It was 3 AM before a portal opened up in the kitchen of the Fabray compound and Charlie steps out with a noticeable limp and her clothes in tatters, but she was carrying a massive box in her hands, a half-eaten croissant in her mouth. She half-expects to come home to a dark kitchen, but the lights are on and she turns just in time for her father to pull her into a bear hug. She hadn't expected anyone to wait up for her, let alone her father. "I'm okay, just a bit unsteady—ow, careful, I definitely pulled or tore something, I think it was while I was in Japan or maybe it was Seuol, I dunno."

Russell pulls his daughter away from him for a moment so he can inspect her. He had never worried about Charlie, not like Judy had, but now he understood. None of them were guaranteed a tomorrow, and seeing his youngest fighting monsters and villains, getting hurt—he wasn't sure if he could carry the weight of his guilt if anything happened to her. "Brittany is—"

"I don't need Britt, dad, I'll heal myself. I just need a soak, then I have homework, and I only have a few hours before I have to be in class," Charlie stated with a shrug.

"School?" Russell repeats, "You need to rest."

"I'll rest when I have time to rest, which I imagine will be when I'm dead and buried," Charlie grunts at him, "Croissant? They're fresh from Paris. Homework, babysitting for Frannie, class I think I have a test or something today, I don't know. Then I have to listen to the Titans complain about Frannie and how I owe them an expensive dinner, which I do, and I suppose at some point I'll have to do some interviews, can Ms. Hogarth read a statement for me, I imagine that a lot of people are going to be upset about Chicago. But I simply couldn't put them all to sleep at the same time, I would have killed a significant portion of the people there, and I couldn't do it bit by bit or they would have gotten trampled to death."

"Charlie—"

Charlie pulled away and opened the fridge and pulled out an energy drink, "I should also probably start working on getting a super suit, I also need a ton of new clothes. I should go to the mall afterwards, Santana's probably still mad at me and I really don't want to make shopping in Lima a thing—"

"Charlotte Reagen Fabray," Russell interrupted, crossing his arms over his chest. "Brittany is already here and waiting, she was worried about you. We were all worried about you, and you don't even seem to care." Russell inhales sharply and clenches his fists, "You have people that care and love you Charlie, and you need to start taking care of yourself."

Charlie stared for a brief moment before her lip curled into a surly grimace, she despised being called Charlotte. "People were dying. Heroes were dying. This was a coordinated attack, and we haven't seen one of those since before your parents were alive. The Utopian estimates that they decimated thousands of heroes across the globe. This was coordinated, and I was targeted, which means we have to assume that this family is a target. I'll rest when those people fear me more than they ever did grandma. I need a super suit. Add that to my list of things to do."

"Of course it was a coordinated attack, it was only a matter of time, my influence has waned with recent events, and with me being here—" Russell inhaled to control his temper, he wanted to shake her. "You are not alone Charlie, and this isn't just your cross to bear. You're still a kid, a kid who saw some fucked up things today. A kid who got molested by some fucking weirdo on national tv, a kid who bled and sweated and saved millions of people. And you're also a kid who is going to be picked apart in the media tomorrow, you're going to have people cursing your name. Questioning whether you were ready. They will wonder if you didn't save as many people this time, because of what happened during your hearing, and you're not immune to all that noise."

"I honestly don't give a shit what people think of me," Charlie snapped at him. She had just wanted a nice long shower where she could heal herself in peace. She was sure she still had shards of glass in her back, which her body had healed over. "Look—"

"Brittany," Russell interrupts, shooting Charlie a look. They would table this for later.

"Holy shit you two are loud. Also I did tell them you'd be fine," Brittany yawns and rubs her eyes. "Are those croissants?"

"Yeah, fresh from Paris, help yourself," Charlie said, stepping aside as Brittany makes her way to the box of croissants. As Brittany brushes past her she glares at her father. "I just want to—"

Russell takes a quick step forward to attempt to catch Charlie who suddenly crumples onto the floor. He doesn't get there in time and turns to look up at Brittany who has a chocolate covered croissant in her mouth and gives him a wide-eyed-look and shrugs. "You could have warned me."

Britt chewed on her croissant, leaving a trail of crumbs as she bent down and peered into Charlie's face, "Honestly I wasn't going to do anything but she's in rough shape, like really bad. I'm probably going to need to do a deep analysis to figure out what's wrong." Brittany pokes Charlie in the cheek, before tilting her head, her eyes widening for a moment. "I'm going to need a bucket, possibly two."

~ O ~

Shannon sighed, she had been relegated again but Frannie's methods, while harsh and bordering on the sadistic at times, had lit a fire under the team's ass since Charlie had stepped down and simply stopped showing up. She needed to learn everything she could and develop an eye that Charlie seemed to have for talent. The world was still counting its dead, both civilians and heroes, who had been lost to the tragic attack. Things were going to get political quickly.

Still she'd worry about that another day, she needed to start watching tape from various other regionals to see who the team should be watching out for. She had planned to cross reference the list from the top schools with various students and start paying attention, but the light being on in the exercise room causes her to pause and stop, poking her head in to see who was using the equipment this early. "Lopez?"

Santana doesn't hear Beiste over the blare of her headphones, she hadn't been able to sleep a wink, how could she? Her ex-girlfriend had spent nearly 18 hours on the field, fighting monsters, villains, stopping looting, and it had dawned on her that her fitness was lacking. Charlie had mentioned it in passing before but Frannie's insane training regiment, and watching Charlie fight for 18 hours straight had been enough to convince her that she needed to take it seriously. She doubted she would ever be able to go 18 hours straight, but if she could at least do a third of that, then she'd be happy.

"Lopez!" Beiste shouts again, this time watching as Santana stops and removes her headphones and looks at her. "What are you doing here so early?"

"Couldn't sleep," Santana admits. "Told Quinn to pick up Rachel, just had some excess energy I needed to burn."

"Well, I'm sure this will set a good example for the team. Just don't overdo it. The amount Charlie trains isn't remotely healthy."

"I know, I just wanted to get some cardio in, not going to build muscle or stamina if I slack off. Besides, Frannie's not going to take it easy on us."

"She really isn't, and I don't blame her. We lost a lot of heroes yesterday, the KIA count is in the hundreds, and governments are going to look at their training programs to make sure that this doesn't happen again. Still that doesn't mean you should destroy your body, so like I said don't overdo it."

Santana nodded before pausing, "Normally I'd bother Charlie until she agreed to make me a workout program, but I realize that Charlie and her entire family is insane. I need to increase my fitness, but I need to have a plan that isn't something absolutely absurd and impossible for anyone that doesn't have the last name Fabray."

Shannon nodded, "Yeah, I can certainly put together a plan for you but it's a complete way of living, can't just work out and need to have the right food as well. Getting the right nutrients, so your body has everything it needs."

Santana nodded, that made sense. "Can you organize more joint practices? We need to make sure that everyone underestimates us."

"Will do, I'll start making the calls when things open up, don't work too hard.

~ O ~

"Brittany's with her," Quinn answers Rachel's unasked question as she gets into her car, and can you tell Santana that texting me in the middle of the night is not any way to make sure I see something before school. You know I like to sleep in till the very last moment."

"I know that, and I'm sure Santana knows that but she was super worried about Charlie—just like I'm sure you were worried."

"I wasn't. After the Wraith fight, Charlie's missions were pretty straightforward. I spent most of last night looking into Vought International. I didn't get that far, while some of their filings are public, I'm not an accountant, and I got lost with all the numbers," Quinn admits.

"Isn't Vought International a conglomerate? Like aren't they by definition into some shady things? It's a corporation, and a big one."

"Yes, one that was started by a literal nazi," Quinn frowned tapping the steering wheel. "It's like a competition to see who is the most evil. I mean they've clearly moved on from their disgusting racist roots, the CEO isn't a straight white man. And they have all these initiatives and marketing campaigns, about how inclusive they are. And how great it is to work for them."

Rachel blinked, "Why are you looking into Vought International?"

"Homelander claims that he had been aiming at Wraith, except he missed and hit Charlie's arm. He has laser vision, that's literally not how his powers work," Quinn grumbled. "I mean this whole thing was coordinated and—"

"You think that Vought International, which owns several hero firms across the world, had something to do with a massive coordinated attack on all the world's capitals. An attack where they lost quite a few heroes themselves?"

Quinn frowned, when Rachel put it like that it did sound like she had been watching to many conspiracy theories. "Sorry I just thought—"

"Why?"

Quinn turned to look at Rachel, "You don't think I sound insane?"

"Of course you sound insane, but it's not as if massive corporations haven't done insane things before. I don't know why a company would dump sludge into ground water and hide it from the nearby residents, but they do. I mean there are easier ways to manipulate the market than killing off half of their workforce."

"Also less risky ways—he did it while the world was watching and he got PR people out immediately afterwards to paint himself as the victim," Quinn mused. She had been missing the bigger picture. "I need to change the focus—" she mumbled to herself. "So why did Homelander protect Wraith? Why Wraith?"

"Well, who is she? I think that's the question you should ask yourself. I mean who is she outside of a murdering psychopathic sexual harasser, it might be easier to find her and work back from her. Maybe she used to work for Vought and they didn't want it coming out. Like it would look bad, don't they have their own farm system, where they recruit hundreds of heroes and train them and put them into various firms? Maybe she was a recruit."

Quinn shook her head, "That might be but again it's still risky. Like Wraith wouldn't be the first prospect to go bad. I mean all firms deal with it, the Union of Justice has needed to deal with it a bunch. It's not the end of the world, we as a society don't blame the firms, we blame the individual. It's something to think about anyway. I'll look into it," Quinn said, glancing over at Rachel, before flushing, she had just spent the car ride over just going on about evil corporations. She hadn't even asked how Rachel was doing, "Are you okay?"

"I am, my fathers said no to going up to New Haven with you though, I mean with recent events they're a bit on edge. We haven't seen an attack like this—I mean have we ever seen an attack like this?"

"It used to be far more common before the Union of Justice became International," Quinn replied, trying not to frown, once it had been spelled out to her she had gotten eager to go on an overnight trip with Rachel. "I could talk to them, or we can make plans for next week, they're still going to let us go to see the shows on the weekends right?"

"They're excited for me, my dad's super jealous, but they've given me a curfew, which has never happened before. We're not supposed to stay in New York overnight. I told them that they were being ridiculous but they're being overprotective."

Quinn's brow furrowed, "What exactly did you tell your dads about me?"

"Nothing! They like you! This is mostly about me growing up that they dislike. It's all perfectly normal, we'll talk about it in family therapy."

"Family therapy?"

"Don't ask," Rachel grumbles.

"I had no plans to," Quinn lies.

~ O ~

Brittany dabbed her forehead as she slumped into the seat that her father had brought beside Charlie's bed, "Why do you always have to make me work so damn hard," she grumbles to her sister, poking her in the cheek with a finger. At least they hadn't needed to use the buckets yet, though she imagined that would be inevitable once Charlie woke up.

A knock on the door pulls Brittany's attention for a brief moment and she spots her father looking rather nervously at Charlie's prone body. "I'm not going to be able to knock her out at will anymore, she's going to be suspicious of me moving forward," Brittany informs him with a shrug of her shoulders.

"I know, but how is she?"

Brittany shrugged her shoulders, "I mean she's fine now, but she was really in bad shape. I mean really even after she wakes up, I think she needs to have a full physical and a battery of blood tests, her body is in terrible working order. Her spinal fluid was dangerously low, like low enough that we could have been seeing some catastrophic effects, but at the same time I noticed all the monsters in the fridge today, Charlie knows nothing about medicine, and caffeine and bedrest are what's necessary so she was self-medicating badly. I mean her brain was a mess, random parts completely hypertrophied, other parts shrunk, her ventricles were enlarged had to fix that. And I got rid of all the tau protons, she was going to resemble that linebacker that I dated briefly. He was not very good at—" Brittany glanced at her father for a moment noting how uncomfortable he looked at her words. "She'll be fine, I promise. Just no more monsters for a bit, her blood was like 50% caffeine."

"When will she wake up? The media is hounding Hogarth's offices, and she's deflected so far, but—school has started and it's out that Charlie is not in attendance. A cease and desist letter is being drafted and sent to McKinley, they shouldn't be commenting on her whereabouts right now."

"She's asleep. She just fought for 18 hours and she's a teenager, she's sleeping it off. And then bitch about how it's funny how multiple senators tried to score political points off her, and how they're still trying to do that but they were nowhere to be found when shit hit the fan. Just be a concerned overprotective father, people like that sort of thing . Charlie could wake up in a few hours, or a few days, so keep that in mind, and after she purges her system she's going to be hungry so have loads of food waiting for her."

"Right, your mom—"

"Mom's gone, dad so you're going to need to step up at least until March and Quinn and Charlie become legal adults. This is the bare minimum you could do," Brittany interrupts sharply. "Mom knew what to do because she was around you weren't, so be around and figure out what to do. Now I'm going to go and play with my nephew. I think Frannie's pitting the three of us against each other and I want to be the favorite aunt."

"I know your mom's gone, I was just trying to think of what she would do, what they would do."

"Well, right now you need to make sure Charlie recovers. Talk to her therapist, she saw some pretty fucked up shit yesterday, and she's young. Charlie's 17, and she's already straining her body. I mean honestly if you told me that she was forgetting things, and getting things mixed up or hearing or seeing things, I wouldn't be surprised. That's how messed up her mind was, I put everything back together again and gave an extra massive dose of melatonin, like enough to put an elephant to sleep, and then I doubled the dose, because she was burning through it like it was nothing."

"Understood," Russell sighs and looks at his youngest for a moment. He turns leaving her room, he would need to go and deal with the media now.

~ O ~

It's nearly two in the afternoon when Charlie's eyes snap open and she sits up in her bed, "Brittany," she grumbles under her breath. She swings her legs off the bed, getting ready to find her older sister and curse her out when she realizes that everything is quiet. A quick scan of the house indicated that she was alone. "Any words of wisdom grandpa?" Charlie calls out, but she doesn't hear her grandfather's voice. In fact for the first time in a long time her mind was relatively clear, and she felt normal. How long had it been since she'd felt normal? New York. It had been New York, things had gotten infinitely worse after Thanksgiving. She couldn't even remember the last time that she had slept. The constant pressure to simply be on.

She stretches out her arm and feels her joints popping back into place and groans, it felt so good like she'd just had a very long soak, and now all she needed was some food. She grunts and opens a portal, she still felt like tacos. The good kind, not the Taco Bell kind, and she steps through it. It probably would have been wise to order her food in advance, but it's a food truck and she wanted her food piping hot, as she takes her place in line, throwing up her hoodie and hoping that no one recognizes her.

For once she manages to go unnoticed until she reaches the front of the line and sees the food truck owner's eyes bug out of his head when he spots her. She gives him a look and presses a finger to her lips and sees some recognition and some pity flash on his face. "I'll take 6 birria tacos, extra sauce and two lime jarritos."

"Excellent choice and you don't have to worry about—"

Charlie pulls out her card, "I need to give you a tip," she interrupts. She didn't carry cash around. The owner nods after a brief moment and motions to the machine. She pays and gives a generous tip and moves to the owner before stepping aside so she can wait for her food. She adjusts her hoodie as she grabs a jarrito and cracks it open with her abilities before taking a sip and smiling. She had always liked coming to food trucks. The food was always better than what she got at restaurants, and the portions were bigger. Whenever she had taken Santana out it was always to the most expensive places, and she had needed to grit her teeth about the tiny portions. It doesn't take that long for her order to be called and she grabs her bag and opens a portal and steps through it, ignoring the gasps from people who suddenly figured it out as she gets back to her room and takes a seat at her desk, turning on her computer. She really should work on her english essay, but she wasn't particularly in the mood for that and instead starts looking for some new cartoons to watch. She wasn't a fan of the newer version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, "They made a new Ducktales?" She mumbles mostly to herself as she clicks on it. She was not a fan of reboots, and if they changed such an iconic song she was going to be grossly disappointed.

She tears open the bag and picks out a taco and dips it in the sauce as the song plays.

Life is like a hurricane

Here in Duckburg

Race cars, lasers, airplanes

It's a duck-blur!

Might solve a mystery

Or rewrite history!

Charlie tilted her head, her interest finally piqued, enjoying the modernized version of a classic song, "Well at least they have respect for the original," she mumbles as she becomes fully vested. She watches the first two episodes with a massive grin on her face. That had been enjoyable, and she knew what would keep her mildly interested in class now. She yawns and stretches out again before crawling back into her bed and dropping down like a rock as she quickly falls back asleep. She couldn't even remember when she had slept in this bed, but she hugs her body pillow tightly and quickly falls back into a deep sleep.

~ O ~

"Is she—" Frannie begins glancing up at Brittany who was making her way back down the stairs.

"She's alive, woke up at some point clearly went to go and get some tacos, if the jarritos are anything to go by, and then promptly went back to sleep, I dosed her again, just to make sure that she's actually out and isn't going to spy on us, but we need to decide what to do about her."

"There's nothing to do about her, Charlie's not Cassandra," Quinn stated. "I mean that won't stop the world from making the observation, or even outright accusing her of being Cassandra. That's going to hang over her head, but Charlie's far too kind to ever be Cassandra, and she avoids drinking and doing normal teenage behavior because she doesn't want to risk it. I'm not saying that Charlie will never have a drink, but she's cognizant that addiction issues run in the family."

"I mean not really, no one in the family has the issues that Cassandra had," Frannie points out. "I can drink wine, I've used drugs before, I'm not going to murder a bunch of people. Being an addict doesn't immediately mean that you're violent. Charlie's not violent, she might love a good fight, but in reality she's more likely to make a sly comment then she is to start throwing punches like Cassandra."

"Yes, annoy the other person into throwing the first punch, grandpa taught that to all of us. That way it's always self-defense," Brittany reminded Frannie.

"I mean she is the dumb one, grandma told her a million times to hide just how powerful she was, and she couldn't help herself. She wanted to fight Charlotte Flair and she lost and we all know she should have won that fight. I mean half of this is a mess of her own making—"

"She wanted to be a hero. I mean she was a literal child when she made this life decision and she watches way too many cartoons about heroes and villains. The thing is even if Charlie were to change her mind tomorrow about wanting to be a hero, nothing would change. The moment someone needed help she would help them. That's who she is, Charlie doesn't like to see others suffering. The real problem is that the world is full of people suffering. So the real question is what are we going to do to support her. Charlie can't go around punching out CEOs and given that grandma didn't leave her any financial support, she doesn't have the capital that we do to make a difference."

"In Grandma's defense, Charlie's never going to hurt for money, she's the rookie of the year, and she's making money on par with the top A-list heroes, if anything she's making more money than even the Utopian. Her merchandise is flying off the shelf, she's got people willing to pay her millions of dollars to do commercials, and more importantly she's probably not going to join a hero firm which means that when it comes to time to sign with a city, Charlie's looking at least 10-15 billion dollars just to be the hero of one city. Plus, dad is moving to put most of Charlie's money into a trust, so she doesn't go broke. So it's not as if Charlie doesn't have the capital, she just doesn't give a shit about the fact that we're rich, which is why she just gives people access to her credit card and tells them to go nuts." Frannie said, turning to glare at Brittany who let out a laugh.

"Don't be jealous. She's also giving me and Mike a ton of money to watch Arte and Wolfgang," Brittany smirks. "We still need to have a plan in place in case she goes crazy or someone takes over her mind. It's getting more and more difficult for us to contain her, and I doubt she's going to let me put her to sleep again."

"It's Charlie," Quinn stated crossing her arms over her chest. "We're seriously here plotting what to do on the off chance that Charlie turns into Cassandra. Here's what we do, nothing. I don't think this is a problem that you're both making it out to be. I mean it's Charlie, what are we worried about mind control?"

"Don't be stupid Quinn, that implies that Charlie has a mind to control," Frannie scoffs, earning a snort from Brittany.

Quinn lets out a small laugh, "I'll take care of it. If it comes down to it, I'm the only one that can if she loses her shit. I mean in the worst case scenario we read Santana in or whoever Charlie is in love with at that point, and get her to do it. This isn't a problem."

"Yet. This isn't a problem yet," Frannie corrects. "We need to monitor her a bit better, I think the deaths are affecting her more than us and I don't want their deaths to be part of some shitty origin story that will be made into a movie at some point."

"Who do you think they'll get to play me in the movie? I hope it's someone hot." Brittany muses.