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When Alexa Winstone saw the images of the destruction of the Downeast Mall, she immediately cancelled all of her appointments for the rest of the afternoon and left her office at Winstone International. Once she explained to her assistant that she was leaving the office a little early, she went back to her penthouse apartment in Sherman Square that she had been more or less sharing with Scott for the last couple of months. The elevator ride to the 79th floor of her building seemed to take an eternity, and when the door doors chimed and finally opened, she quickly made her way down the hall toward her apartment. When she unlocked the door and pushed it open, she was surprised to find that the apartment was dark. No one was home, and from the looks of things, nobody had been in the apartment since they both left that morning. At this point, Alexa had begun to get worried about Scott. When she first saw the news, the first thing that she did was call him. However, he didn’t answer. He also didn’t answer the subsequent fifteen calls she made to his phone.

“Dammit Scott, where are you?” She said aloud as she slipped her phone back into her purse and then rushed back out of the apartment. She suspected she knew where he might be, and as soon as she got back to her building’s underground parking garage, she took off in her black Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG and headed west out of Sherman Square.

She raced through the city streets, or she got as close to racing through the streets as rush hour traffic would allow. The stop and go traffic had her cursing under her breath while regretting her decision to take the car rather than just use her abilities and simply fly over from her apartment. However, after about forty minutes fighting through the hellish city traffic, Alexa finally pulled into the parking lot for the hot midtown nightclub, The Hub. After she climbed from the car and locked it, she made her way around to the back entrance of the club, which led to the residential apartment upstairs. When she reached the narrow staircase that led up to Scott’s apartment, Alex leapt up the stairs two at a time until she reached the top. Once she got to the top of the stairwell, she went straight to the door to Scott’s apartment and opened the door with her spare key and went inside where she was met immediately by Scott’s little sister, Jenny.

“Is he here?” Alexa asked.

“No…sort of.” She said as she extended her index finger and pointed upward indicating that he was up on the roof.

“How is he?” 

“He’s taking it really hard. I haven’t seen him like this since Dad died.” Jenny told her unable to hide the trepidation in her voice.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Alexa said as she turned and went back out of the apartment door, this time making her way up the stairway that lead to the roof access door.

Scott stood in silence at the edge of the roof looking out over the city just as the sky had begun turning majestic shades of orange, pink, and purple. He had been there for most of the afternoon, at least since leaving the ruins of the mall. He had just stood there, staring out at the city he had sworn to protect, as he went over the events of earlier in the day in his mind. Blow by blow, he recounted the encounter with the maniac who called himself The Hybrid, asking himself if there had been anything else he could have done to save all those people. He didn’t like the answer that he kept coming to. He knew that perhaps if he hadn’t held back like he has always done, afraid to seriously injure, or even kill an opponent, then those three thousand people that were lost in the mall on this day might still be alive. 

He was aware that someone was coming up the stairwell behind him, and from the sounds of the footfalls, he knew that she was a woman. Then he listened to her heartbeat. Since his powers began to manifest as an adolescent, he learned that each human heartbeat has a slightly different sound, and that if he concentrated, he could differentiate individuals from one another by the sounds of their heartbeat. It was because of this, that he was able to identify the heartbeat, and thus, the person who was on her way to see him. It was a heartbeat that he had come to know over the last few months, one that he had memorized…one that he had grown to love. It was someone he didn’t know that he could face, not now. Not after his failure at the mall.

So he didn’t. When Alexa opened the door to the roof and stepped out to join him, he never turned to face her, he didn’t even acknowledge her. He just remained frozen in place, looking out at the Lost Haven skyline, at the smoke which was still billowing into the sky from the site of the disaster that had occurred earlier. He just stood silently as she walked towards him. Neither said a word as she wrapped her arms around him and getting up on her tip toes, kissed him on the back of the neck. And even though she wanted more than anything to tell him that she loved him, and that everything would be okay, she remained silent, and together, they stood in a quiet embrace and watched the sun sink out of view in the distance.