Hey Capers! This is the sequel to "Fear" and "In the Dark", if you haven't read either one, I highly suggest you do so. In all there will be a total of 21 chapters.
This is going to be a "what if" scenario. I'll be following the episodes in canon, but with a whole new twist to it. "Fear" and "In the Dark" fall directly after episode 6. The first chapter starts with episode 7, and will be told through Orwell's perspective.
Enjoy the chapter, I do not own The Cape.
What if: A new Legacy- Chapter One: Permanent Consequences
Orwell collected her calm as she entered her bathroom. Nervously, she linked her fingers together, mashing them against her stomach to keep the knots inside from getting worse.
It had been a few weeks since she and Vince had slept together, and the blogger was a little more than afraid. Her period was late, really late. She was praying to God that the situation had nothing to do with her headaches, or her nausea.
Walking over to the counter and sink, she sat down on the closed toilet lid and lowered her head into her hands for a moment. She knew there was no need to wait anymore; all she had to do was pick up the test, revealing something that could change life as she knew it.
After a few more seconds, she picked her head up and let out a cry. If she was pregnant, she couldn't tell Vince. There was no way she could ruin his life like that. It would be extremely hard to hide, but it was do-able. Taking a deep breath, Orwell picked up the pregnancy test, keeping it face down. She brought it closer to her chest and clenched her eyes shut as she turned it over. The blogger slowly opened her eyes, seeing the plus sign staring back at her.
As though it burned, the brunette threw it across the room. The object bounced against the shower wall and fell down to the tub. Orwell lost all of her calm as sobs began to wrack her body. Despite all she went through in her life- from her sister's and mother's death, to her father's mental spiral, none of that had compared to what was to come in nine months.
The blogger felt as though she couldn't breathe. She was going to be a mother. A nineteen year old single mother. How was she going to tell her child that daddy wouldn't be around? How could she tell the child?
Orwell stood up and felt her head spin around as though she had ran around in circles for an hour. Her stomach began to churn, and she knew then that she was about to be violently sick. The blogger barely had time to lift the toilet seat up before she threw up all of her breakfast. Feeling weaker than ever when she was finished, she wiped her mouth against her sleeve. With a heaved sigh, she stood up straight and went over to her sink. Orwell didn't even recognize herself. She took her toothbrush and groaned aggravatingly as she rinsed her mouth clean of morning sickness.
Her eyes screamed her pain. She placed the toothbrush down and pulled her hair out of the ponytail it was in. With the brown tendrils cascading down her shoulders, she picked up her hair brush and drug it through the curls. Satisfied, the blogger pulled her hair out of her face and back up in a ponytail. With one last look in the mirror, she walked out of the bathroom.
She had no idea what to do in that moment. Suddenly everything looked so much different. Her hands trembled and her breathing was becoming quite staggered. The blogger picked up a hand and kept it lightly clutched at her stomach.
Trying to make the most of her time alone, Orwell made her way to her tech. She had to find some way to get her mind off of the newly-founded pregnancy, it wasn't good for either that baby, or herself. The blogger pulled up her most recent blog, and immediately picked up where she left off. The recent question: Who was or is Conrad Chandler? All of the clues that she had been given, pointed directly to the Chandler family. If there was an actual heir to the ports, the blogger knew her father couldn't touch them. No matter what, Orwell would keep Fleming from gaining full power to Palm City's police force; pregnant or not, she'd get it done. She finished the last bit of the blog and posted it on her site. Orwell hoped that someone would know of Conrad's whereabouts, there's no telling where he had been stowed away at for so many years.
Feeling nauseous again, the blogger took a minute to sit down. However, as she did so, a knock came from her front door. The brunette stifled a sigh and rose to her feet. She knew it was just Vince. Vince, the father of her baby. Orwell groaned a bit, this wasn't going to be fun, was it?
She walked to the very front of her hideout and opened the door. She smiled back at him and stood to the side, inviting him in.
Vince smiled back a bit. "You find anything else on the Chandler heir?" he asked as he walked inside, giving his partner a hug as he did so.
"Not since we last spoke," Orwell said into the vigilante's chest. She then tilted her head up at him, "what have you been doing all morning, anyway?"
"Same thing you've been doing. Working," Vince said as he leaned against the blogger's forehead.
"Any luck on finding the Lich?" Orwell asked lightly.
"We're still working on it," Vince said as he watched his partner walk away from him.
"Then why are you here?" the blogger called across her shoulder as she traveled further away from the vigilante.
The Cape looked back at the brunette in confusion and a little worry. "Well I'm sorry for wanting to come by and check on my partner."
Orwell turned around to face Vince with a light expression. "No, I appreciate you coming by, it's just…" she trailed off.
"It's just what?" the vigilante asked as he walked up behind her, taking her by the waist.
"It's nothing really. I guess I'm just tired," the blogger flinched a bit as she felt the Cape touch the side of her stomach.
"Yeah, well this Chandler stuff is kind of crazy," Vince spoke, gingerly bringing the brunette to rest against him. With a chin on her shoulder, he whispered, "have you gotten anything out of your blog post?"
"There's been quite a bit of hits, but no video responses yet," Orwell looked down at their contact and smiled a bit.
"Well it's a good thing you have your blogs, otherwise we'd be in the dark right now," the vigilante said as he placed a kiss on her shoulder.
"Wouldn't be the first time," Orwell mumbled under her breath.
Vince squeezed his partner in a loving embrace. He turned her around to face him and pressed his lips against hers in one quick movement. The Cape and his partner tried so hard to not let their romantic feelings sputter to the surface, but even just the friendliest hug reminded them of their chemistry.
They broke apart with the sound of the vigilante's phone ringing from his pocket. The two of them smiled at each other as they rested against the other's foreheads.
"You should probably get that," Orwell said, pressing a finger to his lips.
"Maybe not," Vince said with a grin.
"Go on," the blogger began, placing a gentle hand on his chest. "I'll call you if I find anything else."
"Okay. Play safe," the vigilante gave her a kiss on the forehead before he let go of the brunette.
"I can do that. Be careful," Orwell looked up into her partner's eyes and smiled faintly.
Vince nodded back at her with his own smile as he reached for his phone. The Cape kept genuinely caring eye contact with the brunette as he answered it.
The blogger kept their eye contact, but behind her eyes, she was fighting the urge to run back to the bathroom. The brunette just hoped he wouldn't stay too much longer. Fortunately though, he wasn't. Orwell watched as Vince walked up closer to her again, giving her a tight hug. The blogger hugged him back but felt even worse when he lightly pressed her stomach against his.
Vince wasn't that oblivious to not feel her flinch a bit. He took the phone away from his mouth and asked, "you alright?"
"I'm alright," she whispered.
"Okay. I'll see you later," the Cape spoke as he unwrapped the brunette from his arms.
"Bye, Vince," Orwell said, walking away from him to head over to her computer.
Vince looked back at the blogger with worry lines crinkling his face. It wasn't until Rollo spoke to him from the other end, that he remembered he was needed back at the Carnival.
The brunette bit on her bottom lip as she tried to look busy with her blogs. Orwell couldn't help but sigh in relief when she heard the door shut to. She drooped her shoulders a bit and cradled her head in her hands. Sighing, the brunette's breath hitched in her chest. She had no problem hiding her family heritage from Vince, but this was going to be one of the hardest things to hide. "The sooner he goes home, the better," Orwell mumbled to herself. With her head still down, she draped a hand across her flat stomach and lightly brushed her fingers against it. "Mom will take care of you," she said right before more sobs overcame her. She breathed through another hitch in her chest and felt her stomach churn again. The brunette raised her free hand, clamping it over her mouth as she made a third trip back to the bathroom. She couldn't express how glad she would be when her morning sickness would stop. By the time she was able to lift herself onto her feet, she felt weaker than ever. She steadied herself by holding onto the counter. Running her hand across the counter, she was able to make her way out of the bathroom.
Orwell was about thirty seconds from sitting down and calling Vince back over there. She quickly noted how difficult it would be to hide the real reason behind her spurts of sickness. The blogger heaved a sigh and stumbled into the kitchen. She retrieved a tall glass from her cabinet, and a carton of juice from her refrigerator. The brunette had enough common sense to know that throwing up dehydrates the body. A dehydrated expecting mother is the same as a dehydrated unborn child. Whether she was ready to be a mother or not, she had to be. Orwell poured the contents of juice into the glass, put the carton back, and returned to her definition of a computer room. She gently sat down in front of her computer screen and made herself as busy as possible, anything to keep her from thinking of how incredibly crappy she felt.
The blogger began to search for anything closely related to pregnancy help. She came across the numbers for clinics around the area. She ran strenuous background checks for all of the doctors, nurses, and staff. The brunette wouldn't go anywhere remotely close to anyone with even the smallest blimp of their slate. If she had to choose someone to check on her baby, fine, but it had to be someone she could confide in. Her father could never know about her whereabouts, she ran away from home for a reason.
Orwell came across a clinic just out of Palm City that offered their services to women and girls just like her. She traced every IP she could and, to her delight, found it spotless. The blogger picked up her glass of orange juice and sipped at it as she scrolled along the clinic's web page, looking for some sort of phone number. She came across several photos of the clinic and the blogger found it strikingly homely. She put her cup of juice down and stroked at her stomach as she scrolled through the page. Fortunately, she came across the number when she reached the bottom of the web page. She abbreviated the name into something only she would recognize, the last thing she needed was Vince seeing it.
The blogger pulled herself up from her seat without a problem. She hadn't even noticed that her head had stopped spinning, and her stomach stopped churning. Padding back to her bedroom, she grabbed a change of clothes for a shower.
Coming back into the bathroom, she placed her clothes on the counter and walked over to the shower. She pulled back the curtain all the way and found the positive pregnancy test that she had tossed a few hours before. The brunette picked it up and felt her heart sink as she stared down at it. She couldn't even take care of her own sea monkeys she had as a child, let alone a baby of her own! Although she did have a better luck with her mother's cat, but that was beside the point.
She sighed, wrapped the test up tightly in toilet paper, and tossed it in the trash. If Vince had to use the bathroom while he was there, Orwell gave him no chance of seeing the pregnancy test.
The blogger shuffled over to the shower faucet and began to run hot water. Feeling her head spin around again, Orwell sat down on the side of the tub and waited for the dizziness to subside. Luckily, all she needed to do was relax, she felt one-hundred percent better after she just took a second to breathe.
She turned around and ran a finger under the water, which had turned warm in no time. Then blogger pulled the valve up on the faucet and watched the water sprinkle out the shower head.
The shower helped Orwell calm down quite a bit. As she stepped out of the bathroom, she went straight to her tech. Sighing as she saw no video responses, the blogger walked further away from her computer. She stopped near one of her many windows and took a look outside. It was about mid afternoon and she could see everything from where she stood. That was partly why she chose this place for her permanent living conditions. Not only that, but it was quite large in space. Orwell could give herself a pat on the back, the space would come in handy for the baby she was carrying.
The blogger was drug out of her own thoughts by the sound of a video response starting. Orwell turned around in a jolt and hurried over to her computer. She stood in silence as she watched the woman named Netta Stilton. Something in the pit of her stomach was telling her that this was a set-up, but she quickly passed it off as nausea.
As she told Netta that she was sending a reporter, the brunette started to feel a bit better. It wasn't until she actually got to the Orchard, that she started to feel more like herself. With a bag on her shoulder, she headed inside. She often was put in some dangerous situations, and now with a baby on the way, she had to be that much more careful. At least, if something did go down, she left Vince a message before she left. She was reassured by that fact.
She walked ahead and got a very good look at her surroundings. For a place that was being watched, it was pretty scarce throughout. Orwell had learned the lock picking skill years ago; when she came across the locked door to the Orchard, it didn't come across as a challenge.
She came inside and shut the door to. The place was huge; stairs upon stairs, leading to hundreds of rooms. The blogger climbed up the stairs and kept a cool façade about herself. As she got up the first flight of stairs, she was thanking God that she hadn't become pregnant sooner. All these stairs, and a pregnant belly? Orwell wasn't thinking of that thought very highly. She looked up at the end of the stairs to see the woman from the video response.
The brunette couldn't help but laugh inside with the "you're a woman" comment. She found it so amusing that everyone thought of her as a man. Her mouth had started speaking faster than her thoughts though, before she could say something else, Orwell questioned the woman's claim. The blogger could never be too cautious anymore. Of course, if the claim wasn't true, Netta would never have admitted it to be false anyway. Again, that was beside the point; she could never be too sure about any situation she went into. That was how it always was, and that's how it always will be.
Netta agreed to her claim being true, as Orwell had figured she would. However, she was glad to see backup to her answer. The form of Ronald Recchand's stats was just another one of the "things aren't exactly what they seem" kind of proof. Orwell's worry returned as her heels clicked against the flooring. She was going into an unfamiliar territory, knowingly expecting. Though, she knew it was for a good cause. If she could give Conrad his rightful inheritance to the ports, Fleming couldn't put a finger on them. That factoid was satisfying enough.
Orwell walked along the tile in silence. The hallway was dead quiet. It reminded the blogger of the horror movies she watched when she was younger. The brunette was more than expecting someone to grab her from behind. To make things even worse, the hallways were dimly lit. By the time she reached room 237, the expecting blogger's anxiety had reached a new level. When she walked inside, the brunette put on a fake smile for "Ronald Recchand". Orwell wanted to do nothing more than walk up to him, give him his birth certificate, and walk out of there. Of course, things were never that easy. Sometimes she hated being the compassionate one, or the one who sat down and talked to the person in need. That definitely was one of those times.
That became very clear when Conrad started denying himself from the moment she walked in. When Orwell sat down opposite him, she started to feel a little dizzy. She shook it off the best. She could and started a conversation like it was nothing.
When he mentioned sweating, the blogger was more than glad to open a window, the room was stuffy and uncomfortable was another reason why she wanted to leave very quickly. Opening the window made the room a little cooler, but the uncomfortable factor was still high, and was getting too hard to ignore. The look had started to become apparent on the brunette's face.
As "Ronald" explained he would be getting out soon, Orwell knew automatically that he was lying. The crib in the background was only a bonus. She sighed inwardly and looked around the room. The expecting blogger felt for the child he once was. It must have been horrible living there. No idea where his parents were. Orwell could almost hear that baby cry out. She dug a free hand further inside her pocket and placed her fingers against her lower stomach. How anyone could do that to a child was beyond the brunette. She tried to think of another way to start a conversation. Orwell looked over at the shelf she was standing next to and saw "CHARLES LINDBERGH, NEW JERSEY'S LOST CHILD" as the captions. She had heard about the Lindbergh baby before, she just wondered why he had a book like that, considering his supposed circumstances.
As he mentioned what a 20 month old could do, she could tell that he was envious of those 20 months Charles Lindbergh received. That only furthered her suspicions that the man before her was in fact, Conrad Chandler. He just wouldn't admit it himself.
Orwell was getting quite fed up. She stepped on the stack of newspapers to sit down; this was going to be a long afternoon. When he yelled at her for stepping on them, the pregnant blogger jumped back. Her head began to throb as she stared back at him. She really needed to keep some aspirin in her purse. The blogger was going to make him admit this so she could go home. As she sat down and scooted closer to him, she was finally able to accuse him of being the missing Chandler heir.
He told her that she needed to leave. He was in concern for his and Netta's safety, which was only natural. Orwell reassured him that she wouldn't let anyone hurt either of them. The blogger felt her nausea return, luckily she was able to ignore it, although now all she wanted to do was smack Vince for doing this to her. It wasn't morning anymore, shouldn't she be feeling normal again?
It wasn't until Conrad started to tell her she wasn't invited here, that she really started paying attention again. She got down on her knees and took a reassuring hold on Conrad's hand. It was a shame that whoever did this to him, had him petrified. However, her comment about not being able to do anything for him unless he walked out of there, seemed to work.
Orwell was extremely happy with that fact. The sooner she could get this done, the sooner she could get home. The Orchard was really starting to give her the creeps.
It wasn't too long before Netta came back in with a tray of tea. The blogger smiled at the thought of a cup. She could have sat down and taken a few sips, but she didn't want to spend more time than had to in that place. Things had started to get to her. She started to wonder just why Conrad was staring her down. She may have said it was all right to stare, but she surely didn't mean it. Really? He was staring at her because she wasn't a part of his plans? Orwell was only nineteen, but she wasn't naïve. She understood a lot more than people thought.
The blogger just stared back at him as he called her strong. Orwell almost laughed. The last thing she was, was strong. With that thought still in the air, Orwell walked over to the table with blueprints of Palm City. She was amazed at how much the city had changed because of her father. The blogger was glad to see that she and Vince weren't the only ones who hated Peter Fleming. Placing the blueprints back onto the table, Orwell was almost angry. If he thought that much of Fleming's work around the city, then why couldn't he change it? He had a loud voice too.
Of course, he went on to explain why he didn't have a loud voice. The brunette winced back: spinal degeneration, tremors, bad vision, she couldn't even imagine what that must have been like. If this visit did nothing else, it should at least have formed Orwell into a great mother.
"To be an heir, one must be born. According to the law, I wasn't."
That must have been the highlight of the afternoon for the expecting brunette. She took a hold of the birth certificate, finally feeling like she was doing something right.
Orwell thought she was doing the right thing. She saw how his eyes lit up as she handed over the record of birth. When he recited that passage from Tolstoy and asked her why she was doing this for him, the blogger looked back at the crib. She thought of the baby inside her as well as herself. After her sister, Julie, was murdered, their mother became sick. The doctors thought it may have been because of the stress from her older daughter's death, but nothing was conclusive. Natalie Fleming developed a brain tumor. After a long and antagonizing period of time, the Flemings buried their second family member. Peter couldn't have taken much more, he started to become very controlling, and Jamie crackled under the pressure of it all. By the age of sixteen, she had ran away from home. The blogger had jumped from orphanage to orphanage, in hopes that her father would never find her. The day she turned eighteen was the day she began fighting back.
"Because you're not the only one who's an orphan," Orwell had whispered out loud. She didn't mean for it to slip out. Just like the blogger was, her emotions were slipping out of control. A moment of silence was all it took to calm herself down.
She watched how Conrad looked down at his birth certificate. As she asked him if he was alright, the "I'm perfect" set something off in the blogger that told her everything wasn't all right. Which is why when he stood up, so did she.
They burned him with cigarettes. Why was he telling her this? If he was going to put her in any danger, she needed to get out of there, and fast. In a panic, she rushed to the door. Nothing made sense in that moment. She was grabbed by Netta and was struck with pure fear. What was going to happen to her? What was going to happen to her baby? She tried to struggle free as she saw something cupped in Conrad's hand. When he blew it in her face, she breathed it in automatically. Her whole body went numb as there was nothing she could do to change it. The paralytic had entered her system, and all she could do was fear for the worst as her thoughts over came her.
So, how was the first chapter? I'm starting school Tuesday, so updates will be less frequent.