Valerie Ray was destined to die.
Even before she was born, fate seemed to plot against her. Fate would be something her father would come to know far, far too much about. Three months before she was supposed to be born, there was an accident. It couldn't be avoided. Not even by someone who could predict the sequence of events. Not that Edward Ray didn't try. The attempt to change events may have saved Valerie, but it failed to save her mother. Born three months early, fragile and small, her mother died from the injuries of the accident. But she managed to survive. To be born on Saint Patrick's Day.
Despite her survival, her health was fragile, and she grew up weak and frail. Hospitals were her parents more than her father, even if he kept showing up just when he was needed, to nudge the doctors in the right direction, or to be there to raise an alarm when it was needed. Fate wanted her to die, and Edward Ray kept cheating fate to make sure that didn't happen. Even her name was a cheat against fate. Valerie meant strong and healthy, and the girl was anything but.
Most of her life she spent in and out of some kind of home, with nurses who made sure she stayed healthy, and tutors specifically picked by her father who kept her educated. The few times she actually spent with her father, it was short term. He would read her stories, and play chess with her (something she was never very good at, she liked checkers more!). At more than one point, he'd call ahead of time to make sure she was sent to the Emergency Room, saving her life before it was in real danger. He forbade her to go to things, and then suddenly allowed her to go to others. Because he knew which activities could lead to her eventual death, and which ones wouldn't.
Though she was able to manage her diseases, she never completely recovered from these things. Her illness were manageable, especially with assistance from her father, but she was less mobile than most people, and had to avoid certain situations.
Her education continued for the next few years, including sitting in on classes to be closer to her father. She did have a mind for mathematics, but she was more into architecture. She liked drawing buildings and designing things. Thanks to her father, she could sit in on classes that most people weren't ever able to sit in on. With her early GED, she was considered graduated, and even legally considered an independent adult by sixteen, due to substantial trust funds and disability benefits.
One of her most precious possessions, oddly enough, was a small shamrock cellphone charm that her father gave her for her birthday when he visited to make sure she got emancipated. She always carried it with her, for luck. She even jokes that it's her lucky clover, even if it's only got three leaves. This was a gift when she moved back to New York City, in 2006. Just in time for the very thing that would, theoretically, kill her.
The bomb of November 8th, 2006.
Once again, her father had plans to avert such a crisis. He told her of her brother and sister, for the first time in her seventeen years. Both older than her, half siblings, but his children, all the same. The deception hurt, but he said that she would meet her sister, and where. And claimed that it would be an important moment in her life, giving her the family that she'd always wanted.
Her sister was never supposed to show up.
But her father had seen every possibility. It would just take a lot longer to maneuver the pieces into place, to save his little girl this time. A lot longer.