Amelia, Ch 256- Emma
"Sorry, Mom, going to be another day spent at the office," I replied. "Give Dad my love."
"Are you sure?" she asked. "It's been nearly three weeks since you've had a day off. That can't possibly be healthy."
"Mom, don't worry about it," I sighed. "With my powers, I don't get tired anymore. I can't get tired. There are a lot of people are depending on me. Dragon, the Protectorate, the work I'm doing is changing the world. And with the new Endbringers and all of them coming this rapidly, I can't justify anything less than my best. The others go out there and fight those monsters face to face, the least I can do is work a little harder to make their jobs a little easier."
I glanced over at where Zach was contained in stasis. Over a week and he's still in there. The intervals had reduced to once every 1.7 seconds, instead of every .8 second like it had been at the beginning. It was the only sign of improvement. And there's still nothing I can do to help him.
"We're just worried about you, that's all sweetheart," she sighed.
"I know," the sadness in my voice wasn't from my not so slow drift away from my family, but there was no reason to let her know that. "Love you. But I have to go. There's a series of samples we got from a particularly interesting Case 53 that needs further checking. If it works, we might have a reproducible drug that can heal almost any infection or injury imaginable. This could be the cure to AIDS and cancer and pretty much everything else. And every second it's not being worked out, it costs lives."
"Okay," she agreed reluctantly. "Love you. Take care."
I snapped my phone closed and tried to feel worse for lying to her. The samples were real, but they were mostly Rey's job to work with, with Riley checking up on his work and adding her help where she could. Amelia or I would occasionally get involved, too, but not that often. We knew the important details, and that the stuff worked. If in the profoundly gross manner of having the parahuman in question lick the wounds. Or, really, just to have him drool into a cup and then dump it on them. The hope was to find a way to mass produce the substance. To everyone else in the world, it would be a miracle. To me, it was just one of the many dead ends to finding a way to heal Zach.
I sighed and went back to my latest project. Altering time for Zach wasn't an option, but the designs we had on Capacitor had proven temporal acceleration was an option in its own right. A device that could emulate Battery's power and dilate time to give me a few minutes of work within the second and a half between restorations. Or allowing Riley to do it, she was the better biotinker without possible question. If either of us could surgically repair the damage, that might speed the healing process up, at least. It wasn't much of a hope, but we were grasping at straws here.
"That bad, huh?" a voice asked. I turned to see Vicky standing there.
"Yeah," I sighed. "Still no real progress. I'm back to finding a workaround to extend Battery's power to others."
"Ah," she nodded. We just stood there for a minute or so.
Eventually I spoke up. "If Zach were here right now, he'd probably tell us we have pent up sexual tension and should fuck like rabbits. Shapeshifting lesbian rabbits. There might be a diagram involved."
"If they're lesbian rabbits, would they really fuck?" she laughed a little. "Yeah, that kid always knew exactly the right thing to say. You could tell because he would go with the exact opposite. Except for every once in a while when it really mattered."
I sighed and glanced over at his pod. "Yeah," I agreed. "Good to know you miss him, too."
"We all do," she insisted. "He saved more than one life on this team, you know."
"I know," I sighed.
"I just wanted to come to say I'd be going back to L.A. soon," Victoria informed. "With the placement of another portal to the U.S. world there, things are getting a little more contentious with the Elite. Seems they picked up a new parahuman whose power is that he can't be moved or harmed or held by any power. Like a weak version of the Siberian. He robbed a bank in mid daylight and actually walked away while Alexandria tried to stop him. She's understandably pissed. They're hoping I can take him out, and if I can't then maybe we'll have Lily take a stab at him."
I flinched. Zach was unstoppable, too, in his own way. And it was Lily's power that brought him down. Vicky froze for a second. "Oh, I'm so sorry. That was such a bitch thing to say."
"Have you told Riley, yet?" I asked, ignoring the apology, pretending I didn't notice the implications. "What about the others?"
"Now that I'm here, I've told everyone else that matters, but Riley's going out on a date with Theo and Missy, and I don't want to upset her," Victoria informed me, thankfully accepting my invite to talk about something else. "Still don't know how I feel about that whole thing between those three."
"Yeah, they're way too young to be worried about serious relationships to begin with, let alone something like that," I agreed. "But it makes Riley happier than I've seen her in a long time, so that's good. Zach would say something like 'lucky Theo' and then complain that nothing like that ever happens to him."
"Heh, probably," she agreed. "But he was totally barking up the wrong trees for that one. I'm sticking to monogamy, because I'm the jealous type. My man needs to worship me exclusively. Or I will break his face."
I frowned. "I know I've thanked you before," I spoke. "For helping me get back together with Zach. But thank you again. I know you had a bit of a crush on him. You wouldn't have had any problems stealing him away. Wouldn't even have been stealing, he wasn't the least bit interested in me at the time. Instead, you went out of your way to pretty much throw him at me. If our positions were reversed, I don't think I could have done the same."
She shrugged. "Wouldn't have been fair to any of us. I'm not ready for a relationship right now. What would you have me do? String him along? That's not the sorta thing I do. Besides, we both know I have the pick of the litter. I might even go after Chevalier, just to prove I can."
I might have blushed, if that was still an option for my body. "You know about that, huh?" I asked.
"Hey, don't worry about it, I've been there," Victoria responded with her unfairly perfect smile. "Half my adolescent fantasies had to do with showing Legend all the joys that women have to offer."
I smiled back. "Okay, you caught me."
"I promise not to tell him," she added. "Or Zach, for that matter. It's one of those things that guys just wouldn't understand."
"I'm going to miss you, too," I admitted, walking over to her. "I don't have a lot of friends around here, and you're one of my best."
"Dammit," she muttered. "Now you're going to make things all mushy? Fiiine." She wrapped her arms around me and gave me a hug. I couldn't help but notice her chin was about eye level to me.
"Yup, afraid so," I replied, then I raised my voice a little. "Hey, Zach, we're having a moment here. There will never be a more perfect possible time for you to miraculously recover."
"It's true," Vicky agreed. "Play your cards right, you might even beat Theo to that threesome Dinah predicted."
Sadly, this wasn't the movies. Zach continued his flicker of dust and reformation, and after a few seconds Vicky and I broke our hug. "Well, it was worth a shot," I shrugged. "Good luck in L.A., don't be afraid to stop by whenever you want."
"Don't worry," she replied. "Next Endbringer's scheduled for a week or two, you know I'll be there for that."
"Yeah," I agreed, and glanced back toward Zach. "See you there." They're the ones doing the fighting, I'll make sure they have the tools to do the damage to make sure the fuckers die for good.
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A/N- Trying to smooth the time jump transitions. But at this point, there's not a lot of plot left here and everyone's in a relatively stable place.
