I reached down to the side of the crater. The scene of my mom showing actual vulnerability after giving us the ‘talk’ at my aunt’s house changed to her sitting with me at the hospital. My uncle at the same time and place in his house, desperately trying to ensure we wouldn’t become our own worst enemies when we faced the worst days of our lives, one hand on his son’s shoulder. The image changed to him showing a younger me how to swing a bat.

Dean, on the rooftop. The image dropped away. It became Dean and me at school, him and me stealing away to a corner of the library. Anyone seeing might have thought we were doing it to sneak a kiss or makeout session. He’d shown me his latest war wound, a cut at his shoulder. I showed him my back, a giant bruise after a bad landing midway through a fight. He couldn’t show weakness to his parents, because they didn’t brook weakness. When it came to his teammates and the PRT staff, he could read their emotions and he could sense the degree to which they cared and didn’t care. Through some combination of that and his unwillingness to show weakness that might see him getting less shifts, responsibilities and power, he didn’t tell them when he was hurt, hurting, or scared.

I couldn’t tell my family, for much the same reason. But in that spot in the library, I could put my head against his shoulder, his cheek against my forehead, and we could share our weaknesses and somehow make the us stronger.

I wanted to curl up into a fetal position, lie down here, and soak in every single one of these memories and ideas. Affirmations where I’d been left thinking there was only emptiness. I couldn’t, when there were other things to do and an anxious kid at the crater’s edge, but I wanted to.

The only thing that would tie these people together would be if they were the sources of my powers. And as much as my family had tried to prepare me for the fact that the powers came from a dark place…

Mine didn’t. At least, not like this.

“A little spooked,” Chicken Little said.

“Can’t have that,” I said. I tore myself away from the images, and floated over his way. “Sorry.”

“You’re okay?”

“I am better than I think I’ve ever been, Chicken Little.”

“Oh?” he asked. He looked a bit confused. “Okay.”

I looked up at the crack that loomed high above us.

It felt like it was only now that the magnitude of what we were fighting was clear in front of me. It felt like it was only now that the scale of what I’d been struggling with was becoming clear.