It had been a bad day.

Which was funny, because it started, as all days can, like a good day. It was our last day out here on the east coast, and we were having our first really lazy day of it, packing and grazing slowly as we prepared to sink back into our regular lives.

I think...it was an alright trip. I'd only gotten to see Athan for a day, because I was trying to let AEGIS have some quality time with him, but she only got him for two days, and with the whole Karu thing, it wasn't working.

After their first night together, AEGIS came back, totally defeated, changing out of her clothes into an ugly tracksuit and leaving them on the floor like it was their fault things had gone so wrong. Chiho and I spent the rest of the day trying to cheer her up, and at least finally convinced her to go out the second day instead of just giving up on him. That was when we all had dinner together, and I think...for a bit there...AEGIS and Athan were both pretty happy, even if we were all walking on eggshells.

And then today came, and whoo damn. AEGIS crashing for God-knows-why. Calling Athan and hearing him pooping on her like she wasn't even alive, figuring out he'd been Saga'd, dropping everything...even AEGIS did, and she just wanted to go home and play with her robots. Tem being Tem, and finally me fudging everything up big time.

It had been a bad, bad day. We missed our flight, too, not that it really mattered the way things were right now.

This little roadside motel was tiny, but the closest lodging we could find to where I'd broken Athan, and we only had two rooms and two beds between the four of us. Athan got one, AEGIS didn't need one, and I guess that meant I was either cuddling my brother or my gay roommate who liked to sleep almost naked...or taking the floor.

I also needed water, I reminded myself. I'd only had...maybe the equivalent of three shots before AEGIS kindly put me down, and I'd been eating today so I wasn't too bad, but I had to be at my best, if there was anything I could do to figure out how to undo what I'd done.

I found myself fixating on small details like this, having no idea what to do, what I could even do, my brain naturally broke down the situation into discrete chunks I could process, like if I solved enough small problems, I'd work my way right up to fixing Athan. Figure out lodging, figure out food and drink, figure out how to get the booze back from AEGIS. Well, not really. But maybe.

I was probably driving the other two nuts. We were all in the second room, letting Athan rest as best we could, and I was just...I couldn't sit still. I was pacing, but when that wasn't distracting enough, the pacing got weirder as it sometimes did, until it was like, walk four steps, pirouette with leg kick, walk four steps back, sharp 180 on the heel of one foot, walk four steps. Meanwhile my hands kept moving, I felt like I was babbling in sign, as I distractedly picked at my hands, rubbed them, tented them, untented them, laced them together.

Or maybe not. They'd lived with me, they knew I was crazy.

I had nothing, though. I'd looked at this from every angle, and the amount of damage I'd done was just too great. I'd actually pushed him all the way into literal shock, and he was going through despondence. Right now, he needed rest and no stress, and that was it, that was all I could give him.

It didn't seem enough, but doing nothing was often harder than doing anything. That was my problem, though, not his. Well, mine, and the two girls watching me as I bounced back and forth between two walls like a ping-pong ball.

"You're going to make me dizzy," Chiho said, at last, looking up from her mobile. She and AEGIS were playing some game again. Now, of all times. I mean, it wasn't any less productive than wearing a trench in the carpet but still.

That was a mean thing to think, I thought, as I looked at AEGIS who, for all the fun the game seemed to be giving her, might as well be playing a lively round of 'hold the corrosive waste'. She was probably just doing it because Chiho thought it might help.

"AEGIS," I said abruptly, before I realised I was going to. She looked up at me, and I wished I'd thought this through a little more. Her yellow eyes had a way of being very distracting.

"...yes?" she said after a moment.

"What happened?" I asked.

"You decided your brother was mind-fucked by a code-X and so you mind-fucked him a hundred times harder?"

I winced. Technically true, but not what I meant. "I mean, with you. I feel like we only just got you back, and then had to run off, but I never heard why you crashed anyway. Is there something we can help with?"

She sort of scoffed at me and went back to the game she wasn't enjoying.

"Hey!" I said, stopping my pacing.

"What?"

"That was a serious question."

"Lia, God knows I love you, but right now, I really don't like you. Athan's my friend too, and you insisted this was right. I can't think of how you could have been more wrong, and I don't want your help right now, and I'm definitely a little too peeved to even let you try."

She said, while still playing the game probably because Chiho thought it would help.

I told myself I shouldn't be mad at her even as I slammed the door behind me.

I messed up, I know. I messed up really bad. I might have done some seriously major damage to arguably the most important person in the world to me. I know. I know. I know.

Where the turkey was that damn vodka?

I nipped back out to the motel lobby which doubled as a junky tourist trap store, walking past all the vivid tee shirts proclaiming my love for the Blue Ridge Mountains, and picked up an identical handle of vodka from the desperate loser section. Next to condoms and socks.

It was technically afternoon. This wasn't as bad as it could be. A slim justification which definitely didn't hold up as I guiltily peered down the hallway to check for the presence of AEGIS before rounding the corner. I went to Athan's room this time.

It was still dark in there, and despite being alone and apparently not even having moved in the last half hour since we put him here, he was still awake, still staring at the ceiling like he could see right through it into heaven.

I really hoped he could. He needed the company of an angel or two right now, and had only me, and I was certainly heading for the other place.

I turned the cap of the bottle and it crackled as I broke the security seal. I took a swig and then went to his side. He didn't even react.

"Hey," I said. "Not sleeping?"

He didn't even blink. The moment stretched out until I had a terrified thought and hand to check his breathing. I put the back of my hand in front of his nose and felt warm air, even if I couldn't see his chest moving. Thank God for that.

"I'm sorry," I said, finding it hard to keep looking at him while I said it. The carpet seemed both less likely to judge, and more alive. "I'm really, really, really sorry. I don't know what else to say."

When he said nothing, I continued on. "I don't need to explain any of this, I know. You already know all about a code-X, how dangerous that can be, how impossible it is to root out. I thought...if I pushed you as far as I could, if there was a compel in you, related to her, it'd come out. They're not foolproof, from my understanding. It's still a memory that's in your brain, intended to be decoded by you at some point. But I guess Saga's probably a lot better at it than your standard code-X, huh? She's pretty unique in a lot of ways."

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I didn't know where I was going with any of this. I needed to talk and he was the only one who wasn't obviously fuming at me. Even Chiho seemed to think I went way too far, but I'm not sure she understood exactly what an Exhuman was capable of.

Not that it mattered. I had gone way too far, so even if by chance, she was dead-on.

"We still have Tem locked in a moving van," I laughed, even though it wasn't funny. "I thought, if she saw you now, she'd kill everything on Earth. She seems almost as catatonic as you. I don't know what's up with that girl, but she's not right in the head. I guess you probably know that if she's always with you. We didn't know what else to do with her, and nobody's really interested in trying. At least it's nice out so she shouldn't freeze or melt in there."

Still no reaction. I took another drink.

I grabbed him by the shoulders, finally eliciting a response as he looked down blankly at me, and pulled him upright, which was a lot more effort than I'd thought it would be. Dude was a big guy compared to me, after all, and this wasn't the best leverage. Awkwardly balancing him, I pivoted his legs so he was sitting upright against the wall.

"Here," I said, and put the drink in his hands. "You need this."

He looked down at it, and then at me. And then he started drinking.

"Woah, holy ducks, stop," I said, and pulled the bottle from his mouth, where a spray of vodka dribbled down him. "Jesus dude, that was like, a third of the bottle. Are you okay?"

I slapped myself after asking such a stupid question, but he just stared blankly at me. I put the bottle down, since I'd now apparently be taking care of Drunk Athan, whom I hoped was more...anything, really, than Despondent Athan.

"Sorry, I just thought...maybe right now...having a few dead nerves would be helpful, you know? If your problem is feeling too much...I had that. I guess I never told you, but after we lost you to Blackett...I had no idea where you went, what happened to you, if you were even still alive. We had all these plans, right? To get you out, but every day, I couldn't do anything. I just woke up late, and felt like there wasn't any reason to get out of bed, no reason to try working, no reason for anything. I just wanted to pretend like everything was okay and then maybe it would be, you know?"

He said nothing. The vodka stain on his shirt began to slowly spread. I hopped up and retrieved a towel from the bathroom, dabbing him with it roughly as I continued on.

"I was just overwhelmed, as I'm sure you know the feeling. I thought I'd lost you, and more, unlike you taking credit for every terrible thing which happens in a mile around you, this was all my fault. Every one of us had fought Blackett, but I was the only one who got caught, who made us all lose. We'd figured they would go for Karu, and from the loadouts of the VTOLs it seemed like I was right, so the whole fight she was mostly just trying to be a distraction and keep moving. And despite that, I still messed up and got you captured."

I experimentally sniffed his shirt, realizing what a weirdo creeper I might have looked only as I did it. Smelled like booze alright, but also like it hadn't been washed in a couple days. Pretty gross, but also meant he'd probably wash the vodka smell out of it before he wore it back at work.

I guess, if he went back to work.

"Anyway, I started drinking a lot, because it let me get through the day without wanting to jump off a building, not just for failing everyone, but because every day I did nothing, I felt like I was failing everyone all over again."

I sighed. "I was such a mess. And then I pulled myself together, a little bit at a time, and I realized how stupid I'd been, how I couldn't let myself fall behind like that again, couldn't run away to a bottle every time I didn't want to face life." I smiled bitterly at him and picked the bottle off the floor to have another drink. As I lowered it, I felt his hand on mine, and he took another as well.

"Such a shit," he said.

"Me?"

"Dont see ahnyone else here."

I smiled again. "Yeah, I am. Did you eat today, Athan?"

He shook his head. Then thought for a second, and then shook his head.

"Tem got me some food but I dhand to leave before we tate anything."

Yeah, so like, 7-8 shots maybe and no food. He was screwed. I made a mental note not to let him have anymore, but my mental note was a little fuzzy myself, so I made another one to not let me have anymore. I nudged the bottle under the bed where I couldn't see it anymore.

He looked at me and then squinted, despite us being only a foot apart. "Weres the botlte?"

"We killed it," I lied with a shrug. He seemed more crushed by this than he had with the Saga thing.

"As i was saying," he started again, abruptly. "YOu're aa shit."

"Yep."

"DOn't you just 'eyep'. stop it."

"Okay," I sighed. "This is me being less of a...a shit."

"Good." He nodded at me and looked me up and down like he was reassessing my worth. "Good job."

"Thanks." I sighed. "Maybe now that you're more...or maybe less lucid, I'm sorry again."

"I herd yout he first time." He blinked slowly and uncoordinatedly. Did I ever sound this bad when I was drunk? I hoped not.

"Well that's good." I sighed. "Do you mind if I change?"

"YOur're already changed, din't yhou'?"

"What?"

"You sthopped being a shit."

"Oh. Right. I did change in that way. I meant change my clothes." I got up and went to the bathroom. This motel was garbage, so there was no door, and as I looked around, I made awkward eye contact with Athan in the mirror. No real way to do this without flashing him a whole lot more of me than I think either of us wanted to see. I stepped in the shower and drew the curtain.

"Wearss your cloths?" he asked.

I took the small pouch off my back and waved it at him through the curtain.

"My slipskin," I said, breaking the vacuum seal on the pouch with a hiss. "I carry it with me everywhere now."

"That's werid."

"I know." I sighed as I began unbuttoning my shirt. "Those weeks when I stopped wearing it...those were the worst weeks of my life, Athan. I wasn't Lia anymore, and I couldn't be Black Shark. I lost you, who I thought I'd always have, and I was quickly burning whatever patience AEGIS and Saga had for me. I felt like I wasn't anybody."

I felt around on the shower floor for any water with my bare feet before letting my shirt drop. My skirt unzipped and fell easily as well.

"Sometimes, I don't even know who Lia is anymore. I don't know who to be or how to act, or what I'm supposed to do. I worry about everyone so much, and then I wind up hurting people I love, because I'm just stupid or selfish."

I unhooked my bra and sighed involuntarily. This was even one of my comfy ones, since I'd be wearing it on the VTOL, but man, was life better without it.

"And now I did it to you again. All I wanted was to show up and help, and instead I made everything a million times worse. If I weren't there at all, you'd be fine right now. You had Tem under control, you'd probably miss Saga, but you'd be alright."

I slid out of my last scrap of clothes and stepped into the slipskin, rolling it up my legs. As it went, it minutely adjusted itself onto me, which always tickled just a little.

"Black Shark doesn't have these problems. She just does what she wants. She's strong, way stronger than me. I thought I was being clever by pushing you into your compel, but I was just trying to prove how clever I could be by beating Saga at her own game. Black Shark wouldn't have done that, she doesn't care about proving anything. She just does what she needs to."

I put my arms through it, feeling its surprising weight hanging off of me. It was only cumbersome when putting it on or getting it off, the weight was distributed all over my body, and sometimes even felt like it shifted to help my movements, although I'd never actually confirmed that was a feature in the documentation.

"So I carry a piece of her with me always, in case I need her." I laughed. "I haven't even told AEGIS, but I'm sure she knows. I don't think anything gets past her eyes, or whatever senses she has."

I zipped up and sighed again. If taking off my bra was liberating, this was double-liberating. I remembered the first week I'd worn my slipskin, and how abnormal it had felt, like it was a living organism hanging off of me, like it wasn't clothes, and I was just hanging out naked. Bit by bit, I think we'd grown into each other, and now it was hard for me to think of it as anything more than an extension of myself.

I mean, except when sleeping, it was still uncomfortable as heck then.

"Did you notice she started wearing glasses again?" My voice changed, even to my ears, as I put my mask on. For a moment, all I saw was darkness and then the optics kicked in. They were nothing extravagant, but they helped. I'd always wanted to try on Karu's visor, though. "She dialed back her eyesight so she could wear them. It's really funny."

In my synthesized voice, it didn't sound like like I thought it was funny. I didn't have my cloak, hood, or scarf, because who carries that stuff around in a vacuum-sealed bag? You'd have to be crazy for that, but I was behind my mask, so I could face Athan head-on, I thought.

I grabbed an armful of clothes and deposited them somewhere out of the way as I headed back, and sat next to him on the bed.

"Sorry about that," I said. I blinked and looked at him a little harder. My optics highlighted the faint motions of his chest. "And you're asleep finally. Good, I guess. Told you the booze would help."

I got up and put my mask back in the pouch on my back and threw the rest of the bottle in the trash...not pouring it out, in case I needed it again, but definitely still in the trash. I stood at the door for a few minutes, watching him sleep, apparently peacefully.

As an afterthought, I moved him back down onto his side, and put the trashcan at the head of the bed in case he threw up anything. I went back to the bathroom and took all four disposable plastic cups they had and filled them with water, carefully carrying them to the nightstand and putting them in arm's reach, and then quietly closed the door.

I sighed. He'd be fine, I guess. I was glad for that.

I stood for long moments with my hand still on the door, not wanting to go back and deal with the others, but knowing I'd have to at some point.

I reached back and found my mask, putting it back on, brushing my hair out of my face as I went.