“So long as I have Victoria, and my mom,” she said. She looked up, and noted that her mom was gone.

That put a bit of a damper on what she was trying to say.

“I’d worry about Victoria if I were to move on.”

“We’ll all worry about Victoria, I think. But I’ll look after her. I promise.”

Crystal watched as her mom made her approach, flying over from the settlement’s edge.

“Keep in touch?” she asked. She touched his shoulder as she floated up.

“I have to figure out what I’m doing,” he said. “I’d need to feel like there’s more of a purpose.”

She gave his shoulder a pat, then flew to her mom.

“…aides aren’t exactly happy,” her mom was saying.

Carol smiled.

“What’s this?” Crystal asked, flying over and around her mom, her food still in one hand. “Catch me up?”

“They want help,” Carol said. “They’re wondering if they want Madewell making these calls.”

“They’ll wave me down again when they’ve decided. We’ll hear a verdict in another fifteen minutes or so,” Crystal’s mom said.

“We should take to the air and keep an eye out, then, huh?” Crystal asked.

Her mom smiled.

The two of them took to the air, floating up and above the group.

“It’s changing,” Crystal mused. “It’s subtle, but it’s changing.”

“Tell me how,” her mom said.

The phrasing felt off, awkward. Crystal felt a complicated mess of emotions in her upper chest, like words she couldn’t get out or decipher. Her mom but not her mom. Her family but… splintered. Victoria was elsewhere. She was only here because the PRTCJ had disbanded. So long as she had family, like she’d told Uncle Mark, she was content.

But… family seemed so alien sometimes. So indecipherable.

“Before, it felt like five percent of the civilians out there were diehard advocates for capes. Five or ten or fifteen percent hated us but couldn’t do much about it. The rest were frustrated and helpless, just trying to survive.”

Her mother nodded.

“I don’t feel comfortable around any of them. The advocates, the helpless, the ones that hate us. I kind of just… left.”

“A lot of capes did.”

“It’s different now. We need them and they need us. We’ve created a kind of interdependence. Victoria played a big role in that.”

“Do you know what your role is?”

“I’m comfortable. I’m happy, but—”

“Comfortable isn’t enough.”

Crystal looked down at her uncle.

“So what’s your role, Crystal?” her mother asked.

Crystal looked at the woman and saw alien eyes, touched by powers. Not the eyes that she’d seen when she was a baby. Not the eyes she’d seen when they’d been mourning Eric and Dad. She looked away, regretting that eye contact.

“Saying you don’t know is a valid answer.”