Amelia, Ch 200- Crystal
I got to 'work' early, today. Not that I did much, really, but it was nice to show up and participate. All my classes were in the afternoon, anyway. I spotted Vicky laying down on the back of the couch, staring at the ceiling. "Hey, 'cuz," I said. "You know, there's this thing humans do with their furniture, known as sitting. I know, it sounds really strange, but you should totally try it."
"I'm good like this," she answered. She learned her head back and looked at me upside down. "Zach and Emma really wore me out last night."
I paused for a second. What? No, couldn't be. "Speaking of, how is Zach? I haven't had much chance to talk to him lately."
"Happy," she answered. "He finally made his move last night."
"It took him this long?" I dropped down in a chair. "Jeez, it took him all of three hours to try for the rest of us. He must really like you."
"I shot him down," she sighed.
"Why?" I asked. "I mean, I thought you-"
"I found out what I did to Amy," she spoke. Uh... fuck... maybe it's not what I'm thinking. Please don't be what I'm thinking "My old Glory Girl aura. How badly it messed her up." Oh holy fuck. "Ah, so how long did you know about that?"
"A while," I reluctantly admitted. "Found out somewhere late June, early July. It's been a hectic last few months and I can't quite remember."
"And now I'm thinking about Dean," she added. "You know, we never argued in person. It was always over the phone. That's when we'd fight over how much time he was spending in the Wards. That's when we'd break up over whatever stupid shit we broke up over that week. Then we'd just make up again once we met in person. I didn't even think it was my power. Now? It's the only thing I can think about. Except when I feel bad that I don't feel worse about what happened to Amy."
"Well, Amy did get over it," I offered. "And now she's engaged, world famous, and spends her days stomping whole cities worth of villains while worrying about how to kill an alien space whale virus god. Seriously, did you hear about Indianapolis?"
"No, what?" she asked.
"Apparently a few of the Fallen we missed were hiding out there," I told her. "The PRT found the bodies executed thanks to an anonymous tip. One had his face blown off, one was skinned, and one, well, someone worked him over with a sledgehammer or something like it. The investigators are pretty sure they were there to join one of the local crime bosses after we broke their organization, and he killed them as a sort of peace offering to us. Or at least a 'please don't come over here' offering."
"Really?" her eyes widened. "Fuck."
"Yeah. Fuck," I agreed. "It's really hard to feel sorry for Amy when she's the leader of a team that scares powerful crime lords like that."
"God, when did this happen?" she did a casual twist and rolled off the back of the couch onto her feet.
"Heard it on the news late last night," I told her. "It'll probably feature heavily in the morning meeting. I don't think we can let people get away with shit like that."
"Good, I could really use a new punching bag," Vicky answered. "See you on the battlefield."
"Not so fast, girl," I sighed. "We're not done talking about you and Zach."
"Really? Triple homocide and apparently I was mini-Heartbreaker, and you want to talk about relationship drama? C'mon, Crystal, you're the one who used to make fun of me for that stuff."
"Zach's a friend of mine," I argued. "And you're family. This is important. How'd he take it? Did you at least let him down gently?"
"Not really," she replied. "Both barrels of 'you're a nice guy' and 'we should remain friends'." I flinched inwardly. "But, hey, at least I didn't use 'it's not you, it's me', right? That has to count for something."
"Something," I reluctantly agreed. Seriously, Vicky, what the fuck?
"I also pretty much shoved Emma onto his lap," she added. "Figuratively speaking."
What? "What?" I was stunned. "Why would you do that? Is this just so you don't have to feel bad about turning him down? Because that is either one of the nicest or bitchiest things I have ever heard of in my life, and I can't figure out which."
"I was doing it anyway," she admitted. "Even before... finding out about Amy. I don't know how to describe what it looks like to watch someone pretend to despise someone that they love, but I couldn't just ignore it."
"Yeah, but... what about them just being friends?" I asked.
"And what?" she asked. "I still would have turned him down. Seriously, I mind raped my little sister into lusting after me for years, I'll never know how Dean honestly felt about me, ever. I'm really not interested in being in a relationship with anyone right now."
I put my hand on my cousin's shoulder. It was so rare to see her act like this. "It'll get better. Zach would have understood."
"I know," she agreed. "Maybe I'll regret this, later. Right now? At least this way he doesn't have to be all mopey about it. I feel bad enough as it is, I can at least spare myself other people being miserable around me." She looked me in the eyes. "If I tell you a secret, will you promise to not say anything about it ever again? To anyone. You'll just pretend like it never happened?"
"As long as it doesn't hurt anyone," I agreed.
"I don't want to feel guilty for Zach hurting," she told me. "Or anyone. I can handle making people annoyed or angry. I can handle killing sacks of shit like Baal. But... knowing how bad I hurt Amy... that's enough guilt for one lifetime."
"It's not your fault," I told her. "You didn't know your aura worked like that, and Amy tends to hide things. And even if you were at fault, you shouldn't feel like that needs to be a secret," I consoled. "Feeling bad for doing bad things is fine. Riley does it all the time and it makes people want to hug her."
"Amy would blame herself if she knew," Vicky pointed out. "And that'd just make me feel worse."
"Okay, that's a good reason to keep it from Amy," I agreed. "But maybe you should say that to Taylor. I'm sure she'd appreciate knowing you feel bad for what happened. You really should try to patch things up with her. She is your future sister in law and such."
"Probably," she agreed. "But I feel bad about that, too. If it wasn't for what I did, would Amy be enganged to a straight girl?"
"I've asked that question a few times, myself," I admitted. "And I'm pretty sure the answer is yes."
"What makes you so sure?" she looked at me. Her eyes were a mix of hope and skepticism.
"Taylia," I answered. "They're together because of that link. And that comes from their powers, not anything you did. Whatever's going on with Amy, you didn't do anything like that to Taylor. She is, as you said, straight. And she's engaged to a lesbian. It'd be like if I were dating Legend."
"You would," she smirked.
"So would you!" I exclaimed. "Dude's goddamn hot. But the point is, if that happened, people would be wondering what was up with him, not me. Same deal. Lesbian dating another girl, that makes sense. Straight girl dating another girl, not so much. Taylia's strong enough to make that happen. Adorably, I might add. The two of them are so happy together that it sometimes makes me want to punch them both just so they do something other than smile at each other. So, yeah, that part isn't your fault. Or your aura's fault. Blame the fucking space whale virus gods that are going to blow up and eat our planet."
"That makes me feel a lot better," she sighed.
"Christ, Vicky, the way you were talking... you were planning something stupid, weren't you?"
She looked away. "I'm invoking the 'talk to no one, not even me' promise," she muttered.
"That was only if no one was going to get hurt," I argued. "This, this sounds like someone was going to get hurt."
"It's not going to happen, so don't worry about it," she argued. "It wasn't going to happen at all. Just the guilt speaking."
"You weren't going to kill yourself, were you?"
"What? No!" she exclaimed. "Fuck, how's that suppose to make anyone feel better? Besides, even if I wanted to Amy would just have me brought back anyway. And Riley would probably surgically install a chip in my brain to keep me from trying it again."
"Why don't you just tell me what it is?"
"Fine, but I mean it with that promise," she insisted. "You tell no fucking one, ever. Not even me."
"If it won't hurt anyone," I repeated.
"It'll never happen," she insisted. "I knew it was a bad idea the moment it popped into my head." She looked around. "Okay, now or never."
"Fine, I promise," I sighed. "We'll never speak of it again."
She clenched her hands together and lowered her head. "I thought that, since it was my fault she spent three years like that, with my aura. It'd be fair if I... umm... volunteered myself. Gave her what she wanted."
"What the hell, Victoria!" I exclaimed.
"I know! I told you it was a bad idea and I'd never do it!"
"I hope not! The only thing dumber than that would be if some retard tried to revive the dead entity!"
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A/N- It's been a while since Crystal got an interlude, too.
