The Exchange Variation

Chapter XCVI - Overloading Sacrifice

"Daddy!" Belle flies through the door, flinging herself into her father's arms with a happy squeal.

"Hey Izzy, baby," Roman laughs, hugging her tightly to him. "It's so good to see you." He looks over her shoulder to where Eric stands in the doorway. "Hey, kid." He greets his son with a hint of awkwardness. It's hard to know where he stands with any of the children after last night. Things were said, sure, but in the cold hard light of day, it's hard to know what his reception will be.

"Hey..." Eric pauses and then as if forcing himself, "hey dad." And behind him, Sami appears, her face stony and her eyes as hard as flint. Roman's heart sinks as he sees her. That's his answer, then. Belle, his baby; Eric, trying to do what is right, and Samantha, as always, the stubborn thorn in his side. The child that he cannot seem to reach, no matter how hard he tries. The one that makes him feel like he failed as a father. As a human being.

"Listen," he says hoarsely, directing his attention towards Eric. "If that feels too weird, if you don't... well," he pauses, tripping over his own tongue in an effort to make his son feel comfortable. This is so important to him; he doesn't want to push them. He doesn't want them to accept him as their father unless they truly believe it in their hearts. Unless they truly want to. Anything less than that would simply be a farce and would mean nothing. It would just be more lies and he's had his fill of lies.

He sighs, loosening his arms and releasing Belle. She doesn't take her leave though. Instead, she stands alongside him, with her arm around his waist, and faces Eric and Sami. "I guess what I'm trying to say... You don't have to call me Dad. Not until you're ready. Not unless you really want to. I don't... I'm not interested in forcing any of you to believe anything you're not ready to believe. To do anything you don't want to do. You call me whatever you want to call me, okay?"

"Ooookay..." Eric says carefully. "And if I haven't figured out what I want to call you yet?" He shrugs, the gesture designed to carefully cover his confusion and distress. But Roman sees right through it, can see how hard the kid is struggling with all of this and his heart goes out to Eric. This is hard on all of them, but Sami and Eric have suffered more than most. They've had so much torn away from them at such vulnerable ages; it's not really surprising that either of them is screwed up.

Truth be known, he's surprised that Eric is as normal and well-adjusted as he is. And maybe that's as much down to him spending his teenage years with Marlena's parents as anything. He knows it hadn't been Marlena's choice. It certainly wouldn't have been his first choice, but he can hardly blame the kid. Thrust into a new family with a mother and a father he didn't know, he had chosen the opposite route to Sami. Where she had embraced her new father a little too enthusiastically, Eric had chosen to remove himself from the family. He had found the stability he'd craved with the grandparents he'd known all his life, half a country away in Colorado.

Roman had never discussed it with Marlena. After all, when he became John Black again, they weren't his kids anymore. He'd had no say in their upbringing, no part in the choices that were made regarding the children he'd raised and loved as his own.

He knows, as he knows so much about her that is unspoken, that she wasn't happy about Eric staying in Colorado. She wasn't happy and she had missed him terribly, but she had understood, and she had accepted it with that quiet grace of hers. Loving him enough to let him do what was right for him.

Roman can understand why. He might not have liked it either; he might have missed Eric more than he could ever have expressed to her or to anyone but in a lot of ways, he's glad. At the very least, it might make this transition a little easier. After all, Eric was never particularly attached to Lamont as Roman. Not like Samantha was.