Port Farrall

Present Day

"Sometimes, to make things okay, you just have to…believe they will be."

-Ace to Bri after a hard day training.

Marcus opened the door. The sun was sinking behind us, turning the world an odd color of purple and grey. There were no lights in the interior of the room, so our shadows were cast ahead of us onto the dirt floor. Taking a deep breath and holding it, I crossed that damned threshold for the second time that day.

Dom was there, facing away from us.

Marcus, the only person unaffected by the tense atmosphere, followed my footsteps into the small room which felt even smaller in his presence. For a moment, it was the three of us shrouded in our silence. Dom, who was alone and trying so hard not to be; Marcus, who wasn't alone at all if he would just realize it; and me, who wanted nothing more that to be left alone, and yet that was my biggest fear. Just us three planes of the universe coming together at last. The worst, most screwed up family in existence, yet still together.

"Dom," Marcus finally spoke. "We need to talk."

Dom hadn't turned around yet. His shoulders stooped with the weight of regret and depression. The paltry amount of light that slithered in through cracks in the wall illuminated his stone stature. He stood just as still as the weeping statues in the graveyards back when the dead were still granted such respects. The dents in his armor were a testament to all he had weathered throughout his life. And yet, here I was, just another blow to his heart. One that might just be enough to break him.

"Marcus…" Dom said. His voice was rough and cracked with a sadness so large that the enormity of it could not be contained. "I can't…I just…can't."

And suddenly, I understood. There were those who would believe that reuniting would be simple, or easy, or even good. But now all the rage and hate I had felt for all those years…now Dom would have to deal with that. It didn't matter if I didn't blame him any longer. He would blame himself – just as I knew he blamed himself for Maria's death. This self-blame and anger would kill him, and he already knew that. For every moment I had suffered growing up, he would suffer twice as much. That was just the kind of person he – my father – was.

And I couldn't imagine him any other way.

"Dom, it's her," Marcus said. "Look at her, I mean really look. Don't you see it?"

And finally, finally, Dom turned around and faced me. His eyes were shadowed by the growing night, but I could still see his stubbled-jaw drop slightly. A thin ray of dying sunshine flickered just before me, and I stepped into the light. The dim glow illuminated my features for him to see – really see, just as Marcus had said. I wondered what he saw. Did he see his daughter from so long ago, just a child when the world imploded? Or did he see me as a grown woman who no longer needed him? Did he get that confused mix of wonder and sadness and anger that I got whenever I looked at him?

And then, out of the darkness, came the startled gasp I'd been waiting so long to hear. "…Sylvia?"

He stepped forward into my ray of light and finally I could see his face clearly. I'd been so afraid of seeing the monstrous hate that he wore when throwing me from the room, but now his expression held only wonder and amazement. His calloused palm reaches for my face, and it's only then do I feel the tears upon my cheek. I had cried so much in the past week – shed more tears than I ever had before – but now these tears are different. They don't taste as bitter, because they are not the product of sadness. They are happy tears.

His warm palm opens wider to cradle my cheek. I let the weight of my head rest against his hand. His touch feels so familiar, and yet so unlike anything I've ever felt before. It was filled with the strength and warmth of a father's love, a love that was stronger and deeper than anything else on Sera. "Hello," I finally say to him. My lips turned up in a smile as I greeted my father for the first time in so long. "I'm your daughter."

I don't know who reached out first, but suddenly we are in each other's arms. His hands run down my loose hair and down my back, as if he's trying to make sure I'm real. I try to understand if this embrace feels familiar because I remember it, or because I so badly want it to.

His embrace feels warm and inviting even though the world outside was frozen and cold. It felt familiar and brand new all at once. It felt like coming home, after being away so long.

"My baby girl," I hear him murmuring above me. "My baby girl…"

I never wanted to let go, wanted to be lost in his embrace for the rest of my life. However, after the intense emotion of reunification wore off, my arms dropped off his shoulders and I stepped away. I was still me, after all. Embarrassment flooded my wet cheeks and I used my frozen hands to wipe off the remnants of the salty emotion. You'd have thought I'd have dried out with how many tears I've shed this past week alone.

Dom wasn't quite ready to let go of me, however. He kept his hands clasped against my shoulders, holding me within arm's reach. His initial joy was just beginning to be tainted with regret and guilt. I could see the black sensations slowly overtake his face. "My God, Maria," he finally rasped out. "She…she went out looking every day. Said she believed you and Bennie were still out there, somewhere. Believed that she had seen you. All those therapists and medications…damn it! If I had listened to her, if I had believed her…"

"Hey, hey listen to me, alright? It doesn't matter, okay? I'm serious, it doesn't matter. I'm here now. Okay?"

"Okay," he agreed after a moment. I could tell he didn't quite believe me, but I had managed to stave off the shadows in his eyes. For now, anyway. Instead, a new question appeared in his expression. "How did you even find me? How did you know?"

That was a bit more difficult to answer. That was a story that was going to take quite a long time to tell, and one that I didn't want to jump right into the middle of. I deliberated on where to begin; Dom wrapped an arm around my waist and guided me over the bench. It was slightly lighter against the wall, so we didn't have to strain quite so much to see each other. However, it was also colder. I stuffed my hands into my pockets, and from there inspiration struck.

"With this," I said, and pulled my small locket from my pocket. It dangled upon the child-sized necklace and the broken heart rotated teasingly in the air. I caught it with my other hand and turned it over to reveal the smiling faces of my mother and brother. The picture was old and faded, but just enough definition existed to make out their chocolate eyes and hair, and the peach of my mother's lips.

Dom's face turned ashen in the receding sunlight. His eyes never left the fingerprint-sized picture balanced in the center of my palm. I could understand the pain such a picture would cause – especially so soon after Maria's death. Regret flared in my chest and I immediately began apologizing. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"No," was all he said. His hand went inside the chest plate of his armor and reemerged with an old plastic bag sealed tight. Inside contained several photographs and bits of paper. He delicately opened the bag and removed the stack of papers. I thought he wanted to show me more pictures – and honestly, I was dying to see them, now that I knew they existed – but he simply balanced them upon his lap. He upturned the plastic bag into his wide palm and then balanced the bag on top of the stack on his leg. He peered into his palm, poked at whatever was there, and then offered it to me.

There, amidst the scars and calluses of his hand, was the other half of a small, silver, child-sized locket.

I froze with confusion. It couldn't be – it couldn't be! The silver was etched with a familiar decoration; how many times had I traced the flowery design with the tips of my fingers? The clasp was broken in the same spot my own was, as if broken by a fumbling hand much too large to be handling it. With trembling fingers I reached out and gently turned it over in his hand. I wasn't brave enough to pick it up just yet.

The locket half still held tight to a small picture. The edges of the photo was stained a deep burgundy, almost as if it had been dipped in blood and then painstakingly cleaned as well as possible. Despite the staining, the picture had not been aged as much as my own. Being encased in plastic was better that being stored in a pocket for fifteen-plus years. Therefore, the image of a little girl sitting in the lap of her father was still clear.

There was a little girl with her shoes on wrong because she insisted upon dressing herself. Her wide grin showed off crooked teeth that would begin falling out in only a short year or two. Her small arms were flung lovingly around the wide neck of her father as she pressed their faces cheek to cheek. He too was smiling widely, but he was looking at the young girl in his arms, and not the photographer. I could almost feel the scratchy sensation of his goatee against my own smooth skin.

It was me. Me and him, on the other half of my locket.

"How…how did you…" I stammered bluntly. It was lost on E-day!

When Dom spoke to answer my poorly asked question, his voice was gravelly with sorrow. "I heard the reports from E-day, but I just couldn't believe that…that you and Bennie were gone. So I went back. On the worst day of my life, I went to our old house to see the destruction for myself. I couldn't let myself think that my children were dead, so some screwed up part of my mind thought that I would go there and find both of you hiding in the basement or something. There was no way I'd have gotten through the blockade if I didn't have my armor on. As it was, nobody asked too many questions. Everyone was just trying to figure out what the hell had been going on.

"The bodies had already been cleared out. Otherwise, the street hadn't been touched. I just wandered up and down our old neighborhood, yelling myself horse, searching for the both of you. And then, in a pool of blood next to our old house, I saw something glinting in the sun. It was the locket I had picked out for you only a few weeks before…" He choked up slightly here and had to take a deep breath to re-center himself. "It was then I knew, I was so sure…"

I didn't know what to say. Instead of searching for flimsy words that wouldn't do either of us any good, I gingerly picked up the missing half of myself and gently tried to reset it against my locket. It wasn't a perfect match; my half had been worn down by constant carry, and there were still a few tiny pieces missing on the broken hinge. It wasn't perfect, but it was as close as I'd ever gotten.

"Thank you," I whispered. It was all that needed to be said.

You would think, when there is so much to say, that it comes easily. But instead we sit in an uncomfortable silence. We both had so many questions that neither of us knew where to start. 'Where have you been all my life?' seemed a bit too cliché.

After a while of us sitting with our own thoughts, my mind traces back to the stack of photographs in his lap. I motion slightly, "Can I see those?"

"Of course. Here," he hands me an old photo that feels soft in my hands. Time has feathered the edges, and creases have worn the paper thin where it's been folded over several times. The ink, once vibrant, is now faded into muted shades of brown. But still, the photo's subject remains. Maria.

Her face looks like a picture of me that has been crumpled and then, on second thought, smoothed again. My features are there, but worn soft by the finest lines. Her hair is one shade lighter than mine. This is how I should remember her – open and smiling and beautiful – and not the tortured zombie emerging from the casket.

"She looks like me…" I murmured quietly.

Dom takes the photo gently from my hands and caresses it with his eyes. "You do look like her," he agrees after a moment. "And you are both so beautiful."

I smile at him as emotion once more wells up in my eyes. His arm reaches around my shoulder and he pulls me close. We stare at the photograph as the sun finally finishes sinking on this long, horrible, wonderful day.

It's only later, as I was falling asleep against Dom's shoulder, that I realized Marcus had left sometime during the meeting. That was part of Marcus' mystique, I decided. He was there like magic when you needed him, and then gone just as quickly when you didn't. I pondered exactly when he had left as exhaustion slowly pulled me deeper into a peaceful sleep.

Author's note: Well? What did you think? Finally, they're reunited! Don't worry, however; there's still a ton of things for the both of them to work through.

Good? Bad? Ugly? What about the other half of Bri's locket, was anyone expecting that? Leave your responses in the review section below!

As always, remember to review as you make your way out! It means a lot to me! :D