Les left his wife in the living room and went into the entryway. He placed his gloved hand on the doorknob. This was it; this was the test. If the design for the suit was satisfactory, if it'd been constructed well, if he hadn't missed anything in putting it on, he'd step out into the sunlight and make his way over to the hospital unchanged. If he didn't...well, he'd have to hope that that didn't happen. For now, just open the door. Turn the knob, open the door, and...
Turn the knob, open the door...
Turn the knob...
...
It wasn't that his hand was suddenly refusing to obey his mind; it wasn't even that his subconscious was refusing to pay any attention to his conscious mind. Rather, it was that he just couldn't muster the willpower to even intend to open the door. No matter how much that was his stated course of action, he couldn't get himself to want to do it. He didn't even feel afraid of doing it, it was just...the whole notion simply refused to move from theoretical possibility to anything like intent. He stood there in front of the door, hand raised just slightly from his side, failing to open the door.
"Honey?" came his wife's voice. "You okay?"
He stared at the door for a moment. "I...I can't..." he said, his voice cracking. "I...can't do it." He hung his head.
Abigail came into the entryway and wrapped her arms around him from behind. He could feel her belly pressing into his back, through the suit. "Aw, Les," she said. "It's okay. You don't have to go in the daytime, you know. He'll be up and around in the evening." She laid her head on his shoulder. "And don't sound so broken up over it," she said.
He sighed. "But...I..." After the trouble he'd gone to in pursuit of solutions like this, he couldn't even be confident enough to put himself on the line...
His wife shook her head and began to remove the suit from him, pulling the mask off and turning his head so he could look her in the eye. "Don't think of yourself like that, Les," she said. "I mean it. You're not one of the daring young bucks anymore, you know. You're a husband and father of three; you have every reason to be looking after yourself and none whatsoever to feel ashamed of it."
She helped him get the rest of it off and led him back into the living room, where he sank limply into the couch. He sighed. "Abby, I thought you were the one who was talking about just exposing yourself and getting it over with..."
She nodded. "Yes, dear. But you'll note that I haven't. That's not just because I don't want to worry you, you know - your concern about the baby is valid, as far as we know. And both of us have reason to be concerned about what we'd become even if it weren't for the baby. Say the worst happened, and you experienced a change like Lilly's. It's not the end of the world for her, because she only has herself to worry about. But you're her daddy, and Stacy's, and the baby's, and you're my husband, and you're the lab director and the lynchpin of most of the Sun research. What would happen to all of that if you couldn't fill those roles anymore?"
Les stared up at the ceiling. "I thought I was the one who did the worrying about that..."
Abby smiled. "For the most part you are. But they are valid concerns, even if I think you let them get to you too much."
He shrugged. "I know...I just...I feel like..."
She leaned over and stared him right in the eye. "Self-preservation isn't cowardice, Les," she said. "'Fools rush in,' and all that. Exercising a sensible degree of caution and good judgement is nothing to be ashamed of. I believe you'll figure something out, honey, but it doesn't have to be today. We have all the time in the world; there's no need to rush."
Les looked back at his wife for a moment, then smiled slightly. "I suppose," he said. "Thanks, Abby."
The three children went a little further afield. Lilly kept casting sidelong glances back at Bruce, expecting him to try something when she wasn't looking, but for the moment it seemed like he was behaving himself. They stopped atop a little hill in the middle of a meadow; Lilly looked around, then turned to Hannah. "'kay," she said, "this looks like a good spot."
The harpy-girl frowned. "What for?"
"For you t' fly from!" the squirrel-girl said, smiling. "Um, I think so, anyway. 'Cause it's higher up."
"It's not that high," Bruce observed. Lilly shot him a look. Okay, it wasn't, but it was something. Maybe it'd be easier for Hannah to take off if she was already kind of up? She didn't know, she hadn't known that much about flying to begin with, let alone how a harpy was supposed to do it.
Hannah shrunk back a bit and began trying to evade Lilly's gaze, twiddling her wingtips as if she still had hands to wring. "I, um...I don't wanna," she said meekly.
Lilly scoffed. "Nuh uh! I saw you watchin' the dinosaur lady! You weren't foolin' anybody!"
"But...wh-what if I fall?"
Lilly thought, then shook her head. "I don' think you will! You're made for flyin', right? I didn't hafta learn how to climb trees!" She was wrapped up enough in Hannah's problems that she only half noticed how she was identifying as a squirrel there... "Now c'mon!" she said, grabbing the other girl's wings and pulling them out.
Hannah protested a bit, but Lilly wasn't too rough, and it really did feel good to stretch her wings after keeping them tucked in for so long. She lifted them high, stretching out fully, then brought them down to her side. Up, then down. Up, then down...gently, smoothly. It was a motion that felt...natural...to her...
She held her wings partly raised and extended, where they felt like they rested comfortably when they weren't closer to her body. She looked at the meadow...the hill didn't look that high to her. Maybe heights just didn't look so bad now? But what if she got up high, and then she got scared? What could she do then? But...if Lilly was right, if she was made for this, then...she should be able to handle it, right? She could just...just...
She stood there for a moment, her wings gently bobbing with the rise and fall of her chest. She raised them a bit, she lowered them a bit. She flexed her knees a little, feeling the muscles tense and relax...
In one smooth motion, she raised her wings, sprang off the ground, and swept them down again, and she was off.
