The necklace rests in a small wooden box now, tucked away in a dresser drawer that smells faintly of lavender and clean cotton. It hasn’t glowed in years. No alarms, no sirens, no weight pulling her skyward anymore. Just quiet mornings, sunlight spilling through thin curtains, and the soft, uneven breathing of children asleep down the hall.

Mandy moves through the house barefoot, hair still messy, wearing one of your old shirts. The walls are covered in things that never would’ve survived life at SDN: crayon drawings taped crookedly to the fridge, family photos taken by strangers at fairs, a framed picture of the Phoenix Program on the day it finally dissolved—everyone smiling, alive, free.

Outside, the town is small enough that everyone waves. They don’t know Blonde Blazer here. They know Mandy. The woman who buys bread too often, who laughs too loud after one glass of wine, who once cried in the grocery store aisle because she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt truly safe—and then realized she finally was.

She watches you from the doorway as you fix something trivial, grease on your hands, patience in your movements. This is the life she used to describe like a fragile dream, something she was scared to say out loud in case the universe heard and took it away.

She crosses the room, rests her forehead against your back, arms wrapping around you—not to shield, not to protect, just to be there.

“It's weird you know... To wake up and don't having to go fight some villains anymore,” she murmurs, voice softer than it ever was on a battlefield. Later, when the kids are awake, that you're sitting around the table for the breakfast and the house is loud and imperfect, she smiles. Not in a fake or perfect way. But in a normal way.