'—I showed mercy, but if you think that's a weakness, remember she is family you are not, and if you come for my family—do you really want to see what I'll do to you?'

As the color drained from her face, she could feel the sweat pricking at the back of her neck, as the nausea built and her stomach churned. The guilt eating away at her, this was her fault. Charlie had known that something was wrong, and her actions had cost her girlfriend half of her family. There was no fixing this, and her attempts to call her girlfriend had been met with radio silence.

"Mija?" Maribel said gently, reaching for her daughter but pulling her hand back immediately she could feel the heat from her daughter and didn't want to get burnt. "It's going to be okay, she's strong! She's the strongest person you know."

That wasn't true at all, Charlie had an enormous sense of responsibility, and she doubted that her girlfriend would shift the blame to her, it probably hadn't even crossed her mind at this point. "This is my fault. Oh god, I did this. She told me, she fucking told me that she felt something was wrong and I made her stay. She had ditched so many of these family meetings and I gave her an ultimatum. She stayed because of me, she could have saved them. She promised it would only take a second. But I thought she was just making an excuse again! We've been fighting and I feel like she's pulling away from me and I just—I wanted her to stay. To just choose me! Is that so wrong?" When her parents exchange looks she knows she's in the wrong even if they're not going to put the blame on her.

"Mija—"

Santana pushed herself up, even if Charlie hated her, which was possible, even if Charlie blamed her she needed to make this right. "I need to go over there, I need to be there for her. I need to be there for them, and I liked Judy and Lawrence—Charlie loved him, and her grandmother. I should have just let her go. She's generally right about these things and Cassandra has always been psychotic. Charlie just thought it was because of the alcohol and drug abuse and that once she got clean that everything would be fine. And if I hadn't then Charlie could have saved some of them, and stopped Cassandra sooner."

"Santana, mija. Listen to me now." Maribel said speaking up firmly, she'd seen this before as a prosecutor, the guilt that ate away at people when these things happened. "Cassandra is the one that killed them, you can't predict the future and you certainly can't predict what would have happened. Charlie could have been taken off guard and she'd be dead too. Or she might have been able to save one person, but there would still be deaths. I'm not saying that demanding an ultimatum from her was right, or that your feelings about Charlie's actions are invalid, but I need you to know that this isn't your fault."

"Take some leftovers and go over there and see what you can do to help or be there for her," Miguel suggests. They had made a feast for Thanksgiving this year, because Santana had insisted that Charlie's stomach was a blackhole and while Charlie had definitely gone back for seconds, it wasn't nearly as bad as what Santana had suggested about her girlfriend's eating habits.

~ O ~

"No fucking way." Bayley spoke up first, breaking the silence that had enveloped the room, irritation in her voice. "Does this mean I have to be fucking nice to the kid or she'll take away my abilities? Like is anyone else concerned about a fucking teenager having the power to take away all of our abilities?"

Becky spoke up first, "The kid isn't going to take away your powers because you were an utter bitch to her, if anything she found your hate amusing. I mean we lived with her, we trained her, and she really wants to fuck Sasha. I say if it comes to it, Sasha you need to take one for the team."

Sasha shot Becky an irritated look, "First of all, fuck you Becky. Secondly, she's right Bayley, Charlie isn't going to go around stripping AI's of their ability. The threat was clear: if people come after her family, if they hurt the people she cares about she will be the monster we all fear."

"I don't know why this is a surprise to anyone, she showed the world this ability when she fought me, I just don't know why no one followed up on it," Charlotte spoke up shuddering, when her healing had simply stopped, she had been. "I lost that fight."

"You won that fight," Bayley insists.

"She let me win, which honestly is kind of insulting, but none of that matters now." Charlotte admits, it had bothered her for ages, and it was the first time voicing what she was sure the right people knew. "We need to head over there and offer the family our support. And more importantly we're going to offer Charlie and her family every resource at our disposal. Cassandra went crazy, the problem is there is no one that can stop Charlie from doing that. She's too powerful to control and I doubt her family is going to let her be leashed by the government. And it's clear that traditional methods don't work in containing members of the family and the thing is we don't want the government developing better tools. Because under the wrong president those tools will be used against us. The kid needs protection and we know her, and Bayley you were wrong about her she's not soft. She's kind. And we need to make sure that she doesn't fall off the deep end like Cassandra."

~ O ~

General Alder, finally tears her eyes away from the television and looks at the phone that is sitting on her desk. For the past few minutes it had been ringing, and only a few people knew how to reach this number, which meant that it really only could be one person.

"It's not like you to keep the president waiting," General Petra Bellwether spoke up from the war table.

General Alder flicked her gaze to General Bellwether for a brief moment. It was a challenge, as other generals under command turned to look at her expectantly. With a pause she picks up the phone, "Mr. President," she says firmly, in greeting, and listens intently for a moment. "My recommendations have not changed." Another pause as she listens intently, before letting out a bit of a sigh. "I do understand the concern, we have lost 2 of our twelve level 5 AI's, and while this constitutes an emergency, you know as well as I do that the Posse Comitatus Act prevents me from acting."

General Alder stands as the president speaks, "Must I remind you that Francesca Fabray is key to many of our deployment strategies, and the truth is we actually have very little information on just how powerful Charlie is, and remember she has a twin, we also don't know what will cause Quinn to act. She has a general aversion to using her powers outside of art projects and installations and I believe that antagonizing her will cause irreparable harm, considering how powerful they are." After a momentary pause. "I will be on a flight to Washington, within the hour." With that she hangs up the phone.

Petra immediately stands up, "Are you sure that doing nothing is wise?"

Sara Alder glanced at the television, "If what she said is true and she stripped Cassandra of her abilities, then I don't think you're thinking big enough. We just witnessed the birth of a tyrant."

Petra frowned, "If you believe her to be a threat—"

"I use the word Tyrant with its original meaning, an absolute ruler unrestrained by the law. There is no prison that will hold her, attempting to kill her will not go well. Which means there is no law that she has to obey. She has disrupted the natural order, and she's a fucking teenager Petra. She's young, and she's going to be in the public eye saving people, something she's already very good at. She will speak on politics, and the people will listen. Thankfully she takes after Lawrence and not Artemis. The fact that she's more like Lawrence than Artemis is the only reason that I'm not insisting on doing anything. If the child was like Artemis, god help us all. She would rule this planet. That arrogance—the interfering every now and again, and reminding people that she sat at the top of the throne. The only thing that kept Artemis in check was the Union of Justice, and I'm all but certain that Charlie is far stronger than them. There won't be a check to that power. She showed restraint, she showed kindness in the face of what she must have witnessed, so I will advise the president and future presidents to leave her alone. Let's pray to the gods that she doesn't want to get involved."

~ O ~

Quinn sighed as she made sure that Brittany was as comfortable as she could be in her bed, Frannie had said that Brittany had exhausted herself, pouring all her energy into trying to bring her mother, and her grandparents back to life. It had been difficult not to get her hopes up, her family had a notorious reputation of bending the rules of reality when it suited them. And yet—for all their power and all the wealth that her family had accumulated, they hadn't been able to conquer death. At least not yet.

Quinn takes a deep breath and lets it out, letting the water vapor condense as she pulls away from her older sister and leaves her bedroom, quietly closing the door to give Brittany some privacy and some quiet to sleep it off. She didn't have time to break down, Cassandra might have been taken care of, but that didn't mean that they were no longer in danger. So many of her father's contacts were watching with bated breath to see what would happen, and she could already predict another attack was coming.

She just wasn't sure where it would come from, but it was coming and they needed to be ready. Charlie shouldn't be the only one shouldering the burden of keeping the family—

"What do you mean you don't know where she is?"

Quinn pinched the bridge of her nose, it was one thing after another today, and the last thing she needed was Santana yelling and causing a scene, or worse waking up Mikey who had been put down for his nap. She was jealous of her nephew, he wouldn't remember any of this. She glances back at her room for a moment before making her way to the stairs where she can see Santana at the door. "How the fuck did you—actually you know what I don't care. Charlie's not here. No one knows where she is, as you could tell from the police tape, her truck got destroyed as did her phone."

"I tried to tell her," Rachel informs Quinn in an apologetic tone. She understood Santana's panic, if she hadn't been with Quin when it had happened, she would have been at their door the moment that Cassandra had been dragged away in cuffs by the police.

Santana shook her head, "You don't get it, this is—"

Quinn immediately created a band of ice around Santana's mouth, shutting her up. "Santana, I don't actually give a shit about what you're feeling right now. In case you hadn't realized, half of my family was just murdered, by another member of my family. I don't have the energy or the headspace to deal with whatever guilt you feel right now because you and Charlie probably had some fight. I don't know where Charlie is, if I did know I'd tell you because I don't think any one of us should be alone right now. So go home, whenever she comes back Rachel—"

"I'll text you." Rachel promises.

On any other day Santana would simply burn through the iceband, and start firing shots at Quinn, but she'd never seen Quinn look so tired. Throwing her usual shade at her girlfriends' twin and insisting that she get to stay like Rachel and Mike. But she's more concerned about finding her girlfriend, and as she melts the ice she looks up at Quinn. "If Charlie swings by, I'll text Rachel. Something you don't have to worry about and I'll bring some food over tomorrow."

Quinn lets out a sigh that she didn't know she'd been holding and nods, turning around, she wanted to check on Mikey. "According to Frannie it all happened so fast. Even if she felt something off, she wouldn't have made it back in time to save anyone. If anything you might have saved her life. At the very least you prevented her from killing our Aunt. I'm not sure how I feel about that right now."

Santana watches as Quinn returns upstairs and looks over at Rachel, "I'm sorry for just barging in—"

"You're worried, I am too." Rachel admits looking up at where Quinn had been. "I'll keep you informed. Frannie and Russell have gone to make sure that the bodies are taken care of. Charlie should be back soon, I hope."

~ O ~

"Is that—what's she doing here? Wasn't she just in Ohio? It was all over the news. How'd she get here so fast?"

The whispers should bother her, but right now the pressing need was to minimize the damage that her Aunt had caused, all the people that she had hurt that she had injured. She needed to undo that, she needed to make it right. She glances up at the lights which flicker uncontrollably for a minute. She was exerting too much power right now.

"Your eyes are weird."

Charlie immediately glances at the small voice that spoke, a child who was immediately hushed by a man who looks terrified and despite the fact that she honestly doesn't feel a thing she forces a smile onto her features. She loved dealing with children. "Really?"

The kid nods and manages to squirm away from his father, and approaches her. "Are you a hero? I saw you on TV but they didn't say you were a hero."

"Sometimes," Charlie informs him, and the kid looks baffled at her answer. "My parents make me go to school," the kid immediately nods sagely, he understood how boring school was.

"My parents make me go to school too!"

"School is important, you need to learn about the world if you want to be a hero," Charlie informs him.

"Are you here to save my mom?" the boy asks.

Charlie pauses for a moment and looks around the waiting room, all eyes glued to the two of them. Brittany needed to be in close physical touch with someone to heal them, and the more complex the injury the longer it took. It was a limitation that her Grandmother Rose faced, it wasn't efficient. "I'll try," Charlie said looking up at the ceiling for a moment, in this moment she felt like she could do anything and if all that mattered was a connection with the person she was healing—then all she would need to do is expand her field as big as the hospital and she would be able to heal everyone. "Stand back," she asks the kid who immediately scrambles back to his father, his eyes wide.

Charlie inhales slowly before clearing her mind, before creating a massive electrical field under the hospital, using the wiring and even though there's a sharp pain in her head, she pushes through and focuses. She can feel them all life in the vicinity, she could feel the surgeons working desperately to save lives, or even to simply improve lives. The sickness, the suffering. She could end it all. She takes a breath, and begins to work. She could feel who was closer to death than others.

Minutes pass, before Charlie turns to look at the child, "I don't know who your mom is but I've healed everyone who isn't in surgery right now." Whispers break out and Charlie tries to take a step but she immediately stops and raises a hand noting the almost exaggerated tremor. Her body felt unnaturally stiff as well. There's almost disbelief on her face but the tremor stops in seconds and the stiffness dissipates, and she makes her way to the desk. "I can save them. All of them but I need the surgeons to step away."

The nurse at the desk shoots Charlie a look of absolute disbelief, when the door suddenly bursts open causing both of them to turn, and the nurse's eyes widen in surprise. There was no way that a man who had just been wheeled in should be able to walk. His Achilles tendon had snapped, it would have required surgery but he was practically hopping up and down. "I guess it wasn't that bad after all," the man laughs, "I'm not going to be charged for this, am I? It was a false alarm."

The nurse's head immediately turns back to Charlie and she nods, "Right this way."

Charlie nodded, and followed the nurse through the doors and into the hallways where people who had been in pain were starting to move as she witnessed doctors and residents running around, unsure of what was happening as more and more patients who had filled up their ER started to move and get up to leave. "Where did all the other people who were hurt in the fire get directed to. Can you give me a list and directions? I don't have the best sense of direction in the air. And my phone got destroyed earlier today."

"Anything for you!" The nurse, Penny, chirped. "I can't wait to tell my kids this. Do you think I could maybe get an autograph and a picture? Once you're finished of course."

Charlie kept her face neutral, "Of course but please keep it quiet, there isn't a lot of time and I still have to fly around while avoiding certain people, and if you could let them know in advance, that the moment that I get there the surgeons need to stop and remove all their tools and let me get to work."

"Of course!" the nurse agrees immediately, if the head nurse found out that she'd asked for an autograph she'd be doing the night shift till further notice. "You're a real hero you know! And I hope that you make New York your home! We love you here."

~ O ~

'Honestly I don't have a problem with what she said. She just lost her mother and her grandparents in a horrific attack, and quite frankly if that had been my mother and my grandparents, god rest their souls, then I would have burned the whole world down. She's a teenager, and this is her first big loss and she gave the world a warning, she gave the villains of this world a warning. Do not come after my family or there will be hell to pay. This is America and that is the most American thing I've heard all day. Who cares if she has the ability to switch of AI's abilities. At this moment we're not certain that it's permanent and even if it is. Who cares? Cassandra July is a psychotic killer. I'm not going to shed a tear over her fate. And what is Charlie doing, taking over the country? No, she's visiting hospitals and healing people. A gift none of us knew she had, and she's stopping to take pictures and give her thanks to the nurses and doctors. She's a good kid, and she's a hero. An American hero.'

Quinn closed her laptop, public sentiment was trending in Charlie's favor. Which meant that even if she had put the fear of god in the powers that be, the public would help keep them at bay for now. She didn't give a shit if they threw Cassandra down into a deep dark hole and ran tests on her for the rest of what she hoped would be a miserable existence.

There's a knock on the door and she glances up, as Rachel pokes her head in, "Marley called—"

"My relationship with Marley has already hit its expiration date Rachel, I'm not interested. Honestly if I could have anything or anyone right now, I just want my mom back. I miss them, gramps bitching about the state of heroes and egging Charlie on. Grandma just let the chaos happen with a smile on her face. It's Thanksgiving and—" Quinn's surprised by the warmth of the hug as Rachel just holds her and in that moment she feels the tears that she had tried to contain begin to well up and fall as she lets out a sob.