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; those 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.

Shalua had given him a thick folder full of papers and photographs when she'd told him Nero was his biological son. It 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 Shinra 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 that extra bit of attention. "It's not a contest. You and Nero were cut from the same cloth, and because of that you butt heads sometimes, but I think he knows that he's important to you. Hell, to us. Gotten quite the soft spot for him myself."

That earned him a small, short-lived smile. "I hope so."

"Think you could let Shalua keep an eye on him for a little while? I'll make your favorite."

Vincent shook his head. "You go. I'm going to stay here."

"Okay," Veld agreed, giving him one last squeeze before standing and heading out.

"Veld?"

Shelke stood in the doorway to his office looking uncertain, a manilla folder clutched to her chest. Removing his reading glasses, Veld put down his pen and pushed back his chair.

"Shelke, come in," he said, standing to meet her. "What's the matter? Is it Nero?"

"No, it isn't Nero," she told him, coming over and setting the folder down on his desk. "It's Sephiroth."

Veld blinked.

"I...did some digging," Shelke began. "I remembered what you said about Sephiroth possibly being Vincent's son. I know there's no way to prove it, but I also know how Vincent can get when he's got his heart set on something."

Veld smiled, unable to help a small chuckle. "He can be determined that way, yes."

"I know when I was in Deepground I would have given my eyeteeth just for a picture of Shalua and my parents. So. I found a few things."

She pushed the folder toward him. Veld took it and opened it, resetting his glasses on his nose. Inside was an assortment of photographs. The first few were of a baby, then a toddler, then a little boy, apparently all of them same child. It wasn't until Veld had flipped through several of them that he realized who the little boy in all of the pictures was.

"Shelke, are these all of Sephiroth?"

She nodded. "There was an informal cache as well as some official ones buried in the old Shinra database. I guess whoever put them there thought they were encrypted thoroughly enough to keep out anyone who wasn't supposed to be in there."

"But not you," Veld said, feeling a smirk pull at his cheek.

Shelke grinned. "Not me. I thought Vincent might want them. Then I thought, well, maybe this would just be more pain on top of an already difficult situation. So I figured I'd show you first and see what you thought."

Veld nodded appreciatively. "This was very kind of you Shelke, on both counts. I definitely think Vincent would want to have these. However, I also think you're right, it'd be too much to ask him to try to deal with his guilt concerning Sephiroth while Nero's in such rough shape."

"Okay," Shelke agreed with a nod. "Would you like to hang onto them for him, or shall I take them back?"

"I'll keep them," Veld decided, replacing the photos into the folder. "I'll keep them safe for him until he's ready. Thank you."

It wasn't until months after Nero had come home that Veld even remembered he had the photos. Digging around for a case file he'd mislaid, he found both it and the folder toward the back of a desk drawer. Like so many things, he'd put it away so well he'd temporarily forgotten what he'd done with it. Setting the case file aside for a moment, he flipped through the pictures.

Nero had been home for a while now. He wasn't wearing the respirator overnight, and had recently returned to the Turk barracks on a part-time basis. After losing his Deepground family, Nero didn't like being completely alone if he could avoid it, especially overnight. Things had calmed considerably, had almost returned to normal- for a specific definition of 'normal', anyway. Well, he had time. He could at least begin preparations for presenting them at a later date.

Vincent yawned as he headed down the hall to the bedroom to change. Veld had been delayed and would be home in perhaps thirty minutes or so. In the meantime, Vincent had promised to finish cleaning up the kitchen before Veld got home. He didn't bother to click on the light as he wandered down the familiar passage.

Wait.

A glint of light caught his eye and he stopped short. There was a framed picture on the wall, several in fact. When had those been put up? Neither he nor Veld were much on decorating. Surely he would have remembered, would have noticed before this. Flicking on the light, Vincent took a closer look. His hand rose to cover his mouth of its own accord.

A little boy with stark white skin and black-and-gold eyes stared back at him. The boy wasn't smiling exactly, but there was something curious and engaging about his expression. Rays of light slanted through the deep purple liquid that surrounded him, his hair floating around him, as if he'd just turned his head. It was Nero, and he could not have been more than four years old.

There were more farther down the hall. Nero as a baby, seen through a filter of deep purple. Nero in his first respirator playing with two children whose faces were sadly beyond the frame of the photo, but could only be Weiss and Rosso. A reedy little Nero in his first mako suit. Vincent recognized them all as enlarged, retouched versions of the photos in Nero's file. Veld must have put them together as a surprise. Warmth blossoming in his chest, Vincent turned to head back into the bedroom but stopped short.

Another black-haired boy stared back at him from the opposite side of the hall. A little boy with fair skin and brilliant green eyes.

Sephiroth…

Where the hell Veld had found these he had no idea, but dear gods… There were coordinating pictures for each of them, exactly the same number of photos on each side of the hall. One could see the family resemblance easier in the earlier photos, before Sephiroth's hair had faded to its iconic silver-white. His boys… His boys… Vincent swallowed hard, feeling tears prick at his eyes.

"So….you like it then?"

Veld had snuck up behind him. Turning, Vincent stared at him for a moment. The silence stretched so long that Veld's smile faltered. Rather than have Veld think he'd done wrong, Vincent threw his arms around him in a hug.

"Thank you."