and there was much rejoicing.
january 27, 2021 — january bingo scene — reed van allen & stella sawyer

And just like that — he was back. The simplicity of science, the undeniable fact of existence. There he was, standing in his laboratory, a pulse of light, a shockwave carried with him from sixty four years prior, enough like an earthquake tremor to leave Reed gasping, shaking in reverberation, but despite it all, here. Or better put — now. He could almost cry. Maybe someone else would have rested, closed themselves off from the world to process and adjust and care for themselves in the aftermath of an experience so strange that by the time it had left his line of sight Reed could hardly believe it really happened. But not him. In the past, he'd felt exhausted running through the final checks to make the machine work, strung out and at his wit's end, heavy with the pressure of so many other people's expectations. In the present now, Reed was re-energized, full of hope.

And there were always things to do. Strange, as he found his phone, picked away at the computer, checked on all the things he'd left behind — nothing seemed as far in the past as it should have. Like somewhere in his mind he'd stored away everything from the present he'd been dragged away from, left it ready and waiting for his return. The feeling of double-vision was disorienting, but nothing about the emails and messages waiting in his inboxes were. A few necessary checks on the people he'd been stranded with, quick texts and calls from a survivor's mindset, and then he was able to return to everything he'd left behind, the top of his inbox, Stella.

In the car on his way to her house, for a moment Reed didn't know what he was doing. Surely this had to be stranger than anything they'd encountered together thus far, more unbelievable and more burdensome, but she'd invited him to her home with seemingly no second thought, and although Reed had always thought of himself as an independent person, time travel had taught him the value of a team. He didn't want to leave those lessons behind. He wanted support, comfort, family — Reed knew it deeply as he knocked at her door, finally arriving. Why not start here.

Stella had been worried the past few days, of course she had been. Waking up after another missing week, this time in Reed's lab rather than her home, sore and aching with injuries she didn't know how she got. And Liam had been in bad shape, which had been scarier than anything else so far — her disappearing, him being on fire (but not on fire), Reed's brain doing its thing they hadn't figured out. None of it had cut through her as sharply as seeing her brother laying there, bruised and broken, in Reed's lab and not a hospital. He was fine, she'd made sure of that, physically at least. But then Reed was gone.

It was only the second time they'd been through a week like that but Reed being who he was, Stella expected he would want to talk, collect whatever data they could come up with, discuss. But he was gone, not showing up to his lab, not answering texts or emails, gone.

And now he was back from, apparently, the 1950s.

She had no reason to think he was lying. They'd been through enough weird shit together that she knew he wouldn't make that up, and what would be the point if he had? And if he had been in the 1950s, Stella couldn't imagine what that would have been like at all. A completely different time in every way, but how lonely it must have been. He'd said Theo had been there, but to be decades out of time from everyone he knew? Reed did so much on his own, but that was different. That was heartbreaking to try and think about.

It was also why when she answered the door, Stella paused a moment just looking at him, like she was assessing something, then stepped forward to wrap her arms around him in a hug. Because if felt like he might need it, and she was so glad he was safe.

If Stella hadn't reached for him first, who knows how long Reed would have lingered in her doorway, wanting this kind of comfort but having no idea how to ask for it, if it was okay at all. It felt like two years since he'd seen her just as much as it felt like two days — but even if it had been two days ago, Reed had last set eyes on a Stella who was asleep amongst a makeshift medical bay in his laboratories, herself in no fine shape but nothing compared to Liam. He hadn't even had time to process that sight before he was hurled some sixty-odd years away, to a whole new set of crises to put to rest. Reed had missed her, and Liam too, the dangling threads of his life left behind. And it was fine, he had made it back and clearly Stella wasn't as injured as she'd looked that morning, only days ago (years ago), but the feeling of a close call, something that could have gone so much worse, was impossible to evade. "Stella," he said, or more like breathed, folding his own arms around her in turn. "God I'm so happy to see you." Theo and Mimi had been excellent companions, thoughtful and useful, but every now and then Reed had reflected on how much easier things would have seemed with Stella and her quick, problem-solving mind there.

"Are you — tell me you're alright too?" he asked, mind snapping out of the past and back to what he remembered about the present, this present. "The last time I saw you, you were... and Liam..." A shift was something Reed could expect, a week spent sublimated to some other version of himself, but those injuries? The carelessness with which his body and presumably Stella's and Liam's had been treated? He'd never gotten a chance to think any of that through until just now, and the implications of it were upsetting to say the least.

Her head turned to the side, she tucked it in against him as she let her arms tighten around him now he was hugging her too. What with having no history of hugging Reed she wasn't sure he would be receptive or want it, but she was glad he did. Grateful, even. She found herself not wanting to let go, strange as that was. He'd been gone, like really gone, decades away gone. Stella couldn't quite wrap her mind around it but she believed him, and it opened a whole new can of worms of things to worry about.

"I'm fine, I'm okay," she answered quickly, not sure how much of he might remember about the last time she'd seen him. How long had he been gone from his perspective? He hadn't said. "Still recovering a little." Easing her hold, she took a step back to be able to see him, her hand still resting lightly against his side like a tether to keep him there, like if she was touching him he couldn't get sucked through time again. "Liam's okay. He's... recovering, I'm keeping an eye on him. How are you? Come inside."

For just a second as Stella pressed against him, a perfect fit in his arms as if this weren't the first time they'd embraced like this, Reed could have sworn all the anxiety and bewilderment left him and all he could feel was the comforting experience of returning home after a long journey, like the whole two years gone had been nothing but a strange adventure. He'd noticed that effect Stella had on him before, the way her presence and capability soothed him, made it possible to work through things that otherwise would have left Reed stumbling for some kind of rushed, closed-off explanation. And the feeling lingered even as she gently pulled away, her hand at his side like the anchor in 2021 he wanted so desperately. "Inside, yes, of course," Reed nodded, his own palm coming up to cover her fingers quickly in an unspoken thank you for being here, greeting him, giving him a far more welcoming space to return to than his own lab or apartment. "The last thing I remembered before it all... changed," he settled on, losing the plot of his sentence briefly as he struggled to think of the right euphemism for time travel, "Was waking up in the lab, everyone recovering, but I don't know from what. Did you find out anything? Liam's really recovering? What happened?" Reed's own injuries had faded, the only benefit of two years lived in the span of a few days, but he remembered how it had felt upon his arrival — stiff, bruised, his ribs wrapped clumsily but effectively around a few fractures.

Stella walked further into the house with him, to the kitchen where food was waiting for them — ordered in from 7th West, because she wasn't good with cooking on a normal day and definitely not one when she'd just learned time travel was real. She'd already got them plates and flatware, but once they got to the kitchen she got a couple glasses out as well. "I had an email from Sue, the... other me, I guess you'd say?" She huffed out an annoyed breath, getting a bottle of wine from the fridge and uncorking it. "Barely said anything about it, just that there was a lot going on in the city and they're used to helping so they tried. I looked into it and it was like a week-long shit show. Probably should be glad we weren't worse off."

She offered him one of the glasses she'd poured, pausing. "Unless you want something stronger, which we have." Either way, she took a sip from the other glass and frowned in thought. "Liam's recovering, I got him on some meds to help. I had a splitting headache for a couple days but I'm doing better." Nudging one of the plates his way, she encouraged him toward the food. "How are you, though? When you say it 'changed,' how did it happen? What happened?"

There was enough in what Stella said to fill Reed's mind with hundreds of new questions. Sue? And an email — could it be that simple? Had the other himself tried to communicate similarly? Reed filed away a few mental notes to follow up on these questions — further research needed. "I'm so glad you're okay," he said earnestly, accepting the wine glass she offered and taking a seat at the table. "I barely had a chance to even see you and Liam were hurt before I was gone. I was worried." Getting back to the present had been his greatest concern in the time he was away, but more than once the question had been raised about what they would be returning to? Had he left behind these friends who needed his help? Seeing Stella here in front of him, healing and even caring for him, was the only thing that would have assuaged those worries.

Reed was thankful for the distraction of serving food as he exhaled a sigh, trying to figure out how to articulate what happened. There was no fear that she'd doubt him or think he was insane, but Reed wanted to explain it the right way, in the hopes that being able to talk about it would alleviate a different anxiety, that if he didn't know the root cause, he would never be able to be certain it wouldn't happen again. "I really don't know what happened," he confessed, "The inciting cause is the one thing I don't have any data on. I woke up in a bad state at the lab, I saw you and Liam, I was getting up, and then a bright light, a sound like a downed electrical wire..." That deafening crack, the sound loud enough to blind him, Reed felt like he'd never shake it. "And I woke up in an alleyway. The newspaper headlines all said 1957." It was that simple, and that unknowable.

Settling in the seat across from him, Stella waited for Reed to get a full plate before getting some for herself. She wasn't exceptionally hungry, which no one might have guessed based on the amount of food she'd ordered, so the most she really did was pick at it, take a bite every so often as she listened. Considered, thought, tried to parse it apart. There was no way Reed hadn't already thought everything through, but sometimes a different perspective could help. Hadn't they proven that time and time again?

"So it was in the lab, but only you were... taken." Her brow furrowed and she took a sip of her wine, wondering why that was. There had been three of them there, they'd all been there, why was Reed the only one thrown into the past? Not that she wished she'd been part of it, or Liam — especially in his state, but it was definitely a question to think about. "And the alley, you said you were still in San Francisco? Interesting." She paused, not wanting to rub salt in any wounds, but needing to know. "How long was it, for you? How long were you there?"

Reed hesitated only briefly at Stella's question. She asked as kindly as he could have hoped, none of the sensationalist need for unbelievable details in her voice. He knew she'd want to know — he would have been asking the same thing, in fact. But saying it aloud seemed like it would only confirm the whole experience had been real, it would total up all that time he'd spent confused and uncertain and, despite his friends, lonely in the past. A man out of time. Reed frowned. "I experienced it as two years," he admitted, tone neutral as he confirmed it. "All here in San Francisco." It didn't seem like it made much sense to go too far, if the strange blast that had taken him away had left him in the same place, only decades earlier. There was always the chance it could snap him right back — although it hadn't. "I found Theo — well, he found me — a few months in, and after that we got to work." Burning the candle at both ends trying to engineer their way home.

Two years. Stella felt a pit in her stomach as she tried to grapple with how long that was, how much longer it would have felt to be someplace completely foreign, a time that was foreign. No matter how much Reed did on his own in their own time, it was different to choose to do things on his own and to be forced to. At least in the present, he had people available if he wanted them, needed them. In the past, he'd had no one — and then Theo, which was great, but still just one person and what if they hadn't found each other? The unknowns were difficult to imagine, made her chest ache at the loneliness she felt even trying to put herself in his shoes, and he'd been the one forced to live it.

Reaching over, she took his hand in hers, giving it a gentle squeeze. A physical reminder he was there, not lost in the past anymore — though whether it was for him or her, she wasn't sure. Maybe both. "I'm so glad you're back and safe." There were so many questions, but Stella didn't want to overwhelm him with them when he was just now back, probably not entirely adjusted to current life. So she settled on what was most important, not the 'what was it like?' level that was interesting but not as pressing. "Have you felt any physical effects? Noticed anything different?"

It wasn't until Stella put her hand over his that Reed realized what he'd been feeling wasn't just the acknowledgment of something so improbable, not just the echoes of all that loneliness and fear — it was shame too, an uneasy embarrassment with the implication that even with all his advantages, everything his mind was capable of, it had taken years of work and several failures before he could fix the problem, help himself and others. The logical part of his mind knew that for any project of this caliber, a two year turnaround was practically instantaneous, but all Reed could think of was every extra moment he was stuck in a timeline not his own, every day a personal failing. He could have spiraled with it, let that guilt keep him stuck in the past even after returning to 2021, running equations over and over in his lab because he couldn't trust his own handiwork, but Stella's gentle squeeze was grounding, forced him to be here, now, that the rush of affection Reed felt for her chased away all that insecurity. "I am as well," he agreed, a far better place to put his mental energy — gratitude, not regret.

"No, no side effects," Reed added, smiling slightly despite himself at how Stella always managed to ask the right question at the right time, cutting through distractions to the thing that mattered most, "I'll be keeping an eye out for myself and Theo in the coming days, of course. Frankly they just might not have had time to develop yet. We haven't been back all that long, ideally there would have been an observation period in the lab, but I just..." He paused, trying to think how to describe it. "I wanted to make sure the rest of the world was all still here."

Honestly, that Reed and Theo had figured out how to time travel in any amount of time given to them was a wonder, especially when forced to use 1950s technology. There was no reason for shame, especially not that. If anything, they both deserved to feel proud of what they'd accomplished. It had been out of necessity, but that didn't demean what they'd managed to do. It was an incredible feat.

"Of course, I don't blame you." Stella considered, belatedly, that she should have asked Reed what he wanted for dinner — he was the one that had been away from their restaurants for so long. At the time she figured it was one less thing for him to have to think about, something easy she could take care of. It was probably the right choice, but still. "You were away, working that whole time, you at least need a chance to breathe, not be kept away in the lab even longer. As long as you aren't feeling any strange symptoms, that's good." She paused, a teasing smile curling at the corners of her mouth. "And when you get to all the tests I know you're inevitably going to run, if you need someone to push a button for you on homemade medical equipment, I still possess those skills."

He was touched by Stella's reassurance, not only because it helped very much to hear someone else say they understood why he'd want to get out of the lab, be around the people he'd been gone from for so long, but also because the fact she wanted to believe him, reassure him at all was such an indication of Stella's kindness. In the biggest crisis Reed had experiences thus far in his life, the most unexplainable moment and terrible guilt of it all, she'd welcomed him to her home, ensured there was dinner without him having to think about it, and hadn't questioned him at all on the believability of it all. Her care was more than just soothing, comforting, it was genuinely impressive. Earlier Reed had told Theo not to focus on what ifs, just to count themselves lucky, and Reed gave himself the same lesson again now — no need to wonder how Stella had such an effect on him, just be thankful she shared it with him. "You know you were specially selected for that button-pushing mission," he informed her, laughing slightly at the distant memory of only a few weeks ago, "Most people think they don't need technique to hit go on something — amateurs. What I needed was an expert, and I knew it was you." Reed's tone was joking, but there was a grain of truth there — just like he'd done today, popping back into the right century, it was never that Reed sought Stella's help because she was available or because he knew she would come through. In these situations, he wanted her help because it was her.

She laughed softly, a more genuine smile spreading on her features as he spoke. If it were up to her, she would take him and Theo both to UCSF and run all kinds of tests and labs to make sure there wasn't something lingering where they couldn't see and hadn't felt. Treating them like test subjects wasn't what she wanted to do, though. Like she said, they needed a chance to breathe, to see things were right where they'd left them, that the world hadn't moved on without them. The time for tests would come, she knew it would, and she hadn't been joking about button pushing. If nothing else, so there would be someone with actual medical knowledge on hand.

"I don't take my button pushing duty lightly," she replied, giving a light pat to his hand before letting it go and reaching for her wine and taking a sip. "Took all the button pushing courses at school just so I could be called on in times like these."

"You're being modest," Reed insisted, now just letting the joke take over, a kind of giddiness as moment by moment it all felt more real, he was here, they'd made it back, "We both know you made the team qualifying rounds in Olympic button-pushing competition. I'm just thankful you decided to go the professional route." It was far from the appreciation he should have been giving her as he ate the food she'd provided and took a thankful sip of the wine. What he meant to say was something more along the lines of thank you for all this kindness and your support has meant everything to me and I'm so impressed by how capable you are — but those were statements too big, emotionally, for him to begin to grapple with right now, instead settling for the hope that she'd hear a little bit of them in his silly jokes. "Yes, you're right, there will be tests soon. There's just so much — the implications of this are, well, they're vast. But I wouldn't dream of undertaking any examination without you on hand to supervise."

Falling back into teasing jokes, easy going back and forth, was more reassuring than Stella thought it would be. Like it was proof that he was still the Reed he'd been the last time she'd seen him, the two years he spent in another time hadn't changed him so much that was missing. Proof it hadn't broken him somehow. They'd been through so much in such a short span of time before that, his presence in her life had turned into a constant reassurance itself. Somehow from acquaintances through her brother to someone she expected to hear from regularly, to be included in whatever tests or experiments he planned to do. It'd only been a few days, but she'd felt that hole in her life where he should have been.

"I appreciate that," she replied, tucking her hair back behind her ears. "There's so much, I know, but it's important to let yourself take the time to re-acclimate, relax, sleep. Write notes as you think of things and want to, but you deserve a break. You need one."

"Some people would say I'm just getting back from quite the break," Reed countered, knowing already that Stella would dismiss that idea completely out of hand. Sure his professional work had been far from the cutting-edge puzzles that had kept Reed's busy mind completely occupied in the here and now, but as per usual, he was more than able to throw himself into a scientific problem, spending far too many late nights doing equations out by hand instead of relying on the luxuries of supercomputers that could be held in the palm of his hand. The problem of reinventing time travel had honestly been a welcome distraction most nights from the fear and stress and loneliness of being caught for no discernible reason in a year so far gone it was like a different country. "I know you're right," he relented, already knowing Stella would be too persuasive to argue with, "Something like this merits a little breathing space." He'd already been thinking the same thing himself in all honesty. "It's just sometimes hard for me to know what to do with myself if I'm not working," Reed confessed, something he'd long known about himself but rarely said aloud.

Stella gave him a look at that, because in no way was that what she would consider a break. At the same time, she knew what he meant. While she didn't reach the level of workaholic as Reed, she wasn't exactly the best at giving herself a break either. It was so much easier to keep going.

"You could... read a book for fun? Binge watch a show you wished you could watch while you were away. Go to wine country for a few days." Stella wasn't sure any of those suggestions would work for Reed, but it at least might get the ball rolling. "I know it's hard to shut off that big brain of yours, but you deserve time away from work."

Some of her suggestions held some weight, but the one Reed picked up on was naturally the most outrageous. "Wine country?" he echoed, laughing a bit at his own expense just trying to picture it. "Stella, I'd get there and immediately set to work genetically optimizing grape output and arguing with sommeliers about the chemical structure of a cabernet versus a malbec." Perhaps he knew something of this from personal experience. On the bright side, there was the distinct possibility he'd come back with a wine label named after himself. "It's not that it's hard to shut off my brain, it's that it just doesn't shut off." Now more than ever, after whatever part of his mind that had still been dormant was awakened a few weeks ago. All his life, people had seen what Reed was capable of and assumed it was work, that it took effort for him to think and create at this level, and certainly there was no small amount of work, application and effort, but the truth was that Reed had become a scientist because it was a natural fit for the way he was always going to size up a problem then try to solve it. "I think about these things all the time. I don't mind the idea of taking a break, but if I'm still going to be thinking like this, I like to be useful."

Stella couldn't help but laugh at his explanation of what would happen if he went out to wine country. It was so easy to picture, she almost wanted to plan a trip for all of them so she could witness it in person. From anyone else she'd likely find it annoying, but coming from Reed it seemed natural and therefore sincere. Him saying his brain simply doesn't shut off, she knew there was no way for her to know exactly what that was like. She dealt with some degree of that in other ways, but not such detailed constant thought like he had.

"Useful in what way?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow. "Like with your normal work and projects or otherwise?"

Her question was a fair one, even if it felt personal, given all the introspection Reed had devoted to it lately. With nothing to do in 1957, between bouts of frantic problem solving and trying to pass undetected as a time traveler, there had been plenty of time for self reflection. He sighed. "My dad used to say people should do what they're capable of," Reed said thoughtfully, no better place to begin explaining yourself than at the beginning. "That if there was something you had to contribute to someone else, you should. And I really think that's true. So if I could help someone by thinking about a problem or helping come up with a solution," or taking an x-ray of their invisible limbs or aiming a flamethrower at their newly fireproof skin, "Then that's what I want to be spending my time on. Sure, some of that is my regular work projects, but just in general. If I have something I could contribute, that's what I want to spend my time on." He was capable of so much, had been given laurels like gifted and talented and advanced thinker and world class mind since his school days. It seemed like a waste for Reed not to put his abilities to use, whether through his chosen line of work or just by being present and available to solve other people's problems as they arose.

Stella studied him as he spoke, considering his words and how they shaped how Reed was as a person. It would be easy to say he'd contributed more than most people could ever expect to, but that didn't hold water when there was the potential to contribute more. And it was a philosophy that Stella could respect and get behind, but at the same time she still thought there should be balance — difficult when one's brain didn't shut off.

"I think that's noble," she started, elbow resting on the table and her chin propping on her hand. "I also think it's not just about scientific discoveries. You have an amazing mind, you're great at working through problems, but you're not just your mind, you know? Contributions don't have to be large scale, significant, article-worthy. You could volunteer somewhere, contribute your time and effort to an important cause, things like that."

Reed hadn't quite expected Stella to think he was useless after what he'd said, but it was still a pleasant surprise to watch her prop her head in her hand and affirm his words after a moment's thought. Her opinion mattered to him, Reed already knew, but he hadn't quite expected that it would matter so much on this. "I could," he agreed, the simplicity of her suggestions like volunteering cutting through a lot of the high pressure and stakes he'd always put upon himself. "I don't mean to make it sound like I want to be the center of the whole thing, I don't have some hero complex, I just hate the idea that I could be doing more and I chose not to." The what ifs, the possibilities — they haunted him. "You must know something about that," he guessed, just seeing how caring she was towards Liam, towards himself. It was hard to imagine that Stella didn't also feel some of the same drive towards helping people like he did, even if it was evident she had a much better sense of balance in her life. "You went to medical school, you're a doctor. Surely you want to help people. How do you shut out that feeling of needing to do more?"

It was a valid question. Stella knew she wasn't the best at it, often felt the pressure to do more. Balance wasn't her forte, even if she was striving to be better at it. She took a long moment to consider, forcing herself to not simply reply automatically by taking a bite of food. "Of course I want to help people. It's difficult wondering if there's more I could be doing on any given day, not knowing if I could have made the difference somewhere." She paused, sitting up straighter as she organized her thoughts. "I guess it comes down to: there's always more we could be doing. No matter what, no matter how much we do, there's always going to be more. So rather than focus on what we're not able to do, we should focus on what we can. I could work more hours, but the trade off is losing rest and if I lose rest and am not at a hundred percent, is that actually helping? We could always do more. And if you did volunteer somewhere — not trying to force it on you, just an example — that doesn't mean you're wasting potential. What you do there is meaningful to the people it impacts. It's not a scientific breakthrough, but it could be providing someone with the first hot meal they've had in days."

"You're so sensible," Reed said, amused by the seriousness of his own compliment to her, the difference between a dry word like sensible and the woman sitting in front of him. As strange a fit as it was, it was the best way he could think to put it, the total capability and obviousness with which she spoke. "You just make this seem so easy. You have a great sense of balance, is what I think I'm trying to say. It's very impressive." Because it wasn't easy for someone like Reed, who had been pushed all his life not just towards perfection but towards full immersion in his work, told over and over again that hobbies and vacations and anything but science was just a distraction. It made him feel often that no matter what his successes looked like, in many ways he was behind his peers, who had learned this good balance so much earlier. "I hear what you're saying," he promised, "And you're right. It would be worth a try. I'll look into it. I won't spend all my time in the lab this week."

"Well someone has to be, and we both know it's not Liam." Stella rolled her eyes playfully, but the compliment wasn't lost on her. It didn't mean she agreed with everything he was saying, but it was nice to hear, especially from someone she respected. "I'm glad I at least seem like I have balance," she said with a soft laugh. "It's easier said than done, right? I know none of this is easy, of course it isn't. Just things to think about." Resting her forearms against the edge of the table, she leaned in against them. "But I appreciate it. You deserve time out of the lab, even if it doesn't seem as useful to you. Even if it's just to get some Vitamin D."

"I can tell you're being very gentle with me since I am a beginner at this," he acknowledged. Stella's kindness in talking about what he deserved rather than what he must do, suggesting balance instead of trying to get him out of the lab altogether — it was a far cry from other people in his life who had taken much stronger, insistent tacks for the same problem. But Reed had to laugh a little, just trying to picture Liam as the sensible Sawyer family member. For all the young man's admirable qualities, that wasn't exactly one of them. "Is that where it comes from, taking care of your brother?" he asked, thinking about Stella's sense of practicality and balance now in this context. An only child himself, there was a part of Reed that wondered about that kind of sibling dynamic, what it had been like for Stella to step into the responsibility for her brother.

Stella allowed herself a moment of thought, finishing off the wine in her glass as she did. Being the sensible one had always been her role, that was simply how it was. Even before Liam came to live with her. "I think more so it came from taking care of myself," she answered finally. "I had to do that far before anything with Liam, but I'm sure his being here has made it worse." She scrunched her nose a moment, the corner of her mouth quirking. "If sensibility can get 'worse,' that is."

"Let’s say it can only get better," Reed offered wryly, finding her expression mimicked on his own face. Used to taking care of herself, maybe that was part of what made her seem like such a kindred spirit to Reed, part of the reason why it felt like they had so much in common despite all their differences. He was no stranger to taking care of himself either, often becoming his own parent during childhood and adolescence when his own were preoccupied with other things. There was a certain kind of person who would take on that responsibility for themselves early, be the adult in situations long before they were one, and Reed valued those traits in other people and himself alike, even as he knew it wasn't always fair that they'd had to take that on. In any case, it gave him a little satisfaction to think he'd solved some of the puzzle of Stella tonight.