North American Vampire Council & Past Calling (Hypernaturals 12 & 13)

Everything We Have

"I brought you up here so we could talk." I assured them. "I misread your intent. I thought you both wanted to talk specifically to me, and this is the best place in the house to get alone time."

Like when Jessica was up here alone, not that long ago. That led to a crazy night at Ninovan. I imagined Sam and Ken being there and seeing Morgan mostly undressed, as was the uniform of that night. That is a thing they did not really ever need to know about. Morgan did it to be a team player, and to follow Jessica's lead, but I doubt she ever does that again. Morgan is both comfortable in her own skin and has a deep and abiding hatred of being objectified. I am not a fan either. As a male in a mostly female world, I get that all the time. I dread the next Conclave for that exact reason.

I pointed at the picture of Saturn. "I DID want to underline the thing about Laura. We do not make a big deal out of biological parentage around here but Laura is a special case. Morgan worries sometimes about the special challenges Laura brings to the family, what with her brainpower, and being on the spectrum. Morgan worries Laura is a burden. She is not. Just because Laura has special challenges does not make her less loved or any less a joy. Morgan knows that in her mind, but that is a classic mind knowing but the heart still catching up type of thing. Morgan will get down on herself sometimes. As if she is somehow responsible for Laura having a few special needs."

I sighed and studied the rings of the planet in the picture. "Laura is not special needs to me. Her every foible, from taking apart family heirlooms to only speaking when she has entire concepts to relate to asking really hard questions, are a delight to me. I love how her mind works. Different parents are different though and so for me, Rachel is the challenge, not Laura. Rachel is so deeply competitive. I do not connect to that as I hate competitions and find them stupid. I hate that I have a conceptual space like that with her and that it is so hard for me to bridge that gap."

Ken understood. "I can relate. I am not a sports person. I did the MS-150 to be with Morgan, not because I cared about my time to finish the ride. I was happy I finished. I was happier I was with Morgan."

"Exactly!" I said.

I looked around at the observatory. "I would build a hundred of these things to make sure Laura gets everything her thirsty mind needs, and at the same time, make sure she is grounded by love. The same way I will take Rachel to a sports event, even if I would rather be pretty much anywhere else. When she asks 'did you see me do that?' and I say 'yes' she lights up. I have no idea what she just did that was so good, but the fact I saw it counts. I am sure that, given her drive, Rachel will go far in this world. I worry she will leave behind a trail of bodies. For Laura, being grounded and socialized is important. My mom does that for my Dad. She is a well-known epidemiologist and has worked around the world on things like Ebola outbreaks. Mom is super smart. Mom came pre-grounded in reality though, and she is the one that keeps my dad's feet, if not ON the ground exactly, then near it."

"Laura does that for my Dad too, but differently." I walked over to the chalkboard and tapped one of the diagrams. A picture of light refraction. A discussion about how telescopes work. "Dad sees Laura's hunger for knowledge, and he wants to feed it. A super proud grandpa. Her young mind makes him think about how to talk about advanced topics in ways she can understand. Not to sound jealous, but he is better at that with her than he was with me. He could not dial it down enough for me, but for her, Dad tries harder. She is good for him too. Dad learning to talk to her makes Dad better able to talk to everyone about his passions. Science, in all its facets. Laura is special needs, but she is NOT a burden. She is the kind of little girl I would expect from someone with Morgan's mind. Morgan is scary smart too."

"You have a gift for understatement." Sam said. "She was always marching to the beat of her own drummer when we were partners. Drove me crazy, but most of the time, she was right. We would walk onto a crime scene and she would see things way before I did. Before the Crime Scene Unit people. She had a buddy on CSU that loved it when Morgan caught one of her cases because they could geek out about subtle clues. Look! This mark is from the murder! This other, nearly identical one? Nah. That happened last week and was from a crate rubbing against the tree. That kind of thing. I usually got there first, looked over the scene. Morgan lived farther away, down south. I lived in the precinct. Morgan would roll in, look around once, and be like 'Oh look, Sam, they dragged the body from here to here' and I would be going 'What?'. I looked over the scene already. Saw none of that. Morgan would show it, I would see it, and once again I was realizing sometimes around Morgan you just hang on for dear life. Follow her lead. Back her play. Be glad when I found a way to contribute."