Chapter 6: Chapter 1.6 (Helping)
Summary:
Chapter Text
FRI FEB 11
It wasn't long after the call that Amy and I decided to leave. We weren't sure what we planned to do for food, but we figured heading to my place after for more 'whatever' we were going to do was fine. We'd only gone half a block towards the restaurants to window-browse when we heard the first shots.
I focused on the earth, not seeing anything too out of the ordinary, until I saw a car speeding towards us about nine blocks away, chased by a motorcycle a block behind them, and another car half a block behind that. I also felt a weird staccato pounding near there, but had no idea what it might be.
I motioned Amy to follow, and we ran back the way we'd come, passing Tukson's and stopping at the far intersection. The car- some rugged looking SUV, was weaving through the sparse traffic, occasional bursts of automatic fire raining behind them whenever the motorcycle- which I realized was Miss Militia, got too close. A red blur that had to be Velocity was leapfrogging between alleyways just ahead of the gang car. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I had to do something. I had to assess the situation. I closed my eyes and stamped my foot.
The echoes returned back to me from my action pointed a clear picture of every rock and stone, everything touching earth within two blocks. Right now I didn't care about anything farther than that.
There, about three meters down, was a rock big enough to use. I couldn't do much with dirt or gravel, and the road's asphalt still felt weird to me, so I ignored all of those. There was a sewage pipe, but that only took up a quarter the road's width. I could move around it. The cables underground seemed to all be under the sidewalk here.
I swirled my right hand, pulling the boulder off to the side of the pipes underground, widened my stance and tapped my heel to the concrete, shearing the oblong stone at an angle from its center of mass. Now to wait. One second, two, there. I punched my left fist up from my side until it was level with my shoulder, sending the stone lancing up through the gravel under the road, through the asphalt, spearing it between the right front wheel of the car and the front of its wheelhouse.
The car was moving fast, though. It spun when its forward momentum halted, sending it to the left and away from us. The wheel snapped off the axle, the car now moving more sideways than forward, started to roll. The crowd had thinned significantly when the shooting started and the speeding vehicles came into view, but too many were still there for it to be safe. The gang car was headed for the sidewalk, toward parked cars and buildings and people. I panicked, dropping my hands to my sides, taking a heavy step forward, and drew my fists from beside my hips to in front of my chest.
The sidewalk surged up to meet the car, a meter-high bulwark of concrete, gravel, and dirt slamming into the roof of the thing. It groaned as it teetered ominously atop the outcropping, before gravity took control again, pulling it back whence it came to crash down onto the road on its side.
"Oh, shit." Amy muttered from beside me, pulling me out of my focus. I opened my eyes to find her chasing Velocity towards the crash. He'd been nearby, but focused on the crash. I don't think he could have seen me. Everyone had been staring at the cars. Miss Militia slowed to a stop nearby a few seconds later, about when I realized that maybe I should be moving, too.
Amy was declaring gangsters safe to move or not, Velocity dragging them out to Militia, who kept the mostly groaning men on the ground with the implicit threat of the very big gun her power had formed into. I made my way over, shoving the boulder back into the ground with one stomp masked as a step, then flattening out the raised ramp of material that'd finished stopping the car with the next few. By the time I was over next to them, things were mostly back to normal. I felt bad leaving things like this, but doing more would require revealing myself, and... and it was just a really bad pothole anyway, right?
I silently resolved to fix things the next time I could. "Can... can I help?" I asked. It was about then that the transport full of PRT troopers pulled up, filing out of the back to assess the situation.
Miss Militia chuckled, glancing over at me. "It's fine, miss..." She hummed, her eyes narrowing slightly. "You were the girl Triumph stopped for, the other day."
"Y-yeah?" Oh shit was this a good thing? This was bad. She'd recognize me and realize I was a cape, and... I shivered. Why was that such a terrible thing? I didn't know, but I also didn't want them to know. At least not yet. Still, no point lying to the law enforcement when I'd supposedly done nothing wrong. "I'm Taylor."
"It's good to see you again." She smiled. "But it would be appreciated if you'd step back to a safer distance." She indicated with a light flick of her weapon, which had me looking over to where a couple troopers were setting up cones and police tape. Was it still police tape if it had 'PRT' on it? PRTape? ...didn't have a great ring to it.
I'd stood there long enough that one of the troops was moving over to collect me and shuffle me off, so I added, "I'm with Amy."
Militia was about to speak up, and from the set of her eyes I could tell it wasn't going to be a positive reaction, but Amy spoke up from the bodies. "Yeah, she is." That had both of us looking over at her, kneeling by the last gangster they pulled out of the SUV, and the only one she'd spent any real time working on. She looked grumpy and felt angry, but there were enough reasons for it I couldn't tell exactly why off-hand. "I'm almost done, anyway."
Miss M went back to giving me the gimlet eye, so I glanced around again. Velocity and a couple of troopers were talking to bystanders, the cape flitting between people in a red streak when he finished speaking to someone. If I had to guess, he was doing it more for the spectacle than anything else.
"Alright, that should do it." Panacea, from her professional tone of voice, said. "Only one of them had anything life-threatening, the rest are just banged up a little. I stabilized them for you."
She was still frustrated, but hiding it well. Militia's eyes narrowed, and she seemed frustrated, but didn't show it in her voice. "Thank you for that, transport is on the way. Now then, there's a new ground-using Shaker cape in the area, and they're the one that stopped the car." And nearly killed half a dozen people before they stopped the car, she didn't say. "Did either of you see anything?"
"Nope." Amy said, before I could. If it weren't for my senses, I wouldn't be able to tell she was lying. "Didn't see anyone like that. We were both staring at the wreck, like everyone else."
"I'll leave you to your date, then." She nodded towards the closer of the tape lines.
Amy blushed a little, while I bit out my now habitual "Not gay." under my breath. The hero smiled at her needling striking home, and turned her attention back to the situation at hand. I stood frozen for a bit before Amy grabbed my hand and led me out of the area, and I couldn't help but notice Militia's smirk as she watched us out the corner of her eye.
We didn't stop until we were at the bus, when I asked "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, just..." She was frustrated and lying. She seemed to know I knew, and sighed. "Not here." I nodded, and let her have her time. We piled into the bus and took seats next to each other. The ride to the stop near my house was quiet, but eventually we were inside.
"You want me to call in Chinese or something?" I asked, before realizing it might be in bad taste, considering what happened. Amy seemed darkly amused by it, though, and agreed. After calling in noodles and rice for the both of us, and some extra for dad whenever he got home, we settled into the couch in the living room.
After a moment of silence, I nervously said "I'm sorry."
She was confused. "What, why?"
"I... almost killed people?" I was very nearly crying, then. "First the bystanders, then the gangsters. You said one of them almost died."
She scoffed. "One of them had life threatening injuries. It's not the same thing." My incredulity must have shown on my face, because she sighed an explained. "Just because you'd die if you didn't get treatment, doesn't mean you're going to die. There was a van full of PRT troops chasing them, and Piggot's a stickler for being over-prepared; her squads usually have two trained medics, instead of the regulation one. That guy would've been fine, even if he'd need an ambulance instead of a prisoner van."
Amy was nearly exasperated by the end. "So why were you mad, then?"
She started and stopped a few times, before she sighed and rubbed her face. "I don't like healing criminals." Her voice was low, and cracked a little. "I've got it in writing at the hospital, even. If they can prove someone has gang ties, I'll just go heal someone else. I still wind up healing a ton of them, but it... it helps."
"I don't understand." I really didn't. Wasn't saving people the whole point of being a hero?
She laughed piteously and curled in on herself more. "Healing criminals... feels like enabling them. If I put them back on their feet, and... if I saved that guy's life and he goes out and kills someone, does that mean I killed them?" She rubbed the heel of her hand into her eye, wiping away welling tears, and gave another wet, hitching chuckle. "Fucking sucks."
"No." I said, then took her free hand and said it stronger. "No, you didn't do it. They made that choice, not you." She scoffed, it was a common platitude, after all. "You told me there was a difference between being hurt enough to die and dying. Well there's a difference between saving people and not letting them die. It's not your fault what they do after that, it's the fault of the people who were supposed to hold them, or the system that should've reformed them, or the legal system that couldn't prove they shouldn't be let out to hurt more people." I gripped her hand and drew her watery eyes to mine. "You didn't heal him all the way, right?" She shook her head. "I know you didn't. That means he's going to be down long enough to make something stick." The ABB didn't break their goons out of lockup as often as the Empire did, but more often than the Merchants. Then again, the Empire had a healer of their own, so they had a higher turnover and could take bigger risks, while the Merchants were all halfway to a drug-filled grave and just weren't worth the effort when they could recruit fresher bodies easier than breaking out the stale ones. I shook my head, it wasn't time for those thoughts.
"You did good, Amy." I said, as sincerely as I could. "You do good. You are good. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise." That was when she broke down and curled up in my arms, crying.
We spent the rest of the time until the food showed up curled up on the couch like that. Amy stopped crying after a few minutes, but still kept sniffling while I whispered hushed platitudes into her ear, petting her curly, frizzled-out hair down, and wondering if this was how Emma felt when she did this for me, after mom died.
---
We were halfway through our food when Amy felt up to talking again. "So, how'd Parian's go?"
"I told you earlier it went fine." I shrugged.
"Yeah, but that's when we were in public. Can't talk about cape things when you never know who's listening on the other side of the door."
I hummed, pretty sure she just wanted to gossip about my cape stuff. Pretty sure she'd mentioned living vicariously through others before, maybe she didn't have the same experience I did? "Well, how did getting your costume work out?"
She rolled her eyes. "Mark said something about me being 'the white mage' when we were coming up with ideas, and the white robes stuck. Next week we had enough baggy cotton robes from some bulk supplier to last me forever." I just barely caught the 'and I hate it' she tacked on under her breath. Maybe I should talk with her about rebranding sometime? Before I could bring it up, she cut me off. "Stop trying to distract me, what'd she say?"
I sighed. "Costume is a dark green tunic coat thing. I thought it looked pretty good, and she's making it out of really sturdy stuff. She doesn't do masks though, and..." I hunched down, playing with my noodles. "She said I needed to get rid of my glasses."
Amy shrugged. "Why don't I just fix your eyes?"
"You can do that?" I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me before.
"Well yeah, I can fix anything. I'm fucking amazing, remember?" She was smiling, but stabbing at her food. She felt like she was lying, but that didn't make any sense. Why would she lie about...? Oh, Amy...
"You are amazing." I said, and said it again stronger when she tried to scoff and wave me off. "Don't beat yourself up."
She smiled shyly, with a touch of a blush. "Yeah, alright." She reached out her hand. "C'mon, then." I slipped my hand into hers and she closed her eyes. The world got fuzzy over the next few seconds, and I took my glasses off. My vision slowly unblurred, before I was seeing the house more crisply than I could ever remember it. "There. Perfect vision."
"Wait," I'd just thought of something. "what do we tell people about why I'm not wearing them anymore?"
Amy shrugged. "Just say you're switching to contacts. Either people will believe that, or they'll think I fixed your eyes and don't want you to talk about it. We are friends, after all." she let that beat hang in the air for a moment. "Either way, people should just drop it."
I nodded with a small smile. "Now I just need to figure out a mask..."
"What'd you have in mind?"
"Well, I'd sort of based the costume's original idea on Eidolon, so maybe a blank faced mask like his?" I said with a shrug. "Maybe a darker green, though. Ceramic, if I can manage it. If nothing else I can use it with my earthbending, like a holdout weapon." There I go slipping that word into things again. What was with that?
She scoffed. "That's easy enough. You can get Eidolon masks anywhere. The ceramic's a little tougher, though." She pondered for a second. "Vicky's probably going to drag me shopping tomorrow, to keep me out of the hospital. I can convince her to let us swing by Lord's Market instead of the Boardwalk. Pretty sure there's a pottery stand there that also does masks. I can just grab you a few of them and you can repaint them yourself."
"Really? That'd be amazing!" I cheered. "Wait, don't you need special paints for ceramics?"
"Pff, you gonna eat off 'em?" She shook her head. "Nah, acrylic sticks to anything. Won't be shiny gloss, but let's be honest, you're not a shiny person." I made an appropriately offended noise. "You're going to want to wear a domino under it, though. Just in case it gets knocked off or you want to eat, or something."
That sounded reasonable enough. I'd offered to pay her back for the masks, but she wasn't worried about it. Dad got home not long after that, and we filled him in on our day while he ate his reheated food. Then Amy and I went up to my room, where we practiced meditating some more until she had to head home. I made sure to slip some personal wellness and mindfulness tricks into the training, just because I felt like she needed all the help she could get, there.
---
SAT FEB 12
Well, today was the big day. I hadn't even had time for my normal morning weight training or running, before Dad was bundling us out of the house for me to make 'my appointment' on time. He'd just head in to work to finish the rest of the week's overflow early from there after dropping me off.
It was a little after seven in the morning when I made my way to the door to knock. I was let in by Mr 'Call me Chris' Alcott, whom I'd kept calling Mr Alcott just because. He led me to a large dining room, where four spots were set, but only one was in use. The Mr sat down to his half-finished plate of waffles, eggs, and meat, and took a long pull from his coffee.
Cheryl bustled about, bringing in plates of food now that there were more people to eat it, before heading upstairs to get her 'Not a morning person, poor dear.' daughter.
The head of the table had already finished off his plate and gone back for another half-plate of eggs and sausage by the time a bleary Dinah was led into the room. Her eyes shot open, seeing me, but she let herself be silently maneuvered into her seat, before the Mrs took hers.
"So, what has you heading out so early on a Saturday, sir?" I asked.
He chuckled at the appellation, and said "I'm the assistant Fire Chief in charge of the south station." The one that handles most of the city, while the north station has mostly transitioned into watching for Lung's tantrums and Merchant drug lab fires. "Mostly just means I handle Admin while Gordon-" Richard Gordon, I recognized as the city's actual Fire Chief. "-is up north. That's what I'm doing today, but that's only four days of my week. I'm also chair in a couple groups around town, and have to manage shares and stockholder meetings with a few places around town, Medhall, mostly." He said with a shrug. "Still, I was a soldier and a firefighter before they convinced me to take a desk job, so the station's where my heart is. Plus, I keep fit, just in case they need me!" His large, muscled arm slapped into his torso, causing a jiggling ripple to spread under his clothes. Highlighting, if anything, how not fit he currently was. It wasn't my place to say anything, so I just laughed politely and nodded.
"And how about you, Mrs Alcott?" I asked to change the subject.
"Cheryl, dear." She chided. I chuckled shyly and nodded. "I'm going to be doing some work around the house, and cooking. Our housekeeper only comes through twice a week, and the house is a little big for her to manage by herself." That felt a bit like a lie, if I had to guess the housekeeper managed fine. The house was big, but I'd hesitate to call it huge like a mansion. Two floors, with what felt like four bedrooms, an office, and two bathrooms on the second. They had a living room, two dining rooms- I'd seen a bigger one on the way to this cozier one they seemed to use for just themselves- and if I had to guess, they probably had a den and a study or two judging by the sizes of the rooms I could feel.
It was Mr Alcott who broke the next silence, "Hebert, right? You'd be Danny Hebert's daughter, then?" That explained the slightly assessing eye he'd been giving me this whole time, if he knew dad. Or knew of dad, anyway. I know he hadn't made too many friends in the city's government, with all his lobbying for more work for the unions, and the retooling of several dock services, like the ferry.
"Yes, sir?" I was worried, and I was sure it showed.
He smiled, though. "Oh, Joe's always going on about the dockworkers. Always pitching a hand when they can, sturdy folk who don't like their city on fire any more than the rest of us." He gave a hearty chuckle at that. "Your dad runs a good ship, there."
"He's just Head of Hiring," I demurred.
"Oh, nonsense. I've been at this long enough to know the buck stops with someone local, not the 'boss' telling people they run things from off in Virginia." It was Florida, actually, but I didn't have it in me to contradict such a minor point.
"Yeah," I said instead. "I'm proud of him." The man made a loud affirmative grunt, and moved to finish off his plate.
"So, dear, how are your grades looking?" Cheryl asked. Which, honestly, fair question if I was going to be teaching her daughter, but... I still winced a little.
"I had really good grades through middle school, but then I wound up going to Winslow and... Well, let's just say that gang schools aren't great for your GPA." They all frowned at this, so I pressed on. "But I'm doing better! I tested into my proper year at Arcadia, and I'm pulling my grades up in my off-time." Usually while winding down for bed after I was done training nominally more important things for the day, but I couldn't say that. "I'm sure I know everything up through Dinah's year, and can probably help her understand some things better than someone years removed from learning this stuff." Well okay, I might technically count in that, but it sounded good!
They glanced at each other and had a small, silent conversation, before she nodded. "I'm sure you can, dearie, that's why you're here. Dinah wanted you here-" and at this we all glanced a the shy girl, who nodded, even as she folded into herself a little. "-and it doesn't cost us much to try. We're talking with her teachers, and they'll keep an eye on whether she improves this week. Assuming she does, and Dinah's happy with things, we'll ask you back next week."
I thought on it and nodded. "That sounds fine."
Mr Alcott took his leave after that, saying he needed to be in by 8. The rest of us finished up our food, Dinah picking at her waffles and eggs while her mom took the serving dishes to the kitchen and I finished off what'd been left on them. When we were done, we took our dishes in, and Dinah led me up to her room. It was all plush pink, purple and white, with a big bed, dresser, and a study desk.
She sat down at the desk, but didn't pull out any books or papers, so I sat on the bed and asked, "So, what did you want to talk about?"
"What..." She started, gulping and breathing, she really was a giant ball of nervous energy. "What's it like, being a cape?"
I couldn't help the small wince. "I... haven't actually done any cape stuff, yet." I double-checked her mom was still in the kitchen, and nothing looked to be obviously recording us... "I'm mostly just keeping my head down until I know I can handle things." I paused for a moment to think, and she shrank in on herself some more. "I'm training, and talking with other capes I know, and staying off the radar. The gangs can't come after me if they don't know I exist, after all." Though, with what Miss Militia said, at least the PRT was on the lookout now... I was getting stronger. Maybe it was time to stop playing things so safe?
"I don't..." She stuttered. "I think... I think I already messed up." Her eyes were tearing up a bit. "The numbers get high for bad things, even if I stop talking about my powers, or my headaches..." She hiccuped. "I need help, but I can't get help..."
"Hey," I said, moving over to kneel beside her, rubbing her arms and shoulders. "Hey, it's okay. I'll help. What do you need? What are these 'bad things'?"
"Get kidnapped." She said. "Get... taken to the bad room. Never come out." She sniffled again. "Or I do, and things are worse. Everything is worse." She devolved into a series of 'Don't wanna's and I bundled her over to the bed. Unlike with Amy, it was a lot easier to cuddle and console someone so much smaller than I was. Still, half my attention was spent 'watching' Mrs Alcott, terrified of her finding us like this. I really wouldn't be able to help Dinah if I got kicked out and told never to come back.
It took a few minutes of work, but eventually she'd calmed down enough to talk. "It'll be okay." I said. "You have my number, right?" She nodded. "Well you can put me on speed-dial, and I'll come running whenever you need help, if you call." Unless I was at school with their Faraday cage, but I hoped that part was obvious.
"The numbers are better if you help."
"See? It'll be okay." I tried to sound more cheerful than I felt.
"The numbers are much better if... if I'm on your team."
That caused my thoughts to skip. "I... don't have a team."
"You will." She said, confidently. "73.7 percent chance you form your own team in the next few years. 38.9 percent chance you do in the next few months. 42.3 percent chance things are better for me if you help, 82.4 percent they're better if I'm on your team." I was pretty well stunned by the numbers. "I spent all my questions Thursday on this. I had to stay home sick yesterday."
She looked up pleadingly with those big eyes of hers. "Please? Help me?"
I'd thought I was better immune to the puppy eyes than this. "I already promised to help..." I demurred. "I... I don't know about the team thing, though." She looked a little distraught at that. "I promise if I do, you'll be on it, though."
She seemed to sense this was the best she was going to get, so she nodded and cuddled into my side again. It took almost ten minutes for me to coax her up again. "Come on, your mom expects us to be studying, we should probably get on that." She nodded, reluctantly, and gathered up her school things.
Honestly I probably did end up helping her a lot more than the tutors, if only because I knew to avoid asking questions with percentile answers, and triggering her power. Her mom checked on us a few times, spending the rest of her time prepping dinner and pretending she wasn't sticking around just to keep an eye on me. Mr Alcott brought one of those sandwich platters from a local sub place home for lunch- apparently he'd taken a long one- and we all had sandwiches. Anything we didn't eat today could be part of lunch tomorrow, he'd said. I think he just wanted the excuse to check on us himself, before he went back to work.
Our time after that was spent studying. Eventually it was time for dinner, roast and stew vegetables. Dinah was actually fairly animated at dinner, which seemed to surprise her parents. She told them she felt like she was learning, but I knew she was just happy to have a day without crippling headaches.
I was sent home with a couple large, crisp bills in my pocket, feeling overall pretty well about how today went. In the back of my mind, I was trying desperately not to worry about what Dinah'd said about forming a cape team. I just didn't feel ready to consider it.
---
SUN FEB 13
That morning after basic training, I checked with dad that yes, the Trainyard was completely defunct, mostly Merchant territory, and that cleaning it up as 'powers' practice really couldn't do any harm to the city. Convincing him I'd be fine even if I made a ruckus was a little harder, but pointing out that I could see trouble coming from miles away, and deal with basically anything in the bay shy of Lung, Kaiser, or Purity, helped.
It wasn't that hard to get there, or get in. Honestly most of it was deserted. The few people who'd been there when I got there left pretty quick when things started to get loud.
Turns out hucking trains is pretty noisy business.
Still, it was pretty good practice launching rusted, empty train cars on top of each other, and then crushing them with huge slabs of rock and concrete. My aim was getting pretty good by the time a group of people showed up. They drove up in loud cars, gathered up a couple blocks away from where I was, and started marching toward where I was making noise. If they weren't all wearing ill-fitting or torn up clothes, and carrying weapons, I might've thought they had a legitimate reason to be here investigating things. But no, they were almost certainly merchants.
I didn't want to fight, and I didn't want to run. I came here to train, dammit! So I started running to the far side of the yard. I was fast, I'd be fine. About a minute into my feet slapping into the compact dirt and concrete of the yard, I slowed to a stop and stared down at my feet, pondering.
I stamped my foot, and a long slab half a foot thick popped up and landed on the ground next to the hole it'd come from. Then I stepped up onto it, and gave a little shove backwards, sliding it forward with earthbending.
Yes.
I'd never been a skater, but I knew they could get around quick when they wanted to. As long as I blew all the crap out of my way and moved in a straight line, I'd be fine. So I pushed myself forward, scouring the ground ahead of me with waves of my hands while my feet pushed me faster, and faster, and faster. It wasn't long before I'd run out of Trainyard, skidding my way to a halt at the far corner, and nearly propelling myself from the slab as I braked. That definitely needed some practice.
Even running, the goons were at least half an hour away, now.
I grinned and started up a new scrap pile. Every time they got close, I'd just go around them, to one of the farther corners of the yard, and start again. A few times I heard really loud crashes from the group, and snippets of unintelligible yelling, but I mostly ignored them. As long as they never caught sight of me, I'd be fine. I had my domino mask on and everything just in case, though.
I was almost sad, when my phone's alarm told me it was time to head off to martial arts training.
---
When I got there, I found Jake leaning against the wall near where I had my training, his leg bundled up and a crutch under his arm. I immediately rushed over and asked him what was wrong. He insisted he was fine, and seemed to be telling the truth, but I kept pressing and he told me he was caught up in some gang shit. Also true. He told me not to worry about it and get into my stance already.
We spent the time with me going over motions, him correcting me when needed and showing me the few new things he could banged up as he was, but the hours passed quickly. Eventually he told me to stop, and we gathered everything up and sat down.
"I really can't teach you any more than I have." He said earnestly, radiating truth to my senses. "All that's left is practice and maintenance. I'm not even sure how useful that'll be to a super-talented girl like you, though."
The way he said it had my hackles raise. "What do you mean?"
He shrugged. "Listen, I know we've all got our secrets, and you've been pretty good at keeping yours, but I think you should talk to Old Sue sometime. She knows things, and I think you'd benefit a lot from taking some time to meet her 'for tea' she said." He rolled his eyes. "Always tea, with her. Anyway, you're good." His eyes softened a bit, and his smile got a bit more honest-looking. "You've learned all us old fighters have to offer without making a life of it, and I'm not sure that's where you're heading. You're special, everyone you fight and talk to can tell. Just, really consider meeting up with Sue, yeah?"
He bundled up his things under his arm and started hobbling off, crutch under the other. He waved and said "See you 'round, Taylor." And made for his car. It was already well into the evening, and I didn't have anywhere else to go, or anything to do, so I just headed home.
First Dinah ambushes me with the idea of forming a cape team, and now old ladies want to meet for clandestine tea parties? What the hell was going on with this weekend?