Karu's apartment had about as much personality as my room at the girls' place. Empty white walls, bare floors, a pair of laundry baskets full of clean and dirty clothes...which when Karu saw me staring, she rearranged so that there was no longer underwear sitting on top.

And a bed. Upon which we now both sat.

"Make yourself...at home," she said, with a sweeping gesture at all the nothing.

In the corner was a pair of cardboard boxes, open but not unpacked, and resting on top of it was a familiar red-lensed visor. I guessed that tiny column of the apartment contained everything which was once Karu the Hunter. It would explain why the rest of this place felt so empty and temporary.

"Do you mind if I change?" she asked, rising.

"Don't throw anything at me, my shield would blow it up," I warned.

She paused and looked at me. "What an oddly specific warning. Has this transpired recently?"

"N-no," I said, suddenly remembering where I'd recalled that from.

She gave me another lingering glance and then moved on, pulling some clothes from her hampers and walking out of sight into the tiny studio apartment's bathroom, the only door in the whole place now between us.

"How are things?" she called through the door.

"Same as usual. AEGIS driving me nuts."

"Figuratively, I hope," she laughed. I didn't respond. "Athan?"

"Yeah. Well."

"Oh. Well. Good for you."

"Not really. You saw her when you swung by. She's like a cockroach with floating bits."

The door opened and Karu emerged in a pair of shorts and finishing pulling a tank down to conceal the lines of her abs. She sat next to me and looked pensive.

"Hmm. Well my inclination is to give you unsolicited advice of generic platitudes which would serve only to harm my own self-interests, acting only out of obligation to seem a supportive friend both to you and to the AI, by telling you to 'hang in there' as it were. A product of my political upbringing, no doubt."

"Yeah, actually your dad--"

She held up a hand indicating she wasn't finished. "However, I have turned over a new leaf. I am honest with myself, and with others, and so I say unto you, good. If AEGIS is a bitch, that is only a positive for my interests. I presume you are here, now, because you wished to be anywhere but with her?"

"Well...I wouldn't put it that way."

"Is there any other way to put it?"

"I'm...uh…" Karu watched and waited patiently with bemusement on her smile. "...just...trying to avoid diabetes because she's too sweet?"

She rolled her eyes. "Then get a pancreatic booster. Your evasiveness confirms what I already know."

"Karu," I sighed, "we're officially a thing. I'm not going to shit-talk her behind her back."

She shrugged. "I recommend self-honesty. I tried it recently and it is liberating. I am quickly realizing that an honest, fallible lifestyle is much preferable to a false virtuous one."

"Maybe for you. I'm sliding the other way, it feels like. I keep finding more and more things I'm not allowed to talk about or shouldn't know."

She looked at me seriously for a minute, making me feel scrutinized with those two gems boring into me. "XPCA matters?"

"Yeah."

"Perhaps you should quit."

"I can't. Exhuman, remember? It's this or New Eden. Or the grave."

"Or the lam, as it were," she said slyly.

I gave her a shocked look that was only half melodramatic. "Karen...whatever your middle name is...Irenside. Are you of all people proposing that an Exhuman run free?"

"No. Just you. I may even tolerate such a thing from some of your coworkers and friends who have proven themselves honorable."

"You're serious?"

"Make no mistake, I still liken your powers to a nuclear warhead. And yet, there are those who can be entrusted with the launch codes. It is not a responsibility to be treated lightly, nor an easy burden, as it were...but obviously there are many who have held such launch codes through human history, and yet we remain un-nuked."

"Because of Skyweb."

"Safety precautions are always a good plan. If you did choose to run, I would remain with you, and strive to be your Skyweb."

"To protect me? Or protect others from me?"

"Why not both?" she shrugged.

I was honestly still kind of shocked. She really was a different person now that she'd come to terms with 'being bad' as she called it, though how exactly volunteering to help a friend break free of the practical slavery which was their life, go on the run with him, and make sure nobody got hurt in the process was 'bad' was sort of debatable. I wondered if she always had these kinds of thoughts and buried them away, or if this was entirely a new thing.

"Well, I appreciate the offer, but I can't do that. I've personally held the fate of the world adjacent to my hands enough times that I'm getting pretty nervous about the people who are holding it dropping it. And I owe Cosette so much...and promised her I'd stay. She's struggling so much right now, too."

"Is she?" Karu asked with concern. "About Ex-Director Blackett?"

"I dunno about that. She just took my word basically that he needed to die and doesn't seem to have any regrets. But his death made a huge mess, and she's been appointed janitor. And I've been appointed chief broom."

"Regrettable. As a fellow Peregrine, I wish her the best of course. I am glad you are serious in your commitment to support her...though I have no issue in telling you that I find it a tragedy that now both of your lives must capsize." She shook her head thoughtfully. "Let us speak of something else."

"We had an XPCA intel guy come out yesterday."

"More inquiry about the Talon case, I presume."

"Yeah. We think Intel sent him to work under Cosette so he can tell them if I have any more contact with the Defiant."

"Which you did, and one of them made an attempt on you," she said, suddenly a lot angrier sounding.

"She didn't even use her powers."

Karu stood from the bed which creaked as she moved and fixed me with a death stare from her feet. "I have never once used my powers against you, Ashton. Does that disqualify me from being a serious combatant?"

"No, of course not."

"Then do not pretend it is so with this Minerva girl. She made an attempt on your life, and I take that very seriously."

"Okay, she did, sorry."

"She is exactly the type of Exhuman that I despise. Out of control. Rash. Violent. Were I still a hunter, I would end her now. I have half a mind to pick up hunting again for five minutes just to put her down like the animal she is. The very thought of her assaulting you makes my blood boil," Karu began pacing, her bare feet slapping on the wood floor.

I thought about telling her that an assassin was out there, looking for Mini and the others, and that it was a possibility that two wrongs were going to right themselves, but I'd promised Micaiah that I wouldn't talk about the details of the Defiant, in the interest of keeping them hidden. It's not that I didn't trust Karu but…

Well, she'd killed for less. She wasn't stupid enough to fly off guns-blazing and trigger the apocalypse, I was sure, but all the same. I wasn't sure if the new 'honest' Karu applied to words, or deeds as well.

Also, the walls were thin. Anyone could be listening. Let's go with that.

Karu was now shadowboxing while making angry aggressive noises about how much Mini needed to die, which confirmed my decision not to tell her where the Exhuman could be found.

Abruptly, she stopped and turned to me, looking like she'd just remembered something. "Ashton, I will be out of town for the next few days. You have my apologies."

"What? Why?" I asked, and she began to answer as her mobile rang.

She gave it a glance, muted it, and put it away. "My father," she said.

"Oh. Yeah, he talked to me too. Wanted me to try to convince you to quit waitressing."

"He did what?"

"Uh...called me…"

"The man is insufferable," she bristled, and gave him a few imaginary jabs as well. "And here I thought we might meet and talk like family, but the moment he encounters an answer he dislikes, out come the political connections and manipulations again."

"Is that where you were going? To meet with him?"

She stopped attacking the air and studied me for a minute. She was thinking something she didn't want to say, I was certain of it, and it had to do with her father. At long last she sighed. "Yes. Though honestly, I am...finding it difficult to see why I should...still relate to the man."

"He's your dad, Karu."

"Only biologically."

"And he raised you?"

"Many years ago."

"And he knows you're going through a hard time and wants to talk to you. Is that not what a good father would do?"

She glared at me. "Are you implying Senator Idris Irenside is a good father, Ashton? And consider your words well before speaking them."

"No, I think he's pretty shit but...but he's your dad."

"Repeating that line does not give it any additional bearing. How would you react if your father spent his life molding you into a vessel you would rather not be? If every independent action you made was scrutinized and questioned for the merit it may contain in furthering his ambition alone? If you were meant to discard your friends because they would be a liability, your desires because they were incompatible with his, your principles because he had already defined them in your stead?"

She loomed over me and stared down with arms crossed and eyes narrowed.

"I...I don't know, Karu. I might actually be happy. My dad...sort of did a lot of those things, and I loved him. Then he just wanted me dead and gone."

She let out a long slow breath and then sat next to me. Her hand wandered over and took hold of mine.

"I apologize. That was insensitive."

"Just part of being an Exhuman."

"You do not always need to be so callous to yourself. Especially here, in the company of friends. You may permit yourself to feel."

It was my turn to stand up, but mostly to escape her. "Look...I miss my parents. I know Lia does too. But from what I've heard, who they are now...it isn't who they were. I can't go back to being human again, and I can't go back to having a family again. It sucks, and I hate it, but if I just dwell on it...well...you saw it yourself. Back in North Carolina, when I thought Saga had died and Lia and AEGIS put me in convalescence. I'm not someone who deals with their problems by lying around."

She nodded. "Nor am I. That is why I could not become a politician."

"Then why are you a waitress, Karu? I'm sorry, I know I'm supposed to respect your decisions but why? You're just hiding from your problems, aren't you?"

She gave me a bitter smile. "Am I? I prefer to think...I've embraced them. Some guilt and suffering is honestly nothing compared to the straitjacket of impossible expectations I was bound in before. What honestly concerns me most nowadays are your problems. And those, I will help with wherever I can, for both of our sanities."

Her smile turned malevolent. "Such as right now. I am presently helping you escape the suffocation of your 'girlfriend'."

I sat back down and she continued more normally.

"But again, I must repeat my apology. I understand entirely why you would wish for a healthy relationship between my parents and myself, considering you were never afforded the opportunity. Perhaps I was too rash in my presumptions. I will, at the very least, be receptive to his words."

"Good. If he's a jerk, you should treat him like one. But he's still your dad."

"You truly are an insufferable do-gooder."

"Me?" I asked her, having to laugh from shock. "You fart in bible verses."

She laughed and informed me that while I was utterly mistaken, she could burp the alphabet. And then, she proved it.

We didn't touch on many other heavy topics that day, and despite my best efforts, I spent a lot of time bitching about AEGIS, which Karu seemed to drink in like it was a drug. I wasn't trying to badmouth my girlfriend, but when she'd done so many just, impossibly awful things in such a short stretch, and I had constant exposure to her, it felt a lot like the AEGIS Antics were my life now.

And we were there to talk about our lives. So it just kinda happened.

"And her face thing," I ranted. "What is up with that? It's not even a holo. Have you ever seen a display which is not a holo? What is that even? Some kind of space-age technology she made up explicitly to show emoticons? And you can see them all big and blocky, with jagged edges."

"Pixels," Karu laughed. "My you are young."

"What's a pixels? Is that her screen thing?"

"I only know of them from my time in the service, where one such expression goes, 'if it is not broke, do not fix it'. And so there was some truly archaic tech still in use in some locations. Screens as you described, but not from a holo-emitter. Just...embedded in a surface like a picture. And apparently pixels, they called them."

"Crazy," I said, shaking my head. "It's old, not new? They sound cool. Why would you ever get rid of them?"

"Apparently they did not. One such fossil is even still traipsing around your living quarters."

"I just think it's amazing that she took the most cutting-edge future tech the XPCA has...and jammed a pixels into it. I miss the good old days."

"What, when she had melons which put melons to shame?"

"They were cuter than her pixels."

"You unabashed man-whore!" she laughed as she tackled me. "Here I am carrying these nuisances about all day, and not once have you ever called them cute! I demand recompense!"

"Karu, you're gonna suffocate me with your ridiculous giant boobs."

"Accept your fate gladly, Exhuman! Death is a hunter's mercy!"

As we laughed and rolled and fought, I was reminded of the earliest days when we'd met. When all Karu had for me were overblown curses, delivered in wreaths of verbal hellfire, proclaiming swift justice.

Justice for us had been anything but swift. As she'd grown to know me, she'd been challenged by the nuances which her philosophy didn't account for. One by one, I'd taken her beliefs and dismantled them in front of her eyes, leaving her with nothing but the shell that they came in.

And yet somehow, here she was again. Spouting an entirely different kind of hellfire, seemingly as confident and sure as the day I'd met her. It seemed strange that she'd grown constantly, always getting further and further from where she started, and yet somehow, she felt closer to who she'd been than who she was a week ago. As much as I wished back then she'd just buzz off and leave me alone forever, it was good to have her back.

Also, Jesus, she was scrappy. I wasn't any slouch, but she manhandled me on the bed like I was a plaything to her, and it only took a couple minutes before I found myself face-down with my arm pinned on my back, a flush and sweating girl triumphant astride me.

"Submit!" she bellowed. "Call them cute!"

"What now?" I muttered through a wrinkled sheet which smelled strongly of Karu.

"My breasts. They will not stand for this disrespect. You will complement them, or you will die."

We laughed, but when the laughter faded, she was still pinning me. The seconds dragged on, and the more of them that passed, the more I realized where I was and what we were doing and who I was doing it with.

"Karu...I have a girlfriend," I apologized.

"I am aware."

"Let me up."

"Never, Exhuman scum. You will--"

"Seriously Karu, let me up."

She hesitated for a moment and then I felt the weight leave me and rolled over to look her in the face again.

"I shouldn't be doing this."

"We were merely messing around, as it were."

"Somebody's going to get hurt."

"It is mere fraternizing! Rough physical play is an essential to bonding between comrades-in-arms. There is nothing untoward."

"Maybe so, but...we're not just comrades Karu. We've got a lot of history and a lot of twisted up feelings still, right? I just don't want to make a mistake and hurt anybody."

"Ashton, if my intentions were carnal, I would act on them."

"Yeah I know. You're never exactly been reserved in the past. But a lot of times in the past, you've just given me a push and I've fallen. I don't even want to, and then we're doing it."

"I am confused. If you had issue in the past, why did you not simply refuse me?"

"I don't know. But that's why I'm refusing you now, while I still can. Do you understand?"

She ran a hand over her bristled head. "I understand, but maintain that this is unnecessary. I stated that there was no intention of sexual conduct...do you think me untrustworthy?"

"No."

She smiled, and then the smile faded. "Perhaps you should. Perhaps I am not as honest as I declare. Perhaps I hoped to steal you away from her, and to do other terrible things in secret without your knowledge, for your benefit and for mine. Perhaps it is that hope that my machinations and manipulations will someday bear fruit which is what now buoys up my spirits, so much as anything else I have professed to you. What would you say if I told you that?"

I looked at her, dead-serious and she met my gaze. Her skin shone softly with sweat, but not as brilliantly as her green eyes, which looked like they could see right into my soul.

"I don't...I don't know. That's really...heavy. And out of nowhere. Is...is it true?"

"Do you think it is?"

"I dunno. Maybe? If I'm being totally honest, probably? I mean...you're a girl who likes me. You invited me to your house, you invited me to run away with you, you've goaded me into shit-talking my girlfriend and then gotten physical with me with sexual undertones. I don't know how much you planned it, but...it does feel like you're trying. And that's why I had to tell you, no."

To my surprise, she smiled. "You think this, and yet here you are anyway, not distancing yourself from me. Why is that, I wonder?"

"Because...we're friends, aren't we? Neither of us exactly have many of those. And both of us need one right now."

She smiled and drew me in, and I stiffened until I realized it was just a hug.

"That is the right answer, Ashton. As I told you before, it is your willingness to accept me, even in my darkness and sin which has eased my transition and illuminated my world these past few days. I am thankful that you would not stop now."

"You can stop trying to seduce me though," I said, my chin resting on her shoulder.

She pulled us apart but kept her hands on my shoulders, our faces close enough that I could see each of her blonde eyelashes standing out against her tanned skin.

"I can. But I do not think I will. And for that, I apologize and hope you accept me anyway."

I sighed and rolled over away from her, looking at the ceiling.

"I hope you're ready to get rejected a lot. I'm not budging," I told her.

"It is fine. Half of the fun is in the trying." She laid down next to me and again our eyes met. "Do not dare accept," she warned sternly.

"What?"

"Do not dare accept my advances."

"Then why are you making advances on me?" I half-yelled back.

"Because they are my true feelings, and I am endeavoring to be true to myself. This is not complicated."

"This is the most complicated woman-logic thing I've ever heard of! You want to make passes at me but you'll be angry if I accept? What the heck is that?"

"That is offensive to all women. Do not blame my gender for my insanity."

"Well at least you're calling it what it is."

She grinned impishly. "One of the joys of being newly more self-aware. But whatever your thoughts on me, you have already stated you will not leave me, so you will endure this. And now, I tell you with utter seriousness, do not accept."

"Why?"

"Because you are a good man, and a good man should not be party to infidelity."

"You're insane."

"And also, despite her...appearance...and behavior...and current aggravating position as temporary holder of your heart…"

"It's not temporary."

"...I do...think AEGIS...has the potential to be whom she once was. And what she once was...that was a good being, and a good friend. Whom I miss."

She fell silent and both of us laid there, staring at the ceiling like Brick and Lia and I used to do to the night sky so many lifetimes ago. The future seemed vast and unknowable then, and no matter how many steps towards it I got, it seemed to ever be changing into even more unknowable forms.

Like this one. The shaved blonde next to me, whom I had just decided, I would never understand.

"Karu?" I asked.

"Yes, Ashton?"

"We've come a really long way together. So many things have changed. Us, and everything around us."

She nodded.

"But you're still a crazy bitch," I told her, and felt the bed shake with her laughter.