A/N – this story came to me following a conversation with StarTraveler. Thank you for the inspiration my dear!

A Worthy Man

"You wanted to see me?" Mike asked as he stepped into the chamber assigned to Takehaya and Kyoko, not quite closing the door behind him. Despite all that gone on the night before, when Takehaya took down Peng at the Japanese National Archive, Mike couldn't help but view the other man with suspicion. A mutual enemy might make them allies, but it didn't make them friends. As the silence stretched, Mike prompted again. "Takehaya?"

"Kaito, my name is Kaito," the man reminded him, drawing himself up weakly until he stood stiffly before Mike, a shadow of the man he must once have been.

"Kaito." Mike let the name roll over his tongue. "Still trying to get used to that one."

The man before him smiled slightly, as though amused by Mike's honesty. "I requested your presence to ask a favor of you. It is clear that I am dying, as is my wife."

Mike didn't respond. Following Peng's defeat, Tom had managed to talk Takehaya – Mike refused to think of him as Kaito, whoever that man was, he had died long ago – into returning to the Nathan James for medical treatment and another blood transfusion, but there was no hiding the truth. Rios was nowhere near developing a cure for the green mist, and Takehaya and Kyoko were already on borrowed time.

"I request that you adopt my son, Kaito."

"Excuse me?"

Of all of the possible reasons Mike had considered for this summons on his way from the bridge, none of them had involved Takehaya's infant son.

But Takehaya appeared unfazed by Mike's reaction. "My men have offered to take Kaito and raise him here in my homeland, but they, like me, are now pirates and many of them are sick. Even if a cure for the green mist is found, they will remain outcasts. I do not want my son raised to be a criminal. I want a better life for him."

Mike struggled to collect himself, understanding the rationale behind Takehaya's request, even as the request itself shocked him to the core. The man's options were limited, after all. "I am honored by your request, Kaito, but my circumstances would make raising a child difficult. I would suggest that you speak with Lieutenant Green. He and his wife have a young son and the boys could be raised together."

But rather than accept Mike's polite refusal, Takehaya pressed on. "You lost your family to the Red Flu, did you not, Captain Slattery?"

A familiar agony swept Mike's chest as he considered his dead son and missing daughters. "I lost my son but I still have hope of finding my wife and daughters," Mike finally responded around the lump in his throat.

Takehaya nodded, accepting Mike's words at face value, although both men knew the score. In this new world, missing rarely meant lost. It meant dead. "I hope you find them before many more days pass."

396 days.

That's how long it had been since Mike kissed his wife and children goodbye and boarded the Nathan James for what was supposed to be a four month cruise to the Arctic, never imagining that it might be the last time that he would see them.

How many more before he knew for sure?

How long before he confirmed what his head knew but his heart refused to accept? How long before he found proof that they, like Lucas, were dead? The girls, well, he still held out some hope but with Christine, the facts were staring him in the face. After close to twenty years of marriage, he knew that woman inside and out, and there was no other explanation for her failure to come to St. Louis. If she were alive, she would have found a way – somehow.

Mike forced his attention back to the present as Takehaya continued speaking.

"You are an honorable man, Captain Slattery. During our time together, I have come to respect you greatly, and I know that you would not hold the actions of his parents against Kaito. You would raise him to understand his past, and the mistakes of his father. You would teach him to be a worthy man."

A worthy man.

Hadn't that been his goal with Lucas? To raise his son to be a good person, a man who could stand on his own two feet? It had been easier with the girls; they had both been sharp, quickly adjusting to the various moves and new schools and new friends, not struggling the way Lucas did, causing Mike and Christine to spend endless hours figuring out how to help their son.

Much the same way Takehaya and Kyoko must have spent the majority of their precious remaining hours discussing the best path for Kaito.

"Why me?"

The words were no more than a whisper, drawing another enigmatic smile from Takehaya. "Who better to raise a boy who lost his father than a man who lost his son?"

A knock sounded behind Mike, the guard alerting him to Kyoko's approach. Despite himself Mike found his eyes drawn to the infant cradled so contently in his mother's wobbly arms, so oblivious to the great tragedy he was about to experience. A glance at Kyoko's face reminded Mike of how little time she and Takehaya had left with their son, the child that they had fought so hard to bring into this world – the child that they were now were leaving.

And in that instant Mike knew what he had to do.

The details could be figured out later. Hell, that's what parenting was like anyway – jumping in headfirst and praying that you didn't screw it up. But he wouldn't force Takehaya or Kyoko to live their final hours in the same agony that Mike had experienced since that heart-breaking trip to Norfolk two hundred and thirty-six days ago, the anguish of wondering where your children were, whether they were being cared for, whether they were being fed, whether they were happy.

It was a hell that Mike wouldn't wish on his greatest enemy.

Moving further into the small cabin, Mike took a deep breath. "It's been a while since I held a baby. I might need a few refreshers."