1.4

It was after noon when Lisa finally began to stir. She must have been tired, as the entire time she was sleeping she had hardly shifted her position. With a big yawn and a back arching stretch that reminded me of a cat, she blinked her eyes open and almost immediately looked to me. Embarrassed to be caught staring I flinched away and turned my eyes to my lap. That seemed to be enough to clue in whatever highly perceptive instincts she had and her body stiffened, brow furrowing together as she leaned forwards to fold in the footrest of the recliner.

"What, what's wro- ah!" She flinched, right hand coming up to press into her eye as she doubled forwards, cringing in obvious discomfort. I tensed, arms coming up and reaching out towards her in an instinctive desire to help without knowing what was wrong.

"Ah," I began, my voice surprisingly clear in spite of my long and silent morning vigil. "are you-" She waved me off mid sentence, dismissing my concern.

"It's nothing, just a bit of a headache. I'll be fine once I get some caffeine in my system." She sat there leaning forwards and rubbing at her eye for a few more moments before my helpless fidgeting drew her attention back to me. "Er, anyway, did something happen last night? You're looking a little tense. Did the meditation not work out?"

"Well..."

I told her about what had happened, doing my best to share the important details without droning on and on and wasting her time. She took everything in with a focused expression: mouth pursed to one side and eyes rapidly flicking back and forth in what I was coming to regard as her thinking face. She absorbed the details like a sponge, stopping me every now and then to ask for clarifying information on a few different points. She paid particular attention to my description of the 'sparks' and the 'crystals' and I got the impression that she found my own study of them a bit lacking.

Eventually she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes with a sigh. I flinched, wondering whether or not she was already starting to get sick of me. After a moment or two of massaging one of her temples she spoke up again.

"I don't think it's anything to worry about. Most powers seem to be accompanied by protections for their users, like a pyrokinetic not being hurt by their own flames. I've also got some theories about your power and those sparks you mentioned, and I think I'll be able to say with more confidence once we do some power testing, but really I think it was just a matter of not being prepared for it and surprising yourself." Her eyes blinked open and she flashed me a cheeky little grin. "I'm pretty good at figuring things out so rest assured with my assessment. Dr. Lisa's intuition is right ninety-ish percent of the time."

"Oh um, is that your power or something?" I asked. Lisa cocked an eyebrow at me speculatively an instant before common courtesy caught up with me and I slapped a hand over my mouth. "Uh, forget that. It's a big no-no to ask about cape stuff isn't it? That's just-" She waved me off with another lopsided grin.

"Most of the time? Yeah, it's not a good idea to bring up cape stuff in a civilian setting, but our circumstances are a bit unique. I don't mind if it's you who's asking, but," She drew out the last syllable as a playful twist came to her lips. "At the same time, if I came clean with all of my little secrets don't you think I'd lose some of my charming mystique?"

I blinked at her, trying and failing to decide whether or not she was kidding. Seeing my likely stupefied expression, an unladylike snort escaped from Lisa before she covered her grin with her free hand and leaned forwards, reaching for a nearby smart phone on the coffee table.

"Sorry, I'm not laughing at you; you've just got the best confused faces. Super..." She trailed off as the phone screen came to life and her focus shifted to it. "Shit." She swore under her breath, grin vanishing and forehead creasing with worry lines as she began rapidly tapping away at the touch screen. She had only just barely stopped typing when it vibrated in her hands. Another quick round of tapping later and she had jumped to her feet, stumbling briefly as her right hand shot to her temple again before she seemed to find her balance and turned back to face me.

"So um, I had originally planned on not going anywhere today so that we could stay in and get to know each other a bit better: you know," She waved her hand in an emphasizing circle as she briefly stalled to find the right words. "Like, to make ourselves a little bit less like complete and total strangers. But! It seems like I'm gonna have to go out after all." As if to punctuate her declaration, her phone buzzed loudly again in her hand. She brought it up and began to quickly tap away as she continued her explanation.

"My boss wants a meeting and it seems like it's both mandatory and needs to be in person."

"Boss?" I blurted out in confusion. "But I thought you were, uh." I trailed off but the 'I thought you were a villain in a super powered thieving group' was implied anyway. Closing her eyes, Lisa tipped her head back and rubbed at her temple again as she seemed to consider her answer.

"Well, it's a bit complicated and I'd rather not go into it now, but suffice to say that I do have a boss, he is related to the whole villain thing, and I absolutely hate his guts. Fair enough?" With a quick nod I looked away, feeling ashamed for prying after everything that Lisa had done for me in the short time we'd known each other. She didn't owe me any explanations about anything, but she was still going out of her way to accommodate me.

A frustrated huff drew my attention back to her.

"See, this is why I wanted to be able to stay in today!" Slipping her phone into her pocket, Lisa quickly stomped over to me and clamped her hands down on either side of my face like she had done last night. "It's okay to be asking questions Taylor. In fact, you should be asking questions. You don't know anything about me and now all of a sudden you're staying in my apartment. So it's okay! Ask me questions. Impose on me as much as you want. I'm inviting you to, or rather, I'm ordering you to! If you have a thought or a concern or even just a random comment, say it out loud. I want to hear what you have to say. What you're thinking is important to me and I want to hear it direct from the source, okay?"

I was so caught off guard by her sudden intensity that it was all I could manage to nod in response. Blinking, I felt the first prickles of tears welling up and I quickly pulled away from her to rub at my eyes.

"Sorry." I immediately apologized in a quiet tone. "I- don't e-even know why I'm crying." I felt the couch cushions shift as Lisa's knees pressed into them and she pulled me into a gentle hug.

"I know." She whispered in a soft voice. "God do I know. It's okay to be confused and upset and sad and angry and everything else you may be feeling so just don't feel like you have to try to bottle it up to avoid troubling me. I'll say it as many times as it takes for you to understand: trouble me all you want, and then just keep on doing it. Right now, that's what I'm here for. That's what you're here for." I felt a faint buzz on the side of my thigh as Lisa's phone vibrated again in her pocket. She dropped her head onto my shoulder with a frustrated growl. "Just... as soon as I get back from that god-damned meeting. Gah!"

As she got back to her feet and began to hustle towards the hallway she called back to me.

"I'm gonna take the world's fastest shower and then head out. Help yourself to anything in the apartment Taylor. I mean it, this is your home too now so feel free to treat it that way."

She must have been serious in her attempt to take the 'world's fastest shower' as from the time she disappeared from my sight to when she reappeared, patting at her hair with a towel in one hand and pulling a brush through it with the other, not much more than five minutes could have passed. With a hurried gait, she made her way over to the cabinet below the TV and pulled a remote out of one of the drawers. Setting it down on the coffee table she paused to give me a reassuring smile before turning to head towards the front door.

"Go ahead and do whatever while I'm gone: watch TV, use the laptop, even just dig around the cabinets and closets for something interesting. I probably have some notebooks and pencils somewhere. The meeting shouldn't take too long, but I may stop by the Dawkins's house on the way back to grab some of your stuff. Just some essentials like clothes, underwear, and shoes unless you can think of something specific that you need?" Her statement trailed off into a question as she turned to me for confirmation. I looked away and shook my head.

Most of my stuff was still back at the old house. Only the bare minimum had been thrown into a suitcase so that I could be hurried over to Kurt and Lacey's house as quickly as possible. The child services people had probably wanted to hand me off to them sooner rather than later: make me someone else's problem.

"Anyway," Lisa said aloud, drawing my attention back to her. She was kneeling down to tie up a pair of worn down looking sneakers as she glanced over at me. "I'm also gonna grab a coffee and a bite to eat while I'm out. Do you feel hungry for anything in particular?"

That question gave me pause. Yesterday had been a whirlwind of activity and everything just sort of blurred together in my memory, but I didn't think that I'd been given anything to eat. In spite of that, I wasn't feeling particularly hungry or really much of anything at all. With all of the other changes to my body, I guess it wasn't too much of a stretch to assume that I didn't need to eat anymore either. I was about to tell Lisa that I didn't need to eat anything when she preempted me.

"Let me put it to you this way. Would you rather I got a donut, some sort of sweet pastry, a bagel, or like a breakfast sandwich." I paused with my mouth open. It seemed like 'nothing' wasn't one of my options. I didn't want to argue or take too long deciding since Lisa was obviously in a rush so I made a snap decision.

"Um, a bagel I guess." I didn't feel like eating anything sweet at the moment anyway.

"Right, well, like I said," Lisa announced as she straightened up and opened the door behind her. "This shouldn't take too long: maybe an hour or two, three depending on whether or not I can contact the Dawkins's. Make yourself at home and I'll see you soon." She stepped through the door way and pulled it almost all the way shut behind her before suddenly stopping and poking her head back through.

"I expect you to be here when I get back Taylor." She announced with a sort of stern set to her features. "Don't go running off, okay? If you disappeared on me I'd have to turn this city inside out to find you and trust me, nobody wants that to happen." I was a bit taken aback but managed to nod in reply anyway. She mirrored my nod with a sort of satisfied expression and then disappeared through the door again, shutting it with a soft click of the latch.

In the silence and dim illumination of Lisa's apartment, I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. I'd remained more or less stationary in my spot on the couch for the better part of the morning and I had no real inclination to move now. This was exacerbated by the fact that I had no real need to move either. I didn't need to get up to use the bathroom at all and sitting in one spot on the couch hadn't made me sore or agitated. I felt sort of detached from the world, or maybe just attached to my one specific spot.

Maybe this was what a barnacle would feel like, if they could muster up the self awareness to feel anything at all: attached to one spot as the rest of the world drifted on around them. Lisa would be like the coming and going of the surf with the way that she energetically bustled her way around me. Where did that leave me now that she was gone? Maybe it was like high tide when the water level would be too high for me to feel the swell of the waves. I was left submerged in the murky depths with no frame of reference for the way life carried on around me.

I didn't like it.

We'd only just met but already Lisa had shown me more sincere human interest and compassion than it seemed like I'd received in the months that preceded our meeting. How sad was it that it took my father's death and several suicide attempts for someone to be truly worried about my well being?

No, that wasn't fair. I'd only just started interacting with them again but Kurt and Lacey had seemed nice enough before I spit in the face of their hospitality. How much of that had been because of me though and not just respect for my dad's wishes? Maybe in reality I would just be one unavoidable trouble after another for them. Maybe they were glad that I'd run out; that I wasn't their problem anymore.

That wasn't fair either. I needed to stop thinking.

Leaning forwards, I scooped the remote off of the coffee table and turned the TV on. I'd never been a big TV watcher but maybe some mindless daytime television would be enough to keep me distracted so that I didn't have to care.

It didn't really matter to me what was on so I just sort of skimmed slowly through the channels. The only exceptions were news channels; I avoided them like the plague for various reasons. Chief among them was the accident. My dad had been fairly important to the dockworker's association and had interacted with the mayor of the city often enough. That made him important enough for his death to be news right? I had no interest in hearing what the news would say about him: pretending that they cared or worse, using his death to spew some bullshit political agenda.

Just as bad would be if they didn't mention him at all; if they deemed him not important enough for even a passing mention. He'd worked so hard for the sake of the city and for the people who worked and lived here. The idea that they might snub all of his effort, all of the time and happiness he'd sacrificed in an attempt to make Brockton Bay a better place, it made my blood boil just thinking about it.

How dare they?!

A wisp of smoke entered my vision and I gasped in surprise. Looking down I noticed that where my hands were fisted up in the blanket, the material around them had started smoldering. With a yelp I tore my hands away, ripping off a portion of the fabric in the process and fully igniting the blanket with the sudden increase in air flow. Frantically, I smacked at it before the knowledge from the various school fire assemblies kicked in and I folded the blanket over on itself in an attempt to smother the flames.

With a sort of frantic fervor I stood up from the couch, tearing the blanket even more in the process, and whipped my head around to give the room a frantic survey. I found my target, long white curtains hanging just behind the couch I'd just been sitting on and pulled them open. Kneeling back down on the couch, I leaned forwards to fumble with the lock on the window sill and when I'd figured it out I threw the window open.

I jumped back to my feet and with a frantic pace began to fan the air of the apartment towards the now open window. The last thing I needed was to set the fire alarm off and risk getting the whole building evacuated. Unfortunately, fanning the air with something that had just recently been on fire seemed to be a bad idea as the blanket reignited with a small flame in the center.

With a panicked cry I did the first thing that came to mind: I hugged the blanket to my chest and smothered the flames with my body. Stooping over, I grabbed one of my pillows off the couch and resumed my fanning with that instead.

I must have stood there, waving a pillow around like an idiot for a good ten minutes before I finally stopped to assess the situation.

First of all, I didn't hear any alarms going off, so that was a good thing. I looked down, pulling the blanket away from my chest and felt my heart drop into my stomach. Between the blackened scorch marks, the hole torn out of the center, and the fluttering strips of ribbed fabric that had been pulled apart when I stood up, I didn't think there'd be any salvaging it. Worst of all was that I didn't even have any idea what I'd done!

I looked down to focus on one of my hands and realized that there was a fading feeling of warmth, though whether that was because of the fire or something to do with my power I wasn't sure. It probably maybe had been my power since so far feeling temperature on my skin had been sort of vaguely numb and detached, but I didn't know that for sure and was certainly not going to experiment in the middle of Lisa's apartment. She was probably already going to be furious with me for destroying the blanket; she'd explicitly told me not to use my power in the apartment and here I'd already broken that rule in the first day.

There was a sudden pounding on the door and I screamed.

Slapping my hand over my mouth, I cut the sound off into a choking whimper. I didn't know if I really even had a heart anymore, but if I did I imagined it pounding at a frantic pace.

Who was knocking at the door? Had someone smelled the smoke and come to see what was wrong? Maybe there was some sort of silent alarm that sounded before the main alarm incase a resident had merely burned something while cooking. I couldn't even pretend that no one was here since they'd obviously have just heard me scream.

Tentatively, I did my best to tiptoe over to the door and peaked through the peephole.

Even through the distortion of the lens I could tell the man waiting on the other side was big: probably a good head taller than me if not more and with shoulders so broad and bulky he'd be right at home on a professional sports team. I briefly wondered if he might be some sort of security guard for the building before I noticed his arms. Tucked between his waist and one beefy forearm was what looked like a brown box. In the other hand was some electronic device with a screen and a bunch of buttons.

Was he a delivery man?

I cleared my throat before calling out.

"Y-yes?" The man didn't seem surprised at this and smoothly answered back.

"I've got a delivery here for a Lisa Wilbourn. Someone needs to sign for it for proof of receipt." I breathed a sigh of relief. He was just a delivery man, not someone sent to investigate. I took a step back, found the lock on the door and twisted it open, and slowly pulled the door open to peer out at him.

He was certainly large, even without the widening distortion of the peephole lens. He must have been a foot taller than me with shoulders a good three times wider than my own. I could also make out the edges of a number of tattoos around his neck and chest where the buttons of his brown polo shirt were left undone, and around his thick biceps. Those combined with the scars around his hands and face gave him a rather rugged appearance and left me to wonder if maybe he'd been in prison and was one of the few to find an actual legal job when he got out.

Being a delivery man in a crime ridden place like Brockton Bay was probably pretty dangerous, so I could see the advantages of hiring a driver with a more intimidating build. At the same time though, I imagined that most people would be hesitant to open their doors for someone like him. Maybe it was the scars but he seemed to have something of a dangerous air about him.

Before the accident I probably would have been afraid to be approached by someone like him. Now though, I merely reflected on the irony of it: that despite appearances, between the two of us it was me who was the dangerous one. What would he think if he knew that last night I had almost murdered Lung in cold blood. I'd wondered if he was a prisoner but it was really me who should be locked up.

I was pulled out of my thoughts by a sharp intake of breath. I looked to the delivery man's face to find him sniffing at the air with a confused set to his features. I felt my face heat up and I turned my eyes to the floor. He could probably still smell the smoke from the blanket. My embarrassment tripled, no quadrupled when I realized that I was still holding the obviously burnt and torn blanket in front of myself, clutching it to my chest like some sort of security blanket. He seemed to try to peer around the doorframe into the apartment before giving me a purposefully neutral look.

"Is everything alright, miss?"

"Yes." I squeaked out, nodding as I tried to hide my shame. He cleared his throat before holding out the electronic device for me to take.

"I need you to sign in the box for proof of receipt." I glanced up at the little glowing pad before turning my attention back to the floor.

"Um, Lisa isn't here right now." I mumbled. The man was unfazed.

"That's fine, miss. So long as someone at the specified location signs to confirm that the package was received, it doesn't need to be the indicated recipient."

"Oh, uh, okay." I took the device from him and popped the little pen out of the side of it before hesitating. A part of me was considering using a fake name, just in case for some reason the child services people were trying to track me down, but I dismissed that idea as foolish. Lisa had probably already told Kurt and Lacey where she lived and I didn't want to cause any problems if for some reason the delivery company's systems tried to verify the authenticity of my name.

I began to sign on the little screen when a shrill ringing made me jump. I looked up to find the delivery man reaching behind his back.

"Ah," he started, mouth open in surprise before he gave me an apologetic expression and held up a finger on the hand supporting the box. "Please excuse me for one second, I need to take this."

"Sure." I mumbled in response before returning my attention to the device as the man stepped back and pulled out his phone, flipping it open. There was a big slashing scribble through part of my name from when I jumped. I did my best to finish my signature around it and just hoped it would be good enough. That done, I glanced up at the man.

"Yeah. Right. Right." He glanced up at me. "Dinner at 6:30, yeah I got it. I won't be late." With that he flipped the phone closed and slid it into his pocket. "All set?" He asked. I nodded and handed him the device.

"Uh, it got sorta- um, messed up." He glanced at the screen briefly before waving me off.

"That's fine. Here's the package." He held out the box and I took it. It was square, not more than a foot or so long, tall, and wide. It didn't seem heavy, but I didn't really know how my super strength worked either so for all I knew it may have been. "Thank you for your time." He said with one final nod before turning to head back towards the elevator and stairwell. Stepping back into the apartment, I pushed the door shut behind me and twisted the lock.

Stepping away from the door, I carefully set the box down on the counter separating the entryway from the kitchen. I made it three more steps before the strength left me and I collapsed to my knees, sagging sideways to lean against the wall. With shaking hands, I pulled the blanket away from myself to reassess the damage. My hopes that it wasn't as bad as I had thought were dashed immediately and thoroughly. Worse, I noticed that the front of the fluffy pajamas that Lisa had leant to me to wear had been thoroughly singed.

Pulling the blanket up, I buried my face into it to stifle the first of my hopeless sobs. I wanted to run away: to disappear and never come back, but Lisa's words echoed in my memories. 'I expect you to be here when I get back Taylor.' And why shouldn't I be. It wouldn't be right to destroy her property and then not be here to answer for it when she got back. I'd wait until she got home and got the anger out of her system before going off to find some hole to crawl into: someplace deep and dark where I could never be seen again and couldn't ruin anything else.

Eventually I stopped crying but I never moved from the spot where I'd fallen.

An eternity later, Lisa came home.

Her return was heralded by the frantic slap of sneakers on thin commercial carpet and a bang as she seemingly collided with the apartment door in her haste. There was a scrabbling sound of metal scratching on metal before the lock was opened with a clack and she threw the door open. It slammed into the stopper with a loud bang and a jingle of keys still hanging from the lock.

"Taylor! Taylor are-" She cut off with a hiss of air before frantically stepping towards me, and dropping to her knees. "Taylor, are you alright?! Did something happen?!" Her frantic tone was enough to start me crying again.

"The b-blanket." I mumbled, hands shaking where they clutched the fabric.

"Blanket? What blanket? Taylor, what happened?"

"I ruined it!" I sobbed into the fabric, unable to pull my face away and face her properly.

"You ruined- Wait, what?" Her panicked tone gave way to confusion and after a moment I felt her pull on the fabric of the blanket, likely inspecting the damage. "That- uh, did nothing happen?"

"Nothing?" I asked in disbelief, finally pulling my face away to turn and meet her bewildered stare. "I destroyed it! It's burnt and ripped and-"

"Taylor, the blanket doesn't matter!" She insisted, grabbing me by the shoulders. "Are you alright?" I gaped at her, mouth opening and closing as my thoughts ground to a halt. She blinked a few times as her brow furrowed together before she looked down, pulling the blanket away from me to inspect my front. Pinching the fabric of the pajamas around the scorched area she tugged on it, turning back up to meet my gaze again. "What about this? What happened here?" I blinked looking down.

"Uh, I- I somehow set the- the blanket on fire, and then, uh, tried to put it out." Her face scrunched up in confusion.

"On your chest?" Her honest bewilderment made me flush and I turned away from her to stare at the floor.

"Um, yes?"

A few seconds of stunned silence passed.

Finally the tension seemed to drain out of Lisa's body and she slumped forwards into me. Her arms curled around the small of my back and her head plopped down on my shoulder.

"Oh thank God." She breathed out in a shaky whisper. I sat there dumbfounded, arm coming up to hover awkwardly by her shoulder, unsure of whether or not I should be hugging her back. After a few moments she started to sniff and I had a mini internal panic attack.

"L-Lisa-"

"Just-" She cut me off. "Just give me a minute." Eventually I gathered up the courage to rest my hand on her shoulder and did so. A minute later, there was another loud, drawn out sniff before Lisa cleared her throat and sat back up straight to face me. "So, just to clarify, nothing besides the blanket happened while I was gone?"

"Um," I blinked at her. "The delivery man came." To my surprise, she stiffened and her eyes widened partway in surprise before her head snapped up to survey the apartment.

"Delivery man? What deliver-" She cut off as soon as she saw the box on the counter above us and practically leapt to her feet. Scooping up the box, she turned and stormed out of the still open apartment door, calling back to me in a clipped and angry tone. "I'll be right back."

A short time later, she returned without the box.

Pulling her keys from the front door, she shut it behind her as she stepped back into the apartment and slipped off her shoes. Walking back over to where I was still sitting on the floor, she stooped down and grabbed a white paper bag that I hadn't noticed sitting on the floor next to me. Holding it up next to her head, she gave it a little shake and showed me a radiant smile.

"Let's eat."