Pater Familias

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Sakura made her way to my apartment just as I finished up a bit of paperwork on Havars. I bade her enter before she even knocked, using her name. She opened the door and peered in at me, confusion and cautious pleasure in her eyes. “How did you know it was me?” she asked, coming in and closing the door.

“Sephiroth was here earlier, and he informed you would stop by,” I said. It wasn’t really a lie. I didn’t have to tell her that I recognized her scent and walk. “How are you this evening, my dear?”

“Nervous,” she answered promptly, sitting down on my loveseat and closing her eyes. “I hope you don’t mind if I just sit here with you quietly. I feel very safe in your presence and I haven’t been resting well, obviously.”

“Nightmares,” I said, remembering her thoughts. “And having your various homes smashed into.”

“Yes.” Sakura sighed. “How did you know about the nightmares, though?”

“I recognize the signs of an unpleasant nighttime world,” I answered, still not quite lying. “You rest. If you want to sleep here, sleep. I’m organizing some of my files.”

“Thank you,” she breathed. “Aerith wanted to help me but I didn’t feel right about it, considering she’s pregnant. She shouldn’t be using her healing energy until she knows how it affects her child.” Her words grew weaker and weaker. “And really, all I need is a nap somewhere I’m not looking over my shoul…”

She fell asleep.

Surprised, I looked at her. Having someone fall asleep while talking to me felt unusual. It worried me slightly that Sakura had done this.

I got up, gathering all my papers together and putting them aside for the moment. Checking the bedroom I discovered I hadn’t made the bed from my own nap. Good, that made less work for me. I very carefully picked Sakura up. She did not have to catch her much needed sleep lying on my tiny loveseat.

“Mmm, Hojo,” she mumbled as I carried her into the bedroom. A small smile curved her lips.

I put her in the bed and pulled the covers up over her. She frowned as I stood back, her eyelids twitching as if she wanted to wake. I felt her forehead and found her temperature normal, noticing she relaxed when I touched her.

I went back into the living room, picked up my paperwork and returned to her, stretching out on the other side of the bed. Sakura rolled to face me but didn’t awaken. I put my correcting pencil in my right hand and let my left hand rest on her head. She made a cooing sound, apparently contented.

For the next two hours I checked figures and shuffled papers while sitting up in bed next to a sleeping woman. It was a completely new experience. The only time Lucretia and I had been in bed together, we’d been screwing. Any whores I’d picked up over the years I never actually took to bed. I nailed them against walls, on couches, countertops and chairs but never took them to the place I would sleep.

Work completed, I lowered myself a little bit to relieve pressure on my ass. Sakura’s head fell onto my side. Carefully, I lifted her a little and put her against my pectoral, with her ear just above my heart. Absently, I stroked her soft hair, my eyes toward the ceiling.

I supposed it wasn’t too much of a stretch that she felt safe with me. I’d witnessed and diffused two ugly situations with her ex-whatevers. And, she apparently had a lot of confidence in me to begin with. How she had acquired this near-hero-worship remained a mystery, but I could not deny I enjoyed the attention she gave. Having a very young, very attractive female thinking so much of me…

I should get a few drinks in her and see what really went on in her head. I needed to put her in a compromising yet non-threatening position.

Like under me.

Shaking off that thought, I considered my upcoming trip to Costa del Sol. The whole point of the trip was for relaxation, not scheming. I truly needed to get away from the labs for a week. I could put the puppy on an automatic feeder and just leave water for Burnside; he could afford a week of starvation. If I came back and they were dead, so be it.

A beeping noise interrupted my musings. I dug under the covers and found Sakura’s pager. Not feeling the slightest bit guilty, I pressed the red button. A text message began to scroll across the small window.

HE KNOWS WHERE YOU LIVE, SAKI. PARENTS TOLD. GET OUT. DAMIANA

So, another rabid man after my little Miss Leijanna? I went to her menu and found the earliest messages. She hadn’t cleared her pager out in six months.

SAKI, TIME TO GO AGAIN.

SAKI, GET OUT.

SAKI, JON IS ON YOUR TRAIL. TAKE PRECAUTIONS.

Well, Andrews wasn’t a problem anymore, at least.

STAY OUT OF MIDLAND.

SAKI, R U OK? I’M WORRIED. DAMIANA

HAVARS GAVE STEVE YOUR WHEREABOUTS. I’M INTERCEPTING.

Ah, so Havars had been after Sakura too. Who was Steve? Who was Damiana?

MISS LEIJANNA, MR. ANDREWS IS IN YOUR APARTMENT, WRECKING IT. SHOULD I CALL THE AUTHORITIES?

This one doubtless was the message she received while having lunch with me. It was the last message before this latest one. My damsel in distress seemed to really be a damsel in distress. Who were all these people and why were they after her?

Thanks to the mysterious Damiana, I knew someone would soon be in Sakura’s apartment, seeking her out. I couldn’t have that. But, how were these men tracking her?

I eased a hand up under her, feeling at the base of her neck. Ah. A tracker bot. I felt the slight bulge of it just under the skin. Well, I would take care of that right now, while she slept. But, this meant another scientist had tracked her, Havars perhaps. I already knew she’d seen him as a child. Possibly, her parents had a tracker unit even if Havars no longer had the capability to monitor her movements.

Sakura either had monstrously manipulative parents or she played a part in some grand experiment…or both. If she’d been estranged from them for a few years it meant she’d been constantly on the move for a long time. My ability to protect her must seem like a god’s blessing.

I got out of the bed without waking her, retrieving a bottle of chloroform and a clean handkerchief, a scalpel and a bandage. Sprinkling the chloroform on the cloth, I held it over her nose and mouth a moment. This would keep her under for several hours, long enough to remove the bot and to intercept the man on his way to her apartment.

Taking an alcohol pad, I cleaned her neck. I cut out the bot and looked at it. The shape of it told me it wasn’t a stolen bot from my stores. I let it burrow under the back of my hand.

Let them track me awhile.

I cleaned her up and put the bandage on, reminding myself sternly to think to remove it when I came home. If Sakura found a mysterious bandage on her neck she would raise questions.

I put her in a comfortable position. I could leave her now, but I would take measures to ensure no one found her here alone.

Sephiroth, I thought, reaching out.

Father?

Would you please come down here and stay with Sakura for a little while? She’s asleep but I have reason to believe she isn’t safe alone.

I’ll be there in two minutes. I’m in the shower.

Thank you.

I had a good son. He didn’t even question me.

*************************************************************************


I cleaned the apartment while I waited for Sakura’s mysterious visitor. The hole Burnside had made with my body would take extensive repairs, for I’d broken much of the lathing. I cleaned up the plaster and debris, then swept up what was left of her glass coffee table and put the bent, ruined shell in the hallway for removal by management.

Feeling nosy, I went through her kitchen. I reasoned I never learned anything by waiting for information. Her inventory included a half-gone bottle of Triple Filter, a can of roasted cashews, a few slices of wheat bread and three apples. Thinking she had to store more food than this, I opened the refrigerator. On the shelves sat five bottles of cane beer, a small container of half and half, and three lemons.

Did she eat out for every meal?

I checked the garbage. A receipt for Tom’s Grocery lay on the bottom, dated the day she’d moved in. Everything else was banana peels, apple cores and wrapping plastic from various items she’d had to buy new, like rubbing alcohol and toiletries.

Feeling more confused than ever, I went into her bathroom. An opened box of tampons sat on the sink. Shampoo and conditioner in a travel size sat on the edge of the tub. A single washcloth that looked as old as me lay over the towel drape. I found a hair comb on the back of the toilet.

Nothing else.

I recalled that the only thing she’d seemed upset over losing from her old apartment had been a vase. Apparently her lifestyle was nomadic in the extreme, backing up the information I’d gleaned from her pager. This woman lived on the run.

Still, she’d seemed more than amenable to rent places to live instead of hotel rooms. It made no sense…

Unless she usually had a few months to rest before someone caught up to her…

I heard heavy footsteps approaching the apartment. Ducking around the island countertop, I crouched, waiting. From this angle I could easily see the door without revealing my position.

A large man with sandy, thinning hair entered, his blue eyes sweeping the room. I looked at his muscles and his clothes, assessing him to be a regular patron of a gym. He also had the look of indulgence and money. Silently, he shut the door behind him. His expression predatory, he quietly crept toward the bedroom. I slipped out from my hiding place and flattened to the wall beside that doorway. When he came through I’d have him.

How I loved hunting people. No wonder my abduction teams always bought me liquor for Yule.

He came back through. I let him walk just a pace ahead of me before jabbing him with a needle full of Hypnocol mixed with custom Rohypnol, right at his neck. He staggered forward, clutching at the injection site and twisting to look at me. “Who the hell are you?” he asked stupidly, the drugs already making him confused. “Where’s Kura?”

“I was going to ask you that,” I said, walking forward and guided his falling body to a chair. “Wasn’t she supposed to be here?” Affecting a friendly smile, I sat down opposite him.

He blinked a few times. “Yeah,” he answered, the word coming out slurred.

“Well, she should be here soon, then,” I said. “You must be…Steve?” It wouldn’t hurt to hazard a guess.

“Yeah, Steve Curdell,” he answered. His eyes floated around the room. His head bobbed a little.

Hm. Andrews, Burnside and Curdell… What were her parents doing, going through a phone book? The next man I took down would logically have a last name that started with D.

“I’m Professor Hojo, of Shin-Ra,” I introduced. “I had an appointment with Sakura.”

“I didn’t,” Curdell replied, staring at the far wall a moment. “She didn’t know I was coming.”

“Ah,” I said knowingly. “A surprise?”

He grinned. “Yeah, something like that.” Drool oozed from his mouth and splashed onto his thigh, soaking the fleecy fabric. “She ditched me on our wedding day; I’ve come to get her, make her live up to her end of the bargain.”

“I see.” I reached into my deepest pocket, bring up a lolly. I kept these around now. I expected the children from the compound for their follow-up visits very soon. “Here,” I said, handing the sweet over to him. “You need something in your mouth.”

“I’d rather have Kura,” he replied, but he stuck the thing in his mouth anyway.

I supposed it didn’t matter he hadn’t taken the plastic wrapper off.

“Well, she should be here any moment now,” I said leadingly. “In the meantime, why don’t you tell me how you met her parents?”

“John and Judy?” Curdell focused on me with great effort. “At the pageants, where else?”

“Oh,” I said, pretending to know what he meant. “You go too?”

“’Course I do,” he said, looking like he might get angry. “A beautiful person like me, not go to the pageants?”

“Quite right,” I soothed. “My mistake, Mr. Curdell. Only the most beautiful attend them.”

“Damn right,” he growled, his head dropping back for a second. “John made sure Kura competed. And don’t you know she took first place at fifteen?” Again he grinned, seeming to forget his little snit. “That’s when my old man made a bid for her, and John accepted.”

This waste of a brain pledged to fifteen year old Sakura? She’d been running for how long?

I saw his eyes roll and knew I had to get him in a safe place soon. “You look like you could use a drink,” I said, getting up to retrieve Sakura’s bottle of Triple Filter. “I’d offer you a glass but she hasn’t moved in completely yet, so you’ll have to drink out of the bottle.”

“S’no problem,” he muttered. “She won’t be moving in anyway. I’m taking her back to Junon where she belongs.”

Ah. That explained the very slight brogue in her otherwise cultured voice.

I gave him the bottle. He drained it. Well, he’d be easier to carry while completely passed out.

Curdell gave a might belch and promptly passed out, farting afterward. I wiped the bottle of prints and tucked it into his pants. Then, I picked him up and exited the flat. I carried him all the way to the lab, not encountering anyone due to the late hour and the secured grounds.

It seemed my luck would hold.

“Pod number three for you, my blustering, muscle-bound friend,” I said, tossing him in. “I must say, making a friend of Sakura has been profitable in many ways.” I took the bottle and threw it into the glass recycling bin on my way out. “Very profitable indeed.”