A/N: Hello everybody! Thanks for patience and reviews and suchlike...I'm sorry this one's taken so long, I keep hitting walls every so often. I think this one will close in a few chapters' time, but we'll see where it goes. Meanwhile, chapter 17. Read, review or no 18. :) ~ Mika

Jak's mind was still numb all the way from the Stadium as he drove – notably more carefully than normal, minding his girlfriend's injuries – back towards the Underground. His mind turned over and over as he did so, thinking – something else he rarely did on a regular basis – about what Keira had told him.

I'm a father? More to the point, I'm Danny's father?

He was growing to like the kid anyway over the three days he had known him, but to hear this from Keira changed everything. Shaking his head, he turned sharply to avoid a wall and Keira moaned in pain from behind him.

"Sorry, Keir!" he said over his shoulder. Hearing a deep sigh come from his girlfriend, he gently accelerated as he rounded the last corner to the Bunker. Landing just as gently, he swung one leg over it, careful not to kick Keira in the face, and helped the young woman off just as the door slid open and Samos emerged.

Oh great, Jak thought, heart sinking. The last thing any of us need.

"Keira!" the Green Sage/ Underground leader exclaimed. "What's happened to you? Jak, what happened to her?"

"She ran into Erol at the garage and he put a boot into her chest," Jak replied, anger filling his voice the further along he got. "I think she's got a few broken ribs – "

"Keira, come here," the Sage interrupted.

"Daddy..." the injured woman panted, breath coming out in short gasps. "Don't be too hard...on Jak. If...he hadn't stopped by...the Stadium...I wouldn't be h-here." She coughed, blood splattering on the floor, groaning in pain. "He saved...me."

"Is this true?" Samos asked.

All the blonde could do was shrug. His other mouthpiece, meanwhile, had an answer clearly prepared.

"Yeah, we did!" he interjected. "In fact, I did most of the work. Jak just...took care of Keira,"

"Daxter! I wasn't asking you!" the short man interjected. "So Erol is dead?"

"Regrettably, no, although if I wasn't stopped I would have taken care of him once and for all," Jak replied, resting his gaze on Keira. If you hadn't stopped me...

"You would...have been killed...if I hadn't," she gasped, doubling over in pain. "I...I'm not...losing you again...to h-him." She squeezed her eyes shut, containing the physical pain but her emotional pain manifested in the tears that escaped. Turning himself and his daughter away, her father muttered something and both Hagais went inside, the door sliding shut behind them.

For a few minutes, Jak and Daxter just stood there, the wind whistling in their ears, before following the two inside. Just as they entered the Bunker, a smaller, blonde presence ran into Jak's knees and fixed his big blue eyes upon those of his newly-revealed father's.

"Dada?" he questioned. "Dak?"

Jak nodded, stunned by Danny's sudden speech. Maybe the kid had finally broken through his thick, silent barrier. "Yeah, kid. I'm your dada Jak,"

"Dak no!" Danny jumped up and down, grin wider than his eyes, arms outstretched. "Dak no, Dak no, Dak no!"

"What? Who knows?" Jak's forehead creased in confusion as he squatted, eye level with the infant.

His little son stopped jumping and pointed at him. "Oo Dak,"

"Yeah," the blonde said slowly. "I'm Jak..."

"Me Danny," the small child said. "Dak no...Dak my dada,"

It finally clicked for the 24-year old. "Jak knows that he's Danny's daddy?"

The toddler nodded furiously.

The renegade smiled. "Yes he does. I mean, I do – "

He was cut off by the small boy leaping up and locking his arms tightly around his neck.

"Hey, buddy. Your infant son's hangin' off your neck, in case you ain't noticed,"

"Bwaaahhhh, Danny!" Jak mock-growled, locking his own arms around the toddler and standing up. "You are a heavy boy. What's Mama been feeding you, huh?"

The little boy in his arms giggled, reminding Jak of Keira. His abused heart warmed just then, the good feeling alien, almost forgotten to him.

"Speakin' of Mama..." He shifted the child onto his hip, letting the feeling spread through him, savouring it. "Let's go see how she's doing,"

"She doing?" Danny repeated, little brow creased in confusion.

Jak licked his lips. "Mama got hurt...by a very bad man,"

"Ehol?" Danny asked, eyes widening in panic.

"How does he know Erol?" Jak whispered to Daxter.

Daxter rolled his eyes. "Have you just ignored everything Keira told you?"

"Oh yeah." Jak turned his attention back to his child. "It's okay, Danny. He's not here. He can't hurt you anymore. Not while I'm here." He tried to smile reassuringly, but the child still looked worried, fist in his mouth.

"Hurt Mama," he said.

Jak bit his lip. "Yeah, he did. But that was Daddy's fault...I wasn't with Mama when she was at her garage." He shook his head, defying the guilty feelings seeping into his brain. "Anyway, let's go see how Mama's doing."

"'Kay," Danny replied, withdrawing back into himself. Sighing internally, Jak made a mental note to not mention Erol around the child ever again as he made his way towards the medical section of the Underground.

~x~

Seething with humiliation as he strolled out the garage, Erol made his way back to the Palace, body throbbing from the after effects of the fight with the Eco freak. He wasn't sure whether he was more humiliated by the fact that he was defeated in a fight or defeated by Jak, of all people.

Thinking about it just pissed him off to a degree reserved for everyday life and there was no way that he could shift it from his mind. He hated the freak; hated him with every cell in his body, every millimetre and less of himself. This hatred was so intense, he barely noticed he was an inch away from crashing into a wall until the nose of his Zoomer was scraping it. Turning sharply, he vowed to make it his mission to destroy the freak, his whore of a girlfriend and their brat –

He braked sharply as the realisation of what he'd just thought hit him.

Their brat. Their child.

Growling with frustration, Erol worked things out aloud.

"So, let's summarise this. He steals my girl..."

"Hey! Watch it!" a man yelled.

Erol ignored it, continuing to talk to himself. "He didn't die in that Mar-forsaken chamber...and, to top it all off, he's the father of that little bastard brat she had."

Gut twisting in a way he didn't like, he parked the Zoomer in a hidden place round the back, got off and clenched his fists tightly.

He knew what he had to do, and he would die doing it, if that was what it resulted in.

However, if at least the freak died with him, then all was just in the world.

An unpleasant smile crossed his face as he strolled