Chapter Text
Grief, you are the grey huntress;
with a bow of tragedy and arrows of loss.
Your garb is the dusky mantle of sorrow;
trailing crystalline teardrops like strings of pearls.
Your footsteps mar our joys with devastation;
bringing whispers of sadness to our sunlit morrows.
And you hunt us...in the glades of our existence...
...to slay us broken and weeping...under the eves of our regrets.
“Hey, Dad?”
Genesis woke with a snort. That wasn’t unusual, but it was unusual to find himself sitting in a room that was on the wrong side of too pink with a poster of Verdwurd and the Humming Hacking Virus Bros across from him. He was very open about music, but any band that could turn bacterium into symbolistic euphemisms for romance was just a little bit weird. He didn’t care if chickenpox was a type of herpes, it was just disgusting. Apparently, he had seen fit to fall asleep in a teenage girl’s room. Normally, many years ago, this would have been cause for extreme alarm. Thankfully, the teenager in question was under his custody; mostly because she was his kid. There were days he was very grateful for that, and there were days when he wanted to kick down all the walls because of it. Shifting his person in the fluffy magenta bean bag chair he had evidently decided to nod off on, the redhead blinked stupidly at the star-covered ceiling and tried to discern what time it was.
It was his day off, that much was certain.
Of course, the definition of a ‘day off’ when you were a parent differed greatly from that of the single and unattached person with no one to clean after but themselves. Thankfully, the person he occasionally had to clean after did a fair enough job of it herself. Occasionally, he missed the toddler days, but then he remembered exactly what a whole bowl of spaghetti looked like smeared across the kitchen floor and he was extremely happy with his current existence. That didn’t mean, however, that he spent his days off doing extracurricular things like skydiving and dancing until dawn. Looking at the unchanged reflection of himself in the mirror across from him, Genesis told himself firmly that it didn’t matter how old his body told itself it was; he was still forty-six. He might look and feel about twenty-four, but he was nearly fifty and he could not act like he’d just passed the legal drinking age. He had to set a good example even if he didn’t know what he was doing half of the time and the other half he was barely getting by.
“Dad, c’mon.”
Rubbing a hand over his face, the scarlet-haired man watched as the beads curtaining the entrance to his daughter’s room parted to reveal the aforementioned individual. Saoirse paused, one hand on the strap of her book bag as green eyes surveyed him sardonically for a moment before they promptly rolled. Genesis reflected dryly that if he’d rolled his eyes at Shikro he’d have been lucky to be able to peel himself off the dining room floor the next morning. He was, quite firmly, against hitting children simply because of his own memories of it being done to him. That didn’t stop him from wanting to scream every time his ‘little girl’ gave him some attitude. As a fifteen-year-old, she gave him quite a bit of attitude but he’d managed to keep his sanity hanging by a thread so far. Watching as she knelt to tuck her book bag into a cubby, Genesis yawned and then winced when his jaw cracked.
“Didn’t we have a discussion about privacy?” Saoirse said dryly.
Blinking, the former Commander made a face.
“We did” he replied hoarsely. “But we also had a discussion about cleaning up.” He gestured at the feminine disarray around him. “You know I love a little bit of spontaneity, but it looks like you had a brawl with a pink chocobo and then decided to go to school anyway.”
His daughter’s lips twitched furiously in a way that was so similar to someone else it made his chest ache a little bit before he pushed it down. Settling her expression into that of neutrality, Saoirse got to her feet once more and folded her arms.
“Well, it doesn’t look like you got any cleaning done in here either” she pointed out.
“I had to sit down to meditate upon the horror around me” Genesis replied firmly.
A scarlet brow winged upward.
“You fell asleep” was the dry response.
“I fainted.” A pale hand rose to cover smiling lips as emerald eyes crinkled at the edges. “The strain was too much for me.”
Seeming to give up all pretense of stubborness, the redhead before him laughed helplessly for a minute or so before regaining herself. As she did so, Genesis watched with a kind of fond affection. She was tall, for her age anyway, though he supposed that that shouldn’t surprise him. Her hair was long; he’d despaired of cutting it when he tried for her eighth birthday and she proceeded to throw a fit so massive his ears rang for three hours afterwards. Most of the time she let him style it and he tried not to think about how terrible he was at doing so initially when he stopped to consider the fact. He had several grade school pictures of her with lopsided pigtails that were entirely his fault. In terms of features, she looked more like him...which he supposed wasn’t to her benefit because he had a more angular bone structure than tha of her other father.
Her cheeks, however, were high like his former partner’s...and her eyebrows were the same straight and severe shape. When it came to style, Genesis was sincerely proud that he had managed to sell blue jeans in a manner than appealed to her more than mini-skirts. He was fairly sure if his daughter left the house wearing booty shorts every day he would be a nervous wreck. The fact that he had worn booty shorts in his youth was irrelevant and somewhat regretful. As it was, he had a faint suspicion that her style proclivities were more ‘one-winged-angel-oriented’; even though he was also sure that Sephiroth would have murdered anyone who painted his room pink.
Saoirse liked pop music and dancing and make up and all the things people her age were supposed to like. But she also liked martial arts and math and Genesis was horrible at math. When forced to choose between math and magic he would always choose magic. He liked makeup too, but that was another thing he was too old to pull off legally anymore so he stuck with eyeliner when he was feeling particularly fierce and that was it. They had things in common...like a love for old classical films and probably too much popcorn. He had many memories of her sleeping on the bedroom floor when she didn’t want to sleep in her room. If he was feeling terribly self-confident, he could likely say he hadn’t done a heinous job when it came to parenting her.
The first years were hard, because he was grieving. Sometimes it felt like he was grieving constantly. Sephiroth’s death was a monumental blow to his psyche and an even greater blow to his self-esteem. He had no faith in his ability to parent alone and he needed the help he was given. By the time Saoirse was one, he was more involved in her life than he had been initially. He took the time to hold her, to talk to her, to pick things out for her that he thought she might like. In some ways, he was deeply regretful of his partial-abandonment of her so close to her birth because he was forced to start from scratch; forced to build their relationship with a bond that wasn’t quite as solid as most children might have with their parents by the time the first year rolled around. And it was hard...difficult…agonizing at first because every time he looked at her Sephiroth was looking back at him out of her eyes.
They moved by the time his daughter turned two.
It took him a long time to find a place that he felt was suitable for them. Money wasn't an issue; he had a decent stipend from his job...more than decent. If he really wanted to, he could retire and rest easily knowing that even if something happened to him his daughter, whatever partner she chose, his grandchildren, and his great-grandchildren would have enough money to be very comfortable. No, it was the mere concept of leaving so much behind...of leaving so many memories behind...but he managed it. In the end, he moved out of HQ and into a loft apartment in a private sector of Midgar. It was a two floor, somewhat loft-esque space; with Saoirse's bedroom being on the main floor and his up a ladder in the kitchen to the bedroom and attached bathroom overhead. He’d gone for a minimalist design; most of the walls were whitewashed shiplap broken occasionally by a tile-covered accent wall. The color scheme was bright in nature; again, with an emphasis on white with solid-hue accents. The rent was reasonable; not cheap but fair and he didn’t have any problems with the other tenants, who kept mostly to themselves.
Genesis kept very little memorabilia from his time with SOLDIER or his time afterwards. Rapier-of course-went with them, as did his leather coats because he’d rather have his throat cut than leave them behind. But he left most of his military badges with Angeal, and the rest he donated. Regretfully, he had no pictures of Sephiroth, and the media that was established during the time when SOLDIER was active had nothing kind to say about him. Most of his achievements as a General, his press photos, and his ceremonies were buried beneath the acts he had committed before he was committed, and then the mass-slaughter he’d partaken in just before his death. There were-quite sensibly-no pictures of him during that time...and so what little remained of the love of his life was simply a memory and nothing more. Initially, it hurt him...because the men who were present when he passed acknowledged that their view was fallible, but there wasn’t much they could do. HQ had been dismantled mere hours afterwards, and society was left scrambling to find a foothold in a suddenly legislature-bereft world. There was no time to spread the word about Sephiroth’s innocence, about what Shinra had done. And so what little of the man he adored fell to a dark memory with the rest of the world...fell to resentment and hatred.
He had to go through the newly-revised court-systems to get a pardon.
Three years after Saoirse’s birth, Genesis was called upon to appear before a judge and give reasoning for his ‘crimes against humanity.’ Mainly for sheltering what the world perceived as a madman. He was also called to give reasoning as to why he should remain the guardian of his child. He tried. He really tried. Genesis hired a lawyer, gathered all the evidence he could-which was basically nothing-and everyone who knew him and knew Sephiroth practically fell flat on their faces to give honest and relevant accounts. He bought a suit-a proper suit, nothing with tails or tassels or any sort of frippery-and he dressed his daughter up to the best degree that his very poorly female-oriented mind could dress her. Angeal showed up at his apartment three times a day to go over proceedings and Aerith moved in with him for a bit, just for emotional support. It was a testimony to how much people wanted to make things right that he had the amount of leverage that he did...it was likely the only reason he was allowed to be a father to Saoirse.
It was still a bloodbath.
When it was clear they couldn’t question his parenting, they made him seem like a victim of Stockholm Syndrome. Sephiroth seduced him, so the courts made it out, made him father their child because it was the only thing that would make him stay, and that was what drove him to break him out. The silver-haired ex-Soldier dragged him all over the Northern Continent to keep him blind to his insanity while he was pregnant, used him to get what he wanted and then grew bored when their daughter was born. Practically in tears in the defendant’s seat; Genesis had to watch as hundreds of victims of his lover’s insanity stood up to speak against him even though they didn’t know a thing about him. There wasn’t a thing he could do...not a thing. Because despite the fact that Jenova had used the younger man, the people who spoke had still lost loved ones; had lost fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and babes. Sephiroth’s dualized gender only alienated the jury more...only made them see him as further strange and further deserving of criticism. When his medical reports were made public for them, he was privy to the sight of their faces twisting in disgust and disbelief. And he knew then...he knew that Sephiroth would never be seen as a person who had fell victim to something so powerful it had nearly destroyed the Planet so long ago. The perpetrator of such power was invisible, they couldn’t see her, but they could see him.
...Someone, someone always had to take the fall.
Genesis was pardoned, but he was pardoned on the basis of manipulation, of duress. The courthouse was located on the outskirts of the Plate, and by the time he’d managed to step numbly through the throng of reporters and screaming populace, he nearly collapsed. Because he had not done his lover justice. He had not done his daughter justice...she would grow up with the people around her telling her that her father was a monster. The day after the whole of it ended, Angeal signed him up for therapy. Mostly because he tried to hang himself from the roofbeams in his apartment. The guilt he felt was staggering, the guilt he felt for surviving was staggering. Because he got to live a lie...and his lover got to be forgotten...and if he was not forgotten, he was despised. When he mustered the courage to go out several weeks later, people looked at him with pity. Like he was this little...small thing who had been dragged along in the wake of someone terrible when he was not and he had not.
It took him a long time to get over it.
Despite all of it...he had good memories. Sweet memories, really. Memories of sitting with Saoirse while they watched the hydropower system be erected while eating too much taffy. Aerith was forced to move in with Zack, who was far too happy about it. Very recently, Zack had proposed, and Genesis had no idea how to feel about it. The church Aerith had tended her flowers in for so long was refurbished as a memorial building for the victims of Shinra’s tyranny. It was the only building left standing in what was once the slums, and he was glad to see his sister reestablished somewhere else...somewhere with more sunlight...more hope. Genesis had memories of pillow forts and sticky fingers and terrible cartoon series that he fell asleep in the middle of and woke up to with Saoirse sprawled across his lap with chocolate all over her face. He had memories of flying a kite off the veranda of Gillian’s house just outside the city and getting it stuck in a tree. There were recollections, recollections of toy stores and picking out dresses that made Aerith wrinkle her face in disgust and Angeal being a bit too manly and coming to a birthday party with rugby cleats and a baseball bat only to have his daughter love them all the same.
Genesis had memories of sitting up at night, of checking for the ‘monster’ under the bed only to find that it was a wayward moogle. He had psychic freeze-frames of his daughter hugging Lazard when he came by to drop off Genesis’ birth certificate from the Archives; of Lazard looking like he didn’t know what to do...of the guilt in his eyes and the way that he hugged her back...full of regret, of fragility and the barest hint of grief. There was the first time Tseng came to call once they got settled, the way he obviously had no great love for children but was willing to try...because of Sephiroth. So many people were trying because of Sephiroth and it was that little bit of honest goodness that gave Genesis the strength to move forward. And it broke him a little bit...that goodness. The reality that these people were only stepping forward once it was all over and done with. He knew that for some that wasn’t true; that Angeal, Gillian, Zack, and Aerith had always been there...had always tried. But the price, in his opinion, shouldn’t have been so high...the sacrifice shouldn’t have to be so great.
By the time he was remotely comfortable in public, Saoirse was gearing up for kindergarten and he was scared for her. He picked a private school; a facility that provided education up to eighth grade with good reviews, a good reputation, and a zero-tolerance stance on bullying. It was insanely expensive but it was small, it would introduce her to things slowly and that was what he wanted for her. On her first day he dressed her in a blue jumper, got her pigtails crooked, drove her to school, kissed her cheek and then cried the whole way back home. He spent the enitre day and the next day by the phone wringing his hands until Angeal called him and invited him to a deli for lunch. He brought his cell phone with him and checked it obsessively while his childhood friend ordered sandwiches in a weary kind of way and then walked him to a table to sit down. Once they did, the dark-haired former first leaned forward, looked him squarely in the eye, and opened his mouth.
”Maybe you should think about getting a job.”
Sitting in a booth eating a sandwich with a kind of single-minded ferocity, Genesis realized he was probably right. The problem was that he didn’t know what he wanted to do, and if he did know, he didn’t know if he was qualified to do it. He and Angeal chatted for a while longer and then he wandered home feeling full and fully lost. The redhead picked up Saoirse and she regaled him with stories of finger painting and nursery rhymes, gave him a picture to put on the fridge, and then bounced off to her room after dinner and dishes were done. He ended up volunteering as night ranger on the city outskirts. Mostly because he knew he wouldn’t be holed up in an office somewhere and it was far away from HQ. Headquarters had been repurposed as a communications building for various government sectors. The system wasn’t really definable as anything solid in terms of legislature, but taxes were fair, food wasn’t scarce and people weren’t starving. To his credit, Lazard had headed a good majority of the reform with Angeal’s help, but SOLDIER didn’t exist anymore, and once everything was established the dark-haired former First took a job in the police force. Genesis was beginning to suspect he had a girlfriend, because he’d started getting a bit shifty-eyed when the redhead asked about his love life.
Recovery for Angeal was an entirely different story.
Genesis had been somewhat aware that his childhood friend was tortured. He still wasn’t entirely cognizant of the extent to which he was tortured, but he had a fairly good idea. Unlike himself, Angeal did go to therapy. As far as the redhead was aware, he was still going to therapy...and if it worked for him, great. There were still times when his former fellow Commander’s eyes grew distance; when they were standing in loud traffic or when they were in a gathering of large people. They’d discussed it...a little bit, but Angeal wasn’t the type to unburden himself freely...especially when the person who was asking had what he perceived as ‘enough to deal with.’ It took a lot of poking and prodding to get him to admit he was suffering from retrograde amnesia brought on by extreme trauma in the first place. The redhead was left with little choice but to be as supportive as possible...as much as possible. If this meant he dragged Saoirse over the ‘Uncle Angeal’s’ house every Thursday and let her slather his couch with ketchup, so be it.
The night ranger job didn’t last long.
Despite the dissolution of SOLDIER, the Planet still needed some type of military presence. Wutai was peaceful, but sometimes they thought they were too big for their britches and somebody had to be there to knock them down when they got the urge to invade Mideel. Zack ended up approaching him with the idea of forming a government branch dedicated to universal security and Genesis told him to go fuck himself several times before taking up the position of what amounted to a field sergeant despite the fact that nobody called it that. He hadn’t had to kill anyone yet-and he was eternally grateful for it-and for the most part things were quiet. If he had to ship out, it was usually on weekends when Saoirse could stay at a friend’s, with Gillian, or with Aerith and Zack.
Hojo was nowhere to be found.
It niggled at him. Mostly because he knew the man well enough that he was fully aware that this was a bad thing. Eventually, what he was doing would come to light, and then they would have to either suffer it or take care of it. There was also the fact that he felt like he should answer for what he’d done to so many people...but mostly for what he had done to Sephiroth. Genesis wanted to clear the younger man’s name, but he couldn’t do that without a good reason to approach the courts again. Without Hojo, he couldn’t do that; he had no good reason to do that, and he would push his luck by trying. He didn’t want to go to the press because it would disrupt Saoirse’s life, he didn’t want her caught up in the shitstorm that was the media unless it was absolutely necessary. Life was peaceful, it wasn’t perfect, but it was peaceful, and disrupting it by having some sort of tell-all was not only unnecessary, it was disrespectful.
He didn’t hear from Shikro.
Genesis didn’t go to any great lengths to seek him out so it didn’t bother him very much. He was fairly sure his adoptive father was avoiding him at all costs, and he was fine with that. The redhead wasn’t entirely certain he’d be able to keep his temper if he didn’t. He understood, in some ways, that Circinae had chosen her fate. And he didn’t believe in the ’written in the stars’ shit, but his legally-appointed mother had chosen her lot. Maybe she’d been trapped when Genesis was a kid, but she’d had plenty of opportunity to leave once he’d joined Soldier. The fact that she had chosen to stay didn’t do much for his opinion of her character. He knew that it was fairly likely that she wasn’t causing a scene for his sake, so that the press didn’t walk all over his familial troubles while he was trying to rise through the ranks, but he honestly wouldn’t have given a damn. He supposed that this was another circumstance where purpose meant more than the culmination of intent, but he was terrible enough at understanding Sephiroth’s choice to die, he had-at the risk of understatement-enough to try and mentally compensate for.
Dating was impossible.
Genesis tried it, and the anxiety that came with it nearly threw him into hysterics. He couldn’t find anyone he felt connected to like he had to Sephiroth, he was always drawing comparisons or his partners were always bringing up his past. A few months after Saoirse turned six, he ended up in bed with Apple and then he ended up crying all over Apple and she was actually understanding and sympathetic and it was awful. Prior to his breakdown he’d demanded she use the cat-o-nine tails with no restrictions and she couldn’t hit hard enough, couldn’t make the pain great enough. It was only when she hesitantly said that it seemed like he was trying to repent and not orgasm that he fell apart. They were friends now, and they were both happier with being friends than bedpartners despite the fact that she was as lethal as a walking, talking, loaded machine gun. He had other flings...one night stands that were empty but sated him for the time being, but his love life was singularly bereft. He didn’t miss it...not really. Because you couldn’t miss something that no one could possibly replace.
“I...I have something for you.”
Drawn back into the moment, Genesis blinked and then forced himself to rise...forced himself to walk the few feet over a pink, fluffy-carpeted floor to where his daughter was standing with a square, laminated piece of paper clutched to her chest. She looked uncertain...a little bit apprehensive and a little sad. With his throat suddenly very tight, the mirth of the previous moment gone, the former Commander opened his mouth.
“...What is it?”
Still...she hesitated, and he couldn’t imagine what it was that would cause so much inner turmoil...what it could be that would make her look so small when she was only three years away from going to college. The fingers on the slip of paper clenched it tightly before seeming to force themselves to let go, Saoirse swallowed and took a deep breath.
“One of my friends...in school” she began haltingly. “Her Dad...her Dad...she said he was in one of...one of his platoons.” Genesis froze, and she hurried on. “She gave this to me, and I didn’t know...I didn’t know if I should show it to you because I know it makes you sad...but I don’t know if it’s him. You don’t talk about him a lot, and I just want-I just need to-”
“-Give it to me” Genesis said, his voice coming out harsher than he’d intended. When Saoirse looked miserable, he relented, closed the few feet between them to “It’s okay, I just...I don’t have anything of him, and I know you’ve probably wondered, but I never looked for anything to show you because most of it has...well, you know what the public thinks.”
She nodded but didn’t hand it over.
“I do know” she said quietly. “People talk about it, my classmates talk about it.” A deep breath. “Sometimes...they’re not very nice about it.”
The anger he felt that came with her statement was fiercely protective, but it was also directed at himself. Because she’d never mentioned anything of the sort, so he’d assumed that she was okay...that maybe her classmates were being kind to her.
“When did this start?” he asked tightly.
Green eyes flicked uncertainly to the side...to the bookbag in a pink cubby.
“This year” she said quietly.
It made sense.
He didn’t like it, but it made sense. Saoirse was in ninth grade now; her first year out of the private school he’d liked so well. And she’d asked to go to a public high school, despite the fact that he’d wanted her to go to the extended branch of the facility she’d left. They could, he decided, talk about it later...after all of this. If it was what he suspected it was...they would both need to process it together. There was the shuffle of plastic, and he took the square piece of paper with shaking hands...gazed at the blank whiteness of the back for a moment before turning it over. When he did, it felt a bit like descending from the top of a roller coaster. That first...steep drop into oblivion.
It was definitely him.
Specifically, it was him and a group of SOLDIERS who he didn’t know entirely by name, but he knew their faces. Some of them were dead. His focus, however, was on the man to the side...the tall, impassive figure that seemed to drown out everyone else in the frame. Dressed in his leathers...Masamune at his side...his hair swept over one shoulder like a shimmering waterfall. Sephiroth was gazing at the camera in that stony, distant way that indicated that he didn’t like the photo op but he knew it was necessary. His lower lip was just a bit stiff, his eyes were elsewhere. The men around him were smiling, but he was solemn...professional. This would have been before they were together, Genesis concluded. Possibly before they met, but it was hard to tell. He could only look...could only stare at the slope of a chiseled jaw...the broadness of his shoulders. The redhead knew what those cheeks would feel like under his palms...knew what the leather of his coat felt like...knew what his mouth tasted like. So assured, so tightly laced, so achingly beautiful...
“...Is it him?”
Genesis startled, felt his shoulders jerk before he could stop them. Blinking suddenly very moist eyes, he looked back at his daughter, who looked so curious and so hopeful that he forced the grief that had risen to try and consume him to the background. Clearing his throat, he nodded slowly.
“Yes” he said thickly, handing the picture back. “It is.”
Saoirse blinked down at it for a moment before tilting her head.
“He didn’t smile very much?”
Genesis laughed, and it was just on the edge of a sob.
“No” he chuckled waterously. “He didn’t. But damn-oh shit-I mean shoot-darn if he didn’t have the most gorgeous smile I’ve ever seen.”
Green eyes surveyed the picture a while longer.
“Was he...kind?” she asked quietly.
Letting his hand drop, the former Soldier moved to stand just beside her; looked over her shoulder and into deep...viridian irises.’
“Maybe not in the way you’d define as ‘kind’” he replied. “He wasn’t affectionate, or particularly convivial really. But he was fair...he wasn’t quick to judge and he was very patient, very determined.” He patted the head of red hair before him. “A bit like you really.”
“My…” Saoirse trailed off. “People say he was a monster” she muttered.
Sighing, prepared for the inevitable as he had been for a long time, Genesis plucked the photo out of her hands and gently placed it on the shelf of the cubby-cabinet next to him. Turning her by the shoulders, the scarlet-haired ex-Soldier waited until she looked up at him before taking her fingers in both of his own.
“Listen to me” he said quietly. “I haven’t told you...I haven’t told you about what happened to him. But it’s not because I don’t think you’re ready.” When his daughter looked confused, he smiled gently. “It’s because I’m not ready.” He shook his head. “Your...Sephiroth…” Genesis’ choked on the title. “He was a great man, with a lot of power, a lot of influence...but he was still a good person.”
“Is it my fault that he died?”
It took him a moment to realize what she was asking. When he did, Genesis sucked in a deep breath.
“No, no, Saoirse. You didn’t-your birth-” he corrected himself. “-Was not the reason he died. It was something else entirely, it’s not your fault.”
She appeared to contemplate this for a moment, her gaze somewhat over his shoulder.
“Do you think he’d like me?”
Again, the older man laughed, and again, it was a little breathless.
“Your father” he said at length. “Adored you.”
At this, she smiled; just a little bit, a single upward crook of the lips.
“I wish I could have met him, when I could remember it, I mean” Saoirse paused. “Did you love him a lot?”
Genesis hugged her because at that moment he didn’t really think he deserved her. Wrapping her up in the best Dad-hug he could muster, he kissed her cheek.
“Me too” he replied. “And yeah, I loved him...I still love him.”
Saoirse reciprocate the gesture hesitantly, with all the reticence of a typical teenager her age.
“I worry about you Dad, loving someone who’s so far away.”
Genesis scrunched his eyes shut and told himself he was not going to cry. Because how the hell did he come back with something better than that?!
“I’m okay” he muttered. “I promise.”
“You’re not” was the grouchy response and he laughed and stepped back, sobering as he did so.
“I’m…” he gestured a bit helplessly before settling on something concrete. “I’m your Dad” he said dryly, and she gave him his own ’no shit’ eyebrow. “But I’m also like...a person outside of that.” He put on a mock serious face. “You should know, really, that ‘Dad’ is not my real name.”
Saoirse rolled her eyes and he grinned.
“Way to ruin a heart-to-heart” she grumbled with a smile tugging at her lips as she made to turn away. Before she could completely do so, he grasped her arm gently.
“Saoirse” he said urgently. “I’m not dismissing that you worry about me, okay? It means a lot, but I want you to be a kid-a teen-whatever. Y’know, go out...have fun, live your life.”
Again, she smiled, but it was warmer this time.
“I know” she admitted. Her eyes flicked to the picture on top of the cubby cabinet. “Do you...do you mind if I frame it?” When Genesis shook his head, she nodded. “I’m gonna clean my room now.”
Moving towards the door, the former Commander acknowledged her comment with a wave of his hand.
“Good idea” he said airily. “If you procrastinate any longer I think I might have to use a shovel to dig you out of bed in the morning.” The redhead paused and turned back. “But Saoirse, no matter what anyone says...about me...about Seph, just know that I-that we-” he struggled for a moment. “You are and were loved” Genesis finished. “A lot.”
With her eyes still on the photo of Sephiroth, his daughter nodded.
“Yeah…” she replied. “I know…”
“...Thanks Dad.”