AN: I neglected to post this oneshot here on ffn when I posted it on other sites because I didn't want to deal with ffn's complicated posting process. I am now remedying that, and the second Worm oneshot will be posted quickly after this one; certainly within the hour. Also:
Disclaimer: My writing speed is highly irregular. Not day to day, but rather month to month. Sometimes, I write 2000 words per day, every day, for three months straight. Sometimes, I don't write a single word for five months. This means that when the writing is going well, I update regularly, quite possibly weekly. When the writing isn't going well, I might not update for several months. But I will always come back.
Summary: After Taylor triggers, she decides she wants to know just what made Emma turn on her, so she starts using her new powers to spy on her former friend. And during one of those sessions, she learns that perhaps Alan and Zoe are not as aware of Emma's actions at Winslow as she made Taylor believe...
It was about three weeks after the Locker Incident that it happened. After getting used to my bug senses, I'd started to spy on Emma in an attempt to figure out just why she had turned on me. Part of me thought it a long shot, but if nothing else it was good practice for when I became a hero – and my costume wasn't ready yet, anyway.
The best time to learn things was during the family's dinner time, and that was indeed when I overheard the conversation that changed everything.
"How is Taylor doing?" Alan asked.
Inside, I felt fury boil. Emma had threatened both me and the school with legal action, always pointing out that her father was a lawyer, in my view making him complicit in the hell that became my life, and he dared ask that?
"She's around again," Emma said, disinterested. I could almost hear the shrug. "We haven't talked in ages, dad, I told you that before."
"I know you went through a hard time, but isn't it a bit much to still hold it against her that she shouted at you one time a year and a half ago?" he asked gently.
I had no clue what he was talking about.
When Emma replied, it sounded like she wanted to change the topic. "I know it's not big, but seriously, all I want is to hear 'sorry'. I apologized to her about it, you know. And I told her several times that all I wanted was an apology in return."
She had never told me anything about wanting an apology. Neither had she, for that matter, ever apologized for anything after turning on me.
"I'm just worried about her," Alan said. "Danny was, and still is, in a bad place, I've barely even talked to him these last few years, and then you told me she was hospitalized over the holidays."
Over the holidays? Now wait a moment, I was only hospitalized after coming back to school, and because your devilspawn tried to murder me!
"I don't even know what she had," Emma said. "She didn't try to reach out to me either. It's like I don't exist for her. I tried for months, dad, but at some point I figured I should just take the hint. If she doesn't want to apologize, then we won't be friends anymore. Trust me, I don't like it either."
It was in that lull in the conversation that realization suddenly dawned on me. Alan didn't actually know. Emma, the two-faced liar that she was, had told him and Zoe some made-up crap to excuse why I wasn't visiting anymore. And if he didn't know... then that meant Emma's threats regarding legal action might be empty.
Alan cared for Emma, I knew that. But before Emma's change, he'd cared about me too. After mom's death, he and Zoe had stepped in for dad on multiple occasions to make sure I was fine.
Emma had managed to make me believe Alan would back her against me even if I told him about everything she'd done to me. But perhaps... perhaps he wouldn't see it as his daughter being slandered by a random classmate. Perhaps, he might just believe me.
If nothing else, it was worth a try.
I'd spied on Emma for a while already, so I knew that after dinner she tended to either go to her room and spend time online, or leave for at least an hour or two to meet up with her friends. In either case, it meant she wasn't normally seen in the living room for several hours, while that was where Alan spent his time.
So the next day, evidence in my bag, I arrived at their house just when they were about to finish dinner. I waited until dinner was over. Emma went to her room, Alan went to his customary chair in the living room, and for bonus points Zoe was going to visit a friend.
I waited an additional five minutes to make sure Emma didn't suddenly have something she wanted to say to her father, and then I walked up to the door and rang the bell. It took Alan some ten seconds to open the door – I'd carefully tracked his movement through the house, of course.
"Taylor!" he exclaimed, though thankfully not loud enough for the Bitch to hear. "Do you want to talk to Emma? I'll call her."
"No," I said quickly, before he gave a holler and ruined everything. "I'm here to talk with you, Mr Barnes."
He frowned. "I know you and Emma have been going through a rough patch, but you can still call me Uncle Alan, Taylor."
"Alright then," I said neutrally. "Can I come in? I'd actually prefer if Emma doesn't know I'm here, at least for now."
"Well, come on in." I put my coat on the rack, then followed him to the living room.
"So, what do you want to talk about?" he asked.
I considered my words. All day, different ways to approach this conversation had gone through my head. Where to start. How to express certain things. How much detail to tell Alan. By now, I thought I had a decent approach.
"You know that I'm not friends with Emma anymore, right?"
He nodded.
"This week, I overheard her saying something that made me believe she lied to you and Aunt Zoe about the reason for that," I continued.
"I find that hard to believe," he said.
"By now, I don't want to be friends with Emma anymore," I admitted honestly. "But for several months after things went wrong, I tried everything I could to make up. Asking her what's wrong, apologizing even though I didn't know what I'd done wrong, I even begged her at one point. She..." I swallowed. "She was my only real friend at the time, and to lose her..."
"That's not what she told me," Alan said.
"So she did lie, then," I concluded.
"I suppose there's a very easy way to figure that out, right?" Alan said with a strained smile. "I'll call her down here. She said you shouted at her, then refused to apologize for it, and that all she wants is an apology from you. If you apologize to her and it's all fine, well, then it's fine. If you either won't apologize, or she isn't fine with your apology, then we'll talk about the problem and why either of you felt the need to lie."
He went to move to the stairs, but I stopped him again. "Would you mind hearing me out a bit more, first? I... let's just say I'd much rather tell you this without her listening in. After I've told you everything, you can ask her whether it's true."
Already, things were going as well as I'd hoped for. Alan was hearing me out, and didn't dismiss what I told him outright. But Emma had a way with words, and I didn't want to risk her somehow spinning things in a way that might let her get away with things or even convince Alan that I was at fault.
Thankfully, he nodded and told me to continue.
"I'm glad you're willing to hear me out, at least," I said. "To be honest, I was worried you'd back Emma against me no matter what I told you. That's what she did her very best to make me believe, at least."
Alan actually looked concerned now. "You might not be my daughter, but there's a reason I let you call me 'uncle', Taylor. It wouldn't do for me to not at least hear you out."
I reflexively looked down to my feet for a moment. It was the reaction to my next words that would make or break this conversation. "Emma... she just turned into a bully overnight. When I went to camp, we were friends. Then, I came back and she... she just started messing with me."
"In what way?" Alan asked. He sounded serious, thankfully.
"Basically every way. She'd insult me, make fun of mom's death, or talk to her friends about how stupid or ugly or whatever I was while making sure I could hear it."
"Who were these friends?" Alan asked.
"There's quite a few, but the main two are Sophia Hess and Madison Clements."
He nodded and gestured for me to continue.
"They'd also do things like push me in the hallways, or deliberately spill juice over my clothes. It just... it got worse and worse. And whenever I talked to someone else, they'd bully them too, until no one even wanted to talk to me."
"If that's true, why did you not go to the teachers?" Alan asked critically.
"I did!" I responded, barely remembering to keep my voice down lest Emma hear me. "They didn't do anything about it, said I was lying. Every time, until they started to give me detentions for it. So I gathered evidence and showed it to Blackwell, and I just got more detentions. That's when I stopped reporting it to them."
I hesitated momentarily. "And... Emma also threatened me, and maybe the school, by saying you'd sue me if I kept reporting what they did."
Alan looked angry now. "I would never do that, Taylor. At least not without a mountain of evidence that you're lying, and right now the only argument I have against what you're telling me is that I don't want to believe my daughter could do this to her friend, and it's fraying at the edges. Continue."
I shot across the room and hugged him. Tears started to gather in my eyes. "Thank you! I'm... I didn't know what to do anymore." I didn't know what more to say, instead I just cried on his shoulder until I'd calmed down.
He sat me down next to him, closer than I'd been before.
"I started writing everything down," I said. "From September to December." I grabbed the notebook from my bag and showed it to him.
He put an arm around me for comfort as he flipped through the book. With every page, marked with a date and with the offenses written down in detail, he got angrier and angrier.
When he closed it, I spoke up again. "The first day back after the holidays, when I went back to school..." I hesitated. It was hard to speak of that day.
"Emma told me you'd been hospitalized over the holidays," Alan said, though he sounded extremely doubtful of that right now.
"I wasn't," I said. "They'd... they'd put all kinds of trash into my locker before the holidays, at the hospital they described it as 'medical waste'. Let it fester for two weeks, then... when I opened my locker they..." Again, I trailed off, tears welling up in my eyes once more.
Alan hugged me. "Tell me." He sounded furious.
"They pushed me into it. Then... locked it. I... according to the nurse, I needed Panacea's healing to survive."
Alan kept comforting me, asking more questions, and I told him what I'd learned in the hospital once I could speak and listen again after a week of being unresponsive. More than a dozen STD's, which had entered my bloodstream from the scratches I'd suffered in my desperate attempts to get out of the locker. Numerous infections. Septic shock, which was the immediate reason why Panacea had been called in. And then a week's recovery. I needed several more minutes to calm down somewhat, and when Alan finally let go of me, I realized he was shaking.
He walked to the stairs. "Emma! Get down here right now!"
Alan returned, every step incredibly measured. When he picked up my notebook, I froze. "This is vital evidence," he said. "Make sure no one else gets their hands on it."
"What's going on?" Emma turned the corner, then froze when she saw me. "Dad, whatever she told you, I'm sure it's not true."
"Sit down," Alan ordered as he himself sat next to me.
Emma obeyed.
"Emma, you've learned a few things about law and the justice system through me, right?"
She nodded.
"There are some accusations that need to be taken seriously even if you are incredibly skeptical of their veracity. Attempted manslaughter is one of those."
"What the hell did she tell you?" Emma demanded.
"You will wait to speak until I am done talking," Alan responded, steel in his voice. "Even if I were skeptical of what Taylor has told me tonight, my professional duty, let alone my fondness for Taylor, would demand I take it seriously, even if my own daughter is involved. As things stand, I have spent half an hour speaking with Taylor, discussing nothing but her many incredibly detailed accusations of consistent bullying, growing worse and worse over time, so varied it is almost impossible that she's lying. She showed me this notebook, with months of bullying, logged by date, detailing exactly what happened."
"I didn't bully anyone!" Emma defended herself. "She's lying! Why do you think I'm not talking to her anymore? She just wants to screw me over! Screw us over, our family! And what is this bullshit about 'attempted manslaughter'?"
Alan stood up, leaning forward with his hands resting on the table, towering over his daughter. "You told me Taylor had been hospitalized over the holidays. Meanwhile, Taylor told me she was instead hospitalized after the most disgusting, vile attack on I have ever had the displeasure of hearing about, and I am a divorce lawyer for a living. Her claims are easily verifiable by simply asking the hospital. She required Panacea's miracle healing to even survive.
"You, Emma, are grounded and confined to your room until further notice. You will not leave, not even for school. You are only allowed out for meals, we will disconnect your internet, and you have to hand in your phone to us."
"You can't do that!" she screamed.
"Silence! When I called you down here, I wanted to hear you out, but the way you are behaving only makes me believe that Taylor's accusations are spot on. If she is lying after all, you will be out tomorrow the moment I've heard back from the hospital, and I will apologize. If she is speaking the truth, being grounded will be the least of your worries."
Emma continued to complain, to the point where Alan had to escort her to her room – though he did not have to bodily drag her there. In the process, I heard how he demanded her phone and paused to disconnect her internet. In fact, he explicitly stated he did not want to let her contact anyone.
Then, he returned downstairs and sat next to me again.
"I want to suggest that you push charges against her and the others," he said. "Attempted manslaughter, I think. Because that's what this was, straight up - though a criminal lawyer might be able to provide more detail. As much as it pains me, I cannot let my love for my daughter impede justice when it is this likely that a crime occurred."
"We can't," I said. "We don't have the money. The school threatened to take things to court if we didn't take the settlement, and we can't pay for that."
"I'll pay for it," Alan said resolutely. "If I can confirm this with the hospital, I'll even see if I can get Carol Dallon from New Wave to chip in."
He was silent for a few seconds, lost in thought.
"There is another thing. Sophia Hess has ties to the PRT, which may explain why the school was so eager to cover things up. I actually put in a word for her a few years ago, and based on what I know, I don't expect the important people at the PRT to be aware of her behavior. On the off-chance that they are, this might become a lot harder, and I'll certainly need Carol. The good news is that no matter her flaws, she has a strong sense of justice, and will absolutely fight the PRT if she thinks they're in the wrong, so everything should work out."
He handed my notebook back to me. "Take this with you, keep it close. If you can, make a copy and keep it separate, or hand it to someone you trust. I'll take tomorrow off work. First thing, I'll be visiting the hospital to confirm the date you were admitted and what you were admitted for. Then, I'll look into the settlement you had with the school, or as much as I'm allowed to view at least. After that, I'll visit the school and request all information involving Emma, detentions, complaints, everything. Once all that's done, I will contact the legal representatives of the PRT about the matter, and then, to end the day, I will come and visit you and your father to tell you how everything went. I recommend you stay home tomorrow. Partly because I can't predict how the school will react, and partly because I'm worried about something I cannot share with you."
I nodded, and once again I felt tears well up in my eyes. I hugged Alan. "Thanks for believing me."
He rubbed the back of my head. "It's the least I can do for you, Taylor. In all honesty, something didn't sit right with what Emma told me about the two of you already, but it was just plausible enough that I didn't feel the need to contact you to confirm it. I realize now that that was a mistake. I'm sorry."
I squeezed the hug one last time, and then said my goodbyes and another thanks before leaving.
Everything went more or less as Alan had predicted. Winslow tried to obstruct him, but they relented once he took a leaf out of his daughter's book and threatened legal action – this time not an empty threat – and the PRT turned out to be unaware and indeed most displeased about Sophia's actions. Over the next few weeks, I learned that the bitch had been a Ward, supposedly a hero, and wasn't that revelation like having a bucket of cold water poured over you.
Somewhere in the entire mess, with adults now finally doing what they were supposed to, I found the confidence to reveal my powers to Alan and my father, and by late March I took Shadow Stalker's old place in the Wards, which my new teammates apparently considered a big improvement – and that was before they learned of the history between me and her.
The month after that, I sat in the courtroom as I witnessed all three of the main tormentors sentenced to several years in juvie. The attempted manslaughter charge had been proven - specifically, the entire thing had been ruled a biocrime - with Panacea's testimony about healing me and more importantly an admission of guilt from Madison making it rather clear-cut even though Emma and Sophia kept denying everything. On top of that, several lesser harassment and abuse charges about the bullying had also gone through.
Alan cried as the verdict was read out, but he'd never once wavered in his quest to dig up the truth. After we'd left the courtroom, he told me that he'd seen the entire thing more as a case between two of his daughters than anything else, and it meant the world to me.
AN: Join my discord server here: /xKJKNjY
