But Gunnar just stood there, either pretending he hadn't heard or trying to make Saber leave out of sheer frustration. Saber had seen him use this tactic before, but that had been back when they were both still human. I guess you use whatever works.
"All right Gunnar, if you're going to be that way, then I guess I have nothing more to say to you."
"You mean you're leaving?"
Saber could tell that Gunnar was just trying not to sound hopeful, and he smirked inwardly for a minute. Turning as if to leave, Saber turned back with enough speed to catch Gunnar off guard. Slamming his fist into the other Teknoman's gut, Saber threw Gunnar aside.
Stepping into the room that Gunnar had been trying to keep him out of, Saber looked around. At first he didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but that was when he caught sight of the other person in the room.
The other familiar person in the room. The very familiar person…
"Oh my god... Dad!" he rushed forward, uncaring of anything but the fact that his father was in front of him. "Oh, god! I thought you were dead! I thought I'd never see you again..." he buried his face in the man's chest, nuzzling him and trying to reassure himself that this was real.
Sab- Cain?
Gunnar.
You know, you can call me Fritz.
Suddenly more annoyed than relived, Saber turned on Gunnar with speed that Cain Carter had never possessed.
"You bonehead!" he yelled, grabbing the blond's shoulders so he could give him a good shaking. "Why the hell didn't you tell me about this?!"
"I... thought you were evil?"
Sighing, suddenly feeling more like a deflated balloon than anything, Saber sat down hard on nothing but the floor. It was softer than he'd been expecting, but then this was the second story. "Somebody shoot me; shoot me now."
The feel of someone's hands on his shoulders, and then that same person lifting him back to his feet, distracted Saber from his annoyance at both himself and Gunnar. Before even he could react to what was happening, distracted as he had been, Saber found himself enveloped by his father's strong arms.
"Cain, my boy, it's so good to see you again," Dad said, sounding more choked-up than he had since the day Mom had died.
Saber didn't blame him; he was feeling pretty choked-up himself. "It's-" he swallowed past a lump in his throat. "It's really good to see you again too, Dad."
Hugging his father as tightly as he dared, knowing that he was stronger than any human had a right to be, Saber buried his face in his father's left shoulder and shuddered. To think of what Fritz must have been going through, all those times that he'd had to meet with Darkon, to discuss various things about the invasion or just about Earth in general... the fact that he himself would now have to take the very same precautions as Fritz didn't bother him in the slightest.
It was really the least he could do, after everything Fritz had been doing for him.
The hug, like all good things, eventually came to an end, and Saber stepped back and tried to gather his wits again.
"We're going to have to keep this a secret," Fritz said, seeming to be talking to himself rather than anyone else. "Um, would you like me to call you Cain when we're all in the house together?"
"I-" he looked at his father, seeing the mingled apprehension and resignation on the old man's face; he knew why it was there, and more than that he knew that he only had to say one simple word to make the man feel better. It was something he couldn't say, though; not and still be honest. "I don't think so. Issues with secrecy aside, I don't really feel like Cain anymore."
He knew that he'd just severely disappointed his father, but there was really nothing he could do about that. Lying to him would only be a temporary, uneasy solution. Both for the fact that being called Cain made him uneasy, and because his father had always been of the school that something that bothered you was best faced head-on.
He and Dad would both have to get used to what he was now, and the sooner the better; even if it didn't feel that way.
With one last hug – Dad had insisted, and he wasn't going to disappoint the old man again – Saber and Gunnar had left the house. He'd asked his old friend for advice on how best to deal with Darkon, since that was what they were both going to have to do from now on, and now the two of them were talking about him and his place within Darkon's ranks.
He hadn't thought about it so much before – he'd in fact been trying not to think about it – but he knew he would have to keep his guard up more often from this point on. It wasn't just a matter of concealing his distaste and general unease about what the Radam were going to do to what was still, in the end, his planet; now he was actually part of a conspiracy to...
Well, he didn't honestly know what Gunnar's ultimate aims were, but it was still a conspiracy nonetheless. A conspiracy of three people, true – and one of those people urgently needed the protection of the other two – but that only made it all the more urgent in his eyes. There was nothing he wouldn't do to protect his father, now that he knew the old man was actually still alive.
Nothing.