He'd seen her.

Jack Collins had walked down to Brooklyn Bridge because he was angry, but not angry enough to hit anyone. He just wanted to be alone.
And there was his daughter on the side of the bridge.

He hadn't really been sure what she was doing, and he hadn't been sure if he cared. But then he saw the other child, a child he'd never seen before, trying to pull his daughter back, and his first thought was that he didn't think he liked that. His second thought was that he didn't know why.

Jack had never liked people. He didn't like to be around people, and he didn't like the way they acted. He didn't think he'd like that child if he met her, but she was trying to save his daughter's life and he didn't even know who she was. He didn't even know if his daughter knew that child.

Jack went home with a foreign feeling that he didn't like, either.

He yelled at his daughter later that day. She came home and told him that she'd been kicked out of math and history. He was so used to yelling at her that he didn't think anything of it.
Until she just shrugged and said, "wanted you to know before the letter got here."

She looked at him quietly for a moment longer. Jack just turned and walked out. The next time he saw her was when he peeked into her room as she was doing some school thing.

He didn't know if his daughter was numb from trying to jump off a bridge or if that child had said something to her that he'd never been able to. Jack didn't know if he was angry at the child or angry that he didn't have control anymore. In fact, he didn't know if he was angry at all.

It was all very strange.

___________________

About a week later his daughter said that she had a job and that she wouldn't be home that night until 7. Jack's immediate reaction was to be angry with her.
"Why didn't you tell me you had a job?"
Odyssey gave him a puzzled look. "I didn't think you would care. Do you want me here?"
Jack sulked for a moment and then told her to get to school. When she walked out the door, he thought that if he'd been a normal dad she would have told him before. He didn't know what to make of that. He'd never really been interested in acting like a dad before.

The bridge was getting to his head, he decided. He needed a nap.
Or maybe he needed his daughter back. Had she ever really been his in the first place?

___________________

The wind was blowing stiffly when Jack finally pulled on his coat one day and left the house. His wife was in their room, and he'd briefly considered yelling at her before he stopped and wondered why he would do that. She hadn't done anything that deserved yelling. He suddenly remembered that her name was Julianne, and he wondered how long it had been since he'd thought of her by that name.

Where was that coming from? What was wrong with him?

Jack had no idea where he was going, but he assumed that he was headed for the bridge. He hadn't gotten his nap yet that day, and he didn't think he could sleep even if he tried. He remembered his daughter mumbling "too many thoughts" every now and then, and Jack would tell her to speak up and stop talking nonsense. He thought that now, though, he might understand what she meant.

Jack was standing on the edge of the bridge, looking down from the same spot his daughter had stood not so long ago. The water was calmer now than it had been that day. 

You've been missing a lot, haven't you? A voice Jack didn't know asked.
No. It's not important.
What's not important?
Odyssey. Julianne. Anything.
Are you sure?

The thought was terrifying. It wasn't Jack's own thought, and yet he realized that it had been his thought many, many times before. Was he sure? Was he ever sure? He'd never acknowledged it, and he'd never dwelt on it. Now he was being forced to.

I don't know you, Jack told the Voice.
You will, the Voice replied.

___________________

Odyssey came home from work that day thinking about Jackson and Asti and the lady that hadn't liked her. She found that she didn't care about the lady, but she was glad that her new friends liked her. She pushed her shoes off at the door, like her dad always yelled at her to, and dumped her bag in her room as she passed it. She gave Mom a very short hug and then hurried back to start on her homework. Her dad might be home soon, and recently he would just watch her quietly if he came home and found her doing homework. Odyssey kind of liked it.

Odyssey was getting into her science homework when she heard the door open. Her dad came around the corner and saw her in her room and he leaned against the door frame for a moment. Odyssey kept working.
But then he came in the room and stood next to her.

Odyssey worked awkwardly for a moment longer even though she wasn't really paying any attention to what she was doing. She was probably getting everything wrong. Her dad continued to watch her, and eventually she looked up at him.
"Should I do something?" She asked.
Her dad was quiet for a few more seconds. "No," he said after. "You can keep working."
"Okay."

Odyssey did as she was told and turned back to her book. It still wasn't making sense though and her dad wasn't leaving. When she looked up again he had his mouth open and his face looked funny.

"Were you going to say something?"

Her dad made a strange noise she'd never heard from him. She didn't know if it sounded like crying or if it sounded like something else she might have heard before.

"I can't say it," he said.
"Oh."

Odyssey picked up her pencil again and tried to focus on the words in the science book. A lot of them were way too long, but she knew what they meant because her teacher had given her some extra stuff to help her remember the long "technical" words. She wondered if she should learn—

Her dad suddenly put his hand on her head.

Odyssey tensed for a moment, wondering what she had done to make her dad want to hit her again. But then she realized that he wasn't hitting her but he was touching her and he'd never done that before, only mom and Lily touched her without hitting her. 
Odyssey was just confused, really.

But—hmm. Maybe this is how dads are supposed to act most of the time.

Odyssey smiled—just a little.

___________________

Lily's phone buzzed quietly against the windowsill, and she turned from looking down on the street just long enough to see the notification on her lock screen. She paused in the middle of putting her phone away.

Odyssey Collins
Dad just petted my hair.

Never once, not in person or over the phone, had Odyssey said "Dad." It had always been "my dad." Lily didn't miss the monumental importance of such a tiny change. She swiped down to reply.
I'm so happy.

Lily smiled—more than a little.