Pigs and Guilt Complexes

Running

"Harper? Is that you?"

That was the first signal that the conversation was about to make a turn for the worse. Jesse saw the crowd's glee quickly turn sour as they took in Harper. Oh boy, she thought to herself as she spotted more than a few frowns and crossed arms.

"Um...Yes. Hi, Harry." Harper said sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head and looking down in shame.

Harry, she thought, looked and sounded very different to the model in Harper's laboratory. She had no idea why she had assigned a flower to him, but for whatever reason that was, he certainly didn't look very happy to see her.

He looked eager to smile and embrace her, sharing the celebratory feeling of being free from PAMA's grasp, but there was something holding him back. "You didn't do this to us." He asked softly, "Did you?"

Harper immediately shrank away from the crowd, touching her arm for comfort. A middle-aged woman beside Harry crossed her arms, squinting at her suspiciously. "You did." Jesse could sense trouble brewing in her accusatory tone.

She didn't want to deal with this right now.

The fight with PAMA had left her energy reserves completely drained. It was a miracle that she was still standing at this point. But that was always the way these things went: they'd save a town from certain doom and were then expected to give a huge inspiring speech to the townspeople, get them to settle their differences, and then be on their way. That was how it had been ever since the Witherstorm. And maybe on another day, when she didn't feel like she had been thrown at a brick wall at high-speed, she could have dealt with it.

But the first thing Jesse had noticed when they emerged from PAMA's lair was the uncompleted portal standing in the courtyard, with the townspeople celebrating and rejoicing a few meters away. It was selfish of her, but her immediate thought wasn't relief that everyone was fine.

"We're not getting home anytime soon."

The crowd's mood suddenly shifted, cheers turning to boos, directed towards Harper as she tried to regain control of the situation. "Well, I mean–hey–" The front of the crowd started pushing towards her. She quickly retreated several steps. "It's complicated. You have to understand."

"How could you do this to us?" Someone in the crowd said loudly. The rest of them grumbled in agreement.

Jesse stepped in front of Harper before the crowd could get any closer, acting as a barrier between them. "You don't understand – Harper helped defeat PAMA too." The red hair woman gave her a dirty look. It never failed to amuse her how quickly people could go from praising your name to stamping it into the dirt. "We couldn't have done it without her."

No one seemed particularly impressed by her defence. In the corner of her eye, Jesse spotted Petra subtly reach for her sword.

"So, what, we're just supposed to forgive her now?" Harry pointed an angry finger at Harper.

Suddenly, Little Miss Red pushed against Jesse harder. "No, I don't think so." She muttered, eyeing Harper up like a fat hog roast. Jesse gently pushed the women away, holding her hands out widely.

Another man appeared next to Harry, sharing the same murderous expression as the crowd. "Harper stripped this place bare to build that monster – how are we supposed to rebuild?"

"You can't expect us to just rebuild and forget about what happened!"

She felt their displeasure ooze off them, and while it was completely called for, it wasn't what Jesse wanted to deal with at that moment.