“How is she?” Dr. Yamada asked, sipping from a cup of tea.

  “Physically? Fine,” Gallant replied, turning away from the hideous shades of her emotions. “Otherwise...she needs help, doctor. I...don't know what to do.” He balled up his hands into fists, the gauntlets still stained red. The doctor sighed.

  “I don't know either, Dean,” she admitted. “Terrible thing for a doctor to say, but it's true. What you've described...it doesn't make sense without a trigger.”

  “I know,” he said, almost a whisper. He remembered that awful, oily, black-blue suicidal urge when she answered the door the other day. “I saw her the day before though and she was...fine.” Dean pulled off his helmet and shook his head. “Well no, not fine, she was... Sorry, getting carried away. What I mean is she wasn't like this and then today...”

  “Today?” He slumped in his chair, holding his face in his hands.

  “Miss Militia's dead,” Dean choked out as his throat began closing. “Armsmaster was seriously injured, and now Amaranth...” He looked up and saw her, eyes closed. She wasn't asleep, her spectrum the same as waking, but she hadn't opened them since he recovered her. “I just wish I knew what happened.”

  “Unfortunately, I think we both know the answer to that.” Dean sighed and nodded slowly. “For what it's worth, I'm sorry. The moment she's lucid I'll clear my schedule, but I can't have a conversation with someone who won't speak to anybody.” Yamada rose and put a hand on Dean's pauldron. “Take care of yourself Dean, please. I know you have a good heart, but if you keep taking on other peoples' sorrows, it's going to break.”

  The door shut behind her and Dean was left alone. He sighed and ran gauntleted fingers through his hair. Everyone down in the infirmary was cleared to see maskless heroes, but sometimes it still felt weird being around a bunch of civilians without his face on.

  An odd thought, hopefully Vista wasn't starting to rub off on him. Dean loved the kid like a little sister, and she felt...more complicated than that. He remembered when she came to him and asked him to call her 'Vista' instead of 'Missy'. Dean had obliged, but rare was the day he saw her and didn't question that choice. Like every choice he made with Amaranth.

  Part of him wished for the simpler days of reaching out to a lonely girl and trying to give her a friend group to call her own. Back then he had Vicky to help him, and even Amy at least tried to make her feel welcome. But now he was alone, the city was a mess, and so were the people he cared about.

  He sighed and rose from his seat, leaving the little observation room he'd been speaking with Dr. Yamada in. She was having her own trouble too, with her schedule constantly being disrupted by the various attacks on the headquarters and dealing with increasingly exhausted and testy heroes.

  The door to Amaranth's room opened and Dean walked in, sitting heavily in the chair next to her bed. The usual machinery was silent, unable to read her biometrics through her force-field. Lia hadn't been willing to move it either, simply ignoring any and all requests. Piggot and Battery were worried about Master influence but that was stupid; they hadn't seen what Dean had. Who could expect the girl to be responsive after that?

  “I'm sorry,” he whispered, swallowing against the growing tightness in his throat. “I'm sorry Lia, I should have been there sooner. I'm sorry about Miss Militia, I'm sorry he--” Dean took a shuddering breath and blinked rapidly. “Armsmaster survived an attack from the Nine too, he's just down the hall. Everyone else is okay, even Shadow Stalker. She's...sort of pissed about the pepper spray, but she said she's glad you did it.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “I know everyone wants answers, because you're a precog,” Dean continued hoarsely. “And I sort of know what it's like. I'm the Wards' leader now, everyone comes to me for answers. And they should be able to, you know?” He knew he shouldn't be venting to a patient like this, but he could see her mood changing. Not for the better...but not for the worse either. “I don't have all the answers though and...and I know you don't either. I have to ask though and god I hope you forgive me but, please, if you remember anything else, tell me. I can't...can't lose anyone else.”

  For the first time since he wrapped his arms around her and bundled her into the back of a PRT van, Lia opened her eyes. The scleras were blood-red, contrasting the dull grey irises inside. She didn't look at Dean, didn't really look anywhere if she was even seeing anything at all. Slowly, her head turned towards him. Her cracked lips parted to let her tongue tend to them, eyes flicking down to the bed, then back up to meet his eyes. She reached up and grabbed the collar of his armour, tugging on it weakly. Dean bent down at her demand, until she stopped him with her lips just next to his ears.

  “Amy,” she croaked in a voice closer to a crow than a person. “”Tonight, six, Bonesaw is coming for her. You--” A choked sob escaped Lia's lips. “Tell no one, not even Vicky. Just...go, help.” She let him go and slumped back on the bed.

  “What do you mean?” He asked, voice shaking. Lia just shook her head and put a finger to her lips, then pointed at a security camera in the corner. “You don't want--” She shook her head violently enough that he stopped, bruise-purple paranoia almost blinding. “Okay, okay...why?”

  “Fucks it up,” she whispered, barely audible. “I fuck it up. You...maybe.” She met his eyes, her emotional palette shot through with the scintillating orange of anxiety and the ever-present, sickeningly deep black dread. He'd never met a precog like this... “Please.”

  “Okay.” Dean had always been weak to desperate pleas, and he could see just how desperate Lia was. “I'll go, okay? I'll try and help. Can you tell me anything else?” She just shook her head, tears starting to fall. “Okay, okay. Thank you Lia just...thank you.” She nodded slowly and shut her eyes again.

  He waited a few more minutes there, leaning over her bed though not quite as intimately as he'd been pulled in before. That had been...a little weird, but made sense considering how she felt about being watched. Dean didn't know why she felt like that, but he wasn't going to question it either under the circumstances.

  Finally, he rose and put his helmet back on, sealing the visor shut around his mouth. He headed out into the main infirmary, then up the elevator to the Ward quarters. Vista and Chris paused their conversation to greet him, their palettes shot through with the mossy green-grey of grief. Vista had been crying, and he offered her a brief hug before trudging off to his quarters. He wished he could do more.

  Dean sealed the door shut behind him and sat heavily on his mattress. He pulled off his helmet and tossed it onto the pillow, then shucked his gauntlets. Lia's warning hung heavily over his head, a Damoclesian sword he would never envy as long as he lived. It was practically unbelievable, Amy a nominee for the Nine? Why? Sure she had her issues, but she was a good person.

  But Armsmaster had been too. He'd had a serious lapse in judgement and definitely needed justice, but he had always been good. And then Lia, her patrol all killed presumably by Jack Slash, with her left behind, bloody knife in hand. She hadn't done it but she'd done something, and she wasn't saying a word. Dean had a sickening feeling what had happened to her now though; the same as would happen to Amy.

  He rose and stepped over to his closet, grabbing an oversized hoodie and sweats. Originally, he'd got these after he and Vicky started dating. They slipped easily over his armour, hiding most of it from view. It made him look jacked too, something he certainly didn't mind. Dean put his helmet and gauntlets in his bag, muffling them with some more clothes.

  Six wasn't far off, he just hope he'd make it.