A/N: Aaaaah.
To that one guest who commented on this story back in June of 2020, a personal message: There are two options that I perceived when I read your asinine comment. Either, you are just a troll hoping to get a response from me, in which case, congratulations, and you can fuck off.
Or, you actually think you deserve an apology from me for not getting something that I do in my spare time which you receive for free, in which case you can absolutely fuck off.
To everyone else, apologies for the lateness, and hope you enjoy.
Gestation 1.3
Danny Hebert pulled up to his driveway, exhausted from a long day.
His office was never quite as busy as he'd have liked, sitting near the middle of the Docks, bordered by the major Gangs in the city. Which wasn't to say that he didn't have his share of the work, signing forms, arranging meetings, getting a few extra jobs for his workers wherever and whenever he could. This storm had probably busted more than a few drains, and he could work with that.
Some thug from the Empire had left him another "politely-worded" message on his answering machine, telling him in no uncertain terms to leave Brockton or face the consequences. He forwarded that one to the police. Another message from a few of the security guys, calling about some mooks from the Merchants sniffing around, close to the borders of where their territory met the DWA's. He sent a few more men to make them back off. One from the Mayor's office, delaying their meeting another week. For that, he'd given a rather impatient message of his own, tired of getting the runaround.
But, thankfully, the call he was dreading the most had never come.
Leaving his sick daughter at home by herself while he went off to work wasn't something to be proud of, but he justified it to himself. Taylor was strong, stronger than most people could even imagine. When he'd lost himself after Annette died, she'd been the one who'd kept herself together during and afterwards. She may as well have lost two parents for those few months, until his friend Alan had finally called and told him to pull himself together, for his daughter's sake if not for his own. And he had, barely.
Things between them were getting better, but not quick enough for him. She was different, now. More closed off, less talkative, less trusting. She never talked about school, and her answers were vague when he asked. A few of his friends in the DWA had expressed concern, the few times they'd seen her, and they weren't wrong to do so. He was concerned too. But the work was still consuming his mind, more than a year after he'd lost the love of his life.
But for all that, his daughter was still supporting him. She never complained, never blamed him for their situation. Even in the midst of feeling sick, while he'd been walking out the door, she was still looking out for him.
As he'd been thinking about it in his office just a few short hours ago, he'd resolved, there and then, to do better.
So, taking a deep breath, he unlocked and opened the door to their house, speaking hesitantly. "Taylor?"
A dark, silent room was his only response.
Flicking the light switch on, he took off his rain jacket and shoes, setting his umbrella by the door, before finally walking past the kitchen. And then he stopped, brow furrowing, and stepped back to give the room a second glance.
It looked like a tornado had swept through the kitchen. Bowls strewn everywhere, bits of food on every surface, a jug of milk that he'd bought the day before, on the table, empty.
His first thought was enough to light a momentary panic inside him, as he wondered if someone had broken in and eaten all the food, but then shook his head, calling himself an idiot. The door hadn't been picked or broken into, not to mention a quick glance at an open drawer showed all the silverware and other shiny bits still where it was supposed to be. What kind of thief would take all the food, and nothing else?
That left only one culprit, though he was perplexed as to why, and exactly how, she had managed to eat through a week's worth of food in a single day.
He glanced up at the ceiling, feeling rather perplexed, and called up the stairs. "Taylor?"
When he received no response, he walked up to her room, stopping in front of the door, and knocked twice.
"Taylor?"
There was a second of silence, then a loud *THWUMP*.
"Honey?" he called again, more than a little alarmed. Half a second before he could yank the door open, the door handle turned, opening to a darkened room and a pair of wide eyes staring up at him.
Barely managing to hold in his sigh of relief, Danny stepped back a little. "Are you okay? I heard a noise."
"Yeah," Taylor croaked, her voice rough and scratchy. "I slipped and knocked over my chair."
"…Alright," he conceded after a moment, then asked another question he was dying to know the answer to. "What happened to the kitchen? You have a block party, or something?"
Recognizing the dry attempt at humor for what it was, she smiled and shook her head. "No, I just had a little food. As I was searching, I noticed the rest was starting to go bad, so I took it out to the trash, but I felt a little sick just as I was about to clean up, so I went to lie down- but then I guess I must have lost track of time." The explanation came out in a rush, and she looked up at him, embarrassed. "Sorry, Dad."
Feeling the urge to chuckle for some reason, he waved off her apology. "It's fine, honey, you deserve to make a mess every now and then. It's actually kinda funny, to be honest."
She looked chagrined, and opened the door just a little to step outside. "I'll go clean it up—"
He put a hand on her shoulder before she could move any more, smiling gently. "You'll do no such thing. If you're ill, you rest, them's the rules. I'll go clean up."
For a moment, she hesitated, but finally relaxed and offered him a tentative smile. "Alright. Thanks, Dad."
"Goodnight, kiddo," he said, as the door gently closed and he went off to clean up, pleased that Taylor seemed just a tad more relaxed.
'I'm freaking out.'
Up in her room, the dark-haired girl leaned her head on the door as she tried to process what had just happened.
That had actually just happened, right!? She hadn't hallucinated the five minutes before her dad had shown up at the door? She could scarcely remember the bite, the breakfast, or the binge. Everything up to then, from the very moment she'd awoken with a sharp pain in her right hand, felt fuzzy in her mind.
Taking a moment to try and calm down, Taylor drew in a deep breath and held it, trying to take stock of everything that had happened in the last few hours. A glance at her bedside table showed her alarm, an old, beat-up thing. She stared at the red numbers, glaring at her from out of the dark.
She'd been sleeping for nine and a half hours.
Though, "sleeping" may not be the right term for what had gone on in that bed. She remembered a brief moments of awareness, when she'd woken up, soaked with sweat and shaking with agony, limbs on fire and head splitting, scarcely able to whimper as images, feelings, sounds and smells assaulted her from all sides, before the pain finally knocked her back into fitful, feverish, sublime unconsciousness.
Turning around, she slowly slid down the wall, legs drawn up, arms wrapped around herself, trying to keep panic from gripping her as she thought back on what had happened.
That moment. When she'd finally woken up as her dad knocked on the door.
When she'd flipped up off her bed, from a position of no leverage, eight feet straight up, and hit the ceiling with her hands and feet.
And stayed there.
Stuck, like she'd suddenly had superglue on her hands, if that would even work. She hung there, on the ceiling, tense and twitchy, scanning the upside-down room for threats. Then, the sheer impossibility of what was going on finally clicked after a half-second of sleep-addled incomprehension.
And then, another call came, and she suddenly remembered her dad was outside.
Before she could even begin to think about what would happen if he came in and found her stuck on the ceiling, whatever had stuck her to the ceiling suddenly decided to unstick, and she dropped onto the lumpy old mattress with a loud *THWUMP*.
A loud call from her dad had her scrambling off the bed and opening the door before he could burst in. Then, the hurried explanation, the excuses, and a goodbye.
Leaving her there, sitting on the floor, with no idea what to do.
She stared down at her hands, incomprehension and some other, undefinable feeling gripping at her mind.
'I have powers.'
It was an impossible thought. Her? Taylor Hebert? The frog-faced loser? The stick-thin, yet inexplicably pudgy weakling? As if.
And yet…
She stood up again, thinking of doing… well, something, but a wave of dizziness made her knees go weak.
Staggering over to the bathroom, she opened the sink's tap, leaning over to gulp down what felt like three gallons of water. She didn't even have time to look in the mirror, feeling sick again, and managed to make it to her bed. Flopping down onto her pillow felt heavenly, but she stubbornly resisted the oh-so-tempting call of sleep, at least for another few moments.
'…I can't involve Dad.'
A thought she'd had the moment she'd talked to him, but somehow, she knew it with bone-deep certainty.
Powers were as coveted as they were distrusted on Earth Bet. Parahumans were members of a select group that everyone wanted on their side. Standing among them would be dangerous for her…
And anyone close to her, few though they might be.
Whatever this was, she'd deal with it alone. There was no other alternative.
Another wave of nausea and exhaustion made her groan, and she rolled over onto her side, unconscious before she could think of how strange those thoughts felt.
This time, she didn't dream at all.
Hmm. Well there we go. Yet another chapter out, in an endless attempt to fend off the never-ending curse of writers block. Dastardly bastard.
Hope you enjoyed.