I'm a fighter

Annie actually -- thankfully -- had a few Starlight commitments while she was home this weekend to distract her from anxiously checking her phone more than every few minutes. She'd helped with an Easter egg hunt for charity this morning, and would be judging a city-wide egg decorating contest later this evening. (And, you know, if anyone actually committed a crime, she'd hopefully get to do something about that too, but holiday weekends tended to be suspiciously sleepy in her already-not-that-thrilling hometown.)

But as soon as the last plastic egg was found and Starlight could be excused, she'd immediately checked her voicemail and email for any word from Vought. There was part of her that wanted to send out a casual email to everyone in Fandom and make sure they hadn't gotten any, you know, totally normal messages about a job offer on Thursday when the phones were weird, but she knew that was irrational. (Plus anyone who had gotten such a message would have probably told her, right? Right?)

Her mom was, of course, no help, and instead full of nudges about Annie's posture and backhanded comments about the way she was wearing her hair these days, on top of Donna's own obvious anxiety about when and if Vought would get in touch. Eventually, Annie (though technically still uniformed as Starlight, even if she'd thrown a hoodie over it) escaped to her room with claim of a headache she wanted to sleep off before all that decorating excitement tonight.

Spoilers: there was no headache. There was, however, some absolutely endless scrolling going on with her phone, since she was pretty much unable to focus on even the cutest of puppy pictures, or the most compelling of Buzzfeed quizzes.

[open for calls and texts, naturally!]

Annie loved her mom, but after two months of living on her own, having her around constantly was a little...stifling. They'd spent all day yesterday volunteering together - and of course Annie had been Starlight at the time, which was great for press but not the best for her conscience - before falling asleep in front of the first Translucent movie on the couch together. That was kind of nice, although it was less nice when Donna had prodded her daughter awake at five and sent her out to the backyard in the dark.

Annie had adjusted her training schedule since moving to Fandom, and so this wasn't exactly her favorite thing - especially considering that she had to double up her leggings and hoodies since it was thirty degrees, Mom and she hadn't really packed for this, and especially-especially because Donna followed her outside to coach. Someone had relaid the bricks on the side of the garage since Annie had been in Fandom, providing a fresh canvas for her to punch into, and so that was how she spent most of her morning - with her mom cheering her on through the garage wall, or following her over to yell that she could go higher while she did pull-ups, or to encourage just one more set of burpees.

By the time Annie was ready to work with the car - which was the one thing she'd kind of missed in Fandom, since it wasn't like she had exactly the same thing to practice with - she'd had enough. Not of training, but of her mother. And so she obligingly pressed the old car up over her head, tipping it entirely onto its front tires so her mom could take a picture, and then reminded Donna that she had said she needed to call Aunt Gen and it was probably late enough in Arizona to do that, now. (Please.)

When her mom had finally bustled back into the house and Annie had a moment's peace to herself, she sat down on the trunk of the car to check her texts and figure out some music. Training alone had gotten to be something of a luxury that she hadn't appreciated until now, and she really didn't really think she worked any less hard without someone yelling at her the whole time. 

Especially considering she was going to try to flip the car, once she had the exact right playlist figured out. 

[open for calls and texts with the caveat that my industry is affected by Black Friday so *weeps*]