Chapter 43 – Truth and Consequences

Alex woke up with a big smile.

She still felt sort of yucky, but for the first time in days she wasn’t waking up because she needed to scramble over to the toilet. The sun was shining in her window, and for the first time in days, she didn’t feel like that was gonna make the sides of her head explode. A bird was chirping outside her window, and for the first time in days, she smiled at the sound, instead of feeling like someone was using a cheese grater on her brain. For the first time in days, she wasn’t nauseous, wasn’t cramping, wasn’t having totally horrible diarrhea, and wasn’t having cold sweats and hot flashes.

Boy, when your dad gets a top-secret military doctor to come set up an IV in your room, you know it’s bad. Mega-bad. At least the IV stand was on little casters, so she could wheel it around when she clambered out of bed and used the emergency toilet her dad had hauled out of their disaster preparedness supplies and put in her room right next to her bed.

She was never taking that green stuff again. Ever. A blinding headache and brutal nausea that wouldn’t go away for two and a half days? Cramping that lasted almost as long? Horrible diarrhea for two solid days? This was the worst she’d ever been sick, and she’d done it to herself.

A soft snoring sound made her look up. Oh. Her dad was camped out on Annie’s bed, keeping an eye on her. What a great dad he was. And that bed really wasn’t big enough for him. He was gonna be so stiff when he woke up!

She used her telekinesis to adjust his position and slip a couple of pillows behind him for his back. Then she snuggled back under the covers and tried to get some more sleep.

*               *               *

Willow woke up with the biggest smile she could ever remember.

Last night had been so incredibly amazingly awesome! Jack was so funny, and so smart, and he liked that she was a genius! Guys never liked that she was smarter than them. Even Jonathan hadn’t really liked that part.

They’d talked for hours over some great Mexican food, and then they’d just walked down the street, like a real couple. Every time their hands had touched, she felt like the temperature jumped about twenty degrees, and she got hot in places where she didn’t normally get hot. And then there had been this bar that was advertising ‘Quiz Night’. Jack had looked at her, and quirked that eyebrow the way he did, and she found herself saying, “Oh, yeah! Let’s do it!”

And they did it. Okay, your team had to drink and answer questions, and there were drinking penalties for wrong answers, and other drinking penalties for other people beating you to the right answer, but she and Jack won! They won two free dinners at this really expensive nearby sushi bar instead of something that would have been much cooler, like maybe a new Porsche, but they won! And Jack had drunk maybe eighty percent of their penalties, so they were both sloshed when he drove her home.

And then he was so kind and considerate, and he had her taking aspirin and drinking lots of water before she went to bed so she wouldn’t be all hung over in the morning, and she didn’t want him driving when he was way more drunk than she was, but he was insisting he couldn’t stay the night in her house when she didn’t even know him, and so she was making coffee for him so he could drive to a hotel for the night. And she tripped and spilled her ice water all down his front, and he didn’t get mad at how clumsy she was, he just laughed. And she peeled off his wet shirt, and his wet khakis, and he peeled off her blouse where it was all wet, too, and she peeled off his wet underwear, and …

And that was why she was lying in her bed smiling like an idiot. With a powerful male chest pressing up against her back and a muscular arm wrapped around her, and her whole body feeling great. She felt better than great. And she felt tender in places. And she felt wonderful. And maybe she’d strained a muscle, too. And there was the tinglyness all over that made her want to jump out of bed and start singing like she was in a musical, even if she didn’t sing and there was no way she was ever going to sing in front of real, live people.

And Jack was nuzzling her neck while still asleep. She had boinked a super-secret agent flyboy Air Force colonel.

Who had a teenaged son. And he was a super-secret agent who worked with Alex! He probably was like movie spies and slept with a dozen women on every mission!

And she was nothing. Just a nerdy programmer.

But he’d said she was pretty. Even when he was really, really drunk, he’d said she was pretty. Even after they’d made love and she bled all over him because she was a virgin and they had to go into her bathroom and shower to clean up and they ended up doing it again in the shower, he’d still kissed her and said she was pretty. Had anyone ever said she was pretty? Jonathan thought she was pretty for one of the school nerds. But had he ever said she was really pretty and meant it? She didn’t really know for sure. Jon wasn’t good at the whole social interaction thing.

Oh, God, what was she going to do? She needed to get out of the bed. And shower, because they’d done it again after they got back in the bed, which she hadn’t thought would happen because weren’t drunk guys supposed to … you know, under-perform?

She needed to shower. And clean up down there. And get dressed. In something clean. And then make some coffee and maybe fix him breakfast. And act casual. Because super-spies were all about the casual sex and she was sure he was done with her and now he could mark ‘genius computer hacker’ off his super-spy girls-to-pork list. Oh, God, what if he had ‘superheroine’ on his super-spy girls-to-pork list? She had to call Alex and warn her!

His hand slid around one of her breasts, and she whimpered at the burst of pleasure. And then he kissed the back of her neck. And …

Later. She would call Alex later. If she was lucky, much later.

*               *               *

Alex was still home, even if she was feeling a lot better. Well, she couldn’t feel any worse than she had the last couple days and not be dying. Even if her folks had been so worried about her that her dad hadn’t gone into work for a couple of days and her mom hadn’t gone to college classes for a couple of days. Her dad said the ‘side effects’ were way worse than he thought they would be, and he wasn’t making any more of that stuff for her ever, because one or two more doses could destroy her liver for keeps, and two or three more doses — maybe even just one more — could be fatal.

But now that she was feeling better, it was so worth it. Danielle Atron was in prison. Lars and Carlton were in prison. Their whole operation was shut down. All their stuff in their chemical labs was broken down and under Jack’s control, so no one else was using that stuff to make more bad chemicals. And it was all over the news. It was the headline story in the paper, and it was the lead story on the local news, and it was even making the national news! And she was really cheered up by the pictures of a surly Danielle Atron with a massively swollen bruise on her jaw and a black eye and a bloody nose, and no makeup, in an ugly orange prison coverall. Too bad A.L. Mack couldn’t have gotten a couple of those snaps, just to make Danielle really, really angry.

Alex had eaten a huge breakfast, and then had brunch, and had gone through a big lunch, too, and now she felt all full and comfy. Her mom had even tucked her in and helped her dad move the toilet and all the medical junk out of the room, while Alex just snuggled into the bed and relaxed. Her mom was even going to bake cookies for her this afternoon!

Mmm. Chocolate chip cookies, fresh out of the oven, with the chips still warm and nearly molten and almost too hot to eat … Maybe with some vanilla ice cream and some hot fudge sauce and a big glass of milk …

And her dad had even promised to postpone the regular curry dinner experimenting thing until next week. And her folks had told her all about how Jack had gotten a military doctor from Camp Atron to be her official ‘doctor of record’ so she even had a real doctor’s note for school, for a change.

When the phone rang, she had to sit up in bed and pay attention, because it wasn’t one of the ringtones for her regular phone, it was the ringtone for her Terawatt phone. When she had it in her glove, she usually set it on vibrate, but when it was in her desk drawer, she usually had it set to play the theme from ‘Jaws’. Ray thought that was funny, even if it was appropriate, because it was pretty much always a sign that trouble was brewing.

She used her telekinesis to open the drawer and grab the phone. Then she burrowed back into the nice, warm, snuggly bed. “Hi.”

It was Willow. Even through the AutoTuning, Alex could hear how excited Willow sounded. “Oh! Hi! I wanted to talk to you. Are you feeling better? Because I can call back later, or tomorrow, or whenever, if you’re still feeling all cruddy.”

She smiled. “No, this is fine. I’m way better. What’s up?”

Willow gushed, “I maybe found Mister Right. I mean, who’d ever think someone like me would meet a hot, hunky, sexy, older man. And that he’d like me!”

“Wow, that’s great, Willow.”

Willow purred, “And I’m not a virgin anymore. Now I’m a woman of the world. A lady of mystery.”

Alex couldn’t help smiling. “I’ve been telling you that you’re pretty, you just never listen to me.”

Willow said, “And I found out something totally important you should know for when you get around to doing the sex thing with Ray. First time? Girl on top. You totally get to control how fast you slide down on it, and when to take things easy, and all that. Mom told me my first time would really hurt and the first few times would be pretty sucky, but she was totally wrong. Once I worked my way down and took care of Miss Hymen, it was great. Okay, I bled all over him and we had to clean up in my shower, but that was great, too, because we did it again in the shower, and let me tell you water is not your friend when you’re needing the lubrication so it was a good thing I had some Vaseline handy for dry skin, but then it was so amazing, even if I think I picked up a bruise on each butt cheek and on each shoulder blade from the shower wall, but it was so sexy I didn’t even notice at the time! And then when we went back to the bed, I thought we were gonna go to sleep, but we started kissing some more, and I sure didn’t think he’d be able to do it three times, but it was even better than the first time, and …”

Alex had no idea what to say. She so didn’t want to even hear about a lot of the stuff. But Willow was so excited she was kind of telling way more information than Alex wanted to hear. And the thing about cleaning the Vaseline off the private parts? No, thank you!

Okay, when Willow backtracked and told all about getting whisked off to a romantic dinner in a hot sports car, and then playing a quiz game in a bar with Mister Right who was really smart about things like world politics and geography, that was pretty fun. Alex was just really happy Willow was having something this great happen to her, because Willow totally deserved it.

When Willow finally reached a stopping spot, Alex finally got a word in edgewise. “So you didn’t tell me how you met Mister Perfect.”

“Oh! I didn’t? Well, he figured out who I was and he came to meet me, and you never said how sexy he is!”

Alex suddenly thought maybe her heart was gonna seize up for a second. “What?”

“Jack is so sweet, and he’s way smarter than he acts, and he’s so sexy! I mean, he’s just as hot as Selina Kyle Christakos, only in a totally different way, naturally —”

“Jack?” Alex asked frantically. “Jack? My Jack? Colonel Jack O’Neill? The old guy? THAT Jack?”

“Yeah, and he’s not that old, he’s forty-three, so he’s less than twenty years older than me, and he’s so sexy when he smiles and his eyes crinkle, and —”

“JACK? You had sex with Jack O’Neill? Willow!” Alex felt like tearing her hair out. Or something!

Willow purred, “I had lots and LOTS of sex with Jack. Three times last night, and then this morning before breakfast, and then there were serious smoochies before he left, and oh my God I feel good! I always thought those musicals where the girl runs around singing were so stupid, but that’s how I feel right now, even if I can’t sing and it would be horrible if I had to sing in front of a bunch of people, but I totally feel the singiness coming on!”

Alex stared at the ceiling with a feeling of dawning horror, while Willow went on. “And I’m totally ready for more of the sexing, and I even downloaded four books on sex and sexual relationships and sexing up your relationship, and I just wish he could come by this afternoon and make me his red-hot mama some more …”

Alex didn’t say anything when Willow got more … umm … graphic about what she had done with Jack, and what she wanted Jack to do to her, and what she wanted to do to Jack, because, well, it was kind of great for Willow now, but maybe it was going to be bad for Willow later on. And Alex was so not ready to hear a lot of this. But she couldn’t make herself tell Willow to stop, and she couldn’t hang up on Willow, because she was worried that Willow didn’t have anyone else she could talk to about this. Alex was pretty sure Willow had no one to talk to even if it was just about meeting a handsome, suave older man and doing the humpty dance. But this was Terawatt stuff, because Jack had come to meet Willow after he figured out that Willow had to be Acid Burn. And then he figured out that Willow had to be S4l1x680, too!

And if was Jack taking advantage of Willow, that … that jerk! Okay, she was thinking way worse words than ‘jerk’. Pressing Alex into doing the trip to Illinois was one thing, but using his manly charms to seduce a computer geek with hardly any dating experience? And Willow was a virgin up until last night? Jack was a total creep! A mega-creep! And what was Willow going to do when Jack dumped her? She’d be crushed!

Alex listened carefully to Willow, being as encouraging as she thought she should. But as soon as Willow hung up, Alex was going to call Jack and give him a piece of her mind!

*               *               *

Jack O’Neill was sitting in his West Virginia office, staring at a stack of reports, and not seeing any of the words.

What the hell was wrong with him? He had always prided himself on doing the right thing. On living up to the strict moral code his foster family had instilled in him when he was a kid. On sticking with the UCMJ, even when it wasn’t easy. And he had taken advantage of a girl young enough to be his daughter.

He hadn’t been that drunk in years. Maybe not since the night Sarah died and the police insisted on keeping Charlie locked up overnight and he was afraid he was going to lose Charlie, too.

For that matter, he hadn’t been on a real date in years, either. After Sarah died, he just wasn’t interested in someone new, not to mention he had a son who needed him. There had been three or four military balls he had been shanghaied into attending, and he had needed to escort someone to each of them, but those were as close as he had gotten to a real date.

And then Willow wanted him to drive her around in that little sports car he had borrowed, and buy her dinner, too. And then there was that ‘quiz night’ at that bar. Sure, he had been downing most of the shots when other teams got right answers or the rare times when their team screwed up, but that was taking one for the team, because Willow knew a hell of a lot more than he did about most stuff. Okay, he had kicked ass on the political and geographical and military questions.

And she was such a cute drunk. She was so sweet and giggly, and she was trying so hard not to be timid and insecure, apparently because Alex had told her that the other Willow was a force of nature. In the most literal terms imaginable. When she started babbling about what that other Willow supposedly did, Jack was pretty sure the hair stood up on the back of his neck. A magical battle to the death with a three-hundred-foot tall hellgoddess? He figured he was just glad all his universe had was people like Alex and Grover. And that Atron bitch. And that psycho in Myrhorod. And the mutated animals up in Siberia. And the freakiness around Chernobyl. And … Okay, there were lots of problems in his world, but nothing like what Alex had already faced.

But he had been telling himself he wasn’t going to take advantage of Willow, even if he was really attracted to her. Hell, how could he not be? She was gorgeous, and brilliant, and creative, and quirky, and sexy, and … And he could talk to her. She knew who he was. What he was. What he had done, even if most of that was in blacked-out files. What he was doing now, which he couldn’t even talk about with Charlie. Plus, she was easy to talk to. There was something warm and inviting about her that made him think thoughts he was not going to give in to.

But then she spilled that big glass of ice water down his front, and all down her front, and she was undressing him to get his things into the dryer, and somehow he ended up standing naked in her kitchen when she was in nothing but a pair of damp socks …

He didn’t really remember a lot of precise details after that. He remembered the kissing, but he had no idea who started it. He remembered her leading him to her bed and telling him she was ‘really inexperienced’ so he’d let her be on top and he’d been as careful with her as he could. He remembered the intense pleasure he had missed for so long, ever since Sarah had died. He remembered Willow’s surprise and exuberance and … well, he thought he had a few bruises from where she really got carried away. He remembered Willow’s huge bathroom and the blood she was cleaning off him …

Oh, crap, he had deflowered a virgin. A virgin who probably didn’t take contraceptives. He was such a bastard.

How had he not realized what the blood meant? Other than the whole bit about ‘I was so drunk I nailed a girl I just met in person for the first time’.

And then, just to put a cherry on top of the sundae, he had made love to her again this morning, before having breakfast with her and getting his almost-dry clothes off the kitchen floor and driving off to the base to catch the Cessna still waiting for him.

Even if Willow didn’t decide to destroy him electronically, she was bound to tell Alex. And then Terawatt was going to descend on him like an avenging angel, which was just what he deserved. He had probably destroyed the SRI in one incredibly-stupid, drunken night. And if Willow wasn’t taking contraceptives, there was a real chance that there might be serious repercussions they would have to deal with, like in about nine months.

And he’d probably wrecked his only chance to get Willow Rosenberg as a girlfriend. Unless …

He pressed the intercom button on his desk phone. “Walter, I need the 1-800 number for Teleflora, and then I need to talk to Henry Jameson at the NSA.”

*               *               *

Alex hung up the phone. This was so not fair to Willow! Even if Willow was over the moon right now. Maybe even because Willow was over the moon right now, but when Jack dumped her, she was going to be mega-crushed. Alex was so angry at Jack that she was glowing yellow again. Darn it. She had to get that under control. She just wanted to yell at him, not accidentally fry her Terawatt phone in the process.

She did ‘box breathing’ exercises until she was calm enough that she wasn’t glowing anymore. Then she called the SRI on her Terawatt phone. “Walter, this is Terawatt. I have ‘human resources’ issues I need to talk over with the colonel.”

“Yes, ma’am. He has standing orders to patch you through immediately, unless he’s in the middle of a live op, or he’s in a meeting with at least a three-star.”

Whoa. Did that mean he’d interrupt a two-star general to talk to her? Was that a sign he really thought she was important? Or was it a sign that he really liked to find ways to yank the chains of people he shouldn’t be messing with?

Before she had a chance to say anything else to Walter, Jack came on the line. “O’Neill here.”

And she didn’t know what to say. Oh, she had a ton of things to yell at him, but now they all sounded stupid in her head, and the big fancy speech just got lost in her fury. “Jack! You big JERKHEAD!”

Okay, that sounded even stupider. Why couldn’t she chew him out and sound all smart and powerful? And really scary and threatening, too?

Jack said, “Big jerkhead? You really need to work on your vocab. Anyway, there’s nothing you can call me that’s worse than what I’ve been calling myself.”

“Well … good!” She was not coming off well. But she was just so mad at him that she could hardly talk!

He groaned. “I should never have taken her out to dinner, but she was so cute, and she did ask … And I should have said I had to catch a jet. I’m too old to be dating someone her age.”

Dating? Did Colonel Jack O’Neill say ‘dating’? As in more than one time going out?

She still said, “Willow’s not real experienced, and you … you took advantage of her! And now she has a ginormous crush on you! Which is mega-jerky of you!”

“Really?” There was a sort of hope and excitement in Jack’s voice that stopped Alex cold.

She was going to say something else mean, but she found herself asking, “Does it matter? To you, I mean?”

“Yeah,” Jack insisted. “A lot. Willow is … She’s amazing. She’s … a brilliant, creative, funny, quirky woman who doesn’t mind that I have a top security job. And she happens to be one of only a handful of people in the world I can talk to about what I do. And she doesn’t mind that I’m old … and I have a teenaged son … and I have a history.”

Wow. If she didn’t know better, she’d think Jack was kind of smitten.

He said, “The problem is … she’s got a life, and a career, and the job with you.”

“Why’s that a problem?” Because she could only think of one reason why that would be a problem for someone like Jack.

He groaned again. “Look, I know this is stupid, when this is the twenty-first century and all, but a long-term relationship would be a lot easier if she lived near me and Charlie. I need to get Charlie used to the idea of me having a social life again, and I need to get her used to the idea of me having a son who’s nearly as old as you are.”

Alex just stared at her phone. Was Jack really thinking like that? Because it sounded like Jack was talking about getting Willow to move to his home base and maybe deal with stepmom-ery. And if Jack was thinking like that, then …

And another groan. “I never even thought about going to bed with her. Okay, I had a few fantasies I squashed pretty hard, but I wasn’t even going to stay over in a guest room. And how was I supposed to know Willow was still a virgin? Now I feel like a real creep. Nothing I sent her is gonna make up for that.”

Alex checked, “Did you send her something? Something nice?”

Jack tentatively said, “Umm, I sent her a dozen white roses in a big crystal vase. And the NSA’s alpha-test version of their newest trapdoor encryption algorithm.”

Alex opened her mouth to give him another piece of her mind, and she realized that Jack had probably given Willow the perfect ‘something nice’. Willow would so go for the computer code, and even someone as computer-oriented as Willow would probably melt over the roses.

Ray hadn’t given her roses. Heck, she couldn’t remember her dad giving her mom roses in like ages. Maybe Valentine’s Day the year before last.

Maybe Willow was lucky. After all, maybe Jack was almost twenty years older, but he was still in really good shape. At least it wasn’t like Buffy sleeping with someone over two hundred years older than her, and dead, too.

But Alex knew: it was all her fault Willow and Jack met, and if Willow got hurt because of Jack, it would be her fault. Oh, God, what if Willow and Jack got serious and then Willow found Miss Right and dumped Jack for a lesbian girlfriend? JACK would be crushed! Oh, this could go wrong in so many ways! What if Willow dumped Jack for a girl and Jack got really mad, and he already knew Willow was S4l1x680, so he could get Willow into so much trouble!

She rubbed her forehead and said, “Jack, you need to talk to Willow and fix this, because you’re not the only one going through stuff.”

Jack snarked, “Hey, I only take advice from people less than half my age if they’re named Charlie. And I already decided to call her and talk. And somehow, tonight I have to explain this to Charlie without losing the Good Dadkeeping Seal of Approval.”

Alex finally let Jack go. But she knew she needed to do something about this. She needed somebody who was a woman of the world and could talk to Willow about these kinds of things without turning into a babbling goofball, or cringing when Willow got really graphic about the sex stuff. She … Oh! She had an idea!

*               *               *

Jack hung up as soon as Alex was done yelling at him, and he made the phone call he was dreading.

Willow picked up in the middle of the first ring. “Hi, Jack.” Naturally, she’d know it was his phone number. And she probably had an earjack on most of the time.

He replied, “Hi, Willow. Did you like the flowers?”

Willow gushed, “They’re beautiful! And the encryption algorithm is awesome. You really know how to sweet-talk a girl. Without doing the talking part, I mean.”

He said, “There’s some things we need to talk about, after last night. And this morning.”

She sounded unhappy as she said, “Umm, I already did that part, I went right over to the clinic before I even called Alex, and I got the morning-after pill, so there aren’t gonna be any little O’Neills running around loose here, and I got all the blood out of the sheets and the mattress pad, and it’s okay I’m not a virgin anymore, I mean, I’m almost twenty-five, I ought to be a woman of the world and not be all seventeenth century and stuff …”

He rubbed one hand over his face. This was going so well. NOT. “Willow, that wasn’t why I was calling.”

She said, “Well, after the roses, I kind of figured you’d call sooner or later to say the James Bond thing.”

“The James Bond thing?” Now she was definitely losing him.

“Sure,” she said. “You know …” She slid into a really lame British accent, “Oh, Miss Sexinadress, you were an extremely hot bed-bouncy partner, but now I must return to England and I won’t ever call you again, so don’t bother sending me lovelorn emails or anything like that.” She dropped the accent and asked in a pretend-cheerful tone, “That’s why you called, right?”

“Fer cryin’ out loud!” he groaned. “Was I really that big a jerk last night?”

“Umm, no, you were really wonderful, and amazing, and totally not like what Mom said my first time would be like, and I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough.”

He gritted his teeth. “Willow, stop talking and listen. You were great. Unbelievable. You were WAY past ‘good enough’. You could do so much better than me. And I don’t want to stop seeing you. I want to see you again. Regularly. But the whole jumping into bed on the first date thing? Not my style. Can we have another date, maybe at that sushi place we won the dinner for, and just, you know, have it be a first date kind of thing, where we get to know each other?”

Willow said, “Jack, we know all about each other.”

He groaned, “Honey, we know the wrong things about each other. We know about secret government files, and illegal hacker activity, and fighting to protect innocent civilians. And which redhead used to be a virgin and has the cutest little mole on her back just at the top of her tushie. We don’t know boyfriend-girlfriend stuff, like what your first pet was named, or what kind of music I like, or what TV programs you watch or even if you watch TV.”

Willow went silent for several seconds, before she said, “Jack, you said ‘boyfriend’. And ‘girlfriend’. Really?”

“Really,” he insisted. “Maybe I’m pushing too hard, but —”

She giggled naughtily. “You maybe pushed too hard last night, but I enjoyed it. A lot.”

He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. “Willow, I’d like to see if we can make this work, but I’m a little worried that after last night I sort of messed things up between us.”

He could hear her smile over the phone. “Jack, I don’t think so, I think we can make this work if we both try, but … Well, I really, really liked last night.”

“I noticed.” He didn’t try to keep the smug out of his voice. Willow really had been … enthusiastic. Exuberant. He even had a few bruises from her.

She said nervously, “But there’s something you need to know about me. Something bad.”

“Your first pet was named Elvis.”

She said, “No!”

“John? Paul? Ringo?”

She laughed. “Stop it!”

“Vanilla Ice?”

She really laughed at that one. “I’m trying to be serious here, and you’re making me laugh.”

He said, “Okay, I’ll stop it. What’s so bad that you’re afraid to tell me, and yet I don’t know about it?”

She said, “Jack … I think I’m, umm, bisexual. I mean, I’ve never been with another girl, or even kissed another girl, but you-know-who had me investigate a couple people, and one of them is this totally gorgeous brunette, I mean, the hottest brunette on the planet, and I … sort of … got the hots looking at pictures of her.”

Jack grinned. “So, some day I might come home from a mission and find you in the hot tub with Megan Fox?”

“Jack!”

“Angelina Jolie?”

“Jack, be serious!”

He teased, “It doesn’t have to be a brunette, you know. Anna Paquin, Kristanna Loken …”

She insisted, “Jack, please! I don’t know who I’m gonna be in a year. Or five years. Or ten years. I’m new to all this. I could turn out to be a really horrible girlfriend!”

He could hear how uncomfortable she was getting, so he said, “As long as you just tell me the truth, and you tell me what you’re feeling.”

“Okay.”

He couldn’t resist adding, “Besides, you and Anna Paquin together? Very hot. Anytime you want to surprise me with a threesome with a steamy Hollywood actress, just fire away.”

She said, “Jack, you act like I’m this hottie who could get even a Hollywood actress to pay attention to me. I think maybe you need to get your eyes checked.”

He said, “I’m an Air Force pilot. I have perfect eyesight. Hey, you know what? Ask Alex. If Alex tells you you’re not just as hot as any other redhead you can name, I’ll owe you any favor you want.”

She said, “Alex is nice. She’d never say a friend wasn’t attractive or smart or whatever.”

He said, “Fine. Ask that guy Larry Ellison. He definitely isn’t nice.”

He could tell she was blushing. “I … I couldn’t ask Larry! He’d think I was crazy! Or a big ol’ slutbag!”

He said, “Fine. Right after you ask him, I’ll knock him unconscious, so he won’t remember.”

“Jack!”

“What? He deserves it!”

*               *               *

She peeked out through the curtain over her bedroom window when she heard the noise outside. Jeez, she just hoped it wasn’t the same old shit. Her parents were mad at her. Her boyfriend was mad at her. Her friends were mad at her. The whole school was mad at her …

And it really wasn’t her fault. Really! Well, maybe she made some not-so-great decisions. But it wasn’t her fault a supervillain attacked her!

When she saw what was outside, she nearly had a heart attack. She sprinted down the hall, down the main staircase, past the maid, and yanked open the front door.

Terawatt was floating there. The real Terawatt, who said, “Elizabeth Brigitte Clemens?”

“Umm, I go by Libby. Are you … mad at me?”

Terawatt floated into the atrium and looked around. “This is very nice. And I wanted to come to an agreement with you. I’m willing to ask the police force to go easy on you, if you promise not to impersonate me anymore, and you do a favor for me.”

Libby cautiously said, “How big a favor? About what?”

Terawatt said, “I have a computer expert.”

“Oh, no, I’m not dating some pimply geek!”

Terawatt just smiled. “She’s not a pimply geek.”

“She?”

Terawatt nodded. “Yes. She’s a talented young woman who has been picked on ever since she was in first grade, and as a result she has hidden all her life behind a computer screen. Because of the bullies who made her life miserable, she has low self-esteem, even though she’s a world-class computer expert, and she’s actually a very pretty redhead who’s in good shape. She needs someone like you who she can talk to.”

“Me? Talk? I don’t get it.”

Terawatt said, “She views me as a ‘boss’ figure, and she won’t open up to me. So she needs someone else she can confide in. She’s older than you, but she was a virgin up until … last night. She’s pretty happy about it. Her ‘older man’ was considerate and gentle, and she really enjoyed it. Several times. Now she’s pretty much smitten.”

Libby muttered, “I wish my first time had been like that.” Come to think of it, her second time hadn’t been so great, either. High school boys? Not so much with the ‘considerate and gentle’.

Terawatt said, “So she wants to be sexy and desirable, but she doesn’t know how. And while doing some research for me, she accidentally saw nude pictures of one of the most attractive women in Europe, and now she’s also afraid she’s bisexual, and she doesn’t know how to cope with that, either. She doesn’t have any female friends she can talk to about these kinds of issues, and I hear you’re considered an expert in your school about dating and relationships and makeup. I was hoping you would be willing to help out someone who could really use your expertise. In exchange, I won’t press the police to prosecute you, and I’ll keep an eye out for supervillains who may not have gotten the message that you’re not me.”

Libby asked, “What if I have some advice, but she can’t afford it? Like a spa treatment or really sexy lingerie?”

Terawatt smiled. “This young woman has more money than you do. She has more money than your father.”

Libby instantly re-evaluated things. Okay, downside: dealing with a computer nerd, only it was a girl, not some dork who was going to embarrass her by wanting to hang around her. And the nerd wasn’t at her school anyway. Upsides? Having Terawatt off her back, and getting her parents off her neck. Maybe even getting the police off her neck, because it totally wasn’t her fault she didn’t know that what she was doing counted as identity theft or fraud. Getting to flaunt her expert knowledge in important areas like dating and relationships and haircare and clothes. Getting to meet another rich kid who might have valuable connections. And maybe getting some cool presents. And maybe being able to get some computer help.

She looked at Terawatt and said, “I’m in.”

Alex flew off toward her house, wondering if Libby realized just what this could do to her. Because if Libby chatted with a nice girl who wanted to learn about boys and clothes and makeup, she was eventually going to like Willow. And then she was eventually going to realize that she had been a complete creep to plenty of kids who were exactly like Willow, except they had a Y chromosome.

If this got Willow a friend and advisor, and also turned Libby into a nicer person, it would be the perfect plan. Alex smiled all the way home.

A/N: Willow made a James Bond ref. In this universe, Ian Fleming wrote the James Bond novels out of spite, because he wasn’t allowed to join the real Double Oh program of the SIS; so some information on the Double Oh program is public knowledge, regardless of what the SIS would prefer. This fact will be relevant later on, in about forty chapters.


Interlude VII

The tall, thin man in the stiff black suit and ridiculously thin black tie said, “Welcome to our small community.”

“It’s a dump. It’s a disgrace to real dumps to call this hole a dump,” she growled. She still didn’t know what the man’s real name was, and calling him ‘Mister Jones’ was really irritating. And the guy dressed like an undertaker.

He grinned a little. “Of course it is. You don’t think we’d site one of our most important labs anywhere noticeable, do you? This way, we can control everything. We can control the mayor and the police department and the fire department. We can control the town newspaper.”

She smirked as the truth dawned on her. “So … if anything went wrong, and some innocent townspeople were horribly killed …”

He nodded. “Exactly. The bodies would disappear, or else the medical examiner would report whatever we told him to. Anyone who filed a report with the police would be strung along, until a suitable cover story was in place. Anyone who went to the newspaper would be strung along. And our security people are fully capable of handling things, no matter how … wet their work gets.”

She found herself feeling like laughing for the first time in months. She knew perfectly well what ‘wetwork’ was. She asked, “When will I talk to your bosses?”

He said, “You won’t, unless I am caught, killed, or incapacitated. I am the cutoff man for this cell of The Collective.”

She frowned. “That doesn’t sound like the arrangement I was promised. I was promised access, and rewards, and contact.”

He said, “You’re already being paid a massive salary that you have yet to start earning. The arrangement is that you gain access and rewards as you provide successful research and development to The Collective’s inner circle.”

She snorted. “Fine. Show me to the lab and introduce me to my staff. I want to get started on studying their official reports. Stat. Then I want access to their private research journals that they are not letting anyone see.”

“Excellent,” he said. “And remember, just because Downingtown is a ‘dump’, that doesn’t mean you’re trapped in the lab. Philadelphia is only half an hour’s drive east of here.”

She clipped on her badge with the RFID to unlock the security doors. It had taken some arguing to make them change the badge from ‘Dr. Margaret K. Walsh’ to ‘Maggie Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., Ph.D.’ but it was always better to intimidate the minions to start with.


Interlude VIII

Danielle Atron stared at the floor of her cell. Well, she stared as well as she could with one eye completely swollen shut. It turned out her cellmate was a psychotic bitch who was already punching her and pushing her around, and was probably going to molest her some night.

She wanted out of here! But that wasn’t going to happen. She’d talked to her lawyer Mikhail, who had gotten the reports from the lawyers for Lars and Carlton and the hired ‘security’ and the mercenaries. Every one of them was willing to roll over on her and rat her out. She had no one on the outside who would help her escape. She even had to trust that Mikhail would pay himself the agreed-upon amounts out of her illicit funds and not just loot her Cayman Islands accounts. She was probably just fortunate that Mikhail and his people had been able to pry her loose from getting shipped off to whatever hellhole that smug bastard Colonel O’Neill had planned for her.

And the prison authorities here weren’t letting her near any potential chemical weapons, or anything she might be able to turn into a chemical weapon. So they weren’t even letting her have a decent shampoo and conditioner, or a decent soap, or a decent skin cream, and forget about makeup or hair product. She looked like a derelict. She looked like a woman who had been in prison for years, and was going to be staying in prison for the rest of her life.

It was all Terawatt’s fault. Terawatt, and those damn Macks, and that Alvarado boy. She should have killed each of them when she had the chance, instead of going for the trifecta of Terawatt, Alex Mack, and George Mack. She was so angry she could spit. She was so angry …

She was so angry her hands were glowing yellow!

She jumped up and rushed to look in the tiny all-metal mirror above the tiny sink in her tiny cell. She was glowing yellow. All over.

She hadn’t lost all her powers. She might even be getting her powers back. She hadn’t glowed this color before, so her powers might be going through some sort of biomorphology.

She needed to calm down. She needed to hide this. She needed to let her powers come back fully, and then she needed to assess what she could do, because she might get something new, or one of her powers might come back at a different stage. She needed to wait until she could bust out of this hellhole so she could retrieve her money before Mikhail spent it all.

Oh, and she needed to deliver a little payback to her cellmate in the process. Something agonizing and permanent.

And then she was going to have to come up with a much better plan for dealing with Terawatt. And Alex Mack. And George and Barbara Mack. And Colonel Jack O’Neill, who had really enjoyed arresting her far too much. And that twit Annie Mack, too, if it was convenient. And anyone else who got in her way.

 
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