"Hey, Dean, I've got a few social questions for you," I said. "First of which... You know Evelyn, right? Redhead, kinda tall?"

"Yeah?" Dean said. "We're, uh... coworkers."

"Great. What's the deal with her and that Taylor chick?"

"Well... they're best friends," Dean said, shrugging. "Evelyn moved here from out of town, around the New Year, and... well, she met Taylor pretty early on, and took a liking to her. Neither of them has told me much that they don't tell the others, but..." Dean frowned. "...I think Taylor's just... an ordinary girl, who Lyn is trying to use as, like... an anchor. A way to hold on to the experience of... being normal, basically. And... I don't think it's really working. Lyn's kinda condescending about it, without really realizing it- she sees all of Taylor's problems as something that she's gotta solve, and... I mean, yeah, it is making Taylor's life better, but... sometimes, I get the feeling Lyn treats Taylor more like a talking pet than a friend."

"I see, I see," I said, nodding.

"I thought they were just girlfriends," Dennis opined.

"Same, honestly," Carlos added. "It'd certainly explain why they don't really hang out with the rest of us that much. Still sucks, though- our workplace is a real sausagefest."

"Nah, I've been to actual sausage festivals that had a better gender ratio than our job," Dennis said. "One time, this cute vendor girl who was selling corn dogs just told me to close my eyes and open my mouth, and then... well, she said a lot of things, to be honest."

"Dean, can I ask you my next question in private so I don't have to hear about Dennis' Oktoberfest-themed sexual awakening?" I asked, genuinely a little revolted.

"Look, I'm just saying-" Dennis continued.

"And I want you to stop saying, forever."

"Then put a corn dog in my mouth."

I stood up, and Dean followed suit, as we walked away from the table, and towards a quieter alcove.

"So... why haven't you talked to Vicky yet?" I asked.

"I've just..." Dean sighed. "It's a lot, okay?"

One of the things that the Force could do was read someone's general mental state. In a past life, I'd been Darth Thanaton, Dark Lord of the Sith. Here and now, though, I was not a Sith Lord, and I wasn't even acting like one; my grip on the Force and what it was telling me was pretty tenuous, and all I could tell was that Dean was... extremely conflicted.

"It is, yeah," I said quietly. "But... well. You love her, don't you? And... now you understand her, better than you ever have before. And, and, now you're not the only one trying to help her."

Some of that conflict resolved, inside him.

"...Right," Dean said quietly. "You're here too, now. And... you're not allergic to her like the other guys are."

"Wait, what?" I asked.

"I mean," Dean said, before coughing. "You've, uh... noticed, some of her... personality quirks, right?"

"A few," I said. "I... suppose not all of your friends find her endearing?"

"They do not," Dean said. "Hell, she even gets on my nerves sometimes, but... that's neither here nor there."

"I guess this does explain why she doesn't have any friends besides us, despite being a public-identity superhero," I mused.

"That and she's not super approachable, since she is a public-identity superhero," Dean added. "It's... uh..."

"Yeah, okay, I can see how that would also fuck up her social life," I said, nodding. "But, hey, now you've got me, and I am way too stubborn to let all the obvious red flags drive me away from one of the few people who can tolerate me in turn."

Dean chuckled, the last of his conflictedness starting to drain out of him, leaving him with a calm, grim resolution. A bit worrying that he viewed helping his girlfriend deprogram herself from chronic cop brain as a herculean effort he needed to steel himself for, but... well, I guess it was better than him underestimating the problem and backing out once he realized it was more than he'd bargained for.

"Alright," Dean said, nodding. "Well... You mind coming with me, this afternoon? I need the moral support."

"Sure thing, buddy."

---

"So, Joe talked to you?" Vicky asked.

"He did, yes," Dean said.

The sound of my own name had grown more noxious to me, ever since I started to accept my past lives. Many of them also recalled being named Joe, and rejecting the identity viciously, carving a new one for themselves. Maybe I would follow in their footsteps. Maybe I wouldn't. But either way... not right now. This wasn't about me.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

"I've had... a lot to think about," Dean continued. "Ever since Amy confronted Joe, and... I learned about what happened between the two of you. Thank you, Amy."

"Don't drag me into this," Amy said, shaking her head and stepping to the side, trying to hide behind her sister.

"Joe spelled it out for me pretty clearly, what exactly was going on with you," Dean said. "Nearly every one of our disagreements about hero work, criminal justice, and the law... It wasn't trivial- you having a few different opinions and thought processes, a few differences we could work out. You just... had a fundamentally black-and-white moral compass. You thought like a child, even when you're seventeen fucking years old. And that, well... you would not change. You can't change. This worldview didn't come from nowhere, it's not something you'd grow out of- it runs in your family, Victoria. Did you ever hear what your mother told me, about why she went for personal injury rather than criminal justice? Because she didn't want to risk becoming a defense attorney, and defending someone she thought was guilty- someone she thought did deserve punishment, and didn't deserve a full, proper defense under the law."

I inhaled sharply through my teeth- this was not going well.

"Dean, maybe pump the brakes," I said, watching Victoria's widening eyes begin to mist up.

"It was all in front of me this whole time," Dean said. "Yet I never realized it. I never understood you. I never really knew you. But now I do, and..." Dean sighed. "...And I want out. This is it for us. I'm breaking up with you. Don't ever call me again. Goodbye, Victoria. Have fun with the guy who does still like you."

And with that, he turned on his heel, left the room, walked down the stairs, and out the front door.

"...Holy shit Vicky I am so fucking so-" I began, before she wrapped herself around me in a bone-crushing hug. She started to shake and shudder, as wet spots began to bleed through my shirt. It didn't take a Sith to tell she wasn't taking this well. I lifted my gaze from Vicky to Amy, who was just as bug-eyed at what had just happened, and waved her over, silently begging her to help me console her sister.

"Shh, shh, Vicky, it's okay, you don't need him," Amy cooed in what was trying to be a comforting voice, rubbing circles in Vicky's back. It... wasn't working, because, well, Vicky did need him.

Vicky, it was transpiring, thought of Dean as a gestalt guardian angel and moral compass. Dean was her rock, her anchor, her source of high-minded moral wisdom. And now... well, now he'd declared her inherently morally reprobate and unfit to be a hero- damned from the cradle by the sins of her mother, never to be properly washed away.

Ideally, I'd whisk her away to talk to a therapist, but... no, she wouldn't talk to a therapist, not right now. She hated herself right now, thought she was evil incarnate, that she didn't deserve help. Her moral authority had just washed his hands of her...

...except.

I was also a moral authority in her eyes, wasn't I?

"Listen to me closely, Hermanita," I said. "Dean was wrong, okay? What he said- maybe that's who you were, but that's not who you're doomed to be. People do change. People disagree with their parents all the time; just because your mother has a less-than-enlightened view on criminal justice doesn't mean you're guaranteed to carry that with you for your entire life. People change. You will change. Hell, you have changed- I can see it in your timeline."

It was minor, but... Vicky was beginning, in fits and starts, to internalize the notion that criminals were people, who did what they did for a reason. Sure, right now, she was... currently, mentally framing it in the Power Wank Horoscopes, and how this one well-known paper sketched out a pseudoscience framework for what kinds of specific trauma produce what kinds of specific superpower, and that was her biggest frame of reference for 'people do things you don't agree with because of stuff that happened in her past,' but... okay, it wasn't the best place to start, but she was starting.

Vicky managed to still herself, and cleared her throat... then sniffled loudly- honestly more like a snort, and then coughed. A bit of wet phlegm stuck to the front of my shirt. Oh well.

"What..." Vicky began. "...What does that mean?"

"...You'll have to be more specific," I said.

"Hermanita," Vicky said. "You keep... You keep calling me that. What is it?"

"...It's Spanish," I said. "It means 'little sister.'"

"...Oh," Vicky said quietly. I could tell immediately that I'd just made things even worse.

See, apparently both Dean and Vicky thought that I would date Vicky after Dean left her. However... well, I'd just revealed that my nickname for Vicky was 'little sister.' Which did not bode super well for me being interested in her like that. And, uh... well, she really, really needed someone to be interested in her like that, but if I was out... who else was it gonna be?

So, uh.

Fuck.

"...I guess I should've known you weren't interested in women," Vicky murmured.

"Now that's not true at all," I said, hastily. "I assure you, I am very interested in women, it's just..."

"Just not me, though," Vicky said bitterly. "I'm curious- is it because I'm too tall? My hair's the wrong kind of blonde? Or have we known each other all this time and you just never mentioned you have a girlfriend?"

"...There's... there's a lot I haven't told you," I said quietly. "And, um..." I wondered, just where the fuck would I even begin with this? I closed my eyes.

How was I gonna make her understand who I was, if even I didn't understand who I was?