The hospital was like every other hospital. Smelled of chemicals, brightly lit, white halls, sedate patients, and active staff. AEGIS and Lia, despite my efforts earlier in the day to fight them, were trying to keep me engaged and distracted from what I'd done. By their standards, the act was pretty transparent, but any annoyance I felt at them for their misguided help was drowned in how worthless I felt.

Tem was still being cleaned up before being put under to drop in the regenerator. If it had just been a cut, it might have taken fifteen minutes for the tank to fix her up, but since I burned her guts out instead, it would take days. Burns were not a clean injury to treat.

Maybe out of desperation, or because it was the first thing to come to mind, they were discussing what to do about AEGIS and the XPCA. It was a topic they knew I couldn't resist, but still, I sat there feeling numb and out-of-place, guilt chewing up my insides so bad I felt nauseous. I kept imagining Tem floating in the tank, the solution tinted red from her blood, her open wound gaping like a mouth, drugs and oxygen pumped into her by tubes.

And the thought, I did that. This was reality, not some imagined hypothetical of how bad I was, the proof was in the other room, suffering and writhing as they disinfected her. She was probably still apologizing, having no idea what she did to deserve me hurting her, but certain it was her fault anyway.

I wanted to care about AEGIS and her problems, but the fact was, I was a useless piece of shit, probably more dangerous to the people I was around than anyone else. At the end of the day, no matter how much I wanted to just be friends with people and have us all get along and be happy...the fact was, I was an Exhuman, and this accident just slapped me in the face with that reality again. Exhumans were dangerous, period.

Just like I'd told that kid. I wanted to scare him straight, but it turns out I hadn't even been exaggerating.

And thinking about it more, I got off light on this one. If Lia or AEGIS had primed my shield to go off when we were fighting, they'd be dead as anything. Hell, if I had just slashed a little differently, Tem would have died on that fire escape. The most stupid, pointless, inglorious death imaginable. Cut down by her own friend while helping him run off on a suicide mission.

I felt bile in my throat and swallowed it back down so it could sit down there with the guilt in my stomach.

"--even listening to me?"

Lia was talking still. I looked at her, but her words didn't make any sense to me. If she wasn't telling me I was a waste of space and a poor excuse for effluent, I couldn't understand her.

She slapped me. Not hard, but on the face. The hospital staff stopped to watch. I found the pain welcome.

"Snap out of it, bro. Are you even listening?"

"No, sorry."

She sighed. "Look, Tem's going to be in there for at least a day. We can't just sit here all day, so let's go somewhere."

"No, I'm waiting for her."

"You're not waiting for her, you're punishing yourself for an accident."

"What's the difference?"

"One's for her benefit and is a nice gesture. One is for your own sick fulfillment, and is unhealthy. So we're moving, capiche?"

"No."

"Seriously, dude? Come on."

"I told you, Lia, I'm waiting."

Lia studied me carefully for a moment. She was thinking. Whatever came out of her mouth next, she was going to be trying to manipulate me, I knew it.

"Yeah, I've got nothing," she sighed. "You've got so many friggin' buttons to push, but I don't know that I can do that without traumatizing you." She frowned and fretted. "I am really sorry for what I did to you over Saga still, you know. And I don't like pushing you around. Or anyone, really. I hate it, actually. I just want people to do what's best for themselves, and then they won't!"

She was on her feet and pacing now. "And people are just so stubborn and short-sighted, even when what's in their best interests is so friggin' obvious. Athan, do you think you're doing yourself any favors by sitting here?"

"Yes, I--"

"And I don't mean for Tem. I mean for you."

I didn't have an answer. What I wanted for me was such a non-thing right now, I didn't even register on my own list of priorities right now.

"Right? See? So you know that sitting here is bad, and yet you do it anyway, and it's my job to somehow convince you not to. Do you have any idea how much it sucks to be in charge of everyone in the world like that?" She looked up at the glowing lightbars embedded in ceiling and blinked back tears. "Sorry, I'm a little emotionally unstable, too, damn it." She put on a small wavering smile which broke my heart a little.

"Lia, you don't have to do that. I'm not going to die because I'm sitting here."

"You think so, huh? That's not how I feel. I feel like, especially with you, but with everyone, I'm playing a constant game of mental health whack-a-mole. I can let a few times slip by, but when I do, you get worse, harder to manage, ever more self-destructive."

She threw herself into the seat next to me and rubbed her eyes, suddenly looking very old. "And even at the best of times, you're trying to go do something incredibly stupid, and I have to talk you off the ledge before you get yourself killed, and I never know what the final straw is going to be. I never imagined that telling you that the XPCA was related to AEGIS would make you want to sprint over there like an idiot...so yeah, can you blame me for fighting you every single time? Could you imagine how I'd feel if I let you go once, and that was the last time I ever saw you?"

I sat in stunned silence, feeling even more guilt piling up inside me. It was only a couple days ago that I'd learned Lia was fighting depression and alcoholism, and on top of that, this was the shit I made her deal with constantly?

"Lia...I'm sorry. I'm not like, trying to do stupid things."

"I know. You're trying to do good things. And I love you for that, and that's why I try so hard to keep you safe. But damn if you don't choose the stupidest ways to do them sometimes."

"Okay," I said. "We'll leave the hospital, and I...I'll...give the AEGIS thing some time. I'll let you guys figure out a smarter way to do it. I didn't know I caused you so much trouble. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

"Cut the self-pity and let's go," she said, standing and grabbing my arm to pull me up. I looked down at AEGIS and caught a hint of what looked like an angry glare at Lia, but it disappeared so fast I wasn't sure. I pulled her up too, and I double-checked with the desk that Tem was going to be okay and they had my number to contact the second she got out before I let Lia drag me away.

The three of us piled into a cab and Lia told the driver an address she read off her holo, and I watched the hospital disappear behind us. I was lost in my thoughts until I realized we stopped, and Lia was pulling me almost bodily out of the car. I apologized and fell in behind her. I followed her through some gates, past a ticket booth, and then onto a large field, still covered in snow. She led me a ways further on paths wandering through trees and past thorny bushes which might have been roses in the spring until we wound up in a secluded copse of trees and she sat down on a bench.

"An arboretum?" I asked, sitting next to her, as AEGIS took the last seat on my other side.

"I don't think city life has been very kind to you," she said, and handed me a membership pass in my name she must have just bought. "I know heading out to nature wasn't exactly your choice, but I think you did a lot better being an Exhuman out there than in here. Promise me if you ever feel like there's too much going on, you'll come out here and look at some damn trees while you think it over."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I almost felt like laughing as I took the pass from her. After everything I'd done today, she was still trying. I truly was pathetic. I didn't think staring at some trees in the cold would help anything, even I wasn't that simple a person.

And yet, in a weird way, it did work. There wasn't anything inherently magical about sitting and watching the forest, but sitting there between Lia and AEGIS, thinking of what those two had done, and were doing to do right by people...it made it hard to feel justified in wallowing in guilt. I wanted to do something too. I wanted to do for Tem what they were doing for me. Help her, not to loosen up the guilt and anger inside me, but because she was my friend and she was in need.

I still wanted to go raid the Raven's Nest and save AEGIS too, but apparently that was a stupid idea. I disagreed, but I'd promised So...here we were.

"What can I do for Tem?" I asked out loud.

"Nothing. That girl is insane," AEGIS said dismissively. I glared at her.

"AEGIS isn't exactly wrong, but also not exactly tactful," Lia said pointedly. "I don't think 'insane' is the right word to use but...well, she actually might be."

"But...isn't insane like...seeing dead people and hearing voices and shit?"

To my surprise, Lia just looked to AEGIS and we both waited for her to reply. "What, am I a walking medical dictionary?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah, actually. I've seen you hitting the books pretty hard," Lia said.

"For, like, first aid. Athan keeps insisting on finding new ways of hurting himself, so I thought I'd brush up. I'm not a shrink."

"So you haven't been reading anything about mental health issues?"

"...I mean, I have, but...just seems presumptuous to assume."

"So give us the short version on Tem, and we'll take it with a grain of salt that this is a psych 101-student evaluation."

AEGIS rolled her eyes, but that didn't stop her from adjusting her glasses and starting to explain. "Well, insanity isn't a state, or even a single thing, it's just kind of the high end of the spectrum on any number of mental disorders. If you're hearing voices and seeing things, that doesn't mean you're inoperable to society or dangerous, it means you've got psychosis. Now if you're listening to the voices which tell you to kill people, and hallucinating so hard that you can't tell what the real world is anymore, you're so psychotic that you're insane. Make sense?"

"Sure," Lia said.

"Tem's got...at a glance...some major self-esteem issues, some major codependency issues, and some education issues. Probably the first two are bad enough that she should be...not just walking around like she is. Definitely the last one, she should be in school instead of in a barracks. She doesn't even seem like she finished high school."

"Yeah, she blew up her high school," I said.

"Oh. Well, that does seem to indicate she shouldn't have been free to walk around."

"She was pushed into it though. She was being tortured by the other kids. Locked in a locker for days in summer until she was going to die."

AEGIS sighed. "It's not like crazy people go off the second they turn crazy, Athan. Usually it's a long, painful road downhill with plenty of people watching and saying and doing nothing while they slip further and further away, until one day, something happens. Like getting locked in a locker. Or something on an XPCA mission. Or maybe something else entirely."

"So...she's insane."

AEGIS sighed yet again. "Maybe? I don't know. I'm still not a shrink. What's clear to me is she sees the world in a fundamentally different way than normal people do, and the scary part is where those disconnects occur. A normal person can see, for example, Lia playfully hitting you and know it's just siblings horsing around. Tem might be so codependent on you that she sees anything like that as a threat to her lifeline and react in a way no healthy person would. Like with boom."

I stared at her. None of this really sounded new to me. Tem was weird, I knew that, and she had to be handled differently. She was a grenade with no pin. Or, maybe, I realized, I was the pin.

AEGIS might have taken my staring for something else, because she sighed a third time. "What? You want me to simplify it even more? Sure, Tem's probably insane. She has mental problems that make it difficult for her to determine right from wrong. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"No," I said. "I'm not sure that's just Tem either. If that's all it takes to be considered insane, I think this world...especially this job do that plenty."

I looked down at my feet and remembered Ethan. The kid had killed thousands because he was lonely and sad and desperate, and I'd had to make the choice to kill him or not. Even without a heaping of issues like Tem had, I still didn't know what was right or wrong there.

"Well that's why we're here," AEGIS said sympathetically. "Nobody else seems interested in looking after you, so I'll do it. And Lia helps. But I'm gonna take her credit, since she's not interested in cashing it in for dating privileges."

"Ew, no."

"I don't think you can just turn in enough helping credit and get to date me," I said.

"Yeah, I know. I'm just kidding. Mostly."

"Can we not kid right now? I hospitalized someone today. And the XPCA is still hacking you. Probably at this very moment."

"Man, you're such a downer. You make it sound like it's you they're after."

"'Course if they were," Lia said "he probably wouldn't care as much. He only gets really offended when his friends are under attack."

"True," AEGIS said.

"Hey, if they were hacking me, I'd be upset."

"Yeah you might be," AEGIS agreed. "But you'd also probably be like 'oh, I deserve this' for some reason or another. Sometimes I wonder if the only reason you're so crazy about rushing to everyone else's side is because you put everyone on a pedestal."

"I don't do that," I said. "You guys are legitimately awesome, no pedestal required."

"Oh here we go," Lia complained.

"She's a super-genius, and those are her words, not mine, and you are the only sister in the universe who would not only run away from home, but also basically turn yourself into an Exhuman...no, someone even stronger than an Exhuman, and then chase me down on the other side of the continent--"

"Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah, I get it," Lia said. "But you're great too."

"Me? I cut up my friend today, I tried to lie to and fight both of you."

"And you did it because no matter what happens, no matter who's in your way, friend or foe, you always do what you think is right, bro. Like, that's a really scary personality trait, but it's also a really good one. It's why Karu thinks you're the paragon of Exhuman kind. She probably wishes she could be half as determined as you are when you think you're chasing after something good."

She wasn't wrong, but one word had stuck with me. "Scary?" I asked.

The two looked at each other as though to confirm, and then both nodded. "Scary."

"I mean, I know I'm an Exhuman, but how am I scary?"

"Wasn't today enough of an example? Are you seriously this dense?" Lia asked, looking incredulous. "And I'm not talking about Tem. I'm talking about you independently deciding you were smarter and righter than both of us and heading off by yourself to pursue your own brand of justice, threatening to EMP and laser-bomb the whole friggin' XPCA, just because they're hacking one of your friends."

"There's no just because, they're doing something horrible to a good person."

"And Athan," AEGIS cut in, squeezing my arm, "I love you for thinking that, but seriously, no matter how big a fan of me you are, I'm just one person. Or AI. Or whatever. You're threatening to kill thousands, and destabilize the security of trillions over me. And you don't see how that's scary?"

"I...I guess…"

If you told me there was an Exhuman out there doing exactly that, I'd understand completely. That guy was crazy and needed to be stopped, no matter how much he was just trying to help and protect his 'one'. But it was much harder to believe when it was me. I had reasons for everything I did, and most people, most good, sane, well-adjusted people would do the same things as me in my position. Wouldn't they?

The wind blew through us and Lia shivered. She was wearing ordinary clothes instead of her slipskin and looked to be regretting it. I frowned and stood up, offering the two of them my hands.

"What's this?" Lia asked.

"The trees are nice, but I think what helps me most is you two after all. There's no need for you to freeze on my account."

"Oh, it's nothing. Stay as long as you want," she said dismissively, even though the goosebumps on her arms couldn't lie as convincingly as she could.

"No, I want to go back. I want to give AEGIS every chance to beat this thing, and let you two make some plans on how to deal with it without wasting your time worrying about me. Thank you, seriously. But you're right, I've been an idiot, and we should focus on what we can do right now."

She looked a little surprised, and then laughed. "Well, I never expected you to act mature and make a prudent decision, but I guess I rubbed off on you a little bit," she said, and took my hand. Abruptly, she broke into an evil grin, and tunneled her hands up my shirt, her icy fingers draining the warmth from my chest.

I fought her off while she laughed and AEGIS watched us with a mix of bemusement and wonder at our incredible capacity for idiocy. Like children, we orbited AEGIS, laughing and starting and attacking, all the way through the gate and into the parking lot.

But both of us knew the game was forced. None of the three of us were truly happy. We were just pretending in the hopes that maybe, someday, this was a life we could return to.