Carrie Vaughn - After the Golden Age

“If he’d asked me to come work for West Corp, for him … if he’d ever just asked —”

“He’d never ask,” she said. “Neither would you. You are the two most stubborn people I have ever known.”

She turned and walked away. For dinner that night, she made lasagna, the first time she’d cooked anything since he’d died.

The Sito trial jury returned a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. Sito was remanded to the care of the Elroy Asylum. The trial might as well have not happened.

A year later, Anthony Paulson was tried and also found not guilty by reason of insanity. He’d been diagnosed with narcissistic megalomania. Like father like son, although that connection was never made public. He agreed to undergo treatment at the Elroy Asylum. Celia had a talk with the hospital’s management and convinced them that under no circumstances should Anthony Paulson and Simon Sito ever be brought anywhere near each other. They shouldn’t have known each other by sight, but Celia didn’t want to take chances. Coincidence didn’t exist in her father’s world, or in hers. Better to prevent the opportunity for fate to take a hand in events.

Mark Paulson visited his father once a month. Celia learned that he also visited Simon Sito once. Soon after, Sito suffered a heart attack. A second heart attack a month later killed him. It was a peaceful death that he didn’t deserve.

The detective worked like he thought he had to make up for both his father’s and grandfather’s misdeeds. Double shifts, countless hours of overtime. No number of promotions and commendations was enough, and he received many. At age thirty-five, he suffered a stress-related cardiac infarction.

Celia visited him at the hospital. It was déjà vu with a twist.

He couldn’t look her in the eye. He kept an embarrassed smirk on his face, like he knew he’d done something stupid.

Celia crossed her arms and glowered. “You really need to stop trying to prove you aren’t your father. I mean, look what happened when I did that.”

He chuckled painfully and spoke softly because of the oxygen tubes in his nose. “You turned out all right.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, so did you. You inherited the untainted mutation, the loyalty trait. You’d do anything to keep this city safe, and the city needs that. You have to keep yourself alive because of that.”

The smirk relaxed into a true smile and he sighed a breath of acquiescence.

“It’s really good to see you, Celia. I’m glad we stayed friends.”

“Me, too. We superhumans have to stick together.”

Two years after her father’s death, Celia West and Arthur Mentis had a daughter, Anna.

Celia lay on her side in the hospital bed. The baby lay nested on a pillow, sheltered within the curve of Celia’s body. Anna had a round red face, scrunched-up eyes, and a fine fuzz of coppery hair.

Arthur sat by the bed, leaning on the mattress, his chin on his hands, watching the baby and wearing an odd half smile.

“What’s she thinking?” Celia asked.

“It’s very strange,” he said. “She thinks in feelings. She doesn’t have colors or sounds or images yet. But she has ‘warm’ and ‘cold’ and ‘hungry’ and ‘sleepy.’ She’s a little of all of them at once, like she can’t sort it all out. Right this minute, though, I look at her and feel ‘safe.’ I’ve never really looked at babies before.” He was staring at her like she was an interesting scientific oddity.

Celia could see it now: Anna’s teenage years were going to be hell with a telepath for a father.

Celia puckered her face to keep from crying. She’d spent far too much of the last nine months crying.

“What have we done?” she said. “What’s she inherited? I’m going to be watching her every minute to see if she flies, or shoots lightning, or talks to animals. If she has a power … what are we going to do? What do we tell her? I’m so scared for her.”

“I think that’s normal for any parent.”

“I want her to be normal.”

“You don’t get to make that choice.”

She looked at Arthur. “You want her to have powers.”

“Celia. I want her to be happy.”

Anna stirred, opening her toothless mouth in a wide, wet yawn that made both parents smile.

Celia couldn’t stop the tears this time, and her voice cracked. “I keep thinking he’d have been such a good grandfather.”

“Perhaps.”

The baby slept, for now.

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