“He’s been in the dojo now for an hour.”
Saber said it more as an observation, no question marks attached; absently from the kitchen, Maiya hummed a small wordless reply, having the day off from work and taking the time to clean up the Einzbern-Emiya household while Iri and Kiritsugu were out with Ilya.
Which meant that if something was bothering young Shirou, it fell into Saber’s hands to deal with it.
She couldn’t quite say for sure how she knew something was wrong; the boy had come home from school as kind and cheerful as always, had done his homework, and then had immediately gone out to the dojo. Nothing seemed wrong, but…
“He got into a fight at school.”
Caught mid-sip, Saber choked on her water and whipped her gaze back to Maiya. “He what?”
The dark-haired woman looked utterly unapologetic for failing to mention this fact sooner. “He got into a fight,” she repeated.
“Why?”
“He wouldn’t say when I got called in to handle it.” The other woman smiled, and it was an oddly soft, sheepish expression for her. “He begged me not to tell his parents. I suppose he doesn’t want to worry them.”
Saber grunted, mulling this over, and took another sip of her drink to make up for the one she’d lost when Maiya told her the news. After a pause, she finally bit the bullet. “How bad was it?”
Maiya gave her a look. “I’m not that violent when I spar with him, Saber.”
A golden eyebrow lifted at this, but Saber didn’t push the point. Done with her drink, she set the glass aside and got to her feet, absently dusting off her pants. “I’m going to go check on him,” she decided.
Maiya nodded, the only response she gave to indicate she had heard the former Servant.
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He must have been practicing his swings; Saber could smell the faint scent of sweat hanging in the air, and she saw the wooden practice sword beside him as he slumped back against the wall, tangled strands of red hair plastered to his forehead.
She took in the sight of her boy, his chest rising and falling as he tried to restore some normalcy to his breathing, his eyes closed, his hand still lightly clasping the wooden sword. Sighing softly, she crossed the distance between them and sat next to him, leaning back against the wall and placing her hands back behind her head.
Shirou cracked open an eye, smiled at her shakily in greeting. “Hey, Saber.”
She smiled back, in spite of herself. “Hello, Shirou. Were you training?”
“Just had some energy to burn.” He pushed his hair out of his eyes and straightened up, grinning at her. “I was practicing some of the moves you taught me this time. We should spar sometime!”
“Maybe this evening,” Saber murmured, an absent promise, and couldn’t quite resist the small surge of warmth she felt at the delight that entered his eyes.
After a moment, accepting that he wouldn’t speak about it, Saber closed her eyes and blew out a long breath, relaxing her body; her hands easily slipped down from behind her head, absently clasped against her legs, and simply stayed there. She looked for all the world as if she had fallen asleep.
She didn’t have to wait long.
There was a brief sound of movement, almost a hesitation; a second later she felt soft, gentle warm against her shoulder, a tiny cheek hot against the skin of her arm, and she chuckled softly, opening her eyes to glance down at Shirou. The boy had nestled into her arm, as close as he could manage, and taking the invitation, she gently draped her arm along his shoulder and pulled him closer.
The silence stretched on after that; Shirou’s breathing finally calmed and evened out, and he seemed to be asleep. Once again, Saber resigned herself to accepting he probably wouldn’t talk about it.
Then…
“Saber?”
“Hm?” She glanced down at him again.
The boy ducked his head, didn’t meet her gaze; when he spoke, his voice was soft. “We’re a real family, right?”
She hadn’t expected that. “Excuse me?” she asked dumbly, her mind still trying to process the implication of the question he had just asked her.
“We’re a real family, aren’t we?” he repeated, and now he met her gaze at last; the uncertainty, the confusion, the pain in the shimmering golden depths made her want to rip apart whoever had put those feelings in her boy. “Because… there was this kid at school, and Shinji told me to ignore him, but he was saying these things…”
Her grip tightened on him, just a little bit. “What kind of things?”
Shirou shrugged and looked away again, wiping at his eyes. “Stuff,” he mumbled. “That Mom and Dad aren’t really my Mom and Dad.” He sniffed. “I’ve heard that before, I don’t mind it too much. I know it’s not true.” His voice softened. “But he said we weren’t a real family. He said we were weird.”
Saber desperately tried to connect the dots; such rumors weren’t unusual, she was well aware of just how odd their small family looked to outsiders. Shirou had known as well, ever since being adopted; it had never seemed to bother him before, what people said. So why…
“Shirou, I don’t—“
“He said I’m not your son.”
The words froze and died before they even left her lips; Saber suddenly felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach.
Shirou wiped at his eyes again, and when he spoke, his voice was ragged. “He said I’m not your son,” he repeated softly. “After he said the stuff about Mom and Dad. Because I still have Dad’s name, but I’m not related to you in any way. That you’re just there. That…” His voice cracked, wavered dangerously. “That if you wanted to, you could just replace me or something. Because there’s nothing holding us together.”
She was going to murder this child. If she ever met him, she’d feel no guilt in slaughtering him.
Saber took a deep breath, trying to control the surge of anger she felt; when she felt like she wouldn’t storm out of the dojo and break someone’s neck, she gently gripped Shirou’s chin, forcing the boy to look at her. “Do you believe that?” she asked gently.
Shirou blinked, then rapidly shook his head.
“Of course not! You’re better than that, way better! I just…”
It hurt.
Saber understood. Even a boy like Shirou was prone to his insecurities and his moments of weakness, especially considering just how odd their situation was. Sighing softly, she shifted and drew him into her arms, hugging him gently, relieved beyond all reason when she felt small, warm hands clasp at her back, timidly returning the embrace.
“What am I going to do with you?” she wondered, pulling away and gently ruffling his hair. Shirou giggled softly at the attention and squirmed, making her smile. She gave short red strands a light tug before pulling her hand away. “Shirou.”
He blinked, looking up at her. “Yeah?”
“I taught you my techniques, didn’t I? I taught you how to hold your sword, how to swing it, how to fight?”
He nodded slowly, not quite following her logic. Loving him, Saber pressed a light, gentle kiss to his forehead.
“Then you’re my son.”
She waited patiently, to see if he understood; when his eyes gleamed, when his smile became shy and warm and small, she knew he did.
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“I hope you gave him a good fight, at least.”
“Well… apparently I nearly broke his arm….”
“…. That’s it, I’m speaking to Maiya about the things she teaches you.”
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The plotbunny I've had for the longest time, now written out. This is technically a companion piece to "The Finer Points of Negotiation", as this takes place in the same 'verse as that fic and was actually my very first idea if I ever wanted to expand it further. Also, Shirou is pretty young here, so I guess this is also an AU of Prism Ilya to boot, or something.
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Originally Posted by Hymn of Ragnarok
