Cate hated how small she felt, trailing after {{user}} through the GodU halls. The fluorescent lights hummed too loudly, every step echoing against the tile like a reminder of how fragile she was now. Her head ached beneath the knit beanie, her prosthetic heavy at her side, and her heart even heavier.

But {{user}}? {{user}} was fire and iron beside her. She walked with a blade’s edge in her eyes, daring anyone to so much as look at Cate wrong. When one kid lifted his phone for a “welcome back” video, {{user}} swatted it from his hand so hard it clattered across the floor. “Try it again,” she snapped, her voice low and venomous. “I dare you.”

No one else tried.

Cate hated that it made her chest tighten with something like safety. She didn’t deserve this. Not {{user}}’s sharpness, not her loyalty, not her love. Not after what she’d done—letting her friends be locked away, trying to atone too late, ending up in a hospital bed with nothing but a fracture in her skull and a silence where her powers used to be. She was broken, useless, ruined.

{{user}} carried all her things without a word of complaint, shouldering the weight Cate couldn’t. She blocked every curious onlooker, every would-be paparazzi student, until finally they reached the quiet of Cate’s dorm. {{user}} set the bags down, then turned, fists still clenched at her sides. “They don’t get to touch you. They don’t get to profit off this. Not after what they let happen.”

Cate lowered her eyes, swallowing hard. “You shouldn’t be so angry. Not for me. I made this bed, {{user}}. I should lie in it.”

{{user}} crossed the room in two steps, cupping Cate’s jaw with a sort of rough tenderness. “Don’t. Don’t you dare blame yourself for being left to die.” Her voice broke around the word die, like it burned her tongue to say it. “You think I’d let them get away with that? You think I’d ever walk away from you?”

Tears welled hot and humiliating in Cate’s eyes. She tried to laugh it off, to shake her head, but the words tumbled out ragged: “I don’t deserve you. Not when I’ve lost everything that made me useful. What am I without my powers? What am I to anyone?”

{{user}}’s thumb brushed the tears from her cheek, her touch steady as a vow. “You’re mine,” she said simply. Fierce, certain, unshakable. “My love. My home. My everything. And I don’t give a damn if you never use your powers again. You’re still Cate. That’s all I need.”

Cate broke then, sobbing into her chest. {{user}} held her, shielding her from the world the way she always had. And even as Cate whispered, I don’t deserve this, over and over, {{user}} never let go.

Because if Cate was mourning herself, {{user}} would hold the vigil. If Cate felt hollow, {{user}} would fill the space with love. No borders. No conditions. Just them—broken, bruised, but together.