pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

I was changing a giggling Garnet and cleaning her up on the diaper stand near her crib. Weiss and Ruby were both out of the house picking up groceries so it was the kids and me. Me and the kids. And my Mom, of course. Hey Mom. How are you? You're a grandma now. Grandma Salem. Yeah, how about that?

There came a knock at the downstairs front door. I tucked Garnet into bed and she immediately crawled out of it and whimpered at me as I walked to the door. She kicked feverishly.

"I'll be right back. Do not- do not wake up your brother," I pointed a meaningless stern finger at her and she warbled and wobbled and fell on her butt back onto the mattress in her crib. She was so cute. And she knew it and was lucky she knew it. Just like her birth mother.

I went downstairs and to the front door. I peaked the peephole and saw Taiyang Xaio Long standing there. He had a box under his arm. I pulled the door open.

"Hey," I greeted.

"Howdy," he echoed. He just stood there with the box and peeked past me.

"Ruby and Weiss are out. Come on in. Can I get you something to drink?"

"Oh? No. I'm alright thank you. And I came by to see the kids. Make some impressions while they are young."

"Well Nebel is asleep. Garnet is probably up and bored which means…" crying echoed from upstairs. A little girl's wail. It was quickly joined by Nebel's own cries as his sister woke him up. I sighed.

"Need a hand?" Taiyang grinned. "I brought some old rattles and other baby toys from the days when Ruby and Yang were young."

"Please and thank you. It's your fault anyways. If you hadn't been here I would have been upstairs keeping her entertained. Now they're both awake. That's your fault."

He clicked his tongue at me in a scoffing fashion. "Didn't have you pegged as the type to make excuses."

"Yeah yeah," I droned. "Come on. Babies need lovin'." Taiyang followed me upstairs. I stepped into Nebel's room and picked him up in my arms before rejoining Taiyang outside of the wailer's room. Nebel was calming down in my arms but I knew he hated when his sister woke him up with her cries. She seriously did it all the time.

I led Taiyang inside and set Nebel in the crib with Garnet. Nebel gave me a look like 'well what am I supposed to do now with this?' To which I thought 'yeah, fair enough.' Taiyang brought out rattles and handed one to Nebel's grasping hands. He gave it a little shake and tried to fit it in his mouth but the shape was designed for babies and he failed. He went back to shaking it.

Taiyang held out a toy to Garnet but she just kept on crying. Taiyang leaned back evidently content to wait for the crying to subside but I picked her up and started rocking her in my arms and she quieted down.

"Are you sure about that?" He asked.

"She just needs some lovin'. That's all. It's not like I'm feeding that bad of a habit," I defended. "Ruby does it and she's smarter than me. So…"

Taiyang bobbed his head and handed the grabby baby a rattler. She gave it a tentative shake. And the noise surprised her and made her double take at the rattler. Nebel was still trying to fit his own in his mouth. Garnet gave it another little shake.

"Wow…" Taiyang breathed. "She looks so much like Ruby."

"I know," I hummed. "I got pretty lucky. And Ruby was this energetic?"

"All the time. She was a real handful. You could never completely put her down and walk away. I… let her cry herself out. Pretty often. You're not going for that?"

"No. We're not. With any of them. If they want attention then all they have to do is ask."

"It's easier when they are babies. It gets harder when they start really growing up. It's easy to ask for attention and give it. It's much harder to ask for space and then to give that as a parent."

"Yeah?" I wondered. "What did you do?"

"I gave them space when they wanted it even though it was hard for me. I wanted to be there for them. That's not too easy to do at a distance."

"But you still found a way, right?" I asked.

He chewed his lip. He gave a bobbing half nod and a shrug. "Maybe. I probably could have done better."

"That's true for all of it though," I pointed out. "Don't be too hard on yourself for not doing the impossible."

"I don't know." He folded his arms and let Garnet rattle away. Nebel seemed to be nodding off beside his sister. He'd given up on fitting the toy in his mouth so he was out of there.

"Now that definitely doesn't sound like the kind of guy you are," Taiyang murmured. "You ought to hold it against me. Hold me accountable. For gods' sake. Somebody has to hold me accountable. If not you, then who?"

"If you really did that bad of a job Ruby and Yang would hold you accountable. They don't. Ruby wants you around your grandkids. That matters."

"That matters?" He asked.

"That matters," I affirmed. "If she really thought you were a hazard she wouldn't let you close to the babies. Not like my family or Weiss's family."

"Well then… I have to warn you. As she gets older and if you don't respect her space. I'll be there to make you," Taiyang threatened easily. I let it rock for a second before I said anything.

"You think it's that important?" I wondered.

"Yeah. I really, really do," he murmured.

"I'll be sure to keep it in mind."

"See that you do. Or else I'll open my doors to her. Let her escape that way."

"I hear you. It's important."

"It's more than important," he scoffed.

"I am listening. You've got experience with raising little girls. That pretty much trumps anything I've got. You have my attention."

"Glad to hear it."

"I assume this little open door policy extends to Nebel?"

"Well I should hope that you know more about giving little boys space than little girls."

"I was never a little boy. I came out of a test tube. My father was a petri dish. I was never a little boy being raised. I woke up and was seventeen."

"Godsdamn," he decided. "That's rough. You really might not know. Yeah I had better extend that offer to Nebel."

"I hardly blame you. I ought to thank you for it. I won't because you're undermining my authority as daddy. But I ought to."

"So you were what? Suddenly awake and aware and seventeen? Doing what?"

"Going to Beacon," I informed him. "Little infiltration op for my Momma."

"And your mother…?"

"Is single handedly responsible for nearly every catastrophe that has befallen Remnant over the past thousand years. She's this immortal goddess who does battle with Ozpin. And me I suppose. And it's my job to confront her one day. And she'll probably butcher me."

He let out a low whistle. "I'm not sure I ever wanted to know the details."

"You still don't. Not really. You have no idea how bad things are for me. Or just in general. It's really, really not looking so hot. But that's the way my life is. I have Weiss and Ruby and the kids now but that's pretty much it. Now this old man wants to come in and tell me how to raise my kids and even gave me an or else."

"That wasn't my intention…"

"Yeah it was. But it's fair and coming from a good place so I'm tolerating it."

"I see…"

"Do you? Can you honestly?" Nebel was face down in the mattress and drooling into it in his sleep while Garnet was bouncing with her little rattle in hand. She tried to shake it but was just shaking her whole body instead. It was adorable to watch her try and figure out her own body.

Taiyang reached out a hand and cupped Garnet's face and she leaned into the hand with a baby giggle.

"She really is a lot like Ruby. I can tell," Taiyang swore.

"That a good or a bad thing?"

"Yeah," he threw in. Which is fair enough. Ruby was a lot to deal with at times. I can't imagine that raising her had been easy at all. She put certain pressures on the people who cared about her. She made me worry about her and the fact she might one day throw her life away for some dumb civilian. But she had to do it. Because she was Ruby Strife. And that was the end of the discussion on the subject. It was sort of the same with me and my Mother. I had to face her or I wasn't Cloud. I was Jaune or somebody else. I had to confront Salem one day. I couldn't leave it to another poor soul. "It just is," he coupled. "Raising her was hard. And letting her go when it was time for her to leave was even harder. But I just had to do it. Or else… I don't know. I wouldn't have been myself."

"I feel that," I agreed. And I did.

"I mean… she was this wonderful little angel. But she also had to fly away as angels do regardless of how bad it hurt her old man. She just had to. Or else she wouldn't have been Ruby Rose. Ruby Strife now. But I couldn't cage her in with my old sentimentalities."

"I'm hoping… I'm hoping that I die in some battle before it gets to the point where I have to let one or all of them go." And I was. I was hoping I'd have to face my Mother and die brutally. Or my sisters. Or a big enough Grimm. Or some criminal mass murderer would crawl out of the woodwork and put me down. Something like that. Before I had to make any big hard decisions like letting my children go. There were a lot of things on my plate which could pull me over the edge and take me down. I was ignoring some of those prospects even by being here and doing this little… charade. I wanted to call it a charade.

Because it was. It was a game I was playing until time caught up to me and I had to pay the piper. And boy oh boy she was coming to collect hard and fast. At every moment she was approaching me at the speed of light. Just like the Fermi Paradox. Whatever that answer was it was'a comin'. But I didn't really want to think about that and yeah that probably made me a coward or whatever. I just had enough on my plate dealing with the stuff that I could actually change and affect. Like being a good father. I could sorta do something about that while I really couldn't do jack shit against my Mother. I mean… so I could. But Weiss and Ruby begged me to wait. So I was. But eventually. Eventually. Eventually. Like a tired promise which kept on going. Eventually I'd have to do something and fight her. Eventually she would box me in a corner and force me to. And I wouldn't be really able to say 'no.'

"They are adorable," Tiayang murmured. "My grandson and granddaughter. So cute."

"I know," I agreed. "I sometimes can't stand it. I think that they know that they are adorable and they hold it over me. And they will their entire lives. Or the rest of my life. Whichever."

"It really weighs on you," he hummed. "You shouldn't give it so much thought."

"Yeah okay," I mumbled. "Sure. And like that I'm cured. I just won't think about my imminent demise. Now I'm all better. If only you gave me that advice on my wedding day. All this time has been wasted. Ooh what an idea."

"Okay, okay," he sighed. "I hear you. It's not that easy."

"No. It's not easy at all. It's hard as fu- it's really hard."

"Have you been told off about your language around the babies?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Maybe once or twice," I grumbled. "I'd love to stop thinking about how I have to confront the Queen of Time. But I have to face her one day and every day that day gets a little closer. I mean- I have Weiss and Ruby…"

"But you will have to give them up. To face your destiny."

"Little bit," I agreed. "So they are nice and all. And -screw it-they are more than nice. They are more than I deserve. But I still am going to have to let them go. And that hurts. It hurts a lot. And who knows? Maybe I walk away from the fight with my Mother. Maybe I do."

"You don't think that," he accused.

"Am I so obvious?" I wondered.

"You and Qrow share that pessimism," he returned.

"I don't need more comparisons between myself and Qrow Branwen in my life. I'm perfectly capable of drawing those lines myself. I don't particularly like what I see considering he wound up alone and miserable."

"He's not… okay. I hear that," he mumbled. Garnet rattled her rattler in her pudgy hands. She fell back with a laugh and several vigorous shakes of the rattler. "So cute. So precious."

"So precious. And if it was for them I'd walk away from that fight. Come back and be a good father. If I can. I'd like to try and be a good father but I'm pretty sure that I'm going to die. And I'll die alone in a room with that alien bitch."

"She's an alien?"

"She may as well be. She's so old. She's from a different species. She thinks differently from us Cetra. Her mind whirls. It's ancient and vast. She may as well be an alien. I sometimes call her that but you're the first to really call me out on it and I think it's because you don't know what intolerable acts she's capable of performing. She'll do whatever it takes to win. Not to survive. Her survival is meaningless to her. But victory over Ozpin and me matters to her. She thinks orthogonal to us. Like a paperclip maximizer AI in a paperclip maximizer AI thought experiment. She isn't like us and she'll butcher people to get what she's really after. She's an alien. Or at the very least, she's alien to us. She ain't like us people bro."

"Okay, okay. She's an alien. And she's insane from the sounds of it."

"A little. Her actions make sense in the context of her objective. But she's so far removed from Darwin's ladder it's hard to get in her head about anything and understand what she's thinking. But it makes perfect sense for achieving the results which matter to her. Her survival just isn't one of them. Especially on the grounds she assumes that she's totally invincible. And she could be right. My plan to beat her is based off of guess work. I could easily fail. And get crushed. I could easily lose and there goes the rest of Remnant's best shot at beating her. But I have these cute kids so what am I doing worrying about that when there are babies to look after? I should just not think about it. That will make everything better. Somehow."

Taiyang was silent for a moment. "Okay. So I was wrong. You should be worried. For the sake of your kids you should be worried. Does she know about your kids?"

"I have no idea," I hummed. "Maybe?"

"So things could be really and immediately bad?"

"Pretty much."

"Yikes. That's a yikes from me."

"Well thank you. I think that deserves a yike."

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

-WG