When it clicks, Lux is a little annoyed with herself for not having clued in earlier. Kids like the two of them, they don't get much that's genuinely theirs, and when someone wants to share those things or somehow dimish them, it hurts more than just about anything, regardless of intent. It's terrifying in a way that calls your self-worth into question, that makes you wonder if maybe you really are just something to cast aside.

Last Christmas, she'd literally run crying from Baze's hut because he'd invited Kate and Sam over that morning. Stephanie's getting along with Bucky now. Lux gets it.

"Listen," she quietly says, and pushes herself up so that she can swing a leg across Jason's hips and move to straddle him. She wants him looking at her now, not caught up in his head. "It sucks, and it isn't fair. They don't know you like I know you, or like Grace or Bucky or anyone else here knows you. So let 'em watch. If they think they're going to find something bad here, they're wrong." She reaches to brush the hair from his brow. "And you have me. No matter what."