This is the story of everything we'll ever be

He wasn't looking for her, not here, not this time.walk He never looked for her in the city. He would still see her sometimes, walking down the street, or hear an echo of her voice while listening to the way people talked, and laughed, and cried, trying to understand. He never looked for her, though, not intentionally. Only at school did he seek her out, to make sure that she was alright. Still there. Safe. And even that was rare. He rarely looked out for her, and he never looked for her in the city.

He still found her, though, as he walked down the street, past the cafe full to the brim with people. Friends meeting for coffee, young couples on their first dates. Sometimes he would stop, for a moment, listening to their conversations. Secrets. Kisses. Hoping to one day hear something that would flip a switch in his head, if he even had one, and just make him understand. The need to be touched. The need to share a secret.

It hadn't happened yet.

He frowned as he watch her walk between the tables, serving people as the asked for her. Why was she doing that? Did she not get the money he sent her? Or had she spent it already? He thought there was enough money there. Should he have sent more? He didn't know. He didn't how much money a person needed. If she was working, though, she obviously needed more. How much more? A thousand? Ten? He had that much, still. The money was thinning out, but he had that much still. Should he send it to her? He didn't know. But he thought it was a thing that he should do. He was her father after all. It meant nothing to him. He felt no familial bond. But it was what a father should do, right?

He didn't know. He couldn't understand. Frozen, he stood in front of the cafe, frowning.

@"mariosaur"

For a moment, he simply stood there, confused. He was not used to being seen, every secret and trick of being invisible or blending in having long ago been written into the very marrows of his bones as a something that was there to stay, even when he no longer needed it to do the job he was made to do, let alone be yelled at. It was like an explosion in his head, her words. Fireworks in a silent word of cut out pieces of conversations that did not belong to, or were directed at, him. It shocked him, more so than any explosion ever could. He was, after all, more than used to those.

Her voice brought up memories as well (it was the first time he had heard it so clearly).

Hey, if you're going to make a move do it already a voice in his head whispered, laced with amusement despite. There were so many moments like that, so many dark circles and even darker bars, women and men all blurring into one body, that in the end, did nothing for him. Never filling the emptiness inside, never explaining the ways of the world as he thought they should. He wondered, thus, how, and why, did he even remember this specific one.

It was the words, he decided. The words, and the voice, so similar, that it could have been coming straight form the past (it shouldn't have surprised him so much though. she was a picture of her mother, made in flesh, through death).

Nobody here has time for your staring, she had said, tilting his head. So? You coming or not?

He came. With her, and into the cafe. He did not know why. Then again, he never did.

@"mariosaur"

He wondered if hearing her voice should have been painful in some way. She was, after all, dead now, killed by the very child standing in front of him. The child that was his, made by the two of them. The last time he had seen her she had been two and just starting to talk. Remembering that should have been painful, too, probably. Yet, it wasn't. Nothing ever was.

He frowned at the piece of paper she had put in front of him and a cup near it. He recognized the smell of coffee coming from it. He had never developed a taste for it. Then again, he had never developed a taste for anything. Food felt like ashes in his mouth, water like sand. He had little memories of either, after all, and none of them were pleasant. He took a sip, still, knowing that that's what he was supposed to do. Drink. Eat. Breath. Act.

Care.

Once, perhaps. But not yet.

He couldn't see the child any more. Sometimes he forgot her name. Sometimes it was all he could think about. Had she gone away? He said to let her know when he was ready to...order? It had taken him a long time to realise that word had meanings other than the one he was used to, once he was free. Once there was no longer a shadow of a man, attached to his back, ordering him to kill.

Sometimes he still got confused though. Sometimes, he still got it wrong.

''I...apologize'', he said, his voice deep and rough, dry from disuse. When was the last time he had spoken, he wondered silently, still looking at the girl sitting in front of him, food disappearing down her throat as she looked him with...he could not place a name on the emotion. Just as he couldn't remember the last person with whom he had actually shared words.

He almost remembered being good at it, once. Talking. Charming. Lying. With or without power which he had stolen from somebody. Just as she had. He looked at her and wondered, was she able to do all that her mother was? She had been an asset, her mother, a weapon beyond compare. Sometimes he wondered how did she ever get out of the life which was made for them. Most of the time, however, he barely thought about her at all.

All was lost, however, now, through the years of silence being an only answer. Through the years of silence, and darkness, and isolation. He was getting better, at least, or at least he thought he did. He had apologized. That was a right thing to do in a situation like this, he was sure of it. Almost completely sure.

''I...am not hungry'', he continued to speak, his brow frowning only a little. What was he supposed to say? The truth was something she was better off not knowing, that much he knew. So what? What was an acceptable lie?

''And I can assure you I do not find you...attractive'', he said calmly, knowing that the very thought of it should have filled him with disgust.Knowing, but not feeling, never feeling anything at all. She was his daughter, he thought and felt nothing. No bond, no disgust, no attraction even as he looked at her face, her features so similar to her mothers.

He had followed her mother out of that dark place in which they had met. But even then, it had not been an attraction. It had been frenzy of a shell of a man finally broken off of his chain. A frenzy of an empty shell looking for its soul...and not finding it. Not finding any of it. Not even enough to feel attraction. Not even enough to feel lust. He felt nothing, as he always did. He felt nothing then, and he felt nothing now.

''You just...remind me of somebody I used to know'', he said, his eyes still fixed on her. It was not a lie. She looked like her mother. Maybe even a bit too much like her for it to be all natural. Had she sucked the beauty out of the women when she had stolen her powers too? He did not know. It was impossible to know. But she did look like her. It was not a lie. It was probably the only reason why he had been able to say it, instead of simply starting at her, indefinitely.

Once, he was good at lying. Now, he could barely manage speaking.

He watched her leave in anger, his expression blank, but with a slight tilt to his head. Not curious, but wondering, as he always did.

She knew her mother's name. Clarissa a shadow of memory whispered into his ear, her hands wondering as she introduced herself. And she knew, she knew she looked like her. Yet she reacted with anger, saying she did not want to know. Shouldn't she be curious too, he thought, a beginning of a frown forming between his eyes. She couldn't have had many memories of her.

Not that he intended to share. To speak with her in any way, at all. Still. He wondered. He did not understand.

He debated leaving, simply standing up and heading through the door, back on the streets and to who knows where. Drifting, listening, steeling pieces of conversations and hoping to understand. There was money in his pocked though, and the conversations here were the same as they were out there. He wasn't tired. He could walk for days before he got tired, needed to sleep, needed to eat. Broken in body as he was in mind. Still. He didn't get up. Instead, the next time she passed by him he simply said:

''Coffee cake sounds fine''.