Second in the series Don't Listen to Kafka, begins a couple weeks after Autoeponym. This story begins with the events of the episode'Young Atlas'

story content warnings: mild body horror (but no gore), species dysphoria. (if there are more you think I should at, let me know)

"One advantage to keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of all the changes which you constantly suffer." - Franz Kafka

Barbara's new reality looked something like this:

Jim still made lunch for her and Toby, but now she was the one to make lunch for Jim. It was impossible for him to eat with the glamor mask on; mealtimes were the only times she saw him remove it (otherwise, she had no doubt he wouldn't take it off at all). This naturally presented a bit of a problem at school, but they figured out it was still possible for him to drink through a straw, so highly specialized protein shakes became the order of the day. Barbara took over making them after Jim decided he didn't want to know what went in them (it was probably the bait worms that did it, when Barbara brought some home on Mr. Blinky's suggestion.)

The house was always dimly lit, once she'd gone out and bought the best light-blocking curtains on the market. The complete lack of natural light wore at her, sometimes, though she'd never admit it. It was like living in a box, no sunshine, no breezes through an open window, but it was necessary. Sure, she could open things up and air the house out if Jim was out and Draal stayed in the basement, but more often than not she didn't want to risk forgetting to close them again. She offered to have Jim's window boarded up just to be extra safe, but Draal vetoed the idea for tactical reasons; it wouldn't be safe to leave Jim without an avenue of escape if the house were invaded.

Jim didn't have a curfew anymore. He hadn't really had one before, either, but there had been an honor system in place where they both agreed that ten o'clock was a reasonable time to be home. Now, with his Trollhunting duties, even that guideline went out the window. Instead, if Trollhunting kept him out late, she promised she'd write him a note excusing his tardiness the next day so that he could sleep in (8 hours of sleep minimum was critical for growing teenagers).

(She worried about his sleeping habits, worried that he exaggerated how much restful sleep he was actually getting. Even on the nights he stayed home, he often woke up looking tired, exhausted. His body's changes were playing havoc with his circadian rhythm, and she didn't know what more she could do).

He was expected to keep her updated on his whereabouts. He let her know when he was leaving for patrol and what time he expected to be back. There was a city map pinned to one wall of their basement – Team Trollhunter had already crossed off what they felt were the most likely places the changelings could be hiding Killahead Bridge, and now they were searching Arcadia in a grid pattern, randomized so that any watching changelings would not be able to predict their movements. More than once Jim had come home to vent to Barbara about how frustrating the constant fruitless searching was.

She tried to spend at least a half hour a day learning troll lore and language. Sometimes it happened in the morning, sometimes in the evening. If Jim was around, he used his amulet to read aloud from A Brief Recapitulation of Troll Lore. (The translation function was very handy, though not for proofing his Spanish homework. It could translate what he'd written into English, but only, apparently, after running it through Trollspeak first, and the results were often unintentionally comical. 'I cannot vacation my fork,' indeed. They'd had a good laugh about it.)

If Jim wasn't around, Draal would translate for her. He had a very nice reading voice, though he went slowly, often silently reading a sentence or two through in its entirety before speaking. That was only to be expected; just because a person was bilingual did not automatically grant them the training of a skilled translator. Draal also offered his own recollections and insights into troll culture, which were very useful, and Barbara enjoyed the opportunities to get to know him as a person better.

She cancelled all of Jim's pending medical appointments, and brushed off the MRI results when the doctor called back, concerned. She claimed she'd taken Jim somewhere else for a second opinion, just to be sure, and that he was getting treatment there. Taking over as his primary care physician, she had at first wanted to conduct daily check-ups to try to keep track of Jim's ever-shifting baseline, but when she saw how the scrutiny exacerbated Jim's anxiety, she forced herself to dial back Dr. Lake as much as possible, and push Mom to the foreground. Ultimately, she had to concede that more data would likely not have done them a bit of good, since with each new observation she had no idea what was a problem and what was his new normal. Still, she fretted.

Figuring out how to balance his diet was an ongoing struggle. He'd show signs of anemia if he didn't eat enough mushrooms, but also if he ate less than two dimes in a week. Citrus gave him headaches; too much gluten gave him gas. Mr. Blinky had been concerned that Jim wasn't getting enough silicates, so Barbara had started adding sand to the protein shakes. She's started small, just half a tablespoon, but the improvement to Jim's energy levels was so immediate that soon enough she was adding a half a cup of sand to every smoothie. The FoodMagic was really being put through its paces.

He couldn't have shakes for every meal, however, because as nutritional as the shakes were, Jim still longed for things he could sink his teeth into (Barbara was quick to reassure him that anyone would feel the same if they had to give up solid food, it was not some weird troll thing), a craving that only got worse once his new teeth started growing in. Teething as a two-year old had been bad enough, but now he had the jaw strength to deal serious damage; Barbara searched online reviews to find the most indestructible dog toys, and even those lasted at best a week.

Toby reported that Jim got particularly restless at school, where there were very few outlets for his need to bite. The fact that the mask limited his ability to fit things in his mouth was probably a blessing, as it might have been all that stood between Jim and the whiteboard erasers. Honestly, it was only a matter of time before one of his teachers noticed him eating his pencils (which, like straws, were narrow enough to squeeze under the mask). She'd started buying by the gross once he'd reached the point of going through a pack a day.

Things gradually settled into a new normal (they still had their ups and downs, but that was normal too), until Barbara came home one evening, took one look at Jim's face, and knew something was Wrong.

"What happened?" she dropped her bag straight on the floor, not bothering to hang it up properly.

He looked shocky, dazed, and there was a slight tremor in his hands – adrenaline crash? His eyes were wide and it took him a moment to focus on her "So. I fought Bular today."

"Oh my god, Jim, are you alright?!" She began examining him for injuries, but he gently guided her hands away.

"I'm fine."

"I'll be there judge of that." She eyed him critically, but realized that with the glamor mask on, he could be disemboweled for all she knew. She tapped his chin. "Mask off."

He grumbled but complied, and pulled off his now-visible wide-brimmed sunhat while he was at it. She went to fetch her first aid bag, and snapped on a pair of sterile gloves.

"Any knocks to the head?" (if his armor wasn't going to provide anything to protect his skull, he should consider wearing his bike helmet, it would be better than nothing).

"Um." Either he didn't remember because adrenaline made his recollection of the fight's details blurry, or he was uncertain because he had taken a blow to his head and it had affected his memory.

Tipping his head down so she could see, for a moment she thought he had a really bad goose egg on the top of his head, but then recognized his horn growth for what it was. She hadn't had a close look in a while; Jim kept them well-covered whenever he had to take the mask off. They hadn't broken through yet; the skin on top was stretched tight, white and dead-looking. Hopefully that meant he wouldn't bleed too much when they did finally erupt. Besides those lumps, she didn't see any contusions, which was a relief.

She tried to check his pupil response; he snarled and flinched away from her penlight.

"Try to stay still this time, I need to check for concussion."

He managed it, with just a soft growl, and his pupils contracted evenly, though it was almost hard to see underneath reflective yellow eye-shine, like a cat. That was new.

Satisfied that he didn't have a brain injury, she continued her exam. She felt his ribs for cracks and bruises, listened to his breathing, checked the range of motion in his shoulders, where he was most likely to pull something, swinging that sword around.

At last confident that he wasn't going to keel over from internal hemorrhaging anytime soon, she let him duck into the kitchen to work off his lingering stress. After putting away the first aid kit, she followed.

"What are you making tonight?"

"Pork chops with yellow-pepper puttanesca. I got a couple really nice ones at the farmers market last week. "

"Oh, is it a new recipe?" It didn't sound familiar.

"Yeah. I've made puttanesca before, but not with bell peppers – this is a good season for them. Probably going to use up the last of the capers… "

He trailed off, talking more to himself than Barbara at that point. The transformation that came over Jim when he was cooking was almost incandescent. His shoulders relaxed, his movements became lighter, more fluid; when he was fully at ease he sometimes hummed, though tonight he wasn't yet at that point. At the moment, he was completely engrossed in prepping the bell peppers, swaying slightly as he worked.

Her attention was drawn to his hands, rinsing the vegetables in the sink – he'd taken his ever-present gloves off for the task, and she was not yet accustomed to the blue-gray skin that had appeared wherever his sunburns had peeled. She'd meant to look away, to stop staring, but instead her eyes caught on something, a mark on the still flesh-colored skin of his forearm.

Parallel lines of bruises encircling his right wrist, and without a thought she moved forward to push his sleeve up, revealing the full handprint of broken capillaries. The five-fingered handprint.

Not Bular. How many fingers did changelings have? Or was it… a human?

"Who did this?" she hissed, "Who grabbed you?"

"What?" Jim startled, confused, reflexively jerking his arm back. The motion caused him to wince, and he finally noticed the bruises. "No one! I mean, those are from Toby, when he saved my life. He probably has a matching set from where I grabbed him back."

"What happened? Why were you even fighting Bular?!" When Jim came home unscathed, that was enough for her, and she didn't want the details of how close it had been. It was a selfish desire, and she felt bad for feeling it, but it was honestly the only way she could cope with it all. She hoped that someday soon she would be strong enough to help shoulder more of the weight Jim carried, but for the time being, the idea of Jim being in mortal peril was still new enough that it cut her deeply every time she thought of it – and Jim noticed. So he gave sanitized and watered-down accounts, and she despised the part of her that was grateful.

When Jim came home safe, everything was fine and she didn't pry. When he came home injured - dredging up all the feelings of inadequacy and powerlessness she fought daily to ignore - then the good sense that said she'd be happier not knowing went out the window, and she needed to know.

Jim picked up the dropped pepper (fortunately it had landed in the sink) and began slicing it. He kept his attention on his task as he started to explain, about feeling nervous and the grit-shaka (oh, she was going to have words with Draal), and his reckless not-even-half-baked plan to confront Bular, and about Toby pulling him to safety.

"Mom, he said something, he said – Mom, Strickler is a changeling."

She took an involuntary step back, not sure if she heard correctly, trying to process.

Walter Call-me-Walt Strickler was a changeling, a shape-shifting troll. She had, unbeknownst to her, flirted with a troll. (She forcefully admonished herself, because that wasn't the issue at hand. Trolls were people, and her increasingly-trollish son was counting on her to internalize that down to her bones.)

Walter Strickler was a changeling, and Jim had found this out when fighting Bular. That would suggest that Strickler was working with Bular, and was not, in fact, just another troll like the ones Barbara had met in Trollmarket, albeit one who just so happened to have the ability to take on human form.

(were there any good changelings? The way Jim talked about them, it didn't sound like it. Why was that? Where did changelings come from, for that matter? – she'd only gotten to up to volume two of A Brief Recap, she knew next to nothing about changelings)

Walter – Jim's history teacher, who had showed such concern for his well-being – was in fact working to undermine her son specifically, and humanity in general. He was part of a faction actively seeking to kill her son.

And… he had been nice. He was an excellent conversationalist, and he took a genuine interest in what Barbara had to say. She'd met him for coffee several times after Jim and Toby's museum break-in (an altogether reckless adventure, even if it had been justified), and it had made her feel more like herself than she had in a long time. She'd felt like a person again, someone with thoughts and opinions, who was more than just the job she could perform. In fact she'd been entertaining the idea of inviting him over for dinner after a couple more weeks.

She'd been putting it off, wanting to make sure things were really getting serious with Walt, because bringing a man home to have dinner with her and her son was a Big Deal. It had been five years since – no, longer, Jim had been ten when she'd started dating Ted, so six years since she'd last brought someone over.

Barbara didn't date much. It wasn't a matter of 'not being over her ex,' as many had insinuated or outright said. She had Jim, and she had the clinic; krav maga classes on Wednesdays, when her schedule permitted, and sometimes she even squeezed in time for hobbies. Her life was full and fulfilling, and it wanted for nothing.

But she didn't live in a bubble. Sometimes, in the course of her life, being out and about, she'd meet someone she wanted to get to know better. Sometimes, those people were put off by the fact that she and Jim were a package deal, but then those people weren't worth her time. The ones who expressed earnest interest in how Jim was doing (not just perfunctory courtesy), those were the ones she'd ask out a second time, because they weren't thinking of Jim as something to be tolerated, but as a person who would be as much a part of their life as Barbara might be.

Jim had made a face when Barbara had first asked Walter out, but she'd thought he'd just needed time to warm up to the idea that his mother was dating anyone, and not a specific complaint against Walter. She knew how much of a disruption it would be to both their lives for her to start dating, which was why she was so particular about bringing someone home. Their house was very much a shared space between the two of them (she was proud of the fact that she had never once used the expression 'my house, my rules,' or any derivative thereof), and she didn't want to be someone who kept bringing new boyfriends home and putting the expectation on Jim that he'd make nice with people who he had not chosen to bring into in his life (the problem with Ted, in hindsight, was that he'd acted like he and Jim were already friends, instead of putting in the effort to actually become friends).

So the fact that she'd enjoyed Walt's company enough to continue their coffee dates, to consider bringing him home for dinner… the fact that she'd been able to foresee a future for the two of them… that all mattered.

And all the while, that slimy sonnuva was after her son, was… was using her to get close to him, or mess with him, or… whatever other plan he had, too devious for Barbara to even conceive.

It was a shock – a deep, vicious and visceral betrayal. But it wasn't as big a shock as trolls had been, she told herself firmly; she could get over it (and could resolutely ignore the little voice that whispered nastily that Barbara Lake just had terrible taste in men.)

"Mom? You okay?"

Barbara looked up. At some point she'd backed up all the way to the dividing wall, and was leaning against it heavily. Surprisingly, her eyes were dry, though they still ached. "I'm fine. Or, I will be," she corrected, conscious of the number of times she'd had to call out Jim for saying the same thing when it was clearly untrue. "I'll get out of your way, let you do your thing."

He nodded, still looking at her concerned, and Barbara let him get on with his cooking, thankful he had a such productive outlet to unwind with. She went upstairs to take a shower, blasting the water hotter than usual to ease her tense muscles, taking a moment to just breathe and Exist under the spray, before reflexive concerns about water conservation forced her to stop.

When she came downstairs, Jim was setting out plates. "So, I've been thinking..." he fiddled with the silverware (gloves once more covering his hands). "Strickler has to know the location of Killahead Bridge. We've had no luck so far, searching for it at random. Now that we have a lead, we need to act on this information."

"What you need, is a plan," she corrected. "And there's no sense doing that on an empty stomach."

Jim was reluctant to let the matter drop, but Barbara thought it did them both some good to just enjoy a delicious meal and set aside troll business for awhile.

They called Mr. Blinky after dinner and put him on speakerphone (she didn't know how anyone was able to get cell service in Trollmarket, but once Jim had incidentally revealed it was possible, she'd wasted no time adding Blinky to the family plan). Jim called Toby and Aaarrrgghh over via walkie talkie, and Barbara fetched Draal from the basement to complete their gathering.

In the end, they were able to pull together a serviceable plan in relatively little time. It took longer to convince Barbara to go along with it, but not as long as it took to convince Draal, who objected to the plan as well, but for very different reasons; namely that there wasn't enough dismembering involved. A part of Barbara couldn't even object that strenuously to Draal's idea.

She really, really didn't want to invite him over for dinner… but if she did, then they would know exactly where he was – and, significantly, where he wasn't, which would give Mr. Blinky, Toby, and Aaarrrgghh the chance to sneak into his office. Putting a stop to the rebuilding of Killahead Bridge was the only way to really and truly keep her son – and all of Arcadia – safe.

To do it, they needed information. And there was one man who had all the answers they were seeking.

Keep your enemies closer, right?

A/N: If there was room for another Kafka epigraph in the story summary, it would be "I usually solve problems by letting them devour me."