The TV blared, some show she'd stopped paying attention to long ago. Amy hadn't bothered to turn it off since Lia left. It was something of a distraction, though sort of a shitty one since it didn't actually distract her. She sighed and lowered her head until it rested on her raised knees. Her arms wrapped around her legs and she took a deep breath.

  She shouldn't feel like this, she had nothing to feel shitty about god dammit! Amy had asked Lia to come by and hang out, and she'd accepted. And it had been good or...at least okay. Now Amy had a loaf of bread and a decent day behind her. Yeah they hadn't done anything else, besides watching shitty TV, but they probably deserved a day off. At least, Lia did. Amy hadn't done anything to really earn one.

  Of course she wanted a break, and the PRT was so far keeping their hands off; besides making sure that the monster bugs she created weren't about to make Skitter a worse threat than the Slaughterhouse Nine. Not helping felt awful, but she couldn't bring herself to risk fucking up again but somehow worse.

  Amy nearly had a second time, not that long ago. Watching Lia's brain rapidly disintegrating under her touch, Bonesaw's disease. Amy had said she couldn't do brains, and god she hadn't, but she'd been a split-second from burning every rule she'd been clinging to so she didn't lose the last person that gave a shit about her.

  She hadn't, she hadn't. Afterwards, Lia had been open to touch, if nervous. Probably why she had made such a hasty escape earlier; she knew the danger she was in. Still, what contact they had was enough to determine Amy hadn't...infected Lia when she'd broken her rule about getting consent. That was good, great even. There was the slimmest chance that she could be normal again.

  Not likely, not with...everything. But, with Lia's help, maybe she could come to some kind of balance in the pit she'd toppled headfirst into. She'd been insistent on Amy doing more than healing, giving Skitter those fucking bugs, but argued for limits against the villains. Lia had managed to bring Amy back from the brink of the most monstrous thing she had ever done, then dragged her back to the heroes where her sister was never far away.

  Good deeds and shit choices, some kind of balance indeed. Still, Lia was a hero. She was sticking with the Wards, getting trained up to go back out, and it was killing her. She knew it, but was determined to burn herself out to burn out the rot inside. Amy knew that feeling plenty well...

  She shut off the TV and rose from the couch, heading into the kitchen. Her stomach felt queasy and eating sounded awful, but how long since she the last time she did? Lunch with Lia; fresh, warm bread with shitty canned meat on top that was surprisingly palatable in a sandwich. Amy retrieved the loaf from the fridge, because Lia was insistent for some reason, and cut herself a couple slices, then popped them into the toaster.

  What the hell was she going to do? An obvious question, a necessary one, one Amy had been pointedly ignoring as long as she could. She still wanted to cut and run, leave Brockton Bay and her...family behind. Everything here was just too much for her, too close to stick by. But Lia had been pretty adamant that Amy should stay, and she wasn't wrong.

  The bay was fucked, beyond fucked. Amy hadn't heard anything personally, but it wouldn't be too surprising if Brockton Bay got condemned, like Ellisburg, or Gary. In the mean time though, there were a ton of people that needed her help. And here she was, sitting in her room waiting to stuff her fat face.

  With a sigh, Amy took the toast out of the toaster, quickly buttering it before sitting at the table. She grimaced as she bit into it. Plain, a little dry, but she still choked it down. Amy only managed to finish half of it before it was just too much. She tossed the rest in the trash, guts squirming with a hint of guilt at the waste. Lia had helped her make that, and here she was throwing it away.

  Lia...what the hell did she want? 'A hot meal, decent coffee, and a cigarette.' Amy snorted and shook her head. That fucking girl... She couldn't even call Lia a liar. It was probably all she'd had since getting back to the Protectorate, well, minus the cigarette of course. Seemed weird that a sixteen-year-old would want to start smoking, but people were stupid and Lia was people.

  She didn't seem to want Amy to be a monster, at least, so was sort-of trustworthy. Or at least, Lia was more trustworthy than anyone else around right now, when it came to Amy's power. She knew exactly what Amy was capable of, the depths she could sink to. Despite that, Lia still thought that she could help people, could be good.

  It was almost enough to convince Amy. If the person who plumbed a near-literal Hell to drag her back believed she could be a decent person, who was she to disagree? Well, Amy knew herself better than Lia did, for one. They'd known each other a month and had been friends for what, a week? Less?

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  Friends...well, there wasn't exactly a more accurate word. What else to call the girl that risked her neck to save Amy? A dumbass, obviously, but as stupid as Lia was Amy could hardly be ungrateful. And now she was even humouring Amy, hanging out with her and treating her like...like fucking normal.

  It was so weird, and yet...god it was nice. She didn't deserve it of course, and Lia didn't deserve to be burdened with having to deal with Amy's shit all the time. She had a feeling Lia wouldn't listen if she told her to fuck off though. Sometimes she listened, but Amy had a feeling this would be one of those times she just ignored what Amy was saying and stuck around.. It was so fucking frustrating and she couldn't even be angry because it felt nice.

  A loud pounding at the door made her yelp and nearly fall over. Amy swore under her breath and quickly collected herself. She grabbed her hoodie from the back of the couch and pulled it over her shitty tank-top. She strode over and pulled open the door, ready to give whoever the fu--

  “Panacea.” It was Vista, panting hard. “Triumph, he-- he's hurt. Skitter, she--” The Ward paused, taking a deep breath. “Skitter hit him with so many bee stings that he nearly died and he's down in the infirmary and they just put a tube in his throat and I know they said you're not healing but please.” Amy stared at her silently.

  She couldn't she wasn't ready. It had barely been a week since Amy...mindraped her sister. The word hurt, like it fucking should. She was dangerous to anyone that got close, including Lia. Of course she would probably tell Amy to go down and heal Triumph regardless, damn the danger. Probably hover the whole time too, encouraging her with stupid nonsense about her making 'the right choice'. The right choice...

  “Lead the way.”

  Amy regretted saying it the moment Vista sprinted down the hall. She followed as fast as she could, tired despite not really doing anything for a few days. God dammit. If this cost Triumph, the next place Lia had better drag her was the fucking gym. Amy slid into the elevator, pausing to catch her breath, ignoring the tapping of Vista's foot. A moment later, they were off again, through the halls of the infirmary. Vista shouldered her way through a door, and Amy followed cautiously after.

  “Panacea?” Miss Militia sounded surprised. “What are--”

  “Here for Triumph,” Amy wheezed tersely. “Can I--”

  “Go.”

  She pushed past the privacy curtain, getting an odd look from a teary-eyed girl who was holding the hero's hand. Amy briefly explained who she was, then got a quick nod from Triumph. Good enough with him being intubated. She winced when she grabbed his hand and took a look. Vista hadn't been exaggerating, Triumph had come close. The amount of venom, and its byproducts, swimming in his blood would have killed a pony. If he hadn't been a Brute...

  Amy stopped wasting time and went straight to the problems. Dealing with inflammation was first, clearing the airway, breaking down the pound of mucous before it could be ingested, lungs, more inflammation... It took a minute, but soon Triumph was breathing regularly, though wheezing through the tube.

  At the same time she was finishing on his lungs, she started tackling the remnants of the venom in his veins. It was a simple process to get his blood processing faster, making his kidneys secrete antivenom that would break down on contact with that of the bees into simple water. 'Be creative.' No, this was enough for now. Amy stopped that after a few seconds, leaving the rest to basic human biology...just better directed.

  It didn't take much longer to fix the surface level bites and stings, though the sheer number made her skin crawl. She'd helped Skitter do this, no question in that. God, Amy couldn't believe that she'd almost turned down Vista, told her that she couldn't. But no, she'd made the right choice, and she'd managed to save Triumph, to fix something that was her fault.

  “Thank you,” he coughed after a nurse removed the tube. “You...I thought you weren't healing.” She shrugged.

  “Emergency,” Amy replied simply. “I...sorry.”

  “Thank you, Panacea,” the girl said, gripping Triumph's hand. “I...I owe you.”

  “Definitely not,” she retorted. “Sorry, I've...I'm gonna go.”

  She ignored them asking her to stay, and Miss Militia asking what was wrong. They didn't try and stop her anyway, so Amy made good time back to her room. She couldn't be around people thinking she was a good person when she'd almost not gone. She took a shuddering breath and sank to her haunches, back against the door.

  Lia would tell her that she'd fixed Triumph, so there was no problem but Amy almost hadn't. No one got that, not even her. Amy sighed and rose, walking to her bed and collapsing bonelessly in it. She pulled the covers over her head and shut her eyes. It did make a difference but...she thought back to the healing, taking careful account of everything she did. Recalling it was shockingly easy with even the slightest effort.

  A sigh escaped Amy's lips. No, she hadn't even looked at his brain. Maybe foolish in retrospect, since asphyxia could easily cause brain damage. Still, it was something. She could heal people when it came down to the wire, when she was forced to focus on what was in front of her and nothing else. Whether she forced herself or...or she had help.

  She couldn't ask that of Lia...right? No, she was done with Amy, beyond occasionally hanging out. That was fine, Amy had managed to police herself tonight anyway. Caution, that had to be the name of the game now. Every time she healed someone, Amy would look back and double, triple, quadruple check that she hadn't made some inexcusable error. She never had before but...but now she had.

  Amy couldn't afford to do that again, or she'd lose everything she had left.