Cap examined Aquila as she lay in the bed, her eyes closed and her breathing soft but shallow. Kasumi sat beside her, holding her hand. Outside of the master bedroom, the others waited by the door, Aquila’s coat hanging from the doorknob where Kasumi had put it.

    “This is exhaustion,” Cap said. He focused his hearing on her heartbeat. It was thready. “She’s lucky to be alive.”

    “I thought exhaustion by itself couldn’t kill somebody,” Kasumi said.

    “She’s had organ damage from blood loss, remember,” Cap said. “Back when she was wounded on Daiki’s Yamato’s world. Her organs were shutting down by the time I got her to that aid station.”

    Kasumi sighed. “Yes, I remember. The healers told me that her heart wasn’t likely to be as strong as it used to be after she recovered, but I was hoping they’d be wrong.”

    “I’m sorry, but I don’t think they were,” Cap said. “When was the last time she slept?”

    Kasumi shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

    “When was the last time you saw her sleep?”

    “Not since we discovered the murder.”

    Cap cursed under his breath. “I thought we had gotten her past doing stuff like this!”

    “She doesn’t feel like she has to atone for it anymore,” Kasumi said. “That’s more than I could have hoped for back when you first met us. But, she still hates herself for what she did back then...and...and I don’t know how to get her the rest of the way there. I just don’t know how to reach her. I had hoped with how much you had been able to help her that you would know, but...” She sighed. “I guess you don’t.”

    “I’m sorry,” Cap said. “I was never the villain in my war. I was fighting Nazis, and all the lives I took were justified. It was meeting the families they left behind that made me decide to never take another life. I can barely imagine what it would feel like to know that none of the lives you took were justified. I wish I could do more, but I’m as much at a loss as you are here.”

    “But she was lost!” Kasumi declared, a tear running down her cheek. “The only reason any of it happened was that she was hurting, and lost, and nobody knew how to help her! And the information streams brought everybody she killed back to life in their stories anyway! And if our fears are right about how the information stream treats duplicates, and all the survivors who went back were erased instead of merged with their replacements in their story worlds...then the only place her war now exists in the story worlds is in her memory. How do I stop her from tearing herself apart over a war that’s been erased from existence?”

    “I wish I knew,” Cap said. “I’m sorry.”

    “So what now?”

    “If we’re lucky, she’ll sleep for at least two days,” Cap replied. “If we’re unlucky, she’ll sleep for less than that, wake up, and try to do something. Either way, she needs to rest. We’re here for at least a week. Don’t use your sketchbook until she wakes up on her own.”

    Kasumi gave him a fragile smile. “Thank you.”

    “I’ll leave you two alone,” Cap said, and then stepped out of the room. Natsuki, Yuri, Sayori, and Yukari all stared at him.

    “I’m guessing you all heard what was said in there?”

    Yuri and Natsuki nodded.

    “Well, that’s all there is to it,” Cap stated. “Wait and see, and try to rest up. We’re here for a while.”

    “I want to get some fresh air,” Yuri said, taking his hand. “Come with me?”

    Cap hesitated. She’s only twenty, he thought. And I’m a hundred and seven, and I can never give her the life she wants. How long can I let this go on?

    Yuri stared into his eyes. “Please,” she said. “I really need somebody to hold me right now.”

    “I suppose the temperature won’t have dropped too much yet,” Cap said, letting her lead him outside and around to the side of the house. The air was cool, but still. She embraced him, and he gingerly wrapped his arms around her.

    “It’s really bad, isn’t it,” Yuri said.

    Cap nodded. “In the time I’ve known Aquila, I’ve seen her face death at least three times. We’ve fought together against an army of demons, and we’ve stood on a world in the middle of being created where the information stream could have killed us at any moment. I’ve seen her stoic, I’ve seen her be cocky, I’ve seen her be cautious, but I’ve never seen her like this.”

    “Like what?”

    “Terrified,” Cap said. “She’s been terrified since the murder. She hides it well, but when you know her as well as I do, you can see it.”

    Yuri buried her face in his chest. “I think I’d like to stay with you tonight.”

    Cap chuckled. “You really make me wish I was eighty years younger.”

    Yuri looked up at him with a scowl. “How many times do I have to tell you that I like older men? I’m not bothered by how much older you are. I’ve never been bothered by that!”

    “It’s not that,” Cap said with a sigh. “Well, not just that. Eighty years ago, it was just after the war, and I didn’t have all the powers I do now. I was just Matthew Markham, and when I had time and the city needed me, I would put on my costume and become ‘Captain Infinite’. I didn’t have the laser eyes, I couldn’t fly, and I could live a normal life with somebody I loved. And, I tried.”

    “Who was she?” Yuri asked, wiping a tear from his cheek that he didn’t realize he had shed.

    “Her name was Janey,” Cap replied. “Janey Jamison. I met her back in ‘41 when I got my job at the World News. She was the first woman the paper had ever hired as an investigative reporter, and she was damned good. She figured out that I was this superhero who had been protecting the city within a week of meeting me. We were dating by the time I went to war. And when I got back at the beginning of ‘46, we started getting serious and began talking about possibly getting married.

    “But, my powers had started growing by then. I know now that the writers who created my comic book were adding them, but when they weren’t creating some story about me fighting a supervillain, Janey and I were left to our own devices. We actually enjoyed my new powers at first – Janey loved it when I took her flying with me. And, it was at the dinner where I planned to propose to her that...that it happened. I’d spent most of the afternoon finding an engagement ring for her. I was going to give it to her when they brought dessert. But, we never made it that far.”

    Cap wiped a tear from his eye. “I was holding this glass of water, you see, and I squeezed it just a bit too hard. It didn’t so much shatter as explode like a hand grenade. Janey almost lost an eye. We spent the rest of the night at the hospital getting her stitches. That’s when I started to realize what my growing powers meant, and that I could never give Janey the life she deserved. About a month later, I broke it off with her, so that she could find somebody else to make her happy.”

    “Did she?”

    Cap shook his head. “Even though we weren’t dating, she stayed with me to the end. I wanted her to move on – I never stopped loving her, and that was the only way she could have the family and children she wanted with somebody she loved. But, she never had that. Instead, she watched my powers grow and grow, and when she was gone so was Matthew Markham. All that was left was Captain Infinite.”

    “I guess I must remind you of her,” Yuri said, giving Cap a squeeze.

    Cap chuckled. “Not really. You two are very different people. But, I think if you had met, you would have gotten along.”

    Now Yuri chuckled. “No we wouldn’t – I’m not willing to share you. But, I had wondered why all this time you couldn’t say what you were feeling, even when it was so obvious. Now I know.” She took a deep breath and looked him in the eyes. “So I’ll say it for both of us. I love you, and you love me.”

    “I can’t give you the life you want,” Cap said. “If I tried to hug you the way you just hugged me, it would kill you.”

    “The life I want is whatever I can have with you,” Yuri said. “If this is it, so be it.”

    “You deserve more than just this,” Cap pressed. “Don’t settle for me because I’m the first single man you met after leaving your story.”

    Yuri sighed. “I’m not settling for anything, and I wish you could see that. I was part of the harem in a harem comedy. The story forced me to fawn over some immature boy I didn’t even like, and who I wouldn’t have been able to date anyway, because I was the comic relief part of the harem – the chuuni girl who called herself a ‘connoisseur of men’ without ever having been on a date. I’ve had that choice made for me, and I’ll never let it be made for me again. I’m not settling – I made my choice. You’re the man I love, and you’re the one I want to spend my life with, whatever that looks like.”

    “But I’m over a hundred years old,” Cap said.

    “And for most of that time, you’ve been thirty years old,” Yuri pointed out. “And what all those years did to you breaks my heart.” She took a deep breath. “Where I come from, people start romantic relationships with a love confession. I love you, and I know you feel the same about me. Will you accept my love confession?”

    Cap looked at her, then closed his eyes and nodded.

    Yuri wiped away a tear. “Thank you...you have no idea how hard it’s been to wait for this.” She grinned and added, “And, we’re travelling with a former god of destruction and her creator, who threw herself off a building and died, and then got better. In this group, I don’t think our problems are insurmountable – miracles can happen. In the meantime, let me worry about things like hugs.”

    Cap raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re only twenty years old?”

    “Nothing ‘only’ about it,” Yuri said. “Now let’s get back inside. It’s getting chilly out here.”