In grade school, one of Reid's science teachers had put out classroom decorations for Halloween. They included spooky chalkboard drawings, and a table full of gadgets and fun tools. Reid had loved the plasma balls. They were clear, and purple bits of electricity danced inside them, then arced out to touch your fingers if you pressed them to the surface of the ball.

One ball in particular had caught his attention. It was at the back of the table, larger than the rest, and it was cloudy instead of clear. Reid, in the classroom early and by himself, had decided to put his hand on the larger ball to see if the electricity would arc out and dance.

When he touched it, Reid realized it wasn't a plasma ball at all. It was a crystal ball lamp, and Reid had directly touched the lightbulb. Instead of seeing lightning, the heat of the thing burned the tips of Reid's fingers. Reid scrambled back from the pain so quickly that he'd knocked over a row of desks. He'd had to go to the nurse's office, and he didn't have fingerprints on that hand for two weeks because of the burns. But his brain had reacted for him quickly enough that he didn't suffer any real lasting damage.

Reid's brain was in full reactionary mode now - once again because Reid had touched something without taking the time to figure out what it really was. Reid flailed and tried to kick himself away from the cot - and his stone arm. The cot made a grating sound as it slid across the floor. This wasn't something Reid could run from. It was already in him - changing him.

Reid still wasn't certain exactly how he'd activated the corrupted skill - and he had no idea how to shut it off.

Reid plunged into his arm and healed himself. He drew on the already drained well to do it, and the stone's transformation slowed where his self-healing met it. But the stone didn't stop - and Reid was only slowing down a small area. It wasn't nearly enough. Even if Reid had been topped off on energy and freshly rested, he wouldn't have had the ability to stop the process. There was no internal way to turn things around - and every second he wasted, things got worse.

The cot had started to fuse with the floor, which was now also turning itself to stone.

Reid needed a fix. A solution.

The notice had told him to get to a beacon, but he couldn't.

The thing was too far away - by the time he made it, he'd be half stone.

And - he wasn't even sure if he could get the cot up off the floor. The stone was just too damn strong.

Even if he could make it, the beacon didn't seem like the right answer. The thing had tried to kill him last time, and Reid didn't want to repeat that experience while also turning into the world's least intimidating gargoyle.

Reid pushed into his lower humerus and grew out a disk, like a frisbee. If healing himself didn't slow down the transformation, maybe putting something else in front of it would.

The petrification crawled through it just like it crawled through the rest of him. Reid swore. The stone was at his bicep.

His heart hammered in his chest.

If this continued, the stone was going to touch his torso - and then he'd be truly fucked.

He couldn't let that happen. No matter what, he couldn't let that happen. Reid wasn't going to die here. Not now. Not like this.

Reid ripped his bone knife out of its sheath and plunged it into his shoulder. Skin and muscle split and tore as Reid sawed through himself. His self-enhancement had made his body too goddamned durable. Reid wished he were weaker. Rending his arm open was absolutely agonizing, and it was happening far too slowly. He barely managed to keep himself focused amidst the panic and pain.

In.

Out.

Up.

Down.

Push.

Again.

The knife slowly separated his flesh as he half-sawed with it all the way around the top of his arm.

Blood was pooling underneath him. Its sticky warmth contrasted the cold numbness of his arm where the petrification progressed.

SHIT.

It was close now to the cut. It was so close.

And Reid couldn't cut through his bone with the knife.

He'd tried. He'd done it over and over again, but all he got for the effort were a few nicks on the surface. He needed a different strategy.

Reid glanced around the room. The stone floor was spreading. The only thing close to Reid was the pauldron by his knee. He grabbed it.

Reid screamed at the top of the lungs and slammed the pauldron down into his shoulder.

The pauldron and his body cracked. Neither broke.

Reid slammed the thing down again. And again. And again.

He never stopped screaming.

Bone cracked.

Then fractured.

Then slowly started to truly break.

A long crack separated the bone lengthwise, and Reid cursed. He'd just reinforced this fucking bone and now that was working against him. He needed the thing to snap free but it was still holding on.

Time blurred with the pain and the repeated blows. He had no idea how long it took before everything finally shattered. It felt like hours and milliseconds all at once.

Reid fell away from his severed arm and slammed his head on the floor.

Flesh and gore hung loose off his shoulder, and he could see marrow through the cracked and sharded bone. Blood flowed freely from the mess. Reid's head swam. He couldn't stay there. It wasn't safe. The floor was still transforming.

Reid forced himself to his feet. The end of his arm still attached to the cot was fully transformed. The stone crept slowly up the nearest wall. Reid jumped over the spreading area, then stumbled out the front door. He held a hand over his right shoulder, but it did nothing to stop the blood loss.

He couldn't see any lights. He was too far from the walls to get one of the guards. He had no idea who was home. It felt like he couldn't scream. Like if he tried, he'd stop breathing. Instead, his jaw quivered and he sucked in breath after breath as he stumbled.

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He could hear the radio playing at Warren's. There would be people there. It was closer than the wall. Reid shambled in that direction.

Reid could see the lights. Shapes moved at the bar.

His legs gave out. Reid tumbled to the ground. Dirt and gravel from the pathway embedded in his arm and added new levels of pain. Reid tried to heal himself. He tried to close off the blood vessels - just to stop the bleeding. Nothing happened. Reid couldn't concentrate. He couldn't feel the internal well of energy.

There was nothing Reid could do to fix himself.

Shouting came from the bar. Reid heard footsteps crunching over the gravel. His vision went white, and he passed out.

#

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#

The first thing Reid heard was snoring. Susan's snoring. That quickly ended, as a medical aide also in the room announced that Reid was waking up. Reid didn't want an announcement. He felt like twice-baked garbage, and he had no intentions of getting up.

Susan rushed over to him and grabbed his left hand, then told the aide to leave.

It was about that time Reid remembered what had happened before he lost consciousness.

He tried to lift his left arm, but Susan didn't let it go. He couldn't feel anything from his right. He swiveled his head, and saw a partially regrown stump where his arm should be.

Oh, fuck.

Susan was talking to him. "Reid? Can you hear me? Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Reid nodded.

Susan's eyes watered. She wiped them with her free thumb, and then put the hand to Reid's head. It glowed with healing energy.

"Are you certain? No pain, no headache, no lingering issues?"

Reid nodded again.

Susan let out a long sigh. "Okay. O-kay. I love you, Reid. And I'm glad you're safe. Now -" Her face turned serious. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Reid's eyes went wide. He looked at his arm, then his wife.

"You were on LIGHT duty. You were supposed to be resting - but instead, you just decided to make yourself more armor and bumble your way through trying out your skills!"

Reid was still finding his voice. "Sue, I-"

"DO NOT PET NAME ME RIGHT NOW. I don't care that you just woke up, either. This is fucking serious. I'm serious. Do you know how many times I've had to mourn you, Reid? The answer is too fucking many. And yet, here you are trying to find unique new ways to off yourself."

"I wasn't-"

"Reid - you turned everything in a 30 foot radius to solid stone, starting with your arm! Which - you then had to hack and break off to get free. I saw everything, Reid - both on you and in our now-stone home. I know exactly how much blood you lost in there - because the puddle is now permanently enshrined in stone! You were supposed to be goddamn resting! Healing up from your last experiment!"

"Susan, I'm sorry. I-"

"BULLSHIT. You're sorry? Reid, if you cared one fucking iota you would've listened to me. Hell, you know I wanted to put you on full bed rest after you made Sara's sword. God knows you needed it. But I figured you wouldn't do well sitting still like that - that I couldn't stop you from doing things entirely- so I compromised with light duty, and I assumed you would fucking respect that. That you'd listen. That you would take that compromise. But no. The second you're left to your own devices, you go off and try to entomb yourself!"

Susan's hands were shaking. She still hadn't let go of Reid's hand.

"Susan, with the world changed, I can't stay st-"

"OH! THE WORLD CHANGED, DID IT? I HADN'T NOTICED! I don't think anyone did, you know? Come on! Reid, I spent last night trying to grow a tapetum lucidum in my fucking eyes to give myself night vision. I did that with the intention to then do the same thing to my daughter and my husband - because I'm well aware of the situation we're in and the fact that we need every advantage we can get."

Susan's eyes were red. Her chest was heaving. Tears started flowing freely down her cheeks. She kept squeezing Reid's hand.

"But getting more powerful doesn't mean shit if you're just going to end up the strongest corpse in the goddamn graveyard!"

She took a few shallow, quaking breaths. Her voice quieted as she continued.

"Reid, your cancer isn't progressing. We have time. We have time now. Please, stop treating each moment like you're going to die the next. I know you need this, and I know you want it. I've seen how getting stronger has lit a new fire in you. I can see that and I love it and I want you to have it. But please, Reid - just listen to me. I'm not trying to stop you or slow you down. I'm trying to keep you from the preventable, avoidable things. The half-cocked decisions that come out when you're exhausted from 15 straight hours of skill use, even though you don't think you need the rest. Reid, you never should've been in that position. But even then, you could've done it smart. I could've been monitoring your tests. You could have listened to me, and actually recovered before you went in and tried what you did. Even pro athletes rest after game days, Reid - but you haven't been resting. You're damaging yourself and you don't see it because you're so tunneled in on your goals. I don't want to stop you from reaching those goals, Reid, I just want to make sure you don't collapse before you get there."

Sneakers squeaked on the floor outside. Susan's head turned towards the noise, then back to Reid.

"Overexerting yourself has consequences. Not just your arm, or your health, either. I know part of why you want to get stronger is about helping Sara and I." Reid nodded in agreement. "Well, you've been unconscious for over a day. If anything bad happened in the last 24 hours, you would've been absolutely powerless to stop it. Another Bertrand could've rolled over us. Salamanders could've broken through the walls. But because you thought you knew your limits better and didn't want to listen - because you tried to worm your way out of my recommendations like they were a game - you put Sara, and me, and yourself and everyone else in more danger."

Reid went to sit up, but Susan stopped him.

"I'm so fucking angry with you right now, Reid. I'm so, so fucking angry, and yet I'm still more relieved and happy that you're alive. But Reid - I need you to listen. This isn't an all-or-nothing game. The choice isn't just progress or weakness. That's a false dichotomy, and I would've assumed you'd have figured that out. But you haven't. You nearly killed yourself, and you overtaxed your body so much that my healing magic won't move through it properly. I couldn't regrow the rest of your arm because of that, Reid. At this rate, I won't be able to finish regrowing it for days. And inside you - it looks like you're a desiccated wasteland. Like any large amount of energy you move around will kill you. So if you can't allow yourself to see that being balanced is a better and overall quicker path forward, I'm going to make the choice for you. We are a family, Reid. We aren't going through any of this shit alone. But you started treating me like a prison warden instead of a partner."

Susan stood.

"So today, and tomorrow, and until I say you're back to good health, that's how I'm going to treat you. One of my aides is going to be watching you to make sure you don't try to exert energy. You're going to wear a heartbeat monitor so you don't try to pull this shit again. And your imprisonment is forced rest. You're going to sleep in, and you're going to eat double rations, and you're going to spend the day talking, or reading, or relaxing. And as long as the inside of your body looks like it's going to self-detonate from energy expenditure, that continues. It goes as long as I say it needs to. You put all your coins in the self-exertion basket, and now it's time to balance out the scales."

A long silence stretched between Reid and his wife. Reid knew he'd screwed up. But he hadn't taken any time to think about the potential consequences of that. Not at scale. He'd also had no idea about the damaged internals - though he could feel an ethereal pain and soreness where his well of energy should be. The more he thought about it, the more he realized Susan was right. Reid would never stop pushing and grasping for more strength and power, but he could be better about treating himself right while he did it. Susan didn't want him to slow down on that, either. She just wanted to make him approach it a bit differently.

Reid thought back to Queen's Edge. If Susan hadn't been there to heal him, the sword might have failed, or broken, or exploded. And if he didn't find a balance to his self-empowerment work, Reid might break or explode, too. He needed a middle path. A happy medium between comfort and pain. Between force and grace. Between opening a jar and holding an egg.

He almost groaned. James's words came back to Reid. He needed to find his coffee cup.

"Okay."

Susan was still squeezing his hand. "Alright. And I'm glad you're okay. Even if you aren't fully okay." She leaned in for a kiss, then crawled into the bed with him. He held her with his one arm for a long while. The moment started to feel more intimate as the minutes passed.

"So, does exertion include..." Reid waggled his eyebrows.

"Reid, you need to rest, and you only have one arm."

"I can pick you up and move you around with one arm, though."

Susan let out something between a cough and a squeak. "Not here - and we can't at home anymore. Someone turned our bed to solid stone."

"There's still the floor. Sleeping bags. Pillows. And countertops."

"All stone, Reid. Everything in a thirty foot radius is solid stone."

Reid put on a lopsided smile and winked. "So.... fancy countertops."

Susan lightly slapped him on the cheek, then pulled his face down for another kiss.