Once the front door was closed behind them, she fell into his arms, bursting into tears. He held her tightly with a lost expression on his face. "God, Dad, I should have told you a long time ago," she sobbed, letting the tight control over her emotions she'd somehow maintained since she found herself lying on the floor relax. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
He patted her back slightly helplessly. "It can't be that bad, Taylor," he tried. She shook her head where it was pressed into his chest.
"It's worse than whatever you're thinking," she mumbled, sniffing hard. Eventually she recovered enough to look at his face. "You're going to hate me."
"I could never hate you, dear," he smiled. "Come on, sit down, and tell me what's going on." She could see in his eyes he was worried but putting on a brave face for her. There was more animation and engagement in his face than she'd seen for years.
'How did we let it get so bad between us?' she wondered tiredly. Following as he led the way into the living room, she sat on the sofa, still wrapped in the blue cloak she was wearing, moving her tail around until she was more or less comfortable. 'This thing is a pain in the ass,' she thought with irritation. 'Literally.'
Danny watched her, obviously puzzled not only about the presence of the cloak, but why she was clutching it so tightly, but said nothing, instead disappearing into the kitchen. She heard the sound of the kettle boiling a few minutes later, her father finally reappearing with a tray on which were two mugs, which her nose told her had hot chocolate in. He handed her one which she took with a trembling hand.
Sitting opposite her in his favorite chair, he studied her as she sipped the drink a couple of times. His eyes were troubled but there was resolve there, a look she hadn't seen directed her way for longer than she liked to consider. "Tell me," he finally said, taking a drink from his own mug, before putting it on the coffee table.
She was silent for a little while, trying to work out how to start, and having a lot of difficulty overcoming the reserve over the entire matter that close to two years of bullying had enforced. Eventually she sighed. "You remember when I came back from Nature Camp a couple of years ago?"
He nodded silently.
"It all went wrong then. I still don't know why, but it's been getting steadily worse for months and months. Tonight was... tonight was the worst yet." She looked up from where she was studying her mug. "Dad, I can't go back there."
"To school?" he asked.
She nodded. "Not to Winslow. Never again. I'm never going to walk through those doors again."
Taking a deep breath, she started talking. She told him everything. About Emma, her former best friend, now someone who seemed to delight in torturing her. About Sophia, the school track star who seemed unable to do wrong in the eyes of the school. About Madison, the simpering little follower who took every opportunity to cause her pain.
She noticed early on that his grip on the arms of the chair was so hard that his fingers were going white and she could hear a creaking sound. His face had paled in the depths of a profound anger, not aimed at her, but at people who should have stopped all this. He said nothing, simply listened with his full attention.
Taylor kept talking in a low voice, finally reaching the events that had left her locked knee-deep in a biohazard-filled locker in an empty school. If anything he went even paler. She could hear his teeth grinding together.
As she was describing in halting words how she had tried to escape, banging and calling for help, he held up a trembling hand. "Excuse me for a moment," he said in a quiet, dangerous voice. She watched as he stood, went into the hall, then opened the door to the basement. He disappeared through it, closing it softly behind him. There was a long pause.
"GODDAM FUCKING VICIOUS FUCKING BASTARDS, I'M GOING TO KILL THEM ALL!" The roar of sheer fury from beneath the floor made her jump. Wood splintered as something was either hit or kicked. The swearing continued at a lower volume for some time, until it finally fell silent. Another long pause and the door opened again, Danny reappearing and taking his seat again, rubbing his right hand which was looking a little the worse for wear. "I'm sorry, Taylor. Please go on."
Staring at him with wide eyes, she finally shook her head a little and continued her story. "It gets kind of weird for the next part," she said softly. He looked at her curiously and made a motion to continue. With a deep breath, she did so. Her father listened without comment until she stopped talking nearly a quarter of an hour later.
They looked at each other for some time when she eventually finished. When he said nothing, she reached out with the hand that wasn't still holding the now cold mug, dropping the section of door she had brought with her onto the coffee table with a clunk. "We need to get rid of this," she told him. He stared, then reached out and retrieved it, inspecting the dented doorknob with raised eyebrows.
"You did this with your bare hands?" he asked with impressed astonishment.
Taylor nodded. "Yes. It wasn't too hard either." After a moment, she put the empty mug down, sighed a little, then stood, letting go of the cloak and showing him what she looked like without it. He stared again. Turning a little she waved her tail at him. "And, of course, I have this thing now." Embarrassed she looked at the floor.
A few seconds later, he stood, approached her, then held her again. "It doesn't matter. You're still my daughter, tail or no tail."
Sniffing again as more tears threatened to make an appearance, she smiled. "Thanks, Dad."
"So you're a cape, now?" he asked, sounding worried.
She shrugged helplessly. "Yes? I think? But I'm not sure I'm a normal one." As he released her and stepped back, she began pacing up and down the living room, not really noticing how she managed to turn without her tail hitting anything, although Danny did with interest. "I mean, from what Varga says, the whole thing is kind of strange. He comes from a completely different world, for a start. I doubt very much that normal capes get their powers from a huge alien whatever!" She smiled as he nodded thoughtfully.
"I sort of learned some of the history of the last Brain, in a kind of dream, or more like a vision, I guess. That girl, she was a princess of a small kingdom somewhere on whatever world she lived on. This is the sort of thing she wore." Taylor gestured down at the armored outfit she was wearing. "It's embarrassing but at least it doesn't interfere with my tail."
Her father studied her again. He smiled a little. "To be honest, Taylor, it actually looks pretty good on you." Stopping in surprise she stared at him.
"Really?"
"Really. Your mother would have liked it, I think."
After a few seconds, she shook her head and resumed pacing. "When that thing, whatever it was, asked me if I was seeking power, maybe I should have said no. This is going to change my life, and yours, a hell of a lot, whatever else happens."
"If you had turned it down, what would have happened?" he asked.
She stopped again, turning to him, then thought. "I don't know," she finally admitted in a small voice.
"Is it possible that you would have found yourself back in that damn locker?"
There was a long pause as her face fell. "I guess so."
They looked at each other. "I think you made the right choice. Maybe it's selfish of me, but I don't want to lose you, so..." Danny smiled at his daughter. "You're alive and well. Everything else we can deal with."
Sighing, Taylor sat again, muttering to herself in annoyance as she wriggled around to free her tail from under her. "This thing is in the way so much," she grumbled. Both of them contemplated the tip of it where she laid it across her feet.
"You're sure that… Varga? can't do anything about it?"
She shook her head. "He says that I'm stuck with it. This is as close to normal as I can get, from what he tells me."
Leaning back in his chair her father considered the problem for a while. Eventually he said, "It's too late for me to be able to think properly. OK. This is what we're going to do. You are going to go to bed, and sleep as long as you need to. I am going to do the same. In the morning, I'll call the police and let them know you turned up, then call the school and tell them that I'm pulling you out of it. You're right, there's no way you can go back. Even without that tail, I wouldn't let you, not with what you've told me. Then, we're going to work out what we do next."
Taylor closed her eyes for a moment in relief. He accepted her changes and seemed all right with them and was going to help. It was a far better outcome than she'd expected. Looking at him again she felt like she was seeing the father she remembered from years ago, the decisive one from before her mother died. "Thanks, Dad."
"One more thing, while I think of it," he added after a moment. "You said you have evidence of what has been going on?"
She nodded. "Logs of what they did and when they did it, printouts of emails, everything I could think of, I kept."
"Good. I'll want to see that before we take this any further."
"But what can we do?" she asked in despair. "No one has ever paid any attention to me before, even when it happened. And look at me." She waved a hand over herself. "Leaving aside the obvious, there isn't a mark on me. No evidence that anything happened, aside from that locker full of crap. Which I'm probably going to get blamed for in the first place, assuming that they don't just clean it up then deny everything."
He frowned a little, thinking. "It's difficult, I'll admit, but..." Trailing off he pondered the issue. "Don't worry too much right now." Moving to sit beside her on the sofa he put his arm around her shoulders. "I'm so relieved you're all right, Taylor," he said softly, holding her tightly. "When you didn't come home… I thought I was going to lose my mind."
"I'm sorry, Dad. I wish I'd told you a long time ago." She stared at the floor. "But I was embarrassed by it, at first. I should have been able to handle it. And the longer I went without saying anything, the harder it got to talk about it."
He sighed, nodding. "I do understand, believe me. I didn't help, either. I know we haven't been as close since your mother died, we've drifted apart. I'm so sorry for that. If I'd paid more attention..." Shaking his head slowly, he sighed again faintly in sorrow. "I promise that changes here and now. You're the most important person in my life and I should show it more."
Squeezing her, he smiled at her. "We'll work it out, somehow. The important thing is that you're OK. Go to bed and try to sleep."
He watched as she smiled at him, then got up and headed up to her bedroom.
"God, Annette, I wish you were here," he muttered as he picked up the empty mugs and took them into the kitchen, putting them in the sink. "You were so much smarter than me. Maybe you could see how to make all this work."
After a moment's regretful remembrance, he headed up the stairs, turning out the light on the way.
In her room, Taylor looked out the window for a while, without turning the light on. She was still amazed by the way everything was as clearly visible as if it was daylight even though she could still easily make out the stars where the clouds were clearing after the earlier rain. More stars than she'd ever seen, in fact, and she found it interesting that they seemed to all be different colors now rather than the normal blue-white they'd looked the rest of her life. Staring up for a few minutes, she blinked at a couple of meteors flashing past, not having ever seen anything like that before, before she pulled the curtains closed and turned to her bed.
Walking across the room she stood in front of the mirror on her closet door, inspecting herself, then fumbled with the unfamiliar fastenings on the armor she was wearing, before sighing in realization. 'Varga, can you get rid of this for me, please?' she requested silently. There was a similar peculiar flickering effect to the one that had accompanied the appearance of the clothing in the locker room and it all disappeared once more, leaving her naked again. 'Thanks.'
"You're welcome, Brain," the silent voice of the entity she was apparently irrevocably joined with sounded in her mind.
'Are you and I really stuck with each other forever?' she asked after a moment.
"The merger will only end with your death," the Varga told her. "Something that will be quite difficult to arrange, now, as the merger makes you very hard to kill indeed. Not impossible, though, I would advise keeping that in mind. But my last Brain lived for a long time and survived many things that would kill a normal human instantly."
"Do you miss her?" Taylor asked out loud in a low voice. The Varga was silent for some time.
"Yes, I do," it finally confirmed quietly. "She was a good Brain and a good friend. But she lived a remarkably long and happy life, on the whole, so I think she found the arrangement satisfactory."
Taylor was quiet for a little while, as was the Varga. Eventually she shook her head tiredly. "Dad's right, I need some sleep before I can try to make any sense of this." Looking down at herself then at her pajamas which were folded on the bed, she shook her head for a moment. Pulling on the top, she held up the bottoms and inspected them. "Hey, can you make something like this which will fit me?" she asked curiously.
"Yes, Brain," the Varga replied, the by-now familiar sparkle surrounding her legs for a fraction of a second. She lifted a leg and studied the cloth covering it with impressed approval. Looking behind herself she saw there was a short sleeve covering the base of her tail and allowing it to protrude.
Satisfied for the moment, suddenly exhausted as everything caught up at once, Taylor yawned widely, then turned to her bed, climbing under the covers and arranging herself with a little more effort than normal due to her new limb, before quickly dropping off to sleep.
She dreamed of blonde princesses, giant lizards, and annoying wizards which both the princesses and the lizards enjoyed stepping on, repeatedly.
"Sure thing, Danny, take as long as you need. We can fill in here for you, there's nothing serious happening at the moment anyway. Say hi to Taylor for me, will you?"
"Thanks, Kurt, and I will do," Danny said, smiling, then said his goodbyes to his old friend and colleague, putting the phone down. It was half past six in the morning, a little earlier than his normal time to rise and go to work. He turned at the sound of a series of thumps followed by a loud clunk and some muttering, going into the hallway to see his pajama-clad daughter lying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs looking irritated and slightly pained, tangled up in herself in an amusing way. Leaning on the doorway he raised an eyebrow.
"Are you all right, Taylor?" he asked, trying not to laugh as she straightened herself out and climbed to her feet.
She sighed, nodding. "Yes, Dad." Rubbing her elbow she muttered something rude.
"What happened?"
The girl gave him an embarrassed look. "I tripped over my tail," she grumbled. He started laughing. "It's not funny!" she exclaimed, hands on hips and giving him a look that was pure Annette, which made him laugh harder. "This thing is a nuisance like you wouldn't believe. I keep forgetting it's there and then things go weird." Bringing the end of it around into her view she scowled at the appendage which was protruding through an apparently tailored opening in her night clothes, which Danny guessed had been provided by the Varga in the same manner as the armor she'd been wearing when he picked her up had.
"You were handling it OK last night," he remarked as he turned back into the kitchen, his daughter following him and still scowling a little.
"I know, it's strange, but at the time it hadn't really sunk in, I think," she sighed as she watched him prepare breakfast for both of them. "Now half the time I don't remember it's there until I knock something over and the other half the time I can't stop noticing it." After a moment, she smiled a little. "Although I did work out one thing it's good for."
"Which is?" he asked over his shoulder. She grinned, then arranged the muscular tail on the floor behind herself, leaning back until she was propped up by it in a somewhat strange-looking position, like someone sitting on an invisible chair.
"Tada! No chair needed, see?" She waved her hands around, laughing a little. He snickered, going back to the omelet he was cooking.
"I'm sure that's a real benefit most capes will never enjoy," he commented, making her laugh again.
"Maybe."
Flipping the omelet onto a plate he handed it to her, then poured some more egg mix into the frying pan to begin one for himself. She accepted the plate and moved to the table, looking at the chair there for a moment before shrugging, moving it to the side, then sitting on her own tail again. He watched for a second or two, smiled, then diced some ham into the pan.
"How are you feeling this morning?" he asked as he put his own food on another plate then joined her at the table, pouring himself a cup of coffee from the pot he'd prepared before making the phone call.
Taylor chewed silently for a few seconds, apparently considering the question carefully. Finally she replied, "Confused. Angry, too, and sort of… resigned, maybe?" She thought some more, then added quietly, "Relieved, as well. About the fact that I can talk to you about this, I mean." She looked at him, then dropped her eyes. "I shouldn't have hidden it for so long."
Reaching across the table he squeezed her hand for a moment. "I wish you'd told me earlier but I do actually understand why you didn't," he said gently. "Believe me, I do. Embarrassment is a powerful motive. And I know I haven't been the easiest person to live with since..." They both fell silent, remembering.
Eventually he shook himself, going back to eating. "Never mind. That's in the past. Right now, we have to think of the future. I've arranged to take a few days off, I'm owed a fair bit of holiday time aside from anything else. We need to work out what our next step is."
Pointing at her with a fork, he ticked several things off an invisible list. "You need to finish your schooling, that's one thing. But you're not doing it at Winslow. We need to figure out more about your abilities and work out what you're going to do with them, that's another thing. And, of course, we need to work out what to to about those three horrible girls, the staff who are complicit in their actions, and anyone else who might have been able to stop it but didn't."
Taylor nodded silently, finishing her breakfast. He pondered the matter while he did likewise. Eventually, when they both finished, the table was cleared and the pair went into the living room, Danny with another cup of coffee and his daughter sipping a glass of orange juice.
"OK." Danny sat in his favorite chair, studying Taylor who was standing looking out the window with a faraway look on her face. "First, can you get me the evidence you have about all of this? I need to look at it before we can do anything else." She blinked a little then nodded, padding out of the room and going upstairs. He sipped his coffee while he waited for her to return and thought hard thoughts. 'No one gets away with doing this to my daughter,' he mused, gripping his mug nearly hard enough to break it.