The car had started at the end of the road, moving at maybe thirty miles an hour, and it was halfway to us.

“Can I give you a hug?” I asked.

She shook her head, shifting her weight, still wearing a smile, even if it wasn’t the scarily sad and sweet smile I’d seen earlier, that would forever be ingrained in my mind as an expression that was indelibly Kenzie.

“I know I’m sick, but would it be sufficient excuse if I said I was the one who wanted or needed a hug?”

“That’s cheating,” Kenzie said, quiet.

“A bit.”

“And the answer’s still no. I shouldn’t be hugging anyone right now.”

I nodded.

“You’re usually safe,” Kenzie said. “But if I let myself slide with you, then I slide with others, and I really, really can’t slide right now.”

“Okay,” I said.

The car had to stop, because the snow piled up at the front was slowing it down. It backed up, then began to drive over the hump that had been created.

Why am I usually safe? I wondered.

I couldn’t dwell on it. Not when there were bigger concerns.

Had Kenzie confessed these desperate feelings to me earlier, I wasn’t sure I would have arranged this.

The car stopped. I opened the door for Kenzie, kicking aside a bit of snow so the door would open all the way and close without scooping in a heaping of snow with it.

“Sorry to have you come all this way,” I said.

“Not too long a trip,” Natalie said. “But the roads are awful.”

Past a certain point.

Rather than open another door, I climbed into the back, while Kenzie scooted across the back seat.

“Project done?” I asked Natalie.

“Yeah. A lot of last minute changes. Being more aggressive, laying out more rules. We really missed having your mom there.”

“What project?” Kenzie asked.

“New laws and rules. Figuring out consequences we could levy against parahumans that don’t rely on prison. I ended up using a lot of what I observed and saw.”

“Do I need to be worried?” I asked.

“No. Nothing targeting you. I did make an argument at one point that if we didn’t make parahumans listen to us or include us, they wouldn’t,” Natalie said.

I sat with that for a bit, aware Kenzie was looking at me. I conceded, “Fair.”

“It’s my fault as much as anyone’s. I could have been more insistent when I had issues, but I wasn’t. I was being paid to be available, and past a point you didn’t need me to counsel you on the work you were doing. I get that.” Natalie glanced at me in the rear-view mirror.

“A lot of what we were doing wasn’t hero work,” I said. “Aftermath of the Fallen, investigations that started and ended with cape business, Goddess, diplomacy…”