Galen crossed the aquaculture farm to the temporary apartment he shared with Allie until her time came. Any day now, the Mer doctor had said, and Allie had agreed. She looked ready to burst, and she'd taken to spending more time in the water than on land. He was fairly certain that's why the Watch had lifted his house arrest early. Not that he liked to be away from Allie for long, but when she got cravings for things, he'd scour Metropolis to get her what she needed.

Today it was chocolate, which he left on the counter in their empty apartment. She must be in one of the pools again, or in the Mer habitat proper, where they lived underwater. Allie had invited him in there a couple of times, giving him a rebreather so he could stay under for as long as she did, but he didn't feel comfortable in what he felt was nothing but a giant fish tank. Not to mention the Mer were a bunch of hippy nudists, which he wasn't sure he'd ever get used to.

Galen stripped down to a pair of board shorts. He wasn't ready to join the nudists, but he did want to sit with Allie in the water.

He spotted Leukosia as he passed the tuna pools. "Have you seen Allie?" he asked.

"Try the birthing pool," she said.

Allie had gone into labour already? Galen broke into a run.

The birthing pool was warm, wide and shallow, filled with Mer bodies of every colour. Every colour except orange.

"Where is she?" he asked urgently.

"I'm here," Allie's voice said, sounding strained.

Now he saw her – looking like a naked Human woman, not a mermaid, in the middle of the pool.

"She's coming, Galen," Allie cried, reaching for his hand as she gritted her teeth through a contraction.

The Mer women made space for him, and for once he didn't notice their nakedness. He had eyes only for Allie.

"She's crowning. Push again!" one of the Mer women said, peering intently between Allie's legs. She swished her tail impatiently. "Now. Push hard now!"

Allie screamed until she ran out of air, but still she pushed, panting for breath.

"Again!" the Mer doctor ordered.

Allie obeyed, but the look of agony on her face as she cried out to the stars above tore Galen's heart in two.

"You need to give her something for the pain. Can't you see how much this is hurting her?" Galen demanded.

No one listened.

"One more!"

Allie squeezed Galen's had so hard he wanted to cry out, but he stayed strong for her. He had to.

"Oooh!" the surrounding crowd sang, as something small and rust-coloured shot between Allie's legs in a cloud of blood.

One of them caught the baby and brought her squirming to her mother's arms. Her tail made her look like a salmon, shimmery silver-pink, but her eyes were the colour of sage.

"Her name!" the Mer chanted. "What is her name?"

Galen ignored them, reaching to stroke his daughter's cheek. "She has my mother's eyes," he said softly, finding it hard to swallow.

"Then her name is Panacea," Allie said.

Galen knew he'd never told her his mother's name. Ira's words came back to him then – Allie might have killed hundreds of people during the war, but she knew every name. Allie was many things, but not a monster. And because of her, Panacea Tasker lived again, sired in the impossible union between two races that might one day learn to live in peace.

In the future, they would call times like these halcyon days, where peace reigned and no storm raged. For sometimes the universe needed a halcyon, a siren who could both call and calm the storm.