Darren had to swallow a hard lump in his throat as he remember the spectral purple woman that had come to his rescue that had been very insistent about him and Charlotte being together.
"Baby, did you tell Jinglefairy about me and Charlotte being on a date tonight?"

Valerie hugged Charlotte tighter. "Go ahead hun, I'm sitting down. Tell me what's happened, I'm ready  for it." Was this what she'd meant earlier about world and alignment changing things?
Oh dear.
"..." she glanced at Charlotte a moment. "...those marks on your skin arn't from your powers...are then?"

"Well, yeah. Not just that but that you were on a date with a SUPERHERO, so if there was anything bad going on, she needed to keep you two together. Iss very important, daddy. Did Charlotte keep you safe?"

Charlotte shook her head, "No, I'm afraid not." And then she began to tell the whole tale from the beginning, starting with the hitchhiking, the food eating contests and the first super-powered incident after Tom Stone the Flying Man. The short version.

That is to say, at Hyperspeed. Just to get some girl-time and allow Darren some Privacy on the phone.

"....She did her best sweetheart." He had to lean on the counter to keep himself up, one hand sunk deep into his hair. His daughter was meta, and not just any meta, but the final color of the stone set. "...daddy is a little cut up but I'll be ok. I got all cleaned up and bandaged, I'll just be itchy while it heals."

His voice warbled as he tried to focus on what to say next. "Honey...was anything different about Jinglefairy tonight when you sent her to help?" Maybe this was the first manifestation, how else would he not know about it?!

The story wasn't easy to listen to as Lottie detailed her near rape and self defense of the trucker, but she listened calmly and with as much support as she could, one arm always wrapped around Charlotte as she spoke. She had a horrible sinking feeling things were only going to get worse.

"Oh no! You got cut up! I was just super duper worried about you, and now I'm still worried. You saw jinglefairy? Normally my imaginary friends hide from you, they say that you will make them go away, and sometimes you do. Once Lord Ponyheart exploded into purple mist when you said he wasn't real. He's still mad about that."

The things in Char's story did get worse. Much worse.

 Government capture and kill missions, illegal vivisection, organ harvesting and replanting, locked in a cell with nothing but the power of time, wishing for anything but an end to the cutting and only the ability to make the waiting longer.

The starving when the waiting was longest; when she passed out from hunger after being in hypertime without food for days.

The knowledge that there are things she doesn't remember. Times when they cut on her brain.

The day that anesthesia didn't work anymore.

The days of cutting after that.

The screaming for help that never came.

Until one day; her cries finally wore on Prodigal to the point where he couldn't ignore her anymore and he broke in and freed her.

The papers they showed him to keep her leashed.

The agents that leashed her.

The bargain for freedom that was her Hero career.

Everything.

"..." Slowly Darren slid tot he floor to sit down, Sarge gnawing on his shoe as he did so. "...baby girl, has anyone else seen your imaginary friends before this?" He had to do damage control, he had to protect her...

Valerie cried, how couldn't she after all? Charlotte was her sister. And these were not just tears of sorrow, but rage beyond anything the blond had ever felt before. So raw and angry her heart did beat that her short blond hair began to glow and stand on end in a spectral wind.

Tom had known and said nothing to her. Sure, he left before he could have known just how close Valerie and Charlotte were, but the experimentation, the torture...everything.
He had known.
She was never going to forgive him.

Piper didn't seem to catch the ton of her father's voice over the phone, "Oh, yeah. That's what makes them imaginary and not invisible. People can see them. You've seen them, right? Daddy?"

"Hey, no, hey, don't cry. I'm not mad at you. You don't have super hearing like Tom does. I just... I'm free now, so it doesn't matter what happened before. They won't hurt me anymore." Not can't, wont.

She could still be hurt, but not for long, ad she'd see to it that they weren't going to hurt her for long once they tried to again.

"I'll play nice, but they don't get to be mean to me anymore. I may be on a leash but that just keeps me close enough to bite."

"No baby, I hadn't...they must be real good hiders. Do..they hide from other adults? Like your teachers at school? What about uncle Keith?"
Please let it just have been children that saw them...

If her teacher had seen anything either she chalked it up to magic or simply wasn't reporting any of her students to BRATS.
But why wouldn't she alter Darren what was going on at the school?

"Oh Lottie." Valerie managed between sobs as she continued her death grip on the woman. "I won't let them hurt you ever again, I promise. I always knew something was wrong when you stopped answering my letters but I didn't know what to do!" Scrubbing at the tear trails on her cheeks she sniffed loudly.

"I'm guessing Darren must know." What he had said before about agency suddenly made a lot more sense. "But...how did you two hook up? If he is in hiding for what he is and he is trying to protect his kid...I mean, no offense Lottie I want nothing but for you to be happy but...dating you seems like kicking the beehive."

CCharlotte couldn't cry. She'd done too much crying over her past already, Most often when it was happening or shortly afterward. She hugged Val and tried to shush away the tears. Rocking with her on the sofa.  She wasn't just being hugged now, now she was hugging back.

She wouldn't cry but she could enjoy being back with her best friend.

"Okay, Val, come on. Cry it out. Get it all done, Cause there will be no crying about my biz later. You're gonna make me cry," he voice broke a minute, but was back on track after that, "Let's take a deep breath. Well... not too deep if you like that shirt, but breathe a minute and get it all out."

"now, kicking the beehive as it may, we gotta stick together. All of us. Dar and I feel a deep connection that goes beyond the explodey. We... resonate in some deep way, and we want to fight against all odds to stay together."

Piper sounded as though she had explained this before, "Naw, adults don't like imagination. Seeing it makes them mad, so you gotta hide it. They're jealous, I bet, daddy. Uncle Keef plays imagination with me, but I don't think he notices when I use imagination to do stuff."

There was a deep and relieved sigh that came through the phone. "Oh thank god...Piper, baby, when I get home I wanna talk to you about your imaginary friends, ok? You are not in trouble, but I think there are people out there in the world that might want to use your friends for bad things. Does your mother know?"

"Ok, quit rubbing it in that you got a mega hottie boyfriend that is willing to fight the world for you." She gave Charlotte a light punch on the shoulder. "I'm guessing you two got waaaaaay closer after I got adopted out huh?" She rested her cheek on the top of Charlotte's head, breath still hitching and sputtery as she dried her face again.
"If it makes you feel any better you didn't wanna get adopted by my family anyway. My folks split when I was sixteen. Dad left and then it was just mom and me...and Sarge."

There came a tiny "Oh no" from the other side of the phone, "I'm in trouble! When daddy says I'm not in trouble , that means I ought to be. I didn't even know! Daddy I'm sorr~y. Mommy doesn't know, but sometimes I use imagination instead of magic to do stuff when she makes me do the secret magic practice that daddy's not supposed to know about." She was clearly using mommy as a distraction to get herself out of trouble.

"Don't be mad, daddy. I didn't know imagination was bad. Everybody always said it was good."

Charlotte patted Valerie's back, "And you didn't want to run away with me. It turns out that the government will kidnap scared girls with superpowers."

She dropped her speed field, now that most of the long stuff was over.

"And I don't think they would have let us see each other, anyway."

"No no honey, it's not bad. You are really not in trouble." He promised with a small smile as Piper threw Cynthia under the bus. "It isn't anything like that it's...well...daddy is going to need to talk to you about some things about himself and what that means for you and your imagination."

He braced himself for the impending squeal as his daughter worked out the meaning of that line. "I was never sure if we were going to have to have this conversation...least of all so soon.." He sighed again.

Val snorted in a very unladylike manner. "They haven't found anything yet that I can't blast through, they'd never hold me." She gave Charlotte another hug with a sympathetic look. "And now that we are together again they won't be able to separate us. Promise. Those BRAT assholes are in for double trouble now."

Charlotte shook her head no, "just don't go around killing Brats for me just yet. I've got a god thing going right now. I get to see sunlight, I get to date, and I have my very own pair of Secret agents who watch me all the time... Well, maybe that last one isn't so fun, but it's what I have to do to see sky."