Earth

Her grip was weaker than normal, but Dan pretended not to notice as she hugged him tightly. “Thank you,” the redhead said, kissing his cheek before pulling back.

“I printed it all out,” Dan said, handing a folder to her. “But before I give it to you, Rose… what if I told you it wasn’t good?”

Rose smiled, taking the folder. “I’m sure you’re exaggerating. Anything is better than not knowing.”

“Your parents willingly signed you over,” Dan said.

“Well, willingly is kinda hard to determine isn’t it?” Rose asked. “I mean, it may have only looked willing, or they just said it was willing or a neruo-soemthing manipulator did it or a telepath or-“

“Breathe Rose, breathe,” Dan said. “There is some good news. They weren’t the one that turned you in.”

“Turned me in for what? I wasn’t unregistered,” Rose said.

“It says you were working with a terrorist organization,” Dan said.

Rose glanced up, smiling a bit. “So I was always a troublemaker,” she said. She felt a twinge in her chest, and expected she’d be having another attack soon.

Rose zipped up her gray coat, pulling the file close to her chest. “I should head out,” Rose said. “We even?”

“Rose, you helped me discover who I am—what I am,” Dan said. “I don’t think we can ever be even.”

Rose lifted the file. “This is who I am.”

“Who you were, Rose. You don’t ever have to open that,” Dan said.

“Yeah, I do,” Rose said. She knew nothing before the agency. That file the cyborg was fighting so hard to keep her from opening told her everything the agency made her forget: who she had been. She knew her stats, her height and weight, her abilities, and her name, though there were a remarkable amount of Rose Ressoms around the country—far too many to go door-to-door in search of her identity—but she didn’t know if she graduated high school, who her family was, if she had any siblings.

If anybody was looking for her. If anybody felt that same hole she did in her chest, like something was always going to be missing until they met again.

Dan was comfortable with forgetting. The man had whole lives and identities buried in his hard-drive somewhere that used to be his, that he was happy to leave behind. They weren’t him. But Rose felt it was different for her.

Rose tried not to gasp for air, as she climbed out of his window and onto the roof. She used her molecule manipulation ability—limited by her average intelligence—to pull oxygen into her lungs, regardless of their ability to do it on their own at the moment.

Rose dropped her backpack, and used it as a pillow, focusing on breathing. She just had to make it through this attack, then regeneration would fix the damage it caused, and she could keep on going.