Warnings: lot's of my head-canons involving the Salazars' past, mentions of rape, swearing

A/N1: set somewhere after mixed signals

A/N2: one of my (many) takes on how Violeta and Rafael met, along with how Abuela became Caesar's (and Rex's) surrogate grandmother.

A/N3: Vamos a la playa by Righeira is sooo my head-canon theme song for Rafael. I can so totally see him humming it during work (with a small dance and spinning around too)… to utter irritation of the rest of his co-workers.

Providence dark legacy

The past

By your-biohazardous-friend

After arriving at providence Caesar was kindly asked to donate a blood sample to Providence laboratory to run "necessary tests". Older Salazar not only had nothing against it, but even was 'kind enough' to get needed samples himself by snatching a syringe out of Holiday's grasp before the woman even started to form a question to lift his sleeve.

But here they were, two sheets of paper – two DNA tests - lying in front of her. Of course, the results proved that there should be no doubt that Rex and Caesar were blood related. Holiday along with her co-workers had a meeting over the presented data to be sure about the results. Yet the weirdest part was that the Salazar siblings were only half-brothers. It was not that this fact mattered much anyway. Holiday never intended to doubt or question the bonds Salazar brothers had been sharing in the past. But still, the knowledge was burning Holiday's brain to the point she had troubles sleeping.

It was few days later. Caesar was already more or less feeling homey at Providence so Holiday decided to gather all her courage and ask the Latin-American scientist directly about his blood-relation with Rex. And since the topic was of delicate nature, Holiday decided that it would be proper to meet the scientist face-to-face. As always the older Salazar was working in his lab, assembling another weird device of his.

"Caesar" Holiday began, standing at his pod's doors, not knowing how to start the conversation "are you aware that you and Rex are uh… half-brothers?"

"of course I am" he replied casually, taking stack of notes and flicking through them not even glancing at Holiday's direction "I've been at my mama's and papá's wedding"

"excuse me?" the woman

"Are you deaf, bonita? I said I remember my parents wedding" Caesar said, irritation ringing in his voice "I was eight at that time"

"eight? Wha-? did Rex even knew that? That you are half brothers?"

"have you ever wondered why there is a huge age gap between me and him?" Caesar suddenly asked, his face became stern. Within seconds he stopped looking like himself.

"I have… no idea" the woman begun – she had a nagging feeling that a story she wanted to tell about 'forgetting to conceive more children due interesting lead in the researches' would turn out offending – seeing how serious Caesar had become.

"my mother was raped when she was about 17" Caesar said darkly, scribbling small schematics at a margins of his notes as he spoke. "I'm a result of this tragedy… the guy was some rich imbécil who thought he simply could do it, granted by his status quo"

There was a dead silence for a while, only Caesar's constant scribbling was hearable. The woman glanced at his papers: most of margins were already covered with tiny, yet highly precise, technical drawings. Lines, angles and circles were ideal, even though Caesar didn't use any drawing instruments except of black, ballpoint pen.

"if not for Abuela, I wouldn't even… be alive. My mother never said that to me directly but before she met dad… her life was pretty much ruined: she was a lonely, underage mother. All those old hags in the town were pointing fingers a her calling her a puta; while me – a punishment for her 'crime'. When she was telling the truth no-one believed her, of course except of Abuela (the woman is great at seeing through people), since 'It' had impregnable opinion and wealth"

"I'm sorry" Holiday stuttered, not really knowing what to say. Caesar seemed to not to hear her as he continued

"actually I wasn't helping her either, I mean… when we both moved out – my mother received a scholarship of very prestigious university - lot's of men were interested her. She was young, beautiful, intelligent and caring. But they all run away after every single one of them met me… you must understand… I was causing … problems as a child – more than I do as an adult… all those men had a hard time to understand me just as I had a hard time to put up with their presence"

Holiday knew exactly what Caesar meant by that – she read his other medical files.

"But one day, I met my future father, Rafael Salazar, at the common kitchen of a dorm we were all living in. He was preparing an Argentinean dessert for himself, but seeing how 'sad and lost' I looked, he decided to shared it with me. He was not only patient but also was the first person, except my mother of course, who understood me and my wooly logic. From that day forward I did my best to not to scare him away with my antics. Not that he minded them anyway. Here look at this-"

Caesar cut his story and, after digging up something from nearest drawer, showed the item to Holiday. It was a small card, a photo to be exact. It featured a young man sitting on a bench casually talking with his friends and sipping coffee from an extra-large cup. Holiday swore that Rafael from the photo looked strikingly similar to Caesar – even if Holiday knew it was impossible – maybe the impression was due the fact that, all in all, all Latin-Americans looked very much alike to her.

"From that evening forward he was my mother's best friend and support for most of her academic studies. He was taking care of me whenever my mom had to either study for her exams or have a simple breather. When I got sick, he didn't complain when he was woken up and dragged out of bed at 2 a.m. to drive me to hospital. He didn't even flinched when I vomited in his car. Afterward, He just took a bucket from the closet and cleaned it, humming 'vamos a la playa' under his nose. The only thing my mother managed to force upon him was to pay him back half of the gas's prize he spent on that trip. Overally my, back then future, dad was available for both of us practically 24/7."

Holiday listened to the story enchanted, she had no doubt why Rex's and Caesar's parents were made for each other! But, as always, there had to be a catch! Like in a romance movie she once forced Six to watch with her. Then it all clicked.

"your mother treated him just as a friend" she finally said cutting into Caesar's story

"yes" Caesar confirmed "at that time my mother was dating few guys. Even Van Kleiss was interested in her"

"Van Kleiss?" The woman shouted surprised shooting up from her chair which hit the floor, Caesar looked at woman's sudden reaction with shock.

"yes" he said after a while "he was an assistant of one of my mother's teachers, so he always had a way to impress her. He even proposed to her at some point and who knows? maybe if not a certain person I would be Caesar Kleiss now" Caesar admitted, running his hand through his hair.

"Rafael barged to the church and stopped the wedding ceremony!" Holiday exclaimed, remembering the next scene – the one at which Six was already fast asleep - from the faithful romance movie.

"no" Caesar said awkwardly, not sure if the woman was treating him seriously "it was Abuela. As my mother came to her for advice regarding Van Kleiss's proposal, she pointed out that in most(if not all) of her letters, my mother was writing to her, were circling around 'certain Argentinean'. She also told my mother a very wise saying…"

"and the saying was?"

"'True love is a profound friendship with few moments of eroticism' that was, kinda, eye opening for my mom. She blushed heavily to which Abuela gave her a knowing smirk"

"what do you mean by- oh! OH!" Holiday exclaimed knowingly

"exactly" Caesar replied quietly, running his hand through his hair to cover the awkwardness.

"wow" Holiday uttered, she would never suspect that scientific life could be that… socially complicated. She always viewed Rex's family to had a steady, linear, step-by-step approach. Don't want to be alone? Get a friend. Want to spend the rest of your life with him/her? Get married. Want to prolong your genetic input in this World? Have a child and so on and so on. But here… just wow. Holiday's life, including her (almost nonexistent) affair with agent Six and whole Providence mess, was so simple comparing to Violeta's. No wonder Caesar had 'the end will justify the means' issue at the advanced level.

Little did the scientists knew that the meeting had another, unofficial attendant who, just like Holiday, hung on older Latin-American's every word. As the story finally came to an end, Rex silently left his post by the door.

comments, advices, constructive criticism etc. are always welcomed and appreciated!