Prompt: A NONCANON look at Sterling and Elena getting a bit of a dramatic revelation about Cassidy and going to talk about it with them.

  Being who they were, with so many important secrets, Sterling and Elena Evans always made a point of keeping track of any and all legal documents that held the names of them or any of their family. It was highly unlikely that anything could get as far as a warrant, or anything like that, before they nipped it in the bud, but it was better to be safe than sorry. They wanted to know the very second there was absolutely any sort of investigation into them or any of their businesses.

  But, what came to their attention this time had nothing to do with an upstart cop or private investigator putting pieces together, or a reporter trying to make a name for themself. And yet, this particular thing had their full attention as much as any of those problems would have. If possible, it actually had even more of their concern. Or, to get right down to it, their worry.

  Sitting at their kitchen table with an open manilla folder between the two of them, its papers scattered over the surface, both were silent for several long seconds. Neither could believe this could even be possible. Finally, Sterling broke the silence, his voice cracking as he asked, “How could this have happened? How could something like this get that far without us knowing about it, without us noticing?”

  Elena’s own voice was dull from shock, eyes staring at the forms on the table without actually seeing anything, and certainly without reading it. She didn’t need to read more, having scoured the papers so intently she could recite every detail on them from memory. “I don’t know. It can’t be real, Sterling. This can’t be happening, we would have known about it. We just… we should have known before it got this far. We should’ve known the moment it started. How could we miss something this important? How do we fail our own family this thoroughly? I can’t believe it.”

  Sterling reached across the table, finding her hand. “We’ve been distracted, love. After all the problems these past few months with Sleeptalk, those Biolem creatures, Casura, it’s inevitable that we’d drop the ball on a thing or two at home. It’s just too much for anyone to stay on top of.”

  “But this?” his wife shot back, her free hand moving to tap the pile of papers. “This isn’t a tiny thing, Sterling. This is our family, this is our child. How could we miss something like this for so long? We weren’t paying attention. We let ourselves be distracted by everything else, so we missed our own child being…” She trailed off, grimacing a little from the overwhelming emotions.

  “We missed a lot, clearly,” Sterling agreed. He glanced at the papers once more, feeling the knot in his stomach twist in on itself even more. “We missed too much. But it’s not too late. We can still talk to them about it. They’re still here. Cassidy-- Cassidy is still here. They haven’t run off, they haven’t left. That has to mean there’s still time to talk about all of it. We should have done it a long time ago. We shouldn’t have let it get this far without… without noticing what they were into.” He knew nothing he said then would take away the sting of having missed this for so long.

  Squeezing her husband’s hand, Elena gave a firm nod. “Yes, we have to talk about it. We have to let Cassidy know that… that we know all about it, but without scaring them off. We have to make sure they know we… we understand why they’ve been doing it this way, and that we’re not angry. They have to know they’re safe, Sterling. I know it’s a very emotional time, but we can’t go in there and blow up…”

  “We have to be careful,” he finished for her, feeling that knot get even tighter at the mere thought of needing to take such care with his own child. No matter how many times he asked himself how they could have missed something like this, the answers that came all sounded like nothing more than excuses. That’s what they were. There was no reason this should have happened.

  The two of them sat together at that table for another twenty minutes, absorbing this news as well as they could, so they could at least try to be calm when speaking to Cassidy. Neither of them wanted to walk into that conversation as emotional as they’d felt when they’d first read the contents of that folder. The very last thing they wanted was to scare their own child. The simple fact that Cassidy had kept this from them for so long said more than enough about how easily the whole situation could fall apart even more than it already had. They had to be very careful.

  When it came down to it, they wanted their child to feel safe, not cornered or attacked. To that end, they waited until after dinner, when things had settled down and it was time to relax for the evening. Then, they went together to their child’s room, using the intercom to announce their presence and let Cassidy know they wanted to talk for a few minutes. This wasn’t a talk to have in the living room or kitchen. They would discuss it where Cassidy could feel safe, in their room.

  It must have been Sterling’s imagination that his child looked so nervous when the door opened. They couldn’t have been afraid of him, or Elena. This was their child. Even if Cassidy suspected that they had somehow found out this enormous secret they’d been keeping for so long, they had to know that the two of them would understand. They were their parents! Cassidy knew that, they had to. If they didn’t, if that flicker of emotion he thought he saw in that second was real, then… then this situation hurt even more than it already had. This was going to be a hard talk.

  Still, he forced a smile, trying to communicate through that look that nothing bad was going to happen now. “Hey, kid, you mind if we come in for a minute? We just need to have a little chat.”

  He knew Elena well enough to catch the flicker of emotion in her own voice as she nodded. “Yes, we ahh, we’d like to talk to you about something important.” It was clearly all she could do not to reach out and pull their child into an embrace and launch into the whole thing right then and there. Sterling was tempted to just blurt it out too. But no, this wasn’t something to rush into.

  There was the briefest pause, and once again, Sterling felt like he could see the uncertainty, even fear in his child’s expression and body language. They went rigid in a way that made it seem like it was taking everything they had not to refuse. Then Cassidy looked back over their shoulder briefly, and it almost felt like they were considering just how easy it might be to jump out their own window. Which should have felt ridiculous, but this was Cassidy. It wouldn’t be the highest thing they’d ever jumped off of. He still remembered getting calls about that time they had leapt off the balcony into that swimming pool at a party, just because someone dared them.

  But in the end, thankfully, he didn’t have to stop his own child from leaping out the window to get away from him. He honestly didn’t know how he would’ve reacted to that. Instead, Cassidy took a deep breath and stepped back, gesturing for them to come in. “I mean, sure, I guess I’m not doing anything else right now.” Despite the clear effort to sound casual, Sterling could hear the slight tremor in their voice. How long had it been there without him noticing? How distracted had he been these past… however long it had taken to get to this point, to not have seen what his own child was going through? How badly had he failed as a father for this to have happened?

  Truthfully, he probably felt as anxious about this whole thing as Cassidy did. And things were about to become even more awkward. This was a lot to get into, with no easy way to do it.

  As they stepped into the room, he couldn’t help but glance at the array of clocks across one wall. So many of them, each set to a different location. All of them meant to let a younger Cassidy know exactly what time it was in whatever city he or Elena had been in on their frequent business trips. The physical clocks had been a way of connecting his child to those places, even when they were right here in this room. Maybe it was silly, but he’d loved knowing that they would sit in their room and look at those clocks while he was gone. It mattered more than he could say. And now? Well, now looking at those clocks made the ache in his stomach worse.

  Shaking that off as well as he could, Sterling sat down on Cassidy’s desk chair, while Elena took a nearby recliner. Both of them wanted to sit on the edge of the bed, on either side of their own child as Cassidy carefully and uncertainly perched there, but that felt like crowding them. And that was a realization that sent another rush of pain through the man. He exhaled slowly before shifting in the seat, trying to keep his voice as bright and encouraging as he could. “Okay, well, first thing you need to know is you’re not in trouble. Not at all. You are not in trouble, all right?”

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  That… clearly didn’t help at all. If anything, Cassidy looked even more anxious than they had before. Sitting up a bit more, feet angled to press their toes against the carpeted floor, they took a moment before finding their voice. “Um, should I be in trouble?” Even in just those few short words, words that were meant to sound casual, the emotion, even fear, was evident in their voice. It was clear that Cassidy had realized their parents were aware of this huge thing. They just couldn’t bring themself to actually say it out loud. It was a feeling Sterling sympathized with.

  But they couldn’t just sit here in silence forever. So, Elena spoke next. “No, Principessa. You shouldn’t be in trouble, not for this. We… we understand why you might’ve felt like… it was a thing you had to keep to yourself, we do. But… we want you to know that you could have told us. You could have explained, and we would’ve listened. We would have heard you out. You need to know that. You need to understand that you can come and talk to us about anything, any time. This secret of yours, whatever your reason for keeping it, you could always have told us. We would have listened to you. We will always take the time to sit and listen to your side of things.”

  “My…” Cassidy sounded utterly incredulous, eyes wide with disbelief as their gaze snapped up before shifting back and forth from Sterling to Elena. Their voice cracked before rising a bit, the emotion audible as they gave a quick, uncertain, “My side of things? I have to present my side?”

  The two adults exchanged brief looks and winces. This wasn’t what they wanted. They didn’t want their child to feel attacked, or as though their feelings had to be justified. Elena shook her head. “You don’t have to explain anything if you don’t want to, Cassidy. We’re not here to judge.”

  That was apparently the wrong thing to say, considering the utterly incredulous snort it caused. Cassidy stared at them, making a sound that seemed halfway between a laugh and a groan. “Not here to judge. You-- you’re not here to judge me, about what you were… you want me to tell you what my side is, but you’re not here to judge. I don’t even-- I can’t even-- how is this…”

  Rising from the bed, they did a quick spin, pivoting three hundred and sixty degrees with a sharp laugh that didn’t actually seem amused at all. Sterling started to say something while pushing himself up, but Elena made a quick motion for him not to do either. They just watched as their child paced around the bed, still giving that humorless laugh. “Sure, sure, you want to know my side? I can tell you. I really don’t mind. My side is not arranging for people to die! My side is not being okay with making money off the suffering of other people! My side is wanting to help make things better, not worse! My side is not doing things that end up hurting and killing innocents for profit! That’s my side. Is it okay if that’s my side? Is that the side you’re not gonna judge me for?”

  Sterling wanted to say something then, but didn't. And that time, it had nothing to do with Elena, who was equally quiet. For once in a very long time, both had been completely shocked into silence. This wasn't what they had expected. And Cassidy… Cassidy was saying something far different than what they had prepared themselves for.

  When neither of their parents responded, Cassidy started pacing back and forth while their head shook quickly. “Come on. Come on! Are you actually surprised by that? Why are you so shocked? I think that's even worse than if you started yelling and threatening me. You're surprised. You're actually surprised that I wouldn't be happy about you running a criminal empire over the entire state? Hell, I bet you have people in Washington too, just to give you even more of an edge. And now you’re shocked that I’m not totally cool with that.”

  Cassidy walked to that wall of clocks and stared up at them for a few seconds before pivoting on their heel to snap, “Maybe if you wanted me to be okay with something like that, you should've raised me to be greedy and violent. Silly me, I thought you were serious about being good people. And yeah, you've done some good things. You've helped people, but you've also hurt them. You've made compromise after compromise after compromise. And the truth is, you could do so much more if you weren't more worried about maintaining your power.”

  Folding their arms over their chest, Cassidy finally forced themself to look at their parents directly. “So why don't you tell me why you're so shocked that I'm not happy about you running an evil empire? Why don't you tell me why you're so surprised that I'm upset about you erasing my memory after my best friend was killed? Why don't you tell me why I can't handle the fact that I've been lied to my entire life, about some pretty important shit?”

  Standing by the closet, they raised one hand while announcing, “But just for the record, if you try that memory erasing shit again, it might not go the way you think it will.” With that, the two adults were given an even greater shock, as their child pointed toward the book lying next to Sterling on the desk, and shot a glob of red paint at it, before using that to yank the book back to themself before holding it up.

  That time, neither Sterling or Elena could help it. They both jumped to their feet with a pair of gasps. But they restrained themselves from moving closer. Mostly due to the way Cassidy adopted a defensive posture, a sight that made both of them come up short, while horror and shame washed over them that their own child would react like that.

  “So tell me, then,” Cassidy snapped as they held that book up. “Why don't you tell me why you're so shocked that I would react like this?”

  There was silence then, aside from heavy breathing as they gripped the book even tighter, as though ready to throw it if they had to. Neither of their parents knew what to say in that moment. Neither of them had prepared for anything like this.

  Finally, as usual, it was Elena who found her voice first. though even then, it faltered a little, uncharacteristically. “Cassidy, I don't… Baby, we're surprised because we didn't come here to talk about any of that. We didn't know you knew anything about that. And we… we certainly didn't know you were Paintball.”

  They both saw that bomb land and make Cassidy's eyes widen with what was probably a similar amount of shock as they had been feeling ever since their child started talking a few moments earlier. All of them simply stared at one another before Cassidy dropped the book, mouth opening and shutting silently. Their eyes closed as the realization and understanding came, before they slowly slumped back against the closet door. “Why… why did you come to talk? What did you want to talk about?” Their voice was somewhat hollow, and a little high-pitched. It was like they were torn between being faint from shock and being hysterical.

  Still standing right there by the desk, Sterling hesitated slightly before simply replying, “The marriage certificate.” His own voice sounded just as torn as his child's.

  It was time for another surprise, because rather than look guilty or flinch at all, Cassidy just stared at them blankly, with what was either the very best poker face Sterling and Elena had ever seen, or genuine confusion. “What marriage certificate?”

  Elena produced the main page and held it out that way. “We were only upset that we found out you've been seeing someone we've never even heard of. And there's no need to get married to this young. You even had someone forge an emancipation on top of it. We can't…” she hesitated before exhaling. “I suppose now we do know why you would keep this from us, and emancipate yourself in the process.”

  The paper was snatched from her hand by another shot of red paint, as Cassidy yanked it to themself. They scanned the thing, making several noises of disbelief before their head shook quickly. “I'm not getting married! I've never even heard of this person either. Gary Miners? I've never heard of them in my entire life. I have certainly never even thought about emancipating myself and getting married. This is fake. This isn't real! This isn't me. This isn't…” They trailed off, throwing the paper away from them before slumping all the way down to sit on the floor with their back to that closet. “What the hell is this?”

  That was when Sterling and Elena took the time to do what they perhaps should have done from the beginning. They called in favors and made people at the courthouse dig through more documents and security footage. It took twenty minutes to confirm that this was all a mistake. The person who is getting married was named Cassidy Evans, but she wasn't their Cassidy Evans. Someone somewhere in the process had misfiled paperwork or done something wrong, and this other Cassidy Evans had ended up being flagged as their child.

  As absurd as all that sounded, they eventually managed to sort it out, doing so without ever leaving their child's room, so Cassidy would hear everything they were saying, and learn everything at the same time they did. It felt like the least they could do, under the circumstances.

  Finally, that was done, and the silence returned to the room. That time, it lingered quite a bit. All three of them took turns attempting to say something now and then, only to falter and go quiet once more without actually speaking. The realization of how much of an accident this had all been, and how many secrets had been thrown out like grenades left them completely uncertain of just where to go from there.

  Sterling raised his gaze to stare at his child sitting there. He desperately wanted to go right over and pick them up. He wanted to hug them tighter than he ever had before, and promised that he understood. He wanted to tell them they were safe while he brushed their hair with his fingers. But at that point, he was afraid of seeing that defensive posture again if he took a single step closer. His own child reacting like that had been a knife in his gut, and the wound from it wouldn't fade anytime soon. He would honestly rather step into the mouth of a rampaging Abyssal than see Cassidy react like that again. He would rather die than be the cause of his child being afraid.

  Elena finally spoke in a soft voice that was as hesitant as Sterling had ever heard from his wife. “I suppose there's just one thing we should take away from all this right now.

  “We all have quite a bit to talk about.”

  Joke Tags: Boy It Didn’t Take Much Prompting For Cassidy To Just Go All In On That Rant? Did It?