Archive of Our Own

He never thought something would change his life like this.

It wasn’t expected; he wasn’t thinking. Kind of funny, because that’s his problem, isn’t it? He never thinks anything through. Never considers the consequences of anything until they’re staring him right in the face. 

Maybe it’s because most of them don’t matter after a while. Time passes—a week or two, maybe three at the most—and then it’s not such a big deal anymore. Just another moment in the past. It fades away into the background, lost to time, unimportant. 

This time, though, nothing can fade away. His repercussions of not thinking, well—they created a lot more for him than he could’ve ever imagined. 

But not in a bad way. 

~~~

Nothing was supposed to come of it. He’d gotten into a fight with Kobra and took the car to one of the seedy Zone clubs nearby to blow off some steam, nothing new. He’d grabbed a couple drinks, found someone looking for the same thing he was, hooked up with them, grabbed another drink on his way out, and drove back to his crew. 

And there was nothing else to it. 

Eleven and a half months passed, and for him, life didn’t change at all. He didn’t give a single thought to that one night nearly a year before. It happened and then it was over. That was supposed to be it. 

So about eleven months later, unaware of a colossal shift in the universe, he’s on his way back to that very same club. It’s a Thursday night, not too crowded, but cars and motorbikes are still scattered around the dirt patch that serves as a parking lot. He pulls the trans am into a spot beside the building and makes his way to the entrance, but he’s only halfway to the door before he hears someone calling his name. 

“Hey, aren’t you Poison?” 

It takes him by surprise, and he glances behind him at a person on a wooden bench beside the path. “Depends who’s asking.” 

But then he stops. In any other circumstance, he would’ve just given a curt nod and kept walking, but something about the familiarity of this person’s features makes him turn back. When he gets a better look at them, he realizes they’re holding some kind of bundle in their lap. An unidentifiable feeling tugs at his chest. 

“Hey,” they repeat, looking him up and down.

“Do I know you?” He scans their face briefly. Close-cropped teal hair, dark undereye shadows, an eyebrow ring. He’s seen them somewhere before, now he’s sure of it, but he can’t pinpoint the place. 

“Yeah,” they laugh, “you do.” But it’s not a mean laugh, more like a tired one. A laugh that matches up with the circles under their eyes. “Does the name River Riot bring anything back?” 

The name’s vaguely familiar to him. He sifts through a mental list of everyone he’s met in the past few months. Running missions, Zone events, store owners, suppliers. He can’t place this person, though, no matter how hard he tries, and they end up having to give him a few hints. 

“We were both here. Like a year ago. We fucked?” 

Yeah, that’s it. “Oh,” Poison says, but if that’s all, then he doesn’t understand why they felt the need to call him over or why it seems like they’re aiming for some sort of heartfelt reunion. There’s probably a hundred other people that could say the same, and this doesn’t seem to call for anything different. “Okay. Listen, if that’s all, then I’m g—” 

“It’s not all.” Suddenly, noises come from the bundle on their lap and Poison realizes it’s an infant, a squirming little newborn. He feels like he’s missing something here, but he’s not able to put two and two together. 

“Then why—” 

“Because this is your daughter.” 

Every atom that makes up his body goes numb in unison. Every nerve in his brain short-circuits. Every breath of oxygen in his lungs is expelled at once. 

“I don’t have a daughter,” he manages to get out. His tongue feels frozen and it’s a wonder he can speak at all. 

“Yeah, you do. Trust me.” 

A hurricane of thoughts is swirling through his head, a thousand tornadoes at once. Is it possible? He was probably drunk whenever he came here last. Those nights are always a blur. Maybe he wasn’t careful. 

It’s not impossible. 

He opens his eyes without realizing they were shut, and as he leans over and peers into the face of the baby that this person claims is his, his mouth forgets how to form words entirely. The baby yawns with its eyes closed and its fingers are curled in a loose fist. 

It’s so small. He can’t ever remember seeing something so tiny before, something so fragile, in his life. 

Little eyelashes. Little hands. Little fingernails. Little dimples. It’s so little. 

“It’s not mine,” he says again, but he doesn’t believe that as much as he wants to. The denial is pitiful—weak words hanging in the air. He can’t even convince himself. 

The way his knees are weak right now, it’s a wonder he’s still able to stand, and he’s surprised the shock of it hasn’t killed him yet. Maybe the final blow is still coming. 

“You’re lying,” he says finally, crossing his arms, forcing his shoulders back. “You’re lying.” 

“Swear on the stars I’m telling the truth,” they say. Poison can’t decide if that’s better or worse, because it sure would be fucked up to lie about something like this, but that way at least the news wouldn’t mean anything. 

But if they’re being honest… 

He can’t even wrap his head around it. 

Then the baby opens its eyes. They’re brown, deep. It blinks a few times and yawns again, then seems to stare at him, curious pupils focused only on his face. 

There’s nothing for him to say, and he just stares back as every last one of his doubts fizzle down into nothing, because those are his eyes. Carbon copies of his own, right down to the color. In that moment, he knows it.

It’s unsettling, looking at someone else and seeing yourself in them. Feels like taking a baseball bat to the chest. 

“What’s—what’s its name?” His voice has the razor-thin edge of a tremor to it as he speaks, something that rarely torments him. He has to look away. 

“Amelia,” they say, watching him carefully. “I picked Amelia.” 

Poison shoots an involuntary glance back down at the baby, a fluttery pang in his heart. As they lock eyes for a second time, he feels an emotion he’s never experienced before. Naming it is impossible and describing it is even harder, but it shatters everything he thought he knew into a thousand pieces and turns his entire world upside down. 

The baby’s soft cheeks squeeze into a smile and it reaches a chubby hand out. For him. 

That’s his breaking point, all of it rising into a crescendo that crashes into wreckage at his feet. “I’ve got to go,” he says, turning away without knowing where he’s heading, voice wavering like the final notes of some kind of sorry orchestra. “I have to go.” 

They don’t look surprised. “We come here every Thursday,” River says, drawing the baby closer to them. It’s not disappointment that’s on their face, nor bitterness—it’s more like they knew this is what he would do all along. Fulfilled expectations. “We’ll always be out here.” 

But Poison still stands there, mute, not trusting his voice any more than he does his mind. 

“You know,” they continue, looking at him carefully, “if you ever want to come and see her. Or talk about any of this at all.” 

He thinks he gives a quick nod, but he can’t be sure, because it feels like cotton is shoved in his ears and the world is rocking back and forth like a rusty playground seesaw. All he gives himself is one final glance at the infant, a last fleeting glimpse of his daughter, and then he’s retreating to the car. It’s all over. 

In the trans am, he fumbles the keys from his pocket and it takes three tries to get them into the ignition. His hands haven’t shaken this badly in a year, and when the engine finally rumbles to life, he slumps in the driver’s seat and leans his head against the headrest. 

What is he going to do? 

He can’t tell anybody. They’d tell him off for being irresponsible, or for being selfish, or for risking their safety by giving the enemy something else to use against them. The shame of it, too, admitting something that it seems no one could be proud about—he can’t do it. He can’t. 

His whole world’s been thrown into chaos, and there’s no fixing it. How the hell is he supposed to be able to deal with any of this? 

In that gravelled parking lot, half-moon on the rise, an unlit cigarette between his fingers, he makes a decision. He just won’t think about it. His final conclusion—pushing all thoughts of this night out of his head and forgetting about the conversation he just had and the baby he just saw—gives him an infinitely easier option than anything else he can come up with. 

Easier, not better. 

He sits in that goddamned parking lot for almost an hour before driving back to meet with his crew and pretending nothing is wrong. Nobody senses that anything’s off and he lets them believe that that’s exactly the case. For him, though, it’s all over. Now he’s merely an actor, playing the role of a character he used to be. One that doesn’t know the secret he does now. One that isn’t affected by anything and doesn’t have a care in the world. He won’t ever be the same. 

When he goes to bed that night, he doesn’t sleep at all. 

~~~

Over the next eight months, Poison’s a shadow of the past. He withdraws into himself for a good chunk of each day and rejects any form of intimacy, platonic or otherwise. A strange mix of guilt, sadness, and fear swirls around in his insides and keeps him awake at night, testing his resolve, and no matter how long he stares blankly at the dark ceiling, he still doesn’t know what to do. 

He swore he wouldn’t think about her, but she’s the only thing on his mind for hours at a time. 

Then one day his crew makes a stop at Dr. D’s, and Jet Star comes out with the girl. That horrible uneasiness inside of him finally has something to do; it solidifies into a hard knot of bitter anger that settles in the pit of his stomach. What that anger is directed towards, he’s not entirely sure. Maybe the fact that he’s been coerced into raising a kid when he already knew he wasn’t cut out for it. 

And not even his own. Someone else’s. 

Eventually, as time passes, he does grow fond of the girl. It takes a near-death experience for him to suck it up and figure it out, but they’re able to grow a relationship of mutual trust and love. Of course, through it all, the underlying feeling of shame never lessens. Shame towards the situation he’s inadvertently put himself in. Shame towards himself for not being brave enough to see his own daughter again. He doesn’t even know if she made it through the winter, as little as she was. Lots of young zonerunners don’t. 

It soon becomes that she never leaves his thoughts. At night, a picture of that smiling little face fills his head no matter how hard he tries to think of anything else. And during the day, when everyone teases him about being more distant than usual, he holds his comments in and just gives them a half-present nod. 

Sometimes the girl will pass him her drawings and he’ll take them, hands unsteady, eyes watering, unconsciously comparing every interaction with her to those of what he could have with his own child. She never notices, just beams with pride whenever he tucks them away for safekeeping in the front pocket of his jeans. Then she’ll stand on her tiptoes and wrap her arms around his waist, and he’ll lean down and hug her back, the whole time with a sorry splinter of resentment lingering in his heart. 

He knows he shouldn’t feel that bitterness towards her. It’s not her fault he’s too much of a coward to go see that baby again. That’s a problem for him and him alone, but he’s racked his brain and there’s no way any of this could be made right. She’s lost to him. His daughter, unreachable. 

His daughter. He never thought he’d think those two words in succession. “My daughter,” he whispers one day when he’s alone, just to see how the phrase feels on his tongue. It's strange, paradoxical. 

He never figures out how to feel. Numbness, void of any care in the world, always seems like a viable option, but he’s been like that before and he doesn’t want to fall back into that again. So the next best thing is to bottle everything up for months, tuck his fears and insecurities close to his chest and keep that mask of indifference from slipping off his face. It works. His crew is none the wiser. 

Until it becomes too much, one simple evening, and he tells Ghoul. 

Well, really, Ghoul pries it out of him, but it’s Poison’s mistake in a moment of weakness nonetheless. Lying there, knowing he’s doomed to stare up at the ceiling until the cold, dead hours of the morning, has his mental strength waning until it’s too late to do anything about it. 

“Hey,” Ghoul whispers, turning over to face him, “are you okay?” 

Poison waits too long to answer to be able to get away with this tormented charade any longer. “Yeah,” he says quietly, but such a simple word only makes known the glaring lie. 

A pause, then, “you can talk to me about anything, you know?” 

“I know.” 

The minutes crawl by as slowly as the slinking raindrops on the outside of their window, and Poison becomes well-acquainted with each crack in the ceiling and every hole in the wall. Both of them remain awake in the dark, and sick anticipation begins to build up in Poison’s chest the longer the silence stretches on. The quiet is maddening; he’s always thought so. 

The worst part is that it seems to get louder the more he has to hide. The rushing in his ears builds up and up and up and his heart is beating faster and faster through his ribcage like someone’s keeping frenzied time until—

“I have a daughter.”

Time slows down. Four life-changing words, and he’s set them free. No longer trapped in the confinements of his heart, they’re out there for anyone to know and anyone to judge. Poison sits up and holds his head in his hands. 

“You what?”

Incredulation. Poison can hear it, but it’s too late to take it back. He fights the urge to shut his eyes. “I have a daughter,” Poison repeats, and waits for the fallout.

But it doesn’t come. Ghoul just looks at him with patience in his eyes, patience he’s never deserved, and Poison knows he owes him the rest of the explanation. Conflicting emotions threaten to overtake him, though, and he pauses to strain for breath as the pressure of it starts sinking in on him. “I never—” he begins, grappling for courage, but doesn’t know how to go on. 

“It’s okay,” Ghoul says, sitting up now too, and he must be able to sense the struggle inside of Poison, because he’s as gentle as always. He puts a hand on Poison’s knee and the soft contact sends him over the edge. His first tears in a long time finally fall. 

It’s quiet; it’s too quiet. “Why are you crying?” asks Ghoul, but Poison can’t look at him. He can’t look at anything, and as he cries, eight-month-old shame comes pouring out with it. 

“I only got to see her once,” Poison sobs, and he hates that he’s breaking apart like this, shattering like glass, but he can’t help it. “She’s so small. She was three months old.” 

“What’s her name?” Ghoul asks, and Poison thinks it’s strange for that to be the first question in a million. Nothing about the circumstances, nothing about the timing. None of it, and Poison’s thankful. It’s what he needs, something simple, nothing else that’s going to dredge up more guilt. This is far more than enough already. 

“Amelia,” he says. It’s the first time he’s said it out loud in front of anyone else. 

“Does she look like you?”

“She has my eyes,” he admits through tears, and he doesn’t even fight it when Ghoul leans him back and draws his head to Ghoul’s chest. 

“She’ll be beautiful, then,” Ghoul says quietly, his hand in Poison’s hair. He feathers his fingers down the length of it and down to the nape of Poison’s neck. The touch is soothing, helps suppress everything running through his head. Ten minutes later, he’s relatively calmer and the world doesn’t look so hopeless anymore. 

Ghoul’s not mad at him, that’s one of the most important things. Poison’s not stupid and neither is Ghoul; both of them can do the math and figure out when she was conceived. And yet Ghoul doesn’t bring it up once. 

But that thought makes him realize just how much he’s missed, too. She’d be eleven months old now. Crawling, maybe walking. All the smiles, all the waves, all the nonsensical babbling babies always do. He’s missed it all, and he’ll miss more. 

“I wish I could see her again,” he whispers. 

“Where is she?” 

He explains, haltingly, and Ghoul listens with patience the whole  time. When he’s finished, he looks at Poison simply and asks, “Why don’t you just take the car and go?” 

Why not? whispers something inside of him. Why not just go? It’s the same question he’s asked himself dozens of times before. 

He’s scared. That’s the whole reason, as foolish as it may seem, but it’s the truth. Because what if he’s not good enough for her? What if he’s nothing but a sour disappointment of a parent? What if he just continues the cycle? What if he summons enough courage to see her but she cries when he walks up? What if he goes back to that wooden bench and they aren’t even there? Or worse, what if they are there but don’t want anything to do with him anymore? 

He can’t wound himself like that. Can’t destroy his pride and his heart in the same blow. It would ruin him. 

So he doesn’t answer, but he knows Ghoul has a good idea of what he’s thinking anyway. He always does; they don’t even have to make eye contact anymore. He can always see right through that flimsy front Poison puts up, no matter how hard Poison tries to hide behind it. “What if I go with you?” 

Poison closes his eyes. “You can’t.” 

“How come?” 

“I don’t want you to.” 

“But how come?” 

He presses his forehead against the soft fabric of Ghoul’s shirt and feels things he’s never wanted to feel tugging at his heartstrings. “Because what if I’m a shitty parent?” Words from long ago, uttered in a fight, but they stick with him even now. 

Ghoul sighs. “I didn’t mean that, Poison.” 

“But what if I am?” 

“You’re not. You won’t be.” 

“What if she doesn’t like me? What if she doesn’t remember me?” 

“She will.” 

“I don’t want her to hate me.” 

“She won’t,” comes the answer. Finality is strong in his voice, and Poison feels a hand ghost over the top of his head and sweep back his hair. “Hey,” Ghoul continues, “I’ll go with you next Thursday. Okay? We can go together. And if we get there and you don’t want to talk to them, we don’t have to. We can just get back in the car and leave.” 

Poison tries to inhale and it works this time, albeit with shuddering breath, and then swallows hard. Because what’s he got left to lose? Ghoul’s support means more than he could ever express. “Okay.” 

“Okay?” 

“Okay.” 

With the secret off his chest, he finds he can finally start to breathe evenly. He’s still worried about the Thursday visit, but it’s not his burden alone anymore. Sharing something so terrifying, knowing he’s not going to be stranded by himself in fear, is a weight lifted from his load. 

And, on top of everything, he’ll get to see her again. 

That night, he drifts off in Ghoul’s arms and sleeps without guilt for the first time in eight months. 

~~~

But when they get there, he starts to panic. 

The car pulls into the parking lot and he’s hit with a crushing sense of deja vu. “I can’t do this,” he says, hands gripping the steering wheel hard enough for the skin on his knuckles to stretch white. He looks at himself in the rearview mirror and he’s as pale as a ghost. 

“You can.” 

“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t—god, I—we need to go. Please. Come on, Ghoul. I can’t.” 

There’s a bag on the floor of the backseat with a bottle, a stuffed fox toy, a pack of diapers, some washcloths, and a tub of formula. Ghoul convinced him to bring it. Neither of them know the first thing about what babies need, but they managed to find a couple things that seemed like they’d work for an eleven-month-old. All in all, the small amount of supplies cost a hundred and twenty carbons, and Poison was short by more than a few dozen. He’d had to promise to run three deliveries for one of the store owners before she’d let him buy everything.

“We brought this stuff, Poison. We’ve got to at least give it to them. There’s no point in wasting it.” 

It suddenly dawns on him that Ghoul had to have planned on him bowing out and made him bring the bag as an excuse not to leave. Damn him. 

But he’s right. 

So, after he breathes deep, Poison works up the balls to drag himself out of the car. Ghoul scrambles out of the passenger seat with the bag in hand and Poison tries to ready himself. Calm expression. Steady hands. 

His feet are cement as he walks around the building, shoulders and chin tilted down. He’s letting everyone in a twenty-mile radius see him without all of his composure, but that can’t be helped now. There’s too much on the line to think about anything else. Ghoul follows him but lingers a few footsteps behind, and his presence is one of the only things keeping Poison from turning around and bolting straight back to the trans am. 

He sees River Riot first. They’re sitting in the exact same spot as they were last time, backlit by the flickering neon signs next to the club’s entrance, sitting on the same weathered bench as before. Their hair’s grown down past their ears since he saw them last, but they look the same otherwise. 

There’s one big difference, though. This time, they don’t have a bundled infant with them like before. Now, eight months later, they’ve got a chubby little almost-toddler balanced on their knee, the baby giggling as they bounce it up and down. 

They look up at him and go still as he approaches. The baby fusses and River says, “you came back.” 

“Yeah.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and tries not to show the whirlwind of emotions swirling around in his chest. 

“I didn’t think you would. After I told you and you just left.” 

“Yeah, well, I changed my mind.” He gazes at the ground and prays the group of young killjoys sauntering past into the building don’t recognize him. 

“Who’d you bring with you?” they ask when silence falls, nodding toward Ghoul. 

Poison doesn’t even have time to open his mouth to answer before Ghoul’s stepping forward with the widest smile Poison’s ever seen splitting his face in two. “Ghoul,” he says, reaching to shake their hand. 

“River Riot.” 

“Cool name. I like the alliteration.” 

“Thanks.” They huff a laugh. “This is Amelia. Hey, baby, can you say hi?” they pick up her hand and guide it gently into a wave. “Say, ‘hi, Ghoul.’”

Poison watches Ghoul wave back. A trillion different feelings rise up in his throat at the same time and he doesn’t even know how to react until he gets beckoned closer. “You gonna say hi to her too, or just stare?” Ghoul teases, bumping Poison’s arm with his elbow. 

Poison approaches. He doesn’t know if he can curve his mouth up in a smile without his lip quivering, so he just stays stony-faced and hopes that she knows he’d be smiling if he could. “Hey, Amelia.” His voice is unsteady. 

She smiles at the sound of her name and babbles gibberish at him. A little hand with stubby fingers reaches up, and he isn’t sure if he should reciprocate or not. 

“She likes your hair,” River Riot says, saving him. 

He’s finally able to attempt a smile, and it works, quivering. “You like it?” he asks softly, focused on her little face and how attentive her eyes are when he talks. “I like yours, too.” 

She grins up at him and his heart thumps harder. 

“You wanna hold her?” her other parent asks, and he freezes. 

“I haven’t…” He looks to Ghoul for rescue. He’s never held a baby. Doesn’t know how. Never figured he’d have to. 

“I’ll hold her,” Ghoul offers as Poison makes eye contact with him, and he hands the bag over before sitting on the bench next to River. Amelia gets transferred onto his lap, and he holds her up so she can stand on his legs. “Hey, girlie,” he grins. “You wanna bounce?” 

Poison’s still standing, watching the two of them interact. “Isn’t this fun?” Ghoul coos. He lifts her high in the air and she giggles. “Yeah, I know, right? And look at your little shoes; I love the sparkles. Good choice.” He’s talking to her like she could answer. Like this is an ordinary conversation with any grown person, and from the smile on her face and the way she keeps laughing, she loves it. 

Poison watches her respond to everything he says in that baby babble of hers, and he wonders how Ghoul can do all of this so easily. He feels pressure building in his throat and in his tear ducts, too, but forces it down. 

“You know, he told me about you,” Ghoul tells her, and she looks right at him. “And you’re just as special as he said.” 

Her eyes widen like she understands, and she reaches out and grabs his face. He ducks away just in time and laughs. “No, I’m gonna get you,” he says, and taps her right on the nose. She shrieks with laughter and twists in his arms. 

Her other parent smiles. 

And just like that, Poison’s feet move of their own accord and he ends up beside Ghoul on the bench, leaving the bag on the ground. Ghoul senses his hesitancy and checks in with him before handing the baby over. “Are you good?” he whispers, and Poison takes a deep breath. 

“Yeah.” 

And then, after months of waiting, his baby is finally in his arms. 

He doesn’t know what to do. He holds her awkwardly at first, his arms almost straight out in front of him as he lets her feet rest on his lap. It doesn’t feel natural, not like how Ghoul made it look a minute ago, and he’s so afraid of doing something wrong that he doesn’t want to move. 

She looks at him with a frown, more serious than he’s seen her before. He nearly laughs at the hilarity of being judged by a baby, but suppresses it when he sees how hard she’s concentrating on his face. It’s almost like they’re having a staring contest. He realizes that this is the first time she’s seen him close up. 

“Hey, baby girl,” he whispers. 

Her face breaks into another smile and she gurgles at him. He looks at her and just barely begins to comprehend that this child—this baby standing on his lap—is half his. 

She’s half made of him. Someone that shares part of his DNA. He never thought that’d ever happen. 

But here she is. 

With a smile, she tries to lean down and grab at the zipper on his jacket, but her little hands can’t quite grasp it. She makes sounds of indignity until River Riot reaches over to hand her a ratty stuffed giraffe, the front legs of which she promptly sticks in her mouth. 

Poison barely knows how to process any of this. His hands are shaking so bad that he’s afraid he might let go and drop her, so he sits her on his lap and wraps his arm around her tiny form instead. This way he can keep her secure without worrying she’ll fall. 

She coos, squirms around in his grasp, drops her toy, and tries to twist so she can touch his face. He feels tears start to rise and he turns her around so they can look at each other again. She says something unintelligible, but he almost wants to believe she’s trying to say his name. 

“Can you say ‘Poison,’ baby?” he whispers. “Say ‘Poison.’” 

“Puh!” she says, and that’s good enough for him. 

“You’re my baby girl,” he tells her quietly, stroking the top of her head, and it’s like everyone and everything has faded into the background. Nothing else is important to him; the state of the universe doesn’t matter for as long as the two of them are together. “You know that?” 

She gurgles and smiles at him. He’d give up everything in the world to keep her smiling like that. 

“Love you, sweetheart. I love you so much.” 

In that moment, he’s oblivious to everything else. He doesn’t register the stares Ghoul is giving him, the way River Riot is gazing at their baby’s happy face, the noises of the club and the lights flashing behind him, the howls of faraway animals in the dark. The only things in the desert are him and his daughter and he doesn’t think he needs anything else for the rest of eternity. 

Her tiny little fingers reach for his face and brush across his mouth and nose. He takes them in his hand, and they’re so soft in comparison to his big, rough ones. The innocence of it all makes his heart soar. He knows this moment is the only thing he’ll be able to think of for ages and he never wants it to end. These minutes, holding his baby in his arms, the world giving him a break for once in his life—he’s cherishing them like he’s never cherished anything before. 

“She looks like you,” Ghoul says quietly. “Looks just like you. I see it now. Even her hair, look. It’s the same as yours.” 

Poison fluffs her hair and watches her eyes widen as he does. It’s dark brown, just one shade shy of being a rich black like Kobra’s. Instead, it’s the same exact color as his. 

Somehow, though, she’s got loose curls in the mix, too. Nobody in his family had curly hair; River doesn’t have it either. He wonders where it came from. 

She sees him thinking and grasps at his face, poking him in the cheek. He’s taken aback, and when he raises his eyebrows at her, she starts to giggle. He knows he’ll never forget that sound. 

“I’m looking at your hair,” he tells her, smiling. “I’m paying attention to you, I promise.” 

Her hair, full of those dark baby curls, is much softer than his. As he gently runs his palm over the back of her head, she stares up at him with adoration in her eyes, and it makes him feel so many things at once that he can barely handle it. The tears that he’s barely managing to hold back start threatening to spill over, but he can’t even explain why he’s getting so emotional. 

Maybe it’s just the mere simplicity of having, in his own two hands, something he took part in creating. 

Everything he’s spent so long building up—a solemn reputation, buried emotions—it’s all about to come crashing down in front of Ghoul, a near-stranger, and a baby. And the weirdest part of it is that he doesn’t even care. He’s so overwhelmed that a simple gust of wind could knock the whole wall down. And it does. In fact, it was nothing but brick and mortar in a pile on the ground the moment he held her in his arms. 

It changes everything he’s ever known and loved, and he knows things will never, ever be the same in any area of his life. And he’s okay with that. 

He rocks his baby back and forth for the next twenty minutes as she starts to settle down, her eyelids starting to droop as she fights off sleep. Everyone stays quiet as they gaze at her, and she loses, in the end. Soon Poison’s got a sleeping eleven-month-old nestled in the crook of his arm. 

“She never does that,” River Riot says, awe in their voice. Poison’s afraid to breathe for fear of startling her back into wakefulness. “She won’t fall asleep if anyone else is holding her. Not even my crew.” 

“She trusts you,” Ghoul whispers, and Poison feels his face start to grow hot. With pride, maybe, or with happiness. Or love. 

Maybe all three. 

She’s warm in his arms. Heavier than he thought a baby would be. She doesn’t fuss in her sleep, either; she’s completely calm and looks content with dreaming away in his embrace. 

People file in and out of the club behind them, some groups louder than others, but it must be nothing to her, because she dozes right through it. Eventually, Poison nudges Ghoul to hand the now-forgotten bag of supplies over to River Riot. 

“We brought these for you,” he says quietly. “We didn’t know what to get, but, uh, hopefully you can use them.” 

They dig around in the bag and look up in wonder after they sort through the contents. “Oh, my god,” they say, eyes shining, “How the fuck did you find this? Thank you so much, god. And the diapers; we needed some so bad. This is so much help; my crew can barely afford stuff for her and I feel so bad but—god, thank you. Thank you.” 

Poison never thought one bag could mean so much to a person, but it seems he was wrong. 

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s no problem. Don’t worry about it.” 

“This is going to help so much,” they say, shaking their head in awe. If Poison had known the impact of one gift, he would’ve brought it a long time ago. 

That reminds him of something he needs to clear up. “Listen,” he says haltingly, “I didn’t mean to leave so suddenly. Last time.” 

“But you did,” they point out, not in a confrontational way. It’s just the truth. 

“But I did,” he echoes. 

Ghoul rises. “I’m gonna go back to the car,” he says. To let you two talk about this alone is implied. Poison nods, and before Ghoul leaves, he leans down and presses a kiss to the top of Amelia’s soft head. “I’ll see you later.” With a wave towards River Riot, he sets off towards the trans am, and then it’s just the two of them and a baby. 

“But, uh, like I was saying,” he continues, the words not coming easily to him, “I didn’t leave because I didn’t care. I just… I didn’t know how to deal with it.” 

“You think I knew how to deal with it when I found out I was gonna have her?” 

No, and they’re right. Poison sighs and looks down, tucking a strand of hair behind Amelia’s ear. “I know. I was just—I couldn’t handle the news. It wasn’t something I was expecting.” 

He feel bad about saying it, because for a long time, he didn’t have to deal with any of the repercussions of that night. They did, and they didn’t have much of a choice about it, either. He barely knows River Riot, but he admires them beyond words for staying so resilient through it all. If he had been in their situation, he doesn’t think he could’ve done it. 

“I didn’t think we would ever see you again,” they simply say in response. “Thought I was gonna have to tell her that I was all she had. Still might, if you take off again.” 

Poison looks down at his baby and knows in his heart that that’ll never be an option. 

“I won’t.” 

“We’ll see.” 

He changes the subject. “How did you know I was coming?” 

“I didn’t. My crewmate DJs here for extra cash and we’ve only got one car, so the rest of the gang’s inside. I used to go hang out with them too—you know that—but not anymore. Not with Amelia. But both of us sit out here together now, and that day I just happened to see you walk by. And I thought you should know about her.” 

Poison wonders how different everything would be if they had never beckoned him over. Extraordinarily different, probably. But now that he’s experienced this, these precious moments, he can’t imagine life being any other way. 

“How’d you pick her name? Why Amelia?” 

“It was my grandmother’s.” 

“It’s nice.” 

“Thanks.” 

“Does she have a second one?” 

They shake their head. “I wanted her to be able to pick when she’s older. I got to pick my name; I wanted her to have the same choice.” 

“I wonder what she’ll pick.” 

“Me too.” 

They fall silent as the music from the club amp up and strobe lights flash through the busted windows behind them. A soft sigh comes from the baby in his arms and Poison looks down, started, sure she’s awake again. But she still looks fast asleep. 

The confusion is written all over his face. River Riot laughs. “She does that sometimes. But at least she doesn’t snore,” they grin. 

Poison’s struck suddenly with the thought of just how much he’s missed. All the things he doesn’t know about babies and all the things he never will. Every little ounce of her weighs heavy in his arms and his heart. 

“Hey,” he says quietly, not looking at them, “I know that, uh—we barely know each other. But do you think that… do you think there’s a way I could keep seeing her? I don’t want”—and this is where he has to stop and grasp for composure—“her to think I just… left. I want to be part of her life.” 

“Yeah,” they answer him. “Yeah. I mean, like, you’re her parent, too. I want her to grow up knowing both of us. I’m not saying you have to, but you could, like, drive over to our Zone every once in a while and spend the day with her. You know?” 

That’s more than he could’ve ever hoped for. His soul swells up and sings. “Thank you,” he says, and he has to swallow hard to keep his emotions in check. “Thank you.” 

So they exchange frequencies and plan for him to see her again in a few weeks. He thinks that maybe he’ll bring Jet and Kobra with him next time, too, if he can work up the courage to tell them. He’ll be able to get a lot more off his chest if he can. 

Amelia starts to wake up as the music behind him thumps through the walls harder than earlier. Her eyes blink open and the first thing she sees is Poison, looking down on her with nothing but love. She stretches, little fists flying out. The two of them have another wide-eyed staring contest before she gets fussy and starts reaching out for River Riot. 

“I should probably go,” he says, hating the words even as he says them, and he hands her back over. She clings to River and nestles her cheek against their shoulder, and for him, it’s a bittersweet scene. “I guess this is goodbye.” 

“But only for now,” they say, looking at him closely. He knows they sense exactly what he’s thinking. 

“But only for now,” he agrees, then kisses his baby on the cheek and walks back to the trans am with his hands shoved deep in pockets. Just before he’s about to stoop down and slide into the driver’s seat, he stops and turns around for a final look. 

River is standing up now, still beside the bench, Amelia saddled on their left hip. They wave goodbye and he can tell Amelia’s watching him, one thumb in her mouth. He waves back, knows he’ll be thinking of this past hour for days, and then ducks down into the car. 

The relief is immense. His whole body feels light, and though he’d never admit it, he almost feels like he’s glowing with love. Full to the brim with it. Love for that baby of his, a deeper type of love than he’s ever felt before. Ghoul keeps glancing at him funny when they get back on the main road, and when he asks why, Ghoul tells him to look in the mirror. 

It’s because he can’t stop smiling. 

~~~

He’s never really the same after that first visit. He’s mellowed out a little bit, just a fraction. Enough to make a difference. 

Holding your baby will do that to you. 

He goes to see her as often as he can and doesn’t let more than a month and a half pass without at least one visit. Sometimes Ghoul comes, sometimes Poison goes alone. Eventually, he does manage to tell Kobra, and then Jet soon after. They’re both shocked, rightfully so, but they fall in love with her the instant they both lay eyes on her. Same as he did. 

He never does quite manage to sum up the resolve to tell the girl about his daughter, or vice versa. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t want it to seem like either of them are less important or for them to feel like they have to compete with each other. It’s like he’s living two different lives, split into two, but he has a little girl that he cherishes in each of them. 

He gets to see his daughter grow from a precious one-year-old to a sweet, bubbly three-year-old, and he sees the girl transform from a shy five-year-old to a confident little seven-year-old. He’s sorry for all the years he missed out on, but would never give up the ones he was able to be a part of for anything in the entire universe. 

The day he loses the girl—the day she gets ripped out of their arms and stolen back by BLi—a piece of him goes missing. It won’t come back, not until he’ll kneel down on the floor of the scarecrow surveillance office and she’ll run straight into his embrace. She’ll bury her face in his shoulder and he’ll let himself feel relief for three seconds before he’ll force himself to harden his heart again. He may be able to rescue one girl, but he’ll know by that point that he’ll never see the other one again. 

He swore he’d never tell anyone besides his crew about his daughter. The less people who know of her existence, the less people who could use it as a tool against him or against her. It’s safer this way, for both of them, and for River too. 

But, by necessity, he makes one exception to this rule, and he does it the night before he dies. 

It’ll be the girl’s seventh birthday in two weeks. By now he knows deep in his heart that he won’t be alive for it, so he makes her a card instead. He stops and starts twelve times before the right words come to him and he says all he can say without leaving the paper tear-stained. His handwriting is small, cramped, and slants at an ugly angle down the right side of the card, and he misspells several words and has to scratch them out and try again, but it’s still something. He seals it with his signature and lays it to the side. 

Then he pulls out a sheet of paper and writes a letter to his daughter. 

“Amelia,” it begins. “I know that by the time you can read this, you probably won’t remember me.

You won’t remember my voice or my face, and that’s okay, because right now you’re only three and a half. You’re little; both of your hands fit in one of mine and your hair barely comes down past your chin and your little fingernails are the tiniest things I’ve ever seen. Your smile is big enough for both of us and I’ll never forget the way it sounds when you laugh. And god, your grin could light up the whole desert. 

I’m writing this for you now because I know I’m not going to make it past tomorrow. I wish I had more time to spend with you. I wish I had more time to watch you grow up into a young person that I know I would be proud of. But I don’t. I’m leaving tomorrow morning and I know I won’t be able to see you before then. 

I’m sorry. I wish it didn’t have to be this way. 

I hope you do remember me. Ask River, if you have to. They can tell you what they know. I hope you still have them with you. They love you a lot. 

I want you to know I love you beyond words. You mean everything to me and I’m so sorry I can’t be with you after this. I know you’re going to do great things, and I hope I can hear about them one day. 

Be good for River and the crew. Don’t let the world get you down. 

Promise me one thing. Keep this letter with you. In your pocket or your backpack or wherever. It doesn’t matter where. Just keep it so I can be close to you. 

You’re the light of my life, baby. I love you so much. 

- Poison.”

It’s a good thing he stops writing there, because it gets hard to see through tears. 

Eventually he gets over himself, seals it, writes “to Amelia” on the front, and, along with the girl’s card, delivers it to Dr. Death-Defying. After the rest of his crew says their goodbyes, he lingers inside for a moment longer and explains everything. He hands the radio operator the envelopes and makes him swear to look after both children. 

Dr. D solemnly promises. 

Poison has one more request that night. Before he leaves, he has Dr. D snap two polaroids of him in the same pose with the same half-smile in the same lighting with the same desert background. On the back of one, he writes his name and the date and his daughter’s name, and on the back of the other, he writes his name and the date and the girl’s name. 

He gives those to Dr. D, shakes his hand one final time, thanks him for everything he’s done for the crew, and walks outside. 

And so he holds his head high as he walks down the hallways of scarecrow. In his final moments, shoved against the wall with the cold, stinging metal of a gun barrel held fast underneath his chin, he does two things. He looks at each of his crewmates first, commits their images to mind—the three people that meant more to him than he could ever explain—and then he holds the pictures of his girls in his mind. 

So they’re the very last things he sees before the world turns black for the rest of his eternity. 

Even when he’s long gone, the girl never forgets him. One day, she realizes his photograph is missing, and try as she might to remember his face, it fades from her mind. She sobs long and hard about that, struck with the guilt of losing one of his last presents, but then she realizes he’s still with her, in a way. He’ll always be with her—in her mannerisms, her accent, her sense of humor, and eventually, in her sketches. 

She sketches him the most. 

And his daughter Amelia only remembers fragments, just like he knew she would. She remembers his smile—the fragility of it, its rareness. How happy it made her to see it. She holds on to that memory for the rest of her life. 

That letter stays in her pocket. The paper grows yellow and the ink fades with time and the corners rip and her tears stain the front, but she keeps it with her, just like he asked. Years ago, her other parent gave her a photograph of him, too. Said some DJ gave it to them with the letter. She takes it and stares at it for a long, long time. He’s looking straight at the camera, hands in his pockets, a half-smirk twisting his mouth, his hair hanging in front of his eyes. 

Those eyes. She can see herself in those eyes. 

Sometimes, when she’s sad, she pulls his picture out. It’s like he’s there with her, in a way. It’s comforting, having a part of him near, and those two ghosts of him remain by her side for as long as she lives. 

It’s in ways like those that Poison’s never really gone. Pieces of his soul still remain in the Zones. His features, his likeness, his DNA—they live on through Amelia. And his mannerisms, his speech, his favorite songs—they live on through the girl. 

Poison will always have ties to the desert he called his home, immortalized in the two girls he loved most. It’s only natural, after all, for them to keep his memory alive. So they do. 

And he looks down on them from the stars and smiles.