Chapter Forty-Seven: Reaching Out

April 23, 2011

By the time the group actually split up, it was past midnight. Beetle offered to go to the hospital with Contract, but Clockblocker ordered her to go home and get some sleep so she could come in early for a full and detailed debriefing before any exercises with New Wave. From the glances they were sharing, Vista and Clockblocker had their own debriefing still waiting later that night, so Intrepid stepped up to take Contract instead.

Contract, of course, made her opinion of a babysitter's necessity very clear, and subsided only when Clockblocker cited Youth Guard regulations requiring a witness.

So it was that 1 AM found Intrepid and Contract sitting in the emergency room, waiting for service. Intrepid had finally changed into his full uniform before flying them both over to the hospital in order to avoid having his civilian face be seen sitting next to Contract. The waiting area was visibly busy, and Contract refused the nurses' attempts to bump her up the triage list based on her status as a Ward, so they might be in for a long wait. Friday night was a busy one for Brockton Bay General.

"Since we're sitting here," Contract ventured, "we should talk about anything I did wrong tonight." Intrepid looked up from his cup of coffee, but she seemed sincere. "I'd rather hear it from you than anyone else."

Intrepid shared her smile, grateful again that he'd heard her out a week earlier. "Overall, you did good."

"Because I didn't kill anyone?"

"Not just that," Intrepid said, preferring to focus on the other successes of the night. He might have jumped the gun a little, overestimating her lethality. "You kept your wits about you. You didn't just fight blindly; you assessed weaknesses and strategized. You were able to bluff your way into a better position and turn your disadvantage of being deaf into an asset."

"I would have lost, if we kept going. Or I would have had to escalate towards more permanent harm, and if they escalated in kind I think they would have gotten me before I eliminated all of them."

"Tonight wasn't about winning," Intrepid reminded her, glad that the general noise level masked their conversation. "It was about establishing a baseline. A test where you score perfectly only establishes a minimum intelligence. If you don't get a couple answers wrong, we don't know where you actually lie."

"What should I have done different?"

"You were worried about keeping them at a distance, which wasn't practical. It was only a matter of time before they closed quarters, as they did. You should have tried to find or build better cover using your telekinesis, instead of using the few pieces of the environment as missiles."

"Force them to come at me the way I wanted, instead of trying to stop the advance all together."

"Yes. When you're outnumbered that badly, you can't count on out-waiting them. You have to find a way to force them to get in each other's way or focus on finding a way out." She blushed, and Intrepid guessed the reason. "You didn't consider retreating."

"Not exactly, no."

Intrepid shrugged. "Part of that is down to me. Normally, as your mover, it's my job to get you off a bad battlefield, but I knew it was an exercise so I didn't evacuate you. Of course, you didn't try to get my attention either."

"I don't know that I would have left if you did try. I don't like leaving enemies around where they can hurt me."

"You've never heard of a strategic retreat?"

"Does such a thing exist when the other team has a teleporter?"

"Ah," Intrepid acknowledged, realizing that Contract wasn't just suffering from tunnel vision. "Flicker isn't quite as omniscient as she appeared. Few teleporters are."

"Sure. But she got into the apartment once."

Intrepid tilted his head. "Point. I still think you should at least consider leaving and choosing better ground. Tonight, the other team had all the initiative and other than your bluff to be taken captive, you didn't do much to change that. If they'd been more careful about making sure you were drugged, that could have gone very badly for you. But I can see why you might not have been willing to retreat in this instance."

He tried to think back to the battle and remember if there was anything else he wanted to say. "Clockblocker and Vista will probably have other commentary, because they had a different perspective. And obviously you should run through this whole thing with Yamada, but I think that's the two biggest things I noticed; your attempt to keep them all at range and your failure to try to retreat. Did you lose the telekinesis?"

"It was in and out, mostly as I worried about where the hell you were and if Magnidude had caught you again. I kept the precognition almost the whole time, though."

"That's an improvement."

She shrugged, but before she could offer her own (probably over harsh) assessment of the status of her powers, her phone vibrated. She had to reach across her body to fish it out of her pocket with her unhurt hand. She tilted the screen towards him so he could see it was an unknown number, but from someone in the PRT based on the area code. She tapped the icon to pick up the call on her visor, but also handed him the phone so he could hear for himself.

"Hello?"

"Contract? Are you alright?" It was a male voice, quiet, but not one he immediately placed.

Contract's forehead scrunched in her familiar what-the-hell expression before her eyebrows shot up. He assumed her visor had found a voice match, but he still couldn't place the familiarity. She glanced around the emergency room before she ground out, "David?"

"Ah, yes." Eidolon coughed with what might have been embarrassment. "I, ah, needed to talk to you about something and… are you in the hospital?"

"I'm fine. What did you need?"

Eidolon paused, and Intrepid and Contract exchanged a heavy glance. "It would probably be better to talk in person. Do you require healing?"

"I'm a little busy, sir," Contract said, her tone far from respectful.

Intrepid gave her look that was supposed to mean, "Let's not antagonize the Endbringer-maker."

Contract rolled her eyes, but she must have understood him, because she did amend her statement, "But as it happens I am waiting to see a doctor, so if you wanted to drop by Brockton Bay General we could talk. Assuming, of course, that you don't mind if Intrepid hears it too."

Intrepid bumped her, but Eidolon seemed more mournful than upset. "Is that necessary?"

"Well, sir, if you drop dead from trying something stupid, I'd like a witness." Intrepid bumped Contract again, harder, and she tacked on, "Plus Clockblocker assigned him to watch me until I see a doctor, so it really is necessary." She looked at him as though for confirmation or agreement, and he nodded. He could understand why she might not like Eidolon particularly, but there was no point to purposefully alienating him.

Eidolon sighed. "So you are hurt. I don't suppose you'd be willing to let me help you, with a witness?"

Contract looked over at Intrepid with her eyebrows raised in question. Intrepid shrugged. He figured the chances of Eidolon trying anything were pretty slim, considering the possible consequences if he did. He still didn't trust his once-superior, not really, but he also didn't think he was likely to try to master Contract. Eidolon had seemed sincerely contrite when they'd seen him last week and hadn't taken offense at Contract's defensiveness.

"Alright, David. You have a deal."

"I'm in the Pizza Hut across the street."

Contract snorted. "Of course you are. We're both a bit conspicuous. Meet you at the bus stop down the road? Shouldn't be anyone else out there at this time of night."

Intrepid glanced around, but no one appeared to be listening. Even so, it was a bit bold to say that out loud. Heroes, especially Contract, had fans as well as enemies. So far, any attempts at pictures had been dissuaded by a glare with the help of hospital security, but it was a minor miracle their location hadn't been leaked to any social media yet.

Contract hung up using her visor controls without waiting for an answer and stood up. Intrepid followed her out the doors as her phone buzzed again. It had a new text from the same PRT number.

199-342-5566: Alley behind the Walgreens.

He handed the phone back to her, then looked each way as they darted across the street.

"He's a thinker," Intrepid realized. "You lied, knowing he'd hear it."

"He lied first. There's no Pizza Hut around here." As they checked their surroundings one more time and ducked behind the well-lit 24-hour pharmacy, Intrepid shook his head.

"Plots within plots."

Contract shrugged. "It's a living." He leaned over just a bit, this time bumping her shoulder playfully and got a friendly shove and smile in return. Then they turned the corner, and Eidolon was waiting for them.

Contract's step faltered just a touch, a tiny hint of her trepidation, and her arm brushed Intrepid's. She was establishing their relative positions, reminding herself exactly where he was, using his presence to give her the strength to keep walking. Despite her tone, she wasn't taking this lightly.

By some unspoken concert, they both stopped about five feet from Eidolon, close enough to talk but not to touch. Six months ago, Intrepid would have been awed to be standing here. Now, he was alert and curious, with a mild dose of condemnation for the man he'd once seen as his ultimate hero.

"What did you need to discuss?" Contract demanded.

Eidolon looked at them both for a moment, and Intrepid thought he could feel the cape's thinker power on his skin as it evaluated him. "Coil's power," Eidolon said eventually. "Armsmaster thought you might have a theory you hadn't been able to prove, before he died."

Contract didn't answer him immediately. After a long moment, she turned her head just slightly towards Intrepid. Though he couldn't see through her visor, he got the sense that she was still looking at Eidolon, but she wanted it to be clear that she was addressing her teammate.

"Why would the Triumvirate care about the mechanics of a power belonging to a dead cape? Particularly when the investigation has already ruled that the death was a suicide, and that all actions against that cape were warranted?"

Intrepid wasn't a thinker, but it didn't take him long to understand Contract's meaning. She'd said the Triumvirate, not Eidolon, but she meant Mordor. Coil's death had been investigated quickly, too quickly not that he thought about it, and the Wards' sting had been authorized with barely an objection. The PRT had gone through the motions, but not with the fire Intrepid had expected based on his past experience with them. Why?

Because the Chief Director had signed off on it. The Chief Director who was also Alexandria and probably a member of Mordor, or at least a willing accomplice to Legend who was. Why would Mordor care about Coil? Because he wasn't dead. And if he wasn't dead, hadn't escaped, and hadn't been tried, then he was being held elsewhere. By Mordor, presumably.

Eidolon managed to shuffle his feet in a way that indicated disapproval. Intrepid hadn't known that was possible, with the large cowl and cloak that hid so much of his body. Eidolon had always been unreadable, inscrutable, before New York. Intrepid wondered if he was better at reading him, if Eidolon was projecting his body language, or if it was just a matter of seeing the other cape as a real person, rather than idolizing him.

Contract turned her head the two inches necessary to face Eidolon fully once again. "Intrepid is no one's idiot," she defended fiercely. "He'd figure it out without any prompting as soon as we were done here and he thought it through, maybe sooner. I'm just keeping him up to speed as we go along. You agreed to have him here."

Eidolon nodded, conceding the point. "Coil's power?" he asked again, still gently polite. "We'd appreciate anything you know."

"I assume you have my report about the coin flips?" Contract asked. Eidolon nodded. "And my discussion of his use of the name Sophie was also included in my interview transcripts. What more do you want from me?"

"You've told us all the facts. What does your gut say?"

Contract's lips disappeared into a thin line as she evaluated Eidolon. Intrepid took that to mean that whatever she'd guessed of Coil's power related to her supernatural past. "Answer one question for me, honestly, and I'll tell you my theory. Not why I believe it, but what I believe."

Eidolon spread his hands. "Ask."

"Do you, personally, believe this information might help you save the world?"

Eidolon's spine got straighter, and he leaned back just slightly.

"I think you surprised him, Contract," Intrepid commented. "We're not in danger, are we?" It was half mocking, but also half a warning to Contract. He didn't know how much Mordor knew they knew, and he didn't want her to give anything away accidentally. Her hand closed the tiny gap between them, brushing the back of his hand for just a moment. Message received.

"No, you're not in danger," Eidolon stated emphatically, for whatever that reassurance was worth. "I've shut down the think tank investigating you, Contract, and if you ever hear of it reappearing you call me and I'll shut it down again. You're not a threat to us, not if you understand what we're working towards."

"I understand what you're trying to do. No idea what kind of progress you're making. But you didn't answer me. Is there any sign at all that knowing my theory will help?"

"Yes. I wouldn't be here if there wasn't."

"I believe Coil is manipulating time in some fashion. I thought it might be that he's looping: letting time run normally, and then sending his conscious backwards and reliving some period of time to achieve a better outcome. Possibly repeating it more than once, or going back further and further depending on the threat.

"Having made a number of diagrams surrounding the events on April 9th and 10th, I'm not so certain that is the case, but I do still think it's time-related. Maybe he's foreseeing futures and limiting which ones are possible, pruning away time branches that don't work for him, getting rid of worst case scenarios. Maybe he's just getting information from close-neighboring time branches, and exploiting it. The last is the most probable given the results we've observed, but the most difficult to manage from an energy and physics standpoint. If those restriction mean anything when it comes to powers."

"Thank you." Eidolon cleared his throat uncomfortably. "May I heal you?"

"For the record, you understand the risk to yourself if you try to influence me in any way?"

"Yes."

"Do your worst," she dared him.

Eidolon stepped forward, one hand outstretched. After a long moment, Contract met him halfway. There was no visible effect, but Eidolon dropped her hand only seconds later and lifted his own left arm gingerly. It seemed he'd absorbed Contract's injuries rather than healing them wholesale.

Contract stepped back sharply, ending up so close to Intrepid that their shoulders were touching. She swallowed heavily, but offered one last thought to Eidolon. "If Coil is a precog rather than a time manipulator, he's good. Very good. I'd be willing to bet that he doesn't have any blind spots. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, I do." Contract answered him with a sharp nod, but before they could retreat Eidolon spoke again. "You have my number now. You can call me any time. I will never be able to repay you for what you did."

"You're right, you won't. But I'll never not be wary of you."

In response, Eidolon reached up and pulled down his hood. The green glow which normally filled his hood and cape faded as the fabric dropped, and Intrepid and Contract were left looking at an unassuming middle aged man, with thin hair and unremarkable features.

Contract nodded sharply again, then turned on her heel and walked away. Intrepid walked backwards for two steps, watching Eidolon's unmoving form, before he passed the edge of the building and turned to follow Contract. She hadn't even made it out of the alley between the Walgreens and whatever was on its other side.

She was leaning back against the wall, watching Intrepid approach.

"That just happened," she whispered.

"No shit. Did you ask him to do that? Some sort of secret signal that he thinkered out?"

"No. I had no idea that was coming. No idea."

Intrepid nodded. He hadn't thought so, but it was better to just ask rather than assume. "He sounded sincere. If that means anything."

"I agree. He didn't seem to be lying, but he did know I was in Brockton Bay General, and he got here really fast."

"Teleporter," Intrepid reminded her and she grimaced.

"Oh yeah. I forgot."

Intrepid actually laughed at that. "Only you." She laughed with him, but still didn't straighten up. Intrepid looked back around the corner, but Eidolon wasn't visible any more. "Can I ask you something? If it's too sensitive, just say so, but it's been bugging me since I noticed it."

"Shoot."

"About you not being mastered. You told Eidolon and Armsmaster that it was your own subconscious that would protect you, but when you mentioned it to the Wards you said powerful forces would intervene."

"It's both. My subconscious is constantly trying to make deals, and I have to consciously restrain that pressure from getting out. If I was mastered, and that fact was whispered to my subconscious by powerful forces, the very act of being mastered would decrease the control of my conscious over my subconscious. The perfect storm."

"Your power is auto-on," he realized.

"Yeah, and auto-stupid. It jumps to ridiculously high costs. My subconscious always overshoots the mark. I have to hold it back from overspending, or from implementing a deal at all in most cases."

"You can do anything with enough death," Intrepid recalled.

Contract shuddered. "Let's talk about something else." Her brow creased. "You got to that conclusion fast. Auto-on. I thought I was going to have to spell it out."

"I'm auto-on too. That's why I dodge up."

She chucked again. "That makes me feel better."

"It should. I'm awesome." He flexed his muscles mockingly, hamming up the joke. Contract's laughing increased until she had to hold her breath to regain her cool.

When they were both sober, she pushed off the wall and he picked her up to fly her back home. "You are, you know," she told him as they lifted off. He gave her a questioning look, and she clarified. "You are awesome."

"Okay, I'm making it official: Beetle is never allowed to go darkside!"

Clockblocker's declaration kicked off another round of laughter. Kid Win, who had been laying on the ground recovering from a mad sprint, reached up high enough to punch Clockblocker's knee.

"Is that a surrender?" Vista demanded sweetly.

Intrepid groaned, joined by most of the other male Wards. "God, yes!" Magnidude shouted, as Vista just smiled at Clockblocker, still maintaining her faux innocence.

"You sure?" Beetle giggled. "We've still got a few things in waiting in the wings…"

"And no more bad puns!" Hunch and Gallant insisted in unison, for the fourth or fifth time that morning.

There was a knock on the door, and Glory Girl poked her head around the edge of the doorframe. "We interrupting?" Her sister and cousins followed her out of the stairwell. The Wards had chosen to stage today's practices on the second-highest story of the parking lot that had once served the Ferry. It was covered in graffiti, abandoned, open, and deserted.

Flicker and Willow had taken the girl versus guy challenge quite seriously, and had gotten Beetle up early to start gathering her swarm and creating traps. Further, Contract had actually listened to Intrepid's advice from the night before and had capitalized on every inch of cover and debris the garage had to offer. With those advantages, the girls had pretty much wiped the floor with the boys, even though they were at a significant numerical disadvantage without New Wave.

"No! Not interrupting at all," Clockblocker exclaimed, hopping off the ledge he'd been perched on while the teams recovered from their "warm-up" encounter. "Please, come on in. Let me introduce you!"

"Laserdream, Glory Girl, Shielder, Panacea," O'Reilly rattled off, gesturing appropriately. "Boston isn't that far from Brockton Bay, you know," he told Clockblocker.

"Ignore O'Reilly," Weld told them, walking over to introduce himself. "He's had a crush on Shielder since forever. I'm Weld. That's O'Reilly, and Willow is the one smacking him."

"I object! I resemble that comment!" O'Reilly protested Weld's ribbing.

Flicker rolled her eyes and she joined her leader. "Flicker. Teleporter. And Magnidude is around here somewhere."

"He's still hiding behind the far elevator hut," Beetle mused. "Can't imagine why."

"Wait until you've seen a wasp at a thousand times magnification. You'll understand," Flicker told her dryly. Beetle shrugged, as New Wave finished shaking the hands of the Wards that had chosen to come over.

"So you got started without us?" Glory Girl demanded.

Gallant had drawn close, though not as close as he would have been if the Boston Wards hadn't been watching. "One round only, if you can even call it that."

Shielder shrugged. "It's fine, we were just surprised. What's the plan?"

"We were thinking…" Weld started, before realizing that Magnidude still hadn't emerged from his hiding place. "Mag, get your ass over here!"

"PR!" Flicker and Willow chorused together. Weld winced.

"Oh, do tell," Contract said from where she was still sitting on top of the long-abandoned pickup truck that dominated the middle of the garage floor.

"PR is grooming Weld for big things, eventually," Willow stage whispered, "which means that we've been tasked with cleaning up his language."

"Coming, boss," Magnidude grumbled.

"As I was saying, we were thinking that the best use of our time might be to split into multiple smaller encounters. It's pretty rare that you get 17 capes in one area, let alone one fight-"

"-Unless the Empire decides to turn out in force. Which isn't impossible," Contract interrupted, "especially considering." Clockblocker cleared his throat, and she raised her hands in surrender. "Not saying splitting up is a bad plan, just observing the current political climate."

"Thanks for that, by the way," Laserdream muttered, and it was Shielder's turn to clear his throat. Intrepid felt his hackles start to rise, but Laserdream just rolled her eyes and fell silent.

Well, this was going to be a fun day.

They ran a large number of drills, split up by team, by specialty, by experience, and by gender. There were two short one-loss elimination tournaments, one with a single-touch win and one with three-second hold. Clockblocker won the first by virtue of his practice as a striker, and Willow easily took the second. Magnidude had the best combined score, coming in third under both criteria.

Throughout the whole day, Contract did a lot of watching. Her knives never made an appearance, and whenever she was eliminated she went over to the sidelines, sat next to Panacea, and observed the action with narrowed eyes.

Late in the afternoon, the movers engaged in a cross-city race. Intrepid begged out on account of the wrist he'd just sprained. Clockblocker gave him a look, but allowed it as he counted down the others. Laserdream, Glory Girl, and Shielder each shot off at each of their maximum speeds, and Flicker started teleporting from sight-point to sight-point as fast as possible. Vista warped space to follow her, keeping up nearly as well as Kid Win's hoverboard.

The rest of the Wards were engaged in a complex game of keep away, leaving only Contract and Intrepid sitting next to Panacea.

Panacea glanced at him, but didn't offer to heal his wrist and Intrepid didn't ask her to. If he'd really wanted to race he could have, but he was tired of Laserdream's subtle and not-so-subtle posturing. It had been a physically grueling day without worrying about politics. With a top speed at or above 50 mph, no load, and familiarity with the city, Intrepid knew he could have put in a good fight for first place, but couldn't decide if winning was worth, well, having won.

Contract glanced at the wrist as well, but didn't say anything.

"I'm fine," he told her, mostly for something to say.

Contract blinked at him. "Of course you are. It isn't even swelling, so you won't have to make up an excuse for your secret identity."

"You don't need to be sitting with me," he insisted. He made shooing motions with his hands, which Contract ignored. "Go play keep away."

"Hunch is going to win," she said shrugging.

Intrepid glanced over at the madly dashing Wards, but no one was even out of the running yet. "You sure?"

"I'd put five bucks on it." She continued watching, assessing and learning. After Clockblocker froze Magnidude she turned away from the action and looked at Panacea. "Can I ask you something, as Amy?"

Panacea looked startled at being addressed. Intrepid wasn't sure why she'd even come along with her family. Though she'd participated in a couple of the events, it had been half-hearted and sporadic. "What is it?"

"How do you handle being a healer?" Panacea's face shut down, and Contract hurried on. "I only ask, because… well, you see, when I figured out I could do some healing, I just about killed myself trying to help people. I went days without sleeping, I couldn't find the time to shower or eat, I literally ran myself off my feet. And I had clear limits to every healing I wanted to do. I hated myself for every judgement call, every person I couldn't save. I was damn near suicidal over it. If my family hadn't stepped in and forced me to stop, I probably would have… I don't even know what might have happened."

Contract stopped, but Panacea didn't seem to know how to answer her. She wasn't upset anymore, but she was sort of blank. Hesitantly, Contract continued. "I, I'm asking because you seem to have it all figured out. You've somehow managed to separate Amy and Panacea, and… if I knew how to do that… maybe I could help more people. Save more people."

Panacea looked away, watching the game. Contract cleared her throat uncomfortably and whispered, "Sorry. That was personal. I shouldn't have asked."

They sat in awkward silence while Hunch won the exercise. Kid Win returned, having given up on completing the race after he fell behind even Vista, and the Wards started a new round.

"Your family forced you to stop?" Panacea asked a bit later, out of the blue. Intrepid looked over at her, but both she and Contract were still staring straight ahead.

"Yes. I… I don't get to heal for free. The very nature of my healing tells you something about how much I care about what I'm doing. The more I healed… it got really tangled up. I wanted to save people in the abstract, I never stopped wanting to save more lives. But the people themselves started to seem unreal. I saw so many, and the healing cost me so much, that I started to resent the individual cases. Healing got cheaper as I got more confused, and my family noticed. I hid it for as long as I could; I wanted to be the sort of person that could just give selflessly forever, I wanted to be that good, but… it just wasn't possible."

Intrepid carefully kept his breathing even. Contract was very close to telling Panacea a number of things that had been declared classified. Technically, they were her secrets to give away, but it was still nerve wracking to sit there and listen.

"My… Ash… saw what was happening. He staged an intervention and locked me in a room with no outside contact until I came to my senses. He told me that it wasn't my responsibility to keep them alive. He tried to explain that death was a part of life and I couldn't hold it back forever. It took me a long time to start to believe him. I was grateful, that he'd taken the choice out of my hands, but I hated that I was grateful to him while people were still out there dying.

"After I got my head on straight, I tried to have a balance - go back to healing and to my normal life, but I got burned out even faster the second time. I made a mistake, a bad mistake, worse because it wasn't really an accident. I finally had to swear off healing all together except in the rare exception."

Contract sighed, but still didn't look away from the play-fighting. "I don't mean to dump all that on your shoulders: my problems are my problems. I know that, and I would never ask you to fix them. I just… I don't know. Like I said, I shouldn't have brought it up."

Panacea didn't respond immediately, but she did eventually speak. "Your mistake…"

Contract answered the implied question in a detached tone. "A friend brought his father to me. He wasn't dying, but he'd never walk again. We didn't have a good relationship, the patient and I. He'd left me for dead once, to save his own life, and never apologized for it. He didn't even want me to heal him, at first, and it wasn't until his son begged him to reconsider that he let me in the room. Like I should be honored to give him back his legs.

"I didn't have to even touch him to heal him, not really, but I wanted to. I knew he'd be uncomfortable to be touched by a parahuman, and I wanted that tiny bit of satisfaction. Somehow, I didn't expect him to flinch. I should have, but I didn't. It struck me hard. I asked him how much it was worth to him, to walk again. He wouldn't even look at me, let alone answer. I healed him anyway, physically, at least. My control slipped and there were… side effects. It was an accident; I didn't mean for it to happen, it just sort of… But that doesn't excuse it. I spent a lot of time, afterward, trying to make up for what I did."

"You wanted money?" Panacea asked, somehow keying on the question she'd asked her victim, rather than the terrifying implications of how she'd answered his silence. Intrepid didn't want to judge her when there were obviously a wealth of details she wasn't saying, but it almost sounded like… maybe… she'd mastered someone.

"I wanted a friggin' please," she replied, all impassiveness gone, even though she still didn't look at Panacea. "I wanted him to see me as human enough to be worth that much courtesy."

The two girls sat in silence for a moment, staring unseeingly at the physical drama happening just feet away, before Contract explained further. "I mean, yeah, I did charge for my services back when I was healing. I had to if I wanted to eat, but from him I just wanted acknowledgement. To be honest, the money was the only thing that kept me sane as long as I was. Knowing that people cared about what I was doing, that it was valuable to them; that helped me, emotionally. And it was a good way to keep people from just abusing my power. None of that was enough, in the end, but it held off the darkness."

"I wish I could help," Panacea whispered. Contract turned to look at her, slowly. After a couple seconds, Panacea looked back at her. Something passed between the two heroes that Intrepid couldn't understand, and then Contract put her arm around Panacea. That's where they were sitting a minute and a half later when Glory Girl came rocketing back into the garage. Panacea got up to congratulate her sister, and left Contract and Intrepid sitting side by side.

"Being a hero sucks," Contract said emphatically. Intrepid looked from the returning racers, flushed with excitement and childish joy, to the faces of Panacea, faking excitement, and Contract, faking detachment. The two healers were old, worn, and Intrepid found he didn't have a good response for her.

Contract hopped off the ledge, landing lightly on the balls of her feet. "Come on, we should make the most of this time to practice."

Author's note: this chapter is improved and influenced by the delightful, the dedicated, the perceptive... SlowMercury!