The phone call was when everything went wrong.
He knew it in his gut.
It was when everything turned horrible.
A nightmare.
He had thought it was a normal phone call. Perhaps one of the dock workers asking if there was work, the answer was no. Or perhaps, and he didn't believe it for a moment, a call from the mayor with news that the docks would be opened once more, that there was money to be pumped into the economy.
It wasn't. It had been a call from the hospital. About his little girl.
As the voice on the phone spoke, he found that he couldn't heard what was being said. His heart pounded with fear. With concern. With anger.
He put the phone down eventually with a shaking hand.
He had known that she was being bullied, but to that extend? To be locked inside a locker?
Someone would pay for this. Wasn't the school suppose to watch out for its students? Who... who.
He breathed in, and struggled to control his anger, his urge to hit something, his inclination to scream, to shout, to break something. Someone.
He blinked and found that his eyes stung, that his face was wet.
He closed his eyes and counted, breathing in and out. Trying to control himself. Anger was bad. It had been his anger that drove Annette away. His anger lay at the root of his problems.
He knew this, and yet, it was always there. Always.
He stood up, and walked out of his office. He nodded at Tiffany. "I... something has come up. I... I don't know when I'll be back. Tay... Taylor, she's in the hospital."
There was the tsking and murmured shock from Tiffany, she had never approved of his marriage to Annette, but then... that was fine. He walked out of the office to where his car was parked.
Perhaps it spoke of how out of it he was that he didn't remember driving to the hospital, only that he had done so successfully.
He spoke to one of the nurses, was directed here and there.
As he drew near to the ward where he was told that his daughter was at, that he noticed the PRT soldiers, that he was in the Parahuman section of the hospital.
That was when his heart sank lower.
The PRT officer who looked like he was in charge held him back. Told him that it was dangerous. He nearly hit the uniformed man before restraining himself.
He breathed in and focused on what was being said. He knew that she had been bullied, but to be told of the extend of how they found her, trapped in filth inside a locker. Of how she had called insects to cover herself on being let out.
Of being unable to remember names. Or faces.
Of how the trip to the hospital had resulted in more and more insects simply being collected around the ambulance.
The door into the room swung open, and he looked into darkness. Skittering and squirming. The walls, ceiling and floor were covered in insects. Everything was covered in insects.
And seated at the heart of that darkness was his Taylor, who seemed to be looking out where the window would be. Softly murmuring to herself now and then.
"Tay... Taylor?" His voice nearly broke as he called out the name of his daughter, who turned to look at him from where she was seated on the bed, covered in insects.
How... how could anyone even endure that without going insane?
"Yes?" The hissing, skittering voices that echoed around that of his baby girl's broke his heart in how there was no recognition there.
"It... it's me, Danny," He looked at her, in her eyes for any sign, that she knew him. "Your dad."
"Dad... ahhh..." Her voice echoed once more. "I... I remember you. Not your face or... or your name. But you died. I remember that."
"So, so many died," She struggled as if looking for the right words. "But now you're not."
Her head tilted just so as she looked at him, as if memorizing his face.
He stepped into the room, and the insects parted around him.
The insects looked where she did, they were... her. He could tell that much even just from a single look. She did not seem to expect the hug he gave her.
The two of them weren't big on touchy feely stuff. It had been a long time since he had done this. To hug her like this. To be drawn close to him while they were seated on the bed together. "I'm here now, everything's going to be okay."
The door to the room closed, the PRT people giving the two of them a moment of privacy for now.
.
Second Chances | Connection
Worm Fic
