Author's Note: Sorry this took so long, but things have been crazy. Enjoy! Oh, and thanks to both Twilight Scribe and Cataclysmic Eclipse for helping me with serious revisions to this chapter!

Chapter 2: The Truth Unfolds

Raine froze in shock upon hearing the woman’s name. Her last name… Aurion, she had said. Raine knew that this was Kratos’ last name. Surely this woman couldn’t be…

As they reached the entrance, the woman and girl squinted, unused to so much light. The baby had fallen asleep in Anna’s arms on the way to the entrance. When the four entered into the courtyard of the ranch, Raine saw Kratos standing over the body of Forcystus, cleaning his blade, while Colette lay on the ground a short distance away, being tended to by Regal, Zelos, and Lloyd. Her thoughts instantly diverted from the mystery of Anna’s last name, and she ran over to Colette’s side. Though it appeared Colette was receiving plenty of attention, it couldn’t hurt to see if another healer was needed. Raine received the story of what had happened from Lloyd, and she quickly determined that Colette should be taken somewhere to rest. Iselia, in her opinion was their best bet.

“But Raine, Lloyd and I can’t go back there, remember?” Genis interjected.

“Yes, but Iselia is Colette’s hometown. If we head there, then her family can tend to her,” Raine explained. “Lloyd, will you get Kratos, please? We will need him to carry her to the village.”

“Yes, Professor,” Lloyd replied, standing. However, Kratos’s angel senses heard it and he turned around, intending to walk over and collect Colette in his arms. Because of this, he and Lloyd both caught sight of the woman that Raine had rescued at the same time. They both froze instantly, millions of memories flooding their minds.

“Anna?!” Kratos exclaimed disbelievingly at the same moment that Lloyd shouted “Mom?!”

They both looked at each other as Anna slowly turned around disbelievingly. “Kratos?!” she exclaimed, unable to believe it was him. Then she saw Lloyd, and though she had not seen him in fourteen years, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was, in fact, her long-lost son. “Lloyd… Lloyd, my baby!” she cried, running forward and throwing a free arm around the seventeen year old boy, who stood in shock for a moment before embracing her in return. “I can’t believe it’s you, Lloyd… I thought I’d never see you again…”

“I thought the same thing, Mom…” His voice choked up and a huge smile spread across his youthful face as he hugged her tightly. Then he looked up at Kratos, who had come to stand next to them. “Uh, Mom, I have a question for you… You seemed to know Kratos really well… Ah, how do you know him?” he asked, feeling very confused as to how his mother knew the angel.

Anna looked at her son, cocking her head in confusion. “W-What in the world...?” Then it clicked and she looked disbelievingly at Kratos. “You… You never told him?!” she exclaimed in disbelief.

“It never became necessary for him to know, and circumstances have changed since the last time you saw us,” Kratos replied stoically. Anna rolled her eyes in exasperation.

“Good Goddess, Kratos, how could you keep something like that from him?!” she shouted angrily. Lloyd looked between the two with a confused glance.

“O…kay, now I’m really confused,” he said. “Will someone please tell me what is going on?” Anna walked closer to him and placed a hand on his arm.

“Lloyd, my name- my full name- is Anna Irving-Aurion,” she explained in a gentle voice.

At first, Lloyd just stared at her, not understanding what she meant. Then it hit him, and his eyes widened as he backed up. “You… You mean that Kratos… Kratos is my…?”

“Yes, Lloyd,” she replied calmly, moving closer to Kratos. “Kratos is my husband and your father.”

“But… No, that can’t be! I can’t believe that! I refuse to believe that!” he shouted.

“Lloyd!” Anna said warningly, but Kratos laid a calming hand on her shoulder.

“I just won’t believe that the man who betrayed me and my friends, the man who made Colette suffer for so long… I can’t believe he’s my dad!”

Zelos stood and walked toward Lloyd. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! What did you just say? Dude, don’t disappoint me like that! Or have you been lying to us up until now? I thought you’ve always told us that stuff like status and race means nothing, that no matter what, your heart is the same!”

“Zelos…” Lloyd murmured, staring at him, surprised that Zelos was saying stuff like this.

“Don’t let something like the identity of your old man shake you like that. No matter who he is, you’re you, right?”

“You… Yeah, you’re right, Zelos.” Lloyd cast a grateful glance at the womanizing red-head, realizing that Zelos could be really wise sometimes. He walked around Zelos and up to Kratos. “I’ll accept that you are my father, but I can’t call you Dad.”

“Lloyd! Whyever not?!” Anna exclaimed, clearly unhappy.

“Mom, do you even know what he did when he thought you and I had died fourteen years ago? He returned to Cruxis!” Lloyd explained to his mother. Anna glared at Kratos, causing the angel to shift a bit, as though he felt uncomfortable. “Kratos, I hate what you- what Cruxis does. Too many people have died for a dream of Yggdrasill’s. Every life has meaning. No one should be born for the sole purpose of dying!”

“You… You are right, Lloyd,” Kratos conceded. “And I am sorry for turning a blind eye to what Yggdrasill has been doing for all this time, but I…”

“I’m sorry to have to break this up,” Raine interrupted, “but I feel we should leave here now before we are captured by any remaining Desians.”

“I concur,” Regal agreed, standing with the others.

“Let us take Colette to safety,” Presea said softly.

Kratos stepped forward and lifted Colette easily. The others left ahead of him and Anna, giving them some privacy to speak. “If it was not you whom I killed so long ago, then who was it?” he inquired softly as soon as the others were out of earshot.

Anna looked down. “Actually, that was me that you struck at.”

Kratos walked in silence for a minute, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“While you were off fighting the Desians and after I had turned over custody of Lloyd to that dwarf, Dirk, Kvar showed up. He and his men took me back to the base, which is where I woke up and is the next thing I remember, since I passed out on the way back. They told me that they had healed me, and that they would restart the Angelus Project on me in a few months.”

Her companion’s eyes narrowed. It didn’t make sense… “But why would they wait? Surely they would want to begin the project again as soon as possible, considering how long it would take for the project to complete itself.”

Anna hesitated for a moment before she looked up at him. “By the time Kvar recaptured me, I had realized that I was going to have another child,” she said softly. Kratos’s eyes grew as big as dinner plates at this news and he stopped, turning to stare wide-eyed at her.

“But… why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, concerned.

“Because I didn’t think it was the right time. I had this feeling, deep down, that something was going to happen to me, and I knew that if you knew I was pregnant, you’d be even more devastated if something did. And of course, you know what happened after that,” she added. “Kvar decided to heal the baby, who was actually in quite bad shape, hoping that the pain of childbirth would help my Cruxis crystal to evolve further. He was also quite hopeful that the baby would prove to be another viable test subject for the Angelus Project. A few months later I gave birth to a baby girl, Maritka,” she explained, gesturing toward the girl that had been with her when Raine had discovered her.

“You mean… I have a daughter?” His eyes widened as a feeling of amazement overwhelmed him. He had another child!

“Yes, Kratos. She’s a lot like you, too, very quiet, serious, thoughtful. I thought it was appropriate, since Lloyd was always more like me,” she laughed softly. Then her demeanor switched back to a more serious one. “The birth process didn’t evolve my Cruxis crystal as much as Kvar would have liked. Shortly after that, he and Forcystus were ordered to switch ranches; I heard something about Kvar’s experience being needed to crush a rebellion near the Asgard ranch. Forcystus decided to let me keep the child, knowing that with the limited supply of food we were given, I would subject myself to harsh conditions in order to make sure that Maritka had as much food as she could get.

“During the following years, I got sick a lot, because I ate only what was absolutely necessary for my survival, giving the rest of my meager food allotment to Maritka, so she would grow properly. Each time I grew ill, my Cruxis crystal would evolve a little more. When Maritka grew old enough to understand, I told her about the Angelus project, and she began to refuse the additional food I would give her. I stopped getting sick, and the Cruxis crystal lay dormant for a long time.”

She glanced at the baby again. “When Forcystus realized that my Cruxis crystal was no longer evolving as it should have, he grew angry. He began to try different things to make it evolve, but I never let myself get angry, and if the things he did caused me pain or suffering, I suppressed it, something I had taught myself to do over the years since I was recaptured. At last, he tried one more method…” Her voice trailed off as her throat choked up.

“W… what did he do to you?” Kratos asked, barely restraining his temper.

Anna looked down, this time keeping her gaze on the baby. “Well… let’s just say that several months later, Ryien was born,” she murmured softly, her voice just barely above a whisper. Kratos could not restrain his temper, and the only thing that consoled him and kept him from turning around to seek revenge was the fact that he had just killed Forcystus himself.

“It’s a good thing for him he’s already dead… if I’d known of this before I killed him, his death would have been much more painful,” he growled.

“Even after that, my Cruxis crystal did not evolve as Forcystus wished it too. Apparently I was the first with the ability to partially restrain the crystal on my own. If he had removed it, I would still have turned into a monster, but I could restrain the amount of my mana that reached it. I kept hoping, praying that you would find me.” She looked up from the baby’s face to her husband’s, her eyes shining with happiness. “And you did,” she murmured, smiling at him. “When I think that all my efforts resulted in being reunited with you and Lloyd, I don’t mind what happened nearly as much,” she admitted.

“I’m just glad that you are okay,” Kratos said, feeling his heart swell with love and affection for his wife. He leaned over and pressed his lips against hers, reveling in the feeling of their first kiss in the last fourteen years.

“So am I,” Anna replied softly after they pulled apart a few moments later, a gentle smile spreading across her happy face. They walked on, speeding up a little to catch up with the others as they both privately rejoiced at their being back together once more.

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