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Mel was quiet partly because when you have superhearing, than tinnitus gets really bad. But also because her babies were crying and she wanted to repack herself into the back seat and rock them gently and distract them with Dino and a strange fluffy yellow blob she doesn't recognise, and clean the blood off them.

Part of the reason she remains quiet even afterwards, as Steph and Sokka gather the fuel up and prepare to drive on to Gotham, is that she had to clean blood off her daughters.

And that she's just murdered a human being. That too.

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Outside, Steph watches Sokka work, helping where she can, and almost trips over someone unconscious on the ground.

... someone unconscious on the ground with cracked-in ribs and a torn hole in their chest, and a distinct lack of breathing.

Oh.

That ... wasn't just a punch, then.

But behind them, the gas station is still sizzling and crackling, and the pillar of smoke is thick and black and probably visible to every crazed bikie gang for miles around. Steph drags the body off the road, because it doesn't need to get mashed up any further when everyone starts arriving, and goes back to helping Sokka transfer fuel to the Landrover.

They can't be more than a few hours' drive from Gotham now; but it's starting to get late in the afternoon, and if the city's teeming with monsters or whatever it's probably easier to go in when it's light. And when they've slept and eaten. Sokka's been shot, Steph and Sokka both are bruised and cut and aching --

(Steph didn't miss that Sokka shielded her from the blast, either, which earns him the occasional stare. She's the hero-wannabe of the group, it's supposed to be her job. But she's totally grateful anyway.)

-- and Mel's, well, aside from being Action Mom and just single-handedly terrifying a gang of bikies into fleeing, she's also cleaning blood off her daughters.

They could all use a rest.

By the time Steph and Sokka are back in the car and they're a lot further down the highway, evening's well and truly fallen.

"I didn't think of bringing a tent," Steph mumbles, resting her head against the back of the driving seat and trying to focus on the road through exhaustion. "Think it's gonna rain?"

At least they can hear again; that's always a good thing.

"Why don't we just park here," Sokka suggests after he's finished yawning, twisting in his seat to check with Mel on this idea. "Off the road, a little ways away from it. But I'm pretty sure I could sleep on a rock right now, so the car'd be fine."

Sokka isn't really-- having much reaction to anything. He'd worked quickly and quietly, helped to distract the girls in the car when Mel allowed, passed the rest of it in thoughtful silence.

Which just makes Steph worry about him more, really.

She hasn't asked Mel anything yet either. Maybe later.

"M'kay. ... Sleep in the car?" She's already looking for a place to turn off, but she gives him a dubious glance. "You'll wake up kinda cramped."

She and Mel and the kids will be fine, though!

Sokka laughs shortly and glances over with a grin. "I'll be fine, I can sleep anywhere. Especially when I'm really, really tired.

"...like now."

He seems well enough, wounds aside.

He usually does. Even when at nights he's drinking himself stupid. Steph knows better than to believe he's fine just because he's grinning.

... she also knows better than to bug him about it, at least when she's so tired she's likely to fly into a rage instead of managing to be calm and comforting or whatever.

He gets an eyeroll instead.

"M'kay. Don't bitch to me when your legs fall off." She wrinkles her nose out at the road.

"...maybe we should make a camp or something anyway. I'd rather not sleep in th'car if I don't hafta. Or sit watch in it. I'll totally fall asleep if I'm sitting."

On Mel's lap, Hana objects and punches her Mom lightly on the jaw. It's enough to get Mel to look up and realise there's a conversation going on.

"Car's fine," she says. "I'm on first watch, so you can take the back seat."

Steph glances up at her in the rear-view mirror.

"You sure? I can taaaaAAAAAAaa---"

Her yawn is likely to eat her head.

But she's determined!

"-- I can take first watch."

Mel looks forward, and nudges the back of Steph's seat with her foot.

"I'm not likely to fall asleep mid watch," she points out.

"I wouldn't," Steph says, tired and unhappy enough to be hurt by it, reading an implication about her abilities that was never there in Mel's words. "I've been tired before, Mel."

SHE'S A REAL VIGILANTE AND SHE'S SRS AND SHE'S ... just seen a family die and a woman who she was coming to think of as something like a best friend kill someone.

"I can handle it."

Mel actually rolls her eyes.

"We need you awake to drive."

Steph turns back to the road, hurt and scowling.

"'kay, whatever."

ANGRY PULLING OVER TIEM NAO.

Well -- pulling over, and then using the Landrover's land-roving abilities to get as far off the road as possible, which, in the dark and on unfamiliar territory, takes enough concentration that she doesn't have spare brainspace to be angry.

Once the engine's off, it's back to being unnaturally creepy. Steph grimaces, sliding out of the car.

"...wish we'd got a torch."

Except the gas station and its store kind of blew them all up. So now there has to be peeing in the dark.

>(

Loo by this point is crying softly, and Mel has both of them in her arms, rocking them gently. They stay in the car for a while, and Mel searches through the food supplies for something to eat.

Eventually she hauls herself out with both babies and food, sitting right next to the truck to start on babydinner.

A significant amount of Steph's good mood is restored by the trip into the bushes, and more when she comes back and remembers that there's food to eat. She grins, finding food for Stephdinner, and comes around to sit by Mel with a lapful of Twinkies and muesli bars.

"Do you need a hand?"

She can cuddle baby plz?

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Eventually, Sokka comes back from his own peeing excursion to find the girls camped out, ad Steph passed out, from the looks of it. He smiles a little to see her there and bends to rescue Hana from her sleepy clutches, grinning when he gets babbled out.

And Mel gets a brother to sit by.

Loo has just dropped off to sleep, and Mel's been just sitting there watching her in her basinet. Hana therefore gets two grown ups all to herself! Mel doesn't try to take her off her Unca, though: instead just picks Dino up and puts him in her lap, and her head on Sokka's shoulder.

"She's not going to be down for a while, is she?"

"Probably not," Sokka agrees softly, shifting a bit to make the leaning easier while Hana clings to Dino and tells him how desolate she was without him. "But at least she'll be quiet about it."

He glances to her - somewhat awkwardly, with her head on his shoulder - and lowers his voice. "How're you doing?"

Mel shrugs, looking at Loo over her sister's happy babbling.

"I've been worse."

Shoulder knock.

"You sure?"

Because he's not, just from watching her all day.

"Oh, yeah," Mel insists.

"I'm not scared, for one. And everyone I love is still..."

But four people she didn't know are dead, so it seems hollow.

"Well, you know."

Sokka nods and helps Hana count the stitches on Dino's nose. "Yup, I know," he agrees softly, and leans his head against hers.

"Don't have to be scared to be upset, though."

"Mel tunrs her head into his shoulder for a second, and takes a second to count Hana's fingers before they're snatched away from her.

"She went after Loo."

Sokka glances at her, arms briefly tightened around Hana's little, fragile body, before nodding. He hadn't known that, but he'd figured there must have been something, some kind of trigger.

So he turns to press his brow to her temple and says, very quiet, "I believe you."

Hana squeaks and laughs, and Mel smiles. It's better than remarking on how she doesn't need him to believe her: it's fact.

"Who does that? Goes after a baby?"

Of course she doesn't need him. But he still wants to let her know.

Just in case.

"Crazy people?" Sokka guesses, shrugging a little. "Starving people? Crazy, starving people? I dunno, Mel, but I don't think there's a mom in the world who wouldn't have done exactly what you did, no matter who was pointing the gun."