The Strongest Seven were all in Luce's home the day Aria of the Giglio-Nero came into the world. She's tiny, and she has the beginnings of Luce's features. (Fon still can't for the life of him tell if Luce and Renato have a thing.) Fon gets to hold her sometimes, when Luce has to deal with her Famiglia. Aria seems to like him; at least, she cries less for him than she does with most of the staff (and most of the Seven – they're not nurturing people by nature). Aria is an absolute sweetheart, Fon thinks her seer-ability lets her know that she's safe with him (that he'd rather cut off his hands than drop her). It had surprised him the first time she had been left in his care instead of a nanny's. It probably shouldn't have; Luce is a seer and most definitely knows about Mei.

It definitely surprises the others though. Seeing a man they've watched snap necks carry a baby really throws them for a loop. Even if Renato and Viper don't really have visible reactions, Fon loves watching everyone twitch. He enjoys their cognitive dissonance for weeks before he has to go back to the Wo Hop To.

When he gets back, it's to the cold shock that Sifu died and no one told him. Fon knew that it wouldn't have changed anything, but he would have liked to have been there for the person who had essentially been his father in this life. There is also the bittersweet knowledge that Sifu's grandchild was going to come into the world in a few months' time. He's going to be gone for that too; back with the Arcobaleno. It feels like a betrayal, except he never made anyone (except Mei) any promises and Ping would never ask him to 'protest' his orders.

The Triad is pretending like Mei never existed. On the one hand, it is a relief to have everything swept under the rug. On the other, they are clearly ticked at him about the whole situation, and if he was anyone else, he would be outright twitchy with nerves.

But he isn't anyone else, and the whole situation gets bundled up in that tiny, tangled ball of emotion tucked away in his chest. And he keeps smiling and waiting for everything to blow up in his face.

Aria's birth had kick-started his mental countdown to the Curse. He doesn't have enough information to know when precisely it will happen, but he knows it going to be soon.

Before, Fon hadn't really paid too much attention to the Arcobaleno's timeline. It had been a story, and for years it had remained a story here. But he knows that Aria had been very young when the Curse happened.

In fact, he's pretty sure canon had implied Luce was pregnant when the Curse was applied.

That would be absolutely ridiculous though. This entire world may work off of bullshit manga-physics, but Luce – let alone Aria – would have never survived that.

At least the missions the Wo Hop To give him are heavily combat oriented. They might actually be trying to have him killed, because he keeps having to fight large groups and winds up in an ambush every other week. This is very good for his temper, as without the outlet he might have done something drastic.

And it's not like anything they throw him into would actually succeed in killing him. First, because he is the Greatest Martial Artist in the World, and that title was earned. Second, his skills have never been better, what with all the weird situations the Seven Strongest get into. (Even when they're not looking for trouble, it always finds them. Fon is considering bringing it up to Verde, because statistically they should have had at least one quiet mission.) Third, Fon refuses to allow himself to die before he has fulfilled his role.

He is not going to leave some poor random Storm stuck with this job.

Before he leaves for his month with the Arcobaleno, Fon checks in on Ping. She has the same resigned dignity she always had, just with the addition of pregnancy. There is a quiet strength to her that she rarely allows to show. So rarely, in fact, that it was only recently that it was revealed.

When Ping and her (generic, Triad-raised, undeserving) husband had received the news that their child was going to be a girl, the bastard had immediately wanted to schedule an abortion. It wasn't uncommon. Sons were highly valued and with the new One Child Policy, no one wanted to waste their one shot with a girl.

Ping held firm. With a spine of absolute steel she had informed her husband (and later, the entirety of the Triad) that she would be having this baby. If anyone had any objections, they could take them to the dojo, and she would explain to them why she would not be argued with.

She had also made a very good point about how members of the Wo Hop To spent all their lives against the law, why would they follow it when the government tried to regulate the population?

Not only did she defend her unborn daughter, she also forced the entire Triad to agree with her out of sheer embarrassment. Fon wants to be her when he grows up.

So when he checks on her, it is with the knowledge that she doesn't need anything from him. Sifu's daughter may not have chosen this life or her role in it, but she makes it work. Sometimes he really needs that reminder.

And that reminder is what he clings to when he goes back to the Arcobaleno and his carefully constructed reality starts crumbling.

He has a routine when he's at the Giglio-Nero compound: wake up before the sun, meditate, perform his morning katas, have tea and watch the sunrise.

When he walks into the kitchen to prepare his tea, he finds Mei sitting at the counter.

She is healthy, and seems happy if the smug smirk is anything to go by. And he is so, so unspeakably relieved to see her. Fon wasn't sure he'd be able to see her again before getting Cursed. But. But this. This isn't a safe place. This isn't a place he. This isn't anywhere near where he hoped his newly-free sister would be. As much as he (very reluctantly) likes the Arcobaleno, Fon doesn't trust them. In combat, on a mission, with his life: definitely. With the most important thing in his world: not one of them.

Viper is mercenary to the core; they don't have limits that can't be bought. Admittedly, their rates for information on people they work with regularly are so astronomically high; they would bankrupt a mid-sized Famiglia, but they can still be bought.

Renato would consider it 'bad business' to harm an ally's family. But here's no guarantee he wouldn't use Mei against Fon later, if he ever thought Fon was becoming a threat.

Verde had absolutely no concerns about morality. If he thought it was 'scientifically necessary' or expedient to do anything, he would do it.

Lal and Colonello are soldiers. If their orders called for it, they would come after Mei.

Skull would never intentionally do something. But out of all the Arcobaleno, he's the one people would go after. What the stuntman doesn't know can't be tortured or tricked out of him later.

And Luce. Luce is manipulating all of them. Fon doesn't know if anything would prevent her from using Mei as leverage if she felt he wasn't cooperating with 'fate.'

Instead of trying to usher his sister out or asking how she got in, Fon adds his panic to the little bundle of emotion and makes an extra cup of tea. Everything else can wait.

They watch the sunrise together.