Who do you work for baby?

[mortemscintilla]

WHO: Korra & Hei
WHAT: Wherein Hei has important news. As does Korra. 

 

[ In the days that follow, Hei's life seems locked in stasis -- he may as well be frozen in a cryo-chamber. In the gray dawn every morning, the brute vestige of habit wakes him up in time to go to the factory. Sprawled on the futon, he lies with his back to Korra. Eyes open to watch the sun spread across the bottom of the windowsill, immersed in that strange post-sleep clarity. Sometimes he takes a full five minutes to rise, lulled by Korra's breathing: long, slow inhales, smooth exhales. Just a sliver of space dividing their bodies -- but it might as well be a minefield. ]

[ In the late evenings, stiff and dull-eyed, as if he's been engaged in a low-wattage war someplace, he hits up the Triad hotspots, propped up on a stool with the opium-puffing, betel-chewing low-lives, listening to the scratchy music on the jukebox and inhaling the sour whiff of spilled sake as they talk shop. Almost every night he gets fresh info about the Red Lotus -- their agendas, their movements. It never quite makes the eleven o'clock local news, but from what he's gathered so far, this new threat plans to transform the world into a free-for-all disaster zone, with public figures and political leaders toppled down nightly. ]

[ To separate fact from fiction, he turns to the air-bender held captive in his safehouse. She is tight-lipped and defiant at first. But after he's spread and u-clamped her fingers to a table, and meticulously dismantled them one by one from cuticle to knuckle, she grows chattier. From her, he learns the names of the Red Lotus' leaders. Learns of their failed attempts to kidnap Korra once before, which ended in them being locked up. ]

[ Now they're out, and determined to pick up where they left off. ]

[ The details leave Hei quietly unnerved. He needs to warn Korra. It's true, things have been tense since she'd learnt about his affiliation with the Triads. At home, it is as if they are guests at the same small hotel, who have been introduced for politeness' sake at the table d'hote. Meals are spent in near-silence. Little or no physical warmth passes between them; lying back-to-back in the futon each night, there seems nothing to distinguish the bleak well of sleep from the bleak stretches of wakefulness. They don't talk about desire. It is there -- in him, if not in her -- but as if by silent consent, he acts on it separately, or else not at all. The air in the house seems laced with a dark spell; it burns dim and low between them like creeping resignation.]

[ Still, her safety is his first priority. As the smoky dusk encroaches, he cuts a brisk path through the noise and steam and clamor of the city. Hops on a ferry, and heads to Air Temple Island, where Korra is training with Tenzin. ]

Comments

[anatural]

[Kya looks between the two of them like she's not sure where her attention should go. After a moment, she comes to a decision.]

I'll go find Tenzin. You two go sit in there and talk. [She reaches out and squeezes Korra's shoulder sympathetically, but doesn't budge at the younger girl's look of utter terror and betrayal. Before leaving, she leans in and whispers "You can do this."

No I can’t. Even as Korra walks with Hei into the little conference room, she contemplates bending the earth open and disappearing into the planet's crust. She has to hide from the Red Lotus, doesn't she? Two birds with one stone. Perfect plan. Let's do it.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei watches Kya go, and his heart skips like a stone over deep water before time resumes. It takes him by surprise, but then, he's always been good at catching the currents of tension in the air. Right now it radiates most strongly off of Korra: she feels like a quartz rod at his side, giving off dizzying waves of energy. ]

[ Mechanically, he follows her to the narrow room. Although the window is open, he can barely breathe; the air in the room feels stifling, spent. His gaze drops to where he's holding her hand, a light tremor running through the fingers, like he's not sure if it's okay to do something as simple as touch her anymore. In the next beat, almost like he loses physical courage, his palm drops back down to his side. ]

[ When he speaks, it's low and calm, a barrier against the tide of anxiety swelling within. ]

Korra. What's happened?

[ Is she sick? Is she going away somewhere? His mind shuffles through the list of options, but none of them connects to the present. None of them sheds any light on the way she's acting. ]

[anatural]

[He drops her hand, and it's like a knife to her gut. He doesn't even know yet and he can't touch her. She looks at the past few weeks and can see them stretching out for nine months. Longer. Who knows if he'll even stick around after she tells him she's not going to terminate the pregnancy. He'll disappear, because that's the other thing he likes to do, and Korra will be doing this on her own.

You’re not alone. Korra reminds herself what Kya said. She has Kya, Tenzin and Pema, Jinora, her parents, Master Katara... She's surrounded by people who support her. She takes a deep breath.]

I'm pregnant.

[She can't think of a way to soften the news, so she just puts it out there.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Pregnant. The words, rather than being spoken, seem rather to materialize before him, as if printed on a bright red balloon. A balloon floating dangerously close to a pin. Then -- pop. Deflate, retract. Hei blinks, once, twice, and feels his face go blank as he processes, and processes, and processes, for three long heartbeats, before his stunned eyes seem to turn themselves inside out. His heart skips like a faulty stylus on a turntable. Chest tightening, skin draining of color. ]

[ To an impartial observer, he might seem like a man on the verge of a stroke. So filled with suffocating dread that he can't even express it. He's just white. ]

Damn...

[ It comes out in a seventeen-year-old's croak. He doesn't know what else to say. The hitch-skip in his chest intensifies, his body understanding fully even as his mind struggles to catch up. It makes no sense. They've been so careful. They've used protection each time. Except -- fuck it. He knows better than anyone that no birth control method is 100% effective. ]

[ In a blank, blindish way, he stares at Korra. Tries to pull himself together, but can't really manage it. He is still processing. Pregnant. He thinks he might be processing that possibly forever. If he doesn't blink out, between each airless breath, each juddering heartbeat. ]

[ Eventually, though, he's able to revert to some sort of operational default. He finds himself asking, ]

How far along?

[anatural]

[As she waits for him to react, Korra stops being quite so scared for herself and more scared for him. He looks like he's going to pass out. It might even be funny, if the circumstances weren't so...not. It's a relief when he finally speaks. Her voice is quiet, as though she's afraid to speak too loudly and break through his shock and release his anger.]

A few weeks... I had no idea until Kya told me earlier. She saw the change in my chi. She says it has a heartbeat.

[A heartbeat and, according to Southern Water Tribe custom, a soul. The Northern Water tribe believed that children didn't have souls until they left the womb; their spirit came to them with their first breath. For all its sexism, the predominance of female healers helped ensure that the mother's health was always top priority. And as family was considered part of the woman's sphere, it was of course up to the woman to decide how many children she would have. But of course, the Northern Water Tribe was large and flourished even during Sozin's War, while their sister tribe has always been small, and particularly after the Fire Nation attacked, on the verge of dying out. Preventing pregnancy was acceptable, though not encouraged, but once pregnancy happened, the baby came first. Even Katara, who was the tribe's strongest proponent of physical and sexual autonomy for women, balked at the North's willingness to terminate pregnancies at any point. She had a tribe to restore, and a nation of airbenders to bring back from extinction.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei hears her words as if from under the pounding ocean. It is exactly like being underwater, like trying to stay upright in heavy surf while the sand is sucked from beneath your feet. His face is wan, drawn, with a sharp little indent between the brows. ]

A few weeks...

[ He is aware of the almost sacred emphasis the Southern Water Tribe places on children. But it's not one he can share. He's never given any thought to children. He's a killer, a Contractor. They don't care about posterity. They are posterity -- their own past, present, and future. And the Hei who had navigated through the world differently ... Well, he'd died the day the stars fell from the sky. Died with his real name, with the memories of his parents and his still-innocent sister. Died before he had a chance to grasp anything he'd thought he wanted, and no matter how many decades the Black Reaper might exist in the human sphere, how passionately he might fuck his women, he'll leave nothing of himself behind when his end comes. A dead breeder of death. That's just the way it is. ]

[ He's never expected anything different. ]

[ Swallowing, he tries for a level voice. ]

It's still early. Tell me you're not going to -- ?

[ Keep it? He can't bring himself to say that. But he can't yet bring himself to demand she send it down the toilet, either. ]

[anatural]

Hei, it has a heartbeat. [She'd expected his resistance, and yet somehow she's still indignant that he could even ask. Of course she's keeping it!]

[mortemscintilla]

That doesn't make it a person. Not yet.

[ His voice is low, rough, and his look carries a flat precision that doesn't betray his interior. He's pretending at logic and calm, but he feels shipwrecked, his pulse a cartwheel, his heart a small, grotesque thing uncoiling behind the cage of his ribs, ready to do battle with the cold-eyed Reaper at the helm of his brain, to plead mercy with his trigger-loaded instincts -- an epic battle of judge, jury, executioner, all rolled up inside him. ]

[ Swallowing dryly, he rubs his temples, then scrubs all ten fingers distractedly through his hair. ]

It's just a fertilized egg. It's unaware of its own existence and does not have a brain. If you end it, it won't even know it existed.

[ He needs to make her understand that. (More to the point, he needs to make himself understand that. It's why he keeps referring to the fetus as It. It is distancing, objectifying. The kind of thing many Syndicate operatives learn to do before pulling the trigger.) ]

[anatural]

It does to me. [Any ambivalent feelings she might have had herself, internal debates on how much she accepted the south's ideas on pregnancy and life, vanish in the face of his arguments. He's an outsider attacking her culture, and she will defend it.] And while that may not matter to you, I care. I'm not going to end a life just because it's inconvenient.

[mortemscintilla]

I never said. It didn't matter to me.

[ He glares at her through a fog of headache and escalating tension, anger burning under the surface of his words. While her eagerness might be touching, he knows it's just that stupid Darwinian thing. They fuck with your head so you'll reproduce like a good little member of your species, never mind whether it is the world's worst idea ever. She is too damn young. And he's too ... well. Not young. Not the way he survived. But he is much too fucked-up. ]

[ Yes, he loves Korra -- an imperfect, wild, hilarious and desperate love. Nothing, no one, right now, is more important than she is. He is sure of that. More to the point, she has a job to do -- a duty -- and he's made it his job to help her do it. Anything that pulls her concentration from that, that puts them off their game, is a liability that can be fatal. ]

[ So. Distracting. Idiotic. Impossible. End of discussion. ]

[ Except that understanding, that determined belief ... does nothing to make any less sore the place inside himself where a more infinite future has opened out and must be demolished for the good of logic. ]

[ He ignores a pounding in his temples, an ache in his chest. Says, with effortful calm. ]

I'm not trying to be ... insensitive. But you need to be real. You're the Avatar. You have a ton of other responsibilities. Not to mention threats to your life. Having a kid isn't something that you can try, then, if you don't like it a year down the road, undo. There's no reset button. Just take a breath and think about the next few years. Your mind's not on 2 Am feedings and teething and dirty diapers and babysitters and measles and colds and schools and homework and having to be there almost every moment to make sure they don't get hurt --

[ With a breath, he cuts himself off. Glowers at her, but underneath that burns a plea. ]

Children need. And they never stop needing, Korra. I'm just asking if you're prepared for that. Because I'm not. Pai -- [ and he loved Pai more than anything, anyone ] -- was a handful enough.

[anatural]

[Korra steps back and looks away from him.] Avatars do have children. I believe you've met three of them.

[His point still stands. She's not ready for this. She never thought she'd have to be, even after that scare in the City. She thought protection would be enough. And he's not saying anything that she hasn't been thinking about obsessively ever since she stopped obsessing over the How it’s not possible! part.

It changes nothing.]

I'm not prepared. [Her voice comes out too small and she takes a deep breath.] I know I'm not prepared for any of this. I haven't been prepared for anything since I first came to Republic City. Not Amon, not my uncle, not the spirits... It doesn't change my responsibilities. I can't kill a child just because it's inconvenient.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei's fingers clench and unclench at his sides, heartbeat sounding off like hammer strikes in his temples. His jaw feels like it's tightened to shattering point; he feels like he could seize Korra and shake her until her hair flies loose from its ties and her teeth fall out like chiclets and she gets so stirred up inside that she miscarries. ]

[ He could do it. He's done it before. He's taken out plenty of pregnant women and children. Non-principals. How else would he have survived this far? Killing is killing -- regardless of your target. There's a fine line between chivalry and chauvinism. Similarly, there's a fine line between selective morality and deluded stupidity. All he's ever cared about is getting the job done. ]

[ Except this isn't a job. He recognizes that his mind is swooping around these violent fantasies so it won't have to land on the rock of fact she's dashed down upon him. ]

[ That tiny creature inside her, whose presence so inflames his paranoia and dismay and disbelief ... is his. ]

[ He waits for Korra to finish speaking. Focuses on his breathing, ignoring the way his vision wavers at the edges. A child, he thinks. My child. It makes no sense. Tenzin has children. His parents had children. Not him. ]

[ Except, even now, logic hasn't shaken its grip off his whirling brain. ]

It's not just an inconvenience, Korra. It would also make you a little more dead than I'd like you to be. Avatars have children, yeah. But Aang didn't carry his babies -- or deliver them. You'd be too vulnerable with a sprog. Distracted. And the baby could be gruesome kidnapping waiting to happen. Are you ready to risk that?

[anatural]

Aang didn't, but Katara did. And she was in just as much danger as he was. [One of the quickest ways to make Korra angry — imply that her beloved sifu was any less important to saving the world than her husband.]

Ready or not... I'm going to be a mother.

[Saying the words out loud makes her feel faint.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei grits his teeth. Rage and frustration are climbing toward his hairline, making him itch with forced self-restraint. His head sings, aching from a current that hums under his wild pulse. But he stays where he is, rooted to the spot like a tree. Cranked up, it'd be easy -- too easy -- to pop loose a few rounds. To launch himself at her, shake her and force her, make her talk sense, make her be a sane human being he knows how to cope with. ]

[ Not ... this. This infuriating person acting dangerously like how he himself wants to react, madly making absurd precarious essentially unworkable plans for how they can have the child after all, and still be the same people, do the same things, enjoy the same freedoms. ]

[ Except that's impossible. ]

Aang and Katara were lucky. You might not be. The second your enemies get a whiff of the news that the Avatar's got a bun in the oven, every megalomaniac will be beating a path to your door. When it happens, you're going to be second-guessing yourself every moment, nauseous, with backache, your feet swollen, and you're going to look at your belly, at this life you're so hellbent on preserving, feel that kick of reality coming from inside you, and all of these sentimental notions you feel right now will disappear.

[anatural]

Then I better be lucky.

[She's not going to be swayed. He can logic all he wants, but nothing will change the fact that she's keeping the baby. She doesn't have a choice.

Where’s Tenzin?]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She has a billion-and-one choices. She's just being too obtuse to see them. She's convinced herself she can have this baby -- when there is just no way. Her life as the Avatar might be a collaborative team production, with Tenzin and his family and her friends all helping her. But expecting them all to commit years of theirs to helping her raise a child she is singularly ill-equipped to deal with -- that is a non-starter. Expecting the delicate balance of his affair with Korra to survive that real-world test of his many limitations -- another non-starter. Easier to imagine that she'd soon came to resent -- even hate -- him, than that he'd ever be capable of rising to her expectations that way. ]

[ And apart from that -- he knows he isn't ready for this. Playing a caretaker and protector to Pai, to the extent he managed that, was difficult enough, and he knows he'd made his share of mistakes. A helpless infant needing constant care and attention ... would be a nightmare. There are just some situations in which even love doesn't find a way. ]

[ He wishes she'd understand: the best way to cherish this creature they've inadvertently made together, is to let it go. ]

[ In a different voice, almost bitter, he says, ]

Look. I know whatever happens, you'd be a good mom. Or try to be. But it's not the same case for me. I barely manage to behave myself for you. And I'm not good, Korra. You should be worried about me being a bad influence. Because I'm the last person who should have anything to do with an impressionable mind.

[anatural]

[It all comes down to a fundamental difference in belief. To Korra, this baby is just as alive as Jinora or Meelo or Hei himself. What he's suggesting is akin to say that "Jinora is a liability, so you should kill her."]

So I should kill this baby because you're an asshole? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Yeah, well. Then her beliefs are flat-out idiotic. (Except he knows, doesn't he, how very easy it is to ignore facts that don't support your beliefs and to actively seek sources that support your convictions? They're so deeply planted that they become your personal code -- the core that navigates your behavior.) ]

[ He doesn't want to disparage these beliefs, these things that are so tied up with her very Korra-ness. But he can't step back and let her go through with this momentous mistake. It aggrieves a small part of him that is hopeless and bereft, contemplating the loss of a marvel he's never even met. But this is a well-known itch of sentiment that he is used to resisting. ]

[ Flatly, ]

You should. You know I'd be a terrible father. There's no guarantee that kid won't end up like me. Is that what you want?

[ Don't trust me with your child. I'm a killer, and I'm weak, and my love for you isn't going to be enough. He doesn't say it. But he doesn't need to. ]

[anatural]

You don't have to be involved.

[If it's a choice between breaking up with Hei and taking a life... She'll break up with him. Not happily, not without regrets and tears, but she'll do it.

The door opens before Hei can continue beating a dead horse, and Tenzin bursts in, robes swirling around him.]

Korra, are you all right? What's going on?!

[mortemscintilla]

[ You don't have to be involved. She says it so casually, so easily -- but there's still a skittering, a sinking in Hei's chest. Suddenly he feels the heaviness of her words, their implication, and the heaviness of difference that lies between them stronger than ever. A child she doesn't even know yet. Just a corpuscle of possibility in her belly. But she's already willing to give up whatever's between them to safeguard it. He wonders, with a surge of both hurt and bitterness, if he'd do the same, were their positions reversed. ]

[ He doesn't say anything. But his face reflects a slow shift from simple anger to a more complex kind of emotion, a deeper level of unhappiness. ]

[ It doesn't last long. In the next beat, Tenzin is storming in. ]

[ Suddenly it's easy to step away from Korra, to detach his gaze from hers, a quick cold slice like from a blade. Flatly, he says, ]

It's the Red Lotus. They're coming after Korra.

[ The news of the pregnancy, he keeps to himself. It's not Tenzin's business. Not yet. ]

[anatural]

[There's nothing easy about it. Korra's given up a lot to make this relationship with Hei work, compromised previously inviolable principles so that she could stay with him. She's forgiven his violence towards her, his murder of her uncle, and had been working towards forgiving & forgetting his torture of that kid.

And perhaps if she hadn't seen that kid's brutalized corpse in the warehouse, Korra wouldn't be quite so adamant about keeping the baby, or willing to sacrifice their relationship to save it. But with that memory still so fresh in her mind, even weeks later, she can't bring herself to make yet another concession. She has to draw the line somewhere. He refuses to stop killing for her sake; she refuses to kill for his.

She's barely cognizant as everybody panics and plans; she participates enough that Tenzin doesn't notice her distraction, but she doesn't remember what she said, or what anyone else did. She doesn't come back to the present until Kya speaks.]

So where will you two be staying tonight?

[Tenzin bristles.] Korra will stay here, of course! In the morning, Lin will take her somewhere safe.

What about Li?

[Tenzin blusters -- clearly unwilling to have the young man around, but without any good reason to forbid it. Korra watches Hei nervously. What will he choose to do?]

[mortemscintilla]

[ In the storm of panic and preparation that follows, Hei stays in the crux. He puts in a word or two where necessary. He asks the questions that need to be asked; he outlines his concerns and puts forth suggestions while quietly weighing those of Korra's friends and family. His personality feels unfixed -- one moment he segues into the Reaper's typical interrogative aggression, on playing the game with an impregnable offense and defense. The next, he exhibits Li's quiet, almost circumspect sort of watchfulness, easing into the sidelines. Either way, he is clearly wary of everything, including wherever Beifong plans to transport Korra, no matter how safe it is. A crease of suspicion sits omnipresent between his brows. He wonders if it'll be there for the next nine months. His protective instincts aren't going to stand down until Korra is out of the danger zone. ]

[ Through it all, he's aware of Korra's silence. Aware of the cloud she's drifting on. Floating in a waft of shock and disbelief, going through the motions without absorbing the gravity of the situation. He knows the feeling. But he tamps his own loosening worries down and lets them smoke. He has to concentrate, deal with one thing at a time. ]

[ I can't believe she wants to keep it. Can she not recognize the danger she -- and the baby -- could be in? Is this just more of the patented Korra method of dealing with non-Avatar issues by not-dealing? He doesn't know. More to the point, he can't comprehend why she'd have his baby. Equal to how he loves her, is all the pain he's ground into her, without thinking, over and over. The abuse, the beatings, the lies and threats. What woman in her right mind would carry the child of a bastard like him? Or maybe the fact that it's his baby is incidental. Maybe she just wants something solidly, inextricably hers? ]

[ And you don't? ]

[ He tries not to think about it. But it's true. Isn't he always looking, in Pai's absence, for something -- a cause, a person -- to be connected to? Something to pull him off the nihilistic path he keeps treading? Well, maybe this is it, despite all his reservations. ]

[ Godfuckingdamnit. He can't think about it. Not right now. Tenzin and Kya are staring at him, he with disapproval, she with curiosity. But their scrutiny doesn't affect him like Korra's. She's making such big sad eyes. The eyes of a lost kitten that doesn't expect to find her way home. It sends a tiny shock through him, even as he puzzles at her worry. ]

I'll stay with Korra.

[ Quiet and matter-of-fact. She's a hopeless little idiot to believe it'd be any other way. ]

[anatural]

[It's not like he's the easiest person in the world to predict. He could have decided to make his point about the baby by leaving. He could have decided that going undercover with the Red Lotus was the best way to protect her. But he's staying with her. Despite everything that's happened — despite her fear that he'll try something heavy handed to get rid of the baby since he can't talk her out of it — Korra relaxes when he says he'll stay. Love is kind of stupid that way.

Tenzin doesn't look nearly as pleased.]

I'll have one of the acolytes prepare a room for him.

Oh come on, Tenzin. They live together. They can share a room.

It's not proper!

What, because they're not married? That didn't stop Toph Bei Fong. Or do you think Lin should be ashamed of her mother?

That's not what I said! You always twist my meaning!

Because you're never willing to admit that you're a judgmental jerk!

[Sometimes, Korra is very, very glad she is an only child. She rubs her temples, trying to swallow her irritation that they're bickering over something so trivial when so much is at stake.]

ENOUGH! [Tenzin and Kya stop mid-finger pointing match and stare at Korra.] Tenzin, go call the chief. I'm going to talk to Jinora.

But what about tonight--

My sleeping arrangements are none of your business. [It comes out much harsher than Korra intended, but she has no patience right now. She just wants to be alone — or at least somewhere quiet, where she can process everything that's happened today.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei would agree. Love is stupid. A deeply stupid idea, an idea for morons. Or ... fine, maybe not morons, but for people who are very short-sighted, naive, people who are dopes. He should know better. Instead of sticking around with Korra, he should be out in Republic City. Extending his network's antennae. Making arrangements. Gathering leads. Hunting down the Red Lotus. But he can't -- and it is the rage of knowing better that stabs him in the throat. Because fine, Korra is pregnant. But that doesn't mean he should cling to her side like a barnacle stuck to the hull of a sinking ship. He needs to think operationally, rationally. He is still a Contractor, for better or worse, and he shouldn't mess around. ]

[ Except ... ]

[ I can't leave. Not now. ]

[ It is so strange, to be near someone who isn't Pai, and feel the mute impress on his consciousness -- and his conscience -- of a love that's almost like an innate duty. Maybe this is what they mean, when they say it's such an illogical thing -- being in love, having a child. It completely alters your most fundamental priorities. With Pai, he'd learnt, first in confusion and then in some emotion too complex for him to parse, to rely on it as an absolute. He'd used it as a shield, as a blade, to safeguard her. Time had tested it, over and over, and found it unflagging. ]

[ And it won't flag here. ]

[ Wearily, he watches Tenzin and Kya bicker. Korra's outburst is almost a relief; the bright lightning-jag of her anger seems to break the stifling atmosphere the way a thunderstorm dissipates a heatwave. ]

[ Almost to assuage Tenzin, who seems ready to spontaneously combust with indignation, he says, Li-soothing, ]

I think everyone could use a little rest right now.

[anatural]

[Tenzin looks in no mood to be pacified, and frankly, Korra doesn't care. Tenzin and Kya can bicker all they want, as long as she didn't have to listen. Meeting over. As she heads out the door, she hears Tenzin —]

Fine, I'll call Lin. You go rest. Alone. I'll be checking on you later!

[Sorry, Tenzin, your worst nightmare has already come true: I’m pregnant. Deal with it. She manages not to snap that at him, knowing it would bring only another endless round of questions, panicked planning, and arguments. She's not ready for that again.

She'd intended to go find Jinora, but the idea of resting sounded really good. She hesitates in the hall, debating which way to go. Possibly also waiting for Hei to follow her, but she's not admitting that.]