(Untitled)

[a_sport]

Calvin had been steeling himself to go straight into the rec room once he got to the Compound, but at the looming possibility of a daughter-from-the-future, he hesitated just outside the doorway. Palms sweaty, heart racing, the need to throw up hadn't completely gone away. The marriage license had been bad enough, and that was just a piece of

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[polly_okeefe]

I waited.

Mother warned me that it might be a while, but she promised that Daddy would come, so like she asked, I waited in the rec room, a wreck.

I couldn't clean. I couldn't _think_. Thank goodness, the jukebox decided to keep quiet, or I might have pulled a fit again. So instead, I just sat, at the end of the couch furthest away from the door, perking up and looking over every time the door opened, and somebody -- not Daddy -- came into the room.

That happened a lot.

Eventually, my nerves compressed me into daze, and I slouched on the couch, staring at the table in front of me, unresponsive as people came and left. When the door opened yet again, an hour after Mother had left, I didn't move. I didn't look up. Until, that was, I became aware of a figure standing there for a long moment, staring at me.

[a_sport]

There was no mistaking her. Once he got a glimpse of the girl on the sofa, there wasn’t a question if it was Polyhymnia or not. It had to be. The color of her hair, the line of her jaw, something even in just her posture, it was familiar and still altogether strange.

Just looking at her made him long for home. All grown up like this, she looked almost unsettlingly like his sister Josie. Or, put another way, like a less gawky, softer and altogether prettier version of Calvin himself.

“Hi, Polyhymnia.” It was still a helluva name, but now that he could look at her, it seemed fitting too. He was still across the room from her, just barely past the doorway, but he couldn’t get himself to move yet. “Ah, how’s it going, future progeny?”

[polly_okeefe]

His voice shook me out of my reverie. I jumped to my feet, a lot faster than I'd intended, and stared at the apparition by the rec room door. Even prepared as I was, seeing Daddy like this was a shock. He had no beard. He was thinner, lankier. But everything else that marked him as Daddy was all there: the hair, the eyes, the smile... especially the eyes and the smile, even if the smile suggested that he was as scared as I was.

I put one hand on the arm of the couch to steady myself. I swallowed. "Daddy." I took a deep breath, and I waited.

[a_sport]

Daddy. He hadn’t been expecting that, but maybe he probably should have been. It shook him a bit, more than he’d admit. Made it a bit distressingly real.

Well, okay. Here she was. Now what was he supposed to do now?

For a long moment, silence stretched between them as they just stared at each other. But then he forced himself to cross the length of the room until he was standing in front of her. Despite himself, his hands crept into his pockets as he looked at her.

“Hi,” Calvin said again as he looked at her up close. She looked pretty freaked out. Was he supposed to hug her? Was this a hugging moment?