Sue has anticipated a lot of things in her life. In a twisted, backwards way, many of them have come to pass. She anticipated that Harvey Allan would ruin their lives: he did, breezing in to take over and causing Reed and Victor and Johnny (and Ben, poor Ben, by proxy) to make the worst possible decision. She anticipated that the project would do something to bring her family back together: it did, cursing them all and leaving them with no one but each other. She anticipated that she and Victor would never work themselves out, as much as she wished they could: voila, she’s right, although the way it turned out she could never have predicted. First presumed dead… now this.
He’s toying with them. Sue can tell that without trying; whether it’s perks of having been in love with him or just noticing the obvious is too much for her to consider at the moment. Her father is dead; Johnny can barely keep his head on straight from grief, Ben’s too angry at Reed to listen to him, and Reed’s too buried in guilt to make a decent plan. All she can do is try to protect them until they figure something out.
But then Victor gets bored.
And Johnny takes the fall.
Reed screams.
Sue screams.
Johnny can’t stop screaming. It shakes Sue to the core: her brother is screaming, worse than he ever did when he was burning to death, and the man she loved is killing him.
Sue is so angry she can’t breathe. She can’t breathe, she can’t think, can’t do anything-- no, scratch that. She can kill him.
Johnny’s body tumbles through the air like a leaf as Victor rises to meet Sue’s challenge, and somewhere far below and distant she can hear Reed and Ben running to Johnny’s aid. Her attention, however, is elsewhere and Victor doesn’t stand a chance. She doesn’t even spare him a goodbye: the only one he can offer is a muffled cry as her force-field closes in around him.
Far above her, the void begins to close. Far below her, Reed and Ben call her name. Her mind so painfully clear, her heart so blissfully empty, she picks them up and takes them home.
And in broad daylight, on the edge of a crater made by her mistakes, she grieves.
Johnny always told her she held things in too much: she’ll take him on his advice to let up a bit, even if it’s a bit late.