Disclaimer: how on earth could I own tales of Symphonia? Where's the logic here? I had to get my copies second hand! Sheesh... no ownership, just love the game to death.

So I started up the game again to get me motivated to finish other ToS fics, but this scene really struck me this time around. Knowing Kratos as well as I do now, the fight with Governor-General Dorr must have really hurt. I mean seriously, he sees the nightmare and the what if scenario that played in his head over and over again for the past 14 years, and his son is lecturing the guy so severely he may as well me lecturing him! Oh man, just thinking about what Kratos must be thinking the entire time just killed me this go around.

So yeah, my interpretation of what was going on in Kratos' head during these scenes, with some modifications. A lot of the lines are straight from the game so yeah... enjoy!

The Open Dorr

It honestly was deplorable, but it made sense. Governor-General Dorr could not have peace in Palmacosta when two Human Ranches were just a few says travel on foot, let alone a functioning militia. They hadn't seen anyone in this militia either. The entire scenario reeked of fish. Finding out he was somehow in league with Magnius wasn't that far a stretch for Kratos to understand. The children took it quite a bit harder than he or the Professor, but they seemed to put the pieces together on the trek back to Palmacosta. Chocolat would have to wait a little longer.

Lloyd almost broke down the governor's door the moment they returned to Palmacosta. "Okay Dorr! What are you –" The lad looked around the empty office and grumbled loudly. "There's no one here! Where is he?"

"He can't have gone far," Genis tried to be the voice of reason for the moment, but even he was anxious. Raine watched the door, likely wondering when the guards were going to demand answers themselves. Kratos waited with his hand on his sword, anticipating an ambush of foolhardy Desians or guardsmen. Something was moving down below, but he didn't want to alert anyone quite yet. Questions would be –

"I think I hear voices from below." He glanced over to Colette like the others. Looked like she was developing her angelic hearing a little earlier than the others.

"Really? I don't hear anything." And Lloyd had not. Kratos made a mental note on both of them, not certain if he should be relieved or disappointed his son hadn't inherited his hearing.

"There's no one here." Time to move them along. The old soldier inclined his head to a side door that was guarded when they were last there. Only place they could assume they went. "We should head down to the basement."

"Right."

Taking the lead once more, the teen ran towards the door and almost bashed through it to get to their target. Kratos grabbed his shoulder before he made a racket. Brash youth… Lloyd was as bad as he was when he first joined the army. "Carefully. We don't know what we'll find down there. Best to gather as much information as possible before swinging our swords around."

Admonished, the teen pouted in frustration as he opened the door quietly and started to creep down the stairs. Letting out a breath – relieved his son was finally listening to the advice of others – Kratos looked to the others and waved them down before him. He'd take up the rear in case of an ambush and to make certain the door didn't lock them in. Never knew with these situations. Who knew what Dorr had up his sleeves. Humans teaming up with Desians was rarely a good idea.

It wasn't long before they all could make out the voices talking below. One was certainly Dorr, but the other male was a mystery to them. What they were talking about though betrayed his identity just as easily. They stopped near the stairwell, crouching out of sight to listen in.

"When will my wife… When will Clara return to her original form?" Dorr's voice trembled slightly as he made his demands. His wife? Didn't the town's people say she was dead? What was this about her original form? A black seed started to form in Kratos' belly.

"Not yet. You still haven't paid us enough Gald. You've been paying us less and less." Desian. Only they would exhort people like this.

"This is the best I can do!" Panic. Duress. It drew sympathy from lesser men, but would gain none from Desians. "The tolls, the municipal taxes, the offerings to the Church of Martel… there's nowhere left to squeeze more money from!"

"Well I suppose this will do for today. I'm sure Lord Magnius will remove the demon seed depending on your next contribution." They could hear the sneer in the half-elf's voice as he finished. When he walked away through another door, Lloyd started to move forward again, ready to throw the man into a worse panic for the crimes he just confessed to without realizing it.

"Father…" Kilia's childish whine struck a familiar chord in Kratos' mind, and not in a good way. That seed from earlier was growing quickly.

They could see the desperate man now, on his knees before his daughter and a covered cage. "Don't worry Kilia. Just a little while longer. Just a little more and Clara will be back to normal. I'll raise the fees on the pilgrimages and –"

"What's the meaning of this?" Lloyd's interruption startled the two around, Dorr turning white almost instantly. The lad smirked. "What's the matter? You look like you've just saw a ghost."

"Um, Lloyd? That's a really cliché line." Genis really needed to learn when to keep his voice down.

"Shut up," his friend growled back. Kids.

Dorr chose to ignore it, getting to his feet angrily. "What are you doing here?! Neil! Where's Neil?!"

"I'm afraid Neil's not here," Raine stated evenly, keeping her calm while the boys were starting to get riled up again.

"So… he betrayed me." Dorr looked down with contempt, his sanity starting to slip further away. Kratos couldn't help but feel the betrayal was justified considering the crimes the man committed against his own countrymen.

"What's wrong with your wife?" To their surprise, Lloyd seemed to be taking the higher route, getting to the root of the problem rather than dealing with the obvious causes. "Has she been taken hostage or something?"

"Hostage?!" The governor almost seemed hysterical at the idea. This did not bode well in the mercenary's gut. Involuntarily his eyes drifted towards the covered cage. "If you want to see my wife –" The man whipped around and pulled the cover off the cage, revealing exactly what Kratos dreaded seeing ever again. "SHE'S RIGHT HERE!"

A giant green mutation of a human being wobbled within the cage, barely clothed and hardly making a sound. Kratos involuntarily gasped and took a step back, his mind reeling as memories hit him one after another. Guilt and dread tore his insides into shreds. 'Anna…'

"AAAHHH! Wh-what's that monster?!" Genis nearly fell backwards into him, almost trying to bring him back to the present.

"She's crying… she's crying out in pain. You mustn't call her a monster." The Chosen's soft voice twisted his heart even more. Anna was in pain. That entire time she was…

Even Lloyd's voice trembled at the sight. "You don't mean –"

"That's right. This is what's become of my wife! My Clara!"

'Anna…'

Voices and explanations washed over Kratos, his eyes transfixed on the poor woman who suffered the same fate as his beloved wife. The woman he had no choice but to kill. If he had a chance, could he have done the same as this man? Locked her away, alive, and find another way to save her? Maybe if he just took another path they could have –

"SHUT UP! What do you mean 'your way'?!" Lloyd's voice snapped him out of his 'what if' thoughts and back to the moment. His son was shaking with suppressed rage as he spoke. "I'm sorry about your wife, but think about the people who believed in you, only to be sent off to the Ranch! Any one of them could have ended up just like your wife!"

"Silence boy!" Kratos' eyes drifted to the man at the end of his rope, and saw himself only a decade and a half ago. "Stop acting like your justice is absolute!"

"Where do you get off?!" The duel swordsman stomped forward two steps, enraged yet managing to control himself. He could almost hear Anna's voice as their son lectured the man before them. "Don't even start spewing the word 'justice'! I hate that word! If you wanted to save your wife, you should have resigned your position as Governor-General and searched for a cure! Or help! Or whatever! You're a worthless jerk who couldn't give up his social status even for his own wife!"

Couldn't give up his social status? Dorr wouldn't give up his position to save his wife. Kratos on the other hand wouldn't give up his search for a way to stop Mithos for the safety of his family. He tried to find a safe way to remove the exsphere from Anna while searching for a way to save everyone, to give them true peace, and it ended up destroying what little happiness they had. Maybe if he hadn't kept at that, they may have had a chance. Maybe he wouldn't have had to –

"Lloyd! Please stop! Not everyone's strong enough to stand up to the Desians. Please, stop this!"

"Colette…" How had the Chosen's voice broken through to both of them? Lloyd's righteous rage and Kratos justified guilt seemed to quell under her words, putting the situation into a different light – even hope.

"What if we went and got the medicine you mentioned." The girl smiled almost cheerfully as she proposed a solution good for everyone. "Then you wouldn't have to side with the Desians anymore."

"You… forgive me?" Dorr gaped at her, stunned. Any of them could see his mind putting itself back together as he spoke to her. "For what I've done?"

"It's not our place to forgive you. That's up to the people of this city. But I know Martel will forgive you. The Goddess Martel is always within you, awaiting your own, personal regeneration."

Kratos' insides twisted a bit in guilt. She truly believed in the 'Goddess' Martel. Mithos' people did a marvelous job grooming this Chosen. Even he was starting to believe what she was saying, soothing his soul. Dorr certainly was. "Within me?"

"Absurd!" And in an instant, his world of violence and cynicism returned. Kilia's small hand turned into a large sharp claw and stabbed her 'father' through the back into his stomach. A slow painful death. Everyone jerked forward as the man collapsed to the ground, his life slipping away. The girl cackled above him, bringing back a vague memory he did not want to repeat. "The Goddess Martel would never give her aid to an inferior human being!"

'Yes she would,' Kratos wanted to say as the rest objected to her actions, horrified at the sight. This was a twisted family indeed. His hand went to his sword, ready to strike down this abomination before him. Now he recognized this thing. A twisted mutation of a half-elf he saw several years back which could disguise herself as a human child if need be. Kilia was more monster than a living being.

"I am a servant of Pronyma, leader of the five Grand Cardinals who rule over the Desians. I was merely assigned to observe the new human cultivation technique, developed by Lord Magnius. There's no way a superior half-elf such as I, could have a fool of a father like this!"

"A fool of a father?" The Chosen's voice trembled slightly as the horror of it all sunk in.

"Just look at him! He didn't even notice that his own daughter was dead because he was too busy chasing after a medicine that doesn't exist in order to save his monster wife!" Pronyma's abomination cackled loudly, enraging everyone into action. Everyone launched at the fake with all the contempt they could muster. How dare she ridicule a man's love and grief for his wife!

The battle was brief, ending with the fake releasing 'Clara' from her cage to destroy them. On instinct, Kratos stepped between her and Lloyd, poised to put her out of her misery. He heard his son quietly beg to not have to kill another victim of this curse, wrenching his heart. He didn't want to kill Clara either, but if it was her or his son, the monster was going down.

"STOP!"

For whatever reason, 'Clara' listened to the Chosen's voice, ceasing her attack. Instead she ran out the other basement exit faster than they could react. Stunned at first, the group quickly regained their senses, realizing a monster out in Palmacosta probably wasn't a good idea, and started to run after her.

"Is Kilia safe?"

The rasps of a dying man caught their attention once again, stirring another sting of memories from Kratos' mind. The first concern he had the moment the coast was clear of Desians… He couldn't help but look at his son. If only he found him that night.

"Kilia is-"

"Don't worry," Lloyd lied. "It seems your real daughter is fine."

"Lloyd –"

"I see…" Dorr coughed as he spoke, his mind slipping as his life oozed away. "You…Your name's Lloyd?"

Kratos had to stop and think for a moment. Did they meet Dorr all those years ago? Did he know Lloyd as a baby? He worked so hard to forget those years and move on, but others were likely to remember the vagabond family traveling through Palmacosta every few months. This was the place they took their family picture at after all.

"Yeah," was all his son could say as the man's life started to fade away. The Chosen and Professor tried to save his life but even the healing arts can't handle all wounds, especially list late after its creation. Stomach acids were a horrible way to die and made healing very difficult even when caught quickly.

"Please… Please save… Chocolat." Sorrow appeared on the man's face, regret, as he knew his life could not be saved. "That poor girl… She was just used… as a tool… to lure you out."

Somehow he managed to pass something over to Lloyd and murmured a code to him before making his final request. "If you… find some way… to save my wife… please… help her return to… her human form. When my daughter comes back…" Tears started to fall from his eyes as he spoke. "I don't want her to be alone."

Lloyd hesitated responding to his request, battling within himself. Kratos knew that battle all too well. Finally he shook his head. "That I can't do. You betrayed countless numbers of people. And you're turning around and asking others to help you? If you have the guts to do that, have the guts to life and save her yourself."

Dorr tried to laugh, coming out a bit bitter. "Yes… I wish… I could… do that..."

With that, his body stopped convulsing and he breathed his last. In death he changed, willing to take action and be a hero rather than be a coward waiting to be saved. If he were a stronger man, it may have been the words to give him new life and keep going. If he were stronger.

They had to be stronger. "Let's get going."

Everyone turned and looked him with dismay. Kratos could just imagine what they were thinking, being as callous as he was. He heard it all before. Lloyd was instantly on his feet, ready to punch him out. "Kratos! How can you just say that?!"

"Settle down, Lloyd," he started in his most reasonable tone. This had to be done if he were ever to become strong enough to face this world alone. "What is it we must do now?"

Raine saw reason first, though subdued. "Rescue Chocolat, then defeat Magnius, the leader of this region."

"Exactly. If we do not," he inclined his head towards Dorr on the floor, "then his death has no meaning."

Struck with reason he could follow, the boy deflated and looked away. "Yeah… I know. You're right. I'm sorry."

Lloyd chose his friends well. Genis placed a calming hand on his shoulder, giving him a weak smile. "Let's go Lloyd. Let's defeat the Desians."

World weary, the group left the basement and went back into the sun. They had work to do, including saving what was left of Dorr's family if they could.

The journey back to the ranch was a long one, leaving plenty of time for the group to think and discuss what happened in the basement. It was hard for them to not hear each other as they went, and even harder if you had angelic hearing. Kratos really wished his ears weren't as good as they were sometimes. He had enough to think about.

"Why did you like to Dorr?" The Chosen's question perked his curiosity enough to listen more intently to his son's answer.

"I guess… I felt sorry for him." Lloyd scuffed the ground as he walked, chewing over his actions and words. "I couldn't tell someone about to die that his daughter was no longer alive, you know? I had to give him some hope."

"Yes…. I see what you mean." She paused in thought for a moment before adding, "But I wonder if maybe he realized it anyway?"

"What?" Apparently the idea hadn't come to him until then. "Then why would he ask me?"

"I think it's… because he's a father." Kratos couldn't help but glance back to them, wondering where she was going with this. This Chosen often had very strange ideas, and even his often vapid son thought so.

"A father…?" Though clearly confused, the phrase did get the boy thinking about something.

Determined, the girl clarified her point. "There's no parent that doesn't wish for the well-being of their children."

Lloyd looked at the sky, a somewhat wistful look on his face. "I wonder if my parents were the same way?"

Kratos tore his attention away from the two, desperately trying to ignore the needles stabbing his heart. Of course they felt the same way. He spent the past fourteen years wallowing in misery at the thought of Lloyd never growing up like they always imagined. He wanted to believe he was alive somewhere but was convinced he wasn't. If he even had a spark of hope before this journey started, at any point in those years, he would have left Cruxis once again to search for his son. To know for himself he was a grown man he could be proud of.

Dirk did a good job in his stead, likely better than he. If he had to choose anyone to be a foster parent to child again, the dwarf was just the man for the job. All he wanted was what was best for him, nothing more.

Another time during a short break, Lloyd started up a conversation with him. Mostly he was shooting ideas out about what happened with Kratos humoring him, but eventually he landed on a subject catching his undivided attention.

"Parent's love for a child is amazing, isn't it?"

The mercenary stopped momentarily from sharpening his sword. What brought this up? He went back to cleaning it as he spoke. "So it would seem."

"I wonder if… Mom died protecting me from the Desians." Lloyd's lonely tone took Kratos' eyes away from the sword and on him entirely. He looked lost, as if he didn't know anything more than what he already told them, and it wasn't enough.

"You don't have any memory of when your mother died?" Could he remember that night? The rain? The cliff? Kvar and his men surrounding them? The roar Anna gave out during her transformation? The way she… How he…

The lad shook his head. "I was only three. I hardly remember anything." He looked off for a moment, ignoring his sandwich. "Sometimes I think I remember a man and woman talking to me and pointing to the stars, and falling, but that's about it."

"I see…" How fortunate for the boy. Kratos could hardly close his eyes before memories plagued him, especially these days. Though with his son living and breathing next to him, it was easier to remember the good times too, nightmares continued to attack him. And since Dorr's situation was similar to his once, it was even harder.

Seeing his son just so lost right then, he was sorely tempted to fill in the blanks for him, to teach him about his mother. About how much he reminded him of her. From her smile to his speeches to his determination, Lloyd was truly Anna's son. He should know his mother.

Yet the knowledge of what would happen at the Tower of Salvation loomed over the horizon. No son should live knowing his father killed his mother and would then offer up his dearest friend to her death in a weak hope to save the worlds. No… though it broke his heart, Lloyd could never know Kratos was his father. A mercenary who betrayed their faith was better than losing the most important man in his life.

He averted his eyes as he gave the best advice he could as a stranger to his son. "Then the only thing you can do is live her share as well."

Lloyd seemed to think about it for a minute before smiling. "Yeah… it's the least I can do for her."

'And for me.' Kratos smiled slightly and went back to sharpening his sword for the monsters. If he had anything to say about it, Lloyd was going to outlive him and continue on as the good man he was that day. Though there was much to improve with the lad, character was not one of them. 'Don't die Lloyd.'

END

A/N: See why I had to go over it? yeah, play the game again and try to see it from Kratos' perspective. There's so much more to this game than what meets the eye.

So yeah, I'm trying to get back into writing other ToS fics and this is helping. The goal is to not go past where the next chapter should end/meet up with the game until the very end, where I'm currently writing the ending (out of order so I do a good job). This is getting me to think of new fics too so yay! More from me! Guess I just needed inspiration to type? Who knows. hope you liked this.