#ka'dargo

The young age took a second to sink in. It made sense. The kid in D'Argo's memory crystal hadn't looked much older than a pre-schooler, and it had only been ten cycles or so since Lo'lan's death and D'Argo's imprisonment. Still, from his appearance John would have guessed Jothee was ready for college, not a middle schooler. If the kid was small, it was only in comparison to his father. "I would have guessed older. How old are Luxans when they leave home, anyway?"

"I was Jothee's age when I started training with my command, sixteen when I left for my first battle campaign, but I returned to my father's house every leave. Most Luxans live at home until they marry. I did that at eighteen. Too young. I… I was always in a hurry." The big man gave a rueful shrug. "I wanted better for my son."

D'Argo immediately bristled. "He has a father now. Jothee has always had a father. He needs to accept that." He narrowed his eyes at John. "You are childless," D'Argo almost spat the word out. "You can never understand."

"There's nothing you could do about that, man. It's not your fault. You're here now." John put out a hand, stopping D'Argo. "Look, you didn't ask for my advice, but I'm going to give it anyway. Go slow on the parental stuff. Jothee has been on his own for a long time. Every teenager thinks they're all grown up, but he had to grow up. Let Jothee decide when he's ready to have a dad again."

His friend was probably just being thoughtless, not intentionally cruel. John did have a child, well, a Schrodinger's daughter he supposed. Are you a dad if you got a girl pregnant, but the baby isn't due until after you're dead? The guilt was going to haunt him the rest of his life, and it didn't help that Katralla was probably his last chance to have a child of his own. John had kissed a lot of Sebacean women with that compatibility detection syrup, and the only one he'd matched with was the one with damaged DNA. And while he hadn't completely given up hope of making it back home, even if he figured out wormhole travel, finding one to take him to Earth had always been ludicrously unlikely. No, chances were, he would die in the Uncharted Territories, childless and alone.