THEY HAD ONLY BEEN DRIVING FOR AN HOUR, BUT MARGO WATCHED EVERY TREE AND STREET PASS BY WITH AVID FASCINATION. So much so, her nose was almost out the window. It surely would have been a difficult sight to explain away to any passing cars.

As Dick glanced into the back seat through the rear view mirror to check on the kids as well as one transparent ghost woman, (what had his life even come to?) he emitted a deep sigh at the sight of Margo's face now morphing through the window. The sigh went ignored by the resting Kory beside him, who had insisted on catching up on her beauty sleep, but was noticed by Rachel. She raised an inquisitive brow and Dick sent a pointed look at Margo. He sure as hell wasn't making it his responsibility to keep Rachel's new friend in line. After taking one look at Margo, Rachel rolled her eyes at Dick.

"She's fine." Rachel silently mouthed out the words.

Gar looked up from his gameboy furrowed his eyebrows in confusion as he failed to read Rachel's lips.

"What are you saying?" Gar asked, effectively destroying the peaceful silence of the car and waking Kory. Rachel pursed her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. Now Dick was the one rolling his eyes. Margo moved her gaze away from the outdoors and at the two teens due to the commotion while Kory stretched her arms above her head with a content smile.

"Don't worry about it." Rachel smiled tightly at Gar who shrugged nonchalantly and went back to his game. When Rachel turned her head to take a peak at Margo the woman gave her a sweet smile. Rachel returned an awkward one. From the front seat Dick glanced at Kory who was in the middle of a yawn.

"Sleep well?" He asked her sarcastically.

"Wonderfully." Kory said with a smug tone. Dick's grumpy attitude getting under her skin? Unlikely. Dick emitted a small grunt of annoyance. Kory smirked to herself triumphantly and caught Margo's gaze in the rearview mirror. Margo smiled before hiding it behind her hair and looking back out the window. The vehicle descended into another silence. In the renewed quiet Rachel couldn't help but let questions prod away at her about Margo.

"Hey Margo?" Rachel said softly.

"Hmm?" Margo looked away from the blurry outline of barren trees zooming by to direct her attention back to Rachel.

"Uh... you don't have to answer this if you don't want to but..." Rachel paused to look up from her hands and at Margo.

"You can ask me anything Rachel, I don't mind." Margo gently encouraged the girl. Dick couldn't help but quickly flit his eyes in her reflection in the rearview mirror. He noted Margo was good with Rachel. Assuaged, Rachel emitted a shaky breath to calm herself before continuing.

"When the Chief- your father, said something about almost being like Rita and how she came to be the way she is, what did he mean?"

The silence now felt uneasy to Margo as the other passengers of the car not so covertly listened in for her answer. Margo ran her fingers across her knuckles as she gathered her words. She looked up to see Gar had stopped playing his game and was looking back at her with his familiar sad, puppy-like eyes. She gave him a small smile that wasn't quite convincing. Looking over at Rachel Margo could tell she was bursting at the seams to take back her question but Margo spoke up before the teen could.

"I was just a little kid when it happened." She paused to let the burgeoning sunlight from outside the window trickle through her skin.

"My father was passionate about the barriers of science. Finding out which could be bent and which would break. I trusted him not to go too far. I shouldn't have. It was only a matter of time an experiment would go wrong. I can change my face and shift invisible but my cells can't regulate like Rita. It just presents differently for her while I'm..."

Her sentence trailed off as she lifted her hand and peered through it. She could see the view through the windshield. She let her hand fall.

"Stuck like this."

Before Kory can ask the question herself Dick beat her to it, "Experiment? Your father did this to you?"

His eyes lock onto Margo's through the rear view mirror. Unprepared for the question to be thrown out by Dick of all of the people in the vehicle, Margo had to take a second to regain her composure.

She cleared her throat before uttering a soft, "Yes."

Dick returned his gaze back to the road with furrowed brows. Kory's eyes darted between the two with growing intrigue. She hummed to herself and decided to clear the air that had grown tense.

"What an asshole."

Margo let out a small puff of amusement. Feeling movement beside her she looked down to see Rachel's hand hovering over hers. When she met the girl's eyes they were burning with empathy.

"Maybe we can fix it." Rachel hopefully offered and ignored the warning look Dick sent her way.

"Maybe." Margo repeated. She didn't mean it.

When they arrived at the motel they would be staying for the night Gar was still mourning the loss of the beloved Porsche. Margo was just happy to be able to stay invisible long enough for the transaction.

"At least we can all fit in." Dick said after sighing. Margo was getting a feeling he did that a lot.

"I like the van." Kory said.

"We're not actually staying here, are we?" Rachel piped up from beside Margo.

"You know, there's probably a nicer place down the road." Kory offered.

"We're being hunted by sociopaths. Nicer places draw attention." Dick said bluntly.

"Yeah. Well, they also make it easier to sleep."

"One road in. Same road out. Only one point of access we have to watch. And also... it's quiet. Trouble comes our way, we should hear it first." He paused to unbuckle his seatbelt and place his hand on the door handle.

"And who said anything about sleeping?" Dick rhetorically asked before getting out of the car. Kory shook her head at him and turned around to roll her eyes dramatically to the passengers in the back seat. The muffled sound of giggles strained to meet Dick's ears the further he walked away and through the motel check in office doors.

After a few minutes had passed of the group waiting for Dick to return Kory groaned loudly in impatience. The noise caused Margo and Rachel to look up from watching Gar trying to beat a new level in his game.

"You okay up there?" Rachel asked Kory.

"This is taking forever!" Kory complained and threw her head back, but then a glimmer of deviousness flashed through her eyes.

"Hey Margo, why don't you go see what's taking so long?" Kory turned around in her seat again to look at her. Margo's nose scrunched in confusion.

"What? Why me?"

"My feet are killing me, I'd just die if I had to take another step right now." Kory pouted and pointed to her heels. Margo glanced at them and her gaze filled with sympathetic understanding.

"Plus, I'd bet sourpuss doesn't want any of us bugging him right now." Kory added. Margo nodded in agreement.

"Well okay, I'll be right back I guess." Margo said and cloaked herself before phasing through the car door. Once she was gone Rachel raised an eyebrow at Kory who absentmindedly assessed her cuticles.

"Your feet are fine aren't they?" Rachel asked with a suspicious tone.

"Did you say something?" Kory asked innocently, pretending not to hear.

When Margo morphed through the glass doors she was greeted to the sound of the woman behind the counter flirting with Dick. Both of her eyebrows shot up as she quickly grew extremely uncomfortable.

"The, um, ice machine out back..." Dick was patient as he waited for her to finish speaking.

"it, uh, gets a little testy, but there's a trick to it. So if you wanna get it working... I'm always up late. Room 101."

Margo was cringing at the awkward atmosphere as Dick looked back and forth and shifted. At least she could give props to the woman for putting herself out there.

"Yikes..." Margo said under her breath at the agonizing silence. She didn't think anyone could have heard but when Dick's head angled in her direction she realized she might be wrong. Margo's eyes blew open with panic as she froze in place. She mentally banged her head against a wall in admonishment and chanted a certain word that began with the letter 'f' she had heard Cliff exclaim on many occasions.

"Everything okay?" The lady asks him, snapping him back into focus and his practiced polite smile slid back onto his face, if not now a little stiff.

"Of course, I'll uh, make sure to knock."

Dick braced himself for the cold and opened the doors to return to the others. Once he was far enough away from the office he spoke over the chilled whistling winds in no certain direction.

"What the hell were you thinking?"

Margo halted in following after him. Her invisible hair transformed into an embarrassed yellow. A million apologies on the tip of her tongue, but he was already too far away to hear them.

After settling into their respective rooms Dick proclaimed they would be ordering pizza from some place called "Etter's" and was met with little to no complaint. When the pizza arrived shortly after they all crowded into one room to devour it. Well, Margo was just staring longingly at the pepperonis and cheese.

Rachel noticed the look and tried to reassure her, "It's not that good."

"Yeah it is." Gar automatically disagreed and took another bite, not realizing what Rachel was trying to do. He winced when Rachel elbowed his side and looked up defensively at her. Rachel motioned her head in Margo's direction and Gar's eyes widened comically with realization.

"O-Oh, yeah, it's a hot pile of garbage." He flung the slice away from him with dramatic flare. Kory snickered at the display as Margo shook her head and smiled fondly.

"Can we focus please?" Dick interrupted, ever so the fun police.

"All right, guys. Listen up. We're all in one piece, more or less. We need to figure out where we stand and determine what's mission critical."

"Mission critical?" Rachel parroted as she chewed on her slice of pizza.

"Is that a cop thing? It sounds like a cop thing." Gar asked and grabbed another slice of pizza for himself.

"I had some combat training when I was younger." Dick said in an effort to explain.

"And he's a cop." Rachel told Gar.

"I'm sorry, you were referring to 'we'?" Kory asked Dick. Margo looked up from the beautiful pizza to await his answer.

"We, as of right now, are a group of people who share a common enemy."

"Which makes us what?" Kory said as she interlinked her fingers. Dick paused to look around at them all. When his eyes landed on Margo she timidly tucked her hair behind her ears. She wanted to apologize and explain about earlier, but she didn't when she would get the chance. When he looked back to Kory, Margo could feel her tense posture relax.

"Let's call it an alliance. One born of mutual need." Dick nodded to himself.

"And what is that?" Kory rattled off another question and Dick took a moment to gather his thoughts on how to answer.

"To stay alive. We have no idea how long we have until they find us."

"You just said 'they.' Who are 'they'?" Gar chimed in with a pizza box in his hand. He took a step over to lock eyes with Rachel.

"What do they want?" Margo directed her question to Rachel rather than ask Dick.

"We don't know who they are. But they want me." Rachel said. Margo frowned at that.

"It's because of her... abilities." Dick crossed his arms.

"They make violence look like an art form." Kory said lowly.

"The people that attacked us fought in unison. They were perfectly coordinated. We're not. We can't fight like that unless we learn each other's moves."

"Inspiring. And how do you suggest we do that?" Kory sarcastically drawled, but Margo could see the intrigue shining in her eyes.

"We stick together. And we train." Dick stated with finality. The corner's of Margo's mouth quirked upwards. She raised her eyebrows at the two teens who gave her smiles in return. Margo let the excitement overtake her and beat away her doubts as quick as they came.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚┈➤ hi lovelies!! i have yet to decide how many parts to divide this episode in but this was getting a tad long so i decided to go ahead and get it out there! hope you enjoyed, see you all soon!!