Taran has to be the most solemn child I have ever met.

He's not older than the others, not really. He's not bigger or stronger or faster. He doesn't even have the strongest or most versatile gift - in fact, his is a danger to far more than just your average monster or enemy, and it's sometimes hard for him to control it.

But he's their 'leader'. Oh, they all look to Squall as their father, and they've grown adept at reading his moods, but it's Taran who's their leader. If Taran decided one day that Squall wasn't worth their time, the whole group of them would follow his lead.

That, of course, will never happen. Taran is almost as bad as Zell, worshiping the ground Squall walks on. I don't think Taran understood what he was, or what he was doing, until he saw his father's example. He led by instinct, which is a lot trickier than leading by training.

To me, watching Taran grow is a little like seeing a ghost of a child Squall. Away from his music, Taran is deadly serious about just about everything. Everyone is his responsibility as far as he's concerned, and he'll drop what he's doing in a heartbeat if one of his siblings needs him.

Or if Squall needs him. It's positively eerie, sometimes, watching the two of them together. Taran's face is a near-perfect copy of Squall's, lacking only a few years' growth and that scar to make the reflection complete. They don't look like father and son. They look like brothers. They act like brothers sometimes too - almost the way Squall acts with Zell, eye contact alone transmitting orders and reports, practically without thinking about it.

Taran doesn't give the impression that he's ten years old. Like Squall, the age he transmits is much more mature, and he does it so well you often have to remind yourself that you are in fact dealing with a little boy.

Except...sometimes...all that comes tumbling down. Whatever it was that turned Squall into one of the most hardassed bastards you can ever hope to never cross, it hasn't happened to Taran. There are no shadows in his eyes, no walls, and it's in Taran more than Squall I see the ghost of Raine. He leads, but he doesn't lead the way Squall does. Squall leads with a firm hand and a strong mind, the general commanding loyal troops because he's the one that will bring them home alive. Taran leads with the heart - and he's got a big one. You follow him because you love him, because you know he feels the same way about you.

Even Daear won't cross Taran, and she's gone toe to toe with her father more than once. That should tell you just how strong that pull of love can be.

He's hardly ever away from the others, though he's rarely really involved with them either. He seems content to watch them be happy, not feeling any pull to go getting involved himself. So I was surprised when I found him alone one day - quite a long way away from his usual haunts. He was on the edge of a Galbadian cliff, staring at the sea as though he expected it to have an answer for him.

He looked up when he heard me approach. "Hi, Grandpa," he said quietly. "Did you want something? Is there something I hafta do?"

The little leader. Does anyone ever just talk to him, without something needing to come out of it? "No," I reassured him. "I was just walking, and I saw you so I thought I'd say hi. What brings you all the way out here?"

Taran pointed down, to the waves crashing on the rocks. "That," he said solemnly. "Dad goes and watches the sea if he's got something to work out. I wanted to know why."

I could feel my eyebrows quirking up, but it's not good to show open disbelief at Taran. He doesn't always know you aren't laughing at him. "You have something you need to work out, then?"

Taran cocked his head to one side, his arms wrapped loosely around one knee in - I have to admit - a very Squall-like pose of thought. "I don't know," he said at last. "Maybe you can help?"

So simple, so openly trusting. "I'll try," I told him, and took a seat at his side. "Want to tell me about it?"

He doesn't want to look at me. In Taran, this is a sign he's very upset about something - usually he's pretty direct.

"It's dad," he said, and somehow I'm really not surprised. "Grandpa...what did we do to him that he doesn't want to be around us?"

I blinked. Anyone who tells you words aren't a weapon is lying. That sentence landed on me like a three ton wrecking ball on a chain, and I had a hard time finding the breath for a reply to this.

Truth first. "You didn't do anything, Taran," I told him. "None of you did anything to him."

It doesn't reassure. Not that I expected it to, not really. Taran's no fool. "We must've," he said dully. "Grandpa, we hurt him, I know it! What did I do? What is it so I can stop it and he won't go -" He broke off abruptly. Taran's not crazy about tears. He'd bite his own tongue rather than cry, and I imagine that's exactly what he was doing.

I know what he's talking about, too. Squall loves the kids, I know he does. He puts up with more from them than he does from anyone else, never complaining. But at the same time he can't seem to forget where they came from, and being around them reminds him of it all too clearly.

I don't know all the details. I don't need to. They brought him to me pale and still and dying, with Rinoa practically junctioned to his side. Six children. Six. I could hope that it was scientific...that they didn't make it harder on him than they had to.

I could hope that. But I know, in my heart of hearts, I'd be wrong. Squall is a SeeD. He's fought monsters, Sorceresses, Guardian Forces...and none of it put the shadows in his eyes he gets when he looks at his children.

I wish he'd left Odine alive, so I could kill him. Slowly. Over a period of years, maybe. I'm tempted sometimes to go looking for him, since we're both on the same side of life now, but I can't bear the thought of Squall seeing that bastard ever again.

But none of that is something to tell a ten year old boy. And it isn't my story to tell him anyway. That is for Squall to tell him, someday, if there's a reason for him to know.

How do you put words around a horror too great for adult minds to comprehend, and do it so a ten year old understands? Without lying?

"He loves you, Taran," I told him. "Never doubt that he loves you."

Taran just stared at the waves below, and it felt somehow as though he were moving away from me. "But he leaves us," he said flatly. "He goes...away. Always. Rinoa - mom - doesn't go away."

I wondered how long it would be before 'mom' was his first word for Rinoa, instead of the second. All the attention Squall can't bear to give the children, Rinoa gives with a full and open heart. She knows how the children came to be, but still loves them for themselves. It's her nature, I think, to love that way. Good thing, really.

I gave it my best shot. "Taran...you take care of the others, don't you? Have you always?"

Taran looked up, puzzled. "Yeah," he said. "Long's any of us can remember."

"But right now you're not with them, right?"

Taran looked panicky, and just a hint of electric gold entered his eyes. "They're okay, right? You're not talkin' like this 'cos they're in trouble, right?"

"No, no," I soothed quickly. "But...you're here and they're not, right?"

"Yeah..." he replied slowly, watching me carefully - as though I might sprout snakes in my hair or something any minute.

"So you being here and not there, you don't love them any less, right?"

"Of course not," he said - sounding like Squall might after someone's asked a foolish question.

"Why would Squall?" Please, let this work. Please let this be enough.

"That's not it!" Taran yelled, jumping to his feet. "Grandpa..." his fists clenched and his eyes turned bright yellow white, and I nerved myself. I can't die twice, but Taran's lightning bolts are not little love taps. He was pretty worked up - when he's overemotional, the sparks make his hair float and will chase each other across his body. He was fairly close to that already, trying to put words around concepts that didn't take well to words.

"Calm down, Taran," I sighed. "Really - just calm down. I know what you mean. It's okay."

"I followed him," said Taran brokenly, as the sparks faded again. "I did. Mom told me not to but I had to. It's not right he goes away all the time."

I blinked. That took courage - I'm not sure I'd want to try confronting Squall over anything when he's in one of his 'leave me alone' moods. And I certainly wouldn't want to confront him with the children. "What happened?" I asked.

Taran sat back down on the cliff's edge, dejected. "Just said he had to sometimes, and that he'd come back. Said he needed to...so I came here. I wanna know why, Grandpa."

And 'why' was the one thing I couldn't afford to tell him, even that little I knew of it. Rock and a hard place, rock and a hard place.

"If he's told you he'll come back, why do you need to know?" I asked him. Maybe I could answer some other question for him, and get him off the one I'm not going to go near.

"He's our dad, right? Noddy looks like you, and me an' Daear look like him...what if somethin' happens, Grandpa? I do good. I watch everybody, an' nobody gets into trouble or gets hurt. I thought when he showed up I wouldn't have to anymore, you know? He'd be our dad, he'd take care of things for us." He shook his head. "But he doesn't. Not really."

Ouch. No wonder he's the one they look to. And not far off, either. On the other hand, I haven't managed a country for decades to get out-argued by a ten year old.

"I think if you need him he'll be there, Taran," I told him. "Before he showed up - what was your life like? Quiet?"

Taran laughed. "Never," he said. "Was always somethin' we had to do, you know. Noddy went out with - with Detmer's friends, an' a coupla times he came home all red...an' Daear too. I tried to keep everyone together..."

"But it's not like that any more, Taran. He's given you a home where you don't have to hurt people, or watch them be hurt. Isn't that what a father's supposed to do?"

Taran just stared morosely at the sea. "I guess so. I just...thought it'd be different, I guess."

I took the risk of putting an arm around him. He's not usually big on things like hugs, but every so often he'd accept them. Now turned out to be one of those times. "Taran, he gives you what he can, and what he can't give you there are other people for. I'm here, right? And Rinoa, you like Rinoa right?"

"Yeah," came the mutter, from somewhere in the vicinity of my shirt. "But I want Dad."

I sighed. "Taran...you know how before he found you things were always busy?" I waited for his nod, then continued. "Taran, he found you while you were ten. I didn't find him until he was seventeen. And he had a life at least as busy as yours was. He's spent too long that way."

He pulled away from me, confused. "We're okay, Grandpa. Why wouldn't he be?"

How bright are you, Taran? "Are you sure?" I asked him. "What do you think Noddy would do if someone tried to hurt him? Not kill him, Taran, just hurt him."

I already knew the answer. I was a Galbadian soldier. I know that look. I didn't expect to see it in a reflection of my own eyes, but I trust my instincts. I needed to know if Taran could see it.

The way his eyebrows came down told me he could. "I think...that wouldn't be good," he said.

"You're right," I assured him. "Taran...because Detmer made him hurt people, Noddy can hurt people. Thankfully he just doesn't want to very often - but if someone made him want to, they'd get hurt. Probably they'd be lucky to walk away at all." The killer instinct. You can give it to a child, but you can't take it away. It's a damn good thing Nodwydd's an easygoing type.

"What does that have to do with Dad, though?" he asked.

This was the tricky part. "Well...your dad is a little like Noddy, Taran. He's older, and he learned how to hurt people older, so he's maybe less likely to kill someone who's trying to hurt him...but what do you think would have happened if your dad hadn't found you? If you'd stayed with Detmer?"

Taran looked dejected. "...a lot of people would be dead," he said softly.

"Do you think Noddy would be like he is now?"

"...no."

Good. He's bright enough. "Taran...Squall was alone a lot longer than you were. He had to do the things Noddy's had to do, and Daear, only a lot more often. He can't always react the way he's supposed to because of it. But that doesn't mean he doesn't care, Taran. Just that he has a harder time showing it in ways you can see."

"Does it mean I gotta take care of everybody still?" he asked then.

It would have been nice to be able to give an unqualified 'no' for an answer. I sighed. "Sometimes, Taran. He needs you - needs you to do what you've been doing. Just like he needs Rinoa, and me. But you don't have to if you don't want to. Squall wouldn't want you to do it if it hurts."

Taran nodded, decisively. "Like you, and...mom. I can be like you. I'll take care of everybody."

Oh, dear. "Maybe not all the time," I ventured. "After all, even great leaders have to go for ice cream sometimes, right?"

That caught his attention. "Ice cream?" he said, and by the tone I could tell he'd let the issue go. "Right. Ice cream. Let's go, Grandpa."

I knew. Taran was an intelligent boy - he'd work out eventually that I'd diverted him. That there was something to know, that he wasn't being told. But hopefully he'd be older then, and able to confront his father for answers I couldn't give him.

Thank Hyne for short attention spans and ice cream.