Chapter 3:
Johnny stared at the closed door for what felt like an age, but it couldn't have been longer than a minute. If Hallie was still anything like he knew her to be, she would come back through the door an announce that the whole thing had been a joke. But the door never opened. The knob never turned. Her face never appeared. She really had gone. He continued to stand there regardless, wondering whether he had imagined the whole thing. As long as he didn't turn around and see the sleeping girl, Jessica, still there, he could still pretend that this was all a dream, and that it was all in his imagination.
Then again, his imagination had never been that good.
He kept his eyes closed as he turned around, inhaling deeply as he did. He stood at the different angle, counted to ten to calm down, and then opened his eyes.
The girl was still there, and he'd known in the back of his mind the whole time that she wasn't really going to disappear. Jessica. That was her name, as Hallie had told him only minutes ago. She was still sleeping in the chair that belonged to Ben, specially designed to take his weight. He doubted that the chair even recognised the fragile weight of such a tiny girl upon it, compared to Ben's size. He stepped closer, so that he could see her clearer, but he still kept a few steps away from her so that he wouldn't risk waking up. He wouldn't know what to do if she woke up. He didn't know the first thing about kids. So, silently, he stood there, not knowing what else to do other than to look at this new person.
He remembered Hallie telling him that she had just turned three years old. Last month. Inside, a part of him wanting to punch himself for not being there for any of the three birthdays if this was his daughter. Jessica. It was a nice name, he decided. It wasn't fancy and unique like some he heard today. And it started with a 'J' like his. He suspected that part of Hallie had always suspected, if not wanted, Jessica to be his daughter.
Standing this close, he could see what she meant about looking like him. She had the same light brown hair that he did, although hers was slightly more of a golden colour where the sun had naturally highlighted it. She was obviously a child who enjoyed being outdoors, as she had a healthy summery complexion, complete with a few sunkissed freckles on her cheeks and nose which contrasted greatly to her mothers pale skin. She had the same face shape as him, the same chin, the same nose...the resemblance was too great for him to be anything else than this tiny girls father. She even twitched her nose slightly in her sleep like he was told many times by his father and Sue that he did when he was younger.
"Johnny?"
Sue's voice alerted him to her presence, but he didn't look up from Jessica. Even though he was concerned for her, and wishing nothing else that Hallie would come back and continue with things how they were, he couldn't take his eyes off of her.
"Yeah?" He answered back quietly.
"Where's Hallie?" She asked him, having hoped to at least say 'hello' to the girl that she also considered to be her friend.
Johnny shrugged simply. "She's gone."
"She didn't stay long." Sue observed.
"No." He confirmed. "She came to say goodbye."
"Goodbye?"
"She's leaving."
"Where is she going?" Sue asked.
"Somewhere else." Johnny repeated in a soft tone as he remembered her saying it to him countless times in their youth. He looked down at Jessica, who twitched her nose again in her sleep, and snuggled into the pillow beneath her a little more. "Sue," Johnny croaked out in a helpless tone. "I...I think I'm gonna need some help." He said, swallowing a lump in his throat. Was it because Hallie had left him for good this time, or because he was scared about being a father?
"Why, what's happened?" Sue asked, instantly concerned at the emotional tone in her brother's voice. She stepped out of the kitchen, and further into the living room where he was standing. He was looking intently at something in Ben's chair, but she couldn't see what from where she stood behind it.
"Well, if you stand here with me, you can see the problem." He told her quietly.
Sue frowned, going over to him with Reed also coming into the room, and lingering in the doorway. "Johnny, what---Oh." She said simply, her eyes coming to rest on the sleeping child as she stood in place beside her younger brother.
"That's Jessica." He said simply, not taking his eyes off of the girl still.
"Johnny-"
"Apparently, she's my daughter." Johnny said, and Sue's eyes widened.
"Oh. My. God." She said slowly, as Reed also crossed the room. He'd already seen the child when he let Hallie into the apartment, but he saw her in a new light now that he knew that this was, technically, his neice. "How does she-" Sue started to ask, but backtracked awkwardly. "I mean, I'm not suggesting that--but how does she know that it's yours?" She asked.
Johnny shrugged. "Because, apparently. I'm the only possible father for a girl that can set herself on fire." He explained.
"She set herself on FIRE?" Reed asked rather loudly, shocked at this, but a nudge from Sue reminded him that the child in question was still sleeping, and that his voice was going to wake them up. "How...how is that possible?" He asked, frowning a little.
Johnny shrugged simply. "You tell me."
Sue ran her hand over her forehead for a moment, trying to get to grips with the situation. She was finding it confusing, so she couldn't imagine how her brother felt. "So, she just sprung this on you, and then left?" She askeed.
Johnny nodded, still, never taking his eyes off the child. He was mesmerised, both horrified and curious that this child was his. His. His offspring. His baby. His flesh, blood and, apparently, fire.
"She said that she couldn't cope with her if she was a freak like me." He said, surprised at how protectively bitter his words sounded, and he wondered whether it was just himself he was insulted for, or the child as well. No one had ever called any of the Fantastic Four freaks before, at least, not to their faces. He was sure that someone had, but this was Hallie who had said it. The best friend he'd ever had. The only woman he'd ever convinced himself that he'd felt anything akin to love for. She'd called him a freak, and she'd called the child they'd created a freak, and he wasn't sure for whom he was more insulted.
"I can't believe she abandoned her child." Sue muttered, sounding as if someone had run over her puppy. Mind you, Johnny thought, if Hallie had a mind to abandon this child, then she'd probably have the heart to run over a puppy as well.
"I can't believe she called me a freak!" Johnny protested, almost as if he were trying to point out the differing importance of the situation.
"She must have been really desperate." Reed pointed out, putting his arm around Sue's shoulders.
Johnny caught this gesture out of the corner of his eye, but didn't direct his attention to his sister and her husband. Reed had always been slightly insecure in their relationship, forever dispairing that somehow, Sue might decide that she could do better, and that she would leave. However, there was no bigger way that he could be sure that she was staying other than the child she was carrying. His insecurities had vanished then, and Johnny, being Johnny, had wondered where they had gone to.
Clearly, they'd gone to him. He could already feel the questions, the 'what ifs', and the dispair clenching at his insides and threatening to consume him.
After a moment's silence, Sue moved from underneath Reed's arm, and bent over Jessica a little, as much as her growing stomach would allow, scraping back some hair in a mother-ish way to reveal more of her face. "She is a lot like you, Johnny." She said in a soft, yet amused tone. "You can see that from just looking at her."
Johnny let out a short exhale, which sounded like a 'pft' to everyone else. "Yeah, well, I bet I didn't set my cereal on fire when I was her age." He muttered. He was starting to sound a bit like a jealous, spoilt child, Sue realised. She straightened up, standing back beside Reed.
"She's a beautiful girl." Reed admired simply, nodding ever so slightly as he did before casting a look towards Johnny.
It was that moment, when Reed and Sue had undeniably accepted the girl into their home, that Johnny snapped. The shock that had numbed him with Hallie's dramatic exit had worn off, and the panic was starting to consume him. This was reality now. Not a dream. Not a figment of his imagination. Not a hallucination from spending too much time in the sun. Not even his brain being fryed from flaming on too much. He was a father. He had certain responsibilities he had to face now.
He wasn't ready for this, and the reality of that set him into the overdrive of panic.
"What am I going to do?" He somewhat shrieked suddenly, taking a jumped step backwards to distance himself. His hands found themselves holding his head upright as he looked at the girl with a fear in his eyes. "I don't know the first thing about being a father!"
As if to demonstrate this, he found his voice raising considerably, forgetting that loud noises woke sleeping children. Sue looked at her brother sympathetically. "We'll work things out, Johnny." She assured him gently.
"What am I supposed to do with her?" He asked, wildly flinging one of his arms in her direction, as if he were afraid that she were about to explode.
Sue took a step towards him, putting her hands on his forearms to calm him down. "Johnny, relax." She said to him softly.
He looked at her, desperation filling his panicked eyes. "Sue, I can't do this." He whispered loudly to her.
"Yes, you can." She told him, her gentle voice filled with the confidence that he lacked.
Johnny gulped loudly, shaking his head. "What happens when she wakes up?" He asked her. "What happens when she wants to know where Hallie is, and why she's here? I mean, she probably doesn't even know who I am, and what---Oh God, this is terrible!" He said, firmly shutting his eyes. "I'm dreaming." He decided, but then he opened his eyes and looked at his sister. "Tell me I'm dreaming."
She shook her head, nudging his arm with her hand as she tried to shake him from his phase. "You're not dreaming, wake up." She said with determination. "Now, when she wakes up, we'll find out if she knows anything about where Hallie might have gone." She said, taking charge of what everyone else was stepping back from.
"And what now?"
"Until then, I suggest we have a look to see if there's anything important in those bags."
-----
There were two large bags at Jessica's side. Reed stepped in and lifted them when Sue walked towards them. Since the start of her pregnancy, Reed had been adament that they take all sorts of precautions, especially with the cliche lifting and other such things which sometimes drove Sue insane. However, despite how Johnny usually teased them about this, he could see why Reed was being so protective. Sue and Reed had been married six months after they had established their powers, and soon after that they had announced that they were trying for a baby. It had been three years since that announcement that Sue had discovered she was actually pregnant.
He'd always been slightly amazed by that. Not in a strange way, but in a respectful way. Johnny didn't ever think that he'd have the determination to keep trying for anything for three years, let alone baby. Funny how for those three years, it turned out that he'd had one all along. Still though, he was no stranger to seeing his sister coming out of the bathroom and into the kitchen at morning, bleary eyed and internally crushed at another pregnancy test that she threw into the trash. He'd felt bad for her, because all her and Reed wanted was to have a real family together, and they deserved it.
Perhaps Hallie had never told him about the baby because he wasn't as deserving as Reed and Sue were. Perhaps fate really did have more of a hand in his life than he orginally thought, and it was just out to get him. If he would have been a good father, then surely it would have been cosmically arranged for him to be there, or however fate managed things these days. However, if fate was down to this, then he couldn't help feeling like fate had screwed his sister over more than she deserved. After all, having a family and being a father had never been part of his plan, even when he had reached the more 'mature' ages, but it always been a part of Sue's plan. So, why, if fate was good and all, was he presented with a child without having any input other than conception, when Sue and Reed had to try and deal with the heartache once a month for three years? Surely that was just cruelty?
Still, the three of them had sat together on the ground, looking through the bags. Reed handed one to Sue, and then passing the other to Johnny. He'd looked at it strangely for a moment, as if wondering why Reed was giving to him, but he realised that this probably wasn't a good time to be stubborn, so he took the bag tiredly, and opened it up.
The first thing that he came across was a paper folder that caught his attention, shoved into the back of the back as if to keep the back of it hardened. He took it out, laying the back to one side, and pulled out its contents. The first thing on the pile was the birth certificate, which he took into his hands and inspected closely.
Certified Copy of an Entry.
Persuant to the Births and Deaths Regestration Act 1953.
Registration District: New York
Sub-district: Brooklyn
Child:
Date and place of birth:
First of April 2004
Brooklyn City Hospital, Brooklyn, New York
Name and surname
Jessica-Skye Morgan Storm
Sex:
Female
Mother:
Name and Surname:
Hallie Carole Morgan
Maiden surname:
N/A
Surname at marriage if different from maiden surname:
N/A
Father
Name and Surname: Jonathan Michael Franklin Storm
"Jonathan." Johnny muttered under his breath, a groaning disappointment there, but his tone suggested that he almost expected to find his full first name there. "Why did she have to put Jonathan?" He asked the sheet of cream paper, which gave him no answer.
"What do you mean?" Sue asked him from across the room, her eyebrows knitting together in a frown as she looked up from a pair of child's summer shoes in her lap.
He lifted the paper, and pointed to the space he had stopped looking at. "Father's name." He said simply. "She wrote 'Jonathan'. She actually put my full name."
Reed's following frown was on that Johnny had only ever seen on his face, and that was when something that was meant to be working, wasn't. "She can't have done." He said simply.
Johnny handed the sheet of paper to him. "She has done." He said, leaning closer to point it out. "Right there, see."
Sure enough, the name Jonathan Michael Franklin Storm glared up at Reed, but still, he frowned, handing the paper back to Johnny. "I thought Hallie didn't know for sure that you were the father." He reminded him.
Johnny frowned, taking the paper back in his hands. "Oh yeah." He said simply, her words ringing out in his ears from little more than fifteen minutes previously. His name was printed on the sheet despite the fact that Hallie told him there were three possibilities for a father. And it can't have been something she'd had reprinted that morning, or the day before, because the issue date in the corner was dated to the 15th of April 2004, two weeks later from Jessica's birth date.
"I guess, on some level, she always wished that it was Johnny." Sue said with a gentle shrug.
Johnny said nothing to this. He couldn't. After all, why would Hallie have wished that it was his child when it would have been more logical for her to want it as Leo's. He was the steady guy. Johnny was just the guy she screwed to get over being screwed.
