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| Details |
| Author: | Saaron |
| Summary: | After Gwen helped reunite Sandy and his birth father Therald, the two catch up after being separated for 19 years. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Sandy waves goodbye at Gwen, a huge smile on his face as she leaves him with his birth father. Therald watches Gwen leaving, also unable to get his smile off of his face, and his eyes still teary from the reunion. He turns on his heels to look at Sandy, and points towards the door with his thumb.
“So is she your…” he pauses, cringing a little bit at his own question. “Your associate?”
Sandy seems to wake up from a trance, as he was still smiling at the front door.
“Oh! Uh, y—yeah! I think we make a great team, together!”
Therald smiles softly and goes back to sit in the building’s little meeting area. He taps his hand on the chair next to him.
“I can see that,” he says, a slightly playful smile on his face.
Sandy joins him. They sit next to each other and don’t speak for a little while. What do you say to a close family member you haven’t seen in 19 years?
“And, uh—” Sandy begins.
Simultaneously time, Therald starts speaking, the two interrupting each other, and they keep doing it repeatedly:
“So, uh—”
“Sorry, go ahea—”
“No, no please, go—”
“Ah, sorry I keep talking over—”
“My bad, you talked fi—”
The two stop talking although, looking at each other. Therald ends up chortling at the situation as Sandy smiles at him.
“Okay, I’ll go first. So… you’re a mage?”
Sandy nods slowly.
“You know how there are different… schools of magic? Well…” he takes his time to think about what he should say next and decides that to keep lying is the better long-term solution. “I’m specializing in fire!”
Sandy holds his hand up and conjures a small fire. He’s really thankful at that moment that his Fel fire is red and not green, like it is for others. Therald looks a bit panicked at the magic demonstration, which makes the warlock extinguish it immediately.
“Maybe…” Therald clears his throat, raising an eyebrow at Sandy. “Maybe we don’t conjure fire in a building, yeah?”
“Right, yeah, good idea!” he grins.
Therald looks at the hand that was holding a flame just a few moments ago.
“I know… knew someone who wanted to be a mage, once. Never got the opportunity to,” he looks at Sandy, a slightly sad frown on his face. “I’m glad you did, kid.”
“Was it you?” he asks. “Because if it is, I’m sure I know plenty of people who could he—”
“No! No, no, no!” answers Therald shaking his hands vehemently in front of his face. “Magic’s not my thing.”
The two grow silent once more, both looking at anything but each other.
“Say… my birth mother, Sirie… is she…?”
“Dead?”
Sandy nods. Therald looks at his own boots, visibly making himself look smaller by leaning forward. He takes a long time to answer, thinking thoroughly about the question.
“Yes.”
Truth be told, he doesn’t know, actually, what happened to Sirie after she stabbed him. However, after he was brought back to life through her Soulstone ring, he looked everywhere for her. No signs of his wife anywhere. No one had seen her. And since people don’t just… disappear in times of war, he came to the conclusion that the Orcs had found her before he did. Plus, he was the one with her “second chance ring”. Until now, he really had no reason to believe she was alive… same goes for Leghan.
“I thought you were too, kid.”
His eyes get teary once more and he has to wipe them off before he starts bawling again. Sandy, who also needs a hug after learning about the death of his birth mother, puts his chair closer to his father’s and gently wraps his arms around him. Therald turns around and hugs him back.
Don’t cry, Therald, don’t cry, you have to stop crying like that… he thinks to himself. Ah, whatever.
He starts crying once more, the tears falling in a constant stream on both sides of his face. His muscular body is twice the size of his son’s lean build, so he’s kind of afraid to break him in half with his hug, but Therald can’t help and squeezes him tight, afraid to lose his son for almost 20 years once more.
After a long while – their longest hug – they both let go of each other.
“How did you recognize me, earlier today? I mean… I guess Gwen told you why you were here, but you said I was… Leghan without even me mentioning that name.”
“You’re a Netelle if I’ve ever seen one. They’re…,” he corrects himself. “They were your mother’s family.”
Sandy nods. Sirie Netelle. That sounds kind of pretty together.
“You look just like your grandfather. But then I looked into your eyes… They were blue, like mine, last time I held you.”
Sandy scratches the back of his neck. His lie will not have worked for long.
“I, uh… A baby’s eye color can change up to three years old… Or so I’ve heard.”
Therald nods.
“I think I’ve heard the same thing, yes. Anyway… Even if you didn’t have the blue of your mother and I’s eyes… I saw something in them,” he smiles. “The way you looked at me… I used to look at myself like that in the mirror too. I—can’t really explain it.”
He can explain it. He has the right words to express how he feels, but he knows that saying he recognizes Sandy’s youthful hope as the one he used to hold too would sound too strange. He doesn’t want to embarrass his son in any way possible.
“So, a Netelle that had the same… thing in his eyes… I knew it was you,” he smiles softly. “Your friend told me you knew your father was named Therald. There aren’t that many Netelle family members whose father is named Therald.”
Seeing the confusion in his son’s eyes, he adds:
“There’s only one. Leghan.”
“Ooh!” Sandy smiles shine bright. “I see!”
He then fidgets with his coat, thinking about his next question.
“Hey, I’ve got one more question, then I’ll stop bothering you with them, I promise!”
“You’re not bothering me, kid,” answers Therald, his voice deep and soothing. He places his hand on his son’s shoulder and squeezes it gently. “We have to catch up after 19 years.”
“Okay, so…” he says, raising his gaze and looking at Therald in the eyes. “What should I call you?”
That one question has Therald stumped. He decides to stale for time, to take his time to think about it.
“Wh— what do you mean?”
“Well… instead of… buddy, like last time… Should I call you… Mr. Oakley? Therald?” he takes a little longer before saying his last suggestion. “… Dad?”
A sort of high-pitched noise comes out of Therald’s mouth as he tries to find a good answer to this question. He rather loudly swallows his saliva. He knows the answer he’d like to give Sandy, but he can’t just force him.
“I don’t… mind either, kid,” he pauses, breathing deeply. “Maybe.. dad, if that’s what you want… and if Mr. Spellbond doesn’t mind!”
Sandy thinks really hard about this. Mr. Spellbond? Then it hits him.
“Oh! There’s no Mr. Spellbond… I mean, except me and my brothers, I guess!”
“Well, then if that’s what you’d like… I would understand… if you decided to call me ‘dad’.”
Sandy nods, a grin on his face.
“Okay then… dad!”
After saying that word, he grimaces a little. It feels weird to call someone ‘dad’ for the first time and mean it. He’s left wondering if he’ll ever get used to it.
But he wants to. He wants to be able to look at Therald and call him ‘dad’ without feeling weird about it. Clearly, that’s what he wants, and Sandy can’t let down his birth father like this!
“Oh, and if you want to call me Leghan… that’s fine too!”
Therald shakes his head, looking very certain of his decision.
“No, Sandy. That’s not your name.”
Sandy opens his mouth to protest – that was the name he’d chosen for him at his birth – but then he pauses and thinks about it. He’s right. He’s been ‘Gausanders’ for as long as he can remember. To him, he was never ‘Leghan’. He doesn’t feel like a ‘Leghan’. He closes his mouth and nods instead.
“Thank you… dad!” he over-emphasizes the word ‘dad’ once again. Nope, still weird. Oh well, third time’s the charm! Maybe next time it’ll feel more natural.
Therald smiles.
“Anyway… Will I ever get to meet Ms. Spellbond? Your… mother, I mean. To thank her for taking care of you all this time.”
Sandy beams, but the joy on his face almost immediately fades.
“Oh, um… yeah, that’d be awesome, but…”
Therald’s smile drops as well. Why ‘but’? He’s not good enough to meet his mother, right? Sandy’s ashamed of him. That’s it. That’s the only explanation. Why else wouldn’t he want to introduce him to his mother. He’ll probably leave this place today and never see his son again. He gets it, though. Why would he want to continue seeing a father he hasn’t seen in 19 years? He’s met him once, he’s probably gotten all the closure he needed, he can move. Therald’s just a stranger like any other. A stranger who’s nothing special. Just a guard.
“I… didn’t tell mom I was looking for my birth parents,” he sighs. “I need to gather the courage to tell her first…”
Therald calms down. Phew. He isn’t the problem. Sandy is.
“Why?” he asks.
“I… don’t know. What if she thinks it’s because she’s not good enough as a mom that I decided to look for my birth parents. She’s an amazing mom! I don’t want her to think that.”
“I’m sure she wouldn’t,” he pats him on the side of the knee. “But take the time you need. I can wait.”
Sandy smiles.
The bells of the cathedral ring.
“Oh no,” Therald gets up. “I’m going to be late.”
He was just here for a mysterious, probably-Kirin Tor related meeting, not to meet his long-lost son. He didn’t plan to stay in Stormwind for that long.
“Oh, right, you have a job! I get that, me too!” Sandy grabs the levitating plate, grinning. “Take some cookies for the road, they’re on me!”
Therald takes one cookie. Then two. Then three. Then a bunch more and roll them in a piece of cloth that he puts in his backpack. Sandy watches in horror the number of cookies drastically lowering.
“Okay, I guess… I’m on my way!” The guard walks up to the door, followed by Sandy. The two hug once again. “I’ll see you again soon?”
Sandy nods joyfully.
They let go, and Therald exits the building, before turning around and speaking once more. He definitely doesn’t want to leave just yet.
“Hey, did you know that the Cobalt Company worked in the Western Plaguelands, while I was stationed there?”
Sandy nods slowly.
“I… know. I worked there, actually! I went to Scholomance… several times, with my Squad! That was a scary place.”
Therald blinks.
“That was you?! I could have met you that much sooner?!”
“Yeah… I wish I knew you were my father back then too!”
The guard lets out a soft, sad “Hm.”, staring at the ground. He then sighs loudly.
“Okay, I should probably get going for real this time. My superior is going to kill me if I’m even a second later.”
He doesn’t move, though. He just stays on the other side of the front door, looking at Sandy, who’s looking at him, pouting sadly at the fact that they already have to say goodbye.
Neither of them moves or says a word.
Until…
“Hey, wait here!”
Sandy rushes back upstairs, avoiding the treacherous step that made him fall last time. No bonk, bonk, bonk this time! Who’s laughing now, stairs?
He quickly puts his stuff back in his backpack, jumps back down the stairs, and grabs the plate of cookies and his old blanket. He closes the door behind him.
“I’m going back to the Outland anyway, we could… fly together to the Dark Portal, right? And if you’re late, I can tell your superior that it was because you were helping me with the Cobalt Company business! The Argent Dawn likes us, right?” he grins.
Therald’s shaky smile draws once again on his face, and his deep voice breaks slightly as he answers.
“That would be great, kid!”
The two travel through Stormwind to the gryphon stable, fly to the Nethergarde Keep and walk to the Dark Portal together. With the speed they were walking at, it was as if there was no hurry at all, on the contrary. Instead, they took their time, learning a little more about each other. Sandy did end up having to lie to the Argent Dawn, at the Portal, quickly inventing an excuse about the Company sending him to gather some information about the Plaguelands for future recruits, which is why he decided to interview Therald as he worked there for a very long time and was now close to the Dark Portal, which made traveling faster.
After one last emotional goodbye for the day, and a promise to see each other again soon, Sandy crossed into the Hellfire Peninsula, much more satisfied by his meeting with Therald than last time.