Astrea Starr tugged at the tangled cord as she tried to bring the telephone over to her kitchen table.

"Well neither we nor your sister had heard from you in over a week. We were just worried about you, honey."

Heavens, a whole week. And I've been out on my own for how long?

"I know, Mom. But things got kind of busy at work - we have a travelling exhibit that's got to go out Friday - and midterms are this week..."

"Oh! And you've been studying!" came the delighted reply.

"Yes..."

Among other things.

"Ohhh. Your father and I are so proud of you, Astrea. Our girl - the first person from either side to go to college!"

Astrea felt her face warm.

"Thanks, Mom. Um, look, I've got a test tomorrow night and I was right in the middle of preparing when you called -"

"Oh! Well, you go right ahead, honey! Do you think you'll be free for dinner Sunday? Your father's making chicken."

"Sure, Mom. I'll let you know if I can't, okay?"

"All right - bye dear."

"Bye Mom."

Astrea gave up tugging at the cord and left the phone on the kitchen counter. She could really use a longer cord - maybe they sold those separately? She'd have to check next time she was in Kal-Mart.

She sat down at her kitchen table - which was actually more in the living area of her tiny apartment - and eased open the text. The care with which she treated papers in her job at the Smithsonian carried over by habit to all books - she had even used a thin, acid-free ribbon to mark her place instead of paper or pencil.

Astrea stared at the strange-looking equations on the page. How this would ever be of any use to her whatsoever she couldn't fathom - but she needed the math course to graduate.

All right, calm down, she told herself. One step at a time, just like the professor had shown her.

So long as she didn't allow herself to get all worked up, she could solve these things. Figuring out the solution starts with figuring out the question... what answer was the problem asking for? Now move that to one side of the equal sign or the other, whichever is easiest...

Brrrrrrrt!

Astrea jumped as the phone came to life.

She could let the answering machine take it - if it hadn't broken last August. She hadn't had the money to replace it.

Mainly, she sighed, because the time she used to spend taking photographs for extra cash was now taken up by running around Washington in a leotard. She ought to have her head examined.

"Yes?"

"Astrea? It's Reverend Green."

"Oh! Hello, Reverend."

"We missed you at choir practice Tuesday."

"But - I told Monica - "

"And she did pass it on. It's just that you hadn't missed rehearsal for a year and then, boom, twice in five weeks. I was just checking to see if everything was all right?"

"Oh. Yeah, I've just been... busy, what with work and night school and dating..."

And pulling people out of burning houses, and getting into fistfights with statues...

"Still seeing that young man from the theater?"

Astrea smiled. 'From the theater' - made Jason sound like an actor or something.

"Yessir."

"Good, good. I'd like to meet him sometime."

"Sure thing."

"Well, I won't keep you. Just wanted to see how you were doing. If you can come a little early Sunday, we were working on a new arrangement that I think highlights you mezzo sopranos quite well."

"Will do, Reverend. G'night."

Thank heaven, she sighed as she picked up her pen, she had met Jason for lunch. After all her going on about her needing a high score to pass the course, he knew not to call tonight.

Astrea sighed happily. He could put up with her even when she got tetchy - that was true love.

All right. Now. It's easier to square a number than solve for a square root, so...

She dropped her head as the telephone rang. Again.

Aaargh. Why hadn't she gone to the library?

Because the Howard Library is across town, she answered herself as she picked up the receiver.

"Hello?" she sighed.

"Well, that was cheerful."

"Hi, Charity. Sorry, just studying."

"That's no reason to go drop off the earth, girlfriend! Come on take a break - Ona and me are going to shake our thang at Jackson's!"

"I can't," Astrea said sadly. "I have an exam tomorrow night and it's math."

Charity let out a low whistle.

"Ooohh. Your bugaboo. Well, after you crunch those numbers tomorra, girl, we are gonna get together and dance! Friday! 'Kay?"

"Okay," Astrea said quietly. "Friday. I'll call Corissa. See you."

"Buh-bye!"

Astrea shook her head as she hung up the phone.

Go dancing on a weeknight - must be nice. Of course, clubbing is probably a lot more fun when you're drop dead gorgeous and dressed to the nines. How Charity could afford such incredible outfits on a cashier's paycheck Astrea would never know.

She paused, her hand still on the receiver.

Then she carefully wiggled the telephone cord out of the jack.

There, she thought happily as she nestled into her chair.

Page after page of problems looked intimidating, but her professor had provided her with a list of just which ones she should concentrate on to understand the concepts. If she hadn't met with her after class all those times, Astrea knew, she'd be dropping the class by now.

Astrea felt her writing hand getting numb as the problems began to blur together in a morass of numbers and expressions.

A short electronic chirp jolted her erect.

Two more chirps grated on her brain until she remembered that she had changed the setting on her signal watch from silent vibration to audio alarm, so she could set the watch aside while she wrote.

What now? she sighed.

She reached for the wristwatch propped up under the desk lamp, and poked at the button on the side.

"Hello."

"Americana, it's Roswell."

She blinked. Norman Roswell - her FBI contact.

Yes, she did need to remind herself!

"What's wrong?"

"No emergency - beeps slower remember?

"Hadn't seen you around for a week or so and was wondering if you were okay. You know, if maybe that walking statue hurt you or anything."

"No, no. She didn't hurt me, I'm fine. Just... needed a few days to catch up with things, was all."

And recover. She had used up much of... whatever it was, that fueled her powers as Americana. So much, that she hadn't dared fly home from her last tussle with Medusa, for fear she would revert to her mortal form in mid-flight; she had taken the Metro instead.

"Okay. Just checking.

"Listen, can we talk? Doesn't have to be right now..."

Astrea exhaled and, head in her hand, leaned forward on her elbow.

What was this - a conspiracy of caring? They were not going to let her finish this chapter.

"But there is something I need to tell you. If you wanted to, maybe, grab a drink...?"

Maybe she needed a break, if not from the math, than from the blasted phone.

"Sure," she said wearily. "Where?"

Americana waited in shadows as Agent Norman Roswell paid Rico the Coffee Man, whose wagon was probably the last vendor within five blocks of the National Mall that was still open at this time of night.

Her red, white and blue costume insulated her from the cold breeze blowing off the Potomac, but she gratefully accepted the hot cup anyway.

"Somehow," she laughed softly, "this wasn't what I pictured when you wanted to go someplace for a drink."

She sipped at her mocha. "Good, though."

"Do you drink?"

"Alcohol, you mean? Yeah, a little. Not all that often, really. Birthdays, a night out with the girls, stuff like that."

She paused thoughtfully. "Even less so since I became Americana... I never know when I'll be needed, and I'll have to think as clearly and quickly as possible.

"You?"

"Uh uh," he said shaking his head. "I pass."

Americana looked at him; her surprise must have been more evident than she'd intended.

"My dad was alcoholic," Roswell said, looking away up into the trees.

"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't mean - "

"It's okay. Really."

He absently stirred his coffee.

"He wasn't a bad man. He was a bad drunk. Lucky, Pastor did a little intervention, got him into AA - been clean near twenty years."

He looked at her and shrugged. "I just don't see no reason to invite trouble into my house, you know?"

"I... see. "

Astrea watched him over the rim of her cup. So serious... not that she had seen him act particularly goofy in the past, but this was an FBI agent who wore a koala-print necktie while on duty.

"I never did thank you," she said, "For coming after me, when Monarch knocked me through that wall."

"Aw, c'mon, now. I seem to recall you shook it off yourself just fine without me."

"May be," the heroine said softly. "Just the same, I heard how you crawled out after me - through all those... storms she was throwing around. That was very brave.

"Thank you."

He paused.

"You're, um, welcome," he said finally. "Glad to help."

He adjusted his collar... must be the coffee.

Roswell cleared his throat.

"That's... actually kind of what I wanted to tell you."

Americana looked at him quizzically.

"That I want to help you. That's really the whole idea of the job, of being your liaison to Bureau.

"This whole superhero thing, it's so new, we're all still trying to figure out how to deal with it. With you.

"I mean, you don't carry a badge, you have no formal training, no warrants, yet you're out there stopping criminals.

"And the security questions! Suddenly all those locks and walls and vaults are useless. How do you keep you super-types out of a place you don't want to be kept out of?

"Now, the Bureau doesn't make the laws, just enforces them. But the Director feels, and I do too, that you do good work - you can deal with crises no one else can - and we should encourage that, not hinder it.

"It is now Bureau policy that agents are sanctioned to cooperate with you - and a few others - when in the agent's judgement said cooperation will not adversely affect the case."

Americana blinked. "Oh.

"That's... good to know. That's what you wanted to tell me?"

Roswell straightened his jacket. "That was the Bureau. This is from me.

"One of the District's Assistant DAs - name of D'Arcangelo, has been nosing around, asking questions about how the Bureau feels about you, your legal status. Something's goin' down. I don't know what it is yet, but I'd bet my grandma the Mayor's got something to do with it. Thought you ought to know.

"All unofficial, of course."

Americana paused.

"Thanks."

Roswell nodded.

"I meant that, you know. I'll help you however I can."

"Real-ly?" she smiled.

"How are you at quadratic equations?"