Actually, now I want an omake dealing with the Crossover Event where Omega falls out of the Rift into Marvel Earth. Because that has to be an Existential Danger even for Marvel Comic level Supers.
Omega isn't just an existential threat. It is legitimately a world ender worse than Galactus.
Any being that Omega or the Omicron in general encountered and defeated, it can just up and recreate. At full power. And it encountered some serious shit.
Exdeath? Yup. Kefka? Yup. Chaos? Yup. And another metric fuckton that we never got to see. The Omicron were basically the Borg meets the Reapers meets the Yuuzhan Vong meets the Necrons meets… yeah. The only reason the Omicron didn't just destroy everything is because they self-terminated.
Omega is the pinnacle of their creations. Even after it shut down 90% of its systems and autotomized a bunch of shit to facilitate extragalactic travel, it was still nasty enough to just… wreck everything in its path.
And this is before mentioning — that "create replica" ability? Yeah. Uh. Its range is "yes".
I repeat. It could dump the equivalent of a world ending final boss into every city center at once if it so chose.
The only reason the Warrior of Light wins against this thing is by consistently breaking their limits, which forces Omega into a logic error, which it resolves by essentially trying to divide by zero until it figures out how the fuck we're doing this. Which it doesn't.
Now, the Omega raid tier's Savage comes from… a data terminal pulled from within Omega's rift. Near as I can tell, it's hypothetical data produced by Omega, trying to simulate a way to overcome you. And even that fails, because again: you are forcing the machine to divide by zero repeatedly.
Omega Ultimate, per the Minstrel, is what happens when you force Omega to divide by zero… and the answer it gets is 42.
So yeah. It is a world ending threat that would require every single major intellect in Marvel working in concert, networked together by a top-end telepath for speed, and relaying answers, ideas, and equipment to some of the most dangerous battlers in Marvel for even a CHANCE to win.
Omega is an Outside Context Problem that kills and analyzes other OCP's to get stronger. Beating Omega literally required doing the impossible.
EDIT: and all of this before we get into the fact that to even fight Omega, you need to go into its pocket dimension. Where it makes all the rules. Seeing the problem?
So no. No "Omega shows up" crossover omake. That is a BAD END.
Omega isn't just an existential threat. It is legitimately a world ender worse than Galactus.
Any being that Omega or the Omicron in general encountered and defeated, it can just up and recreate. At full power. And it encountered some serious shit.
Exdeath? Yup. Kefka? Yup. Chaos? Yup. And another metric fuckton that we never got to see. The Omicron were basically the Borg meets the Reapers meets the Yuuzhan Vong meets the Necrons meets… yeah. The only reason the Omicron didn't just destroy everything is because they self-terminated.
Omega is the pinnacle of their creations. Even after it shut down 90% of its systems and autotomized a bunch of shit to facilitate extragalactic travel, it was still nasty enough to just… wreck everything in its path.
And this is before mentioning — that "create replica" ability? Yeah. Uh. Its range is "yes".
I repeat. It could dump the equivalent of a world ending final boss into every city center at once if it so chose.
The only reason the Warrior of Light wins against this thing is by consistently breaking their limits, which forces Omega into a logic error, which it resolves by essentially trying to divide by zero until it figures out how the fuck we're doing this. Which it doesn't.
Now, the Omega raid tier's Savage comes from… a data terminal pulled from within Omega's rift. Near as I can tell, it's hypothetical data produced by Omega, trying to simulate a way to overcome you. And even that fails, because again: you are forcing the machine to divide by zero repeatedly.
Omega Ultimate, per the Minstrel, is what happens when you force Omega to divide by zero… and the answer it gets is 42.
So yeah. It is a world ending threat that would require every single major intellect in Marvel working in concert, networked together by a top-end telepath for speed, and relaying answers, ideas, and equipment to some of the most dangerous battlers in Marvel for even a CHANCE to win.
Omega is an Outside Context Problem that kills and analyzes other OCP's to get stronger. Beating Omega literally required doing the impossible.
EDIT: and all of this before we get into the fact that to even fight Omega, you need to go into its pocket dimension. Where it makes all the rules. Seeing the problem?
So no. No "Omega shows up" crossover omake. That is a BAD END.
Well, I was more implying Original G Omega from FFV showing up but yeah, I DO understand that FF14 super ultra Death mode nightmare scenario Omega is a 'Beam Cannon fires, everything dies' scenario.
And this whole idea came from the fact that I see a lot of 'nerds' arguing about Crossover events and how anime and game characters would interact. And then the only characters who get even mentioned from games are memetic Bosses like Sephiroth. Which disappoints me, because Final Fantasy has a LOT OF GIGANTIC BOSSES outside pretty boys with swords(even if said pretty boys would also likely wreck a lot of Marvel Earth if they were Lore accurate).
Hence proposal of one off omake where Boss From FF Whatever Drops, and only Noa understands just how fucked things got.
And this whole idea came from the fact that I see a lot of 'nerds' arguing about Crossover events and how anime and game characters would interact. And then the only characters who get even mentioned from games are memetic Bosses like Sephiroth.
He's not. The two best are Emet-Selch and Kefka, in that order. I will die on this hill.
Also, if a bad enough crossover villain were to show up, Noa's immediate reaction would be to get her ass to the Sanctum Sanctorum with a suitcase and call in as many favors as she needs to go elsewhere until the problem is dealt with.
Which would inform Strange of just how bad shit was about to get in the process.
Edit: also Dancing Mad > One Winged Angel. Fuck you, fight me.
Kefka is pretty much exactly up Dr. Strange's remit actually. A Clown Wizard who ate all his Universe's Magic and God's to Ascend? Yeah, that's probably a list all its own for what Strange has to deal with. The Emperor and Ex-Death would also be interesting and entertaining encounters. Zeromus and Cloud of Darkness would be generic Cosmic Horrors Ala GALACTUS... maybe. Garland would be a coin flip between World Conquering Beatstick and Hell Prophet King. Not sure how well others would measure up.
An important part of proposing a crossover is asking, can this be reasonable, or will it end in a TerminalMontage video where one side only screams in suffering? If the second, are you funny enough to make it entertaining? Consider that most FF endgame villains are or aspire to be cosmic horrors.
Galactus: "I must feed on this planet."
Omega: "Finally, a worthy opponent! Our battle will be legendary!"
Galactus: "I got indigestion."
Kree: "Prepare yourself for submission!" Meteia: "Hello sir could you answer a question?"
Kree: *variable pitched screaming muffled by explosions*
Garland wouldn't care that much about Marvel and so would be pretty easy to avoid a fight. It depends a lot on whether he is full on Chaos or post Stranger of Paradise but still as human awaiting in his throne, but can still get pretty bad if the Marvel side gets the idiot ball and doesn't stop to ask things out. Even then it would be reasonable to get a cease fire with him.
Ultimecia also has pretty particular concerns that might not affect the Marvel side. If it comes to conflict, it can turn into Incursions 2: Electric Boogaloo. Worse if the god theory applies.
Kuja is capable of full planetary destruction but still could be handled by any main group. The problem is him calling on Necron, which I think could be comparable to cosmic forces like the Phoenix or the Enigma Force.
Returning to XIV, I really don't wish on Marvel to have certain birb pay them a visit, or turn full attention on them.
Don't pull out the big bosses for an FF interdimensional crossover - Gilgamesh showing up is more fun. And it would imply a new battle at the big bridge remix
The only advantage OWA has is that it came with fancier technology that allowed it to do cleaner vocal lines. And it's shorter, I guess.
Dancing Mad ties a bunch of things together from across the game, including the initial track, Omen. It does some really impressive technical stuff to get its length to match through all the stages of the fight, and the references to Kefka's leitmotif (especially the recall in a major key, followed by a minor key because it's Kefka and he can't even pretend to be a god without letting himself slip) are powerful without being constant.
If One Winged Angel followed better from Birth of a God, I might like it more. It's certainly an impressive song, but with the exact same sort of multi-stage fight there's just no good reason to not have all the stages fit together better. Each part is individually really good, but for a boss fight that's referring back so heavily to FF6's they dropped the ball on the connections between sections.
Don't pull out the big bosses for an FF interdimensional crossover - Gilgamesh showing up is more fun. And it would imply a new battle at the big bridge remix
A Gilgamesh Across the Multiverse fic could be a lot of fun. Is there an Excalibur in Marvel for him to be obsessed with, or is it just the team? (Though, Gilgamesh getting confused and trying to steal the entire Excalibur team could be hilarious.)
I rue the thought of yet another song MCU'ified, but it would be worth the price, and it would require no effort from the Marvel side for multidimensional shenanigans.
It does some really impressive technical stuff to get its length to match through all the stages of the fight, and the references to Kefka's leitmotif (especially the recall in a major key, followed by a minor key because it's Kefka and he can't even pretend to be a god without letting himself slip) are powerful without being constant.
That, and Dancing Mad doubles, appropriately, as an ode to chaos. Most musicians I've seen listen to it with a critical ear seem to share the sentiment that it should not work as a composition, yet it does. That takes real chops.
A Gilgamesh Across the Multiverse fic could be a lot of fun. Is there an Excalibur in Marvel for him to be obsessed with, or is it just the team? (Though, Gilgamesh getting confused and trying to steal the entire Excalibur team could be hilarious.)
And yet the Gold Saucer is an earworm that never dies!
I try to block it out with OWA or Dancing Mad, yet it remains. I find no reprieve in Answers or the La Hee of Civilization, yet it plays on. Even the Prelude and Victory fanfare get drowned out by it…and now I need to get my mgp and face down that song again.
If I knew anything about Excalibur beyond "they are a team that exists in the Marvel UK" I would be writing the omake already. The wiki even says they deal with interdimensional threats!
Speaking of Dancing Mad, this youtube channel does remakes of a lot of stuff, but with a particular focus on Final Fantasy music, and they've got a Dancing Mad remake, one of three FF6 ones they've done. It's not my fave of his remakes, but that could very well be down to various other factors than simply how the relative quality of his remakes. So, since it's topical, here you go, enjoy!
If I knew anything about Excalibur beyond "they are a team that exists in the Marvel UK" I would be writing the omake already. The wiki even says they deal with interdimensional threats!
What If…? Noa Schaefer had been a lawyer on Earth Bet instead of in Marvel?
Annette Hebert was a lanky woman, being rather literally head and shoulders above me. Minimal makeup, but with vivid green eyes and flowing black hair she didn't need much to compel focus toward her face. She'd dressed professionally, which spoke to how seriously she was taking the visit, and I noted that the wedding band she wore was unadorned.
"Mrs. Hebert," I reached toward the door as she strode in, pushing it shut behind her. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Noa Schaefer, and with any luck I'll be taking… Your client's case?"
"Lustrum and I don't have any sort of official relationship; I'm just a former follower from before things got violent." Annette smiled politely as she shook my hand, and it would've been hard not to notice the undercurrent of embarrassment on her face from the admission. Understandable, but it wasn't a concern if she'd gotten out when she said. "Summer's easy enough on my workload that I can catch up on things, though, and I found information about a new legal battle for her that's more than a little alarming."
"As curious as I am, there are formalities to observe. Please, have a seat."
Annette had an intense sort of attentiveness as I went over the legalities, in a way that felt vaguely familiar and oddly intimidating. It wasn't able to place the sense of deja vu before I finished, though, and she didn't require elaboration. "I understand."
I nodded, and picked up a pen and notepad that I'd set out. "In that case, why don't you start off by telling me your concerns about Lustrum's current legal troubles? It was my understanding that she'd taken a plea bargain."
When one's power required draining the vitality of everyone nearby to charge up, that provided room to accumulate a multitude of assault charges. Rather than drag things out, she'd opted for a deal that could have her out on good behavior before she went gray, and still able to convey her particular brand of feminism to the outside world. Surprisingly sensible, for someone who'd favored rhetoric as aggressive as hers.
"For her own activities, but according to the website set up by one of the people who visits her in prison, they're looking to pursue new charges against her, trying to pin the violence of people claiming to follow her on her as something called incitement."
I frowned as she handed me some sheets that looked like a printout from a minimally formatted… website. They weren't called blogs yet. Incitement was tricky to pin to people, though, thanks to freedom of speech being enshrined in the First Amendment. "They'd need to make a case for immediacy for that, but she wasn't able to get her lawyer from the initial court case?"
Annette gestured toward papers in my hand. "Last paragraph before the list of charges explains that. Apparently, her original lawyer is refusing to take the case, citing a conflict of interest."
I thumbed through to the relevant page to get the details. Atrocious grammar of the site aside, it articulated the situation well enough: at some point after the firm was done doing business with Lustrum, they'd gotten into a legal conflict that gave them an indirect tie to one of the victims of an attack by people claiming to follow Lustrum.
I made a mental note to verify the timing, but before I noticed some of the dates below the paragraph in question. They looked late enough that I checked against my own preparatory research, and- As I'd thought. "Some of these dates are from after she was incarcerated. There's no way they'd be able to argue immediacy on those. How'd they even make the argument to implicate her?"
"The website didn't go into detail on that, unfortunately. It just gave what information could be given and asked people to look for lawyers that could meet all the qualifications. Defense lawyer, specialized in parahuman law, able to practice- The website said 'at the federal level' and I'm not sure what that means, but I was hoping-"
I held up a hand. Being qualified to practice law in a single state was a process, let alone in federal courts, and there were multiple states within comfortable driving distance of Boston. Annette herself coming from as far north as Brockton Bay was a testament to that. "I'm qualified to take the case, and… I'm willing to extend an offer. She's within her rights to refuse, though, and she may do so if someone else gets a lawyer for her quicker."
It wasn't the fiscal windfall that some cases could be, but the case against her was confusing enough to grab my curiosity. Even if someone had beaten me to the punch, I wanted to know just what was going on with this case.
"Alright, ma'am, the heat sensors are set up in the visitation room."
"Thank you, Jordan." The guard smiled slightly at that, but quickly switched back to a neutral expression before opening the door to where Lustrum had been set up to wait for me.
She wore a standard prison uniform, a larger size of one to fit her figure. Her hair was at roughly shoulder length, and aside from tucking the front behind her ears she hadn't done anything with it. Was that due to her location, or her rhetoric?
She was sizing me up much as I was her, and she allowed herself a smile at whatever she'd seen. "The last lawyer just wanted to ride my name for publicity. You aren't here for that, though, are you?"
I nodded as I walked past the tripods flanking the door to take my seat opposite her. While an irritation to set up at times, they were the least invasive countermeasure to the Stranger applications of my power that met with PRT regulations. While I still wore illusionary makeup to the meeting, my reptilian features were undisguised. "I am, but it's not due to any common ground that we share. My account of the case against you is thirdhand, and I'm curious as to how the prosecution is making a case that wouldn't be immediately dismissed. First thing's first, though. Do you want me as your lawyer?"
Lustrum nodded as I sat down, shifting forward in her seat to push documents toward me. I didn't take them immediately, and not just because I was adjusting my position. This chair was not made to accommodate a tail. "I do. Their whole case ought to be thrown out, but I don't know the process, and don't want to gamble on a public defender to make it work."
"Excellent. There are some legal formalities to observe, but first- Which of your names would you prefer to be addressed as?"
"I'm being tried over my so-called cape career, but for when it's just us?" She tilted her head to one side, considering me, and I found myself wondering just how much the two of us had in common. After a moment, she smiled mischievously. "Diana or Ms. Taylor, whichever feels more right to you."
It was hard not to infer things from that. I'd be better off emphasizing professionalism, if I'd read her right. "Let's go over the basics, then, Ms. Taylor."
The formalities were more than enough to kill whatever mood Diana had been hoping to set, and once she'd affirmed her understanding I took a look at the actual case that the prosecution had made against her. It claimed incitement, connecting her famous speech calling for men to be humbled to a variety of violent crimes that followed, but it didn't seem to even attempt to make a case for immediacy.
In fact…
I began reading more rapidly. When it became apparent that I wasn't going to speak immediately, Diana filled the silence. "I didn't study law, so I don't know the particulars, but I figure this is an open and shut First Amendment case, right?"
"If it got as far as court? Easily. I don't intend to let it get that far, though." I set the papers on the table and spun them so that she could read them, and pointed at the word 'incitement' for emphasis. "They don't even attempt to argue for the immediacy requirement that separates incitement from protected speech, and that's before I get to the lack of specificity. I'm going to lead with something called a Rule 12(b)(6) Motion to Dismiss for the civil case, and a Motion for Summary Judgment to follow on the criminal side. Established law on this matter is clear and the facts are on our side, so regardless of the people involved, they have no real case."
"Sounds promising. What if the man with the gavel doesn't dismiss the case, though?"
"That's unlikely; the motions I'll be filing will show the case against you is a waste of the court's time and resources. Judges hate having their time wasted. If it doesn't get dismissed, though?" I tilted my head a bit as I double-checked the name of the prosecutor. Not someone I was personally familiar with, but I knew him by reputation well enough to suspect that someone had pressured him to make this case. "We'll dismantle the argument in court, and the prosecution will face humiliation more in line with what you'd called for than what you're accused of inciting."
"Ha!" Diana leaned back in her chair, radiating satisfaction. "It'd almost be worth the case not getting dismissed, to see that."
"Only almost, though, right?" I prompted, giving her a meaningful look. 'You know the right answer to this one', it said.
She held up her hand. "Only almost. Sooner this is dealt with, the better. I've got a book I'm hoping to publish."
With that, we wrapped up the closing details and subsequent scheduling, but it was hard not to feel giddy. This was going to be fun.
"Ms. Schaefer!" I slowed my descent of the courthouse steps as I heard someone call my name, turning to look at who it was. I almost immediately regretted it. "You have time for an interview?"
From a practical standpoint, an interview would be a good thing for both myself and my client, specifically in getting it on the record that she repudiated the violence that had been done by her self-proclaimed followers. Personally, though? Different journalists and publications had different voices, and the Parahumans Only magazine had limited reach.
What's worse, though, their man that I ran into the most looked like a younger Jack McCoy who not only consistently wore tweed and a bowtie, but had a goatee. The dissonance had thrown me off on more than one occasion. It made even the most sedate interviews with Armin Belanger an exercise of frustration.
Still, he was a professional, and my client wanted to get her repudiation out to anyone who'd hear it. "Would I be correct in assuming it's about the incitement case?"
Belanger nodded, taking my question as an affirmative response, and held out his dictaphone. "How confident are you that the criminal charges against Lustrum will be dismissed, since the civil case was dismissed?"
I smiled as I shifted to face him directly, considering how best to word things. "The burden of proof needed in civil court is substantially lower in criminal court, so the civil case being dismissed looks extremely promising for my client. If the easy half couldn't carry the day, they have no chance with the higher standard."
"Did your client have any statement she wished to make in regard to the violence carried out in her name?"
Exactly the sort of question I was hoping for. "She repudiates every instance she was accused of inciting, and any similar such attacks. None of them involved women defending themselves from men, and she notes that all of her cape fights had been in defense of either herself or others from immediate physical threats."
Belanger glanced up at that, thinking a second, then his eyebrows went up and he nodded to himself. While he wasn't likely to have every cape fight in the country memorized, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd done research prior to the interview. "You've previously advocated for a distinction of parahumans that participate in hero and villain conflicts as capes as not being an inherent part of being a parahuman. Has your client expressed any thoughts on that matter?"
I'd actually gotten to raise the matter when she'd asked me about being an open cape, and I'd corrected her language. Lucky me, she'd given me permission to quote her. "Her exact words were 'If I'd known that was an option, I wouldn't be in jail.'"
Belanger smirked at that, pausing his recording on the dictaphone. He started to reach into a jacket pocket, but then looked at me. "One last question, but I want to check my information to make sure I've got the name right. It's from a colleague's research."
I nodded and gestured for him to proceed, wondering what name he could be referring to. Before I could speculate, though, he'd nodded at some folded papers and had started recording with the dictaphone again. "What are your thoughts on the potential impact the dismissal of the charges against your client could have for Senator Ricci's plans for the development of a tinkertech prison complex?"
That… wasn't the usual line of questioning for Parahumans Only. What's worse, I didn't have any idea what he was talking about. All I knew about Senator Ricci was that he'd been appointed to replace Senator Baumann from Maine, who'd been assassinated by some of Teacher's agents. Still, if the charges were supposed to be part of a scheme to get Diana into some sort of super prison, I'd probably have to look into the matter so long as I was her client.
In the meantime, something vaguely critical on the off chance that the question was somehow leading. It wasn't something Belanger would do on purpose, but he was outside his usual area of focus, and by his own admission it was from someone else's research. "If the case against my client is representative of the attention to detail in a larger plan, then people need to go back to the drawing board."
Belanger nodded and stopped recording at that, frowning thoughtfully. "Was hoping you'd have more to say on the matter."
Well, now I definitely wanted to know more, if he was dropping leading lines like that. Getting him to talk… Well, the possibility of my having more to say would require that I have context, now, wouldn't it?
"Off the record?"
He raised an eyebrow at that, but nodded as he pocketed his dictaphone. "Off the record."
"Your asking was the first I'd heard of his plans."
"Even though Lustrum's your-" Belanger's eyes went wide at that, and he unfolded the papers he'd pulled out earlier. He held it out so that I could see what turned out to be a printout of a record provided through the Freedom of Information Act. Ricci's name was highlighted in yellow, as well as names and phrases in the body of the text. A few were quick to grab my focus.
Life sentences.
No appeals.
Outside the United States.
Zero outside communication.
I was dimly aware of my tail thrashing behind me, and I shifted my stance on the courthouse steps to keep my balance. If even half of what I was seeing on the paper became reality, it'd be hilariously illegal, and laughably unconstitutional. Cruel and unusual punishment failed to even begin describing this. A de facto death sentence, with a facade pulled from Lord of the Flies. "You think that this is why they brought subsequent charges against my client."
"Page three has a list of names of potential subjects for incarceration." I flipped pages, and saw Diana's full name next to her cape name, highlighted in orange. A couple other names, too, but none I recognized. "If you didn't know, I'm guessing that the lawyers for the other capes on the list won't know either."
Oh, that was a problem. That was a massive problem. Also hilariously illegal, but if this farkakte farce was what they were considering… well. It didn't take a genius to guess why this hadn't been noticed sooner; all the political news lately had been about the ramifications of Moscow's destruction. I took a deep breath, then handed the papers back to Armin. "I'd appreciate it if you were to fax copies to my office so I can go over this new information about my client's case in detail. I'll have plenty of reason to comment at length once I have a proper understanding of the situation."
Diana was still my client, after all. It'd only be professional to undermine the efforts of those who'd see her convicted, especially those with such little regard for the law. Strictly professional. No pleasure to be derived from the like.
Judging by the glint in Armin's eye, that was exactly what he was hoping for.
A/N: Sincerest thanks to the author for making sure the legalese didn't have me talking out the wrong hole!
Also @Ganurath do you want to crosspost it, do you want me to cross post it, or do you want me to just post links back to here so people who only/mainly use the other sites I post on can find it?
Also @Ganurath do you want to crosspost it, do you want me to cross post it, or do you want me to just post links back to here so people who only/mainly use the other sites I post on can find it?
Armin Belanger is actually the confluence of three characters from the precursor press corps scene that I'd originally planned before finding out the suit that'd be tougher to dismiss wouldn't be the one that'd make it to the courtroom. The goatee came from the opposition lawyer, the last name and publication came from the reporter I'd assigned the third question in order to work in references to PHO and Pale, and the rest came from what was originally a reference to Sam Waterston's character on The Newsroom (Charlie Skinner has the same last name as Principal Skinner, whose actual first name is Armin.) Checking IMDB for a visual reference of his earlier career reminded me of his role on Law & Order, and I immediately said to myself "Charlie Skinner isn't the first place Noa's mind will go when she sees this guy."
The courts were closed. It was a Sunday, so the courts were closed. At least, on paper.
But they were open. They were still hard at work. Everybody in the legal system was still hard at work, even on a Sunday. Even Judge Doyle, the most devout Irish Catholic in the city, was still at work.
Because there was just too much to do. Too much paperwork to file. Too many estates to handle. Too many bodies to bury, lives to ruin, worlds to shatter, dollars to transfer. It was just too much.
It was all too, too much.
I could probably get to the probate court with my eyes closed, now. Only, I could never get in, with how small I was, and how crowded the building became. I needed somebody with me every time, and that slowed things down. Which just made more work, because I wasn't getting done in time. And it just kept piling on.
But really, what did I expect? What did any of us expect?
We were not alone in the universe. We never had been, not really.
And in New York City, that great and terrible truth left behind a death toll of one-hundred and two thousand, nine-hundred and seventy five people.
And counting.
What happens when people die? They leave behind their stuff. And somebody has to handle that stuff. Make sure it gets where it needs to go, make sure it goes into the hands that are supposed to have it. But most of those people? They didn't expect to die. They never expected some great abomination from the depths of the cosmos to show up and stop their heart, or shock them so much they drove their bus full of tourists straight into the Hudson, or just outright drop dead because their minds couldn't handle it, because some quirk of neurology meant that they just saw more than they were supposed to, that the veil of reality had peeled back just enough to show just how horrible it really—
No! I closed my eyes and reached down into my purse, hands closing around the mezuzah I held in there, one that still shone with a simple, dull light even almost two months after That Day. I pulled it out and held it close, eyes closed as I muttered, half-spoken Hebrew as I tried to focus on it. I was here, I was in the here and now, I was in my office, I was here and HE was not.
Deep breaths. In… out. In… hold… out. In… out.
I focused on my breathing, let everything else drop away. Just focused on my breathing, on the feel of the mezuzah beneath my fingertips. Traced the Hebrew characters inscribed upon its surface. Calm, Noa. Calm.
I was here. I was still here.
A few more minutes passed, the stack of papers on my desk utterly forgotten as I pulled myself back together. Everything still felt too hot, and my heart was racing a mile a minute. But my hands weren't shaking any more, and I could breathe without it being ragged.
I opened my eyes. I was back in the present. I was in the office on a Sunday, because everybody had to be or we would never get anything done, and the whole system had gone to hell with its head in a handbasket. I had a pile of documents in front of me, all of which needed signing, and some of which needed proofreading — green post-it pile was good to just sign, yellow was read-then-sign, red was read and toss back for edits.
The blue post-it pile was for "everything that wasn't probate court, at least for right now".
With a sigh, and a reminder that it was now, not then, I pulled the first paperclipped packet off the top of the green post-it pile, did a quick skim, and signed. Then the next.
Then the next.
Twenty-one documents later, and I had just gotten started on the yellow pile when I heard a soft tap at my office door. When the door didn't open, I sighed.
"Come in," I said, not looking up from my paper. From the waiting, I could tell it wasn't Sophie or Joshua – both of them knocked as a courtesy before just barging right in, assuming it wasn't within thirty minutes of a scheduled phone call. They knew to check the calendar properly. My (hopefully still temporary) new hire, on the other hand…
The frosted glass door swung open, and a tall young blonde woman walked in, a massive pile of papers in her arms. I could see red sticky notes sticking out from between each set.
"I, uh, have all of these," Karen Page said as she bustled over, and set the pile down on my desk. "They uh, I think these all need to be in by tomorrow morning?"
I set the paper I was reading down, stood up, and walked around my desk to the stack of papers. The one on top would do, so I picked it up, flipped to the back, and checked the dates.
"Not August 27," I said, showing Karen where I was looking. "September 27. Which is a Thursday." I sighed, wrote in 'Thurs. Sep.27" on top of a pink sticky note, and slapped it on top of the pile. "There's enough stuff that needs fast-tracking that this can wait. For these motions, just check the second to last page for the date, and if it's more than three weeks out, just put it with the others that also need filing that week, okay?"
"O-oh." Karen sounded downcast, and her posture supported that. I walked back behind my desk and sat down as she hefted the pile again. "I'll just, get these back—"
"Karen." She stopped, and let the papers drop. She looked tense and nervous. "Calm down. You've been doing this for barely a few weeks, and you got tossed into the deep end. You're new to the legal side of things, mistakes are to be expected. Just learn from them."
"Right, o-okay." Once again, Karen hefted her stack of papers. "I'll just, get these back to the boys, yeah…"
A moment's struggle with the door later, and Karen was heading back down the hall to the conference room. Or at least, what was supposed to be the conference room, and had instead turned into the document storage room. Due dates were arranged in clockwise order from the door, with the imminent being right when you walked in, and the furthest out being on the other end. The entire table wasn't being used, though. Only two-thirds of it.
The other third was for a massive calendar, large enough to pencil things in as they came up.
And that calendar was filled to the fucking brim. Hence, why Miss Page was even here.
Once the totality of the workload assigned by the Court became apparent, Sophie lasted maybe six hours before having a small breakdown, not helped in the least by more private matters. I put out an urgent hiring call for secretaries later that day. Four had good enough resumes for interviews.
One walked in, saw my horns, and turned right around.
The other three all passed. Karen… had not impressed, but I'd been in desperate need.
Three secretaries started the next day.
By the end of the week, only Karen remained. Clearly some people just didn't do well in interviews, because as self-conscious as the young woman was, she was quick on the uptake and had done a bang-up job so far. I could only hope things stayed that way, and she didn't get as buried under the work as—
Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I pushed my glasses back up the bridge of my nose and turned my attention back to the papers in front of me. The green pile, I shoved to the opposite side of my desk and turned it away from me, just so it was out of the way. Then I dug back into the yellow pile, and started working my way through it.
About an hour and two-thirds of the pile later, another knock sounded on the door. This time, the door just pushed right open, and Joshua walked in, a blue sticky-note pile in his hands.
"Got another dozen," he said, holding them up. I used a pencil to save my place in the memo I'd been reading, and reached a hand out to take the pile from Joshua.
"Sophie still out?" I asked as I started signing the documents. Motions to continue, the lot of them. There wasn't a judge in the city that wouldn't sign off on a continuance right now, not when all of them were just as overworked as we were. If not more, really.
"Yeah," he said with a sigh. "And no word, either."
I sighed.
"We just have to hope," I said, but even I didn't believe it.
Sophie's eldest triplet, Michael, had been driving when IT happened. When he didn't come home after the eleven to twelve hour ordeal had passed, Sophie had panicked. When her husband found her son's car wrapped around a lamppost, the driver's seat empty and bloodied…
And then when she found Michael two days later at Memorial Sloan Kettering of all places, a full thirty blocks from the accident? When she saw her son laying there unconscious, with the doctors not knowing when he'd wake?
What made it all the more galling was that I wasn't able to even try to help. Stephen was busy putting out all the fires that an extragalactic abomination caused, and would probably be incommunicado for the next three to four months at a minimum, so I couldn't ask him if my magic would even do anything here, or just make things worse.
But just the fact that there might be something I could do, and couldn't, because I just didn't know for certain?
"You want me to grab some of those?"
"Hm?" I looked up at Joshua, pulled back out of my thoughts when he spoke. "Some of what?"
"Those," he said, pointing at the pile under the red sticky note. "I can do a preliminary proofread, have some ready for edits by the time the kids get in from classes."
"Matthew and Franklin are only two years younger than you are," I admonished Joshua. "And no skiving off from your classes. You are on your last semester, Joshua, it's time to buckle down. Pass some things off to the student attorneys. It'll be good experience for them."
"You wanna take some of that advice for yourself?" Joshua asked.
I paused. Then I put down my pen, clasped my hands, and simply looked at him.
"I beg your pardon?" I asked.
"Do you really think we can't see it?" Joshua sat down in one of the chairs on the other side of my desk. "You haven't worn your contacts in three weeks. You're using your power instead of makeup, yes I can tell the difference. Your blouse is wrinkled, your nails are chipped and ruined, you have too many split ends, and you look like you haven't slept in a week. You haven't been to Temple since 'That' happened. And most tellingly of all, you're over-steeping your tea."
I opened my mouth to reply and… nothing. I couldn't think of a single thing to say. Of all the things he could have possibly said, this one left me at a complete loss for words.
"Noa, when was the last time you slept through the night?" Joshua asked, concern writ large on his features. "Look, we can call some people, get stuff to slow down a bit — I asked Dad, he says our caseload is way larger than any other single attorney firm, so—"
"Joshua, stop. Get out and get back to work."
"Noa—"
"Out!" I slammed my hand on the desk.
Joshua didn't say anything else. He just gave me this sad frown, took the papers I'd signed (and the red sticky note stack, even though I… actually hadn't told him not to, now that I thought about it), and walked back to his office.
I slumped down in my chair.
He was right. Damn it all, but he was right. But there was so much to do. There was too much.
Just too much.
Monday, August 27, 1990
It was just past midnight. The bathroom light was on. The hall light was on.
I held the mezuzah in my hands, still glowing with that soft, dim light.
I couldn't fall asleep, not that that was anything unusual for the past too long. Chamomile tea did nothing. Benadryl to make me drowsy did nothing. Trying to do exercise until I was utterly exhausted did nothing.
Every time I closed my eyes, and got close to sleep, I saw HIM. That, that thing was long gone, farther out than anything we had could detect – the UN had put out a notice to the effect of "it's gone, we're safe now" about a week after the Arrival. I knew the monster was gone, I knew that, I knew it so well that I found myself repeating it under my breath at night.
But I still couldn't sleep. Because while the threat was so far away as to be nonexistent, part of me still felt that it was here.
I laid in bed, tossing and turning for about two hours. Another pillow was relegated to the "throw it away" bin because I tore it open with my horns, even through the little knitted 'socks' I put on the points – the third this month.
And then I found myself in the living room, listening to reruns of General Hospital and lightly drifting in and out of unconsciousness.
As per usual.
I'd tried sleeping with the lights on. I'd tried sleeping with music. It didn't work.
The TV did. The sofa did.
I felt myself drifting off, knowing that when I woke up in the morning, my neck would hurt, my tail would be killing me, and the less said about my back the better. But at least it was sleep. At least a few hours of rest. God, I was so tired—
My phone rang.
I practically leapt off of the sofa, yelling in fright before I realized it was the phone. The adrenaline was still in my veins, and all that fright and terror and "RUN!" turned into anger. I looked at the clock — 1:47am. I walked over to the phone, took a deep breath to make sure I didn't immediately explode at whoever thought it was just fucking peachy to call someone at this time of night, and answered.
"Noa Schaefer speaking," I said in my best client-facing voice.
"M-miss Schaefer? Noa?"
I recognized that voice, I thought with a frown. The caller was young, male… it wasn't St. John, Erik wouldn't let him call me for fear of being tracked. And if it wasn't him, then…
"Peter?" I asked. "What are you doing up this late — are you okay?"
"I-I, no." I heard hiccuping, sniffling. Something else over the phone that part of my mind filed away as a sob. "It, I, I don't—"
"Not over the phone," I said, feeling some alertness creep in. It was an emergency, clearly — and of the sort he'd rather call a lawyer than his uncle. "I was already up. Swing by. Do you need my address?"
The phone clicked dead.
I looked at the handset in confusion and hung it up. I knew I'd given the Parkers my business card on more than one occasion, and they'd gotten mailings with my letterhead, but that was my office address. I didn't think I'd given them my personal address? Had I done that when Osborn tried to toss my place—
Someone knocked on my front door.
My hand clenched tighter on my mezuzah. I looked down at myself — I was wearing an overly large sweatshirt over a sleep shirt, and not much else beside that. I was in no way presentable.
Something told me it didn't matter.
I opened the door, and looked up at Peter Parker.
He was, put simply, a wreck. Hair and face dirty, eyes red, puffy and bloodshot, and a couple cuts and bruises already forming. A sweatshirt and track pants hid what I knew had to be his Spider-Man costume well enough, but there were spots starting to darken, and quickly enough that I was growing concerned.
"What in the hell…" I found myself murmuring.
Then I found my focus, tugged Peter inside by a sleeve, and locked the door behind me.
"Go in the kitchen, sit on the counter," I ordered. "Turn on every light switch, get those sweats off, I'll be right back."
I ran back to my bedroom (yes, literally), shucked the sweatshirt, threw on some sweatpants instead, then dipped into the bathroom to grab my first aid kit. It was a hefty thing, probably a good fifteen pounds — way more than the homeowner standard, but I also had some goodies courtesy of the good Sorcerer.
Peter sat on the counter. His shoulders were hunched, and he was practically pulling in on himself, dejection and something else practically wafting off of the poor boy. More importantly, he'd stripped to just the bottoms of his costume, and I could see just how much of a beating he'd taken.
Peter's entire upper body was already developing into a patchwork of bruises and contusions. Yellow and green, blue and purple, all of them warred for space along an upper body that frankly had too much muscle and too little fat. He was barely moving, and the muscle under his skin still rippled — it was honestly a little disturbing, really.
More worrying were the cuts, lacerations on his arms and torso, a few more on his legs, and some small ones on his face. The bleeding had stopped, but I was still worried.
"Alright, washcloths…"
I turned on the faucet and flipped the water to hot. It would take almost a minute to heat up, so I washed my hands and got started.
"Okay, skipping all the rigamarole." I dried my hands, grabbed a washcloth, and put it under the now-warm water. "I'm your lawyer until you say otherwise. Nothing you say leaves."
I handed him a washcloth. His hand shook as he took it, so I grabbed his hand and turned it over to inspect.
His knuckles were bloodied and swollen.
"Talk to me, Peter. What happened?"
Peter didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he took the washcloth and started wiping the blood off. I got out some cotton balls and disinfectant, and once he'd wiped an area free of blood, I went over it. Despite the stinging, he didn't flinch, he didn't hiss, he didn't make any noise whatsoever.
"It was Osborn," he whispered after a minute or two.
I bit back a curse. Of course. Of course he wouldn't be able to leave well enough alone. I made a mental reminder to contact Erik after this. Whatever happened to the bastard, it was out of my hands.
"Was on a date," Peter said. God… he sounded so, so hollow. "With my g—with G-Gwen. Central Park. Osborn, the Goblin, he… he took her."
Peter's cuts were disinfected. I was on autopilot at this point, just focusing on what I had to do so I didn't react. Reacting badly was the worst thing I could do right now, and the more Peter said, the worse that sinking feeling I'd been having became. I had a very bad feeling about how this story ended, but I needed him to say it.
For his own sake, he needed to say it.
"He took G-, Gw—her to the bridge." Peter sniffed and wiped his eyes. My mezuzah, still glowing with that same light it had held for the past month and a half plus, floated just in front of my hand as I brought it up to Peter's face.
"Which one," I prompted, even as I focused. A thin stream of light flowed from my fingertips into the mezuzah, and came out the other end far brighter. The light streamed over Peter's face, and the cuts closed up, his bruises fading as I watched. I cast my senses inward – I wasn't able to do much for all the bruising, that was just too much.
But I could at least close up his cuts, make sure he didn't get infected.
"George Washington Bridge," Peter said. I moved lower, and started working on the gash in his right arm. "Osborn, he… he held Gwen by the throat. Then threw her off the bridge. I, I tried to… I, I…"
Peter shuddered. A sob tore itself from his throat, and shaking hands started moving towards his face.
"I c-couldn't, I, she!"
I let the mezuzah fall, and laid a hand on Peter's arm.
He grabbed me with the fervor of a drowning man. Peter pulled me in for a hug, and held tight. Dust, dirt, and dried blood probably ruined this sweatshirt forever, and I hadn't managed to finish closing all his cuts, but that didn't matter.
There were only two people who knew Peter was Spider-Man: Ben Parker and myself. And right now, in this moment, I could tell. Peter had failed to save someone close to him. He'd failed to do it again.
In the face of that failure, of that shame, how was he supposed to face his Uncle Ben?
"I c-couldn't save her, she's—"
"Shh…" I whispered. I shifted slightly so my horn wasn't jabbing Peter in the arm, and despite my discomfort, let him cry.
"I'm sorry Gwen, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"
Wednesday, August 29, 1990
Monday and Tuesday were both a wash. I didn't get a lick of sleep that Sunday-into-Monday, especially since I was busy minding a wounded, emotionally-wrecked Peter Parker while I looked into a few options. A call to the office had Joshua give me a very well-deserved 'I told you so', and when I told Sophie as much as I could realistically share, she understood immediately.
Luckily for everyone involved, Monday and Tuesday were the days we had both Matthew and Franklin full-time, and those two were terrifyingly efficient. All Joshua had to do was give them more samples of my work to plagiarize – ahem, I mean make boilerplate from – and things were handled.
That, and Joshua was… right. I called into Jeremy, my man in the Clerk's office, and confirmed that I was, in fact, getting more than I was supposed to be. Why? Because some brilliant asshole decided to base how many cases a non-Big Law firm received off of how much money it had received in court payments.
A month and a half. A month and a half of drowning in work, because I'd had too much pride to pick up the phone and ask around.
Joshua got a bonus for that one.
Regardless. Back on topic.
Peter Parker.
What happened… I could have turned Peter away that night. Part of me still felt like I should've ignored the phone and just kept trying to go to sleep. But I think Peter knew I was awake. He called, got permission to come by, didn't ask my address… and was at my door less than a minute later.
He'd probably used the payphone on my block.
Regardless, I'd taken responsibility. A call to Jonah led him to where Peter and Osborn had had their final confrontation, and after he cursed me out for calling him at half past four in the morning, he managed to be the first journalist on the scene. Which meant the Monday news got an emergency edition loudly proclaiming that Norman Osborn was the Green Goblin and was also dead.
Cate called asking if I knew anything about this. I cited attorney-client privilege, apologized, and told her I'd pay for her drinks by the time we all stopped sleeping under our desks.
And lastly, Ben Parker called the school to let them know Peter would be out for the first week.
With the fires put out, this brought me back to Peter.
Peter didn't want to go home yet. I understood, and informed his uncle that I knew where he was, and he was safe… but I was seeing red flags.
He didn't eat breakfast. I brought home carry out from Kaplan's, and he barely had some soup. Dinner he barely ate.
And then he demolished the leftovers in the middle of the night.
If I hadn't forced him to bathe, he probably would've just sat there. As it was, he'd slept on an air mattress on the floor of my home office (aka the second bedroom) for most of the day.
He was listless, depressed, anxious, uncertain… he destroyed one of my spoons by bending it completely out of shape. By accident.
Peter needed help. Help I couldn't give.
But that I knew where to find.
A phone call had everything set up. Ben offered to drive. When Peter nearly broke down at the idea of being stuck in a car with his uncle for a few hours, even with me there as a buffer. Given Peter had just become a legal adult, and it was within his right to refuse now, I put the kibosh on that idea. Then Ben offered to let me his car.
Which lasted exactly as long as it took to realize I couldn't comfortably reach the pedals.
A rental car and several hours of driving later, Peter and I arrived in Westchester, New York. Another twenty minutes of driving through town, and I pulled the rental car into the long driveway of the Xavier Institute. I parked the car on the outer edge of the long driveway's loop, per instructions, and nudged Peter.
"We're here," I said, gently tapping him awake. Normally this would be a bad idea, as traumatized people tended to react badly to being woken up — there was a reason I didn't try to wake my father up when he fell asleep in his armchair, after all.
Peter was the exception, because his Spider-Sense meant he would know if it was a threat or not.
The teen opened his eyes and blinked, looking around at the academy around us.
"Where are we?" he asked, stretching and yawning before unbuckling his seatbelt.
"Where we're supposed to be," I said, deliberately not giving him an answer. A brief flex of will and my glamour fell away, which surprised Peter, if the way his eyes went wide were any indication. "I don't need that here. Now, Peter."
I got the teen's attention and looked him in the eyes.
"Listen to me carefully. The person we're here to see is under the same confidentiality oaths I am. Whatever you tell him, he cannot repeat. But if he says something that surprises you, I want you to understand that I did not tell him anything."
"W-wait, what do you mean by that?" Peter asked, drawing back from me, shoulders squaring. "Does, does he know—"
"Probably," I said, to which Peter gasped. "Let me be clear, Peter. Yours doesn't even make the top ten most dangerous secrets this man knows, and has kept. You can trust him, I promise."
Peter looked to be thinking about what to say for a few moments, but eventually gave up and just opened the car door. I swapped my flats for my heels (because there was no way in hell I was trying to drive while wearing heels, especially not in an unfamiliar car!) and grabbed my purse before doing the same, and stood with him on the curb.
At my gesture, we walked up to the building. I pressed the doorbell to the manor turned school building, and waited.
Not five seconds later, one of the double doors opened, and I had to look… very far up to meet a pair of eyes.
"Ms. Schaefer?" the great, lumbering blue behemoth behind the door asked, looking down at me.
"Yes," I said, taking a step forward and offering a hand. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Peter just gaping at the obvious mutant in front of him. "Noa Schaefer. A pleasure to meet you, mister…?"
"McCoy," the mutant said, opening the other door before offering me a hand. "Dr. Henry McCoy. But feel free to call me Hank." Trying to give Dr. McCoy a handshake was an awkward affair, as his hand completely enveloped mine, but we managed. Then the good doctor's eyes turned to my current companion. "And you must be Mr. Parker!" Dr. McCoy offered a handshake to Peter as well, who took it numbly. "Please, come in!"
Dr. McCoy stepped to the side, letting the two of us in.
Once we did, it became obvious that despite starting as a manor, this was a school building. Even just in the entry hall here, I could see a few students lounging around, and another half dozen or so going from one place to another. The part that had Peter's jaw dropping was that several of the students were quite obviously using their mutant powers as they did.
A student floated up to the second floor, his bulging backpack bouncing off of the opposing stairway headed to the third and nearly sending him careening down into the floor. Another was walking upside down on the ceiling, her ponytail falling straight down in rather amusing fashion as she held her tote bag out over her head. Another, a girl with green hair, sat on a small suitcase as it floated along the hallway, hurriedly scribbling notes into the margins of a textbook as she did.
"Welcome to the Xavier Institute, or as many of us in the faculty like to call it, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters," Dr. McCoy said with a chuckle. "We operate on a trimester system, so the school 'year' isn't set to start until next week, actually. There are extra credit opportunities and optional seminars between trimesters though, and since most of our students board, there's typically always somebody doing schoolwork at some point in here."
"Are, are they all…?" Peter trailed off, and I suddenly got the impression that he didn't want to say something wrong.
"Mutants?" Dr. McCoy asked. "Many of us are, but no, not all. The split is about 70/30 in favor of mutants, though, so believe me when I say the question was in no way unwarranted!" The doctor favored us with a smile, and adjusted the (comically small, almost) glasses on his face. "Our mutant students are offered extracurriculars to teach them safe use of their powers, as well as more ways to utilize them in their day to day lives."
"They are well within their rights to refuse, however," a new voice joined, and I turned to see the man of the hour approaching in his electric wheelchair. "Ms. Schaefer, a pleasure to see you again." He turned to Peter. "And this must be Mister Parker. Professor Charles Xavier, at your service."
Charles offered a hand to Peter, who took it, but I could tell that he still wasn't all there, mentally. Something told me that he was starting to get what I meant when I said he could trust the professor.
"A-and are you—"
"A mutant?" Charles asked with a smile. "I am indeed, young man. Though I would not recommend asking everybody here if they are or not. I fear you would grow tired of hearing such marvelous answers as, 'duh', 'of course', and a perennial favorite, swear words."
"Peter," I said, taking this as a good time to step in. "Professor Xavier is the founder and head of this school. On top of that, he is a world-renowned psychologist, a humanitarian, and a veteran."
"I do not expect your trust to be given freely," Charles said. "However, from painful experience, I know that some things are best put to words, lest they be left to fester."
"I," Peter stammered, eyes glancing towards the door. "I, I'm not sure, um."
"Nobody is going to force you to do anything," I said, taking a step so I was in between Peter and the Professor. "I know I'm asking a lot of you right now, Peter. But I wouldn't have so much as thought about this if I didn't think it would help."
It took another couple minutes of waffling back and forth, by which point all of the students milling about had cleared out. But Peter did, eventually, choose to go with Professor Xavier.
Which left me alone with the big blue doctor.
"He's not a mutant."
Those were the first words out of Dr. McCoy's mouth the moment the small elevator doors finished closing on Peter and Charles.
"No," I said, feeling the first stirrings of irritation. "No he isn't."
"Then it's curious why you thought to bring him here to find somebody to shrink his head, as it were," Dr. McCoy said. His posture and demeanor were substantially different now that nobody was around to see him. "There's more than enough psychologists in the City, and ones that would require far less of an imposition."
"And are you suggesting that the imposition is upon the patient, who had to schlepp all the way out here, or on the professional?" I asked as I crossed my arms, one eyebrow raised. "The one who specifically carved time out of his day for us before I managed to finish one sentence?"
Dr. McCoy didn't have an immediate answer to that. We simply stared one another down briefly, before he eventually huffed, cracked a smile, and turned away.
"I suppose Charles doesn't make his choices lightly," he said with a shrug. My arms remained crossed, but I also offered a slight shrug.
"You'd know better than I," I said. "So, I assume you are faculty here. Care to give me a rundown, Dr. McCoy?"
"It would be my pleasure," he said. "And please. Call me Hank."
"If you insist," I replied. "Hank."
"Mister Parker is a remarkable young man," Charles said as I took a seat opposite him in his office, in between a sip of tea. "I understand well his desire for secrecy, and commend you on your decision to approach me – I dare say anybody you could have found in New York City would have been hard pressed to maintain their secrecy in his case."
"That is part of the reason I reached out to you," I said, nursing my own cup of black tea. English Breakfast, it tasted like. "That, and you have a unique perspective, close enough to match Peter's." I looked up. "Speaking of, where is he now?"
"In our discussion, it was clear that he has long been lacking a safe source of catharsis," Charles began. "To that end, I had one of my students accompany him to the basement training facility for those with more powerful or advanced abilities. The 'Danger Room', as we like to call it."
I frowned. That was not a name I wanted to hear with regards to a school.
"Have no fear," Charles said. "The 'Danger Room' cannot be made actually dangerous in any way without a password. I personally randomize and input the password myself every day. There is no threat in the 'Danger Room' without my explicit knowledge and consent."
"Peter may not be a minor anymore," I said warningly, "but if anything happens to him, he is still my client."
"Which is why he is accompanied by one of my more capable students," Charles said. "A fine young man, by the name of Robert Drake. Although he prefers Bobby."
"Hmm." I took a sip of my tea to marshal my thoughts. "I know you can't share much due to confidentiality, but in as broad terms as possible, how is he?" I asked.
"Mister Parker?" Charles asked. I nodded. "He is… hurt. So very, very deeply hurt. All of it wrapped tightly around a seed of guilt." He looked me in the eye. "You know what the source is?"
"I do." The death of his Aunt May… even though the choices and actions of another man weren't ultimately his fault, I couldn't blame Peter for constantly running it over in his mind. What if he had stopped that man? What if he'd gotten home sooner? Been home when it happened?
But that was the problem with what ifs. They never really came true. You could agonize over them all day long, ask yourself about this or that or the other thing. But at the end of the day, the past was the past. You couldn't change it.
Looking forward was the only option.
"I'm not his parent," I said. "Nor am I much of anything to him, really. I'm just somebody who knows a secret. And that puts me in a place of confidence, yes, but… it's not the same as being close."
"And yet, when he was hurting, when he had nowhere to turn, you chose to act," Charles said. "It is a good deed, a… hm." He frowned. "What was the word for it in your faith? A matzah?"
"A mitzvah," I corrected, smiling slightly at the error. "A good deed. Though there's some connotation that it's out of religious duty, or religious guilt. I prefer to believe it's a conscious choice made between what is right and what is easy."
"Indeed. And on that note." Charles set down his teacup, clasped his hands, and looked at me with utmost severity. "Mr. Parker is not the only one in need of assistance today. You are not well, Ms. Schaefer, and it is plain to see."
I couldn't stop the hitch in my breath when he said that.
"No, I am not reading your thoughts. I am simply analyzing your posture, your expression, and your actions. You are blinking rather slowly," he said, raising his fingers in a direct mirror of how I tended to when counting things off. "Your shoulders and hands shake ever so slightly. You have winced when looking at bright light. Your movements are sluggish, your steps heavy. When last we met, you had your hair in a more elaborate styling, whereas today you tie it back, to not deal with it."
Charles looked me in the eye.
"My dear, when was the last time you slept?"
The tight hold I'd kept on my thoughts and emotions came loose. I felt the tears come, and instead of pushing them back, I finally let them fall.
"I keep seeing it." It was barely a whisper. "E-every time I try to sleep, whenever I'm about to d-dream, HE is there, and, and—!"
"Come."
Charles wheeled himself out from behind the desk and took my hand, then used the other to direct us towards the couch on the other end of his office.
"Mister Drake has young Mister Parker well in hand for now," he said as I took off my shoes and lay down on his couch. A cheap pillow found its way beneath my head, and I winced when my horns pierced straight into it. "Worry not. Now. Close your eyes. Relax."
"B-but—"
"I shall assist. Simply relax."
Part of me was mortified. I was supposed to be better than this.
But I was exhausted. I was so tired. I was tired of having to soldier on, of having to just… force myself through every day.
So I closed my eyes. I dried my tears with a tissue, courtesy of Charles' consideration, ignored that I'd ruined his pillow, and let myself relax. Charles' fingers rested on my temples, and I closed my eyes, letting my breathing become slow and deep.
That moment between wakefulness and sleep came quickly, and part of me was terrified – because that was where HE lay waiting, at that boundary between awake and asleep.
Allow me to help, I… didn't quite hear a voice say. I shall keep the nightmare away.
That shadowy apparition that forced me out of sleep, that monstrous HE waiting for me… vanished. It fell away like dust in an imaginary wind.
And for the first time since the Arrival, I slept.
Charles woke me at half past six. A restroom let me fix my utterly ruined makeup (and my skin care routine would punish me for this later…) before heading back out.
Peter had apparently made a new friend, and he and Bobby Drake traded phone numbers. I overheard some nebulous thing about 'plans' for the coming Saturday, but I wasn't paying attention.
It took until Peter and I got in the car for me to realize just how much less tense I felt.
"Did it help?" I asked.
Peter didn't answer immediately. I shrugged, started the car, and got us headed back to the City.
After about an hour, and in between songs from the radio station, Peter broke his silence.
"It helped," he said. "It's… thanks."
"A lesson to be learned for all of us today, Peter," I said without looking at him, eyes focused on the road. "Nobody is ever too afraid, or too proud, to reach out for help."
Chag Purim Sameach!
Been an eventful few weeks on my end. Unfortunately, it's gonna be another eventful time in another few weeks, because my lease is up at the end of the month and I need to move. Which is always a miserable time.
Anyway. Hope everyone enjoyed the chapter.
I am waiting to hear back from a second round job interview, but with any luck, I will soon be able to end my job hunt. In the meantime, if you enjoyed what you read enough to toss a tip to your writer, here is my ko-fi page, for what is (quite hopefully) the last time.
Hope everyone enjoyed!
Now, in the meantime... where did I put that hamentaschen recipe...
