(TAYLOR HEBERT) CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The house felt smaller than Taylor remembered.

It was the same narrow hallway, the same scuffed floors and familiar creaks that had been part of her life for as long as she could remember, yet after everything that had happened, after the watch and the impossible transformations and the horror of facing the Simurgh, it all seemed strangely diminished. The walls felt closer together, the ceiling lower, and every ordinary sound felt amplified by the silence, as if the world she had stepped into earlier that day had been so vast and overwhelming that her home could no longer quite contain her.

She sat on the living room couch with her hands clasped tightly together, listening to the soft tick of the kitchen clock and the occasional groan of pipes settling in the walls. Part of her wondered if the events of the past few hours had simply changed her so much that even familiar places felt foreign now, or if she was only imagining things.

After returning home, she had taken a quick shower just to give herself something to do, to wash away the grime and sweat of the day, but once that was finished there had been nothing left except waiting.

Lady Photon had promised she would find her dad and make sure he came home. Taylor trusted her, but trust did little to calm the anxious knot twisting in her stomach with every passing minute. She kept glancing toward the front door, half expecting it to open at any second and half dreading what would follow when it did.

Her mind insisted on running through every version of the conversation to come. In some of them her dad was angry, his voice tight with frustration as he demanded to know where she had been and why she had vanished without a word. In others he was quiet and distant, disappointment hanging heavy in the air between them. She even imagined him pacing the living room with his arms crossed, waiting for explanations she was not sure she could give.

Those reactions seemed reasonable. Normal, even.

She had disappeared for an entire day just before an Endbringer attack without telling him anything. From his perspective she had simply vanished into the chaos of what might have been the worst disaster Brockton Bay had faced in recent years. Any parent would have been furious, or at the very least shaken and upset, so she braced herself for exactly that.

When the front door finally opened, the sound felt almost too loud in the quiet house.

Taylor stood up so quickly she nearly stumbled over her own feet, her heart leaping into her throat. “Dad?” she called out, her voice cracking despite her best efforts to keep it steady.

Danny Hebert stepped inside a second later, looking more than a little frazzled. His hair was windblown from the walk home and his jacket hung loosely from one hand, but the moment he saw her, all of that seemed to fade into the background.

“Taylor,” he breathed.

For a brief moment he simply stood there as if he did not truly believe she was real, as if he needed to look at her for just a little longer to be sure. Then he crossed the room in three long strides, throwing his jacket somewhere to the side, and pulled her into a hug so tight it knocked the breath from her lungs.

It was a decidedly desperate hug, the kind someone gave when they had been afraid they would never get the chance again. His arms wrapped around her shoulders and back, and she could feel him trembling slightly as he held her close.

“Oh, thank God,” he whispered roughly into her hair. “Thank God you’re okay.”

Taylor froze in surprise, her own arms hovering awkwardly at her sides as the reality of the moment sank in. This was not anger or disappointment. It was not even relief in the restrained way she had expected.

It was fear, still lingering and raw, wrapped tightly around overwhelming affection.

“I was so scared,” he continued, confirming her thoughts, the words spilling out of him in a rush. “When I got to the shelter and they said you weren’t there, and no one had seen you, I thought—” He stopped, swallowing hard. “I thought something terrible had happened to you.”

His voice shook at the end, and Taylor realized with a jolt that he was on the verge of crying. That realization, more than anything else, broke through the last of her hesitation. She wrapped her arms around him just as tightly, burying her face against his shoulder and breathing in the familiar scent of home, detergent, and the faintest hint of sweat.

After everything that had happened, she had assumed he would be upset with her for disappearing without a word, for putting herself in danger, for making him endure hours of uncertainty and fear.

Instead, he was simply relieved that she was alive.

“I’m okay,” she managed, her own voice trembling. “I’m right here.”

He pulled back just enough to look at her properly, his hands still resting on her shoulders as if he needed to feel her there to be certain she was real. His glassy eyes searched her face, taking in every detail, and she saw the exact moment he allowed himself to truly believe it.

“You’re really okay?” he asked. “You’re not hurt anywhere?”

“I’m okay,” she repeated. “I promise.”

Her dad let out a long, shaky breath and drew her back into another hug. “I love you, kiddo,” he murmured. “I love you so much.”

All the frustration she had felt earlier, all the bitterness toward the Triumvirate and the confusion and hurt of everything that had gone wrong, simply melted away in the face of that simple, honest declaration. None of it mattered in that moment, not the watch, not the fight, and not the impossible weight that had been dropped onto her shoulders.

Standing there in her father’s arms, she was reminded of what had mattered most through all of it.

Surviving.

Coming back to him.

With her mom gone, she was all he had left. The thought of what would have happened to him if she had not made it home, if she had died somewhere out there in the city while her dad sat alone in a shelter, waiting and waiting for a daughter who would never return, made her chest ache in a way nothing else could.

The idea of leaving him alone in the world was unbearable.

She clutched at him even more tightly, and the first sob escaped before she even realized she was crying.

“I’m sorry,” she choked out. “I’m so sorry, dad. I didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I love you too.”

“Hey, hey,” he said softly, pulling back again just enough to cup her face in his hands. “None of that. You don’t have anything to apologize for. You’re here. That’s all that matters.”

“But I—”

“No,” he interrupted gently. “Whatever happened today, whatever you went through, we can talk about it later. Right now I’m just grateful you came home to me.”

Taylor let out another small sob at that and nodded, unable to find any more words. She hugged him again, clinging to him the way she used to when she was little and thunderstorms kept her awake at night.

For a long time they simply stood there in the middle of the living room, neither of them in any hurry to let go.

Eventually her dad drew back with a tired, watery smile. “How about we sit down,” he suggested, guiding her to the couch and settling beside her, one arm still wrapped around her shoulders. “And maybe you can tell me what happened. As much as you can, anyway.”

Taylor nodded, wiping at her eyes. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “Okay.”

There would be difficult conversations ahead, questions she did not yet know how to answer, and complications and dangers and a future that suddenly looked very different from the one she had imagined that morning because of the watch on her wrist.

But for now, with this part of her world still intact, she was willing and ready to face all of that.