(Daddy/Ben. October. two months after Kitten discovers she's pregnant)

I paused at the edge of the bedlam and smiled, thinking of just how much my life had changed since the first time I came to New York Comic-Con just a few years ago. Then I was lonely, only just climbing out of a cycle of depression with no guarantees I would make it.

Now? Now a slim hand gripped mine, shaking me out of my thoughts.

"You've come a long way, Daddy," she said. Unlike previous years when she had much more extravagant costumes, she didn't have time to put together one of her more elaborate ones this year. Fortunately,...