#bret

Bret and Terry were chatting to one another about a new firewall the government had installed after their last one had been torn to shreds by independent hackers, and were trying to decide if they would get in trouble for having a go at it themselves. It seemed like she wasn't the only one distracted from their task.

"Penny? You alright?" Kolt asked, twitching his leg against her back.

"Yeah," she said, tilting her head back to smile at him.

He smiled and nodded, but she knew that he was telling her to talk to him when she was ready.

She looked ahead again, slowly sinking into her feeds and pulling up her research threads again.

The Ruby Coalition was simply dust in the wind, now. Phoenix had made sure of that. The guards had been scattered and rehired where they wanted to apply, the higher level technicians were snapped up by villains and whoever else wanted skilled hands hiding their work. The manor had been leveled and the underground tunnels filled in.

Her mother's body had been cremated and disposed of without a memorial or burial.

No, not her mother. Maybe her mother? Penelope was glad the woman was gone and that she couldn't hold Penelope's leash anymore. But then there were those nagging memories of the days where Gigi would carefully ask Penelope's opinions on the bodies she was commissioning from Harry and Co Labs. Getting things exactly right where they could and apologizing when the labs replied that they couldn't make certain changes.

Penelope remembered that first night when she woke up. Gigi was there and she was smiling, tears running down her cheeks as she stroked Penelope's forehead, smoothing back her artificial hair.

"Welcome back, my dear," she had whispered. "However much of you there is left. I love you."

Penelope clenched her hand in her sweatpants. She hated remembering the good moments. The times where she could almost convince herself that Gigi did love her. It was.... hard.

Penelope turned her attention to a topic that wasn't so difficult. Pier. He had not gotten out of this unscathed. He had been found unconscious in the aftermath and was currently in a holding cell as people worked out what he had and hadn't done. They wanted to try him for as many of Gigi's crimes as they could manage.

Penelope huffed. He didn't really deserve as much as they were trying to heap on his head, but she would be glad to see the annoying young man tucked away where money couldn't get him out. She really disliked him. The way he looked at her, like she couldn't really understand him. Like she was just a computer program who, for some reason, wouldn't follow his every instruction, always really got to her despite how often Gigi assured her that Penelope was just reading the situation wrong or that he should just be ignored where possible.

She took some comfort in the fact that since the Ruby Coalition had fallen, he wouldn't have access to any of the funds to bail him out. He would be sitting in prison for a long time.

She put that thought away. Maybe not forever. She would love the chance to get to say some things to him that Gigi never would have allowed her to, but Penelope doubted she would ever actually go through with that. Maybe sending an anonymous message would be enough. She wasn't sure.

Penelope turned her thoughts back to Gigi, hoping that this time she could untangle the emotions there and put it to rest. Though if she still felt so strongly about Pier, she doubted she would be able to change anything about the way she felt about Gigi.

Gigi had been her mother in a sense. She had helped Penelope relearn how to walk, had given her a name when she realized she didn't have one or just couldn't remember it. She built a room for Penelope and gave her everything she could have asked for.

Except, perhaps, freedom.

Penelope had asked once.

"Am I supposed to be here forever?"

Gigi had looked up from the notes she had been making on her computer and gave her a tight smile. "Maybe not forever. But you're not ready yet, sweetheart."

"When will I be ready? When will you tell me where my body is?"

Gigi sighed. "That is hard to know, dear. Please be patient with an old woman. When the time comes it will be a difficult conversation for us both."

They would never have that conversation. Penelope would never know what Gigi wanted to tell her. What would have been hard for the old woman to explain. Penelope didn't even know who her body used to be before she existed in this form. Was that person a good person? Someone tormented by Gigi before being used in an experiment? Someone Gigi loved?

It had to have been someone she loved in some way or another.

Penelope might never know because she may never find that body. She may never find any messages Gigi left behind if she did leave anything behind, because Penelope had practically cosigned the woman's death. There was no more information to be had. Just ashes on the breeze somewhere. Or in the ocean. Or more likely in the trash. Penelope didn't know what the government did with the ashes of villains. She doubted that they were sent to family members. Not that Pier would probably want them. He'd felt just as suffocated under Gigi as Penelope did despite how little he had hanging over his head to keep him there.

It was all just so unfair.

Penelope missed her.

She put her arms around herself, wishing she could swallow with a throat she could not remember. She missed that horrible woman who kept her around under a heavily veiled threat about what might happen to what remained of her body if she didn't do as she was told. And she missed that woman!?

She felt a hand on her shoulder and she turned her head to look at Kolt as Gale watched her curiously. Perhaps a little nervously.

She was grinding her fake teeth. It was horrible sound. And it was probably ruining the paint job.

"Sorry," she murmured out of a fake throat. She felt so unreal at the moment.

Kolt leaned toward her, putting an arm around her shoulders in an awkward hug. "You're alright. What do you need?"

"I need.... I need everything to make sense. I need my body back. I need these feelings to go away," she said, shaking her head.

Kolt thought for a moment. "We'll get your body back. I'll start calling some old allies and see what I can't hear about what Gigi was up to when they were putting you together. After the trainee facility is dealt with we will go find it."

Penelope sighed a soft breath. "What if it's not enough?"

"You have us," Bret said. He'd come to sit next to her on the floor and put a hand on hers. "It's okay."

Penelope slowly nodded, taking another deep breath. She was glad she asked for that function to be added, even if it was unnecessary. It helped alleviate her emotions better than she could have even imagined.

"I think I just need a distraction," she said. She had been silly to think that sending herself into another spiral about all of this was going to fix the emotional mess Gigi had created to stand in her place now that she was dead.

"Alright, uh," Kolt said, thinking, and Bret got his mouth open to ask something, but Gale beat them to it.

"Dr. LeAnne," she said in a voice that shook with something like grief. He sounded exactly the way that Penelope felt. "What happened to her?"

Penelope actually knew that off the top of her head.

"They moved her before we got there," she said. "She was being sent out to be killed. I don't think they were ever going to tell you and hope that you just kept obeying them despite her being gone."

Gale shuddered and there was something deeply conflicted in his eyes. "Is she dead?"

"No. She was shot in the head, but they hadn't finished her off properly. She's in the hospital in a coma. I don't think she's ever supposed to wake up, though. There was a lot of damage."

Gale licked his lips, his eyes wet. He was clearly trying very hard not to cry. "Right," he whispered.

"Do... you wants us to send someone to, I don't know, deal with her?" Terry asked as she scooted his rolling chair closer to the group.

"No!"

The answer burst out of Gale and he looked just as surprised by it as they felt. "No," he murmured. "She can just... stay there."

"Gale, if she wakes up-" Kolt started, but Gale shook his head.

"I'm not in a place where I can... where I can think about her. Not safely. Not yet."

Kolt nodded and patted his friend's shoulder. "Alright, man. We will wait for you, then."

Gale nodded, relieved as he leaned back.

Penelope found herself speaking before she knew what was happening. "I know how you feel."

He looked at her, confusion and skepticism in his eyes,

"I know what it's like to love and hate someone so much... like that," she murmured.

Understanding dawned on Gale's face, in those beautiful micro expressions Penelope would never have again.

He gave her a weak smile before looking away.

She looked between her friends. Bret, Kolt, Terry, and Gale, and she let herself believe that it would be alright. That these guys would have her back.

"I had better go help get things ready," she said. "I've been procrastinating."

"Ugh, us too," Bret said, rolling his eyes.

"Not us," Kolt said smugly, because of course. His part in all of this was to monitor as much as he could through Beater and try not to be a distraction to the hallucination. His job was mainly helping Gale, at the moment, the two were clearly very satisfied with that.

"Enjoy the free time for me," Penelope said, getting to her feet. She headed for the door and paused there, looking back. "Thanks, guys."

"Of course," Bret said as the others nodded, not a lick of embarrassment in any of their expressions.

Penelope turned and went to find Phoenix and Lynx. There was work to do.

The End

A.N. - AHHHHH HERE WE ARE!!! Guys, this is actually insane to me. We made it to the end. Well, for now. I hope you liked it and I think you guys for reading. Eldest Daughter and Sunrise Lemon Bar especially. I cannot express how much I love you two!!

My next story is going to a short story about dealing with that trainee facility focusing on Beater and Cedar with a side focus on Phoenix and Lynx. I'm very excited! I will take you guys in that first chapter and you will be able to let me know if you would like to be in that tag list or not. I'm hoping to make more art for these stories as I go forward, so there will be that to look forward to.

But, I might take a week or two off. My notes need to be worked out and I need to build a plan for this next story so I don't just fling myself wildly into the void like I did with this story. That can be fun, but it can also be very annoying at times. I doubt I will make y'all wait too long before I get the next one started though. I'm extremely excited for all of it!

Again, thank you so much for reading. It means the world to me! Leave me a comment if you are so inclined and let me know what you thought/what you are excited to see next. I am highly suggestible, I will admit. :3

Crestlen taglist: @looptheloup @kira-the-whump-enthusiast @snakebites-and-ink @starsick1979 @antlerfish