First Impressions Aren't All They're Cracked Up To Be

Vincent glanced up from the salad he was garnishing, wondering, hoping he might have misunderstood. "Pardon me?"

"Dad, please." Jordan shot him a look as he juggled the bread basket into one arm to leave the other free for the butter. "I really like this girl. I don't want to freak her out."

Vincent sighed and opened the oven to check on the casserole. "You could just tell her what I used to tell you." Almost done. He stood to turn the heat down a little on his glazed carrots and went back to shredding a little parmesan. "It doesn't have to be complicated."

"Well, neither does this. You don't even have to say anything. I'll just introduce you and we'll eat." He grabbed up the salt and pepper shakers as an afterthought before heading out of the kitchen and into the dining room. "I already know Mom's going to make most of the conversation, anyway."

Tifa had been looking forward to this all day, and no doubt she had the entire evening scripted. It had worked before with a teacher of Jordan's, years ago, giving Vincent the freedom of a comfortable role within a tag-team – he made the food, she made the welcome. Though he had still grumbled a little beforehand, uneasy with the idea of small talk with an outside observer to the little haven he had with his family.

He sprinkled the salad with the grated cheese and checked the time. Like clockwork. He had gotten good at this.

Tifa came into the kitchen at that moment with her hair down, dressed casually but appealingly with only a bare amount of make-up on. Smiling, natural, beautifully forty-three. This, particularly, was a look he liked on her, and by the way she glanced at him as she entered she was well aware of it. "Mm, smells good." She ruffled her bangs out of her face as she leaned in to dip a finger into the brown sugar-syrup on the carrots. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to make a good impression."

"Hmh." He opened the oven and took the casserole out. Jordan had been styling his hair for months, had changed almost his entire wardrobe, and had even taken to wearing cologne sometimes. Really, the least his father could do was make a decent meal for the girl. "It's nothing extraordinary."

She grinned as she gave him a quick, one-armed hug around the waist. "If you say so. Oh, are those cherry tomatoes?"

"For the salad."

"Just one … "

"For the salad."

"I'm just taking one."

He sighed and, picking up the wooden spoon behind him, glibly swatted her on the bum. She gave a gratifying squeal and nearly tickled him into the stove.

Jordan, ducking around the corner long enough to grab a pile of napkins, glared balefully at them. "Would you stop fooling around and help me get the food on the table? She's going to be here any minute."

Vincent obediently turned to spoon the carrots into a bowl. "Apparently, I'm your first son," he informed Tifa as soon as Jordan was out of earshot.

"So I've heard."

He put the casserole on a burner pad and raised an eyebrow, somehow unsurprised. "So you knew about this."

Unfazed by his tone, she merely gave his ponytail a little tug. "Actually, Jordan talked to me about it last night. I told him it was a good idea."

He thought her smile was a tad too smug as she unapologetically pinched another tomato. "And you don't mind letting this girl believe that you're my mother?" It was a mock innocence he knew wouldn't fool her for an instant, and a tender spot he wouldn't dare prod in most circumstances. But she had started it.

Impervious to the jibe, however, Tifa's smile remained. "Jordan wants a nice, comfortable family dinner with his girlfriend, and he thought the truth might be a little much for a first impression. And I agreed with him. So, a nice, comfortable family dinner is what he's going to get."

And Vincent knew Jordan hadn't even left him a chance. Clever urchin was getting to be as smart as his mother. "I don't know … "

"I do." She crossed her arms and the smile faded for a moment, replaced with the look that meant she wasn't asking anymore. "You know he's not ashamed of you, why be difficult about this? If it's a serious relationship, he'll have to tell her eventually, but otherwise … " She gave a small shrug and, after a pause, stepped up on the pretense of straightening his collar. And he felt his resolve start to crumble as she glanced up into his face. "This is the first girl he's ever brought home, and it's important to him. If he wanted me to be the first empress of Wutai for her, I would be. And so would you."

She bounced up on her toes to give him a quick kiss on the cheek, as if to seal the deal, before walking out of the kitchen with the salad.

With a sigh, Vincent picked up the casserole before following her into the dining room, muttering under his breath, "Maybe just the empress' son."

Farah, it turned out, was a pretty, curly-haired high school senior who looked, if possible, more anxious about dinner at Jordan's house than Jordan did. Dressed charmingly in a blue-pleated skirt and an untailored blouse, she kept adjusting her clothing and almost looked apologetic about the ring through her eyebrow as she was ushered out of the hallway.

Jordan flashed a briefly pained, pleading look over her head that Vincent couldn't miss, and he knew Tifa had been right. Empress, father, long-lost brother. He would have been anything.

"Farah, this is my Mom … "

Tifa's smile was inevitably full of the candid and welcoming affability she had been saving up for hours. "It's nice to meet you, Farah."

Defenseless against Tifa's social warmth, honed after years of customer service at the health store she now managed, the girl's lips twitched shyly in response. "Thanks. You, too."

" … and … " Jordan sent Vincent one last hard look, as if to remind him. " … this is my step-brother, Vincent. He lives in Kalm."

The curve of her lips faltered as she glanced at him, and Vincent was almost sure Tifa would have stepped on his foot if he hadn't been out of reach. Though it wasn't as if he was being purposefully intimidating, most of the time. Trying to relax what he suddenly recognized as rigid posture, he nodded a greeting.

She nodded stiffly in return and glanced back at Jordan as if for a cue, nearly catching him in the act of making helpless hand gestures at his 'brother'. But Jordan covered adequately by stepping up to the table and pulling a chair out for her.

"Well, why don't we eat?"

And that seemed an excellent excuse for ignoring the glare that told Vincent the next time Jordan brought a girl home, Tifa was going to make sure his father was out of the house, preferably in another town somewhere.

As dinner progressed, however, Farah seemed to get over a good portion of her timidity as Tifa and Jordan drew her into conversation. A history buff and one of the school's top soccer players, she had a few concrete interests that were easily picked up on and expanded, and soon the camaraderie and affection between Jordan and herself was obvious as they joked and laughed and interrupted each other's stories. Satisfied, Vincent picked up his glass of red wine and leaned back from the table, letting himself slip into the background. He was the brother, and she seemed like a nice, gullible kind of girl. Jordan had nothing to worry about.

Jordan was buttering a roll when he noticed that his date's plate was empty. He smiled and gestured at the table. "C'mon, Farah, there's lots of everything. You want something else?"

She smiled back and shrugged a little. "Maybe those carrots. I've never had them before."

"Yeah, my Dad makes the best carrots."

Vincent glanced up in time to see Jordan's eyes widen as he realized his slip-up. After a second of dismayed silence, however, he abruptly amended, "I mean, they're my Dad's recipe. Vincent made them."

Clumsy, and Vincent wondered if maybe it had all been for nothing. But Farah merely continued smiling and, after a moment, seemed to gather herself enough to glance across the table. "They're really good, Vincent," she told him sincerely.

He had to admit some surprise. She hadn't needed to address him. "Thank you."

Her smile widened a tiny bit before she found something to do in reaching for her own wine. "Where is your father, by the way?" she asked, glancing at Jordan before she took a careful sip. "I thought you said I was going to meet him."

Jordan took a moment wiping off his butter knife before answering. "He's at work. You'll probably see him another day. D … uh, Vincent, could you pass me the carrots, please?"

It sounded like an obvious attempt to change the subject, but if Farah had any suspicions, or other questions about Jordan's absent father, they were caught in her throat as she choked suddenly on her wine. Vincent moved to put the carrots down as Jordan reached instead for a glass of water to offer.

And, following Farah's eyes, Vincent belatedly realized the cause of her unexpected distress.

Right through her field of vision, and he hadn't given it one thought. Most of the time it was just his left hand now, just another part of his body – admittedly hidden as best he could under long, buttoned sleeves – but they were large, sharp, unmistakably golden metal fingers. And they would naturally have given anyone a turn.

"I'm sorry," Farah managed between coughs. "I … I spilled my wine."

"Don't worry about it," Tifa said automatically. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah." She glanced up, and Vincent found himself meeting her flustered gaze for a second before she stood and pushed her chair out. "Sorry, I'm just going to go to the bathroom."

"It's on the left," Jordan directed her before she hurried away.

"Is she okay?" Tifa asked once they heard the sound of a door closing.

Jordan shrugged with a grimace and made a futile attempt to dab up the spilled wine. "She might still be a little nervous. She told me she's never been very good with meeting other people's families. Once, I guess she dumped a whole plate of squash into her boyfriend's mother's lap."

"Ooh … "

"And his mother started crying and calling her names in front of his whole family."

Halfway through the exchange, Vincent realized that no one but he had seen her reaction to his claw. Just his hand, just another part of regular everyday life for all of them. It was almost as gratifying as it was disturbing.

"Well, she won't get that here." Tifa stood and glanced over the table. "Maybe we should change the tablecloth. She doesn't need to feel guilty and nervous." She picked up the casserole and put it on her chair before starting to gather the plates. "Vincent, can you get another one out of the closet?"

The linen closet was in the hall. On his way past the bathroom Vincent gave the door a wide berth to allow for privacy, but couldn't help hearing, over the white noise of running water, the unmistakable sound of a sniffle.

" … red wine on the tablecloth, some first impression. I told him this wasn't a good idea … "

The water shut off just as Vincent was closing the closet door. He was about to make a quick retreat before he could startle her in the hallway, but the sound of her hand on the doorknob told him it was too late for that. With an inward sigh at the cursed inevitability of a social awkwardness Jordan had so wanted to avoid, he waited against the wall to give her the space to ignore him and the left arm no one had bothered to make an excuse for.

She stepped out and, lost for a moment in her own thoughts, belatedly noticed him standing by the closet. "Oh!" She hopped back in surprise as if they might have been on a collision course, and her shoulders tensed faintly in fight or flight.

"I'm sorry," Vincent apologized quietly. "I didn't mean to startle you."

She gave a small shrug and mumbled something, her eyes eventually settling on the tablecloth. Then she glanced up at him in a sudden flush of embarrassment. "Oh. Red wine … " She almost seemed to wince. "It doesn't come out of anything, does it?"

"It's all right." It was a mechanical response, and after a moment he scrounged for another platitude, something comfortably banal. "Don't worry about it."

"Okay." She gave a small self-conscious smile and glanced toward the dining room. And then she hesitated.

Vincent steeled himself, instinctively anticipating the inevitable questions. What wasn't he willing to do for Jordan?

"I … " She paused, looking uneasily at her feet. "I'm sorry for reacting like that to … to you." She bit her lip and dared to look him in the eye. "That was probably really insulting. I always manage to do this … "

Not a question about his arm, but genuine remorse. Shy, but she had felt the need to apologize, in case she had hurt his feelings. Young, he found himself thinking. Young, and from another generation. Maybe the world really was changing outside of this house.

"I … I'm almost glad … " She was nearly muttering toward the floor. " … his father wasn't here to see it."

She really liked Jordan, Vincent realized, and she wanted to be liked by his family. He had never had a monopoly on social awkwardness. Sometimes for something you wanted, or someone you loved, you had to swallow your pride and acknowledge that you were flawed and human and clumsy.

He was pleased, suddenly, to be able to console her with the truth. "Jordan's father wouldn't have cared about a little spilled wine."

Farah raised her head and gave a small, shy smile. "Thanks. But I know Jordan wanted to make a good impression. He didn't say anything, but I could tell. He talks about his dad all the time." She made a tiny sound in her throat, like a scoff. "I wanted things to go perfectly."

It was amusing, in a way, to think that this pretty, innocent girl might have wanted to be perfect, to impress him of all people. "No one is perfect, least of all Jordan's father."

"I guess." She seemed unconvinced, though.

But now wasn't the time to try and convince her. Vincent gestured toward the dining room over her shoulder. "Your dinner is getting cold."

"Yeah, probably." She smiled a little. "They are really good carrots, by the way," she added as they headed back to the table.

The evening ended without further incident. They had coffee in the living room for half and hour and, while Jordan was taking some of the dishes into the kitchen, Vincent felt the necessity of saying something, if only so she wouldn't be embarrassed later by what she had said when she eventually found out who he was. "Farah?"

She turned to him and smiled a little. No longer so intimidated by him, he noticed with some satisfaction.

"I want you to know, for later, that you made a good impression on me."

She blinked and seemed a little confused. But before she could say anything, Jordan came sauntering back into the room with a grin to sit down next to her.

So Vincent stood. Let them finish their conversations. His part in this was over and, for all of the double-speak, he thought he had done fairly well. Time to go to bed and leave Jordan reassured that his date had gone on as uncomplicated by the complicated truth as could be.

Tifa was sitting in a rocking chair on his way to the stairs. She winked at him as he approached and he smiled a little. "Goodnight, Tifa."

He instantly felt the blunder like a sudden stumble. No one called their mother by her first name. Though, perhaps Farah hadn't heard, or she had passed it off as an idiosyncrasy …

Though he could nearly feel her eyes boring into the space between his shoulder blades.

"Jordan …" And it was a whisper he knew he shouldn't have been able to hear. "That isn't … he isn't your father, is he?"

He had given her too many clues, he realized too late, and was probably going to hear about it the morning. But for tonight, he was going remorselessly to bed, with an honest smile on his face.