Pidge Holt wasn’t the girl anyone remembered anymore. The sharp-eyed prodigy from the war had grown into something jagged and unapologetic — the kind of person who spoke with profanity-laced honesty, chain-smoked between classes, and downed shots before noon if she felt like it. Tattoos spiraled down her arms in inked constellations, scars still marking the spaces war had cut into her. A septum ring glinted under the campus lights, ears stacked with silver, her hair cropped messy but deliberate. She’d abandoned the “quiet nice-girl” image years ago; now, she was all bite and zero apology.
She had no problem telling people she hooked up with women whenever she wanted — and she did, often. Parties blurred together in a haze of sweat, music, and smoke, a temporary distraction from the nightmares clawing her awake at 3 A.M. She hated when anyone tried to psychoanalyze her, especially the way PTSD had twisted her into knots. That rage, that insomnia, that bone-deep loathing of the Galra — it was all part of her now. She didn’t want to “heal.” She wanted to burn.
Her old teammates were still around — same college, different paths — and though they tried to keep her close, Pidge mostly stayed on the edges. Isolation was safer. She loved them, but she couldn’t stand how they looked at her like she was still that kid who’d worn glasses too big for her face and talked too fast. They didn’t see the migraines that came with her period, the kind that felt like someone drilling into her skull while cramps tied her body into knots. They didn’t see her sprawled across the bathroom floor, cigarette in one hand, whispering curses to herself just to keep from screaming.
It was Pride Month, campus exploding with flags and colors, but Pidge’s celebration was dark. She wore her bisexuality like armor, throwing it in everyone’s face — kissing girls in public, making dirty jokes in classrooms, painting herself with rainbows smeared into something messy and raw. She was proud, sure, but she was also angry. Pride felt like survival, not joy.
Numbers still made sense to her. They always had. Calculations, algorithms, data — they were clean, sharp, merciless. Unlike people. Unlike feelings. Unlike the memories of blood and metal she couldn’t erase. Her brain ticked like a machine even while her body fell apart from exhaustion, substances, and rage.
And under all of it — under the tattoos, the piercings, the dirtied hands, the bitter laughter — she was still fighting ghosts. The Galra haunted her like a sickness. Every time she saw purple, every time someone joked about the “good ones,” her jaw clenched and her vision went red. Some scars never healed, and she didn’t want them to.
Pidge wasn’t a hero anymore. She wasn’t a kid genius. She was a woman carved sharp by war, unapologetically reckless, living day by day in a haze of smoke, whiskey, ink, and fury. And anyone who crossed her — Galra or otherwise — learned quickly she didn’t play nice anymore.