She may be my treasure or the price I have to pay... (Childfic for girlorgun)
On a list of things he never wanted, this ranked fairly high. Of course, it wasn't as if he'd strongly refused April when she came to him that night, even when something about it felt absolutely perverse. Considering the sort of things he'd managed to do with women in his short life, it didn't seem like perverse was a word in his vocabulary, but that certainly would have ranked.
And yet it was comfortable, eerily so.
He knew something was wrong when April had to project calm on him before she even said anything, and even then it wasn't enough to keep him from very quietly losing it. He left for about an hour before he had to come back and apologize, which was something he never would have done for anyone else, but... April. God, April had managed to be the exception to every rule in his head, but that didn't make him okay with this, even if he pretended he was and she knew better, but she let him have his space to deal with it, just as she'd accepted every one of his flaws before. The more time went on, the more he accepted, but he found every word of congratulations or any mention of April's pregnancy to be damning words and it was only the fear of losing April that kept him from turning and running.
At the birth of his own child, he felt like a stranger, an unwanted observer who wasn't supposed to be here. He stuck to the corner, uncomfortably, even as Juliet practically tried to drag him over, biting his lip until it bled and wondering how this happened, wishing this hadn't happened. He couldn't be a father... How could he when even being an older brother figure had been beyond him? When it came down to it, how the hell was he going to protect a child when he couldn't even protect April, herself? April, at least, was capable of defending herself if something went wrong.
When all was said and done and April was holding their daughter (Betrys- she went into great length about the name and it's appropriateness and he was too stunned to argue the point) in her arms, tired but happy, and he hovered at the side of the bed like he wasn't entirely certain what he was supposed to do, she looked at him sweetly and said, "You're going to be fine."
Five years later, still stuck in a world he hated, he lost the only thing that made it all worth it, leaving him with the only legacy she had left to her and he still wondered if her words hadn't entirely been the truth. He still felt completely uncomfortable in the skin of a father and without April there, rolling her eyes and guiding him through every step (and how on earth did she manage to be so completely maternal?), he'd simply fall apart at the seams. Jack Bristow managed to be an absent father who had a strained relationship with his daughter at best and still raised a little girl into Sydney Bristow. How the hell was a self-centered, only halfway-redeemed, amoral little consummate traitor like himself supposed to compare to that?
A few months after April's death, some Charun demon got into a row with Torchwood and grabbed Betrys out of the park, putting the young Children's Angel who had been keeping an eye on her in the hospital. It took Sark five hours to track him down and have his daughter extracted. It took another three to make sure the Charun understood why taking her in the first place was the biggest and last mistake he'd ever make.
The minute he was back in the Tower and no longer covered in black blood, Betrys practically jumped on him and refused to leave his lap until she'd cried herself to sleep and even then, it would have probably taken the jaws of life to pray her off of him. Not that he felt he could complain, because having her close reminded him that she was here and he hadn't failed her like he imagined he would. That raw surge of protective instinct, that desperation to get her back... It reminded him of how he felt when her mother was held captive by Thane. This time he'd succeeded. He'd eliminated the threat and his daughter was back here in his arms and, for that one brief moment, he felt like maybe April was right.
Word Count: 751
(OOC: Fic is not binding to any muse. Mistakes regarding any muse not my own are... My own. No children or Children's Angels were harmed in the writing of this fic. Sark would like it known that if he ever has to do this again, he is going to disembowel me with a fork.)