Time ticks on, and the next time she feels the way she did is months later. Piper's forced herself to get over the events of the blimp the 'healthy' way, which consisted of crying in the shower a lot, eating a fuck ton of ice cream and binging Netflix all night until she fell asleep.

She's now doing undeniably better.

Better in her classes, too. Over time, the concepts of her professor's lectures (ramblings) had suddenly made sense to her one day, and she'd flown through papers and homework as if they were as easy as taking a single breath.

Her friends had found it miraculous, how well she exceeded, especially with her significant age difference. She was only just fifteen, yet taking her psychology course in college. Yeah, not a common feat.

However, that same empty feeling crawls its way inside her gut again sometime between one of the best care packages she'd ever received from her parents and the time November third is suddenly making itself ridiculously obvious in her calendar.

Piper Hart was not a sappy girl. She never was, and she has proof from every one she's ever encountered to boost her credibility of the fact.

Even watching movies with the dramatic teen vampires, she'd never cared, yelling 'get your act together!' at the TV as it blares some teen vampire drama her middle school friends had forced upon her. Her mother had also recommended the trilogy to her, complaining when Piper would react so bluntly to an especially cheesy moment.

So when she finds November third labelled as 'pretend to ignore' in her phone calendar by her thirteen year old self, it's barely abnormally strange when anger flows through her.

It's just… she was stupid when she was younger, okay?

She shouldn't of done half the stuff she did to the people of her household, or said most of the things she voiced to them.

The investments in illegal material she could deal with, only partially regretting a small amount of them. She won't bother caring about her treatment of strangers, online or not. Mainly because she still feels the same way… she just voices her innermost and bluntest thoughts and feelings in a more mature manner these days, that's all.

Even her 'distaste' for Henry's birthday, when she'd sworn after his 'funeral' (that was somehow, suspiciously landing on his birthday) to treat it better, whether she'd have to force himself into the belief or not.

So that was when she saw it, she felt nothing but burning disappointment in herself for forgetting she'd done this. In hindsight, it must've been painfully obvious to him she'd labelled it that way when he'd set up her new phone for her, checking every single calendar date to check if it was timed correctly.

She was such an idiot.

She tries to call him out of pure desperation to apologise, (something she will never admit to anyone) but it goes straight to voicemail. Immediately after, he texts her to provide clarification.

Henry: sorry can't talk I gotta go MIA for a bit

Piper: ur texting me tho

Henry: caught me at the right time I guess

Piper: how long is 'a bit'?

Henry: idk ill call if i can

Piper: why u goin MIA?

Henry: super cool crime fighting business that little sisters can't know about

Piper: whatever. Don't be busy on ur birthday u idiot

Henry: love u too sis, adios

Piper: bye

Just as she sends the text 'bye' and the chat bubble is marked with the double blue checkmarks, their entire message history is banished into the unknown, the only elaboration she gets being the bland italic default grey writing being splayed across her screen.

'This user is currently unidentified to our system at the minute. Please try again later.'

Well, at least she's doing undeniably better now.

The same can't be said for her brother, though. Still sacrificing his personal life for something that's definitely worth less; countless hours of hard work for some random criminal number eighty-five to get apprehended only to break out of the untrustworthy police systems a couple months (or weeks) later. It's not fair, and it's what drove him to potentially put his wasted personal life on hold forever because there was nothing to keep it around for anymore. Unfortunately, that also meant risking the crime fighting life.

That's a thing he can't seem to distinguish between, which to Piper, is a very fine line. A superhero and a civilian life are very different from each other, and balance is key to contain stability. That's why she used to rant her complaints about him never being home, because she knew it wasn't balanced.

Alas, she can't do that anymore. Not now that he's on the other side of the world. Not in Dystopia.

Sorry this one's short but I couldn't figure out a way to make it longer.