Morgan was the most anxious he had ever been when he pushed his father’s doorbell. It took him nearly ten minutes of staring at the door in silence before he could muster up the courage to do so. He was nerves were more rattled at that door than he was at any of his odysseys in Validar. He threw himself into the lairs of criminals, the den of monsters, and the dungeons of dark lords without hesitation, but he had to muster every ounce of courage in his heart just to ring the bell once at this modest-sized Seattle home.

It was bigger than the house Morgan had grown up in and the Chosen One was very happy about that. He had smiled when he walked past the mailbox with ‘Moon’ printed on the side underneath the address. He was glad that his father had managed to progress in life despite the tragedy that he had to endure. He lost his wife and his only child in quick succession. That type of loss, even if it didn’t encourage suicide, could cripple a person mentally to the extent that they spiraled in life and ceased to do anything productive.

“Looks like dad was made of sterner stuff,” Morgan said.

He always felt that he got a good deal of fortitude from his father. Morgan always thought his father was the very definition of level-headedness. He rarely had outbursts or showed profound emotion even in the face of some unforeseen tragedy. While he was growing up in Validar, having to accomplish Herculean Labor after Herculean Labor, the hero never forgot how his father always kept it together no matter what. But despite all that experience, it was this simple act of standing at his father’s front door that caused was causing Morgan to flutter more than he could ever recall. He was truly at a loss for what exactly would happen when the door opened. How he was going to explain his decade-long absence to his dad, what his reaction was going to be after he attempted it, how he would keep his cool through it all – it all weighed immensely heavy on Morgan’s mind.

Eventually, he heard a lock being turned from the other side. The door opened, and a Korean man about Morgan’s height and with many of his features stood in its frame, eyeing Morgan carefully. He was graying slightly about his hair and beard now, but Morgan’s dad hadn’t seemed to age much in the decade since they had last seen each other. Unsurprising since Christopher always kept up with his fitness. Even now, Morgan could see a still impressive physique hiding underneath his father’s shirt; a well-defined chest and arms that weren’t huge but still undeniably strong for a middle-aged man. Even after all his adventures, Morgan still had this odd thought in the back of his head that he wouldn’t be able to beat up his dad.

“Can I help you?” Chris asked, still scanning Morgan somewhat.

“Oh, uh… Yeah, I just…”

Morgan stammered and slurred his words like he was catching stage fright before an open mic crowd. He had rehearsed this moment hundreds of times in his head while in Validar and a few dozen more times since his return to Earth. So, why were they not spilling from his lips now that the time to say them had finally arrived?

“Uh… I’m… I’m your…”

Chris made a face, unsure of if this was some sort of prank or not. “Are you here to drop something off? Or are you an Evangelist or something?”

“No! I… Sorry, this is way tougher than I’d thought it be?”

“Than you thought what would be? Who are you, son?”

“Uh, that.”

“What?”

“Son. I’m your son. I’m Morgan.”

Chris made an extremely perplexed expression. It eventually gave way to something steely and cold, as if Chris was trying to see through Morgan rather than out of him.

“Ah… I get it. It’s a prank. Not sure what’s supposed to be funny about it, but I get what you’re doing. Well, have a nice rest of the day.”

“Hold on!”

Morgan, in his haste, put his hand in the frame just as his father was closing the door. The door remained wedged open but only because of his sandwiched fingers.

“Are you insane? Do you want your fingers to get broken?” his father snapped.

Even without Quintessence, Morgan still possessed too much endurance for something like his fingers being slammed into a door frame to do any real damage. Still, were that not the case, the adrenaline pumping through him at the moment would have dulled any pain that he would have felt.

“This isn’t a prank! I swear it’s not!” he exclaimed while peering at his father from the thin gap his hand was making.

Chris looked back at him coldly. “You just said you were my son. I’ve only had one boy and he died in a plane crash ten years ago. If you know who he is and who I am, I know that you know that. You came here to play a game with me. I’m not interested. Now, move your hand out of my doorway before I really crush it.”

“Dad, c’mon! Look at me! I’ve just gotten older, is all. I’m not just some---“

Chris began pushing the door further closed. While it didn’t necessarily hurt per se, Morgan’s hand was feeling enough pressure that he was wondering if he ought to channel some Quintessence into it. His father, who was pushing into his late 40s now, was surprisingly strong despite not having a bulky build.

“Get away from my door,” Chris said coldly.

A sorrowful look struck Morgan’s face. One that Chris, even while still thinking he was just a mean-spirited prankster, felt true sincerity from. The Chosen One truly was at a loss for what to say next. What he could even possibly say to his dad to make him believe that his long-dead son was standing right in front of him? Chris, after all, had every reason to think him a liar. From his perspective, some random 20-something had arrived on his doorstep just to play a juvenile prank at the expense of a tragedy that had been eating at him for almost every day of the past decade. What other reaction was Christopher Moon meant to give this stranger than “Get the hell off my lawn”?

It was at this impasse that it occurred to Morgan that perhaps it wasn’t what he needed to ‘tell ‘his dad but rather what he needed to ‘show’ him.

“Eighteen years ago, you and mom took me to my Cousin Nick’s birthday party,” Morgan began. “Right before we sang happy birthday, I and Nick were playing with the other kids in the front yard, even though you told us not to. While we were playing, one of the kids, Diane, wandered into the street just as a car was running past.”

Chris made a face. “What? Who told you all this? Why do you---“

“The driver wasn’t going very fast, but they were looking for something in their glove compartment. They never told anybody what, but everybody afterward guessed it was pot. Anyways, he came real close to hitting Diane when I, thinking I was some type of superhero, ran into the street and pushed her out of the way. The driver stopped in time to not turn me into road kill, but his front bumper hit my head in a way that I needed to go to the emergency room and get stitches.”

Finally, Morgan took his hand out of the door. With his father still watching him through the thin gap, he bowed his head and parted his head to show a faint scar on his scalp from where the stitches had been made. It was minor compared to the many other injuries and scars he had received in Validar, but it had always remained. Niam, after noticing the scar, had once offered to get rid of it for him. It was so light a wound, removing it entirely would have been simple. It was at this moment that Morgan was very glad he had never taken his friend up on the offer. When he looked back up at Chris, his flummoxed expression said it all.

It was one thing for a person who looked similar to his son to show up at his doorstep pretending to be him. But how would he have access to such an intimate story that only select members of Chris’s family would know? How did he know about Nick and Diane? How did he know about Chris’s former wife? How did he have the exact same scar in the exact same place his son did after his stitches were removed?

This litany of questions raced through Chris’s mind while he stood in the doorway, his mouth slightly ajar. He had to ask himself: would anybody go through this much effort just to prank a stranger? He locked gazes with the man claiming to be his son. This alleged Morgan Moon’s eyes – they held a resolute look to them. There wasn’t a trace of any false pretensions to be seen. He either was an amazing actor or…

Chris shook his head. “No. I don’t know how you got all information, but I know for a fact that my son is dead. Ten years ago, he died in Puget Sound with those other plane passengers.”

“But was your son’s body recovered?”

“What?”

“The body of Morgan; was it ever found?”

Chris blinked. After the plane crash, there was a myriad of police divers, sonar scanners, and ROVs with cameras that went searching for further wreckage and the bodies of the victims. The cadaver of every passenger was found save for one – a fourteen-year-old boy named Morgan Moon. Chris, who badly wanted to at least have his son’s remains buried properly, was robbed of that final privileged that all the other mourners received. He had always chalked it up to his one last bout of misfortune and lived with the regret of never recovering his son’s body for the past decade.

The accident was one of the biggest tragedies in the state of Washington's history. Dozens of people died in that accident, from young children to the elderly, with no survivors. Still, the wreckage was salvaged and the bodies of all the passengers had been recovered saved for Christopher's son. Was it that much more likely that his son was the sole passenger never recovered from the crash than for him to have survived and been standing right here on his doorstep?

Chris stared at Morgan for a moment and then eventually asked him "If you're my son... Tell me what your mother's maiden name was."

"Honda," Morgan answered.

"When was her birthday?"

"August 5th."

"What was the name you gave the puppy you and I found on the side of the road one afternoon?"

"Molly."

Chris furrowed his brow as he continued.

"You had your first girlfriend when you were thirteen. What was her name?"

"Brenda."

"What was the reason you gave me for why you two broke up?"

"I uh... kissed her best friend on a field trip," Morgan muttered, still embarrassed to admit the detail eleven years later.

"When and how did your grandfather die?"

"He passed away the week before Christmas of a heart attack when I was eight. You called me downstairs to tell me that grandpa wouldn't be visiting for the holidays that year like he usually did."

Chris stared at the sky while running his hand through his graying hair. He sighed.

"…Who was your favorite teacher growing up?" he continued

"Mr. McGruder. He would sit with the students at lunch and tell us stories from when he was marines."

Chris nodded slowly. He had a moment of silence before he gave his final question.

"When your mother left us... What did I say to you immediately after we woke up to your mother being gone?”

Morgan smiled as he thought back. "You said 'Don't worry, son. Dad's not going anywhere. I'll always be here for you.'"

And with that, the levy broke and the tears began to fall. It was a first for Morgan. Not when his grandfather died nor when his mother disappeared had the hero ever witnessed his father cry. Morgan recalled something that a mentor of his had told him in Validar: that tears were wasted in tragedy and should only be shed when true joy arrived at your doorstep.

Morgan reached forward, put his arm around Chris' shoulder, and pulled him into a tight embrace. Chris returned the gesture. It was the first time in over ten years that father and son had touched each other.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Morgan and his father spent the better part of the next hour in the latter’s living room reminiscing about the past right up to the plane crash that had separated father and son. One with think, with over a decade of unknown history between the both of them, the long-lost son would be eager to fill in those years’ worth of blanks for dad, but that wasn’t really a possibility for Morgan. He wasn’t particularly eager to tell his father about his adventures in Validar or the truth about his mother's identity mostly because it would have sounded insane. The last thing the Chosen One wanted his father to think was that his son had returned to him as some raving loon. Hence, Morgan came up with a pragmatic substitute answer.

"You caught amnesia?" Christopher asked in astonishment.

Morgan nodded, having spent all of the two minutes forging that excuse. It was lazy and unoriginal, but what else was he supposed to tell his dad? That he was whisked away to a world of magic, monsters, and mysticism? That an eccentric wizard took him under his wing and started him on his journey to become the champion of that foreign world? That he slew countless brigands, warlords, witches, warlocks, demons, dragons, and demigods across numerous countries throughout the Nine Realms? Of course not; his dad would have rushed him to the hospital for brain scans if he heard all that.

Thus, amnesiac hobo story arc it was.

"So what happened then?" his father asked.

"Well, uh… I met this social worker lady named… Lacey? Yeah, Lacey. She helped me recover my memories. I was living with some homeless guys when she found me. Not sure how I got there or what type of lifestyle I was living up until then, but as soon as I got my memories back I started looking for ways to get back into contact with you."

"That's insane... Well, I guess you did survive a crash that killed everyone else on board. Something like that probably leaves serious trauma. Do you remember anything in-between the crash and gaining your memories back?"

"Not really? I kinda do, but it all has this blurry filter to it; almost like it was all a dream. And a lot of it might have been. I'm not still stuck mentally as a fourteen-year-old if that's what you’re wondering. My memories of the past decade are just really hazy is all. To be honest, I couldn’t even tell you who the president is or who the guy right before him was."

That last comment was actually true. Morgan had no clue who was president, who were the most popular celebrities, what were the major events of the past decade, or knew about any other matter concerning recent events. On his way back to Seattle, he saw a few advertisements for classic brands like Coke and Pepsi being marketed by celebrities who he never heard of before. How much or little the United States had changed in the ten years and some change Morgan had been away from it was a mystery to the hero.

Christopher sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Well... It’s fine. You don't have to explain yourself. After everything you've been through to get back, I'm just glad that you made it home in one piece. I..."

The elder Moon kept his mouth open, but no words left it. He then looked away while smiling, realizing he was, for the umpteenth time that hour, at a loss for words. Morgan put a hand on his dad's back. He knew that Chris wasn't used to showing this much emotion at once. If Morgan's mother had arrived at the doorstep along with him, his father might have broken down and started bawling for the first time in his life.

"I could never know for sure what happened to your mom, Morgan, but I sincerely believed that you were dead. Every once and a while I would find myself heading off to the beach early in the morning or late in the afternoon and just staring off in the direction of where the crash happened. Hell, I still catch myself staring at old pictures of you. I even have the last photo you took ten years ago on that end table behind you."

Morgan turned to see a picture frame with a smiling young boy in it. It was him when he was fourteen, just days before the plane crash. He hadn't remembered taking this photo. It hadn't seemed important enough to merit being framed, but his apparent demise changed that.

"Huh. I forgot I even took this," Morgan said.

As he leaned in closer, his gaze couldn't help but wander toward the other photo that sat beside it. It framed his father smiling while holding an infant in his arms. Morgan knew at once that the infant couldn't have been him or one of his cousins. His father looked too old for that to be the case. Curious, he picked the photo up and examined it closely.

"Dad, who's this baby you're holding in the photo?" the hero asked.

"Oh. That's uh..." Chris was initially hesitant to respond, but he eventually answered. "That's my daughter. You're half-sister."

Morgan's eyes widened. "You had another kid?!"

"Yeah. Sorry, but I just--"

"Why are you apologizing? That's amazing news, Dad! While I was in... I mean, when I finally got back my old memories, I was worried if you had just given up on life because you lost mom and me. I'm relieved as hell that you were able to move on and be happy again."

His father smiled. He obviously had not been expecting that type of reaction from his long-lost son. The idea that Morgan might have thought he had been 'replaced' had proven to be needless anxiety.

"How old is she?" Morgan asked.

"Six months in the photo. Nine years today. Her tenth birthday is coming up actually."

Morgan cocked a brow at this news. "Wait... So, you had a baby only a few months after my plane crash?"

Chris scratched at his stubble while looking a bit embarrassed. "Not long after your plane accident, I met a woman who gave me a lot of comfort. She gave me the peace of mind I really needed. Kept me teetering on the brink a couple times if I’m being honest. The two of us became close, and... And then your sister was here."

Morgan was taken aback by the revelation. He wasn't upset that his father had found love and started a new family, but he was surprised at just how quickly it all happened. Granted, he did recall his mother saying how she and his father's relationship developed quickly too. It appeared that Christopher Moon was all about the 'sparks and fireworks' when it came to relationships.

"So, are you and the mother still together?" Morgan asked.

His father nodded. "We got married a few months after the baby was born."

"Isn't this how your relationship with mom played out? You proposed after I was born too, didn't you?"

"Heh... Say, you want to see a photo of her?"

Morgan gave an eager 'yes' as he put the framed photo back down. He watched his father flip out his phone and scroll through his photos. He then showed the screen to his son.

"This is a selfie your stepmother and little sister sent me just a few days ago," Chris said.

The moment Morgan looked at the picture it was like the world had suddenly stopped spinning. A gorgeous woman with a disturbingly attractive smile was coddling her indifferent daughter. He recognized these two. He recognized their captivating eyes. And he recognized the mother especially.

"No... There's no way..." Morgan murmured while shaking his head.

"Morgan? Are you alright? Do you still have head trauma or something?"

"Dad... what's your new wife's name?"

"Veronica."

Morgan froze for a moment. He ran all ten fingers through his hair as a wave of horror crashed against the walls of his sanity. He had to have misheard his father. Perhaps he was even mistaken about what he actually in the picture and it was all just his mind playing tricks on him. While the hero was still trying to make sense of it all, the sound of the front door shutting caught both of the Moon men's attention. Father and son in unison turned to look in the direction the sound had come. Footsteps were followed by a trio who rounded the corner and entered the living room.

"Dad, we're back from our jog. Next time come with...."

Agnes's words trailed off when she saw a familiar face seated beside her father in her family's living room. Momentarily stunned by the sight of Morgan and the realization that followed, she released Tito's leash. The hellhound then walked gingerly over to Morgan and began to sniff and lick his hand, as if to reacquaint himself with the hero. Not noticing the awkward atmosphere that had entered the room, Christopher stood up, urged Morgan to do the same, and then gave an introduction on his son's behalf.

"Veronica, Agnes; this is going to come out of nowhere, but..." The senior Moon put a hand on his boy's shoulder. "This is Morgan, my son who I thought died a little over ten years ago. He’s… He survived.”

After hearing her father's announcement, Agnes's expression turned confused for only a brief moment before turning to annoyance for a reason neither father nor son could comprehend.

"Now, Agnes," her mother said. "Don't be ugly. This is your big brother after all."

Veronica then strolled over to the hero, and, without giving him a chance to consent to such a thing, threw her arms around Morgan and hugged him.

"I can't believe this, Chris! Your little boy came back after all these years!" she exclaimed, feigning astonishment. "This is such a surprise, but I'm happy to welcome you into the fold, Morgan. I hope we can become close.”

As her dangerous eyes looked up and met her stepson's, he couldn't help but remember her words when she gave him his father's address: "The last thing you're going to want later is to thank me."

Morgan still didn't regret coming to reunite with his dad after all these years, but damn if the mood wasn't spoiled.