“You were right,” said Pat. “I still want to marry you. But maybe we finish high school first. Do it at a more regular time.”

“I don’t know if I can keep my hands off you that long,” said Danny.

“Why should you be the only boyfriend in an American high school who keeps his hands to himself?” asked Pat.

“Because I already have one son,” he said.

Danny hadn’t admitted paternity to anyone, but he kept a gate attached to the boy, so he could see everything he was doing, everything that happened around him. He called it his baby monitor. Nicki Lieder didn’t know it, but she wouldn’t have to worry about childhood diseases or accidents. Nothing was going to go wrong in her baby’s life.

And Coach Lieder was so glad that his daughter was alive that he got over his fury that she got pregnant; and Lieder naturally fell in love with the little boy, whom she named after him. “Because you’re the only grandfather he’ll ever know,” Nicki told him, and there was a definite opinion at Parry McCluer that Coach Lieder had somehow become a human being since his grandson was born.

Danny ran track. He won a lot. He also lost sometimes.

Pat and Danny did well in school, but they did it by studying, not by using gates to pass information to each other. “What’s the point of cheating on a test?” Pat asked, when Xena suggested it. “If you learn it, then you know it, and you pass the test. If you pass the test without knowing the stuff, then the only person you’ve cheated is yourself.” Xena wanted to call Pat a complete selfish bitch for that policy—in fact, she did call her that, one time, but Laurette and Sin sided with Pat and then Pat helped Xena study.

Danny’s studying consisted of brushing up on things he had learned during his homeschool days. He also became very good at Super Smash Bros. on Sin’s Wii and League of Legends with anybody who would let him on their team, provoking both despair and admiration among the geek elite at Parry McCluer. But, as with running, he didn’t win every time.

Stone kept discovering Orphans from time to time, but because they weren’t receiving any training, only a couple of them reached a level of power where they needed to be given a choice: Play nice with the drowthers, or find yourself on Westil. Everybody decided to play nice, so far.

Danny and Pat went to all the proms, wearing clothing Veevee chose for them. They walked at graduation, and they were both happy that Danny got a huge ovation from the other students, and Pat got far less—but heard some heartfelt whoops from her real friends.