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rsadelleI didn't post this last year because I kept thinking/hoping I would work on it more. But I didn't, and so it's time to admit that this will never be finished (sorry Sky!), but you can enjoy what there is of it.
Main Story
"She's going to die," Dorian said flatly.
This was a different Dorian from the one who'd shown up in his office less than a week ago demanding to know if it was true that he was getting married.
"I am getting married," he'd snapped. "You should be happy. I'll be safe at my desk until I produce an heir."
"Who's going to die?" he asked now.
"That girl you're going to marry. She'll die in childbirth."
Klaus was silent.
"You know she will." Dorian watched him for some reaction. "You're going to kill her. You're going to kill her," he said again, his anger growing. "And you're going to make your son as miserable as your father's made you."
Klaus lit a cigarette and slowly drew the smoke into his lungs. "I'm not planning to kill her."
Dorian waved his hand. "You will anyway. All so you can have an heir and placate your father."
Klaus chewed on his cigarette. "I will not kill her," he growled.
"Of course you will," Dorian insisted. "Have you looked at her? She'll never survive childbirth."
"You don't know that," Klaus said calmly.
"I do. She'll die and you will have killed her." Dorian scowled. "You're supposed to protect innocents, not kill them."
Klaus stood, and Dorian could feel the violence lurking just behind the surface. "Get out of my office," Klaus said coldly. "Stay away from me, and stay away from my wife."
"She's not your wife," Dorian shot back. "And you're the one who should stay away from her." He stormed out of Klaus' office before he could be thrown out. The Alphabets jumped when he slammed the door behind himself.
Dorian was wrong. He would not kill her, and his son would not grow up to be a younger version of himself. It was not that he was unhappy with his life, merely that he would not choose it for someone else. And he was not doing this only to placate his father, either. She was a good, nice girl. She would make a good wife, a good mother. He would not resent her. He would not blame her for his nine months or more of desk duty.
The wedding was everything his father could want, and Klaus resolutely reminded himself of his vow not to resent Hanna or the things her presence necessitated. If he did not exactly smile for the pictures, neither did he scowl. He made himself look as happy as he knew how. It was not the poor girl's fault he was the way he was, and he would not ruin this day for her.
He did his duty as a husband, and on the day when Hanna came to the study and shyly informed him that she was pregnant, he kissed her and told her he was happy.
Despite the ultrasound, which showed clearly that the child was a boy, the Chief refused to allow Klaus to return to active duty until after his son was born. Klaus consequently found himself spending more time than he would have liked at home.
He did his best. He ordered the servants to do everything in their power to make Hanna comfortable. He procured every food item she craved. He rubbed her back and told her he loved her when her mouth was drawn tight and her eyes tired.
He went out into the woods and set up a target to shoot at instead of yelling at her as he wished to do.
He would not resent her, he reminded himself. The child would be born in a few short months, and then he would have an heir and could return to field duty.
His butler tendered his resignation, secure in the knowledge that there would be a child to carry on the Eberbach name. Klaus and Hanna interviewed candidates for the job until she tired, and then he interviewed them alone. He chose a man named Karl who was less severe but no less competent than his butler.
Karl insisted on a full cleaning of the house, and Klaus authorized the expense of hiring extra help. When the cleaning was done, Klaus noticed that some of the maids had been replaced, but he trusted Karl's judgment and made no comment.
The household duties grated on him. When he tried staying later at work, he was told in no uncertain terms to go home and tend to "that pretty, young wife of yours." He went to the NATO shooting range and received the same message. Defeated, he went home on time every night and made polite conversation with Hanna until he could escape to his study. Hanna was already asleep when he retired to their bed at midnight.
Hanna went into labor at 2:40 on a Tuesday. Klaus would have stayed at work, but the Chief got the news first and "suggested" he join his wife.
Hanna did not want him in the delivery room, and he did not want to be there. He paced the waiting room chain smoking.
Eventually, a grave faced doctor came out to see him.
"Your son is perfectly healthy," the doctor told him. He tried to urge Klaus into a chair, but Klaus refused and demanded to be told whatever it was the man didn't want to say.
"I'm sorry, Major, but your wife suffered severe complications from the birth. Her body could not absorb the shock to her system. She did not survive."
Klaus brought his cigarette to his lips with nerveless fingers. Dorian had been right.
"If you'll put out your cigarette and come with me, you may see your son," the man offered.
Klaus ground out the cigarette in the ashtray he'd bullied out of the nurses and followed the man back through the doors. A nurse put a small bundle into his arms, and he looked dispassionately down on his son.
"We would like to keep him here overnight," the doctor advised. "You may stay with him if you like."
Klaus handed the child back to the nurse. "I will make arrangements and return in the morning."
There was a funeral, of course, and Klaus dressed calmly in a black suit and held his sleeping son as the priest solemnly intoned the funeral liturgy. There was a christening, too, with appropriately chosen kin appointed as godparents. The boy was christened Heinrich, a good, old family name.
Karl hired a nanny, and Klaus rented a flat in the city, close enough to walk to work. The walk was a welcome addition to his exercise regimen. The chief restored him to active duty as soon as Heinrich had been christened and formally declared Klaus' heir, and he took his Alphabets and chased terrorists all over Kirgizistan.
Eroica, for once, did not appear to wreak his usual havoc.
His life settled back into something resembling his usual routine when he got back from Kirgizistan. He stayed in the city and walked to work. He took his Alphabets out on missions. When Karl and his father insisted, he went back to the castle for the occasional holiday meal. He would do his duty and see Heinrich for a few moments before sending him back to the nursery.
Eroica was conspicuously absent from his life, and it made him nervous. He hadn't realized how often he expected to see Eroica appear to steal whatever he needed. He told himself sternly that he should be relieved not to see the man.
Then, suddenly, there was a series of missions. Neo-Nazis in Germany. Terrorists in Saudi Arabia. Information retrieval in Siberia. A rescue mission in Afghanistan. Cleanup of a botched CIA mission in Zimbabwe. An undercover investigation in Washington, D.C.
He spent no more than one night in his flat for four years. He called Karl when he could, and Karl or the nurse reported that Heinrich was doing well. He spoke to his father only once.
By the end of the D.C. op, he hadn't spoken as himself to anyone but his contact in nearly a year.
"Go home," his D.C. superior told him when he would have stayed for the aftermath. "It's done. We'll take care of the rest." The man nearly made the mistake of patting Klaus' shoulder, but thought better of it. "Go home."
Klaus felt nearly numb as he got on a plane. He'd done undercover work before, but never for so long, and never so awful. He relaxed as much as he would let himself on the plane home and thought of how grateful he was that Eroica hadn't interfered in this particular mission.
He hadn't told anyone he was coming back, but there was a party at the gate to meet him anyway.
"Major," G squealed. "You're back."
Klaus scowled at him as a matter of course. "Yellow is not your color."
Z's soft, "Major," was more respectful and paired with a firm handshake. "Welcome back."
"Mr. Z." Klaus ignored the third member of the greeting party and spoke only to his agents. "No one knew I was coming."
Z allowed himself a quick smile. "We've been well trained." He cut his eyes meaningfully at the Chief. "We've been waiting for you to come back."
"Replacement must be an idiot," Klaus growled, correctly interpreting Z's look.
"No, no," the Chief assured him. "I wouldn't trust an idiot to do your job."
Klaus snorted. "You won't have to. I'll be doing my job from now on."
The Chief shook his head. "No, no, Major. You've been working too hard. You need a vacation."
Klaus' spine snapped straight. "I do not need a vacation."
The Chief laughed. "Of course you do, Major. You've been working non-stop for years. I'm ordering you to take a vacation. Go home," he said more kindly. "See your son."
Klaus pressed his lips together. "Yes, sir."
The Chief beamed. "Good, good. Take two weeks."
"Yes, sir." Klaus growled.
"Good, good. Enjoy your vacation, Major."
Klaus, disgusted, watched the Chief walk away. "How bad is it?" he asked Z, striding off toward the baggage claim area.
"He's not completely incompetent," Z said, following. "But he's let three suspects get away, and his paperwork is never done."
Klaus scowled. "And I'm stuck on vacation for two weeks."
"Don't worry, sir," Z assured him. "We'll make sure the paperwork is all done by the time you get back."
Klaus grabbed his bags off the conveyor belt. "Make sure it gets filed properly."
"Of course."
G and Z each took a bag and walked Klaus out to their car.
"We'll take you home, sir."
Klaus dropped his remaining bag in the trunk and climbed into the car. "Take me to the flat. I'll take my own car out to the estate."
"We've taken care of it. You have a full tank of gas, and it's been driven enough to keep it in good condition." Z glanced at Klaus for his reaction before going on. "Your flat has been aired and cleaned."
Klaus stared out at the city passing by. "Who else knows I'm here?"
"Just the Alphabets," Z assured him. "The Chief enjoys knowing where you are without letting anyone else know, and we won't tell."
At the flat, G and Z helped Klaus transfer his bags to his own car.
"We're glad to have you back, sir," Z said before Klaus could leave.
Klaus relaxed a fraction. "It's good to be back." He reached out and shook Z's hand. "You're a good agent, Mr. Z." He glanced at G and nearly smiled. "You're getting better," he said.
G flushed, and Z barely stopped his jaw from dropping. They thanked him and let him get into his own car and on his way home.
It was clear, as soon as Klaus opened the door to the castle, that his agents had been telling the truth. There were blocks of some sort in the entryway, and flowers, an expense he only rarely authorized, on the hall table. He could hear a child's delighted laughter answered by someone else's low tones.
A child, a small boy with his own dark hair and Hanna's lighter green eyes came running through the entryway and stopped when he saw him. He and Klaus stared at each other for a long moment before another figure followed him in. Klaus dragged his eyes up, over a skintight pair of jeans hugging slim hips topped by a simple white shirt to an all too familiar face framed by the same riotous curls he remembered. It had been nearly five years; Klaus could see the beginnings of wrinkles and laugh lines on Dorian's face.
Dorian blanched. "Major."
Heinrich ducked behind Dorian and peered out at Klaus from around one leg.
"This isn't exactly how we meant to tell you."
"Tell me what, exactly?" Klaus ground out.
Dorian turned and knelt down to match Heinrich's height. "Go upstairs to the playroom. Your father and I have to talk for a while." Dorian smiled to ease Heinrich's nervousness. "I'll come and play with you after we talk."
Heinrich reached up and planted a sloppy kiss on Dorian's cheek. "Okay." Klaus and Dorian watched him clamber up the stairs.
"What are you doing in my house?" Klaus asked when Heinrich was out of earshot.
Dorian let his smile drop. "Perhaps we should sit down, Major."
"I don't want to sit down," Klaus growled. "I want to know what you are doing with my son in my house."
"Lord Gloria is a permanent member of the household," Karl said calmly from behind him.
"What are you talking about?"
If Karl recognized Klaus' leashed anger for what it was, he didn't let it show. "Lord Gloria has been of invaluable assistance."
"Assistance with what?" Klaus shouted.
"With raising your son," Dorian said calmly.
"You were supposed to hire a nurse," Klaus accused Karl.
"He did," Dorian said. "She's still here."
"Then what are you doing here?" Klaus' voice dropped into a low, menacing growl.
"I told you once," Dorian said softly, "that you would make your son as miserable as your father has made you. I am here to make sure that does not happen."
"My father," Klaus said. That was one thing that hadn't occurred to him yet. "Does my father know you're here?"
"He is a frequent guest," Karl informed him.
Klaus stared at him, then transferred his gaze back to Dorian. "I'll have dinner in my study at six," he told Karl. "Other than that, I am not to be disturbed until further notice." He picked up his bags and stalked past Dorian.
Dorian's ironic, "That went well," followed him up the stairs.
Safe in his bedroom, Klaus unpacked his bags, separating out the clothes that could be put away from those that needed to be washed and those that needed only to be ironed. Once his suitcases had been put away, there was nothing more to keep him in his room. He tromped down to his study, watching more than one maid scurry out of his way, and applied himself to the correspondence that only he could answer. His dinner was served precisely on time by a maid he'd never seen before. She returned later to retrieve his tray, and he was left alone for the remainder of the evening.
He retired at his usual midnight hour. He allowed himself the luxury of sleeping in the next morning, and cursed himself for his weakness when he woke to a clock telling him it was noon.
He snuck down the stairs and made coffee in his study. That and a cigarette were enough for breakfast. He managed to escape the house without being noticed. He strode out into the woods and worked his way deeper in. It would be a good exercise to get lost and find his way back out.
Heinrich's laughter stopped him in his tracks. He followed the sound to a small clearing, one he remembered from previous excursions into the woods. His child, laughing and trying to help Dorian spread a blanket out on the forest floor. He was more of a hindrance than a help, but Dorian didn't seem to mind. Klaus would have yelled.
"There we go." His voice floated to where Klaus stood, unseen. He sat down and gestured Heinrich over to him. "Now, let's see what Karl packed for lunch."
They had lunch and they played. Heinrich took a nap, and Dorian sat with him and watched the forest around him. Klaus leaned against a tree and watched them. He even forgot to smoke.
When Heinrich woke from his nap, Dorian let him help fold up the blanket and they went back toward the castle hand-in-hand.
Klaus waited until they were well and truly gone, then moved into the clearing. Dorian had done a good job. It was obvious that someone had been there--the flattened grass couldn't be avoided--but anything more would be beyond all but the most experienced tracker.
He took a circuitous route back to the castle and went in the back door. That explained why he didn't know until it was too late.
"Klaus."
Klaus snapped straight, hands at his sides. "Sir."
"Relax," his father admonished.
Klaus let himself relax a fraction.
"I heard you were home," his father said.
"Yes, sir." Klaus tapped out a cigarette.
"You can't smoke in the house," he was informed.
He paused in the process of finding a match. "What?"
"No smoking inside."
"It's my house," Klaus protested.
His father drew himself up and looked down on Klaus. "I'm still the head of this family. There is to be no smoking in the house. Cigarette smoke is bad for children."
Klaus thought of the smoke-filled rooms of his own childhood and shoved the cigarette back into the pack.
"Grandpa!" Heinrich hurtled down the hallway toward them.
Klaus' father broke out into a smile. "Henry!" He scooped up his grandson and kissed his cheek, receiving a sloppy kiss in return.
"Henry?" Klaus asked.
His father took one look at his face and put Heinrich down. "Go upstairs and tell Dorian I'm here."
"Henry?" Klaus asked again when Heinrich was out of earshot.
"Dorian's decision. Heinrich is too large a name for such a small child."
"And you approve of his involvement in Heinrich's life?"
His father nodded. "Yes. He is a good father, Klaus."
The implication in that stung. "He's a homosexual," Klaus informed his father.
"Yes, I know." His father reached out and put a hand on Klaus' shoulder. "Times have changed, Klaus. Henry loves him, and he is what's best for Henry."
"A homosexual thief is what's best for my son?" Klaus growled out disbelievingly.
"A loving father who's always around is what's best for my grandson," his father snapped.
Klaus' mouth twisted bitterly. "So now I'm a bad father as well as a bad son." He turned on his heel and tromped past his father to his study. He slammed the door behind himself and was gratified to hear something crash to the ground. A precious family heirloom, no doubt, and something both his father and Eroica could yell at him about. He locked the door. It wouldn't really do any good to keep either one of them out, but it made him feel better.
He was on his third cigarette when he heard the soft click of the lock opening. He listened for footsteps to figure out who it was, but there was only silence, then the sound of the door being relocked.
The window was opened, and that told him it wasn't his father at least.
"Henry's not allowed in here," Dorian's voice told him. "But there's no reason to further antagonize your father."
Klaus snorted. "My father. My father doesn't know what's best for children." He turned and pierced Dorian with a look. "It was your idea."
Dorian took the other chair in front of the fire. "Yes."
"You smoke," Klaus pointed out.
"I quit."
"For Heinrich?"
"Yes."
Klaus shook his head. "Idiot."
"That's what parents do, Major. Make sacrifices for their children."
"Yours didn't."
Dorian nodded. "Yours didn't either." He spread his hands. "Henry deserves better."
"So he doesn't grow up like me," Klaus said bitterly.
"Major," Dorian sighed, "that's not how I meant it."
Klaus dropped the butt of his cigarette into the ashtray and lit another one.
"You're not yelling," Dorian said. "I've been here since just after his christening. We were careful not to let you know. I thought you'd yell when you found out."
Klaus shrugged and exhaled a mouthful of smoke. "Not much point. My father's still in charge, and he wants you raising his grandson."
Dorian shot him a worried look that he pretended not to see.
A discreet knock at the door heralded the arrival of Karl with a drink tray. Dorian thanked him and poured the scotch into glasses. Klaus accepted his without looking up.
"Are you going to yell at me when he's gone?"
A smirk tugged at the edge of Klaus' mouth. "Idiot."
Dorian grinned unrepentantly. "I'm glad you're back," he ventured. When Klaus didn't respond, he set his glass on the tray. "Dinner's at 6:30."
Klaus nodded his acknowledgment and listened to the door open and close, and to the lock click shut again.
He did his best to keep his mouth shut at dinner. His father and Dorian took turns at taking care of Heinrich. They kept up an easy conversation, one that let Klaus keep his silence. He retreated back to his study after dinner, and went upstairs in time to be asleep at midnight.
He spent the next few days straightening out all the estate business he'd missed over the past year and surreptitiously watching Dorian and his father interact with his son. If he'd ever allowed himself to think about it, he might have guessed that Dorian would be good with children. Never, in a million years, would he have thought the same of his father.
Dorian came to his study again on Saturday morning, a triumphant smirk on his face. "Here." He dropped a file onto Klaus' desk.
Klaus looked at the folder and looked at Dorian. "What is it?"
"Your file." Dorian opened the window and shot him a reproachful look.
Klaus opened the folder. The first page was a standard identifying sheet, his name carefully typed across the top. "Where'd you get it?"
"NATO headquarters."
"You broke in."
Dorian flashed him a grin. "Of course." He came back to stand in front of Klaus' desk. "It's not the first time." He shrugged. "It's safe enough, and it keeps me in practice. I usually leave a card."
"I hope you didn't leave one this time," Klaus said absently, scanning the first few pages.
"Of course not. That's just a copy, and they don't need to know it's been made."
Klaus turned past the flat statements of his work history and began to read the reports, both official and unofficial, that various supervisors had filed. He only dimly heard the lock click as Dorian left him alone again.
Karl brought him lunch, and then dinner. Later, he knew when he glanced at his watch, than the rest of the household had gathered to eat. It was after eleven when he turned the last page of his file, the sheet placing him on leave.
He smoked a last cigarette and went up to bed. He dreamed of D.C.
He slammed down his coffee in the morning and disappeared into the woods before his father could require his presence at mass. He went back for lunch and faced his father's anger.
"The Eberbachs have gone to mass in town every Sunday they've been in residence since the church was built." Klaus had heard the lecture before. It hadn't changed in thirty years. "You should have been there."
Klaus ate his lunch calmly, ignoring both the lecture and the looks Dorian shot him. He unerringly caught the roll Heinrich managed to send flying down the table and passed it back by way of Dorian.
"Did you even go to church wherever it was you were for the last year?"
"I was undercover," Klaus said shortly. He caught the roll a second time. "Henry," he snapped, grateful for the distraction.
Dorian took the roll from him and held it out to Henry. "You can have it back if you're going to eat it. Do not throw it," he warned.
Henry looked at the roll thoughtfully and took it from Dorian. He looked at Klaus, gauging his options, and wisely bit into it.
The silence of the rest of the meal was broken only by Henry's occasional chatter.
On Monday, Klaus escaped to Bonn where he was thrown out of his office a bare three minutes after arriving. His best attempts at yelling didn't even begin to work.
On the following Tuesday, he came home from a long afternoon walk to find a tea tray on the coffee table.
"My sources say you should be over the worst of the withdrawal symptoms," Dorian said. He gestured at the tray. "There's Nescafé."
Klaus poured his coffee and sat across from Dorian. "You knew."
Dorian shrugged. "You're not the only one with sources."
Klaus glared at Dorian. "Stay out of my life."
Dorian delicately sipped his tea. "Too late." He watched Klaus closely. "I'm raising your son." He put his cup on the table and leaned forward. "You're not bothered by that. You don't care that I live at Eberbach. What's wrong?"
Klaus scowled. "Nothing is wrong."
Dorian shook his head. "Not true." He paused, considering Klaus. "What happened in D.C.?"
"You read my file."
Dorian nodded. "Yes, and I know you leave things out of your reports." He paused. "What happened in D.C.?"
"You're not my wife," Klaus snapped.
"No, your wife is dead," Dorian snapped back.
They stared at each other for a long moment.
"Yes, she is," Klaus said softly. "And you warned me. I didn't listen to you. I didn't listen to Jason either.
"It was so easy to become a priest. I just walked in, and they believed everything I said. The Church shouldn't be that easy to infiltrate."
"You're an atheist," Dorian reminded him.
"I'm a Catholic." Klaus picked up his coffee again. "It was so easy. There was this boy, Jason. He came to confession and told me that God was punishing him for his sins." Klaus put down the coffee untasted. "He didn't tell me what his sins were, just that he was being punished."
Klaus paced to the window and back, listening to the clink of china as Dorian lifted his cup and put it back. "He was at the church a lot. I'm a trained intelligence agent." Klaus sat back down. "I don't know a lot about children, but I know how to observe.
"He'd been--" Klaus stopped.
"He'd been what?" Dorian prompted.
"Violated," Klaus whispered. "Abused." He gulped down half his coffee. "He was fifteen. Fifteen!
"He was always at the church. He was an altar boy. He ran errands for the priests. He helped with anything we asked him to do." Klaus' hands shook when he picked up his coffee cup.
"It was Father Monk." Klaus laughed bitterly. "What a name. Father Monk. Jason was scared of him." He poured himself a second cup of coffee. "I went to the Bishop. I told him what Father Monk was doing. He told me he was sure I was imagining things, but that he would look into it.
"I wasn't imagining it," he said fiercely as if Dorian might think otherwise. "I broke into his office and pulled Monk's records." He shot a look at Dorian, who still watched him calmly. "He'd done it before. In other dioceses. They just moved him around." Klaus gripped his cup so tightly his knuckles turned white. "They were protecting him."
Dorian reached across and took Klaus' cup from him. He set it on the tray while Klaus continued talking.
"I went to my superior in Washington. I told him what was happening and what the church was doing. He told me to leave it alone. It was 'an internal church matter over which we have no jurisdiction.' I said I would go to the police. He told me not to do that. He said it would scare off our target.
"There wasn't anything I could do." Klaus retrieved his coffee cup from the table.
"I was the first one in the church one morning. I found Jason hanging from the rafters. He killed himself. Despair is a sin against hope. He couldn't be buried in consecrated ground. He couldn't have a funeral mass.
"I went to his grave and said a prayer anyway." Klaus fell silent and glanced out the window at the red tendrils of sunset reaching out across the city.
"Oh, Klaus," Dorian said. In those two words, Klaus could hear all the anguish and sorrow he didn't know how to express. After a few long minutes, Dorian got up and took the tray into the kitchen, leaving Klaus to listen to him wash the dishes.
"Come home with me," Dorian said when he came back into the living room. "Your father is going back to Switzerland on Thursday and I won't try to make you go to mass."
Klaus shook his head. "There's nothing for me to do there."
"Anything you can do here you can do there." Dorian's customary sureness dropped from his face. "Please, come home. Henry needs you."
Klaus shook his head again. "Henry has you and Karl and his nurse. And my father."
"He needs you," Dorian insisted. "I'm doing the best I can, but you're his father. There are things he needs from you."
"Like what?" Klaus asked disbelievingly.
"I can teach him hand to hand and how to use a knife, but you'll have to teach him how to shoot. I can teach him how to be an aristo, but not how to be an Eberbach." Dorian sat across from Klaus. "Please. Come home. You can't do anything here that you can't do there."
"He's only four."
"He still needs his father."
"He's got you."
"And he needs you," Dorian insisted. He watched Klaus for a moment. "You need to do something else for a while. Come home and be a father."
Klaus stared out the window and tried to find another objection to what Dorian was saying.
"You can't go back to work until your Chief approves."
Klaus' shoulders slumped.
"It won't be that bad," Dorian soothed. "Henry's a person. You just have to get to know him." He got up. "Pack your stuff. I'll clean up the kitchen."
Klaus listened to the sounds of Dorian putting away dishes and emptying the refrigerator as he packed his bags.
They took separate cars back to the castle. Even with the time to think, Klaus still couldn't come up with a reasonable objection to Dorian's plan.
"Dorian!"
"Henry!" Dorian scooped Henry up and smacked a kiss onto his cheek. "Look who's come home to stay with us."
Henry eyed Klaus suspiciously and turned his head into Dorian's shoulder.
Dorian chuckled and turned Henry to face Klaus. "Henry, meet your dad. Klaus, this is Henry."
"My dad," Henry said uncertainly.
"Yes," Dorian said. "Your dad." He set Henry down. "Let's help him carry his bags up to his room."
Klaus hung his coat up in the hall closet while Henry took his briefcase and Dorian took one of his other bags. Dorian chatted all the way up the stairs, telling Henry that "Dad's going to be home for a while. He's going to play with you too." It took a close hug and a flood of words for Dorian to convince Henry that he would still be there too.
Dorian seemed to know when the chatter was too much for Klaus. "Dinner's at six-thirty," he reminded Klaus, and took Henry out with him.
"Well. You came back," Klaus' father said to him when he came down to dinner.
"Yes."
"Klaus is going to be staying at home for a while," Dorian informed him. "It'll be good for Henry to have both of us around, especially since you're going back to Switzerland this week." He immediately turned to coax Henry to eat his carrots.
Klaus turned his smirk into a blank look when his father turned to look suspiciously at him. He wasn't quite ready to admit it to himself, but it was nice to have someone on his side when it came to his father.
"Daddy!" Henry greeted him when he returned from taking his father to the airport.
Klaus' startlement must have shown, because Henry's exclamation was followed by Dorian's low chuckle. "Just pick him up," he encouraged. "He won't hurt you."
Klaus gingerly lifted Henry off the ground. Henry wrapped his arms around Klaus' neck and planted a kiss on Klaus' cheek.
"We made pictures," Henry told him. "Come upstairs and see."
Dorian made an encouraging motion and followed them up the stairs. Klaus hadn't been in the nursery more than four or five times before. It had changed since the last time. The walls held a curious mix of fine art, Henry's drawings, and commercial children's icons. The bed had cotton sheets with a sensible pattern of boats and trains. There was a single soft, stuffed toy on the bed, and an open box full of toys below the window. The bookshelf was full.
Henry tugged at Klaus until he let him down, and then took his hand to drag him over to the small table in the middle of the room. "Look." He tugged Klaus down and pointed to the figures on the page. "That's me," a short figure in the middle. "And you," a taller figure to one side of him, frowning. "And Dorian," the taller figure on the other side, with large scribbles of yellow for hair and a wide smile on its face.
Klaus pulled out one of the chairs to sit so he would be more comfortable. He pointed to a smaller figure in the background. "And who's that?"
"Grandpa. See, look, he's in Swizzerland."
"Switzerland," Klaus corrected.
Henry just gave him a look. "Grandpa's in Swizzerland and we're here." He looked up at Klaus. "Dorian says we're going to play together."
Klaus looked up at Dorian, who was lounging in the doorway, watching them. "Yes," he ground out. "We're going to play together."
Henry scowled at him and went to Dorian. "I want you to play with me."
Dorian crouched down to Henry's level. "I'll play with you. But Daddy," he shot a look at Klaus at that, "is going to play with us too." He leaned in and said in a stage whisper, "Daddy doesn't know how to play. We'll have to teach him."
Henry turned to consider Klaus. "How come?"
Dorian laughed gently and caught Henry in a hug. "Because he didn't have someone like me when he was growing up. And now," he tapped Henry's nose, "we get to teach him how to play."
Henry looked at Klaus again. "Okay." He got Dorian to put him down and went back to Klaus. "You can play with us," he said very seriously.
Klaus regarded him solemnly. "Thank you, Henry."
Dorian clapped his hands. "Dinner's almost ready. Time to wash up."
Henry took Klaus' hand. "We have to wash up." He led Klaus to the bathroom and demonstrated the proper way to wash up before dinner. When their hands were clean, Henry again took Klaus' hand to go downstairs to a dinner that was filled with Henry's plans for the next day.
When Karl took the last of the dishes off the table, Dorian picked Henry up out of his chair. "Bath time."
Henry wrapped his arms around Dorian's neck. "Can I play with the duck?"
Dorian grinned. "Yes, you can." He raised an eyebrow at Klaus. "Do you want to help?"
Klaus nodded grimly. "Yes. I should know how to take care of my own child."
Henry looked slyly at Dorian before asking Klaus, "Can I have bubbles?"
Klaus looked helplessly at Dorian, who stubbornly didn't help him. "You'll have to ask Dorian," he finally decided.
Henry turned his face up to Dorian. "Can I?"
"Not tonight, sweetie." Dorian headed for the stairs to head off Henry's protest. "Maybe tomorrow night. But Daddy doesn't know how to play, so we need to ease him into this."
Klaus scowled at Dorian and followed him up the stairs. He preferred not to think on the failure that was his first attempt to give a four-year-old a bath. He came out rather wet, and Dorian was hard-pressed not to laugh at him. Even Klaus' scowl didn't seem to dampen his spirits.
Future Bits
Klaus knocked and waited for Dorian to invite him in before he opened the door.
"Quite respectable, don't you think?" Dorian asked without turning from the mirror.
Klaus made a noncommittal noise and put a jewelry box down on the bureau under the mirror. He opened the box and let Dorian look down at it while he unhooked the clasp on Dorian's diamond necklace. He dropped the necklace onto the bureau and replaced it with the sapphire one from the jewelry box. He gave the same consideration to Dorian's earrings, and then picked up each of Dorian's wrists in turn to fasten the matching cuff links. As a final touch, he pulled the tie out of Dorian's hair and let it fall loose.
"They're lovely," Dorian said.
"They were my mother's. My father gave them to her. I had the cuff links made to match."
Dorian twisted his wrists to look at them. "And to match yours."
"Yes."
Dorian looked up and met Klaus' eyes in the mirror. "Thank you."
Klaus broke the contact first. "It's time to go, or we'll be late."
"Of course. Give me a few minutes to brush my hair out. It needs something different if I'm going to wear it down."
Klaus nodded sharply and went to wait in the entryway with his father and Henry.
***
Klaus goes to his mother's grave on the anniversary of her death, and Dorian and Henry show up while he's there. This is sometime after Klaus and Dorian are sleeping together.
"We're making a better life for the next generation."
"You are," Klaus said. "You're making a better life for him. I'm just like my father."
"We." Dorian put his hands on either side of Klaus' face. "You're not your father, my love."
"You say that word so easily."
Dorian called Henry over to them and waited for Klaus to pick him up. Klaus held him and looked at him silently for a long moment.
"I love you, Henry."
Henry looked back at him solemnly. "I love you too, Daddy."
Bit that I wasn't sure fit with this story but mentioned Henry in anyway
"I want to see him!"
Klaus woke up to Dorian's shouting.
"I'm sorry, Lord Gloria, but you can't go in there," Z answered in the tone of a man who was repeating himself.
"I am his husband and you will let me see him!" Klaus recognized the tone as the one Dorian used when he pretended to be Klaus.
There was a shifting as the Alphabets no doubt exchanged tolerant glances.
"Lord Gloria," Z started.
Klaus was gearing himself up to yell when Dorian interrupted.
"Agent Z," he said such a controlled voice that even Klaus would have obeyed him, "you are Klaus's best agent. He loves you like a son, possibly even more than he loves his actual son. But if you do not step away from that door and let me in, I will personally make sure he sends you to Alaska for the rest of your life."
There was complete silence for a moment, and then the door opened, and Dorian came through it, the anger on his face melting into fear and then concern.
"Henry?" Klaus asked.
"Safe. At home." Dorian almost snapped it, as if he had to cut off his words.
Klaus relaxed. "Good. That's good." He opened the fingers of the hand on his uninjured side.
Dorian took that for the invitation it was; he sat on the edge of Klaus's bed and took his hand.
"It nicked the bone," Klaus told him without being asked. "They did surgery." He could see how strongly this was affecting Dorian. "I've been shot before," he said, knowing it was weak comfort. "I'll be fine."
"Klaus," Dorian said, and he sounded almost devastated.
"Dorian." Klaus gripped the other man's hand as tightly as he dared. "I'm going to be fine." He watched Dorian's face, let Dorian drink in the sight of him. "Come," he said at length. "There's room."
"Your Alphabets," Dorian protested, and Klaus growled.
"I'll deal with those idiots," he promised. "They won't keep you out again."
"Darling," Dorian drawled, "I hope for us never to be in this place again." He relented, though and carefully got onto the bed with Klaus. Only when he was settled in, head resting on Klaus's uninjured shoulder, did they both relax.
Notes to Self at the top of the file about the story
Work Klaus' Catholicism more into it. Make the story hinge on his crisis of faith. If the Church is so fucked up, maybe everything else he's been told by his father and his priest is wrong. But how do you resolve it? Does he lose his faith altogether? Does he find some way to reconcile his experience with being a Catholic? Is Klaus even all that Catholic? What makes a Catholic? It's not going to mass, but he does that. He is fighting for what he believes is right, but is that really a Catholic value outside of Latin America? Can it be reconciled with old-school German Catholicism? What does the town priest think? He doesn't mind that Klaus sleeps in church. Check the structure of the church, especially in DC.
K gets used to situation, goes back to work. H gets kidnapped, D goes in after him, K gets them out, but mad at D. K and D on a mission, find out Eberbach rigged to explode, send H, Karl, K's dad, nurse to flat. Get back, D panics, K draws lines--K, D, H in one room--get bad guys, return home. D can't sleep, K takes him to bed (sleep, no sex). K sends D to shrink, takes care of H, day off to freak out Alphabets. K teaches D to shoot, K and D on a mission, save the day, turns K on, sex.
Main Story
"She's going to die," Dorian said flatly.
This was a different Dorian from the one who'd shown up in his office less than a week ago demanding to know if it was true that he was getting married.
"I am getting married," he'd snapped. "You should be happy. I'll be safe at my desk until I produce an heir."
"Who's going to die?" he asked now.
"That girl you're going to marry. She'll die in childbirth."
Klaus was silent.
"You know she will." Dorian watched him for some reaction. "You're going to kill her. You're going to kill her," he said again, his anger growing. "And you're going to make your son as miserable as your father's made you."
Klaus lit a cigarette and slowly drew the smoke into his lungs. "I'm not planning to kill her."
Dorian waved his hand. "You will anyway. All so you can have an heir and placate your father."
Klaus chewed on his cigarette. "I will not kill her," he growled.
"Of course you will," Dorian insisted. "Have you looked at her? She'll never survive childbirth."
"You don't know that," Klaus said calmly.
"I do. She'll die and you will have killed her." Dorian scowled. "You're supposed to protect innocents, not kill them."
Klaus stood, and Dorian could feel the violence lurking just behind the surface. "Get out of my office," Klaus said coldly. "Stay away from me, and stay away from my wife."
"She's not your wife," Dorian shot back. "And you're the one who should stay away from her." He stormed out of Klaus' office before he could be thrown out. The Alphabets jumped when he slammed the door behind himself.
Dorian was wrong. He would not kill her, and his son would not grow up to be a younger version of himself. It was not that he was unhappy with his life, merely that he would not choose it for someone else. And he was not doing this only to placate his father, either. She was a good, nice girl. She would make a good wife, a good mother. He would not resent her. He would not blame her for his nine months or more of desk duty.
The wedding was everything his father could want, and Klaus resolutely reminded himself of his vow not to resent Hanna or the things her presence necessitated. If he did not exactly smile for the pictures, neither did he scowl. He made himself look as happy as he knew how. It was not the poor girl's fault he was the way he was, and he would not ruin this day for her.
He did his duty as a husband, and on the day when Hanna came to the study and shyly informed him that she was pregnant, he kissed her and told her he was happy.
Despite the ultrasound, which showed clearly that the child was a boy, the Chief refused to allow Klaus to return to active duty until after his son was born. Klaus consequently found himself spending more time than he would have liked at home.
He did his best. He ordered the servants to do everything in their power to make Hanna comfortable. He procured every food item she craved. He rubbed her back and told her he loved her when her mouth was drawn tight and her eyes tired.
He went out into the woods and set up a target to shoot at instead of yelling at her as he wished to do.
He would not resent her, he reminded himself. The child would be born in a few short months, and then he would have an heir and could return to field duty.
His butler tendered his resignation, secure in the knowledge that there would be a child to carry on the Eberbach name. Klaus and Hanna interviewed candidates for the job until she tired, and then he interviewed them alone. He chose a man named Karl who was less severe but no less competent than his butler.
Karl insisted on a full cleaning of the house, and Klaus authorized the expense of hiring extra help. When the cleaning was done, Klaus noticed that some of the maids had been replaced, but he trusted Karl's judgment and made no comment.
The household duties grated on him. When he tried staying later at work, he was told in no uncertain terms to go home and tend to "that pretty, young wife of yours." He went to the NATO shooting range and received the same message. Defeated, he went home on time every night and made polite conversation with Hanna until he could escape to his study. Hanna was already asleep when he retired to their bed at midnight.
Hanna went into labor at 2:40 on a Tuesday. Klaus would have stayed at work, but the Chief got the news first and "suggested" he join his wife.
Hanna did not want him in the delivery room, and he did not want to be there. He paced the waiting room chain smoking.
Eventually, a grave faced doctor came out to see him.
"Your son is perfectly healthy," the doctor told him. He tried to urge Klaus into a chair, but Klaus refused and demanded to be told whatever it was the man didn't want to say.
"I'm sorry, Major, but your wife suffered severe complications from the birth. Her body could not absorb the shock to her system. She did not survive."
Klaus brought his cigarette to his lips with nerveless fingers. Dorian had been right.
"If you'll put out your cigarette and come with me, you may see your son," the man offered.
Klaus ground out the cigarette in the ashtray he'd bullied out of the nurses and followed the man back through the doors. A nurse put a small bundle into his arms, and he looked dispassionately down on his son.
"We would like to keep him here overnight," the doctor advised. "You may stay with him if you like."
Klaus handed the child back to the nurse. "I will make arrangements and return in the morning."
There was a funeral, of course, and Klaus dressed calmly in a black suit and held his sleeping son as the priest solemnly intoned the funeral liturgy. There was a christening, too, with appropriately chosen kin appointed as godparents. The boy was christened Heinrich, a good, old family name.
Karl hired a nanny, and Klaus rented a flat in the city, close enough to walk to work. The walk was a welcome addition to his exercise regimen. The chief restored him to active duty as soon as Heinrich had been christened and formally declared Klaus' heir, and he took his Alphabets and chased terrorists all over Kirgizistan.
Eroica, for once, did not appear to wreak his usual havoc.
His life settled back into something resembling his usual routine when he got back from Kirgizistan. He stayed in the city and walked to work. He took his Alphabets out on missions. When Karl and his father insisted, he went back to the castle for the occasional holiday meal. He would do his duty and see Heinrich for a few moments before sending him back to the nursery.
Eroica was conspicuously absent from his life, and it made him nervous. He hadn't realized how often he expected to see Eroica appear to steal whatever he needed. He told himself sternly that he should be relieved not to see the man.
Then, suddenly, there was a series of missions. Neo-Nazis in Germany. Terrorists in Saudi Arabia. Information retrieval in Siberia. A rescue mission in Afghanistan. Cleanup of a botched CIA mission in Zimbabwe. An undercover investigation in Washington, D.C.
He spent no more than one night in his flat for four years. He called Karl when he could, and Karl or the nurse reported that Heinrich was doing well. He spoke to his father only once.
By the end of the D.C. op, he hadn't spoken as himself to anyone but his contact in nearly a year.
"Go home," his D.C. superior told him when he would have stayed for the aftermath. "It's done. We'll take care of the rest." The man nearly made the mistake of patting Klaus' shoulder, but thought better of it. "Go home."
Klaus felt nearly numb as he got on a plane. He'd done undercover work before, but never for so long, and never so awful. He relaxed as much as he would let himself on the plane home and thought of how grateful he was that Eroica hadn't interfered in this particular mission.
He hadn't told anyone he was coming back, but there was a party at the gate to meet him anyway.
"Major," G squealed. "You're back."
Klaus scowled at him as a matter of course. "Yellow is not your color."
Z's soft, "Major," was more respectful and paired with a firm handshake. "Welcome back."
"Mr. Z." Klaus ignored the third member of the greeting party and spoke only to his agents. "No one knew I was coming."
Z allowed himself a quick smile. "We've been well trained." He cut his eyes meaningfully at the Chief. "We've been waiting for you to come back."
"Replacement must be an idiot," Klaus growled, correctly interpreting Z's look.
"No, no," the Chief assured him. "I wouldn't trust an idiot to do your job."
Klaus snorted. "You won't have to. I'll be doing my job from now on."
The Chief shook his head. "No, no, Major. You've been working too hard. You need a vacation."
Klaus' spine snapped straight. "I do not need a vacation."
The Chief laughed. "Of course you do, Major. You've been working non-stop for years. I'm ordering you to take a vacation. Go home," he said more kindly. "See your son."
Klaus pressed his lips together. "Yes, sir."
The Chief beamed. "Good, good. Take two weeks."
"Yes, sir." Klaus growled.
"Good, good. Enjoy your vacation, Major."
Klaus, disgusted, watched the Chief walk away. "How bad is it?" he asked Z, striding off toward the baggage claim area.
"He's not completely incompetent," Z said, following. "But he's let three suspects get away, and his paperwork is never done."
Klaus scowled. "And I'm stuck on vacation for two weeks."
"Don't worry, sir," Z assured him. "We'll make sure the paperwork is all done by the time you get back."
Klaus grabbed his bags off the conveyor belt. "Make sure it gets filed properly."
"Of course."
G and Z each took a bag and walked Klaus out to their car.
"We'll take you home, sir."
Klaus dropped his remaining bag in the trunk and climbed into the car. "Take me to the flat. I'll take my own car out to the estate."
"We've taken care of it. You have a full tank of gas, and it's been driven enough to keep it in good condition." Z glanced at Klaus for his reaction before going on. "Your flat has been aired and cleaned."
Klaus stared out at the city passing by. "Who else knows I'm here?"
"Just the Alphabets," Z assured him. "The Chief enjoys knowing where you are without letting anyone else know, and we won't tell."
At the flat, G and Z helped Klaus transfer his bags to his own car.
"We're glad to have you back, sir," Z said before Klaus could leave.
Klaus relaxed a fraction. "It's good to be back." He reached out and shook Z's hand. "You're a good agent, Mr. Z." He glanced at G and nearly smiled. "You're getting better," he said.
G flushed, and Z barely stopped his jaw from dropping. They thanked him and let him get into his own car and on his way home.
It was clear, as soon as Klaus opened the door to the castle, that his agents had been telling the truth. There were blocks of some sort in the entryway, and flowers, an expense he only rarely authorized, on the hall table. He could hear a child's delighted laughter answered by someone else's low tones.
A child, a small boy with his own dark hair and Hanna's lighter green eyes came running through the entryway and stopped when he saw him. He and Klaus stared at each other for a long moment before another figure followed him in. Klaus dragged his eyes up, over a skintight pair of jeans hugging slim hips topped by a simple white shirt to an all too familiar face framed by the same riotous curls he remembered. It had been nearly five years; Klaus could see the beginnings of wrinkles and laugh lines on Dorian's face.
Dorian blanched. "Major."
Heinrich ducked behind Dorian and peered out at Klaus from around one leg.
"This isn't exactly how we meant to tell you."
"Tell me what, exactly?" Klaus ground out.
Dorian turned and knelt down to match Heinrich's height. "Go upstairs to the playroom. Your father and I have to talk for a while." Dorian smiled to ease Heinrich's nervousness. "I'll come and play with you after we talk."
Heinrich reached up and planted a sloppy kiss on Dorian's cheek. "Okay." Klaus and Dorian watched him clamber up the stairs.
"What are you doing in my house?" Klaus asked when Heinrich was out of earshot.
Dorian let his smile drop. "Perhaps we should sit down, Major."
"I don't want to sit down," Klaus growled. "I want to know what you are doing with my son in my house."
"Lord Gloria is a permanent member of the household," Karl said calmly from behind him.
"What are you talking about?"
If Karl recognized Klaus' leashed anger for what it was, he didn't let it show. "Lord Gloria has been of invaluable assistance."
"Assistance with what?" Klaus shouted.
"With raising your son," Dorian said calmly.
"You were supposed to hire a nurse," Klaus accused Karl.
"He did," Dorian said. "She's still here."
"Then what are you doing here?" Klaus' voice dropped into a low, menacing growl.
"I told you once," Dorian said softly, "that you would make your son as miserable as your father has made you. I am here to make sure that does not happen."
"My father," Klaus said. That was one thing that hadn't occurred to him yet. "Does my father know you're here?"
"He is a frequent guest," Karl informed him.
Klaus stared at him, then transferred his gaze back to Dorian. "I'll have dinner in my study at six," he told Karl. "Other than that, I am not to be disturbed until further notice." He picked up his bags and stalked past Dorian.
Dorian's ironic, "That went well," followed him up the stairs.
Safe in his bedroom, Klaus unpacked his bags, separating out the clothes that could be put away from those that needed to be washed and those that needed only to be ironed. Once his suitcases had been put away, there was nothing more to keep him in his room. He tromped down to his study, watching more than one maid scurry out of his way, and applied himself to the correspondence that only he could answer. His dinner was served precisely on time by a maid he'd never seen before. She returned later to retrieve his tray, and he was left alone for the remainder of the evening.
He retired at his usual midnight hour. He allowed himself the luxury of sleeping in the next morning, and cursed himself for his weakness when he woke to a clock telling him it was noon.
He snuck down the stairs and made coffee in his study. That and a cigarette were enough for breakfast. He managed to escape the house without being noticed. He strode out into the woods and worked his way deeper in. It would be a good exercise to get lost and find his way back out.
Heinrich's laughter stopped him in his tracks. He followed the sound to a small clearing, one he remembered from previous excursions into the woods. His child, laughing and trying to help Dorian spread a blanket out on the forest floor. He was more of a hindrance than a help, but Dorian didn't seem to mind. Klaus would have yelled.
"There we go." His voice floated to where Klaus stood, unseen. He sat down and gestured Heinrich over to him. "Now, let's see what Karl packed for lunch."
They had lunch and they played. Heinrich took a nap, and Dorian sat with him and watched the forest around him. Klaus leaned against a tree and watched them. He even forgot to smoke.
When Heinrich woke from his nap, Dorian let him help fold up the blanket and they went back toward the castle hand-in-hand.
Klaus waited until they were well and truly gone, then moved into the clearing. Dorian had done a good job. It was obvious that someone had been there--the flattened grass couldn't be avoided--but anything more would be beyond all but the most experienced tracker.
He took a circuitous route back to the castle and went in the back door. That explained why he didn't know until it was too late.
"Klaus."
Klaus snapped straight, hands at his sides. "Sir."
"Relax," his father admonished.
Klaus let himself relax a fraction.
"I heard you were home," his father said.
"Yes, sir." Klaus tapped out a cigarette.
"You can't smoke in the house," he was informed.
He paused in the process of finding a match. "What?"
"No smoking inside."
"It's my house," Klaus protested.
His father drew himself up and looked down on Klaus. "I'm still the head of this family. There is to be no smoking in the house. Cigarette smoke is bad for children."
Klaus thought of the smoke-filled rooms of his own childhood and shoved the cigarette back into the pack.
"Grandpa!" Heinrich hurtled down the hallway toward them.
Klaus' father broke out into a smile. "Henry!" He scooped up his grandson and kissed his cheek, receiving a sloppy kiss in return.
"Henry?" Klaus asked.
His father took one look at his face and put Heinrich down. "Go upstairs and tell Dorian I'm here."
"Henry?" Klaus asked again when Heinrich was out of earshot.
"Dorian's decision. Heinrich is too large a name for such a small child."
"And you approve of his involvement in Heinrich's life?"
His father nodded. "Yes. He is a good father, Klaus."
The implication in that stung. "He's a homosexual," Klaus informed his father.
"Yes, I know." His father reached out and put a hand on Klaus' shoulder. "Times have changed, Klaus. Henry loves him, and he is what's best for Henry."
"A homosexual thief is what's best for my son?" Klaus growled out disbelievingly.
"A loving father who's always around is what's best for my grandson," his father snapped.
Klaus' mouth twisted bitterly. "So now I'm a bad father as well as a bad son." He turned on his heel and tromped past his father to his study. He slammed the door behind himself and was gratified to hear something crash to the ground. A precious family heirloom, no doubt, and something both his father and Eroica could yell at him about. He locked the door. It wouldn't really do any good to keep either one of them out, but it made him feel better.
He was on his third cigarette when he heard the soft click of the lock opening. He listened for footsteps to figure out who it was, but there was only silence, then the sound of the door being relocked.
The window was opened, and that told him it wasn't his father at least.
"Henry's not allowed in here," Dorian's voice told him. "But there's no reason to further antagonize your father."
Klaus snorted. "My father. My father doesn't know what's best for children." He turned and pierced Dorian with a look. "It was your idea."
Dorian took the other chair in front of the fire. "Yes."
"You smoke," Klaus pointed out.
"I quit."
"For Heinrich?"
"Yes."
Klaus shook his head. "Idiot."
"That's what parents do, Major. Make sacrifices for their children."
"Yours didn't."
Dorian nodded. "Yours didn't either." He spread his hands. "Henry deserves better."
"So he doesn't grow up like me," Klaus said bitterly.
"Major," Dorian sighed, "that's not how I meant it."
Klaus dropped the butt of his cigarette into the ashtray and lit another one.
"You're not yelling," Dorian said. "I've been here since just after his christening. We were careful not to let you know. I thought you'd yell when you found out."
Klaus shrugged and exhaled a mouthful of smoke. "Not much point. My father's still in charge, and he wants you raising his grandson."
Dorian shot him a worried look that he pretended not to see.
A discreet knock at the door heralded the arrival of Karl with a drink tray. Dorian thanked him and poured the scotch into glasses. Klaus accepted his without looking up.
"Are you going to yell at me when he's gone?"
A smirk tugged at the edge of Klaus' mouth. "Idiot."
Dorian grinned unrepentantly. "I'm glad you're back," he ventured. When Klaus didn't respond, he set his glass on the tray. "Dinner's at 6:30."
Klaus nodded his acknowledgment and listened to the door open and close, and to the lock click shut again.
He did his best to keep his mouth shut at dinner. His father and Dorian took turns at taking care of Heinrich. They kept up an easy conversation, one that let Klaus keep his silence. He retreated back to his study after dinner, and went upstairs in time to be asleep at midnight.
He spent the next few days straightening out all the estate business he'd missed over the past year and surreptitiously watching Dorian and his father interact with his son. If he'd ever allowed himself to think about it, he might have guessed that Dorian would be good with children. Never, in a million years, would he have thought the same of his father.
Dorian came to his study again on Saturday morning, a triumphant smirk on his face. "Here." He dropped a file onto Klaus' desk.
Klaus looked at the folder and looked at Dorian. "What is it?"
"Your file." Dorian opened the window and shot him a reproachful look.
Klaus opened the folder. The first page was a standard identifying sheet, his name carefully typed across the top. "Where'd you get it?"
"NATO headquarters."
"You broke in."
Dorian flashed him a grin. "Of course." He came back to stand in front of Klaus' desk. "It's not the first time." He shrugged. "It's safe enough, and it keeps me in practice. I usually leave a card."
"I hope you didn't leave one this time," Klaus said absently, scanning the first few pages.
"Of course not. That's just a copy, and they don't need to know it's been made."
Klaus turned past the flat statements of his work history and began to read the reports, both official and unofficial, that various supervisors had filed. He only dimly heard the lock click as Dorian left him alone again.
Karl brought him lunch, and then dinner. Later, he knew when he glanced at his watch, than the rest of the household had gathered to eat. It was after eleven when he turned the last page of his file, the sheet placing him on leave.
He smoked a last cigarette and went up to bed. He dreamed of D.C.
He slammed down his coffee in the morning and disappeared into the woods before his father could require his presence at mass. He went back for lunch and faced his father's anger.
"The Eberbachs have gone to mass in town every Sunday they've been in residence since the church was built." Klaus had heard the lecture before. It hadn't changed in thirty years. "You should have been there."
Klaus ate his lunch calmly, ignoring both the lecture and the looks Dorian shot him. He unerringly caught the roll Heinrich managed to send flying down the table and passed it back by way of Dorian.
"Did you even go to church wherever it was you were for the last year?"
"I was undercover," Klaus said shortly. He caught the roll a second time. "Henry," he snapped, grateful for the distraction.
Dorian took the roll from him and held it out to Henry. "You can have it back if you're going to eat it. Do not throw it," he warned.
Henry looked at the roll thoughtfully and took it from Dorian. He looked at Klaus, gauging his options, and wisely bit into it.
The silence of the rest of the meal was broken only by Henry's occasional chatter.
On Monday, Klaus escaped to Bonn where he was thrown out of his office a bare three minutes after arriving. His best attempts at yelling didn't even begin to work.
On the following Tuesday, he came home from a long afternoon walk to find a tea tray on the coffee table.
"My sources say you should be over the worst of the withdrawal symptoms," Dorian said. He gestured at the tray. "There's Nescafé."
Klaus poured his coffee and sat across from Dorian. "You knew."
Dorian shrugged. "You're not the only one with sources."
Klaus glared at Dorian. "Stay out of my life."
Dorian delicately sipped his tea. "Too late." He watched Klaus closely. "I'm raising your son." He put his cup on the table and leaned forward. "You're not bothered by that. You don't care that I live at Eberbach. What's wrong?"
Klaus scowled. "Nothing is wrong."
Dorian shook his head. "Not true." He paused, considering Klaus. "What happened in D.C.?"
"You read my file."
Dorian nodded. "Yes, and I know you leave things out of your reports." He paused. "What happened in D.C.?"
"You're not my wife," Klaus snapped.
"No, your wife is dead," Dorian snapped back.
They stared at each other for a long moment.
"Yes, she is," Klaus said softly. "And you warned me. I didn't listen to you. I didn't listen to Jason either.
"It was so easy to become a priest. I just walked in, and they believed everything I said. The Church shouldn't be that easy to infiltrate."
"You're an atheist," Dorian reminded him.
"I'm a Catholic." Klaus picked up his coffee again. "It was so easy. There was this boy, Jason. He came to confession and told me that God was punishing him for his sins." Klaus put down the coffee untasted. "He didn't tell me what his sins were, just that he was being punished."
Klaus paced to the window and back, listening to the clink of china as Dorian lifted his cup and put it back. "He was at the church a lot. I'm a trained intelligence agent." Klaus sat back down. "I don't know a lot about children, but I know how to observe.
"He'd been--" Klaus stopped.
"He'd been what?" Dorian prompted.
"Violated," Klaus whispered. "Abused." He gulped down half his coffee. "He was fifteen. Fifteen!
"He was always at the church. He was an altar boy. He ran errands for the priests. He helped with anything we asked him to do." Klaus' hands shook when he picked up his coffee cup.
"It was Father Monk." Klaus laughed bitterly. "What a name. Father Monk. Jason was scared of him." He poured himself a second cup of coffee. "I went to the Bishop. I told him what Father Monk was doing. He told me he was sure I was imagining things, but that he would look into it.
"I wasn't imagining it," he said fiercely as if Dorian might think otherwise. "I broke into his office and pulled Monk's records." He shot a look at Dorian, who still watched him calmly. "He'd done it before. In other dioceses. They just moved him around." Klaus gripped his cup so tightly his knuckles turned white. "They were protecting him."
Dorian reached across and took Klaus' cup from him. He set it on the tray while Klaus continued talking.
"I went to my superior in Washington. I told him what was happening and what the church was doing. He told me to leave it alone. It was 'an internal church matter over which we have no jurisdiction.' I said I would go to the police. He told me not to do that. He said it would scare off our target.
"There wasn't anything I could do." Klaus retrieved his coffee cup from the table.
"I was the first one in the church one morning. I found Jason hanging from the rafters. He killed himself. Despair is a sin against hope. He couldn't be buried in consecrated ground. He couldn't have a funeral mass.
"I went to his grave and said a prayer anyway." Klaus fell silent and glanced out the window at the red tendrils of sunset reaching out across the city.
"Oh, Klaus," Dorian said. In those two words, Klaus could hear all the anguish and sorrow he didn't know how to express. After a few long minutes, Dorian got up and took the tray into the kitchen, leaving Klaus to listen to him wash the dishes.
"Come home with me," Dorian said when he came back into the living room. "Your father is going back to Switzerland on Thursday and I won't try to make you go to mass."
Klaus shook his head. "There's nothing for me to do there."
"Anything you can do here you can do there." Dorian's customary sureness dropped from his face. "Please, come home. Henry needs you."
Klaus shook his head again. "Henry has you and Karl and his nurse. And my father."
"He needs you," Dorian insisted. "I'm doing the best I can, but you're his father. There are things he needs from you."
"Like what?" Klaus asked disbelievingly.
"I can teach him hand to hand and how to use a knife, but you'll have to teach him how to shoot. I can teach him how to be an aristo, but not how to be an Eberbach." Dorian sat across from Klaus. "Please. Come home. You can't do anything here that you can't do there."
"He's only four."
"He still needs his father."
"He's got you."
"And he needs you," Dorian insisted. He watched Klaus for a moment. "You need to do something else for a while. Come home and be a father."
Klaus stared out the window and tried to find another objection to what Dorian was saying.
"You can't go back to work until your Chief approves."
Klaus' shoulders slumped.
"It won't be that bad," Dorian soothed. "Henry's a person. You just have to get to know him." He got up. "Pack your stuff. I'll clean up the kitchen."
Klaus listened to the sounds of Dorian putting away dishes and emptying the refrigerator as he packed his bags.
They took separate cars back to the castle. Even with the time to think, Klaus still couldn't come up with a reasonable objection to Dorian's plan.
"Dorian!"
"Henry!" Dorian scooped Henry up and smacked a kiss onto his cheek. "Look who's come home to stay with us."
Henry eyed Klaus suspiciously and turned his head into Dorian's shoulder.
Dorian chuckled and turned Henry to face Klaus. "Henry, meet your dad. Klaus, this is Henry."
"My dad," Henry said uncertainly.
"Yes," Dorian said. "Your dad." He set Henry down. "Let's help him carry his bags up to his room."
Klaus hung his coat up in the hall closet while Henry took his briefcase and Dorian took one of his other bags. Dorian chatted all the way up the stairs, telling Henry that "Dad's going to be home for a while. He's going to play with you too." It took a close hug and a flood of words for Dorian to convince Henry that he would still be there too.
Dorian seemed to know when the chatter was too much for Klaus. "Dinner's at six-thirty," he reminded Klaus, and took Henry out with him.
"Well. You came back," Klaus' father said to him when he came down to dinner.
"Yes."
"Klaus is going to be staying at home for a while," Dorian informed him. "It'll be good for Henry to have both of us around, especially since you're going back to Switzerland this week." He immediately turned to coax Henry to eat his carrots.
Klaus turned his smirk into a blank look when his father turned to look suspiciously at him. He wasn't quite ready to admit it to himself, but it was nice to have someone on his side when it came to his father.
"Daddy!" Henry greeted him when he returned from taking his father to the airport.
Klaus' startlement must have shown, because Henry's exclamation was followed by Dorian's low chuckle. "Just pick him up," he encouraged. "He won't hurt you."
Klaus gingerly lifted Henry off the ground. Henry wrapped his arms around Klaus' neck and planted a kiss on Klaus' cheek.
"We made pictures," Henry told him. "Come upstairs and see."
Dorian made an encouraging motion and followed them up the stairs. Klaus hadn't been in the nursery more than four or five times before. It had changed since the last time. The walls held a curious mix of fine art, Henry's drawings, and commercial children's icons. The bed had cotton sheets with a sensible pattern of boats and trains. There was a single soft, stuffed toy on the bed, and an open box full of toys below the window. The bookshelf was full.
Henry tugged at Klaus until he let him down, and then took his hand to drag him over to the small table in the middle of the room. "Look." He tugged Klaus down and pointed to the figures on the page. "That's me," a short figure in the middle. "And you," a taller figure to one side of him, frowning. "And Dorian," the taller figure on the other side, with large scribbles of yellow for hair and a wide smile on its face.
Klaus pulled out one of the chairs to sit so he would be more comfortable. He pointed to a smaller figure in the background. "And who's that?"
"Grandpa. See, look, he's in Swizzerland."
"Switzerland," Klaus corrected.
Henry just gave him a look. "Grandpa's in Swizzerland and we're here." He looked up at Klaus. "Dorian says we're going to play together."
Klaus looked up at Dorian, who was lounging in the doorway, watching them. "Yes," he ground out. "We're going to play together."
Henry scowled at him and went to Dorian. "I want you to play with me."
Dorian crouched down to Henry's level. "I'll play with you. But Daddy," he shot a look at Klaus at that, "is going to play with us too." He leaned in and said in a stage whisper, "Daddy doesn't know how to play. We'll have to teach him."
Henry turned to consider Klaus. "How come?"
Dorian laughed gently and caught Henry in a hug. "Because he didn't have someone like me when he was growing up. And now," he tapped Henry's nose, "we get to teach him how to play."
Henry looked at Klaus again. "Okay." He got Dorian to put him down and went back to Klaus. "You can play with us," he said very seriously.
Klaus regarded him solemnly. "Thank you, Henry."
Dorian clapped his hands. "Dinner's almost ready. Time to wash up."
Henry took Klaus' hand. "We have to wash up." He led Klaus to the bathroom and demonstrated the proper way to wash up before dinner. When their hands were clean, Henry again took Klaus' hand to go downstairs to a dinner that was filled with Henry's plans for the next day.
When Karl took the last of the dishes off the table, Dorian picked Henry up out of his chair. "Bath time."
Henry wrapped his arms around Dorian's neck. "Can I play with the duck?"
Dorian grinned. "Yes, you can." He raised an eyebrow at Klaus. "Do you want to help?"
Klaus nodded grimly. "Yes. I should know how to take care of my own child."
Henry looked slyly at Dorian before asking Klaus, "Can I have bubbles?"
Klaus looked helplessly at Dorian, who stubbornly didn't help him. "You'll have to ask Dorian," he finally decided.
Henry turned his face up to Dorian. "Can I?"
"Not tonight, sweetie." Dorian headed for the stairs to head off Henry's protest. "Maybe tomorrow night. But Daddy doesn't know how to play, so we need to ease him into this."
Klaus scowled at Dorian and followed him up the stairs. He preferred not to think on the failure that was his first attempt to give a four-year-old a bath. He came out rather wet, and Dorian was hard-pressed not to laugh at him. Even Klaus' scowl didn't seem to dampen his spirits.
Future Bits
Klaus knocked and waited for Dorian to invite him in before he opened the door.
"Quite respectable, don't you think?" Dorian asked without turning from the mirror.
Klaus made a noncommittal noise and put a jewelry box down on the bureau under the mirror. He opened the box and let Dorian look down at it while he unhooked the clasp on Dorian's diamond necklace. He dropped the necklace onto the bureau and replaced it with the sapphire one from the jewelry box. He gave the same consideration to Dorian's earrings, and then picked up each of Dorian's wrists in turn to fasten the matching cuff links. As a final touch, he pulled the tie out of Dorian's hair and let it fall loose.
"They're lovely," Dorian said.
"They were my mother's. My father gave them to her. I had the cuff links made to match."
Dorian twisted his wrists to look at them. "And to match yours."
"Yes."
Dorian looked up and met Klaus' eyes in the mirror. "Thank you."
Klaus broke the contact first. "It's time to go, or we'll be late."
"Of course. Give me a few minutes to brush my hair out. It needs something different if I'm going to wear it down."
Klaus nodded sharply and went to wait in the entryway with his father and Henry.
***
Klaus goes to his mother's grave on the anniversary of her death, and Dorian and Henry show up while he's there. This is sometime after Klaus and Dorian are sleeping together.
"We're making a better life for the next generation."
"You are," Klaus said. "You're making a better life for him. I'm just like my father."
"We." Dorian put his hands on either side of Klaus' face. "You're not your father, my love."
"You say that word so easily."
Dorian called Henry over to them and waited for Klaus to pick him up. Klaus held him and looked at him silently for a long moment.
"I love you, Henry."
Henry looked back at him solemnly. "I love you too, Daddy."
Bit that I wasn't sure fit with this story but mentioned Henry in anyway
"I want to see him!"
Klaus woke up to Dorian's shouting.
"I'm sorry, Lord Gloria, but you can't go in there," Z answered in the tone of a man who was repeating himself.
"I am his husband and you will let me see him!" Klaus recognized the tone as the one Dorian used when he pretended to be Klaus.
There was a shifting as the Alphabets no doubt exchanged tolerant glances.
"Lord Gloria," Z started.
Klaus was gearing himself up to yell when Dorian interrupted.
"Agent Z," he said such a controlled voice that even Klaus would have obeyed him, "you are Klaus's best agent. He loves you like a son, possibly even more than he loves his actual son. But if you do not step away from that door and let me in, I will personally make sure he sends you to Alaska for the rest of your life."
There was complete silence for a moment, and then the door opened, and Dorian came through it, the anger on his face melting into fear and then concern.
"Henry?" Klaus asked.
"Safe. At home." Dorian almost snapped it, as if he had to cut off his words.
Klaus relaxed. "Good. That's good." He opened the fingers of the hand on his uninjured side.
Dorian took that for the invitation it was; he sat on the edge of Klaus's bed and took his hand.
"It nicked the bone," Klaus told him without being asked. "They did surgery." He could see how strongly this was affecting Dorian. "I've been shot before," he said, knowing it was weak comfort. "I'll be fine."
"Klaus," Dorian said, and he sounded almost devastated.
"Dorian." Klaus gripped the other man's hand as tightly as he dared. "I'm going to be fine." He watched Dorian's face, let Dorian drink in the sight of him. "Come," he said at length. "There's room."
"Your Alphabets," Dorian protested, and Klaus growled.
"I'll deal with those idiots," he promised. "They won't keep you out again."
"Darling," Dorian drawled, "I hope for us never to be in this place again." He relented, though and carefully got onto the bed with Klaus. Only when he was settled in, head resting on Klaus's uninjured shoulder, did they both relax.
Notes to Self at the top of the file about the story
Work Klaus' Catholicism more into it. Make the story hinge on his crisis of faith. If the Church is so fucked up, maybe everything else he's been told by his father and his priest is wrong. But how do you resolve it? Does he lose his faith altogether? Does he find some way to reconcile his experience with being a Catholic? Is Klaus even all that Catholic? What makes a Catholic? It's not going to mass, but he does that. He is fighting for what he believes is right, but is that really a Catholic value outside of Latin America? Can it be reconciled with old-school German Catholicism? What does the town priest think? He doesn't mind that Klaus sleeps in church. Check the structure of the church, especially in DC.
K gets used to situation, goes back to work. H gets kidnapped, D goes in after him, K gets them out, but mad at D. K and D on a mission, find out Eberbach rigged to explode, send H, Karl, K's dad, nurse to flat. Get back, D panics, K draws lines--K, D, H in one room--get bad guys, return home. D can't sleep, K takes him to bed (sleep, no sex). K sends D to shrink, takes care of H, day off to freak out Alphabets. K teaches D to shoot, K and D on a mission, save the day, turns K on, sex.
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Date: 2008-12-24 07:32 pm (UTC)why don't I have an Eroica icon?
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Date: 2008-12-24 08:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-29 07:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-29 04:23 pm (UTC)