oh mary i'm not coming home too soon

Victor absently massages right above her knee, around one of the points where the brace presses into her leg leaving permanent bruises on her body. It has to be tight, though. If it isn't tight, it doesn't work. She basically wears them all the time now, except when she has to go out on her world, then it's just a cane, because the braces are too recognizable. Well-oiled, shining and brass, a little bulky but still beautiful. The media assumes they're to make her stronger, not to keep her functioning. To make her more meta, not to let her get around. They don't realize she can hardly walk without them anymore.

Cole keeps her on top of her physical therapy, even though she hates it. And she's more active than ever now that Giddy is running and... she thought being a superhero was hard. Potty training makes patrolling seem like a breeze.

Except for right now. Except for this killer. The papers don't even have a name for this guy (or girl, but statistically more likely a guy), because he doesn't stick to any recognizable pattern. All genders, ethnicities, ages, manners of death. No similarities to tie the victims together. Some abducted from their homes. One from the park. One from their work. No one saw anything. He's like a ghost. He doesn't showboat or write notes or brag or leave clues, so it took months for the police to even work out that it was the same killer. Actually, it was finally the lack of all clues that became his signature. Everyone messes up, leaves evidence, a trail. Except him. Public terror has gotten so bad that Doc and Surge are openly working with the police, instead of quiet, shady meetings in back rooms.

And nothing. Solving a murder like this isn't like the procedural cop shows. You can't put evidence in a mass spectrometer and get a magic answer. You can't look at bug larvae in the treads of the shoes to find the location of the murder; newsflash, bugs have legs and wings, they move around. No holographic computer displays, floating touch screens, universal fingerprint database (not that he ever leaves any fingerprints). Old equipment that's at least ten years out of date, sometimes more.

There's nothing to do but wait for another body to drop. So when she gets the call from the morgue, she calls Clark and suits up. This has to end now.

When Vic gets the call, she knows she shouldn't be nearly so excited. This call means that there's a chance that people are dead, and almost certainly people are hurt. So her joy at having a case to work is tempered with guilt for feeling happy... though, she tells herself that people would be hurt whether or not she got the call, and she'd be happy even if her favorite ghost hunters were just calling her to get coffee. And she even thinks that might be the truth, that she'd be happy with just coffee. She hopes that's the truth.

After quickly rescheduling her father/son movie night, she gears up, with Jude arguing all the while. ("But, dad, we planned this. Dad, it's Guardians. There's a raccoon! He talks!" And from Victor, a quick, "I'm sorry, I'll make it up to you, we'll do an Avengers double-feature." "What about Wolverine?" "I hate that movie." "So do I. But I know that you hate it more." "Well played. Good form. I'd watch Wolverine a hundred times if it meant you forgive me!")

"I love you, kid. You listen to Cole, yeah?" She presses a kiss to his forehead and PINs to Ed's place.

Between work, preparing for the new baby, being a dad, more work, work work work, and writing Batman fanfiction (a hero's got to get her kicks somewhere) Victor hasn't had much time for anything else.

She's never thrown a proper baby shower, so she's really glad for April's help. Though, it's not quite a proper baby shower.

Her apartment is draped with color, forget pastel blues and pinks and yellows that look like a marshmallow Peep's intestines. Brilliant, bright turquoise, green that looks like it was snatched off of a jungle plant, gold baubles hanging from the light fixtures.

Forgot to mention, the lights are off and the guests are crouching down behind the couch, huddled in the kitchen, shuffled behind lamps and curtains.

Are they under attack? Stay tuned to find out.

"No, I rather don't think the TARDIS can do the happy birthday song while materializing," the Doctor says, sounding cross. "Well, she could, but it would be undignified. Well, not undignified, just sad. It would fill my hearts with melancholy."

"We wouldn't want that," Victor says.

And that's how, on the twenty-second of January, the TARDIS materialized in the middle of Ed's apartment (narrowly missing the coffee table), not playing happy birthday.

Victor is so far having a lovely day. She had breakfast with her girls and Jude, even if it was only on skype, and she was eating mushy scrambled hospital eggs.

She's sewing now, a teddy bear for the new Kent baby. She still can't use her arm well, so that's by her side, and she's careful not to lift it, just using her fingers, her wrist. She's adept at adapting.

So far, the teddy bear definitely has a red cape. She's whistling.

The girls are two and a half, officially, and darling little monsters, toddle-running around the apartment and trying to tackle their dad, who lifts them up, spins them around, and deposits them on the couch, just like an assembly line. Jude makes as though to rush Vic for the same treatment and she covers her face, cowers a little, and says, "No, no, you're too heavy!"

Jude laughs, gives her a big hug, wrapping lanky arms around her shoulders. "I wasn't really gonna do it."

The girls start chorusing, "Too heavy!" at Jude, though they stop when Victor sweeps Anya up onto her hip, and Athena floats up a little so she can have the other hip without Vic having to bend.

Vic is wearing the felt tie all three kids made her for father's day. It is yellow and wide, it has green stripes, and spots of blue and red and silver glitter.

Vic's been spending time on the spa planet, not to do spa things, but to spend time barefoot with the birds people, to meditate, and try to be less miserable.

But everytime she sees one of the little feathered kids, with their round healthy bellies, she can't help thinking about a few nights ago, the rescue mission, what was on the floor.

She's been spending a lot of time helping them garden the greens and harvest the rocks that give them the calcium that they need. But she needs another perspective, needs to get out of her head.

So she invited a military man over, someone who might know what she's going through. She doesn't want to burden Cole, Clark's been through enough, and she's sure James wouldn't even know what to say to her.

Most of the swelling has gone out of her face, now there's just a purplish bluish blotch on her right cheek. She waits.

DEAR COLE,

YOUR SON GOT A PUPPY and I know technically he's not your son but when he does things like this I am going to blame you forever so get used to it.

He pulled a Ray Stantz when he was asked to wish for ice cream and he wished for a puppy instead.

A PUPPY.



A PUPPY!

A PUPPY!

"How're you feeling, sweetie?" Victor is talking to her phone. Not that she thinks her phone is a sweetie, but she's talking to a voice on her phone, and it is on speaker. She is in a field, sprawled on her stomach on an ugly mustard-colored blanket.

"Good! I finished a few logic puzzles, and spent some time playing with my sisters on the computer. Anya is hilarious when you play peekaboo. 'Thena had me read stories over and over." It's a young voice, male, exuberent, and Vic's smiling this big proud smile and sipping at her coffee through a straw.

"I'm glad," she says. "Guess what Friday's gonna be?"

"Is it my birthday?"

"Absolutely. You nervous?"

"No way! This is going to rock!"

Twenty-three today.