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His father looked up at him as a sorrowful smile crossed his face, making him look so much older. The man who he teased about never truly aging looked like he had aged ten years in the past week.
“I should have told you sooner. Done something sooner. I am so sorry, son.” The dejected tone in those words knocked the wind out of West’s sails.
What the hell did that mean?
West went to sit in the chair facing his father’s desk as his father excused the receptionist. His sad eyes moving from the closed door to West.
West was validated in his theory that his father was aware of what was going on, but it didn’t help him feel any better about it.
“You knew I could do that with water?” West asked, terrified to know the answer, but needing the truth more.
He expected his father to deny it, maybe joke that West must have been seeing things… anything but acknowledging it as the truth.
He thought he came for answers, but what he really wanted was his father to tell him none of this was real.
“You can do more than that.”
His father waved his hand and water in a cup on his desk rose. He watched as it glided through the air in some sort of dance.
West sat back, not even sure what to say, as numbness crept over his consciousness.
His father could control water?
Words were lost in the air between them at the fact that he had kept this secret from West his entire life.
“I lived many lives before this one. Had many mortal children.” West felt his eyes pop open in surprise as his heart rate increased at his father’s declaration.
“What are you saying?” West asked.
His dad released a sorrowful laugh.
“I was in a dark place when I met your mother. That’s the problem with immortality, my son, you watch the people you love go back to the earth from which they came. It wears on a person after a while.”
His father looked at a framed photo of their family on his desk. They were at a beach somewhere when West was just a toddler. A small West with a mop of dark hair laughed while he sat on his father’s shoulder, his mother looking up at her son with her hands wrapped around her husband’s waist.
“I became infatuated with your mother when she was a nurse at Halcyon Memorial Hospital. I worried about marrying another mortal and producing offspring that I would watch return to Chaos, so I did something that could have me banned to Tartarus.”
His father wouldn’t look at him, his shame written on his face.
“What?” West asked as his heart thundered in his ears, his father looking at him with an expression of apology in his eyes.
“She died, West. I was driving to meet with a family that had invited me to dinner and the roads were unseasonably icy. As I drove along the edge of the mountain, I saw what looked like brake lights flickering from the side of the cliff. I went to check it out, and saw a car there, crushed against the ledge.
“I saw your mother as she lay broken, her soul not yet lost to the Underworld, but I knew death would come soon. She held some naiad blood, not truly human, but not a God or Titan. I pulled your mother from the car…” His father stopped and rubbed his hands over his face.
“I gave her my power. I flooded her with it and bound her life to mine. If I die, she dies, and vice versa. I stopped death’s call, which is something that could cost me my immortality.”
He pushed his hand through his hair and looked out the window.
“Her naiad blood took over and she came back as that. Not mortal. Not anymore. When she opened her eyes, they glowed and lit up our surroundings before going to her human color of brown. Her injuries immediately healed, and I told her she hadn’t been injured. She never knew she died.”
Standing, he walked around his desk and leaned against it to face West.
“I kept my distance, worried about what I had done. Then I found out she was pregnant with my child when she died and came back. At that point, I couldn’t stay away any longer. I worried what my power and her power could have done to you. I had planned to only stay until you were born, just to see what happened with our powers going into you. I had planned to emotionally keep my distance,” he stared at West as he continued. “But, when you were born, I couldn’t help but love you. Once you grew and I watched your power emerge, I had no choice but to bind them. I couldn’t let anyone know about you. Something when that Tsunami hit released your power. I am not sure how, but I felt it.”
West stood from his seat, feeling completely numb, unable to respond, but his father didn’t need a response.
“Then you left us to go work with that mercenary group.” West’s eyes snapped wide open again. The surprises just kept coming.
