#i think he would keep track of a cat in the alps that keeps getting lost

[bluespruce25]

A Life for a Life to Balance the Scales

CW: Suicide/self-sacrifice

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Chapter 4 of 5: Goodbye, My Loves

Cat Grant had not made herself easy to find in the last few years, since her display of heroics in the Daxamite invasion and the unfortunate series of events that led to the resignation of President Marsden. She had continued her work behind the scenes, quietly moving the world towards a brighter future without any of the recognition she had been used to in her previous life as National City’s preeminent Queen of all Media. 

Imagine her surprise, then, when she heard a knock at the door of her secluded Swiss Chalet, purchased through a shell company of a shell company and in no way tied back to her name. Her eyebrows rose and a small smirk played at the edge of her lips as she opened the door and recognized her unexpected guest.

“Director J’onzz, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Wine glass in hand, she turned her back to him and walked further into the chalet. She assumed he would follow, which he did.

“Ms. Grant, I wish I could say it is a pleasure, but unfortunately, I am here with a rather heavy heart.”

This piqued her interest, “Oh? Do tell, director.”

“Ms. Grant, as you know, Supergirl has not been seen in National City for several weeks.”

“Yes, I had heard something to that effect. Let me guess, you need my help to track her down?”

J’onn looked at her with cloudy eyes, she was starting to sense that her levity in this conversation was out of place, like perhaps she had missed something crucial. It was enough to make her listen closely to what he said next with an unusual gravitas.

“I am sorry to tell you that Supergirl is dead. After killing Lex Luthor, Supergirl cremated Lex’s body in the fires of the sun and then followed willingly in his path.”

Cat’s face froze, her mouth hung slightly open, an unusual display of feeling for the former CEO and always bad-ass. 

“I’m sorry Director J’onzz. I seem to have misheard you.” She gestured with her wine glass in her hand, index finger coming away from the glass to point at J’onn. “It  sounded like you just said that Supergirl flung herself and her arch-nemesis into the sun.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Cat sat down heavily on the nearest surface, luckily it happened to be the arm of her sofa. 

“You and I both know that this simply isn’t possible. Supergirl would never give up hope. She would never take away National City’s superhero willingly.”

“She would if it was the only way to take out Earth’s greatest threat.” J’onn retorted.

Cat paused at this, she hated to admit it, but Lex Luthor might have been the only thing in this world that could have motivated Supergirl to give up willingly. 

“And just say I believe you, Director, what does this have to do with me? I haven’t seen Supergirl in years.”

“Before she died, Supergirl recorded a message for you and asked that I make sure it finds its way into your hands.”

“I see. And I suppose this conversation” Cat gestured back and forth between them with her wine glass, “is off the record?”

J’onn sighed, once a media mogul, always a media mogul. Thankfully, he had prepared for this line of questioning.

“Yes and no. This meeting, this discussion between you and I, is off the record. However, Supergirl asked that you be the one to break the story. Everything you need and the message she left for you can be found on this drive.” With this J’onn removed the USB drive from his shirt pocket and held it out between two fingers for Cat to take. 

Before she could remove it from his grasp, he held it tighter, locking eyes with her over the USB. “She looked up to you more than anyone, you know.”

Cat blinked, took the USB and turned away to hide the tears threatening to fall. By the time she turned back, seconds later, she had squared her jaw and there was no trace of the emotions that had threatened to spill over.

“Thank you, Director J’onzz; for everything. I will do our girl justice, I promise you.”

“I know that you will.”

And with that the uniform-clad man strode out of her house closing the door behind him, and Cat was left to process everything that had just transpired. She paused for a moment and took a swig of her wine. Then, she sat down to her desk and plugged the USB into her laptop in one smooth motion.

---

A few hours later Cat stood on the balcony of her chalet overlooking the serene, snow-covered peaks all around her, breathing in the crisp mountain air. She cast her eyes into the sky, the stars on full display in the cloudless night.  “One benefit of living in a secluded valley in the heart of the Swiss alps is the lack of light pollution,”  she reflected morosely.

There she stood for a while, wine glass still twirling between her fingers, her arms crossed and the hand holding the glass resting just in front of her shoulder. The tear tracks on her cheeks shone faintly in the moonlight, the only evidence of her heartbreak. 

She spoke reverently, seemingly to the stars themselves, “Rest in power, Supergirl.” Then, even more softly, she added, “Be at peace, Kara.”

As she turned to go inside, her last murmur caught on the wind. “Tch... I mean glasses as a disguise, really.”

She shook her head, a thoughtful look on her face as she walked through the doors and back over to her laptop on the coffee table. The eulogy of the most beloved citizen of Earth wasn’t going to write itself, after all. 

---

“Alex, honey? Can I come in?” Eliza asked as she knocked lightly on the door to the guest room. Alex couldn’t bring herself to stay in the bedroom she had shared with Kara for five years before going off to college. Kelly was helping Andrea manage the fallout of the failed Obsidian North Worldwide Unity Festival, but she would be making her way to Midvale on the evening train.

As Eliza opened the door a crack to check on Alex, she found her daughter sitting on the edge of the bed absentmindedly fiddling with the crystal hung from a plain silver chain around her neck. 

“Alex?” Eliza repeated. This time, Alex looked up at her, the far off look slowly faded as her mom came back into focus. “Honey, I know this has been hard, but I think it’s time. You have to say goodbye. It’s been three weeks since J’onn arrived from Mars, and I think you need the closure.”

Alex broke their eye contact, looking down at her hands.

Eliza followed her cue and looked out the window towards the beach. 

“She sent me one too, you know?” Alex looked up at this. “She told me that she loved me and thanked me for taking her in.” Eliza dropped her gaze to her hands, Alex was quick to pull the closest one into her own lap to hold, encouraging Eliza to continue.

“She said that she hoped she made me proud and that she was sorry for Jeremiah, for coming in and blowing up our perfect family; for setting things on fire with her heat vision and that terrible attitude she had when she first got here.” Eliza brought her gaze to Alex’s face, “and you know what Alex? I was so mad  .” Eliza looked up at the ceiling for a moment, “I was so mad at her. After  everything  we’ve all been through, I loved her as my own daughter. I have felt  every  heartbreak and  every  joy right alongside her since she was thirteen years old, and after all these years, the last thing she has to say to me is to  apologize  for being a burden. Everything we’ve been through together, all of the love we’ve shared and the legacy of our family is reduced to tragedy and apologies.”

Alex blinked, not sure what to do with what Eliza was saying; stunned to hear feelings that so closely mirrored her own. 

“The last thing I will ever have of her,” Eliza paused, choosing her next words carefully, “is her wishing that she hadn’t caused so much trouble. That we had been spared having her come into our lives. Can you  believe  that? The last words I will hear my daughter say are that she wished she had never become my daughter.”

Eliza sniffled, just keeping the tears at bay. 

“I know that she didn’t mean it like that, I do. But I am so  mad  , Alex. I am mad that she is gone. I’m mad that she could ever have believed that I would change a single thing about raising her, about loving her. I’m mad that I will never get the chance to scold her for it.” Eliza let out a forced chuckle. “I am  so mad  that I will never get to hold her in my arms and tell her how much I love her, and how mad I am that she made this decision; how mad I am that she could ever question the blessing she has been in my life.”

Eliza patted Alex’s hands entwined with hers. “So take your time, Alex. Feel whatever it is you need to feel. You’ll get no judgement from me. When you’re ready, hear what she has to say and afterwards, I think you should let Kelly make a recommendation for someone for you to see.”

---

A few hours had passed since her mom looked in on her when Alex finally looked up, away from her hands. The sun had just about set, casting long shadows across the first floor room. Her jaw was set, firm, and her eyes held a singular intent. Slowly, she got up and made her way upstairs. Opening the door to their bedroom, she took in every detail: the NSYNC posters and the paisley bedspreads; the telescope and star charts. She closed her eyes against the memories that poured in. 

Making her way into the middle of the room, she set up the mini crystal projector that J’onn had leant her. She pulled the necklace off over her head and looked down at it for a moment, studying it before she placed it in the console. She adjusted the projector so that the hologram would appear just over Kara’s bed. She wrapped her arms around the nearest teddy bear and sat cross-legged on top of her comforter. As she got settled in, Kara’s face flickered into view. The hologram wasn’t even fully formed as the first sob broke through Alex’s lips, wracking her whole body. Still, she carried on through blurred eyes. 

“Oh Alex, I am so sorry. You must be so mad at me right now. I am so,  so sorry. I had to do it Alex. I had to kill Lex. It was the only way. You are the only one who can understand this, who can understand why I had to do this. Killing Lex was the only way to stop him from hurting more people and it had to be me that did it. I am the only person in the world who could have surprised him like that.”

Kara went on to recount the events that Alex had already pieced together as part of their investigation. Kara had ambushed Lex at a little known barbershop downtown. She had flown them directly to the Fortress of Solitude without stopping and had immediately killed him with a lethal overdose of morphine. They had the footage from the Fortress so they already understood her motives and everything she explained to Lex before he lost consciousness, and eventually his heartbeat. Alex was surprised to learn about the Vanishing Point and how Supergirl had memorized his heartbeat. Kara had never talked about the Vanishing Point, or Crisis, not if she could help it. 

It somehow made it worse, hearing everything in Kara’s own words. Knowing, definitively, that this wasn’t some elaborate ruse. Knowing that Kara Zor-El, Supergirl, had killed Lex Luthor in the name of justice and then flown him and herself into the sun. 

Alex tuned back in as she heard Kara transition to the part where she got into the pod. 

“Alex, there is something I need you to understand. About why I had to go too. As you know from the existence of these crystals, my death was not an accident. The truth is that Lex Luthor had to die, Supergirl had to be the one to kill him, and Supergirl does not kill. The moment Lex’s heart stopped beating, Supergirl ceased to exist.”

“I know what you’re going to say” Kara continued as if they were debating pineapple on pizza rather than her death, “‘ You are more than Supergirl. Kara Danvers is my sister.’ And you’re right, Alex. You are absolutely right. Kara Danvers is more than just Supergirl, but, like Kara Danvers, Supergirl is just another piece of Kara Zor-El.”

“I had to face justice for the crime of killing Lex, just as he had to face justice for killing dozens of innocent people, for all of the crimes and murders committed in his schemes. By killing him, I became no better than Lex Luthor, and therefore, my only choice was to join him in the judgement of the sun. I’m not sure if you’ll ever believe me or agree, but it had to be this way.”

Alex could feel herself shaking, the tears falling freely and her hands balled up into fists at her side, but Kara couldn’t see her, couldn’t hear her fuming, so Kara continued. 

“I am  sorry  for causing you pain, Alex. I’m sorry that I can’t be there for you, to help you through this. But I had to do the right thing. I had to end Lex’s hold on us. Everything I have done, I have done out of love for Earth and for you, for our family. I have done everything I can to help people, but I cannot help people as the monster that Lex always feared I would become. My time on Earth is over, and if I want my legacy to mean anything, then Supergirl has to die with Lex. Not just in spirit, not just in name. I have to atone for my sins just as he did. We both always knew, if it came down to it, I would sacrifice myself to save my planet; to save Earth. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but this time it did.”

At this, the hologram of Kara leaned forward, 

“Alex, all I have ever wanted is for you to be happy. I know that this choice will only make that harder, but I hope that you will still find your happy ending. I hope that you have someone who can keep you grounded and can teach you to love yourself. No matter what though, Alex, you have to put yourself first. You have to love yourself as fiercely as you loved me.”

Kara smiled, one last brilliant smile, for Alex, “You will never know how blessed I was to have Alex Danvers for a sister. You are my best friend and my biggest supporter. Supergirl could never have made it all those years without you in her corner. Now that I’m gone, I ask that you support the others as you have supported me. Help Lena build the world that we know is possible. Lead the DEO into a new future, one where it helps aliens more than it hurts them, where it protects all citizens of Earth equally. Be there for Clark. He is now truly the last Son of Krypton. He will need people who understand, and we both know that it’s a pretty short list.”

Alex scoffed, “ Yeah no pressure there, Kara. Jesus.”

“I love you, Alex. Thank you for being my sister, for showing me the light, and for introducing me to NSYNC.” Alex’s eyes flit up to the posters above her sister’s bed. “There are no words for the joy you have brought into my life. Thank you for every moment of it.”

Kara’s face shuttered and disappeared as the hologram powered down. 

---

Alex was sitting on the bed, her whole body shaking in rage, her breaths coming in hiccups. A moment later, she was screaming at the empty space above Kara’s bed, not looking at the console now laying upended on the floor with the offending pillow next to it. She let out another wordless cry, falling to her knees with her head in her hands. She didn’t hear Eliza come up the stairs, or hear her call her name. Supergirl’s big sister was all alone with her grief until the moment she felt their mom wrap her arms around her, as Alex scrambled to hold onto them like a lifeline, like she would fall to pieces without her mother’s love holding her together. 

“How could she?!” Alex said softly, not expecting an answer, not really wanting one. Eliza just held her tighter, rocking her back and forth as she repeated, “I’ve got you, Alex. I’ve got you.” over and over, rubbing circles on her daughter’s back. Hours later, Kelly let herself in and found them curled up together, asleep in Alex’s childhood bed. She looked around and took in the console and the crystal with the simple chain that she recognized from around Alex’s neck. She leaned down to plant a soft kiss on Alex’s temple and brushed her knuckles across the short stands of red hair that had fallen across the agent’s forehead. Without making a sound, she backed slowly out of the room, closing the door just enough that they won’t be disturbed as she unpacked downstairs.

---

Lena was where she always was, in her lab, working intensely on her computer, running algorithm after algorithm to try to find any other combination of elements, any other explanation for the energy readings after the solar flare. Her eyes were dry and stony as she took a swig of her room-temperature coffee, grimacing as she swallowed instead of spitting it back out. She had no idea what time it was, let alone how long it had been since that coffee was fresh. The fluorescent lights in her lab followed no circadian rhythm and years of being CEO before Crisis had completely demolished her own. The lights weren’t doing anything to hide the deep circles under her eyes, the product of too many hours in the lab and not enough sleep. Kara would be so mad that she wasn’t taking care of herself.  “Then again, this time it’s Kara’s fault, isn't it?”  Lena thought ruefully. It had been 28 days, four weeks, since the solar flare.

She blinked her eyes back into focus on the monitor in front of her. 

As she was about to run her one million and twelfth algorithm, she heard the door behind her open with a soft whoosh. Her heart skipped a beat involuntarily. She knew it wasn't Kara. She knew, intellectually, that Kara wouldn’t be the one walking through her door, but she couldn’t help the flicker of hope in her eyes as she turned to face Alex. Her jaw clenched and she turned back to the monitor.

“How can I help you, Director Danvers?”  “Is Alex even the director of the DEO any more?”  Lena had lost track with Crisis, and then Lex’s revisionist history, and now his demise. She supposed it couldn't hurt to call all the once and former directors by that title until someone corrected her. “  Maybe it’s like being Secretary of State, or President, once a Madame Secretary, always a Madame Secretary  ,  ”  she mused. 

Alex sighed, “I’m not giving up, Lena. I don’t care what she says or what’s on the crystals.” She gestured to the crystal laying on its side, acting as a priceless paperweight for the barely organized piles of academic journals and fringe publications that Lena had stacked haphazardly all over the lab. “ God, what would Lillian say to see my lab in this state,”  Lena thought with ire. Without turning she spit out, “Just leave, Alex. I’ll find you when I know something.”

Alex didn’t move, didn't leave. Lena was about to raise her voice when she heard an unexpected visitor call her name, softly.

Stunned, Lena turned around to face them, “Eliza?” she asked, wondering if her overtired eyes were finally deceiving her. 

“What are you doing here? Is everything okay? Why aren’t you back in Midvale?” The “ where you belong ” at the end of the sentence was merely implied, but not lost on Eliza.

“Sweetie,” Lena bristled at the pet name. Eliza opened her arms, palms facing up and out “I don’t expect you to give up, or to stop looking. I know that if the roles were reversed, Kara would do the same.” Lena’s nostrils flared at the mention of Kara’s name, as if Eliza, as if any of them could say what Kara would do. Obviously they couldn’t, or they would have stopped her from flying herself into the sun like an idiot.

Lena maintained her silence. Eliza continued, “Whatever happened between you, whatever happened with Kara and Lex, you owe it to yourself to hear what she had to say. You owe it to yourself to hear her side of the story. You can love her for it or hate her for it afterwards, but first you need to hear her out. I know it’s hard, but you don’t want to go to the memorial tomorrow without having had the chance to say goodbye yourself first.”

Lena huffed as her eyes flashed in warning, “I’m  not  giving up.”

Eliza held up her hand to silence Lena, a glint in her usually soft eyes that Lena recognized but had never before seen in the Danvers matriarch. 

“And I’m not asking you to. All I am asking is that you open your heart one last time, to put her voice to rest while you work to find her. Right now, we don’t know how long it could take, or if she will ever come back to us. But she told me to care for you as I have cared for her, and right now, that means helping you find enough closure to pick yourself up and move through the day. I’m sorry, honey. I am so sorry that you have to do this. I am so sorry that she did this to you, to all of us. But we have to keep going. The world needs you. Lex may be gone, but there are plenty of others out there counting on Supergirl’s absence to give them free reign. We can’t let that happen and we need your help to stop them, but you can’t help anyone until you’ve found peace for yourself.”

“I will never find peace while Kara is out there,” Lena started. Eliza opened her mouth to cut in, but this time it was Lena who raised a hand to quiet her. “ But  ” she said pointedly, “I  will watch the hologram. You’re right. I’ve left it too long. If anything it may hold clues to getting her back.”

“Eliza?” Lena asked softly. 

“Yes, dear?”

Lena looked down at where she was pulling on the fingers of her left hand with her right. “I’m so afraid” Lena’s voice broke just as Eliza wrapped her in a tight embrace. “I know sweetie; we all are. You know what Kara used to say? Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is being afraid, but doing what’s right anyway.”

Lena chuckled and wiped her eyes, “That’s exactly the type of cliche, hallmark rip-off thing Kara Danvers would say.”

They all shared in a quiet laugh that died quickly between them. 

Lena inhaled deeply, steadying herself for what she was about to do. She took the crystal from its home atop a handwritten page of algorithms obscured by coffee rings and angrily scribbled out equations. 

Turning her back to Alex and Eliza, she walked to the far end of her lab where there was a large area of unoccupied space and a small console awaiting the crystal. 

With one last sigh, Lena placed the crystal into the console and watched as Kara’s face flickered into view. Her eyes filled immediately with tears, but this time she didn’t care if they spilled over. She didn’t care about anything other than the cerulean blue eyes staring back at her. 

---

“Lena.” Kara started. “I want to start by saying that I am sorry for your loss; sorry to have been the one to take your brother away from you again. It had to be me this time.”

“I know that you will need closure. I have embedded here the recording of his return to the sun. I know that you will need to see it with your own eyes to believe it, especially after the last time. I promise that this time it is done. He cannot hurt you anymore, I made sure of it. If you aren’t ready to see this, you should stop the recording now.”

Kara paused for a moment to give Lena time to decide. Lena didn’t move from where she stood. She wasn’t sure if it is because she couldn’t or because finally, she was truly ready to let Lex go, once and for all. Either way, she waited too long and the hologram of Kara leaned forward to push a button Lena couldn’t see and flickered out of view. 

In her place, the image of a body which can only be Lex appeared, backlit by the brightest light Lena had ever seen. She could see the sunlight bouncing off the crown of his shiny bald head. His beard was  almost as immaculate as normal. He looked peaceful in this death, unlike the chaotic horror of the last time she saw his dead body before her, her ears still ringing from the shot that she took, the shot that took his life. She appreciated that this time was much more peaceful, more dignified. 

She looked past his body to where the colors of the sun churned across its surface. As a scientist, she knew that the sun was a ball of gases, but the limited color range of the hologram made it look deep and varied like the surface of the open ocean, a living, moving place. 

She watched as Kara wrapped Lex in her cape, a fine shroud of Kryptonian cloth. Something of Clark’s to go into the void with him. How fitting, how  ironic.  Lena stared as Kara said a blessing and, without any further fanfare, gently pushed his body towards the sun. His sister watched as Lex’s body erupted into flames and was swallowed in a small solar flare, barely a blip on the surface of the yellow star. 

---

Kara turned back towards the pod, her expression inscrutable. The hologram showed her reaching in and then the screen cut back to the previous hologram of her sitting in the pod addressing Lena straight on.

At some point, Lena realized, Alex and Eliza must have excused themselves and stepped out because she was now alone in her lab with only Kara’s hologram in front of her. The only thing Lena could see was Kara’s face, those bright blue eyes brimming with tears; eyes full of the shadows of a home destroyed, not once but twice, of being stuck alone in the Phantom Zone for decades, and then again at the Vanishing Point; the hurt of losing so many over such a short life; the weight of infinite worlds pulling her broad shoulders into a distinctly un-Supergirl-like sag. Lena knew that this wasn’t Supergirl, even if she couldn’t make out the vacancy of the crest ripped off of her chest, Lena would know just from the look in her eyes. Supergirl died the moment Lex’s heart stopped beating. The woman in the hologram in front of her was Kara Zor-El, and Lena Luthor had never loved anyone as much as the beautiful Kryptonian struggling to keep it together long enough enough to say goodbye. 

A sob tore its way out of Lena’s throat. Whether it was the confirmation that Lex was, in fact, dead or the devastation in the eyes of the woman she loved, either way it was suddenly too much. 

Lena was standing, though barely, with her arm outstretched, the other fluttering uselessly in front of her mouth as her breath hitched and her knees threatened to give out beneath her.

Kara said her name like a benediction, “ Lena ,” and the Kryptonian’s face softened into a warm smile, the one Lena was 70 percent sure was reserved just for her. Kara’s face looked everything like she’d just come home to find Lena in her apartment after a long day at CatCo, like Lena remembered from before; before Shelley Island, before the secret, before everything fell apart between them. 

The shock reverberated through her body as Lena’s knees hit the ground, finally overwhelmed by her emotions, but she felt no pain from the impact. She would have had to be capable of feeling physical pain for that, but she couldn’t feel anything except the insides of her heart being pulled apart at the atomic level. For a moment, part of her wondered if that was physically possible and remembered her discussion with Kara about quantum entanglement almost a year prior. There wasn’t enough enriched uranium in the world to build a bomb capable of replicating the searing pain ripping through Lena’s chest. 

Coming back to herself, Lena looked up as Kara began speaking. 

“I had to do it Lena. There is no one else on this planet who understands why the way you do. You have made the decision I made. You have seen what I have seen, drawn the same conclusions, it was the only way.”

“But..” Kara had the decency to look somewhat ashamed, “understanding why I killed Lex doesn’t necessarily mean you understand why I had to go too. Does it?”

Lena seethed at the understatement .  Kara continued, unaware of the incredulity of the woman listening to her speech. 

“Lena, you and I both know that as soon as I killed Lex, I became the worst case scenario he ever imagined, the story he used to use to fuel his hate-filled schemes. I became a danger to humans, to Earth. I took the law into my own hands; acted as judge and jury. We both know that death is a paltry justice for the infinite lives lost because of Lex before, during, and after Crisis. The thing is, the rest of the world has no idea. To them, Lex Luthor is a Nobel Peace Laureate,  The Man of Tomorrow , a shining example of the best humanity has to offer. Supergirl, then, is just the cold-blooded murderer of her long-time friend and ally.” 

Kara sighed. 

“Even if the whole world knew the truth about Lex, the real truth, it wouldn’t matter. I betrayed who I am when I killed him. Supergirl does not kill. That’s not just Supergirl, that’s Kara too. All of me killed Lex, and all of me must atone for that. A life for a life to balance the scales.”

Kara looked desperately out of the hologram, every inch of her face pleading with Lena to understand why she did it. “Please Lena, you have to understand. You are the only one that can. I couldn’t do what I needed to do and still be me. I had to sacrifice myself, sacrifice Supergirl so that Lex couldn't hurt anyone ever again. It was the only way. It was a small price for your safety, for the safety of the world.”

Lena chuckled, burying her face in her hands. As much as she wanted to murder Supergirl and strangle Kara, she did understand. Hadn’t she made the same choice a year ago, consequences be damned? She knew better than anyone after Lex and Ben Lockwood and the Children of Liberty that Supergirl killing Lex was exactly the dog whistle they needed to regain legitimacy and launch a renewed attack on aliens everywhere. Lena hated it, thought it was infuriating and stupid, thought that if Kara had just come to her they could have sorted it out, a better solution, but at the same time, she understood it. She had done the same thing. She too had risked everything to rid the world of the menace that was her brother. 

Lena understood why Lex had to die, she even understood why killing Lex would be the end of Supergirl, but she would never understand, could  never understand why Supergirl had to kill Kara too. 

The dark-haired woman’s thoughts were interrupted when the blonde, now crying, repeated the words Kara had once said to her when Lena had been too hurt and too stubborn to listen, she repeated them over and over again, “Lena, I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry. Please forgive me.” If only Lena had responded back then the way her heart wanted to respond now. 

This time, however, Kara’s pleas for forgiveness were followed by a soft admission Lena was not expecting, “ I love you  . I have always loved you, Lena Luthor. You are, and will always be, the best thing that ever happened to me. All the secrets and pushing you away, it was because I couldn’t stand to lose you. Did I ever tell you that your mom tipped her hand once?” Kara asked rhetorically. “About a year into our friendship when you had been taken hostage by Rhea and I was working with Cadmus, with Lillian, to rescue you. She had already kidnapped me and used my adoptive father, Jeremiah, to get to Alex and I. She already knew my identity. I asked her why she never told you, and you know what she said? She said, ‘Eventually, she'll find out on her own. Find out that you've been lying to her all this time. And when she does?  She'll hate you for it.’  and I should’ve known better. I should have had more faith in you and in our friendship, but...” Kara paused shaking her head. “I already cared about you so much. When she said that, the thought of losing you, especially when you were being held captive by that psycho on Daxam’s ship. It just put a fear in me that I couldn’t shake. Every single time I tried to tell you, I could see Lillian smirking in the background just waiting to watch our friendship fall apart. The closer we became, and after I realized my love for you, the stakes were just that much higher. Every moment, every hopeful opportunity and then missed chance weighed all the more heavily. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy, a loop that I couldn’t get out of. If I told you, you would hate me, but every second I lied I increased that inevitable hatred ten fold while also delaying it if only slightly. In the end, she was right, but not because of my secret, and not because our friendship was weak, but because I was weak; because I let a secret become a lie. Now that I’m here and I know this is the end, I’m not sure I can forgive myself for wasting what little time we had together. Knowing you for five years just isn’t enough for me. I would’ve taken a lifetime and then asked for an eternity.”

Kara looked so small, her head bowed and her shoulders turned in as if to protect herself. 

“The worst part is that I’ll never know what we could have been. If I had more time to fix this, I wonder what we could have been together? I wonder if you would’ve wanted that. I guess now, facing the end, I’m finally ready to ask that outloud, even if I’ll never get to hear your answer.” Kara reflected wistfully. 

Lena fell backward from her knees hard onto her tailbone, her legs were bent beside her, one arm caught her as she toppled over. She blinked, incredulous. Before she could even register what was happening, she was getting back on her feet yelling at Kara, at the hologram, with every ounce of pain she had ever felt. 

“NO! You don’t  get  to say that. You do  not  get to tell me you love me and then  leave  ! You don’t get to decide for us that we don’t get to figure this out together, to have a future together. You have  no right  to decide that for both of us.”

“How dare you! HOW  DARE YOU!”

“Dammit, Kara. How  COULD  you? Why didn’t you ever tell me? Why couldn’t you have just said something, anything? You bastard! You self-aggrandizing, arrogant, hero with a god-complex. Why couldn’t you just leave well enough  alone  ? Why couldn’t you ask for help,  you stoic idiot.  God, did you ever, in your whole life, stop to think? What the hell are we supposed to do now?”

Lena stopped, but only because she couldn’t continue, not if she wanted to save some air for breathing. Frankly, she wasn’t sure that she did want to breathe, but her lungs were screaming at her, making the decision for her. In the sudden silence, hologram Kara was there. She hadn't spoken since her revelation. “ Maybe she knew I would need time to tell her off,” Lena mused darkly.

In the silence, Kara’s face was pensive, she grabbed the back of her neck and reached for glasses that weren’t there. The small mannerisms perforated a crack down the center of Lena’s breastbone. Kara looked shy, nervous even. Finally she said, “This is it, my love. I have to go now. If I wait any longer the pod won’t be able to make it back to you.”

“I’ve set the console to record what’s going to happen next. This is my last crystal. Like I said before, I know you will need to see it with your own eyes to believe…” Kara’s voice cracked, “to know that I am really gone. The rest of the world may need that too.”

“Just know that I will always be with you, Lena Luthor. I will love you,  always . Goodbye my love.”

Kara leaned forward to end the recording, but hesitated, adding, “You should, uh, stop here...if you’re not ready. The rest will be...intense.” Then softly, she added, with her face smoothing into the calm confidence of someone going out to meet death as an old friend, one final, “Goodbye.”

Lena scrambled to the console and ripped the crystal out of its hole. She might have considered herself tough, but there was no way in hell she was ready to see the love of her life  die  right in front of her. 

With the crystal clenched in one hand she sat back down and braced her back against the lab bench, sobbing uncontrollably. It barely registered as Alex and Eliza wrapped their arms around her, but as more and more arms appeared, she realized that everyone was there, the whole Superfamily. Eventually she calmed down, her breathing leveled out, and the group hug dissipated just enough for everyone to collect themselves. There wasn’t a dry eye among them, Lena realized, the thought pinched her heart even tighter. 

Lena looked over them with resolve. She cleared her throat and the collective room moved to focus their attention on her. 

“I’m…” Lena cleared her throat again as she looked at their faces in turn; James, Kelly, Nia, Brainy, Alex, J’onn, Eliza. “I’m not ready yet to watch the end, but I promise you that when I am, anyone here who wants to be there will be welcome. I know that we all need closure. I am sorry that we have to go into the memorial tomorrow without that last piece, but I...I just need more time.”

Alex was the first to step up. She placed a hand on Lena’s arm and looked directly into her eyes, meeting her gaze. “Take all the time you need, Lena. We are not giving up here. Not on her, and not on you. We will be with you, all of us, every step of the way.  We are your family now, and, to quote Kara’s favorite movie,” they all chuckled at this, “Ohana means family, and family means that nobody gets left behind or forgotten.” Lena gave Alex a watery smile, a smile mirrored on everyone’s faces around the room.  Finally, Lena bowed her head in acceptance, not of Kara’s death, but of her new family.

Next Chapter

[vaire-gwir]

Some Cat and Wolf fanfic I had in mind pt.4

I wanted to write why Aiden didn’t kill humans anymore, so here it is, I tried. At least it can’t be worse than that horrible attempt at smut, right? Right? 

Everytime I think I’m finished with this I get new ideas and I have to write them or they keep me up at night. There is plot if you squint, still not canon, but as always, I hope it makes sense and you like it <3 

Edit: Sorry I forgot the title, you wouldn’t believe how stupid I am. 

***

Alps were a bit of a pain in the ass to kill, just like every other vampire. Tricky, loud, and cunning things they were, not incredibly dangerous but granted to give you a good rattle and one hell of a headache. Years ago, he shared his first kiss with Aiden after they cleaned a nest and now he thinks about it every time he's disposing of one. It's weird, cause who would think of sharing a first kiss in front of a pile of dead vampires, but it was one of his best memories.

Then again, the first time he told Aiden he loved him, the Cat was almost dead in a grimy cave, covered in blood, and Lambert was panicking cause the gash under his ribs was bad enough that no potion in the world would buy him the time to find a healer.

Toussaint didn't disappoint him: three days after arriving in Beauclair and he was already waiting for 200 easy crowns. The prospect of payment should be enough to lighten his mood, but his mind is elsewhere, namely on the black cat running around the garden he saw last night before entering the crypt where the Alp was praying on ladies and princesses. Another cat, another pair of stunning green eyes, another painful twist in his heart. He even asked the guard currently stationed outside about it and the idiot said there were no cats on the property, something about ruining the lawns or whatever, as if Lambert didn't see the animal with his own eyes.

It was the second beast with disturbingly familiar green eyes that he saw, and it's two cats more than what he had seen in months. Lambert wasn't even sure if he was hallucinating or if the boy was making fun of him when he said there were no cats. Maybe both. Is this what happens to people that go mad, they start seeing things, they hear voices, and next they're wandering in villages alone at night muttering nonsenses? 

Is this what is going to happen to him, he'll start seeing cats with green eyes everywhere and people will pity him? He was already hearing voices in his dreams, this was just one step further toward insanity, and the path to get there looked suspiciously short.

Lambert picks himself and his headache up from the tomb and walks to the marble arch covering the entrance of the crypt, where an over-enthusiastic guard is waiting for him, hopefully with his money.

"So, is the beast dead? You must have been very brave!" Lambert would laugh if his bones weren't aching so much. He knows that look: he's too young to know that what witchers do has nothing to do with bravery. Even the night before with all his questions he made the job sound fascinating and charming, probably someone didn't explain to him the difference between Witchers and knights in shining armor. He was hoping to see a hero but all he got was a dusty, cranky and hallucinating witcher with the beginning of a headache throbbing in his skull. Not exactly the heroic stuff fairytales are made of. There was nothing charming about this life.

Lambert ignores the voice and grits his teeth at the sudden burst of light and sound that overwhelms him as soon as he steps onto the paved path that leads to the house. Being subjected to the creature's horrible shrieks and screeches for half of the night has his nerves fried and now everything is too loud and too close even if it's barely past dawn. He wants to hear nothing but blessed silence for the entire day or he's going to seriously hurt someone.

"I'm curious, have you been here before?" Lambert starts moving in the general direction of the mansion chasing the promise of quiet and the soldier scrambles after him. He's still staring expectantly, as if he thinks he's owed something.

It annoys him, that for one reason or the other people are gawking all the fucking time. He learned to disregard it with experience but he never fully discovered how to ignore the stares. His brothers get them too, and he knows for a fact that it often bothers Eskel, but for reasons unknown to him, Geralt never seems to give a fuck. He's slightly jealous of that talent. He'll see them next winter if he's not completely out of his mind by then.

When they finally leave behind the crypt where he just killed the Alp, Lambert has regained enough presence of mind to check the garden again, hoping to catch a glimpse of the black cat he saw earlier but it's like the feline has disappeared from the face of the earth. 

The luxurious garden that surrounds the old house is perfectly still, the gardeners are not at work yet, the only note is the faint buzzing of birds. He tries to catch any sound or scent resembling the one he felt before but it's like the cat was never here. Probably he wasn't. What if there was no cat at all and his mind was just playing more tricks on him? He's not sure Witchers can go insane, he can't recall any lore on mad witchers, but maybe he'll be the first one, just his usual luck. He tunes out the noises around him, trying to detect a trail of the animal when the voice of the guard breaks his concentration again: "You have been here before, haven't you?"

Regular people seemed to have a hard time shutting up, he should know this after an entire winter with Geralt's bard, the Gods know he never kept quiet for more than 10 minutes unless he was sleeping. Maybe he even talked in his sleep, go figure. It's not like he asked Geralt. 

"I've been everywhere. Listen, I'll take what I'm owed and leave. Got things to do." Lambert answers this time just to make him shut up. No one needs to know that the things he has to do include tracking down a disappearing black cat. That is if there was one at all.

"Oh, of course, you must be very busy. Here it is, though I think my Lord wanted to see you tonight, throw a feast for the Court, but if you insist you can't stay it's better to..." "I can't." Lambert takes the velvety pouch and stuffs it in his pack, eager to put some distance between himself and the rambling man before him. He knows all about feasts in Beauclair, he suffered through them enough for a couple of lifetimes already. 

He's about to turn away when the guard exclaims: "Wait, I remember! You were working for Lord Launfal with the other Witcher, green eyes, very pretty thing, if I say so myself, you..." He makes a pitiful weak noise as he doubles over himself, words dying upon his lips as blood trickles from them. Lambert is on him in a second and pins him to the nearest wall, he's not thinking about anything except that he wants to hurt him. Before he knows, he's hitting him again and again, driven by some fucked up instinct kicking in cause this idiot is talking about his best friend and he has no right to do so, especially not in that way. He doesn't get away with describing the best person in his life as a pretty thing, not in front of him, not like that.

"Shut your damn mouth, you don't fucking know what you're talking about!" He can hear the faint sound of a bone breaking over the boy crying "Please," and "Stop," and spares a look at the bloody mess he made of his face. He lets go of him as if he's been burned and he sees the guard collapsing to the ground. He fucked up. 

He feels like his mind is swimming and he can't focus on anything but the blood on his hands. He stares at the unconscious form slumped against the wall and takes a step back, streaks of red marking the gray stone. Lambert knows he went too far. His hands moved of their own accord when he realized that man was talking about Aiden. A pretty thing, he said. Lambert can't tell why those words were so painful, but it felt like pouring salt into an open wound. 

Of all people in the fucking Continent he had to run into someone that remembered him, of course, he had to meet a guard that was here the last time he was in Toussaint with Aiden, cause apparently the universe, chaos and the Gods were having a field day of messing with him. Again.

He spares one more glance to the guard just to make sure he's still breathing, collects what he's owed and leaves in haste. When the boy wakes up and tells everyone what happened Lambert knows he won't be spared. He almost killed that stupid boy, not much he can do about it now. He just wanted him to shut up and stop talking about Aiden, the fucker didn't even remember his name. 

He's past the iron gates when he finally manages to stop his hands from shaking. It scares him how dangerously good it felt for a couple of minutes to make the man shut up, it scares him to the point he just wants to forget it happened. For a short time, he felt like he had complete control over something, and that was rare for him. He enjoyed being in charge, knowing that whether that man lived or died was in his hands, it was like playing God and winning. It was like having a choice.

He may have a couple of hours before someone decides to hunt him down, which is plenty of time to find work. Before taking the Alp contract Lambert overheard in a tavern not too far from the market about an archespores problem in the valley where a certain Lord keeps his precious vineyards. With a little bit of luck he can go back to the main square and someone will point him in the general direction of this new Lord's palace. He just needs a few hours, and then he'll have the perfect excuse to stay out of Beauclair for a while.

***

Lambert prefers the nights when sleep eludes him, they're more peaceful than the ones filled with ghosts and blood, or as close to peaceful as he can get. He was never very good at meditating like his brothers, something about how his stupid brain would not shut up long enough for him to fall into a proper state of reverie. Both Eskel and Geralt never had any problem with that, he had seen Geralt kneeling in the same spot without moving until morning, absolutely unbothered by anything that happened around him, as if he was in his own world. 

In a patient attempt to help him, Eskel told him once that meditation works better if you try to recall a state of peace or calm you already experienced and lose yourself in it. Peace and calm was not something Lambert ever experienced, at least not back then. Not before Aiden.

The room he's currently occupying is surprisingly comfortable, he even had a bath, but his brain still refuses to relax. Finding his next contract proved a little more complicated than he expected, he wandered around the narrow streets for a good while before arriving at the indicated house, growing more anxious by the hour, expecting someone to chase him down at any turn of the road. Luckily the man he found outside a heavily guarded black gate was the old farmer in charge of the orchard, and he was as eager as him to go back to the valley. 

Lambert joined him on the trip, but he instantly disliked the place: whoever needed that much security was not just a simple vineyards owner. Thank Gods the old man was not the chatty type, and they reached the old castle in silence just before nightfall. When they arrived the farmer pointed to a small house next to the main castle, told him to find an empty room and disappeared immediately after. Lambert was grateful for the silence.

He washed the blood and the dust out of his clothes but he couldn't wash the feeling of it from his hands, his ears still ringing with the sound of some bone cracking as he hit that stupid man just for talking about Aiden. 

Lambert feels weary and worn but it's not because of the vampire last night. It's not the monsters that tire him: killing is easy, but the rest, traveling, talking, living and functioning in a world where he has no place, it all leaves him drained, that type of bone-aching exhaustion that's beyond physical, it keeps you awake even if you're spent and it gnaws away at your nerves.

He still can't figure out why Aiden would go after (possibly) two griffins all on his own, the Cat was careless and a bit reckless but not completely stupid. He was pretty smart about his work, he had to be, all things considered. Aiden was the one that at the beginning insisted on how they should stick together just because some jobs were easier that way. 

Besides, he was supposed to spend the last week before spring traveling north with the Caravan. There was no deep sympathy between Aiden and most of the other Cats, cause many were not particularly pleased with his decision to stop taking contracts on humans, but traveling together was still supposed to be safer. Lambert tried for days to put the pieces together but the more time he spends thinking about it, the less everything makes sense: Karadin told him he was there when it happened, but he finds it hard to believe he killed the two monsters all on his own. 

Lambert remembers one winter Eskel and Coën went off to fight a pair of griffins in the mountains and they came back three days later, bloody and with a good amount of soon-to-be-scars that needed to be patched up immediately, a broken shoulder (Eskel) and four cracked ribs (Coën). He had seen what griffins can do to experienced Witchers, there was no way a Cat the same age as him disposed of two monsters like that without any serious injuries. He even had time to take the medallion! And if it was not just the two of them, how did Aiden sustain wounds that couldn't be fixed by two or three other witchers for the short time it took to get to a healer? Griffins were only dangerous to humans when they ventured past the mountains and closer to the villages, which meant they were not too far from the possibility of getting help.

His brain keeps churning an explanation, keeps conjuring up different scenarios but nothing he can think of leads to Aiden's death.

Lambert knows Aiden killed people too, but most importantly he knows why he stopped. They both found out very early in their relationship that confessing things in the dark, naked and hidden by the blankets, worked for them. They could say whatever was on their mind and come morning things were still fine between them, they could look at each other's in the eyes without shame, cause things said in the dark were like spirits disappearing with the sun, they couldn't hurt them anymore. The ghosts of their pasts and their fears had been there, and now they were gone, chased away with burning lips and soft touches. It was during one of those nights that Aiden explained why he couldn't kill humans anymore.

They were back at the inn after killing a striga but two innocents died and Lambert knows Aiden blamed himself, he could feel how shaken he was in the way his kisses were almost too harsh and he was tearing away at their clothes. Aiden tastes of something almost-burnt when he's angry, but much later, when Lambert hides his face in the crook of his shoulder, sore in all the right way even if he'll never admit out loud that Aiden fucks him even better when he's like that cause he's less gentle, the taste is gone, and only the honey remains. That's when he can start talking.

The Cat told him that he was fine with being considered a monster by everyone else as long as he didn't feel like that. He was just doing his job and it was not his fault people were too judgemental and prudish to accept that, it's not like he asked for a mage to play with mutagens and mess up his blood. He woke up one day outside of Stygga and he was too young to have any memories of how he arrived there. 

He didn't remember his family, or where he was born, his first memories were of the Cat School, there was nothing before that. He liked to say he had no past, but everyone has it, and they're usually running away from it. And no future too, cause there were not many options for a witcher. Still, not his fault the same people he worked for, the same ones that begged him to get rid of a monster or paid him handsomely for killing a problematic cousin, were also the first ones to throw stones at him or ask a Lord to imprison him cause he was a danger for the town. Not so much of a danger when they needed him for their dirty deeds. But people were quick to forget and even quicker to point their fingers, and after so long Aiden couldn't find it in himself to care anymore. 

He didn't feel like a monster just because they said so. But he certainly felt like a monster for killing innocents. He was taking away their choice just like a mage took away his. He was no better than the people he despised so much.

It all started when he was sent to kill Lord Darnay cause his own family decided he was no suitable successor to the name and heritage they represented. Aiden was presented with 1000 crowns to get rid of the unwanted heir, and he was not in the position to refuse. His last contracts were unsuccessful, he had run out of money weeks before arriving in town and now even his potions were running low. It should have been an easy job, kill a dumb Lord who probably never hold a sword in his life. It should have been easy, but that's not what happened.

Right after entering the royal chamber, Aiden faced a wide-eyed kid staring at him. He was no older than 7, maybe 8 years old, but he was not terrified, a little surprised yes, but not scared as everyone would be after seeing a stranger entering through their window. No one mentioned that this Lord Darnay was a fucking child! There was absolutely nothing in the world this boy could do to represent a problem, for anyone, he was barely old enough for school for fuck's sake. 

The knife in his hand felt like lead rather than silver. The room was utterly silent, Aiden looked at the kid expecting him to scream, but he didn't. He simply said: "It's my turn now?" Aiden stared back disoriented, he refused to believe this kid understood why he was there.

"Uncle sent you?" His throat was not fully cooperating and he had a hard time finding the words to answer, he nodded, the dagger in his hand felt heavier by the minute. The kid sitting up on the huge bed keeps worrying a loose thread in the blue blanket above him, he speaks as if he's confessing a terrible sin. "He doesn't like me. He did something to my father but I'm not supposed to speak about it. Dad was very brave. Are you brave?"

Brave, as if! He was sent to slit his throat, that was not bravery. Brave means you have a choice, he never had one. He could choose between Ghouls and Bruxae and humans for his contracts, that's how far his decisions could go. He could pick whether to stay with the Caravan and risk being killed with his brothers or he could travel the Path alone and be killed by a monster or zealous townfolks. At best, he could decide how he dies, certainly not how he lives. No one with a real choice would turn into what he is or do what he does. 

In that room with the boy, in the deep silence of the night with a sliver of moonlight illuminating their surroundings, Aiden felt like a monster. He hadn't felt that way in a long while. It was the first time he was sent to kill an innocent, all the others were different, he felt that the assholes he was sent to murder deserved to finally meet their fate. Not this time though.

A servant entered the room unexpectedly and held back the scream already on his lips. He frantically moved his gaze between the child and Aiden as he started muttering something about how Lord Havilland already killed his own brother. Finally, he understood.

He was sent to kill this kid so a rich Lord could become even richer and more powerful. He couldn't fake another hunting accident so he sent the Witcher to do his bloody job. Great, just great. Nobles and their obsession with money and titles, what did they even do to deserve all they had? Killed someone, won a tournament, led soldiers to be slaughtered in a war for a nameless King that didn't give a fuck about them? They had wealth, titles, castles, a legion of slaves and mages at their service, and yet it was never enough, they wanted more, more wealth, more slaves, more titles, more. Disgusting. They could be anything they wanted to be and yet they decided to be awful.

Aiden spared a glance toward the kid and decided right there and then that this kid was not dying because his uncle was an asshole. "Another one will come to finish my job, he can't stay here." The butler is faster than what he gave him credit to be and answered immediately: "I have a sister in Oxenfurt, she can take care of him." 

"Go then. Get as far away from here as possible." True to his word, the servant took the child and was out of the door in a heartbeat, minutes later Aiden saw them riding past the southern gate. He didn't feel worse, at least and that will have to do for now. The kid will live to see another day. His uncle won't though.

[cuorepietoso]

Things you said but not out loud

requested by @ivanrahal  /  ft. Alessio Rossi and Ivan Rahal

          I. 2010

     Rana and Rospo stand at the bottom of the trail and peer up for a long while as the rest of them pack, glancing at the surrounding hills and mountains with poorly hidden trepidation. The barrels of their twin M82s tower over their shoulders, the rifles nearly the length of a grown man, and when Rossi meanders close and prods at them over their silence, Rospo only throws his cigarette to the dirt and grinds it out with the toe of his boot, and muttering, “exposed the whole way. Easy targets for any sniper worth their salt.” He’s the veteran of their unit, the oldest and longest serving, and his grizzled face makes his partner look almost cherubic in comparison, most of the time. Now, Rana only gives their motley crew a nervous glance before turning his eyes skyward once more, and fiddles absently with the straps on his gear.

          It has, unsurprisingly, set a rather somber tone for the trek. 

     The soft shale stone of the mountain crumbles underfoot like sand, treacherous and slick paths leading up a sheer cliff face. The wind against their backs is frigid, smells faintly of acrid smoke. Their entire squad is burdened with gear, sweat clinging to the napes of their necks and drenching their uniforms as they slowly, painstakingly, make their way up to the firebase already nestled in the valley between two craggy peaks. They’re meant to use the hastily constructed base as a touchstone for their next assignment, and bring relief and supplies to the men already nestled away there. It’s a terrible idea-- a terrible location, a terrible plan, but there’s no other way to get there but by helicopter, and the last four that tried were nearly brought down by RPGs and small arms fire alike. One pilot had cheerfully showed Tahan the bullet hole in the bottom of his foot, and called it ‘running the gauntlet’. 

     They don’t speak. It’s bad enough that every rock they send slipping seems to fall forever, and the echoes of them last even longer than that, radiating through the canyon endlessly and announcing their presence to anyone within miles, likely. Tahan, who grew up nestled at the foot of the alps, at least fares better than some, struggling for breath and footing in the thin air. He fares better than Rossi, who grew up on the sea, in the south. They’re supposed to keep a distance of three meters, to make targeting them from a distance just a little more difficult, but as the six of them slog forward, they bunch occasionally, settling a hand on the shoulder in front of them to help keep balance, or lifting the bottom of their pack to help them climb a sheer step without using their hands. 

     It’s lucky that he stops watching how close he’s getting to Rossi, watching for movement on the opposite cliff face. When the younger man’s feet slide out from under him, it takes him only a millisecond to catch his elbow, and the shoulder of his uniform, and drag all 117 kilograms of him and his gear back to his feet with a harsh grunt. The rock he’d been sliding on slips neatly off the lip of the trail, and they listen to it fall for a long time, clutching each other until it finally crashes against the ground below. Tahan looks at Rossi. Rossi, wide-eyed, stares back. 

     Tahan pats his chest, awkwardly, and then brushes some of the dust clinging to his fatigues off. Gunfire echoes in the far distance, but nothing close enough for them to worry about now. Rossi takes a deep breath, eyes him, trailing his gloved fingers over Tahan’s cheekbone for just a moment, and then turns away with a long sigh.

          They carry on. 

-

     II. 2011

     The little black book he carries in his pocket has hundreds of little blank pages. He’s been stuck on how to start it for a little while, ever since Rossi had added to his sketchbook collection by pressing the warm leatherbound thing into his hands like it was made of precious gold, smile light on his face. Unwilling to spoil it, maybe, with the wrong topic. He’s had plenty of others to fill, anyway.

     Until now, at least. He’s half-reclined among some crates, a knee pulled to his chest, the book resting against his thigh. Rossi and Rahal are seated at a rickety folding table a meter away, getting into a rather heated argument over ... something. Tahan thinks it’s probably about the human condition, seeing as Rahal has that ugly, vaguely cruel look on his face, and Rossi’s usually smiling lips are downturned, and they’re both gesturing so sharply and suddenly and often that it’s hard to get more than a gesture sketch done. 

     And so that’s just what he does, for a while, listening absently to their hissed logical word traps and their gotcha arguments and anecdotal and empirical evidence, filling pages and pages with gesture sketches, and then turning back and filling details-- the wrinkle between Rossi’s brows, the sharp bridge of Rahal’s nose, their flared nostrils. The twin looks of triumph as they continue to try and one-up each other, drawing out a trap and then striking ruthlessly, cutting tongues and logic intertwined. 

          He just thinks it’s nice that they’re having fun. 

     Rossi has been looking a little wide-eyed, lean around the edges lately, as he slogs through mountains of intel, risks his neck for secret meetings with informants, trying desperately to keep them on the right track, to keep them alive. And Rahal has been -- not wilting, maybe, but his near-death experience had left him on uncertain footing. Their lively banter is a nice backdrop, where normally there would only be the sound of the wind hissing over the sands, behind the backdrop of daily life on base. 

     It takes him a moment to realize they’ve fallen ominously silent, and when he lifts his gaze to see what the deal with that is, they’re both watching him closely. He finds he doesn’t quite have the piercing quality to Rahal’s gaze down, and without looking away from them he starts to absently erase what he has done of the youngest man’s eyes. Rossi, for his part, seems amused, eyes bright with something like excitement even as his lips remain pursed and his jaw clenched. Tahan raises his eyebrow, a silent, what?

          Rahal’s voice is glacial when he snaps, “Well? What are you thinking in all of this?”

     Tahan slowly, thoughtfully, closes the little black book. He considers the things he’s believed for a long while: the innate dignity in being human, the strong should protect the weak, that cruelty and depravity are symptoms of an illness that’s been eating people alive for thousands of years. A common enemy in greed. The corner of his mouth quirks, and Rossi already looks resigned to hearing whatever stupid joke he’s about to let loose. “Naked women,” he drawls finally, folding the sketchbook carefully into his rucksack. 

     There’s another long silence, though this one is tinged with outrage. When he looks up again, Rossi’s got his hand over his eyes, shoulders shaking with laughter, and Rahal’s jaw seems like it’s halfway to the table. He looks like he’s practically trembling with angry disbelief. 

     Tahan tosses his pencil at him, and he swats it out of the air like an angry house cat. When he glances to the side and sees that Rossi is only laughing helplessly, the incense grows, and he barks out, “What the hell is so funny about that?” Turning his pale gaze back to Tahan, he continues, “You weren’t even paying attention?” 

     “I leave the thinking to the big brains,” Tahan replies, settling back into his little nest of crates as if he hasn’t a care in the world. Rossi draws his hand away from his face and gives him an unbearably fond look, and then gently taps the back of Rahal’s hand to get his attention. 

          “Leave him to his fantasies, no? Surely he can only be so creative.”

-

     III. 2013

     The heavy pounding of the chopper blades is both heard and felt. The headsets do well to cancel out the raging noise, but they can’t completely drown it out, not when the metal surrounding them hums with every solid beat. Tahan can never sleep in these screaming metal death traps, no matter how exhausted he is. It feels like his heart syncs with every rapid, measured beat of the blades, like it will burst out of his chest. For him, time slows. There’s nowhere to put the energy. Normally-- well, normally he fidgets. 

     But today, it seems, after their weeks-long and trying assignment, Rossi has no such compunctions about it. He’s not sure when the younger man fell asleep, exactly. Not sure how long they’ve been in the air, not sure how much longer they have left in their trip. His head had fallen to rest on Tahan’s shoulder, and though he’s sure there will be more than one complaint about the kink in his neck when he wakes, he leaves him be. Rossi needs the sleep nearly as much as he needs to breathe, at this point. 

     Tahan stays perfectly still, staring at Rospo, seated across from him. The older man has a lazy, half-smirk on his face, unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. He gestures, vaguely, to the sleeping man on his shoulder. “Mannaggia is drooling all over you,” it’s hard to hear his low baritone even with the headsets and the mics, but Tahan gets the gist of it when he gestures to his own shoulder. 

     He sighs softly, and when they hit a rough patch he reaches across his own torso to leave a steadying hand against Rossi’s collarbone, to keep him from falling forward and starting awake. Rospo gives the pair of them a fond look, and then closes his eyes and tilts his head back against the cold wall of the helicopter body. Rossi’s hair has fallen into his face, and he can feel the man’s nose and cheeks twitching at the itch of it. Carefully, so as not to scrape his skin with the rough fabric of his kevlar gloves, Tahan brushes the strands off his forehead with his knuckles. Rossi settles back into his shoulder with a quiet sigh, and he remains utterly still for the rest of the long flight, unwilling to stir and wake him even once his arm starts to go numb.

-

     IV. 2017

     He’s not sure what he’s expecting, exactly, when he pushes the door open to the Handkerchief that afternoon. He’s never really sure what to expect with Ivan’s mercurial temper, whether he’s going to try and sink his claws into his spine and try to shred him in the name of curiosity, or if he will be all teeth, gnashing and snarling and hard-mouthed and -eyed. He doesn’t know if he’ll get the purring, contented creature that lets his hackles settle under his hands, or if Ivan will want to throw punches, talking with his fists as much as his mouth. He’s never really expected to have a cell phone hurtling towards his skull first thing-- the door isn’t even closed yet when he ducks out of the way. The glass of the thing shatters to pieces against the wall, and he traces its path back to the origin point: Ivan Rahal’s hand. 

     The man is practically shaking with rage, though Battista can tell it’s not really at him. He’s not afraid to ask, he’s just not sure if he should, if it will soothe Ivan or if it will fan the flames of his raging temper and send him up to the ceiling. He takes one step inside, two, and watches the way those silver eyes track him, flinty in his face. “I could have been a customer,” he says, finally just biting the bullet and stepping forward fully, trailing his fingers along the top of the glass cases as he approaches, his other hand loosely gripping the strap of his backpack. 

     “I know. That’s why I threw that, and not this--” his voice is hardly more than a venomous hiss, and he draws up like he’s going to come at him over the counter as Battista approaches, brandishing his knife. Battista snorts, and then he has to dodge the knife, too, listening to it shatter something behind him with a quiet sigh. The pause in his approach only gives Ivan time to dramatically wave his hand, and then reach up and run it through his hair with a snarl.

     Perhaps bravely, perhaps stupidly, Battista comes to a rest with his hip on the counter Ivan stands behind, setting his bag on the glass with a quirked eyebrow. “What crawled up your ass and died, habibi?” 

     Ivan gives him a sharp look, shoulders relaxing at the bit of careful Arabic before remembering he’s supposed to be angry, and he makes an inarticulate sound of rage, teeth grit. “Nothing crawled up my ass and died, you son of a bitch--” He gestures again, this time at the poor, shattered cellphone that nearly caved in Battista’s skull. “Fucking-- Orion Massetti, that prick, that thrice-damned--” Falling silent again, Ivan watches as he reaches into his worn bag and pulls out a pair of wrapped shawarma sandwiches, and a container of rice, and some fattoush. “What the hell is that?”

     Battista watches as he trembles faintly, the adrenaline and the anger still coursing under his skin like magma, and he gestures to the sandwich he’d set down closed to Ivan. “I brought lunch. That one’s for you. No pickles.” The younger man’s brows furrow, like he’s not sure quite how to handle this. “Go on, then. I can tell you haven’t eaten breakfast.”

     Almost violently, Ivan snaps the sandwich up and unwraps it, taking a bite like he’s imagining it’s a piece of Massetti’s flesh. That’s fine-- he’ll feel better with a little food in him.  

-

     V. 2019

          It’s pouring down rain, on a Friday night. 

     Battista is convalescing, and really so is Ivan-- the injuries they’re currently fighting are no joke. Battista had been nagging him so much about being careful of his ribs, no strenuous activity, and Ivan had turned it back on him, with a snapped, what about your leg, hm? And a cold I wouldn’t have to work so hard to get up the stairs at your apartment if we just stayed at my place. I have a fucking elevator. 

          Well, whatever. 

     They’d had a warm meal. Battista can’t really think what it was, drowsing here on Ivan’s couch with his injured leg propped up on a couple of pillows on the coffee table, and the taller man’s head resting squarely on his other thigh. Ivan is flat on his back, face half-turned towards the television, where Our Planet plays at a volume almost too low to hear even in the silence of his apartment. He’s half asleep, hardly paying attention at all. 

     Battista’s attention, for once, is firmly on Ivan. His left hand is settled palm-down right over Ivan’s heart, the slow and steady beat of the damned thing and the almost stilted way he breathes through the pain of his broken ribs doing well enough as signs of life, when the man is so otherwise still. 

     His other hand, he’s found, can’t quite stay away from the silken strands of his hair. It’s fascinatingly soft, and every time his blunt nails scrape along Ivan’s scalp, he watches his lips twitch into something that’s almost a smile, and he can see his arms break out in goosebumps. He doesn’t want to overdo it, to drag Ivan back into full awareness, but he can’t quite get over how deliciously reactive he is to the contact. When his thumb trails over the shell of his ear, Ivan’s eyes flicker open almost lazily, something like a dazed grin spreading on his face. Battista thinks, briefly, that he looks kind of like a cat with too much catnip, and has to bite back a snort. Then, he thinks, if the angle wasn’t so weird, and he wasn’t likely to get an awful crick in his neck he might just lean down there and kiss him, to see how his smile tastes.

[davetheshady]

🌟 how about chapter 4 of waiting for the bus in the rain 🌟 and only partially because i showed up to yell about the last few paragraphs when it first dropped. also just because i love Julie content and it's the very middle of that fic

::blows dust off inbox:: So! Now that I’ve back from traveling through three countries and recovered from trying to leave most of my arm skin in one of them (PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: don’t go so fast you flip over on the Alpine Slide, particularly if you’re in the actual Alps) here’s some DVD commentary on Chapter 4 of Waiting for the Bus in the Rain! It’s chock full of my stylistic hallmarks, i.e. way longer than I expected.

(Note to my sister: THIS IS FULL OF SPOILERS. GO READ MY STORY FIRST YOU LOSER)

There’s a Sheriff’s Secret Police officer outside Julie’s window. Considering she’s in her office on the second floor, this is fairly impressive. But when they scream and scrabble against the glass after accidentally kicking over their ladder for the third time, Julie’s had enough.

Even when they’re not under suspicion of using the scientific method, Julie has to deal with WAY more (attempted) surveillance than Carlos ever does. This is partially because she doesn’t have amazing hair, but also because Cecil doesn’t narrate large chunks of her life over the radio that the SSP can copy down and submit as a report.

vulnerabilities include fire and cold iron

and according to the literature high velocity cheese wedges but i’ve never seen anyone test that

My hand to God. Probably my number one complaint about fantasy as a genre is that everyone takes stuff from Celtic mythology so seriously when half of it is just. Completely bonkers.

Originally, most of the relevant exposition about fairies was provided by a different character entirely: Carlos-f’s misplaced smartphone, an AI who Julie called Hex (yes, like in Discworld, hell yeah science wizards) because she refused to give Julie her name. Hex provided such ringtones as “Dark Horse” and “Double Rainbow” and would occasionally get distracted by lists of numbers. Hmm… 

I changed it back because 1) it was a detour and this chapter was long enough already, 2) Julie and Carlos’ friendship is one of the main throughlines and having them talk to each other was better for the story, and 3) him texting during the middle of a battle is hilarious. But as far as I’m concerned, Hex is still canon. 

Andre yawns on the other end of the line and asks, “What time is it?”

“Quit whining, it’s only—” Julie looks at the clock.

Shit.

“—3:00 AM,” she finishes defiantly, because she still has her pride. Embarrassment pricks at her like flying embers settling on bare skin, because now Andre knows she was so out of it she didn’t even bother to try keeping track of the time, and he’s going to think she couldn’t sleep because of feelings, which is both correct and incorrect, because she wasn’t even trying to sleep since distracting herself by going over the minutiae of their data while the Sheriff’s Secret Police scream and fall in the bushes is better than listening to her cats prowl around while lying in her quiet apartment by herself, and any moment now he’s going to feel bad and decide to humor her and answer her in a voice filled with cloying pity and say—

“Would Hiram McDaniels count as one respondent, or five?” He yawns again.

A good chunk of Julie’s inner turmoil just, like, boils down to a recurring loop of that Tim Kreider quote about “If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.” She doesn’t consciously WANT the rewards of being loved, it just kind of… happens… and then she’s stuck with incredibly loyal life-long friends… and now she not only has to deal with her own feelings but theirs too, which is pretty much her worst nightmare… 

Fortunately, since she’s already gone through the mortifying ordeal of being known, they do frequently pull through and offer the kind of support she knows how to accept. 

“Give TV’s Frank a kiss for me.”

“I’m not kissing my cat for you,” says Julie.

I mean, she’ll kiss the cat. Just not on request. 

And yes, all her cats are named after the Mad Scientists’ sidekicks on Mystery Science Theater 3000. ~foreshadowing~

When she opens the door of her workshop later that morning, she finds that someone has been by to leave her a breakfast tray. Well, “tray”, in that it’s a textbook, and “breakfast”, in that it’s a French press, a stale churro, and her blood pressure medication. But the French press is completely full with still-warm coffee, so overall she’s going to count this as a win.

This appeared pretty early in my drafts: it’s just such a funny mental image to me and also encapsulates Julie and Gary’s relationship pretty well, i.e. a string of question marks who somehow get along.

The naturally suspicious part of her wonders if he deliberately provoked her reaction to the flamingo to gather more information about it. The naturally analytical part of her points out that Carlos is more likely to gnaw off his own hand than put someone in danger, especially when he could just put himself in danger instead.

Julie is just a tad cynical, so she’d definitely think of potentially negative interpretations of her friend’s actions. But it’s not actually a possibility she dwells on in any real sense, and every time she interacts with Carlos-f (not to mention Carlos-0) she trusts him implicitly. She wouldn’t admit it in a thousand years, but she considers Carlos one of the few genuinely good people in the world: not because he never makes mistakes or creates personal disasters, but exactly because of those things. She knows he’s a flawed person, and that everyone is flawed, so that makes him genuine – which means every time he’s tried to do the right thing at personal cost, over and over, that was genuine too.

Basically, there’s a reason why in the last chapter she automatically references “scientist means hero” with “Fuck, I’m turning into you!”

“So,” she says. “Nilanjana. Do you need new pronouns, or anything?”

“Does anyone need any pronouns?” asks Gary contemplatively, which Julie takes as a ‘No’.

“Should I drop ‘Gary’ entirely? Do you want me to change your name in our paperwork?”

He thinks about it for a moment. “I don't know, man,” he concludes. “I don’t really believe in labels.”

Gary has galaxy-brained from “gender is a social construct” straight to “identity is a social construct” and beyond. 

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asks Julie.

“I think so, Dr. K,” says Gary. “But how will we get three pink flamingos into one pair of capri pants?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-xrnIXQ3iQ

What happens when the wave function ψ is the same as the physical system it describes, and what happens when that physical system collapses?

i.e. what would happen if common misperceptions of the Observer Effect were actually the correct perceptions?

Julie can’t help it: she snorts. “Passionate? Me?”“Well, yeah,” says Romero. “You really care about the things that interest you. You get really involved and angry and never quit or back down.”“Oh,” says Julie, then blurts, “You like that I’m angry?”“I… don’t like it when you’re unhappy?” says Romero. “But – it’s part of you, so… yeah, I guess I do, because it’s how you are. Why? Is – is everything okay?”She’s spent a lifetime having people tell her to stop being angry. No one’s ever told her she’s fine the way she is.

There have been many, many, MANY thinkpieces about how women are socialized not to express anger, often even to themselves. That was never going to work for Julie, who after all is powered by constant low-level rage, but that just means she had to deal with the backlash from not adhering to social programming instead (on top of additional backlash from being a woman in a male-dominated field). Of his own free will, Romero not only rejects that social programming, but also clearly spent time thinking about her empirically to determine that her anger is a positive force instead of a random and horrible personality trait.

He’s a Good Dude.

When she was in elementary school, her third grade teacher had been fond of saying, “If you’re bored, it means you have no imagination,” at least until Julie had decided to deal with her boredom after finishing her science assignment, her homework, and the rest of the textbook by seeing what happened if you jammed a paperclip into the electric socket. (The answer was certainly not boring and, in fact, probably the most exciting and practical thing they learned that year.)

That used to be my aunt’s favorite saying. I personally did not copy Julie’s response, but it is based on research done by one of my friends. (It’s okay, he was very careful about safety and made sure to use rubber-handled scissors to poke random bits of metal into the outlet. Apart from a classmate’s socks catching on fire, everyone was totally fine.)

She wakes to the sound of Cecil talking about the other week’s marathon, which may or may not have been mandatory, whoops. Carlos has texted her an emoji of various hadrosaurids gathered around a campfire singing “We Are the Champions”.

PREVIOUSLY IN NIGHT VALE:

EXT. - THE LABS

Thousands of citizens stream down Main Street, driven relentlessly forward to the Narrow Place. The Harbingers of the Distant Prince hurl themselves towards the building again and again, only to be rebuffed by the wards. Charred corpses lay scattered around the perimeter. Green storm clouds gather overhead as their anger grows. 

INT. - LAB ONE

ANDRE

Did you hear something?

JULIE

[not looking up from her welding]

No.

 Carlos, meanwhile, has NO idea his emojis are not in fact standard. 

“I liked him,” says Josie. [...] “He was trying to do… something, I forget what. I hope he figured it out.” At Julie’s incredulity, she says, “Some people, they’re rough around the edges, but they try. They hope for something better and keep going. That’s important.”

“What if you go where you’re not supposed to?”

“Then you come back and fix what you can,” says Josie.

“What if you can’t?”

“Then you find someone to help you,” Josie replies. “Oh! I love this song.”

She turns up the volume of the radio and treats everyone to the aria from Shastakovich’s Paint Your Wagon.

Vocals by L. Marvin

Angels chilling at your house are, of course, part of the standard retirement package for former Knights of the Church. Old Woman Josie used to carry Esperacchius and passed it on to the Egyptian, after which it went to Sanya. She and Shiro were buds and saw Elvis in Vegas (and also, interestingly, several times in the Ralphs).

Anyway, if you want to suggest that a character is subconsciously mulling over an issue, I recommend having them ask some leading questions without describing their reactions and then change the subject.

“It’s come to my attention,” she begins, then has to stop and clear her throat again. “It’s come to my attention that we have a pretty good thing going on. So I was just wondering if you’d like to keep doing this, you know. For the indefinite future. With me.”When he doesn’t say anything, or look at her, or move at all for that matter, she removes her hand from under her thigh where she’s been sitting on it and points at the lease. “I highlighted where you have to sign,” she says, somewhat unnecessarily. “If you wanted to.”

I think this is the only time we see Julie nervous about anything when her life is not actively in danger.

You can’t write a romance arc without including some degree of emotional vulnerability – it just wouldn’t be satisfying. On the other hand, how that emotional vulnerability manifests is REALLY dependent on the person, and if you don’t base it firmly in their character it wouldn’t be satisfying, either. (I’m REALLY picky about romances in part because of this.) Julie’s not the type to pine or swoon or be filled with self-doubt*, but she is bad at feelings, and unfortunately, she’s determined that an equitable relationship with Romero requires some kind of tangible, committed expression of them. So she does that as best she can. It’s not actively harmful to her, but it does require a stretch out of her comfort zone. 

* ::cough::Carlos::cough::

Yes, Julie has technically registered their equipment with City Hall, in that they’re listed as alternatively “electronic abaci” and “databases” and she’s claimed they only use the internet for checking email. Until now, they’ve coasted on general good will towards Carlos/his hair and the fact that all authority figures have been functionally electronically illiterate since the Incident in the community college’s Computer and Fire Sciences building.

Look, I could have SWORN there was an Incident at the Computer and Fire Sciences building specifically mentioned in canon. Can I find it anywhere? No. Did I listen to an episode that was subsequently erased from history? Possibly.

This time, someone picks up. There are a few seconds of sleepy fumbling, followed by “Hello?” in more vocal fry than voice.“Cecil!” she says. “Is Carlos there?”“Are you in fear for your life from the long arm of the law?” Cecil mumbles.

her current ringtone

“Julie, I said hold on!”“I am holding on,” she snarls as the rumbling stops. “It’s a diagnostic. 75% efficiency? Am I the only one who cares about proper maintenance in this town?”

This combines two of my favorite things: people focusing on hilariously inconsequential details during a stressful situation, and Julie lowkey engaging in supervillainy. Nikola Tesla did not design earthquake machines so Night Vale could install shitty ones they can barely use. STANDARDS.

“I probably wouldn’t have destroyed Weeping Miner,” she says eventually.

“I know,” says Carlos.

“I could have, though,” she says.

“I know that too,” says Carlos.

[...] Carlos shifts. She looks over; he briefly catches her eye and says, “So could I.”It’s not the same. Carlos would probably feel bad about it, for one. But she feels some of her anger dissipate anyway. At least she’s not the only one dealing with this bullshit.

Subconscious concern --> conscious concern! Getting back to Julie’s cynicism: she doesn’t think there are very many good people in the world, and that excludes her too. Sure, she’s risked her life to save others, fight baddies, and make sure the dangerous technology she’s developed doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, but she knows she has selfish reasons to do them, like protecting her friends and making sure the town/world isn’t destroyed so she can keep doing her research.

But at the same time, the fact that she has been dwelling on the ethics of her situation ever since Chapter 19 of Love is All You Need, that she is genuinely bothered that she’d consider destroying a neighborhood, and that she’s talking about this with Carlos, who considers them to have a similar dilemma, suggests that deep down she is dissatisfied by her cynical model of the world because the data isn’t quite matching up. Which, of course, means she needs more data in the form of Chapters 6 and 7.

On one side is a large picture of Carrie Fisher giving everyone the finger

I think Space Mom is mandatory at protests now. 

This whole section (especially the rain) was heavily influenced by the March for Science, which both Ginipig and I went to in 2017. You too can make a difference and also give yourself writing material!

“Any more words of wisdom, Usidork?” she asks instead.

USIDORE, WIZARD OF THE 12TH REALM OF EPHYSIYIES, MASTER OF LIGHT AND SHADOW, MANIPULATOR OF MAGICAL DELIGHTS, DEVOURER OF CHAOS, CHAMPION OF THE GREAT HALLS OF TERR'AKKAS. THE ELVES KNOW HIM AS FI’ANG YALOK. THE DWARFS KNOW HIM AS ZOENEN HOOGSTANDJES*. HE IS ALSO KNOWN IN THE NORTHEAST AS GAISMUNĒNAS MEISTAR AND HAS MANY OTHER SECRET NAMES WHICH YOU DO NOT… YET… KNOW.

* Hoobastank

He blinks at her in polite incomprehension. “I don’t want to miss the Life Raft Debate,” he says. “It’s important to support your department.”

Several universities hold yearly Raft Debates, where representatives from the different disciplines have a debate about which of their respective areas of study is the most vital for humanity and thus should get to take the one-person life raft back to civilization from the desert island they’ve all gotten stuck on.

I should inform you that at my alma mater the Devil’s Advocate, who argues that none of the subjects are worth saving, has won multiple times.

Without taking her eyes off her opponent, Romanoff thrusts out her hand. Dr. Aluki Robinson (Associate Professor of Ornithology) passes her a harpoon, its ivory barbs almost glowing in the dim light.

Nauja and Aluki are both from Cold Case, because no one deserves to be stuck in Cold Case where we’re apparently supposed to be deeply concerned about the main character’s sexual experience but only vaguely perturbed by the powerful white and white-coded women stealing Native American children to brainwash them to their culture so they can be fed to the system seriously WHAT the FUCK Jimbo

ANYWAY, in this universe the Winter fey of Unalaska are discharging their obligations to help the Winter Court against Outsiders by sending some of their people to monitor the prison in Night Vale. This also gets to highlight the fun of an unreliable narrator! Julie is generally not one of those, because she’s a smart and observant person who will happily question everything, but even she has her limits when she’s out of her element. In the case of this story, there are several minor details to suggest there is some Winter and Summer court drama going on in the background (the chlorofiends, an entire academic department of shapeshifters, Molly and Mab personally overseeing bus routes) and most of it just goes completely over her head.

During his undergraduate career, Gary had elicited a considerable amount of interdepartmental discussion about his desire to be exempted from lab regulations for wearing appropriate – or any – footwear in the lab, which evolved into a considerable amount of interdepartmental discussion about whether wrapping your feet in duct tape immediately before said lab time constituted appropriate footwear.

This was based on one of my mother’s students, who eventually resolved the situation by commissioning a handmade pair of moccasins he placed on his feet immediately before entering the lab.

“The scientific method is four steps,” says Carlos with a cheerful inevitability as the officers start shouting panicked instructions into their walkie talkies. “One, find an object you want to know more about; two, hook that object up to a machine using wires or tubes; three, write things on a clipboard; four, read the results that the machine prints.”

This is a direct quote from the book. Was this entire subplot about the scientific method ban designed just to come up with a plausible retcon for why someone with actual scientific training would announce this over the radio? It sure was!

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD:

1. “Step one, cut a hole in the box,” calls Wei.2. “No, step one is collecting underpants,” says Gary.3. “Step four: make a searching and fearless moral inventory,” says Julie.4. “And then step five, acceptance,” Andre finishes.5. “You see, the first level is ennui, or boredom. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody or something specific – nostalgia, love-sickness… At more morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for. A sick pining, a vague restlessness. Mental throes. Yearning. And at the scientific method’s deepest and most painful level, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause.”6. “It’s how you decide whether to fix the problem with duct tape or WD-40,” says Julie.7. “I think,” says Osborn, “that it’s a divine machine for making flour, salt, and gold.”

8. “Don’t be absurd,” says Galleti. “The scientific method is two vast and trunkless legs of stone standing in the desert!”

9. “And they say the scientific method is—”

“—the quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality associated with sitting around a fire in the winter with close friends,” puts in Dr. Chelsea Dubinski, Assistant Professor of Chemistry.

10. “Or is it the special look shared between two people, when both are wishing that the other would do something that they both want, but neither want to do?” asks Galleti.

This section was also a chance to write about the rest of Night Vale’s scientists, of whom we still know so very little. There’s enough of them that there’s a whole science district, and the community college seems pretty well staffed, but the fact that Carlos made such an impact when he rolled into town suggests that they were either pretty lowkey or indistinguishably weird from the rest of the town.

“I don't feel alone,” snaps Julie. “I feel like shit, and I know why I feel like shit, and the thought of outlining that in excruciating detail is, oddly enough, not making me feel any better!”

One of the things I wanted to address in this story (inspired by Ghost Stories, which I uhhhhh did not care for) was the shortcomings of a lot of narratives about grief. Because many of them are not only oversimplified, but also not everyone processes grief in the same way. It’s not necessarily a linear narrative of where you go through the five steps and then you’re totally over it: it might take a long time, or you might be fine until some other, unrelated setback triggers you, or it might be a cyclical process as anniversaries roll around. Grief lingers. Related to that, helping people deal with their grief isn’t always as simple as sitting down with them and offering a sympathetic ear. Some people don’t process their feelings well verbally, and the emotional labor of formulating all your grief for another person’s consumption can be nearly as traumatizing as grieving in the first place, and VERY difficult to do when you’re already feeling down.

On top of that, I think general American culture is just. Real bad at dealing with grief. Which means we don’t have many positive models to base our responses on, either as grievers or as people supporting the grieving, and if you don’t fit those models at all it just makes the process that more difficult because everyone’s stumbling around in the dark.  

“Does it always feel like this?” she asks.“Which part?” asks Carlos.“We won,” says Julie. “Methods have lived to science another day. We can do our work without interference. All we did was lie about what the name meant, but…” She taps the lab table with a pencil. Another secret violation of the law. “It still feels like we… lost something.”“We did lose something,” says Carlos. “It was just a name, but names are important.”

One of the reasons I love writing Carlos and Julie’s friendship so much is because it’s such a relationship of equals. They’re both hypercompetent, pragmatic, and a little ruthless; their skill sets don’t have much overlap (at least, not yet) and their personalities aren’t at all similar, but they get each other and it’s so sweet. When they wander out of their respective areas of expertise, or stumble across some kind of dilemma, they feel comfortable asking each other for guidance – they can admit their ignorance and drop their public facades of Having Their Shit Together because they trust each other. 

“I want—” Her mouth opens and shuts again, wordlessly. Her scowl deepens.Then she narrows her eyes and says, “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.”

Molly being a huge Trekkie is pretty much my favorite thing from Ghost Story (not to be confused with Ghost Stories)(although thinking about it, swapping their plots would be kind of amazing??), so of course I wanted her and Julie to interact in a way that showed off what huge nerds they are.

But yet another element I wanted to include in this story is the background detail that ~the masquerade~ must be maintained because it’s too dangerous for humanity as a whole to be fully cognizant of the supernatural – which tends to get a little lost in the sauce, because the supernatural is consistently super duper powerful and our heroes (most of them pretty supernatural themselves) generally avert disaster by the skin of their teeth. But here’s Julie, just a regular human who’s capable of producing terrifying technology, has no concern for the rules and traditions of ancient regimes unless they’re inconveniencing her, and who would be perfectly fine with upending the status quo just to see what happens. Regular humans just aren’t more flexible about change than the supernatural, they’re even curious about it sometimes – which must be terrifying to something like the Winter Court, which has been devoted to maintaining the same strict balance since forever. Regular humans can do stuff like tell a story so well it inspires the Winter Lady to subvert her magical restrictions and remind her of her own humanity.

Julie grumpily emails him a rough summary of her thoughts on Troy Walsh and her conversation with Molly and heads up to her office to pull up everything she has on both the bus garage and the man in the tan jacket.

Bullshit secretkeeping (“I can’t tell the other main character this important plot point, it’s better if they don’t know”) is one of my least favorite tropes and I avoid it at all costs. It’s such a stupid way to add tension. It can maybe work once, but after your character has inevitably watched it backfire spectacularly, you can’t repeat it ever again unless you want to imply they’re a dumbass who never learns from their own mistakes and apparently doesn’t care that it clearly puts everyone in more danger. ::looks pointedly at a certain book series::

Also, it’s almost always much more interesting to have characters try to share important information. If they don’t succeed, it coats everything in ironic horror as the outcomes one person tried to avoid happen despite their best efforts. If they do succeed, it means everyone is fully cognizant of the potential danger even as they are still prevented from acting on it properly, like because they (e.g.) get kidnapped in the middle of the street. 

King City is not in the correct dimension. The man in the tan jacket seems to know something about this, but up until a year ago he wasn’t drawing attention to it. He was busy poking his nose into everyone’s business, ingratiating himself with the powerful and the influential, dealing with them in secret…basically, the SOP of your typical Night Vale authority.Like the Night Vale Area Transit Authority, with its bus route to… King City.They had a job and they chose to keep it, Molly said.“Fuck,” says Julie. “He was working for them!”

In retrospect, it’s hilarious to me how much of this fic was powered by spite. Ghost Stories and Cold Case both really bothered me. The resolution of the Man in the Tan Jacket storyline, meanwhile, felt pretty underwhelming – not because what Finknor came up with wasn’t interesting, but because it barely engaged with the few plot points they had already established. Like, when TMITJ shows up in the podcast he interferes with the Mayor, he’s connected to the city under Lane Five, he surfaces during the Strex Corp arc, he interacts with a whole bunch of series regulars in an ominous fashion… Yeah, that probably came from Finknor dropping him in more or less at random, but the end result was that during the first several years of the show it seemed he was an active driver of whatever his plot was supposed to be. In WTNV: The Novel, though, he’s much more reactive and impotent. This wouldn’t necessarily be bad if this change was acknowledged as part of his storyline, but… it’s not… 

(And I get that it can be difficult to come up with a plot for an element you didn’t intend to be plotty at all, but like: there wasn’t THAT much material they had to account for. I should know, I had to look it all up to write THIS story.)

I think this was especially frustrating because it ends up feeling like a “have your cake and eat it too” on the part of Finknor: it’s not automatically bad when fans care more about the show’s continuity than the creators (creators have different concerns, and a lot of time that means they’re using the creative latitude to do something neat), but the novel was very much presented as “finally, a resolution to that one mystery you find cool!” which is… pretty much a direct appeal to the fans’ care about the continuity. So to then ignore or retcon so many aspects of the continuity without any story payoff for it feels like a cheat. 

(Ultimately, though, my inspiration to actually sit down and write mainly sprang from 1) all the lovely comments about how so many people loved my OFC, which as someone who started lurking in online fandom in the early 2000s was both mind-boggling and heartwarming, and 2) lol those ladies have the same name. I learned nothing.)

She gets the call at 21:27. She goes to the hospital, although there’s not much point. The human mind is the most powerful thing on the planet and it's housed in a fragile casing of meat and bone.

I’ve mentioned a few times (possibly more than a few)(probably more than a few) that I didn’t like the WTNV live ep Ghost Stories, and that’s because the ~big reveal~ is that Cecil’s story was actually about a personal family tragedy, and once he’s able to admit that, everything is hunky-dory. As I recall, it went something like this:

WTNV: hey remember that time your mom died and your family was thrown into chaos

ME: WELL NOW I DO

WTNV: and on that note, good night everyone!

Needless to say, everything was not hunky-dory. 

But on top of being emotionally compromised for the whole following week, I was also professionally annoyed. Prior to this live show, we’d had a few cryptic references to Cecil’s mom and could reasonably infer that his relationship with his sister was strained. Critically, though, neither was their own clearly-defined character (compare to the treatment of Janice or Steve Carlsberg), these were not frequently recurring elements that would suggest they weighed heavily on Cecil’s mind, and it wasn’t even obvious that their backstory WAS particularly tragic. So the emotional lynchpin of this live show was mostly new information about Cecil regarding characters the audience had no connection to.

Tragic narratives are powerful not only because they evoke intense emotions, but also because those emotions are supposed to go somewhere and do something: provide catharsis, reinforce the artist’s philosophy, make the audience ponder the meaning of life... In using a tragedy as a plot twist, your ability to give it the proper emotional arc is very limited, because you have to misdirect from its existence while building it up, and then quickly progress from upsetting emotions to those more appropriate for concluding the story. That’s not impossible, but Ghost Stories immediately throws a wrench in the works by splitting the audience’s emotional journey away from Cecil’s: he already knew about the tragedy and the people involved with it, so the plot twist acts as his emotional catharsis... but only his. When the twist itself is the first time the audience realizes there ARE emotions, and that the first 85% of the show was completely unrelated to them, there’s simply not enough time for the audience to have them, process them according to the story’s weird ramblings that kinda imply fiction based on real life is more important than genre fiction like horror (PS: that’s a WEIRD take for a fictional horror podcast), and reach their own kind of catharsis without it being horrifically rushed. Particularly when they’re having a WAY more emotional response than the character due to their own personal tragedies which they were not expecting to have to think about during a fun podcast live show about ghost stories.

As stuff like this points out, you can’t just sprinkle in character deaths and expect quality entertainment to sprout: there has to be a purpose to putting the tragedy in the story (even if that purpose is to highlight how purposeless tragedy can be in real life). I’ve always been VERY critical of the assumption that tragedy is ~more artistic~, both in historical lit and modern pop culture; sad emotions aren’t inherently more meaningful than happy ones. Merely including tragic events isn’t deep; you have to do the work and make it deep, in its context and development.

So: on to ::gestures proudly:: probably the worst thing I’ve ever written!

From an aesthetic standpoint, I leaned into the Night Vale house style in this section because I found it to be really effective at conveying the enormity of the tragedy for Julie: it’s pretty blunt, just like her, but the focus on oddly specific details, the narrative distancing, and the lurking sense of existential horror seemed a fitting demonstration of how badly the emotional gutpunch disrupted her narration/life. 

And I really wanted it to be an emotional gutpunch. (But not a surprise: even if I hadn’t warned for it specifically, Julie mentions Romero dying all the way back in Ch. 10 of Love is All You Need.) This is in part a story about grief and mourning, so the loss that caused it needed a central place. I wanted it to be powerful enough to retroactively fit in with how upset Julie is in the opening chapters and to add real tension to the devil’s bargain the feds want to make with her in the next chapter. But most importantly, I wanted it to be so significant to both Julie and the audience that the end of the story has an impact. Loss doesn’t get “cured” – but it seems to me like it’s not supposed to be. Loss is a part of life; love, in whatever form, helps give you strength as you grow and change from the experience into someone new, and this is also a story about the love in friendship.

I think a lot about the ethics of writing tragic stuff, because when you get right down to it, ultimately art boils down to poking your fingers in someone’s feelings and stirring them around. People get really invested in the stuff you are responsible for creating, and making someone feel bad for no reason isn’t being an artist, it’s being a dick. But I’m very happy with how this turned out, and hopefully didn’t traumatize anyone who didn’t want to be traumatized.

(I do feel bad for everyone who was reading as I posted that had to wait an entire year for the next chapter, though. I wanted to get something up sooner, but I had to wait until I sorted Chapter 6 and Chapter 6 was just. The worst. WORDS ARE HARD. People who read WIPs are braver than any Marine.)

hmu for more dvd commentary!

[youmightaswell]

Die!

Hop on My Train of Thought...

I’ve been anxious and sort of ragey lately (perimenopause seems unlikely...) Not sure why, but I keep having these surges of anger and agitation. Life is annoying, though, amirite?

I noticed it really bad on Thursday when I put the dog in daycare and raced to the Bronx – my tax preparer is in a very sketchy area – to get my taxes done. I only get four hours of daycare for a set price. Anything over four hours is charged at a full day. My plan was to do my taxes and get back with an hour left so I could get my nails done before picking the dog up. Best laid plans, man.

My tax preparer was late by an hour. Steve has been my tax guy since 1993 when he ran a flourishing tax biz in Midtown Manhattan. The line would be around the floor and the wait could span 10 hours but people flocked to him because was the only guy back then anyone could find that would be “creative” with your taxes. I don’t need “creativity” but I am fiercely loyal and hate change. He shared an office with his Turkish wife who ran a travel agency. Year after year I’d make the pilgrimage to see Steve and he’d complain that he was planning on leaving his wife.

Years passed and Steve’s health diminished, he was investigated by the IRS and he ended up taking a desk in a sketchy Bronx tax svc. As even more years passed the owner of that shop basically let him have a vanity job – one in which his loyal clients could come in and make an appt with him and he could sit next to them while a “real” tax preparer would actually do the work. This worked fine with me because they were quick in a way Steve never was, made less mistakes and had all my previous year’s taxes on file for reference. Also they didn’t discuss leaving their spouses with me. 

So at this point I don’t need Steve. He doesn’t even have a desk or computer now but insisted on meeting me there at 11:30am. Except he was an hour late and the girl who would inevitably do my taxes took someone ahead of me because my “appointment” was with Steve. When he finally got there she was in the middle of someone else’s and I had to just sit there and waste time while Steve prattled on about his cat and how he was definitely leaving his wife this year -- they are in their late seventies now.

Finally she got to me but the place is shoddily run so she kept having to pause to answer the phone.

Anyway I was livid at everyone and everything, but mostly myself. I should not have waited for Steve and simply made an appt. directly with the girl Sully instead. Still, I know I’ll do this again and again until he dies. 

I raced out of there and was surprised I made it to the nail salon in time. I had 50 minute before having to pick up the dog but lo and behold every station was busy and there was a 35-minute wait! Argh! Who the fuck were all these people there in the middle of a Thursday?

Anyway the woman finally started on my nails but halfway into it I had to run to daycare to pick up the dog. By the time I returned 2 people were once again ahead of me. Again, fuck! My whole day was essentially wasted, my nails got smudged while carrying the dog on the way out and just Ugh!

So this sort of ragey, shaky feeling stayed with me. All night my body was abuzz and couldn’t shut off. To calm myself I scrolled endlessly through a cheap clothing site at bathing suits and bought two. This also made me ragey because shopping soothes me but I now own 42 bathing suits. It’s a sickness – one more expensive than popping a Xanax.

Anyway I had an anxiety dream that night and the following. So last night as my body once again was abuzz with something bad, instead of rage shopping bikinis I started trying to think of soothing thoughts. One that popped into my clearly damaged head was taking a train trip. I loved Agatha Christie and conjured thoughts of sleeping cars on the Orient Express. How romantic! (I mean everything but that pesky murder part. #ssdgm) Anyway, I recalled reading a travel essay last year about sleeping cars and had read there was a train trip from NYC to Chicago that offered one. I knew I couldn’t ever get the time, money and energy to do a European train trip like through the Alps or something amazing, but I could get those three to go for an overnight somewhere in the U.S.

So to quell my weird rage and anxiety, I planned out my trip for two hours. I’m thinking about actually doing it. And at least it got my mind – bad thoughts racing as if a train on a track – off my stressors.

Here’s what it’d entail: I’d board at Penn Station at 3:40pm (the only direct trip) and get a sleeper car with a full bedroom and private bathroom, all meals and drinks included. The train also features a car for views of the countryside with full glass walls. 

I’d chill, eat, and read till bedtime, get turn down service, wake at 8 and get breakfast and then be in Chicago’s Union Station at 9:50am. I’d leave my luggage at the station (I found a place that charges a small fee) and then walk to Willis Tower and go to the top to view the City. I’d grab lunch and walk to the Art Institute and then cab it to the Navy Pier where I”d get dinner and ride the Ferris Wheel. I’d cab the short distance back to the train station and hope on my return trip at 9:30pm. Again, sleeper car immediately and sleep till morning and then I’d have the whole day to stare out the window like a mental patient, write, read, people watch and chill. The train gets into Penn at 6pm and I’d head home on the subway.

I mentioned it to a casual guy friend who totally doesn’t get me who said, “Why not just fly to Chicago?” even though I amply explained it was about the romance of train travel I wanted to try – not going to Chicago, a place I don’t like that much and have been to a bunch of times. Then I felt ragey all over again and put three bikinis in my online cart. Fuckkkkk!

Still, this trip sounds like a pretty interesting – oh, think of the stories I may have… – way to spend a weekend for an introvert like me. The only thing preventing me is finding a dogsitter for two nights and more importantly the trip is super expensive for such a short time: Each way is $1083. Still, I think I may enjoy it if only for the writing fodder because I’m fairly certain wherever I go, craziness follows.

I have my trip to South Beach for my bday coming up the first week of May and then Montauk trip June 16-19 with my crazy ex again and then am thinking of going to Vegas for 6 days over Labor Day. Not sure when I could squeeze the Fri-Sun trip in to Chicago – I’d only want to do it in warm weather – but maybe late September/early October?

Thoughts?

[theguardian911]

These Must-Have Tests Could Save Your Pet's Life. By Dr. Becker Although your veterinarian can learn a great deal by performing a hands-on physical examination of your pet, there are some very important aspects of his or her health that can only be evaluated with diagnostic tests. Some people think if their pet looks healthy and there's no change in behavior or appetite, then blood tests and other diagnostics are unnecessary. But this isn't true for pets any more than it is for people. Almost all metabolic and organ issues that plague pets start with biochemical changes that can be picked up in blood tests weeks to years before an animal becomes sick enough to exhibit symptoms. If you wait until your pet is showing signs of disease, it may be too late to reverse the illness or cure it. Reactive Versus Proactive Pet Care Many problems brewing beneath the surface don't produce symptoms until the disease is full-blown and, heaven forbid, even fatal. Waiting for symptoms to appear is a reactive approach. Many of us in the holistic veterinary community have clients who think they're taking a holistic approach to their pet's health when they're actually being reactive. For example, they wait until their dog is coughing to ask for a heartworm test, or until their cat is drinking tons of water and urinating constantly before they ask for a kidney function test. Allowing pets to get sick before identifying significant health issues isn't a holistic approach. The paradigm shift holistic vets are trying to encourage is a move away from reactive medicine toward proactive medicine. Proactive veterinarians focus on identifying lifestyle obstacles before disease occurs. Proactive Pet Care Saves Lives If we're capable of identifying disease early and stopping it from occurring, why wouldn't we? Taking a proactive approach gives us the opportunity to address minor biochemical changes early on, and prevent them from becoming major health issues. We can prevent organ failure if we know the body is leaning in that direction. We can prevent irreversible degeneration that robs pets of good health and long lives. But we have to know it's occurring in order to address it, and we won't know if we don't check. I've heard countless times from clients that, "My dog was fine until he suddenly got congestive heart failure," or "My cat was fine until I took her to the vet yesterday and she was diagnosed with kidney failure." The truth is those conditions didn't develop overnight. They occurred slowly, over time. The dog with congestive heart failure and the kitty with kidney failure have been brewing those conditions for quite a while. But because the pet parents and veterinarian weren't regularly monitoring the health of those pets, serious organ degeneration occurred right under their noses. Even if your vet isn't proactive, you can be. Ask him or her to measure your pet's vital organ function with the appropriate diagnostic tests. You're entitled to a copy of the results, which you can review and keep track of from one year to the next, taking note of any changes that occur. If you have no choice but to visit a reactive versus a proactive veterinarian, you'll need to act as your pet's advocate. Don't ever be afraid to speak up on behalf of your animal companion. Keep in mind that most abnormal test results were once normal. It's how quickly we catch the change from normal to abnormal that can mean the difference between fixing a problem early, or potentially losing a pet to a disease we could have identified early on. "I wish I would have known," is something no proactive vet ever wants to say or hear. Put another way, "I wish I would have known," means, "I wish I would have checked." We have the ability to check — to monitor your pet's health — and that's what I'm encouraging you to do. This is especially true for senior pets and pets with chronic health challenges. Fecal Exam and Urinalysis If your dog goes on lots of outdoor adventures, I recommend once or twice yearly fecal exams to check for signs of intestinal disease and parasites. Indoor house cats who have no exposure to potentially infectious poop from other animals are off the hook for fecal exams. A yearly urinalysis (or more frequently if your pet is older or prone to infections or other problems involving the urinary tract) is used to assess the overall health of your pet's urinary tract, including the kidneys and bladder, and to check for other health indicators, such as glucose regulation and liver function. A complete urinalysis measures the function of the nephrons in the kidneys and gives information about your pet's metabolic and fluid status. The test is also used to evaluate substances in the urine that might indicate an underlying disease process. Blood Tests Blood tests help your veterinarian proactively monitor your pet's internal organ health, and also help to determine causes of illnesses accurately, safely and quickly. Blood tests also allow your veterinarian to monitor the progress of medical treatments. However, while these tests indicate where your pet's body may be having a problem, they don't tell us how or why the problem is occurring. It's also important to know that currently there are no blood tests that definitively detect cancer, and not every organ has a specific serum marker for cancer. Complete blood count (CBC). The CBC is the most common blood test performed on pets and people. A CBC gives information on hydration status, anemia, infection, the blood's clotting ability and the ability of your pet's immune system to respond. The CBC is essential for pets with fevers, vomiting, diarrhea, weakness, pale gums or loss of appetite. Also, in the event that your pet needs surgery, a CBC can detect bleeding disorders and other unseen abnormalities. The results of a complete blood count include: • HCT (hematocrit) measures the percentage of red blood cells to detect anemia and dehydration • Hb and MCHC (hemoglobin and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration) measure the oxygen-carrying pigments of red blood cells. • WBC (white blood cell count) measures the body's immune cells, including lymphocytes, monocytes, neutrophils, eosinophils and basophils. Increases or decreases indicate disease or infection. • Platelets measure cells that form blood clots. • Retics (reticulocytes) are immature red blood cells. High levels indicate regenerative anemia; low levels indicate non-regenerative anemia. Blood chemistry profile. Blood chemistries are common blood serum tests that evaluate your pet's organ function, electrolyte status, hormone levels and more. They are very important in evaluating the health of older pets, pets undergoing anesthesia, pets with vomiting and diarrhea, pets that have had toxin exposure, pets on long-term medications and pets with endocrine or internal organ disease. Blood serum measures include: ✓ ALB (albumin) is a serum protein that helps evaluate hydration, hemorrhage and intestinal, liver and kidney disease. ✓ ALP (alkaline phosphatase) elevations may indicate liver damage, Cushing's disease, active bone growth in young pets or arthritis or bone degeneration in older pets. ✓ ALT (alanine aminotransferase) is a sensitive indicator of active liver damage but does not indicate the cause. ✓ A bile acids test is a paired serum sample taken before and after meals, which measures how well the liver is able to recycle bile acids. ✓ Amylase is a digestive enzyme for carbohydrates, and lipase (LIP) is a digestive enzyme for fats. Elevations may indicate pancreatitis or other pancreatic dysfunction. The definitive test for pancreatitis is the PLI (pancreatic lipase immunoreactivity) test. ✓ AST (aspartate aminotransferase) increases may indicate liver, heart or skeletal muscle damage. ✓ BUN (blood urea nitrogen) indicates kidney function. An increased blood level is called azotemia and can be caused by kidney, liver or heart disease, urethral obstruction, shock or dehydration. ✓ Ca (calcium) deviations can indicate a variety of diseases. Tumors, hyperparathyroidism, kidney disease and low albumin are just a few of the conditions that alter serum calcium. ✓ CHOL (cholesterol) is used to supplement a diagnosis of hypothyroidism, liver disease, Cushing's disease and diabetes mellitus. Fortunately, since pets aren't plagued with arteriosclerosis like humans are, even a significant elevation in cholesterol doesn't result in blocked arteries, stroke or heart attack. ✓ CL (chloride) is an electrolyte often lost with vomiting and Addison's disease. Elevations often indicate disease. If your pet has both sodium and chloride abnormalities, you should ask your veterinarian to check for adrenal disease. ✓ CREA (creatinine) is a sensitive marker of kidney function and perfusion. This test helps distinguish between kidney and non-kidney causes of elevated BUN. BUN and creatinine go hand in hand. There's also a third test called the symmetric dimethylarginine (SDMA) test that can also identify early kidney disease.  ✓ GLOB (globulin) is a blood protein that often increases with chronic inflammation and decreases with chronic infections and a weakened immune system. ✓ GLU (glucose) is blood sugar. Elevated levels may indicate diabetes mellitus or persistent hyperglycemia as the result of a carbohydrate-based diet. Low levels (below 40) can cause collapse, seizures or coma. ✓ K (potassium) is an electrolyte lost with vomiting, diarrhea or excessive urination. Increased levels may indicate kidney failure, Addison's disease, dehydration, urethral obstruction or inappropriate doses of certain drugs. High levels can cause heart problems. ✓ Na (sodium) is an electrolyte lost with vomiting, diarrhea, kidney and Addison's disease. This test helps indicate hydration status. ✓ PHOS (phosphorus) elevations are often associated with kidney disease, hyperthyroidism and bleeding disorders. ✓ TBIL (total bilirubin) elevations may indicate liver or hemolytic disease. This test helps identify bile duct problems, gall bladder stasis and certain types of anemia. ✓ TP (total protein) indicates hydration status and provides additional information about the liver, kidneys and infectious disease. ✓ T4 (thyroxine) is a thyroid hormone. Decreased levels often signal hypothyroidism in dogs, while high levels indicate hyperthyroidism, commonly diagnosed in cats. A complete thyroid panel is necessary to accurately assess thyroid health. Tests for Tick-Borne Disease If you live in an area where ticks are abundant, I recommend asking your veterinarian for an annual or even twice-a-year SNAP-4Dx test or an Accuplex test to check for tick-borne diseases, including heartworm, Lyme disease, ehrlichiosis and anaplasmosis. Regardless of what you do to manage fleas and ticks on your pets, research shows mosquitoes can transmit tick-borne diseases, and none of us can completely prevent mosquito bites. Especially in the midwest and the east coast of the U.S., it's a good idea early in the year and at the end of tick season to check for tick-borne illnesses, which thankfully are fairly easy to treat and cure when they are identified before they create chronic disease. Titer Testing and Vaccinations I also recommend titer testing in lieu of automatic re-vaccination for all diseases other than rabies, which of course is required by law. Titer tests are simple blood tests you can ask your veterinarian to do that provide information about your pet's current immunity to the diseases he's been vaccinated against in the past. Immunologist Dr. Ron Schultz states that any positive titer result — any number above zero — means your pet's immune system is capable of mounting an effective response and no vaccine is needed. Some of my clients say, "Hey, I think it's just cheaper to vaccinate. My dog has only had one vaccine. What's the harm in doing it?" My response is it's much safer to titer test, even in pets who've only had one vaccination, because chances are they're protected for life and don't need additional vaccines. If the titer is low, I will give the vaccine at no charge. I give a single parvo or distemper vaccine if a dog's titer is low. I don't give combination vaccines. In 19 years, I've never given a free vaccine because none of my patients have titered low after their puppy shots. So this is something to keep in mind when it comes to re-vaccinating your pet. Additional Recommendations Three other tests to consider are a fasting insulin test, a vitamin D test and a dysbiosis test. • Fasting insulin test. In humans, one of the best predictors of longevity is the fasting insulin level. Very few veterinarians measure this, but I think it's an underutilized test that can evaluate a patient's metabolic health and fat-burning adaptedness. Michigan State Diagnostic Lab runs this test for $18. In my opinion, it's one of the best things you can do to evaluate your pet's ability to manage metabolic diseases, including cancer. • Vitamin D test. Vitamin D deficiency is an epidemic, and we're beginning to learn that deficiency in pets may rival that of humans. Dogs and cats can't make vitamin D from sunlight so they must get it from their diet. Unfortunately, the synthetic vitamin D used in many commercial pet foods can be difficult for dogs and cats to absorb and unless impeccably balanced, many homemade diets are deficient in vitamin D. Vitamin D testing is an add-on to routine bloodwork, but you can ask your veterinarian to include it. • Dysbiosis test. We know that 70 percent of the immune system is located in your dog's or cat's gut, and many pets suffer from gut-related disorders that create malabsorption, maldigestion and ultimately, a weakened and dysfunctional immune system. Identifying and addressing a leaky or dysbiotic gut is critically important in re-establishing good health, especially in debilitated, chronically ill and aging pets. The Texas A&M Gastrointestinal Laboratory has just released a test to measure the level of dysbiosis in the canine gut. The takeaway today is that monitoring a pet's internal environment is actually quite empowering, because we're able to address minor changes before disease occurs, and in many cases we can prevent degeneration, which is always our goal as proactive pet parents and veterinarians.