Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

THE DOCTOR: You're a medic, I'm the Doctor.

MABLI: A doctor of medicine?

THE DOCTOR: Well, medicine, science, engineering, candy floss, LEGO, philosophy, music, problems, people, hope. Mostly hope.

“Here it is,” Yaz said, placing the large, hard-cover book on the table. There was a picture of a sun on it—not a bright yellow, happy sun, but a bloodred one, peeking above or below the horizon. The artist hadn’t specified. Over the sun was writing, which read “Gallifrey Middle School” in large black letters.

“Wow,” Ryan said, flipping to the back of the book. “You’ve got, like, fifty signatures.”

“Fifty-three,” Yaz told him. “My entire algebra class signed each other’s.”

“How many people were there? Twenty?”

“Twenty-one,” Theta chimed in, taking a bite of her sandwich.

“You weren’t even in algebra with us,” Yaz said, shaking her head. Theta shrugged.

“With you two,” Graham clarified. “Excuse me if I’m not a genius, stuck in geometry this year.”

“You’ve got your strengths,” Theta assured him.

“Yeah, I do,” Graham agreed. “And you do too, except your strengths are everything.”

Theta raised an eyebrow, trying to look unimpressed. If felt like the right thing to do, raising an eyebrow. Though by the way Yaz was hiding her mouth behind her hand, Theta was pretty sure her best friend was laughing; she must look ridiculous.

“Might want to practice that one, mate,” Ryan said.

“I’m raising an eyebrow!” Theta protested.

“Sure, you are,” Yaz agreed, stressing the ‘sure’ as much as was humanly possible. In in other words, Yaz was being sarcastic.

“Thank you for your support,” Theta joked.

“I was being sarcastic,” Yaz told her.

“Yep!” Theta said. “I picked up on that. I was also being sarcastic.”

“Oh,” Graham said.

“Can we get back to the embarrassing middle school yearbook?” Theta asked.

“Right,” Yaz said. “Are you in this thing? ‘cos it’s not fair if you get to see us with our weird hair and stuff and we don’t get to see you.”

“They had me do my picture on retake day,” Theta said.

“Cool!” Yaz said. “Right, you were absent a ton in middle school, weren’t you? And ninth grade?”

“Yeah,” Theta said, looking down at her food and bouncing her leg under the table. The first half of the sandwich was done.

“Whenever we try to talk about that, you just, shut down or something,” Ryan said.

“I noticed,” Theta said.

“Exactly,” Yaz nodded.

“I was sick a lot,” Theta lied.

“You seemed fine when you came into school,” Graham said. “And it just…stopped, suddenly.”

“Yeah, ‘cos I got better,” Theta said. She rolled her eyes. That ought to do it. “There was an experimental trial. I was in it. I got cured. Voila.”

“What was it, that you had?” Graham asked. “I can ask Grace about it, so you don’t have to explain everything. She’s not as good as you are, with the doctor stuff, but she’s still great at it.” Grace was Graham’s girlfriend, and was almost certainly going into pre-med school. Theta hadn’t talked with her much, but she seemed like one of those rare people who was just so good. And not in a boring way, either.

“Look,” Yaz said. “Let’s not bother Theta about this, yeah? It’s her business, not ours. She’s okay now, right?” She looked at Theta for confirmation. Theta nodded. “See? Everything’s fine.” Yaz flipped to the ‘Y’ section of the yearbook. “Here I am.”

Yaz didn’t look that different, Theta thought. Her eyes were still brown, her hair was done up in her typical space buns, and she was wearing a stylish (or at least what Theta assumed was stylish) jacket over a green shirt.

“Oh my God,” Yaz said. “Look at me.”

“I dunno,” Ryan said, voicing Theta’s confusion. “You look pretty much the same.”

“The makeup, Ryan,” Graham said.

Ryan stared at the photo for another moment. “Ohhhh.”

Theta shrugged. “You look good.”

“I had no idea how to do makeup,” Yaz said. “I would’ve been better off taking tips from Sonya.”

“Let’s look at Graham next,” Ryan said. He started flipping through the book, before turning too far. “Oh, look, we’re here!”

Theta leaned over to see the section with photos from all the different ‘spirit days’ and ridiculous events their school participated in. “Why’re you all wearing blue?” She asked. Yaz had taken off her jacket and was in a blue T-shirt. Her hair was down, curls flowing down her shoulders and tied up with a blue hair ribbon. Ryan’s hair was longer, and he was also wearing blue, with a puzzle piece button on his shirt. Graham wore his blue jacket, and a button as well, with Grace in a sky-blue skirt and blue top.

“Light it Up Blue, I think,” Yaz said, trying to remember. “I mean, you go to the same school as us. You must’ve heard?”

Theta shook her head curiously, looking at the puzzle piece buttons. “When was this?”

“Early April,” Ryan said. “The third, was it?”

“April second,” Graham said.

“Close enough,” Ryan shrugged. “So, yeah, the school does Light it Up Blue every year. We started it in seventh grade.”

“So, you managed to be absent every April 2^th since seventh grade?” Yaz asked. “I admire the consistency.”

“Thanks,” Theta said wryly, thinking back into the past years. “I was sick in seventh grade.” She’d actually been sick that day. Her cold was so bad that her mother had had to give her a steroid to drink. Theta had looked it up afterwards—that was actually proper medical procedure, since she’d been struggling to breathe. She’d been surprised. “And…eighth grade too.” Less so, that time. Theta wasn’t going to think about it. “Ninth grade, I wasn’t exactly sick. There was stuff happening.”

“That was around the time of your experimental treatment, yeah?” Ryan asked.

“Ryan,” Graham chided.

“Yeah,” Theta said. “Round about. It was actually later in the month, though.” Her friends were fairly new—Theta had only met Yaz for real on the first day of English that year—so they hadn’t asked too many questions about what had been going on before April and May of 9^th grade. Theta was grateful for that. But it obviously wasn’t going to last. Now, her spur of the moment story seemed like she’d have to stick to it, so it was best if the dates could line up.

“Right,” Yaz said. “I actually was the secretary of the middle school service club when we brought it there. They did Light it Up Blue in the high school the year before. Izzy proposed it, but I helped; this was back when we were on speaking terms. So, I talked to—”

“You have to explain what it is first, though, Yaz,” Graham interrupted.

“Right,” Yaz said sheepishly. “So, have you ever heard of autism?”

“Yes,” Theta said, her mouth suddenly turning dry despite her half-empty water bottle. She took a bite of her sandwich to prevent herself from saying more. Theta had definitely heard of autism—it was one of the words that had been thrown this way and that the last year, when people thought she wasn’t listening. She’d looked it up, but hadn’t done that much research. Normally, Theta would throw herself into researching anything medical-related, but at the time…she really hadn’t felt like doing anything of the sort.

“Great,” Yaz said. “Where’d you hear of it? If you didn’t realize we were, you know, doing Light It Up Blue.”

“My aunt,” Theta said. It was somewhat true. Aunt Ohila had, indeed, said the word, so Theta had heard it from her aunt. Not really a lie. That was good.

Yaz nodded. “She a doctor or something?” Ryan asked. Theta shook her head.

“Anyway,” Yaz said, steering them back on topic. “There’s this organization, Autism Speaks. It helps treat people with autism and gives support to them and their families. They have a walk every year, and April 2^nd is Autism Awareness Day, when we’re supposed to wear blue.”

Theta thought about that for a moment, taking another bite of her sandwich and tracing the grains in the table with her left hand as she talked. She wasn’t really sure they were succeeding, since the only ‘treatment’ Theta had gotten for anything had been from her mother. Miss Foster didn’t count, because she was an idiot. But then again, Theta was a special case. “That’s cool,” she said eventually. “I’ll look it up after school,” she decided. “So that I know more about it.”

“Hey,” Ryan said, reaching a photo of Graham with strangely long hair. “Look at this!”

“Bonjour,” Yaz said, bored out of her mind. Well, not really bored. It was impossible to be bored when O was glaring daggers at her. “Qu’est-ce que tu veux acheter?”

O frowned, his arm hiding whatever he was drawing on the paper describing what they were supposed to be doing. Mademoiselle Quelou was hovering over Jack and Rose, who literally never did their classwork. Why she had assigned them together, then, was anyone’s guess. Maybe Yaz would think that she was trying to be nice, except that she had told Yaz and O to work together.

O’s real name was Koschei Oakdown, but if anyone called him that he’d glare at them with such fury that they’d back away slowly until they were out of sight and then run as fast as their legs could carry them. O’s glares weren’t threats—they were promises. After all, he hung out around Missy and Harold, and they could (and would) certainly deliver. So, everyone just called him O, even the teachers.

Everyone except Theta. Most of the time, she referred to O as “Him.” (Yaz had neglected to inform Theta why the capitalization made her start laughing). Occasionally, if she had to clarify, she’d use O. But if she was in an argument with him, which was, in Yaz’s experience, very frequent, she’d call him “Koschei” just to antagonize him. It worked.

This would have been useful information, if anyone other than Theta desired to antagonize him. Hence, it was the most useless information in the world.

“Ta pronunciation est terrible,” O informed Yaz. It took her a bit to figure out what he was saying, which was rather embarrassing if she thought about it.

“I doubt yours is better,” she said. Mlle. Quelou glared her from over by Jack and Rose’s desks. “I can’t say it in French. Sue me.”

“Je ne pense pas…que votre pronunciation est plus bien que la mienne,” O said cheerfully.

This took even longer to interpret. Yaz highly doubted that he was actually correct, but she was tired of this. And Mlle. Quelou was staring at O proudly. “Fine,” Yaz rolled her eyes. “Qu’est-ce que tu veux acheter?”

“It would actually be more situationally accurate if you used ‘vous,’” O said. “Je pense que ‘vous’ a plus de raison.

“Yeah? Well, maybe I’m a very rude retailer.” O tilted his head to the side, considering it. “You’re worse than Theta,” Yaz said, shaking her head.

“Merci,” O smiled. “But I thought you two were friends or something.”

“We are—she just likes correcting other people. Why am I even—wait a second, that was in English.”

“I was curious as to the answer,” O said. “Which meant I had to phrase it in a way your tiny mind would understand.” Theta would have some sort of snappy comeback, but Yaz just rolled her eyes again.

“Pas d’Anglais!” Mlle. Quelou announced, striding through the rows of desks. “En Français seulment!”

“Qu’est-ce que tu veux acheter?” Yaz asked again, leaning back in her chair.

“Eh, je voudrais acheter une robe,” O said.

Yaz raised an eyebrow. “And here I was thinking you knew French better than I did.”

“Oui, tu as raison.”

“You just said you wanted to buy a dress,” Yaz told him.

“Oui.” O also leaned back in his chair.

Yaz sighed. Theoretically, if O decided to wear dresses, she wouldn’t have problem with it. Theta would, but Theta had a problem with everything O wore and vice versa, so that was alright. But Yaz had never seen O wear a dress in her life. Oh, well, she had better things to do than argue with him about whether he would actually wear it (though now that she thought of it, if she could trick him into accepting a dare, Theta would be overjoyed). “Fine. Quel colour veux-tu?”

“May I be excused?” Theta asked, standing up from the table. It was fairly large so that Ohila could have her feminist movement ‘Sisters of Kidding’ or whatever it was (Theta knew it was ‘Sisters of Karn’; she just refused to remember it on principal), but currently it only sat two people.

“In a moment,” Theta’s aunt, Ohila, said. Theta frowned to herself. “Have you finished your homework?”

“Yes,” Theta said shortly.

“All of it?”

“Yes.”

“How was school today?”

Theta looked at Ohila, unimpressed. “Fine.”

Ohila sighed. “You have school tomorrow. Don’t stay up too late.”

Theta jerked her head in some semblance of a nod and headed up the stairs to her room.

Before May 4^th, the room had been a guest room. The walls were a dull sort of beige, the curtains were grey-blue with white floral print, and the bed had an ugly green cover with the strangest texture Theta had ever experienced on top of nearly as ugly brown sheets.

This new room, the room of March 2^nd a year later, bore absolutely no resemblance. Well, the ugly green cover was still there, but nearly no resemblance.

Theta had painted the walls sunset orange, ignoring Ohila’s eyebrow raise. The brown covers had been substituted for a navy blue, along with a rainbow fleece blanket. Theta had found it in the store and fallen in love with it, though she was indignant that there wasn’t an indigo. Ohila had told her that it was supposed to be the LGBTQ+ flag. Theta hadn’t exactly been sure what that meant, but it looked like a good rainbow. Even if poor indigo had been left out.

Ohila had installed a bookshelf with Theta as some weird ‘bonding’ activity, before she’d given up on those when school began again. Theta didn’t really did see the need for a bookshelf, but she did have all the books she had taken from her mother’s house. Mostly medical textbooks, though there were a few fictional stories that she’d gotten as rewards. Ohila had also bought her the Harry Potter series. At first, Theta hadn’t wanted to read them simply to spite her aunt. Eventually, though, she read them and loved them. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Theta had tried to build herself a desk and failed miserably, so Ohila had moved an old desk from her storage into Theta’s room. It was a nice wooden one, though one of the drawers always got stuck.

She had taken some things from home—her real home—as well. Theta’s clothes were mostly the same ones her mother had given her. She’d ignored all of Ohila’s attempts to buy her new ones. She kept her notebooks, too, filled with day after day of journals and stories and data—the ones that hadn’t been taken as evidence, at least. And Theta’s laptop, which she had taken apart and fixed forty-three times, sat on top of the desk.

That was where Theta went as soon as she entered the room. She slid into her chair, adjusting it so that she was situated just right. Quickly, she checked on the collection of custard creams, jammy dodgers, and gummy worms that she had squirrelled away in one of her drawers. There were other hoards, but this was the best—and the easiest to find. It hadn’t been against the rules at home to take food into her room. In fact, it had been the only way to eat some nights. But Theta had the feeling that not hiding food was one of those ‘unspoken rules’ that she was supposed to magically know. If Ohila found this one, she’d figure that Theta just had a sweet tooth and had wanted to eat candy whenever she felt like it. She wouldn’t realize that Theta was keeping the rest for emergencies.

Reassured, Theta took out her laptop and began her work.

First, she looked up the organization Yaz had talked about, Autism Speaks. Its website was filled with pictures of children and colorful banners. Enhancing lives today and accelerating a spectrum of solutions for tomorrow, Theta read inside her head. Enhancing lives today sounded good, she guessed. Enhancing, making better. Nothing wrong with making better. Solutions, well, those were good too, weren’t they? Fixing problems was always good.

Their symbol was a puzzle piece. Theta wasn’t really sure why, but that was fine. She didn’t really know what autism was, after all. She was autistic, according to the whispered conversations she’d overheard, and she loved puzzles.

Theta continued to explore the website. Everything was colorful, she noticed, bright and colorful like candy. They talked a lot, with words that twisted around and around, but Theta was used to that.

Searching through their website, Theta quickly found herself bored. It was the same thing over and over again. But Theta had the faintest thread of suspicion. Maybe she had learned to distrust anything that seemed too good, too perfect, too sickly-sweet. Maybe she was just crazy.

Narrowing her eyes, Theta clicked on the “Treatments” page of the dropdown menu. She was curious about that one, at least. She saw a therapist twice a week who was supposedly helping her with supposed trauma, but to her knowledge she wasn’t actually being treated for anything. But if she looked, maybe she’d find out that she was. That Ohila was just the same as the woman she claimed to hate. Theta knew Ohila was a hypocrite, and would jump at any chance to gain some actual proof.

Applied Behavioral Analysis.

Theta read.

There was more of the twisting words, but it was clearer this time. They were talking about psychology, about experiments, about therapists and subjects. Theta knew all about this.

Antecedent, Behavior, Consequence. The ABC’s.

Theta snorted at the name, but she read. Her nails dug into her palm before she realized what she was doing and stopped.

“Inappropriate behavior.” “Replace the inappropriate behavior.”

Fine, sure, this was fine. Theta was fine. Theta was always fine.

“Decrease problem behaviors.”

Problems. Problems were bad. Problems needed to be fixed.

This was training. They were training a dog to perform tricks.

Theta was fine.

No, Theta wasn’t fine, but she was overreacting. This sort of thing happened all the time, even in normal families. Theta was well aware that her family wasn’t normal, even if Ohila and Miss Foster thought she wasn’t. But that didn’t mean Theta didn’t know what normal families were like. She’d read, after all. If a kid did something well, they got a reward. If they got in trouble, they were punished.

This was fine. Just an extension of natural consequences.

ABC.

Theta shook her head to clear it. She was done with the Autism Speaks website. It looked…fine. It was just her overreacting to one little thing, and they even had a nice quote about how not all autistic people are the same. That sounded like something people were supposed to say, Theta thought.

Wikipedia next. Not the most reliable source, but a whole lot better than most teachers seemed to think. It would at least give her basic information that she could seek sources on. Trust but verify.

Skipping through most of the stuff, Theta jumped to the part that said “views.”

According to Autism Speaks, autism was a disease. Theta didn’t feel diseased, but maybe she just didn’t know it. Her therapist treated her like she’d shattered into a million pieces. Her mother had treated her like a problem—no, not a problem. A puzzle. Her mother hadn’t tried to fix her, she’d tried to solve her.

Theta didn’t think she was diseased, but what did she know?

“In September 2009, Autism Speaks screened the short video I Am Autism at its annual focus event…has been criticized by autism advocates and researchers for its negative portrayal of autism.”

Theta looked up the video, but didn’t really feel like watching something with sound. Ohila would get curious, and this felt like something to hide. Theta wasn’t sure why—it was only research, and Ohila had said that she didn’t mind Theta using her computer for academic purposes.

Instead, she scrolled until she found a transcript, and clicked.

And then she read.

When she finished, Theta read through it again and again, unable to stop. Eventually, she tore her eyes away from the transcript, returning to the Wikipedia article.

Activities.

Theta read their section about research, then about awareness. “Autism Speaks sponsored and distributed the short film Autism Every Day.” There was a link. Theta clicked it.

It was controversial, and she wasn’t surprised.

Theta sighed, taking out her headphones and setting them over her head, trying to ignore the way they made her feel lonely or pushed down on her ears.

She watched the video.

Theta searched Autism Speaks again, this time scrolling past their website.

Each link led somewhere else, led to a new search. “autism speaks problems”. “autism speaks board of directors”. “judge rotenberg center”.

At some point, around eleven o’clock, Ohila knocked on Theta’s door before stepping into the room. “Theta, you need to get some rest. You have school tomorrow.”

“I will,” Theta said, crossing her arms.

Ohila muttered something about rebellious teenagers and left. Theta went back to work.

She didn’t sleep that night. If she did, Theta knew what her dreams would be.

Chapter Text

Theta did not rise bright and early. She didn't rise at all, in the sense that she hadn't ever fallen asleep.

It also wasn't bright out. The sky was a dull grey, and the world's color seemed faded.

Theta hadn't slept at all the last night, which was perfectly fine. Theta was adept at running on very little sleep, never mind that she'd only gotten about three and a half hours the night before last. She didn't have coffee, since Ohila insisted she was far too young for it (Theta was fifteen, for God's sake, one didn't have to be ancient to drink a little caffeine!). But her mind was fast at work even without it. The words of the I am Autism video ran in Theta's mind as she walked down the street towards her bus stop.

I am autism.

Theta had learned a lot. Theta had researched, which Yaz seemingly hadn't. Shrugging, she pushed away that thought. It wouldn't do to think ill of her friends. Yaz had literally been the secretary—it wasn't like she'd done anything other than smile and say 'supporting people with autism sounds good.'

I'm visible in your children, but if I can help it, I am invisible in you until it's too late.

Theta took a deep breath, trying to stop thinking about it. But the words were burned into her mind. That was rather the point. Words mattered, and these were powerful ones. A monster, stealing away children in the night. A grim reaper. Hah. No monster would come to take Theta away—she'd scare it off first. But then again, if she had some condition, some traits, weren't they part of her? Maybe she was messing things up again, misunderstanding. The evil wasn't separate, wasn't her kidnapper. Theta was the monster, autism and all. That would make a whole lot more sense.

Your scientists don't have the resources, and I relish in their desperation.

"That's new." Theta turned around, grateful to be jolted out of her thoughts. The feeling, however, disappeared when she realized that she would now have to be having a conversation with an idiot named O. "I see that you're thinking—how're you liking it so far?"

I speak your language fluently.

"At least be original with your insults," Theta said quietly. She really didn't feel like doing this right now. After all, she had better things to think about, and okay, so maybe she was a bit (read: very) tired.

"Wow, you're actually too busy thinking to argue with me. Frankly, I'm impressed."

And with every voice I take away, I acquire yet another language.

O leaned against the sign proclaiming Kasterborous Lane. Theta was pretty sure this was illegal, leaning against a sign like that. Could break it. It made her nervous, because if it did break, he might be arrested for vandalism or something. Then again, he'd deserve that. O was a terrible person.

"Penny for them?" He asked.

"You don't have a penny," Theta said. She looked up, briefly scanning over his face and seeing nothing of interest, before seeing him reach into his pocket. "Okay, maybe you do, but it's booby trapped or something. Or a fake penny, though I don't know why anyone would make fake pennies." Scrunching up her face, Theta shrugged. "Seems kind of pointless, really."

"Maybe they're educational toys for idiots such as yourself," O suggested. "And why can't I have a penny?"

"No one in their right mind would entrust you with money," Theta said promptly.

Your money will fall into my hands, and I will bankrupt you for my own self-gain.

"Theta?"

"What now?" Theta asked, annoyed.

"I just insulted you, and you didn't even respond," O said.

"Poor you, not getting humiliated," Theta said. "I was thinking. I can ignore you if I want."

You have no cure for me.

Theta wasn't broken. People had tried. O had tried. The people who had stolen her away from her mother had tried. But Theta had never broken.

And she didn't need to be fixed.

"Theta Lungbarrow, something is very obviously wrong with you. More so than usual, I mean." Theta looked up. If she didn't know better, she'd say he actually looked…worried. "Theta, your aunt—"

"Stop," Theta said. "Stop, and don't you dare continue that sentence. You've ruined enough of my life."

"So it is like that," O said.

I work very quickly.

Theta's thoughts were still muddled, but after a moment she realized what he was saying. "Oh, no. No. It's not…But if it was, it would be none of your business. Just stay out of my life, understand? It's bad enough I have to put up with you at school—I don't need you interfering in this. Ohila acts like she's the exact opposite of my mother and I hate her, but if you get involved, I will kill you."

"Your mother?" O asked, Theta watching as he feigned disbelief. "That—" He saw Theta's glare. "In no universe could that monster be considered a parent."

I work faster than pediatric aids, cancer, and diabetes combined.

"Don't you dare," Theta said. "You know nothing. You ruined my life with your lies."

"I'm not the one who lied to you. I didn't say a word that wasn't true," O defended.

And if you're happily married, I will make sure that your marriage fails.

"You implied," Theta said, trying to pay attention to the conversation despite her fraying thoughts. She forced herself to meet O's eyes, glaring at him.

"I told the facts," O said. Theta looked away. "And I provided evidence. They drew their own—correct—conclusions. Just because you're too stupid to see—"

I derive great pleasure out of your loneliness.

"Stop it!" Theta shouted, shoving him backwards. He toppled over on the grass and Theta looked down at her hands. She hadn't realized that she had used that much force. Well, O deserved it. His only reaction, though, was to grin up at her.

And the truth is, I am still winning, and you are scared.

Theta's heartbeat pounded in her ears as her rage built up, ready to explode. Before she could stop herself, Theta began to yell, looking straight past O's shoulder and searing the green grass with her glare. "You don't get to—you don't get to pick and choose. When I complained to you—and I did, Koschei, I did—about what she did, about her punishments, you know what you said?"

"I'm sorry," O whispered. It just made Theta angrier.

"You said that whatever she did, I must've deserved it because I was a pain. You laughed! I came to you crying and you laughed. Said that whatever I was upset about, I couldn't fault her because I'd messed up, I must be exaggerating."

"I didn't know." His eyes were doing that thing where they were all big and there was something in them.

"So, you know what? You were right, Koschei! You were right, and I didn't know it then, but I deserved it and I was just a big crybaby. She was trying to help, and I didn't understand. But you don't get to come here now, and tell lies about her, after everything you said."

O didn't have anything to say, and somehow that just made Theta's heart burn a little more.

"You're acting like, like you were doing me a favor. Like you were helping. You've hated my guts since seventh grade, which is fine, because I hated yours right back! But your only intention, Koschei, your only intention was to hurt me. Because you were jealous."

And you should be.

O stood up, brushing the grass off of his designer clothes. "Fine," he said, his tone flat. "Fine. Sure. I was jealous. I just wanted to hurt you."

Finally, he admitted it. "I don't want to talk to you, Koschei," Theta said. "Ever again." The pair stood in silence for a minute until the bus arrived.

I will plot to rob you of your children and your dreams.

You ignored me. That was a mistake.

I will fight to take away your hope.

Like Mlle. Quelou, the physics teacher loved partnered activities. Unlike Mlle. Quelou, though, he let them choose their own partners. O was grateful for this—now he wouldn't have to work with one of Theta's stupid friends, claiming they were somehow more deserving of Theta's friendship than him. They didn't know the first thing about Theta, and yet they thought they knew better than O, who had known her since they were six.

Except, the moment that Mr. Smith told the class to find someone to work with, Khan had made a beeline for him.

"We're working together," she announced, grabbing the desk next to his and then pulling it to face him.

"No," he said.

"I've got some questions for you, O. You can answer them now, while Mr. Smith is watching, or you can answer me after school, when no one is around to see me destroy you."

"Are you threatening to beat me up?" O asked, confused out of his mind. No one threatened him. Except Theta, but Theta was a special case in everything. His acquaintances, Missy and Harold, would exact their revenge on anyone who hurt him, and besides, O was perfectly capable of fighting for himself.

"I've taken self-defense training," Khan said. "You don't want to mess with me."

"You don't have backup," O pointed out helpfully. He could totally deal with her on his own, and she surely knew this. And he didn't think she was smart enough to realize that, as entertaining as it would be, he didn't actually want to get into a fight with Khan. Theta hated him. Really hated him. Wouldn't even talk to him now. And while Theta often didn't mean things like that, she meant it this time. O didn't think he could fix this.

But while he was normally all for razing terrible situations to the ground…Theta could be scary when she was angry. Right now, she just wanted him out of her life, but if he hurt Khan, Theta would kill him.

It wasn't that he cared. He just was afraid for his safety.

O snorted. He was a great liar, especially to himself, but even he couldn't convince anyone of that. Except Theta, who seemed to believe it anyway.

"I've got Ryan and Graham."

Interesting. So, whatever this was, it was about Theta, since she wasn't included. And Theta probably didn't know this conversation was happening. "You mean Sinclair and O'Brien? Sinclair's got dyspraxia, everyone knows it. And O'Brien moves like a senior citizen." Khan glared at him. O sighed. "Fine." Mr. Smith was coming over, so he started scribbling on his lab paper about his hypothesis for the circuit experiment. It wasn't much of a hypothesis—O knew exactly what would happen. He'd done the same experiment with Theta when they were ten, during his friend's (his former friend's) limited playtime.

Khan considered this for a moment, then sat down in the chair across from him. O did the same. "What the hell did you do to Theta?" She asked.

"What?"

"Theta won't focus on anything—Grace came over at lunch and started telling Graham about Tetralogy of Fallot, and Theta just nodded dejectedly. No infodump."

O shrugged, biting back a comment about how he was surprised Khan even knew what dejectedly meant, considering her limited intelligence. Privately, he thought that Theta just wasn't in the mood to discuss heart conditions, even without considering the unpleasant memories he must have brought up earlier.

"She's completely out of it, staring off into space and getting startled out of her thoughts. And she looks like she worked straight through last night."

Well, that was another explanation for why Theta had been so upset this morning. Sleep deprivation was practically a normal state for her, but if Theta was even more so than usual, she might have difficulty functioning. It made him feel a bit less bad for provoking her into shoving him, but then he remembered that she wouldn't ever talk to him again. He'd have to figure something out about that.

"I'm flattered that you think I'm capable of getting to Theta, but I assure you, I'm not. After all, I've been trying to for years, and she's perfectly fine." Khan glared at him. "What, do you want me to lie?" She peered over at his paper. "No cheating," O said.

"We're lab partners, remember?" Khan said.

"For all you know, I'm purposely misleading you and I'll fix my answer before I turn it in."

Khan rolled her eyes. "It's the hypothesis. Honestly. I wouldn't put it past you to waste your energy being diabolical, but it would be just that—a waste of energy."

"Diabolical?" O asked.

"Theta's words, not mine."

O nodded approvingly. His evil schemes were, indeed, on the scale of diabolical.

"That was a lie, by the way," Khan said. "You weren't really trying to hurt her; you were trying to get her angry. By arguing with her and hurting us, so I'm not saying you're a saint or anything. But you did something, went too far."

Well, that about summed it up. Too well. Maybe Khan was smarter than O gave her credit for. O stared at her for a moment. She really was worried. O wasn't sure how much of this was his fault and how much of this was whatever Theta had been thinking about that morning, but he was at least partially responsible. And since he couldn't really do anything about it…

"We may have had an argument at the bus stop, this morning," O said eventually. "I said some things. They were all true. She got upset, because she didn't want to believe them."

"You know what?" Khan said. "I think you know precisely what you did wrong. And you're just too proud to admit it. Well, I really hope you're happy, because Theta's miserable. There you go. Got your wish."

"I—"

"You hurt her, and you can't even admit it. 'They were all true. She got upset, because she didn't want to believe them.' What the hell did you say that did that to Theta?"

"It's not your business," O said.

"Excuse me?" Khan asked. She fell silent as Mr. Smith passed their table, checking the current of the circuit and recording the result in her notebook. After a moment, she resumed talking, but quieter. "I think it's most definitely my business. Theta's my friend."

"She was my friend long before she was yours."

"But you're her enemy," Khan said. "Arch-enemy, according to you."

"Yeah, sure. Fine. There's a lot you don't know about Theta, Khan. And I'm not going to tell it to you."

"What, because you'd be betraying her trust?"

"Exactly," O said. "Well, that and the fact that she'd kill me if she found out I'd said a word. Kill you too, though, so it might be worth it. Consorting with the enemy…not a good look, Khan."

Khan shook her head. "I'll find out what you said."

"No, you won't."

The smell of burnt plastic filled the air. Mr. Smith was coming over.

Theta wanted more than anything to just go to sleep when she got home, but she couldn't. There was her appointment with that stupid therapist to look forward to.

Her car ride was uncomfortable, at best. The straps kept digging into Theta's shoulders, no matter how valiantly she tried to ignore it—she'd had worse, but that didn't mean that it wasn't annoying. And Ohila kept trying to talk to her.

"Are you ever going to go to your friends' houses?" Ohila asked.

"No," Theta said. They probably wouldn't ever invite her. Theta knew that she was a high maintenance friend. She took care not to push her issues onto them, but she wasn't perfect. As nice as they were, being around Yaz, Ryan, and Graham was exhausting. She had to keep smiling (but not too much, or too widely; that was creepy) and stay cheerful. Come up with jokes, tell them entertaining stories. Sometimes they had something to say, and then she had to react just right. Tell them the right things. Theta tried, and she did well enough to keep them around. But enough to bring her home and show their parents, say 'hello, mom and dad, look at this kid we've half adopted'? Nah.

"You can invite them over to our house, you know."

"I'm not going to invite them over to your house," Theta said.

"It's your home too, Theta."

"It really isn't."

"Tecteun's home is not yours. Why would you even want to live there? It's full of bad memories."

Sure, it was. It was also full of good ones. She'd been punished sometimes, and yes, a few (most) of the experiments had hurt. But she'd always learned, and many of the tests had just been boring. It was for a good cause, anyway.

Theta remembered when her mother had taken her outside and pointed up at the stars, telling her about what they actually were. She told her about how stars were born and died and born again, how everyone in the world was made of stardust.

'Am I made of stardust, too?' Theta had asked.

'Of course,' Tecteun said. 'The stars gave you to me, to save the world.' She tapped Theta on the nose. Theta didn't like it much, but that wasn't the important part. The gesture had meaning behind it. It meant that Theta was loved.

When Theta found herself wanting to hate her mother, she always just thought of the stars.

O's words still shook her, though. A monster. Theta thought about it. Thought about the videos. Maybe O was misunderstanding. Tecteun wasn't the monster.

Theta was.

But…but the video was wrong about one thing. If there was a monster, it was her. It wasn't some evil disease coming to steal children. Theta was here. Theta was herself, monster or not.

Theta felt like she was, most of the time.

Yaz would disagree, Theta thought to herself.Yaz and Ryan and Graham and Grace, they'd disagree. Say I'm brilliant.

But her friends didn't know.

Koschei would disagree.

Theta sighed, realizing that she hadn't spoken for a while. "I thought you were always saying I need to start facing my fears. Stop running away. And it is my home. I grew up there, and it's full of good memories. There would be bad ones too, at your place, if I had any at all. But I don't, because it's not mine. It's just somewhere I'm staying."

"Until?"

Theta didn't really have an answer to that one. Ohila's house was somewhere Theta was staying temporarily. But Tecteun wasn't ever getting out of jail, and if she was, she wouldn't be allowed to take Theta back. There was no evidence Theta could produce that would change that.

"I want my notebooks," Theta said suddenly. It was a good topic change.

"Your…notebooks."

"Yes, my notebooks. The one's they took as evidence."

"Those had to go on file, Theta, you know that."

"Can't they just make copies of them, though?" Theta asked.

"If you want, you can contact the police," Ohila said. "You did say that they could take them."

"Well, I wasn't thinking clearly, was I?" Theta shook her head. "I'm a legal minor. I'll need you to do it."

"Very well. You get a good report from Miss Foster today and I'll see what I can do."

Theta withheld her laughter at that and hoped Ohila wasn't watching through the rearview mirror. If you're good, I'll get you your notebooks. If you're bad…

ABC. Theta felt slightly nauseous, in that annoying way that wasn't enough. Her stomach was queasy, but not so queasy that she could say she actually had much chance of being sick. Nothing to justify complaining. It would just remain like that until it got worse or Theta was able to reset it somehow. Normally, that was a meal or sleep, neither of which seemed particularly close.

The car stopped in front of a large building. Ohila parked and got out, escorting Theta into the elevator. Theta pressed the button. She wasn't sure why, but pressing the elevator buttons was one of those things that was just fun. She imagined that driving in a police car with the sirens on would be fun too, but she didn't think that would happen. Unless she was to get arrested—but Theta wouldn't get caught, if she committed a crime.

Well…

Ohila stopped outside of Room 43, which was a waiting room. Someone was sitting there, a man with a strange hat, a question mark vest, and an absurd umbrella. Theta sat down on one of the chairs and picked up the Weird but True book that always sat there. She was on page 84 of her seventh re-read, and it was beginning to get a bit boring.

Thankfully, the previous person finished quickly, leaving the room and thanking the therapist. It was someone new today. Normally, a girl with short, dark hair and plunging necklines went before her. Theta couldn't remember her name.

"Hi," said the girl who just stepped out. She was wearing a black jacket with lots of patches on it, and had light blonde hair. "I'm Ace."

"Theta," Theta said.

"Who's making you go here?" Ace asked.

"My aunt," Theta said.

Ace nodded sympathetically. "She's downright awful, isn't she?" She whispered conspiratorially.

Theta nodded.

"I'm leaving, after this," Ace said. "Gave her a piece of my mind. If you can convince your aunt to send you somewhere else, Dr. Idris Tardis is good."

"Miss Foster, have you received my email message?" The umbrella man said, standing up and putting down his magazine. Theta was pretty sure he hadn't actually been reading it.

"Yes," she said. Theta noticed that Miss Foster looked paler than normal.

"Then you know we are no longer in need of your services."

"I did get the memo, yes," Miss Foster said sweetly. Theta envied Ace.

"Come on, Ace." The pair left the room, Ace waving goodbye.

"Well now, Theta, why don't you come into my office?"

Miss Foster's office had a large table in the center of it. The table was round, which Theta didn't understand—what was the point of a round table? It just made one part too close and one part too far. Theta's chair was always positioned across from Foster's. There were also coloring books and puzzle toys strewn across the table. Some of the puzzle toys looked fun, but they certainly wouldn't be fun while Foster was watching and probably grading her on how much trauma she was showing.

Miss Foster closed the door. It always made Theta feel trapped, having the door closed, but it was better than Ohila listening in on their conversations. Theta looked over at the door, checking that it was fully shut.

"How are you?" Foster asked.

"Good," Theta replied mechanically. "How are you?"

"I'm doing well," Foster said. "My baby—that is, my dog—had to go to the vet, but he's doing well." She looked at Theta, gauging her reaction.

Theta looked back at Miss Foster's forehead. Really, Foster seemed to think that she'd fall apart or something at the first mention of a doctor. It was perfectly normal when coping with trauma, Foster had said at their first meeting.

Theta had politely informed her that she wasn't traumatized.

"Have you watched any TV?" Foster asked.

"Yep," Theta said, looking down at the table. She really just wanted to leave. "It was all boring."

"Read any new books?"

"I found a medical textbook on chromosomal disorders at the library," Theta said. The library was one of the few things that was the same after she'd been taken away from her mother. It had the same carpeted floor, the same shelves, and the same books. The teenager who worked there continued to be friendly. River acted kind of weird when talking to Theta, but at least she was nice.

"And do you think that's healthy?" Foster asked. She always asked stupid questions like this.

"I'm doing what I enjoy, yeah," Theta said.

"Have you considered that your obsession with medicine is your way of processing what Tecteun did to you?"

"I like medicine because it's interesting," Theta said.

"Theta," Foster said. Theta didn't like where her tone was leading. "Can you tell me something Yaz likes?"

Theta had reluctantly told Miss Foster that she had three and a half friends at school, and the therapist had jumped on that.

"Er, Law and Order?" Yaz talked about that sometimes.

"And how much does she talk about that?"

Theta considered this. "One conversation a week or so. A few other references."

"How much would you say you talk about medical information?"

"Lots," Theta said. "Two conversations a day, maybe. I tell my friends about it."

"Can you see the difference here?" Miss Foster asked. Theta could definitely see the difference, but that wasn't the point.

"I read that autistic people have special interests," Theta said. "That they really really like. I heard you tell Ohila that I'm autistic."

"Yes," Miss Foster said, as if she hadn't tried to never tell this to Theta. "Special interests can be useful tools for learning and motivation, up until a point. But when they begin to consume too much of your time—"

"A number," Theta said. "Give me a number—how much of my time should I spend?" She clarified.

"Perhaps four or five hours a day, at most."

"You went to…some kind of school, but you studied to be a therapist. Did you spend more than four hours a day learning about therapy?" Theta asked.

"We're talking about you," Miss Foster said.

"I like reading about this," Theta said. "It's something I enjoy."

"And why do you enjoy it?"

"It's fascinating."

"Why does it fascinate you?"

Theta shrugged. "It just does. I like it."

"And you believe this has nothing to do with your former home life?"

Theta thought about this for a moment. "My mother had lots of medical textbooks, so I guess that was part of it. And I saw science all the time, when she did her experiments. That's probably what got me interested. But—it's not an unhealthy fixation. I'm not 'processing abuse,' because she didn't abuse me!"

"I don't believe I used that word," Miss Foster said.

"You did last time."

"Did something happen recently?" Miss Foster asked.

"No."

"You can tell me about what happened, or you can try one of the puzzles," Miss Foster said.

Theta wrinkled her nose. "You can't make me do anything."

"No," Miss Foster replied. "But this process is two ways. I need you to work with me. If you're not, then I can tell your aunt that you might need some more help."

Theta sighed. She could make something up, or she could tell the truth. She was too tired to think of a story right now, though. "I argued a bit with a kid at school."

"What was his or her name?" Miss Foster asked.

"O," Theta said.

"That's not a name, though."

"His name's technically Koschei Oakdown, but he doesn't like that."

"Koschei Oakdown…that's your friend, isn't he?"

"He hasn't been my friend since seventh grade," Theta said.

"What happened?" Miss Foster asked.

A lot of things. O had been jealous, O had hung out with Harold and Missy, O had been angry. Theta wasn't blameless either—she knew that. But she thought it was for the best, even if it had left her with no one to notice when she was hurting. If she had stayed friends with O, he probably would have gone to the police even earlier. Noticed the full depth of what Theta's mother did. But then again, she'd have been able to explain why. Explain how it was alright.

Maybe it would have been better if Theta had stayed friends with him.

"He hung out with some mean people, and I didn't like his new friends. We argued."

"But he kept looking out for you," Miss Foster said.

Theta looked up, briefly meeting her eyes. "No, he didn't."

"He's the one that told the police about your mother."

"He was jealous."

"Tecteun was abusive, Theta."

"No," Theta said. "She wasn't. Why didn't you tell me I was autistic?"

"You're changing the subject."

"Why didn't you?"

Miss Foster frowned. "It's a lot to put on a child, to tell you that you have a developmental disorder. Frankly, I didn't think you could handle it. Besides, your aunt refused to give you the proper therapy."

Theta stood up. She could remember the page on the Autism Speaks website, could remember the page, remember the—

"Like what?" She asked.

"Sit down," Miss Foster said.

"Fine."

"There is an evidence-based therapy called Applied Behavioral Analysis that would teach you how to fit in better and display the correct behaviors."

"So, I'm not correct?" Theta asked. "I'm bad? Broken?"

"I did not say that. You are not your disorder. ABA is designed to decrease its effects on you."

"I read about ABA," Theta said, feeling something burning within her chest. She shaped her next few words like daggers, throwing them out to see if they would hit, to see if they would pierce through Miss Foster's armor. "Wasn't there a school that did that? The Judge Rotenberg Center?"

"Their methods are…a bit extreme, though arguably necessary in some cases," Miss Foster said. "But you're incredibly high functioning—that means you are able to do a lot in spite of your disability. I would recommend nothing of that magnitude for you."

"For me?" Theta asked. Well, that had been easy. She hadn't even finished setting the trap, and Miss Foster had leapt right in with a smile. "So, you'd recommend it for other people?"

Miss Foster squirmed. It was satisfying. "Theta, I believe you're a bit off topic."

"I am, aren't I? Well, I don't particularly feel like being on-topic," Theta said. She shot to her feet and marched towards the door.

"There are twenty minutes remaining in your session," Miss Foster said. "Would you like to continue, or would you like to tell your aunt that you are walking out on me?"

"Neither," Theta said. She looked around the room. Surely there was some clever way out of this.

"Well, Theta, I believe you're going to have to make a decision." Her voice was sickly-sweet.

Twenty minutes. Theta could handle that.

"Fine," Theta huffed, sitting down in her chair.

"Good," Miss Foster said. "Now, would you like to discuss this maturely?"

"I don't know, would you?" Theta imagined herself saying. But that was childish. "I'd like to," Theta said. "If I thought I could have a reasonable debate with you on the subject, I would be happy to oblige. It seems, however, that you don't want to have any discussion about this, reasonable or not." Well, that was basically the same childish sentence in many more words.

"We are talking about you, here," Miss Foster said. "My role is to help you recover from your trauma and lead a healthy, productive life."

"I'm leading a productive life," Theta said. She wouldn't pretend it was exactly healthy, staying up every night, skipping lunch most days, getting into stupid arguments with O. At least he had seemed to stay away from her after their argument, though Theta wasn't sure how long it would last.

"Theta, the first step to recovering from trauma is to acknowledge it, which you are not even willing to do. You need to work with me, if we are to help you."

"I don't need help," Theta said. "And my mother taught me not to falsify results."

Miss Foster looked at her quizzically.

"Lying," Theta clarified. Seriously, whoever had given Miss Foster any sort of certification was an idiot, in Theta's opinion. "My mother taught me not to lie."

"That woman was not your mother. Continuing to call her that is counterproductive."

"She was!" Theta said loudly. "She is, even if you've locked her up for trying to—"

"You are yelling at me, Theta." Theta closed her mouth. She hadn't realized she was yelling, and hadn't meant to. Not that she exactly regretted it. "If you wish me to explain to your aunt that this arrangement is not working, you are doing rather well."

Theta thought about this. She didn't know what would happen if she was kicked out of therapy, but it wouldn't be good.

Ohila would certainly make her see someone else. Theta was well aware that Miss Foster was not representative of how therapists were supposedto act. In theory. The problem was, she also wasn't sure if Miss Foster was normal for a therapist. She'd been highly recommended by other caretakers (Theta carefully selected this word in her mind) in the area whose wards had "suffered trauma." Miss Foster took broken kids and fixed them. Theta wasn't broken, but, well, Miss Foster didn't know that. For all Theta knew, whoever else Ohila would make her see would be even worse.

And then there would be the fact that Theta would have messed up. Theta didn't know how bad of a mess up it would be considered, but it'd certainly be worse than the sarcastic comments and sulking that Theta had gotten away with so far.

This was the problem. Theta didn't know how bad it would be. She didn't know who'd have to break it to Ohila, whether Miss Foster would or Theta would be forced to. Theta didn't even know which would be worse.

There was no rule that said "you cannot get kicked out by Miss Foster, or else X," because Ohila hadn't thought of that scenario. She hadn't learned to plan for the unexpected. But the clear message was that that was unthinkable. Unimaginable. There was no rule and set punishment, because it just didn't happen. So, if it happened…

Theta just didn't know.

And there weren't any other rules that Theta could use as a comparison, because none of them had been stated clearly. After she'd first moved in with Ohila, Theta had badgered her aunt for the list of rules and consequences. Three weeks passed before Ohila had grudgingly told her that the rules were:

1. Do not start fights at school or anywhere else. As a corollary, do not resort to violence except in self-defense.

2. Get permission before leaving the house.

3. Don't do anything illegal.

There were three rules, and there were a whole host of scenarios they didn't cover. Theta knew that Ohila had more rules than that, but she kept them inside her head, refusing to tell. Thus, Theta didn't know all the rules. It made her uncomfortable, but what could she do?

The other problem was that the consequences were completely missing. Theta's mother had made her memorize the rules and the consequences for breaking them. The consequences were the fair result, she'd said, and that Theta would have to do her own cost-benefit analysis before deciding what to do.

Theta had done her best to follow the rules, but there were…so many of them, and sometimes she broke them. Still, at least then she'd been prepared, she'd known the risks and made her own decision.

If Theta was kicked out, she didn't know what the consequences would be. Ohila claimed that Theta's mother was some sort of monster, but Theta knew full well that her aunt was a hypocrite.

Theta was exhausted, and she couldn't afford any consequences. At least not right now, running on barely any sleep, school the next day, and her mind already filled with her research and recent fight.

"Well?" Miss Foster asked impatiently. Theta had been thinking for a while.

"I'm sorry," Theta said, looking down.

"Are you finally ready to make some progress?"

"Yes," Theta whispered.

"Good," Miss Foster said. "I have showed you the definition of child abuse. Tecteun caused you serious physical and emotional harm. She was abusive towards you. Do you understand this?"

Theta nodded. She felt like she was betraying her mother. But all she was doing was nodding. And Theta had already done far worse, letting the police see her notebooks, telling the court's child psychologist even a quarter of what Tecteun had done.

That had been enough for the ignorant jury to sentence her to life in prison. Not just for child abuse, but for a number of things. They didn't understand at all.

"Say it," Miss Foster said. "Verbally."

"Yes."

"The whole thing, please, Theta. Don't be difficult."

Theta looked up, past Miss Foster's shoulder. These were just words, only words. Sure, they were horrible ones, and sure, they reminded her of her argument with O. But they couldn't physically harm anyone. And that was what mattered.

Cost benefit analysis.

"Tecteun was abusive," Theta said, loudly. Miss Foster looked at Theta with something that Theta thought might be pride. Probably because Theta hadn't said 'my mother.' But that was only because it was easier that way. Theta remained loyal to her mother. Tecteun was abusive. Tecteun was someone else. Theta didn't know anyone she called Tecteun.

"Good," Miss Foster said. "You know, I think I keep some candy around here somewhere." She stood up, as if to start searching.

Theta nearly laughed. God, Miss Foster had no clue what she was doing. 'Say your mother was abusive and you get candy.' What did her words even mean, then? This was bribery or something.

Instead of saying this out loud, however, Theta just shook her head. "I don't really like candy."

"Suit yourself," Miss Foster shrugged.

Theta looked up at the clock. Thirteen minutes to go. She needed to steer the topic away, to something safe.

"Ryan has a crush on some girl, now," she said. Couldn't go wrong with that, right?

Miss Foster seemed to accept the topic change. "And how do you feel about that?"

Theta shrugged. "I dunno. Fine, I guess. It won't work out, because her mother moves around a lot for work, and the girl's already been at our school a few months."

"And why did you bring this up?"

"You want information about my week. I'm giving you some."

"What about Yaz," Miss Foster asked. "Does she like any boys?"

Theta shrugged again. This topic was harmless, and also completely boring. "If she does, she didn't tell us. Probably not, though."

"What about you?"

Theta did not, as a matter of fact, did not have a crush on anyone. Graham had his girlfriend since the summer before ninth grade—almost two years. Ryan had a string of crushes on girls that never ended up turning into dates, let alone relationships. Yaz didn't really seem interested in anyone, and always just shrugged when asked. Theta didn't have any interest either. She had her friends, she had her enemies, and that was that.

"That's a bit personal, don't you think?" Theta said, forgetting herself. Well, it was a sarcastic comment. Miss Foster seemed to tolerate those, if only so she could psychoanalyze them later as some sort of barrier Theta was putting up.

"Oh, I understand. Young love. Full of secrets to keep. Whichever young man you like, you should tell me if you begin a relationship, so that you can learn what a healthy relationship should look like."

Miss Foster was trying to give Theta relationship advice. Well, at least it could be worse—they could be talking about the Judge Rotenberg Center.

"Er, thanks," Theta said. She'd rather go to Ohila for advice about this than Miss Foster. Her therapist would probably try to teach her about a relationship health triangle.

"I think we can end a bit early today, don't you?" Miss Foster asked. Theta nodded, trying not to look as eager as she felt. "For homework, I'd like you to write a list for me, okay?"

"What sort of list?" Theta already knew the answer.

"I want you to write me a list of things Tecteun did that you think might be unacceptable." That was easy—Theta could just hand in a blank sheet of paper. Though she knew that that would only get her reported. Miss Foster now knew how to control Theta.

"Fine," Theta said, standing up and walking to the door. Outside in the waiting room, Ohila set down her laptop, an old one that couldn't do anything except Google or run Word without crashing.

"Theta did very well today," Miss Foster said sweetly. Theta cringed at the tone. "I think we're making a lot of progress."

"I'm very proud of you," Ohila said. Theta rolled her eyes. Ohila didn't comment.

The two stood in the elevator in silence.

Theta thought about what she'd learned last night.

Theta thought about the words to that awful video.

Theta thought about how she had so much work left to do.

She didn't think about her fight with O. No, not one bit.

Chapter Text

Theta was aware, in theory, that human fifteen-year-olds should be getting eight to ten hours of sleep a night. Theta was also aware, in theory, that not getting this amount of sleep could result in lack of focus, lower attention span, immunodeficiency, and a whole host of unpleasant things. The trouble was, knowing something and acting on it were entirely different things.

Theta barely slept last night. There’d been so much to do, and she’d read through the entire archive of the Autism Self-Advocacy Network. Probably not the best use of her time, she’d admit, but it had been interesting. Despite doing all of her work on her laptop, with the time right there in the right corner, Theta hadn’t registered that it was four in the morning until her head had hit the keyboard and typed out a string of n’s.

Well, Theta was fine. She didn’t really need to sleep. People pulled all-nighters all the time. Sure, probably not ones that resulted in a grand sum of four hours of sleep in seventy-two hours, but, well, Theta wasn’t exactly normal. It was actually perfectly alright.

The sky was a terrible grey as Theta stood at the bus stop, warning that it was going to rain any minute. Theta liked the rain, normally, but not when she was standing at the bus stop with a non-waterproof backpack and absolutely no umbrella.

O had an umbrella. Theta really hoped that it wouldn’t rain, because then he’d be smug, and that would be awful.

“Theta,” he said, after they’d stood there in silence for a minute. Theta ignored him. She didn’t want to deal with this right now. “Look, I’m—”

“No, you’re not,” Theta said, not even sparing him a glance. “You’re glad.”

O sighed. “Not about that. I’m not at all sorry for that. But about yesterday. I couldn’t stop insulting you, and—”

Theta snorted. “You really could’ve. But you didn’t, because that’s just not what you do. This is what you do. Ruin things. So, yeah. I already said it once, and I’m not going to repeat this a third time. I don’t want to talk to you.”

O didn’t say anything else. They boarded the bus and sat in their usual seats, Theta in the front and O in the back with Missy.

It was very quiet on the bus.

Maybe Theta could finally get some sleep.

“Give me a minute and I’ll give you the answers. You can check mine if you’d like,” Theta said tiredly to the rest of her group in math. Across from Theta was a really short girl with black hair. Theta barely recognized her. Next to Theta was a boy with a bald head and glasses, who reminded her of an egg. Sitting next to the girl with the black hair was a boy who somehow had grey hair. A high school student with grey hair. Theta was certain he’d dyed it. She’d never talked to him before, because he’d been assigned to a seat across the room before one of the kids had asked to sit closer to the front.

“Actually,” said the boy with grey hair, “I’ve got numbers one through three done already.”

“I’ve got one through ten,” Theta said.

“I’ll do eleven to fifteen. You can do sixteen to twenty. Then we can check.” Wow, he was really abrasive.

“Sorry about him,” said the girl with black hair. “This is Basil. I’m his—”

“Care-er. She cares so I don’t have to.”

“Er, okay,” Theta said.

The girl pursed her lips. “Anyway, is that alright with you? Nardole and I can check the ones you two have already done.”

“Er,” Nardole said. “I’m not sure about that. I…sort of…forgot how I’m supposed to know which one to make a u.”

“It’s not a u substitution,” Theta said. “We’re doing partial sums.”

“I know in theory how to do it,” said the girl.

“Look at your notes, Clara,” suggested Basil.

Clara sighed, shaking her head. “English makes sense. This, though? Please, help me, Theta.”

“Er, sure,” Theta said. This was going to be a long day.

“Theta, what’s wrong?” Ryan asked. It was English class, and Theta had already finished her essay ages ago.

“Nothing,” Theta said casually. Like she was used to saying it. Well, she was. Theta literally always said she was fine, even that time she’d had a panic attack in gym class. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look like you slept last night,” he observed.

“Sure I did,” Theta said, as if she was going to tack on a ‘technically.’

“How much?”

“One and a half hours.”

Ryan shook his head, eyes wide. “Why? Have you got some new project going on or something?”

Theta nodded.

“What’s it about?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be working on your English essay?” Theta asked.

“Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping eight hours a day?” Ryan asked. “Like, seriously. Are you writing a book again?”

“Nope.”

“Teaching yourself calculus?”

“I’m already in a class for that,” Theta said.

“Yeah, but there’s different levels, isn’t there? What, are you researching the entire history of biscuits again?”

“That was once!” Theta protested, laughing. She stopped after a second and sat there, looking surprised. Ryan smiled.

“That was three months,” Ryan said.

Theta shrugged.

“Just get some sleep, yeah? You’ve got that math thing tomorrow.”

“That math thing?” Theta asked, her head in her hand.

“Wow, you’re really tired. You know, that math competition?”

“Oh.” Right. Gallifrey High School had decided to participate in a local county math tournament. Each high school had to send a team of six members to compete. Theta had no idea how they’d gotten that number—five would’ve made more sense.

Principal Rassilon had decided that this was amazing, seeing as Gallifrey High School’s math team had exactly six members. There was some girl with curly red hair and an obsession for carrot juice, the son of the physics teacher who shared his name (John Smith), another boy Theta couldn’t remember, and O and his friends.

The trouble was, carrot juice girl had a programming competition on the exact same day, and had understandably chosen not to take part in the math team’s failure. Rassilon had then gone searching for someone to round out the math team.

And out of all the kids in Gallifrey High School’s calculus class, Theta was doing the best. Which meant Rassilon had called up Theta’s aunt, seeing as they were acquaintances, and Theta had found herself going into a math tournament. Along with O, Harold Saxon, and Missy Magister.

“You’ll do great.”

“No, I won’t,” Theta said. “O’s going to be there.”

Ryan shrugged. “At least you’ll have fun arguing with him.”

“Have—Ryan!”

“What? I mean, it’s not like I wouldn’t enjoy insulting him to his face. I just wouldn’t be able to get away with it.”

“Yeah, I really don’t want to be around him right now,” Theta said. Was she telling her friends about her argument with O? She forgot. It was hard to keep track of how much she’d told them about what. God, Theta was tired.

“Oh, did you two have a fight or something?” Ryan asked. “More than your usual. A really bad one. Should we, like, you know, stay away from his friends for a bit?”

Theta thought about it. “I don’t think it’s the sort of thing he’d bring to Saxon and Missy. And he won’t try to hurt you guys. If he did, I’d make sure to get avenge you. Can we just not talk about him?”

“You’re the one who brought him up,” Ryan said. “What was your fight about? Do you want to talk about it?”

“No; I just said I didn’t.”

“Can you just tell me a bit?” Ryan asked. “Yaz is really worried about you, you know.”

Theta was probably being manipulated. No, she was definitely being manipulated. But it was still working. “He said some things about my family and…pretended that something he did was to help me. Claimed that he knew better. Acted like I was deluded.” Ryan opened his mouth to speak. “Don’t ask,” Theta said.

“Yeah, okay. Maybe you need to talk to him about that?” Theta glared at him, her eyes sharp enough to cut through diamond. Ryan raised his hands in surrender. “Just a suggestion, mate.”

“Well, it’s a bad suggestion.”

Grace walked over across the room to Ryan’s desk. “Here you go. It was really good, but I added a few comments and ideas.” From what Theta could see, it was more than a few.

“Thanks,” Ryan grumbled.

“No problem,” Grace said, leaving.

“Ryan?” Theta asked. “Have you ever heard of Light It Up Red?”

Ryan shook his head. “Is that, like, something political? Democrats and Republicans?”

“No,” Theta said. “It’s just, well, something I was researching.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

“You should work on your essay,” Theta said.

Theta left ninth period early, going down to the main lobby to meet the actual members of the math team.

John Smith and Harold Saxon were as far away from each other as they possibly could get without having to shout to deliver the occasional insult. Missy Magister was talking to the boy from calculus—what was his name again? And O was standing next to Saxon and talking about some girl named Lucy Miller. Loudly.

Theta sighed. “Hello, Theta!” John Smith said, striding towards her. “I’m John, in case you’ve forgotten again. Don’t mind if you have, just saying so that you know. Are you looking forward to the math tournament?”

“No,” Theta said honestly. “I didn’t volunteer for this.”

“You were volunteered,” John said. “Look, I don’t exactly want to be here too. It’s us and the, well, you know what they call themselves.”

“‘The Masters.’” Theta scoffed. “Of what, exactly? Being annoying?” She looked over at O and Saxon, who were now discussing at great length how Saxon had recently gone on a date with Lucy Miller and how amazing it was.

“Probably,” John agreed. “Do they have to be so loud?”

“I dunno,” Theta said. “Maybe Saxon’s just really excited about his girlfriend?”

“Yeah.” After a moment, he continued. “They’re being pointedly loud.”

“How is one pointedly loud?”

“I’m not sure,” John admitted. “But they’re managing just fine. Did you practice for the competition?”

“Nope,” Theta said.

“That’s alright,” John said. “It’s not like we’re going to win anyway. I’m a genius. Harold—Saxon is too. Missy and Basil are…weird, but not good weird. Slightly crazy weird. But smart. Is it true you’re taking calculus at fifteen? Is it hard?”

“Yeah, and no. I already know it, mostly, but I need three math credits to graduate, and they only count what you take eighth grade and up.”

“Nice,” John said. “Anyway, you’re great. The point is, we’re all super smart. We’re just an awful team. Missy and Basil are fairly likely to start fighting about the proper way to solve something, there’s no way that Saxon will willingly work with me, and your arguments with O are legendary.”

“So, basically, our team’s going to devolve into petty bickering,” Theta said.

Missy huffed and walked away from Basil. Saxon was still going on about his girlfriend. Even O looked bored at this point. “Yeah. Plus, Missy and Basil are seniors—they’re basically done with life. You look like you haven’t slept in a week. O over there looks like he wants to cut somebody’s heart out with a spoon, though you can’t blame him, seeing as he’s had to listen to Saxon for the last fifteen minutes. And Saxon’s distracted by his wonderful new girlfriend.”

“Do boys really spend fifteen minutes talking about their girlfriends?” Theta asked.

“Or their boyfriends, yeah,” John said. “I think everyone does it, regardless of gender.”

“That’s stupid,” Theta said.

“It is,” John agreed, shooting a glare Saxon’s way. Saxon smirked. John glared harder.

“Right, math team’s a mess. Nice alliteration. It doesn’t really matter, though. I mean, we’ve literally got six people in the entire school on our normal math team,” Theta said.

“It’d be nice to win for once,” John said. “But there’s no way it will happen. Do you want me to introduce you to some of the others?”

“We’ve met,” Theta said. She put down her backpack and dug out Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. “I’ve got a book.”

“Commendable thinking.”

“Thanks.” Theta leaned against a wall and opened to page 394.

“Hello.” Theta nearly jumped out of her skin, spinning around to see Missy standing right next to her.

“Oh,” Theta said. “Hello.” She didn’t know what to say next. “How are you doing?”

“I’m making you nervous, aren’t I?” Missy asked. “I’m Missy, in case you didn’t know.”

“I knew,” Theta said.

“Yes, I expected so,” Missy said, looking at O and Saxon.

“You got me kicked out of science club in eighth grade.”

“Calm down,” Missy said. “That was, like, forever ago. I’ve changed.”

“I highly doubt that,” Theta said.

“Really.”

“You hang out with Saxon.” Theta couldn’t believe she was having something that resembled a polite conversation with Missy.

“I do,” Missy said, smirking. “This is Basil, by the way.”

“You’re math class girl,” Basil said, tilting his head to the side.

“I guess,” Theta said. “Theta Lungbarrow.”

“We were talking about my friends,” Missy said.

“You mean Saxon and O,” Basil said disapprovingly.

“Quite.”

“Weren’t you friends with O at some point?” Missy asked. “The two of you lived on my block, didn’t you? And then O moved, and you moved too.”

“And somehow ended up living a few houses away from each other again, yeah,” Theta said.

“It’s fate,” Missy said.

“It’s bad luck,” Theta disagreed.

“Same thing.”

“To the unlucky,” Theta said.

“I like you,” Missy told her.

“Stop flirting,” Basil said.

“Flirting?” Theta asked incredulously.

“You were flirting. You were definitely flirting. This can be classified as flirting. Clara, back me up here.” He turned around. No Clara. “Well, Missy, back me up.”

“That’s just how I am,” Missy said. “I’m not interested in a little sophomore. You’re cute, Theta, but in the way of a very annoying little sister.”

“I’m not cute,” Theta said. “And I was definitely not doing any sort of flirting. I’m not interested in you at all.”

“Well, you were doing something,” Basil said.

“Ignore him,” Missy said. “He’s just jealous.”

Basil’s face went bright red. “I’m not—that is—I—jealous—why—Clara!” He looked around for someone, who didn’t seem to be present.

Theta snorted. “Like I said,” Missy smirked.

“Alright,” said Miss Shaw, stepping into the main lobby. “You all ready?”

“Yep,” John said. Nobody else responded.

“Well, then, I suppose we should go. We’re running late already.” The group began leaving. O and Saxon were still immersed in their conversation.

“Saxon, shut up about your stupid girlfriend and come on, unless you want to miss the tournament,” John called.

“John Smith.”

“Sorry,” John said. He didn’t seem sorry. They climbed aboard the minibus, which was doubling as a transport to some sort of fencing practice at a high school that actually had enough people for a team. Saxon and O sat together, and Missy and Basil claimed a seat for themselves, leaving John and Theta to sit in the last remaining seat.

Theta didn’t exactly mind John, but she didn’t like getting squished into a seat with him. Busses already annoyed her, and she was pushed up against a broom with the bristles digging into her side. Theta just didn’t get it. Why was there a broom on a bus?

“You good?” John asked. “You seem a little…overwhelmed.”

“I’m fine,” Theta snapped.

“Okay,” John raised his hands in surrender. Did everyone do that? First Ryan and then him. John looked over at O and Saxon, who were sitting diagonal to them. They were still talking about Lucy Miller, only now Saxon was loudly proclaiming that Lucy Saxon sounded like a good name. “They’re idiots.”

“Agreed,” Theta said.

“I mean, high school relationships never last,” John said. “He’s absolutely out of his mind.”

“You’re only just realizing this?”

“No, I knew he was crazy, but I didn’t know he was that crazy. Lucy Miller. That’s never going to work out. Her parents are ultra-conservative Christians, and Saxon’s, well, he’s something. But it’s definitely not Christian.”

“Yeah,” Theta agreed, taking out her book. “Never heard of her, sorry.”

“This is absolutely ridiculous! Lucy Miller and Harold Saxon.” John made a noise of disgust. “He must know it’ll never work out.”

“Doesn’t seem to,” Theta said.

“Because he’s an idiot.”

“Yeah.”

“Seriously, though.”

“I’m trying to read,” Theta said.

John stopped talking. “Right. Sorry.”

The impromptu math team was sitting at a table, with the papers in the center. “Go!” Announced the person running the competition.

There was a flurry of papers as the contestants rushed to take a look at the problems. There were twenty questions, which appeared to have been sorted by varying difficulties.

“Lungbarrow, one through five,” Saxon ordered. “O, six through eight. Basil, nine through eleven. Missy, twelve through fourteen. John, fifteen through seventeen. I’ll take the last three.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” O protested. “Theta should be doing the harder ones. And Basil and Missy are seniors—why are two juniors taking the last six?”

“Because I said so,” Saxon said.

“You have to admit O’s got a point,” John said. “Missy, you can do mine. I’ll do yours.”

Theta finished question number one. It was easy.

“I’ll be doing twenty and working my way down,” Missy announced.

“Missy,” Basil said. “We’re dividing up the problems.”

“I don’t care.”

“Don’t you want to win this competition?” Basil asked.

“Exactly. Oh, fine, I’ll do fifteen through seventeen. You take mine. It’s this idiot’s fault that we’re going to lose.” She gestured to Saxon.

“Theta can take my questions,” O said. “I’ll do the easier ones.”

“There’s more questions in Theta’s thing,” John said. “That’s why Saxon gave her those.”

“No,” Missy disagreed. “Saxon gave her those because she’s a girl.”

“Because she’s a sophomore, now shut it and work!” Saxon ordered.

“I don’t see that you’ve done any questions yet,” John noted.

“Well, you were distracting me!” Saxon protested.

Question number two, down.

“I am forced to agree with Saxon,” said Basil. “You all need to shut up. I’m trying to math.”

“You’re trying to math?” Missy asked incredulously.

“Math isn’t a verb,” Saxon agreed, ever obsessed with grammar.

“Well, it is now,” Basil said.

“Grammar arguments notwithstanding, can we please just all focus?” O snapped. “I can’t do a single question while you guys are driving me crazy.”

“We’re all already crazy,” Missy said airily.

“Don’t you all want to win the competition?” John asked. “If you do, this isn’t how we go about it.”

“Don’t try to reason with them, Smith—they’re all idiots,” Saxon said.

“You’re one of them,” John said.

“I’m wounded.”

Three, done. Theta had almost forgotten to carry a one.

“Stop it and actually answer the questions!” Basil said.

“Please just be quiet,” Theta said, not even looking up from her paper. It was hard to focus when she was tired and everyone was talking. But not impossible. Theta was getting pulled into the world of math, where all that mattered were the numbers and the paper in front of her. Sure, she was tired, and sure, her mother would have a heart attack if she saw how slow Theta was at this contest, but she’d already done three more questions than everyone else.

“See?” O said. “Can we all stop distracting one another?”

“We just lost one and a half minutes!” John said.

“Because you couldn’t stop your petty bickering,” O said.

“Me?” John asked. “It was Saxon and Missy.”

“And you,” Saxon said. “I mean, I was bickering with someone.”

“It was all of us, alright?” Basil said.

“I don’t admit my guilt,” Missy said. “I’m blameless.”

“No one’s blameless.”

“Well, I am.”

Four down. That had been quick.

“It’s literally two minutes in and we haven’t even done a single problem. We just lost a tenth of our time!” John said.

“We all know how to do fractions, Smith. Stop insulting our intelligence,” Saxon said.

“Well, if you’re that easily insulted, I guess you’re just touchy about the subject. I would be too, if I was you,” John said.

“You’re both idiots, now stop it,” Missy said. “Now, which questions were we doing again?”

“I forgot,” Basil announced.

“O does six through nine, Missy does ten through twelve, Basil does thirteen through fifteen, John does sixteen through eighteen—wait, what?” Saxon rattled off.

“I do six through eight, not six through nine,” O said.

“I was doing the ones after Basil, not the ones before,” Missy said.

“We’re seniors—we should be doing the harder ones,” Basil agreed.

“Your grade means absolutely nothing,” Saxon protested.

“Really?” Missy asked. “Pray tell, what is the derivative of 5x^3 – 11x^2 + 2?”

“That’s besides the point,” John said. “This is competition math, not calculus.”

Five down. Theta didn’t know what she was supposed to do now, so she just started working down the paper. Maybe she’d get to tell O how wrong he was on one of the questions. Right, she wasn’t talking to him.

“Can we all be reasonable people?” O asked.

“You’re one to talk,” Basil said. “You hang out with them.”

“Oh, but what am I, then?” Missy asked.

“Absolutely bananas,” Basil said after some consideration.

“You say the nicest things.”

“Stop whatever you’re doing and start doing the questions!” O said.

“Who put you in charge?” John asked.

“Who put Saxon in charge?” Basil asked.

“I did,” Saxon said.

“I vote we listen to O and just start working,” John said. “Even if we worked on whichever problems we felt like, it would be better than arguing.”

“But it would be inefficient!” Basil said.

“Very inefficient,” O agreed. “We could draw lots?”

“That’s stupid!” Saxon said. “How would we even manage that?”

“We could rip one of the papers into shreds,” Missy suggested.

Six down.

“I wish Mel was here,” John said, shaking his head. “She’d scream at everyone to shut up.”

“You could do that,” Saxon said, grinning. “They might even listen, if you got angry enough. Go ahead, Smith. Yell at them all.”

“Well, I’m not taking suggestions from you.”

“Why don’t we vote on someone to be in charge?” Basil asked.

“Like, a dictator?” Saxon said. “I’m down with that, as long as it’s me.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be,” Missy said. “We’re voting. That’s the point.”

“I’d totally get voted in. You’re crazy—in the best way, I assure you—O’s a sophomore, J—Smith’s Smith, Basil is annoying when he tries to give orders, and Lungbarrow’s also a sophomore.”

“What has Theta been doing?” O asked. “She’s been disturbingly quiet.”

Theta ignored them, leaning inches away from her paper. She didn’t know why seven was labelled that—it was awfully easy.

“Probably stuck in her own little world,” Missy said. “Drawing butterflies or something.”

“Well, I can’t blame her,” John said. “Anything would be better than getting stuck in the middle of this.”

“It’s not like she’s being any less productive than we are,” O said. “You can’t have negative questions.”

“We’ve lost four minutes,” Saxon announced.

“We’re the worst math team here,” John said miserably.

“Well, this wouldn’t be a problem if you had all just listened to me,” Saxon said.

“Let’s just listen to the oldest person here,” John said. “Who’s the oldest person? Missy?”

“Indeed,” Missy said.

“Great,” O said. “Missy, who’s doing what?”

“I’m not taking orders!” Saxon said.

“Well, you’re kicked out of the math team, then,” Basil announced.

“You have no authority!” Saxon protested.

“Fine. Missy, kick him off the math team,” Basil said.

“Students can’t kick other students of the math team!” Saxon said.

“Well, you can be honorarily kicked out,” John said. “Like, an honorary non-member.”

“Excellent,” Missy said. “Now, I do believe I shall go mad with power.”

“Can we please just start working?” O asked.

Eight down.

“I shall take eighteen through twenty,” Missy said. “Basil, you do fifteen through seventeen. Harold, take twelve to fourteen. John, nine through eleven. Theta can do six through eight. O, take one through five.”

“I don’t care what you say,” Saxon said. “I’ll do eighteen to twenty.”

“Good luck,” Missy said. “I’ll be doing them too, so if you want to be completely useless, feel free.”

“Fifteen minutes left,” O said.

“We just lost a quarter of our time arguing,” John said.

“And you’re wasting even more of it right now,” Saxon said.

“I am doing fifteen through seventeen. Now. Goodbye,” Basil said.

There were two minutes and twenty-three seconds of silence, in which Theta finished question nine and started ten.

“Theta,” O said. “Do you remember the sum of a geometric sequence? Theta? Look, I’m just asking you to tell me a formula, not have an actual conversation. Theta?”

“S of n equals a of 1 times 1 minus r to the n, all over 1 minus r,” Missy said.

“I didn’t ask you,” O said.

“Well, you wanted to know the sum formula, and I told you.”

“Yeah, I know the stupid sum of a series formula, thanks.”

“Then why the hell would you ask?” Saxon said, looking up.

“Oh, forget it. Idiots.”

“This problem’s awful,” John said, pushing away his paper.

“Is it too hard for you?” Saxon asked.

“No,” John said defensively. “It’s just awful.”

“Which means you can’t do it.”

“Can you two shut up?” Basil asked.

“We weren’t the only ones talking,” Saxon said. “Missy and O were too.”

“I was trying to talk about the math problems.”

“I thought you knew ‘the stupid sum of a series formula,’” John said.

“Well, it was on topic,” O said.

“Tiny bit off topic,” Missy allowed. “But mostly on topic.”

“Why don’t we just agree that we’ve already failed this?” Basil asked. “Has anyone here done a single problem yet?” There was no answer. Theta continued scribbling away. Ten was done. “Yeah, I thought so. Why is it so hard for us to just sit down and do the problems?”

“Because everyone except me is an idiot!” Saxon said.

“You’re the one insisting on doubling up eighteen through twenty,” John said.

“Well, if Missy just listened to me!”

“I’m older than you,” Missy said. “Therefore, I’m in charge.”

“That’s a stupid method of choosing who’s in charge,” Saxon said. “I didn’t agree to that. Why don’t we vote?”

“You don’t want that,” John said. “I’d win.”

“Really? You’re deluded. I’d win, Smith.”

“Fine,” Basil said. “Let’s have a vote. Will you stop arguing then?”

“I agree to abide by the results,” John said.

“I do as well,” Saxon said. “That is, unless the election results are fraudulent.”

“You’ll claim fraud if you lose!” John protested.

“Well, it’s impossible for me to lose,” Saxon said.

“We’re electing a math club leader with literally six members on our team,” Basil said. “It’s impossible for the results to be fraudulent.”

“Oh, I can think of many ways,” Missy said.

“Does everyone agree to an election?” O asked. “Good. Candidates are Missy, John, and Saxon. You can’t vote for yourself, since the candidates are literally half the math team.”

“Fair enough,” Missy said.

“Okay. You can only vote once. Who votes for Missy?”

“Who put you in charge of the vote?” Saxon asked.

“I did.”

“That makes literally no sense,” John said.

“We need to vote on who’s in charge of the vote.”

“That’s a waste of time!” Missy said. “O’s in charge of the vote. We don’t disagree with the rules. Do you want to spend the entire competition arguing? No? Excellent.”

“Right,” O said. “Who votes for Missy?”

“We need a blind poll,” John said.

“It’s not a poll, it’s a vote,” Saxon said.

“No, they’re the same thing,” Basil said. “You go to a polling place to vote.”

“A poll is a survey, though,” Saxon said. “Not a vote with any legal power.”

“This is a math team,” John said. “There’s no legal power anyway.”

“A blind poll is a waste of time,” Missy announced. “We’re voting now.”

“Raise your hand if you vote for Missy,” O said. Saxon and John raised their hands. “Now, John.” Basil raised his hand.

“You have betrayed me,” Missy said.

“Right, and now who votes Saxon?” O asked. He raised his hand along with Missy. “Right, we’ve got a tie. So, John gets kicked out of the running and Basil has to vote for either Missy or Saxon.”

“No way!” Saxon said. “He’s biased!”

“So are you.”

“This is ridiculous!” Saxon said. “Not proper voting procedure at all. No, what we need to do is get Lungbarrow out of la la land so that she can vote.”

“That was unnecessary,” O said.

“I thought you hated her!”

“Well, I do, but there’s no need to call her crazy. How do you know she hasn’t been working on the problems?” O asked.

“It’s impossible to focus with how loud John—Smith’s been. Anyway, what we need is Theta voting. Basil can’t just change his vote.”

“No, I think I can. In a second round of voting. Like, I think that’s what the electoral college does,” John said.

“But all the votes haven’t been counted,” Saxon said.

“Not everyone has to vote,” John disagreed.

“No, we have to expand suffrage to Theta,” Missy said. “But Basil can vote again.”

“Of course, you’d say that,” O said. “He’s your frenemy.”

“I’ll abstain from the next vote,” Basil said. “If it gets everyone to shut up.”

“Right,” John said. “Theta’s vote.” He placed a hand on Theta’s shoulder.

Theta was jerked out of her thoughts, flinching at the sudden contact. She nearly jumped out of her chair, her mechanical pencil dropping to the ground and breaking.

O gave her a look that meant something. Probably something mean.

“Sorry for startling you,” John said.

Theta immediately got down on the floor, picking up her pencil. The top had broken off, after one too many falls. She started rummaging around in her backpack for another one, but it wasn’t there.

“Theta!” Theta realized that someone had been saying her name. She looked up to see Basil with a mechanical pencil. It was close. Not her special ones, the ones that she needed to do math right, but close. Really close. “Sorry, I don’t have the same kind. But it’s the same brand, just not sparkly.”

“Thanks,” Theta said, holding onto the pencil and inspecting it.

“Theta,” Missy said. “We need your input.”

“I need to do math,” Theta said. “So do you. I thought you wanted to win this contest.”

“You were working?” John asked incredulously.

“Yeah,” Theta said. “I did one to thirteen.”

“Let me see,” Saxon said, snatching the paper away. Theta grabbed at it, holding on tight.

“Give me my paper,” she said. “I’ll show you, but you don’t get to touch it.”

“Whatever, crazy,” Saxon said. Theta rolled her eyes and turned the paper to show him. “Okay, I’m a little bit impressed,” he admitted.

“Well, I don’t care,” Theta said, taking her paper back and trying to remember where she was in her factoring process.

“We were, er, we wanted your vote on who would, oh, it’s ridiculous,” John said. “Theta’s already done six tenths of the test.”

“Thirteen twentieths, if you give me a moment,” Theta said, summing up the roots.

“Who should be in charge of question distribution?” Basil asked. “Missy or Saxon?”

“I don’t care,” Theta said, already slipping back into question number 14.

“Seriously, though,” John said.

“Missy. Now leave me alone,” Theta announced. Missy said a bunch of stuff. Theta didn’t pay attention. She ended up solving the questions until 16, at which point Basil had asked for her help on 20. O and John, meanwhile, had checked Theta’s work. O had smugly announced that she had found the total area and overlapping area on number 8, but completely forgot to subtract one from the other.

Theta had shot him a glare.

They finished answering and checking all of the questions just in time, handing in their final answers to one of the volunteers. “How did you do?” Miss Shaw asked. “I hope you collaborated.”

“Er,” John said, running a hand through his hair. The person running the tournament told them that they were to prepare for a second round, after which there would be a snack and then an ‘engineering challenge.’

“Okay, Theta’s a literal genius,” John said as adults began distributing papers.

“Definitely,” Basil said. “You’re really good.”

“A compliment,” Missy said. “I’m proud of you. Though I do suppose I’ll have to fly into a jealous rage now, won’t I?”

“A what?” Theta asked.

Missy shrugged. “It sounded sexy.” Theta wrinkled her nose.

“We’re discussing Theta’s genius here, not your weird relationship,” John said.

“You’re one to talk,” Basil said, crossing his arms.

“I have no idea what you mean,” John claimed.

“Where’d you learn how to do math like that?” Missy asked. “Private tutor? Really inspiring teacher?”

“My mother taught me,” Theta said.

“That’s got to take some genius. Good teaching isn’t everything. You’ve got to have natural talent.”

“I guess,” Theta said, getting uncomfortable.

“Are you really fifteen years old, and in calculus?” Basil asked. Theta nodded, trying to ignore the way the paper was rubbing on her skin.

“You won that essay contest, didn’t you?” John asked.

“That was last year. And I didn’t really…mean to.”

“You didn’t mean to?” Missy asked.

“Well, Yaz made me apply.”

Missy shook her head. “You’re insane, and I say that as a compliment.” The lights above Theta were really bright. She wanted to get out of there, but the next round was starting in a minute. She turned to Theta and smiled, but there was something in her eyes. “Were you, like, grown in a lab or something?”

Theta had heard the phrase “their blood ran cold” before, but she’d never truly appreciated it until that moment. Everything froze, icy fear running through Theta’s veins.

Her heart pounded in her ears.

Missy knew. How the hell did Missy know?

No, Missy couldn’t know, she was just joking, just—

“Were you, like, grown in a lab or something?”

A needle—

Pain—

For the greater good—

Theta couldn’t breathe.

Antecedent, Behavior, Consequence.

Theta had barely slept in days.

“Were you, like, grown in a lab or something?”

I will fight to take away your hope.

Theta couldn’t breathe, and she needed to get out of there before she did something stupid—before she shut down or stopped talking or started sobbing.

Theta needed to run. She leapt out of her chair and had left the room before any of the others could say a word.

“What did I say?” Missy asked innocently.

“Okay, what the hell’s wrong with Lungbarrow?” Saxon said.

O looked around, feeling the anger rising in him. He wasn’t sure who he was angry at—Tecteun, Theta, Missy…himself. Or maybe it wasn’t that type of anger; it wasn’t directed towards anyone. It was just there. Rage that didn’t go away no matter how much O screamed into a pillow or hit people in fights (outside of school, where he wouldn’t get in trouble—he wasn’t stupid) or argued with Theta and said things he’d regret.

O was always angry, and it never went away. It was just a fact of life. It had been better for a while, when Rassilon had sent him to see somebody. After all, O had been the one who’d found him, lying in the tub with his head bleeding and lungs filled with water.

But she hadn’t realized the truth. O was broken. He had always been broken, and it had only gotten worse.

His father, Torvic, was dead. He had told Idris that he didn’t feel anything. She had said that it was fine, that he wasn’t obligated to love the man who had never loved him. Idris thought he’d just been the one to find Torvic, but he couldn’t give her the truth.

O had been eleven.

After four months with Rassilon, he’d been handed off to his mother’s sibling, Corsair. They were great, and didn’t bother O. O didn’t go back to therapy.

He didn’t need it, after all.

O clenched his fists really tight and counted to ten in his head. That was the only useful thing he’d learned. “Nothing’s wrong with her.” He released the tension, and a little bit of the anger slipped away. Not much, but enough that he was slightly less likely to explode.

“Fine,” Saxon said. “How do we handle her? The competition’ll start any minute, and I want to win.”

“Sometimes—” O began.

“Does she want someone to follow her?” Basil asked. “People sometimes want someone to follow them when they run away, and sometimes they don’t.”

O thought about it for a moment. “In a minute or so.”

“Competition starts before then,” Missy observed.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Someone has to go. Don’t act like she’s broken, and don’t try to make her tell you anything.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out the notebook he used as scrap paper for math calculations. “You might need this,” O said, clipping her pencil to it.

“You say that like you’re not going to be the one to go,” John noticed.

“A+. It’ll have to be—” O scanned the table for a moment. Obviously, he couldn’t go help Theta. Basil wouldn’t try to hug her or anything, but he could be abrasive, and he wouldn’t hide any questions he had. And he knew that Theta didn’t approve of his friends, especially Saxon. “John. You.”

“I think it would be best if you went,” John said. “You know her the best.”

“If I went to talk to her, I’d get murdered.” O didn’t mean it—he knew Theta wouldn’t actually do that. Probably. She’d looked horrified enough at pushing him over the day before, and she’d been so angry. But he could only make things worse. Plus, she’d likely think he’d come to gloat. “Just trust me—she doesn’t want anything to do with me. It’s got to be you.”

“Alright,” John said. “And the notebook?”

“So she can talk,” Basil said. “If she needs it. Right?”

John tilted his head to the side, not understanding. O nodded.

“You’ll understand,” O told him. “If she doesn’t want you there, just leave. We’ll do the competition without her and—” Sending Miss Shaw would be far from a good idea. “And Basil can go afterwards. But if any of you says a word about this to anyone else—and that includes your little friends—I will end you. Understood?”

John nodded and stood up.

O thumped his head on the desk. He was really angry.

Theta had been, somewhere in the back of her mind, planning to go to the bathrooms. But instead, she stumbled out into the hallway and towards the library, collapsing on the carpeted floor.

Libraries were good. Libraries were safe. They smelled like books and everyone had to be quiet and their shelves were filled with words and worlds. Same thing, really.

Theta tried to breathe. It was hard, with her mind spiraling out of control and her chest so tight it could snap.

All she could think of was the video and Tecteun’s smile, so loving, so warm, the pain blooming from her arm—

The stars made Theta feel happy, but they weren’t safe right now. Theta knew she was panicking over what her mother did, and she hated it. A single reference to growing up in a lab, and Theta was reduced to this. It had been a joke, nothing more. And yes, it was the truth—but why did the truth hurt so much?

Theta wasn’t broken, wasn’t glass. Theta was supposed to be strong. Her mother had taught her better than to be weak.

(With pain.)

Theta ignored that. Pushed the thought away.

A deep breath. Theta could smell the books. She wished she had a winter coat to wrap around herself, cocoon herself in its heavy weight. Instead, she made do with her hoodie.

Theta breathed.

Footsteps. Someone was coming. School was closed, and there wasn’t a teacher in the library. The only people in the building were there for the math tournament. The only reason someone from the math tournament would be in the library was—

“Go away,” Theta said, finding that the words had come out. She was grateful for that. If she hadn’t been able to speak, with O there watching like a shark…

The footsteps stop.

“I mean it,” Theta said. “You’ve come here to, to gloat or something. Tell me that you were right all along, pretend you were helping me. I don’t want to hear it.”

“Er,” said a voice. It didn’t sound like O at all. “Gloating’s not really my thing. More in line with Saxon. Or O or Missy.”

“John?” Theta asked. They’d sent John to deal with her. O had probably told him just what had happened, just like he must’ve told Missy.

“Yeah.” The footsteps started again and then John appeared in Theta’s row of shelves, sitting down a few feet away from her and leaning against the books.

“Competition’s probably started,” Theta observed. John nodded. “You should go.”

“Do you want me to go? I can leave if you want.”

“You guys really want to win. I’m ruining that, and I don’t want to mess it up further,” Theta said. It was better, to talk about this, than about what happened. It was only a matter of time before John would ask and Theta would need an explanation, that is, if O by some miracle had decided not to tell everyone why Theta had freaked out.

It was hard to think of one. Maybe she’d watched a really scary horror movie?

Maybe something had happened to a cousin or something. Not Theta, just a cousin. Someone else. Theta had just heard of it.

No, a horror movie. The other option was too similar to dissociation. Theta had read about dissociation. Maybe John had too, and would conclude that she’d been traumatized.

Or maybe John would understand. O certainly did, certainly had. Until one day he’d gotten jealous and then decided to pretend that he hadn’t known all along. That he’d just discovered what Theta’s mother had done and was appalled. That he was only looking out for her.

Theta hated O. He’d ruined her life, and then pretended it was for her own good.

For a moment, Theta took a mental step back to analyze her train of thought. She really needed to sleep more often.

“Theta,” John said. “Our chances were shot to death even before Mel had her competition. We’re all smart, but we just can’t get along. You came along and turned out—you came along and saved us.” Theta realized that he’d stopped and restarted. There was only one conclusion: he didn’t know which part of what Missy said was the problem. Maybe O hadn’t told people. Or more likely, he’d only told his friends. How long had they known? “Anything we have, we owe to you. And if we do awful this round, it’s not on you, because we would’ve done even worse without you here.

“I don’t think you want to miss the competition.”

“What am I really missing, Theta? Twenty minutes I have to spend with Saxon? You’re a lifesaver.” John paused. “Do you want me to get an adult?”

Theta shook her head violently. “No.” Who would John even get? Miss Shaw? The teachers would just call her aunt, and Theta would…

Theta didn’t know what would happen. Maybe Ohila wouldn’t mention it. Maybe she’d get upset with Theta for causing a scene. Maybe she’d find Theta a new therapist since the current one wasn’t fixing her well enough. Maybe she’d make Theta go to Miss Foster every single day. Maybe Theta wouldn’t be allowed to go to school. Maybe she wouldn’t be allowed to stay at Ohila’s house anymore.

Theta didn’t know. Theta didn’t have algorithms to predict what Ohila would do. And she didn’t want to gather empirical data.

“Okay,” John said. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Alright. Do you want to play ‘I Spy’ or something?”

“No.”

“Do you want to just sit here?”

Theta shrugged. “If you want.”

“Sounds good to me,” John said. “Don’t you love the smell of library books?”

“It’s brilliant,” Theta agreed.

“Libraries are the best.”

“Definitely.”

They sat there in silence for a minute.

“You’ve got a notebook,” Theta observed.

“Yeah,” John said. “O said I might need one.” Great. So, O hadn’t told them one secret, but he’d told them another. They’d think Theta was broken either way.

“I hate him,” Theta said quietly.

“I can see why,” John said. “He’s mean, and annoying, and hates everyone.”

“Yeah. I really hate him.” John didn’t say anything. “I really, really hate him.” Theta looked down.

“I can’t go back,” she said, like an admission. Theta didn’t know precisely what she meant by that. Can’t go back where? To the competition? To the school? To her home?

Theta didn’t think she could go back home. She’d gotten used to living with Ohila, and somehow, part of her didn’t want to go back. It was a stupid, selfish part of her. Theta had gotten too attached to being unimportant, forgotten her responsibility to the world. The lives that could be saved if her mother continued her research…

And yet, Theta suddenly knew that if her mother was miraculously pardoned and regained custody of her, Theta would want to run. Not to anywhere, just away. She didn’t want to go back. No, she physically couldn’t go back.

The law wouldn’t let her anyway, so it didn’t matter. But it hurt, knowing that she was, at heart, a coward.

John, however, didn’t know this, and interpreted Theta’s sentence in the only way possible. “You don’t have to. The others can finish round two on their own.”

Just like that, the sentence collapsed, Schrödinger’s cat was seen and found alive in the box. The fact that it had also been dead a few seconds before was of no concern. “To school, I mean,” Theta said. “O will tell everyone about—about this.”

“I don’t think he will,” John said carefully. “He threatened revenge if we told anyone about…” He gestured vaguely. “This.”

Theta scowled. “That’s just ‘cos he wants to be the one to tell the whole school.”

“I doubt it,” John said. “Missy said…you two used to be friends.”

“Yeah, in the past,” Theta said.

“Why?” John asked. Theta looked over at him, confused. That was a very open-ended question. “Let me rephrase. Why him? Why were you friends with him?”

Theta looked down. She didn’t really want to talk about this. It was easier, to separate Koschei from O. Two different people. One friend, one enemy. “We lived near each other,” she said slowly. “And we were around the same age.”

“But come on,” John said. “There’s got to be more to it than that. I used to be friends with Saxon once, you know. A really, really long time ago. Like, elementary school long ago.”

“Really?” Theta asked.

“Yeah. It’s weird, seeing how different he is, ‘cos I can tell my friend’s still there. Just…buried. But, what I mean is, I’m not trying to say you need to still be friends with O. He’s awful. You don’t owe him anything.”

“Too right, I don’t,” Theta muttered.

“So, I understand, I really do. You hate him now, and that’s alright. Being friends before, that doesn’t change it—that just makes it harder. But what I’m asking is just a simple fact-based question. Why were you friends?”

“He was brilliant,” Theta said, the first thing that came to mind. Evil. “Funny, too. Always had the best jokes.” Most of them at someone’s expense. “He listened, when I told him things, even if he didn’t believe me.” Even if he didn’t hear me. “And…” And he was trustworthy, until he wasn’t. He was kind, until he wasn’t. He was my friend, until he wasn’t. “And he cared.”

“Do you think that all just went away, though?” John asked. “You’re not friends anymore…but he listened to you then, and I think he’d listen to you now. He cared about you then, and I think he cares about you now. He…kept your secrets before, and he can now.”

Theta laughed bitterly. “He didn’t. Keep my secrets. He told everyone.”

“That’s why you’re not friends anymore?” John asked.

“No. We stopped being friends after we fought in seventh grade. This was…later.”

“Well,” John said, clearly at a loss.

“It’s okay,” Theta said. “You don’t have to reassure me. I can deal with him telling everyone. I’ll just…” Run. Theta could just run away. Never go to school again. Maybe run from Ohila too, leave the neighborhood and strike out on her own. She was a genius—and fifteen, not a child. On her own would be tough, but all she was really getting was financial support and the occasional funny conversation with her friends. Theta didn’t need people.

“Listen,” John said. “I know he’s almost as bad as Saxon in this regard, but he’s got to have some sense of self-preservation. He wouldn’t dare tell. I’ve got a lot of friends, and it’s not like he’d have the backing of the rest of his little gang in this. So, yeah.”

“Thanks,” Theta said. She meant it. O could do cost-benefit analysis as well. Sure, his priorities were skewed, but…even if he loved making enemies, surely he wouldn’t want to make that many?

Besides, Theta’s secrets were more useful to O while no one knew. He hadn’t tried to blackmail her yet, but she supposed it was only a matter of time.

Theta took a deep breath. She couldn’t run away; that wasn’t an option. First of all, Theta was awful at managing money, so entrepreneurship wouldn’t suit her unless she had a partner (which she didn’t). Second of all, if her mother did get out of jail, it was her duty to aid in her experiments, no matter how certain Theta was that she mustn’t go back, couldn’t go back. And third of all, running away was the stuff of childish fantasies, of plans she made with Koschei to leave Tecteun and Torvic and never return.

“How much time’s left in the competition?” Theta asked.

John checked his phone. “Eleven minutes.”

Theta stood up. She could smell the books. “Let’s go.”

It was the third round of the competition—the engineering challenge. Theta had eaten her lunch, with copious custard creams, and was ready for whichever crazy thing the people running the competition decided to throw at them.

The idiots in charge of the competition decided to throw several dry spaghetti noodles, tape, rubber bands, and a marshmallow.

O slammed his head into the desk again. Missy asked him if he was alright. He said yes. She said too bad.

The timer began.

“How do we build a tower out of that?” Basil asked. “It’s spaghetti, it’s inefficient.”

“That’s the point, dear,” Missy said. “We’re supposed to be measuring who can fail the least miserably.”

“I heard triangles are strong,” Theta said.

“Yeah?” O asked. “Where?”

“I dunno,” Theta responded, studiously not looking at him. “A book?”

“We should opt for the simplest structure possible,” John said. “Strong base—we use tape for that—and then just get as high as we can while still supporting the marshmallow. Nice middling, embarrassing spaghetti and marshmallow tower.”

“No!” Saxon yelled. Theta almost clapped her hands over her ears, catching her hands in the process and forcing them to remain still at her sides. That proved to be a mistake, because then she needed to move. She began twisting a strand of spaghetti between her fingers. “We’re far enough behind as it is because little miss freak over here decided to have a panic attack.” Theta glared at him. “Our tower needs to be spec-tac-u-lar.” His hand made a sweeping motion, as if he was envisioning the Eiffel tower, only made out of spaghetti.

“I say we use triangles,” Theta said.

“I say we burn it all to the ground,” Missy suggested, getting treated to a glare from O.

“How about a simple triangle tower?” Basil suggested. “We can build it up from there, depending on how stable it is.”

“Fine,” Saxon said. “Let’s go.”

Surprisingly, they managed to build the base without too much arguing. Theta and Saxon proceeded to add additional levels, O standing to the side and shouting out warnings.

“Thirty seconds remaining!” Announced the person in charge of the competition.

“Quick!” Missy said. “The marshmallow!” John stuck the marshmallow on top, and the tower swayed dangerously.

“It needs more tape!” Basil said.

“No, it needs a support system,” O disagreed.

“Definitely more tape,” Basil insisted, proceeding to add the tape. Saxon tried to push past him, knocking Basil’s hand into the tower and causing one of the spaghetti strands to snap. The tower began to collapse.

“Tape it!” Basil yelled.

“Fix it!”

“Give me the damn tape!”

“Someone get Theta away from the tower, she’s in the way!”

“I’m right here, you know.”

“It needs more tape!”

“Basil can’t be trusted with the tape!”

“I’m trying to fix it!”

The tower seemed to fall in slow motion, the bottom peeling off the table as the top swung towards Theta and began to fall.

On reflex, Theta caught it, the tape getting stuck in the tower. Theta tried to pull it away, swiping the tape dispenser towards the left of the table, and the tower followed.

“Get it off!” O shouted at her.

“You fix it then, if you’re so smart!”

“Five seconds remaining.”

Theta pulled the tape to the table, trying to rip it off so that she could fix the supports.

“Times up.”

Theta stepped back, her shoulders slumped.

“Wow,” Missy said. Theta looked up. There, on the table, was a tower that, while slightly bent over, was firmly held up by a tape support. On top, sat a marshmallow. “Theta’s the MVP.”

There was a moment of triumph, and then the team looked around to see that there were several statues far taller than theirs.

Gallifrey High School got third place.

Chapter Text

“Hello!” O called, stepping into his house and closing the door behind him. The hallway was silent, with light shining through the kitchen windows but no telltale click-clack of Corsair’s laptop.

Sighing, he placed his backpack down in the closet and went to go text Missy and Saxon.

So, third place. Gallifrey High’s moment of glory?

Almost immediately, Missy responded.

Missy: And all thnks to yur arch-enemy. Embarrassing, much?

Harold: Missy, you can’t do text speak. Don’t even try it.

None of us are capable of doing this. It seems stupid to me, Missy texts like an old lady trying to be cool, and Harold’s a grammar Nazi.

Missy: I’ll admit to my crimes.

Missy: Srsly, tho, what was up with Theta?

None of your business.

Missy: She’s your arch-enemy, of course it’s my business.

Missy: So?

Missy: O?

Harold: Answer her.

Harold: I’m curious. Why did Lungbarrow freak out?

She’s Theta. No one knows why she does anything.

Missy: You do.

No, I really don’t. I just guess.

You doing anything this weekend?

Harold: That is truly a masterful subject change.

Harold: No, I have no plans. I’m not going to that stupid carnival so you can be childish, if that’s what you’re asking.

Missy: I’m going. Flashing lights, cotton candy, and fun rides. Plus crying children, people disappointed they didn’t win prizes, and plenty of throw up. My kind of playground.

“O!” O looked up from his phone to see Corsair, walking down the stairs with their nose stuck in their laptop. Corsair had the unique ability to chopstick type while walking down the stairs. “There’s that spring fair coming up this weekend—are you interested?”

O shrugged. It didn’t seem particularly interesting, or boring either. It was there every spring for a week or two, when the local park got some company to come in with rides. All proceeds went to maintenance of the local greenspace. Some junk like that. He used to go with Theta, when Tecteun would allow it.

One year, Theta had been sick, and hadn’t been able to go on any rides. Well, she said that she’d been sick. He knew now that she’d probably just had an operation. But at the time, his best friend was sick, and he’d made her sit down anytime she felt tired.

It had been fifth grade, and technically two ten-year-olds shouldn’t have been walking around alone. Torvic didn’t care, though, and Theta had snuck out. He’d filched some money from Torvic, and had bought cotton candy, the two children laughing at how it got stuck on their faces and fingers. Theta had seen an ugly little stuffed animal that looked like an alien at one of the games, and O had decided that he would win it for her. After four tries, he gave up. Theta had asked to have a go, and had won it on the first time, sickness and all.

But if Theta went, she’d be staying as far away from O as humanly possible. The only other friend there would be Missy, and…well, O’s friends were O’s friends because they’d accepted him into their group, not because he actually liked them. Sure, they were entertaining. Sure, they were fun. The truth was, though, he didn’t much care about them. And that was that. They knew it, and they felt the same way. The Masters were a group, but not really friends. Just people who entertained and amused each other.

O didn’t truly have friends.

“Well, if you want to go, just let me know,” Corsair said.

“How are you feeling today?” O asked.

“Both, still,” Corsair responded. “I’m thinking it’s going to change soon.”

O nodded. “We had a math tournament today, remember?”

“Yes, I was wondering if you were going to tell me about that.”

“We got third place,” he said. “Theta—well, she’s amazing at math. But you already knew that.” Corsair had only met Theta twice, during those first two weeks that O had lived with them. After that, they’d had The Fight, and Theta didn’t come around anymore. After that, Theta had been on her own.

But O had told Corsair all about Theta. They’d listened. Corsair always listened.

The problem was, they never really spoke. It was all ‘let me know if you need anything.’ ‘Tell me if you want anything.’ ‘Don’t ever hesitate to ask.’ There was nothing wrong with them. They were great. Left O alone to do his own thing, and that was that. It was so much better than Torvic, even than Rassilon or that woman O had briefly stayed with who hadn’t let him out of sight for a moment. Corsair didn’t impose. They respected O’s privacy, and O respected that.

No, there wasn’t a problem at all. There was just…

“I’m going to go do my homework,” O announced.

Corsair nodded. “Tell me if you change your mind.” They looked back at their laptop.

O didn’t need anything from Corsair but…it might be nice if they offered. Just nice. O didn’t need it, didn’t want it. He didn’t desire interference in his life.

And yet…

O remembered when he had ‘come out’ to Corsair, though he maintained it didn’t really count. He’d relayed his discovery that he didn’t really have a romantic preference when it came to gender as soon as he’d found out, so he hadn’t exactly been in a closet of any type.

Still, it had felt like that. He’d been nervous, even though he knew Corsair wouldn’t care in the slightest. All fidgety as he’d sat down at the dinner table and made the announcement.

Corsair’s reaction wasn’t exactly a reaction, but more of a non-reaction. Like, ‘oh, cool, would you like some peas with your chicken?’

That’s what O had wanted. Nothing to change, nothing to be wrong, nothing to need talking about. ‘Oh, cool,’ and that was that. It wasn’t important.

Still, something had felt like it was missing, like he’d gotten all nervous and literally nothing had happened. It was jarring, and it felt wrong.

He’d wanted a reaction, any type of reaction—even just an ‘I support you, don’t listen to what any idiots say.’

No, he hadn’t wanted anything. This was fine. Everything was fine.

O turned around, and walked up the stairs.

“Did your friends talk about the fair at all?” Ohila asked.

Theta looked up from her dinner. She’d spent two hours getting done all of her homework for the weekend, and the rest researching Autism Speaks. Days had passed, and she hadn’t studied a single medical textbook. Theta supposed Miss Foster would categorize that as an improvement, but then be equally upset about her spending all of her time on something else.

From what she had found, Light It Up Blue was awful, absolutely awful. Yaz hadn’t known, but Theta couldn’t help but feel betrayed by her friend. She could have researched, could have looked into the organization she was supporting, but she hadn’t. All Theta could see was that picture, Yaz and Ryan and Graham and Grace laughing in their blue shirts with their puzzle-piece pins.

There was an alternative, Red Instead. Fairly self-explanatory. People wore red instead of blue, to promote Autism Acceptance rather than just patronizing Awareness.

Theta wished Gallifrey High School was doing that, was supporting a good organization instead of one that had been trying to cure autistic people for years. That hadn’t really changed their philosophy, even as they updated their brightly-colored, happy website.

Theta wondered if those smiling children in the pictures were child models or actually autistic. If they were autistic, they were too young to give permission for the photos to be used. It would have to be their parents.

Would anyone recognize them from the picture of a child on a website? Probably not. Were these even autistic children? Probably not as well—people used models for everything. But if Theta were on that website and someone—anyone—recognized her…

Theta was getting side-tracked. There was no information down that rabbit-hole.

The point was, Theta wished that the Student Government had done more research. But…they hadn’t, and now the school wore blue each year and collected donations to Autism Speaks. Yaz had organized the donations. Every year, she’d volunteered to sit behind the counter and collect donations in exchange for puzzle pieces for the big wall brain (with a piece missing, of course) or pins. Good community service. Helping the mentally disabled.

“Theta, I’ve said your name about five times.”

Right. “Yeah, er, no. No one mentioned it.” Someone might have mentioned it, but Theta hadn’t been paying attention. Too little sleep and then the stupid math tournament.

“Well, I’ll take you,” Ohila decided.

“I don’t want to go,” Theta said. “Carnivals…fairs, whatever you want to call them, are boring. Really boring.”

“I think you’d like the roller-coasters.”

“No, the bars are weird and…I just don’t like them.” The real reason was more along the lines of ‘I went here every year with O and now I can’t go with him anymore because he’s mean now, so I don’t want to go at all.’ But the rides really were kind of stupid to a fifteen-year-old, and the bars did feel kind of uncomfortable.

“I don’t like to think that you’re avoiding potentially good experiences because of ridiculous reasons,” Ohila said. “You’re a teenager. You’re supposed to be going to the fair with your friends.”

“How do you know what’s a good experience or not?” Theta asked.

“Everyone’s going.”

“Yeah, if everyone jumped off a bridge, I wouldn’t join them. Well…maybe if it was a very small bridge. Like, one of those bridges to nowhere the Boy Scouts always put up. There was one in a park outside my home—it had this little garden around it.”

“Theta, you’re going to the fair, and that’s final. Email your friends and ask them if they’re going too.”

“I don’t want to do it,” Theta said.

“Well, you’re going to,” Ohila said firmly. Theta looked up, trying to gauge Ohila’s tone. Was she serious about this, or could Theta win? She didn’t want to go to the fair, didn’t want to waste a couple hours over the weekend. But…it wasn’t the end of the world. And Theta still didn’t know what the consequences would be if she refused point-blank.

“Fine,” she said, pushing around her mashed potatoes with a fork.

“Theta, don’t play with your food.”

“Or else what?” Theta asked.

Ohila remained silent.

“Yeah, right. I don’t think you know. What are you going to do, take it away? I’m done anyway,” Theta said, standing up and taking her plate over to the garbage to scrape it.

“Remember to email your friends!” Ohila called as Theta stormed up the stairs.

The second Theta reached her room, she slammed the door shut with a satisfying crash. It shook the room. Theta sat down on her bed, only for an uncomfortable lump to make her leap up. A small, ugly-adorable greyish brown stuffed creature looked up at her with its giant eyes. In frustration, Theta threw it across the room into the wall, where it slid down and looked up at her mournfully, a crack in one of its plastic eyes.

Theta paced around her room, moving her arms up and down as she spiraled through her thoughts. She didn’t want to go to the stupid fair, with all of its lights and smells and sounds and memories. Why couldn’t Ohila just accept that? Why was it so important that she go to the fair? It wasn’t even for an experiment—Theta could understand if it was. But it wasn’t. Ohila wanted Theta to go to the fair ‘for her own good.’ And then she had to go and drag Theta’s friends in it. Yaz and Ryan and Graham and Grace were amazing, but they hardly deserved to deal with Theta when she was upset. She’d probably been driving them crazy with her sleep deprivation the past few days. It was a wonder they still put up with her.

Even O had left. Well, Theta had kicked him out. Well…they’d gotten into one bad fight and then the floodgates had opened. Suddenly they weren’t friends—they were enemies. Archenemies, to be precise. But that was fine, because archenemies were different from regular enemies. They weren’t like Tim Shaw or Krasko. They were fun to argue with, like playing a magnificent game of social chess. Theta hated to admit it, but she’d liked having a nemesis.

Except then O had decided that that wasn’t good enough anymore, that instead of fighting Theta he had to destroy her. He’d been jealous, and then…

And then Theta’s life had been uprooted, ruined, and it was O’s fault.

By mutual unspoken agreement, they hadn’t talked about it, but the strain was there on their archenemyship. Until O destroyed that and tried to tell her that she was traumatized and broken and that she should hate her mother—her mother who had cared for her and loved her and shown her the stars.

They weren’t archenemies anymore. They were just enemies, plain and simple. And it hurt, but Theta wasn’t the one who had—

Well, she had been partially at fault for O getting enough evidence to go to the police. But she’d just been so worried about her next operation; even she could tell that this one was important, major. Her mother had been acting weird for over a month, probably long before that. So, she’d let a few things slip, and O had finally gotten his proof.

It was her fault that her mother couldn’t complete her research. But Theta was pretty sure she hadn’t been the one who’d brought her mother into the argument a few days ago. Maybe. She didn’t remember—she was exhausted at the time, and even more exhausted now.

Slowly, Theta came to a stop, picking up the creature off the floor. Its eye now had a spiderweb of cracks winding across it. Theta liked spiders. Her mother’s lab had had lots of them in cages. Theta had felt sorry for the spiders, because they weren’t special and they almost always died. Even Theta’s favorite, which her mother had kept alive at her request—until Theta had snuck out to go to the carnival with O.

She’d told her mother that it wasn’t fair, that it wasn’t in the rules.

“It’s a natural consequence of your actions,” her mother had said. “I said I wouldn’t use it if you were good, and you weren’t.”

Theta hadn’t talked with O for days after that, and then she’d cried and cried and wouldn’t tell him why. It wasn’t his fault that Scrawl was dead. She’d been the one who’d broke the rules, who’d forgotten about the consequences.

Sitting down on her bed, Theta stared at the little creature. It didn’t really have a name, but it had been her friend ever since she had won it. She wished she could hit undo, have not thrown the toy. Then it would still be safe. But this was the consequence.

The little thing looked sad. Theta set it on her shelf and took out her laptop, emailing Yaz, Graham, Ryan, and Grace all at once. It took forever to compose it and then check a total of five times, but eventually, it was the best she could write.

Dear Grace, Graham, Ryan, and Yaz,

The names were in alphabetical order, because she didn’t want to make it seem like she liked one more than the others.

Hello! How are you doing? Ohila said I need to ask you all if you’re going to the carnival and invite you to come with us. You can if you want. I don’t want to go, but it might make it more bearable if I don’t have to talk to Ohila the whole time. (Yuck!)

Theta had planned to end it there, but something inside her wanted to ask Yaz some questions.

Also—Yaz, have you ever heard about Light It Up Red? Or you, Grace, Graham, or Ryan?

Please don’t respond with weird text speak, because I’m too tired to look at an internet dictionary.

Bye!

Sincerely,

Theta Lungbarrow

Yaz responded a few minutes later.

To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

From: [email protected]

hey theta! ur lucky i check my email @ around this time!!! Sorry, couldn’t resist—I don’t get your problem with lower case i but I do get your point about putting in an effort to get it wrong. The number of times I had to un-spell-check that i! Urgh. Anyway, yeah, I’m going to the carnival this weekend. Saturday @ 1:30 good for you? I need time to get ready after lunch. But my mum and dad might make me bring along Sonya if none of her friends go.

Light It Up Red? No, I haven’t heard of it. I’ve heard of Light It Up Blue (that’s the thing I was telling you about). But I’d love you to explain if you want.

You planning to do anything else over the weekend?

Yaz

Theta resolved to reply to it later, and opened up a new tab on her laptop, unsure of what to do. There wasn’t any point in researching Autism Speaks anymore, and after what had happened at the math tournament, she didn’t feel like reading medical information.

Eventually, she navigated to TVTropes and became absorbed in a wiki walk that lasted for about an hour, then stared at an empty Microsoft Word document until Ryan responded to the email.

To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Hi!

Yeah, Graham and I were already going to the carnival he’s here with me by the way. Saturday’s good all day and Sunday too. Yeah. Fake Granddad says it’s good.

Hey, real Granddad. Not at all fake.

You’re literally the same age as me, fake Granddad. Theta, back me up here.

Back on topic. Is that the thing you asked me about in English? I dunno. I’m not into weird medical stuff, that’s your thing. Is it a weird medical thing? It’s almost definitely a weird medical thing with you. Not that you’re weird. Well, you are weird. But good weird.

The message ended there. Clearly, Ryan did absolutely zero editing on his emails. Theta sighed, then sent a message back.

To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Dear Graham, Ryan, and Yaz (and also Grace),

Hello! I think 1:30 p.m. (obviously p.m.) on Saturday works for me. I’ll ask Ohila when I’m not fed up with her.

Sincerely,

Theta Lungbarrow

Theta looked at the clock. It was 8:30, and she was fifteen. Fifteen-year-olds couldn’t go to bed at 8:30. It was a rule or something.

Theta was really tired. She hadn’t slept properly for days. But 8:30? She needed to stay up at least another hour. On principle.

She looked up Percy Shelley—she’d been meaning to do that, at some point, and found the text of Ozymandias. Back to the blank word document. And then she took the words and transformed them.

Vast desert of shattered sand,

Remains of mighty stone,

Lifeless stretch of despair,

Nothing stands, survives,

Those who said “Mighty”—

Tell them,

Tell of cold hearts,

And lone Kings,

Tell them,

Of sand’s decay.

Theta looked at her work and grimaced. She’d added in an ‘s’ here or there to make things plural, even including an extra apostrophe. And the tone hadn’t changed at all—it was just a rephrasing, not any new meaning. It certainly wasn’t her best work, but God, she was tired.

At least the stupid empty Word document wasn’t empty any longer.

Giving up with her laptop, she turned it off and lay on her bed, continuing her re-read of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

“Yaz!” Theta smiled at her friend as she spotted her with a younger girl.

“Hey, Theta,” Yaz said. “This is Sonya, my little sister.”

“Hi,” Sonya said, barely looking up from her phone. “You’re Yaz’s friend?”

“Yes,” Theta said. “I think so? Am I?”

“Yes, you’re my friend, Theta,” Yaz answered. She sounded annoyed. Was she annoyed? “Ryan, Graham, and Grace should be here in a few minutes.” Theta looked over at Ohila, who was standing by the car with her phone. “That your aunt?”

“Unfortunately,” Theta said.

Yaz laughed at that, like it was a really funny joke. “You got any siblings?”

Theta shook her head. “Nope. It’s just me.”

“Lucky,” Sonya said, tapping her screen.

“Yeah,” Yaz agreed. “So, what did you do when you were little, then? Like, I played ‘pretend’ with Sonya all the time. Board games and everything. And football. I mean, Ryan has no siblings, but Graham’s his cousin, and they’re practically brothers the amount of time Ryan spends at his place.”

“I had a friend,” Theta said. It wasn’t exactly fun to talk about the O from back when they were friends, but the memories always swept her in when she thought about them. “Lived a few blocks away from me. My mother used to have me stay with him and his father when…when she was busy. We’d do everything together.”

“What happened?” Yaz asked. Theta wasn’t sure what she meant by that—to her friend, or to her mother.

“Oi, Yaz, that’s rude,” Sonya said. “My sister has no sense of manners.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Theta lied. “Curiosity’s always good.”

“It killed the cat, you know.” Theta turned around to see Grace, with Ryan and Graham close behind her.

“But satisfaction brought it back,” Theta said. It’s what her mother had always told her. Theta just felt bad or the poor cat, dying and then getting returned to life, over and over again.

“Right,” Ryan said. “‘cos that’s not creepy at all.” Graham shrugged.

“So?” Yaz asked.

“He moved away,” Theta said simply. O had moved away, but not that far, and Theta had ended up living right next to him within a few years. And that hadn’t been what had ruined their friendship, though it’d probably been part of it. It had taken almost another year after that for everything to fall apart. “We were eleven.”

“Lost friendships aside,” Ryan said. “Who wants to go on some cool rides?”

The rides weren’t that bad, Theta decided, but the lines were. She’d been standing there forever, waiting to go on some stupid roller coaster. Yaz really wanted to do it, which made the ride worth the wait, but it was still really annoying. Plus, Ohila had decided that chaperoning a bunch of teenagers was a great idea. Theta’s friends didn’t seem to mind that much, but it made Theta feel awful.

Ohila had bought everyone cotton candy, or, as Graham called it, candy floss. This, Theta had warned her friends, was a dangerous plan of psychological warfare and bribery. Yaz had laughed again at that.

Theta had taken a bite of the candy floss—she liked that name better, because it got stuck in her teeth like floss but didn’t act anything like cotton—and then decided it wasn’t really good. It reminded her too much of going to the fair with O, of the operation she’d had a few days before, of her mother. She wanted her life to be like it had used to be. She’d been happy, then. Sure, she’d had problems, and she hadn’t fully understood how what her mother was doing was necessary (she hadn’t really gotten it until she wasn’t friends with O anymore). But she hadn’t had all these problems.

But this was unfair. As much as she hated O, he didn’t deserve to be stuck with Torvic anymore. And if Theta could go back in time, to where she’d been happy, and then changed the past so that it remained that way…O would never have been able to get away from his father.

The candy floss had a lot of memories, for a bag of flavored sugar.

“So,” Yaz said. “What was that ‘Light It Up Red’ thing you mentioned in your email?”

“Oh,” Theta said, because she’d forgotten to practice what she’d say. What was she supposed to say, anyway? ‘Sorry, Yaz, you kind of supported an organization that endorsed a school that tortures people and sponsored a video with a mother contemplating murdering her child. Just do your research, next time!’ “Yeah. Um.”

“I think I’ve heard of that,” Grace said, squinting as she tried to recall. “Somewhere, at least.”

“It’s, well. You were, um, right when you said it sounded kind of like Light It Up Blue. It’s…an alternate version of it.”

“Huh,” Yaz said. “I’ve never heard of this. Why’s there an alternate thing? Like, is it on a different day or something? Two events a year?”

“It’s…well. Oh, never mind. It’s not important.”

“I mean, you seemed pretty interested in it,” Graham said.

“Yeah,” Ryan agreed. “You mentioned it in English class.”

“I think it’s a hashtag,” Sonya said.

“Huh?” Graham asked.

“A hashtag. You know what those are, right?” Sonya asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Of course I know what those are!” Graham said, looking affronted. “Ryan, what’s a hashwatsit again?” He stage whispered. When he saw Sonya’s appalled expression, he chuckled. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding!”

“Good,” Yaz said. Theta chose not to admit that she had absolutely no clue what a hashtag was, since Yaz seemed to believe that was a crime against the universe. “Sonya, you remember what it was about?”

Sonya shrugged. “Something stupid.” Okay, that hurt a little bit. Sonya seemed to think everything was stupid, but it was still upsetting.

“Yeah,” Theta said, looking down. “Just something stupid.”

“Hang on,” said a voice behind them. Theta looked up to see a girl wearing a black jacket covered in patches. “You said something about Light It Up Red, did you?”

Theta was pretty sure she recognized her. “Do I…”

“Oh!” Patch Girl said. “You remember me? I’m Ace.” Theta drew a blank. “The girl from…” she trailed off.

Theta thought about where she would have met anyone new. And immediately came upon—This was the girl from therapy, who had made Miss Foster look like someone had dipped her in a pool of white paint. “The supermarket,” Theta lied.

“Yeah, that’s me,” she said. “These your friends?”

“Hi,” Yaz said, glancing over at Theta. “I’m Yaz. This is Graham, Grace, and Ryan.”

“Cool,” Ace said. “Anyway, some people at my school started doing something about it, and my dad—my real dad, that is, he’s not actually my technical dad—sort of blackmailed the school into doing it.”

“Blackmailed?” Theta asked.

“You met him, right?”

Theta thought back to when she met Ace in Miss Foster’s waiting room. “The one with the question mark umbrella?”

“Yeah,” Ace said. “That’s him, alright. You saw what he was like. Tell me you don’t think he’s capable of blackmailing a school. I mean, I don’t know about yours, but my principal’s a total jerk. Tried to expel me after a chemistry accident. Also claimed I was trying to make drugs, which I really wasn’t. I’m not that stupid. I was trying to make explosives.”

“Riiiight,” Yaz said.

“I can see why you two get along,” Grace said.

“What?” Theta asked.

“I think you’d also be fond of blowing things up if you got the chance,” Ryan said. He saw Theta’s glare and raised his hands in surrender. “Just saying.”

“You are a bit…explosive,” Graham agreed.

Ace smiled, sticking out her hand. “Ace. Again.” Theta shook it, trying to ignore how weird the touching felt, her hand rubbing against the creases in someone else’s palm and the skin brushing up against other skin in something that felt like friction but probably was just Theta.

“I wish we did Red at my school,” Theta said. “Somehow, I don’t think blackmailing Principal Rassilon’s gonna work.”

“I’m a bit lost here,” Ryan admitted. “What is Light It Up Red?”

“Well…” Theta trailed off.

“How much do you know about Light It Up Blue?” Ace asked.

“Yaz helped start it in our school,” Theta said, looking down.

“Right,” Ace said. “Well, Light It Up Blue’s for this thing called Autism Speaks, which talks about autism. Everyone listens to it, ‘cos it’s big, and it’s there. Except, Autism Speaks is really, really awful. Like, evil awful.”

“But, that’s not true, is it?” Yaz asked. “They’re really legit.”

“Evil corporation awful,” Ace said. “Just ‘cos they’ve got a lot of money doesn’t mean they’re good. Do you know what autism is?”

“Autism Spectrum Disorder’s a developmental disability,” Grace said. “If I can remember correctly. I’m taking psych this year. It’s the reason that some parents are refusing to vaccinate their children.”

“But the study had a sample size of, like, seventeen,” Theta interjected. “And science said that vaccines aren’t causing anything with brain development.”

“Yes,” Grace said. “I didn’t mean that it’s caused by vaccines, I’m just saying that some people are convinced it is. Of course, vaccines don’t cause that. Anyway, some kids with autism can’t speak. That’s really all I know.”

“Some of them can’t speak, I think,” Yaz said. “And…some of them can, but they’re like, obsessed with one thing or they can’t make eye contact or they’re socially disadvantaged. It’s divided into high-functioning and low-functioning, but they’re both autism. A lot of people with autism have to live with their families their whole lives, and a lot of them can’t talk all the time. It’s sad, really.”

Theta clenched her hands, not trusting herself to speak. Yaz was her friend, and this was how she thought of people like Theta.

Yaz didn’t know. Yaz didn’t know what she was saying, why it was wrong, who she was hurting. But…

But if Yaz knew who she was hurting…

“It’s sad, really.”

“You have no cure for me.”

…she wouldn’t want to be friends with Theta anymore.

“So, that’s wrong,” Ace said. “Autism is the way someone is. Like, the way you think. Just part of who autistic people are. It’s not taking them away—it’s a facet of their identities. Now, imagine someone came up to you and said ‘you’re broken’ and tried to cure you. I don’t think you’d like it very much, ‘cos you know you’re not broken. And you’re not a machine to be fixed. Autism Speaks doesn’t treat autistic people like people, and it tries to cure them of their identities. Sound familiar? Anyway, some autistic people can’t speak but they can communicate in other ways. We need to listen to them, not force them to talk in the way we want. Really, Autism Speaks is stupid.”

“Wow,” Yaz said, somewhat shakily. “That’s…a lot. I guess…I’ll look it up, yeah?”

“Me too,” Ryan said. “So, that’s what you were talking about, Theta?”

“Er, yeah,” Theta said. “I just, er, looked up Light It Up Blue on Wikipedia when you mentioned it and found some info. Thought you, er, might like to know.”

“Well, now you know,” Ace said. “It’s not your fault for not knowing stuff. Just, look it up? And don’t wear blue on April 2nd.”

“I wish…I wish our whole school wouldn’t be,” Theta said. “It’s stupid. I wish we did Red Instead.”

“You could make it happen,” Ace suggested.

“What?” Theta asked.

“You could, like, talk with your school. I mean, you don’t have the benefit of blackmail, but you’re, like, an oncoming storm. Beware anyone who gets in your way. Graham said—explosive.”

Theta thought about it. She didn’t want to talk to Rassilon and the rest of the school administration. But…a letter. She could write a letter and email it to them. Or something. But there was something she could do. Theta could at least try.

“Next!” Called the person collecting tickets.

Theta and her friends stepped forwards, handing in their tickets and giving their candy floss to Ohila.

Yaz was right—the ride was kind of fun.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5: LEGO

“Hey, Theta!” Theta looked around to see John behind her, grinning. “You staying for the math club meeting today?”

Theta looked at him, concerned. Had he suddenly lost his mind? “Why would I do that?” She asked.

“Welllll,” he said, trailing off and rubbing the back of his neck. “I sort of thought…you did go to the math tournament.”

“My aunt made me do that,” Theta explained. “It was a mess, and I’m glad I’ll never have to do anything like it again.”

“Are you sure?” John asked. “You could take the late bus. And you’d really like Mel. Missy won’t say anything like that again.”

“Oh, hi, Theta,” Yaz said, closing the door to her locker and walking over to where John and Theta were talking. “John Smith, right?”

“Yep,” John said. “That’s me. I was just telling Theta that she should join the math team. She was amazing at our last meet.”

“Right!” Yaz said. “You never did tell us about that.”

“It was awful,” Theta said. “The team argued most of the time.”

“I think it’s a cool opportunity,” Yaz said. “You’re awesome at math, and you need something to show colleges.”

“It’s boring,” Theta said.

“Oh, come on,” John said. “It’s math. Plus, it’s never boring, watching Basil and I argue with Saxon and Missy. A lot of collateral damage, but never boring. And you can sit really far away from O—we’ll have a whole classroom and only seven people total.”

“I’ll come,” Yaz said.

“What?” Theta asked.

“I mean, I’m not particularly good at math, but you should branch out! And I’ll come there and support you this meeting. Okay, really, though. Book club got cancelled and my dad’s having a conspiracy theorist meeting that I’m not supposed to be around for. Watching a bunch of nerds argue with each other is more entertaining than sitting in the hallway with the school’s awful reception.”

“Your dad’s having a conspiracy theorist meeting?” Theta asked. “That’s a bit…concerning.”

“It’s harmless,” Yaz said, waving her hand. “It’s not like he believes in, well, any of the crazier ones. Just local stuff. Aliens. The like.” Aliens were considered the lesser conspiracy theories in terms of crazy?

“Lizard people?” John asked.

“No lizard people. Or pizza parlors.”

“Pizza parlors?” Theta asked, confused.

“You really don’t want to know,” Yaz said. “Anyway, you going to math club?”

Theta considered it. Yaz would be going, and that was good. Besides, if she were home that would mean just doing her homework or staring at her laptop with nothing interesting to do. “Yeah, alright.”

“So,” Miss Shaw said from her large, imposing desk at the front of the room. “Mel, take it away.”

A girl with frizzy bright red hair stepped to the front of the room, her hands on her hips. “We’re going to finish building the ‘Mathematics of Fun’ display today. Magister, are you almost done with the roller coaster physics?”

“Nearly,” Missy said, her combat boots propped up on her desk. “I just have to add the part with the people dying.”

“Maybe not,” Mel suggested.

“I think it’d make it more interesting,” Missy protested.

“Interesting, yes, but please don’t. We don’t want the rest of the world thinking math club’s evil and will eat their souls.”

“Wait, we’re not eating souls?” Theta joked. “False advertising!”

Yaz laughed, along with O and Missy. Theta just barely stopped herself from grinning in O’s direction.

“Oh, alright,” Missy pouted.

“Smith and I will do the game theory section,” Saxon announced.

“No,” John said. “I’ll be doing the game theory section. You’ll be finding your own idea.”

“It was my idea first.”

“Actually, it was mine.”

“Right,” Mel said. “Smith, which game do you want to do?”

“Monopoly,” John said.

“Figures,” Saxon muttered. “The idiot’s game of buy everything in sight.”

“It’s not that simple!” John said. “In fact—”

“Which game do you want to do, Saxon?”

“Cluedo.”

“Perfect, then.”

“We can’t have two game theory sections,” Basil weighed in.

“They’ll be one section, two parts,” Mel said. “There you go. Solved.”

“Poor Mel,” Yaz whispered to Theta.

“She’s got to solve disputes between a bunch of teenagers,” Theta agreed.

“I’ll be working on the binary code section,” Mel announced. “I’m nearly finished. Disco, how are the sound waves going?”

“Excellent,” Basil said.

‘Disco?’ Yaz mouthed.

Theta turned to John. “Disco?” She asked.

“Hippie parents. Him and his brother, Nine, both have the oddest names.”

“That’s me, Disco, Saxon, Smith, and Magister. O?”

“That’s my name,” O said. “I finished last time. I’ll work on the LEGO title and equations, since someone needs to do it.”

“And it seems like we’ve got two new members,” Mel said, looking at Yaz and Theta.

“Not new members,” Theta said. “I’m only here for one meeting.”

“That’s Theta Lungbarrow and I’m Yasmin Khan. And yeah, I’m just here ‘cos book club got cancelled. Theta might be staying, though.”

Mel shrugged. “Got any ideas about the mathematics of fun?”

“Uh,” Theta said, thinking. “Derivatives and racecars?”

“I’m already doing physics,” Missy said.

“Sorry. Well, then, I could do…I dunno.”

“Why don’t you help O with the equations?” Mel suggested. “You’re in calculus, so you’ll know a lot of them.”

Theta’s eyes widened. She did not want to be working on some stupid LEGO thing for an hour with O right there. His presence itself was malevolent.

“She can work with me,” Missy said, lazily raising her hand as she spoke. “I’ve been informed my script isn’t legible to normal humans. Aka monkeys.”

Miss Shaw looked up from the tests she was grading and raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll help O,” Yaz said.

“Traitor,” Theta whispered lightly.

“Hey, someone’s got to brave the trials of working with a jerk,” Yaz said. “Seriously, though, I thought Missy was worse than O?”

Theta shrugged. “She’s evil. They’re all evil. But I really don’t want to work with that idiot.”

Yaz walked across the room and sat down by O, where a gigantic board sat on four pushed-together desks. A bucket of LEGOs sat on the ground, half full.

“We meet again,” O said.

“Yeah, cut the dramatics,” she said tiredly, looking at the board. ‘THE MATHE’ was spelled out in LEGOs across the top. “I’ll finish up the title, and you can do the borders? And the equations, whatever Mel was talking about.”

“Sure,” O said.

Yaz pulled out the LEGOs and got started. They worked in silence for a little while, until—

“Still having problems?” O asked.

“What?” Yaz asked.

“Are you still having problems with Theta?”

“No,” Yaz said. “And that’s none of your business.”

“She’s my arch-enemy,” O protested. “Of course it’s my business.”

Yaz raised an eyebrow. “Look, if you were really worried about her, you’d stop randomly insulting my friend.”

“It’s our texting!” O insisted.

“Yeah, well, maybe you should take a break. Seriously, you’re evil, O.”

“That’s high praise,” O said.

“I mean it,” Yaz told him seriously.

“Again, high praise. I’m glad you do.”

“What are you trying to get out of this?” Yaz asked. “Everything you do—getting us into problems with that idiot Ashad—”

“Hey, that wasn’t my fault!” O said. “I simply…brought him to Theta’s attention.”

“Yeah,” Yaz said. “You knew she couldn’t resist a righteous fight, and you used that. Ryan sprained his arm fighting one of his cronies!”

“And Ashad got suspended, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, but that’s not the point. You only told Theta about him because you knew he would take the fight to us. And you wanted us to get hurt.”

“Well, yes, that was part of it,” O admitted. Yaz sighed, waiting for whatever ridiculous thing he was going to say next. “But I also just wanted her to get that idiot kicked out of school.”

“Theta told us a story about ninth grade—you told Robertson that she was the one who’d spread the rumor about his spider collection!”

“It wasn’t a rumor,” O muttered.

“But you don’t deny that you told him,” Yaz said.

“Yeah, well, the truth is, Theta’s a girl. I thought if she beat him up, everyone would believe it was self-defense. Whereas if I did it, I’d be violent and angry. And it was also her choice not to deny that she’d spread them. I’m her arch-enemy. It’s my job to—”

“To get her suspended?”

O looked up from what he was doing. “What?”

“Theta got a three-day out-of-school suspension for fighting with Robertson, even though it was a clear-cut case of self-defense. Because his parents are rich. Three days suspension, and—” Yaz looked at O, who had a strange expression on his face. Almost like regret. “And she didn’t even return to school for a week. She wouldn’t tell us why, but I think she got put in the hospital! Because of you! So, fine, you’re her arch-enemy. But you’re not her friend, and I don’t think you’ve ever been.”

Yaz finished the LEGO title and began adding on the Pythagorean theorem. That was one of the very few math equations she knew.

O didn’t talk for a while. And then, eventually—

“You’re talking about Theta behind her back. I think she expects that of me, but you should really stop.”

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” Yaz told him. O pretended like he was—like he was Theta’s friend. Even when everything he did only hurt her, he still acted as if he was looking out for her or something. How dare he? Yaz had tried to help. She’d listened to Theta and been her friend and hadn’t ever hurt her. Theta had been in a bad state for days, and Yaz still caught her sitting with a lost expression on her face when she thought no one was looking.

“Alright,” O said.

“What?” Yaz asked, surprised.

“If you don’t want to listen to my advice, I won’t give it.”

“Well, here’s my advice. Stop it,” Yaz said. “Stop whatever stupid little game you think you’re playing, because it’s not funny and it hasn’t been funny in a long time.”

O looked up and watched as Theta and Missy talked across the room, and then started on the volume of a rectangular prism. Shame. Yaz actually knew that one.

“Theta Lungbarrow,” Missy said as Theta sat down next to her on the floor. The large posterboard was spread across the ground so that they could write the equations. Across it was the picture of a giant roller coaster. “We meet again.”

“Flair for the dramatics, much?” Theta said.

“I admit it.”

“Fair enough.” Theta looked and read all the physics equations. “Er, I could, er—” She stopped, waiting for Missy to cut her off. “Er, I, er, could write a graph? Draw a graph. Sorry. For the position and acceleration? And things? Velocity. Velocity’s in there too.”

Missy contemplated the poster. “Over here’s good,” she said, pointing to a section of the poster. “Use one of my Sharpies.” Theta took a black one from the box. “Never thought you’d go for the boring choice,” Missy said.

“That’s just for the border. I’m doing blue for position, green for velocity, and red for acceleration.”

“Why those three?”

“I dunno, it seems, just, like, right,” Theta said. She took a ruler from the front of the room and sat down again, drawing out her graph with her mechanical pencil first.

“I’m sorry,” Missy said suddenly.

Theta looked over at her, confused.

“Yes, I know. Apologizing? Not my thing. But…whatever I said on Friday, I’m sorry for saying it.”

“You didn’t say anything,” Theta said. That was a lie. Probably a very obvious lie.

“What is it that you want me to stay away from?” Missy asked. “In the future?”

“I won’t be interacting with you or the others in your little gang,” Theta said. “In the future.”

“You’re part of the math team, now,” Missy said, waving her hand.

“No, I’m not,” Theta said. “I’m just here ‘cos John pressured me into it. One meeting, and I’m out.”

“But then you’ll never see me again!” Missy said.

“That’s the goal,” Theta said.

“One less chance to argue with O!”

“That’s…also the goal.”

“I think you need a mission statement,” Missy suggested. “Decide what the goals are.”

“No, I need to not interact with you or the other idiots. Seriously, ‘The Masters’? What kind of name is that?” Theta told herself that she wasn’t deflecting, just keeping the conversation interesting. Like a ping pong ball. Had she ever played ping pong?

“It’s our name,” Missy said. “We chose it. Just like how O chose his name, which you sometimes forget as well.”

“It’s a stupid name,” Theta said, because, well, it was. “He just chose it because he was running away from everything. New person, new O, not a single scrap of the past.” Theta paused. She sounded like Ohila, with all her talk about how running away never solved anything. It solved plenty for Theta, running away from her problems.

Missy shrugged. “Well, it’s his name, now. But between you and me, I think he’s fine with some people using his…original name. It’s more…” She trailed off.

“The teachers,” Theta said. “And his…” She frowned. Was Corsair O’s aunt or uncle? During the literal two weeks she’d known O’s caretaker, she hadn’t worked up the courage to ask. “And Corsair.”

“But we’re not talking about O,” Missy said. “We’re talking about what I said.”

“Me, me, me,” Theta mocked. “You are a meglomaniac.”

“And proud of it. It’s not like Basil’s other friend is any better. I introduced them, you know.”

“Um, okay?” Theta said.

“So, what was it that I said?” Missy asked.

“I already told you. Nothing. I…hadn’t had enough sleep.”

“Of course,” Missy said. “You’re like a hyperactive puppy dog with a sugar rush.”

Theta scrunched up her face. “What? A—” Theta couldn’t tell if that was an insult or not.

“But that’s not all of it. I said something, and I don’t want you to go running off at our next math competition.”

“There is no ‘next’ math competition,” Theta said. “I’m not ever going to another one again, and besides, Mel wouldn’t have a computer competition, so there wouldn’t be room even if I did want to go. And you’re graduating after this year.”

Missy shrugged. “The point stands.”

“The point really doesn’t.”

“Fine,” Missy said, twirling her Sharpie so quickly that Theta was surprised it hadn’t fallen. “You and O can keep your stupid secrets. I’m only trying to help.”

Theta flinched. ‘You and O can keep your stupid secrets.’ Did Missy know that O had something to do with what she’d said? Would she put two and two together and figure out that all this had something to do with Theta’s mother? The information from the trial was a matter of public record. Missy could find out and tell the whole school.

“It’s a pity, you know,” Missy said, and Theta nearly jumped out of her skin.

“W-what is?” Theta asked.

“The month you live with my father, and I’m away with my aunt,” Missy said. “We missed each other by a couple of weeks.”

“I’m glad,” Theta said, looking up at the clock. Still so much time left in the meeting, and Missy was making connections. Theta had the feeling she was the smartest person in the room, but Missy’s intelligence was a force to be reckoned with—and far more diabolical. One step away from asking why Theta stayed with Rassilon. One step away from asking why Theta’s arguments with O had gotten so much worse around that time. One step away from the truth.

And that would be a problem. Because if the whole school knew, if the whole school surrounded her and knew, and whispered behind her back…

Theta wouldn’t be the weird genius girl with a penchant for fighting bullies.

And she wouldn’t be a special puzzle to put together and solve either.

She’d just be weak. No one would respect her anymore, and the teachers would look at her in pity. If Yaz and Ryan and Graham and Grace knew—they’d feel a need to change everything, to watch her and tell her about how awful her mother was. And they wouldn’t want to be friends with Theta anymore, but they’d stay. Because they knew that if they left, Theta would be devastated, and how could they do that to her? Her friends would stay, but she wouldn’t be Theta anymore. She’d just be a poor charity case.

“If you tell anyone about the math tournament, I will make you regret it,” Theta threatened, well aware that it was something of a non-sequitur.

“Seriously,” Missy said. “What am I going to say? No one cares, Theta Lungbarrow. I’m the Queen of Evil, not Queen of Petty Rumors and Stupid Gossip. Well, I actually am, but that’s not exactly the point. I have better things to do. I’m a Senior. I don’t make it my job to ruin the lives of Sophomores. Plus, you’re not in my way, are you? No? Then I have nothing against you. I could destroy you just because you’re there, but I won’t. I like you, almost. We were nearly sisters, and I’ve never had a sister before.”

“Er…okay.”

“Good,” Missy said. She added a face to the dying passenger. He was screaming. And looked suspiciously like Basil.

“Did you just draw your frenemy dying?” Theta asked.

“Nope,” Missy said. “I’m going to save him.”

“Er…” Theta trailed off. She didn’t get Missy at all.

“What happened?” Missy asked.

“What?”

“What happened at the math tournament? You can reply, ‘I’m not telling you, crazy lady, get away from my life,’ I suppose, but I’m still asking.”

“There was just a lot,” Theta said shortly. She wasn’t sure if that was what Missy had meant, but it seemed like a good enough reply in any case. Nobody had seen, except the math team. But…Missy was unpredictable. ‘I wouldn’t have anything to gain’ wasn’t exactly typical Missy reasoning—Missy destroyed things just because they were there all the time.

“Was it me?” Missy asked. Theta’s face scrunched up as she tried to figure out what Missy meant.

“Huh?”

“I mean, you looked like you were about to have another attack just now. Is it me who’s triggering…whatever this is?”

“No,” Theta said. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine.”

“Didn’t say you weren’t fine. But you aren’t. But that’s not what I was asking, was it?”

“For once,” Theta said, “you’re not doing anything wrong.”

“I won’t make a habit of it,” Missy smirked.

“You’re not as bad as I expected,” Theta said, drawing over her pencil graph in sharpie.

“Not as—how dare you!”

“Seriously,” Theta said. “I guess it’s…really, it’s Saxon that’s the most awful out of you. I used to think it was you, but you’re capable of being nice, which is a whole lot more than I can say about him.”

“It appears that I need to kill someone,” Missy said. “To prove my point, of course.”

“Good luck killing anyone with Mel around,” Theta said.

Missy looked over at Mel. “Mel has been absorbed by the computers. She’d never notice if one of you died. But by kill, I mean, something more appropriate to the scale. Though if anyone here was to commit murder, it probably would be me. Or O. No, it would be O, for sure.”

“Yeah,” Theta said, her mouth suddenly dry. “O for sure.”

“I promise you, though, I won’t make a habit of not wrongdoing,” Missy said.

And it was strange. Her tone was as flippant as ever, but something in her voice seemed to cover a hint of steel, a hidden blade waiting to bury itself in Theta’s back. There was something very off about this conversation, and Theta had the sense that Missy was leading her blind through a maze of daggers. Theta recognized the feeling that hung in the air, the waiting, the reveal. It felt explanation chapter of the third Harry Potter book. It felt like a sled hurtling down a hill towards a tree, every second growing towards its inevitable destruction.

It felt like Missy knew something, and Theta was only moments away from walking straight into a trap and confirming it.

“Though I am curious—if I’m not evil and O’s not evil, what makes The Masters evil?”

Theta snorted, trying to hide her growing worries. “Everything. And O is evil. I’m just starting to think you’re like a fake goth. Into it for the aesthetic, not the music.”

“How would you know what a fake goth is?”

“One of my friends had a very short phase,” Theta said. In a way, this conversation reminded her of talking with O. One remark led to another, and they leapt from comment to comment like stepping stones in a river. The sheer ridiculousness of it made something in Theta’s chest ache.

“Yasmin Khan was goth?”

“No,” Theta said. “It was Graham?”

“Was it really?”

“I dunno,” Theta said. “I picked up the stuff about goths reading TVTropes.”

“That sounds more accurate,” Missy said. “And ‘everything’ isn’t a very descriptive answer. Evil is relative. Prove me wrong.”

“You get into loads of fights,” Theta said. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe Missy wasn’t having this conversation for a purpose. “Only escaping expulsion because your father’s the principal.”

“We get into fights?” Missy asked. “Take a look at yourself.”

“My fights are righteous, and you and your gang got me into most of them. Whereas you fight people just because they’re there. And you pick on people.”

“Name one person,” Missy challenged.

“Er, me.”

“You fight back, though. We’re not exactly picking on you.”

“Fine, then. Yaz, Graham, Ryan, and Grace.”

“Don’t count,” Missy said lazily. “They’re your…friends.” She said the word distastefully, as if she didn’t quite believe it. “They signed up for this.”

“That girl O was picking on; she’s in eighth grade now. Computer genius. I don’t remember her name.”

“That was eighth grade for O,” Missy said. “Something that’s not ancient history.”

“Fine,” Theta said. “Osgood.”

“Also Basil’s friend.”

“Someone being friends with one of your enemies is not a valid reason to pick on them.”

“Of course it is,” Missy said. “Any other reason we’re evil?”

“O’s definitely evil,” Theta said.

“Go on.”

Missy watched her with narrowed eyes. Yes, Missy was definitely going for something here.

Theta thought about her claim’s major evidence. O calling the police on her mother. O taunting her about it afterwards. O ruining her life with lies.

But she couldn’t present any of those.

“He purposely got me in trouble—with your and Saxon’s help!—in eighth and ninth grade. Tons. I got a three-day suspension for that business with Robertson!”

“It was worth it, though, wasn’t it?”

“No,” Theta said, thinking of the instance. She’d been in so much trouble that her mother hadn’t let her go to school for a week. Missy raised an eyebrow. “No, it wasn’t.”

“It was your choice to fight him,” Missy said. “Go fish.”

“What?”

“It’s a game,” Missy explained. “And an expression. Try again.”

“Fine. You just…act all evil.”

“Ah, evil isn’t a doctrine, it’s an attitude. Very well, I accept. I’m evil. Deal with it, heathen. You done with your calculus graph?” She looked over at Theta’s work. “Acceptable. Needs more dead people, though.”

“Er, no thanks,” Theta said.

Missy shrugged. The dead roller coaster passenger had a pool of blood and was being joined by one of its fellows.

“You’re not so bad either,” Missy said. Now it made sense. Missy must’ve been testing her all along. Theta could understand that. “Or, more accurately, not so good.”

“Thanks? Though I don’t know how you got that from this. Discuss a sort-of-but-not-really panic attack, and make a new acquaintance. Or are we still enemies? I’m not sure.”

“Aquenemies,” Missy said. “It’s like ‘frenemies,’ except O’s your frenemy, and you can only have one frenemy.”

“No,” Theta said. “He’s my arch-nemesis. We’re not friends in the slightest. That’s the thing you can only have one of. Because it’s ‘arch’. Frenemies, can have loads of those.”

“Well, then. Frenemies?”

“Frenemies,” Theta said, still unsure what exactly had happened in that exchange. But it seemed like she hadn’t managed to mess up.

Missy remained silent for a little longer. “Who do you think would be more likely to murder somebody? Me or O?” Oh.

“Are you incapable of being quiet?” Theta asked, buying time. “And…you.”

“Me? I would say O, and I mean that as the highest of compliments. You did say O before, after all.”

“I don’t think murder is a good subject for school,” Theta said. She didn’t think murder was a good subject in general, but this was Missy. The dead passenger and the falling passenger were currently having their deaths described with physics equations. Lift, drag, friction. Precisely where they would land on the ground, with what force.

“Nonsense. It’s the very best. Who do you think would be more likely to get caught murdering someone?” Missy asked.

“You,” Theta said immediately. “If you murdered someone, you’d do it in plain sight, as an example. O would hide the body.”

“O would make it look like an accident,” Missy said. She had an odd expression on her face that Theta couldn’t quite define. Her head was tilted to the side, and when Theta chanced a glance at her eyes, they had the burning within them of someone who was waiting for the twist reveal.

Theta looked away.

“Really?” Theta asked. She felt like someone else was talking, her voice hollow and ringing through her head as she merely observed. “Are you sure?”

“I’m certain. It would be a waste of his intelligence to just let himself get caught. Though you know him better than me—I thought you would’ve casually discussed murder before. It’s what friends do, isn’t it?”

“O would make it look like an accident.”

“O would make it look like an accident.”

“O would make it look like an accident.”

“It’s what friends do.”

Theta had a theory, and it relied on Missy being far too good at secrets. Far too good, but not good enough. Not good enough to get the full story. Or maybe, just maybe, O had told her a secret when he was living with her, or after the fact, when he didn’t have Theta to talk to anymore. A secret that she could never, ever tell anyone.

O had made promises. But he hadn’t sworn not to tell a lie.

“I don’t think most people casually discuss murder,” Theta said calmly.

“Really? I never would have guessed!”

“Yeah, you didn’t know that? Even I know that!” Was Missy really that insane?

“I was being sarcastic, Theta Lungbarrow,” Missy said. Right. For all that Theta could pretend that she was playing a deadly game of verbal sparring, she had to remember that she still sucked at peopling. Or, that wasn’t really the best way to put it. But she certainly wasn’t a world-class battle psychologist. Did those exist, battle psychologists? “You really think I’m more likely to murder someone than O, huh?”

“Yep,” Theta said with false cheer.

Missy appeared deep in thought. “Hmm…what about people other than O or I? Anyone else here capable of murder in this room?”

Yes. “Saxon,” Theta said.

“Fair enough.”

“He’s even more likely than O to lose control and kill someone. I don’t think he’d get caught. Can we please talk about something else?” Theta asked, finally caving. She didn’t care how much information it gave Missy. She just wanted the conversation to stop.

“Sure,” Missy said. “Have you ever heard the rumor mill’s story about how Basil head-dived into a nest of vampire monkey stuffed-animals? No? Well, it’s mostly true, and the actual version is a whole lot more exciting…”

“The appeal’s results were given yesterday,” Ohila said.

“And?” Theta asked, trying to read Ohila’s face and getting nothing.

“The sentence is being upheld,” Ohila said.

Theta was sure she looked smug. Maybe that was just in her mind, though.

“What about the next court of appeals?”

“Tecteun has chosen not to file for an appeal,” Ohila explained.

“But—”

“But it would be denied anyway,” Ohila said. “I have a visitation appointment set up with Tecteun next week, if you would like to meet with her. Or, I could cancel it, as I have every single time.”

“I’ll do it,” Theta said, filled with a sudden certainty.

From the time Theta had been removed from her custody to the time Tecteun had received her sentence, Theta had been unable to speak with her mother. After that, she’d been locked away in jail. Ohila had told her that she should visit her mother, ask her the questions that she’d always wondered about.

But Ohila wanted Theta to hate her mother, wanted Theta to turn traitor. Theta didn’t want to see Tecteun in jail, beaten down by the law. And she’d always hated goodbyes.

Besides, a strange apprehension filled Theta at the thought of visiting her mother—she didn’t want to do it. She just didn’t want to go.

Now, though, she wanted to talk to her mother about Light It Up Red. She wanted to tell her mother about her good grades, since they’d picked up again. She wanted to tell her about how she had stopped being friends like O, how he’d betrayed Theta just like how her mother had said he would. Tecteun would be proud of her. Theta was sure of it.

“Alright,” Ohila said. “Good for you—it seems you’ve finally stopped trying to run away from your problems. Miss Foster must be doing you some good.”

Theta clenched her hands. The idiot titled Miss Foster had absolutely nothing to do with this.

“I’ll be doing my AP Chemistry homework,” Theta said, running up the stairs as fast as her (too short) legs could carry her.

It was March 14th. 3/14 was, apparently, Pi Day.

There was another math team meeting, and, well, rumor was that they were doing a math competition and Miss Shaw had brought free pie.

Also, Theta really didn’t want to be sitting around with Ohila, who had taken off from work, for three hours. Her meeting with her mother was at 6:00, and she didn’t want to hear Ohila’s poison words about how awful Tecteun was.

There was not, in fact, free pie. That was a rumor propagated by Mel Bush, with the intent of encouraging starving high school students to attend. It had worked, except they had all left within a few minutes of finding out that there was no pie.

There was, however, a whole lot of arguing.

“This is ridiculous! Absolutely ridiculous! How anyone thinks that—Theta, Basil, help me out here! Fine, I’ll argue on my own, I’m right enough. This is a math club celebration; it says so on the poster. ‘Celebration for the math team.’ Math team members only, and if you think you’re an exception to that rule, you aren’t! No plus ones!”

Saxon had brought his girlfriend to the Pi Day meeting.

“Well, Lungbarrow’s here, isn’t she?”

“Theta was in the tournament!” John protested.

“And she brought along her little pet just last meeting,” Saxon said, sneering. “Really, I think you’re just jealous!”

“Jealous of you?” John scoffed. “Like I’d want to date—sorry, Miller, you’re just, well, too…oh, I don’t know, but I definitely don’t want to date you! Jealous.”

“You’re being deliberately obtuse!” Saxon threw his hands in the air.

“Miller doesn’t even like math!”

“That’s none of your business!”

“Quiet!” The whole room turned to face Mel, who had her hands cupped around her mouth to magnify her already incredibly loud voice. “Good. Saxon, Smith, really. This is not the time. Smith, I expected better of you—Miller can speak for herself. Saxon and Miller, classrooms full of math club members are not the appropriate place to kiss people.” Theta was glad she hadn’t been there for that. Ew.

“Who put you in charge?” Saxon muttered.

“Miss Shaw,” Mel answered. “And I have excellent hearing.”

“You’d think you’d be deaf with all the screaming,” Saxon said.

Mel just shook her head. “Everyone is welcome. We’re going to do a circle geometry competition. These are the sheets. We’ll go over the problems after thirty minutes. Miss Shaw should be here in twenty; she’s just got a teachers’ meeting to finish up. Good?”

Theta took one of the sheets and set to work, flying through the problems. She didn’t know how to do one of them, but she wasn’t in the mood to figure it out. Instead, she turned over her paper and raised her hand. “I’m done,” she said.

Mel sighed. “You can finish the LEGO border for the math board, if you want. O and Khan weren’t exactly working quickly.”

“Hey!” O said from where he was sitting, bent over his paper and intently staring at one of the questions. “Khan wouldn’t stop talking!”

“Sure,” Theta said, shooting a half-hearted smug look in O’s direction. At least, she thought it was a smug look. Was it a smug look? Hopefully.

After adding a few LEGOs to the border, Theta’s mind started to wander. She needed to know exactly what she would say to her mother.

“Hello, I’m really, really sorry that I messed everything up and let O know too much, and this is all my fault.” Sincere, but a complete, incoherent mess. And while admitting to some of the fault was good (taking responsibility for her actions), she also needed to prevent her mother from thinking that she was lying and she’d been the one to tell the police. Act guilty, but not too guilty.

This was going to be hard.

Absentmindedly, Theta started to build a cat out of LEGOs. It was cute, with pink paws and tiny whiskers.

“Hello, mother. I can’t access your notes until I turn 18, but I swear they’re safe. I’ll continue your research.”

That sounded good. Her mother would certainly be worried about the fate of her project. All those years of experiments gone down the drain—Theta couldn’t bear the thought. And her mother certainly wouldn’t be able to. The research was Tecteun’s life.

But there wasn’t an apology in there. Theta had to apologize for something. It had been her fault, after all, that O had gotten enough evidence to prove what he must’ve already known.

“Hello, mother. I’m sorry about this mess, but I’ll make it up to you. I can’t access your notes until I turn 18. They’re safe, though. As soon as I can, I’ll continue your research.”

Theta had so much more to say, though.

“Do you have any advice on how to deal with idiots too obsessed with the bureaucracy to realize that they’re a school board, not minor government officials? I’m trying to get my school to stop treating autism like a disease, because apparently, I’m autistic. You must’ve known—you know everything. Why didn’t you tell me?”

No. Definitely no. Theta sounded accusatory in that one.

“Hello! I’ve been trying to make you proud. My grades are really good—when I get out of high school, I’ll be able to go to college and do pre-med. Then I’ll be able to finish your experiments. These ignorant fools may not be able to understand, but I’ll make sure your research is complete. I promise.”

Too comic book villain. ‘Ignorant fools.’

“Hello, mother. I’m really sorry. For everything. Please, isn’t there anything you can do? I’ll write to the president, if I have to. He can pardon you. I don’t really know who the president is, but I’m pretty sure he can pardon you, right? Politicians listen to people, especially kids who write letters. And anyone who gets elected into office has got to understand. I understand. I didn’t tell anybody, I didn’t. I got sloppy, but I never meant to tell anybody. Surely the president will give you a pardon, and you can finish your research, and we can save lives together! No one has to die because of my mistakes! I’ll—I’ll write to him today. I can stop the other letter I’m working on. It’s to the school board, because my school treats autism like a disease, and different doesn’t mean bad. I’m trying to stop it, and I’ll send it to Yaz to proofread, but I really want you to, if you can. But I’ll write to the president! And explain it all! He’s got to understand! Your notes are all safe. We’ll be able to pick up right where we let off. Please, just tell me what to do!”

Theta was a mess.

“Hey, Lungbarrow!” Saxon shouted from across the room. “We’re going over the questions, so stop playing with your malformed LEGO dog.”

“It’s a cat,” Theta said defiantly. “And I finished the border anyway, so I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

“It’s a cat?” John asked. “Can I see? I love cats. Or I hate cats. You know,” he said, rubbing his neck. “I’m not really sure.”

“You hate them,” Saxon said.

“Right. I love cats,” John said, just to be contrary.

“Whatever,” Theta said, throwing the cat into the bin of LEGOS, where it shattered into several pieces. “Let’s go over the problems.”

Chapter Text

The visitation room had a large table, with at least six feet in between the prisoner and the guests. Tecteun sat at one end, her unbrushed grey-streaked hair and hard face giving her a haggard appearance. Theta had last seen her less than a year ago, but she looked infinitely older now.

Theoretically, visitors were allowed a quick hug or kiss with the prisoner at the start or end of the visitation session. But Theta had never liked physical contact, and her mother was indifferent to it. They never touched unless it was necessary for an experiment, and even then, the contact was cold and clinical.

Ohila, for her part, hated her sister. Resented was the word that Theta would use. She was jealous of how brilliant Tecteun was, and that was why she hated Theta’s mother so much. But the point was, Ohila wouldn’t hug her sister to save her life.

“Theta,” Tecteun said, her grey eyes boring into the girl.

“I—” Theta paused, words failing her. Ohila raised a hand, placing it on Theta’s shoulder as if to gently guide her into a seat. Theta flinched back, before forcing her arms to return to her sides from their defensive position. On her own, Theta slowly sat down across from her mother.

She leaned back against the hard metal chair that had been bolted down to the floor. One side was slightly closer to the table than the other side, and Theta kept shifting to perfectly even out.

“The research,” Tecteun said urgently. “What have they done with my research?” Ohila shook her head as she sat down next to Theta.

“Your notes were seized,” Theta answered, voice steady. “I can’t access them until I’m eighteen.”

“But you will continue my work,” Theta’s mother said.

Theta nodded. “Of course. I’m doing really well in school, now. I’ll do pre-med in college, then become a doctor. So that I can continue it.”

“There isn’t time for that,” Tecteun dismissed, waving a hand. “The work must begin immediately after you turn eighteen.”

“But I won’t have the proper training, and—” Theta protested.

“No. I have confidence that you will be able to continue.”

“That’s enough,” Ohila said harshly.

“I have the right to talk to my mother about whatever I’d like!” Theta said, turning to her.

“You will need a research assistant, though,” Tecteun said. “What about that boy—Koschei Oakdown? I never did approve of him, but you seem to have remained friends to some degree. And he certainly is intelligent enough. He won’t have any qualms about helping you.”

“Tecteun, if you do not—” Ohila said.

“This is my daughter,” Theta’s mother said.

“You lost all right to call yourself—”

“Stop it!” Theta shouted. The guard that was watching the group narrowed her eyes. Theta forced herself to lower her voice. Her careful plan was falling apart! She didn’t want to talk about O with her mother. That wasn’t part of what she was supposed to say. But she had to, now. The only way to salvage this was with an apology. “You were right,” Theta said, looking down. “He’s…he’s the one that ruined it.”

“You told him,” Tecteun said, grey eyes hard. Unforgiving. Theta flinched, then looked up, back ramrod straight as she tried to meet her mother’s eyes.

“No!” Theta said. “No, I didn’t! He just…he betrayed me, but I didn’t tell him. You were right. I should’ve stayed away from him. You told me that he didn’t care about me, and I should’ve listened to you.”

“I see,” Tecteun said. “You will have to find another assistant, then. Perhaps—”

“That is enough!” Ohila said. “I was the one that encouraged Theta to come here, but I see now that I shouldn’t have.” Theta looked at her, shocked. Ohila admitted she was wrong; that was a first. “If you continue to discuss this matter, I will take Theta and leave, and then I will explain to her precisely why she should not continue your research.”

“You can lecture me all you want,” Theta spat. “It won’t change what I know. My mother’s going to save lives. If it takes a few minor operations or a little bit of discomfort along the way, it’s well worth it.”

“You don’t know half of what that monster is capable of,” Ohila hissed.

“Well,” Theta crossed her arms. “Fine, then. Tell me. Actually tell me. You repeat the same ignorant statements over and over. But if you’ve got something new to say…go ahead.” Ohila remained silent. “Yeah.”

“The visit is over unless you stop,” Ohila said to her sister.

“It’s not of consequence,” Tecteun said, sighing. She looked ancient. “It is three years until you will be able to access my notes.”

“I…I’m writing…” Theta looked over at Ohila. She couldn’t do this in front of the woman who called herself her aunt. “Anyway. Er. Are you ever going to get out?”

“No.”

“But—” Theta paused, trying to remember what she had rehearsed. “I was thinking. And…though your research broke the law, it was for the better. Like, it would save millions of lives, wouldn’t it? And the president can issue pardons. If we write to the president, maybe he could pardon you! We just have to explain—surely anyone that important would be able to understand.”

“It’s not worth the trouble,” Tecteun said. “I will not last much longer. I had hoped…but I am growing old, too old to be continuing my research.”

“Do you—have cancer or something?” Theta asked.

“Nothing like that,” Tecteun said. “I may yet see the day that you finish our work and make up for the mess that you have inadvertently caused.”

“But—”

“It was your connection with Koschei that brought this upon us. You will be able to fix it, though. But I myself will not be able to complete the research. That falls on you. You must finish it.”

“I will,” Theta said, suddenly uncomfortable. It was so much easier when it was her mother performing the experiments, not herself. She had told John that she didn’t think she could go back, and she wasn’t entirely sure what she meant by that. She…she liked not having the experiments. And it was stupid, and selfish. Yes, it was so selfish. But part of Theta just wanted to be done. To not continue her mother’s work, and go to school and be a doctor and help people in other ways.

But Theta was a gift. Theta was special. It was her responsibility to save the world.

“Swear it,” Theta’s mother said, leaning forwards, eyes fierce as she watched Theta. “Look into my eyes and swear it.”

Theta forced herself to make eye contact. It burned, and she wanted to look away more than anything. But she held it. “I swear on my life that I will continue our research.”

“No,” Tecteun shook her head and leaned forwards, flames dancing within her eyes. “No, not enough, swear it on something that matters.” Theta felt a brief twinge of pain. Of course, her life mattered. Tecteun hadn’t meant it that way, she’d just been trying to remind Theta that a little bit of pain was insignificant when it came to the research’s potential. “Swear it on the lives of everyone who will die if you don’t finish it. Swear that you won’t murder them.”

“I—” Theta looked away.

“Swear it!”

“I—” She had to. She had to continue the research. Theta knew that. And soon, it would be done, and then she and her mother would be heroes. Theta could live a…well, not normal, but a better life then. Without the pain, and without the guilt that would go with stopping the research.

“We’re leaving,” Ohila said suddenly, standing up. “Come on.”

I swear it, Theta thought as she followed Ohila out of the room. She had to save lives. She had to discover her secrets.

Theta was going to be a doctor, and doctors never turned away from those who needed help.

And yet the words never made it past her lips.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Dear Yaz,

Hello! So, remember that Red Instead thing Ace was talking about at the fair? I spent the last week writing a letter to the school board and principal about it. Do you think you can check it over, if you get a chance? I don’t want to sound like I’m attacking them or something. Thanks!

What do you think?

…

Sincerely,

Theta Lungbarrow

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Hi, Theta! Wow, that was LONG!!! I don’t think the school board has the attention span for that. But it was really good!. Maybe put the links at the end in a ‘works cited’ or something, though not exactly like that because it’s not a research paper? You do sound a bit accusatory in the beginning. I’d suggest cutting down on the words a bit, and adding more paragraph breaks. Maybe remove that part about the JRC. It’s disturbing, but it does go into the weeds a bit. Really awesome, though!

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Dear Yaz,

How’s this? It was super hard to cut anything, because everything’s important! I did manage, though, and I added a further resources section. Here it is:

…

Sincerely,

Theta Lungbarrow

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Even better! But the school board’s got the attention span of two-year olds, or the current US president. Half a page, bullet points. Well, I don’t think you’ll be able to get it down to that, but the point is, you might need to shorten it a bit.

***

***

***

To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Dear Yaz, Graham, and Ryan,

Hello! I added the two boys in too – long story short, this is a letter that I’m sending to the principal and BOE. This is the final copy. I checked it over and everything. Do you have any last-minute changes?

Dear Members of the Board of Education and Principal Rassilon,

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. As a student at Gallifrey High School, I ask that you do not light it up blue, but rather light it up red instead.

In past years, as part of Autism Awareness Month, the school has raised money for Autism Speaks through a “puzzle piece” campaign. On April 2, Autism Awareness Day, the school has participated in “Light It Up Blue,” asking students to wear blue to school to support awareness of autism. I admire your dedication to helping out the autistic community and thank you for your efforts. However, I would like to suggest raising money for the Autism Self-Advocacy Network (ASAN) and an alternate form of outreach that the autistic community prefers, called Light It Up Red Instead.

Clinically, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is considered a developmental disorder that affects communication and behavior. Although autism is classified as a disorder, most autistic adults prefer the neurodiversity paradigm. According to this view, autistic people are different, not defective.

Though these differences may make it difficult for autistic people to live in our current society, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with them. Conversations about autism should be discussing how to help autistic people thrive rather than how to “fix” them.

Autistic advocates ask that we support the efforts of ASAN instead of those of Autism Speaks. Autism Speaks claims to speak for the autistic community, but in truth, they speak only for those who believe they have been negatively affected by autistic people. After a decade of protest from the autistic community, Autism Speaks finally added token autistic members to their Board of Directors: just two out of twenty-eight seats.

Additionally, Autism Speaks promotes awareness without acceptance. Until 2016, their mission statement included that they were searching for a “cure” for autism, and many of their materials have not been updated. They also use much of the money donated to them for prenatal autism testing. Their “missing puzzle piece” symbol is a sign of what they believe is missing in the autistic brain. But autistic people are not missing something, and they are not broken. Instead of trying to build a better world along with autistic people, Autism Speaks’s goal is to eradicate them.

They have also released media that dehumanizes autistic people, including the infamous “I Am Autism” video. In this, someone speaks from the perspective of autism, portraying it as an evil entity that will “fight to take away your hope” and “plot to rob you of your children and your dreams.” They also sponsored the documentary “Autism Every Day,” in which former Autism Speaks vice president Alison Singer described how she would drive off a bridge with her autistic child if she did not have a second, neurotypical (non-autistic) child to take care of.

But there are other ways that Gallifrey High School can help the autistic community. We can donate to other organizations that the autistic community feel represent them better, such as the Autism Self Advocacy Network. Although Light It Up Blue is problematic due to its strong association with Autism Speaks, there is an alternative:

We can light it up red instead (this is known as the #redinstead movement). Students and staff can wear red on Autism Acceptance Day to support the autistic community. We cannot allow Autism Speaks to poison the narrative about autism and drown out autistic voices. But by amplifying autistic voices and by supporting organizations that actually help them, we can allow actually autistic people to be heard.

I urge you to do further research and discover why the autistic community believes Autism Speaks does not speak for them. And I hope that you choose to support them by honoring their wishes and lighting it up red instead on this April 2nd.

Sincerely,

Theta Lungbarrow

Further Resources:

…

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Hi

Yeah theta, that looks great! I didnt even lnow you were doing this but it looks really cooll. I dont know anything about writing, sry i can’t help you more. But good luck its super awesome that youre doing this

Ryan

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Theta,

This is very well-written. Has your aunt checked it over? It looks good to me. Can I send it to Grace, too? I know you don’t know her as well as the rest of us, but I think she would love to read about it.

Graham O’Brien

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Hi, Theta,

Graham said you gave him permission to send this letter to me. I read it—I feel bad about donating to AS now. I didn’t know any of this. Where did you find it out?

Yaz, Graham, Ryan, and Grace had a group chat. They occasionally felt bad about Theta not being on there, but it wasn’t like they were excluding her. She just didn’t have a phone. They always tried to email her summaries of anything important, but Yaz got the feeling that Theta was more annoyed about it than she let on. Just after Theta gave permission for Graham to forward the email to Grace, Yaz’s phone buzzed.

Ryan: do u guys get the feeling that this is super important to theta?

Ryan: like, reallly importrant

Ryan: *really important

Graham: Of course it’s important to her. She sent a letter to *Rassilon* about it.

Ryan: no, like, relaly important

Grace: Ryan…

yeah, course. theta loves to fix the worlds problems and this is definitely a big one

Ryan: i mean do u gus get the feeling she’ds talking about hersself

i don’t think that’s our business

Graham: Sorry, fake grandson. I’m with Yaz on that one. We shouldn’t be speculating on this.

Ryan: i didn’t mean it in a bad way at all like it would ezplain lots an i want to be supportive u know?

Grace: We all know Theta. She’s our friend. We should be understanding anyway. I get what you’re saying, Ryan, but I think theta would feel really betrayed if she found out about this conversation.

Ryan: yeah. sorry. I just want to help.

we have been helping her. We just keep doing that. like, I’ve been having some conversations with O and hes totally insane. like, he needs to be stopped. any of you got some plans?

“Hey, Theta!” Theta didn’t turn around as she walked home from her bus stop. Behind her, she could hear O calling her name. “You can’t just ignore me forever.”

Watch me, Theta thought. But she didn’t say it, because that wouldn’t be ignoring him.

“Look, I’m sorry for…well, I’m sorry for bringing your stuff into this, but I’m not going to apologize for telling—”

Theta rounded on him. “You admitted it already! You were just jealous.”

“I was being sarcastic,” O said. “Or are you enough of an idiot to not know that?”

Theta felt something inside her light on fire, white-hot flames rising up within her chest that wanted to burn everything to the ground.

“You owe me, remember?” Theta said. “Or are you enough of an idiot to have forgotten that? You said you owed me and I told you that you didn’t, but we’re not friends now, and you owe me. I’m calling in that favor now. Stay away from me, stay out of my life, and never talk to me again!”

“No,” O said.

“What?”

“I’m not going to—no.”

“Well, then, are you planning to go and tell? Tell the police? You’ve already proved that it’s what you do when you’re angry.”

“Of course not!” O said, like it was evident, like he could be trusted.

“Stay the—just stay away from my life,” Theta spat. “I don’t want anything to do with you ever again. And I mean it.” She turned around and walked towards her house, ignoring the sound of O calling after her.

Theta dreamed of water, pressing in on her from all sides. It crushed her lungs, squeezing out the air. No matter where she turned, only the darkness greeted her.

It was lights out, and Theta couldn’t see.

And she couldn’t cry, because she was drowning, drowning, drowning.

“Help!” Theta called, but only bubbles streamed out of her mouth.

Suddenly, there was a light up ahead. Theta swam towards it, desperate for a breath of air. But she kept getting farther and farther away, however hard she beat her arms.

“Flap,” said a voice behind her. It sounded like Koschei.

Theta turned, but there was no one there.

“Like a seal. Ark ark ark. You’re not swimming right, and you’re only getting you farther away, don’t you see?”

“Koschei?” Theta called out. The water continued to squeeze in on Theta’s ribcage, until she was sure she’d heard a crack.

“You’ve got to keep fighting, Theta,” said another voice, this one old and tired. Tecteun. “You owe it to the world.”

“Stop it,” Yaz whispered. “You’ve got to swim. Don’t fight the currents.”

Suddenly, Theta was filled with an overwhelming certainty that she had to stop trying. Had to give up, to relax. Koschei was right—she was only pushing herself farther away from the light.

“Keep going,” Tecteun said. “You’re not done yet.”

“Stop,” Koschei urged. “You’ve got to—”

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Float.

Theta let herself sink, only she sank upwards. The light grew brighter and brighter and brighter, until she was rising onto dry land. But where was she?

There was a scream, and Theta raced towards it. Beneath her feet, lush grass withered away and a white tiled floor rose out of the land. Theta stopped in front of a single bathtub, filled with crimson blood.

Next to it knelt a little girl, with short blonde hair and stompy brown boots and a blue-grey hoodie.

The girl turned around, but she didn’t have a face, only a blank wall of skin.

“Wait!” Theta called, as the little girl ran away. She reached out, grabbing her by the arm.

The girl slowly turned and spoke, face rising to the surface. “Ignore me,” she whispered. “I’m not here.”

“But I can see you!” Theta said.

“Ignore me,” she whispered. “Don’t make a mistake.”

She reached out with her hand, and a boy appeared, holding it. He had brown skin and black hair, and wore a purple T-shirt. Bruises mottled his arms, but he was grinning. “He’s coming.”

“Who’s coming?” Theta asked.

“The Robber,” the boy answered, teeth shining in the dim light from the stars. “He’s always coming. He steals our dreams, you know. Unless you’re invisible. Then he passes you by.”

“I’m not here,” the girl whispered again.

“I’m not here,” Theta echoed.

“I’m not here,” the boy said confidently.

Theta jumped backwards as a figure appeared, wearing dark robes and a mask with a long beak. It carried a scythe in its hand.

“It’s a plague doctor,” Theta realized. “It’s not evil—it wants to help, see?”

“It takes leeches and puts them all over you, ‘till they suck your dreams,” the girl explained. “I’m not here,” she added.

“I’m not here,” the boy agreed.

The Robber turned to face Theta. In its eyes, she could see the depths of the water, drowning her until she was lost beneath the waves, until she couldn’t breathe. Inside the tub, the blood pulsed, almost like it was still controlled by a phantom heart.

Theta didn’t have any words.

“Say it,” the girl told her, as the Robber advanced. “Say it, quick, before it steals your dreams from you!”

Theta wanted to, she wanted to tell it she wasn’t there, she was invisible, please, please, but she couldn’t, and she didn’t have any paper, and she couldn’t remember how to say the words—

“Tell it,” the boy grinned. “Go on, Theta Lungbarrow. Just say you aren’t here. Talk.”

But Theta didn’t have any words.

“I’m not here,” the little girl whispered, burying her face in her friend’s shoulder.

“I’m not here,” the boy repeated, wrapping his arms around her.

The Robber removed its mask as both children shielded their eyes. Its face was old and wrinkly, with black tattoos covering the place where hair ought to be.

“Say your words,” the boy said. “Then it’ll go away.”

A hand reached out, towards Theta. It was going to steal her dreams and hopes and life, and she had to—

She had to speak—

She couldn’t speak—

Theta didn’t have any words.

“I’m not here,” said the girl.

“I’m not here,” said the boy.

“You’re here,” said the Robber…

And Theta woke up.

Chapter Text

Theta’s door creaked open, jolting her out of her work. Quickly, Theta closed the tab that held the I Am Autism transcript. She didn’t know why she kept returning there, re-reading those awful lines. Maybe because it was a work of genius, even if it used its powerful words to spread hatred and fear. Or maybe because it invoked such strong images, even if they were nightmares. But Theta couldn’t keep herself from reading it, over and over and over, letting the words fester inside of her until sometimes she almost believed them.

I will fight to take away your hope.

“Theta, come downstairs,” Ohila said. “I need to talk to you about something.”

Immediately, Theta’s mind filled with possibilities. It was Monday night—she had met with her mother just on Friday. Whatever Ohila had to say, it was most likely related to that.

Or maybe it was about school. Theta had top grades in all her classes; she didn’t think she was in trouble. Maybe she’d messed something up and they just hadn’t told her yet.

Theta clam-shelled her computer and headed downstairs to the kitchen table, taking her customary seat.

“Is it about school?” Theta asked, because that was the safer possibility.

Ohila shook her head. “The Sisterhood of Karn is holding a special rally in Washington DC. An important opportunity came up, and I have to be there to lead it.”

“I can’t miss school,” Theta said immediately. The teachers would give her all the busywork as homework. Although she already knew the actual material in most of her classes, some of them were particular about the exact way she did things. If she missed school, her grades might drop a bit.

Not much. Probably only to A’s or A-’s rather than A+’s. But after the disaster of fourth quarter last year, Theta knew she had to keep them incredibly high if she wanted to get into a good college. It wasn’t like she had any extracurriculars to her name, other than the math club that she’d recently found herself absorbed into.

“I figured you would say that,” Ohila said. “We would have to leave early Thursday morning, and would be gone until Sunday afternoon.”

“That’s two days of school,” Theta noted.

“Yes. You could come with me, but that would mean five hours in the car both ways and…it would not be the most enjoyable experience. Or, I could go and leave you with a family that I trust to take care of you for four days.”

Theta had a suspicion about who that would be, and neither option seemed appealing. “Who?”

“I know you dislike them, but Rassilon has taken you in before, and—”

“No,” Theta said immediately. Principal Rassilon was even worse than Ohila, and although Missy wasn’t that bad, Theta didn’t want to be spending four days stuck at her house.

“Theta, you need to think about this ration—”

“You could leave me home.”

“What would you eat?” Ohila asked, raising an eyebrow.

Theta thought about this. “Custard creams. Oh, okay, fine. I can make macaroni and cheese; it can’t be that hard. And there’s school lunches. And at worse I can go a few days without proper meals, I’ve managed—well, there’s plenty of snacks in the house.”

It wasn’t that Theta didn’t know how to cook. It was that, well, O had claimed there was an art to it. An art with which Theta was not at all acquainted. Theta’s attempts at cooking had all ended up as a mess, whereas somehow O was always able to figure it out. The memories of him teasing her about cooking always made Theta want to smile or laugh, and they were one of those things that Theta wasn’t thinking about.

“I don’t feel comfortable leaving you on your own for that long,” Ohila said.

“I’m fifteen!” Theta protested. Fifteen and a half—she’d be turning sixteen on November 23.

“You can’t even drive a car yet,” Ohila said. “Either you come with me or stay with Rassilon. I’m leaving it up to you.”

“That’s not much of a choice!”

“It’s your options,” Ohila said firmly. “I need a decision now, because I’ll have to ask Rassilon.”

This was an awful choice, and Theta needed a whole lot more time than thirty seconds to think on it. In fact, this whole ordeal would be so much easier if Ohila had just made a decision.

But when it came down to it, Theta knew which choice was better. Spending four days having to put up with—not just put up with, but be super respectful to—Rassilon and Missy would be horrible. But spending four days with Ohila, and ten hours alone with her in the car, would be even worse.

Because for all his faults, at least Rassilon respected Theta’s mother. And ten hours with Ohila trying to make small talk would doubtlessly lead to that very subject. Theta would be unable to escape the suffocating car, unable to run, to move, strapped into her seat and forced to listen.

So, it really wasn’t much of a decision at all.

This was going to be terrible.

Theta stood outside in the wind, watching Missy, Saxon, and O from afar. She needed to take the bus home with Missy, but she had no idea what Missy’s bus was.

March had no right to be this cold.

“Hey, what’s Lungbarrow doing?” Saxon asked.

O said something quietly that Theta couldn’t hear, and Missy responded.

After a few moments, the group dispersed, O getting on what was normally Theta’s bus and Saxon leaving for his car.

“Theta Lungbarrow!” Missy said, gesturing towards her bus. “I have to ask, what is it your aunt’s doing that requires childcare?”

“Er,” Theta said. “Her feminist organization has a rally.”

“And you’re not going?” Missy asked. “I would’ve pegged you as someone who’d want to be there.”

“I have school,” Theta told her.

“Oh, don’t mind the institutionalized propaganda machine,” Missy said. “What? That’s what feminists sound like, don’t they? I rather like it. Bus G, Theta, not Bus D, are you even watching where I point?” Theta stepped onto Bus G. The driver frowned at her. “Oh, er, I’m taking the bus with Missy Magister, I have to stay with her because my aunt’s—my aunt’s the one’s who’s got guardianship right now—because my aunt’s in Washington DC. Actually, I think she’s more likely to be somewhere in Pennsylvania right now. Or Maryland? Possibly. But the point is, I’ve got a note from my aunt, the student handbook says I need a note. Just, er, let me find it, and—”

“Oooo-kaaaay,” Missy said, pushing Theta forwards onto the bus. “Don’t mind her.”

Theta moved forwards, taking the first clear seat she could find and rubbing her back against the bus seat’s back to remove the feeling of Missy pushing her.

“Not necessary,” Missy said. “You could arrive on her bus wearing a glittery dress and a tiara with a talking hydra and he wouldn’t bat an eye.”

“But I—” Theta sighed. “Why a talking hydra?” She asked as Missy sat down next to her, carefully arranging her dress.

“Hydras are deadly, and the best part is that trying to fight them just makes them stronger.”

“Huh,” Theta said.

“You’re going to be sleeping in the spare bedroom,” Missy announced. “Rassilon will be working late on Friday, so I’ll be in charge that day. Don’t worry, I won’t try to make you do all the chores. It would be kind of funny, but we’re supposed to be doing almost-sister bonding. Just because your counterpart is O doesn’t mean we can’t be friendly enemies too.”

“Counterpart?” Theta echoed.

“Well, obviously. Each of us, the Masters, matches up to one of the ‘do-good’ school geniuses. Other geniuses. We’re geniuses, obviously, but you are also pretty intelligent. Basil and I, Harold and Smith, and you and O. This school’s perfect for providing arch-enemies.”

“What about Mel?” Theta asked.

“Oh, she’s got Gene Rani, though it’s not quite the same. Mel’s not the sort to indulge in epic rivalries. Speaking of which, O—”

“Can we not talk about this?”

“Whatever,” Missy said. “You’re leaving on Sunday, right?”

“Sunday afternoon,” Theta said, as the bus left the circle.

“Do you play chess?”

“Of course!” Theta said, offended. She’d taught herself, since her mother wasn’t much for it. Having never played it before, Theta had gone to the first meeting of the new middle school chess club and lost her only game. Humiliated, she’d practiced for five months. Theta had studied previous matches, learned all about master chess players, and done every chess puzzle she could find on the internet. Finally, she was prepared to attend the next meeting and wipe the floor with any challengers.

It had turned out that the fledgling Gallifrey Middle School Chess Club lasted exactly two meetings and had ended four and a half months ago.

The point was, Theta knew how to play chess, even if she was very out of practice.

“Excellent,” Missy smirked. “Tell you what—I’ll go easy on you if you play a game with me.”

“Can’t you play with your friends?” Theta asked.

“Well, Basil’s boring at chess. Saxon knows how, but ruins his games for the hell of it, so it gets frustrating to play against him after a while. O is good, but nowhere near as good as I am. Hence, a new…challenge.”

Theta got the distinct feeling Missy had been about to say ‘punching bag.’

“I’d win,” Theta found herself announcing.

“Really?” Missy said skeptically. “I think we need to play a game.”

“Best two out of three,” Theta said.

“The terms are acceptable. You are going to regret this, Theta Lungbarrow!”

“Pick your side,” Missy said. She had set up a chess board within seconds of their arrival. Rassilon’s house was just how Theta remembered it. Far too much polished wood, and very fancy. Honestly, Theta wasn’t sure how much school principals got paid, but considering the way Gallifrey teachers always complained about their salaries, Theta wasn’t sure how Rassilon managed to afford this.

O had always theorized that murder had to be involved.

Theta wasn’t thinking about O.

“White,” Theta said.

“I knew you would say that,” Missy said, motioning to the seat across from her. Theta sat down, uncomfortably. She didn’t like Rassilon, and she didn’t like being back in his home either. Besides, she was stuck alone with Missy, who seemed like the sort of person to commit casual murder. Theta knew Missy wouldn’t actually do that, but she was…disconcerting. It was better than facing down Missy with her friends around, though. Yaz, Graham, Ryan, and Grace were amazing, but Missy was a master at playing on people’s insecurities and fears.

“White has a better win ratio,” Theta found herself saying, surprised that she still remembered the exact statistics. “Fifty-two to fifty-six percent.”

“It also means I get a sneak peak at your style,” Missy said. “While you start with no idea of mine.”

Theta shook her head. She was playing chess, not stupid mind games. “It doesn’t matter. There aren’t a whole lot of first moves.” She moved the pawn in front of her king up two spaces.

“Suit yourself,” Missy said.

They began to play.

“Give up, already,” Missy told Theta as she chased the white king around the board.

“Never,” Theta said, moving her king another space.

“Does your feminist aunt object to chess?” Missy asked, carelessly moving her bishop. “The king’s worth the game, but the queen’s worth only nine points. It seems ridiculous to me.”

“Maybe the king just happened to be the eldest child,” Theta shrugged. “So, he’s the ruler. Perhaps in an alternate timeline, the queen is worth infinity points. And—the queen is able to take pieces. The king just sits there, trying not to get killed.”

“Typical men,” Missy said, placing her bishop back in its original position, clearly intending a different form of attack. “Though you have an interesting way of looking at it. The queen is deadly.”

“Draw, by the way,” Theta said, looking at the board.

“What?”

“I declare a draw. We’ve repeated the same position three times, and it’s my move. Draw.”

“No, we haven’t. I keep track of these things, you know. This is the second time.”

“But before,” Theta said. “We were in this exact same position, before my king slipped through the gap.”

Missy considered this. “No one draws a chess game like that! It doesn’t happen!”

“I just did,” Theta smiled. Well, she would’ve lost if Missy hadn’t been distracted, but she was pretty impressed with herself.

Missy sighed. “Fine. We play again. I’m white this time.”

“How do we do the ‘best two out of three’ thing?” Theta asked.

“If we’re tied after three games, we play until one of us wins a game. This won’t be a problem,” Missy promised.

“Exactly,” Theta said. “Because I’ll win both games.”

Theta did not win both games. Missy did.

“Good game,” Missy said, holding out her hand.

Theta shook it quickly and then snatched her hand away.

“You really don’t like touching people, do you?”

“No,” Theta lied. “I just don’t like touching you. Or did you forget we’re enemies? Or something.”

“We’re frenemies!” Missy said. “Which means…” She checked her phone. It was 4:00—they’d managed to drag on the games for over one and a half hours. Theta considered that an achievement. As far as she could tell, Missy was really good at chess. “I should probably tell you that my father will be home in an hour. I’ll show you where your room is.”

She led Theta up a flight of stairs with some strangely shaped wooden banister that was, like everything else in the house, far too fancy.

“How is your family so rich, anyway?” Theta asked, before realizing that was probably one of those questions one wasn’t supposed to ask.

“Murder,” Missy said. “No, really. Rassilon isn’t even my father. My mother was married three times before him…she divorced the first husband. The second and third died mysteriously, and both were very rich. Rassilon got lucky—mummy dear developed cancer before she could off him as well.”

“You’re pulling my leg,” Theta said. There was no way that was the truth.

“Believe it or not, doesn’t matter to me,” Missy said. “Here’s the guest room.” It was larger than Theta’s room in either of the houses she’d stayed at, with grey-blue walls and a bed with blue sheets in the center. There was a rug with some kind of circular pattern on it that covered half the floor. A tall bookshelf sat empty of everything except a silver dollar coin and a dictionary. There was a fancy wooden dresser, and a door that Theta assumed had a closet behind it. She’d stayed in another room before, the one that was normally used for the various foster children that ended up living with Rassilon. But someone was using that room right now (apparently, he was currently at some sort of robotics team practice), so Theta was to stay here.

“Er, thanks for showing me,” Theta said.

“Put your clothes—”

“In the dresser, I know,” Theta said. “He doesn’t like messes. I did live here for a month.”

Missy shrugged. “I’ve got homework to do. I assume you do too. And don’t make a mess!” She left the room, closing the door behind her.

Theta looked around. The guest room was unfamiliar, and Theta didn’t like it. But she didn’t have much of a choice. It had either been this or a road trip with her aunt.

Looking around, Theta opened up her backpack and the second bag that she’d kept stashed in her locker throughout the day. The clothes, she neatly folded and placed in the drawers, in case Rassilon checked. He had done that, a few times, to make sure she hadn’t been hiding any drugs. Theta wasn’t sure why Rassilon thought she had drugs, but then again, maybe Missy had tried something like that. Theta wouldn’t put it past her.

It had made keeping a stash of food a bit difficult, but Theta had managed, mostly by hiding stuff in the forgotten pockets of her backpack or her clothing pockets. Honestly, if she’d been trying to keep drugs, Rassilon wouldn’t have found them anyway.

This time, though, Theta had been told by her aunt to bring snacks, so she didn’t have to hide any of the food she brought. Rassilon didn’t believe in picky eating, and Theta couldn’t exactly explain she wasn’t just being ‘picky.’

She took out her laptop and sat on the bed, using a stack of books to keep it at arm level. She had an English essay to start, and vocabulary dot com to finish.

The problem about temporarily living with the school principal was that he knew Theta’s academic history.

“I was speaking to your aunt, yesterday,” Rassilon said. “It is admirable that you wished to attend school to keep up your grades. I am certain that if you continue to work hard, colleges will overlook your brief lapse.”

“Lapse?” Missy asked. “I refuse to believe this nerd every ‘lapsed’ in her grades.”

Rassilon looked at Theta, like he expected her to explain.

Theta wondered why the heck he brought this up while they were having dinner. All it was doing was making the strangely-textured ham even more unappetizing. Theta had to eat some of it, to avoid offending anyone, but she really hoped she could just force down half of what was on her plate and then say she wasn’t particularly hungry.

She was kind of hungry, though, because playing chess made her tired, and tired made her hungry. And she hadn’t eaten since lunch, which had only been half-finished. She could blame Ryan’s distracting cat videos for that. It was school lunch, too, to save room in her backpack, so she couldn’t even save it.

Logically, Theta knew that this was nothing. Plenty of people, her included, had gone for multiple days without eating anything. It had been necessary for several operations. But in reality, she was still hungry, and going on a semi-empty stomach wasn’t fun, no matter how much worse she’d had.

“I, er, kept forgetting about homework last year,” Theta said. “I took care of it. It’s not important.” Subject change, subject change, subject change. “Er,” she turned to the fourth person at the table. “You’re…Yana, right?” He had blonde hair, so light that it was almost white, and ancient eyes. But his short stature and face revealed that he wasn’t even a high schooler.

“Yes,” the boy said. “Yana Thascalos. I’m in eighth grade, so don’t look at me like I’m little!”

“Relax!” Missy said. “You’re too touchy.”

Yana crossed his arms. “I’ll have you know, I’m a whole lot smarter than most of you high schoolers!”

Theta resisted the urge to put her head in her hands.

“Do you play any instruments?” Missy asked. It was Friday afternoon, and Theta was actually doing fairly well this game.

“Nah,” Theta said. “Well, recorder, I suppose.”

“How’d you get your music credits?” Missy asked.

“I did chorus in middle school. And then art in ninth grade.” Theta moved a knight into position to set up a fork between Missy’s bishop and rook.

“Shouldn’t have done that,” Missy said, moving her own knight and plucking Theta’s queen off the board.

Theta looked at the board again and took the rook as a consolation prize. She really ought to have known that Missy wouldn’t just let her set up a fork like that.

“Oh, and some piano,” Theta said. She’d learnt that in chorus, mostly by watching the teacher play.

Missy moved a pawn. “Do you give up, yet?”

“Never,” Theta said.

Missy sighed. “You’re being boring. We’ve got a piano here—I want you to try and play something on it.”

“Well, I’m not giving up a game so that I can be humiliated at piano faster,” Theta said, checking the board. Sure, she didn’t have her queen, but she had managed to take a couple of Missy’s pawns, a knight, a bishop, and a rook. A plan began to form in her mind.

“Oh, you must know something,” Missy said. “Chopsticks?”

“What? Never heard of that. I can, er, play several vocal warmups?”

“Really?” Missy asked, fascinated. “Is that how you know piano?”

“Er, yeah,” Theta said.

Missy inched one of her remaining pawns forward. Theta ignored the trap, instead electing to guard a square that would intercept the bishop’s path to the pawn. “I’ll teach you something. Tomorrow, that is. My friends are coming over in ten minutes. So, I’ll have to beat you quickly.”

Theta had forgotten about that. Urgh. She did not want to be there when Saxon and O came over to Missy’s house. At least she could hide up in the guest room. Hopefully. O would probably use the opportunity to insult her again, and Theta wouldn’t have anywhere to go.

“Oh, don’t look like someone killed your favorite puppy,” Missy said. “Basil will be there too. And Smith.”

“John Smith?” Theta asked, shocked. “How did you manage that?”

“I have my ways,” Missy said. “Really, I got Basil to convince him. He thinks we’re going to be studying math tournament stuff. Which we will be.”

“Wouldn’t he, you know, realize that you also invited Saxon?”

“Yes, well, Harold was already loudly proclaiming how he planned to spend today with his girlfriend.”

“Is Saxon in on this too?” Theta asked.

“Of course not,” Missy scoffed. “He might not have agreed. Certainly wouldn’t, if he knew what I was really planning. No, he can just be relied upon to boast very loudly about his girlfriend within Smith’s presence.”

“So…Saxon is bringing Miller over to your house to study math. Smith was convinced by Basil to study math with you and him, but doesn’t realize that Saxon and Miller will also be there?” Theta asked. “Your plans are way too complicated for any sane mind.”

“Thank you!”

“Why?” Theta asked simply. Missy thrived on conflict, yes, but not conflict where she might end up fighting with her friends.

“Why do you think?” Missy grinned. Her teeth seemed unusually sharp, and the image was rather disturbing.

Suddenly, Theta had a bad feeling about this. “What are—” A random idea came to her. “You’re…please tell me…okay, if it’s not, completely disregard this.”

“Sure!”

“You’re not planning to lock them in a room together, are you?”

“Wow, you’re brighter than I gave you credit for,” Missy said.

“That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard!” Theta protested. “Why would you do that?”

“Let’s just say…they need to have an actual conversation. Without storming off dramatically.”

“If you lock them in a room together, they’ll start trying to kill each other! John’s actually kind of nice. You know, I thought you were good for a day or so, there, Missy. Really had me going.”

“Good?” Missy asked, offended. “I’m not good. I’m diabolical. Evil. Maniacal. And I’m asking for help on my evil plan, which you totally want to help me with.”

“No, I don’t,” Theta said.

“They’re boys,” Missy said, carelessly waving an arm. “That’s how they bond, anyway. Fighting each other.”

“This is so unbelievably stupid. In fact,” Theta said, “I’ll tell him about your plan.”

“You wouldn’t,” Missy said. “This will be so entertaining! We can listen through the door.”

“You’re an awful friend.”

“Oh, come on. It’s for their own good.” Missy sighed. “Look, they’ll probably start attacking each other. But if they attack each other enough, they might start talking.”

“That’s not how enemies work! What are you even trying to accomplish?” Theta asked. “Besides not being bored.”

“Lucy Miller needs to break up with Harold,” Missy said.

“What?” That hadn’t been what Theta had been expecting.

“I just told you.”

“Fine, why?”

“It’s very complicated. But it will benefit everybody in the end,” Missy promised.

Theta tried to think. Missy had brought up a romantic relationship, and that made everything a whole lot more confusing. And nonsensical. But she would try. “You…like Saxon?”

“No. Do try to be serious, here, Theta Lungbarrow.”

“Er…you like…John?”

Missy looked disgusted. “God, no. I’ve already got a boyfriend.”

“Who?”

“Well, not technically, since he refuses to admit to it, but the point stands,” Missy said.

“Then what’re you gaining? How is this helping anyone?” Theta asked.

“I am, at the very least, gaining a reprieve from Harold constantly going on about Miller.”

“You can’t just ruin relationships to get some peace of mind,” Theta protested.

“Sure, I can,” Missy said. “And that’s besides the point, because I’m not ruining anything. So, will you help me, or not?”

“No!” Theta said.

Missy shook her head. “You really have no idea, do you?”

“No idea about what, Missy? Stop acting like I have no clue what’s—”

The doorbell rang. Missy stood up. “Interfere with my plans, and I’ll make sure you regret it.”

Theta believed it. Missy may be acting somewhat nice, but she was dangerous. There was a reason Theta had tried to stop O when he first started hanging around with her and Saxon.

“Hello!” Missy said from the entryway.

“Hey,” O’s voice said.

Theta inwardly groaned.

Theta sat out in the hallway. O had kept trying to talk to her, so she’d eventually just left the room without an explanation and then sat there. It wasn’t like she was the only one to call it quits—Saxon and Miller had already left the room with no explanation.

John…hadn’t reacted well to finding out that Saxon was there, but Basil had convinced him to stay with trigonometry proofs.

Suddenly, yelling erupted from downstairs. From Missy’s room, O stepped out into the hallway, quicky followed by Missy and then Smith.

“—like, like you knew or something!” Miller said, her voice rising until it was audible.

Missy’s eyes widened, and she whispered something that sounded vaguely like ‘oh, no.’

“Of course, I knew!” Saxon yelled back. “How could I not know? You were so obvi—”

“You knew, and you didn’t say a—a damn thing!” Miller shouted. “You, we—”

“I didn’t do anything you didn’t say yes to!”

“But you knew I didn’t want—”

“Well, if you didn’t want to, you should’ve said something!” Saxon yelled.

Theta turned towards Missy, John, and O. Basil stepped out of the room too, hand resting on the doorframe. Missy had her head in one of her hands, whereas John was looking quizzically at Basil and O was leaning against the wall. She had no clue what they were talking about, but at the very least, Missy seemed to know.

“I didn’t know,” Miller said. “How was I supposed to, when you didn’t tell me, and you knew, you f—”

“Well, it’s not like I felt anything either!” Saxon said. “I figured it was doing us both good. Your parents would’ve—”

“I can deal with my own parents!” Theta crept towards the stairs and peered around just in time to see Miller slap Saxon in the face. He pulled away, raising a hand to his cheek in shock. “And don’t you pretend this was for my own good. You were using me, and we both know it!”

“It was a mutually beneficial—”

“You didn’t tell me!” Miller said. “You absolute—I’m breaking up with you, Harold Saxon!”

“Good!” Saxon yelled. “I don’t care!”

“That’s the point!” Miller shouted. “And I don’t care either!”

“Good luck with your parents, Miller,” Saxon sneered as the girl stormed out the door.

Theta turned to Missy. “What was that?” She asked. Before she could even finish speaking, though, John had stormed down the stairs and punched Saxon in the jaw. Missy raced past them, followed by Basil, to break up what was becoming a fight.

“Do you have any idea what just happened?” O asked.

Theta continued to ignore him.

“Alright,” Missy said. Theta, Basil, Missy, John, and O sat on the floor of Missy’s room. Somehow, Missy and Basil had succeeded in getting John and Saxon away from each other. Missy had then told Saxon to get out of her house, and told the rest of the teenagers to come upstairs. “That’s…not how I planned this to go.”

“Of course, you had a plan,” John said, leaning up against the wall. He had a black eye, but it was a whole lot better than the way Saxon had looked after they’d finally been pulled apart. “Why the hell did you trick me into coming?” John asked.

“Well…”

“She wanted you to, erm, talk with Saxon?” Theta said hesitantly.

“You were in on this?” John turned on her.

“No!” Theta said. “I didn’t like the plan! At all. Argued against it.”

“The idea was that you would’ve convinced Harold to stop what he was doing, so that…that…wouldn’t’ve happened,” Missy said. “Obviously, we came too late.”

“How did you know Harold and Miller would start fighting?” O asked. Theta was studiously avoiding looking at him.

“You’re telling me you had no idea what that fight was about?” Missy asked. “Basil? Oh, you have no idea. You agreed to my plan!” She said to Basil.

“What?” John asked. “Why?”

Basil looked down. “She had convincing reasons. And it’s besides the point, because Missy didn’t actually get to complete her plan.”

“Can you just explain what that was all about?” Theta asked Missy.

“I was trying to stop Miller from getting upset,” Missy said.

“I don’t believe that,” Theta said. Missy never tried to help anyone. “You literally told me you were anything but good!”

“This was a special case!” Missy protested.

“Oh!” O said suddenly. “You were trying to break them up, because you knew Harold never liked Miller!”

“No,” John said, beginning to pace around. “That’s not it, because he definitely did like Miller. This is on Miller’s side of things. She wasn’t interested, was she? Well, I mean, who would be?” Missy muttered something under her breath. “But she really wasn’t interested. And Saxon knew.”

“Half credit,” Missy said. “Saxon wasn’t interested either. I can’t believe you didn’t know that.”

“He hasn’t talked about anything except his precious girlfriend since they started dating!” John said. “Of course, he liked her.”

“Nope, never did,” Missy said.

“I can confirm that,” O agreed. “But really? Miller?”

“Missy,” Basil said. “Can you just explain already?”

Missy looked up. “Miller’s parents didn’t take kindly to her lack of a boyfriend. Saxon knew this and asked her out, because he wanted a girlfriend to brag about. And no, Smith, he didn’t actually like her.”

“Yes, he did.”

“Just trust me on this,” Missy said. “I’m his actual friend, you know. The point is, he asked her out, and Miller figured that she was supposed to say yes. But she just figured out that she was lesbian and Saxon had known all along.”

“That…explains a lot, actually,” Basil said.

Theta was still confused, and she got the feeling she really wasn’t supposed to be. “Lesbian?” She asked.

“Yep,” Missy said. “Oh, my God, you don’t know what that means, do you?”

“Erm, no?” Theta said.

“Really, Theta?” Basil asked.

“She likes girls,” John said. “And not boys.”

“Likes?”

“How the hell do you not know any of this?” Missy asked. “Have you—okay, don’t answer that, you’re weird enough to actually live under a rock. Are you romantically interested in any boys?”

“No?” Theta said. She didn’t think she was, and even if she happened to have a crush, it wouldn’t exactly be Missy’s business.

“Well, that’s fine,” Missy said. “But, the point is, Miller is romantically interested in other girls.”

“There’s a separate word for that?” Theta asked.

“Yes.” Missy facepalmed. Theta wondered how she didn’t smudge her makeup.

“Okay. So…Miller, likes girls, but not boys, and Saxon knew this and dated her anyway?”

“Yes,” Missy said. “And Saxon was only dating her so that he could brag about it.”

“He’s a jerk,” Theta said. She knew this already, but it did ask to be said.

“He can be, sometimes,” Missy said. “He…well, he did listen to me about some things with this, but not nearly enough.”

“He didn’t—”

“I don’t think that’s actually any of your business, Smith,” Missy said. “But no. They just kissed, and Miller didn’t like it but was too afraid to say anything.”

“Can we please talk about something else?” Basil asked.

“I agree,” John said.

“Alright,” Missy said. “Have you ever heard of the green-eyed dragon puzzle?”

“And here,” Missy told Theta, handing her a book with a bunch of lines and dots on it, “is the sheet music.

“What is that?” Theta asked.

“Music. You said you can play recorder and sing, right? So, obviously you have to read music.”

“It’s…what’s that weird symbol?”

“The bass clef. You…don’t know how to read the bass clef, do you? Well, the first line is G, rather than E. And then above it is A, and so on. You play it an octave down. Just sit at the piano and play the right hand first.”

“What even is this for?” Theta asked.

“Find out for yourself,” Missy said. “I guarantee you’ve heard it.”

Theta started to play a couple of notes.

“No, slower,” Missy said.

“Fine.” Theta played the first line. “I’ve never heard of this.”

“It’s Ode to Joy,” Missy told her. “How have you not heard of this? Move over, I’ll show you.” Missy played the first couple of lines, but Theta had never heard this piece in her entire life. “You’re uncultured.” She began searching through a shelf of music by the piano. “What about…Take the A Train? Of course, not. I’m not teaching you Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, that’s beneath us. Hedwig’s Theme? You know, from the Harry Potter movies?”

“There’s movies?” Theta asked.

“Right,” Missy said. “I’m showing you those. Yana!” She called. The boy poked his head around the stairs. “We’re watching Harry Potter movies tonight.”

“Like a sleepover?” Yana asked. “Is John coming? He said he’d teach me about exoplanets.”

“No,” Missy said. “I don’t think he’ll be coming back here in a while.”

“What was everyone yelling about?”

“I’ll explain later!” Missy yelled back. “Now go away.” She turned to Theta. “Fine, last resort. Tell me you at least know some Christmas songs. I have easy Christmas songs. They’re horrible, and not the good kind of horrible.”

“Er…I know that song about Frosty?” Theta said. She was pretty sure she’d heard it before.

“Ugh,” Missy said. “Fine, you can play that.”          

Missy lasted through eight repetitions of Frosty before she snatched the music away and told Theta that the song was the worst in existence.

It turned out that Rassilon’s absence also meant Missy and Theta had to make dinner for themselves and Yana. Originally, Missy had warned Theta that she was responsible for half of the meal, and Missy would not be left doing this by herself.

After Theta had almost blown up the microwave, managed to burn Kraft mac and cheese, and almost broke a cooking bowl, Missy had told her that she belonged as far from the kitchen as humanly possible.

Theta hadn’t protested. She was well aware of her own lack of culinary skills, and didn’t have any particular desire to cook dinner.

“Hey, Theta.” Theta turned around to see Yana watching her from the stairs. “You’re in tenth grade, right? Do you know about black holes? I had a question about black holes, and the people on the internet are too busy arguing to answer it.”

“Oh, um, okay,” Theta said, sitting down next to him on the stairs. They talked about black holes, which naturally turned into a discussion of quantum physics, and then theories about time travel. “…you see,” Theta said. “We can’t look at it like a strictly linear progression. If we’re making loops, they’re going to get tangled and form a big ball of…timey wimey stuff.” Yana laughed. He made surprisingly good conversation for a thirteen-year-old.

“So, what are the knots in this metaphor?” Yana asked.

“I dunno,” Theta said. “If the string is the subjective path of time, I suppose the knots could be paradoxes or something.”

“Oh!” Yana said. “Imagine if there was another time traveler.”

Theta’s eyes widened. “Another string. If they were both generating themselves in real time, assuming that has any actual meaning, one loop could get caught in another and the timelines could get tied together.”

“That would make really confusing knots,” Yana agreed.

“And then,” Theta continued. “Add a bunch more, until that knot becomes one of those crazy ones that just seems to pull everything else in, like it’s a giant center of gravity. Maybe that’s a…fixed point in time or something.”

“A reference point. Can’t be undone easily.”

Theta nodded. Talking with Yana sort of reminded Theta of talking with O, back when they had been younger. Not quite, but familiar in a way. She missed having a friend that she could discuss weird timeline theories with. She missed…

She didn’t miss O. He had betrayed her and ruined her life and even now couldn’t stop insulting her for five minutes.

But maybe…maybe she missed Koschei Oakdown.

It was Monday, and Theta had survived three days at the Rassilon house. Missy had continued to be not as bad as she’d thought, Yana was adorable, and neither O nor Saxon had returned after the incident with Lucy Miller.

Theta had survived three days living with one of her enemies and the principal of her school, and now she just had to survive an hour-long conversation with her therapist. But Miss Foster was making it hard.

“And how did being around the fighting make you feel?” Miss Foster asked. “Did it bring back painful memories?”

“No?” Theta said. “Why would it?”

“Need I remind you of your less-than-ideal situation up until April of last year?”

That was all Miss Foster ever talked about. Everything that was wrong with Theta stemmed from Tecteun. Everything. Including things that weren’t even wrong. Theta didn’t get how this was related. Even if her mother had been…abusive, there, she could say the word, it was stupid and untrue anyway and had no meaning…it wouldn’t have made her react poorly to a couple of idiot teenagers shouting at each other for a few minutes.

“I don’t really think it’s related. S—” Right, she was sticking to codenames for everyone except O. Didn’t want to be responsible for spreading gossip. “Bob and Alice were fighting about stupid relationship things.”

“Would you like to explain exactly what happened?” Miss Foster said, though it very clearly wasn’t a question.

“Not really,” Theta shrugged. “I didn’t invite them over to Missy’s house, and it isn’t really important.”

Miss Foster narrowed her eyes. “You’re displaying a tactic known as avoidance. Theta, you’re a smart girl. You should realize that you are deliberately trying to change the subject.”

Theta just couldn’t win. “Okay, whatever. Bob was using Alice to brag about having a girlfriend, Alice never liked Bob or boys in general, Bob knew this, Alice found out, they argued, Bob got punched in the face by his enemy. Which would have been kind of fun to watch if I didn’t feel bad for Alice.”

“I see,” Miss Foster said carefully. “Although your upbringing may have taught you to not treat violence as serious, it is never acceptable. I’m worried that certain behaviors have been normalized for you and you don’t know how to tell the difference between acceptable and unacceptable.”

Theta was pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to understand what Miss Foster had just said. “My mother didn’t punch me. And it was fun, now that I think about it. Bob deserved it.”

“While you may dislike Bob in general, perhaps you should see his actions from a different perspective. In this instance, Bob’s attempt at kindness was rewarded with—”

“Kindness?” Theta asked.

“After all, he was dating Miller. Showing her the possibilities, if she opened her mind to—”

“She didn’t like him, and he knew it.” Theta was feeling very uncomfortable. She took a moment to step back from the situation, and look in on it. “So, you’re saying that if I don’t like someone and they know it and, like, kiss me anyway, I’m supposed to be grateful?”

“Do you have an interest in dating boys, Theta?”

“No.” Well, she didn’t. But it seemed like Miss Foster’s eyes were going to pop out of her skull. “I’m not too interested in dating anybody. Seems stupid to me.”

“I’m sure you’ll change your mind one day, and you’ll be grateful to the man that shows you—”

“Saxon was being a jerk,” Theta said, standing up. “Even M—” Right, code names. “Even his friend admitted it. He was being a jerk and I don’t agree with you saying that he was being kind, because he wasn’t.”

“Sit down, Theta.” Miss Foster said. Theta sat down and crossed her arms over her chest. “This is not…directly related to your recovery, so I believe we can leave this topic behind for now.”

“Good,” Theta said.

“Well,” Miss Foster said cheerily. It was actually rather creepy, in Theta’s opinion. “How about we take a look at that list you promised you’d get done.”

“Oh. I, um, forgot again.” That was a blatant lie, and they both knew it. Theta thought the list was stupid, though, and she wasn’t about to do therapy homework.

“Well, then,” Miss Foster said, writing something down on her clipboard about ‘task avoidance.’ “How about we work on it here. We’re writing down things Tecteun did that you think might have been abusive.” She placed a sheet of paper on the table between them.

Theta picked up the paper and pencil and wrote ‘Abusive Things My Mother Did’ at the top in script. She underlined it twice, then pushed it across the table. “I’m done,” she said.

“Erase that,” Miss Foster told her.

“Erase my title?”

“She was not your biological mother, nor did she fulfill the role of a mother in your life.”

“She was my mother!” Theta insisted. “And I’m not going to stop calling her that.”

“You will when you are in my office. Otherwise, I believe I may need to have a conversation with your aunt.”

“You can’t keep threatening me when I don’t do what you want,” Theta said. “That’s not what you’re supposed to do.”

“Oh?” Miss Foster asked. “Isn’t that something Tecteun did?”

“My mother informed me of the consequences each action would carry. I made my own decisions. And they were reasonable, logical consequences. Whereas you’re supposed to be, I don’t know, making me feel better about myself or something. Not threatening me into writing down untrue things that hurt to say.”

“Perhaps they hurt because they’re true,” Miss Foster said sweetly. “I want you to examine your—”

“My mother was good, so stop it!” Theta said loudly.

“Tone, Theta.”

“I’m not going to write down lies just so you can feel like your stupid therapy is working!”

“Well, I believe I’m just going to have to have a conversation with your aunt and tell her you’re being uncooperative. Since I’m unable to accomplish anything two sessions a week, we’ll have to increase the number. Sound good to you?” She smiled.

Theta crossed her arms for a moment, forcing herself to meet the woman’s gaze. It felt weird and wrong and she looked away, conscious that she had lost an undeclared staring contest.

“Or, you can sit back down,” Theta hadn’t even realized she was standing, “and write down everything you can think of. Then we will go through the list together and I will help you understand the truth. And for every two things you write down, you can have one of these peppermints. They say that taste can stimulate memory, you know.”

Oh, God. Miss Foster was literally bribing her into telling lies about her mother. At least this showed exactly what moral high ground Miss Foster had: she was in a valley.

“Actually,” Theta said. “That only works if you had the same taste back when you were learning it, so that you can associate the taste with the information.” There was a brief period of silence. Miss Foster was still smiling.

Slowly, Theta sat back down and pulled the paper towards her. Then, she wrote out a couple of consequences for breaking the rules, pretending that she had to think for a while to write them. It bought her time, since if she just listed each one she remembered (all of them) the list would have to be longer.

The hour was over when Theta had written down six things. Miss Foster gave her three of the candies, but Theta left them on the table. She wasn’t going to take anything from her.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Dear Theta Lungbarrow,

Hello, and thank you for your informative letter. After a discussion, the Board of Education decided that it would be best if you could attend our next meeting and briefly speak about your proposal there. This would allow board members to ask questions and ensure efficient communication.

The next board of education meeting will take place on Monday, April 16. We look forward to seeing you there!

Sincerely,

Abraham Monk

Secretary of Public Correspondence

Chapter Text

Theta took a deep breath, before knocking on the door. After a moment, there was a sound of movement from within the room. A large man with brown hair opened the door, holding out his hand to shake. “Abraham Monk,” he introduced himself.

“Theta Lungbarrow,” Theta said, pulling her hand away as soon as she could. The board of education was meeting in the high school library, which had a large wooden desk in the shape of a semicircle. The board members sat around the table, little stands indicating their names. That was useful at least; Theta didn’t have to already know them.

Nervously, Theta adjusted her grip on the sheath of notes. She’d had a meeting with Miss Foster today, and it had already ruined the day for her. Hopefully, it wasn’t about to become even worse.

“So…” Theta trailed off. The board members were still talking to each other. “So, I wanted to—” Nope, not her turn to speak yet. Theta wiped her hands on her blue-gray hoodie. She was supposed to have worn something more formal, wasn’t she? The board was all wearing suits or fancy dresses with heels, and here she was in scuffed boots and a faded hoodie.

“Theta, I believe you had something you wanted to speak to us about?” Rassilon said. The board fell silent, turning to Theta with clasped hands in front of them on their desk, the picture of politeness.

“Right, yes.” Theta said. “So, I—” She was really messing this up, wasn’t she? No one was going to listen to her if she kept stammering.

She needed to calm down. This wasn’t a big deal. There was so much evidence on her side that she couldn’t possibly mess up.

Start with the letter. Right. Theta could do this.

“I sent a letter to the board of education about a week and a half ago, and was invited to speak at this board meeting. So, here I am. Um…” Say something nice. “Thank you.” She smiled. It felt fake, but hopefully her audience wouldn’t notice. “What I wanted to speak to you about was…well, in the past years Gallifrey High School has participated in, um, Light It Up Red—no, Light It Up Blue. Gallifrey High School has done Light It Up Blue for Autism Awareness. And I, um, wanted to commend you for supporting the autistic community. But, Light It Up Blue is actually very…” Bad was too simplistic. “Problematic.”

Theta looked around, but she couldn’t get a reading on how well she was doing. Probably awful. “Light It Up Blue was created by an organization called Autism—called Autism Speaks. They claim to speak for autistic people, but they don’t actually. In fact, on their board of directors, they have barely any autistic representation, even after years of autistic people trying to convince them to listen to people who have actual experience. Autistic people, um, are different. Because their brains are different. But they’re not broken. Autism Speaks tries to say that w—they’re broken and lost and missing, but they’re not. They’re right there. Autism Speaks released this horrible video as part of its ‘awareness-raising’ campaign, where the person speaking claims that they’re autism and they’re going to steal away your children. All Autism Speaks does is convince parents that their children are gone when the children are there if the parents only learned to see rather than just look.”

“And they’ve also supported this place that the UN condemned for torture and they’ve done lots of other stuff. Like, they try to treat and cure autism like it’s a disease, but it isn’t. But most importantly, they spread cruel and harmful misinformation about autism and don’t actually speak for autistic people. And their puzzle piece sign is bad too, because it implies that we’re—that autistic people are broken. Light It Up Blue is Autism Speaks’s event, but there are other things you can do instead to actually support autistic people. Light It Up Red Instead is good, and you wear red rather than blue. And instead of donating to Autism Speaks, we can donate to other organizations. Like the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network. So, um, I propose that instead of blue we light it up Red Instead on April 2nd. I’ve got research here if you want me to show it to you. Any questions?”

“Thank you,” Rassilon said. “It seems some of the board members have questions.”

“Autism Speaks isn’t perfect,” said a woman. “But it is the most well-known organization, and thus is in a position to do a lot of good. I think—”

“Yes,” Theta said, before realizing that she’d interrupted the board member. Oh, well. Might as well keep going now that she started. “But it doesn’t do that good. It focuses only on the parents of autistic children rather than actual autistic people. And it doesn’t actually help; it just spreads hatred.”

“But you acknowledge that their intentions are good.”

“Yes, well, in general. They want to do good. But their beliefs are wrong. They believe that autism is a disorder that needs to be mitigated or cured.”

“As a point of clarification,” Rassilon said. “Autism is defined as Autism Spectrum Disorder according to the DSM.”

“Yeah, well so was—so was a lot of things that we’re realizing aren’t wrong or broken,” Theta said. She’d done a lot of research after what she’d learned from Miller and Saxon’s break-up. “Autistic people are not broken.”

“What about the people with autism who can’t speak?” Asked another board member.

“There are other forms of communication available,” Theta said. “If we learn how to listen rather than letting Autism Speaks drown out their voices.”

“But you acknowledge that it would be preferrable to be able to speak.”

“It would make it easier to get by in our society,” Theta said. “Which is why we need to change society to be more accommodating to autistic people.”

“Of course, we want to be more accommodating. Our school is wheelchair-friendly.” It really wasn’t, but Theta felt it was counterproductive to point that out. “But if we could cure everyone who has to remain in a wheelchair, we would leap at the chance.”

“Autism isn’t like being stuck in a wheelchair!” Theta protested. “It’s—even if someone is nonverbal, they can communicate in other ways. If there was some magical way to make them not autistic anymore, it would be at the cost of their identity. It would destroy that person. If we gave an autistic child a so-called cure, it would be like, like killing that child. And pronouncing them unworthy of a life as themself, because they’re broken, and they’re not!” Theta was shouting. Oh, no, she had just shouted at the board of education.

She forced herself to take a deep breath. “Autism is not a disease. It’s not a wall or a thief or a plague. It’s not something you can take away, and it’s not something you should want to.”

“I have a child with autism,” said another board member. “It’s all well and good for autistic people who can speak, who can support themselves, to talk about how they’re not sick and don’t need help. But so many kids with autism will grow up to live with their parents, to never have jobs, to never be able to function in society. Just because some people with autism are high-functioning doesn’t mean that everyone is. When I die, someone’s going to have to take care of my child, unless medicine can find a way to help him. I’m not going to let a learning disability define my child’s identity.”

“Actually,” Theta said. “The autistic community rejects functioning labels for the most part. They’re all autistic, not, not high-functioning and low-functioning. Also, identity-first language is preferred by the vast majority, so it’s autistic person, not person with autism. And…and it’s not that autistic people don’t need help. I’m not saying that. It’s that people should listen to actual autistic people about what sort of help is needed, rather than a bunch of people who don’t actually know what it’s like to be autistic.”

“If we worry about walking on eggshells all the time, we’ll never get anything done. Spreading money around to small groups with no power doesn’t do any good, whereas Autism Speaks has spread awareness successfully.”

“Awareness, yes, but not acceptance,” Theta said. “And, like I said, Autism Speaks literally supported the Judge Rotenberg Center!”

“Theta, calm down and speak respectfully to the board. You are here to make a presentation, not start an argument,” Rassilon ordered. Theta bit back what she wanted to respond. Why weren’t they listening? “The school has raised money for Autism Speaks every year. I see no reason to end this tradition in favor of lesser-known and less effective methods. Although we acknowledge that perhaps this isn’t a perfect solution, I don’t see us making any changes this year.”

“I just gave you a list of reasons,” Theta said, trying to keep her voice level. “I gave you a list of reasons. I gave you a list of articles, if you want to read them!”

Rassilon ignored her. “All in favor of continuing to celebrate April 2nd as Autism Awareness Day?” The entire board of education raised their hands, except for one elderly woman with orangish-blonde hair. “Very well. There will be no changes this year. Thank you for presenting us with the information, Theta. You may go.”

Theta just stood there for a moment in shock before fleeing the room, slamming the door behind her. Rhythmically rocking against the door and bumping off of it, Theta replayed the conversation in head. Why? Why couldn’t they just listen? She’d given them a bunch of reasons and they’d just skated over them.

She’d failed.

She’d failed and on April 2nd she would arrive at school to a scene of blue and puzzle pieces and smiling pictures of autistic children on the posters. Children with autism.

Theta would come into a sea of blue and she’d be lost.

Her stomach churned.

Racing out of the school, Theta found Ohila parked there, waiting in the car. Rain drizzled down from a dull gray sky that seemed to grow darker by the minute. “How did it go?” Ohila asked. She didn’t even know what Theta was there for, just that she needed to briefly visit the board of education meeting. And she obviously didn’t care enough to push.

“Fine,” Theta said. Not fine. Not fine at all, but it wasn’t like she was going to tell that to Ohila.

They drove home in silence. Ohila ordered pizza for dinner, which made Theta a bit worried that they wouldn’t get pizza on Monday like they normally did. Theta picked at her food. It had arrived cold and the mozzarella sticks were different than they normally were.

“I don’t taste anything different,” Ohila said.

“Well, I do,” Theta snapped.

“Theta, watch your tone.”

Theta glared at her cold pizza. She could heat it up in the microwave, but then the cheese would get a weird texture and the pizza would taste like warm rather than pizza.

“There’s another visit with Tecteun scheduled tomorrow, on Tuesday.” The words passed over Theta, garbled beyond recognition. “I assume you’ll be going?” There was a pause. Theta was still staring at the pizza, her foot tapping at lightspeed underneath the table. She felt like she was going to explode at any second, coming apart at the seams. There was something inside her that just wouldn’t stay, had to run or scream or hurt something. And Theta couldn’t do a thing about it, because she was sitting at the dinner table and she couldn’t explain to Ohila.

Everything had been silent for too long. Theta looked up and realized that she was supposed to say something.

“What?” Theta asked.

“Please pay attention to me when I’m talking.”

Theta kicked one of the legs of the table. It felt good to kick it, but the brief pain in her toes felt even better. “Yeah, sorry,” Theta muttered.

“Theta, watch your tone.”

“What’s wrong with my tone?” Theta asked. She hadn’t done anything wrong, and Ohila was still upset with her. Or maybe she’d violated some unknown rule. But Theta hadn’t known, couldn’t’ve known, because Ohila wouldn’t even tell her what the stupid rules were!

“You know what’s wrong with your tone.”

“Sorry.” Theta looked down at her pizza. The thought of actually eating it made her stomach turn. “I’m going upstairs.”

“Finish your food first.”

“I’m not hungry!” Theta said. “You said I didn’t have to eat if I didn’t want to, right? I heard you! It was one of the things you said. I get to choose whether or not I want to eat something. Unless that’s changed too!”

“You’re tired,” Ohila said firmly. “Finish your food and go to bed.”

“It’s nine o’clock!” Theta protested, looking at the clock.

“It’s a school night.”

“I’m not going to bed at nine o’clock!” If Theta felt awful now, she would feel even worse lying in the dark. Theta hated sleeping, hated losing time. But what she hated more was the time it took to just lie there, unable to fall asleep. And Theta needed to move, right now. She couldn’t stay still; she couldn’t go to sleep.

“You’re going to do what I tell you,” Ohila said. “Or you’re going to explain exactly why you’re in such a horrible mood today.”

“Just stop it!” Theta shouted. “I don’t have to explain a thing to you! You’re not my mother, and you’ll never be my mother, and you’re…you’re an awful aunt at that!”

Ohila stood up for the first time. Her chair scraped across the floor, and her silverware clinked against her plate. “I have been doing my very best to be patient,” she said sharply. Theta’s eyes darted back and forth. She was up against a wall. Left was the stairs; right was the table. Stairs were slow, and then Theta would be trapped, but she had food in her room for days and there was a lock, but Ohila could pick it, and—

Theta needed to stop. She couldn’t be running, that wasn’t a solution to this. Inside, the something welled up, ready to push its way out of her skin. Without even meaning to, Theta felt the side of her fist slam against the wall. Once, and then again, and then—

“Stop that this instant!” Ohila said.

“Or what?” Theta asked. She hadn’t caused any damage to the wall; it was sturdy, and Theta wasn’t actually that strong. All she was trying to do was not explode, was not run. “You’ll—You’ll punish me? For not even hurting the wall? At least then I’ll know what your stupid system is, instead of having to deal with a freaking black box algorithm!”

“You’re being unreasonable,” Ohila said. “I can’t be around you when you’re like this!”

“Like what?” Theta screamed.

“You’re throwing a temper tantrum!”

“Fine, what do you think the consequences should be? You going to put me in time out? That’s what you think parents should do, right? Well, fine, then, I’m going upstairs!”

“Turn your lights out and go to sleep,” Ohila said. “We’ll talk about this after school tomorrow.”

“I can’t sleep! It’s nine o’clock and if you make me just lie there, I’m going to explode!”

“Don’t you dare threaten me!” Ohila ordered.

“I’m not threatening you!” Theta said. She couldn’t see Ohila anymore. In fact, she couldn’t see anything. Her eyes were sending visual signals to her brain, but it wasn’t receiving. Theta couldn’t see and she couldn’t think.

“What are you doing then?”

Theta couldn’t speak. The words wouldn’t form, wouldn’t come out. There weren’t any words. Holes had appeared and the words had just drained out, lost in oblivion.

“Well?”

Theta banged her left hand into the wall again. It bounced off painfully and Ohila caught her wrist.

For a second, Theta could feel the touch burning against her skin. She was trapped. Theta was trapped and she couldn’t move and someone was touching her and she was going to—

Before she even realized what she was doing, Theta’s fist impacted Ohila’s face.

Time seemed to freeze for a moment. Theta had punched Ohila. Theta had punched Ohila. Theta had physically attacked Ohila.

Tecteun and Ohila were sisters. It was only so long until Theta pushed Ohila to stop with her superiority complex and lose it. And Theta knew, Theta knew that this was well beyond the breaking point.

Theta had done worse than attack someone. But she had attacked Tecteun once, just once. She had been scared and the general anesthetic had been making her think all wrong, and she had been terrified.

Theta had never done it again, the memories cutting through even the medicine that removed all reason from her mind.

Theta had punched Ohila and—

Within a second, she jerked her hand away and raced out the door, into the rain. The sidewalk was slippery, and the lights of the house were only visible from ten feet away. Theta ran until one foot landed in a puddle and she lost her balance, falling to the ground. Water soaked her socks through the top of her boots. Vaguely, she could hear someone calling her name. Lightning crackled overhead, followed by thunder’s rumble. Theta got up and scrambled another few feet forwards, before the mud made her slide back to the ground.

Theta couldn’t see the house anymore.

The wind howled, driving rain into Theta’s eyes, soaking her hoodie and her crumpled up math notes—her notes were getting all soggy and wet, and she wouldn’t be able to use them anymore.

Theta had punched Ohila in the face, and then she had run, and—

And she couldn’t go back. Theta didn’t know if she could ever go back.

Theta realized that her arms were moving up and down, up and down, far too fast. She was exhausted, and she needed to sit down. But the ground was wet and muddy, and she couldn’t go back to Ohila, not when she had screwed up this badly.

Why did she have to mess up everything? Anything Theta was part of always ended in disaster. She’d gotten her mother locked up in jail, she’d gotten—she’d gotten O into the foster care system which had introduced him to the Masters, she’d managed to ruin her friendship with him too, she’d somehow screwed up her presentation to the board when she’d had literally everything on her side, she’d…

Theta hated Ohila, hated her with all her heart, but…but Ohila hadn’t hurt her, before this. And now Theta was certain she’d messed that up too.

Theta could feel the water soaking through her clothing, freezing her to the bone. If she stayed out here any longer, Theta might get…well, it probably wasn’t any good for her. And Theta felt like she was going to pass out. In this, Ohila might not find her, especially since Theta was sure she wasn’t even on the sidewalk anymore. She could drown. It would only take six centimeters of water, and there was enough of that in some of the puddles. In a way, it would be—

Theta needed to think. Going back “home” was right out. She couldn’t face Ohila right now, and whatever her aunt’s consequences were would certainly be worse if she was angry. Though maybe Theta was making it worse every second she didn’t return…

She couldn’t go back. Theta couldn’t deal with that right now. Her stomach rebelled at the thought and a path of misery stretched forwards. Only now did Theta realize how easily the fear washed over her at the thought of going back to the punishments of before. Theta needed time to reacquaint herself with the idea, the knowledge that she was only one mistake away from pain. She’d take harsher consequences later just to have a bit of time to prepare.

Any house full of strangers would turn her away, or make her go back to Ohila, or…

That left one option. Theta hated it, knew that this would be all over the school the next day, knew that he would find some way to use it, to hurt her with this. But that was tomorrow, and right now, Theta needed somewhere to go.

Her sodden clothes pulled down at her as Theta navigated her way through the rain. She counted her steps, until she could see the mailbox for number 19. Theta found the driveway and walked towards the front door, guided by the house lights.

She reached up, and then let her hand fall. This was stupid. This was the stupidest idea Theta had ever had. She wasn’t even sure if she could explain right now, and they would want an explanation, and…

Theta couldn’t go back.

Before she could regret it, Theta raised her hand and rang the doorbell.

It was nine o’clock on Sunday night, and O was doing his French homework and trying not to laugh at the teacher’s terrible grammar.

Downstairs, he heard the doorbell ring. That was strange, O thought. Anyone who was ringing on their doorbell was there fairly late at night, in the pouring rain no less. O had a very short list of people he knew might do that. By very short, he meant zero. Saxon would’ve just broken in.

Curiously, O stood up and walked downstairs, just in time to see Corsair open the front door.

Standing there, in the rain, was Theta, her hair plastered to her head and her clothes dripping wet. O froze for a second, unable to speak or even move. What was Theta doing?

“Uh, hello?” Corsair said. “Who are you?”

Theta opened her mouth, but no words came out. She began to shake her head, and then back away.

“Wait!” O said suddenly. “Uh, she’s, uh, someone I know,” he told his aunt. He raced down the remaining steps and stopped a few feet away, uncertain whether it was best for him to get closer or stay away.

Corsair smiled. “Come on in, then. You can—” She looked Theta up and down. “There’s a bathroom upstairs if you want to dry off.

Theta opened her mouth again without speaking. Then she stepped into the house. When no one said anything else, she ran upstairs, leaving a trail of water behind her.

After a few moments, Corsair spoke. “That was the girl you used to be friends with? Theta Lungbarrow?” O nodded sharply. He didn’t know what this was about, but none of his guesses were good.

From what O had been able to find out, Ohila was Tecteun’s sister. Theta had said that Ohila hadn’t hurt her, but O knew that Theta didn’t trust him anymore. And she’d lied to him about Tecteun, even when they had been friends. She’d let on that Tecteun was less than ideal, but O hadn’t believed some of what she’d said, thought she was exaggerating. And then it had turned out that Theta’s complaints hadn’t even been the worst of it. If Ohila had hurt Theta…O didn’t know what he’d do, but he’d figure something out. He’d, he’d…well. He wasn’t Theta, but he could figure out something. Missy was a sociopath; he doubted she’d object to helping him procure poison. Or a lethal dose of…

O stopped that tangent before it could get anywhere. Something else might have happened. Maybe Ohila had had an accident, or maybe she hadn’t even been home and Theta had gotten scared of something.

“O?”

Corsair was talking. “What?” O asked.

“She’s living with Ohila Lungbarrow, right? I need to call her, let her know her niece is safe.”

“But…” O trailed off. “Are you sure—” He stopped himself from continuing.

Corsair sighed. “She’s probably worried out of her mind. I need to at least tell her where Theta is. Do you…know what happened?”

O shook his head. “I—how much do you know about…about Theta?”

Corsair raised an eyebrow. “A lot. You’ve lived here for three years.”

“Yeah…Ohila is Tecteun’s sister. I don’t…I don’t know if…” O took a deep breath. Why was it so hard for him to even communicate about this? He should at least be able to remain rational about the situation. “Ohila could’ve hurt her. Theta wouldn’t come here, wouldn’t come anywhere that I am, unless she was desperate.”

Corsair shook her head and dialed Ohila’s phone number. “If we don’t at least tell her we have Theta, she might get the police involved. Whatever’s going on, we can deal with it later. Just trust me, okay?”

“Okay,” O said, even though it wasn’t. The phone rang, but stopped within seconds.

“This is Corsair Oakdown,” Corsair said. “I—Yes…She doesn’t appear hurt. What happ—I understand that it’s not the business of a stranger, but a girl just showed up in the pouring…no, I’m not implying anything, if anything it’s you—”

O sat down, already trying to time when it would be best for Corsair to go check on Theta. If he went, it would end in a disaster, so it had to be her.

“But you didn’t…if you won’t tell me what’s going on…I’m not going to make her go anywhere she doesn’t want to…yes…thank you for understanding…he’s a good kid, he wouldn’t…” O wrinkled his nose. A good kid. Seriously? Well, O wasn’t sure Corsair was talking about him, but which other boy would they even be discussing? One of Theta’s stupid little friends? “Yes. Okay, I’ll tell her you said that, but…I hope that won’t be necessary, but yes…I’ll call you back, okay?” Corsair hung up and turned around.

“What’s going on?” O asked.

“As best as I can figure out, Theta had some sort of fight with her aunt.”

“Is she—”

“Ohila says that she did some stuff she regrets, but she didn’t physically harm Theta.”

“And you believe her?” O asked.

“I’m an excellent judge of character,” Corsair reassured him.

“You’re really not,” O muttered. Corsair raised an eyebrow. “Okay, you’re a pretty good judge of character…if you actually take the time to figure it out. But everyone thought Tecteun was—”

“Ohila agreed that no one’s making Theta go home until she wants to,” Corsair said. “We’ll figure out what’s going on, and then we’ll talk about it. Speaking of which, do you want to check on Theta?”

“Er, you do it,” O said. “Trust me, she won’t want me there.”

Corsair shrugged. “Alright.”

“Oh, and—” O raced into the kitchen to grab a notebook sitting on the table. It had a bunch of mathematical calculations, but the worst that could happen was Theta picking out his errors. Which, honestly, would be great, because at least then they’d be having a conversation. O grabbed a pen and handed them both to Corsair. “She may need this.”

Theta wasn’t sure when she’d started crying, but the tears had already come and gone by the time someone knocked on the door. Quickly, Theta stopped rocking back and forth and forced herself to go still. There was another knock. Great. O had come to make fun of her, or tell her that she was an idiot for thinking he would help her, or say she wasn’t allowed here and had to go home.

“Hello?” Said a voice that Theta was pretty sure didn’t belong to O. “This is Corsair. O’s aunt. I can go away if you want, but I’d like to make sure you’re safe, if that’s alright with you.”

Theta looked around, her vision obscured by the remnants of tears. She backed against the far wall and tried to speak, but the words were still lost.

“I’m coming in.” The door opened to reveal a woman with short dark brown hair and a tattoo of a pirate ship on her shoulder. She was wearing a top that was far too large on her—it was baggy and slipping down her shoulders, but somehow it worked. Leaving the door open behind her, the woman stepped into the bathroom. It was narrow, with Theta at one end, and Corsair’s position blocked the door.

“We can switch if you want.” Theta looked at her, trying to figure out if this was a trap of some kind, before nodding her head. Corsair stood to the side, and Theta sat against the now-closed door.

“Would you like to go somewhere else?” Corsair asked. “I don’t care if you’re still covered in rainwater, this house is a mess anyways.” Theta shook her head. “Okay, suit yourself. Here, O gave me these, said you might need them.” She passed over a purple notebook and a pen.

Theta looked at the notebook’s inside cover. ‘O—Mathematics’ was written in neat cursive. Turning the pen over in her hand, Theta could see that it was the same kind O had always liked to use. He’d claimed there was something special about them. Theta didn’t judge his weird preference; mechanical pencils were the only writing utensil, in Theta’s mind.

Turning to a fresh page, Theta started writing down a question, before realizing her mistake. She scribbled it out and wrote something new. Then, she passed the notebook over to Corsair.

Thank you.

“It’s not a problem,” Corsair said. “And you can just turn it to show me—I’ve got excellent eyesight.”

Your name is Corsair? Like a pirate?

“Yeah. I chose it.”

Chose it? Like Kos O? Are you the reason he changed what he’s called?

“Nah, the situation’s rather different. I chose my name because I didn’t want to be going through a different one every few days. Corsair’s nice. Not really a man’s name or a woman’s name. Not really a name in general, to be honest. O had his own reasons.”

Theta had no idea what Corsair was talking about, but chose not to ask.

“We don’t have to talk about anything you’re uncomfortable with. Or anything at all. I can leave if you’d like. But if you want to know what’s going on, we could discuss that.”

Theta looked up at Corsair. She didn’t want to explain what had happened—she’d attacked Ohila, and then she’d run out of the house without permission. If Theta explained, surely she would get kicked out within seconds.

But maybe she could skirt around it. And she had to know what was happening. Would Corsair call Ohila? Theta would have to talk her out of that. If she’d called her already…

Theta nodded.

OK

Corsair sat down across the room, leaning against the tub. Her face was a side profile—Theta couldn’t see what she was thinking, but at least there wasn’t any expectation of meeting her eyes.

“I spoke to your aunt over the phone.”

Theta shook, almost resuming her rocking back and forth.

“She said that she felt bad about what—about whatever happened. I don’t know what happened, but…anyway, she agreed that you don’t have to go back until you want to. You can stay the night here, if you’d like.”

Theta’s eyes flittered frantically back and forth from the notebook to Corsair’s face. Eventually, she realized that she hadn’t responded. Thank you.

“It’s not a problem,” Corsair said. “Friends of O’s are always welcome here.”

Theta felt the guilt seep through her. Friends of O’s. She wasn’t a friend of O’s, but Corsair had let her in because she thought Theta was. What would O say once he got a chance to talk to Corsair? Would he tell her what he’d done? Would Corsair take his side?

Of course, she would.

The question was whether he would tell Corsair that Theta had to leave or whether he would let her stay but then just tell the whole school.

Theta buried her head in her arms. Corsair had only let her stay for O, not because she actually cared anything about Theta. Why would she? She didn’t know her.

“He’s the one who suggested that I bring that notebook,” Corsair said. “I know you and him aren’t getting along, and maybe you won’t ever, but he still cares about you.”

Theta looked up. How could Corsair say that? Didn’t she know what he’d done? Didn’t she know what he was capable of? Didn’t she know how he’d ruined Theta’s life?

“Would you like to talk about what happened?” Corsair asked, and of course, there it was. The information. Whatever Theta told her would be reported back to Ohila, and— “You don’t have to tell me anything. I promise none of this will make it back to your aunt, though, if you do want someone to talk to. I’m not particularly religious, so I can’t swear on a Bible or anything.” She laughed. “Could swear on my brother’s grave, but that doesn’t mean much either.”

On her brother’s…Torvic. Theta shuddered. Corsair was Torvic’s sister. And maybe she seemed like she cared about O, and wouldn’t hurt him, and was nothing like Torvic, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t cared about her brother too. Hadn’t still loved him. She was Torvic’s sister.

“So I’ll just tell you that I won’t. And you can do what you will with that,” Corsair finished.

And Theta felt like she at least owed Corsair something, so she nodded slowly and placed the pen on the notebook. What could she possibly write? Eventually, she found the words and scribbled them down.

I made a mistake and ran. I had nowhere else I could think of to go. I’m sorry.

“You don’t have to be sorry to me,” Corsair said softly. “What do you want to do? I could get you some of O’s old clothes if you want something dry.”

Theta shook her head quickly.

“Alright. Do you want to just sit here?”

Theta thought about that. She did want to, but she knew she had to go back to Ohila. She didn’t know what would happen after that, but the more time she waited, the more angry Ohila would be. It had to be now.

Theta focused really hard, and spoke, her voice croaking. “I’ll go back.”

“You don’t have to do that yet,” Corsair said. “No one will make you go back before you want to.”

Theta shook her head. The words didn’t come out, so she returned to the notebook. I need to. I want to.

Corsair stared at Theta’s face, and she knew that she had to meet her eyes. But the very thought of it made Theta’s stomach churn, so she kept looking away, just to see what would happen.

Eventually, Corsair spoke. “I need you to answer a few questions, before you go back. I wouldn’t say this if it wasn’t important. You can just answer yes or no, alright?”

Theta nodded. She didn’t know what Corsair wanted to ask her, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. The door behind her dug into her back, reminding her of its presence. Theta could run if she had to, though that would probably just make Ohila even angrier, running out on two adults in the same night.

“Did Ohila hit you?” That took Theta by surprise. She wasn’t sure what she expected Corsair to ask, but it certainly wasn’t this.

Theta shook her head.

“Did she physically hurt you?”

Ohila had grabbed her wrist, but the action hadn’t caused her physical pain. It had just felt wrong, had felt like Tecteun forcing her hands into restraints before yet another procedure. Her mother had to do that, for the good of the many, even if she wished she didn’t. It was Theta’s duty. But Ohila didn’t have to, and Theta had been startled. The pain had come from Theta, not Ohila.

Theta shook her head.

“Has your aunt ever caused you physical harm or deprived you of basic necessities?”

Basic necessities? Theta wrote, resisting a strange urge to snort at Corsair’s stilted language. It sounded like she was reading off of a social services checklist, but those were all different.

“Food, water, shelter, things like that.”

Theta shook her head.

“Do you think that she will if you go to her house tonight?”

Theta froze. Did she? Did she think that Ohila would hurt her if she went home?

Theta didn’t know, was the problem. Surely, she had crossed a line. Surely, Ohila was just like her sister, just like everyone else. But not everyone else. Theta knew it also wasn’t normal, the things Tecteun had done to her. It had just been necessary. For the experiments, for Theta to learn her lesson and cooperate. So, maybe Ohila wouldn’t. But she was Tecteun’s sister. And Theta had hit her.

Theta had hit her.

Before she could think better of it and lie, Theta wrote down her answer. I don’t know.

“But you want to go home?”

Yes. Ohila’s house wasn’t home, not by a long shot. But Theta had made her decision.

“I can’t stop you. But—can you at least wait until you can speak?” Corsair asked.

“I can speak,” Theta told her, voice scratchy. “Now. Just…hard.” She had to force each word out past the constant overwhelming flow of information.

Corsair shook her head. “Can I borrow the notebook for a second?” Theta passed it over, and Corsair scribbled down her email on a piece of paper. She tore it out, and handed it over to Theta. “Please email me as soon as you can. Or O.”

Theta almost snorted with laughter. Like she would email O. But laughing was kind of inappropriate at the moment, so she nodded instead.

“I’ll show you to the front door. And you’re always welcome here, Theta.” Theta stepped out of the bathroom and let Corsair lead her down the stairs, out to the front door. She saw O watching her, and immediately became aware that she was holding his notebook.

Well, as horrible as he was, she had barged into his house. And he’d told Corsair that she would need the notebook. She walked up to him and held it out wordlessly.

O stared at it for a second, before laughing. “Surprised you bothered to return it—we’re all about petty victories, aren’t we?” Theta didn’t say anything, just kept holding it out. O looked down. “I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say, wasn’t it? You keep the notebook.”

“Why?” Theta asked.

O shrugged. “It’s just got disposable calculations anyway, and only on the first few pages. I though you might get a kick out of the errors.”

Before she could help herself, Theta smiled a bit.

“Besides, look at the inside covers. You can give it back if you want. But you could also keep it.”

Theta did kind of want to pick out the errors. She opened to the first page and looked at the inside cover to see what O was talking about.

It was filled with circles, one within another, interconnected. It was art, but there was also something…different about it. Something that made her think it meant something more.

“It’s a code I made over the last few years. I always wanted to show it to you, hold it over your head or something.” O frowned. “But I never got the chance. You could try to decipher it.”

“Probably an insult,” Theta said.

“Well, you’ll have to find out.”

Theta was still holding the notebook. She didn’t want to accept any gifts from her worst enemy, but…

Well, if it was probably an insult…

“Thank you,” Theta muttered. It was loud enough that they could both hear it, but quiet enough that she could still deny it if pressed. Then, she walked towards the front door, and stepped out into the rain.

Theta held the notebook inside her hoodie as she ran down the street, slipping and sliding on the puddles. When she reached Ohila’s house, she paused for a few moments to catch her breath and summon her nerves.

This was inevitable. Theta was going to have to face the consequences, and it might as well be now.

Before she could stop herself, she pressed the doorbell.

Within seconds, the door opened up to reveal Ohila standing there, right in front of her.

“I’m sorry,” Theta said.

Chapter Text

Theta stood in front of the door, drenched in rainwater and clutching O’s notebook in her hoodie. And in front of her stood an imposing figure that looked so much like her mother, but wasn’t.

Theta thought about what the consequences would be for her past stunt, if she’d been living at home. She wondered if they would be better or worse here.

Or maybe Ohila would just kick her out into the foster care system, and Theta would end up with someone who was even worse, someone who hurt her for no reason.

So Theta stood in the rain and looked up at Ohila, struggling to keep her face blank as she spoke. “I’m sorry,” she said, and she meant it, even though she wasn’t sure it would do any good.

“Come inside,” Ohila ordered. Theta tried to read her aunt’s face, but her vision was marred by tears and she was too tired to interpret. She stepped inside, muscles tense, entire body on alert. “Take a seat at the table, please.”

That meant they were going to talk first. The dread would make everything worse, but at least Theta had time to school herself into indifference. Of course, she’d also have time to dig herself deeper into trouble, which was even more likely considering she hardly knew Ohila. But Theta slowly walked towards the kitchen table, letting the door close behind her and Ohila stand in-between Theta and freedom.

Slowly, Theta sat down at a chair, back perfectly straight and hands folded in her lap. When Ohila took her seat across from her, Theta made sure to meet her eyes, ignoring the way it seemed to burn with unearned intimacy and stress.

They didn’t speak for almost a minute.

“You don’t need to do this,” Ohila said eventually, waving her hand vaguely in the air. “Eye contact,” she clarified.

Out of everything Theta had expected, it wasn’t this. It could be a trap, or it could be that Ohila was hinting that Theta shouldn’t meet her eyes because she found it rebellious. So, Theta turned her gaze to the boards in the wooden table. Ohila didn’t immediately say anything.

After a few moments, though, Ohila spoke again, her voice calm and measured. “I’m sorry that I grabbed your wrist. I didn’t take into account how you might respond for that.”

And that wasn’t a condemnation or a punishment. What the heck was Theta even supposed to say? So, she remained silent.

You have the right to remain silent. Everything you say can and will be used against you in the court of Ohila Lungbarrow.

Theta had to stop herself from laughing, because that was so inappropriate for the moment that…she just couldn’t even—

“I am trying to be patient, but it’s difficult for me, especially since I’ve probably been looking at things the wrong way.”

Looking at things the wrong way—what—

Ohila sighed. Theta watched out of the corner of her eye as her aunt’s hands shifted on the wooden table. “I’m going to be honest with you, Theta. I hate Tecteun. I hate her with a burning passion—for what she was, and what she did to you. She was…she was cruel and evil. But I’ve been acting like she tried to break you and anything I attributed to her was a sign that she had succeeded, a weakness. I want you to know that what she did was unacceptable, and abusive. I want that.” Theta flinched despite herself. Ohila took a deep breath. “You’ll probably have to discover it on your own, though. And while she was…definitely undeserving of the title of mother—Theta? It’s ultimately your right to choose what you call her and what she is to you.”

“I’ve got to stop you from doing certain things, because they’re not safe. I shouldn’t have forced you to meet with Tecteun, and I shouldn’t have pulled you away from the visit after that. But you won’t be reading her notes until you’re eighteen. You’re a teenager, and you’re not going to agree with me, but I hope that by the time you’re old enough to legally read them you’ll understand.”

“So, I don’t know exactly what you want, but we can discuss it. There’s a meeting with Tecteun tomorrow, and you can go if you want. You can say what you need to say. And if that includes what she did to you, I’m not going to deny you your ability to talk about that. But if she hurts you—verbally, considering she can’t leave her seat—I will not hesitate to speak against her.” Ohila took a long, rattling breath. “We need to have a discussion with Miss Foster. I talked to her tonight, and I’m not sure she’s the most qualified to work with you. But we can discuss that tomorrow. Is this okay?”

Theta froze, listening to Ohila’s speech in silence. It was…Theta didn’t really know how to describe it, but it wasn’t like Ohila. It was wrong and too understanding and too accepting and too good to be true.

“I punched you,” Theta said, just to make sure they still existed within the same universe.

Ohila laughed, eyes glazed with barely hidden hysteria. But it passed, quickly. “Yes, well, that did hurt a bit, but there’s no serious harm. Obviously, that was wrong. You shouldn’t have punched me, and I think you know that. But, correct me if I’m wrong, you weren’t thinking clearly,” she said, speaking slowly as if carefully considering each word. “I had touched you, tried to restrain your arm, and your mind thought, in the moment, that you were acting in self-defense. You should try not to do that again, and I’ll try to be more careful, but…what did you think I—Well, I can see why you thought my reaction might have been different. What did you think I was going to say?”

Theta looked at her in confusion. Was Ohila not punishing her? This was—Well, thinking everything was a trick only worked when it came to people like O. Ohila, on the other hand, didn’t seem the type to be tricking her.

So, Theta allowed herself to breathe, just for a moment. Theta allowed herself to hope.

Because, what if this was real? What if Ohila was just going to tell her to try to curb her instincts in the future, and that they’d both try better?

“I thought…” Theta wasn’t quite sure how to finish that. ‘I thought you would send me to foster care?’ ‘I thought you’d stop me from eating meals?’ ‘I thought you’d lock me up somewhere?’ “I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I hate not knowing.”

“Alright,” Ohila said. “That’s why you ran away?” Slowly, Theta nodded. “I understand—I hate that word, I really do, I keep saying that and it sounds so ridiculous, but…I understand that you felt like you needed to get away, but you can’t run out into a storm like that. You could’ve been seriously hurt. That was one of the few rules I did give you—don’t leave the house without getting permission first.” Theta’s eyes widened. “But considering the circumstances, I’m going to ignore that. Just don’t leave again like that; you have a room that you can retreat to, if you need it. And while I should not have been as confrontational as I was…Theta, you can’t start hitting the walls. Not for the housing bill; your hands could’ve gotten seriously injured, and you seemed to be in pain.”

Theta didn’t mention how that had kind of been the point, because Ohila would think something was wrong with her. It had just been during that moment, when she’d been angry, and had needed to just hurt something.

“There’re pillows. Or I could probably find the money to get a punching bag if you want. But we need to find something other than the walls for you to hit.”

We need to find something. We.

“I’ve been talking a lot. Is there anything you want to say?”

There was a lot that Theta could say, but she wasn’t sure how much of it she wanted to voice. So, she just repeated “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” Ohila said. “And I’m sorry too. We need to discuss what rules and consequences are in this house, but it can wait until tomorrow if you’re too tired.”

“I’m not too tired,” Theta said immediately, because while she was exhausted, she couldn’t sleep. Not after this, and not while Ohila was actually listening.

“Okay. I forgot what we—what I actually said. Do you remember?”

Theta closed her eyes and recited. “1. Do not start fights at school or anywhere else. As a corollary, do not resort to violence except in self-defense. 2. Get permission before leaving the house. 3. Don’t do anything illegal.”

“And the consequences?”

“You didn’t say,” Theta told her.

“See, I’m not really sure what the consequences would be, or even should be, of any specific action,” Ohila said. “I can’t make a list, because it would depend on the circumstances and I…” She put her head in one hand, resting its elbow on the table. “I can’t think of every possible outcome. But I can tell you what they won’t ever be.”

She continued. “You’ll always have food that you can eat, as much of it as—well, not necessarily as much of it as you want, since I could’ve forgotten to go grocery shopping. But I’ll never deprive you of food as a punishment.” She thought for a moment. “And I won’t give you a plate of something you can’t eat—broccoli or something that’s got texture you can’t stand—and claim I gave you food. I won’t hit you or otherwise physically hurt you. I won’t cut you off from necessary support. And you’ll always be free to move around the house unless the Sisters of Karn have a meeting. I don’t know what I have to say, because I don’t know what Tecteun did to you, but if you ask me, I’ll tell you if it’s something that I’d ever do. You can ask me any questions. Please, Theta, just talk to me.”

She looked at Theta, like she expected an answer. “Thank you,” Theta said quietly.

“The problem is that I can’t think of many other rules. Don’t attack anyone, don’t get into trouble at school, the usual. There aren’t weird specific things. If you want to know, you can ask.” Ohila looked at the clock. “It’s ten forty. While you might consider that early, I’m old.”

Theta didn’t say anything.

“I don’t think you should go to school tomorrow.” That wasn’t good. Not going to school meant that Tecteun needed her home for an experiment, or that they had to hide the consequences, or that the punishment couldn’t take place if she was in school. “But I won’t make you stay home. I’ll have work, and it’s your choice, but you look exhausted, and it’s okay if you need time to rest.”

Theta thought about it. She was really, really tired. And just one day…surely that would be an adequate test of whether Ohila really meant any of that.

On Wednesday everyone would be wearing blue. But Theta would deal with that when it came up.

And…Theta nodded. She could scarcely believe her most recent conversation, but it had happened all the same. “Thanks,” Theta said. “I’ll, er, tell my friends that I’ll be at home so they don’t worry. And say I’ll email them when they get home from school.” There. That set a good halfway point that Theta could use to check in. If she didn’t email them, then perhaps they would realize that something was wrong, and—

Theta wasn’t really sure what they would do, what they even could do. But it would make her feel more comfortable.

Quickly, Theta ran up the stairs, locking the door to her room. She sent an email to Corsair, telling them she was fine and Ohila had forgiven her, and then sent an email to her friends.

To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Dear Grace, Graham, Ryan, and Yaz,

Hello! I’m not going to be in school tomorrow because I wasn’t feeling well today. It’s just a normal sort of sick, not anything to do with my illness.

My meeting with the school board didn’t go too well; they were really patronizing and refused to listen to me. And they decided to still do Light It Up Blue on Wednesday.

I hope you’re all doing well, though, and have a great day at school tomorrow! I’ll be back on Wednesday, probably.

Sincerely,

Theta Lungbarrow

She began her long preparation for bed, and then lay there in the dark, thinking about what had happened.

Was this normal? No, Theta didn’t think this was normal. She didn’t know why Ohila had acted the way she did; she felt even more out of control than when her mother set the actions and consequences. Theta understood her mother, but Theta didn’t understand Ohila.

Theta closed her eyes and thought about her conversations with Missy. She thought about O and his notebook. She thought about her mother.

She thought about Tecteun.

Information flowed together, and it was all leading towards a single point. Just as Theta fell asleep, she suddenly knew.

She remembered the jolt of fear in her heart, but she didn’t remember the realization.

“Graham, get Grace,” Yaz ordered immediately, sitting down at the lunch table with Ryan and his cousin.

“Okay, okay,” Graham agreed, getting his girlfriend and bringing her to the table.

“Right,” Yaz said, business-like, standing up. “Tomorrow is April 2nd.”

“And the school board refused to change Light It Up Blue,” Ryan said. “’cos they’re idiots.”

“Yeah,” Grace said. “So, you’re saying we should wear red tomorrow?”

Yaz nodded. “And we should try to get other people to wear red too. I know there’s no way we’ll be able to tell most people, but—” Her phone rung from her backpack, and she rolled her eyes, taking it out.

There was a text message popped up on her lockscreen, and it was from an unknown number.

This is O. Theta isn’t in school.

For a moment, Yaz considered ignoring it, but she opened up her phone against her better judgement. She typed a quick message saying that Theta was sick and how the heck did he get her number, but when she looked around, she got an idea. Even if they didn’t explain the whole thing…perhaps there was a way to really reach more people.

she’s fine. come to the cafeteria. we need to talk.

“Okay,” Yaz said, sitting down. “Change of plans. We’re waiting for someone else.”

“Someone else?” Graham asked. “Who would that be?”

“Someone who might be able to help with this.”

Theta had missed first period. Theta had missed third period. Theta wasn’t in school.

Theta. Wasn’t. In. School.

She had emailed Corsair and told them that she was fine, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been lying. That didn’t mean that she wasn’t hurt, or locked somewhere, or out on the streets. She could have been lying. Or she could have believed it at the time and Ohila had just hurt her afterwards.

“Damn it, Theta,” he muttered, when third period started without her. He could barely concentrate on his AP World History work. Theta was missing. She could be seriously injured. She could be scared and alone. And he was just sitting there, describing the effects of the Marshall Plan.

As soon as fourth period came, he bullied Izzy Flint into giving him Khan’s phone number and texted her, hoping desperately that her phone would be on. If anyone knew anything about this, it would be Theta’s ‘friends,’ though he doubted they’d be particularly useful. But he might be able to convince them to email her and check in, since he didn’t have her email address. O couldn’t contact Theta. She could be in serious danger, and he wouldn’t know.

And O couldn’t think of any legitimate reason why Theta wasn’t in school, right after she’d made her aunt angry. Her aunt that was Tecteun’s sister.

Khan responded, telling him to meet her. Heart pounding, O leapt out of his seat, told his teacher that he needed to use the restroom, and raced to the lunch room.

As soon as he could, O entered the cafeteria and made a bee-line for their table.

“What the hell did you do, Yaz?” Ryan asked. Great. So, Khan hadn’t told Theta’s other pets that she was calling O there.

O sat down at the lunch table eyes burning into the fake wood. “Theta is missing from school.”

“She was sick, yesterday,” Ryan said, rolling his eyes.

“And it’s none of your business,” Graham continued.

O didn’t understand how they could possibly just sit there. “Don’t you get it?” He asked. “Theta’s missing from school.”

“She said she’d be back on Wednesday,” Khan offered.

O put his head in his hands. Why weren’t they searching for her? Why weren’t they worried?

Because they lived in their own little homes and lived their own little lives, and none of them knew what Theta had gone through. None of them had realized that she was living with the sister of the woman who’d experimented on her, who’d hurt her. They didn’t know that Theta was probably injured and scared.

He looked up at Khan, meeting her eyes with fire. “Email her,” he said.

“What?” Khan asked.

“I said, email her. She might not be sick.”

“You don’t get to boss me around,” Khan said. “And Theta wouldn’t lie to us. What do you think she’s doing, playing hooky?”

“Email her,” O hissed.

O’Brien’s girlfriend (O didn’t know her name; wait, no, it was Grace) put a hand on his shoulder. He flinched, pushing it off violently.

“Okay, you can calm down,” she said.

“All of you are useless.”

“Theta said she was going to email us when we got home from school,” Grace told him calmly. “She’s going to check in with us. Yaz will tell you when she does.”

“That’s not enough, there’re hours until then,” O said. He looked up at Theta’s other ‘friends.’ Khan had her eyes narrowed at him, while Sinclair and O’Brien were looking at each other in confusion.

Khan took a deep breath. “You’re actually worried about her, aren’t you? For real?”

“Of course, I am.”

“Tell us why.”

“I can’t,” O said.

“But you think she might not be…safe?”

O nodded, slowly. If Theta saw what he was doing…

“O, Theta’s fine,” Sinclair said. “Really. She said she was sick, and we all believe her. But I’ll email her right now, okay?”

O nodded again, and Sinclair took out his phone.

“Ugh, no cell phone service. Here, I’ll say Grace got into a medical debate with someone and needs backing up.” He typed something out and sent it, then looked up. “We good?”

O nodded for the third time, not trusting himself to speak.

“That’s not why I asked you to come here,” Khan said. “There’s something else.”

Raising an eyebrow, O leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. “I’m missing a very important chance to tell everyone in AP World how stupid they are for this, so it’d better be good.”

“Wait, you’re seriously getting him in on this?” O’Brien asked.

“Yeah, that’s not cool, Yaz.”

“I’m not telling him…everything. Just what we’re trying to do,” Khan said. “Besides, you know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”

O’Brien sighed. “I’m with Yaz on this one, Ryan, sorry. We need help, and he might actually, you know, help. Besides, if he messes up, that’ll probably mean a lot more than most other people’s clothes.”

“I’m right here, you know,” O said. “And I’ll admit; I have no idea what you’re talking about.

“Right,” Khan turned to him. “You know how the school’s doing Light It Up Blue, tomorrow?”

O groaned. Of course. There was a reason Theta liked Khan; she was all goody-two-shoes, doing whatever the ‘right’ thing is, without paying any attention to what it actually meant. So, Theta’s friends would show up to school wearing blue, and Theta would probably just be very confused. But there was a chance, however small, that she would know what it meant and get actually upset. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “And before you try to convince me, there’s no way I’m doing that.”

Khan raised an eyebrow. “I have no clue what your reasons are, but, er, that’s exactly what we were trying to tell you. And the school, actually. Well, not really us for the school; that was more…right, I’m gonna start from the beginning.”

O looked at her questioningly.

Khan sighed. “Theta read up on Light It Up Blue, and tried to convince the school to do Red Instead. Basically, the organization Autism Speaks is awful and treats different people like a disease. And of course, Theta wanted to stand up for autistic people. The school board was really awful about it, though, and just shut her down. So, she was disappointed, and we wanted to try to make as many people wear red instead as possible, you know? I figured, if you really meant what you said. That you cared. If you really meant that, you’d want to help. Because if you annoy her on the little stuff, at least help her on this one big important thing.”

For a few moments, O just stared at her. That was…of course, Theta tried to do that. And of course, the school board didn’t listen. Really, he would say this was a lost cause, but…if Theta really did care about this enough to talk in front of the entire school board, in front of Rassilon…

Maybe he could make it possible.

“Okay,” he said.

“What?” Sinclair asked.

“Yeah, I don’t think we heard you right,” O’Brien added.

“Shut up,” O said. “I have conditions. One, you can’t tell her I helped.”

“Why?” Grace asked. “That doesn’t make much sense.”

“You can’t tell her. Agreed?”

“Okay, we won’t,” Khan said.

“And two, you give me her email. I want—I need to be able to say something to her. Apologize for real, and she won’t hear me out if it’s in person. It’ll be easier for her to read if it’s in print.”

“Yeah, no,” Khan crossed her arms. “Not happening. I’m not going to let you pester her.”

“I won’t!” O said. “If she just reads the email and says she doesn’t want to talk to me, I promise, I won’t send her anything else. Just, please.”

“I’m not giving you her email; that would be a breach of privacy,” Khan said. She watched O’s reaction carefully, so O made sure to keep his face blank. Still, some of the emotions he couldn’t quite describe leaked through the mask. “But I’ll forward her an email from you. One. And no more.”

“No way,” O said. “The stuff I need to say, it’s private.” Stuff about her mother, stuff about…well, he couldn’t talk about Torvic, not when it would create a digital record. But he needed to address some things, and actually, really apologize. Without insulting her, which was kind of hard. He was angry at so many things surrounding Theta that it all came in her direction.

“I promise I won’t read it. I’ll just copy and paste it.”

“Yeah, right,” O sneered. “You’ll read it.”

“O,” Khan said seriously. “I swear on whatever the hell you think is important in my life, that I’m not going to read your stupid email. I’ll forward it to her. And then I’ll delete it for good measure.”

O considered this. He needed to get a message through to Theta, but he couldn’t risk Khan reading this. Meeting her eyes, he decided that she was telling the truth. She had to be. “Okay. So, we’re going to convince everyone in the school to do Red Instead?”

“Hey,” Sinclair said. “Wait a second. Isn’t that kind of what Theta didn’t like about Autism Speaks? It was a bunch of non-autistic people who didn’t know anything about nothing all using their words and, what was it? Drowning out autistic voices. Yeah, that. Wouldn’t we just be doing that, if we used our words and stuff?”

“Well,” Khan said carefully. “What if we don’t? Drown out autistic words with ours. Theta wrote a letter to the school board. And, well…” She trailed off and looked meaningfully at O.

O rolled his eyes. “We use what Theta wrote. At the very least, she knows a lot more about this than us.” He wasn’t a trained psychologist, but Theta was definitely autistic. Still, he was in the uncomfortable position where Theta probably didn’t want either him or her ‘friends’ to know. “Though, that letter was probably a bit too formal. Or not, considering this Theta we’re talking about.”

“Yaz helped her edit drafts,” O’Brien said. “I’m sure there’s loads of material there.”

“So, we’re not drowning out voices,” Grace concluded. “They’re Theta’s words, and the words she found from other autistic people. And their ideas. We’re just…amplifying them.”

O smiled, a real, genuine smile. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll talk to everyone I can reach, post on social media and stuff. I’ll also call in favors with Harold and Missy—no, I won’t tell them what it’s about, stop looking at me like that. Missy can talk to Basil Disco, who’ll already know this. But he’ll tell his friends—Clara Oswald, Nardole, and Bill Potts—that they’re actually doing something about it this year, and they’ll add to the social media presence. Clara Oswald will take to this like wildfire, and get it to Danny Pink and everyone else in senior year. Harold will reluctantly spread it through the juniors, but we’ll also rely on John Smith, Jr.—your job to contact him, Khan, because he’s still upset at everyone involved in an incident I was…tangentially involved in. You guys and I will get it through our year, and Basil Disco will get his brother Nine to do it in ninth grade.”

“John has a lot of friends,” Sinclair added. “Rose, Jack, Martha, Donna…and there’s Troy Holmes, Amy Pond, and Rory Pond, too. They’re in our grade, and Amy’s really popular.”

“Nine could probably get Harriet Jones in on it,” Khan said. “And I can try to get Sonya to spread it through the middle school, she owes me. There’s not much hope for the elementary schoolers; they’re, well, their parents are dressing them.”

“Graham and I will reach out to the teachers,” Grace said.

“We will?” O’Brien asked.

“Yes, we will. Yaz could probably help with that. Hopefully Clara Oswald does that too.”

“So,” O grinned, “have we got a plan?”

“We’ve got a plan,” Yaz agreed.

Theta stood in front of the long table. On the other end, was her mother. Slowly, Theta sat down in her chair, folding her hands on the table in front of her.

“Hello, mother,” Theta said.

“Hello.” Tecteun sounded exhausted.

Theta didn’t really know what to say. There were so many things she needed to talk about, but she wasn’t sure how to even bring them up.

One thing at a time. “For the research. Do I really need a research assistant?” She asked. “I’m smart, I can do things on my own.”

“You need one,” Tecteun said. “It’s absolutely essential. Not Koschei Oakdown, I can see after what you told me last time that he’s unsuitable. As soon as you’re eighteen, Theta. And you must run them past me.”

“Okay,” Theta said. “I’ll find someone.”

“Good,” Tecteun said. Theta smiled, a warm feeling filling her chest. She would make her mother proud. “Is there anything else you wanted to talk to me about, Theta?”

Theta remembered how Missy had been smarter than she predicted, how she’d been able to draw conclusions that were wrong, but seemed like the hidden truth. Theta had told her mother what O had done, how he’d told the police on them. Tecteun was about consequences, not revenge. But, Theta didn’t know what her mother would do, now.

She had to know what her mother thought.

“Do you remember 4 River Lane?” She asked.

“Of course,” Tecteun said. “That was where Koschei Oakdown lived, before he betrayed us.”

“What about the accident?” Theta asked. What about Torvic? No, she needed to be clearer. “The one with the broken window.” She took a deep breath—there had been no such incident. “Where Koschei found it.”

Tecteun gradually began to smile. “Of course, I do.”

“They never found out who threw the baseball,” Theta said quietly.

“So, you’ve realized it, then.” Theta’s heart sunk.

“You think it was far from a coincidence that Koschei found the window. You think he’s the one who threw the ball,” Theta said.

“And you know that, now,” Tecteun said.

“Why did you think I should work with him before I told you he’s the one who reported us, then?” Theta asked, suddenly wondering. Tecteun didn’t respond. “Blackmail? Are you planning to tell anybody that he threw the ball?”

Tecteun laughed. “What would be the point? As long as you know what your precious friend was capable of, Theta, that’s good enough for me. He was eleven; no one would blame him. You can’t blame an eleven-year-old for playing baseball, especially considering the window was terrible anyway.”

“I see,” Theta said quietly. “Koschei didn’t throw the ball.”

“We’re scientists, Theta. We don’t delude ourselves.”

“Koschei didn’t throw the ball,” Theta repeated again, louder this time. Her heart pounded, fear barely shielded by the cryptic words covering her conversation. “I know who did, and it wasn’t him. It was…it was me.”

And Tecteun laughed again. “You’ve managed to surprise me,” she said. “Good, good.”

“Good?” Theta asked, her face contorting in confusion. She could think of a thousand different possible reactions from her mother, but this wasn’t one of them.

“Good,” Tecteun said. “You’re a brave girl, Theta. You won’t let anything get in our way.”

You won’t let anything get in our way.

You won’t let anything get in our way.

You’re a brave girl, Theta. You won’t let anything get in our way.

Swear it on something that matters.

Theta swallowed. “You told me I need to finish the research as soon as I turn eighteen.”

“Yes,” Tecteun said. Theta forced herself to look up and meet her mother’s eyes. I can’t go back, she thought.

And then, I don’t know if I can finish this.

Because Theta had lasted the entire day, and Ohila hadn’t done anything. It felt unreal, as if she was just waiting for the other shoe to drop and crush her. But it was beginning to look like there wasn’t a shoe at all. Ohila meant it. And Theta had thought she was wrong about her mother. Theta still thought she was a hypocrite. But maybe, her house was different from where Theta had grown up.

And Theta was beginning to not care if it was selfish that she wanted to stay.

“How long will it take?” Theta asked, her mouth dry.

“You’re almost done,” Tecteun said. “We were almost finished when the Oakdown boy betrayed us.”

“Done,” Theta repeated, voice cracking ever so slightly, faltering under the strain of the knowledge she somehow understood was about to crash down on her head. “You know, you’ve been saying that a lot. Done, finished. Learning isn’t exactly a process that finishes. There’s always something new to find, something new to try. This wasn’t just about you finding knowledge, after all, it was about us finding knowledge.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Tecteun said. “But you’ve almost finished with the experiments that are required to save lives. We just need to perfect some information. You’ll understand when you see the notes.”

“Almost done, then. Almost done. A summer? Will I just not be able to do any summer internships? Well, I suppose I’ll turn eighteen in November, so it wouldn’t be summer. So, a missed semester? Or will I need to take a gap year before I go to college? I’m going to go to college, after this, so I can do pre-med.”

“A few months,” Tecteun told her. “It depends on your assistant.”

Theta nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Because, it seemed like the experiments were building up to something before you were arrested. That’s why I got scared, got sloppy, and O found out. I was preparing for a big operation, and there was an even bigger one prepared a month after that. I was actually kind of scared. But…” Theta didn’t know why she was so deathly, horribly certain. But she had to know. Theta looked at Ohila, who was watching with a troubled expression. True to her word, though, she hadn’t interrupted. “But it’ll be fine. Great, even. I can take a gap year, and then go to college afterwards. It’ll look ‘mazing on my applications, the discoveries I’ll make. You think I’ll be able to get into Yale?”

Tecteun didn’t respond.

“You think I’ll get into a good college?” Theta asked. She closed her eyes.

Theta had sworn on her life. Tecteun had told her that she needed to swear on something that matters.

Tecteun had thought that Koschei was capable of murder, that he didn’t care about her. She’d also thought he was the perfect research assistant, until he’d reported her to the police.

Her mother had spoken of how they would save the world together. How Theta owed it to humanity, how they both owed it to humanity. Because when you have the opportunity to save this many lives, to learn this much, to do this much—you couldn’t let anything get in your way. Anything.

Carefully, Theta let her eyes open again. “You think I’ll be there to go to college?”

“I think you’ll do what’s right,” Tecteun whispered.

Theta’s heart went cold. “I was never meant to survive, was I?” She asked, wishing with all her might that her mother would contradict her. Tell her that of course she was; the operations and experiments might hurt, but they would end and they’d both be hailed as heroes. Together. And then they’d be happy. “Please, tell me, I was going to survive?”

Tecteun didn’t answer her. Tecteun didn’t lie.

Theta stared at the woman before her in horror. She’d always said that she cared about her. And maybe, maybe she did. Maybe her memory of the stars was genuine. Maybe Tecteun had loved Theta. But she hadn’t loved her enough not to hurt her and make her life a living hell. She hadn’t loved her enough to not deprive her of meals and lock her away and perform painful operations. She hadn’t loved her enough not to plot Theta’s murder, even as she talked of a bright future.

So, maybe Tecteun had cared about Theta. But she’d cared more about the greater good.

“Okay,” Theta said, her chin shaking but her voice deceptively calm. “I can’t pretend I don’t understand. Because I’m one girl, and it really could save millions. I can understand, and maybe I’d even make the same decision if I was sacrificing myself, and not some child that I—that I was supposed to protect.” With every word, a fire that had kindled itself somewhere in her gut began to grow in intensity. “Huh. I guess what it comes down to is this: You’re a lot of things, Tecteun. You’re a scientist. You’re a visionary. But…but you’re sure as hell not my mother.”

“You would have done the same,” Tecteun said.

“I hope I wouldn’t,” Theta told her, standing up. Her chair scraped across the floor. “I hope I wouldn’t, because I’m enough of a monster as it is. I don’t know what my decision would be. But you don’t get both. You don’t get to be doing what you have to do and be my mother. You chose, and you chose to hurt me. You chose to kill me. So, you’re not my mother, and you never were.”

She stared at Tecteun, and the woman stared back at her.

Eventually, Tecteun nodded. “You’re murdering millions, Theta. I don’t expect I’ll see you again.”

Theta wanted to argue with her, tell her that she could find answers another way, tell her that she hadn’t actually abandoned those she could help, tell her that she needed her mother, please be her mother. But instead, she just turned away and walked to the door. Ohila followed her silently.

Outside, the sky was sad and grey. The wind, unusually cold for a spring day, swept through Theta’s hair and made Ohila’s fly into her face. Before she could stop herself, Theta wrapped her arms around Ohila in a hug.

A warm arm held her close, and they stayed like that for a while. A teenage girl with short blonde hair in a blue-grey hoodie, face buried in her aunt’s chest as she refused to cry.

Chapter Text

It was Wednesday morning, and Theta was walking to the bus stop. She’d decided to forgo her hoodie today and instead borrowed one of Ohila’s bright red shirts. It reminded Theta a bit of blood, but the soft fabric was unusually comfortable.

Ohila had offered Theta the chance to stay home today as well, and “for as long as you need.” But Theta had insisted on going to school. She was going to wade through the sea of blue and wear red. Maybe her friends would too. But she would stand out. She would make a point, even if no one would notice it.

And Theta would be strong. She wouldn’t break down. She wouldn’t let the blue or the idiots take away her hope.

As she neared the bus stop, it occurred to Theta that O would probably be wearing blue too. Probably some blue button-up shirt, or something fancy-looking. Maybe even a puzzle piece pin. Perhaps he’d heard about autism. Perhaps he’d appear in one of the yearbook photos, wearing blue and grinning widely. Perhaps he knew Theta was autistic—it would be pretty hard not to, given that he knew she could have meltdowns or go nonverbal. Would he think he was supporting her? Would he think she should be treated?

The thought made Theta’s stomach sick. She knew O would be wearing blue. She knew he’d know exactly what he was supporting, that he’d have read the Autism Speaks website with its smiling children and have nodded along through the page about ABA. Conditioning? O would think it was funny.

She sat down on the curb and took the notebook out of her pocket. It was a deep orange-red, and the spine was also lined with the spiraling code. Flipping it to the inside cover, Theta began staring at the whorls and circles, tracing them with her finger.

When she became aware that someone was watching her, Theta jumped, shutting the book. She looked up to see O. And he wasn’t wearing blue.

In fact, he was wearing a dark red coat over a crimson button-up shirt, without a single puzzle piece in sight. He raised an eyebrow, and Theta realized that she was staring. She turned away, her cheeks slightly pink, and didn’t say a word to him.

When she got on the bus, she studiously avoided looking at anyone, all the way to school. Instead, she just stared at the circle code and tried to make sense of the patterns.

The bus was one of the first ones there, so Theta hopped off and walked to her first period class. O stayed several feet behind her, as if he was purposely trying to respect that she wanted a distance. Theta nearly laughed at that thought—O would never do that.

The teacher, Ms. Ingram, was always there early. Theta saw her sitting at her desk, wearing a long dress with red flowers. Tilting her head to the side in confusion, Theta sat down. Why wasn’t Ms. Ingram wearing blue? Well, perhaps it was some sort of feminist movement day—Ms. Ingram was one of the members of the Sisterhood of Karn.

Clara Oswald was the next to arrive, wearing a short red minidress that was definitely against the dress code. She took out her notebook and sat down in her seat. A minute later, Basil appeared in a red hoodie.

Theta looked at them in confusion. O might’ve been a coincidence, or perhaps he’d just decided on wearing red to be contrary. But Ms. Ingram, Clara Oswald, Basil…

“Thank you,” Basil said.

Theta turned to face him. “What?”

“Well, the thing was anonymous,” he said. “But it was obviously yours. Very dramatic. In a good way.”

“What?” Theta repeated.

“I don’t think they told her,” Clara whispered to Basil.

“What?” Theta asked again, annoyed.

“You’ll see,” Clara said. “Some people, uh, organized something.” She gestured to her red dress. Theta’s eyes nearly popped out of her sockets. Some people had organized something…that had to be her friends. And they must’ve used wording from the letters and cited her anonymously so that they didn’t claim credit.

Theta smiled. Sure, they seemed to have gone behind her back, but more in a surprise kind of way than a sneaky betrayal. And they hadn’t revealed that she was the one who had written all of that.

“Didn’t you know?” Basil asked. “I figured you must’ve been behind this.”

Clara sighed. “Basil and I were told people had gotten their heads out of their arses and were actually working to do Red Instead this year by Missy, who could only have gotten it from one source.”

Theta thought of the bus stop. “O.”

“Was that an oh, oh, or an O, O?” Basil asked.

“The latter. The former? I don’t know which was the letter. But, I mean, O, the person.”

“Yep,” Clara said.

“I didn’t…I wasn’t talking to him,” Theta said. “He must’ve been working with someone else. Or this is a prank or something.”

“Look,” Clara said, taking out her phone. She showed her text on some form of social media app.

Theta read it.

“Autism does not steal away children. Autism does not take away voices. Autism does not ruin lives. Autism is a form of neurodiversity. A different way of thought and a different form of brain. But not any lesser, and not broken.

It is wrong to allow Autism Speaks to poison the narrative about autism and drown out autistic people’s voices. Instead of listening to hate, listen to hope, and wear Red Instead on April 2nd.”

(Paraphrased from anon.)

I’m wearing red on April 2nd, because I don’t support anyone who sponsors a video in which a mom wants to drive her child off a bridge.

Theta recognized the words, taken from the second draft she’d sent Yaz. So, Yaz had been in on this, and somehow gotten O to help her.

“It’s been shared throughout the school,” Clara said. “That’s Amy Pond’s post.”

“Should I know her?” Theta and Basil asked in unison. Clara rolled her eyes. Another boy entered the room, wearing a red T-shirt.

“She’s very popular in your grade,” Clara said. “But, anyway, Basil and I were some of the—as Basil keeps calling it—third generation people. It started with your friends, I think, and O—that’s first gen. And then it got to the Masters and John and somehow slipped into the middle school too. Once it reached the third generation, it spread really fast. The whole school knows about it.”

“But not that you were involved,” Basil said quickly. “You were involved, right?”

Slowly, Theta nodded.

“You’re really good at writing dramatically,” Clara said. “Here, look.”

She showed Theta other posts, some by people she’d heard of and others by people she was certain she’d never met. A lot of them followed the same format as Amy’s, with Theta’s quote—or another quote from her drafts—at the top and then a message at the bottom.

I’m wearing red on April 2nd, because I don’t support a campaign of fear and hatred.

I’m wearing red on April 2nd, because I won’t anyone try to cure people of themselves. We’ve already tried that, and let me tell you, it’s cruel and it’s horrible, and it never works.

I’m wearing red on April 2nd, because Autism Speaks will never take away my hope that we can love everybody for who they are.

Theta smiled.

Theta stepped into a cafeteria filled with red. Not everyone was doing it, of course. A tenth of the people were wearing blue, and another tenth were wearing some random unrelated color. But eighty percent were dressed in red.

“Thank you,” she said when she got to her friends’ table.

“No problem,” Yaz said.

“It was kind of fun,” Ryan agreed.

“Felt like we were superheroes,” Graham told her.

“And everyone took to it surprisingly well,” Grace said. “They didn’t need much convincing.”

“I guess they felt like they were fighting the evil corporation,” Theta shrugged.

“Evil empire,” Ryan agreed.

“Internet jeedi.”

“It’s jedi, Graham,” Ryan said. “I swear, you’re, like, fifty years old, fake granddad.”

“Actually,” Theta said, wrinkling her nose, “that would be kind of unfortunate. You’re sixteen, right? That would budget in thirty-four years for the intermittent generations. So, divide by two and you get a maximum of seventeen years for Graham and Ryan’s parent each. That’s two parents, seventeen or younger.”

“Fine, sixty then,” Ryan agreed.

“Yeah, let’s make it sixty,” Grace said.

Theta laughed.

Everything wasn’t perfect, but it was good.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Hey! So, O wanted me to give him your email. He got really worried when you didn’t show up for school yesterday. Of course, I told him no. But I did agree to forward this message to you. I promise, I didn’t read it. He was really worried about that.

You don’t have to read it; you don’t owe him anything. But if you want to, it’s here.

Yaz

Theta stared at the email, considering it carefully. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to see what O had to say—no doubt, it was filled with his stupid mind games and lies. He just wanted to hurt her. But.

But O had been right. Theta didn’t know what she wanted to call what Tecteun had done to her. In fact, she’d ignored her every instinct as a scientist and tried not to think about it. Still, O had saved her life, and he’d been right that Tecteun was…well, less than ideal. Eventually, curiosity got the better of her, and she scrolled down to see what O had to say.

Dear Theta,

Thank you for reading this, Theta. I hope you really are okay, and I’m glad the Red Instead was successful. I have a lot I want to say, but I’ll admit, it’s kind of hard for me to make it into words, even for a genius.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes. Our fight in seventh grade (well, my seventh grade) was my fault; I pushed you away so that I could be cooler and hang out with Missy and Saxon. I saw you as a liability, when I never should’ve. I was an idiot. A very smart idiot, but an idiot.

When we were little, you would say things, things that I didn’t want to believe. And Torvic wasn’t exactly a good example of what was acceptable or not. I should’ve listened to you, and I should’ve known there was more than you were telling me. I was little, I was a kid. It’s not fair that a kid should’ve been responsible for all that, but I was, and I wish I’d acted differently. I’m sorry, and I messed up, and sometimes I f-ing hate myself for it. (I know you don’t like cursing, Theta, but surely you’ll agree it’s appropriate here.)

Living with Corsair taught me that things aren’t supposed to be like that, and I gradually began to realize you weren’t making things up or exaggerating. And then you were scared and I did some digging, and I found out that she was putting you in danger. So, I went to the police. I don’t regret how I handled that, just that I hadn’t done it sooner. I regret that you didn’t have my support and that you were on your own, and that it took so long. I know that telling is what you hate most about me, and you think I ruined your life, but I can never apologize for getting you away.

But I’ve looked back on our conversations and I realized I got in the habit of insulting you, basically every second of our conversations. I mean, you did it back. But it went beyond teasing, and I’m sorry for how I acted.

I can’t think of everything I’ve done, but if there’s anything else besides the incident in ninth grade (for which I am extremely sorry) you need an apology for, please, just tell me.

I’m not asking you to trust me. I wish we could be friends again, but I understand if there’s too much between us and we can’t. I want you to give me a chance. But you don’t have to.

My email address is [email protected]. You can talk to me in school or at the bus stop, or send me an email there. If you tell me you never want to speak to me again, I’ll try to follow that. I’m hoping you won’t.

Koschei

Theta read over the email twice, closed her computer, and then lay on her bed for a few minutes, eyes closed. After that, she got up and read through it again.

Okay. She could do this. But first, Theta procrastinated by taking out the notebook. She read through O’s calculations, trying to determine what precalculus problems he’d been working on. For two hours, she worked through each one, correcting the occasional errors she found along the way.

Then, she turned to the pages with the circles. She blinked. They were beautiful, forming an interconnected language across the page. The angles, the sizes—it was all important, all part of the intricate dance of words.

Eventually, she composed a reply.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Thank you for apologizing. You’re still a jerk.

The day you found out, I slipped and said too much because I was scared. We were building up to a big operation, and yesterday I just found out that it was one I wasn’t meant to survive.

You saved my life, so I guess we can call it even.

That means neither of us is in the other’s debt. I can’t ask you to pay me back by never talking to me again, because you already did.

You’re right that we can’t just be friends immediately, after all these years of hating each other. And you’re right that I can’t trust you right now.

But I was looking at your notebook, and I found some errors in your computations. I think I ought to show them to you, just to prove you wrong. We do share a bus stop, after all.

Your something,

Theta

PS: If you want, I’ll call you O. I’m sorry for calling you a name you didn’t feel like belonged to you.

Despair and wreck,

Stretch far away,

Lone and lifeless,

Boundless and bare,

Cold frown and cold sneer,

“Mighty” is lifeless and nothing.

Yet,

I met a traveler,

From boundless desert sand,

From a lifeless land.

I met a traveler,

Whose passions survive,

A sculptor of shattered dreams,

King of heart.

I met a traveler,

Who remains,

Whose legs stand well,

On lifeless desert sand.

And I said:

“Mighty.”

Theta stood at the bus stop, waiting. Her stomach felt slightly queasy in the way that could only mean she was nervous.

“Both is fine.” The voice was sudden, and Theta spun around to see O standing there. “I couldn’t stand my birth name for a while. It all came from Torvic. The last name, the first name. But my mom gave me my first name, and I can’t remember her to know if she was any good or not. So, that’s from her. And Oakdown is Corsair’s too.” He shrugged. “It’s still kind of weird when people call me that. Teachers, especially. You, though? It was my name when we were friends, so it’s okay. But O’s a nice name too.”

“O could get confusing, though,” Theta said. “Since it’s also an expression.”

“No, you see, whenever I shock someone, they’re saying my name,” O grinned.

“Okay, then,” Theta said. “I looked over your calculations—there’re several errors.”

“Well, of course there are,” he said. “Let me guess, I forgot to carry a one?”

“Nope! But you did multiply four times four and get twelve.”

“Ugh, that was momentarily stupid of me. Everyone knows that four times four is eight.”

Theta stared at him.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” He said.

“I thought so,” Theta agreed. She looked down at the grass, watching an ant crawl towards the sidewalk. “Your language—it almost reminds me of the bee dances.”

O considered this. “Yeah, it is kind of like that, I guess. Have you cracked it, yet?”

Theta shook her head. “I’m still considering it, you know?”

The bus appeared, driving down the street. “Tell me when you’ve got it. Or if you need a hint.”

“I don’t need a hint!” Theta protested.

“Okay, then,” O raised his arms in surrender. “You don’t need a hint. It took me years to make this, though. So, it should take you years to crack.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works,” Theta said as the school bus stopped in front of them. She climbed onto the bus, sitting down in her usual seat. O paused, as if he was considering sitting next to her. “I’d like to sit on my own,” Theta told him. They weren’t friends. Something in Theta wanted them to be friends, but she also couldn’t get everything he’d said—and everything she’d said, because she wasn’t exactly blameless—out of her mind.

“Okay,” he shrugged, moving to the back of the bus to sit with Missy.

Theta looked out the window as the doors of the bus closed, and watched as the houses began to speed by.

“Are we locking them in a closet?” Basil asked as he sat on the floor with Missy. They were in her room, which made Basil distinctly uncomfortable. There was something about Missy that just made it seem like everything meant everything, and Basil didn’t want to read this situation. But she’d told them that she needed to Plot something involving John and Saxon. “Because I’m pretty sure you promised there’d be no locking people in closets.”

“Relax,” Missy waved a hand. “We’re not locking anyone in closets. We’re just going to lock them in a room.”

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Basil said. That had been Missy’s plan before, and it had ended very poorly.

“Well, it’s not what we’re going to do right off the bat,” Missy told him, as if it was absolutely obvious. “There’re several steps before that. We need to make Harold feel bad for Miller and get him to apologize to her, preferably. And make him feel bad for, well, pretty much everything he’s done to John, which is quite a lot. We have to find out if John knows about his own feelings, and if not, get him to realize them. Now, both of them are idiots, so Harold won’t tell John that he feels bad and John won’t tell Harold that he likes him. Option one to solve this is to lock them in a room together.”

Basil wanted no part in this, so he started to get up. “It seems like you’ve got it under control, then” he said.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Missy said, pulling him back down to sit on the floor. “Option one would probably result in them fighting or murdering me.”

“That would be a relief,” Basil said. Missy found that hilarious, which had been the point. She always found casual murder threats amusing.

“So, I present option two, in which we get one of them into a fight against a group that they both hate, and then make sure the other sees it and rescues them.”

“I don’t think either would rescue the other,” Basil told her.

Missy shook her head. “Of course, they would. It would just have to be the right crowd. You know John would help Harold if it actually came down to it. But the main problem is that Harold has the emotional maturity of a rock and can’t express himself, and John thinks that Harold hates his guts, which he does, but it’s complicated. So, I need your ideas on getting John into a fight that Harold will have the courage to help him with. Voila, Harold makes it pretty clear he cares and John thinks he might not be that evil.”

Basil considered this. It was diabolical, but it seemed like it would make Harold and John stop fighting. Or at least fight less. Oh, who was he kidding, they’d probably fight more! “Who does Harold hate the most?” He asked.

“John,” Missy said.

“You said they like each other!” He protested.

“They do,” Missy told him. She sighed. “Do try to stay with me on this. They do like each other; they just also sort of hate each other. Like us before eleventh grade!”

Basil’s cheeks went pink. Had Missy implied that—

The best course of action was, of course, to pretend that he hadn’t heard that.

“Right, so who does Harold hate the second most?” Basil asked.

“Probably Rose; John dated her for a while. He thinks Martha is pathetic.”

“Someone that’s actually capable of beating up John,” Basil said.

“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?”

“We just need a common enemy,” Basil told her. “Rassilon is a principal…they have nothing in common. Their friends are each other’s enemies.”

“Okay, I’ve got an idea, but you’re not going to like it,” Missy said. “Harold and John both really hate the Monks.”

Basil wrinkled his nose. “But we hate them too.”

“Yes, well, I could probably set them on John, but…”

Basil shook his head. “No way. I’d rather locking them in a room.”

“We’ll call the Monks plan B,” Missy said.

“Not plan B,” Basil disagreed. “Plan Z. At most.”

“We don’t have plans B through Y, though,” Missy noted.

“Well,” Basil said. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. You’re quite the matchmaker.”

Missy shrugged. “I introduced you and Clara, didn’t I?”

“Oh—we, we aren’t together,” Basil told Missy. It seemed oddly important.

Missy smirked mischievously and Basil’s heart stuttered in response. “Good.”

She leant in and their lips met.

“I talked to Theta today,” O said over dinner. He had a general idea of where he was going with this conversation, but he had absolutely no idea how to get there naturally. It was necessary, though, that he try anyway. He didn’t want to make the same mistakes that he’d made fifty times over, not again. This was important, important enough that he’d clumsily navigate the awkward conversation.

“That’s great!” Corsair said enthusiastically. “Are you two friends again?”

“No,” O said. “But we’re talking.”

“I’m glad. She seems like a nice girl.”

O had the distinct impression that Corsair was implying something, but ignored it. “Yeah, she is. It’s hard. When we talked before—well, after we stopped being friends, but before about a week ago—we insulted each other constantly. But my insults were worse, and sometimes really bad.” O wasn’t in the habit of looking down or away from people when he was talking to them, so he continued to stare intently at Corsair’s face. “When I talked to her this morning, it was so hard not to just get angry or insult her or make fun of her, and she didn’t do anything at all. I was just so used to it.”

Corsair considered this. “It can be hard to break old habits. Hating is one of them. Cruelty is another—not that I’m saying your cruel.”

“I was, though,” O said.

“Okay, this conversation is getting very philosophical,” Corsair said. “I’m all for philosophy, but can I just finish my soup first? It’ll get cold, and then…” She trailed off. O sat patiently while his aunt sipped the rest of her soup. “Right, thanks. So, you apologized, right?”

“Yeah, but…I can’t apologize for telling the police. I can’t. She said it was alright, but I think she’s still upset with me, even though she understands why I had to. Theta doesn’t know she’s upset, but she still is, irrationally, except she should be upset at me for everything else. And she’s forgiven me for that way too easily. I’ve gotten her into fights with people before, and she got in trouble with Tecteun for them, and she doesn’t seem to even care about that. We’re not friends, but she seems too willing to just talk to me. It’s not right.” The second O began to speak, it all came spilling out. Normally, he’d be very worried. But Corsair was trustworthy, and a good listener.

“Well, she accepted your apology. And if you feel bad, there’s not going to be an easy solution. It doesn’t seem like Theta’s going to outline some sort of punishment that will make you feel like you’ve done enough for forgiveness. If she wants to forgive you, that’s her choice. And I know you feel like you’ve done more to her than the other way around—and yeah, that’s probably true. I’m being super honest here. But you also need to decide if you want to forgive her, because if you’re still being resentful…that’s not good. It’s better to just be okay with each other than be friends but you not forgiving her.”

And this was slightly back on topic. Or at least the topic O was trying to get to. “It’s not right that she’s so forgiving and good. She should hate the world for what it’s done to her. She should want to burn it all down. I would help her. But she doesn’t. It was just me she couldn’t forgive.”

“But she forgives you now.”

“Yeah, but for the wrong things,” O said. “It’s just not right. It doesn’t make sense,” he whispered.

Corsair shrugged. “That’s how things are, I guess. Most of them don’t make sense. Especially when it comes to people. But you seem like you’re still angry at her for hating you and not trusting that you were trying to help.”

O shook his head. Right. He could do this. “No, I’m just angry at everything in general. Not Theta. But I’m angry at Tecteun and I’m angry at her classmates and I’m angry at her aunt and I’m angry at everyone who’s hurt her. And it all ends up aimed at her anyway. There’s just too much and I can’t control it. Well, I take responsibility for it.” Not that he hadn’t shirked responsibility in the past, but he was trying to take it now. “It’s just that it’s hard to control it and there’s so much.”

Corsair just listened. She didn’t take the conversation forward to the next logical conclusion. So, O had to make that leap.

“Actually,” he said, as if he’d just incidentally remembered it and hadn’t literally begun this entire conversation just to get here. “I was thinking that it might be a good idea for me to talk to someone. About it. Just for a little bit, but—”

“Okay,” Corsair said. “That’s gonna be hard to schedule, but I can definitely figure something out. Is there anything that you need?” She asked.

O shook his head. He knew how this would go. She’d assume he was fine and he’d go up to his room and hit something for a while until it felt a bit less like he’d explode. Hitting things, unlike in books and movies, didn’t actually make him feel any better. It wasn’t satisfying in the way that bruised and split knuckles were when he punched a person who deserved it; he couldn’t feel it when he punched a pillow. But it kept his hands busy and gave him something to do until the pressure subsided.

Corsair didn’t speak for a while, and O was about to leave the table when she finally broke the silence. “It probably was really hard to say that. Who am I kidding? Of course, it was. I’m going to try to find someone. And, thank you, I guess. It’s really cool that you’re trying this hard to help yourself. And Theta, since she seems to play some role in this.”

“Well, I’m trying not to be a jerk.”

“Exactly,” Corsair said. She laughed. “It’s surprisingly hard. Do you want to rewatch Inspector Spacetime? The next season’s coming out soon.”

“I’ve got homework,” O told her. He did have some, but it wasn’t due for ages. This conversation was just getting a bit uncomfortable. Well, more than a bit.

“Okay,” Corsair said. “I suppose I’ve got work too. But if you want to watch it at a reasonable hour—that is, before nine thirty—just tell me, and I’ll boot it up. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Two weeks later, Theta sat in another therapist’s office. Dr. Tardis sat across from her. “Hello,” she said. “I know we already met, but I figured I’d just make sure—do you have a nickname you want me to use?”

Theta shook her head.

“Well, then, Theta. Where do you want to start?”

“I think that’s your decision,” Theta said. Ohila had let her quit going to Miss Foster, but not therapy in general. Because it was court mandated, and because Ohila felt like it was a good idea. Theta had looked up Dr. Tardis on Ace’s recommendation and suggested her, but that didn’t mean Theta wanted to be there.

“I have your case file, but I’d like to hear what happened from yourself. Do you want to start with Tecteun?”

“No,” Theta said honestly.

“That’s alright. We barely know each other, after all. How about this. You tell me something that’s happened to you recently. It can be important, or it can be small. When I opened my lunch today, I found out that the apple I packed had bugs in it. I went to a store to buy a new apple, but they were all out. I tried to find somewhere else, but I was running out of time. So, I returned with five minutes left in my lunch break, to find a big, red shiny apple on my desk. No worms or anything. Now, I thought this had to be poisoned, so I asked around. It turned out that one of my colleagues had realized what happened and given me his apple.”

“That’s nice,” Theta said.

“It was, wasn’t it? Now, your turn.”

Theta thought of a story. “Well, I do have one,” she said. “But it’s kind of long, and there’s B plots and C plots and stuff.”

“Long is good,” Dr. Tardis told her. “And I love a good B plot.”

“Well…I’m not really sure how to start. There isn’t exactly a beginning, is there?”

“Why don’t you divide it up. Think of some words to describe it, and tell me those. Like, chapters, sort of. They make it a whole lot easier to read long books.”

Theta narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “Is this some sort of therapy exercise?” She asked. “Making up words for a story?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Dr. Tardis said. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t even have to tell a story at all.”

“No, I can,” Theta said. “Okay. Er…”

Finding out about Autism Speaks and their search for a ‘cure.’ Treatment—ABA—antecedent, behavior, consequence. I am Autism. “Medicine.”

Pushing O to the ground. Miss Foster forcing her to say things she didn’t believe, then trying to give her candy. Miss Foster claiming that the Judge Rotenburg center was good for some people. This was harder, but Theta found a word. After all, they said people with autism were broken, sick. It was just… “Science.”

Solving problems while the rest of the team argued. Running out of the room, unable to breathe, and John finding her and just talking without judgement. The insanity that was the marshmallow tower. Mathematics seemed the obvious answer, but really, it was something else. Both social and physical. “Engineering.”

Throwing Pting and watching it land against the wall, eye cracked. Waiting on line at the fair and talking to her friends about Light It Up Red. Ace reappearing. Theta laughed. “Candy floss.”

Conversations with Missy that leaned too close to the truth. Aquenemies, no, frenemies. Finishing up the LEGOs while planning what she would say to Tecteun. “LEGO?”

Meeting with Tecteun (“swear it on something that matters”). Passing emails back and forth with Yaz to write her letter to the school board. “I’m not here.” “Philosophy.”

Losing chess to Missy. Saxon and Miller screaming at each other, and the strange conversations thereafter with the other teens and then Miss Foster. Frosty the Snowman. “Music.”

No reason not to do Light It Up Blue; Theta’s words don’t matter. A hand gripping her wrist. Sitting soaked in the Oakdowns’ bathroom, across from Corsair. “Problems.”

Talking with Ohila, for real. Yaz and Ryan and Graham and O working together, working to help. “You’re not my mother.” “People.”

“That’s nine, isn’t it?” Theta asked. “Those probably aren’t the best words for my story. Actually, those are awful descriptive words, now that I think about it. But they’re still there, like condensation nuclei. Those are the little bits of stuff rain forms around. They’re tiny, little pieces of dirt or bacteria, but they’re super important. Where was I?”

“You had nine words,” Dr. Tardis said.

“Right,” Theta said. “It’s what got me here, I suppose. Medicine, science, engineering, candy floss, LEGO, philosophy, medicine, problems, people…”

Coming into school to find all her classmates wearing red, rather than the blue of Autism Speaks, rather than a stormy sea. “We’re even now.” A conversation with Koschei where they both came out happy.

“Hope,” Theta decided. Then she shrugged, smiling. “Mostly hope.”