A/N: Just a short, domestic little one shot I couldn't get out of my head. Trent and Rachel are in an established relationship at this point and it's several years ahead of the current book's timeline. Can be viewed as a small follow up to my previous story "Survival" but it also stands alone fine.

What I Want for You

Two paper coffee cups clutched tightly in my hands, I threaded and dodged my way through the gaggle of five-year-old girls in uniform running about excitedly and their proud, harried parents attempting to properly bundle them into those uniforms and keep the chaos to a minimum.

Back stage before a martial arts competition seemed to have gotten a lot more hectic and noisy than I remembered from back when I was working on my black belt. Or maybe it was the fact that I had started as a young teen, after my Rosewood Syndrome death sentence had been officially lifted, so I had never participated in the kindergarten divisions. At this age they weren't actually competing, this was instead a demonstration, where proud friends and family could come and see their children's progress. Even so, I would never have had enough stamina to be part of something like this when I was five. Before Trent's father corrected the twist in my genes that was killing me, just playing tag wore me out.

Speaking of Trent ... where was he? I looked around, trying to find him amid the crowd, the stacked chairs and other backstage detritus.

I caught sight of Lucy's familiar golden head, only to see it disappear in a swift downward motion. That drew my attention and concern for a moment, until I saw that she had only flipped over and was standing on her hands, grinning competitively at her companions. She was already in her uniform, which had probably been all properly done up, until she flipped upside down. Now it was riding up her stomach and threatening to bunch about her head. She looked like she was having a great time, though.

Seeing that she was all right, I resumed my search for Trent and found him a moment later. He was standing off to one side, against the wall. He was charming and cordial with the other parents, but he rarely mingled. Making my way over, I pushed one of the cups of coffee into Trent's hand with a little grin. "Thought you might need this. As I recall, this place serves terrible coffee."

Trent smiled at me as he accepted the hot beverage. It was the kind of smile that actually made it to his eyes, the kind I now knew only a few people received. "You are a true hero," he murmured, his smooth, amused voice laced with a warmth that still sent a little ping through my gut, even though we'd been together for a couple of years by now. Time changed things, but not always for the worse. I still found him devastatingly attractive, but being around him now was a lot more ... comfortable than it had been in the beginning.

"Emergency coffee delivery, cats stuck in trees, I do it all," I agreed with a smirk. "Where's Quen?" I'd have brought him a coffee too, except I was low on hands and the last time I brought him coffee he had been polite, but hadn't actually drank it.

Trent stared down at his coffee cup and took a long sip before answering. "He's in the auditorium, securing our seats and instructing our camera man on the desired angles," he said simply, but I could tell something was up.

"Uh, huh... and?" I prompted. I was getting pretty good at reading Trent, and I could tell that he was troubled about something. The fact that he'd apparently hired someone to film his daughters' demonstration amused me, but didn't surprise me. Some things about Trenton Kalamack you just had to get used to, like the fact that his family videos were professionally filmed and edited HD affairs that were lined up in date-ordered rows on the shelves of his home theater. There were a lot of them and I'd rolled my eyes at all this until I found out that the only pictures Trent had of his own youth after his mother died were press releases, society columns and media coverage. Nobody had cared to chronicle his achievements unless he was doing something news-worthy. The shelves of tangible memories he kept of his girls seemed a lot less like overkill after that.

Trent grimaced ruefully, still gazing down at his coffee. "And let's just say it's probably a good idea that he's out there and I'm in here right now," he admitted.

I raised my eyebrows a little, although I wasn't all that surprised. I had felt tension between the two men frequently of late, although I wasn't sure what was going on. "You two fighting again?" I asked wryly. "You do realize that we're supposed to be the volatile couple, right?"

Sipping my own coffee, I moved a little farther out of the general traffic flow, standing next to him against the wall. I was never really sure where I fit in situations like this. Trent was my boyfriend, significant other, whatever you wanted to call it, and had been for a while. We weren't exactly hiding anymore, but we didn't make a big thing about it in front of other people either. I was involved in Lucy and Ray's lives, but in an ancillary capacity. Trent and Quen were their parents, I was like a very favorite aunt who was just around all the time. Honestly, that worked for me and it seemed to work for Trent and Quen too. I knew though, that despite both of us being all right with the non-traditional aspects of our relationship, Trent still worried about me feeling excluded from his life and his family. I had a feeling that was part of why he always invited me to things like this, the other part being that I was also pretty sure he just liked having me around... most of the time, anyway.

Trent gave me a wry little grin. "We're not fighting," he corrected. "We are just experiencing a... significant difference of opinion."

"Right," I agreed. "That's called fighting. So, what happened?" I prodded. "You two have been as bitchy as an old married couple lately."

Trent eyed me with a frown. "Lovely, thank you for that mental image," he said dryly. Sighing, he ran his hand through his hair. "I don't know, Rachel, it's not one thing, it's a lot of little things. The most recent issue has to do with the girls' participation in these classes." He gestured around us vaguely. "Quen and I have different opinions about what is and isn't appropriate."

I frowned over my coffee cup, having a hard time picturing Quen objecting to the idea of his daughters learning self defense. "What, you don't approve of your daughters kicking a little ass? Girls aren't all ballet recitals and piano lessons, Trent."

Trent looked taken aback at my censure. "What? No. Heavens, no. If anything I'm pleased to think that they are learning to defend themselves in more ways than one. It's simply that ..." he looked away, eyes shadowed as if he was unsure how to articulate his thoughts.

"The class was Quen's idea," Trent said quietly after a moment. "Not for both girls, just for Ray. He loves them both fiercely, Rachel, and Ray is his everything, but things have a very set order in his mind. He would see Lucy in debate class and the Leaders of Tomorrow program; Ray he signs up for twice weekly combat training and teaches to recognize and analyze threats." Trent sighed, gaze fixed at an indefinite point across the room.

This was hard for him, I realized. Quen had practically raised him after his father died ... maybe even before that. For all that Quen was in the subordinate position, Trent was subconsciously accustomed to deferring to his wisdom. This was how Trent had grown up. No doubt, Quen had conscientiously helped Jonathan fill Trent's calendar with all those things he felt his young Sa'han should be doing to best prepare and equip him for his future. I knew the older elf loved Trent, and he loved the girls perhaps even more, but Trent had been on the other side of this equation and seeing it played out again with his children was apparently not sitting well with him.

"You disagree?" I asked and it was part question, part statement.

Trent pursed his lips uncertainly and shook his head. "It's not that I would not see them prepared for what life may bring, but I fear that whether he intends it or not, Quen would have them become us." His gaze fixed on me, full of concern and determination. "They will not be us, Rachel," he said definitively. "They will be themselves. I'm not blind. I know that no matter how much I want to shield Lucy, the future demands on her will be intense - and yet in some ways, at least with Quen ... I worry less for her. She isn't like me. Honestly," he smiled wryly at me. "She's more like you. She is so stubborn and full of spirit. Just you try to tell her who and what she's supposed to be." He chuckled, an achingly proud expression flittering unconsciously across his face.

I was surprised and a little touched to think that Trent actually liked the idea of his daughter being in any way like me, and I hurt for him a little too, because he obviously didn't see himself the way I saw him.

"You know, she threw a fit when she found out Ray was signed up for this and she hadn't been included. This is honestly much more her kind of thing. Naturally, I signed her up immediately."

I smiled to myself at the matter-of-fact statement. Oh yes, Trent, naturally. Was he even aware, how wrapped around her little finger he was? I privately thought it was a good thing that Quen was disposed to be the disciplinarian of the group. Most days, those two girls could get just about anything they wanted out of Trent, and they knew it. Kids weren't dumb.

"Ray is no less strong," he continued. "But she is ..." he smiled wryly. "More responsible, perhaps? She takes everything to heart. She's always watching. Always so aware of what others are feeling and what is expected of her. I fear that Quen doesn't realize how much his desires shape her. What am I supposed to say, Rachel? She's his daughter ... but she's mine, too."

That was a big part of the problem, I realized. Trent struggled with how much he had a right to interfere in his adopted daughter's life when he felt he had already taken away so many of Quen's rights over his own child. The majority of the world thought that Ray was Trent's biological child and that Quen was nothing but their body guard, when the truth was that Ray held no relation at all to Trent save having been the child of the woman he had been in a pretend relationship with before her death. When Ceri was alive, the arrangement had all made sense. With her long gone what remained was an unusual situation that they all treasured and no one exactly knew how to quantify.

"He would raise her to take his place," Trent admitted, his gaze gone distant again. "He would have her be to Lucy what he is to me, but I ... I don't want that for her. I don't want Ray to be looked upon as somehow less than her sister. I want her to be able to decide for herself what she wants out of life. One of us should have that," he whispered the last very quietly.

I knew that was a freedom he couldn't give Lucy. Her bloodline trapped her as surely as it had trapped him. Trent knew it. I realized that was part of why he wanted so desperately to give his younger daughter something different.

"Have you talked to Quen about any of this?" I asked him.

Trent nodded. "He understands my feelings. He loves that child more than anything, Rachel, and I fear I wound deeply him by seeming as if I think he might do anything that would harm her. He thinks that I am being unrealistic. He believes I will do her more harm by not preparing her for the reality of the world that awaits when they are no longer children. He defers to my wishes if I want to countermand him, but that isn't what I want." Trent sighed again, his hands fisting at his sides in frustration. "Sometimes I'm not even sure what I want. Maybe he's right and I want to change too much, too quickly. Am I completely naive to just want my daughters to have the chance to be whatever makes them happy?"

I took Trent's hand, uncurling his fist and entwining our fingers with a reassuring squeeze. "No, of course not. It's what a father should want for his children. I know Quen wants that for them too. He just wants to protect them in the only way he knows how. Quen is tradition, Trent, and you are change." I smiled at him. "The world needs both. Your girls, need both. I believe you'll find a way to balance each other out."

Trent looked a little amused by that. "If we don't kill each other first," he muttered, telling me a lot that he wasn't saying about the state of tension between the two of them at home.

I looked across the room to where the little girls were now all changed into their uniforms and were running around happily practicing their moves in the air and generally jumping around like five year olds with too much energy. Most of the parents had started to clear out now, in search of good seating in the auditorium, leaving the children in the care of their instructors.

"Do you think Ray really didn't want to be in this class?" I asked, brows furrowed. She looked pretty content over there with the other girls, even if she was practicing her moves with a bit more focus than most of her classmates. Lucy, I noted, was still standing on her head and giving one of the other kids a smug look that told me they must have bet her she couldn't do it this long. Geez, she really was a little like me. Poor Trent.

Trent shook his head. "I don't know. I asked her and she said she did. She certainly seems to be happy enough and she does well in all the sessions I've attended."

I smiled wryly at him. "Then don't over-analyze. You're a great dad, Trent. The girls know they can be honest with you. Ray's barely five. Trust me, you'd know if she were miserable. Maybe this is something Quen wanted her to do but that doesn't mean she didn't want to do it too. You're absolutely correct to fight for their right to choose their own future. Don't ever let anyone force them to be something they're not. Just realize that kids tend to be full of surprises and they may not always choose what you expect. If Ray wants to do certain things that follow in her father's footsteps, don't accidentally push back out of reflex." My expression turned serious. "Sometimes, it can be pretty important to a daughter to do a few things like her dad." Like me, joining the I.S. Just because it had more or less ended up a colossal mistake on some levels, didn't mean I hadn't needed to do it. My mom had understood that, even with all her issues, bless her.

Trent seemed to understand that I was a least partially talking about myself and an unexpected shadow flittered across his face. I wondered about that, but it was gone almost as soon as it appeared.

He sighed and gave me a troubled look. "You're right, of course. You think I worry too much?"

I shook my head. "Nope. You're a parent, I think that's part of the required job description. I also think you want what is best for your kids. So does Quen. Maybe he doesn't always know what that is, and maybe you don't always know what that is, but that's why the girls need you both, because you'll both fight for them and you'll keep trying until you figure it all out." I was in no position to be giving parenting advice, but I believed in my heart that if you loved someone with everything you had and tried to do what was best, that was all anyone could really ask for. Trent and Quen had the love, they would figure out the rest.

"Abba?" Ray's voice made us look down. The belt of her gi had come off and she was holding it up towards Trent. "Can you fix this?"

"Of course, Ray." Trent smiled down at her and took the belt. Kneeling in front of her, he threaded the small loop of fabric about her waist. "Ready for the demonstration?" he asked her as fastened it into the requisite style of knot.

Ray nodded, but shifted uncertainly from foot to foot, betraying a little bit of nerves. "I think so."

"You are going to do great," Trent whispered with confident adoration, catching and holding his youngest daughter's eyes so she would see how much he believed that. The hesitation in the little girls' face eased and she smiled resolutely at him.

"I will make you proud, Abba," she promised. Her delicate features were clearly reminiscent of Ceri, but I saw a lot of Quen in her manners and bearing.

Trent paused, cupping her small face gently between his hands. "I already am, Ray." He kissed her lightly on the forehead. "Always will be, liri-mer."

"Abba ... " Ray complained as children do when they think they're not being taken seriously. She pushed Trent away like he was being silly and embarrassing, but the glitter in her eyes said that she knew what he said was true and that that meant a great deal in her little world, even if she was not nearly old enough or introspective enough to realize that consciously.

Trent laughed. "All right, go on then. Try not to kill anyone." Finished with her sash, he gave her back a little pat, sending her on her way.

He caught me watching him as he rose back to his feet and cocked a wry smile at me. "What?"

I shook my head, my expression happy and wistful at the same time. "Nothing. It's just ... my Dad said that same thing to me once." It was a good memory and it warmed me. Monty may not have actually have been any blood relation to me, but he had certainly been my Dad, as surely as Trent was Ray's.

Something flickered in Trent's eyes, that same darkness I'd seen earlier, a whisper of unexpected pain I'd not meant to cause. I frowned, unsure what I'd said to garner that reaction.

Trent looked away, then looked back towards me. "Rachel, I'm sorry. It occurs to me I never apologized for ... the things I said to you, the day Quen almost died, when you first found out about ... about your father."

I blinked in surprise, realizing that Trent was harkening all the way back to when I'd found out that Monty Morgan hadn't been my birth father. Trent certainly hadn't endeared himself to me that day, but that was going back a long time and I'd completely forgotten the incident until he brought it up. If I had been guessing at what was bothering him, that wouldn't have even made the list. "Don't worry about it," I said with a sly grin. "You were still in your jerk phase back then, so I figure you couldn't help it. You're just lucky Quen showed up in time to keep me from pounding you silly." That probably wouldn't have ended well for either of us.

Trent didn't smile like I thought he would. Instead he continued to look troubled. "I'm serious, Rachel. I was cruel, and it was intentional," he confessed. "I wanted to hurt you. At the time, I thought Quen was dead. I blamed you because he got that bite saving your life, and I was hurt and angry because he still chose you to be with him at the end and not me. Because you could help him, and I couldn't." Trent's words were even, but his expression held guilt and pain. "Discussing our fathers in that context did not ... bring out the best in me. I was jealous that yours had loved you so much, especially when ... when I knew he wasn't really your father and that he had known that all along. I didn't understand."

Trent's gaze dropped before returning to me resolutely, determined to see his self imposed penance through. "I didn't understand until I had my own children and I realized that I could love Ray just as much as Lucy. That I would die for either of them. Your father felt that for you, Rachel, and I used that truth to try to wound you. I'm truly sorry about that."

I felt my throat tighten painfully, but the ache in my chest wasn't for myself. I'd gotten over that whole situation a long time ago and no longer felt any acrimony for anything that had passed between Trent and I back then. I'd made peace with my fathers' secrets and had come to enjoy having Takata in my life now, even if he would never be my father the way Monty had been.

Looking back at that day made me hurt for a very different reason. I hurt because through the lens of hindsight, I could see that at the root of a lot of Trent's anger and pettiness towards me back then was pain. Pain that I seemed to have what he couldn't find. Pain that Monty, who hadn't even been a blood relation, had loved me and my family more than Trent felt his "real" father had ever loved him. Pain that Quen, his surrogate father, had also chosen me, giving the unfortunately clear impression that he saw Trent as weak and incapable of being what he needed to help him survive. Pain that he seemed to never, ever be enough to make the people he loved love him back.

I knew Quen did love Trent and always had, but I don't think Trent had known that until much later. Quen had been too proper, and there was too much hierarchy in their relationship to confuse the matter. Maybe it was no wonder Trent so desperately didn't want his girls to grow up the way he had.

He worried for Ray because he felt she was too sensitive to what people expected of her ... and I suddenly realized with aching fondness that Trent worried because in this way he saw more of himself in Ray than he did in Lucy.

I took Trent's coffee cup from him and set it on the ground with my own. I'm not sure what he expected from me in response to his apology. The surprise on his face when I slid up against him and kissed him softly on the mouth indicated that he probably hadn't expected that.

"Water under the bridge, Trent. It's forgiven and forgotten," I murmured against his lips before pulling back and fixing him with a serious expression. "But answer me one question - if you didn't love Ray and Lucy, or if you didn't show them that you loved them in a way that they could understand - would that be their fault? Would that mean that they were somehow unlovable or not worthy of the affection?"

"Of course not." Trent looked at me like I was somewhat mental. "That would just make me an ass or a fool."

I laughed. "Right. So ... let's apply that backwards."

Trent looked at me like he didn't quite get what I was saying but was starting to suspect there was a trap in here somewhere.

I shook my head. "Trent, what I'm saying is - it's not your fault your Dad was the way he was. It wasn't because of anything you did or didn't do or any lacking in you. Don't let this go too much to your ego, but you are a smart, strong, good-hearted, resilient person. Love, especially a parent's love isn't something you can earn. It's something you should just be given." I looked up at him, my arms settling comfortably around his neck. "I'm sorry you didn't have that, Trent. But ..." I leaned closer. "I love you, if that counts for anything."

Trent smiled at me, his arms curling around my waist as he pulled me in closer for another kiss. "You know, I think I can live with that."

When we parted, I saw that all the other parents were gone and the girls were lining up together, Lucy and Ray standing next to each other, hand in hand, heads bowed close as they shared some private joke that made them both laugh delightedly.

I slid my own hand into Trent's. "Come on," I said quietly. "Let's go find out what kind of seats Quen saved for us... and if he broke any Soccer Moms' arms in the process," I teased.

Trent smiled and squeezed my hand as we headed for the auditorium.

THE END