AN: Okay, I know I've taken forever to do this, but I didn't want to do it while my brain was still saturated in exam stuff. I figured I should apologise up here that this one's a little long-winded and mostly Kratos-centric. So it's a little... Yeah... I just hope you can bear with the repetitiveness. Kratos is pretty stuck in his pattern of self-loathing...

But yeah, I really hope you'll like this next chapter, and bear with it. With what I've got planned, the next one will be better!

NEW AN: So, following feedback from you guys and my own general unhappiness with how OOC Kratos was before, I have now edited this chapter. I'm still not happy with it, but I'm happier than I was before. I haven't changed Lloyd though. I know I've made him slightly too thick, but there are some reasons for it, which I may get round to revealing next chapter or in a fourth chapter, depending on how this goes. It's getting quite long for something I originally wrote to be a one-shot...

But yeah, same rules apply. It would be great if you could tell me what you think of it now with the editing and if there's anything else you feel could improve it. And once again, I'm sorry for getting Kratos so badly wrong. Hopefully he's not quite as OOC now...

Finally, thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: if I owned ToS, Kratos would hug his son at the end, darn it! That and he'd decide to stay. However, the actual game would most likely suck with my technological skills...

A collective gasp was the only sound that penetrated the silence that reigned over the group. Raine stared, the understanding plain in both her gaze and her brother's, both half-elves staring between the two swordsmen while Colette watched on, worriedly. Lloyd's jaw dropped, his eyes widening in pure shock as he took an unsteady step away from Kratos as though the mercenary was a time bomb that might explode at any time.

Then he reached up to scratch the back of his neck, horror and embarrassment flushing his cheeks.

"I'm sorry..." he managed, his eyes flicking from Kratos' to the floor repeatedly. "I didn't realise we've got the same name. I... It must be hard for you to talk to me, huh?"

Genis' eyes widened to previously unknown proportions before the mage shook his head, telling himself that his best friend was right, had to be right because Kratos was only twenty-eight years old and couldn't be much older than that. It wasn't possible, even if they did have the same face and eye shape. It was a coincidence, surely. Besides, the shoe was a child's shoe. Kratos couldn't have kept that shoe for fourteen years, he was sure of it.

Raine was not so easily appeased. She already knew, Kratos could see it in her eyes. She was only looking for confirmation. "Lloyd," she said, talking to their student but eying Kratos calculatingly, "your name is rare. Very rare. In fact, it comes from a word in ancient elven. In all my travels, I have never known another person called 'Lloyd'."

The teenager's face immediately brightened. "That's great!" he exclaimed, instantly breaking into a beaming grin. "Kratos, we'll definitely be able to find him. We don't even need to know what he looks like now; we can just ask his name and it's sure to be him!"

Raine's eyes narrowed on the strained, pale-faced mercenary. Though his face was still and unmoving, his eyes were wider than usual, a manic fearfulness dancing beneath their frozen surface. His fists repeatedly clenched an unclenched in an uncomfortable, fidgeting gesture that stuck her as disturbingly similar to Lloyd's restless limb reaction to stress and nervousness. He couldn't hold her gaze, his eyes wandering restlessly in much the same way.

With his enhanced hearing, Kratos' heartbeat was deafening between his sensitive ears. He felt almost dizzy with anticipation of rejection and fear of discovery. He kept his attention focussed on the professor, barely listening as Lloyd launched into a plan of how to find the son Kratos had lost, Colette nodding along, her attention primarily focussed Lloyd but flickering between father and son.

Colette knew as well. She seemed to know better than Raine did, he mused, stifling a relieved sigh as Raine shook her head, staring suspiciously for a few more moments before angling herself towards her brother and Lloyd. And yet, the Chosen of Mana said nothing.

She looked his way with a sunny smile.

"Kratos," Lloyd called, beckoning the swordsman, who still stood, ladle in hand, unable to compute what had just happened. "What does Lloyd look like? We'll make some posters then we can put them up in the towns we visit."

"What?" Kratos uttered, bringing himself and the ladle he still clutched tightly over to the main body of the group.

"What does your son look like?" Lloyd repeated.

Kratos had no colour left on his face but if he had, it would have fled as his eyes widened again. All eyes were on him again, as, inwardly, he struggled frantically to find words to use that wouldn't give him away, wouldn't be a description of the red-clad teenager in front of him.

"He..." he began. "Lloyd ha... It has been too long," he settled, his calm visage resettling, covering his internal panic. "He was so young when I... when I lost him. I can no longer describe how he would be."

"Oh," Lloyd responded, his excitement fading as his face fell. He frowned, his mind going through countless ways to make up for this lack of information and make the stoic mercenary happy.

It was Genis who piped up with the solution to Lloyd's dilemma. "Where did you lose him, Kratos?"

Kratos froze, his eyes widening, a light gasp escaping him. Internally, he cursed his fate. Of all the questions he could have been asked, why this one? He couldn't lie; it would be wrong to. He told half-truths but he could never lie, not to Lloyd, not to his son. Especially not when he knew how this would end.

"I can't..." he trailed off.

He didn't know what to say. If he answered, he would most definitely be found out. And if he was found out, Lloyd would only reject him, hate him when he found out, when Kratos did what he would have to do. But a part of him wanted to say. A part of him wanted to drop the act, scoop up the boy who stared expectantly at him and announce to the world that he was his father.

But that wouldn't be part of his plan.

And anyway, he didn't deserve to have Lloyd acknowledge the truth of his parentage. Either way, his apprentice was sure to hate him; he had abandoned him. Lloyd had waited for him to come, wished for his dad to appear, and Kratos hadn't. Kratos hadn't looked any further than that cursed clearing. He was a failure. Lloyd didn't need him. Nobody needed him.

"I..." He couldn't say anything. His pride wouldn't allow him to lie but he couldn't tell the truth either. He was trapped, backed into a corner there was no feasible way out of. His hands were shaking again. Clenching them into a sudden fist, he blurted out, "Isel-"

He caught himself.

Raine's eyes narrowed on him, Lloyd and Colette nodding along encouragingly, Genis frowning thoughtfully. It would be so easy; he was already halfway there. Raine had most likely already worked it out; the Chosen knew; and Genis was halfway there from the boy's face. The only one in the dark was Lloyd.

Would the others tell him though? Of course they would. The Chosen would probably talk them into giving him some time to tell the boy himself, but it wouldn't last long. Raine Sage would most definitely confront him soon. And with the thought of the 'Desians' that had captured his son in Triet, Kratos realised she might not be the only one who would go against his wishes for anonymity.

Kratos swallowed his pride. It may have been better for Lloyd to believe that his father was dead and his sword teacher a traitor than to know the truth, but it would be far worse for him to find the truth out from another source. At least this way, Lloyd wouldn't doubt that Kratos had cared for him once, even if he was a failure of a father.

"Iselia," he finally said decisively, closing his eyes to block out their reactions. "Just outside Iselia."

Genis' shocked gasp did not fail to reach his ears. "Then it's-" the miniature mage began.

Lloyd interrupted, "We can ask Phaidra!" He turned to Colette, asking animatedly, "Colette, you've always lived in Iselia and Phaidra knows everything that goes on there. You've got to know. I know there wasn't anyone else called Lloyd in the village but he could've forgotten, right? The Professor said something about anesa happening when people hit their heads or something really bad happens."

"Amnesia, Lloyd," Raine corrected, still fixing Kratos with a hard stare. "And I don't think-"

"Yeah, right, Amnesia," Lloyd discounted, still focussed on Colette, who was turning redder and redder. "So you'd know right? If someone found a kid outside the village, they'd have to tell your Grandma."

"Uh, Lloyd..." Colette began, trailing off with a pointed look at Kratos, who simply looked horrified.

Lloyd really wasn't that dense. Lloyd couldn't be that dense. A sinking feeling spiralled into the mercenary's soul. It was obvious. It wasn't that Lloyd was dense. The other swordsman simply didn't want to believe Kratos could be his father, even without the knowledge of the crimes the ancient man had committed and those he had yet to burden his son with.

Kratos had known he would be rejected. He should have been prepared for it. He had prepared himself for Lloyd's hatred when they got to the Tower of Salvation. He had thought he could handle it. So why did it hurt so much? It seemed to stab through him, each heartbeat causing spasms of clenching, unbearable pain to surge through his body. And Lloyd didn't even know the half of it.

"Lloyd," Raine called, being awarded with the teenager's total attention. Next to her, Genis stared between the two swordsmen in a state of shock. "The only child who has been found outside the village is... you."

Lloyd gaped for a moment, looking up to where Kratos was still standing, seeing the man's haunted expression, the horror, fear, revulsion and above all, sorrow written in his garnet gaze

"Bu-but someone has to have taken him in!" he protested. "Kratos didn't find a body; so he has to be alive! And we're gonna find him! We are, I promise, Kratos!"

Kratos shook his head, his mouth dry, unable to find the right words to say or to speak them if he was. He could only stare as Lloyd continued, a world away from the assured mercenary he usually was, the precise, intelligent man who always seemed to know the correct course of action. He was four thousand years old; he had experienced most situations before. But this was something he'd never even considered and the feeling of being so completely unsure of what he should so was one he had become unaccustomed to.

"We'll talk to Professor Nova and his family; maybe another travelling family took him in," Lloyd decided.

Kratos took a deep, supposedly calming breath. "Lloyd..." he started. "I..."

Raine sighed impatiently as the man's eyes flickered over to her, unable to continue, still unsure of whether he should or not. "Lloyd," she took over. "I don't know how, but, I think what Kratos is trying to say is that... we've already found him."

Confusion dominated Lloyd's features. "Huh?" he managed, looking from Raine to Kratos, who opened his mouth to say something, only to close it as the words died in his throat.

"Lloyd," Genis tried. "Kratos' son was lost outside Iselia, is named Lloyd and had a red shoe exactly like the one you lost."

"Then," Lloyd began quietly, his face falling into a thoughtful frown before his head snapped up, his eyes as wide as saucers as he gawped at the silent swordsman in front of him. "You're... You can't be..."

Kratos' eyes shot from Lloyd's face to the floor at his son's feet, his head bowed, those wine eyes so full of grief and self-loathing that Colette's heart sank as she watched on, the only person with a good view of Kratos' face.

"I'm sorry, Lloyd," he finally said softly, reaching out to touch the teenager's hair but thinking better of it and retracting his hand as he added sorrowfully yet proudly, "my son. I'm sorry. Excuse me, I need some time alone."

With one final apology, the swordsman turned and strode out from under the cover, disappearing into the wall of rain, fleeing the scene and the rejection that was sure to follow. Lloyd stared at the spot where the man, his father, had disappeared, shock evident on his face.

"He's really..." He shook his head, before charging off into the rain after the man, with a cry of, "Hey! Wait!"

Kratos ambled aimlessly through the rain, the torrents of water blinding him to the world around him, but not to the world inside his head, in which a storm raged just as violently if not more so. He usually took a walk to clear his head. When he had been younger, it had been calming, a welcome escape from the hardships of his life. It wasn't today. Today it was just adding fuel to the fire, reminding him what an awful father he was. He'd finally found his son and his son had finally found out who he was, and here he was, running, abandoning him again.

His toe caught on a tree root, snapping him back to reality and the fact that he was outside in a storm that was now picking up to its full ferocity. Finding himself to be close to a vast tree trunk, he staggered over to the tree and collapsed onto the ground, huddling beneath it. He shivered. The force of the rain driving into him had numbed his body, now thawing to leave him feeling almost cold even with his Cruxis Crystal as protection from the elements. It was a shame it had been unable to numb his mind.

"Ugh." He swiped angrily at the water running from his hair. What was he doing? He should be back with the group, with his son, taking responsibility for his failings and showing Lloyd that he did care for him, that he always had.

"Hey, Kratos!"

A sound. Kratos' head snapped up, identifying the voice, which grew louder.

"Kratos!" Lloyd's voice yelled through the pounding of the heavy rain. "Where are you? Kratos!"

Kratos inwardly cursed. Why couldn't Lloyd just stay put instead of charging headfirst out into a storm? He was so reckless. He was going to get a cold or worse. And Kratos did not want to be responsible for that too; he was responsible for enough of Lloyd's suffering.

"I'm here, Lloyd," he called back, hope now fluttering within him at the thought of seeing his son and the possibility or forgiveness, or at least the chance to show Lloyd that he did care for him; he was just too weak to protect him. He tried to suppress it, to look like the stoic mercenary he should have been to the boy.

There was a pause before the response of, "Kratos? Is that you?" The voice was growing louder, its owner getting closer.

"Yes, Lloyd," he replied, pleased to note that his voice sounded as it usually did, just as calm, just as assured. "I'm here."

It didn't take long for the drenched boy to stumble into the relatively dry space under the tree and fall onto his bum by the still form of his biological father. Once there, Lloyd blew at the hair that had flattened itself to his face and obscured his vision, finally succumbing to the urge to yank the stubborn section of hair out of the way in order to stare in awe at the equally sodden, motionless mercenary who watched him with sad eyes.

After a silence that stretched on between them, Lloyd said, quietly, "You're really... You're really my dad..."

It wasn't just disbelief. There was a question in those words that still lingered in the air that wound around them. Kratos hoped it wasn't there from the desire for the truth to be a lie, but the darker part of him niggled in his mind that it was.

"Yes," he responded, almost hauntedly. Almost. He still had some self control; he'd regained enough of it to appear somewhat as he had throughout the Chosen's journey so far.

Lloyd looked torn. A fleeting grin flashed across his face, only to disappear with the query, "Then, why didn't you say something? You knew, right?"

"Yes," Kratos answered yet again, weakly now, as though the very air was sapping away his strength with this uncomfortable topic, though he tried not to appear tired and old. "I knew from the moment I saw Anna's grave at your house. Truthfully, I had my suspicions from the moment you introduced yourself to me. But I couldn't be sure... Not until then."

"You didn't answer the question," Lloyd pointed out impatiently as Kratos' glazed eyes drifted away from his to stare blankly into the concealing rain.

"You don't need me, Lloyd," Kratos stated. "You need help in learning the ways of swordsmanship, yes, but as you yourself said, you don't need another father when you have Dirk. I simply assumed it would be best for you not to know."

And rightly so, Kratos affirmed mentally. With what he was about to do to the boy and his group, Lloyd would only suffer more with this knowledge. But what was done was done; there was no way back. There was only this moment, hidden from prying eyes, protected by the heavy rain. This one moment for him to tell his son how he felt, as his father.

Said son looked startled, scrambling to assure the elder swordsman, "I didn't mean it like that! I do need you!"

He would have said more but his true father cut him off with a slow shake of his head. "No, Lloyd. You do not. And you are well within your rights to continue this journey as though there is no relation between us. I am unworthy of being a father. I was too weak to protect you when you needed me the most. By all rights, I forfeited my claim to that name when I abandoned you. You are much better off without me. Dirk is your father now; he is someone worthy of calling you his son."

Lloyd's head was shaking now, denial emanating from the dual swordsman as he protested, "So are you! And you didn't abandon me! You... you..." he trailed off, still shaking his head, his fists clenching and unclenching as his father's had not long ago. "You kept my shoe... So... So you did care about me. I...I'm so ha..." He trailed off again, Kratos turning his eyes back to his son to realise with a jolt that the boy was crying.

"Lloyd?" he questioned.

Lloyd merely buried his face in his gloves and gave his head another quick shake. The sight of him so upset sent a pang of a long lost feeling stabbing through the stoic mercenary. Before he could even think, he had pulled the teenager into his arms, one hand stroking his hair, the other simply holding him close, rocking him gently as though he was still a child and Kratos was still his father.

It was strange. It was like all those years apart had never happened, and Kratos had never lost Lloyd, had never lost that parental urge to hold his child, who felt very much like a child now, even though he was seventeen and a promising swordsman. And maybe he hadn't lost that instinct, that feeling, whatever it was that made him a parent. It wasn't like him; he had never been one for unnecessary physical contact. But this was Lloyd, his son, the one he had rocked in his arms and sang to softly, under his breath when there had been no-one else to listen. And if Lloyd was upset, if Lloyd was crying for comfort, then Kratos would hold him and hush him and put the world to rights. That was how it had been then, and it was the same now.

"Lloyd," he began, relishing the feeling of holding his child, of being a father again, even if he knew it could only be temporary, even if he knew that in the end, he wouldn't really be easing his son's pain at all. He could forget that. Just for this moment, he could forget that. He could open up to his son. He owed him that much. "Lloyd, I always cared about you. I could never stop caring about you. You are my son, and I will always love you, even if you do not need or want me in your life."

Lloyd choked, Kratos' eyes widening as a smaller arm wrapped around his back, another hand grasping the material of his cape like its owner truly expected him to be ripped away at the last moment.

Shaking off the shock, Kratos continued, "But that doesn't change that you are better off without me as your father."

Lloyd cut in, his voice muffled by the sodden fabric of Kratos' clothes, not moving his head from where it rested on the mercenary's chest, where he could hear the gentle rhythm of the man's heart for the first time since he had been a child. "Am not," he muttered childishly.

"Hmm?" Kratos wondered, as if he had misheard it.

"No, I'm not," Lloyd repeated more loudly, tightening his grip on his father as though he really, honestly expected him to leave. Kratos wasn't able to leave even if, by some horrible twist of fate, he actually wanted to. Nothing short of Yggdrasill's wrath could prise him away from this moment with his son.

Soft laughter escaped the boy, the tears now history remembered only in the puffiness of his eyes as he said, "You know, I always used to dream about you. When I realised I couldn't remember what you looked like anymore, I'd lay in bed and think about you, what I thought you were like, so if I ever saw you, I'd know. It was stupid really... 'Cause I knew I never remembered you right. I thought you'd look so much older. I kept hoping you'd show up..."

"And you were disappointed," Kratos finished for him, guilt eating away at him as he hung his head, his breath ruffling his son's hair.

"No," Lloyd replied, "You're here now, so it doesn't matter. And it's so much better now." He paused. "It's weird, 'cause you were like a big brother to me. When Colette said we look like each other, I sort of hoped it might be true, 'cause then you'd be related me. And you are. Only, you're my dad. My dad..."

He lifted his head, pulling away from the mercenary's loosened hold, to look up at him, beaming up at him with his mother's grin. "You're my dad... I have-"

Anything else he was going to say was cut short by a violent sneeze, which led to two more, the boy sheepishly wiping his face on his soaked, dripping sleeve, while Kratos sighed, unfastening the purple, swallow-tailed cape from his shoulders. That done, the man stood, offering his free hand to help the shivering, red nosed teenager up.

"Come on," he said with a small smile, gently arranging the cape to cover Lloyd's head and shoulders as best it could once both swordsmen were standing. "It would be unwise to remain here in wet clothes."

Lloyd sneezed again, this time using his glove as means of covering it. "But if we go out th-there, we'll just get w-wetter."

"Yes," Kratos responded, as small frown tugging at his lips as he observed the way Lloyd was shaking as the wet, cold clothes clung to him. "But I don't wish for you to become unwell. To avoid hypothermia, we need to return to the others and get dry."

Lloyd instantly jumped to assure him that he wasn't getting hypothermia and that if Kratos was fine, he was too. Truthfully, with the way this was going, there was no way Lloyd was getting out of this without even a cold to show for it and if Kratos himself felt cold, he knew it wasn't an environment an ordinary human boy would be able to sustain heat in. That and his long buried parental instincts had reared their heads and were telling him that in no uncertain terms would he be allowed to let his son go without basic warmth and comfort for any longer than was absolutely necessary.

That's why he fixed the boy with a no-nonsense glare and stated simply, "We are returning to camp. Either you can follow me, or you can remain here and freeze. It is your choice."

It wasn't. If Lloyd wasn't willing to move, Kratos would make him, and he wasn't above carrying the boy. Especially now he didn't have to be so restrained, now Lloyd had accepted his parentage.

Lloyd had accepted him. A warm feeling filled him, a smile forming on his face with ease, hidden from Lloyd by his hair. For a moment, he was unable to put a name to the feeling; it had been so long since he had last felt anything like it. Joy. It was more than that though. He was able to feel peaceful, happy even, despite the knowledge of what was to come. For now, he had his son and that was all that mattered. He wasn't worried about Cruxis; for now, his biggest concern was caring for his child, as it always should have been.

"B-but you haven't g-got a c-c-cape or c-coat or anything," Lloyd protested.

He couldn't bring himself to fight away the smile as he turned back to his son. "I am used to harsh conditions," he replied, stepping out into the icy downpour.

"Hey! K-Kra-da... Hey, w-wait!"

Kratos froze in place for a second, allowing Lloyd to start to catch up. Had he really... Had the boy really just started to call him 'Dad'? Wordlessly, he shook his head, scattering droplets of water into the fresh, freezing onslaught of them. No, it was the just a slip of the tongue. It was the shivering. Lloyd hadn't really, completely accepted him that quickly.

"Ugh, i-it's f-freezing!" Lloyd complained at his elbow.

Had he?

AN: Okay, again, this has ended up way longer than I intended it to be and the chapter is split yet again. (I seem to be doing that a lot recently... I should plan better... Or better yet, actually plan at all...) So I'm really sorry to have left you with only this bit, and have ended it on quite a dull note... But the oyako really kicks off next chapter, once I get them out of the rain. Sorry this one's so drawn out. I might try to edit it later on...

Next chapter (in my head) should be the best one yet. This one was more filler-ish; sorry guys. But I had to get to the point of the truth coming out somehow. The ends will be tied in the next chapter and we'll get some more of the parental Kratos who didn't really get much screen time in this chapter... Much more of him...

And darn it, Kratos in this chapter was too OOC...

But anyway, thanks to all the people who have put this fic on their favourites, alerts, or reviewed it. You guys make this all so much more worthwhile. ^_^

So thanks for reading!

And I know this chapter isn't anywhere near as good as the first one, so any help/ constructive criticism will be very much appreciated. So yeah... Any reviews make my day.

Until next time,

~ThePurpleRose