Captain Bastard looked at me for a long time with his face eerily frozen into an unblinking expression that somehow conveyed an utter lack of emotion and complete bafflement at the same time. Like he had no idea what to make of what I had just told him.

It actually reminded me of that time when I was seven and accidentally set the living room couch on fire and the look on Dad's face afterwards when he found me with the kitchen fire extinguisher, spray cheese and whipped cream all over the floor and TV, a broken fire alarm and me missing a shoe.

It made perfect sense at the time, honest, and more importantly I had managed to put the fire out on my own.

After a moment his mouth opened.

Closed.

Then he opened his mouth again and finally said, "In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary, 'come again?'"

I very carefully did not yell at him because I had no idea what the hell that reply was even supposed to mean. It wasn't his fault that he was a bastard. Well, maybe it was, but if I entertained that train of thought then I wouldn't get anywhere with him, and this was important. I knew it.

"There is something very seriously wrong with my class partner, Nataliya," I told him for the second time.

He sighed and his eyes slid upwards to the sky.

"Yes I'm well aware that you two are having problems, because apparently that's what happens when you put two teenage girls in a room together," he said in a flat monotone that made me fantasize immediately about punching the bastard out of him. "But until you two learn how to work things out-"

"That's not what I meant!" I snapped, cutting him off. His response was an immediate, steely glare that had me suddenly very much aware of the fact that I was but a mere junior ROTC Cadet and I had just brought him to his official 'Officer Not Fucking Amused' state and I frantically started speaking before he could actually begin laying into me.

"Shehadapsychoticepisodetheotherday!"

Captain Hatheway paused. His eyes narrowed. Then he straightened up and looked past me, towards the maintenance officer doing his best to look very busy doing one last inspection of the plane that Hatheway had been about to make use of.

"… Put my bird back in the hangar," he barked out, then he crossed his arms over his flight suit and stared patiently at me. "Cadet Hebert," he deliberately stressed my title, "start talking." Already, I was mourning the certain loss of the first actual flying I was supposed to be doing ever since I'd left Brockton Bay.

But…

Damnit.

Whatever was going on with Nataliya was more important than a couple hours of practicing flight maneuvers. Without even thinking about it, I shifted to parade rest, clasping my hands together at my lower back.

"Captain Hatheway, Nataliya is absolutely terrified of me." It twisted my stomach just to say the words out loud. I didn't care for it. "Yesterday she missed our study appointment, and when I swung by her on-base housing, she wouldn't even open the door to talk to me, but anyone could have heard the fear in her voice. When I tapped my powers, I could literally hear her heart racing at over a hundred and thirty beats per minute. I thought she was going to have a heart attack if I pressed her any harder, so I left."

Hatheway had been tapping a finger in irritation when I had started talking. Now, his fingers were tense against his bicep. But his expression? It was somber, not pissed.

"… Alright Cadet. Leaving aside that you were not only spying on a classmate, but then possibly left Sokolova in possibly a very real physical distress and a possible state of medical emergency … Take it back further. Convince me that this isn't a really distasteful joke, so I have a reason not to write your ass up right now and bench you for another four months."

That… was actually a scary threat, being forbidden from flying for even longer. On one hand, I hated that he was only just now being serious for once. But I was relieved more than anything, that he was actually listening. Something in my shoulders eased but I still nervously wet my lips with my tongue, despite the fact that I no longer actually used my mouth for speech.

"At first, I thought that she just didn't like me. My classmates aren't anything like what I'm used to. They're polite, but I know some of them think that Parahumans don't belong." My voice wavered, just a little. "Yesterday, she was making me jog to get my lap times down. When we were stretching afterwards, we were startled by a rat or a gopher or something." I paused, then blushed and quietly admitted, "Okay, I was the one who was startled. I stomped my foot at it to chase it off, but my power was pretty close to the surface and I, uhh, damaged the PT field. Again. But then I turned to look at Nataliya and tried to laugh it off, but…"

My stomach turned to acid as I remembered the look on her face.

"Captain, she, her face had gone completely gray, and when I tried to touch her, she… She let out this shriek and just jerks away from me, like I was on fire or something, and I didn't know what to do. I just stood there like an idiot. Then she stammered something about needing to use the bathroom and did everything but run away from me.

"Then I started thinking about the way she's been around me, ever since SSgt ordered her to catch me up on PT and I was assigned to tutor her. Nataliya… She flinches a little, if I move too fast near her." Something that was as painfully familiar to me as the look she'd had on her face yesterday. "When I slip and my eyes change, she never looks at me directly." I didn't know the whole picture, but the… I dunno, the shape of it, I could sort of see it. And I didn't like it. "I think something really, really horrible happened to her that no one knows about, and I think a Parahuman probably had something to do with it." [Classic signs of PTSD. Pretty bad too. Can't hold it against her.] I blinked at the strange, whispery thought, and wondered where it came from. But it felt, I dunno, right.

At some point, I had looked away from Captain Hatheway and began chewing my lip. I forced myself to stop and met his eyes, and for a moment, I was completely taken aback, because he just looked old all of a sudden. Old and tired. Then he sighed and closed his eyes, and he was mostly Captain Bastard again. Mostly.

"Good job bringing this to my attention, Cadet," he said with a faint smile. "Gotta admit, you've surprised me. Everything I know about you, I wouldn't have pegged you to stick your neck out for someone that you clearly haven't been getting along with."

I stared up at him, stunned. Stunned that he could even think that I, that anyone would think that. I'm not sure just why I said what I said next, but I just couldn't not say it. [Of course you can't not say it. It's basic goddamn sense.]

"Captain Hatheway, I know that Nataliya and I probably won't ever get along. But she's my assigned partner, and later, I might even end up serving with her. Yeah, I was ordered to work with her. Those that can't follow regs are trash. But I think that anyone who abandons a teammate is worse than trash."

Surprise made him jerk his head back and his mouth actually fell open again as he stared down at me. Then after a moment, his smile came back and grew into something less brittle, more genuinely pleased.

"Kid, take the rest of the Saturday off. I'll try and get you into the air properly… Well, not next week. You kids have that little outing to the mall at Westfield Plaza. The week after that then."

"But what abou-"

"Ahh, don't worry about Sokolova," he chided as he patted my hair like I was a little kid, and chuckled as I irritably swatted his hand away with a scowl. Bastard. "I'm going to have someone go and check in on her right now." He sighed and shook his head. "Damn… must be slipping, to let a kid pull one over on me…" he muttered in a tone so low that I probably wasn't meant to hear it. Probably. With him, I wasn't actually sure. And it's not like I could've asked, because he was already turning away and pulling out his phone.

I wasn't sure what to do with the rest of my afternoon after that. Doing PT on my own… well, I couldn't muster up the desire for it, since it only reminded me of how worried I was about Sokolova. I wasn't about to go to the base pool either like most of my classmates did. Let them gawk at my scrawny self while I shuffled about in whatever bathing suit I could find?

Ha. I'd sooner chew glass and piss it right back out, thanks.

I didn't have much to do in the little house on base that I'd been given to live in. Well, technically it was mine and Dad's to use during his visits, and I'd been gradually furnishing it little by little with my monthly stipend, if only so that it might eventually feel like more than just a place that I slept in.

Inevitably, my thoughts wandered towards Nataliya and the sick worry I felt at the thought of her. I hated that feeling, a little bit, of worrying so much about someone that I didn't even like. I wondered what Mom would've done, in my shoes.

The next thing that I knew, I had started baking.

Weird, I know. But once the impulse hit me, I couldn't resist it. It only took me a few minutes of browsing the internet on my computer (oh sweet, sweet high speed internet, how I love you), then another ten to run down to the base commissary for what I needed. I made sure to buy extras, because it had been a while since I'd last tried baking, and I didn't trust myself not to screw up my first try.

My first baking attempt… did not go well. I definitely should not have used the oven. Idiot. On the plus side though I didn't break the fire alarm this time and didn't actually need to use my kitchen's fire extinguisher.

My second attempt wasn't that great either, but the third was… okay. I knew that I could do better though.

The sun had long set when I carefully picked up the glass baking dish that contained my creation. It definitely didn't smell burnt this time, and the top layer of white chocolate looked okay… I think. I wasn't sure if I needed the oven mitts, but I wore them anyways because I didn't know for sure if I was as unaffected by heat as I was by cold, and if I was, I had no desire to test the limits of that.

When I turned around I immediately froze, because Nataliya was standing in my kitchen door.

She… she looked like she hadn't been sleeping or eating. There were dark bags underneath her bloodshot eyes and her blonde hair, normally in an immaculate and painfully tight-looking bun, was a tangled ratsnest that surprisingly fell just past her hips. She was still wearing her PT clothes from yesterday, but she was barefoot and had tracked dirty footsteps across the floor. She looked like hell. [Don't panic. Stay calm and don't raise your voice. Just talk to her.] More whispers in my thoughts. I let them guide me. They were louder than earlier. Clearer.

I very carefully did not look at Nataliya's hands.

"… Hey, Nataliya," I found myself saying in a very calm and level voice. Amazingly, my voice somehow didn't quiver even a little. "Kinda glad to see you, though I was hoping to surprise you with this tomorrow? Well, I don't know about this particular batch. I mean, it looks better than my first three tries." I deliberately glanced down at the dish of raspberry toffee topped with white chocolate.

Her eyes followed mine, and she very quietly sucked in a breath. Her hands began to shake, just a little, and a shy smile spread across my lips.

"I only just finished this batch, so I'm gonna stick it into the freezer to chill and settle. Hopefully that's not the wrong thing to do. If you want, we can try some of my third batch." With my full hands, I slowly gestured to the cut pile of toffee squares sitting on a plate on my kitchen table. I'd taken them out of the freezer too soon so they'd sort of deformed into half-melted lumps, and their bottoms were a little black in places, but it'd gotten the color mostly right.

I carefully set batch number four down, and kept one eye on Nataliya as I, slowly, reached for a piece of raspberry toffee, and without hesitation I bit into it. I almost immediately made a face, because yep, I'd burned the bottoms alright. Nataliya let out a faint wheeze of laughter and a dark amusement glittered in her reddened eyes.

I waited and chewed, and after a moment, she was curious enough to take a piece for herself, and her face scrunched up almost immediately.

"Y-your toffee needs work," she said in a hoarse mockery of her normally scornful tone around a mouthful of somewhat burned raspberry toffee and white chocolate. But she didn't stop chewing.

She put down the knife finally, and I let out a quiet breath of relief. I forced myself to eat another piece, and so did she, and when she began to tremble again, I carefully slid a kitchen chair towards her, and she all but collapsed into it. When her breathing began to hitch and she shook even harder [Don't touch her yet. She'll let you know when.] I kept my distance, and kept my hands busy by giving her something to drink and taking the knife away at the same time, then finally got my fourth batch into the freezer. She glowered at me but said nothing, not that she could with the way she was shaking and trying to stop crying around mouthfuls of toffee.

I gave her napkins to wipe her face and nose with. She definitely was not one of those girls who was cute when they cried, oh no. Her face was a splotchy mess and snot all but dripped off of her chin. She irritably wiped at her eyes and nose and mouth, even as she angrily shoved an entire piece of raspberry toffee into her mouth. But then she'd suddenly run out of steam, and had to force herself to chew and swallow.

Afterwards she very nervously, very hesitantly glanced at me out of the corner of her reddened eyes. She took my hand when I offered it, though it took some coaxing to get her to follow me. She was skittish as hell, even while coming down from whatever adrenaline high had given her the energy to come after me looking for a fight with a knife in hand. A few minutes later, I had managed to get her into my bathroom and into the shower, and pretended that I couldn't hear her crying over the water [keep the door open a little just in case, but don't watch her. She'll need to feel like she has some privacy], while I picked out something clean that she could wear, all the while wondering just what were these, I dunno, these impulses guiding how I was handl-

A sharp and insistent knocking at the front door distracted me. What… was I thinking about again? Must not have been important. Certainly not now, and I made my way downstairs, though I had a good idea of who might be there.

I was unsurprised to see four female MPs at my front door. It was however something of a surprise to see SSgt Murphy with them. I knew exactly why they were there of course. It was obvious given how tense all five of them were.

"Cadet Hebert, are you alright?" SSgt Murphy said in a tone that held no patience at all for any sort of nonsense, and her eyes had already noticed the dirty footprints on my floor.

Shit.

"Of course we are, Staff Sergeant Murphy!" I poured on the bullshit and I poured it on as thickly as I could, smiling almost manically at the intimidating woman. "Well, Nataliya might've overindulged on my crappy attempt at making raspberry toffee, which probably wasn't a good idea because she wasn't feeling all that well to begin with, so I'm hoping the shower settles her a little and then maybe we might watch a movie or just go straight to bed if she's not up for it."

SSgt Murphy's eyes narrowed to slits. She stepped forward, and I had to fight the instinctive urge to back away while also not looking like I was deliberately trying to block her from entering, because powers or not, there was no way in hell that I'd be able to keep her from going anywhere in my house that she wanted to go. Every inch of her tense posture made that crystal clear.

"We're going to need you to stand aside so we take a look Cadet," she ordered me, and it was an order despite the thin veil of politeness her tone carried. I knew with an uncomfortable certainty that the older woman had already made up her mind, and trying to do anything about it would be stupid.

"Ma`am, there's nothing wrong. She only came over because she wasn't feeling well." So I guess I was stupid. SSgt Murphy certainly seemed to think so, because suddenly had a hand pressed hard against my sternum and was shoving me aside as the MPs fell in behind her, and that's when Nataliya appeared at the top of the steps, absolutely soaking wet and hastily dressed in the t-shirt and shorts that I had left out for her. Despite how things were, I felt my cheeks redden with a little bit of jealousy, because she filled out my clothes better than I could have hoped to and wow she really should have dried off better.

Everyone froze, and I was uncomfortably aware of the pistol on SSgt Murphy's right hip. Nataliya stared down at us, her hands mercifully empty but trembling.

"Hebert, I threw up in your toilet," she said quietly. "Your burned toffee did not sit well. Good evening, Staff Sergeant Murphy."

"You've had a lot of people concerned about you, Cadet Sokolova," was her steady reply.

"My apologies, Staff Sergeant."

"Yeah, sorry Staff Sergeant," I butted in. "I didn't think to inform anyone that she was feeling under the weather. I take full responsibility for that." SSgt Murphy turned a steady glare on me that, any other time, would have turned my guts into water.

"Is that so," she spoke through clenched teeth.

"Yes ma`am!" I risked a brief glance up the stairs out of the corner of my eye. "Though leaving all that hair soaking wet like that isn't going to do you any favors, Nataliya. Go dry your hair before you catch a cold and end up feeling even worse. You can crash in my dad's room for the night, okay?" Then I found the courage to meet SSgt Murphy's steely gaze. "If you're still not feeling well in the morning, then I'll go with you to the MTF. Is that alright, Staff Sergeant?"

The silence dragged on painfully.

Then mercifully, something in the older woman's shoulders eased, just a little, and she turned her gaze from me to Nataliya. "Don't just stand there Sokolova," she barked out. "Dry that mop of hair of yours, then get yourself into bed. Regardless of how you feel in the morning, you're getting checked out by a medic. Clear?"

Nataliya blinked, and suddenly she looked confused and uncertain.

"Tak… Ahh… Y-yes, ma'am," she stammered out. Murphy snorted in response. "Then don't just stand there slack-jawed, get moving. Now."

She got moving. Then before I could even begin to open my mouth, I found a finger in front of my nose.

"Not another word, Hebert," she all but growled at me. "You. Bed. Now."

I got moving. As I did, the older woman quietly spoke to the MPs that had come with her. They didn't seem exactly thrilled, but they left all the same. But SSgt Murphy showed no indication that she was leaving any time soon unfortunately. When she caught me lingering on the stairs she gave me another glare and crossed her arms, and I hurried up the stairs to my room and slipped into bed.

I knew that I was going to absolutely pay for this somehow. But all I could feel was relief that I just might have just saved Nataliya from letting her fear make her do something really stupid.

It was only after I'd crawled into my bed that I let myself dwell on the fact that Nataliya had broken into my house to try to kill me. Once again, a classmate of mine had come close to killing me. And I could not understand why Nataliya's attempt didn't bother me nearly as much as it should have, or just how I'd managed to talk her down.