Archive of Our Own ^beta

Courtney doesn’t know why anyone’s making a big deal out of it. She’s fine. 

Really, she is.

(Billy says he can’t be around her anymore. He says the rest of the Justice Society thinks it’s a bad idea, and since Black Adam is gone, there’s no reason for him to stick around. He doesn’t listen when Courtney begs him to come back. Nobody ever listens to her. 

It’s not fair. He’s not really an adult. If he just told them that he was her age, everything would be okay. Nobody would be mad at him anymore, and they could be together like normal people even when he looked like Captain Marvel and not Billy Batson. It’s stupid and unfair and it makes her want to scream at Alan and Jay but that would just get her grounded again.

Courtney isn’t completely sure how they figured it out but got it so wrong at the same time. They tried really hard to keep it a secret. They only ever kissed once while he was Captain Marvel, and that wasn’t in front of anybody. He’d been so tall that he’d had to bend to kiss her and she’d pulled on the clasps of his cape for support. It had felt a little weird, but he was really her age, and she’s probably done growing so she’s an adult size, and that made it funny. 

It’s just not fair. Even if he really was an adult, they could just wait until her birthday. When she’s seventeen she’ll be over the age of consent in New York. She checked so she could tell Billy about it. They could just pretend to be just friends again for another half of a year, and then nobody would be able to stop them. Jay’s not her dad, and he’s not Billy’s, either. He can’t tell either of them what to do.)

They haven’t asked about it in a while, and they’re making an effort to pretend they think things are normal, but Courtney’s not fooled. They’ve been treating her with kid gloves the whole time. All of them. Her family. The team. She didn’t tell Mary more about it than she had to know so she’d stop pestering her, one of the first times Courtney’s deliberately kept something a secret from her, but she still keeps looking at Courtney with something weird on her face when she thinks Courtney can’t see her. 

It’s so stupid. Nobody has to be doing any of the things they’re doing. The team has basically completely rearranged itself so she’s never alone with… him. With Al. They barely even let her see him. Last time Maxine had invited her to come upstairs with them so they could paint each other’s nails the second Al stepped through the door even though Courtney knows they can’t stand the chemical smell of nail polish. The time before that, Nate had loudly asked if Al wanted to help him uproot some trees from the fence line and replant them somewhere else so the hornet’s nest in the branches of one of them wouldn’t be so close to the main base. They never let him and Courtney speak a word to each other.

Home is weird, too. Her mom only ever asks about Maxine and Jakeem even though she used to ask about everyone—Courtney has to keep reminding her that she hasn’t seen Jakeem in person in weeks (which is probably the only thing keeping their relationship blissfully normal when they play online multiplayers together over the weekends). Pat keeps shrinking down whenever he sees her like he thinks he’s scaring her by standing at 6’5” even though it’s nowhere close to 7’6” and she wouldn’t be scared anyway. It’s dumb.

Al probably thinks it’s dumb, too. He’s clearly been avoiding her as much as the team is making her avoid him, so she hasn’t talked to him directly in awhile, but she’s seen him chatting with Rick, fixing up that stupid motorcycle Grant rescued off the side of the road and has decided to fall in love with, trying to hold a conversation with Maxine… All while acting just fine. Which is a good thing. Courtney doesn’t want him to feel bad. As far as she’s concerned, he’s the only one who got hurt in all of this. He deserves to feel safe for once.

So they’re both fine. Sure, she’s been idly scratching her arms and checking outside her window every so often. But that’s just the normal jitters that you get when you’re a superhero and know threats can come at any moment. She’s sure she’s done that in the past—maybe when they first got back from the 50s? Or after the really big crisis, when the Shade came to tell her about her dad? Or when Al had been—had been—with all the blood in the Kahndaq dirt—yes, she’d definitely done it then. She’d just forgotten about it until now. She’s sure every superhero gets like that sometimes, even if they show it in different ways.

It’s more stress than the situation is worth, in Courtney’s opinion. That’s why she’s fine. Because any lingering effects are stupid. Al’s the one who’s hurt. He’s the one who deserves attention. She just got her heart broken because she was stupid, that’s all. It’s nothing to be upset about. She doesn’t have anyone to blame but herself.

(“Do you know why they’re acting so weird?” Courtney asks, swinging her legs where she’s perched on the cosmic rod. Her stomach churns. “Do you think they’re thinking about kicking me off the team because of what happened to HQ?”

“No chance, Stars,” Karen says. “You’re stuck with them for the long haul.” She’s noticed it too, though. Mostly Mister Terrific and Mid-nite. Figures the two of them would be in on whatever it is. And since she’s making an effort to be nicer to the younger team members… “Do you want me to talk to them?”

Courtney nods, chewing her lip. She knows she shouldn’t be worried about them kicking her off the team. Technically, she’s been on it longer than half the current members. They wouldn’t get rid of her… they wouldn’t. Would they?

When Karen comes back, she’s sighing. “They’re just being idiots,” she says. “Someone told Terrific something that wasn’t any of his business, and then he told Mid-nite because he thought he had to talk it out even though anyone with a brain would’ve forgotten about it and moved on.”

“That doesn’t sound like him,” Courtney says. Since when is Terrific an idiot? He’s read, like, every single required reading novel she’s asked him to help her write a book report on. “What was it? Was it about me?”

“Yeah,” Karen says. She rubs her knuckles. Punching a wall hadn’t been a very diplomatic way of proving her point. But that was the kid’s business, not theirs. “But it was private, and I made sure he forgot.”

Courtney squints at her. “...Okay.”)

It’s a Saturday when Courtney hears the door downstairs open and close lightly enough that she knows it’s not Mike. Her mom just left to take Tricia to some toddler development community thing where they play instruments or something and Mary’s out of town visiting her grandma, so it’s probably Pat. Maybe he went to the grocery store without telling her. If she sneaks down now she might be able to nab something without being asked to help him put everything away.

There’s someone coming up the stairs toward her room, though, so she’s not going to get that lucky. She groans and burrows deeper into the coziness of her blankets. It’s early. Maybe if she pretends to be asleep…

The knock on her bedroom door isn’t pounding and it’s not followed by Maxine coming right in, which means it’s definitely Pat outside. “Court?” He says. “I just heard you, I know you’re awake. There’s someone here to see you. Can I open the door?”

Courtney freezes. Okay, the excuse isn’t going to work, but… someone’s here? It’s not Mary or Maxine for all aforementioned reasons. Johnny could get Jakeem here in a second, and it’s not like his aunt would notice he was gone, but he’d probably just yell up to her window for her to let him in. Still, though… Maybe it’s him. If it’s not, it’s gotta be some other current or former teammate, right? She doesn’t really have friends outside of that.  

She knows it… It wouldn’t be Al. It wouldn’t be. Pat wouldn’t let him inside. He wouldn’t let him see her. As much as she’s told him that it isn’t Al’s fault and that she’s fine seeing him at “work,” she knows him and her mom are still pissed. Her mom wanted to press charges even though Courtney told her it wasn’t fair to try to punish Al for something that he didn’t do, until Pat said there weren’t really any charges they could press that’d cover this kind of thing. He’d probably run him out of town in STRIPE if he tried to visit.

“Sure,” she calls after a second. Anxiety that she knows is irrational jumps around in her chest like Max’s monkey. Some supervillain wouldn’t bother pretending to be Pat, they’d just shoot the door down and kill her or something. They’ve tried it before. A few times, actually. That thought is not particularly reassuring once it’s had time to settle in her head. “Just open it.”

The door opens and Courtney scrambles to sit up when she sees who Pat’s with. All the tension is gone in a second. For once, everything is fine. “Hey!”

Jack narrows his eyes at her, pretending he isn’t smiling. “I heard some punk kid broke my cosmic rod.”

Courtney sticks her tongue out at him. “Your cosmic rod? I thought I took it from some old guy who didn’t want it anymore.”

Jack grimaces and clutches his chest. “Hey, I’m younger than your sidekick.”

“Everyone’s younger than Pat,” Courtney dismisses, rolling her eyes for dramatic effect. She hops off the bed. It’s gotta be something serious if he’s in town, right? He’d be way more freaked out if something had happened to his kids, so it can’t be that. Maybe there’s a mission they have to go on. Something big enough to bring him out of retirement. “He’s, like, a million years old.”

“Thank you,” Pat says, flat. He steps back so he won’t block the doorway. It’s so weird watching him try not to intimidate her. Even if he wasn’t Pat, if he did anything to hurt her she could just… jump out the window, or something. (Maybe it’s not a good sign that she’s already thought of what she’ll do if he does.) “Have fun. Don’t let her get into trouble. Courtney, if anything happens—”

“Call you, I know.” She bounces a little in place. She doesn’t think anyone could’ve told Jack what happened, so he won’t be following her around treating her like she’s made of glass the way the team sometimes does now. He’s not going to be like Rick, standing by her side whenever they get into a serious brawl with some villains and making sure they don’t come near her, or like Power Girl, who keeps benching her on training sessions even though all her bruises have long since healed. “Where’re we going?”

“Just for a walk,” Jack says, glancing at Pat. Courtney’s hopes of this being fun take a nosedive. At least Jack’s cool to hang out with even if they get on each other’s nerves. She can probably convince him that everything that happened is no big deal.

“What did he tell you?” She asks as she pushes her way past them, already dreading the answer.

“Actually, your mom called me,” Jack says. He shrugs at the surprised look on her face. “I think he gave her my number.”

“Then what did she tell you?” Courtney asks over her shoulder as she goes down the stairs and grabs her ear buds. Now she’s just annoyed. Everyone keeps making such a big deal out of it. Nothing happened. How many times has she told someone—whether it’s her mom or Pat or Power Girl or Rick or Maxine—that she’s fine, and how many times have they refused to believe her? Thank god her mom doesn’t know she's still vomiting, otherwise she might have chained her door shut.

Jack looks around and shoves his hands into his pockets with another shrug. “I’ll tell you when we get outside.”

Courtney eyes him suspiciously but obediently opens the door and steps out onto the porch. Jack’s rational, though. He’s not going to blow this out of proportion. Their relationship isn't… Courtney’s pretty sure they’re friends by now. He gave her the staff and his other stuff. He doesn’t hate her, or anything. They used to argue, but it didn’t seem to her like it was more than she did with everyone else in the big leagues of the Justice Society. But they’re not best friends or anything. She doesn’t talk to him every day. This is the first time she’s seen him in at least five months, maybe longer. He probably doesn’t know anything about Al—well, anything other than what he knew when he quit. 

“I promise it’s not as bad as however she made it sound,” she says. For some reason she can’t make the smile happen as naturally as she wants it to. “Please don’t try to mentor me about it.”

“She mostly just said you got kidnapped not that long ago,” Jack says. He runs his fingers through his hair, shrugging again. “Trust me, you’re safe from being mentored. Everybody gets kidnapped sometimes.”

Relieved, Courtney can’t help but laugh. She doesn’t have to talk about anything with him. This is perfect. “I was barely kidnapped,” she says. “I got out right away, and then nothing all that bad happened before I got sent to another dimension. And then I escaped back to this one. I was only gone for a few days. My mom’s freaking out about nothing. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Huh,” Jack says, picking a certain direction and walking toward the corner. Courtney chases after him. “What other dimension did you go to?”

(“I wish I hadn’t said it,” Al says. Courtney holds her breath, tucked up close to the ceiling with the rod’s glow completely dimmed. “I know what they think—what they don’t want the public to think—but Courtney’s my friend.”

“But you get why they told you to do it, right?” Nate asks. There’s a heavy thud that probably comes from Al getting his legs knocked out from under him. Nate isn’t exactly nimble, but with his size he’s one of the only people Al can comfortably spar with. “I need to make sure you know why.”

“Of course I know why,” Al says. There’s a clang. Him throwing Nate. “Like I said, I know what they think. Any impropriety while I’m still basically on probation—”

“No, they told you to do it because they care about Stargirl,” Nate says. “Because she’s a kid. She just turned seventeen.”

Courtney has to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Nate is nice, but he’s so overprotective of all of them. It’s clear he’d be happier permanently off the Justice Society, and it’s no secret that part of why he’s still around is because of her, Jakeem, Jen, Grant, and probably Tommy and Maxine, too. But she’s not really a kid. She’s been fighting alongside adults for three whole years. They consider her a core member of the team. She has her own seat at the big table and everything.

“I know,” Al says, a bit labored. “I don’t see her… like that. Not at all. She’s like a little sister to me—she has been from the first day I met her, really. Even when I was… you know, in Kahndaq with Teth, I couldn’t stop thinking about what she would think of me if she saw what I was doing. I know she’s a kid, but she’s a good friend. And she is mature for her age. That’s why she’s so easy to talk to.”

Courtney can’t help but puff her chest out in pride. She’s heard enough. It really was just because the big guys made him tell her they couldn’t be together. Al likes her. They just need to wait a year. It isn’t like with Billy, where things just hadn’t worked out. Everything is going to be okay. Things will work out just fine for her. And Al. Together.)

“The Subtle Realms,” she says. Saying the name doesn’t make her shiver or anything. It just makes her stomach feel funny. Obviously, that’s totally normal, too. “It’s weird there. All rotten smelling, and it feels like walking on a giant’s acne.”

“Thanks for the mental image,” Jack says dryly. “How are things with the JSA?”

Courtney opens her mouth to give the traditional answer (“The same, mostly.”) before remembering that Jack probably knows they split into two teams. She doesn’t think anyone on the team was particularly close with him when he left, but by now the news has reported plenty about the fissure, so even if nobody told him personally he has to know. “I’m not sure,” she says. “I could ask Jakeem. He stayed with them.”

Jack asks her more specific questions as they walk— How’s Alan? How’s Jay? How’s the new headquarters? Is Magog’s stick as shoved up his ass in real life as it is on TV? Courtney answers all of them to the best of her ability, relaxing more and more as they go—Fine, I think, but he’s stressed because Todd’s getting married. Also fine. It’s kind of dusty, but you shouldn’t tell either Hourman I said that. He’s worse in real life. Talking with Jack is nice. She’s older than she was last time she spoke to him, even if admittedly not by much. She certainly feels more mature, although the lack of conflict may have something to do with the fact that the fate of the world isn’t hanging in the balance and emotions aren’t running particularly high. 

Plus, like the last few times she’s seen him, she knows he likes her enough to have given her his staff even though it’s all he had left of his father. He trusted her with that. She kind of has to like him.

“Are we going anywhere?” She asks when they’ve got down the twentieth block without turning around, which conveniently gets her out of answering Jack’s question about just how long she’d gotten stuck in the Subtle Realms for. 

He checks a street sign. “Six more blocks, I think.”

That’s after they’ll actually get into town, then. Maybe they’re getting breakfast. She wouldn’t say no. Maybe she can wheedle her way into getting him to buy her a chocolate croissant or something. 

Before she can open her mouth to ask, Jack stops her on the corner by putting a hand on her shoulder. “Kid, when we get there, we’re going to make a deal.”

Courtney can hear the way he says the capital letter in front of “Kid.” She ducks away from his hand and pretends it’s because she’s embarrassed and not because it makes her heart do a jackknife. “Hey, you’re the whole reason I’m not the Star-Spangled Kid anymore, remember?”

“Old habit,” he says, yanking his hand back the second she pulls away. “But I’m serious.”

“Serious about what?” She jumps off the curb and pretends that the reason she darts across the street is impatience.

“Nothing over three hundred dollars without a tip because that’s about how much cash I brought,” he says as he crosses the street like that isn’t an insane statement, “and you let me get a head start on the way out of town so your dad doesn’t break all of my bones and destroy my car. That’s the deal.”

Courtney squints at him. There’s not a lot that would make Pat do that. As far as she knows, he’s been getting along with Jack pretty well, although she’s sure if they had to be around each other for extended periods of time they’d drive each other insane. He at least respects Jack enough to let him into the house. And that's a lot of money. So what—oh. “Oh my god.”

“Yeah,” Jack says. He grins at the look on her face. “I told your mom, if that helps. She had to give written permission since you’re still seventeen. Think of it as a late birthday present from me.” 

Courtney bounces on the balls of her feet and barely has time to get out a quick “Meet you there!” before she tears off down the block toward the tattoo and piercing parlor that’s basically exactly six blocks away.

Maybe people thinking things are more wrong than they are isn’t so bad if she gets her first tattoo (for free!) out of it. 

(“I never fully realized how beautiful you are,” Al says. His shy smile makes everything inside of Courtney light up—the first nice emotion she’s felt since the maw of the Subtle Realms opened up. It’s almost intoxicating. He wraps a finger around a lock of her hair. “Your eyes, your hair. All of you is beautiful even in an ugly place like this.”

“I look terrible,” Courtney says, scuffing the ground with her boot. “I haven’t showered since before we got here, and…”

“You’re still beautiful,” Al says. He takes her hands, rubbing his thumbs across her knuckles. He’s so big. Captain Marvel had just been tall. Every part of Al is huge. But he’d been so gentle when he’d bandaged her scrapes with strips of fabric repurposed from his suit. “I promise, I’m going to get you out of here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Courtney shakes her head. “Down here—or up here, or wherever we are, we’re equals. We both protect each other.”

Al smiles wider, a fond expression on his face. “Right. Equals. You’re so mature, Star.”

Courtney remembers the conversation she’d overheard not so long ago and beams. “I know.”)

Jack either moves way slower than usual or Courtney’s going faster than the Flash, because she has time to run back and forth across the street ten or eleven times before he catches up to her. His smile is still there when he catches up. She’s pretty sure there’s more laugh lines around his eyes than there were the last time she saw him, but that doesn’t matter much.

Courtney’s been planning this for forever, she just didn’t think it’d happen so soon. On her birthday, she and Maxine made secret plans to get navel piercings together, and she already knows she wants more lobe piercings and cartilage ones and basically anything else that can fit in her ear plus something for her nose and at least one of her eyebrows. Of course tattoos were part of the plan. But they weren’t like ear piercings—her mom got Courtney’s ears pierced before Courtney could walk, because that’s what her mom’s mom had done, and there are photos of her from when she was three with tiny little beads hanging from her ears. Tattoos were different. Just because her mom had gone for those…

There’s a sign about their weekend flash sale in the window. Courtney keeps bouncing as Jack crosses the street. “Come on!”

“I’m coming,” he says, waving for her to go inside. “Old people don’t walk fast.”

“I was joking, you aren’t actually old!” She darts a quick circle around him, trying to shoo him along. She feels like she’s bursting with static electricity, about to start firing off shooting stars despite not having the staff or her belt. She hasn’t had this much energy since… Since everything.

She’s never actually been inside the tattoo parlor before. She’s coveted from the outside, sure, but the building is entirely unfamiliar. It still somehow feels homey, with the walls covered in plants and the various people taking advantage of the sale. It smells a little more like a doctor’s office than she’d been anticipating, but that was okay.

Jack looks frustratingly at home when he comes in, the almost searingly pink flamingos on his shirt matching the floral wallpaper surprisingly well. Courtney hates it when he actually looks cool. He chats up the guy sitting by the front, who zeroes in on the black ink creeping out from under Jack’s cuffed sleeve. At least it leaves Courtney free to flip through the flash design book in peace. 

They’ve got a pretty wide selection for walk-ins, much to her delight. But as soon as she touches the laminated pages, all the ideas she’s had since she was thirteen and begging her mom to please just let her get one little tattoo vanish. They’ve got some nice little birds, swallows or something, that would look so cute on her collarbone, and she deliberates between those and a little star made out of smaller stars just because they look like they’d get her in and out the fastest. Nothing’s solid until the last page.

She grins. Yeah, that’s the one. Jack’s gonna get such a kick out of this.

(“It’s all your fault,” Courtney hisses once she’s dragged Jakeem by the arm into the hallway. He has the gall to look offended and confused.

“How’s it my fault?” He says defensively. “Captain Marvel was the one being a creep.”

“He’s not a creep!” Courtney tries not to stomp her foot. She’s sixteen, not a toddler throwing a tantrum. But it’s so unfair. Jakeem should’ve just minded his own business. “Jay told me you’re the one who wanted them to scare him away from me even though he hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“He was being weird. And Johnny agrees with me,” Jakeem says, tapping the pen against the palm of his hand. It crackles a little when he says Johnny’s name. Courtney thinks murderous thoughts toward the both of them in the hope that she can explode the pen with her mind. Like Johnny agreeing makes it any better. What does a genie, even one fused with another genie and a human, know about human relationships?

“I don’t care!” Courtney clenches her fists. “You shouldn’t have said anything. What, were you jealous of him or something?”

Jakeem bristles. “No!”

“Kids?”

Courtney turns around to give whoever said that a piece of her mind, but she deflates at the stern expression on Alan’s face as he looms before them.

“Whatever this is about, stop fighting,” he says. “We’re leaving for Portsmouth in five minutes. The two of you need to get along while we’re gone.”)

“Hey!” Courtney waves Jack over. 

He does the dumb dad jog across the three feet it takes for him to get to her. Courtney wonders if all men learn how to do that the second they have a kid—she’s never seen him do it before, and he has Teddy and Dana now, so it must come with the territory. 

“You can do it right now with no numbing or in an hour and a half if you want some gel beforehand,” he says. “It only takes half an hour to kick in, but they’ve got a guy who’s about to go on lunch—”

“Now,” she says immediately, bouncing again. She lifts the binder and finds it to be shockingly heavy. “This is what I want.” 

Jack does, in fact, laugh when he sees it. “You’re sure? I thought you were going to go for a little shooting star.”

Courtney smiles wider, surprised he remembers that little conversation from years ago. “Next time. This first.”

“Fine, but remember, I’m not paying for your second one.” Jack steps away again. Courtney lets him handle things, looking through the binder again. Now that she’s decided, it’s easier to think about what the third one will be. She’s got babysitting money stashed away and the parlor is within walking distance. If her mom was okay with it once she’ll probably be okay with it twice…

The artist is a woman with three piercings in her nose alone, muscles like Power Girl’s, and a smile that somehow reminds Courtney of Black Canary’s. She tenses up when Courtney asks if she can make a tiny modification, then relaxes again when Courtney says it’s just a little rotation by maybe fifteen degrees. She even says Courtney’s choice of location—on her upper left arm close to her shoulder—is perfect for a first tattoo. Courtney doesn’t even bother trying not to feel impressed with herself.

This is the best birthday present ever.

(“Just leave me alone, okay?” Courtney says. Her throat feels tight and she rubs her eyes to try to push the tears away. “Go work on your image.”

He doesn’t see her as a sister. She knows he doesn’t. He’s nicer to her than he is to anyone else. They joined the Justice Society at the same time. They’ve been through so much together. She knows how he feels toward her, and it’s not brotherly. It’s not fair that Jay—and Alan and Ted, probably—can keep messing with her life. She knows it must’ve been them. Al wouldn’t say something like that to her of his own free will. He wouldn’t lie to her.

She’ll… She’ll pretend she believes him. That might make it easier. But she’ll be listening in. She knows the truth. Al doesn’t think about her as a sister any more than she thinks of him as a brother.)

“I have something to admit,” Jack says as the stencil is applied on Courtney’s skin. She’s glad she wore a tank top today. “Your mom kind of forced me into coming here. She’s really got on my case about not checking in on you.”

“That’s not fair,” Courtney objects. “She knows you’re not even on the team anymore, and even when you were, it’s not like… I mean…” 

What she wants to say is that she wasn’t Stargirl then, so she wasn’t his responsibility, but the artist hasn’t put the headphones she’s wearing around her neck on yet. Jack never had a secret identity, and hers is almost worryingly loose, but old habits die hard. 

“She sounded mad at your stepdad, too,” Jack says. He shrugs a little. “I get it. She didn’t sign up for any of this shit.”

“She shouldn’t be mad at anyone,” Courtney says. The tattoo artist puts her headphones on and Courtney breathes a sigh of relief. “I was the one who messed up.”

“It takes at least two to get kidnapped,” Jack says. “Doesn’t sound like your fault to me.”

“Yeah, well, you weren’t there. I was stupid enough to get caught and stupid enough to fall for…” Courtney shakes her head. She’s suddenly itching to give herself a haircut. “It doesn’t matter.”

He relaxes into the chair. He’s probably the only person who could look comfortable in it. It’s annoying. “Fine, so maybe it is your fault. Who cares? Not to pull the seniority card, but if it’s a bunch of people who have been capes for half as long as you, tell them I still don’t have my act together and I’m retired.”

Courtney scrutinizes him. “You really don’t know what happened?”

He shakes his head. Somehow, that does what her whole family and their little splinter faction of the Justice Society hadn’t. Just a small act of indifference opens up the box she’s been trying to keep shut for weeks. 

“Promise not to laugh,” Courtney says. She braces herself both for the physical pain and the humiliation to come, taking a deep breath when Jack’s nod happens at the same time the tattoo starts.

(“Dad! Courtney’s trying to kill me!” Mike struggles underneath her. 

“Not kill,” Courtney says, pulling back to punch him. “Just horribly maim beyond recogniti—ow!” She reels back, strike abandoned as she yanks her other thumb out of Mike’s mouth. “Hey! Mom, Mike bit me!”

“Stop it!” Pat physically picks her up, easily separating the two of them. Courtney manages to get one last good kick in before he plants himself between them to shield her from retaliation and protect Mike from further attack. “Mike, don’t bite your sister. Courtney, don’t maim your brother. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know!” Mike says, scrambling back. “She just came in and started hitting me!”

“You know exactly why I hit you,” Courtney seethes. “Mary told me she was looking for Stargirl things online and found a bunch of my stuff up for sale, and you said you were going to steal my clothes and—”

“Mike, what did you do?” Pat demands, fully turning to face him.

“Nothing! Why are you always on her side?” Mike snaps right back. “You can check! I don’t even have my own computer! For all you know maybe Mary’s the one who—”

“Both of you, stop fighting,” Pat says. “Courtney, what kind of stuff did Mary see, and where was it for sale? Are you sure it’s yours?”

“You know, stuff.” Courtney can feel her cheeks burning with humiliation. Pat doesn’t know anything. He should’ve just let her kill Mike and bury his body in the backyard in peace. “I don’t know if it’s actually mine, but they were saying it was!”)

“It’s just embarrassing,” she says. “It’s not even—I mean, first I got caught and tied up in this stupid dark warehouse, right? Total cliché. And after that, everyone was super nice and didn’t blame me for what happened except maybe Magog but I don’t like him anyway, and… I was scared once everything started to get sucked into the Subtle Realms, and once I had to give myself up to make it stop, but anyone would feel like that, wouldn’t they?”

“Sure,” Jack says, because it sounds like she’s looking for validation and this will be good practice for when his kids are old enough to have opinions on things beyond what food they like best.

“But then Al was there,” Courtney says. She can hear how pathetic she sounds and it grates on her own ears. “Or at least I thought it was Al. Um, ‘Atom Smasher’ Al, I mean.”

Jack realizes he really needs to keep up with the news. Last he heard, the guy was still in prison. Now he’s apparently getting sucked into other dimensions. “That’s… good?”

Courtney’s miserable expression is at odds with her nod. “I was so excited not to be alone,” she says. “He said he thought he could get us both out of there. He was so nice to me.”

Jack remembers that Atom Smasher had been friends with Courtney back in the early days of the Justice Society’s reformation, before Jack had quit and reporters had started talking about Atom Smasher running off to another country to get married to Black Adam. He’d been the first one to really warm up to her beyond Jack’s dad, he’s pretty sure. Definitely faster than Jack had. He opens his mouth to tell her that he remembers the two of them were close, but she keeps going.

“He was so nice,” she repeats. “And he was protecting me. He said if I stayed with him he could show me how to get out. I trusted him.”

(“What does Johnny Sorrow want from me?” Courtney asks gloomily, kicking at the floor.

Rick squeezes her shoulders. “I don’t know. But whatever freakishly inappropriate thing it is, he’s not gonna get it.”

Courtney hates when she actually has to feel appreciative toward one of the guys on the team being so protective of her. She’s not very close with Rick, not even in comparison to the other kids on the team—that’s definitely Grant and Jakeem’s place. Places. Whatever. She’s not a baby, and Rick doesn’t need to treat her like one, but—

Her skin is still crawling from hearing what Sorrow said about her. Just this once, she’s okay with the defensive streak.)

“What happened?” Jack’s getting a weird feeling.

“It wasn’t him,” Courtney says, looking away and pretending to study the leaves of a nearby plant. “It was Johnny Sorrow. I should’ve been able to tell. I was so stupid. The real Al wouldn’t’ve ever—he told me ages ago that he didn’t like me. But I thought—”

“Oh.” Oh, shit. Shit. No wonder the kid’s mom was so freaked out. He checks to make sure the artist still has her headphones on. What the hell is he supposed to do in this situation?

“I was just being stupid,” Courtney says. “It’s my fault for falling for it. I was the idiot that kissed him. Everybody’s mad at Al, but he didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Johnny Sorrow kissed you?” Jack parses.

“I kissed him,” Courtney says. She sounds like she’s agreeing, but… that’s not what Jack asked. Not quite. “I thought he was Al. He looked and sounded like him. I—”

She takes a few deep breaths, trying not to move and jostle the tattoo gun. God, Jack is terrible at this. Why the hell did her mom want him here? Courtney’s not the same pain in the ass she used to be, and they’re definitely friends now, but he barely knows how to talk to teenage girls. Especially not teenage girls who just went to another dimension and came back traumatized. 

“It’s not your fault,” he says, adjusting his sleeves. There’s a sudden faint chill in the parlor. He can faintly taste salt.

“Al didn’t do anything wrong,” Courtney reiterates. Jack has no doubt that she’d be waving her hands around if one arm wasn’t occupied. 

“Well, yeah,” Jack says. As far as he can tell, Atom Smasher is an innocent party in all this. Or at least as innocent as a guy convicted of treason can be. “But Johnny Sorrow did.”

Courtney blinks at him. Her throat feels tight. 

Her parents have said it’s not her fault. Over and over again. But they’ve been blaming Al no matter how much it’s not his fault, either. Sure, doesn’t really feel like everyone on the team has, because they all know—they all know he wouldn’t… 

Hey, what do they know? That he wouldn’t, what, kiss her? They’re not that far apart in age. He’s only twenty-six. Seventeen is only nine years younger than that, and it’s basically an adult. And Al’s always… he’s always been nice to her and treated her like an adult even when other members of the Justice Society haven’t. Even if he had kissed her, it’d be okay. Seeing him now may make her gut churn but that’s not his fault.

It’s exactly the same as when everyone had been mad at Billy. That hadn’t been fair, either. He was her age, even if he didn’t always look like it. And they hadn’t even done anything! They’d kissed and they’d gone out on dates and everything but—

(“Courtney, I know you miss Captain Marvel, but I think it was for the best that he left the team,” Jay says.

“What do you know? You hated him.” Courtney glares, hugging her knees to her chest. Hawkman had better not try to start something with her about sitting on the table.

Jay shakes his head, clearly taken aback. “No, I didn’t. He’s a good hero and a good man. But with you—and Jakeem—on the team—”

“If you really thought he was dangerous, or—or going to hurt me, or something, you wouldn’t have kicked him off the team, you would’ve arrested him,” Courtney says crossly. She knows she’s right by the way Jay actually leans back.)

“You know that, right?” Jack says when she doesn’t say anything, hoping he’s doing the right thing by pressing. 

“You don’t,” Courtney says finally. “I should’ve known it wasn’t Al. I just… I wanted it to be him so bad. I didn’t want to be alone in there.”

Jack really wants to run back to Courtney’s house, grab his—her cosmic rod, and find out exactly where Johnny Sorrow is right now. “Getting kissed by some hundred-year-old creep isn’t a punishment for not knowing it was a hundred-year-old creep.”

“Well, it sure feels like it,” Courtney says. “It’s not like we—”

She cuts herself off.

(“Are you okay?” Al asks, cradling her against his chest. The sky is dusky above them, like the sunlight is being filtered through a distant wildfire.

“Yeah.” Courtney could kiss him right now, if she wanted to. She could try to make one good thing happen in the Subtle Realms. The only good thing. She could kiss him. She could do more with him. A mature woman wouldn’t think about it like that, though. A mature woman would take initiative. But she’s never done that before… Done anything before. She settles for just looking up at him. “I’m okay.”)

Once again, Jack thinks about how he has no idea what he’s doing. Why the fuck couldn’t Courtney’s mom do this? He doesn’t know her at all, but wouldn’t she be better at this? 

“He didn’t actually do anything,” she says. “So it’s whatever.”

“...I don’t think it is,” Jack says. 

Courtney’s starting to be able to feel the tattoo gun’s pain again. “Well, I do.”

“No, you don’t,” Jack says, even though it’s definitely the wrong thing to say.

Courtney’s guilty expression is all the confirmation he needs. Jack tries very hard not to feel pity. Not because he doesn’t feel bad, but because she’d fry him and anyone else who thought she was a little girl who got hurt. She’s proud. She’s like him in that way. It’s part of why they didn’t get along. She wants to be okay, and maybe if she pretends it is okay for long enough, things will work out. Just like him after his father’s death. Just like him after… other things. He really can taste the salt now.

She swallows. “Yeah, but I shouldn’t. I should just feel bad for Al. He’s the one who got really hurt.”

(“I love you, Al,” Courtney says, tucking her hair behind her ear nervously. She can’t help but smile. Everything might be awful in the Subtle Realms, but at least he knows, now. And he kissed her back.

Al half laughs. “That was my line.”

There are butterflies in her stomach making her almost giddy. She knows she should be wondering how they’ll explain everything when they get home. She can’t tell her parents. They’ll be so upset with her. So will the All-Stars, and so will the rest of the Justice Society if they ever hear about it. But maybe they’ll be happy—Al will probably stay with her on the new team, so they won’t have to worry about him being a public relations disaster of nuclear proportions. 

They’ll have to hide it from anyone else until she’s eighteen, of course, but that’s only a little under a year away. They can make it work until then. Maybe they could—

The sound of muffled cries interrupts her, and all of Courtney’s instincts tell her to turn and follow the noise to whoever needs help. “What’s that?”

Al’s sudden grip on her wrist is so tight it hurts.)

“So was the real Atom Smasher here the whole time?” Jack asks.

“No,” Courtney says. “He… He really was in the Subtle Realms. That’s why I feel bad. Johnny Sorrow was leading me around pretending to be him, and all along he had Al tied up and ready to sacrifice. And I didn’t even notice it wasn’t him, even though he was saying things the real Al wouldn’t say. The only thing he had to do to trick me was pretend to be the guy I had a crush on, and I fell for it.”

(Courtney feels sick, standing between the Al on the table and the man in front of her as the spell melts away.

“I didn’t fall in love with you,” she says, even though she can taste bile at the back of her mouth. There’s no weapons, not with her staff broken and left on Earth, but she can use her fists. She’s sure she can take him, even with that knife he has. Sorrow’s not a hand-to-hand combatant. Now that he’s human, she doesn’t even think he could hurt her by showing her his face. If he can, that’s a risk she’ll have to take. “I fell in love with Al.”

“Yes, but you kissed me,” Sorrow says smugly.)

“You were trying to get home,” Jack says. “I know the feeling.”

“You wouldn’t have fallen for it,” Courtney says. “Your dad wouldn’t have fallen for it. The original Star-Spangled Kid wouldn’t have fallen for it. Nobody else on the JSA would’ve.”

“I don’t know about that,” Jack says. He rubs his face. “I’ve trusted some people I shouldn’t have. One of them almost killed me, when I was in a prison up in space. A former Green Lantern named Medphyll. He pretended to be my friend and I ended up having to kill him in self-defense. I thought about him for a long time afterward.”

Courtney winces. “That’s… the other thing.”

Jack’s eyes widen. “Did you kill Johnny Sorrow?”

“No.” Courtney looks away again. “But I killed the King of Tears. I don’t even feel bad about it. They just said it had to be me because I’m pure and innocent or whatever, and Sand was hurt, and Power Girl said she could get me close enough, and… It’s not like it was a person or anything. It just felt like killing a cockroach.”

“Huh.” Jack’s not totally sure how to respond to that. Evidently, they’re both confessing to murders. He fishes for a minor subject change. He’d like to do a complete one-eighty, but something tells him this is the most the kid’s opened up in weeks, and even if he feels kind of uncomfortable, it’s… at least making her feel better? “So you and Atom Smasher both made it back mostly safe.”

“Yeah.” Courtney takes a few deep breaths in through her teeth as the pain builds. “Mom and Pat were really freaked out. Mom didn’t want me to go back, but Pat said that at least if I did the rest of the team could keep an eye on me because he knew they couldn’t stop me. They still kept me out of school for a week, which was cool. I guess it was a good excuse to make my mom make me ejjeh every day, too. I just wish they’d listen to me when I said everything was fine.”

(“They’re not mine,” Courtney says, looking at the screenshots Mary texted her with relief. “Definitely, definitely not mine.”

“Good,” her mom says, pacing back and forth with the house phone in her hand. “They put me on hold again.”

“I think Mister Terrific has better things to do than this, like saving the world,” Courtney says. She can’t deny it makes her feel a little sick to know there are strangers spending money—a lot of money, if it didn’t feel so creepy she’d try to get in on it—to buy clothes and bras and other things they think are hers, but it’s not the end of the world like whatever Terrific is doing could be.

“I don’t think there are better things than suing someone for selling a sixteen year old’s—”)

“Do you want to know one of the most annoying things I learned as a superhero?” Jack asks.

Courtney can’t stop herself from perking up.

“It’s annoying because it’s like a Hallmark movie ending,” he says, “and because nobody really acts like it and just uses it to get all high and mighty at the newbie capes who just lost their first mugger.” He successfully manages to make her snicker a little at that. He’ll take it as a win. “You don’t have to be okay with any of it.”

Courtney rolls her eyes. “Great advice.”

“I’m serious.” He points at her. The artist briefly pauses and moves to lower her headphones before Jack waves for her to continue. “And the part they don’t like telling you is that you can be pissed off about it. You should be pissed off about it.”

Jack doesn’t say “I don’t think I spent long enough being pissed off about it” but it’s a near thing.

(Courtney, gawky and covered in soot, smiles awkwardly around her braces as the reporter puts his microphone in her face. It’s so weird to stand there and be interviewed about a burning building. 

“So,” the reporter says, and Courtney leans away because of how loud his voice suddenly is, “one last thing that I’m sure audiences are wondering—just how old are you?”

“Um.” They didn’t cover this. Is she supposed to lie? Probably not, right? “Fifteen.”

“Fifteen, how about that.” The reporter beams into the camera. “Just three more years, folks! Alright, back to you, Joan—”

It’s only the warning noise from behind Courtney that stops her from kicking the guy in the kneecaps and telling him to eat shit. They’re still supposedly working on proper superhero etiquette.

At least he still gets hit, and by something a whole lot stronger than her.)

“I’m supposed to be better at anger management,” Courtney says. She squints at him, meaning the next words to come out as a joke. They don’t quite land the way she wants. “You’re being a bad influence. My mom’s gonna be upset.”

“Well, she asked for this,” Jack says, and counts it as a success that it actually makes Courtney laugh again. She tries to stay still, wincing at the idea of jostling the artist while she works.

(Courtney vomits again into the toilet. She already threw up most of dinner an hour ago. This is the last of it. Her head pounds from retching and her mouth tastes terrible and her breath clicks in her chest when she inhales. She almost wonders if this is what dying feels like. 

It was the orange-scented shampoo her mom uses for Tricia that did it. For a second she’d smelled it and everything was the Subtle Realms again. All dim and hazy and stinking of citrus.

The hands that carefully brush her hair back from her face make her startle so hard she nearly cracks her skull on the side of the tub.

Courtney doesn’t have time to blearily apologize for flinching before Pat’s rushing out of the bathroom to get her mom. He doesn’t speak directly to her for the next two days. The only reason he starts up again is because she snaps at him that she doesn’t need him treating her like a freak on top of everything else.

Her mom hadn’t made her apologize for yelling at him. She still hasn’t.)

“Are you really mad I broke the rod?” Courtney asks, a little more hesitant. “I… They made me break it. Sorrow said that I had to. It was the only way he’d leave everyone else alone. We’ve got it fixed, it’s as good as new, the only thing that’s still sticky is the heat overload indicator, but I know it used to be your dad’s. I tried to take good care of it, I swear.”

Courtney has rarely seen Jack look as thoughtful as he does now. “No,” he says. “A rose is a rose, kid. And the cosmic rod is just a cosmic rod. That’s not the Starman legacy. You are. And you’re who made it back in one piece. That’s what’s important.”

“Oh.” Courtney tries not to twitch as the scratching pain in her arm draws her attention. “I wish I’d had it in the Subtle Realms. I wouldn’t have had to rely on just my hands and on him.”

“Been in more than a few scrapes where I’ve thought the same thing,” Jack says, mind once again turning to Medphyll and the way they’d first met in the dark depths of a distant prison. “Do you remember how to call her—how to call it with your mind?”

“Yeah,” Courtney says. It’d been one of the most important tricks she’d learned after she’d gotten it the second time. It’s always a rush. The greatest high anybody’s ever felt except maybe whatever Miraclo does to you. The first time had been the most intense, even if now it’s fuzzy from happening while she was in a body she won’t grow into for at least another five years. “It doesn’t always listen, though.”

“There’s other things you can do with it without holding it,” Jack says. Mentorship talks aren’t exactly his strong suit, but this is easier than trying to do any emotional comforting. “Anything you can do while you do have it in your hands, you can do remotely as long as you attune yourself to it, and you’ve already done that. I can show you some time.”

“Really?” Courtney says hopefully.

(Courtney spins the cosmic rod, focused on the leaves fluttering to the ground around her. It’s capable of being both a brute force weapon and a tool as sharp and precise as a scalpel. She’s already figured one of those things out. It’s time to get back to work on the other, now that they’ve got a moment of downtime in between crises.

She manages to hit the first two leaves, burning holes the size of dimes exactly as intended. Courtney’s next shot goes wide, shaking the entire tree as the bark begins to smoke. She hisses, annoyed, then stops as she finds the staff automatically readjusting in her grip. 

“Cool. Hey, did anyone see—”

Courtney falters as she looks around. That’s right. Nobody’s there, because Al’s still in Kahndaq.)

“Like I said, as long as your dad doesn’t kill me for this,” Jack says. Simple self defense doesn’t save everyone. It didn’t save him. The kid can fight, so it didn’t save her. But it feels like something. Besides, he knows it was always a sore spot with her that she didn’t get a chance to learn about her belt from the original Star-Spangled Kid. Hell—maybe he should’ve done more than just dump the cosmic rod on her and be done with it, but she’d been a natural with it. And the whole mentorship deal was never exactly his thing.

“I won’t let him,” Courtney says. She points to the arm being worked on, which once more makes the artist briefly pause. “You’re earning my loyalty for life with this.”

“You can pay me back by babysitting if you’re ever in the bay area,” Jack says. “I can’t keep asking the Shade to do it or eventually they're both going to wind up with accents.” He cracks a smile at the affronted expression on her face. “Just keep it in mind.”

It really does feel like they’re friends, Courtney realizes. Not just people who used to be teammates or two stars that briefly got caught in each other’s gravitational fields or a guy who got guilt tripped into buying her an expensive birthday gift. Friends. 

“Thanks for not laughing at me,” she says.

Jack’s eyes go from playful to serious in less than a second. “I didn’t hear anything funny.”

(“Why are you making such a big deal out of it?” Courtney snaps, hugging her knees.

“Well, someone has to!” Her mom throws her hands up. Her eyes are red like she’s been crying. Courtney’s heard her doing it at least once a day since she’s been back. Night one was the worst. Her mom’s sobbing had soundtracked Courtney’s own vomiting fit. “First I have to worry about whether you’re going to make it home to me alive, and now—”

“Now what?” Courtney challenges. She doesn’t care that she’s yelling so loud Pat, Mike, and Tricia can probably hear her from downstairs. If anyone thinks they’ve got the right to talk to her about this, they can get bent. “We didn’t even have sex, Mom! It’s not like he—it’s not like he—he—”

She falters. For all of her and her mom’s anger, neither of them say it.)

“If you ever want to talk about it,” Jack starts awkwardly. 

Courtney cuts him off. “I don’t.”

Now it’s Jack’s turn to look at the plants with a sigh. “Well. If you ever do. With someone who understands. You can call me, okay? Your dad said you got a new phone for your birthday. Make sure I’m in it.”

Courtney’s throat feels tight again. She wants to say that she’ll put him down under old man or inferior Starman or something like that. But something compels her to match his sincerity. “Thanks, Jack.”

He puts out his fist. She bumps it.

(“Do ya really think she’s got what it takes?”

Courtney doesn’t open her eyes. They’d never talk about her without lowering their voices if they knew she was awake. It’s not hard. The weight of little bodies around her and the hum of the cosmic rod—staff. This version of it is definitely a staff, like something a wizard would take into battle—is bizarrely soothing.

“I don’t know,” Merry’s voice says, and disappointment stings in Courtney’s chest before she hears, “but it doesn’t matter what I think. She thinks she does. That’s what’s going to keep her alive.”)

“Do you mind if I take a picture for the website before I put the protection over it?” The artist asks.

“Sure,” Courtney says, mostly preoccupied with angling her arm so she can get a good look at it. It’s perfect. The angle is exactly how she wanted it, or at least she’s pretty sure it is from this direction, and even though her skin stings it looks awesome and totally, totally worth it. 

“Is there anything in particular that made you pick the design so I can add that to the page it’ll go on?” The artist gently maneuvers Courtney so she can take a better picture.

Courtney just keeps looking down at the compass permanently etched into her skin. North tilted just so, west angled at her heart. It’s only because Jack coughs into his fist that she realizes she didn’t say anything.

“I dunno,” she says, catching Jack’s eye again. “It just felt right.”

She’s a little sad that they have to cover it up immediately, but at least it’ll only be for a few hours. Of course, then she’ll have to put something over it again. And again. And so on. She can’t even show it off outside for ages just to protect it from the sun. Jack stresses the importance of taking care of it almost as much as the actual artist does. That might be a dad trait too. Someone should be studying that.

Jack walks her back home after making her put on his jacket. They don’t talk about anything superhero related. Jack says Teddy’s already learned how to open all the child-safe locks in the apartment and Dana’s a finger painting prodigy. Courtney says Tricia has been biting them all more lately and they’re not convinced it isn’t Mike being a bad influence. It’s nice, actually. The way talking to Mary about boys and class and things that don’t involve the fate of the world hanging in the balance is nice. 

Somehow, Courtney feels lighter.

(“Too slow!” Courtney taunts, dodging away from Nate and Rick. Her knuckles are white, both the ones gripping the newly-repaired cosmic rod and the ones holding the flag that’ll make her team win.

“Go Courtney!” Maxine cheers, waving their arms above their head where they’re trapped in Courtney’s team’s jail.

“Stop rooting for her when she’s not on our side!” Rick reprimands, but it’s clear there’s no fire behind it. This is the most he’s seen Courtney smile since she’s been back. It was more than worth having Atom Smasher sit this morale-boosting game out.)

“Bye, Jack,” Courtney says, standing on the front steps. She hands his jacket back to him now that her arm is safely under the shade of the porch. She knows the protocol is probably to give him a hug, but she doesn’t really want to. She’s pretty sure he gets that. She really forgot how much she missed him. Having Thom on the team isn’t the same. “Thanks for… all of it.”

Jack waves goodbye. “See you soon, Stars.”

(“What are you doing?” Courtney asks, squinting at Mike. He’s reading. On a weekend. Which is the most suspicious thing she’s ever seen.

“Nothing,” he says. Then, right before she’s about to go back upstairs with her snacks, he adds with casualness that’s clearly forced, “Dad has the two focusing lenses switched. On your magic stick. That’s why it won’t fire right.”

“What?” Courtney stares at him. “How do you know that?”

“I looked at pictures of it online,” he says. “And I read about it. Duh.”

Somehow, it turns out that he’s right. It’s the last piece they needed to get it up and running again like new.)

Luckily, she doesn’t have to avoid anyone as she sneaks back into the house. She can hear Pat and her mom talking in the garage, which means Tricia’s probably in there too, and Mike’s door is firmly shut.

Courtney goes into the bathroom so she can admire her arm again. Even backwards in the mirror, it looks good. She flexes her muscles before she can wonder if that’s something she’s supposed to be doing and puts her hands on her hips like she’s posing for an invisible reporter. She looks so cool. Especially when she tosses her head. She’s almost perfect.

She cards her hair back from her face. It really is getting too long. It gets curly when it’s short, like her mom’s does, but maybe it would look better that way. Maybe it wouldn’t.

He’d liked her hair being long.

Courtney grabs the electric razor, wraps the cord around her hand, and bangs on the door to Mike’s room.

He yanks it open after the sixth or seventh knock. True to form, his bedroom looks like an absolute war zone behind him. “What do you want—hey, what’s on your arm?”

“Got a tattoo, creep,” she says. She holds up the razor. They won’t actually use it first, because she doesn’t think that's how it works. But who cares? “Do you want to help me cut my hair?”

“Are you serious?” He asks.

“I figured you’d want to witness the destruction,” Courtney says. She grins. “Do you?”

(“We’re watching Clash of the Titans,” Pat says. He holds up the DVD wallet hopefully. At least he’s not avoiding her anymore. Maybe yelling actually did something for once. “Do you want to watch it with us?”

“He’s trying to give Trish some of my childhood trauma,” Mike says, stuffing popcorn into his mouth. His next words come out garbled. “At least it’s not black and white stuff from the forties.”

“Sure,” Courtney says. She jumps over the back of the couch, sandwiching herself between her mom and Pat. She barely even registers that it’s the first time she’s touched him since he accidentally scared her in the bathroom. “But I’m leaving to go to Mary’s house in an hour.”

“That’s great, sweetheart,” her mom says. Courtney doesn’t get why she’s smiling like that.)

Courtney doesn’t know why anyone’s making a big deal out of it. She’s going to be fine. 

Really, she is.