"I must admit that in some ways it is all ... rather strange," he says. "I had given very little thought to such things—in a distant sort of way I suppose I expected I would eventually marry, raise a family, just as my father did, but it was hardly at the forefront of my thoughts. This ... understanding with Tris is nothing that I could have ever imagined. But I am glad for it."
It's not just the unexpectedness of it all that he's referring to, of course, and Jedao can probably figure that out without too much trouble.
He isn't sure what characterizes their understanding, but part of what Harry says twangs right in his breastbone. He targets on it without even entirely seeing his own intuitions.
Jedao tilts his head.
"You can't imagine a family with her?" His tone is utterly mild, utterly neutral, neither shocked nor intimating. A clarifying question. Is that what he means?
Jedao's question can be read in a couple of different ways.
Family, as Jedao used it, and as he in turn took it up when Tris came to him with Fives's reaction: Harry's understanding with Tris, hers with Fives, Fives's bond with Jedao, and so on. Or family: a future with Tris beyond this place that he can barely admit that he wants, or feel he deserves.
He rather feels that he's betrayed more of the latter than he intended, by talking about the highly conventional marriage and family that was more or less expected of him in his original life.
"Before, I couldn't have imagined ... being content with someone who is also involved with another," he says, trying to stay on the safer side of the question; anyway, it's not as if what he's saying is untrue. "And yet it—I would not call it easy, but it does not feel unnatural. And that is a pleasant surprise."
"And children?" Jedao presses, undeterred. "I'm planning to pawn off at least five of the vod'ike - the little clones - on her, maybe ten. But they're be terribly well behaved, I promise."
He isn't even a little bit joking, although he does recognize that it would ordinarily be a rather large number of children to take on at once.
"They're trained in squads of five, and that's often the only support and affection they have, in the early years. It would be terribly cruel to break one up."
"Oh, of course—no more than one would ever want to separate any family," he agrees, but still—ten. This despite the fact that each generation of his own family has been loaded up with its fair share of offspring and then some, himself being the fourth of six.
"I think you are thoughtful, and patient, and as eager to teach them as they are to learn, as eager as you have always been to learn. I think you would respect them as little people. I think you have what they need, I think they are easy to love. That is what I have faith in."
Once Harry would have agreed with that much more readily.
And the hell of it is that he still believes that Jedao is probably right—when he has thought of it, he has imagined that he would be a father much like his own: fair, disciplined, respectful of his children's intellectual interests, ready to advance their ambitions. But he can only see such a future through a glass darkly, as it were, along with the imagined future of renowned scientist H.D.S. Goodsir. A thing of which he is no longer worthy.
"Well, perhaps we shall discover for certain someday, then," he says, even though he doesn't really believe it.
"....of course, I also think they've been in live fire drills since they were toddlers. I think they've been taught all their little lives that having or caring about their own lives is wrong. Rank disloyalty. I think they all feel like they've failed their batchmates and brothers who are dead."
He perches his chin in his hand.
"You are an explorer in a terrible land. Ice or no ice, you are still going through. But they will also need someone who knows the way. When you're ready, you'll be ready.
"Those poor children," he murmurs—and something shifts, another berg cleaving off the glacier around his heart. For surely, he thinks, even someone like him must be better than the nightmares that those young lives have endured.
He's hesitant to probe that thought too much just now. He will, though. Another thing to weigh. Perhaps that's the key to wanting to live—always having one more thing that you know you must do.
He can't promise he'll be there, or lie and pretend he will—all he can say is: "I will try."
Not try to guide them. Just try to live that long.
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It's not just the unexpectedness of it all that he's referring to, of course, and Jedao can probably figure that out without too much trouble.
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Jedao tilts his head.
"You can't imagine a family with her?" His tone is utterly mild, utterly neutral, neither shocked nor intimating. A clarifying question. Is that what he means?
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Family, as Jedao used it, and as he in turn took it up when Tris came to him with Fives's reaction: Harry's understanding with Tris, hers with Fives, Fives's bond with Jedao, and so on. Or family: a future with Tris beyond this place that he can barely admit that he wants, or feel he deserves.
He rather feels that he's betrayed more of the latter than he intended, by talking about the highly conventional marriage and family that was more or less expected of him in his original life.
"Before, I couldn't have imagined ... being content with someone who is also involved with another," he says, trying to stay on the safer side of the question; anyway, it's not as if what he's saying is untrue. "And yet it—I would not call it easy, but it does not feel unnatural. And that is a pleasant surprise."
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"They're trained in squads of five, and that's often the only support and affection they have, in the early years. It would be terribly cruel to break one up."
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"I think you are thoughtful, and patient, and as eager to teach them as they are to learn, as eager as you have always been to learn. I think you would respect them as little people. I think you have what they need, I think they are easy to love. That is what I have faith in."
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And the hell of it is that he still believes that Jedao is probably right—when he has thought of it, he has imagined that he would be a father much like his own: fair, disciplined, respectful of his children's intellectual interests, ready to advance their ambitions. But he can only see such a future through a glass darkly, as it were, along with the imagined future of renowned scientist H.D.S. Goodsir. A thing of which he is no longer worthy.
"Well, perhaps we shall discover for certain someday, then," he says, even though he doesn't really believe it.
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He perches his chin in his hand.
"You are an explorer in a terrible land. Ice or no ice, you are still going through. But they will also need someone who knows the way. When you're ready, you'll be ready.
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He's hesitant to probe that thought too much just now. He will, though. Another thing to weigh. Perhaps that's the key to wanting to live—always having one more thing that you know you must do.
He can't promise he'll be there, or lie and pretend he will—all he can say is: "I will try."
Not try to guide them. Just try to live that long.
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