“Have you ever heard the expression, any dick can make a baby, but it takes a real man to be a dad?” 

George Cade sits in front of a fireplace, a large leatherback book on his lap. It’s open on pages, showing photographs of him with his wife and kids.

“I haven’t always been the greatest father, I’ll admit that. Hell, one of my sons spent years on Deathrow for crimes he committed.”

George grins slightly.

“And the only difference between he and I is that the crimes I committed were sanctioned by Zeus.”

He shrugs.

“I guess it runs in the family; being a criminal. But the one thing I’ve always been is a dad. I’ve always been right here, Harold. When Jackson would fall and scrape his knee, I was there to pick up the pieces. When Joey vanished, I hunted high and low for him. I called in every favour I was owed to no avail.”

George turns the book over and reveals a small slit in the leather at the back. He reaches inside with his thick fingers and pulls out a photograph, hidden. In it is he and a little girl. He turns over the photo, revealing the name scrawled in ink on the back. It reads: Michaela.

“Even when I worked for Zeus and undertook the dirty jobs we both had to do, I always came home. I was always there when they awoke in the morning. I may not have been there when they went to bed, but the minute their eyes opened, they could count on me being sat at the breakfast table.”

He sighs deeply, looking at the photo of Michaela and he.

“I was more of a father to your daughter than you were, did you know that? When you went away, and before Zeus had me do what I had to do, I was the father figure in her life too. I took it upon myself to treat your daughter like one of my own. She had a father, Harold.”

George tucks the photo back into the binder.

“It just wasn’t you…”

He closes the book and leaves it on his lap, resting his head back in his chair.

“You weren’t there before you weren’t there. Even when you could’ve been, you were somewhere else. You didn’t come home for weeks on end. Your missions were your life. Taking others lives, was your… life. All the while, the life you created yearned for the simplest of things you could’ve given her… a father.”

George takes the book off his lap and puts it down on the small table beside him, standing up to stoke the fire.

“But you just couldn’t be a dad, could you? It just wasn’t in you, old friend. It never was. I have never suffered from such afflictions because despite your desperate claims to know the truth, the truth is that I’ve always been a dad. A better one than you… even to your own daughter.”

He turns to face the camera.

“Afterall, Any dick can make a baby, but it takes a real man to be a dad.”

Cut.