Hey, it's been a bit. So, good news and bad news. The good news being that here's another chapter, the bad news is once again I'm reinforcing the fact that I pretty much rarely have any time to write, so updates are still going to be sporadic. I will say my promotion is rewarding monetarily, but for fuck's sake, the urge to just go full Trogdor on my employees is rising.

I will admit, that this chapter happened because of how another Worm fanfiction that I had been reading basically screwed the pooch and irritated me enough to actually want to write this, despite me being knee deep in other neglected projects.

Anyways, I spent a good few days just dwelling on Danny, the character. And while I'm not sure if I hit all the right buttons for him. I think I did a pretty good job in at least providing a rationale to why he is what he is. He loves Taylor, there's no doubt about that in Worm, considering despite the terrible shit she did, he still supported her. But there's a stark difference between being put on the spot and making a quick decision, and finding the raison d'etre to keep that love visibly supportive, and with Annette's death took him out at the knees. So yeah, I hope I did well enough for you guys.

Also, I will admit, that while I wrote this, I was listening to Fate/Stay Night: Heaven's Feel II: Lost Butterly OST. If you haven't watched the movie, I suggest you do, it's damn good. But more than anything, if you want what I would argue is one of Yuki Kajiura's best soundtracks in quite some time, then I suggest you take a gander and listen to it, because it just captures the emotions of both the scenes it's played on, but hell, even if you don't know the context of the scenes, you can make up your own story to fit the emotions in the music.

Alright, rant over, onward with the story. We'll be returning back to Taylor and what's going on in the next chapter, and honestly, I hope what I have percolating will be enough to keep you all entertained. I only see maybe about 5 or 6 more chapters to this entire arc, and then things will start taking off. I don't really intend for another interlude except maybe at the end of the arc, so make that I guess maybe 7?

Interlude 1.y Danny

For the last three years of his life, work at the Dockworker's Association had been a sort of escape for Danny Hebert. The opportunity to escape from the realities of an empty, broken household. An escape from the fact that with the death of his wife three years ago, he had lost the most important part of himself.

That wasn't to say that Taylor was not important to him, but it was a far cry from what Annette Hebert had meant to him. It just wasn't enough, and as a result, their relationship over the last three years had degraded to the point that outside of a few shared meals together a week, they might as well be two strangers in the same household.

The Association had been the one constant remaining in his life. It was both an income, but it was the escape in which he could keep a sense of constancy that was lost the second he stepped into his home. And as the job became harder as contracts dried up, and the Union sought to diversify its portfolio in order to function, he had buried himself deeper into the work, letting it allow him to pretend something that honestly wasn't.

It was both a curse, and a blessing. Because it allowed him to retain his sanity, despite everything. Yet at the same time, it came at the cost of his daughter, an innocent victim in all of his weakness, self-feeding guilt, and inability to move on.

And now, he may have just lost the opportunity to fix it with her.

Even now, four days later, he was still angry at Jiraiya for stealing from him something that should have been what he had been doing. It should have been him that was helping Taylor. It should have been him that his daughter turned to (and if he were to be honest, there were plenty of times she could have turned to him, but his inability to provide her that safe harbor to believe she could turn to him had led to this failure), not this random person she had met off the street.

So he did what he always did, he buried himself further into his work, the guilt eating at him further, even as he reviewed an upcoming contract, making notes on salient points in maybe improving the plight of their situation. All the while his guilt and frustrations served to dutifully remind him of his own failures with his daughter.

He was still doing this as lunchtime came and passed, the only interruption being when his office door swung open, and Kurt stepped in. At first, Danny didn't even notice him, instead lost in his own thoughts that it wasn't until Kurt cleared his throat that Danny realized that he was no longer alone.

"Oh. Sorry Kurt," Danny began, placing down his pen and rubbing his wrist, "didn't see you come in. What's up?"

A sandwich was placed upon his desk, and Danny found his eyes glancing to the clock to check that, yes, he had missed lunch, causing him to sigh as he took the sandwich and unwrapped it.

"Trouble with Taylor," Kurt asked, as Danny took a bite of the sandwich.

"You could say that," Danny admitted, catching Kurt's expression before sighing again, placing the sandwich down and considered what to say. While Kurt was a friend, it was a friendship cultivated in the workplace, not the sort that personal issues would necessarily be discussed with.

Kurt seemed to sense that he wasn't going to get anything more. Then again, it wasn't necessarily a surprise. Danny had never been the best at expressing himself, not since Annette had passed. So, instead he resorted to a different tactic to take his friend's mind off his current issues.

"You hear about the excitement over the weekend at the docks?"

"Not really," Danny grunted, before taking a bit from the sandwich, satisfied at least that he wasn't going to have to discuss his daughter with Kurt. Especially when he was still grappling with it himself.

"Looks like our resident angel struck again."

"Oh?"

While it wasn't something he was actively paying attention to, one would have to work under a rock at the Dockworker's Association not to know about the actions of the woman they were now calling Tenshi thanks to PHO. In the last two weeks, she had been increasingly hammering the Merchants, outside of the one incident with the Empire 88 (who, in her defense, was using the docks for an arms deal), driving them out of their drug dens and cleaning up the docks, and in one case, helping a member of the Association that got jumped. She had become so successful, that there were a few that he knew in passing were part of a small, but growing, fan club for the cape.

Privately, Danny was rather ambivalent to the cape. While he did approve of the woman's attempts at cleaning up the docks, because it benefited the Dockworker's Association, it was tempered by the fact that he was leery about the motivations of this Tenshi. While he was not racist in any shape, he couldn't help but note that Tenshi was obviously Asian, using a Japanese-themed cape name, and while she had hit the ABB a few times, seemed to be focus an inordinate amount of her attention upon drug dealers and Empire 88. Furthermore, he had heard that Tenshi was also interested in the fiduciary benefits of being a cape, namely in appropriating the money of the criminals.

No, he was right to be leery of the cape, as should anyone else. There were just too many unknowns involved in this cape, even if they were doing good for the Docks.

Obviously though, that wasn't what Kurt wanted to discuss, as it was evident that it seemed that there had been more activity over the weekend.

"Yeah, I don't have all the details, but I guess she was busy over the weekend. You remember that drug den over at the old Consolidated Steel building?"

"Yeah," the Consolidated Steel building was over in the southeast quadrant of the Docks, when the shipping industry collapsed, Consolidated hadn't been far behind it, as they had been heavily invested in the shipbuilding industry. After that, it had been abandoned for a few years before it became one of the dozens of drug dens that had become commonplace in the Docks.

"Yeah, I don't think we're going to have to worry about it anymore. Last night she hit it and I mean hit it hard. According to PHO, the police and PRT are both still cleaning the place up, and there were something like thirty arrests. But get this, while this was happening, she was also busy taking out another two places in the Docks."

This caused him to raise an eyebrow. Now, while he wasn't exactly a cape enthusiast, he wasn't ignorant of the cape scene considering his daughter's interest in it. So a cape that seemed to be able to be in multiple places at once was, while not unbelievable, seemed strange for a cape to have as an ability on top of what had already been reported. There were a handful of exceptions to this, with the most obvious case being Eidolon, still, it seemed strange to him.

"Well, that's good," he finally said, "I don't know how many times I've heard complaints about having something done about the Consolidated building. Do we know anything more?"

"Nope, but we got some video on PHO this time. Gotta say, I kinda feel bad for the druggies that were there, the lady was not exactly gentle. Still was interesting to watch regardless. Don't know how many times I wanted to go in there and clean it up whenever we caught one of those guys trying to peddle that shit or trying to steal something."

Danny found himself humming in agreement. That had been an ongoing problem for the Dockworker's Association, so it was nice that there may be a bit of relief upon the horizon. Still didn't take away from the fact that they were beholden in their gratefulness to someone like Tenshi.

Still, he had to wonder what Taylor would say about Tenshi. Despite his own misgivings, the cape had been doing some good for Brockton bay, even if the rationale behind it may not exactly be that of a saint. It'd be interesting to talk to Taylor about that the next time he got an opportunity, at least it would provide them an opportunity to talk about something instead of having a series of uncomfortable exchanges between the two of them.

"Anyways,," Kurt spoke up again, "just figured I'd pop in and give you the nitty gritty. Lacey'll probably strangle me if I don't get back to work. We good for Wednesday night?"

"Yeah, I'll be there. Taylor won't be able to, she has to work."

"Ahh," Kurt nodded knowingly, obviously thinking he had figured out what was bothering him, "well, she's getting to that age to wanting to spread her wings. Where's she working at?"

"Bookstore that's going in on the Boardwalk."

"Oh, you mean Daybreak."

"Daybreak?"

Kurt offered a shrug, "Short for Daybreak Books. Strange choice for a book store name, but it makes sense with the artwork they have for their logo. A sun above broken clouds. Lacey wants to check it out when they open."

Danny didn't respond to that, instead finding himself once again reminded about the current source of his ongoing issues. Well, at least a significant portion. Kurt must have read it in his expression, taking that as his cue to leave, getting up and closing the door behind him as he left Danny's office, worried for his friend but knowing that trying to intervene would only make it worse.

Is this what I really want, Danny thought to himself, the door closing behind Kurt serving as the instigator for that one dominating thought. Did he really want to lose his daughter to a man he had only met once? Because it was more than likely if he kept going like this, unable to reach out to his daughter and connect with her.

A sigh escaped his lips as he leaned back in his chair, staring into the drag office lighting, hands finding their way to the top of his head.

He had failed her. There was no debating that simple fact. He had suspected for quite some time that something was wrong with Taylor. All of the indicators were there. How she seemed to become increasingly withdrawn past the point of how she had been when—Annete died. How she always tried to not talk about school. He had just been too damn focused on his own problems that Taylor had paid the price.

What would Annette think of him, came the sobering thought that robbed him of breath. Yet, as he dwelt upon it, it provided its own galvanizing element. Because the thought that Annette would be disappointed in him was something he could not bear.

The thoughts and worries that had been plaguing him for the last four days crystallizing into singular realization. He needed to be better. No excuses. He wasn't going to lose the last piece of the woman that he had loved more than anything. He had to be better for both Taylor and himself, because he couldn't bear to think of facing Annette like this.

It was with this in mind, that he picked his phone, dialing a quick extension into it, and waiting for the other person on the line to pick up.

"Matt, it's Danny. Hey, I'm going to take the afternoon off—No, it's nothing serious. I just need to take care of a few things.—Yeah, I know, I'll have it done by tomorrow.—Alright, thanks Matt. I'll catch you tomorrow."

With that, he placed the phone back in its cradle and got up, going over to grab his jacket.

If he was going to make the change, he might as well start today.