No one had to suggest it. They all simply agreed that Nero would not be left alone, even if he wasn't aware of their presence. A second Meteor could not have removed Vincent from Nero's room. Only Veld's kind cajoling could get him to reluctantly return home to bathe and change clothes, and if Veld was lucky, to eat. In the meantime, Max or Shelke, or even Shalua would watch over him. When Nero's cadre heard that their teammate was injured, they too came to assist in the vigil. Even Tseng himself came and kept an eye on his newest recruit for a few hours.

"I hadn't heard anything, so I came to see for myself. I hope I'm not intruding."

"Tseng!" Veld stood and shook his successor's hand.

"How is he?"

Unable to suppress a heavy sigh, Veld cast a glance at Nero, drifting silent in the tank. Vincent sat staring at him forlornly. If wishes were miracles… Well, they'd probably have adjoining lots with a single white picket fence to ring both lawns. Sarah would still be alive, Lu and Vince together, and Elfe could have played with Sephiroth and Nero.

"Which one?" Veld asked.

Tseng offered him a sympathetic look.

"Shalua can't give us a solid answer. There's almost no precedent for this sort of thing, and the one case study we do have…" Veld's gaze briefly flicked to Vincent. "There's no telling if he'll be able to shrug this off like nothing ever happened, or if he'll be permanently incapacitated in some way. Right now...we're just hoping he wakes up. If you can't hold his spot, I understand."

Veld wasn't even sure Nero would want it. With only Shelke remaining, Nero had no reason to attempt to establish a life above ground. According to Dixon, there were a number of troops who weren't adjusting well. Once awake- because he would wake up, dammit- maybe Nero would take them back to the shadows, establish his own much kinder colony of misfits.

"This is as much my fault as it is yours," Tseng said quietly. "Perhaps more."

Veld looked at him sharply.

"I should have seen that he was unhappy, noticed that something was off," Tseng explained. "He was my responsibility. A Turk in training if not yet a full agent. He's one of my kids Veld, and I let him down."

"Tseng," Veld said, resting a hand on the younger man's shoulder, "you had no reason to expect he'd do something like this. None of us speak Deepground except Shelke, and she can't serve as translator twenty-four-seven. You did the best you could with him. No one is blaming you."

Although Tseng nodded, Veld got the distinct impression that the gesture was more to make his old commander happy than because Tseng believed it himself.

"I hate to lose good men," was all he said in response. "Please keep me updated? Anything you choose to share would be greatly appreciated."

Veld smiled. "I will. Don't worry, you'll have him back in ranks again before you know it."

"If he doesn't, or can't return, that's fine," Tseng shrugged. "I just want to see him well."

Veld nodded, touched. "We all do."

It was unusual to find no one in Nero's room with him. If Max wasn't studying there, or reading to Nero, then Shalua was checking his monitors or adjusting the mako flow. If not Max or Shalua, then certainly Vincent would be there, hand pressed to the glass wall of the tank, a desperate determination in his eyes, as though he could wish Nero back to health.

For all the concern about Nero's physical condition, there was little talk about his emotional state. He was grieving; anyone could see it. His eyes were closed, but Max could see their movement beneath lids translucent-gray in a well of shadow; deep lines scored his face, crinkling his brow and drawing his mouth into a tight line. Now and then a tear slid down his cheek, and dissolved into the indigo wash of dark mako.

Whatever he dreamed, it hurt. Trying to kill himself had not ended his pain, nor had the medical treatment, however expert. Physically, he improved a little each day, but implanting the summon could not take away sorrow or loneliness. Max mourned for his lost family in her own way, wishing she'd known Rosso and Weiss, Azul and Argento. Someday, when Nero had regained his strength, and the need to talk became too urgent to ignore, he would tell her about them. Until then, she'd be his friend, as Vincent and Veld were his new family.

He was an odd creature, but sweet and kind. Deadly in battle, yet innocent in the ways of ordinary life outside of Deepground. An eager, yet gentle lover, and so literal-minded that most jokes went right over his head. In short, adorable.

She had so many things to share with him: Vintage movies, ice cream, Beggar's Night (despite being a bit too old for it). Trade shows at the Armory. The WRO Yule party, street festivals, bonfires. Motorcycle rides. Watching the stars on a clear summer night.

What had he done for fun in Deepground? Had he ever even been allowed to have fun, to just relax and do nothing? Had he ever been let loose to just make a mess and enjoy himself, to explore a new place, or create something just because? She didn't think so.

He had a lot of things to learn, and a lot of carefree childhood to catch up on, had Nero Sable. Max watched him, his body buoyed up by mako, his spirit off wandering among sad memories.

"Wake soon," she told him. "There's a whole world out here, waiting just for you."

According to Shalua, Nero's body had accepted the Omega summon materia. He was still dependent on the CPAP machine to force dark mako in and out of his lungs, but he was burning through the SOLDIER grade nutrient drip at an impressive rate, which suggested healing. However, he had yet to wake up. Shalua seemed optimistic, but Vincent was having a harder time holding onto hope.

"If you've got a minute, I'd like to show you something."

Vincent looked up to see Shalua dressed in her rounds attire of khakis and blouse under her white coat, a thick manila folder in one hand.

"What?" Vincent asked her. Without invitation, she sat down next to him and presented the folder to him. Opening it, the first page that greeted him was a paper divided in half down the middle, a long double row of dots on either side arranged in a pattern that was almost, but not quite the same. The words "88% match" were written at the top in Shalua's somewhat scribbly handwriting. Vincent felt his throat constrict and his chest tighten as realization dawned.

"His bloodwork post-materia was totally different from what I had on file for him originally. It looks as if Omega cleared the Jenova from his system. When I ran his DNA against your sample a second time…" Shalua offered him a rueful little smile. "Congratulations, it's a boy."

Dropping the folder, Vincent turned and stooped to kiss her full on the lips. "Thank you."

Shalua just stood there, too thunderstruck to respond, before eventually managing a bewildered "You're welcome."

It took them both a minute to realize there were now papers scattered all over the floor. Perhaps to cover her embarrassment, Shalua dropped to her knees and began to collect them.

"I did a little extra digging while running Nero's DNA test," she explained as Vincent knelt down to help her. "With the Jenova, it wasn't hard to confirm you as his father. His mother was more difficult."

Vincent eyed the papers in his hands as if they might explain this, but the medical jargon meant little to him. Instead, he held his tongue as Shalua explained.

"Deepground wasn't quite so scary when Nero and his siblings were born. Their surrogates were willing volunteers, and the sperm and eggs were all taken from the Shinra tissue bank."

"How the hell did my- er- 'tissue' even get in there?" Vincent demanded. "I think I would have remembered that."

"Needles?" Shalua suggested.

Vincent opened his mouth to argue, thought better, and closed it again. "Most likely."

"I had to take the scenic route in order to confirm you on paper," she went on, slotting papers back into the folder. "Honestly, if I hadn't had the sample on file for you, I'm not sure I could have done it. Nero's mother, or mothers, also involved a long and circuitous paper trail."

"Really?" Vincent asked, intrigued. "Who are they? Are either of them alive?"

"I honestly don't know," Shalua admitted. Leaning, she turned the page to display a grainy color photograph. A woman with short, curly dark hair and olive skin smiled back at him.

"Maeve Fearn was a willing volunteer surrogate who wanted a baby, but not a husband," Shalua began. "At the time, the plan was to have the surrogates nurse and care for their children as they grew up. Both Rosso and Weiss' mothers died during the delivery, and Maeve...disappeared. No sooner had she delivered, than she vanished into shadow. To this day, no one knows what became of her. As a result, all three were brought up by nurses and tutors. Then the Restrictors took over and it all went sharply downhill after that."

"You wonder if she hadn't been lost to the shadows, what sort of difference she would have made?" Vincent mused. Shalua offered a noncommittal hum. Reaching, she turned the page again.

"Nero's biological mother was listed as subject 14156KR25, she donated two ova that were eventually marked as unclaimed after a pilot program she had participated in was shut down. Her given name was Kirua Roi. She's actually a footnote in the SOLDIER handbook as the only survivor of an attempt at a cadre of female SOLDIERs."

"Female SOLDIERs?" Vincent echoed. "I thought women couldn't tolerate Jenova?"

"With very few exceptions, they can't," Shalua confirmed. "Kirua and her cadre proved that adult women and Jenova don't mix. She's the only known survivor of a full blown case of what we know now was Geostigma, but that's not to say she came out of it without a scar. She was in a coma for over a week. When she woke up, she had no idea who or where she was. Her mental capacity had been severely diminished. She was put in the same long-term care ward as the four survivors of the Lost Unit. From there...her serial number disappears. It doesn't pop up again until several years later."

"This is her," Shalua leaned and pointed at the serial number, the digits highlighted to visually separate them from a vast list of densely printed numbers. "This marks her as support staff in the machine shop. She was a machinist and weaponsmith. I'm guessing she must have recovered somewhat, or she never would have been given such a highly-skilled job. However, she might have also been incapacitated to some degree, or it's likely she would have been put on the front lines and not kept as a non-combative reserve.

"Later on, she's listed as head of that division, and she's also mentioned as one of the training coordinators. I don't know what sort of care she was receiving, but it's clear she must have improved dramatically since she was first put in the long-term care unit. What really got me was this. Look here."

Vincent followed the line of Shalua's pointing finger and blinked. "Rank: Tsviet. Color: Silver. She was a colored Tsviet like Nero and his family."

Shalua nodded. "I can't confirm it, but I wonder if Kura Roi and Argento the Silver aren't the same person?"

"Is this her?" Vincent asked, pulling out a badly faded military mugshot. The tape measure stapled to the wall behind her indicated a height of just barely 5'3". She had been petite. She'd had dark hair and almond-shaped eyes- clearly she had some Wutaian blood in her- but those eyes were blue, not brown. He could see the softer lines of Nero's face in hers. It was comforting in a way to know that Nero's mother had been pretty.

"Yeah, that's her about two years before Nero was born," Shalua said, looking at the photograph herself. "I'd like to show it to Nero once he wakes up. He might be able to confirm if she's really Argento or not."

"We never found her body," Vincent said quietly, replacing the photo and closing the folder. "All we recovered was a badly dented helmet that Nero said was hers."

"So it's unlikely she survived."

"Shelke seemed to think that if anyone could have escaped intact, it would have been Argento. Still, I hate to get his hopes up. Even if she's alive, I have no idea where to even begin to find her."

Shalua nodded, clearly thinking.

"Do you have copies of these?" Vincent asked.

Shalua blinked, returning to earth. "Sorry. Copies?"

"Copies of the photos," Vincent clarified. "I'd like to take them with me, if possible."

"This is Nero's story," Shalua said, pushing the folder more firmly into his hands. "Keep it safe for him."

Vincent nodded. "Thank you."

It had never been easy for Vincent and Nero to communicate. Neither were men of many words, and likewise were not terribly effective at expressing what was on their minds, much less what was in their hearts. Some might attribute that to Vincent being a product of his time; men of his generation were a stoic lot who kept calm and pushed through. Vincent let the assumption stand. It was a lot better than the truth: both his son and himself were emotionally crippled, socially inept introverts for whom stringing three words together was a major achievement. Despite all that, Vincent desperately wanted to get to know his son. However, his son was unavailable for comment.

Nero drifted silently in the mako tank, unconscious. The only noise was the soft hiss and ripple of bubbles as the CPAP mask forced oxygen and dark mako into and out of his lungs. Since Nero couldn't talk to him- and even if he could, the conversation was likely to be awkward at best- Vincent did the next best thing.

The thick folder full of papers and photographs was too much to balance on his knees, so he sat down on the unoccupied cot and opened the folder next to him. Given that Nero and his siblings had been specifically plotted and planned months before even their conception, Vincent had to dig through a lot of preliminary material before he found what he was looking for.

A date: February twelfth followed by the year. It was marked as the day Nero had been born. Ironically, the child of shadow had been born at dawn: 5:29am. It was now closer to 5:29pm, but the date was correct. Vincent looked up at the sleeping boy- well, man- in the tank. Nero had been twenty-one for twelve hours and he'd had no idea.

Joy and sorrow had been having the most violent of wrestling matches in Vincent's gut and heart ever since Nero had wandered unannounced and unexpected into his life. Nero had not known his own birthday, and had had only a rough idea of how old he was. Apparently birthdays were one more thing that Deepground had deemed unnecessary.

Legal age for damn near everything except enlistment had been much younger in Vincent's day. Now it ran the gamut from army enlistment at fifteen thanks to the war in Wutai, marriage at eighteen, to drinking at twenty-one. Vincent wasn't sure why a kid who was apparently mature enough to fire a gun or start a family couldn't have a drink, but that was Midgar logic for you. Then again, Nero had been an adult for a long time regardless of his age.

Vincent sat silent, everything and nothing floating through his mind as he stared at the tank. Veld found him like that, an assortment of Polaroids and snapshots clutched in both hands. Without a word, Veld sat down next to him and put his arm around him. Vincent leaned against him gladly, tilting his head so that his cheek rested on Veld's hair.

"How's he doing?" Veld asked, though the tone suggested Vincent could apply the inquiry to himself if he liked.

"It's his birthday today," Vincent responded, holding up the document he'd found. "He's twenty-one."

Veld took the paper from him and contemplated it for a moment. What did one say to that?

"I missed all those years," said Vincent, staring at the clinical piece of paper. "His first steps, first words, all the milestones. Deepground probably didn't even bother to note any of those things. He was just an experiment to them."

He looked at Veld. "How do I make up for that? For not being there. For the way they treated him."

Veld had no answer for that, not in words, anyway. Instead, he rubbed Vincent's shoulder with one hand, wishing he had something profound and comforting to say. All he could do was shake his head.

"I wish I knew," he said quietly. "I was away so much when Felicia was little, and then she was gone… I wasn't there for her either."

"I didn't mean…" Vincent began.

"I know, spook," Veld said, kissing his cheek. There was no one to see, and Vincent needed the extra bit of affection. "Doubt either of us will ever win Father of the Year, but I think Nero knows that he's important to you. Hell, to us. Gotten quite the soft spot for him myself."

"Does he?" Vincent pressed, an edge of desperation to his voice. "We both know he doesn't really grasp the concept of relationships up here. Hell, he thought I wanted to have sex with him for the first few weeks just because of one stupid hug!"

"He knows better now," was all Veld could come up with. "He knows there's a difference between what you and I have together, and what exists among all three of us. I think he knows somewhere in the back of his head that he's important and valued, and not just as a weapon. Maybe he doesn't really understand all the variations of love and friendship that exist, but he's got the basics now."

Vincent shook his head. Caught in the paralyzing grip of his own guilt, no reason or logic no matter how sound could pull him out of the emotional spiral. There were times when all Veld could do was wait for him to crash, and it looked as if this was one of them.

"Does it matter?" Vincent pushed the folder aside and stood. "He doesn't want to live without his real family. That's what they were. I'm just where half his DNA came from. Azul was his real father."

His voice broke. "He'd rather die and be with them again, than stay here with us...with me."

Veld could play dirty, hit below the belt, but now did not seem like the time to bring up Vincent's own desperate moments. There had been times when Veld had wanted Vincent to experience the terror, the worry that Vincent had put him through. Now, however, all he wanted to do was wipe Vincent's anxieties away.

"He's had a lot to deal with," Veld said instead. "He'd been building toward this since he arrived. His siblings dying pushed him over the edge. It wasn't because he hates you, Vin. It was because...it was just too much."

Maybe Vincent would pick up on the gentle chastisement in his words, maybe he wouldn't. It was hard to know what to say. Veld's heart urged him to absolve Vincent of all guilt, to tell him none of this was his fault, except that wasn't strictly true. Chaos had dealt the final blow to Nero's hopes and driven him to try to regain the only source of love and comfort he had ever known by any means necessary. Gods knew what Veld would have done if he'd been left in Deepground to watch from the inside as it mutated from hospital to prison camp.

"I'm guilty too. I should have noticed."

"At least he tolerates you," Vincent grumbled.

"Hey, no," Veld said, adding a touch of sternness to his voice. "It's not a contest. He likes you well enough, you both just have trouble putting it into words. You and Nero were cut from the same cloth, and because of that you butt heads sometimes."

"It's not that simple! You're the sane one, the safe one, the one he comes to for advice. He looks up to you."

Vincent looked at Nero, silently floating in his tank. His eyelids twitched, his brows drew together, and to Vincent, every expression that crossed Nero's face meant pain. Not just physical pain, but the anguish of losing everyone he loved. And what was he left with?

"He'll never forgive me, Veld. I've been damned since Hojo pulled that trigger, and it's no different now. I killed his family, destroyed his whole world. I killed him, just like I killed Sephiroth!"

Standing, Veld grabbed him and pulled him close. Vincent almost fell into Veld's arms, automatically latching his arms around him more for balance than for comfort. At once Vincent's litany of self-debasement cut off. Veld was shorter by almost a full head, but he was broader, and more solid than Vincent could ever hope to be. He was the rock, the fixed point in their relationship. He was always there when Vincent needed him. It came as a shock to realize that steadfast support was trembling in his arms.

"...Veld?"

"Shut up, Valentine," Veld muttered into his shoulder, voice uncharacteristically small and tight. "Just shut up."

Too stunned to do anything else, Vincent obeyed. Guilt competed with alarm as he heard Veld sniff quietly, trying to hide the noise in the fabric of Vincent's shirt. Gods of Gaia, he was crying!

"Veld," Vincent began, horror-struck. "Veld, I'm sorry! I didn't… I wasn't…"

Taking a deep breath, Veld lifted his head. His cheeks were barely damp, but tears had clotted his eyelashes. The look on his face was a painful mixture of grief, reproach, and determination.

"Do you think you're the only one who cares about him?" Veld challenged quietly. "That you're the only one who's had to bury a child? That I don't blame myself for not catching this before it escalated? You keep calling him my stepson. Well godsdammit, I hope you're happy because that boy means just as much to me as he does to you!"

Vincent blinked, having expected a different sort of lecture.

"Elfe hated me. I don't think she ever completely forgave me for the fire, for being a Turk, for my association with Shinra...everything," Veld went on. "At best she learned to tolerate me. She had a right to be angry, to despise me. But I couldn't let her suffer on her own. Damn it, she was my daughter and I didn't take care of her as a child, so I took care of her then."

Veld paused, pulled in a shaky breath. "I held her as she drew her last breath. It was all I could do for her, but Alexander help me, that is not going to happen to Nero."

Reaching, Veld cupped Vincent's face in both hands. "He's your son. He's a Turk. He's family. You don't get to give up on him. Neither do I."

"Then you're stronger than I am. You always have been." Vincent looked away from Veld, away from the determination in his face, the pain in his eyes. "I never get to keep what I value most. I never realized how much it hurt to lose your child, but now…Veld, I don't know how to hope."

"Then you go on without it, Vince. You just keep going, with or without it. Can you do that for me? For Nero?"

"I'll try," said Vincent. "I can't promise more than that."