Project S.T.A.T.I.C. Part 5: The Asylum

Jake and Pam had spent almost half an hour combing through what they could from the Birdcage. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to find that Amelia had ransacked and decimated the place. Most of the technology, gadgets, and resources he’d stockpiled and stored had been either stolen or destroyed. It seemed a safe enough bet that his things were likely in the possession of the Brunswicks and their cronies. While it wasn’t a shock, it was disappointing to see it with his own eyes. However, it wasn’t a total and complete loss. There were some things that Amelia either couldn’t take, or that she hadn’t thought useful enough to take.

There were miscellaneous supplies that Jake could use to rebuild some of his and Beth’s armaments and gadgets; filters, composite materials, resign, and other various raw materials he could work with when combined with the right knowhow. He had Pam take whatever wasn’t nailed down, and send it back to Eclipse. Aside from that, his computer was still downstairs. The keyboard and screen were coated in a thick layer of dust, and the system was nearly completely corroded, but Jake was confident he could salvage something from the harddrive. The problem was getting the massive solid-state drive out. That had been what he’d spent the majority of his time working towards.

“Is this really the best use of our time, Jake?” Pam sighed, tapping her foot impatiently, “You heard Jason, and if he is right we don’t have a lot of time before those damned drones decide to pay us a visit. Or worse, we have more of Courtney’s undead horde banging on the door for a housecall.”

“Trust me,” Jake said, trying to carefully remove the hardware, “Amy might not have been using this, but someone decided to crash my OS. My guess is it was Ingrid. Regardless, my terminal was wired into the city’s mainframes remotely. It’s one of the ways I was able to monitor activity as well as I could, and it’s the most likely reason someone would target my system.”

“If it’s been hacked, then why are we wasting our time?” Pam asked.

“Because his system backs up and saves anything that could be useful to the internal drive,” Beth answered from the stairwell, “We rigged up an algorithm when we first started college a few years ago for something like this. It ranks items of interest on a sliding scale, and it stores them on the SSD in case something like this happens. People used to call us paranoid, but this is the type of shit we were worried about.”

“Could you put that in terms the rest of the class could understand?” Rebecca asked, trailing behind Beth with the others closely in tow.

“Any major events or developments are saved to a little box inside of the big box,” Beth sighed, rolling her eyes.

“Kitten, don’t be so condescending,” Pam remarked, noticing the shift in Beth’s tone and Rebecca’s frustration at it.

“It’s the simplest way to put it!” Beth defended herself, “It’s not my fault she’s-”

“Beth,” Pam cut her off with a stern tone and a hard look, “Choose your next words carefully.”

Jake paused his efforts to listen to the exchange unfolding behind him. It wasn’t often that Beth and Pam reverted to their old dynamic after everything they’d been through, but there were still times it showed through. This was a perfect example, and it was moments like this that he silently savored. Beth was his best friend, but there was something special about hearing his typically bold friend revert to the beta personality that she’d given him grief over was priceless. Of course, his satisfaction only came from knowing that their relationship wasn’t one-sided. As was the common cause these days, Pam reserved that alpha tone for moments where Beth was close to sticking her foot in her mouth or digging herself a hole.

“I was just trying to make it easy to understand,” Beth finally, slowly replied, “I wasn’t trying to be a dick, I swear.”

“That’s not entirely true, is it, Elizabeth?” Rebecca asked, her tone sounding mildly smug and arrogant.

“Bite me,” Beth frowned.

“Both of you, save it for when we are back home,” Pam sighed, stepping forward, “If you all are finished upstairs, then Rebecca can keep Jake company. Beth and I will do a secondary sweep of the area for anything we could use. Does that sound good to you, Jake?”

“Fine by me,” Jake nodded, turning his attention back to the task at hand, “Most everything has been picked over or broke, but that doesn’t mean we might not have missed something. Beth, grab whatever you think we could use. Don’t be afraid to grab even the smallest items. We have to work with what we’ve got, and I’ll take anything I can get at this point.”

“Is-is it okay if we tag along?” Sam asked, her voice trembling lightly, much to Jake’s chagrin.

“Yeah, of course,” Beth answered as warmly as she could, “An extra set of eyes can’t hurt. Come on, you three, let’s see what we’ve got.”

Jake heard Rebecca approaching as he shifted to lay on his back and get a different angle. He waited until he was sure that Beth and the others were out of earshot before sighing, “How bad are they?”

Rebecca felt a tinge of her old self, her jealousy, creep into the back of her throat. She stopped herself from blurting out the scathing comment about how Jake shouldn’t have been concerned with them; how he needed to focus on himself and what was important. Apparently, her envy wasn’t entirely born from Lilith and her influence. “Do you want the truth, or would you prefer me to sugar coat it?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know the truth,” he answered, reaching into his utility belt to grab a small screwdriver, “Sam’s been through a lot while you were…gone, Rebecca. Eva stole her away and tortured her back when I was thrown into prison. That was a while ago, but Eva messed with her head pretty hard. She toyed with her, used her, and let Emily have her way with her. Even with that, I know the kind of shit that Amy is capable of. So, I want to know how my sister is holding up after spending a year being abused by a woman that gives the old version of you a run in the category of sadism.”

Jake’s tone was harsher than Rebecca had heard it in a long time, and it had been longer still since it had been directed at her. She could still recall hearing the obedience in his voice in a time that felt like an eternity ago. He was on edge, but he wasn’t the only one who knew what Amelia was capable of. “She’s doing better than you might think,” Rebecca answered, “She’s shaken up, rattled, and I don’t think she was thrilled to see me. Her lover, Zoey I think her name is, is in rougher shape, and the butler-”

“His name is Bruce,” Jake interjected, “Don’t call him a servant, and don’t refer to him as just a butler. The man is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a father, and he’s one of my oldest friends.”

Again, Rebecca flinched at Jake’s tone. She wasn’t used to hearing him, or anyone really, speak to her in such a way. Elizabeth was an exception, but it was one of the many reasons that she didn’t get along with Pamela’s little pet. “My apologies,” she cleared her throat, “I truly did not mean anything by it, Jake. I did not know his name, only his title. He hasn’t said a word since we ran Amelia and her little underlings off. He seems to have withdrawn into himself as a coping mechanism of sorts. It isn’t unlike what you did after…”

“After everything between you and me,” Jake finished for her.

“Precisely,” Rebecca frowned, “I am not sure if it’s simply shock, or if it’s trauma that might linger longer. Honestly, Samantha seems to be the one that is handling everything the best.”

“Hmph, there’s a part of me that’s not surprised,” Jake chuckled as he worked, “Damn, the screw’s stripped…”

Rebecca shook her head and decided to take a seat in the chair near the large monitor. There was a mild awkward silence that began to yawn between them as Jake worked. It was maddening to her that she so often struggled to find the words since returning to life. Before, she was confident in everything she said and did. That confidence came easy, and it made dealing with anyone, even Jake, simple and trivial. However, now nothing could have been further from the truth. She felt a light nuzzling and warmth against her left hand. She smiled slightly as she glanced down to see her wolf sit beside her. Words weren’t needed between her and him.

“What’s the deal with those things?” Jake asked, referring to the wolf and the raven that made a perch behind her.

“Hmm?” Rebecca hummed, realizing for the first time that she hadn’t been asked about her familiars since making contact with the others, “We are connected. When I was first released from Lilith’s clutches, I wandered the streets aimlessly, barely a literal shell of the woman I had once been. I had no memory, nothing concrete anyway, beyond fleeting glimpses and images of days past. I was alone, lost, and afraid, but I wasn’t alone for very long. It must have been a little over a week when they arrived. Perhaps I should have been scared by the sharp fangs of my furry friend, or the hellish eyes of my raven, but instead I felt a comfort at having them beside me. No matter where I went, they remained close to me. I believe that to some extent they are the ones that guided me back to my old home in Citiville and helped to restore my fractured mind.”

Jake paused as he remembered reading about animal spirits in one of Pam’s tomes. “Your magic is different now,” he began, replaying the moments he’d seen Rebecca fight since they’d broken out of Hell, “Before, it was more varied and a lot darker. I’ve seen you shapeshift, call on nature, and command those two. It’s druidic, right?”

“Color me impressed,” Rebecca smiled, raising an eyebrow in surprise, “Jake Blackridge has taken to studying the arcane schools. Did you miss me, or is this something else?”

“I had to start studying so that I could get stronger,” he replied, purposefully glossing over her flirting.

Rebecca’s smile flipped to a frown at Jake’s deliberate attempt to ignore her. She could sense a slight increase in his anxiety and excitement for the briefest of seconds, but it was gone almost quicker than it came. She couldn’t be sure if she was imagining it or not. The reality was that she could very well have been getting her hopes up. She wasn’t proud of that side of herself, but it was the truth that came with being fully mortal once again. “I’ve seen you practicing spellcraft late at night,” she said, scratching behind her pet’s ears, “I’ve felt something within you every so often since we made it back to this world.”

“Are you about to give me some line about us being connected?” Jake asked, “If you are, you can save it. I know there’s something between us, but I don’t think it’s what’s given me whatever abilities I’ve got.”

“I had considered it, but you don’t seem to be in any particular mood for romance,” Rebecca remarked, “No, I don’t think that your developing powers are the result of anything between you and I. That said, there are events that have transpired since things between us escalated. I nearly bound you to a void based magic, I pushed you to merge your soul with Ashley’s, and I drove you striking a deal with the monster that brought out the worst sides of me. Those three events alone are enough to awaken latent gifts within us. However, magic within men is incredibly rare. It’s in your blood, Jake, your genetics.”

“My mom, apparently,” he said, finally getting the first screw out, “I didn’t know it until a few months ago. Bruce told me about how she was this magic wielding superhero masquerading around the city calling herself the White Witch or something. The papers thought that her powers were tricks and smoke and mirrors, but according to Bruce it was all real. She got with my dad and hung up her cape. I never knew about that part of her life, and I don’t know if dad knew it or not. If he did, he never said anything about it.”

Jake smirked to himself as he finally managed to get the harddrive free. He crawled out from underneath the computer and back to his feet. He stretched and rolled his shoulders and leaned against the console. Rebecca watched him closely, but she tried her hardest not to stare. “Is that it?” she asked, nodding at the black box in his left hand.

“This is it,” he nodded, looking it over, “I’m hoping that this can give us some idea of what’s happened, and maybe it’ll help us pinpoint a few hotspots for us.”

“How do you mean?” Rebecca asked.

“It’s like Beth said,” Jake replied, “We designed a code that is supposed to pull significant events from the CCTV systems throughout the city. One of the perks of being involved in the majority of the city’s security systems meant I had access to camera feeds all over the city. Anything that fit the criteria we set was copied to my internal drive. If Ingrid is working for the Brunswicks then she probably got down here and scrubbed the data shortly after coming onboard. That said, I think there might be something useful here. It might not be much, but we need whatever advantage we can get.”

“And you’re confident that this Ingrid woman wouldn’t have been able to destroy what’s in there?” Rebecca asked.

“As long as it’s still intact, I’m sure,” Jake answered, “I’ll have to hardwire it into the system back at base, but I should be able to pull something from it. From what I can tell, she worked remotely for most everything. I’m guessing she’s been working remotely for most of the past year too just based on the drones.”

Rebecca nodded and the same awkward silence returned between them. It stretched between the two of them slowly but surely. There was a slight tension that came from it, and both of them began to wonder what the others were doing and when they’d be back. “I…couldn’t help noticing you’re still calling yourself The Raven,” Rebecca remarked, hoping to stave off the awkwardness before it became too heavy.

“Yeah, well Birdboy died when I gave myself over to you, just like Catgirl,” Jake said, his tone harsher and more bitter than he initially intended.

Jake could see it in Rebecca’s eyes. She was trying to hide it, but she flinched slightly at his response. It was yet another reminder that she wasn’t the same woman that he’d fought back last year. Her personality might have been the same, but moments like this made the subtle differences clear. The confidence she typically carried that bordered on arrogance was far less pronounced. She still had an air of superiority about her, but Jake had seen her falter far more since they’d come back to their world. It reminded him of how she was when they had moved into that little apartment together. Rebecca had been more volatile back then, but he’d seen more glimpses of the woman before him nwo back then between bouts of rage and fury.

“It just made more sense,” he sighed, “After everything that happened, the city thought that Birdboy was gone forever. It was more than that, though. I’d changed, kind of like Beth. Beth talks about it like it was an evolution, and Pam agrees with her. Personally, I don’t know if that’s the case or not, and sometimes I don’t think that Pam necessarily believes that about me either.”

“What do you mean?” Rebecca asked.

“Don’t answer that,” Ashley warned, appearing on the floor and resting her back against the dusty console, “Do not give the witch more hope that she still has a chance with you, Jake.”

Jake frowned at his subconscious lover. He knew what she was referring to. If he was being honest, he could understand why she didn’t want him to say it aloud. There was a part of him that wasn’t sure if he wanted to admit it either. “It’s nothing,” he finally said, deciding against sharing it.

“It is clearly not nothing,” Rebecca countered, sensing the conflict in Jake.

“Jake,” Ashley said again.

“Just forget that I said anything,” Jake shook his head, hoping to save himself a headache.

Rebecca wanted to press him for answers, but she could see that he was struggling with something internally. She knew what it was like to have a secret. As badly as she wanted to know what he meant, she knew that pushing him wasn’t going to get her any closer to rebuilding the relationship she wanted more than anything. “Very well,” she conceded, “For what it’s worth, I’ve always thought the title suited you. The color scheme suits you better as well.”

“I think you might be a little biased,” Jake said, “Thanks, all the same, though.”

“I have my opinions, yes, but that doesn’t mean I'm wrong,” Rebecca shrugged, “The darker colors are more mature and more intimidating. The Raven has always been a title that is significant to me. In my early days of learning magic, I was taken in by a coven in the countryside. Pamela told you the story of how I gained my powers and lost the love of my young life, but in my youth I was still learning to control and cast magic. I wandered the hillside in hopes of finding somewhere that I could call home. After the massacre at the castle, I fled out of fear of persecution. I was on the brink of collapse when they found me. The last thing that I saw as my legs gave out and I fell into unconsciousness was the woman that I would come to call my sister.”

Rebecca glanced off in the direction that the others had gone to make sure that they weren’t on their way back. Once she was sure, she continued, “I awoke in a chamber deep underground that I would learn to call home over the next decade. The chamber was beneath a colossal tree deep in the forest, but the tree was in the middle of this incredible grove. I can still recall the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings of that place. The cool air of the underground, the way the roots sprawled throughout the dirt and carried a this immaculate glow, and the smell of earth and oak. In my darkest moments, I still found myself envisioning that place and my sisters…”

“You never mentioned any of this,” Jake said, stepping closer.

“Because my past wasn’t important then,” Rebecca frowned, “It was a reminder of a life that the human side of me had, but more than that it was a reminder of my mistakes. I spent nearly a decade in that grove, with those women, learning to control my talents. One of the first things they taught me was how to bond with wildlife. Avaline, the matron of the coven, took me out into the woods to see what would choose me. Care to wager a guess as to which two came my way?”

“The wolf and the raven,” Jake answered.

“The raven was the first creature to come, my wolf came later,” Rebecca said, “The raven holds as special a place in my heart as that grove overseas did…”

“What isn’t she telling us?” Ashley asked.

“I learned many of my skills from those women,” Rebecca continued, her face falling again, “The magic that I rely on now is rooted in their teachings. As time went on, I began to get visions of my demonic mistress. Avaline sensed the darkness that my soul was shackled to. I told her that I’d made a pact with a demon, but neither of us knew how big of a threat Lilith. If I had known who I was dealing with, I could have told Avaline…I could have…maybe things would have turned out different.”

“What happened, Rebecca?” Jake asked, both he and Ashley undeniably intrigued by what they were hearing.

“Avaline was the one who taught me the spell to bind my demon,” Rebecca continued, “It has never been uncommon for demons to make deals with mortals. The stories of crossroad demon deals is an old one, but it is rooted in truth. Lesser entities often made pacts to secure human souls for their nefarious purposes. At the time, Avaline and I thought that perhaps we could open the door and trap her before she came to collect my soul. We opened the door to trap the monster, but all we did was let the monster inside…Lilith was not happy when she realized what was happening and was called forth from her domain. Avaline recognized her the second she stepped foot into our home, but by then it was too late to stop it.”

“Lilith tore through the coven, didn’t she?” Jake guessed.

“No,” Rebecca shook her head and closed her eyes, “Avaline used everything she had to hold her in place while I performed the ritual to steal her power. Essentially we performed the very ritual that she planned to use on me in reverse, but it came at a cost.”

“Your sanity,” Jake frowned.

“Her mind fractured,” Ashley added.

“That came much later,” Rebecca shook her head, “No,what happened next was the start of a lengthy chain of events that led to my centuries long downfall; my spiral into selfishness, cruelty, and desire…”

“She says that as though she wasn’t already a vindictive, selfish bitch,” Ashley scoffed, “She sold her soul for power and a chance to have your ancestor.”

“I performed the ritual from memory and, as you know, stole the bulk of LIlith’s powers,” Rebecca continued, “Avaline gave her life so that I could finish what we started, but even she couldn’t have seen what was coming next. Lilith fell victim to our trap, but she did not go quietly. My mind was consumed by hellfire and malice. Even now with a clear head, all I can remember are brief glimpses and flashes of what I did…the clearest memory I have after that was me standing before the tree in our grove as it was engulfed in flames surrounded by the bodies of my sisters…”

“Funny how she had blood on her hands even back then,” Ashley rolled her eyes, “She’s been killing those closest to her since the beginning.”

“Ash, now isn’t the time,” Jake cut his eyes at her.

Rebecca noticed the way Jake’s eyes narrowed at the empty space beside him. “Whatever she’s saying cannot be worse than anything I have said to myself,” Rebecca sighed, “The grief I felt when I came back to reality was immeasurable. It was crushing. In a span of ten years I had destroyed the only semblance of family that I had ever known. That was the first night that I lost control of myself; it was the start of the schism within my heart and my mind. At that time, I had no idea that I’d gained something akin to immortality. I knew that my powers were going to grow, but I didn’t realize the extent that they would. Wracked by guilt and regret, I wandered the countryside waiting for death to find me, but it never came. For twenty years I wandered, and in twenty years my body never aged. I remained as I was then, as I am now.”

“An uppity, condescending bitch,” Ashley scoffed, “Jake, tell her to shut up. I do not care about her pathetic pity party of a past.”

Jake ignored her in favor of learning more. Ashley might not have had an interest in Rebecca’s story, but this was a side of her that he’d never seen. “As time continued on, I grew more and more tired by the guilt that followed me. My heart ached because I’d killed the man I had loved in a blind rage, and then I had burned down the place that I had come to call home and slaughtered my family. I became desperate to rid myself of the guilt; to forget the horrors of what I’d done. To do that, I forced myself to focus on learning more, studying the various schools of magic, and amassing power. My strength grew, and I started to build a reputation as a prominent king rose to power. I learned about reincarnation, bloodlines, and more, and over time I turned my focus to locating you. Throughout the next centuries, I traveled across the globe in pursuit of you, and everywhere I went I left a piece of myself there. Covens rose and fell, I assisted conquerors as they came to power, or I brought regimes down that posed a threat. Yet despite my best efforts, I never forgot where I had come from. The raven was my first sign of freedom and strength, and so I swore that I would find you and make you into that. My hope was that I could be free from the darkness pervading my soul, at least that was how it started…”

“The longer you lived, the more clouded things became,” Jake surmised.

“I became an echo in my own head,” Rebecca explained, “It’s a sensation unlike any other, but one that I believe you already know. There were times when I was myself, but then they became more and more fleeting as the years continued on. I attracted the more cruel, vindictive, and covetous women to my side. All the while, I dove deeper and deeper into the throes of darkness and hate. I stabbed many of the women that looked at me the same way that I did Avaline in the back, betrayed them, or even outright sacrificed them for more power. Pamela could tell you stories of some of the more recent and heinous things I did to acolytes in Citiville, but then I imagine you’re already aware…I became the very thing that I sought to escape all in pursuit of a selfish desire to have the one thing that I wanted.”

“There’s one thing that I never understood,” Jake said, “You’re centuries old, but you claimed that Megabutt and Bitch Breaker were both sisters to you. And before you say it, I understand the sisterhood of the occult thing, but-”

“Neither of them were practitioners of magic,” Rebecca cut him off with a nod, “This is true, but our bond was born from something else. I first met Chelsea early in her days as a super powered woman. You and Elizabeth had put a stop to her, but you had failed to arrest her. She fled out of the city and found her way to my domain. I found her playing with a group of men and taking her frustrations out on them while making their lovers watch. I was impressed and intrigued, so I approached her with an offer. She was young then, and she still had much to learn about what it meant to be a Goddess among mortals; something I knew more intimately than anyone else.”

“I remember that,” Jake said, “Back then, she wasn’t anything like the woman that had her own church. She was just an angry and jaded gasbag with a streak of cruelty. She was tough, but we managed to beat her and send her packing. We didn’t see her again for months…”

“And when she returned, she was faster, stronger, and smarter,” Rebecca smiled, “I took her under my wing, and I showed her how to play in the big leagues. I made sure that I was there to assist her whenever you and Elizabeth managed to reign her in, and I made trips to Metropolis once a month to check on her. She was like a little sister to me, and I was one of the only women that knew who she was behind the greed. She was brash and arrogant, but underneath it was a young girl that had been ostracized and pushed to a point where she felt the need for revenge. In a way, we were kindred spirits.”

“You saw yourself in her,” Jake remarked, “What about Bitch Breaker?”

“Heh, Patty,” Rebecca chuckled and shook her head, “She was someone that I met long before I found you and Elizabeth. When I arrived on the streets of Citiville, I didn’t start out by seizing power and building a criminal empire. No, I waited and watched as two masked children ran circles around the lunatics calling the city home. I watched as several of these people failed, but there was one that managed to rise above the cream. Patty was never one to try to rob banks, amass power, or anything along those lines. No, she was only interested in having fun. She was often enlisted by the would-be baddies at a steep price. I watched her nearly break that little Dart in half, and I saw her practically dismantle Sting’s mind only to slink off into the shadows. I approached her with my plans, and she was immediately interested. Because of her, I was able to garner a nearly unlimited supply of toys and goods for myself and my future acolytes. She’s also the one who introduced me to Aurora.”

Jake recoiled in disgust at the mention of the long deceased sadist. “Your old friend,” he growled, his bias and hate still present even after all this time.

“Aurora was the linchpin that kept LIlith’s influence over me strong,” Rebecca frowned, “She embodied all of the darkest traits that Lilith often brought out of me. However, we shared several common interests, but her sadism far outweighed any of the other women that I knew this century. There were a handful of other women from an old coven that I had formed, but I sacrificed them to a pit of Hell to further my ambitions. I suppose that Aurora was a way of atoning for that act, but she pushed me closer to the edge of darkness than anyone. If Chelsea was the embodiment of the woman I was in the beginning, Patty was the mirror of the woman that I had become. I shared a bond with them that I carried with me until their deaths. Looking back, I still miss Chelsea. Perhaps I could have saved her had I been as I am now, but we will never know.”

“Hmph, how very touching,” Ashley rolled her eyes, “Alas, it looks like it is finally time to cut this short.”

Jake looked over to see Pam and the others approaching. Each of them had an armful of something or another. It looked like they’d each found something useful. Beth was leading the walk up with a bundle of fibers under her arm. She waved with her free hand, “Yo, we’ve gotten everything that’s not nailed down that we can use. I hope you’re ready because Jay says those stupid drones are moving in for a heavier patrol.”

“Must you use slang?” Rebecca asked, although her tone was far less spiteful than usual.

“Piss off,” Beth rolled her eyes, “My city is fucked, a bunch of douchebags are in charge, and my psycho stalker is running the damn drone patrol. I’ll talk how I want to talk.”

“At least we can still agree on the psycho stalker assertion,” Pam mumbled, stepping forward to open a portal for them to leave, “Are we ready to go, or would you two like to bicker and waste time?”

“No, I’m afraid I can’t refute that point,” Rebecca shrugged, “I’m not so proud that I can’t admit when I’m wrong.”

“Hmph, that’s a first,” Beth said.

“Kitten, let it go,” Pam sighed, opening a swirling vortex for them to step through, “Everyone take a hand. We’ll be back at our base before you know it. You’re safe, I swear.”

Jake joined hands with Rebecca without thinking about it. His touch sent a warm tingle through her entire being, but she managed to keep her elation hidden. Sam and Zoey linked hands, and Bruce joined hands with Beth and Pam. The old man still hadn’t said a word, but Rebecca felt mildly confident that he would pull through. It would take time, but perhaps she could lend a hand. After all, she knew better than anyone what trauma could do and how to work through it in both the right and wrong ways. Maybe she could help while the others worked on their next step of their investigation. She mused on this and everything she and Jake had talked about as they stepped through the portal and returned to their temporary home.