(AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN…) LONG TIME COMING

Danny was a coward.

A powerless coward, at that.

He knew what his daughter was going through, or at least he knew enough to understand that she was suffering. Taylor had told him about the loops, about dying and waking up again, about all the things she had seen and experienced that no one her age should ever have had to endure. He had listened because there wasn’t much else he could do, and every time she finished explaining something, he had felt the same uselessness well up in his chest.

He was her father. He was supposed to be able to help her, to do something when she was hurting, to make things better when the world became too much for her. Instead, all he could do was be there.

He had tried, of course. He had gotten Armsmaster involved. He had accepted the PRT’s help even though part of him still hated the idea of strangers being responsible for his daughter. He had done everything he could think of, and none of it seemed to make a difference. Taylor still kept coming home with that look in her eyes.

She was tired.

That much he could see.

Sometimes she looked defeated, too, though she would never say it. She still talked to him, still ate with him, still complained about school and everything else that annoyed her, but there were moments when she seemed to disappear right in front of him. She would stare at something without really seeing it, and when he asked if she was all right, she would give him that small smile and tell him she was fine.

Danny knew his daughter well enough to know when she was lying. He just didn’t know how to make her stop.

Maybe Annette would have known.

She would have been better at this. She had always known how to reach Taylor in ways he couldn’t, and sometimes Danny found himself wondering what she would have done if she were still here. Would she have noticed how badly their daughter was hurting? Would she have known what to say? Would Taylor have listened to her?

Maybe.

Maybe she would have been able to help.

Danny had no answer for that. He only knew that Annette was gone, he was still here, and somehow he was supposed to be enough.

Even now, while they walked toward the Boardwalk, Danny couldn’t shake the feeling that he was failing her. Taylor was telling him about Emma and the strange way she had been acting lately, and he listened as carefully as he could, asking questions when she seemed to want them and letting her talk when she didn’t.

It was another problem for Taylor to deal with, another thing she had noticed that he couldn’t do anything about. He hated that more than he could say.

Taylor suddenly stopped.

Danny took another step before realizing she wasn’t beside him anymore. He turned and found her standing in the middle of the sidewalk, staring ahead.

“Taylor?”

She didn’t answer. Her expression changed, and for a moment Danny thought she was going to collapse as she bowed her head.

Then the gunshot came.

He heard the crack and saw something pass close enough to Taylor that his heart stopped. People around them screamed and began running, but Danny barely noticed. All he could see was his daughter, still standing in front of him, looking terrified as he reached for her.

He didn’t know what had happened. Maybe it was luck. Maybe it was divine intervention. Maybe, after everything they had been through, the universe had finally decided to throw him a bone.

Whatever it was, Taylor was still standing.

His daughter was still alive.

Danny should have felt relieved.

Instead, something inside him gave way.

He had spent so long watching her suffer. He had heard about her deaths more times than he could count, and he had watched her become more tired, more distant, more resigned with every one. Every time, he told himself he would find a way to help her.

He never did.

Now a bullet had nearly taken her from him, right in front of him.

What kind of father stood by while his daughter died over and over because he couldn’t do anything to stop it? What kind of father needed the PRT to protect his own child?

What kind of father was he?

Danny looked at Taylor, and for a brief moment, he thought of Annette.

Then the world disappeared.

Two impossible shapes moved somewhere beyond his understanding, their forms shifting with every motion as they seemed to move toward one another and apart again, following a rhythm that made no sense to him. Danny tried to follow them, but there was no beginning to their movement and no end, and the harder he tried to understand what he was seeing, the further it seemed to slip away from him.

The shapes moved again, and Danny could no longer tell what he was looking at.

Then he was back in the present, holding onto his daughter as they ran from the hulking form of Hookwolf.