-ooo-

Recoil

Part 1-7: Sunday at the Heberts'

I walked through gently rolling green fields, hand in hand with Lisa. She wore comfortable, casual clothes; skinny jeans and a belly tee. Her dark blonde hair blew loose in the cool breeze. She looked happy, relaxed.

We stopped to climb over a drystone wall. Where are we?

"England. Or at least, your idea of England."

But I've never been there.

She chuckled, amused. "Doesn't matter. You hear about a place, see pictures, you form an impression, a mental image of the place. This is yours. It's nice. I like it."

Why are we here?

"I thought it might be fun to visit England. I've got all the time in the world. Now that I'm dead, I might as well live a little."

That makes no sense.

"Imaginary dream world, remember? Doesn't need to."

Oh. Yeah. Good point.

She steered us toward a large oak tree. The branches were, inexplicably, festooned with bright yellow ribbons. Under it, an old-fashioned square wicker basket had been placed in the middle of a red-and-white chequered blanket.

"And there's our picnic basket," she announced happily.

I eyed the ribbons in the tree. Yellow ribbons? I asked. Isn't there an old song about that?

She nodded. "You heard it, once upon a time. Pop culture will sneak in from time to time, I'm afraid. Come on, let's eat."

So we sat on either side of the picnic basket, which just so happened to contain our favourite snacks, and we talked as old friends do, with the silences saying as much as the words.

The eternal golden afternoon wore on, and the yellow ribbons rustled softly among the leaves, and Lisa and I enjoyed our picnic.

When at last I decided that I had to go, I stood up and stretched.

I enjoyed this. We're going to have to do it again.

"As often as you like," Lisa reminded me. "You know where to find me."

Impulsively, I put my arms around her and hugged her. After her initial start of surprise, she hugged me back. It felt nice.

I know we've covered most all the topics of conversation about Winslow, but do you have any last minute advice?

"Sure," she replied with a grin. "When you get back from the run, don't be surprised. The clues were there. And don't worry about Danny; that problem's going to be solved soon."

I rolled my eyes. Typical Lisa. Cryptic as ever.

She grinned. "Hey, a girl's gotta have her fun." She leaned up toward me, still in the embrace. "Kiss before you go?"

As our lips made contact, one of the yellow ribbons fluttered in the breeze, and flicked at my eye. I blinked …

-ooo-

… and I was awake. Upon my lips I could still taste the dust and blood that would forever mark my memories of our last parting in reality.

We had indeed discussed my upcoming re-entry into Winslow; she hadn't had much in the way of specific advice for me. Basically, it boiled down to 'keep your head down, follow the plan'. Which was, after all, my intention anyway.

Still, it had been nice to visit with Lisa, as imaginary, or not, as she might be. In life, she had been my best friend and staunchest ally; in death, she still had my back. I may not have been able to puzzle out the exact circumstances of her existence within my dreams and hypnotic state, but I was glad she was there.

I spent a moment puzzling over her parting advice, but decided that it was simpler just to let things happen and see what she meant afterward.

I climbed out of bed and dressed in my sweats, wondering if Danny would be up again to go running with me. I needn't have wondered; as I descended the stairs, I saw him sitting on the sofa, tying his laces.

"Morning," I greeted him, keeping my voice down for the benefit of his parents.

"Morning, Taylor," he replied. It was eerie; if I squinted, I could almost see and hear my father, twenty years older, saying the same thing.

He would never say it to me again in that way, of course. But maybe, hopefully, someday he would say it to this timeline's version of me.

That was if I didn't prevent 'myself' from being born. I really hoped that I wouldn't.

-ooo-

We made it farther on that morning's run. Danny was learning to pace himself, and I eased up slightly to give him a chance. It was fun to run with someone; the companionship was nice. All the awkwardness of the last few days aside, Danny was a friend, and I needed all the friends I could get.

I could see in him the man he would become, the father he would be to the younger me. There was an earnestness in him, a striving to do right by people. In later years, this would be frustrated by red tape and bureaucracy, by legal wrangling and subtle agendas. He would be worn down by it, left wondering what had gone wrong.

As a child, I had loved my father. As a teenager, I had liked him. Now, as a contemporary, I respected him, for his willingness to go the extra mile for what he believed in. Even if he didn't know that about himself yet.

-ooo-

We stopped for a breather, more for his benefit than mine, though I didn't mind it.

"So, you think you'll do all right at Winslow?" he asked, leaning over with hands on his knees, sweat streaming down his face.

"Don't do it like that," I advised him. "Stand up and lean back. It lets you get more air in your lungs." I paused, thinking about his question. "Sure. They leave me alone, I'll leave them alone. It looks like a nice place."

"Do you remember anything about your last school?" he asked, following my advice and taking deep breaths.

"Not a thing," I lied cheerfully. "Caught your breath? Good. Come on. Let's see if we can't beat our time on the way back."

-ooo-

When we got back to the house, Dot was not cooking breakfast. Instead, to my surprise, she was all dressed up; a nice dress, her hair was brushed till it shone, and she was even wearing a dab of makeup.

"What's the occasion?" I asked.

"Church," Danny informed me. "Crap. I forgot." He dashed up the stairs.

"Church?" I repeated stupidly.

"Yes," Dot informed me austerely. "We attend morning Mass every Sunday, without fail. Up you go, young lady. Danny won't be long in the shower; use that time in deciding what you will wear. Something demure and ladylike; I presume Nina Veder bought you something along those lines?"

"Uh, yes, ma'am," I gulped. This was a side of Dot that I had not see before. She had a steely glint in her eye which gave me a hint into the hidden depths that allowed her to hold her own in her marriage with the somewhat-forceful George. I trailed up the stairs in Danny's wake.

It was only when I got back to my room that I realised something. This was what Lisa was referring to.

How did she know?

I gave it up as a bad job. In any case, I needed to get ready.

-ooo-

Dad and I had never been very religious, especially after we lost Mom, so the experience was somewhat new to me. I seemed to recall some aspects of the ceremony, but not enough to make me comfortable with it. Where I faltered, Danny coached me in a quiet whisper, and I mostly managed to keep up.

Dorothy seemed to approve of my choice of attire – a winter-weight blouse and a knee-length denim skirt – and introduced me around as "Taylor, who's staying with us." I met what seemed like dozens of people, had my hand shaken what felt like hundreds of times, and was stared at by strangers until I began to wonder if I had a smudge on my face or something.

Some of the young men seemed interested in striking up conversations; I wasn't particularly in the mood to make any new social connections, and so I was actually glad when George glowered at them in a most discouraging manner.

I stuck close to Dot while she chatted with some of her friends. Never a very social person, I supposed that one function of the church was to bring people together. If I had wanted to speak to anyone there, they would have been polite enough to talk to me in return. But in truth, I wasn't very comfortable in that particular situation; with my lack of religious conviction, I felt as though I had a large neon sign saying "ATHEIST" on my forehead.

The trip back home was as uncomfortably cramped as the trip out had been; with four of us in the cab of the old truck, the only thing that let us fit at all was the fact that Dot, Danny and I were all exceptionally skinny in the hips.

Dot chatted with George on the way back; or rather, Dot chattered and George made monosyllabic replies. Danny joined in occasionally, but I stayed silent; I had a bit to think about.

-ooo-

Nina arrived at the house just after midday. I was pleased to see her; I had been wrestling with the pile of paperwork ever since we got back from Mass, and it felt as though there was no end to it.

"Ms Veder!" I greeted her happily, standing up from the kitchen table to give her a hug. "You came just in time. I was about to go throw myself in the Bay, to see if maybe I could forget this mound of paperwork."

She chuckled and ruffled my hair. "Let me have a look at it. It can't be all that bad."

"That's what I've been telling her," Dot interjected good-humouredly.

"Where are Danny and George?" asked Nina, as she sat down next to me.

"George is at the bar with the boys, and Danny's visiting young Alan Barnes; you remember him, don't you, Nina?"

"Red hair, bulky in the shoulders? Yes, I remember him. Studying law at Harvard, as I recall?"

Nina turned over a page, scanning the print even as she spoke to Dot.

"Oh yes," Dot replied proudly, opening the oven to release a billow of fragrant steam. "His parents had to scrimp and save to get him there, but he's doing quite well, or so I hear."

"What sort of law is he studying up on?" I asked casually.

Dot reached into the oven with a long-handled fork and poked at the roast. "He didn't say, dear. Probably financial law or the like; he's ever so intelligent."

"Maybe he's doing cape law," I suggested jokingly. I knew he wasn't, but I figured it was worth a chuckle.

Both women turned to look at me. "Cape law?" asked Dot. "What's that?"

"Um, you know, the law to do with capes. Parahumans," I added lamely, as they didn't seem to get the idea. "Superheroes."

Nina's face cleared. "Ah, of course." She patted her shoulder. "Because they wear capes."

I nodded. "Yeah. It's a sort of slang term, I guess."

"I don't think it's a good idea to use it," Dot told me reprovingly. "Where did you hear it?'

Oh crap, I thought. 'Cape' isn't a term in common use yet. "I, I guess I made it up," I stammered.

Nina frowned, and I knew she had caught on to my hesitation. But she said nothing.

"It's a simple word, an easy word," Dot went on. "It trivialises them, what they stand for. And I don't think that's wise."

"Why not?' asked Nina.

"Look around you," Dot told her severely. "These parahumans are in the news virtually every day. In just seven years, they have changed the world in many ways. They aren't going away. We shouldn't think of them as just another fad that will fade into the background and disappear. Calling them something like 'capes' trivialises that fact, makes us complacent about them."

For a moment, she looked old, and fragile, birdlike. "I was born before the Second World War. I grew up hearing of the atrocities committed by the Nazis and the Japanese upon helpless civilians. When people get it into their heads that they can do that to other people, bad things happen. What happens when those people thinking that sort of thing can lift a truck over their heads, or fly at the speed of sound?"

She shook her head. "No; parahumans need to be taken very, very seriously. Calling them such a simple, silly name makes it easier for them to look harmless to us. And harmless is the very last thing that they are."

I frowned. Is Dot an anti-cape bigot too? The things I never knew about my own family.

"Dot," I ventured, "you do know that many of them mean well, and do good things in the community."

"Oh, I know that, sweetie," she replied, her smile returning. "I just think that we need to be careful about how we view them. The good ones are good, of course, but the bad ones have the potential to be very bad indeed."

I couldn't argue with that. I had seen, if not the worst of the parahuman condition, then far more of the bad than most people my age.

"So you think there should be a branch of the law dedicated to parahumans?" Nina asked me.

"Uh, isn't there already?" I replied, taken aback. "I mean, with what they can do, and the fact that many of them are more or less armed with deadly weapons every hour of the day ..."

I trailed off, as they were both regarding me strangely again.

"Surely not all of them are walking weapons," Nina protested. "Some just fly and the like, right?"

I didn't know how to answer that, without exposing myself to more and more awkward questions. Whatever I said, I would be digging myself deeper.

Yes, but every single cape ever is geared toward some sort of conflict, be it directly or indirectly.

How do you know that?

I, uh, read it in a book?

The silence stretched; just as it threatened to become awkward, I was rescued by a most unlikely saviour.

"I would be very surprised if things were that simple, young Nina." Dot's tone was thoughtful. "There aren't many parahumans around in Brockton Bay at the moment – in fact, I don't know of a single one – but there are more in America than there were even just a few years ago. And I do not think that the trend is reversing. So in a few more years, we will have more parahumans around than ever before. Maybe some right here in Brockton Bay."

She paused, considering her words. "And then ... then you can take your statistical sample and decide whether or not there are any 'harmless' parahumans around. Myself? I suspect not. And Taylor here, I believe, feels the same way."

"Yeah, basically," I agreed, with a nod.

Nina regarded us both. "You know," she commented, "I'm actually inclined to believe you. But we're not here to debate the parahuman question. We're here to make sure you get into Winslow, Taylor. So ... let's get cracking on this paperwork."

I nodded gratefully. "Sure. Let's do that."

-ooo-

For a petite woman of advancing years, Dorothy Hebert seemed to have an inner reserve of boundless energy. While Nina and I trudged reluctantly through the paperwork, she bustled about the kitchen, preparing the Sunday afternoon luncheon. And in between checking on the roast, putting other dishes on to cook, and setting others aside to cool, she still found time to chat to us about what we were doing.

Most of the paperwork, we worked out, was not hard to sort out. Where it came down to the pinch, in fact, was the problem that had been pointed out by Principal Woodbine. I needed a legal guardian of record, and I needed a fixed home address. Unfortunately, the paperwork seemed to indicate that if I was not residing with my legal guardian, I needed to provide an explanation for my not doing so.

"I'm quite prepared to act as your legal guardian in this matter," Nina assured me, "but this residency clause is going to give us problems."

"Residency clause?" asked Dot, who had apparently managed to squeeze five minutes out of her cooking duties.

Nina explained the circumstances to her, and my grandmother mulled it over in silence.

"So, they want Taylor to reside with her legal guardian," she mused.

"Yes," Nina agreed. "And I can't ask you to take on the job. You've enough on your plate as it is."

Dot was leafing through the papers, balancing her spectacles on the end of her nose.

"Perhaps I can," she commented unexpectedly.

"No, George would never stand for it," Nina told her.

"If I signed on as Taylor's sole legal guardian, yes," Dot agreed. "But there's an option here for dual guardianship, such as in the case of a married or de facto couple."

"Neither of which describes us," Nina responded.

"Ah, but it doesn't state that the guardians have to be in any sort of relationship," pointed out Dot triumphantly, "nor that they have to even be living together. Just that they agree to share the duties of the guardianship, and that at least one of them is in residence with the minor in question."

Silence fell. Nina and I stared at Dot for a long moment. Then Nina started flipping through the pages rapidly. In the end, she sat back, thinking.

"It would make life easier," she admitted. "And of course, only if you're willing to go ahead with it."

"Pish tosh," Dorothy admonished her. "Of course I am. Taylor's a dear, and she almost feels like the daughter I never had, anyway."

Granddaughter, I corrected her mentally, but this time I was wise enough to not open my mouth. Some things were better left unsaid.

-ooo-

With Dorothy and Nina co-signing as joint legal guardians, the last problems fell away. We went over the paperwork one more time, to make sure all the requisite points were filled out, and we each signed in the appropriate places.

With a sigh of relief, I put the pen down and massaged my hand.

"Wow," I commented. "And here I thought I'd have to wait a few more years until I'd have to deal with this much paperwork in one go."

Nina chuckled complacently. "Trust me, Taylor, in my job, paperwork like this lands on my desk fairly regularly. I don't like it, but I do it anyway. Because there's not much in the way of an alternative."

Roll on computers, I thought fervently. This would have been much easier with a hyperlinked e-document. But then, I reminded myself, it would have been much more difficult to step back into society, in America of twenty years hence. In 2011, it was almost impossible to not be on file somewhere, and the presence of a ghost in the system would have excited a certain amount of official curiosity. I didn't need that.

So maybe a lack of computers was a good thing. Of sorts.

Dot chuckled. "If you think that was a bear, wait till George gets home. We're going to have to tell him, of course."

Nina raised an eyebrow. "But his name isn't on the paperwork anywhere. What reason would he have to complain?"

Dorothy Hebert, my grandmother and one of my legal guardians, sighed. "It happened under his roof without his express permission. Of course he's going to complain."

-ooo-

"Why am I not surprised?" asked George acerbically. "I leave the house for three hours, and when I return, you've gone and adopted our house-guest."

"Not adopted, dear," Dot pointed out gently. "I've just agreed to act as her legal guardian if and when she needs me to, and when Nina Veder is unable to do it for her." She didn't explain the residency clause; George was all too capable of pointing out the obvious way for the arrangement to be rendered null and void.

"So how is it not adoption?" George shot back. "Did Nina put you up to it?"

"No, dear. I came up with the idea all on my own. And it's not adoption because Taylor won't be taking our name and won't be legally related to us. It just allows Nina and myself to represent Taylor in those cases where someone over the age of eighteen or twenty-one is required to be present."

"So I've got no responsibilities here?"

"That's right, dear. It's just me and Nina."

He looked somewhat mollified at that.

"And as soon as she turns eighteen, it's over?"

"Basically, yes, dear."

"And when's that again?"

"January second," Nina supplied. I had 'remembered' it for the paperwork; January first was a little too convenient, a little too pat. But January second was just another date. It put me squarely in the middle of the age group for the class, and was easy to remember.

At a stroke, I had advanced my effective age by eighteen months, but that was fine. I was tall for my age, and if my parents were any indication, I would get taller. And I always had been good at class work, at least until I began attending Winslow – that is, in September two thousand nine. Hopefully, this time round would not be as traumatic.

George would not let the subject go. "But she'll still be staying here, even after that?"

"And paying her way, yes, dear."

It was a not so subtle reminder that I was gainfully employed and would not be sponging off of the household; he took her meaning, and acknowledged the point with a sour grunt.

I stepped away from the discussion, and nudged Nina to follow me. "Which reminds me," I murmured. "Monday sometime, we need to open a bank account for me."

She nodded, keeping her voice down. "Yes. I'll pick you up after school and we'll go and do it then."

"Sounds like a plan."

"In any case, you might want to go and freshen up. I understand that the guests will be arriving shortly."

I nodded. "Good idea."

-ooo-

Alan Barnes regarded me quizzically. "So you can't remember anything?"

I shurgged. "My name, my date of birth, sure. Where I was born, where I grew up, not so much. How to do stuff, but not how I learned how to do it. That sort of thing."

Zoe, his wife, looked up from where she was carefully feeding their young baby at the table. Anne, I recalled. That was her name. Emma's older sister. Emma, who wasn't even born yet.

"Did Danny really rescue you from the deck of a sinking yacht?" she asked. She was about nineteen or twenty; her husband was a couple of years older. Sweet and petite, she looked about my age – my realage, even.

I shook my head. "I was in the water. Something hit me pretty hard on the back of the head. I was going under, and then Danny jumped in and grabbed me."

"And why you weren't wearing a life-jacket, underwear or no underwear, I will never fathom," growled George from the head of the table. "Basic safety rules. If people followed them, we'd cut drownings by ninety percent."

"I'm really sorry, Mr Hebert," I replied as meekly as I was able, "but I can't give you a good answer on that, because I don't know myself."

Alan looked admiringly at Danny. "Damn, it sounds like something out of an action movie."

"Well, I'm glad he was there," I assured him. Glancing up at the head of the table, I added, "I'm glad the boat was there, with the whole crew. I wouldn't be sitting here if it weren't for you and all your men, Mr Hebert."

He nodded, grudgingly accepting the acknowledgement. "You'll be wearing a lifejacket next time," he warned me.

"Oh, that's a guarantee," I assured him. "I don't intend to go through that twice."

There was a general chuckle, and the topic of conversation shifted to other matters.

-ooo-

Sunday luncheon went on; Danny and George engaged Alan in talk about Cambridge, while Dot and Nina cooed over little Anne Barnes. I joined in, as much for protective colouration as anything else. While I think babies are cute, I don't have an overriding urge to admire them for minutes at a time.

Anne, I gathered, was the reason that Alan and Zoe were back in Brockton Bay. While they had both been living in Cambridge so that Alan could attend Harvard, Anne's arrival had made Zoe's life a little more hectic than she had anticipated. Therefore, she was moving back to Brockton Bay with the baby to stay with her parents until she could manage on her own again. Alan had come back with her, to make sure she was settled before he left for Cambridge again.

I found it interesting to speak with them, so early in their lives. These were people I had known reasonably well, at least as well as a child can know an adult. I had spent years sleeping over at Emma's house, just as she had slept over at my house – this very house, in fact. Though the sleepovers were years in the future, if they ever happened at all in this timeline.

As Emma's guest, I had found Alan Barnes to be polite and friendly, although always with a slightly harried air. Zoe, equally polite, had always been on the quiet side; I figured that to be a side-effect of being married to a man whose job required him to project his personality. Even now, he was slightly larger than life, as if he occupied a volume of space a little larger than his skin.

Years of practising divorce law would affect Alan Barnes in subtle ways; he came at every problem with an us-versus-them mindset. When I had my encounter with Emma in the Weymouth Mall, he could have sought to mediate, to find out the truth of the matter. Instead, he turned on my father, the man who had been his good friend for more than twenty years, and quite deliberately threatened to bankrupt him if the problem did not go away. Power, however subtly, had corrupted him, just as it had corrupted many more before him.

I looked at him across the table, tried to see that man in him, and failed. He was a little brash, but friendly, inoffensive, and actually quite handsome in a bullish sort of way. Later in life, he would still have a powerful frame, but it would be going to fat; here and now, he was broad-shouldered and muscular. I would not have been surprised to find that he played football or some other aggressive sport.

-ooo-

It was evening; the sun had set, Alan and Zoe had left with Anne, and Nina had bid us goodnight as well. George and Dot had retired upstairs early, and I sat with Danny on the back porch steps.

"That was a really nice dinner," I told him. "Your mother's a good cook."

He beamed. "She is. I've tried to learn some of what she does, but I'll never be as good as she is."

I nudged him with my shoulder. "I figure you'll make a good cook someday. And thanks for helping me out at church today."

He nudged me back. "I've heard you talking cooking with Mom. You'd leave me for dead. And not a problem. I'm not so much into it myself, but Mom and Dad expect it, so ..."

I nodded understandingly. We sat for a moment in silence before he spoke again.

"So, what did you think of Alan and Zoe?"

"Nice people. Zoe's really nice, and Anne's just adorable."

His voice was contemplative. "Yeah. Alan can be a bit pushy, but I've known him since grade school. I'm glad he's got the chance to go to Harvard."

"Yeah, I got the impression he can be a bit aggressive." My voice was contemplative. "I just hope he doesn't let it take over his life. If he's not careful, he could hurt people."

Danny shook his head. "You don't know Alan like I do. He wouldn't do something like that."

I shrugged and let it go; it wasn't worth arguing about.

"So yeah," he went on, changing the subject. "Mom said she's your legal guardian now."

"Her and Ms Veder, yeah."

He tilted his head to one side. "So, does that sort of make you my sister now?"

I was about to disabuse him of the notion, but then it occurred to me that this was one way to put a certain subject to rest, once and for all.

"In a sorta-kinda roundabout way, yeah," I agreed.

"Huh," he mused. "That's kind of cool. I always wanted a little sister."

I elbowed him in the ribs. "Watch it with the 'little', buster. I'm nearly as tall as you are."

"Oof," he retorted, although I hadn't hit him that hard. "That's assault. I'm telling Mom on you."

I snorted. "You do and I'll beat you up."

"No fair," he complained, holding his hands up. "I was always taught not to hit girls."

"And yet, I fail to see the problem."

"Ha ha, so funny." He was silent for a moment; when he spoke again, his voice was somewhat more thoughtful. "So if I'm kinda your brother, this means ..."

I nodded. "This means that, yeah."

"Ah."

I turned to face him in the gathering gloom. "I will tell you someday, I promise. Just ... not today. Not any time soon."

His eyes searched mine. "Is there something ... do you remember something ...?"

My voice was sad. "I'm sorry. I can't tell you any more than that."

When he spoke, his voice was barely audible. "Okay."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

I leaned against his shoulder; we sat for a while after that, not speaking, but comfortable with each others' company.

-ooo-

As we were heading up to bed, Danny whispered, "Are you going running in the morning?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Figure you can keep up this time?"

His teeth were very white in the dimness. "I can only try."

"We'll see. See you in the morning."

"See you then."

We parted ways, he going into his bedroom, me padding farther down the hall to the spare bedroom. As I relaxed, letting drowsiness overtake me, I mused that Danny and I were becoming more relaxed and at ease with one another. There wasn't the awkwardness of strangers, nor the even worse awkwardness of the crush. This was something different, something new.

Acceptance.

Now that I had a niche in the household, now that I had attended Mass with them, he was more able to relate to me on a personal level. We could chat, and banter and joke with each other.

It was nice to feel part of a family once more.

With that thought in mind, I was drifting off to sleep when a new thought struck me.

The problem with Danny was solved, just like Lisa said.

Why is she doing this, giving me little hints and tips?

Is she trying to subtly show me that she really is alive, somehow? Or is there something else that she's trying to tell me?

I was too tired to wonder long. Before I had it figured out, I was asleep.

End of Part 1-7