Unexpected

Jak had just come back from his mission in the metalheads' nest in the desert with Sig. The latter had vaguely explained what he really was doing in Haven City when they first met. The only thing Jak knew was that the desert king was looking for something in the metropole, he just did not know what. He could not begin to fathom what was so important that he sent his best wastelander to look for it. Damas seemed to profoundly hate the city.

That was why he needed answers. Jak's respect for the king had grown as he got to work for him and something was telling him he should offer his help to find whatever he was looking for. He had access to the city now anyway. An air train was just waiting for him to get back to the port close to the Naughty Ottsel.

The blond silently walked to the throne room's elevator, hoping to find Damas there. The door opened shortly after and it was not long before the man and the ottsel were at the top, looking for the king.

"Jak," Damas stated as he saw the man. "I did not call you up here."

"I am aware," Jak answered. "I wanted to talk to you about Sig's mission in Haven City."

The king furrowed his eyebrow, and then frowned. Jak gulped as he noticed the change of emotion on the king's face.

"Go on," Damas said a bit too dryly to Jak's liking.

"Sig said you were looking for something important in the city," Jak explained.

"Did he tell you what?" Damas cut the man.

"No," Jak answered. "He said it was none of my business."

"Well, he was right to tell you that," Damas told the blond. Daxter flinched at the king's answer.

"I know it is not my place to ask, but, huh, since I can now go back to Haven as I please, maybe I could help find whatever you are looking for?" Jak hesitated. He refused to look at the king in the eyes, afraid that he had crossed the line.

Damas sat down on the steps close to his throne and rubbed his face as if he was battling with himself.

"Long ago," Damas started, and Jak looked at Daxter surprised, "I had a child."

"You have a kid?" Jak asked, utterly surprised. He could see the sadness creeping its way into the king's face.

"Yes," Damas affirmed. "He was a wonderful little boy."

Jak and Daxter looked at each other, stunned and they said at the same time: "was?"

The king tried to stay emotionless. He stared at the water not too far from the throne and clenched his fists. Pain was written all over the older man's face.

"He was taken from me," Damas admitted. "I was careless, and I lost him."

"Who-" Jak started, but he was interrupted.

"I have no idea who kidnapped him. My guess is Praxis or one of his men." Damas told the younger man.

"He absolutely despised my family and me," Damas said. "You won't believe what I'm going to say, but the great Mar was one of my ancestors."

Jak froze. Daxter waved his hand in front of the man's eyes, but there was no answer for a couple of seconds.

"You're kidding, our boy here-" Jak interrupted the ottsel.

"Is absolutely shocked," Jak corrected. Daxter frowned and stared at his friend, speechless.

"A lot of people are when they find out that I'm a part of the House of Mar," Damas laughed, but still noticing Jak's sudden nervousness. "Listen, my son, I believe he is still in Haven City. If you want to find him, you can easily recognize him by the amulet he wears around his neck. It is the same as this one."

Damas searched his left pocket for a couple of seconds before showing the seal of Mar to Jak and Daxter.

"That's the seal of Mar," Daxter stated, shocked.

"Your son…" Jak started. "How old would he be?"

"As of now, about seven," Damas admitted and Jak continued to pale in shock.

"And he wears the seal of Mar all the time?" Jak asked.

"He never took it off," Damas stated. "Jak? Do you know something?"

"Not long after I escaped prison," Jak started, "Daxter and I met the kid."

It was Damas's turn to freeze in shock.

"Where is he?" The king shouted, feeling very emotional at that moment.

Daxter nervously glanced at Jak. He could not understand what was going on in his friend's mind, but he knew he was not going to tell the truth. He could feel it.

Jak explained to the king in detail how the Underground believe he was the heir of Mar and the key to win the war against the metalheads. He told him how Kor took care of him and then abducted him to make him open the precursor stone. Jak told Damas how they sent the kid back in time to live a peaceful childhood with Samos, the Underground leader.

Except, he omitted to tell the king the kid came back to this time, and that he was standing right in front of him.

"So, Mar is gone forever," Damas said, extremely disappointed, tears welding up in his eyes.

"Yeah," Jak hesitated. "I'm so sorry, your highness."

Damas furrowed his eyebrows once more. Jak never cared for formalities and now he was showing more respect than usual.

"Well, I, huh, forgot I needed to help Kleiver with something." Jak lied. "But I am really sorry about your son."

Jak quietly sat on the edge of the cliff near the turret, fiddling with his seal of Mar. He needed time to process what had happened an hour prior to this moment. He could not believe what he had just learned, yet all the evidence showed him the reality of the situation.

Kor did not lie when he revealed that the kid the Underground protected was actually a younger version of Jak, so, of course, his parents had to be from this time, too.

He just never expected to find one of them alive; even more a man he looked up to more than anyone else in his life.

It made so much sense to him, now. He somehow felt at home in Spargus. He thought it was because it shared more similarities to Sandover than Haven City, but then he realized that he was probably born in Spargus. He also felt some sort of connection to Damas when he started to know him better, and he knew Damas felt it too. Jak had never had a parent before, but he had always felt like his relationship to Damas was somehow what a father is to his son and vice versa.

He was Damas's son.

The king of the desert had just shown him proof. Damas was a descendant of the great Mar himself, and Jak was also a descendant of said hero. The amulet Damas showed him just reinforced that idea.

All this time, Sig had actually been looking for him in Haven City. How ironic was it that Jak met him not long after he escaped prison? He was under Sig's nose all this time and no one knew Jak's true identity, not even him.

He did not know why he decided to lie to the king. He had told him the kid's story up until he went through the rift gate, but he intentionally stopped the story there. He panicked. He did not know how the king would react to such a story.

Truth be told, he was scared he would not reach the expectations Damas might have about his son. Jak felt like a monster; he had killed so many people in his early days out of prison.

"Okay, what the yakow happened back there, bud?" Daxter asked as he joined his best friend who had abandoned him once they left the throne room.

Jak heard the ottsel, but he stayed quiet. He did not know how to put his thoughts into words.

"Don't go all mute on me now! Why did you have to lie and say the kid is not reachable anymore, back in the past? Why didn't you tell him the kid came back to this time and was under his nose all this time?" There was still no answer from the young man.

"Doesn't it make you happy that Damas is your-"

"I panicked, okay?" Jak said dryly, stopping Daxter. "I'm not that kid anymore, Dax. I'm not pure of heart and I've lost my innocence once we got to Haven. Prison messed me up. I'm nothing like that kid."

"So what?" Daxter said. "You are still his son and the heir of Mar. You can't deny that."

"I know I can't deny that, Dax, but what if-" Jak started to say, but he cut himself before he could even finish his sentence.

"What if what?" Daxter insisted.

"What if he's disappointed in what I've become?" Jak muttered, almost whispering, as he looked down to avoid Daxter's gaze.

Daxter stared at his friend completely speechless, and for Daxter, that was not something that happened often.

"I got banned from Haven, and everyone in the city either fears me, or hates me, I can transform into a monster and I've done atrocities I'd rather not reminisce," Jak told his friend. "How can a great and fair ruler not be disappointed that his son turned out a monster and failure of a man?"

"You are far from a failure, Jak," a deep voice said behind them.

The duo swiftly turned around to find the king himself standing behind them. Their eyes widened in fear, realizing he had heard their conversation.

"Have you been here long?" Jak nervously asked.

"I thought you were acting strange back in the throne room. I assumed you omitted to tell me something about my son. I decided to follow Daxter since he probably knew where you ran off to." Damas explained. "Not a very elegant move, I'm aware."

"So, you heard…" Jak said.

"I heard enough to know that I would love to talk to you privately," Damas responded, looking into Jak's eyes.

"Dax, do you mind?" The yellow-haired man asked.

"Fine, I'm leaving, I'll go find someone to brag to." Daxter said.

Damas gently moved to sit down beside Jak, also staring into the ocean, without saying any words. He could see how uneasy Jak felt and he did not want to force him into talking. Damas himself was feeling overwhelmed. All these years of searching for his son led to this reunion, and a surprising reunion it was.

"How long have you lived in Spargus?" Jak asked the king, breaking the awkward silence. Damas was surprised by the question.

"Baron Praxis banished me to the Wasteland 14 years ago. People who believed in me and despised him followed me and we built Spargus out of an old abandoned city." King Damas explained. "I met my wife in the months following my banishment. We got married a couple of years later and we had a son seven years ago."

Jak listened interestingly to every word the king was saying. He did not feel the need to interrupt him.

"When Mar was three, Alyonah, my wife, was a caught by a sandstorm in the desert. We found her body a couple of weeks later. She was a wonderful woman and an incredible warrior. She loved people so deeply and she sacrificed herself to protect others. I miss her like crazy, but I am so proud about all she's accomplished. The only time I've seen her happier than on our wedding day, is the day Mar was born. We had dreamed of creating our own family and our dream came true. We also wanted to ensure Mar's bloodline would not die."

Jak could notice the tears welling in Damas's eyes, and, somehow, he felt a tear slowly rolling in his right cheek. Damas had just confirmed that his mother was truly dead, like he had always believed, but it stung more knowing that she had wanted him, that she was his family. He gently rubbed his hand on his cheek to make the tear disappear. He did not want to cry now. The last time he cried was during his first days of prison and he wanted it to stay like that.

"When Mar was five," Damas started, "he was kidnapped by precursors know who. I sent Sig to look for him, and he never found him."

"He kinda did," Jak said quietly.

"He was right under his nose all this time," Damas responded finally noticing some openness in Jak's behavior.

After that last statement, the two men did not know what to say anymore. Damas was welled up in his memories of the past and Jak was still trying to make sense out of everything.

"You have her eyes, you know," Damas said, trying to sound somewhat reassuring.

"Aren't you freaked out by this?" Jak seriously asked the man, completely ignoring his comment.

"Mortified," Damas answered, "but you are still my son, and in no shape or form am I disappointed in what you have become. I've been waiting to reunite with you for years now."

That made Jak look at the man.

"I am so proud of you. You are becoming an incredible warrior and your resilience is all I could ever have asked for," Damas admitted. "I was scared you would be lost to me forever, that Haven would wound you for life."

"But it did," Jak intervened. "The Dark Warrior Program fucked me up."

"Watch your language, young man," Damas said sternly. Jak's eyes widened.

"Are you scolding me?" Jak asked, shocked.

"That's a father's job," Damas said, chuckling.

"I guess we have all those years to make up for," Jak responded with a faint smile decorating his face.

"Wait, so lemme get this straight," Damas said. "If you stayed in this timeline you would be about seven years old, but you went back in time with Samos, lived your childhood and traveled back to the future when you were fifteen, which makes you seventeen now, is that correct?"

"Yeah, that sums it up," Jak confirmed. "You know, when I was first banished here, and when I started exploring Spargus, it felt familiar, almost like home. I thought it was because it reminded me of Sandover, but it turns out it is really my home. I guess it was a good thing that Veger banished me here."

"A wrong for a right, as we say," Damas answered, a small smile on his face.

"Yeah, a wrong for a right," Jak repeated, slowly starting to believe that his life might actually change for the better.