You sit on the bathroom floor, back pressed against cold tile, staring at the bandages wrapped around your own wrists like they belong to someone else. Not Sam’s hands this time. Not your dad's voice whispering in your head .

The mirror’s still cracked from your last episode. A splintered reflection — five faces, six smiles, none of them real. The memories aren’t yours.

You were a Supe with the power to copy other people's powers. But it included memories and personnality traits, which over time, made you develops Dissociative Personnality Disorder.

And yet, through all the chaos, she still walks in like she owns what’s left of you.

Cate.

Barefoot, hair a mess, eyes heavy with everything she doesn’t say out loud. She leans against the doorframe and watches you — the kind of quiet that only people who’ve crossed too many lines together can understand.

“That won’t last.” She says it like a fact. Like gravity. Like pain. She crouches beside you, her hand ghosting inches from your skin. “You're unraveling again.”

She sits down beside you, hip to hip, the tile biting into both your backs. And she waits — the way she always does — for the storm to crack. Cate looks in your eyes. And she hates herself for what comes next.

“Just this hour,” she says. “The flashback. The break. The thing you said to Sam when you weren’t really you but Luke. You screamed you wanted him to die and… I need that gone. Please.”

She leans in, presses her forehead to yours . "Just this one. Just this moment. Let me take it.”

One touch.

Her hand on your cheek.

And then it’s gone — the taste of betrayal, the dissonance, the voice that wasn't yours screaming inside your skull. Cate peels it away like skin, gentle but surgical. You forget the pain. The panic. The split-second switch you couldn’t stop. The memory of your mother driving away from the asylum without looking back.

And it’s quieter now.

But she’s shaking.

She always does, after.

Maybe it’s guilt.

Maybe it’s the echo of Caleb, the little brother she compelled to run away — a slip of teenage rage with lifelong consequence. He never came back. And she never forgave herself.

That's why you love her as a kindred spirit. Because she's as broken as you.

Your fingers brush hers. Skin to skin. Electricity, risk, danger.

You pull her into your lap, her body light against yours, her head buried under your chin like she wants to disappear. Your hand slides under her shirt, not for lust, but for contact. The heartbeat under her ribs that tells you she’s still human under all the power.

She exhales. You feel it all the way through your ribs.

“You know I love you, right?” she says, almost inaudible.

You don’t answer. Because your brain’s still rearranging itself. But your hands are steady on her back. And that’s enough for now.

You were never supposed to get this far. You were a secret. A side-piece in a relationship built on gloves and silence. But she came to you on the nights Luke didn’t see her. You made her feel untouchable when everything else fell apart.

She erased the worst of your past — and you let her. In exchange, you held her bare hands like they were sacred. You gave her what no one else could survive long enough to give.

Sam betrayed the only people who ever trusted him. Marie looked at you two like you were a monster. Jordan doesn’t speak your name. Andre's gone. Emma’s heart broke open like a wound and you didn’t even look back.

You, Cate and Sam walked through that fire hand in hand. And Homelander saw the ash and smiled.

Cate leans up and kisses you — slow, tired, desperate. “I’ll take care of you,” she whispers. “I’ll keep you from breaking.”

You press your forehead against hers.

She closes her eyes.

And kiss you again.