(Part XIII) -2036-

{Etta}

It takes them under three and a half minutes to set up the level-two tech.

The Augmentation buffers, the wand, they're simple concepts that seem almost to trivial for her father's genius mind, but he's praising their clever construct as she connects the pads at Simon's interred feet.

"I never had a toy like this when I was your age." He says, keying a command into the device's control box. "I would have...ow!..Fuck!"

When she looks up at him, he's shaking his hand in the air, his face a clench of surprise and mild aggravation.

Short-shocks are common in electrical devices checked out of the impound station, and when her father puts the side of his finger against his lips;a wet tourniquet for the violation, she thinks that maybe she should have told him it might have a slight defect a little bit sooner.

"Agh..," he moans again, his full attention on his finger, "Goddammit...that stings."

And when he turns back to her as if he'd forgotten, in the moment, that she'd been here, his face is a shy, almost shamed set of planes highlighted in yellow by the halogen light that's bouncing off the Amber.

"Sorry..." he shrugs, as he gives her a coy grin, and it takes her a second to understand it's not his scene but his earlier, four letter language he was aplogizing for.

It only makes her want to laugh.

"It's okay." she assures him, securing the last pad, "I started using that word at six."

As she gets up, she dusts her hands on the side of her jeans and when he leans against their set-up table, he chuckles lightly, types into the keypad.

"You really are a chip off the ol' block."

It's the same pride in his eyes when he looks up, that she saw at the station, a sparkle of light blue that eats through, for an instant, the dark-slate of everything else he doesn't want her to feel.

It's twenty-two years too late for that.

"I suppose though," he says, clearing his throat, clearing the air, "that it's my parental obligation to tell you to watch your language."

"Yes sir."

"See? Whoever said discipline is difficult, obviously doesn't know what they're talking about."

She responds by giving him a small smile when she comes to stand beside him, and it's after he returns in kind, that she hears the device's power leveling up.

Preparing, she points the wand at the transparent marble, the chunk of solidified gas that holds her partner, and for an instant, she can't help feel a little excited, an anticipatory collecton of her nerve-ends that expands out in her chest.

Her past with this man, is another story for another time that maybe, she'll tell her father about. As willing as she's been to tell him her life's story so far, there are certain intimate aspects she's a bit shy to recount.

Even to Nina when she'd questioned, months ago, under a suspicious brow, just why it is she's so close to Agent Simon Foster. He's a good man, she'd responded simply, and quite frankly, he's the only one anymore that I know I can trust.

Conveniently, she'd left out the part where they'd emptied the bottle of Gin he'd been gifted by a thankful Red-light hauncho, a street owner who's life had almost ended, abruptly, by the civillan hand of alcohol thieves, and they'd woke the next morning, cotton-mouthed, laughing and naked in his bed.

Waiting for her father's countdown, watching him concentrate hard on the keypad while it communicates, she assumes there are things about her that maybe, he wouldn't know how to digest so comfortably.

Quietly, she smirks to herself, thinking of the nervous, uneasy twitch he'll rub out of his neck, shift through to his feet, if she were to tell him, right now, that she's used this man's toothbrush.

This daughter thing may still be a little new, but her pereception tells her it's okay to keep a few things a secret.

"Okay," he says, bringing her back into the moment, his eyes on the console as the activation light turns green. "Ready, Freddy?"

He asks, and when she nods, she's tickled by the childhood phrase, then she presses the wand into the honey-colored geode, bracing herself.

"Three...two..." she presses the trigger while he hits the red release button, "Kauwabunga."

And instantly, the Amber gives way, a smoke of yellow that blinds her vision while there's a crash in the distance; Simon's propelled form hitting their workstation, knocking it to the floor.

And when she drops the wand, rushes over to her partner, her father's already pressing the hydro-syringe into Simon's wrist.

As the rescued sucks in air in large breaths, her dad injects it, and Simon's coherency is grasping, navigating through trumatic bewilderment, and she looks down on him, pats his chest as she tells him it's okay, he's out of the Amber now.

"Etta?" he questions, still catching oxygen, and there's a slow realization in his gray-bown understanding, a latch of reality that's creased his forehead, rose his brows.

She nods, and when he turns to her father, those creases etch-out his frown as he points to him.

"Yeah," says the man at the end of Simon's finger, "I'm the guy who owes you the world's biggest Thank you."

And suddnely, it's awe that colors her partner's stare, the kind of wonder and admiration he feels toward every member of the team, who, he told her years ago, deserve the title of heroes for everything they've accomplished. Everything that they stood for.

Everything that they were.

This opinion, she thinks, only makes her appreciate him more.

"Peter Bishop?" questions Simon, more a personal cultivation, then confusion, and her father laughs, holds out his hand.

"Not according to my shiney new papers. But yeah, that's me. Now, c'mon, let's get you off this floor."

They stand up, the three of them, and Simon wobbles, grabs his head for a moment as her father holds him up with his arm.

"If you think the headache's bad now, just wait a couple hours. You'd almost wish you stayed in there."

In response her partner chuckles through a wince, and when he fully takes in her father for the first time since his concrete perch, his mouth lifts at the corner.

"It was an honor to take your place, Agent Bishop. To have you here now, in the flesh, in our presence. It's truly a pleasure."

"Can't say I get that very often." her father responds, but she can see, from the slight blush, he's immensely flattered. "Trust me, Agent Foster, the pleasure's all mine. You did push my ass out of there, after all. All I did was press a button."

"None-the-less," Simon says, straighting, his face a set of genuine adoration. "I'm glad you're here. This means we truly have a chance now, to make this world a better one. I've never-"

His words are cut off, suddenly, by the flicker of the flood lights, a blinking static that seems to rustle the furniture around them, shake everything loose in the room with an invisible magnetism.

"Are you doing that?" he questions her, and trying to squelch down her rising panic, she shakes her head.

"No. It's not me."