I'm kind of on a roll here. This was one of the parts that I was really looking forward to :D For those of you familiar with Sons of the Desert, you will see what I'm doing here. It's a sort of "what if" situation that couldn't have happened in that series. Not quite the same, but I still intend to have all kinds of fun with it.

Oops! Forgot to add this: Many thanks to Anthem Of The Lonely and to Rao Hyuga for their reviews!

Chapter 9

"Close the door, Solf." King spoke in that somber, patriarchal tone that made it sound like Solf was the son chosen to be sacrificed for the survival of the rest of the village.

Solf tried to keep it easy, acting like he had no clue. He parked himself in a chair. "What's up?"

King sat back, looking troubled and concerned. "I just spoke to a lady who…ah…how shall I put this? She had a story to tell."

Solf felt the blood drain from his face. "Uh-huh?"

"The thing is, I've heard this story before, or part of it, anyway. You might say I just got the second installment." King smiled a thin smile which was probably meant to be sympathetic but didn't have all that much effort put into it.

Solf gave up on trying to be casual. "I can explain—"

King held up his hand. "Now, Solf, I understand. After all, boys will be boys." His smile now reminded Solf of a shark he's seen at an aquarium on one of his last vacations. But he recognized a straw worth clutching at.

He shrugged helplessly. "I was a kid, King! I didn't know what I was doing!"

"You were nineteen, according to your dad," King scolded gently. "You should have had a pretty good grasp of the birds and the bees by then."

Well, it would figure that Solf Sr. had told King about it in all its sordid glory, which meant that he probably had been given a pretty warped version.

Solf was nearly squirming in his seat, but he kept his gaze steady. "It was a long time ago," he said stiffly. "And it was mutual."

"Hm," King mused. "To hear your father tell it, the girl batted her eyes at you and you fell for it."

Well, that was true and it wasn't. He could have played it up, but Solf didn't think he would be able to convince anyone that he was the victim.

When he came home for the summer from his sophomore year in college, he found out that someone on the household staff had hired a daytime maid. Solf was a little surprised, but only peripherally. The girl was Isvhalan and his father wouldn't normally have approved a decision like that. Maybe she came cheap. She was also young and pretty. Maybe Solf Sr. figured his son would still be too exhausted from finals and partying or just too stoned to notice. But he did. Maybe his father figured since the girl was Ishvalan, Solf wouldn't be interested. He wasn't. At least, not at first.

He spent very little time at home, hanging out with friends and partying most of the night, so it was nearly a week before he even came across her. He had come home unexpectedly during the day and found her tidying his room. She got all flustered, blushed, and scurried off, leaving a memory of dimples and rose-scented soap.

He slept the rest of the afternoon and went out again that evening. When he came home the next day, his room was all tidy again. He liked that. He expected his room to always be cleaned, but for some reason he liked that it was her. She did it like she enjoyed it. Her name was Zamfyra. He started making a point to spend more time at home when she was around. After about a month he asked her out. He had never done that with any of the staff before, but they had mostly been older, or married, or not particularly attractive, or just "the staff." Zamfyra was a little scandalized and turned him down, saying it really wasn't proper. But he tended to get what he wanted, and he coaxed her into just dinner and a movie. He didn't tell his father and he cautioned her to keep it on the low. She seemed to understand.

He picked her up from a slightly run-down apartment complex where she lived with a couple of other girls. Apparently she took the bus to work every morning and home every evening. He took her to a restaurant where no one was likely to recognize him and then to a movie theater that he'd never been to before. It was actually a fairly nice evening. She was ever so slightly air-headed, but just enough to be cute rather than tiresome. He took her home, saw her to her door, and left.

They went out a few more times, and when his father went out of town for a couple of weeks, he brought her back to his room. She was scared at first, but she was endearingly, if a little pathetically trusting, and he was very persuasive. After that it got a lot easier. It meant a lot more to her than it did to him, but he had to admit, it was a really pleasant couple of weeks. He managed to ignore the fact that he really looked forward to seeing her every day, telling himself it was just lust.

By the time he started getting worried that things might be getting complicated, his father came home early and caught them in flagrante bare-assed delicto. He fired Zamfyra on the spot, ordering her to leave that instant. He didn't even leave the room while she tried to hastily gather up her clothes, sobbing and apologizing. Solf just sat there, mute. He got his car taken away from him for the rest of the summer, which sucked.

He never saw her again, but about a year later, she called him. It was summer again and he was home from a less than glorious junior year. His father was out and one of his secretaries fielded the call. She told him that she missed him and that she was very sorry for getting him in trouble. He had pretty much gotten over it, but he thought it was kind of sweet. Then she told him that she'd had a baby and it wasn't so sweet anymore. She was going to very sweetly blackmail him, he was sure.

But she didn't. She just wanted him to know. The baby, a little girl, was very pretty, she said, and her name was Danika. He'd be so proud. Her family was furious with her, but she had stood up to them. She asked him if he would like a picture of her. What, are you crazy? Hell no! Sure, that'd be nice. He gave her the address of a P.O. box he kept near the university so her mail wouldn't come to the house. It was weeks before he ventured to check for the letter, and he never opened it. He considered throwing it away, but for some reason he just stuck it in a box in his closet.

She called him a few times after that, just to update him on Danika's progress. Eventually he told her—lied to her—that his father found out she'd been calling and had threatened dire consequences. He sent her a check—a cashier's check—for a decent amount. She wrote him back thanking him profusely and remembering him with great tenderness. After that he stopped communicating with her, hoping she'd get the hint. She must have. It took him a while to put the incident behind him and stop worrying about any repercussions, but eventually he did. Eventually he managed to forget the whole thing. He was good at that.

And now she was dead. He wasn't even sure how he should feel because at the moment he was too frantically terrified about how his life was about to be impacted.

"This lady, Mrs. Kafik," King went on, "is understandably upset. I calmed her down as much as I could and I told her I would talk to you."

Solf swallowed, his mouth and throat dry. "I…I sent money…"

"You know, Solf, there are some problems that you just can't throw money at," King said, his voice getting a sterner edge. "The thing is, I don't want this getting any further up the line, like the superintendent's office." His brows furrowed with magnificent allfather righteousness. "Like I said, boys will be boys, but at some point those boys need to man up and take responsibility for their actions."

Solf stared at him through a haze of disbelief. "Uh…what…what are you saying?"

King let out a breathy sort of chuckle like you really don't get it, do you? "I'm saying that you need to live up to your obligations. You need to send for that girl." He smiled as though it wasn't the end of the world. "Being a dad is a pretty awesome gig, Solf."

"I'm not a dad!" Solf blurted out in a panic that he couldn't hide anymore. "There's no proof that this kid is even mine!"

King shrugged. "From what Mrs. Kafik says, it sounds pretty clear. You can have a paternity test done, but I do not want any scandal to touch this school. I've been in charge here for seventeen years and not only have we maintained our A-plus rating, we have a spotless record, barring a few miscreant students smoking the marijuana. But there's never been any of the garbage that some of the other schools have gotten in trouble for. Affairs between teachers and even between teachers and students! It makes me sick! So I am not going to let this woman, who is really within her rights to do so, raise a stink over the behavior of one of my APs!"

It suddenly got kind of chilly in that office. Solf could barely meet King's good eye and it was like a cold, hard nail. This wasn't "Uncle" King anymore. This was King "Skull Crusher" Bradley, ex-special-forces-trained-to-kill-try-coming-for-my-other-eye-you-bastards-Commander Bradley. Solf could only imagine the impact two eyes would have had.

"You need to take care of this," King said. "And you need to do it right." His smile returned a little, avuncular and wise. "I think it would actually be pretty nice to have her as a student here."

"What?" Solf squeaked. "I mean…I mean…I…is she even…you know…old enough?"

King regarded him with sad patience. "Well, do the math. You're, what, thirty-four? Thirty-five? That'd make her about fourteen or fifteen. She's in tenth grade out there in Ishval."

"But…shouldn't she…uh…stay with her own…her own people…"

"Solf, you're not listening to me!" King leaned forward and stabbed at the top of his desk. "Her mother's family doesn't want her! It's a shame, but there it is. They're a funny people, especially the ones who live out in the boondocks like this family apparently does. She's a poor, mixed-race kid who needs a home. I want you to send for your daughter, we'll get her registered for school here, and we're going to act like it's the most natural thing in the world because I expect a certain level of integrity from my faculty and staff! Anyone who can't live up to those standards doesn't belong here. Do I make myself clear?"

Well, that was the bottom line. He closed his eyes in defeat. "All right, King." Then his eyes flew open as he started thinking a little ahead. "What are people going to say? I mean, what do I tell people?"

King shrugged again like it would be easy or like it simply wasn't his problem. "Tell them the truth, Solf. You made a few bad choices in your youth but now you're trying to make up for them. If you want to play up the fact that your father separated you two, that wouldn't be stretching the truth too much." He smiled encouragingly. "If you need any parenting advice, you know where to find me."

Oh. Thanks so much. Solf stood up slowly, feeling his knees wobble a little. There were few times in his life when he felt quite so debased. Then he froze. "Uh, King, I'd…uh…rather my father didn't find out about this."

"Oh?" King seemed a little surprised. Really? "Well, if you say so."

"I do. I can't even imagine how he'd react. I don't want to imagine." This was so unfair. He was being crushed to death between a rock and a hard place. He drew himself and his last little shreds of dignity up as far as he could get them. "I know you and my dad are buddies, but if I do this, King, I'd like you to promise me that you won't tell him."

King considered him for a moment, then gave a nod. "All right, Solf. I'm not quite sure how long you can keep it from him, but I promise you that he won't hear it from me."

"You're really the only person I work with that he associates with," Solf replied. He lifted his shoulders wearily. "I'll worry about the rest of it."

"Good! If you'd prefer, I'll communicate with the grandmother myself as far as the arrangements for getting the girl out here, and I'll let you know when you need to get her from the station. I already advised Mrs. Kafik to send the transcripts straight here. We'll get Danika registered in time to start school next week." King rose to his feet. "Go ahead and take tomorrow off to get your spare room ready for her or whatever you need to do." He went around his desk to clap Solf on the back with a hearty grin. "Someday you'll look back on this and wonder how you could have ever done otherwise."

Solf doubted that very much. He tended to avoid looking back on his life.