My hands shook as I tried to type. This had been so easy, not so long ago, I'd been living as Black Shark on my own for months, made and spent millions of credits, and now I couldn't even respond to a single buyer. I took a drink to steady my hands.

In my mind, I was forever falling down that hill. Replaying everything I did wrong. The XPCA soldiers chasing me, tracking me by my rifle fire. If I'd just held my fire, believed in the others to be able to win that fight without me, they never would have found me, perched in a tree, shrouded by my optics-defeating equipment.

And when I fell, I ran. I had candelas and shock rocks in my pockets, easy access and everything. But when I saw them, up close, with their guns, I panicked and just took off. Took right off a damn cliff. Not even watching where I was going. Saw the warning on my mask's HUD and just ignored it, not familiar enough with my gear, not enough practice, just damn sloppy everything.

I took another drink.

And then worst of all, the last thing I did was cry out for help. The one thing I knew would make Athan fold like a folding chair. I just couldn't keep my mouth shut. After all my talk with the girls on all the things we needed to do to keep him from surrendering. I should have broken my ear comms, thrown it into the bushes, let them have me, and let Athan win the fight. Instead, Blackett himself shows up, rips it out of my ear while his goons hold me down, says his piece to Athan.

At that point, all I could hope was Athan didn't believe him for some reason, that Athan could just be too stupid and too stubborn, and I knew he was both of those things plenty. And just as I'm thinking that, bam, Blackett just treads on my hand a little bit and I'm gasping and whimpering into the comms he shoves in my face like it was all planned.

I hated myself. I hated what I'd done, I hated every single thing about me from that moment forward. I couldn't write, I couldn't be Black Shark, I couldn't even begin working on a plan for Athan, much less doing a damn thing about it.

I took another drink. My flask was out again. I took a swig from the handle instead. It was all going to wind up in the same place.

All I could do, every damn day, was just put a smile on my face and pretend that things were going to be okay. Every day. Saga knew, there wasn't any avoiding that, but AEGIS and Chiho were in the dark. Subaru...I don't know that he thought much about anything, and I didn't really care anyway. He had strong arms, and right now, being held was everything I wanted in the world.

I checked the holo. It was only noon. AEGIS was going to give me hell again for drinking so early. Fuck her. I took another drink. Bitter. Acrid. Burned on its way down that hill.

I put away my work again, having accomplished exactly nothing. I knew what I needed to do, had a plan even. I'd talked it out with the others and everyone was on-board.

Everyone...except me, it seemed. We were all waiting, Athan was waiting, for me to get things moving, to start Operation: Athan, and I couldn't even begin the first damn step. Couldn't even use my damn holo for anything more complicated than buying everything on the whole damn 'net and browsing smut. I didn't even like smut, didn't even want the things I bought.

All I wanted was to start my work. And to get Athan back and fix all the mistakes I'd made. And stop drinking so much, and undo anything the XPCA had done to him in the time they'd had them, and stop lying to AEGIS all the time, and apologize to Saga for all the pain I knew I was putting her through, and cut things off with Subaru because that was just a dead-end and I knew it and, get back to being Black Shark and having some control over my own life.

Really, that was it. And yet, every day, somewhere between staring at the ceiling and thinking, 'yeah, I need to do it today', and getting to my chair and my holo, all of that disappeared. I was powerless against how useless and horrible and worthless and how much I'd ruined everything I was.

I took another big long drink and decided to look up what Subaru was doing. We'd only just moved in, those two couldn't say no to living with me, and the rent I charged compared to their old place, and now Subaru was just across the hall whenever I wanted him. I got up, found my legs a little unsteady, and realized I hadn't eaten anything at all today, and the booze was kicking my butt.

But to hell with it. I grabbed the handle and headed across the hall.

"Yooo, Subaru," I said knocking.

"'Sup, come in," he said, and I obliged.

I'd been keeping things with Subaru low-key on Saga's account, but he was getting tired of just playing around, and honestly, so was I. She could probably put up with us fooling around, just a little, I thought. Or maybe, looking at the half-empty bottle in my hand, that was the vodka doing the thinking.

Again. To hell with it. Vodka at least, wasn't a complete screw-up in every conceivable way like I was. Really couldn't hurt to let it do a little more of the thinking.

Every morning after that was the same. Wake up late, hungover, mad at myself for just existing, if I could even call it that. Still in my old clothes, half the time not even in my own bed, worst ferreting breath imaginable. Piles of trash, empty bottles everywhere, more stuff I ordered and didn't even know why. I'd wake up crying, hurting so bad inside, missing Athan, missing my old self, just pitiful in every possible way.

Some days I couldn't even get out of bed. It was a problem I hadn't had in a long time. I didn't want to go back to being that person again. Maybe I could settle for being someone worse.

I wanted someone to comfort me, tell me it was okay, like Athan used to. But I didn't deserve that, and he wasn't around to do it anyway. Because of me.

This is usually about as far as I got in my morning before I started drinking again. No work would be done, I'd push the patience of my very patient friends even further and dig myself deeper into my hole. Every time I saw AEGIS now, she just looked at me with these dead eyes, like I'd just lied to her, wasted her time, strung her along.

And I mean, how could I argue? I was doing all those things.

I never even saw Saga anymore. She'd taken up residence outside in the back under a tree, and whatever I thought or said, she never commented on it. I guess she didn't want to broadcast to the neighbors and new roommates, but it was basically like she was gone. Just a surveillance camera recording all the awful in my mind at this point. Chronicling the great Fall of Lia. Well she could keep the damn movie rights.

Chiho was trying to help, spent a lot of time with me, urging me to get out, be more active, drink less and eat more. It was everything I needed and nothing I wanted, so I started ignoring her too. Subaru could be depended on to not nag about my mental health in the least, so he was the world's most perfect boyfriend. He officially asked me out, and I said yes of course, thinking this was the start of something new, something big.

He said if we were going out now, we should probably do it already. Lots of people did before they were even dating, and I couldn't really argue. I felt giddy and nausea as we made furtive plans to meet up the next night in the bath for some fun. He'd bring the condoms, and I'd bring the package to put them in.

And plenty of booze, inside and out. I didn't want a little thing like being afraid or worrying about Athan at the wrong time to mess this up for me. I even had the crazy thought that once Subaru and I were together, I wouldn't feel so bad about Athan, because I wouldn't need him so much. I was mad at myself for thinking it, but I was mad at myself for a lot of things, so it wasn't like it mattered.

That night, Subaru was getting pushy, and although I kind of liked it, I wasn't quite drunk enough for that just yet and told him we'd already made plans for tomorrow. He listened, after a couple more false starts, and I settled into the bath, feeling the room spin pleasantly around me and riding on the currents of love.

I heard the door click open, wondering how I didn't manage to lock it, and wondering even more just how insistent Subaru could be, when I saw it was Saga creeping in on me.

"EeeEEY girl," I said.

"You are obnoxiously drunk," she hissed, closing the door behind her.

"AND I'm nekked. Thats' what we do in the baths!"

"Lia, I must urge you not to go through with your plans with that...man-beast," Saga said, in a voice barely more than a whisper.

"HOw do you know about my plants?" I asked. "OH, right your sSAGA."

Stolen story; please report.

"Listen to me Lia. Focus. Urgh."

She grunted and strained and I felt my head clearing.

"Ow, damn, what the hell, Saga!?"

"You weren't...listening," she grunted.

"Jesus Christ, it's like an instant hangover," I moaned and cradled my head, which was now spinning in a much less pleasant manner. I closed my eyes and dunked my head slowly under the surface of the water, my legs now cold for having to leave to make the space.

"......." she said above the surface. In the multitude of rippling reflections, I could see her mouth moving, her brows angry. Gesturing for me to surface.

My head pounded, I didn't know blood could hurt so damn much when it was inside your body like it was supposed to be. It sounded like my heartbeat was echoing off the walls of the tub and the entire pool of water was throbbing with the sound of my heart, beating against my head. I tried to squeeze my head between my hands, hold the veins shut from outside and maybe, maybe, the pain would go away.

The profusion of Sagas in the ripples sighed and crossed their arms. The message was clear. I had to breathe someday.

Joke was on her, I was a pro swimmer.

A minute of agony underwater later, the joke was on me as I broke the surface to gasp and cough.

"Are you ready to tal--" she started, and then I went back under. She rolled her eyes and rolled up a sleeve and next thing I knew, her gangly thin arm was blindly groping around the fleshy bits between my legs. I gasped and then drowned, because I just gasped underwater, and surfaced and choked, my head pounding its resentment at every step. When I broke the surface and could breathe again, I realized she was standing up again, drain plug in hand, and my beautiful, warm, life-giving, noise-blocking bath was seeping away from me.

"Ready now?" she asked as I lay cold and naked in the tub. I shivered and she threw a towel on me.

"You have no right to interfere," I said.

"I know. Except for the fact that you'll be fucking in my head too. The least you can do is get a damn room."

"We have two rooms already."

"And you're still going to use the communal bathtub because you're just that special."

It was the meanest I'd ever heard Saga. She could be pretty snide in my mind, but talking out loud, she almost sounded like an entirely different person. Here, in her soft voice, barely audible, it sounded less like a shy child and more like whispered threats.

"Subaru says the water will...help, with things," I said, feeling myself sinking below the lip of the tub.

"Subaru is an idiot and doesn't know the first thing about putting his bits into your bits, for starters."

"He says he has lots of experience!"

"Are you telling me I'm wrong at reading his mind? Because I find that hard to believe."

"Stay out of his mind!" I shouted, and then winced at my own voice. "You don't know him like I do."

"That's right, I don't. I know him like I do, and that's why I'm telling you, drop him and don't do it. You'll regret it."

"I can make my own decisions, okay? I don't need you judging every boy I look at. You're not my mom. You're not even my friend. You're just some freak my brother knew. Some stupid, alien, Exhuman freak!"

I could feel Saga's heart break a little bit as the words came out of my mouth. I didn't mean it, and she knew I didn't, but I was just so angry, and Subaru was the only thing giving me any happiness, and she didn't even want me to have that.

Saga sighed. "I am a stupid alien Exhuman freak. You got that much right. But I also am your friend, Lia. Don't do it."

"I'm doing it, and you can't stop me."

"I could, if I wanted to. I could blow his mind up right now like an egg in the microwave. I could touch your mind so you hated everything about the guy. I could give him a compel so that whenever he saw you naked, he couldn't get it up."

"Why would you do any of that?"

"Because he's an asshole, Lia. Objectively." Saga coughed. She was running out of voice for today. I didn't mind, she needed to shut up anyway.

"He's my boyfriend, okay? Yeah, he might not be perfect, but he loves me. He and nobody else in this dump, apparently. You think I don't see how you three look at me? All glassy-eyed like I'm broken in the head?"

"He doesn't look at you at all, that's why. Not high enough to see your eyes anyway."

"Well, maybe I don't want anyone looking me in the eyes. Maybe that's why I love him so much. Maybe we're perfect for each other."

I wanted to get up and leave, put a door between me and her, where she couldn't say horrible things to me anymore, but whenever I tried to move too much, my head rang like someone had put a gong next to my head and hit it.

It being my head.

"Lia, I...you can't do this. You're wrong and you're not thinking clearly. I know you have a lot of things going on right now with Athan--"

"Athan? You think this is about Athan!?" I winced again as I found out again I still couldn't raise my voice. "This is absolutely nothing to do with Athan. This is the opposite of having to do with Athan. I'm doing this...because...because of how...how fine I am with it, and Athan isn't even part of that picture!"

"And you're not at all feeling desperate because you think you're failing at things, and clinging to Subaru in your desperation," she said, coughing.

"Oh, I understand. I get it all now."

"No, you don't. I'm not being--"

"You just think, I don't deserve to be happy, right?"

"If you sleep with Shitbaru, you will not--"

"You think, you think it's my fault Athan's gone, and until he's back, I don't deserve to be happy, right? You think I need to be punished. I need to...like...own up to it somehow, have my life be a complete pile of skunk because Athan's out there, suffering, and I'm here having a bath, is that right? You're mad...because...I found a tiny piece of happiness in a place where there's supposed to be nothing but mourning and misery, and you want to take that from me?"

"Lia, you said all that, not me. You need help."

"I don't need help, I need better friends!" I stood up, closing my eyes and willing myself through the pain. I put a foot down on the floor and it moved under me. I heard Saga scream as loud as I'd ever heard her, as the world, white with pain, flashed by under me.

I woke up on the floor, head roaring, world spinning. Black and white spots filtered in and out of my vision, and I realized I couldn't move anything. I'd gone down hard. I must have cracked my skull on the floor. My hands were nowhere in the equation when I went down.

I had to laugh. If I died, Saga was right. Apparently I didn't deserve to be happy. I would die alone and cold and naked in the bathroom, screaming at my friends, the night before I made love to a man in that very room.

"No laughing," I heard. A voice as serious and silent as death. I tried to blink the world back into shape. Something pressed my eyelids shut and the world became spinning blackness instead.

"I'm putting your head back together. You fell hard. I tried to...tried to catch you, but I couldn't. Now lie still and be quiet."

It was easily the worst hour of my life, having nothing to do but lay there, stone sober, hungover, and try not to think about all the words I'd just said, all the feelings I'd poured out, blaming Saga when it was all just me. All me. Just me. Thinking about Athan and everything he was going through, and feeling the pit in my stomach just gnawing at me.

I wanted her to stop fixing me, just...leave me braindead on the floor. Let me stop thinking all these horrible things about her, about Athan, about myself. If I never thought or felt or said anything again, the world would be a better place for it.

"You're going to be fine," she whispered. "Just a little longer." Her tone was soft again, but her voice was almost completely inaudible. She'd torn out her throat, screaming as I fell.

"I don't deserve you. I don't deserve to be alive," I said, feeling tears falling off the sides of my face.

"Shh. Try and lay still and not think. Try to sleep, if you can. It'll be another hour or so."

I laid there, feeling tears falling out of my eyes as feeling slowly returned to pieces of my body, like I was made of meat and heavy cuts of beef were being hung on me. I felt heavy and cold, but alive. Eventually, after what felt like days rather than an hour, she leaned back.

"I'm done," she whispered. "Thank you for sitting still."

"Thank you for fixing me," I said, experimentally rolling over and looking at her for the first time.

She was sitting feet-flat on the floor, knees up, back against a cabinet, and one of her hands had knuckles covered in dried blood.

"What happened to your hand?" I asked, yelling more than I should.

"It's nothing. Fixed itself like usual."

"Nothing? How did you...when you tried to catch me?"

"I couldn't...do much. I just got it between your head and the floor. I guess your bones are a lot stronger than mine," she tried to smile but it came out as a grimace.

"Saga, how can you let me do this to you?"

"I told you. I'm your friend, okay? Stop...rubbing it in my face. It already feels bad having friends who are human." She coughed, several times, and then rose.

"I can't believe you. I can't believe you'd do all this."

She started to say something, but nothing came out. She swallowed very hard, massaging her throat.

"It's fine. I'm sorry. I shouldn't be making you talk at all. Thank you, Saga."

I made sure she was settled in comfortably under her tree out back.

"Guess your voice is the only thing your body doesn't fix?" I asked, not expecting an answer. "I wonder if it's because your body doesn't recognize it as damage...or the damage is something outside your body. Like, if your mouth is dry...is that really damage, and if so, it's not something your body can just fix by regenerating or something."

She smiled at me and tapped her head and then gestured at me.

Yeah, well, I didn't feel smart. I felt as stupid as ever, and starting tomorrow, filled with a new life and new determination, I was certain I was going to crack down and get started on Operation: Athan. All the things I wanted, dumping Subaru, because she was right, he was a stupid loser, working with AEGIS, contacting Karu, getting back Black Shark, all that stuff. I could do it. I knew I could. I just needed that push. One wet slippery push out of a tub, and a great friend to catch me.

I owed Saga so much, I thought, as I closed my eyes to sleep sober for the first time in a long time.

And then, after an hour of tossing and turning and seeing myself falling down that hill again and again, I sat up and poured myself a drink.