#qforce fic

Deb's half-asleep when she hears the quiet, hesitant knock on the door. She almost doesn't; if it weren't for Pam sitting up, Deb would've assumed it was just one of the dogs.

"What do you- Stat?" Deb asks as she processes the sight in front of her.

"Can i sleep in your garage?" Stat asks, her voice rough. "Or your backyard, I guess. I mean, I survived prison beds, I'm sure I can-"

"Yeah, yeah, just come inside already," Deb says. "You're gonna let the bugs in."

"Yeah, ok," Stat says, following Deb towards the plush, chewed leather couch in the living room, where she settles with a sigh.

"Deb?" Pam asks from the doorway. "Everything all right?"

"It's all good," Deb says, "Although if you wanna throw on some hot chocolate, that might not be the worst idea."

"It's fine," Stat says, pulling her hoodie tighter to herself as she shivers in the warm apartment. "I don't-"

"Now I know you're not about to tell me you don't need pam's hot chocolate," Deb says. "That stuff could practically be its own food group."

"But-"

"And you're not sleeping in the garage when we have a perfectly good couch right here." Pam comes in at that, carrying a slightly-chipped mug with a pitbull painted on it that says "Mom's Favorite Kid" in big block letters. She stops for a second, then smiles as she hands Stat the mug.

"Thanks," Stat says as she takes it and takes a sip. She can't help the sheer bliss that comes over her, and Deb smiles smugly.

"Let me know if you want some marshmallows for it," Pam says. "I think we still have a few from last barbecue."

They sit together comfortably for a bit, Stat sipping from the mug as Deb and Pam talk quietly and two of the dogs investigate the new person in their house to report back to the others.

They sit like that for a while, making small talk as Stat sips from her mug and soaks in the warmth and the life of this house and tries not to feel too guilty about it. She wishes she could've introduced them all to Jacqueline, wishes they would've understood it, but there's no use crying over spilled milk and Stat's never been big on crying in the first place. They wrap her in blankets and tell her she's welcome to stay as long as she needs and she doesn't think about the long years in an 8 foot cube where when the nights got bad all she had for company was the mold on the ceiling and the rats in the walls. She just focuses on the sounds of dogs shuffling nearby, of Pam and Deb getting ready for bed, the hum of life that she missed so much in her empty glass house, even if she'd never admit it.

"If you wanna talk about it," Pam says to her as they're all going their separate ways for the night, "I'm always here."

Their HQ is a dingy garage and Stat has to grudgingly admit it feels like home.

Don't get her wrong, she hasn't been so uneasy being stared at since that whole thing with Gilthax down in Roswell, but the dark, dingy corners, the bleak atmosphere that reeks of wasted potential, it feels like she's back home.

She doesn't miss her old lair, or her old friends. Of course not. That would be ridiculous. She just misses her freedom, that's all. And the tamale lady who sold tamales by the pound and always made sure to give Stat the biggest ones. But that's it.

"So, you're the new girl, huh?" the blue-haired boy asks her, twisting in a way that Stat can only assume means he's made of jello.

"Stat, this is Twink," says Walmart Superman. "Twink, this is Stat, our new hacker."

"Sup," Stat says as Twink pokes at her gauge, fascinated. She contemplates biting him.

"Your earlobes are ginormous," he says.

"Thanks," Stat says. "You can fit an entire fruit roll up in them in a pinch."

"Ew."

"Twink is our master of disguise," Knock-Off Steve Rogers says. "Now, Deb should be coming in-"

"Hey, Mary," a voice says, right on cue. A larger woman walks in with a pitbull trotting goofily alongside her.  "I hope you don't mind, but I had to bring Waffles with me today. He's having some separation anxiety and Pam had to head up to Beverly Hills to meet with Brittany's son for a session, so she asked if I could take him." She finally stops and notices Stat. Her smile widens. "And you must be the hacker. Stat, right? I'm Deb, this is Waffles. I build gadgets, kick ass, and throw a mean superbowl party."

"Sup," Stat says, wishing she had her headphones and a nice dark blanket fort to retreat to. The dog walks up to her and starts sniffing her pants.

"Waffles, stop it," Deb scolds, pulling the dog back gently. "Sorry about that. He's just very friendly."

"It's fine," Stat says, her face softening just a bit. "Dogs are cool. Do yours eat people?"

"Hell no!" Deb shouts, almost offended. "My wife and I-"

"You have a wife?" Twink asked, shocked.

"Been married since they made it legal," Deb says proudly. "Who did you think 'Pam' was?"

"Honestly? I didn't even think about it," Twink says. "Anyways, just make sure your dog doesn't poop in my stuff or eat my lipstick and it's all good."

As the others chat, Stat starts poking around the garage. It's not what she expected, but then again, if it's a secret agency, it makes sense that they'd be nondescript. Her fingers are itching to tear into some juicy files, and she finds herself drifting towards the single, dinosaur-like monitor and its clunky keyboard. It takes her about thirty seconds to find the sticky note taped to the monitor with the computer password, and Stat sighs. This is the worst computer security she's ever seen, and that's saying something. She can already feel the headache growing and fumbles for her bottle of Mountain Dew, growing frustrated as her hands brush over where it's supposed to-

Right. Not her batcave, not her setup. She's going to need to fix this, if she's going to do anything useful today. And to fix this, she's going to need Mountain Dew.

anyways, take a snippet from the next part of "mountain dew and other infinities":

"Sup," Stat says as Twink pokes at her gauge, fascinated. She contemplates biting him.

"Your earlobes are ginormous," he says.