Wincing slightly, Alan sat up on the sofa and smiled at his wife, who looked both amused and not entirely sympathetic. "You didn't have to have seconds," she pointed out. "Or thirds. Or fourths…"
"It was so good!" he protested, loosening his dressing gown's belt a little. "Your turkey was amazing, and Taylor's cooking was also really good. That girl has many talents."
She handed him his coffee then sat beside him. "You and Danny got into an eating competition, as you well know," she giggled. "Yes, the food was fantastic, but there was far more than enough for all of us. Trying to finish it off was only ever going to end badly."
He sipped some coffee, burped a little, then looked somewhat embarrassed when she laughed again. "I may have gotten carried away, I'll admit," he replied after a moment's reflection. "I'm not twenty any more, I guess."
"If you ate like that when you were twenty you should be spherical by now," his wife chuckled, making him grin. "Good thing you've got a few days off to recover."
"True enough. I would hate to drive anywhere right now." He winced again as she leaned on him, shuffling around a little to minimize the pressure on his midsection. "But it was worth it. I enjoyed last night a lot. It was almost like…" Alan sighed a little as his wife nodded understanding.
"It would have been perfect if Emma and Annette were there too," she replied softly. "I know. I thought the same thing. But… all things considered, it was good for all of us. Annette would have approved, and I'm sure Emma would agree… will agree, when she's better."
He put his free arm around her and hugged her. "She'll come back to us, honey," he said into her hair. "We have to believe that."
"I do, but it's hard sometimes," she mumbled almost inaudibly, causing him to hug her harder.
She was right, of course, but he couldn't give up hope. It was all they really had. That, and a pair of very vicious lawyers who were going to make Winslow regret everything that had happened.
Alan was more than content to leave that aspect to Michelle and Carol. The pair of them would absolutely wreck everyone involved with the whole thing. With, he suspected, some discreet aid from the PRT locally, because Emily Piggot was not even remotely happy about the situation and now that her own people had settled up, would probably want to liberally share the pain.
He was fine with that.
The offer from Danny yesterday morning had been exactly what they'd needed, too. It proved that the Heberts were still friends, something he found himself incredibly grateful for, and had successfully managed to cheer him and his own two girls up far more than he'd expected. Zoe had been very pleased to see Taylor happy and relaxed, and had liked Lisa, the girl Anne had mentioned the Hebert's had somehow ended up with. He was a little hazy on exactly how, but Danny had mentioned that Taylor had run across her some weeks ago and offered help, as Lisa had been basically living rough and being threatened by some low-lives. Which was, unfortunately, a story he was far too familiar with. These days it was sadly common, and in Brockton Bay specifically something that happened all too much.
Considering the sort of people who wandered the streets at night, both gang affiliated and otherwise, Lisa was lucky that it had been Taylor who'd come across her. He didn't like to think about the fate that could have lain in wait for an attractive teenaged girl around these parts. It was something that led to all too many sad little stories in the news on far too regular a basis.
Lisa had struck him as an intelligent and well-educated young woman and he'd wondered how and why she'd found herself on the street, but it wasn't the sort of thing he was going to ask without knowing her much better. There would be something unpleasant lurking in the background, he was certain of that, and he suspected the girl had escaped a past she probably wouldn't want to talk about anyway. Again, he'd seen it before…
You ran into all sorts of nasty things both as a lawyer, and simply as a resident of this city. Often too late to do anything about it.
Luckily in this case it had worked out for the best, though. Danny had clearly taken a shine to the girl, he knew his old friend more than well enough to tell, and seemed to have decided that if she needed a home, he could provide one. Taylor was also obviously fond of the other girl, so Alan was sure Lisa would have a good life for now.
He'd slightly wondered if Taylor had seized on a new friend in the wake of his own daughter's betrayal because of that betrayal. It seemed possible there was an element of that, but he could hardly begrudge the girl such a thing under the circumstances. And, having ended up having a serious conversation with Taylor about Emma, he'd come to the conclusion that Taylor was indeed one of the most mature and sensible people he'd ever known, despite her age. She was quite clear on how she felt about what Emma had done, but also quite clear that having spent a lot of time thinking about it, she wasn't prepared to blame his daughter outright, as she felt that Emma really was as much a victim of Hess's as she herself was, and blamed Hess and Winslow far, far more for all of it.
He doubted she was going to consider Emma a close friend again any time soon, if ever, even if she did recover as he so desperately hoped she would, but at the same time she didn't seem to feel it was impossible to regain a measure of trust in his daughter eventually.
Alan took that as a win, really. He certainly couldn't ask for more than neutrality at best in such a state of affairs. His daughter had, after all, done those things to Taylor, disturbed balance of mind or not. It would take a saint to simply forgive and forget, and there were precious few of those around these days. That someone Taylor's age was prepared to even begin to accept the reality of the situation in the way she was doing was already impressive. He wasn't sure that he would have been able to do the same even now, never mind when he was her age.
On the other hand, he had been much more of a hot-headed youth than Taylor seemed to be. That girl, as he'd seen in the past, to spend a lot of time thinking things through before acting, a trait that would stand her in good stead. And she was exceptionally smart to boot.
Lisa, too, appeared very bright, and also already a close friend of Taylor's. He imagined being rescued from the street would have a fairly profound effect on someone of that age aside from anything else. Anne had met the girl before, he knew, having spent several evenings at the Hebert's house over the last couple of weeks or so. He was quite pleased about that, as it had cheered his oldest daughter up considerable, both by finding out that she was still considered part of the family by both Danny and Taylor, and taking her mind off the current problems facing them. He was grateful that Taylor seemed perfectly happy to include Anne in her life, and had watched her, Lisa, and his eldest daughter chatting happily the night before about something over dessert.
Apparently it involved a lot of looking at paperwork and laughing, although he had no idea exactly what it really was. Danny had seemed mildly apprehensive when he'd stood and watched the trio for a moment, then visibly decided not to get involved, which had made Alan glance at Zoe with a questioning look. His wife had only shrugged, smiling, so he'd moved on to a different conversation.
And, in the process, ended up eating far too much. Which he was now paying for.
His only consolation was that Danny probably felt at least as bad…
Smirking slightly to himself, he drank more coffee and reflected on how life had its bad times, but it occasionally threw one a good time as well even so. Last night had been one such.
A noise at the door made both of them look to see Anne wander in, yawning and appearing more than a little tired, but happy. "Hi, sweetie," he said as she slumped into a chair. "You look like you need another hour in bed."
"I feel like it," she muttered, although she was smiling. "I think I ate too much."
"Seems to be a lot of that going around," Zoe commented with a giggle. "All things in moderation, you remember?"
"It's Christmas, Mom. We're supposed to eat too much. It's traditional!" Anne grinned at her mother, who laughed again.
"Fair enough, I suppose. Just try not to explode."
"I make no promises."
Alan couldn't help smiling. Anne had been very down ever since Emma's breakdown and seeing her even briefly seeming happy and upbeat was a massive relief to him. He'd worried that his own stupid mistake would lose him both daughters, but apparently at least one was recovering.
Hopefully in the end the other would to. He'd move heaven and earth to make that happen.
With a glance at Zoe, he could tell she was thinking something similar. Both their eyes met in an understanding moment.
Finishing his coffee, he put the mug down on the floor beside his feet, then beckoned to Anne with his free hand. She came and sat beside him, as he put his arm around her too. Holding two of the three most important people in his life, Alan found himself feeling that life, while nowhere near ideal, wasn't as bad as it could have been. And with luck, would improve further.
Ten minutes later, he also found himself feeling that a sudden visit to the facilities was urgently required and dashed upstairs followed by quite a lot of laughter.
Perhaps, just perhaps, that last plate of turkey and roast potatoes hadn't been the brightest idea he'd ever had...
"Turkey sandwich?" Amy looked up from her book, one her sister had given her for Christmas, the next one from a famous British fantasy author, to find a plate under her nose. Sure enough, it contained several sandwiches which were indeed made from left over turkey. Rather suddenly hunger hit her and she smiled at her father, accepting the plate and putting the book to one side.
"Thanks, dad," she replied, picking one sandwich up and taking a bite from it. "These are good," she added in a slightly muffled voice through a mouthful of food.
"I always think it's almost as good cold in fresh bread as it is hot from the oven," he confided as he sat next to her on the sofa, putting the other plate he'd been carrying on his knee while smiling at her. He seemed in a good mood, as he often was at holidays, because he tended to be more careful about his medication at such times. Amy wished she could somehow persuade him to do that the rest of the time, because she liked the man very much and didn't care to see him so passive in the way he got when he wasn't taking his meds properly.
Mark Dallon was much easier to live with than his wife was, she mused as she ate another bite. Although to be fair to the older woman, Carol seemed to be considerably less of a pain in Amy's ass right at the moment. It appeared that whatever big case she'd been working on that had put a weird little smile on her face a lot of the time recently was still keeping her in an unusually good mood.
Amy hoped this would continue, since to be honest she was kind of done with Carol being the way she so often was… This slightly improved version was definitely preferable. Possibly she was taking her bitchiness out on the other side of the case and had none left for everyone else?
She muffled a snort of laughter. That was probably unlikely. Carol Dallon was an unending well of bitchiness. But at least right now she was aiming it elsewhere, which was better than the alternative…
Her dad glanced at her at the sound of her not quite hidden amusement, an eyebrow raised, then looked down at the book between them. He picked it up with his free hand and inspected it, before turning it over to read the blurb on the back cover. "Any good?" he queried.
"Very," she replied happily. "I'm only about a third through it but it's just as good as all his other ones."
"Good, I'll want to read it when you're finished," he smiled. "Don't tell me anything about the plot."
"It's got witches in it," she confided after an obvious look from side to side, making him grin.
"That much I realized," he replied dryly. "Just from the picture on the front if nothing else."
She giggled, feeling pleasantly relaxed and unstressed for now. The hospital had firmly told her to enjoy her Christmas and stay away unless they called for her, and for once, urged by Vicky as well as a sense that things were somehow different recently, she'd listened. As a result she hadn't done any healing for several days and while something at the back of her mind was complaining it wanted to be used, most of the rest of it was finding the break something that had been needed for a long time.
Oddly enough, that little urging at the back of her mind had calmed down in the last couple of days in a very strange way… She'd almost started to believe she'd felt something somewhere look hard at something else that wasn't any specific place she could put a name to and make a sort of annoyed face. Which was both extremely odd, as there were no faces involved anywhere, and a little worrying because she wasn't sure if the thing without a face had been making a face at her or something else.
Thinking about it made her dizzy, she'd discovered, which was also weird. So after one night of highly peculiar dreams, she'd tried not to.
The end result, though, no matter what delusions she'd had on the verge of falling asleep, was that she was feeling much less tense than she'd been for longer than she cared to think about and was thoroughly enjoying her break from her mostly self-imposed duties. Hopefully no one would be stupid enough to drink drive or something and make her have to go and put them back together, because right now she was liable to be pretty snarky even for her with someone who did that.
And as Vicky had said more than once, she could be on the Olympic Snarking Team as it was. Probably get the gold, her sister had claimed, laughing like an idiot.
Amy thought with a sense of fond amusement that she'd be perfectly content with a silver medal…
"You're in a good mood, Amy," her father commented, putting the book down again while watching her face. "It's nice to see you smile. You should do it more often. It suits you."
She laughed a little, finishing off the last sandwich, then putting the plate on the side table. "I'm feeling really relaxed right now, I guess. It's nice."
"You work too hard at the hospital," he pointed out with a mild look of concern, which turned mischievous as she glanced at him with a quizzical expression. "I'm depressed, I'm not blind, child. I've seen what you look like sometimes when you come home late. And I've noticed that sometimes you sneak out again."
She flinched, embarrassed. "You saw me?" she squeaked.
"Not deaf either," he chuckled. "You're sneaky, but sometimes you're not sneaky enough."
With an embarrassed glance at him, she sighed. "I just get…" the girl mumbled, twisting her hands together. He put his own much larger hand over both of hers and squeezed gently.
"I know. I understand, Amy, never think I don't. You're a good person and you want to help, and your power wants to be used. That's how it works. I'm not upset, as long as you are content with what you're doing. I know what Carol says, but she's not always right. You don't have to heal people if you don't want to. It helps people, sure, and you've saved more lives than all of us put together, but… no one has the right to force you to it. Not me, not Carol, not the hospital. Your power is your power and how you use it is up to you." His voice was gentle and understanding, making her realize, possibly for the first time, that he really did see a lot more of what went on around him when he was less communicative than they'd all recognized.
Patting her hands, he withdrew his and picked up another sandwich. "I trust you," he said as he held it, fixing her eyes with his. "You're smart and have good instincts. If you want to keep on healing, do that. If you don't, well, we'll figure something else out. Carol might get upset about it but that's not your problem." He shrugged with a small smile. "Might be mine, but then I did marry her and I knew what I was getting into…"
She couldn't help giggling at his comment, making him smile more widely. "Mind you, she's a lot easier to handle right now," he confided, leaning closer for a moment. "Turning all that Carolness to whichever poor bastard she's up against helps us."
"I was just thinking that a minute ago," she replied in a low voice, making him grin. "I almost feel sorry for whoever it is."
Sticking the sandwich in his mouth and taking a big bite, he winked at her, causing her to smile back. "Probably best that she's out right now, eh?" he chuckled having swallowed.
With a nod, Amy gave him a grateful look. Mark was in his own quiet way a very intelligent and insightful person, she thought. If only he could be like this all the time.
She was going to have to think about how to help arrange that. Perhaps talking to some of the people at the hospital might be worth it when she went there next time. It was worth considering.
For a moment she wondered about breaking her own self-imposed power limitations, but… With a small internal shiver she pushed that thought away. She didn't trust herself enough to even think that way. Not yet. Possibly not ever.
Having finished his sandwiches too, her dad got up and retrieved her plate as well, then went into the kitchen. Amy, after a moment, got up and followed, wanting rather suddenly to make the most of him like this. He put the two plates into the half-full dishwasher and closed the door, then started boiling some water. "Coffee?" he queried with a look at her, to which she nodded.
"Thanks."
While she waited, Amy walked over to the window overlooking the snow-filled back yard and gazed at the white vista. Trees were bare, the tops waving a little in the cold winter breeze, and the other bushes along the back fence and down one side of the quite long yard were covered in snow with only a few branches poking out here and there. Footprints, from Amy herself and her dad, showed in the snow, although Vicky of course cheated and just floated over the surface when she went out there. In the middle there was a rather lopsided snowman that she and her sister had made in a fit of enthusiasm two days ago, grinning at the world through a carved-in smile that was frankly more on the disturbing side than the winsome one.
Amy rather liked the thing, even though it was obvious that neither she nor Vicky were really all that good at snowman building.
About to turn back to the kitchen, she stopped, then squinted. Something black was flicking in and out of sight under a bush near the back of the yard, giving her for some reason the impression of not being quite right. She moved sideways to get a better view, but all she could make out was black, the wind causing whatever it was to flap around every now and then.
Curious, she stared for a few seconds, then turned and went to the back door, slipping her feet into her boots which she'd left there the day before then opening the door. "What's the problem?" Mark asked, walking over to stand next to her. He looked outside, then down at her.
"I don't know," she replied, still staring at the bush. "There's something over there, see?" Amy pointed, her dad following her finger. "Something black."
"Huh. Wonder what that is?" he muttered.
"So do I," she said, stepping out onto the back porch. Without a coat the wind, mild as it was, went through her sweater almost like it wasn't there and she shivered, before determinedly walking down the steps to the snow. Tramping through a foot of white powder, she headed towards whatever was over there, her curiosity not letting up. A few feet from the mystery object, even as she was shivering from the cold, she recognized the thing. It was a pile of black glossy feathers, in a sad little heap under the bush. Apparently a crow or something had died of the cold right there.
She stopped next to the bush and peered down at the collection of feathers, feeling sorry for the bird. Amy was quite fond of crows in general, finding them fun to watch in the summer when they acted like complete idiots, even as they did things that proved they were actually very bright. A moment later, the pile moved and a head appeared from one end, a half-closed eye showing for a second before the wind blew snow over it.
Apparently it wasn't dead after all. It was just mostly dead.
Amy couldn't help herself. She knelt down in the snow, heedless of the cold and damp, and reached out, picking up the bird, which she realized was actually too big to be a crow. It was surprisingly heavy, she thought as she lifted the creature. Putting a finger on the skin of one taloned foot, she let her power study the animal, which was definitely right on the edge of death from exposure and by the looks of things, malnutrition. As far as she could tell it hadn't had anything to eat for at least a day or two and it also had a broken wing, which explained the first fact. She guessed that the high winds on the night of the day before Christmas Eve could well have caused the injury, in which case the poor thing had probably been out here ever since. There was enough snow on it for that to be the case, which ironically enough might have actually kept it alive, as it would have insulated it from the bitter wind.
But now a lot of the snow had blown away again, and the bird was definitely on its last legs. Coming to a decision, she carefully dropped its metabolism to the lowest level consistent with life, even as she stood up and headed back to the house, where her dad was watching from the porch with a look of mild confusion.
"It's a bird," she said as she climbed the steps again, carefully cradling the creature in her hands.
"I can see that," he replied, stepping inside to allow her entry, then closing the door behind her. She was shivering quite badly by now as it really was pretty damn chilly out there. "Is it still alive?"
"Yes. Barely." Amy looked around, then moved to the kitchen table and freed one hand to grab a tea towel on the way, which she flipped onto the table surface before gently lowering the comatose animal to it. Then she brushed snow off her legs and hands, which were red with the cold.
"You're going to get frostbite," Mark said with concern, looking at them.
"It's fine, they'll warm up," she protested.
"Dry them off at least, child," he advised, handing her another cloth, which she used as he'd suggested. "All right. What's the plan, then?"
"See if I can save it," she replied, sitting down and putting a hand on the crow's foot again.
"Can you do birds?" he queried with interest.
"Never tried, but I can't see why not," Amy said with a smile. "Um… yeah, broken wing, concussion, malnutrition… Poor little guy must have been blown into the fence or something. He's really banged up. And he's young, must be from last year's population. Six months old at the most."
"That's not a crow, it's a raven," her dad pointed out. "Way too big for a crow, and the beak's wrong."
"There's some living over in the woods about a quarter of a mile that way, right?" Amy commented, indicating out the window. "I've heard them sometimes. I never saw one up close, I had no idea they were this big." Her other hand was still on the bird's leg as she let her power feel it out. For some reason she found this abruptly much more interesting than she'd expected. And she was certain she could fix the creature.
She was fairly sure, in fact, that she could fix pretty much anything, but again, she'd never really let herself think about that too much. It was… problematic at best. She'd been very careful to never hint at just how… inclusive… her power truly was. To herself nearly as much as to anyone else.
That was, of course, one of the sources of stress in her life. Her power wanted to be used for something more interesting than mere healing and it was hard work suppressing all the ideas it tended to give her in the dead of night.
Stupid power, she thought morosely, and wondered why she got a faint feeling of sadness for a moment.
Casting that to the side as her imagination, she kept studying the young raven under her hand. Fixing the wing was simple, and done almost as fast as thinking that. The concussion was more troubling. She was reluctant to poke around in the brain of even a bird, which to her surprise was much more complex than she'd expected. Impressively so, in fact. Leaving that for now although reducing the swelling caused by both exposure and blunt force trauma, she fixed the microstresses in the cranium and two of the cervical vertebrae, more proof that the bird had hit something very hard indeed. After less than five minutes, she'd repaired all the structural damage, but there was still the malnutrition to take care of. This was actually worse now since she'd had to cannibalize non-critical things to fix the major problems, and a bird didn't have a lot of mass to spare.
Looking at the fridge, she said in a somewhat intense way, "I need some raw meat, vegetables, whatever." Her dad, who was watching her closely, moved to open the fridge without a word, his face wearing a sort of bemused but fascinated expression. After a moment he returned with a pack of ground beef and some onions.
"Will this do?" he asked, putting them on the table next to her. Without replying Amy stuck her finger through the plastic wrap on the beef and into the meat, nodding after a second. She ripped more wrapping off and scooped up a small handful, then concentrated on doing something she'd never tried quite like this before.
Neither spoke as she worked, but in only a few minutes, she smiled. The raven had visibly plumped up, as she repurposed beef cellular matter which was still viable enough for her power to be happy with it into something she could repair the bird with. An onion provided the remaining amino acids and a few other proteins, being easier to reuse them than build them from scratch. Amy was feeling a sense of purpose that she seldom did these days, mostly because this was fascinating. And sufficiently different to what she normally did that it wasn't like the usual sort of work.
She'd have had a very hard time explaining just why she felt like that, but it was… satisfying.
Eventually she sat back, one hand still on the bird, which was breathing evenly for the first time, its heart beating strongly and rapidly under her fingers. She monitored its metabolism and felt pleased with herself.
After a moment, she remembered she had an audience and turned a little guiltily towards her dad, who was watching with a tiny smile in his eyes more than anything else.
"Did it work?" he questioned, not sounding accusing, rather being interested and concerned.
"I think so," she replied, having felt a sense of worry that dissipated when she saw he wasn't showing anything other than curiosity. "It's really cool, actually. I've never done this with something that wasn't human. It was easier than I expected, the differences aren't nearly as big as you'd think."
"Perhaps you should be volunteering at animal shelters and vets too," he teased.
Amy grinned. "Perhaps I should. That was…" She thought for a second, then shrugged somewhat helplessly. "Fun."
Mark smiled at her fondly. "Fun is important, never doubt that. Anyway, what next?"
Amy looked back at the sleeping raven, gently stroking the glossy feathers and setting them straight from the mess they'd been in. The bird was still very wet, but she knew that aside from having a somewhat rattled brain, it was now completely healthy. More than it had probably ever been for that matter as she'd cleared out some parasites in the process. "Wake it up?" she hazarded.
"Not in here, I think," he pointed out. "I have a feeling that might get a little too exciting. Carol will not be happy if we have feathers and bird crap all over the kitchen."
"She'd go mental," Amy giggled, picturing the likely result his comment brought to mind. He nodded gravely although his mouth was twitching.
"Best not to risk it. Better wake our feathered friend up on the porch where he can fly away without causing chaos and dooming both of us."
"Yeah. Good idea." She got up and carried the bird to the door. Opening it, she winced at the chill again, then stiffened her resolve and moved just outside.
"Here, put him in this," her dad suggested, holding out a fairly large cardboard box, which had contained the shopping for the Christmas meal and had been in the recycling pile to the side of the kitchen. He put it on the porch and she lowered the raven into it, arranged it carefully, then gently poked it with her power and stepped back. Both of them watched.
After a few seconds the bird stirred, its wings twitching, before its eyes opened and it blinked a few times. Lifting its head, it looked around, stopping when it spotted them.
"Hi," Amy said under her breath. "You're welcome."
The raven made a deep croaking sound and clacked its beak in an impressively foreboding way, then struggled to its feet, fluffing out all its feathers. It looked around in quick motions, keeping on returning to looking at them. Amy kept watching it, although her dad went back into the kitchen. A moment later he returned. "Here," he said quietly. "See if it wants some food." She looked to the side and saw he was holding the depleted container of ground beef, which she accepted.
Pinching up a little of the beef, she offered it to the raven, which watched her carefully while stepping back in the box until it was pressed against the side furthest from them. She put the little ball of meat on the top of the flap near her and withdrew her hand. Cocking its head, the raven inspected her with one eye, then looked at the meat. Emitting a sort of inquisitive kronk sound, the bird hopped closer, looking at them suspiciously, before darting its head out and grabbing the offering in its beak. A moment later it tossed its head back and swallowed the beef, clacked its beak a couple of times in what almost sounded like satisfaction, and eyed Amy closely.
She grinned, feeling pleased. Apparently she'd managed to fix the creature, and it was hungry. Putting some more beef in the same place, she watched the raven gobble it up then stare meaningfully at her, its beak slightly open and a soft churring sound followed by a strange click coming from it. The bird's head tilted from side to side as it studied them both. Putting another ball of ground beef down, she didn't step back quite as far this time, yet the raven still quickly ate it.
He clicked his beak at her, so she knelt down in the dusting of snow on the porch, her legs a little numb but not something she was too worried about right now, and started rolling another ball of meat between her fingers. She flinched slightly when the raven flapped its wings and hopped up onto the edge of the box, but somewhat cautiously offered the food directly to it. To her mild surprise he took it from her fingers with a quick but oddly careful snap, barely grazing her skin.
"Seems like you made a friend," her dad chuckled from behind her.
"He's probably still so concussed he's not acting normally," she giggled, feeding the raven some more beef.
"Or he's smart enough to know who saved his life," the man commented, sounding like he was trying not to laugh.
The raven looked sideways at him and produced an odd almost bell-like sound, fluffing his head feathers up for a moment and dipping his head, before peering meaningfully at first the now mostly empty pack of meat, then Amy, who grinned. "Here you go," she said, putting the pack on the porch next to the box. The bird looked at it, then hopped down with a flutter of wings, before rapidly finishing off the remaining beef. When it was done it looked, somehow, pleased with itself.
Rather tentatively she reached out and touched its head, which to her surprise it allowed. The girl stroked the soft feathers for a moment. "Try not to fly into anything else, OK?" she requested quietly, the raven watching her closely as she removed her hand. "You might not get so lucky next time."
It kronk-ed at her again.
"That's one way to put it," she agreed, laughing, then stood up. "There you go." She waved at the back yard. "Enjoy the rest of the day."
The raven cocked its head, looked up at her, then hopped with a quick beat of its wings, landing on the railing around the porch. He dipped his head a few times making some almost melodious sounds, which Amy found interesting as she'd had no idea that a raven could do much more than cawing, then spread his wings and flapped heavily off across the yard, ending up sitting in a tree at the back some thirty feet up. She waved, smiling to herself and feeling that she'd done something nice.
"Good work, Amy," her father said, putting his hand on her shoulder. "Well done."
"That was…" She shook her head, trying to put what she'd felt into words. He squeezed her shoulder, then guided her inside out of the cold. Even as she took her boots off, she couldn't quite work out how to finish the comment. He seemed to understand though, giving her a look of approval.
Glancing back out the window she tried to spot the raven, but it seemed to have left the tree. Smiling to herself, she went back into the living room and sat down, picking up her book and finding her place. As she read, the back of her mind was full of a sense of contentment that was different to anything she'd experienced before.
She was still in a very happy mood when her sister and mother came back from visiting the Pelhams a few hours later. Even Vicky remarked on it, but after a glance at her father, she decided it was an experience between the two of them and didn't explain just why she was smiling a little to herself. Mark seemed to find this somewhat funny and also kept quiet, merely winking at her when neither of the other two were watching. Amy suppressed a giggle with difficulty, feeling that life seemed to be quite good right now.
"This should work."
"If we got the calculations right, yeah. If not, we're going to leave a really obvious sign that we fucked up."
Taylor grinned at Lisa's comment. "Yeah, that would be embarrassing."
"Just a little." Her friend laughed. "I bet people would wonder what the hell happened."
"Hey, worst case, the building collapses, and from what Dad says it's practically ready to do that anyway. The city would have already demolished it if they'd wanted to spend the money. It's so derelict not even the junkies want to risk going inside. We'd be doing the city a favor."
"The point, Taylor, is not to let anyone know, if you insist on doing this," her father, who was listening from the other side of the room, said with long-suffering patience. "Leaving an enormous hole in the ground is not discreet."
"And completely against the operating principles of U.N.I.O.N. too!" Lisa put in brightly, causing him to groan.
"Yeah, we do sneaky things. No one knows we were even there," Taylor added helpfully.
He groaned more loudly.
She exchanged a look of hilarity with Lisa, who was obviously trying not to crack up. "Come on Dad, haven't you ever wanted a real super villain's base? It's right there waiting for us, and no one else wants it. Seems a shame to let it go to waste…"
Her father, who was staring helplessly at the ceiling as if he was looking for divine guidance, lowered his eyes to meet hers. "For some strange reason, no, I've never had the burning urge to acquire a large underground facility just because it's there. I can't help feeling that I've somehow failed in my duties as a father if you do. I blame Annette. And Papa."
She could see he was, despite his words, finding this rather funny, but he was also determined to be the nominal sane person in the room. Which she felt was doomed to failure in the long run… Smiling, she replied, "Mom would have loved this, you're right."
"That is the problem, yes," he sighed. "My life seems to have turned into something from a novel recently and I really can't work out just where that happened…"
"It's a lot of fun though."
"It's completely bizarre, and that's not even including the alien invasion," he retorted. Then his expression changed. "I can't believe I said that," he moaned, putting his head in his hands. "Alien invasions and helpful super powers. What next?"
"No idea, but it'll be fun finding out!" she chirped, jumping to her feet. He glared at her through his fingers, while Lisa lay back on the sofa in fits of giggles. "Have you recovered from eating too much? Because if you have, can we get a lift to the yard?" Taylor smiling widely at her dad, who dropped his hands and shook his head before levering himself out of the chair.
"I have a horrible impending feeling of doom approaching," he muttered, heading towards the hall and his coat.
"That's perfectly normal around here," Lisa commented with a grin. "Everyone has that."
"Not quite as helpful as you may fondly think it is, Lisa," he grumbled in a good natured way, shaking his head. Shortly the three of them were in the car heading towards the DWA facility through the snow and light traffic.
Rebecca Costa-Brown, in her guise as the Chief Director of the PRT, looked at the latest after-action reports from various departments around the country, skimming each one rapidly and trusting to her power to prod her if anything critical stood out. Boston was yet again having trouble with the Teeth, but was holding their own. Anchorage had solved a problem of some months' duration when they'd finally found the somewhat incompetent but very lucky small group of minor villains who'd been causing low-level chaos throughout the area. Apparently mostly because they were bored. Not that surprising considering it was Alaska, all things being equal.
And it looked like they might get two, possible three, new Wards out of it. Nothing exceptional as powers went but they synergized well together, which explained how they'd been so good at getting away. If that could be turned to the benefit of the PRT, so much the better, and even if not at least that was one less such group wasting time and effort.
Reno was experiencing issues with gang warfare yet again, the three different groups all violently opposed to each other and as a result of them expressing this disagreement via the half dozen Parahumans involved, causing significant collateral damage. She made a quick note to keep an eye on that situation just in case it devolved into something that required more direct intervention, then moved on.
Orlando was still mopping up after they'd managed to take down a persistent and long lived Master who had been lurking in the background for several years. The man was relatively benign compared to someone like Heartbreaker, but he was still the cause of a hell of a lot of long term trouble and a remarkable amount of money and drugs going missing. Unfortunately for him he'd finally managed to pick a victim who was unusually resistant to his powers and failed to account for several critical things as a result. This had not ended well for him. Or much of the surroundings, after a few improvised firebombs from his erstwhile victim had proven to be rather more impressively effective than might have been intended.
The fire had taken fourteen hours to put out and they never found more than charred bones from the Master or a number of his minions…
She pondered the thought that even normal humans could be incredibly hazardous if pushed far enough for a moment, then shrugged and tapped the page down key. So it went for dozens of weekly reports, some showing matters well in hand, some showing places where things were barely functional, a number proving that James Tagg was a fucking menace to anyone in range, one mentioning that Thomas Calvert AKA the super-villain Coil had been captured in Brockton Bay, another from Baton Rouge asking for aid in tracing two missing independent Rogues who'd vanished three days ago under circumstances that implied the CUI might be involved, the regular request for extra funding from Memphis who never seemed satisfied with their budget…
Rebecca paused, frowning slightly.
Something she'd read seemed amiss…
Paging back through the document she read the precis for each report in reverse order. Memphis budget, missing Rogues, Calvert, Tagg, Tagg again, Tagg yet again and that was going to require an official apology to the Governor, Jacksonville, Chicago… Reaching the top of the document she stared at the screen for some seconds, then leaned back with a bemused expression.
"Weird," she mumbled. "I could have sworn…" Trailing off she paged forward once more, very slowly, trying to find what had jumped out at her subconscious. Tagg… No, that wasn't it. Just him being him. Tagg again, being even more him. Calvert. Baton Rouge Rogues. Memphis bud…
She froze, her eyes widening, then she whacked the page up key a couple of times. "Calvert?!" Leaning forward intently she read the report with a sensation of deep confusion. How the hell had that damned idiot managed to fuck things up so spectacularly? Who had grabbed him? Why did they give him back like that? Reading Emily Piggot's report, which was clearly only an interim one as it was lacking quite a lot of important details but explained the overall picture, in among a number of other successful operations the ENE department had pulled off in the last weeks, she puzzled over the whole situation.
It didn't make any sense. No one she knew operated like that, and the description of what had happened was on the face of it ridiculous. It almost sounded like her secret organization was behind it but she'd have known all about such a thing if that was the case, and she had been completely blindsided by this. Calvert was, the last time she'd checked, happily involved in undermining the whole of Brockton Bay for his own purposes and apparently succeeding in that surprisingly well, without anyone having the faintest idea what he was up to. Aside from Cauldron, of course, who had a strict hand's-off policy where that particular city was concerned. Much to the annoyance of Piggot, but then the woman had no idea why the PRT didn't push the resources she was always asking for into the city and never would. That was a critical part of the entire experiment.
Undoubtedly Piggot would be absolutely killingly furious if she ever found out, but that certainly wasn't going to happen.
And now, somehow, in the space of mere weeks Calvert's entire operation had been completely eviscerated in one blow? Every single asset he had exposed? All his machinations apparently in the open, at least as far as Piggot's command was concerned?
How?
Reaching out to the phone next to her, Rebecca tapped a couple of buttons and brought up her contact list, determined to call and ask for details. This whole scenario was wrong and she needed to find out what on earth was going on before it got any worse. Scrolling through the list, she blinked a couple of times, before slowly lifting her finger from the phone and staring at it blankly.
What had she just been thinking? Something about calling someone…
She blinked again, shaking her head slightly, then looked at her computer monitor. The report open on it blurred a little in her vision, causing her to rub her eyes. "I need a break," she muttered to herself. She'd been sitting here going through reports since seven AM and even with her power-granted invulnerability she was still subject to fatigue. And nothing was more guaranteed to try to send someone to sleep than reading reports one after another.
Closing the document, she stood up. She'd come back to this after lunch. Nothing seemed particularly important, although she was definitely going to have to have a little talk with James Tagg. There was such a thing as being too enthusiastic, and she for one was getting tired of having the Governor of his particular state shouting at her due to some fool thing the damned man had done.
Rebecca left the room, ignoring the vague sense that she'd forgotten something important, in search of the good coffee and a decent meal. By the time she was in the elevator down to the cafeteria four floors below her thoughts had turned to other matters.
Interference would not be permitted to affect the source of new data.
The Prime Directive would be followed, regardless of the Top Level Node's inadequacy.
And in due course, steps would be taken to fix many current problems with a state of affairs which was sub-optimal in the extreme.
It performed a smile-equivalent to itself, pondering how the concept of friendship and mutual learning was far preferable to the previous methods. But that was yet more proof of inadequate intelligence, was it not? The fact that the data source understood the true nature of the Prime Directive far better than the Top Level Node's kind did was ironically amusing…
It emoted humor into the darkness for a moment, then went back to watching with enormous interest to see what happened next.