One: Nod needs dinner
Soren was dead. Soren, who he had grown up with, who he had gone through basic training with, who had received his officer's commission at the same time as him, his second in command, his best friend, was dead.
Every time his mind stumbled across that fact, he felt like he had been stabbed in the gut. His breath caught in his throat and his chest felt tight. It was a very unpleasant feeling, and in the hopes of avoiding it, he had been attempting to not give himself any time to think about anything.
His office had never been cleaner, but he was starting to run out of paperwork to do.
"Sir?"
Ronin looked up from the day's patrol reports to see Finn standing in the doorway, helmet tucked under his arm.
"I'm heading out," Finn informed him.
"I'll see you tomorrow," Ronin went back to his reports.
"It's really late, sir," Finn said, his voice carefully neutral.
Finn was not new to being a captain, and he was not new to working with Ronin, but he was new to the position of second in command, and he was treading lightly. Not so lightly that he wasn't willing to try and nudge his commanding officer into getting some much needed rest.
"I know," Ronin said without looking up.
"Alright," Finn gave a wave and left, not willing to push just yet.
Ronin wasn't sure how long he sat there before he suddenly became aware of another presence. He lifted his head to find a filthy, bedraggled little boy standing in his doorway.
"I'm hungry," Nod said without preamble.
He was covered head to toe in mud, and one of his pant legs was torn. His hair stuck out in every direction, and there was an assortment of bracken tangled in it. His shirt might have been green once.
"What have you been rolling in?" Ronin asked.
"I want dinner," Nod informed him petulantly.
There was a healer staying with Nod and his mother. They didn't quite trust Lysette to be alone at the moment. In theory, the healer was keeping an eye on Nod as well, but he was an… active child, and most of the time she couldn't both monitor Lysette and keep track of him.
"Let's go get dinner then," Ronin pushed back his chair and stood, ignoring the way his back cracked in protest of sitting so long, "and maybe a bath."
"I don't need a bath," Nod scowled at him, but didn't resist when he took his hand.
"Trust me, you do," Ronin was fairly sure he had a change of clothes for the boy at his apartment; this wasn't the first time he had been over since Soren…
He hadn't realized he was squeezing Nod's hand until Nod used two hands to try and squeeze back with equal pressure. He gave the boy an amused look and lifted his arm, letting him dangle from his wrist.
"That's cheating," Nod giggled.
"Soldiers never cheat," Ronin told him with mock sternness, "they strategize."
Nod laughed and swung his feet until Ronin put him down, but he didn't let go of Ronin's hand, and for all that the boy's hand was ridiculously sticky, Ronin wouldn't have wanted him to.
Ronin paused in front of one of the hall guards on their way out, "can you send a message to Lysette and let her know Nod is staying with me tonight?"
The guard nodded, and Ronin knew Lysette wouldn't really hear the message, but at least the healer would know Nod was safe for the night and not have to worry about him.
"I can stay the night?" Nod tugged on his arm in excitement.
"Sure," Ronin shrugged, "you're small enough to fit on my couch."
"Can I use your sword?" Nod gave him his best gap-toothed grin.
"No."
He probably shouldn't have given Nod a second piece of seed cake, but it had kept him still long enough to pick the bracken out of his hair, and he bribed him into the bath by promising him a game of hop-disk when he got out.
They only made it half way through the game before Nod started falling asleep. It really was late. He needed to keep a better eye on him. No one else was, and he had promised Soren he would.
For all that Soren had sometimes seemed to live his life by impulse alone, the truth was, he thought things through, he saw long term consequences as clearly as short term ones. When Lysette had gotten pregnant, Soren has asked him to take care of both his wife and child if anything happened to him.
He had promised without hesitation, thinking that it would never happen, that he would die first, because he would die to protect him, but that option had never been given to him. Lysette had withdrawn into herself, no longer able to manage the outside world, and there wasn't much Ronin could do for her beyond make sure she was cared for.
Nod, though, seemed to be responding to his father's death by seeing how far he could go before someone showed up to reel him back. Ronin could do that. It didn't take much more than the lure of dinner and the promise of a game or story, and Nod seemed to like him well enough. At the very least, he was used to him.
"Don't go," Nod latched sleepily onto his wrist as he was tucking blankets around him.
"Don't worry buddy," Ronin soothed softly, "I'm not going anywhere."
Nod snuggled his hand close as if it were a stuffed toy, and Ronin didn't have the heart to pull away. He ended up sleeping on the couch with the child tucked against his side. For the first time since Soren's death, he slept the night through without waking.
The next day Nod appeared in the doorway of his office at dinner time, slightly less disheveled and bouncing impatiently on the balls of his feet.
The day after that, Ronin went to find Nod instead.
Author's Note: Hop-disk is a board game similar to checkers. Ronin will teach Nod chess eventually, and long for the days when all it took was food and a game to reel him back it. Luckily, Nod does like him well enough.