DISCLAIMER: It'd be nice if I owned Clannad, but I sure as hell don't, thus I will settle for writing fanfiction.

Lucky

Moments like this, he knew, were ones to be treasured. It was certainly ordinary enough, himself perched on the porch of his house and watching beside his daughter as his son-in-law and granddaughter played together. But he knew deep down that ordinary moments like this were what made life worth living.

Furukawa Akio knew that there were many people who would not agree, but he believed himself to be the luckiest man alive.

Certainly, he was neither wealthy nor famous, as many people who had known him in high school had thought he would go on to become through a successful career in acting. Then again, Akio had never been the kind of man to base his good fortune on something as worldly as money, or as fickle as fame. He knew not everyone agreed with his ideas of his good fortune, and he frankly could care less. All he needed to affirm this to himself was to simply look around.

For starters, there was his lovely wife Sanae. Certainly she had her ditzy tendencies, and she was nothing short of a disaster when it came to baking bread (of course, that wouldn't stop him from stuffing his face and running after her, shouting that he loved it whenever she fled out the door in tears), but it did not change two basic facts about their relationship. The first one was that he loved her, and the second was that he was lucky to have her.

Sanae had ranked quite high on the list of most guys when they were in high school. She was certainly pretty (and with a nice body, as most of the boys tended to let their gazes wander downward...), but what had attracted Akio to her was her sunny disposition and cheerful smile. Their relationship had began ordinarily enough, with them at first being just acquaintances, then friends, until one day, he asked her out. Akio would always grin when he remembered how stunned Sanae had been at first, then how her face had broken out into one of her trademark smiles. They had started seeing each other from that day onward, despite some obstacles they had encountered along the way (none that Akio ever deemed worth more than a second thought, except as testament to his determination to have Sanae for himself), and that had led eventually to marriage.

It was an added plus that despite the passage of many years Sanae still looked as youthful as she did before. Akio would often give her an appreciative once over, and ever since Nagisa had flown the nest, he was often free to take her aside for a little fun of their own.

Another reason Akio considered himself a lucky man was someone he did not see as often, but cherished all the same: his granddaughter Ushio. She was a joy to have around, always with a smile on her face (except when she cried, then he would just pass her back to Nagisa and Tomoya, grinning broadly at them as he did and wholeheartedly ignoring the smoldering glares Tomoya would shoot him), and reminding him a great deal of how Nagisa had been when she was a child. He was not yet very old, and he felt happy to be a grandfather at his age, with his daughter matched to a man that he (eventually had) approved of. Ushio was a bright-eyed and affectionate child, and he was lucky to be the grandfather of such a child.

The one who reminded him most of how lucky he was, however, was his daughter Nagisa. He remembered years ago, back when he and Sanae had been busy with their respective careers and had neglected their daughter, the terrible night when she had collapsed outside their house. Her fever had been horrible, and Akio still sometimes felt himself trembling whenever he remembered how Nagisa had struggled for each breath, her face flushed and in pain even though he held her tiny hand to let her know she wasn't alone, that otou-san and okaa-san were both there for her.

He was a proud man, a proud, hot-blooded type who would normally never let his tears show, but that night, as the fear of losing his only child pulsed through his mind incessantly along with icy terror squeezing his heart with each beat, he cried more than he ever remembered doing before. Akio had collapsed onto his knees by Nagisa's hospital bed, tearfully begging God, or any deity out there that would listen, to please spare his child. After several emotionally trying hours, the fever eventually subsided, but the doctors had told them that it had been a close call and they had very nearly lost Nagisa several times during the night.

When he watched his tiny, frail daughter open her eyes and focus them on him, Akio knew in his heart that his plea had been heard and he was granted a second chance to be with his daughter. It had taken all of his reserves of self-control to not seize her in an overjoyed hug when she had called out to him weakly, but happily. Instead, Akio had fallen to his knees beside her, reaching for her tiny, outstretched hand and tremblingly clasping it between his two larger ones. She had smiled, a weaker but still bright version of her usual loving smiles, and had whispered as loudly as her hoarse throat would let her.

"Good morning, otou-san."

Tears had begun rolling down his face at that moment, the moment he never thought he would get a chance to share with his daughter as he smiled back, choking out, "Good morning, Nagisa."

Sanae had been less able to restrain herself when she returned to the room, hurling her arms around her daughter and openly thankful that her baby was still alive. The Furukawa parents were eventually shooed out the door by the hospital staff to allow Nagisa to get some more rest, giving them the time to decide together that their careers were nowhere near as important as their daughter.

Looking back at Nagisa's sleeping face, Akio had reminded himself that second chances were never to be squandered. Life was not often kind to those who wished for second chances; those who received such a boon should therefore have the good sense to make the most of it. At the moment that he made his solemn vow to keep watch over his daughter, he hardly spared a thought toward the promising acting career that had loomed before him. He and Sanae's first act in accordance to their mutual vow to watch over their daughter was to remove all items related to what they now considered their old lives in the shed in their backyard.

Not until the day that Tomoya, and eventually Nagisa, had stumbled onto the items had he spared a thought for them. Yes, he loved acting, but he loved his family more. He loved his wife, he loved his daughter, and he knew for a fact that they would stay by his side long after the fame and glory of the acting world had dimmed and shunted him aside. And so, without even the slightest regrets weighing down his heart, he was able to watch his daughter grow up, to greet her in the mornings and other times of the day with an affectionate hug or a kiss on the cheek, and run his hand through her hair just to feel how soft it was. He would watch his wife read her bedtime stories, or listen to the two women in his life giggle as he vigorously acted out the parts in the stories Nagisa loved so much. She would sleep occasionally between him and his wife, and he would wrap his arm protectively around them both, silently adhering to his vow to always place his family before anything else in his life as he drank in the sight of his two most important people sleeping soundly beside him.

Looking back, Akio knew he had been foolish in the beginning, something he attributed to the foolishness of youth. To think that he could bring a child into this world, and then neglect her the way he had... The thought always horrified him, especially because it would always bring back memories of the night she collapsed. There had been nights he would wake up in a cold sweat over the memory, nights haunted by nightmares that showed him a world where Nagisa would not even take painful breaths after she collapsed, her face not hot and flushed with fever, but instead cold and pale with death's embrace. He was over it now for the most part, but still found it stupid of him to need a crisis like that to show him what a precious treasure his daughter was. At the same time, he wondered if perhaps he had needed that slap in the face to remind him of what was necessary, to show him that there was someone right under his very nose who needed him.

The fact that Nagisa had survived that night and had gone on to make a full recovery showed him beyond any shadow of doubt that he truly was blessed with good fortune. Every day that Nagisa lived Akio added to his list of reasons why he was a lucky man. He knew sometimes she wondered why he looked at her with that strange look in his eyes; he never really told her, just simply smiled and told her he loved her. That never failed, even now when she was an adult woman with a family of her own, to make her smile cheerfully and give him a hug as she told him that she was happy to be his daughter.

It was too difficult for him to put into words what he felt as he gazed at her, his thoughts far away, yet still focused on her. A father's pride, certainly, but also gratitude... Gratitude that she was who she was.

Gratitude that she had survived, and continued to survive.

Gratitude that he had been given the chance not only to love her but also to show her he loved her.

He could only say that he was as thankful to her as he was of her, and even then, he knew that was not enough.

Perhaps he could never convey it in words. And that was fine with him, as long as he could show her instead.

For he knew that, somewhere out there in the great world, there was a man who had been caught in his same folly, but had not had the chance he had received. That man watched his daughter perish before his eyes, and he would only have himself to blame. He would never be able to share the good fortune that Akio enjoyed now, able to watch an ordinary moment such as this, a moment that was to be treasured even without the knowledge that one was fortunate to be able to have it.

Presently turning away from watching Ushio play with her father, Nagisa caught Akio staring at her again in that faraway manner. Smiling gently in an action so reminiscent of her mother yet still holding a charm that was all her own, she asked, "What is it, otou-san?"

Smiling back around his cigarette, Akio pet her hair affectionately. "I love you, Nagisa."

In reply, she put her arms around him and hugged tightly. "I love you too, otou-san."

This one's kinda rough, but this one was a definite stream of thought. I swear, once I started on this piece, it just wrote itself. I personally rather like how it ended up, though perhaps a bit overdramatic at times.

I have always wondered what it'd be like to go through an incident like the one Nagisa's parents had with her. I don't have a very good grasp on Akio's character, which would explain any OOC moments in the fic, but I guess I just tried to imagine how a father would feel during and after an event that could have taken their child from them. It's sappy, I know, sue me (No, please don't. Your legal fees would outweigh anything you'd get outta me anyway).

Was questioning whether or not to have it done with English titles for parents or Japanese ones, I ultimately decided on the Japanese ones. I don't know why, but just personally, I liked the impact of it with the Japanese titles. I don't think I'll ever have an official stance on that. XD

Anyways, if you've made it this far, please leave me a review. Constructive criticism is welcome, flames will be saved for cold days when the warmth is appreciated. At any rate, thanks! ^_^