Nova sat on one of the gabled roofs of the Mayor's Mansion, her gaze constantly flickering around the darkened yard as she scanned for signs of movement. A quiver in one of the bushes caught her eye, but it was only a rabbit, darting out into a patch of moonlight for a few seconds before retreating to the safety of its bush.

Beside her, Adrian yawned widely. Nova put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. She couldn't see his face very well in the darkness, but she could picture how it had looked even before they'd begun their nighttime vigil together—heavy circles under his eyes, a tenseness to his jaw, his entire being weighed down with worry. It was now nearly four in the morning, and Nova could only imagine how tired he must be. They'd had early morning patrol duty the day before, so he'd been up for a good twenty-four hours. Considering that the last sixteen of those hours had been taken up with investigations into Flamethrower and figuring out what precautions would need to be taken to keep Max and the rest of the city safe while he was still at large, Nova was actually surprised that he hadn't fallen asleep yet.

Or maybe she wasn't. It was his little brother whose life was being threatened by the city's biggest villain since Ace Anarchy.

"You know, you can go to bed at any time," she assured him. "I've got this. Weapons loaded, ready to sound the alarm to wake your dads the moment I catch wind of anything suspicious."

"It's okay," he insisted, barely stifling another yawn. "Better to have two sets of eyes than one."

"Not if one of those sets of eyes keeps closing!" She kept her tone light, almost as if she were teasing, but she wasn't. Adrian needed sleep. His Sentinel powers wouldn't do any good if Flamethrower showed up and he was too tired to use them.

They all agreed that it wasn't particularly likely that Flamethrower would show up in the first place. He certainly knew that the Mayor's Mansion was inhabited by three very powerful superheroes, and that his flames would have no effect on Captain Chromium or on the Sentinel's armor. He probably also had figured out that Adrian would be able to draw anything he wanted should he find himself in a sticky situation, and that the Dread Warden could be anywhere without anyone's knowledge. And it didn't take a whole lot of speculation to deduce that there was a good chance Nova would be there too, with her homemade weapons, heat-resistant jacket, and impeccable aim.

But still. Though the chances were slim, the threat persisted.

"I'm all right," Adrian maintained. He sighed heavily. "I just don't think I'll be able to sleep properly until Flamethrower's caught, especially now." He didn't have to say Especially now that we know he's after Max.

Nova nodded sympathetically. "At least we have a good lead on him now, though." Adrian had told her earlier that, according to Max, Flamethrower had once been a Renegade. This explained why Nova had thought he seemed familiar during her encounter with him at the sandwich shop—she'd probably seen him around Headquarters a few years back.

"Yeah, but even if we find out who he is, that won't necessarily help us catch him," Adrian pointed out. "I doubt he's still living at whatever address is plugged into the Renegade database."

"Probably not, but any new information can be helpful," said Nova.

They sat in silence for a couple minutes, punctuated only by Adrian's frequent yawns. Despite her insistence that he should get some sleep, Nova was glad for the company. She wouldn't want to be all alone with thoughts of Max being trapped in a burning building with Flamethrower.

She felt her body give an involuntary shudder. Adrian must have noticed, because he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. "Nova… there's something I didn't tell you about Max's rescue today."

Nova's brow creased. She'd rushed over to Headquarters as soon as she'd heard about the attack, and Adrian had filled her in on how Flamethrower had intentionally sought Max out and tried to kill him, and would have succeeded if not for two anonymous vigilantes: one who'd shot at Flamethrower and chased him out of the building, and another who'd helped Max down to safety. "What didn't you tell me?" she asked.

"Max wanted to keep this part quiet; he only told me and our dads, but I think it's important that you know too… the vigilantes weren't the only ones who helped him escape."

Nova shifted her position in an attempt to see his face better, even though mostly all she could see was the glint of his teeth in the pale moonlight. "Who else helped him?"

Adrian withdrew his arm from around her and sank down onto the roof, propping himself up with his elbow. "Magpie. She was with him, and from what Max said, Flamethrower wanted to let her go, so she could be a—a witness, to what had happened. But she stayed in the burning building and tried to help Max."

Nova exhaled slowly and stared out into the darkened grounds, processing this new information. A thousand questions were swirling around her head, questions like why was Magpie hanging around with Max again? and what were they doing going into an abandoned building together? But the questions were quickly replaced by the realization she knew Adrian had wanted her to make, the fact that that Magpie chose to help Max over saving her own life.

It wasn't something she would have predicted, based on what she remembered about the girl from three and a half years ago. Magpie had always been the epitome of selfish, complaining about everything the Renegades were making her do and how very unfair that was to her, and trying at every opportunity to steal things that didn't belong to her. Was it possible, as Adrian had suggested before, that maybe she had changed?

No. Nova had seen with her own eyes just a few days ago, Magpie was still exactly the same as she'd been the first time Nova met her. Whatever her reason for helping save Max's life, it had probably been a selfish one.

Still. Her reasons didn't change what she had done.

Nova turned back to face Adrian, surprised that he hadn't said anything else during her long silence. That's when she saw that he was asleep, sprawled out on the roof, using his own arm as a pillow.

It didn't look like the most comfortable position, but she wasn't about to do anything that would wake him up, now that he'd finally succumbed to the sleep his body so desperately needed. She watched him sleep for a few minutes, hoping his slumber would be peaceful and devoid of nightmares.

A creak sounded from somewhere behind her, and Nova immediately spun around, her right hand automatically reaching for her utility belt. "Who's there?"

"It's just me." Max's voice came from several feet away, and then his shadowy form emerged from behind one of the gables.

"Max!" Nova kept her voice low so as not to wake Adrian, but she couldn't hide her worry. "You're not supposed to be up here!"

"I can be wherever I want to be," Max replied, his voice laced with irritation. "Besides, I'm sure Flamethrower already knows where I live. This way he won't burn the whole house down if he comes after me again."

Nova frowned at the offhand way Max talked about the villain coming to get him. "Max…"

"I know. The Flamethrower thing is a big deal. But I just came out here because I wanted to talk to you."

"Oh." Nova consciously relaxed her posture, reminding herself that even if Flamethrower did show up while Max was here on the roof, it would only take a single shot from her gun to take him down. Not to mention she had her Renegade wristband voice-activated to call the Captain if the need arose. "Come and sit. Quietly, so we don't wake Adrian."

Max edged closer, walking slowly on the slanted roof, and sat down next to Nova, a few feet away from where Adrian slumbered.

"What is it you wanted to talk about?" she asked.

Max was shifting nervously, his face turned away from her. She wondered if he was going to tell her what Adrian had just told her about Magpie.

He took a deep breath. "Um, well, I know this might be kind of hard for you to talk about, but… I had a few questions about… your sister."

Nova inhaled sharply. That wasn't at all what she had expected. Max had come out here to ask her questions about Evie?

"What… about her?" she asked slowly. Nova very rarely spoke about Evie to anyone; most people even now were unaware that she'd ever had a younger sister. Adrian had been the first person she told, even back before he'd known the truth about who Nova was, and of course his dads knew, since Captain Chromium had been the one to write up the official report on her family's deaths. Nova had told Leroy after the Supernova, when she'd explained to him that Ace had been the one to orchestrate the murders. Eventually, she'd shared the story with her team, and later with Max, and that was it.

"I guess I was just wondering… well, you said she was less than a year old, right?"

Nova nodded, pain clenching her heart as she remembered the last time she'd held her baby sister, with her soft curls and chubby cheeks. "She would have turned one the next month."

"So she'd be around my age now," Max mumbled quietly.

"A few months older than you, but yes," Nova confirmed. What would Evie be like if she were still alive today? It was something Nova had wondered plenty of times throughout the years, but it was always hard to imagine an older version of Evie. Nova had never known her little sister as a person—not a walking, talking person with a clear personality and set of interests. Only as a baby, usually a sick, feverish baby who spent every waking moment wailing her discomfort to the world.

If six-year-old Nova had been just a little braver, a little quicker, a little less reliant on her hope that the Renegades would come and save them, Evie could have survived. This knowledge was what had fueled her hatred for the Renegades for so long, before she'd found out that the Renegades had been watching over her family, and that the Renegade on patrol that night—Adrian's mom—had been killed as well.

She didn't hate the Renegades anymore. But knowing the truth didn't do anything to make her own guilt and regret go away.

"When was her birthday?" Max asked.

Nova startled. She'd almost forgotten he was there. "April eighteenth," she said softly. Even after all these years, even though Nova had only been six years old when Evie died, she still remembered that date.

"So it was in March that—that everything happened?" Max asked tentatively.

Nova nodded. "March twentieth." She would never forget that date either.

"But you didn't actually see it happen, right? You just—heard?"

BANG. BANG. BANG. She'd heard. She'd heard it that first time, when it actually happened, and then over and over and over again afterwards. "Why are you asking me these questions, Max?" She tried hard to keep the agitation out of her voice.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I was sort of wondering… if you didn't actually see it happen, couldn't there be a small chance that she's still alive? That maybe someone rescued her, after Ace took you away, and she grew up somewhere else?"

A barrage of emotions burbled up inside her. Pain and regret and rage. She wished she could share Max's hope and optimism. She wished there was even the slightest possibility that his words were true.

She shook her head. "She was crying," she whispered. "And after the—the gunshot, the crying stopped. It never started up again." She took a steadying breath, willing herself not to cry. "Captain Chromium came to the apartment after Ace took me away. I saw the report. He confirmed the deaths. All of them."

"What if he was wrong?" Max asked. "What if the gunshot didn't actually kill her, but instead turned her into a prodigy? It happens that way sometimes, doesn't it? Wasn't Oscar clinically dead for a little bit, and that's how he got his powers?"

The hope in his voice was too much. Nova fought back the urge to scream. "It didn't happen that way with Evie," she said brusquely. She could still remember the cold voice of the man who'd killed her family, his heartless response to her parents' pleading being "No survivors." His emotionless eyes as he'd turned the gun on her, no hesitations whatsoever about murdering a child. He wouldn't have had any reservations about shooting Evie somewhere lethal. And Ace, coming in after the fact to make sure the job was done, would have noticed if Evie had miraculously survived and become a prodigy. Nova's prodigious abilities were the only reason he'd taken her with him rather than killing her on the spot when he'd found her. If Evie had been a prodigy, Ace would have taken her too, and exploited her powers just like he'd exploited Nova's all those years.

For a fleeting moment, Nova allowed herself to think about what that would have been like—to have Evie growing up alongside her, down in the subway tunnels with the Anarchists. To have been an older sister all those years, with someone younger to protect and take care of, rather than the only child in a gang of revenge-focused adults. Would Nova have been more focused on Evie, and less focused on taking down the Renegades? Or would having a younger sister who'd never known a life without hiding and killing only have made her even more eager to avenge the people she'd blamed for the deaths of their parents?

It was pointless to wonder. Because that hadn't happened. Evie hadn't survived, and no matter how much Nova sort of wanted to believe that Max's speculations could be true, it was nothing but wishful thinking. "I don't want to talk about this anymore," she told him.

Max sighed. "Okay," he said, getting up. "I'm sorry if my questions upset you. But just—there's a chance, right? A chance that maybe it could have happened that way?"

Nova didn't answer. After a moment's silence, Max whispered, "Sorry," again, and crept back toward the window from which he'd climbed out of.

Nova was left alone on the roof, next to the sleeping Adrian, feeling like she'd just lost her baby sister all over again. It had been over thirteen years since she'd heard that final bang, followed by the sickening silence of Evie's stopped cries. But sometimes it still felt like yesterday.

BANG. BANG. BANG. Nova moaned and blocked her ears, half wishing Max had stayed just so she wouldn't have to be alone with her memories. She glanced at Adrian's sleeping form and was tempted to wake him up, but she resisted. He needed to sleep.

And she needed to focus on the task at hand: keeping her eyes out for signs of Flamethrower. She stood up carefully, stretching her legs and once again scanning the grounds for movement. She needed to stay active. As long as she kept her brain and body engaged, she wouldn't think about the past. She wouldn't think about Evie. And she wouldn't think about those ridiculous, pointless, impossible words that still echoed in her mind: There's a chance, right? A chance that maybe it could have happened that way?