This short story is dedicated to W.E. and Feanturien.
Theme: What?
Didn't Mean...
He watched as she lay there, stretched out on her bed, banging her head to the music and flipping through a magazine. A curtain of silken blonde hair fell about her face and curtains of blue silk dangling from the canopy bed obscured her from his view. It had come to this, over the past three years, watching her silently while she went about her life.
No matter how hard he thought back, he could never figure out just when they had drifted apart, or even why. She always said it was because he had left her mother to die so that he could work, but he had always felt it was because of the Mako Reactors and Midgar. One could only guess how she was treated at school as the daughter of a Shin-Ra executive. Someone could only hope that the pain that touched his life, the death threats, the bombs, the assassins, would never carry over and touch hers. And yet…
"What do you want?" a voice suddenly cut in to fill the silence that reigned between them.
How could he have known that she had been watching him the whole time from the mirror above her vanity?
"Your mother's parents called me this afternoon… What they had to offer me was quite a shock. And then they told me that you suggested it?"
"So what?" she demanded, removing her headphones and tossing the magazine into a stack she had on a dresser.
"You should have told me. I know that life here can't be easy…"
"WHAT DO YOU KNOW?" she exploded, rising so quickly.
He had never heard her voice so sharp, so far from her mother's melodious tones.
"Every day of my life is hell because I am YOUR daughter! I have to go to school with SOLDIERS watching over me, just like that Rufus kid! And like hell I'm going to accept it. What do you know of living my life? At least you didn't have such a disgrace to the human race as your father!"
The words cut him to the core, yet he could not find it in him to be shocked by them in the slightest. This had been building up for many years now. And there had been nothing he could have done to prevent it short of leaving Shin-Ra and thus putting a price on both of their heads. Yes, maybe he had designed this city, but he cared, right? He still cared for the people of the plates and of the slums. He didn't see them as the mindless masses that turned over their worthless lives to Shin-Ra.
"I didn't mean for it to turn out like this dear," the words began, a speech rehearsed so many times before in his head. "Nothing I ever did was meant to hurt you or make your life worse. I have lived every day since your birth trying to make sure that nothing hurt you…"
"Bullshit dad, bullshit," she hissed. "I'm going to live with Grandma and Grandpa. So just fuck off already. Nothing you can say or do will change my mind!"
This said she moved to him, pushed him from her doorway and slammed the heavy wood in his face.
And the only thing he could think of was, 'What more could I have done?'