After the video, the guilty detective is just to leave the station for good, but then...

The video eventually concluded... for the second time. The lawyer had sat there like a statue as the entire sordid spectacle was played through again, this time with a blurred filter placed over the detective's face and his voice backmasked to distort it. A deafening silence filled the police station office.

"Well then. That was worse than anything I could've imagined." Isabelle, the prim-looking asian lawyer, said in a calm and even voice. "Absolutely nauseating. That being said, the law is the law, and no irrelevant changes seem to have been made to the records. I'll take the edited version back to the League of Propriety's archives, and put the original in the incinerator."

"Listen, uhh, just so you know... it's a hell of a situation, and I didn't exactly do this lightly," Dan said, scratching his head. "I mean, if I didn't know that she was going to be taken care of by the ah, noble institution you represent, then I'd do things differently. But you saw how pissed off she was. She might do something rash if I tried to work things out with her and ask her directly how I could help her. In a way, I'm almost doing her a favor, stopping Fairburne from possibly doing something she'd regret and scotching her hero career. I haven't heard anything about it in the press, and you know how much they love to talk about heroine baby bumps when they happen, so nobody's caught on. And..." he gave a dry, mirthless laugh, "it's not like it's going to do anyone any good to make a huge mess out of it now. I'll tell my wife eventually, I just have to break it to her littl-"

"Enough. Enough!" Isabelle Wang held up her hands in exasperation. "Why are you telling me any of these rationalizations? This isn't my first or even my second case involving a pregnancy after a heroic young woman was taken advantage of by an amoral lech. Until Maiden America and her clique decide to stop pretending it isn't a problem, it's going to keep happening. I've taken an oath to respect the letter of the law, and that's what I'll do."

With a click of her heels against the floor, Isabelle stood up. "I believe our business is concluded, and I don't expect we will ever speak again, which is perfectly fine by me. Thank you, by the way, for not allowing me to unknowingly sit in the same chair that you had your bare ass on while you were impregnating a junior-college age superheroine." With that, she closed up her briefcase and walked away.

Dragging a hand over his forehead, Dan sighed deeply. "I guess that could have gone worse. All things considered, I'm pretty lucky. The wife's gonna be pissed that I've made her and the kid wait at the airport for almost a whole day, but she'll get over it." He got up and hastily finished clearing out his desk. On his way out the door, he didn't even stop to listen to any of the well-wishers from his former co-workers as he left forever.

However, no sooner had Dan exited the front door than he dropped the cardboard box full of his personal things with a clatter, nearly having a heart attack from shock. "OH, SHIT!"

There, standing right in front of him, was the same tall, beautiful red-haired superheroine who he'd last met in person more than half a year ago. Contrary to what his boss had told him, Fairburne had NOT already been to the police station and left - she was only now getting here. Just like eight months ago, he'd left at just the right time to run into her. And now, the consequences of that chance meeting were quite apparent. Thanks to the strictures against wearing civilian clothes at the League of Propriety, she was still in her hero costume... but now, the bottom fringe of the tight, bottomless green leotard she wore was riding up over her bulging, spherical belly. She had been coming up the front steps, leaning back so she could lead with her protruding stomach and supporting it with one hand.

What were the odds of two tall, green-eyed heroines, with medium length red hair and sensuous spandex costumes that were now very ill-fitting due to being in the final months of pregnancy, both coming to the same police station within an hour of one another, seeking after the thoughtless sperm donor responsible for derailing their respective careers? To the detective caught red-handed attempting to abscond the scene of the crime, the sheer unlikelihood of it felt terribly unfair.

Even though she'd done her best not to let the situation get to her when she'd been blackmailed into fucking him, now, it took only a few seconds for hot, angry tears to begin welling up in Fairburne's eyes. "How could you?" she asked in a quavering voice. "You knew about this, didn't you? Didn't you?! You were skipping out of town, is that it? You wanted me to walk around in this station full of other evil assholes like this," she pointed down to the huge round swell bursting out through her costume, "where they could all see exactly what you did to me, while you... what, went to Mexico? My life is shattered into a million pieces, because..." she choked back a sob, "because you couldn't not take advantage of me when I was trying to help my friend? Because you couldn't even use a damn condom right?"

There was a long, awkward silence. "It's just..." Dan croaked. still stuck in his deer-in-headlights look, "I just found out and... I mean, what am I supposed to do? You're from a different world than I am. I mean, what are the odds an over-the-hill flatfoot like me would ever manage to... I guess what I'm trying to say is it all felt a little unreal, looking back..."

"Unreal?!" Fairburne's green eyes flashed again and she gritted her teeth the same way she had when he'd first fatefully happened upon her hacking operation. She rested a hand on the pale, smooth globe jutting out over her hips, forcing her to walk closer at an awkward shuffle (not that she was weighed down meaningfully, but natural instinct is a powerful ****, and when her body told her she needed to move slowly and carefully she couldn't help but do so). "It feels pretty damn real to me, mister! While you've been going about chomping donuts and swilling beers after work with your friends, I've spent half a year having to look down every day and remember that night. Every time I look at a mirror or a window I see myself getting bigger... and then, a couple of months ago, I started feeling it move."

"I hope I filled out my will..." Detective Murphy muttered under his breath, helpless to do anything but stand there as the distraught superheroine tried to wipe her tears away with a sleeve.

Fairburne continued. "...you know I've been having to come up with excuses for months and months to avoid seeing my own father? He was a superhero too, you know. Not for the League. He worked secretly for the government, doing the kind of things the League couldn't. He took out more than twenty international criminals and terrorists. And when I say 'took out', I don't mean they're in jail, either."

All the blood had drained from the cowardly cop's face. "I just hope it's quick." he whispered to himeslf.

"Yeah, whatever," Fairburne had seemingly noticed his fear. "Don't worry, you son of a bitch, I haven't told him. The worst thing he could do to you is kill you. I'd have to live with the shame forever."

Dan tried to clear his throat, but it came out as more of a croak. "I could... I was always going to look you up eventually! Look, I've already got a secret account hidden from my wife that I was going to start sending you cash from. I, uh, know that these kinds of things are expensive, what with clothes, diapers, and-"

"Oh no." Fairburne's eyes were still red and bleary, but her voice was as steely and commanding as it was half a year ago when she was still telling bank robbers to drop their weapons. "You're not going to be sending me any money. I am going to be sending YOU money, for those things you mentioned and to keep your mouth shut. When the baby arrives, YOU are going to be taking care of it... them. Whatever. I've thought this through, you left me plenty of time, all by myself. For the first half a year I'll anonymously rent an apartment next to yours so I can come over for feedings, but as soon as my maternity leave is up, I'm gone. I don't ever want to have to think about you again except once a month when I sign a check." she glowered balefully at him as she spoke.

"But-" Dan started to plead, but Fairburne cut him off almost immediately. "This isn't a discussion! You don't get any real choice, asshole, just like you didn't give me a choice! Because guess what? Superhero names aren't a legal identity. There's only going to be one name on the birth certificate. And if you don't like that, here, I'll give you my dad's phone number. Feel free to give him a call."

No challenge was forthcoming. Though Fairburne wasn't aware of it, it was only because another novice heroine bearing a passing resemblance to her had gotten herself in the same predicament at nearly the same time that she was able to 'work things out' in such a way with her child's less-than-admirable father, and gain some measure of closure to this sordid chapter of her life. If she knew more about Nightingale or any details about what had happened, she might have taken the time to thank her, as awkward as that would have been.

Her mass of brown curled hair starting to get ragged after so many hours slumping awkwardly on airport seats, Lucille Murphy groaned as she paged through the cheap romance novel she had bought off at an inflated price. "Always the same thing... I can already tell how this one is going to end. It'll be another of these stories where superheroes show up in the last act and take over the plot as if we're supposed to be surprised. Hmph..."

"Moooooooooom," an adolescent voice laden with boredom and resentment interrupted her attempts at reading. Lucille glanced over to her 14 year old daughter, Macklynn. "Can we please just by another phone charger? I'm telling you, dad won't be able to fix this one, the little prong thingies on the plug are worn off!" She was a slender young girl with bleached blonde hair and a tee-shirt featuring the superheroine Star - the latest one, anyway.

"Don't you have a reading assignment for your new transfer school you should be working on, young lady?" She looked up and sighed. "I am so exhausted, being on these seats this long, I feel like my neck is about to seize. Suddenly changing jobs and uprooting us like this... and then making me wait an eternity in this godawful corporate limbo... I am going to have some long words with that man when he finally gets back..."

There was an electronic chirp. "Oh you have got to be kidding me," Lucille scowled down at her phone. " 'Change of plans, go ahead and come home, we need to discuss something'? After all this atrocious wait, and after buying those expensive, non-refundable plane tickets?! Whatever this is about, it had better be good."

A few months later, Macklynn was still going to her original, Acropolis City school. Always loving attention, she was now sitting in the middle of a circle of admirers who looked absolutely rapt.

The adolescent girl had been beaming constantly for the last few days, and skipping excitedly through the halls between classes. During lunch hours and in between classes, she was telling anyone who'd listen the good news. "Yeah, I'm practically already a celebrity! It's the most amazing news ever! Ooooh, I didn't tell you yet? Well guess what, guess what? ... The doctors say my new little sister is gonna be a SUPERHERO!"