Epilogue

A village had grown up next to campus over the years, building itself as a proper college town catering to the needs of the students. Of course, that meant a string of bars lined the main road back to the campus. And on Friday nights, Saturday nights, and other nights whenever the collective unconscious decreed it, that meant a lot of drinking by a lot of kids.

On that particular Friday night, the crowds were light but boisterous. From where I was perched, on top of town hall, I could keep an eye on everyone and everything. It was a little chilly, dressed the way I was, but my adrenaline and the ski mask kept me warm, even if my black sweats didn’t.

I had my eye on one particular kid who seemed to be staggering a little worse than the others. He seemed to be having a hard time keeping himself upright and looked like he was spoiling for a fight with a couple of people he bumped into as they tried to walk past him. Definitely one to watch. I leapt off the roof, staying out of sight as I hovered above him.

Almost too quickly for me to react, the kid took a sudden swerve off the sidewalk and out into the street. A car whose driver must have mistakenly seen a “one” in front of the posted speed limit barreled down the road, straight at him. That was my cue.

I spun around, preparing to dive down and snatch the kid out of the way of certain death or dismemberment, when a kid on the sidewalk dashed across the street faster than I’d seen anyone move since we’d lost Tommy and tackled the kid, flinging the two of them onto the sidewalk and out of the car’s way. The driver honked and flipped the kid the bird, then sped away from the scene of the near accident.

Crisis averted. My debut, so to speak, would wait for another day.

I swept lower, catching a good look of the kid who had pulled the amazingly reckless move. I thought I recognized him and took a quick picture with my phone to later check against the Federation’s face book to verify his identity. He would be someone to watch. And maybe someone for Rick to pay a visit to down the road.

I thought about what Sarah had said to me all those months before, when I was packing my stuff at HQ. Maybe she was right. Maybe there really were good guys.

***

When I arrived back at my apartment, Sarah was waiting for me.

“I could get you for breaking and entering, you know. Just because that necklace can open locks doesn’t mean you have free rein to come in here.”

“And if you had everyone who brought you dinner arrested, you’d probably starve to death. It’s in the oven, keeping warm.”

“Wow. You didn’t need to do that. Thank you! What brought this on?”

“Just a whim. I decided to stop by on my way to Federation HQ.”

One of the benefits of going to school near the old base of operations she had shared with Clytemnestra, and now taken over for herself, was she really could just drop in from time to time. We’d seen more of each other over the past two months than we had since before I’d hung up the costume the first time. We’d talked a couple of times about moving in together, what with my open-ended proposal to her, but her responsibilities and my education still took so much time and attention that we wouldn’t have had the time to properly devote to each other. But I wasn’t worried. We had all the time in the world.

“So,” she asked as she retrieved the casserole from the oven. “How was your late class?”

“Not too bad,” I lied. I’d dropped my seven o’clock Friday night Astronomy class in the second week but hadn’t told Sarah. I didn’t know how to break it to her that I had found another activity to occupy my time during those hours. I’d find a way soon. “You on monitor duty tonight?”

“Yeah. One of the new kids needed the night off, so Rick twisted my arm into switching shifts with her.” She gave a frustrated groan, but I knew deep down she loved being down in the hub, keeping an eye on everything. Especially because with the team still shorthanded and Morgaine on the mend, she felt needed, which she appreciated a lot.

“Would you like some company?”

She stared at me. “You serious? You know how boring it gets there sometimes.”

“That’s why I thought you might like some company. Besides, I’ve got nothing to do tonight either.”

“Uh huh.” The tone of her voice said it all. She looked down at my footwear. “You know, you really ought to buy a new pair of sneakers. Those are really starting to look ratty. Not to mention the blood stains.” She smiled and winked at me. “Or maybe a nice new pair of boots?”

I blushed. “How long have you known?”

“All along. I passed you overhead the second week of classes. I was going to go buzz the observatory and give you and your classmates a surprise, but then I saw you perched on top of that gargoyle on the old church. Who did you think you were with that move, anyhow? Mystery?”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I wanted to sneak up behind you and kick you right in the ass and see if you could recover fast enough to not hit the ground.”

“So why didn’t you?”

She took my hand. “I figured it was baby steps. A way for you to get your confidence back, both in yourself and in the world. And I figured that if, and when, you decided to get back into the swing of things properly, you’d let me know. And if you decided to stay on the sidelines, then you’d decide when you were ready to talk about it.”

“Huh. Sounds like something Phoebe would have said to me. Maybe there’s some kind of wisdom inside that necklace that comes along with the power.”

She grinned. “If it brought wisdom, then it would have kept me from getting involved with you.” She chucked me on my shoulder, then surrounded herself with a bright, blue light that faded away to show her in her Prism costume. “You coming or not?”

“Let me grab my Calculus notes. It’s going to be a long night.”

She grabbed me by the hand before I could reach for my knapsack and pulled me close. “I know it’s going to be a long night. That’s why you’re leaving the homework where it belongs. At home.”

We smiled as she pressed her teleporter control and jumped the two of us off to HQ. I felt the usual agony as I was pulled apart one molecule at a time, but for the first time ever, I didn’t really mind it.