"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.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
"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."
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject