So much ambient noise comes from the courtyard outside, but Adya can’t help but hear static. She can’t stop the feedback loop in her head. Shannon’s bleeding wound. The excruciating shock of the EMP. The mall fight. General Morales’s iron grip on her arm. Val’s cold, metallic voice spewing needles at Nate.

All because of her.

She leans against the empty bathroom counter that’s remained almost useless since her arrival. Her eyes crawl over her appearance in the mirror-- stray hairs poking out of her ponytail at various odds and ends, dirt clinging to her t-shirt, and a new hole in the knee of her leggings. For someone who can’t really show bodily signs of stress, she sure looks like she’s been through the wringer. Adya pulls the elastic from her hair and tries to tame some of the loose ends with her fingers.

Do you look in the mirror and see yourself? 

The interviewer’s question went unanswered when Tristan burst in to tell her about Nate’s injury. She forgot that she just abandoned him in the courtyard. Hopefully he omits that part when the story gets published. Still, the question remains.

Following a gentle knock at the door is a head of frizzy, short hair poking through the opening. Elora steps in, slipping off her gray lab coat and folding it neatly before setting it on top of Adya’s dresser. She stands in comfortable silence against the back wall while Adya tries to put herself back together in front of the mirror.

“I’m not mad at you, honey,” she says.

“I think you should be,” Adya mutters. Thrown on top of the desk chair, she grabs her red sweatshirt and slips it over her head. “Go ahead, I can take it.”

The faint smell of citrus starts to float across the room when the lid pops off of a candle on the shelf above the desk. She runs her fingers over the wooden matchstick and admires the burning flame curiously before holding it up to the wick.

“Why did you do it?”

“I thought nobody was going to help them,” she explains. “The team was ordered to chase after the suspect and just leave the wounded there. I didn’t know that General Morales was going to show up with a medical team, but what difference does it make?” Adya shakes the match to put it out. “I met this woman-- Shannon. She had a huge gash on her arm and if I didn’t get there in time, she would’ve passed out and gotten worse before the medics showed up. There were probably more people like her that I never got to help.”

“Did you do what you thought was right?”

“Yes, but--”

“Adya,” insists Elora. Her voice reaches out and rests its motherly song on Adya’s shoulder. She finally turns around and lets their gazes meet when she settles onto the edge of her bed. “No two people are going to see ‘the right thing’ in the same way. Not me and you, not you and General Morales, not Nate and Valerie. I don’t care what is right in the future. I care that you thought it through and did what you believed was right in the present moment. That’s what it means to be an agent: always choosing the best option for those who need it.”

She rests her chin in her hand. “I think I kind of just blew my chances of being an agent. General Morales was furious with me.”

“That may be my fault. She had a habit of compromising herself to satisfy others. Perhaps I taught her a little too well.” Elora chuckles and looks down at her lap, as if holding a photobook of memories and leafing through it gently. Adya squints and the gears start to turn. 

“You trained the General?”

“I thought I told you that I worked for Goddard before I looked after you.”

“As a doctor! Not as a mentor!” Adya says with a scoff. Elora simply continues with a soft huff of laughter, light enough to balance on top of a feather.

“When Goddard was in its early days, there was no shortage of people ready to train cadets for combat. But teaching and training are two very different things. Carmen Morales was a bright, young woman who was more eager to train than she was to learn. She dove into trouble but always came out the other side knowing that she wasn’t doing it for herself.” Elora kneels at the edge of the bed and offers a playful punch into Adya’s arm. “Sound familiar?”

She rolls her eyes and flops back onto the bed. “This doesn’t change that she’s still mad at me.”

“Open yourself to learning first, Adya. Only then can you consider yourself well-trained.”

Elora plants a kiss on top of Adya’s head before grabbing her lab coat and saying her goodbyes. After shutting the door, the sliver of the bathroom mirror poking out from around the corner faces her with her own reflection. The stains on her sweatshirt seem to get bigger every time, even though it hasn’t touched an ounce of bleach in years. She sees… a machine. Someone made of zeroes and ones, young, ambitious, and foreign to her own body, even after all this time. The best bionics money can buy, and she’s the farthest thing from perfect.

But at the same time, a girl. The same one she’s always been. She smiles, knowing that she can be both. 

Nate throws back two painkillers with an ounce of water, steadying himself against the bathroom counter. All that remains of the bruising around his shoulder is a faint purple, but it’s still sore to the touch. He looks in the mirror and runs a delicate finger over the metal plating covering his right side. It gives the back of his right jaw a sort of chiseled shape, which is something his younger self would’ve loved. But he’s well past his date of wishing upon stars and worrying about first impressions. His touch travels over his cheek, where the color has finally returned to his skin. He offers a gentle smile at his reflection.

Val stands at the end of the hallway. In her right hand, a glass of wine-- in her left, a coffee cup. She offers the latter to Nate. Can we talk? the gesture asks.

Sure, Nate’s hand says when he accepts the cup and settles onto the couch.

“I owe you an apology,” she begins. “What I said and what I did was uncalled for. I shouldn’t have thrown you around like that.”

“It’s alright.” He takes a cautious sip once some of the steam starts to go away. “You did what you thought was right, and so did I. We can leave it at that.”

“Adya’s evaluation with Armstrong is soon. I think I’m more anxious than she is,” Val mentions, setting her glass onto the coffee table. She hugs her knees to her chest and curls up into the armchair. “She’s turning out more like you than I thought.”

Nate grimaces at the thought. “Don’t say that.”

Val shrugs. “It’s true. She’s eager and selfless and throws herself head first into danger…” Her hand slaps over her mouth. “Oh my God. I did it again. I’m--”

Nate huffs out a chuckle. “No, it’s okay. It was a little funny.”

A short silence, only occupied by the idle, low-volume chatter on the TV.

“Am I someone worth being like?” he says into his cup. Val stares out across the room for a while before she realizes it’s not rhetorical.

“You hauled your ass three thousand miles across the country in hopes that maybe, just maybe, you could be something. You played life by ear until you decided that you were done with people telling you what to do. And as much as I hate it when you don’t listen sometimes, I’m glad you have it in you to say no.”

“And then I took a boulder to the shoulder and made short use of my cadet.”

“I’m here to train her. Teaching her is a lot more important, and that’s still your job. At least, that’s what the General thinks. You’re a better lieutenant than I am, anyway,” she says, suggesting a smile. “And a better friend.” She finishes the final sip of wine. Nate reaches his hand out; she accepts it, latching onto his forearm for a brief moment before carrying their empty cups back into the kitchen.

A door flies open upstairs, producing an obnoxiously loud Tristan. A slightly quieter Murphy tumbles out after him.

“You motherfucker!” slurs Tristan. “I would’ve won, but you kept shoving me off the bed!”

“You are the sorest loser I know!” Murphy shouts back. “You’re lucky it’s only with video games. If you were like this during sparring practice, I’d beat your ass to hell and back.”

Nate takes another look at the wine bottle on the counter. He understands now why it’s damn near empty. A controller lies loosely in Murphy’s grip, running dangerously close to slipping out of his hand and breaking to pieces on the wood floor.

“You can be good at racing games, I can be good at puzzle games,” Tristan responds.

“I can be a lot of things,” Murphy mutters. He taps rhythmically on Tristan’s chest, growing ever closer to his roommate. “Besides being better at video games, of course.”

“Like annoying? And stupid? And bad at making stir fry?”

“Like, your boyfriend.” A brief silence before he follows it up with, “Also, my stir fry is good. You always make it too watery.”

Tristan chuckles and leans back against the railing with soft eyes. The two bodies in the living room stay as still as statues, but neither can help the growing grins. Here it comes, Nate thinks. “You are my boyfriend. I thought that it was implied.”

His voice is painfully matter-of-fact. Murphy hollers before hiding his face in Tristan’s chest. “You thought it was implied? I sure would’ve liked a heads-up that I was in a relationship!”

“You’re smart, I thought you had it figured out!” He pats Murphy on the head, wrapping his other arm around his shoulders. They stand in comfortable silence for a minute. When Nate looks over at Val, she violently shakes her head from side to side. Nate only nods and grins even wider.

A muffled laugh before he peels himself off of Tristan’s shirt. “Okay, well, maybe we can make it a little less implied. It might be nice.”

Sliding his hand over Murphy’s back and up to his neck, Tristan turns the thought over. “Do you promise to not cheat me out of a win next time?”

“I didn’t-- oh my God. Fine. Yes.”

“Then, sure.”

Tristan taps his forehead against Murphy’s with a peaceful smile. The boys only get to enjoy the moment for… a moment, however. As fast as he can without fainting, Nate shoots up from the couch.

“Yes!” he hollers. “What did I tell you, Val?”

She protests from the kitchen, metal fists hitting the counter. “How is there supposed to be a winner if there was no confession? It was just a mutual thing!”

“And Murphy initiated it, so I won.”

“No, no, no. You never outlined what constitutes a ‘confession’,” Val adds.

“They verbally acknowledged it, and that acknowledgment was brought on by Murphy! You’re just making up rules! You better give it up and lose with your dignity before you lose it entirely.”

Tristan and Murphy remain in stunned silence, still entangled in each others’ grasp. Their eyes dart between their two roommates. Tristan babbles through some sort of incoherent, clarifying statement, but never reaches the end. Murphy’s cheeks just get redder by the second.

Val slumps over onto the kitchen island with a sigh. “Might as well come celebrate by finishing this, boys,” she says, holding the wine bottle up to them. “Less dishes for me to do.”

Once upon a time, Nate would’ve drank to a victory. But he grabs his mug from the counter, pours another cup, and gives Val a pitiful pat on the back. His second cup of coffee tastes oddly sweeter than the first.