When a loud bang from downstairs jolted Damien out of his drunken stupor, it was already close to midnight. His thoughts instantly returned to the night he'd tried to kill himself twenty years ago. Half crazed with grief, his hand had shaken so badly that he had missed the carotid artery and just cut through some smaller blood vessels. The blood loss might still have killed him in time, but time was a luxury he hadn't had that night. The combined forces of Cee, Mira and Bob had seen to it. Not to forget that meddling Iezu.

He didn't remember much of the time of his convalescence, only short impressions which had somehow made it past the haze of fever and grief: Cee calling him a vulking bastard for taking the easy way out, Narilka Tarrant crying at his bedside, a picture of Gerald in her hand, Lucy looking down on the little one with a besotted smile on her face.

Damien sighed. The extent of his failure as a father still made him cringe, but it had simply suggested itself to leave Jonathan's care to Lucy in those first horrible weeks after Gerald's death. Nothing to wrinkle one's nose about, right?

But the weeks had turned into months, and even after finally hauling his ass out of bed, there'd been no shortage of excuses for leaving the boy with the O'Sullivans. So spring had come and gone, and sometime in late summer Jon had spoken his first word, calling Lucy "Mummy". That had settled it. Only when she had suggested a formal adoption, Damien had refused. Jonathan was and would always be a Tarrant, heir of the line Gerald had founded so many years ago.

His eyes still closed, Damien sniffed and sniffed again. There was a strange scent in his room. Not of whiskee and sweat and socks that should have gone into the laundry days ago but something nice and floral. Roses if he wasn't completely mistaken.

The thought was like a dagger to his heart. To his amazement Gerald had spent a lot of time puttering about in their garden in the last months before his death. Of course the man had cloaked the sentiment in lecturing about the logic in growing true roses again after overeager gardeners had adulterated the varieties their forefathers had imported from Earth, but fact was that he had been mightily fond of those stingy beauties. Damien could still see him kneeling on the soft earth in his oversized summer shirt as he had snipped off wilted blossoms and ckecked for pests and diseases. When Gerald had looked up to him and offered him one of his precious roses with a radiant smile, the smudge on his left cheek had only served to highlight his almost surreal beauty.

His throat uncomfortably tight, he groped for his bottle of liquid forgetfulness, but instead of solid glass his fingers touched something soft and...petally? What the hell...?

The fog in his head clearing a bit, he deemed it wiser to open his eyes. The number of demonlings was steadily declining since the taming of the fae, but one of them could have still stumbled into his bedroom, on the lookout for a tasty treat. Theoretically. On the practical side, it was much more likely that Larissa had disposed of the bottle while he'd been asleep.

This scenario didn't explain the apricot-coloured rose in full bloom which had somehow found a way to his desk, though. He even knew the variety. It was called Summer Song, Gerald's favourite.

If this was some kind of joke, it was a bad one. As pleasant as the scent of rose with a whiff of fruity tee was in itself, it had a devastating effect on his psyche. Feeling as if an invisible steel band around his chest was getting ever tighter, he was just about getting up to open the window when a hint of movement behind him stopped him short.

Damien held his breath. What he'd just heard was the soft swish of silk on silk, a sound so utterly familiar that it still haunted him in his dreams.

Silk rustled again as an arm reached around him from behind and pale fingers with perfectly manicured nails picked up the rose and offered it to him with a flourish, the motion so graceful, so elegant that Damien's heart ached. He wasn't even surprised that the sleeve flowing around a slender wrist was midnight blue, the colour of evening.

Damien found that he couldn't bring himself to move. He just couldn't. It wasn't so much the fear what he would find but what he wouldnotfind when he'd finally worked up the courage to turn around. The dead couldn't return from the grave. Not even on All Hallows Eve, whatever the man in the street might think about it.

"A pagan notion thoroughly unbefitting a priest. Something you never ceased to be at your core in spite of your lamentable attempts at drowning your soul in liquor," a light tenor no less familiar than the myriad different sounds of silk whispered right behind him.

Being confronted with a voice he'd thought never to hear again finally propelled Damien to his feet and into a clumsy turn. The sudden motion was too much for his liquor-soaked brain, but two hands on his upper arms steadied him. He instinctively started to mutter his thanks in the direction of his saviour, but the words died on his lips when he realized to whom he was actually talking to.

As the 'youth' from Black Ridge Pass was history since the night Hawthorne had died in his arms and the glamour hiding his true self had lifted, it didn't come as a surprise that the apparition gazing calmly down on him had assumed Gerald Tarrant's shape. But this was neither the exhausted, desperate human he remembered from their mad dash to the keep nor the empty shell laying in their bed like a broken doll. It was Tarrant at the heights of his power, aloof and in absolute control.

"Take your hands off me and shed his skin, Karril!" Damien growled when he'd found his voice again. "Or is it you, Riven?"

"Riven's hunting near Kale and Karril is in his temple. You have to make do with me, I'm afraid."

"Ah, but isn't this the question? Who - or what - exactly are you? Certainly not my husband. He's been dead for two decades now."

"Of course I'm dead. I've never said otherwise."

"I see." Damien barked a bitter laugh. "And you expect me to believe that bullshit? That you're Gerald vulking Tarrant in person, back from the dead? No chance in hell! So one last time: What do you want, demon? Eat me? Go ahead! Saves me a lot of trouble."

"God doesn't want you to die."

"Well, we can't all have what we want, right? Not that it concerns you, anyway. My best guess is that you're Iezu, of the same sunny disposition as the unlamented Calesta and that little shit Riven. But even if you were who you claim to be - not that I believe a word of it, mind - you'd know nothing about God's wishes. I'm pretty sure that He doesn't attend tee parties in hell."

"But I never went to hell, Vryce. Remember when I was dying in your arms and thought I could feel a Presence? It turned out that I wasn't hallucinating. God works in mysterious ways."

Damien blinked. Of course he remembered, remembered every vulking word which had been spoken in Gerald's final hour. How could he not? But what really had imprinted itself on his mind was the utter awe on the adept's face before he died, the way those dark eyes had seemed to stare right through him, at something not of this world and infinitely beautiful.

It went without saying that any Iezu worth his salt could have plucked these informations straight out of his mind, but Damien decided to play along for a while. "So let's assume just for a second that you're really my husband's ghost," he muttered. "Why are you here? And why now and not ten years ago or sometime in the future?"

Tarrant raised an eyebrow. "That's already ten seconds, give or take, and I'm nothing like a ghost," he said. "But to answer your questions: I've already pointed out that God has other plans for you than dying. Preventing you from throwing your life away is what I'm tasked with tonight. My official mission, so to say. Fortunately, I was also allowed to disentangle the mess you've made of our childrens' life. Honestly, Vryce. What were you thinking during the last twenty years?"

"I tried very hard not to."

Tarrant snorted. "So it seems. I understand that grieving makes a poor counsellor, but how could you possibly renounce our son, leave him under the thumb of a simpleton despising him for his descent? I wouldn't have thought this of you."

"How dare you?" White with rage, Damien balled his hands into fists. "You didn't give a shit about Jonathan when you rushed headlong into disaster in spite of my warnings, senselessly risking not only your own life but our unborn son's, too. You could have both died in that clearing, Gerald! Not to mention that your pigheadedness sentenced me to twenty years of living hell. And what for? For a vulking map you could have gotten your greedy hands upon any day!"

Those molten pools of silver one could drown in kept staring at him for a long time, as if weighing his soul. Then Tarrant executed a formal bow, a gesture straight out of another time, another era. "You've got a point there, Vryce," he whispered. "Please accept my apologies for the sorrow I brought upon you. It was never my intention to hurt you. Not for a long time, anyway."

It was then Damien realized that his instincts had already accepted what his mind stubbornly refused to believe. This was no Iezu illusion. The looks, the graceful motions, even the patterns of speech - Karril and the more human-attuned of his siblings could have pulled this off alright. But the man in front of him was no soulless cardboard character, created by beings whose grasp of human interactions was hampered by their restriction to one single aspect. However it had come to pass, Gerald Tarrant had returned from the dead.

Something inside Damien snapped. Gratitude, elation, happiness - these emotions would have been all too understandable. Appropriate. But before even realized what he was doing, he flung himself at Tarrant and started to pound the man's silk-clad chest. "You vulking bastard," he sobbed. "How could you do this to me? Die on me and leave me behind? You can't imagine..." He couldn't go on. The adept didn't bother to capture his flying fists, just pulled him into his arms and let him weep until he had no more tears to shed.

"I'm so sorry, Damien," Tarrant said softly. "If I could turn back time, I would. Gladly, but this is beyond me. Our time together was short, but maybe you can find comfort in the fact that the nature of the One God is indeed Mercy and his Word forgiveness."

"So He forgave you?"

"Just so. But my redemption came with a price." Tarrant pulled a face. "Catering for the needs of the disadvantaged isn't among my favourite pastimes, as you may be able to imagine, but considering the alternative I'm not inclined to complain."

"That much I gather," Damien said mildly. "So you're on your best behaviour. Doing what, exactly? Advocating the needy? Giving out soup in a soup kitchen?"

"Occasionally. This no laughing matter, Vryce."

"Yeah, sorry. But it's not everyday you're talking to your late husband who has graduated from being a minion of the Unnamed to one of God's best buddies, so I might be forgiven for being a tad hysterical. How is it, Gerald? To stand in His Divine Presence?"

"Don't ask. There are things not meant for mortals, mysteries I mustn't talk about. You'll see for yourself, but not anytime soon."

Damien rubbed his burning eyes. "I still can't wrap my head around it," he muttered. "But let's keep Him out of the picture for a while. What you said about the mess I've made of Lari's and Jon's life: You're right, of course. I shouldn't have let this happen. Just imagining that a child..."

"A child born from this union would be perfectly fine." When Damiens jaw dropped, Tarrant sighed softly. "As much as I'm loath to hurt your male pride, the girl isn't your biological offspring. Lara was already pregnant when she welcomed you to her bed."

"You must be kidding!"

"I'm neither given to cracking jokes nor does my kind spew forth lies. Your daughter trusted me."

Damien's eyes almost bugged out of his head. "You talked to Lari? What the hell did you tell her?"

Tarrant shrugged. "Everything. Of course she got a rather abridged version of events. We didn't have all night, and I deemed it appropriate to omit some of the jucier details if you know what I mean. But she knows who I was now and found it very amusing that her father's 'hubby' used to be the Prophet of the Law of all people."

"And the Hunter," Damien said flatly.

"That, too."

"Are you crazy, man?" Torn between anger and naked despair, Damien raked his unruly mop of hair. "Lari had a hard time coming to terms with her mother abandoning her, and now you're telling her out of the blue that I'm not her real father? Without consulting me first? Well, maybe I shouldn't be surprised that you once again made a decision for both of us. Old habits die hard, right?"

"Had we proceeded at your accustomed pace, the children may have died in ignorance one day. They needed to know, Vryce. I dare say that Larissa took the news unexpectedly well. She's an amazing young woman, and I'll be proud to call her my daughter-in-law. Jonathan was less... approachable."

"Oh goodness..." Damien plonked down on his chair. His legs simply refused to carry him anymore. "So you... you talked to Jonathan, too? Hell, why do I even ask? Of course you did. What did he say?"

"Many things, and not all of them were pleasant. On the upside, he seemed to be delighted that you're his biological father. Jonathan holds you in very high regard, Vryce. That he wasn't born by a woman was a bit harder to stomach. He asked some elaborate questions concerning the changes to my reproductive organs when curiosity finally outmatched indignation, but..."

"Gerald, I know he's brilliant. He's your son, after all. But could you please tell me what went wrong with your heart-to-heart?"

"Jonathan wasn't pleased about my past, to say the least. But what really let our conversation spiral out of control was the prospect of inheriting the Neocounty. He yelled at me that he 'didn't give a shit for a vulking title, least of all for a title written in blood'. His words, not mine. Of course he'll see reason in the end."

"Do you really think so?" When the adept's eyebrows climbed towards his hairline, it was Damien's turn to sigh. "Sometimes I can't help but wondering how a man with your IQ can be so dense," he said. "Have we ever done what was expected of us? Just once? So why the hell do you expect Jon to bow down to our wishes? All he ever wanted to be was a humble engineer, using the gifts God gave him for the greater good. What right do we have to dissuade him from his plans? It's his life, not ours.

"You can't be serious, Vryce. As Andrys died without siring an heir, Jonathan ist the last of the Tarrant line, the very line I founded so many years ago. Do you want it to sink into obscurity after the Dowager Neocountess' death?"

Damien got up and cupped Tarrant's face in his hands. "Gerald, listen to me," he said quietly. "It is said that there's a time for everything, and I honestly believe that it's time for you to let go of all that crap and move on. You're one of God's Own now, for heaven's sake! Do His bidding and let Jonathan find his own way. The boy wasn't born to fulfil our silly ambitions but to follow his own path to happiness. And you want him to be happy, don't you?"

Tarrant didn't answer, but Damien could feel some of the tension bleed out of his lean body. "I may not like it, but there's wisdom in your words," the adept whispered finally. "So be it, then. Jonathan is free to do what he wants, without any obligations. In return, there are two things I demand of you: Be the father Jonathan needs and get your own life back together instead of trying to drink yourself to death or worse. Promise me!"

Unable to get something past the lump in his throat, Damien just nodded. He had no idea how it had come to pass, but his sword hand had moved from Tarrant's face to the small of his back, pulling the man flush against him. Being used to Hawthorne's smaller frame, it felt pretty strange. Almost like... cheating.

"Are you all right, Vryce?"

"Yeah. No. I don't know." Damien felt rather foolish under the scrutiny of those arresting silver eyes. "It's just that I'm not used to, well, you beingyou. GeraldTarrantand I never even kissed."

The adept's lips curled into a smile. "An oversight we should urgently make up for," he said.

"Is this allowed?"

"Why not? There's nothing to be said against a brotherly kiss." Tarrant's smile widened ever so slightly. He looked like the uncat who'd gotten into the cream. "Let's see where that kiss will lead us," he chuckled. "As far as I can judge, I'm fully functional."

Damien's priestly self wasn't quite convinced that molesting one of God's messengers was a proper thing to do, but registering the sparkle of mischief in Tarrant's eyes, the playfulness the adept so rarely had allowed to shine through in his lifetime, he caught himself grinning back. Then Gerald wrapped his arms around him and pulled him straight into something that wasn't brotherly at all, and he stopped worrying altogether.

When Larissa staggered over the threshold of her home hours later, she was dead tired. What had started out as a trying day hadn't improved much over the course of the night. Strangely, she had weathered the revelations sprung upon them better than Jonathan. Maybe she'd already cried all the tears she had to shed into Gerald Tarrant's vulking handkerchief, or it was true that women were stronger than men. Maybe she was simply too exhausted to give a shit. But Jon had been inconsolable, trapped in a web of helpless rage, sorrow and an acute sense of betrayal.

Karril had done his best to smooth ruffled feathers, but it had taken Narilka Tarrant to get through to the young man. Larissa remembered herself to light a candle in church next Sunday, as a silent thanks that the Dowager Neocountess had decided to spend the colder season in her townhouse and thus been available when things went south.

Larissa yawned. She'd planned to sneak into her bed and get some shut eye before facing just another family council, but some whistling from the direction of their kitchen aroused her curiosity. Ever so carefully she peeked through the door slot, just to freeze in utter amazement.

Her father was preparing a breakfast for three, but it wasn't the sight of him frying some eggs and filtering coffi that made her blink. There was a spring to his step, an ease in his every motion she'd never seen before. She could have sworn that even his hair looked less grey and shaggy, but this strange phenomenon had to be a trick the early morning light was playing on her eyes. Or wasn't it?"

"Lari!"

When her eyes found her father's, she was startled at the strange amalgam of emotions in their hazel depths. Without thinking twice, she rushed into his arms as so often before and buried her face in his flannel shirt. The motion shifted the collar of said shirt, revealing a nice set of blood-shot... teeth marks? What the hell...?

"I'm so sorry, Lari," Damien whispered into her hair, blessedly distracting her from the mental image about to surface. "For my drinking and letting myself go, my shortcomings as a father. I can only hope..."

"Don't, Dad. Honestly. It's me who should be sorry. All the mean things I thought and said - they were utter rubbish. You didn't do bad as far as fatherhood goes. And you'll always be my father, you know, whatever my vulking genes."

Damien drew a deep breath. "Thank you. That means a lot to me," he said. "But what about Jonathan? According to Gerald, he didn't take the news well."

"Jon's angry. Confused. He wouldn't listen to anything we said until Karril had the wise idea to fetch Narilka Tarrant. She calmed the waters a bit, so to speak, but Jon still refused to go home this morning. When he threatened to leave town altogether and to hell with his family, Narilka invited him to her place for a day or two." Registering the sadness in Damien's eyes, Larissa took his big hands in hers. "Don't you worry, Dad. The Neocountess is a force to be reckoned with. She'll set him straight alright."

"A force to be reckoned with?" Damien snorted. "So is Gerald. In all his incarnations, past and present, but it didn't do him any good last night. Sometimes Jon is much too stubborn for his own good." Suddenly Damien's rugged features split into a grin. "I wonder where he got that from," he chuckled.

Larissa cocked an eyebrow. "I've got a sneaking suspicion that it's a heritage from both sides," she said. "Sides who get all sparkly-eyed when talking about each other. No need to blush, Dad. I think it's pretty cute. And now let's have a look at those eggs. I'm starving."

Notes:

I can't believe I've come so far after more than twelve years of working on this fic. Yay!