didn't already know. Jason was still becoming accustomed to the new status quo he was living in, but for Dennis this was just how life was.

Dennis sighed. "How about if Vista, Kid Win, and I happen to be on a patrol in the neighborhood, while you and Dean take Fi to the market? We'll be far enough away not to put them too on edge, but close in case Dean picks up anything suspicious."

Jason nodded, liking this idea better. Gallant would be able to watch for trouble before it was apparent, and even though Clockblocker hadn't mentioned her, Intrepid knew they wouldn't be leaving Beetle behind.

"I'm a little embarrassed that all this is necessary," Fi said in a normal conversational tone, as she fingered several vegetables that looked like very large cloves of garlic, or perhaps very small onions. She chose two and started yet another round of haggling with yet another street vendor.

The plan had actually come together better than Jason should have realistically hoped.

When Jason had finally remembered to call home and check in, his mother had insisted that he be home for dinner since the crisis was passed. Jason had then explained that the crisis wasn't really over, because he was kinda the closest thing that Fi had to family, and his mom had insisted that he come home for dinner and bring Fi along too.

Jason had tried to argue that she was under protective custody until the world calmed down, and his mom had promptly invited the whole Wards team over. (And really, knowing his mother, Jason should have seen that one coming.)

Then his mother had panicked that she didn't have enough food in the house to feed seven hungry teenagers. Somehow, Fi had understood enough from his side of the conversation to offer to help his mom cook. Fi's volume control was not quite as fine-tuned as she thought, so his mother had heard, and after an awkward conversation with him in the middle, it had been determined that Fi actually loved to cook, wanted to share a favorite recipe with his mother, and it would definitely feed nine people, but she needed to track down several specialty ingredients.

So here they were, two plains-clothes Wards and four dressed ones escorting Fi to go grocery shopping on Lung's lawn. Jason wasn't completely sure that there wasn't a PRT squad or Protectorate response team on standby, just in case. There had to be a punch-line in there somewhere.

Shaking himself from his thoughts, Jason was able to answer her as she handed over her cash with two hands, and accepted the wrapped produce the same way. "We'll figure out a new normal eventually. We just don't need any more fireworks today."

Fi hummed agreement as she stepped up to another stand, this one littered with dishes full of powder. The labels were all in a character language that he guessed was Chinese, but might have been Elfish for all he knew. The seller spoke only in a native language, and Fi ended up doing a lot of pointing, though she did know a few words or at least enough that she successfully bought five little envelopes with two scoops of power each.

"Spices," she explained as they walked away, "since I doubt your mother's kitchen stocks these. Just one more stop now."

The last stall? Fresh-caught, freshly-butchered, eyes-in eel. No joke.

"Where did you learn to cook?" Taylor asked, as Fi showed her the best ways to pull the bones out of the eels she had bought. Jason's mom was watching from the other side of the kitchen, where she was cutting vegetables, smiling indulgently.

"All over the place. Anywhere I could get a lesson, really. There's only so much diner food a girl can eat," Fi answered in her typical fashion, where she sounded witty but explained nothing of substance. Mentally, Jason cataloged another detail about Fi's previous mysteriously nomadic lifestyle.

Fi turned away to check on the vegetable shredding, and his mom took the opportunity to speak while Fi was facing her. "You know you really didn't have to help with dinner, don't you?"

Fi smiled at her, and paused in her flurry of motion to actually answer. "I know that, Mrs. Wilson. But I like cooking. I like the creativity, the control. I like being able to do something nice for people I like. It's therapeutic."

"I know exactly how you feel, Phoenix. And I told you, call me Emily ." Fi's smile grew, and she nodded her agreement. A timer went off, and Emily touched Fi's arm before she could turn back to the eels. "What do we need to do next for the sauce?"

Fi went to the stove, lifted the lid, and inhaled deeply, before reaching for the vodka she'd previously measured and set aside. "This isn't a perfect substitute, but it's close enough. I didn't think even Lung would sell sake to minors in open daylight. This will reduce down for another ten or twenty minutes."

Jason dutifully reached over to the microwave to set the next timer, then returned to his seat to watch the women move around the kitchen. In the background, he could hear Dennis, Missy, and Dean working out the protection rosters for the next couple of days, assuming that Fi decided to stay here.

He also reminded himself to call everyone by their cape names. The Wards, minus Fi, had brought domino masks to use during dinner so that they could eat, and Dean was actually in civilian dress, but they'd all decided not to give their names to his parents, which was understandable but complicated. Fi, on the other hand, had boldly introduced herself as "Phoenix, call me Fi," without hesitation or mention of her cape name.

Chris wandered over with his dad a minute later, coming in from the garage and the mountain of unfinished projects it contained.

"Really, Mr. Wilson, I don't know how much help I can be. Anything I designed would need tinker maintenance, and trying to explain tinkertech to civilians is a trick the PRT has been trying in vain to manage for years."

"Richard, honey, don't make him call you Mr. Wilson. These are Jason's teammates!" His mother teased without turning around.

His dad sighed. "I know, Emily. I've told him twice already."

Chris blushed, and Jason felt some sympathy for his teammates. His parents were warm individuals, genuinely hospitable and incredibly kind. But they were also tall, and both had a tendency to dress impeccably and speak precisely which made it very easy to want to fall back on formality. More than once he'd slipped naturally into calling them Father or Mother, always to the amusement of them both.

"Now that the bones are out, we can carve out the fillets," Fi told Taylor, oblivious to her growing audience. Emily, entranced by the process of butchering the eel, turned away from the vegetables to watch as Fi deftly sliced the long, white muscle into portion-sized fillets.

"You want to cut with the pattern of the muscle, and since we removed the bones first we can go all the way up to the spine. If you try to cut with the spine in, you can break off bone fragments and they're simply impossible to find."

Fi handled the knife like an extension of her own hand, and Jason added "knife skills" to his glimpses of Fi's background. In short order, she had two plates stacked with fillets on the counter beside her and the tray with the eels contained only their heads, bones, and scales.

"Now we toss this stuff, and prep the fillets for the grill."

Dean, who had wandered over and brought his co-conspirators with him, stepped forward to gather up the scraps and remove them from the kitchen. Fi glanced up, saw her audience, and then leaned toward Taylor conspiratorially, though she didn't actually lower her volume.

"If we were really ambitious, we could use all that - the bones and the eyes especially - in the sauce. Let it all stew together and then strain out the chunks. Of course, when you do that the eyes melt, so in deference to the plebian pallet I chose to pass this time."

Taylor grinned back at her as Dennis made gagging motions. "I think that was wise."

Jason watched as the girls started the next part of the meal, then grabbed Dennis and pulled him into the living room, and up the stairs to his private room.

"Protection sorted?" he asked, eager to get down to business and then get back to the kitchen.

Dennis nodded, equally serious. "Yes. Assuming she stays here. If she's going to be out in public, we need more than two Wards on duty. And if she's in the base, we can probably cut down to just one."

"I thought there were three on duty, myself and two more?"

Dennis was already shaking his head. "You're on 'keep Fi sane and not suicidal' duty. The two Ward rotation is on 'keep Fi safe from attack and whatever else needs doing' duty."

Jason nodded, hating that it was even necessary, but far preferring to err to the side of caution. Dennis spoke again, obviously worried. "Did you know that she knew about the freezing thing?"

"No." Dennis gave him a disbelieving glance. "She didn't mention it to me. I figured she probably knew but forgot because it was just overshadowed by everything else. I didn't know she was going to bring it up." Jason paused, but he felt compelled to tack on, "I wouldn't have come in if I did. There was no reason for me to see that."

Dennis heaved a sigh, but waved away the concern. "No, it's fine. I mean, do I want you attending every dressing down? No. But if Fi wants you there for something, it's probably good that you're there." His gaze suddenly sharpened. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm fine," Jason answered automatically, surprised by the inquiry.

"Really? Because I'm not." Dennis raised a hand and started ticking off points before Jason could figure out what he wanted to say. "Let's start with last night. We find out that Taylor is probably a lot more seriously messed up than we thought, given her trigger event was what it was. Then we find out that Fi has been raped. And that she murdered her rapist and his friends. And that her family was shockingly okay with that."

Dennis paused, his four fingers extended, then pulled them back in and started the count over. "This is immediately overshadowed by the Simurgh coming months early, which triggers the first contact that Fi has had with her family, and we get front row seats to a murder. Fi flips, and we all spend a night shell shocked."

Again, Dennis reset his count, which had reached four fingers. "Cue this morning's very weird rollercoaster of puking and praying. And then we finally get details on Fi's power mechanics, which she only gives us so that we keep up as she confronts the Triumvirate."

Another four fingers were relaxed, and Dennis gave up on counting all together. "Then we discover that Fi has been tortured, by some organization that Legend is a part of, but possibly somehow also ignorant of. However, the other heroes did know about it, and probably in greater detail. Oh, and this organization is protected by a precognitive murderer that forces everyone to keep its secret. And then we discover that Eidolon created the Endbringers, whereupon Fi powers up Eidolon who kills the Endbringers, and we have to lie to the world because of the aforementioned murderous precog."

He paused, staring at Jason, who was mostly just waiting for the rant to end. Finally, Dennis moaned, "How are you okay with all of that?"

Jason shrugged. "I sorta knew there was something fishy going on. I knew that Fi wasn't a fan of Legend, and that whatever it was must be pretty big because it also involved Triumph and Aegis. I also knew she didn't like the rest of the Triumvirate, either for the same reason or for their own reasons.

"Plus, I saw how they treated her in New York. And I was on the inside of the whole Sophia mess, so I was already getting really used to the idea that heroes aren't perfect. I've been getting used to it for months.

"As for the Ash thing, well… I'm just worrying about Fi. That's the only part of this I can affect. She needs me, so I'm there for her. I can't worry about the Endbringers, or the weird organization, or the Triumvirate, or the precog. The things that can be controlled, like the media, are being handled by you guys. The other stuff, we don't get a say in. So I don't dwell on it."

Dennis couldn't have looked more shocked if Jason had grown a second head. "That's it?"

Jason shrugged. "What do you want me to say?"

Dennis snorted and shook his head. "I am so glad Fi has you to lean on, and not me. Because I'm secretly freaking out inside."

"You're hiding it well."

Now it was Dennis' turn to shrug. "I need to keep up a good face for the team. Otherwise Missy is going to try to walk to New York and give the Triumvirate a piece of her mind."

Jason grinned at the image. "She should wait a couple days. Anger is a stage of grief, and I have a feeling that Fi is going to do anger pretty magnificently."

Dennis raised a hand to shield his eyes dramatically. "Don't say things like that! Fate might be listening!" He dropped the hand, and the sarcasm. "How are your parents taking everything?"

"You mean the very little that they actually know?" Jason reminded his leader.

Dennis waved his hand in the same dismissive gesture. "They know enough. They know that you just put yourself in the middle of the media circus after avoiding it successfully for a month and a half. They know that you're the most visible soft spot of a cape who eats Endbringers. What do they think about Fi? About Intrepid and Contract?"

Jason sighed. "They're not thrilled, but they understand. My mom would prefer that being a cape was like being in a school club: something to do with my time, but not necessarily dictating my future. That being said, they understand the importance of what I did in New York. They're proud of me.

"And when she heard that Fi needed me, well, my mom's got a big heart. If Fi isn't careful, the guest room is going to become her room permanently. They probably haven't thought about the safety risks. I'm not sure I've really thought about the safety risks. But they're not going to cause a scene or anything."

"BOYS! DINNER!" Jason's mom hollered up the stairs. The two heroes shared a glance as they left the room.

"You really trust us to handle, well, everything except Fi?"

Jason shrugged. "Sure. I mean, Fi trusts you, and you've given us no reason not to trust you."

"Huh," Dennis grunted as the entered the dining room.

The table was a little crowded, with seven Wards and both of Jason's parents, even after adding in the extra table leaf, but it was worth it to sit down to the frankly heavenly-smelling meal.

There was a rice-and-vegetable stir fry to compliment the eel fillet, and a sauce that wasn't teriyaki, but Jason didn't have anything closer to compare it to, to drizzle over the whole plate.

"I know there's a lot y'all can't talk about," his dad said almost as soon as everyone was seated, as the plates were still being passed around. "So if Emily or I ask anything insensitive you be sure to tell us so. We want to be friendly, not pressure you."

"Richard is perfectly correct. We hardly got to see Jason's last team at all, and we want you to be comfortable here," his mom chimed in.

"Thank you," Missy answered as she handed Jason the platter of fillets. "That does make this a little easier. It's not that we want to keep secrets, but…"

"Nonsense, Vista!" Emily interjected, "Secrets keep you and your teammates safe, my son included. I'm a fan of secrets."

She smiled winningly at the table, and the other Wards chuckled with her. Jason couldn't help but beam at his mom, who always seemed to know what to say to help set people at ease. Sometimes he wished that he had inherited half of her diplomacy.

"What do you think the fallout of today's events will be?" Richard asked as he gathered the last of the now-depleted platters and moved them over to the sideboard to make more room on the table.

Jason could feel Dennis' eyes on him, and knew that his team leader was thinking about all the consequences that the world would never see or know about, because they knew such a tiny fraction of the whole story.

"Another world-wide party and hangover," Dean offered. "Probably more cautious, at first, because there will be some people that are waiting for a new Endbringer, or some other form of escalation.

"The Simurgh attacking early threw a lot of people really off-kilter, and everyone is going to hold their breath in case something else freaky happens. It may take up to six months for the true skeptics. But I think most of the public is out getting drunk tonight, particularly in cities previously hit by the Endbringers."

"You should have seen people this afternoon," Chris volunteered. "We did a patrol by the docks and nearly got mobbed. Mostly people were congratulatory, but there was a lot of curiosity too. I think Gallant's right about the skepticism."

"I heard very little skepticism today at the office," Richard volunteered.

"Oh, what do you do?" Missy asked, leaning around Jason to see his dad a little better. Jason looked toward his father too, and in doing so, caught Fi's eye. She smiled at him, but it was a forced, trying-too-hard sort of smile.

Jason's stomach dropped as he realized the problem. There were too many people in the room, half of them were facing away from her, and all of them were eating. It was hard for her to know who was talking, and hard for her to read their lips anyway if she did know.

In the flow of normal conversation, people tended to look toward the speaker, helping her to follow the topic. But right now, people were looking at their plates, at their drinks, and not necessarily at whoever she needed to be watching.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, knowing that she'd read his lips without needing any volume.

"I'm okay," she murmured back, for once speaking with a subtle volume when she intended to. "It's good to be in a home, and I really did enjoy cooking. Thank you." Her smile was a little firmer this time, but he didn't totally believe that she was okay. Still, there wasn't a lot he could do at the moment.

So he moved his leg just slightly so that it was touching hers, making clear that she was not alone, and then tuned into the general conversation. As he glanced away, he was able to watch out of the corner of his eye as Fi relaxed. She didn't look totally miserable, but she did look tired, and a little forlorn.

Jason's eye caught Dean's next, and he offered Jason the tiniest of nods.

When dinner was over, and the dishes were done, and the Wards had all gone home, Jason helped Fi set up a sleeping bag in the guest room.

"Don't go," she whispered, sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall. "I don't want to be alone yet."

Cautiously, aware of the fact that his parents were just down the hall and that somewhere in the house, Battery and Assault were keeping night watch, Jason came back into the room and sat down next to Fi.

She was staring at her hands, twisting them over and over.

"You're a remarkable person. Do you know that?" she said as she looked up and caught his eyes, and the intensity there stopped him from breathing.

"Fi, I," his voice broke and he cleared his throat.

Confusion flashed on her face and then vanished, to be replaced by a sad smile. "No, Jason, I'm not hitting on you. I doubt I'll be in a mentally healthy place for quite some time. I… I guess I'm delaying." She cleared her own throat awkwardly. "I'm doing this all wrong."

"Just, start at the beginning," he said, glad to be let off the hook. It wasn't that he didn't like Fi, but he did agree that with everything going on her life, they didn't need to add another complication.

"Okay. I've dropped a lot of hints about my past. To you, more than to anyone else, I've given glimpses. We're still under contract to be honest with each other, so you can be sure that everything I tell you tonight will be the truth. But… Jason… the answers you've been very patiently waiting for, they're world changing. And changing your world view isn't a comfortable or easy experience. I beg you, if you have any doubts at all, doubts about me, or about wanting to know, or about wanting to turn your world on its ear, stop me now."

She fell silent then, just staring at him. He turned over what she had said. It was hard to believe that she had more to tell him, things that might be more world changing that what they'd already learned earlier that day.

On the other hand, he'd believe Fi even if it wasn't for the contract, and when she warned him away from information in the past, it had been with good reason. In the end, his desire to know outweighed whatever caution his common sense offered.

"Tell me."