Way 71
Take a big leap when you see an opportunity, and show your children about trust, faith, and the virtue of following your dreams.

Brains hadn't grown up with parents. He hadn't had a normal childhood, done all the things kids normally do. Sleepovers, play dates, trips to the park. Enjoying recess at school, playing peewee baseball or flag football, or even kickball and Red Rover.

These things never bothered him, largely because they had always seemed irrelevant. From the time he became cognizant of himself as a person, when he was but eleven months of age, his mind had grown in leaps and bounds. It had kept right on growing throughout the years to the point where John had once jokingly called him a human computer.

And so perhaps he was, and fine with that thought in every way.

But the one thing coming to live on Tracy Island had given him a glimpse of that he'd never really been exposed to, let alone contemplated, was actual, regular, real family life. Sure, the Tracys were all grown men now, all with their own accomplishments. But these men, they were a real, honest-to-God family, and sometimes Brains, well…sometimes he just didn't know what to do with that.

Because it made him…feel. Not that he didn't have emotions normally, of course, after all he wasn't really a computer. He supposed it was because it made him feel things he couldn't put name to besides extrapolating and logically determining what it might be that made the warmth fill his chest when Jeff hugged one of his sons after a harrowing rescue.

Or the strange sort of dizziness he experienced when one of them actually hugged him. Oh, yes, it had happened. When one of his gadgets or bits of technology wound up saving a life, he'd get a hug. He'd go stiff as a board, hope it would be over soon, smile and say "You're welcome," and move along, putting the moment behind him.

It just made him uncomfortable, is all, and because he found it wholly unnecessary to his being given where his mind usually was (between quantum physics and scientific leaps so complex most other people couldn't possibly grasp them), he tended to ignore rather than process and experience.

That was, until the day he happened to be in the tunnels far below the villa, headed for a storage room of equipment to fetch a new electric vacuum pump. He wondered if Mr. Tracy was going to raise an eyebrow that he'd gone through eight since their last run for supplies. He supposed it didn't matter as long as he was actually producing results. It's not like Jeff was stodgy, by any stretch of the imagination.

So along the hallway he walked until he realized he could hear voices coming from up ahead. He identified the first as Jeff, and then eventually the second as Scott. He kept going, caring little for what the men were doing down here. He had his goal and his mind had already gone twenty-two steps ahead to what he'd be doing with the new vacuum pump once he returned to his lab.

Then some words that were being said actually registered in his brain, making him stop dead in his tracks.

"You can leave, you know. Nobody'll hold it against you."

Brains' eyes widened and he adjusted his blue-rimmed glasses.

"I mean it, son."

Jeff.

"I can't ask you to stop living because of me, or International Rescue or your brothers. Nobody can ask that of a man."

"Did I say I wanted to leave?"

"No. But you want a life with Kaya. A home of your own, a family. God knows I get it."

"I just don't understand why it has to be one or the other. Penny's already done a thorough check on her, Father, she's clean in every possible way. She can be trusted, I know she can!"

"Scott, no. Nobody on the island. Nobody this close to our secret. You know my stance on that."

"Well, maybe your stance needs to be rethought."

"I'm not going to argue this with you again. If you want to marry this girl, it means you're out of International Rescue. Period."

Brains had crept back a ways, around the curvature of the hall so he wouldn't be seen or heard. Speaking of being heard, he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Scott wanted to get married, and his father was making him choose between that and International Rescue? He'd always known Jeff's position on new members, either to the organization or the family, but…it just seemed so…rigid.

"Dad, I love her. As much as you loved Mom? I love her."

"Then there's your answer."

"No!" Scott bellowed, making Brains jump, his heart racing. "I won't leave my brothers alone to do this. I'm responsible for them, Dad. International Rescue is my life, but it doesn't have to be all there is to my life!"

"What do you want me to do, Scott? If you bring one home, then the next thing you know, another one of your brothers will want to, and before you know it we'll have an island full of women who could jeopardize everything we've worked so hard to achieve! How can you ask me to put your love life over thousands of men and women who have yet to be saved?"

"And how can you ask us to grow old alone just because you've chosen to?" Scott retorted.

Brains gulped, certain that the next sound he heard was Jeff throwing a right hook at his eldest. He bit his lip, not sure whether to go on ahead to the storage room, which would take him past where Scott and Jeff were, or head back to his lab and wait for the storm to blow over before he stuck his head out again.

"Damn you, Father," he heard Scott say. "I'm going to ask Kaya to marry me, and if she says yes, I'm going to tell her what I do for a living, and bring her back here and show her, and you can't stop me. You can't stop us from living."

"Scott, listen—" Jeff growled.

"No. It's time for you to listen, Dad. You're the one always telling kids at all these charity functions that they have to believe in themselves, follow their dreams. Grab at their one chance and take it, and ride that dream to the end of the rainbow. You told that group of third graders at the space museum those very words not two weeks ago. I was there, Father."

"Scott, I—"

"And yet when I have a chance to be loved by someone the way Mom loved you, when I have a real shot at a family of my own, at sharing my life with someone, you tell me I can't. Not if I want to keep doing my job."

It was silent for a moment. Brains realized he wasn't breathing, and forced himself to take a few breaths as quietly as he could.

"I want you to have all that. I want you to have what your mother and I had, and more. So much more. But I can't…I'm just…"

"You're just what? Scared? Scared that we'll bring home the wrong woman, that we'll compromise the existence of this thing we've dedicated ourselves to? Do you think that little of our judgment, that we'd pick women who would do that to us?"

"I trust your judgment, Scott. If I didn't, I never would've put you in charge of your brothers' lives."

"And what about their judgment?"

"I trust all of you."

Brains could imagine the two men glaring at each other in the short seconds of silence that ensued.

"Then trust me on Kaya. I would never bring someone into our family who could hurt us. And if you ever want grandchildren, you're going to have to let this happen sooner or later." Scott paused. When his voice came again, it was softer. "You've met her, Dad. She's everything to me, I need her. As much as I need International Rescue, need to always be the one to look out for my brothers, I need her."

Brains slunk away, fearing he'd overheard way too much already. This was just far too personal to be something he should've eavesdropped on, but for two weeks after he couldn't help but wonder what had become of the discussion. Jeff didn't act any differently, and neither did Scott.

It wasn't until precisely seventeen days post-argument that the woman Scott had been dating for the better part of thirteen months came to Tracy Island for the very first time.

When she and Brains were introduced, he was smitten by her loveliness, the strength in her handshake, and the way she and Scott looked at each other. It appeared this was an argument Scott Tracy had won. And it appeared the woman in question was worth whatever it had taken to do so.

And Brains realized in that moment, as perhaps Jeff himself had two weeks before, that sometimes you just had to trust others. Sometimes you just had to have faith in them. Sometimes you just had to let them follow their dreams, and let the chips fall where they may.

Since he'd never seen Scott so ridiculously happy before, he figured Jeff had made the right decision in the end. And began to wonder for the first time ever, if there was a dream like that somewhere deep inside himself that he needed to start listening to.

Author's Note: Oh, Lord, the Hood's hijacked me (sorry, he's...persuasive). Look out, more Hood-verse ahead. This is a timestamp for somewhere around Ways 51 and 52.

Way 72
Get down on their level and try to see things as they do. Chances are, you've forgotten what it's like.

He'd never before paid attention to children's development. It's not like he was into child-rearing on any level, to be sure. But there was only so much he could allow the slaves to do for his princess, and so he tried his best, inadequate though it made him feel most of the time.

At six months and one day of age, she was on her belly on a very expensive hand-woven area rug in his bedroom chamber, wiggling her arms and legs like she thought she was running a marathon. Then, after a while, she grew frustrated and started crying.

It was frustrating him, because he simply couldn't fathom what the problem was. And so he picked her up and held her and rubbed small circles into her little back. He walked the temple's grounds with her inside and out, up and down the stairs, until she settled, telling her stories of his conquests, of the grandeur surrounding her.

The next time she was on her belly, it happened again. It occurred to him that she might be trying to get around on her own, and he knew enough to understand she was probably attempting to crawl.

Crawl, like he made his slaves crawl before him.

No, that simply wouldn't do. No daughter of his would crawl like a slave. Her first move would be to walk, and that would be that. Period.

Except she couldn't even stand up on her own.

The one time he tried to make her do so, a week after her first frustrating floor-swimming moment, he managed to get her propped up between his massive bed and a footstool he'd shoved over. She was holding on to the footstool palms-flat, grinning with her four front teeth showing.

"Ah!" she called out as he crossed the room to grab his cell phone. When she did, she let go of the footstool to clap her hands together. And completely lost her balance.

He'd just pivoted from picking the phone up off the dresser when he realized she was going down.

Before the Hood even knew what he was doing, the phone was dropped to the floor as he vaulted across the room and took a nosedive, skidding across the floor, bunching the area rug up beneath his bulk and stretching out his arms and hands as far in front of him as he could.

She giggled as she landed right in his two upturned palms, shoulder-first.

He was completely taken aback by how hard he was breathing. By how fast his heart was beating. By the actual…could it be?...fear he'd felt watching her fall.

The Hood managed to set her back down onto the floor, her back resting against the footstool, and just laid there for a moment to catch his breath and wonder what the hell because, seriously? The Hood did not ever feel things like this. Nothing affected him this way. Nothing.

Except for Ana.

He felt something on his hip, so he opened his eyes, craned his head up off the floor, and whispered, "Gampang!" in disbelief at what he saw.

Blue-eyed, blonde-haired six-month old Ana was three feet away from the footstool. On her own. And she was standing next to him, steadying herself with her hands on his hip. He stared and stared as she smiled, and then began to laugh at the look he had on his face.

For the next two hours he stayed on the floor with her, marveling at the fact that he, Belah Gaat, was down on the floor on purpose, where before only slaves would ever find themselves within his temple walls.

And he decided that to see his daughter crawl for the very first time, and pull herself up to stand, then look to him for approval, well…maybe it was an occasion worthy of debasing himself this once.

For this one, small, solitary little human being…and for her alone.