Case Reopened

Man To Man

Because I realized it would be something Mason would do and therefore it needed to be written.

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Mason leaned against the side of his car, arms crossed, eyes scanning the exiting stream of students. He stopped when he found the one person among the sea of uniforms he was searching for. But instantly, his attention caught on the person beside his target.

This would complicate things but that was fine, he knew how to handle complications. He'd already made his decision and a glitch in that plan would not stop him from seeing it through. Even if the glitch that appeared was his daughter.

As the pair walked down the steps, Mason observed his daughter as she talked to Zander. Though 'talking to' was not the way to describe it, it seemed Zander was monologuing and Sophia felt content to listen. This unsettled Mason, for many reasons.

One being that unless a person was of above average intelligence, his daughter often found people boring. Their choice in topics were dull to her and the lack of knowledge on the topic they brought up would sometimes annoy her. She felt if a topic was going to be discussed there should be ample information known to make it interesting. 

Two, Sophia looked at Zander as he talked and periodically his gaze would meet hers. When it did, Sophia didn't look away. Another bad sign. His daughter found eye contact taxing unless she felt she fully knew the person and could trust them.

Though Mason had a lot of mixed emotions watching the pair, it only strengthened his resolve. What he was going to do needed to be done. If Sophia had an issue with it, then he would explain it later.

But right now, he needed to be her father and it was okay if she didn't understand that. If she even disliked him for that, Mason could handle that. He could. He needed to do this.

Halfway to the curb, Sophia found him and met his gaze. Though she stood tall and held herself as someone much older than fourteen, all Mason could see was his little girl. The baby he cradled in his arms. The toddler he laid on the floor with encouraging to crawl. The little girl who skinned her knee once and he carried all the way home. The girl who beat him at chess for the first time at the age of ten. All of those memories, pieces of her were there in the girl beside That Boy.

"Hello, Father," Sophia said, stopping before him.

"Hi, Mr. Douglas," Zander said. "How was your day? We had a weird day. We had to dissect a frog in science and it was so gross. I wanted to throw up but didn't because Sophia was there and it would have been embarrassing.

"Also, she handled it all really calmly so then that made me handle it calmly too. I feel like she could be a medic in a war zone, that's how stable she was. It was awesome to watch. That was the interesting part of our day. I'm sorry, Panda if I ruined it for you since you might have wanted to tell your father about it. Anyways I'll leave before I ruin more stories about the day, though there aren't any. Sorry. Good to see you, Mr. Douglas."

Zander took a step back but froze when Mason set his gaze on him.

"Don't leave, Zander," Mason said.

"Oh, okay."

Mason surveyed the continuing exiting crowd until he spotted the two stationary figures at the top of the stairs but off to the side so they could watch the proceedings.

When Kennedy saw that Mason had spotted them, she mimed eating popcorn. Mason almost sighed, like mother like daughter. He pointed to Sophia and then pointed to them. Kennedy nodded in understanding.

Mason focused on Sophia. "I want you to drive home with Kennedy and Harrison."

"You're not here to pick me up?"