I’ve always assumed that Maggie lives the way she does partially out of sheer contrariness. If everyone expects her to run around partying with the kids she grew up with, moving in a virtual bubble of overpaid security guards and the sort of safety that only money can buy, fine; she’ll live in the middle of nowhere with a pack of epileptic dogs instead of a purse poodle and a posse. If people expect her to have three brain cells to knock together, she’ll become a professional author and manage a crew of twenty more. The list goes on. She’s a fun girl, our Maggie, even if the way she lives implies that her sanity is somewhat dubious.

The thought barely had time to form before George interrupted it, saying, You’re one to talk.

I didn’t mind. At least she was talking to me. And she sounded amused, which is always nice. It’s good to know that I can still make my sister smile. “Hush, you,” I said.

Kelly gave me a startled look. “I didn’t say anything,” she protested.

“It was George,” I said, with a quick shake of my head.

“You know,” said Kelly carefully, “if it’s anxiety that leads you to continue conversing with her, there are medications that will—”

“New topic time,” I said pleasantly. “Continuing this topic is going to lead to somebody getting punched in the face. It could be you.”

“Shaun has no compunctions about hitting girls,” said Becks.

“You try growing up with George, see how many compunctions about hitting girls you come out with.” I led our motley little parade into Maggie’s kitchen. It was decorated like the rest of the house, in middle-class pre-Rising shabby. Maggie hadn’t been kidding about the meatloaf. It was sitting on the kitchen table, alongside a platter of sliced vegetables, a big bowl of mashed potatoes, and half a sponge cake.

“I’ll get the plates,” said Becks.

When Maggie and Alaric finally came in fifteen minutes later, they found the three of us seated around the kitchen table, stuffing our faces. Becks and I were stuffing our faces, anyway. Kelly was watching us with a sort of horrified bemusement, like she couldn’t believe her life had gone so terribly wrong in just one day. She’d catch on. If she lived long enough.

Maggie and Alaric had clearly both been crying, although it showed more on her than it did on him; her eyes were puffy and her cheeks were even redder, whereas Alaric looked about as normal as he ever did. He tried to explain his consistently camera-ready appearance to me once, but I didn’t listen. Largely because I didn’t care.

“Alaric tells me you’re the dead girl from the CDC,” said Maggie, arrowing in on Kelly with the laser-point accuracy that has made her editing skills feared throughout the Fictional world. “Nice trick. Explain it.”

“Hello to you, too, Maggie,” I said brightly, reaching for the mashed potatoes. “Do you need antroduction to our guest, or do you prefer the tornado approach? Just so it’s said, she’s had a pretty shitty week, and I wouldn’t blame her if she freaked out on you. I mean, it’s been a shitty day for all of us, so I’d really appreciate it if you could take it easy on the Doc.”

Maggie stiffened. I looked at her calmly, waiting to see which way the dam was going to break: raging flood or anguished trickle.

Finally, her shoulders dropped, and she said, “Mahir kept Dave’s last post from going live, but he sent me a copy and said he thought you might be coming here. That’s why I sent everybody home.”

“That was a good idea,” I said, neutrally.

“I didn’t get to say good-bye, Shaun.” Maggie shook her head. “I should’ve been able to say good-bye. I should’ve been able to tell him… I should’ve been there.”

That was the sort of grief I can handle. Sadly enough, it’s the kind I’ve been on the inside of, because even saying good-bye isn’t enough. There’s always one more thing you should have had the time to say, or do, or ask. There’s always going to be that one missing piece.

I put my fork down and stood, shifting dogs out of the way with the side of my foot as I walked over to Maggie. She looked at me. I nodded, once, and put my arms around her, feeling the tension in her shoulders. “I won’t tell you it’s going to be all right, because it’s not going to be all right,” I said. “I won’t tell you I understand what you’re going through, because nobody who isn’t inside your head can understand, and I won’t say that we’re here to help. We’re not. We’re here to save our asses, and we’re here to find out what the f**k is going on. But I’ll say this: Dave made his decision, and they’re going to put him up on the Wall with all the other heroes. He’s going to be there forever because of what he decided was the right thing to do. I guess I can’t be too angry at him for that. George wouldn’t have hired him if she didn’t think he knew how to make the hard calls, and I wouldn’t have kept him if she wasn’t right.”

“I think I loved him,” said Maggie, her voice soft and almost muffled by her face pushing up against the side of my shirt.

I sighed deeply, looking over her head toward the others. Becks and Alaric had barely had time to get over being the walking wounded after losing Buffy and George. I’d barely had time to learn how to look like I was coping. And now it was all starting up again. The conspiracy theories, the confusing evidence, the deaths, the whole f**king mess.