Chapter 3

Her feet were small and incredibly soft, Dante felt extremely silly when he discovered how he liked to gently pull at the child's feet, see how she kicked him back while giggling. He was, of course, bored out of his mind if he found this entertaining, but if nobody was watching him right now, so it didn't weigh on him to play with her.

Routines weren't difficult on Dante, he was always a fast learner, but knowing that he'd soon have to give up the child made him want to put less effort on taking care of her. The child wasn't terribly bad-behaved after he figured how to not make her cry, but he observed that when she lost interest in the caterpillar plushie toy, she'd start to wander on her fours everywhere on the shop, she could even climb on the walls and ceiling effortlessly, her inherent demonic biology at work.

Second time he fell asleep she was already fiddling with the grotesque trophies he clipped on his wall with rusty swords. Dante sighed in annoyance, just when he thought it'd start to get easy, the baby would find another way to make him worry. He wondered if she wasn't too young to use a child harness.

They didn't think of buying a playpen for the baby since they didn't plan to keep her for long, but he was starting to have second thoughts. He improvised with leather stripes and attached them to her little cradle, hoping that it'd be enough to keep her still while he decided to take one quick nap.

He had a bad dream. Dreamt that he was a baby again and his father, Sparda, was carrying him on his arms, breastfeeding him.

Dante cursed when he jolted awake from the couch, not only to realize that the baby escaped the useless cradle, but also managed to crawl on the ceiling again.

"Damnit baby!" he snarled as he jumped to bring the little nuisance back to the ground. The squeaky laughter prompted him to pout at her. "Hey, I'm not your mom to always look after you, y-you…—"

He stumbled on his words, the torrent of thoughts he's been keeping at bay cracked through him, but the baby wasn't aware, as she only seemed to find his face funny enough to laugh at. She wasn't helping. While he cooped her in his arms he picked the phone and dialed to Lady's apartment, knowing she was still in the city.

"You busy? Yeah, she's awake. Look, could you come over for a bit? I've got beer."

"Good timing. Trish is tagging along. You don't mind, do you?" Lady's voice sounded distant.

"Not at all. She came here earlier, didn't she tell you?"

"Nope. Oh, she's now telling me that you offered her your first-born in exchange for a pizza?"

He stiffened but forced out a chuckle, playing along. "I think a first-born can fetch more than ONE pizza. What is she doing over your place anyway?"

"Nothing much. We'll be there in a few, and I'll bring some real beer for once, so hang in there."

Resigned, Dante hung up and he just laid the baby at the couch where he put his pillows and quickly pulled out a half-empty carton of tomato juice out of his mini fridge. It was a good thing that neither Trish or Lady were here yet to see him chug down the whole juice carton before he let himself fall on top of the couch beside the baby; his weight almost made the baby jump, but she was so amused by the sudden movement that she joined her little clumsy hands together as if she wanted to clap. "Ha-ha-ha, very funny", he retorted, as if the child could even understand him. Babies didn't understand stress, so there was no way for her to know she was causing him a lot of it.

It wasn't just the laughter getting to his nerves, it was all him and how he's started to behave since the child was left at his door. There was a thing he didn't want to let sink in ever since he realized the identity of the child, and it had been eating at him for days. It was a gradual realization that crawled deep beneath his hide and was finally coming through… and it was every bit as terrifying as he thought.

"I'm a dad. I'm a freaking dad..."

This feeling of anxiety was unlike anything he's ever felt before, and finally acknowledging the facts wasn't making him feel any better. It was like a bizarre dream he couldn't wake up from, not necessarily the nightmarish kind, just bizarre enough for him to feel uncomfortable and sick.

He had to admit it, never in his 20 years of demon-hunting business had Dante thought he'd ever have a chance at starting a family of his own. Well, technically his colleagues were kind of his family nowadays, but he thought more along the lines of what was considered a 'traditional' family. The thought crossed his mind, but he'd usually shrug it off as a distant possibility.

Besides, active demon hunters couldn't really afford to have traditional family. Not for long anyway.

He thought of his parents, thought of his brother. They were all gone, their memories were regretfully tainted. His father's reputation alone put targets on all his loved ones and once he got himself killed in battle, he was unable to protect them when they needed him the most. Contemplating 'family' made him contemplate the possibility of failing to protect.

"Well, I'm not THAT easy to kill." He muttered, picking up the baby up to his eye-level. She was completely clueless and still laughing for some reason, her tiny hands touched his stubble and then grabbed his nose. "Yes, my face is beautiful, thanks for noticing, baby."

But this wasn't just his child though, and that was reason enough for Dante to want to put this parenting business behind him as soon as possible.

He didn't spend the past few months trying to forget Nicole just for this new problem in form of a baby to come up. Even now Dante couldn't really tell if he hated Nicole or if he just hated hating her so much.

Nicole could be into some serious trouble, made the fact that she had to leave the baby girl behind and even give him a phone call all the more plausible. But knowing this, Dante didn't want to see her.

The baby giggled through her drool-dripping mouth, her diaper was full of poop again.

….

Trish had been on speaking terms with Dante a little over a year, their relationship didn't quite heal after their fight before he broke up with Nicole, they just remained safely distant to each other since each other's wounds were still fresh. Admittedly, this has been their longest 'break', and it couldn't be helped since their whole relationship had been extremely problematic from the very start, so more often than not, they would fight and take breaks from each other.

Even so, while Trish didn't live in Devil May Cry anymore, they still worked together when a job demanded a few extra-hands, through their emotionally-stunned hides they could perfectly work together as if nothing bad happened between them. They could even crack a few bad jokes to each other, have some drinks and greasy pizza after the job was done, laugh at their silly anecdotes, but their intimate barriers were unyielding and deep down knew that they couldn't talk it out. They used to be able, when they were in good terms, but they haven't been able to get back there again.

If it wasn't for Lady's meddling, Trish and Dante would be constantly walking on eggshells, much to the human huntress' annoyance. It was a good thing that Trish developed some fondness towards her, the arrangement wouldn't have worked otherwise.

Still, Dante wouldn't look at her in the eye, even when he greeted them as he finished feeding the child. She didn't mind anymore, the whole focus of attention was turned towards the hybrid baby and her sloppy blood-red mouth. Dante seemed to be in a slightly better moods than last time she visited… maybe looked more wise even. He smiled when Lady pulled up the bag with drinks

"Fancy-brand beer, huh? You're spoiling me like a sugar momma."

"This might be the only chance in this decade you'll get a beer this good. Don't ruin it" Lady replied.

They all sat around the shop's desk, cracking open the bottles that Lady brought in anticipation, the baby girl was calm enough to be laid in her cradle. Dante used a dirty napkin to clean up the residual blood on the baby's chin, rosy and content after being fed. Trish was the first to drink up, deliberately turning her gaze away from the child. They made small talk about job contracts and some rambling about their little adventure on Fortuna…

It was beginning to get annoying to tip-toe around the subject.

Lady sighed, she had been careful to not drink too fast as her alcohol tolerance was much lower than her colleagues. She eyed the child, who fell asleep through the adult's chat.

"So. This is definitely Nicole's baby?"

"… She totally is." Dante shifted from his chair, crossing his legs. His face had this miserable conflicted grimace, but the drink might've helped to make him loosen up enough to talk of the issue. "And No, there's no way I'd have known that she was preggers before she left. I kind of wish she'd have at least come back to tell me."

"Unless she didn't originally intend to." Trish added, having another sip.

Dante didn't even budge. "So, something came up that forced Nicole to leave the baby behind, probably to never come back?"

"And it's not like she doesn't care about the baby. She clearly has taken good care of her up until she left her on the shop." Trish replied, knowing that no heartless demon would waste their time nurturing a hybrid child. "But why?"

Lady tapped the mouth of her bottle. "If it was the baby who is being targeted, she wouldn't have done this. Something particularly dangerous must be after Nicole herself if she deemed leaving the baby to you would be safer."

Dante shrugged. "Can't argue against that. Nicole is good at covering her tracks as it is, so whatever thing is after her is quickly catching up to her trail."

"Do you know where she might be?"

He was silent for a few seconds, his eyes going back and forth between the sleeping baby and the shop's windows. Ultimately he sighed as he rubbed his face with his hands.

"… I can think of a few places. But, you gals… I'm not going after her."

Lady arched her brows. "Thought that out of all of us, you'd be the one with the strongest reason to go after her."

He twisted his mouth, clearly uncomfortable. "And I think I have an equally strong reason to not do it."

"Look, Dante: nobody likes Nicole either, but she's the mother of this child, your child. You can't possibly think of leaving this girl without a mother because of some petty grudge, can you?"

He just gestured to the baby, putting up a conflicted grimace. "It's not that simple…"

Trish tilted her head. "… You don't want to share this responsibility with her." To that, Dante finger gunned towards her.

"Exactly! Good for Nicole if she knows how to play cool mom, but I just don't want to have to deal with her at all."

"Fair enough. Still, we gotta do it, otherwise we're making ourselves look like huge jerks."

Dante groaned, finishing the rest of his bottle in one sitting. "Okayyyy. Let's just get this over with."

He let the bottle hit the desk a little too hard, and disturbed the baby, the crying rising to break the uneasy atmosphere between the three hunters. He immediately just picked her up to gently coo her wailing away.

"… Do we have someone who can babysit her in the meanwhile?" Lady asked.

"I don't think there's anyone remotely qualified to care for a part-demon baby. And we don't know how long we'll be searching for Nicole", Trish added, staring at the baby while taking the bottle's top to her lips.

"What'd be more irresponsible? To leave her with someone else or to take her with us?"

Dante shrugged, finally managed to quiet down the child. He's become good at handling her. "No right answer for that. But I'd feel better if any of us had their eyes on her."

They really didn't have much of a choice at the moment, and taking more time to arrange a safe place for the hybrid child could cost them the chance of finding her mother again, and they needed to move fast if they hoped to catch up with her.

Trish wasn't feeling particularly enthusiastic about this whole ordeal, and she was more likely to shoot first and then ask if she encountered Nicole alone. She didn't know if Dante would still be soft on her after all this time, and part of Trish just hoped he sobered up for good on the matter. Whether Nicole was a good mother or not wasn't going to erase everything else that she did before.

The irony of her own thoughts didn't escape Trish, she smiled sadly as she drank what remained of her beer.

"So, where do you think she'd go to hide?" Lady asked.

"First place would be her grandma's house" Dante said dryly, lifting the baby's cradle to his hip.

…

"Flowers?"

Her wide black eyes immediately followed the sight of the white and purple hyacinths bouquet. He took an awkward walk to put them in her hands, as she didn't even know how to take this gesture. She kept staring down at the bouquet with a dumbfounded expression, and Dante could guess that this was the first time someone's ever gifted her a flower bouquet.

"I had no idea what you'd like, but I remember seeing these on your grandma's garden… Do you like them?"

Her thin lips pulled into a slim smile, for a moment it seemed like her pale face gained a little bit of color. Her face was never her best asset, but it was when she smiled that Dante felt at loss for words. It didn't matter if it was only a disguise, he knew that the smile was genuine.

"You picked them when thinking of me, did you not? That's the only part that matters to me. Thank you." And she held the bouquet softly against her chest.

He could still see the light scratch marks on her skin, she adamantly refused to keep the bandage on because 'it didn't let her skin breathe', and she was probably right, but it still unnerved him to look at those scars in the open.

She noticed his staring and decided to turn around to look for a vase for the bouquet. "You needn't worry about me, it's almost healed now. It doesn't heal as fast as yours, but it's fine."

It was true. By the time the day was over, she'd no longer have those scars. That was how most demons were anyway. She seemed to get over physical harm just fine, but she did fear and suffer at the moment it was done. She only seemed to fear pain. How much pain could she stand? Did she feel pain in the exact same way he could? Or was it something else entirely?

He shrugged off his questions as he sat on his old couch, realizing how much it smelled like her. And old books. Oh yeah, since he let her bring her books from old lady Bridget's house, his shop started to smell like books, not ancient enochian tomes, not shady dark grimoires, just regular old books. Ironically, it gave him a nostalgic sense of normalcy that he sorely missed ever since he was a kid.

She had pilled up finished books on the table next to the couch, she was a remarkably fast reader.

"Slow down with reading time, bookworm, you'll be left without books to read when you're done moving them here", he chuckled.

"Oh, bold you of you to assume I'd only like to read them once", she replied, picking up the one she left on top of the pile. "Also, I finished this one recently. I thought that you'd like to read it. Its story is nearly identical to that one movie airing on the T.V. the other day."

When he took it in his hands, he forced a grin. "'Flowers in the Attic'? This is literally the book it was based on. It's the same title as the movie, remember?"

"It is? Huh." Whereas her obliviousness to obvious things could be endearing, it was sometimes testing.

"What? You liked that movie?"

"Yes, but the book was so much better. That's… why I wanted you to read it."

He knew that she liked the movie, but he wouldn't have watched it if he knew more about the story, the subjects turned out to be too uncomfortable for a pleasant afternoon watching a movie. "No offense, but I didn't dig the movie, I was falling asleep halfway through it."

It was then when her hands pulled the book from him, the color in her face faded.

"I see. Silly me for trying to find a nice book for you, seems like I still can't do this right..." She looked down at the book with veiled contempt, her smile becoming into such an apathetic gesture that it hardly resembled what was just a minute ago.

His heart rushed, he hurried to hold the book still before she walked away with it.

"I'm going to read it. It's fine. Thanks, Nicole."

To his words, her expression and iron-grip on the book softened. He almost sighed in relief: he really saved this one. It was a bad thing when she was left alone with negative emotions. He needed to humor her if he wanted her to feel safe and cared for, couldn't afford to keep making mistakes with someone so fragile.

Still, he truly didn't intend to read all of the book. He'd later search on the internet for a good plot overview to get out of this tightspot.

She wandered around the shop's lobby, looking at the old furniture they brought from her grandma's house, the only thing she thought it was worth bringing first. It was worn and made of wood, it looked like it'd fall apart if handled just a little too roughly, stood out like a sore thumb in his shop, just like Nicole did in his small social circle.

"… The bookshelf could be in a better place, right?" she asked quietly, walking under the shadows of the gloomy lob, passing her long fingers over the aforementioned.

Dante shrugged, putting the book down momentarily. "We'll just move it to my bedroom. It's cozier there, you know?"

He wanted to catch her flustered reaction to that smooth talk, but she wasn't looking his direction.

With barely a whiff of voice, she replied: "Sounds good."

Notes: A small peek on how was Nicole and Dante's relationship. Also mention of the book 'Flowers in the Attic' by Virginia C. Andrews, not a book I can easily recommend, but feel free to read it if the dark subjects don't disturb you.

And don't forget to write some feedback if you can. It'd help me a lot to improve my writing quality.