Extinguished (Alt.)

[Violet Schultz]

The rain was torrential, pouring over the city street like a waterfall as Violet headed back to her apartment, arms full of groceries. She’d just gotten off of her job at the grocery store, and as dusk fell, she was heading back home. It had been over two years since she’d been a Titan, and she couldn’t help but wonder what she might’ve been doing had she stayed. Of course, it would’ve ended one way or another, but at least she would’ve still been with Will if chance hadn’t had them stumble across Sarah. Either way, her life was different now. She was working full-time at the grocery store and trying to earn her GED, and that, along with her other obligations, took up a great deal of her time. It wasn’t something she couldn’t handle, but it certainly kept her busy. If it wasn’t for her roommate Aria, she didn’t know what she would’ve done.

Her style was one of the only things that hadn’t changed over the couple of years since then, and she still wore her trademark black cargo pants and tight black shirt, complete with the switchblade she kept in the right pocket of her jeans. She still lived in a dangerous area, though it was a lot safer than places she’d lived in the past. However, she’d recently been receiving threats from some of the Shadows. When she was with the Titans, no one would’ve dared to come after her, but now that she was running alone, she had been marked as a target. It wasn’t safe for her anywhere anymore, but she was a cautious person by nature, and a vigilant person by practice. Turning a corner, she became aware that she had a tail, and out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that her tail was armed. The weapon appeared to be pistol sized, but she couldn’t be sure, based on the short glance.

Rounding another corner, she abandoned her groceries and took off into an alley, her eyes lighting up as she blocked the flame of the gun from being ignited. Unfortunately, it wasn’t what she’d anticipated. It was an air-powered dark gun, and she didn’t realize it until the dart had buried itself in her shoulder. Pulling it out, Violet gritted her teeth and punched the kid out before taking off at a dead run. It wasn’t as if tranquilizers could harm her, but if there was a kid with a tranquilizer, it was bound to be trouble with either a lab or the Shadows. If it was the latter, this kid wasn’t alone and she needed to get out of there. It wasn’t until four other teenagers blocked off the other end of the alley that she realized what trouble she was in. They were all armed with guns, and as she reached for her powers, she realized something chilling.

They weren’t working.

She could still sense flames, and her body heat was still at its norm, but any influence she was trying to extend over fire wasn’t working. So that was what the dart had been for? Not good. There wasn’t any cover in the alley, especially considering that there were others coming from the other end. Rebounding off of the wall, she reached the fire escape and climbed, only grazed by a couple of bullets as they opened fire. She grunted as another better-aimed shot pierced her thigh.

“You can’t get away, Violet,” a chillingly familiar voice intoned. “You should have remembered that the Shadows are forever. There’s no leaving unless it’s in a bodybag.”

Looking up, she saw that the voice on the ground was right. There were more teenagers up there, with guns. This was definitely a Shadows tactic. Still, she had to try. Unfortunately, they were in the tactical position, and her powers weren’t allowing her to fly or to stop them from firing. Her eyes showed none of the fear that was chilling her at her core, and as the next two bullets ripped into her, she fell back off of the fire escape, losing her grip. She cried out as the impact jostled the wounds in her shoulder and stomach. She managed to slowly pull herself up into a sitting position against the wall as they surrounded her. The loss of blood and the haze of pain were making it difficult for her to see, but she recognized the spiky dirty blond hair, as well as the muscular shoulders and arms of the boy at the fore. A simple pistol was in his right hand, his favored hand, if she remembered.

Violet couldn’t summon the strength to speak, but she knew that the end was here. There was no escaping this. However they had managed to neutralize her powers, it had been the deciding factor. She clasped her stomach with one trembling hand as blood poured out of her wounds, and she looked up at Elias, proud even in her pain and dizziness. He wouldn’t get the satisfaction of seeing her fear. She was still lucid enough to recognize a flame from clear across town, one that hadn’t been in Jump for a good couple of years, but which she would recognize from everywhere. She regretted that she wouldn’t be able to see him one last time, as she stared down the barrel of Elias’s pistol.

Will, she said in the mental equivalent of a whisper, I’m sorry. For everything.

“Slade sends his regards,” Elias said with a satisfied smile.

With the last gunshot, the flickering inner flame within her went out. Under the pouring rain in the Jump City alley, her body slumped sideways as her blood poured into the street and the last footsteps of the Shadows faded away.

Her heart slowed and stopped, the blood creeping toward the drain as the rain washed it away. Here, in this dirty alley, not a mile from her apartment, her journey had finally come to an end, barely two decades after it had begun.

[William Talbot]

Not fast enough...


There where only three people he knew for sure he would never be able to match for raw speed, Superman, Captain Marvel and the Flash, and yet, even then for most people, there wasn't all that much separating him from the fastest men on earth, since they all where blurs on the landscape at speed.


And yet, even as he sensed the danger, felt he worry, and even heard her voice in his head for the last time, he was not fast enough to act... And the pity of it all was that a part of him, really didn't WANT to act, and it was that part that now mocked him as he knelt down next to her cooling body, her ruined head in his lap, her long raven locks sticky with blood and brain matter, her soft smooth, almost perfect skin too cool to be hers, although it might feel normal to anyone else, he knew, it wasn't normal for her... Nor was the sudden and almost violet feeling of a void in his heart and mind, the sudden vacuum shaking him to his core as he silently cried and looked at her, his emotions a mixture of anger, sadness, lost and... resignation...


"I... Violet... I..." he turned his face away as he gently closed her dark, flat, and now lifeless blue eyes, and then cried out with a single shout of utter rage, sorrow and release before he whispered to the air around her body, the very essence of her life force drifting off into the higher realms; "Good bye... Mi amor..."


And the rain fell...

~~~~~~~~~~

What had bothered him the most over the three days since, was that as the arrangments where made, NO ONE could look him in the eye for mroe than a few seconds, and then to top it, he kept getting this since of pity mixed with distain under all the sadness and understanding his empathy was keyed into, as the Titans went about taking care of one of their now passed members, inactive as she was, once a Titan, always a Titan, and because of that, it fell to Robin and Will, as her oldest friends, to see to it that all was in place...

And all was indeed in place the day of the memorial service.


"Will... There's someone you need to meet..." Robin had said as the last wreath was being set to the side, and the casket was lowered into the ground, a sudden shift in the powers around him puzzeling and distracting him as he looked over his shoulder to Robin, and the strange blob of fabric he held in his arms.

"Uhh... sure, sure, where are they?" Will said absently as he looked off over the ocean at the sun set.

"She... Is right here... WIll, meet Iris..."

Will looked to the small child, barely two years old if he had to guess, with almost Colbolt blue eyes, and a tuff of jet black hair, and a soft rounded face of a very young child, and yet...

That nose... Those lips... And the chin!

"Tim..." it wasn't quite a question, nor was it an accusation...


Suddenly he was aware of Aria next to Tim, and that caused Will to blink a moment as random and unfounded connections and thoughts popped in his mind.

"Wait... what?" he asked as he screwed up his face at them.


"She's Violet's daughter Will... Violet's and your's... You're her father..."



Will blinked at them in shock, as his mouth opened wide to protest, and then simply stayed silent, his jaw trying to find the floor...



A daughter?

[aria]

It had been three days. Three days since she'd gotten the call from Robin, and then the government a few hours later. Two days since the headline had gone out: "Darkbrand Dead: Former Titan Gunned Down". How could you tell a two-year-old that no, Mama was not home, and she never would be? According to the lawyer, Aria was now the legal guardian of little Iris, since she'd been the godmother of Violet's daughter, and her heart ached for the little girl. Violet had been everything to Iris, and now she was gone. But she wasn't like Violet. No, her parents weren't both dead; she wasn't an orphan. Her father had no idea that she even existed, as Violet had elected to keep it from him. Of course Tim knew. He'd been keeping watch over them both, as he did over any former Titan, even if they weren't a close friend like Violet had been.

Will would be told. Aria would make sure that he knew of this little girl, even if Violet hadn't wanted him to know. Aria had found the note she'd written to him, along with the series of letters that Violet had kept hidden. The letters which Violet had been getting for weeks, but hadn't told anyone. A few of them charred on the edges, the victim of violent nightmares trying to eradicate their existance. That letter had been a last letter, written just in case exactly this happened. There had been no mention of Iris. As well as Aria understood Violet's reasons for not telling him, she couldn't agree with them.

So Tim, a mutual friend to all involved, had taken it upon himself to tell Will, once Aria said that she wanted him to know. Yes, it had been three days. And this would be the second worst in them, only behind the day of Violet's murder. Today, she would see him for the first time in two years, the first time since he'd decided to go nomad, leaving Violet alone and secretly pregnant back in Jump City. Today was the day of the memorial service, the day she would have to say goodbye to her best friend. She handed Iris over to Tim, those thoughts still running through her head.

He was taking it rather well...

"Iris Aurelie Schultz," she said, as Tim finally told him. "That is her name. She was born eight months after you left."

The toddler was watching Will with round eyes, her senses confused. This person smelled like Mama. He felt like her too. But he didn't look like Mama. She held her small hand out and touched his skin. It was warm, too. Just like Mama. And she could feel the same feeling inside of him that she and Mama had inside of them. Her skin was warmer than her mother's had been, and her eyes glowed the palest indigo as she looked back up at the dumbfounded man's face.

"Fi!" she squeaked, a brilliant smile lighting up her small features. "Mama home?"

Aria hid her face in her hand as tears came to her eyes, yet again. The toddler's powers were surfacing far earlier than Violet's ever had, and Aria had no idea how to handle it. The last thing she knew how to deal with was a temper tantrum from a child who could spontaneously combust. And aside from that, the poor kid was still expecting her mother to walk in from work, as she always had before.

[William Talbot]

Iris Aurelie Schultz...


"Iris Aurelie Schultz..." will whispered softly as he looked at her, her eyes sending a soft wave of heat to him that he was sure only he could feel, her Cobalt eyes rimmed with Indigo, shimmered and smiled up at him in wonder, as his cool steely blue eyes blinked at her in shock.

Eight months after?

But, then... Why didn't she tell him? Why couldn't he know?

Well eight months after Violet quit, and he left, he had been in New York, and was looking to go further east, which of course, he did, and it was the one thing about him that was constant that whole two years, he was always heading east, into the sunrise, and away from Jump, away from Violet. Needless to say, he did not spend very long in France during his tour of Europe...


As she spoke, Will noted that her body was much warmer than Violet's had ever normally been, and that the blanket that was wrapped about her, was in fact, his old blanket from when he was but a small child, one of the few things he had managed to find and save of his childhood, one of the things he had left at the Tower, in Violet's room, for some unexplained, or unremembered reason, and it was a vital need for the child, for he could tell, that despite her high core temperature, the weather outside on Titans Island, was cool, windy, and damp, the kind of weather that would drain her energies and cause her to get the closet thing any pyro could get, to a chill induced cold. Just as he had been when he was small.


Slowly, Will reached out and took her from Robin, and held her at his side on his hip with one arm, his other hand slowly tracing her face and her side through the blanket as he looked down on her, his face sad and awed all at once as he whispered to her; "No Iris... Mama's not coming back..." his eyes then suddenly gushed out hot, heavy tears as he brushed her little bit of hair away from her face, bent his head down and gently kissed her forehead before speaking again; "But Dad is here now..."


For the second time in three days, William felt his heart shatter...

[aria]

"It wasn't quite two weeks after you left that she found out that she was pregnant," Aria said, her voice rough with suppressed emotion. "She didn't tell you because she didn't want you to feel tied to her because of it. I just thought you should know, because Iris needs her father in her life, especially now that her mother is gone. Legally, there's still no reason that you would've needed to know. No one is listed as her father on her birth certificate."

Her voice broke on the word 'gone', and her eyes moved to rest on the casket, closed for the funeral because the grotesque wounds wouldn't allow it to be open. The little girl would probably not remember much of her mother by the time she grew up, and there wasn't a stash of photographs of her, either. She'd never been a picture oriented person, and the only ones Aria had of her, Aria had taken, and that still wasn't a lot.

Iris looked around, confused at Will's words. Her small hand reached toward his face, touching the slightly rough skin. The barest hint of stubble tickled her soft hands and she giggled before she understood what he had said, and her round eyes went to his, the question clear.

"No Mama?" she asked, her face falling slightly.

"No, baby," Aria said, coming a little closer to stroke Iris's hair, near tears herself. "No Mama."

Aria wiped her eyes with her fingertips and then looked back up at Will, steadying herself with an effort. She had a lot of unresolved anger toward him, but she felt nothing but sorrow at the moment, and she felt terrible that she had to tell him the truth, that Will technically had no ties to his daughter as far as the law was concerned.

"We have a lot to discuss, but this is not the time or place for it," she said. "Not the least of which we have to talk about is the fact that I'm now Iris's legal guardian, Will."

[William Talbot]

Will held her there and listened, his only reflex was to close his eyes in shame when Aria told him that there was no father listed on Iris' birth certificate, a feeling like a stab wound creeping into his heart as she spoke...


"No Baby... No Mama..."


Looking to Aria for a few measured moments, Will then looked to Iris, and her small cherub like face, before he slowly handed her to Aria.

"I... I have a few things to attend to... Give me three day's, pick a time and place, and we'll talk..." he slowly let go of Iris' small warm hand, and he even managed a small smile before he looked back to Tim and let go of her tiny hand, and then shot a careful glance at Aria and softly spoke; "Take care of her Aria... For the love of god take care of her..."




~~~Three Day's and Three Body's Later~~~



It had been Tim that had arranged the meeting, or rather had been the go between, and told him where and when Aria had wanted to meet and talk, so after William had dealt his Vengeance upon Elias and his two main lieutenants in a back alley in LA, he then went back to Jump, and cleaned himself up, the beard he had grown during his time back on the west coast, gone, and his over all self refreshed, if not weighed down somewhat, as he stepped into the Cafe she had picked, the sparse crowd and ample seating perfect for a private discussion...

"Hi..." he said as he sat down across the small table from the lean dark haired young woman, his eyes, alert and questioning.

[aria]

"I will," Aria promised, taking the toddler back into her arms.

Iris looked back at Aria and stuck her thumb in her mouth, leaning forward to rest her head on her godmother's chest, her round eyes still open.

- three days later -

Aria sat alone in the Cafe, a steaming cappuccino cooling in front of her. She'd left Iris at home with her own mother, who was the only person she really trusted to watch Iris when she was gone. The Italian-American had finally located her mother a few years ago, and there was no one that Aria was closer to. She would take good care of Iris so that Aria could talk to Will. Aria looked up as he walked in, and her eyes were carefully neutral. For Iris's sake, Aria would have to get along with Will, even though she had less than cordial feelings for him. She was trying to smother those feelings, as she knew that he could sense them. She was having limited success.

"Hi," she said. "Thanks for coming. Look, I'm not one for small talk, so if you have anything to get off your chest, you might as well say it now. I'm sure you must have some questions to ask."

She was fairly certain that he had some questions regarding Iris, and hopefully Violet as well, though she had no way of knowing whether or not he still cared about the late mother of his daughter. For all she knew, he had stopped caring a long time ago. He had certainly acted like it until it was far too late, and Violet had died alone. A wave of sadness washed through her at the thought of her best friend, and the week since her death had done little to temper it. One never quite got used to losing their friends, especially ones to which she was as close to as she had been to Violet. It would be a long time before she could think about it without some measure of sorrow.

She blew on the hot liquid before her and then took a tentative sip before placing it back on the table, her eyes still on Will. Her voice didn't carry unless she wanted it to, and she was using her peculiar power set to limit the conversation to their table, so that there was no danger of being overheard.

[William Talbot]

William looked to Aria for a moment then rested his hands flat on the table top a moment before he spoke; "Well... First off, I need to say thank you... For being Violet's friend this whole time... I..." he paused a moment and brought up his hands, laced the fingers together, rested his elbows on the table and then leaned his face onto his clasped hands as he looked off to the side and remembered for a few heartbeats, then at last went on; "I... Never stopped loving her... I tried, God knows I did, I was hurt enough to, and a good part of me wanted to, but... I could never get myself to really hate her, I mean... I understood that she did what she did for a reason, she never did ANYTHING without a reason, I knew it when the knife hit my skin, in the back of my mind, that she didn't want that to happen, that it wasn't what she was trying to do, but... She never told me... ME dammit! I mean, we where intimate, and not just in the biblical sense, we had a bond like most people only dream of, there where no secrets until that weekend, and then... I guess that's what hurt me the most, even more than the silver..."


Taking a breath, Will recomposed himself, and then looked down at the table top for a few slowing heartbeats then whispered out; "Tell me about... Hell, tell me everything... I need to know just what kind of damage I caused by leaving, if I ever want to fix what I can now..."

[aria]

Aria nodded and then looked down into the swirling cappuccino as he spoke, the sadness weighing down her narrow shoulders. She wished that Violet could be there to speak for herself, but with her gone, Aria would have to be her voice and try to defend the decisions that had eventually led to Violet's death. She didn't blame Will for that, but there was plenty that she did blame him for. Emotionally close to the situation as she was, she had been a Titan long enough that she recognized that the only people at fault for her death were the ones that had shot her down. The decisions beforehand that had left her vulnerable to it were not something that she could hold against anyone.

"I'll tell you what happened, but it's far too late to fix now," she said quietly. "It's not fair. None of her decisions ever went the way they wanted them to. It's like the universe had it in for her. Ideally, Sara would've gotten away, she would've told the Titans everything afterward, and no one would've gotten hurt. She would probably have still left the Titans, but her conscience would've been clear, and she would've been able to talk it through with you. She was horrified with how badly it went wrong."

She looked back up at him.

"Did you know that the night that you were in surgery, she was in the corner of the OR, watching to make sure you would be alright? She didn't sleep at all that night, or for several nights after, including the night she left. I'm sure you're aware of how she felt about betrayal, so it makes sense that she couldn't face you afterward. I can't say if I think what she did was right or wrong, but if she would have told you what she was planning, would you have let her go through with it?"

She held his gaze for a few seconds, her eyes not accusing, nor questioning, merely making her point. With a sigh, she looked back down at the cup and took another sip before continuing.

"When she did move in with me, I could see the difference in her eyes at once. There was nothing there anymore, not even sadness. She was just blank. She wouldn't say more than two words that week, but at night all that she wouldn't show during the day came out through nightmares. A few of them nearly lit up the apartment."

Aria stared into space as she spoke, picturing it in her mind and unconsciously weaving the illusion in her voice.

"She almost left then, since I'm not fireproof, and she didn't see an end to the nightmares coming any time soon, but then she found out that she was pregnant a few days later. I think it might be the first time she showed emotion since she moved in, and it was obvious that she was terrified. When the morning sickness started to hit, she realized that she couldn't live alone, and I insisted that she stay so that I could help, and she had no other options, so she did. She wanted to keep it from the Titans for as long as possible, but Robin checked in with her a lot, and eventually he found out. I remember when he came over to talk to her about it. They had quite the lengthy argument over it, but in the end, Robin had to respect her wishes and not tell anyone."

She was so intent on what she was saying and remembering it that she didn't realize that she was showing her memories though her auditory illusion. The images before her eyes were in his mind as well: the terror in Violet's eyes as she realized what the little plastic test in her hand meant, the pain on her face whenever Aria mentioned Will, the blankness that replaced it when she regained control of her emotions. A piece of the discussion between Violet and Robin was in their minds as well, as Aria remembered it quite clearly.

"He should know about this, Violet," Tim insisted. "You have no right to keep it from him."

"And you have no right to tell him," came Violet's flat reply, pain just barely audible in her quiet voice. "He doesn't want me around, and I'm not going to make him feel like he has to be around me for the baby's sake."

"He's the father," he argued. "He has responsibilities that come with that."

"No, he doesn't," Violet replied, her voice still sounding lifeless. "Not if I decide he doesn't, and he doesn't know about it. Please, Tim. I'm asking you as a friend. Don't tell him."

"Okay, let's just say that I don't tell him. What are you going to do about providing for this baby?" Tim asked. "You don't have the means. Are you putting it up for adoption?"

"My baby is going to know her mother," Violet said. "You and I both know what it's like to lose your parents. I won't do that to this baby. I don't care if I have to take a few jobs, I'm keeping him. Or her."

[William Talbot]

Will listened, and while the audio illusion was effective, he knew in his heart, that it couldn't truly convey the gravity of the moment , not like being there...

He SHOULD have been there...


"I should have come back... No... I never should have left..."


Looking down at the table top for a moment to try and retain his composure, Will at last raised his head, tears rimming his eyes as he sighed and then looked to Aria and spoke softly; "I want her Aria... I want to be with her, to raise her, and to teach her that her mother loved her, that I love her, and to make sure that Violet is never forgotten... See wasn't perfect, but she always did her damnedest to do right by everyone, and Iris should grow up knowing that... They both deserve that much."


Will was going to devote his life to that little girl, he would not let Violet and what she had stood for, and who she was, vanish like a faint memory, not after all of the blood sweat and tears she had shed at his side, to help this city, not even after everything that had happened between them, Violet was due some honor, and a living memory, and Iris would know just who her mother had been, Will owed them both that much, and oh so much more...


And it was that so much more that tugged at the back of Will's mind, a certain chain of though triggering in his underlying thoughts, a kind of "Plan B" starting to take shape, problems and solutions meeting one at a time, as the other more prominent issues flowed before his eyes while he looked to Aria.

[aria]

Aria looked away, thinking the matter over.

"I really think we need to consider what Violet would have wanted," Aria said after a short pause. "On the one hand, she wanted Iris to grow up with a parent. On the other, she never wanted you to uproot your life for Iris. As much as she loved Iris, she always thought that your work as a Titan was too important to jeopardize."

Aria couldn't help but think about how similar this was to why Kevin had willingly given his life for Robin. As much as Kevin had loved her, he had been willing to die to protect someone whose role in the world had been so much bigger than his own. In the same way, Violet had never considered telling Will about Iris, even in her legal will, because she didn't want him to give up being a Titan for the sake of Iris or herself. She'd seen that the world needed him to be more than a good father. Aria pulled open her purse and pulled out an unsealed envelope, Will's name written on the back, in Violet's flowing script.

"I found this in Violet's room, along with some letters from Elias and other people from her past. I know she wanted you to read it," she said, sliding it across the table. The top right hand corner of the handwritten page of notebook paper indicated the date, three weeks prior.

"Will," it read.

"I'm writing this letter just in case something happens to me before I can talk to you in person, so if you're reading this letter, it probably means that I'm dead. I've been getting threats ever since I left the Titans, and while I can probably take whatever they throw at me, all it takes is one slip-up or an exceptional plan for them to get the advantage, and it's by no means certain that I would survive. I'm trusting that someone will find it if they go through my things.

I want to explain to you why I helped Sara to escape. Do you remember the story I told you on the roof that night after the orange juice incident, about my old life in St. Louis? I told you about two friends who saved my life when Elias first turned. Sara was one of those two. I knew her very well, from the age of thirteen, and I was assigned to teach her how to survive in the world in which we lived, where a life ending at her age was all too common.

She was always a terrible student because of her attitude. She lacked the instinct and the will to fight, even in self-defense. However, she was always a good friend to me. She seemed to be one of the few who I could really trust. I don't think I'll ever understand how she could have pulled a knife on anyone.

I helped Sara to escape because I believed that if she went to jail, her soft attitude would lead to her death. I never wanted for you to get hurt. I set out to save her life, and she nearly took yours. I'll never be able to make that right, and I'm sorry.

My life is different now, but no matter how it might have ended, I'm glad that I got the privelage to love you. I hope you can forgive me for what I did, but I can understand why you wouldn't, and I understand why you left. I only pray that what I've done won't keep you from trusting again, because you have such a capacity to love and I would hate to stand in the way of you being all that you can, whether as a Titan or as a man. Thank you for the time that we had.

Toujours et à Jamais,
Violet"

[/right][/blockquote]Aria had read it when she was trying to decide whether or not to tell him about Iris, and she said nothing as he read, not willing to look at him. It felt like intruding on something private, like a last conversation from beyond the grave, something that Aria wished had been said before it was too late. Perhaps things might have ended differently.[/blockquote]

[William Talbot]

Will nodded at Aria's assertions, knowing that Violet would feel that way, and in a way, he understood why, and even on some level agreed with it, but it did not change the fact, that Violet was now gone, and Iris was left with only one remaining blood relative, one parent left in the world and at the moment, the only real option Will could see was to step back from his hero work, at least until Iris was older and didn't need constant attention, which if he remembered right would be about seven or eight years old, when she would be able to start school in earnest.

In the mean time, he would need to pour out all he was into her, as he should have done for Violet, and while it might sooth his spurned conscience, it would never erase the mark that was there now...


And then Aria read the letter to him...



Eyes closed, Will sat there, like a stone, in utter silence for a good five or six minuets before he whispered; "Sara was an FBI Mole... They would have lost her in the system and she wouldn't have even darkened a Jail doorway, much less have spent time inside... She was gathering all that info, not because she was an info broker, but because she was trying to get enough dirt on the top gangs across America so the FBI and ATF could move in, and shut down their operations... But then Violet couldn't know that, I myself only found out a year ago..."

He sighed and then spoke a bit more firmly; "But that's neither here nor there, what the issue is, is that Violet is dead, and I know about Iris, and she needs all the love and care she can get, and I intend to see that she gets it..."

Looking out the window as tears started to slide down his cheeks, Will shook his head in pent up frustration; "God what a mess... What a stupid, crappy mess..."



And that is what triggered the detailed chain of thought that would lead to William's "Plan B"

[aria]

"What do you intend to do, then?" Aria asked, trying to push away the emotions threatening to overwhelm her temporary calm. "Establishing you as the father would be a simple matter of DNA testing, and once it was confirmed, you would have parental rights to her, but do you have the means to look after her?"

Aria had explored the option already, guessing that it would take this turn. Although Violet had entrusted Iris to her, Aria wouldn't hesitate to hand her over if Will decided he wanted to take over as her guardian. She was his child, after all, and Aria agreed with Will that she should be with her father, if it was at all possible. Even without powers, she would believe that, but with Iris's unusual abilities emerging, it was especially important that she be raised by someone who could help her to develop and control, and more importantly, understand her gifts. Aria simply had no idea how to deal with those things.

"There are some things you should know about Iris," Aria said after a moment of silence. "I don't know if they'll affect your decision or not, but it seems worth mentioning. Iris has her mother's abilities, and I would be willing to bet that she'll develop some of yours, too."

Poor kid never had a chance. Her parents were both powerful pyrokinetics, plus they had other assorted powers that set them apart from the rest. While that would make her very powerful one day, for now it just made her unpredictable, dangerous to herself and anyone else because she didn't have the judgment or maturity to control it yet. Most of the time, it wasn't a problem, but only Violet could've safely soothed her temper tantrums. During the full-moon, it was even worse. She seemed to be in a bad mood the entire week, and Violet had rarely let her out of her sight during those weeks, and hadn't let Aria close.

[William Talbot]

Will looked off for a moment, then back to Aria and spoke softly; "I intend to be her father, I intend to love her, with all I am, to teacher her everything I know, and then some, whatever it is I need, I'll get, whatever I have to learn, I will, whatever it takes, I will be there for her... I failed her mother Aria, and I will be dammed to hell and back if I fail Iris as well."


William was not going to make the same mistake twice, it was not a habit he was into, and now, with a little girl hanging in the balance, His little girl, he knew that he could not fail, it wasn't an option.

"My DNA is on file... We'll need to test Iris, as silly as that is, just to make sure everything is legal."
The thought that Violet might have moved on from him, and grown close to another man, had crossed his mind, but he had never truly put any stock in that notion, even when he had been at his lowest and had be his most upset with her, he had never been able to move on, and in his heart, he knew that Violet hadn't either, and so it was only logical, following that train of thought, to conclude that Iris was his daughter.


"Clearly, she's doing well with control right now, and isn't very powerful, or at least forceful, but it won't last, if she's showing powers this early, then she is taking after me, and as such, I need to start teaching her proper control as soon as possible, as the grace period won't last forever before her powers start to manifest wildly, and then, without me to stabilize her and teach, she will have all kinds of issues with her powers, and that kind of impact would be terrible for her and all around her."

Growing up, Will's powers had come out early, but they had been fairly weak, until he was about four years old, then they started to get stronger, and stronger, as fast as he grew, his powers grew as well, and if Iris was already showing powers like Violet or himself, then she might mature in her powers faster than either of them had...

That could be a HUGE problem.

[aria]

"So far, the only times that Violet ever had problems with Iris's powers was during the full-moon," Aria said. "She gets cranky and fussy, and occasionally things spontaneously combust, but Violet always had it under control. I don't know what I might've done when that rolled around. Violet always made sure that I stayed away from Iris at those times."

Aria sighed, knowing that she was out of her depth in this subject. Her own powers had manifested when she was nine, and if her powers were out of control, it generally meant that someone within hearing distance had hallucinations. Nobody had ever died from it. She couldn't imagine the burden of knowing that if she slipped up just once, let herself get too upset, that lives could be lost. It was a burden that both mother and father, and now Iris, shared.

"I don't know how fast your powers developed, but Violet said that her powers manifested when she was six, and within a year, they were powerful enough to level a two-story building," Aria pointed out. "If Iris takes after Violet in that way, she'll need you to protect her from herself."

She took a last sip of her coffee and stood, her eyes softening. In such a short time, everything in his life had changed so dramatically, but if Aria knew anything about life, she knew that change was one of the only things one could be sure of.

"In the meantime, do you want to come see her?" Aria offered. "My mother is watching her right now, and I'd rather that we didn't leave her for too long."