Lilla Wren was annoyingly good at noticing things. That was the most Sam would give her, but it was true. And it almost ruined Sam's plans. The first thing it nearly ruined was Shane helping to unravel the enigma that was Sam's counterpart. She nearly found them out first.

Sam had been sitting in the cafe for five minutes when Lilla showed up. This wasn't because Lilla was late, but because Sam and Shane were very early. Diana came along just as her friends were getting into place.

By the time Lilla walked in at five o'clock on the dot, Shane and Diana were seated at a table just behind the same flowers they had crow he'd behind before. Each of them had a drink in hand and they were, according to Diana and the dumb beanie she had decided to wear "as a disguise," completely inconspicuous. Inconspicuous apart from being the only two other people outside of the cafe.

"Those are the same kids that were here Wednesday," Lilla pointed out after a minute of prodding for Sam's personal information.

She nodded over to where Diana and Shane were sitting, pretending to be engrossed in conversation. Sam crossed her fingers in her lap and sighed when her friends did not so much as look up, though she knew they were listening to ever word.

"Oh, yeah, they go to my school. They're always coming here. I don't know why, because this coffee is not good enough for the price it is." Sam shot her cup a forced glare and hoped that Lilla would drop it. What she got was one better.

Lilla immediately turned away from Diana and Shane, going back to stirring her coffee with a bit too much intensity. Sam peeked to where her friends were, and grinned. They had apparently caught on to Lilla's attention to them and were now holding hands across the table. That was enough to dispel the attention. Diana gave a disgusted look when she noticed Sam looking over, and Shane winked.

Time for phase two.

"Oh, Lilla, I was wondering. My mom really, really wants to meet you. So, would it work if we walked over to my house for a minute? It's just a little bit away." Sam even finished the question with a small smile. She needed to be convincing.

"So you've decided to go along with the counterparts?" Lilla asked. "You weren't too keen on this last time."

"Yeah, I though about it a bit and I guess we are pretty alike, in our ways. Maybe you could actually help me," Sam said. She wasn't the best actress, but she was pretty sure she didn't sound as fake as she felt.

It must have worked, because Lilla shrugged and stood up, grabbing her drink and motioning for Sam to follow. They were headed toward Sam's house within five minutes. When Sam passed them on her way out, Diana and Shane were still sitting with their coffees. Hopefully they would be careful when they followed. Lilla was watching very closely.

"So, what did you mean by helping you? Because I'm pretty busy, so it's not as though I'll be able to tutor you."

Sam kicked a pebble along in front of them as they walked. She lost the rock after a few kicks, sighing.

"Well, I dunno. I guess maybe I could come in and visit your class? I could help you with whatever and maybe I'll realize I actually like english or am destined to work with kids or something," Sam suggested, finding another pebble to kick.

"I don't think that's very likely to happen, Sam. I'm not sure if you're far enough in life past your troubles to work with children—and I don't want you to be rude to my kids."

Sam frowned. "What do you mean, troubles? I didn't actually do anything that should mean I'm not good to work with kids. I saved a little girl!" She resisted adding "whatever else I may have done."

"I don't believe it would be a good idea," Lilla told her.

"Wait, that's not fair. Isn't visiting your job part of the counterpart thing? I'm trying to cooperate with them on all of this. Plus, what did you do? If we're so alike, why can't I be around kids but you can?" Sam crossed her arms but kept walking.

Lilla looked contemplative before humming.

"I was charged with auto theft and kidnapping. I ran away from home when I was fifteen, but I took the neighbor's car. My mother had an SUV and the neighbors had a convertible, so theirs was the obvious choice. I was a teenager and I was stupid enough to think not only that running away was a good idea but also that I should bring along the ten year old next door when she asked if she could come."

Sam almost laughed. Almost. "Well, I'm not you, you aren't me, and I wouldn't do that. So can I come to your classroom?"

"No."

They didn't talk much after that, walking mainly in silence to Sam's house. The only other thing either of them said at all was Lilla asking, "So, I suppose I'm supposed to play perfect for your mother, correct?" Sam didn't give her an answer.

About a minute from the house, Sam saw Diana across the street, following from what she must have thought was a decent distance but was definitely not. Diana fell back after Sam shot her a look. Lilla glanced behind them just a moment after Di was back out of sight.

Mom was waiting in the living room when Sam and Lilla walked up to the front porch. Typical, nervous Mom went into suburban housewife mode times ten and invited Lilla in, saying that she would "go get lemonade". Sam knocked on the doorframe as she followed the adults in.

Now she would show Lilla off to Mom as much as she could, subtly kick Lilla out, and then bring in Diana. Plans were shifting a little, but all was good. It would work. This had been a secondary option the whole time, and unlike the very original plan, it wouldn't involve Di having to meet the judgy train wreck that was Lilla Wren.

"Miss Wren, very nice to meet you," Mom said once she sat down the cups of lemonade she brought in from the kitchen. There were only two, which meant that Sam was inevitably being left out of the lemonade party.

Lilla accepted the hand that Mom held out to shake, and smiled. "No need for formalities, you can call me Lilla. If we were going with formal titles, mine would be Mrs. Wren, anyway."

Sam blanched. Lilla was married?

"Oh, how lovely! Do you and your husband have any children?" Mom asked.

Sam almost passed out during the pause after the question. She knew what the pause meant. If Lilla answered like the jerk she might be, that would screw over Sam's plans and really just mess up her life. When Lilla glanced over to Sam, she must have seen the panic on her face.

"Oh, it's nice of you to ask, but this is more about Sam, isn't it?" Lilla said, and Sam could have hugged her counterpart. It was the first time since meeting Lilla that she didn't have the urge to shout at her.

Mom smiled, but it was more judgmental than nice. "Yes, of course, but as you are her mentor and you are so alike, wouldn't it be nice to see what kind of future the world holds for my daughter?"

Sam dug her nails into the palm of her hand and waited as Lilla eyed Mrs. Gregor. That look was exactly the one that Sam would give a character like her mom if she happened to meet her for the first time, even Sam would agree. Not that Lilla and her were alike. They weren't.

"I have a son. He's about six months old. My family adopted him."

"Oh, that's nice. What's his name?"

Sam moved over so she was sitting in the very corner of the couch, away from both her mom sitting next to her and Lilla in a wicker chair across from them. She wouldn't be welcome to be butting into the conversation, she knew, unless one of them asked her a question. She wouldn't have much to add anyway. It was dumb that she even needed to be here, but Mom wanted her to be and if Lilla was about to say anything regrettable, she needed to be able to cut her off.

"His name is Henry," Lilla said, smiling what might have been the first genuine smile Sam had seen from her. "Britney named him."

"Britney? A close friend of yours?"

Even though she was answering Mom's question, Lilla gave Sam a pointed look as she answered, "The closest."

"Very nice. See, Samantha? You'll settle down, have a nice family. What did you say your job was, Lilla?" Mom asked.

Lilla seemed cool enough about this whole situation to be cold. "I didn't. I assume Samantha already told you, but I'm a teacher at a local elementary school."

"Oh yes, I remember. I suppose I just forgot."

As if. Sam fought back the urge to roll her eyes. Mom was double-checking every single thing Sam had told her. That was some faith in Sam's honesty. Well, she would find it all to be true, at least. Maybe she wasn't ready to trust her entirely yet, but the meeting itself couldn't hurt anything. Lilla was nice enough when she needed to be, and she had the answers that Mom wanted to hear so far.

"You seem like a good role model for Samantha. Do you have a background like hers, though?  I mean, you seem like an upstanding citizen, so I'm not sure..."

"Your daughter is as good as I am, and from what little I have heard, she might be better." Lilla smiled. Sam raised an eyebrow.

Mom tilted her head curiously for a moment before smiling back. "That's... nice. But you do know about Samantha's—"

"What happened to someone is not an indication of who they are. Just because Samantha spent some time in what you consider a place for 'bad people' does not mean that she is a bad person."

It took all of ten seconds for the tension to double, the room going from patient moms drinking lemonade to war spies studying one another... drinking lemonade. Sam sighed.

"See, Mom? I'm not hopeless. Lilla's a good person!" Sam broke into the uncomfortable silence after a  moment.

Mom shook her head and seemingly snapped from her tension with Lilla, who was better at looking intimidating than Mom was. "I never said you were hopeless, Samantha, and I never said you were a bad person."

"If Samantha made a mistake, she knows better now, does she not? I'm sure the only reason Sam thinks you don't trust her is because you act like you do not, whether conscious or unconsciously."

While Sam expected that to only escalate the situation again, it didn't. Lilla nodded as Mom looked over to Sam worriedly.

"Maybe... maybe you're right. Samantha, you know right from wrong."

It wasn't quite a question, but Sam answered anyway. "Yes, Mom."

Lilla wasn't right about her doing something wrong, at least not exactly, but she did know right from wrong. She also knew that sometimes there is no right. There's only wrong and worse. That was something that she was still learning to remember, but it was getting easier since Shane and Diana had backed her up. She still doubted her innocence sometimes, but less often since the day she was acquitted.

Lilla left less than forty-five minutes after she arrived, but Sam felt like something had been accomplished. Mom was openly questioning her own hostility toward Sam.

Sam walked out with Lilla, who let out a deep sigh once Sam shut the door behind them, leaving Mom inside with her glass of lemonade still in hand. Lilla left hers on the table when they went out. Sam's worst nightmare part one was over with, now to bid goodbye to the antagonist of it, who was getting frustratingly less antagonist-y by the minute.

"Thanks for being helpful with all of that," Sam said, looking at a crack in the concrete of the porch.

Lilla shrugged. "No problem. I had enough of a tornado blow through my relationship with my mom during teenaged years, so might as well help you fix yours."

"You really have a kid?"

"Yeah, Henry is my world. Him and Brit. I would make up a lot of stuff, but they're real," Lilla told her, smiling. "You'll be fine."

Sam paused for just a moment, before righting herself. What did Lilla mean by 'she would make up a lot'? It didn't matter right now, but Sam still didn't trust her CP and the whole program, no matter how much she was growing to like Lilla.

"Look, I... thank you. Honestly, this counterparts thing... I'm still not one hundred percent behind. I don't trust the program, flat out, but you're cool. Maybe you'll change your mind about letting me visit your class?"

Lilla shook her head. "No."

Sam sighed. "Okay. Well, I'll see ya again, sometime. I'm sure Green will send us an email soon demanding that we get together somewhere for the last meeting."

"Yeah. I'll leave you to that then," Lilla said, nodding towards something behind Sam.

When she turned around to see what Lilla was pointing out, Sam saw that Diana was peeking out from a corner of the building by the garage. By the time Sam whirled back around to say something else to Lilla, she was already walking away.

"Change of plans, you guys can both meet her later. I guess she's better than I thought she was, but we need to do something else." Sam stopped Diana from running off after Lilla.

Diana asked, "What, you still want Shane to follow after her? Because he climbed your neighbor's fence to jump on their trampoline. That seemed like a good idea to him."

"I don't pretend to understand Shane," Sam admitted, grabbing Diana's hand. "But I need you to help me because I need to tell my mom something."

"What are you—oh. Yeah, totally."

Sam took a deep breath and, forcing herself to keep a tight grip on Diana's hand, led her girlfriend inside.