“Have a good day, Sevs?” Father asked as Sevs walked in the front door.

“Yeah, for the most part,” Sevs responded. Father had started coming home early when Sevs had started school. He had moved all his meetings to the morning a long time ago. When Sevs was coming to work with him, he only had the mornings free when Sevs was with Markus.

“I heard you almost missed the bus this morning.” Father ribbed him.

“It was a close call, sorry I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I doubt it crossed your mind. It sounded like a herd of elephants was running down the stairs, so it was hard to miss.” Father laughed. “Actually, I just got up not long after. I just went to work a little early. Think I might make that a habit.”

“Oh, you don’t have to. I can be quieter in the morning.”

“No, I won’t have you act like a mouse in my house. I like being around when you get home anyways.”

Sevs tossed his bag down next to his chair, sat, and looked at Father. “How was work?”

“That’s supposed to be my question.” Father chuckled. “But it was good. It’s odd not having you around. I get some questions all the time about where you are.”

Sevs quirked an eyebrow. “I thought I told everyone?”

“Apparently not. Once you started getting involved with things beyond Markus’s project, you had a significant impact on the work of many people. So many of them are people you didn’t work with closely. It’s a good thing we can hire interns. The company sensitive information you had… There was no way we could allow you to continue to work with Markus without a non-compete.” Father gently ribbed as if Sevs was going to go to their competitors.

“Or you would also be in jail for child labor.” Sevs shot back.

“Dang, you got me. Gotta close my sweat shop in the basement run by street urchins chained to the looms I picked up on our trip to Thailand.” Father got up quickly and made to go downstairs, but just walked into the kitchen.

“I think Markus has been a bad influence on you,” Sevs called after him.

“Hey! I’m the father here. Don’t tell me about bad influences.” Father grumped. He called out to Sevs a second later. “Do you want anything from the kitchen?”

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“Nah, I’m good.”

Father continued speaking a minute later as he walked out of the kitchen with a cup of tea. “Markus did say that it's lonely in the mornings without you. I’m glad you convinced him to step up and build a new team before you left. They are putting in work, by the way. I always knew he would be a good leader. It seems he just needed to be able to pick who he worked with. Starting a new project from scratch was also a good idea.”

“It was less for him and more for me. It's not often you get the chance as an intern to be a tech lead. Honestly, we wanted to switch roles, but I don’t think an intern with direct reports was going to fly.”

“Yeah, that would have been too much for the team’s pride. I think. An intern tech lead wasn't much less of a stretch, though. I am glad you worked it out as you did. Markus needed to have more of a relationship with his team. By himself, it was too easy for him to become jaded. He is excellent with people he cares about, and building this team has done so much for him. Career-wise and personally. It’s something Markus built a huge amount of skill in since he started. If he had been the tech lead again, I doubt he would have bonded so well.”

Sevs nodded. “That is true. When he took responsibility, it really changed his attitude.”

“And I bet Susan didn’t hurt,” Father added.

“No, I don't think she did.”

“Oh, and Janice is getting married.”

“Finally, they had been dating forever. She just announced that today?”

“No, yesterday. I forgot to tell you. You are invited to the wedding, by the way. She made me promise to let you know. She was so focused that she forgot to tell me if I was invited.”

“I’m sure you can be my plus one if you are not…. I’m honestly surprised. I didn’t expect an invite.”

“Well, now that you aren’t more of a coworker, you can be a bit more of a friend. She was too busy trying to mother you while you were little and first coming to the office.”

Father and Sevs continued talking for a while. Just catching up. Sevs had been busy with school, and they hadn't had as much time as they used to this last week. Eventually, they got hungry and started to make dinner plans. They didn’t quite make it the entire way to dinner without being interrupted. Lily hit up the group chat with him and Hank and asked if either of them could give her a ride today. Hank responded that he also needed a ride. Their metaphorical heads both turned to look at Sevs. Who sighed and asked Father.

This was actually not that uncommon of an occurrence. Father and Sevs stopped by their houses before taking them all out to dinner. They went to a taco shop near the gym as they were starting to run a little late. Not to say that they rushed through dinner.

“Say, Hank, I don’t think I got to congratulate you on your latest tournament win. I was sorry to miss it. However, I heard you were dominant.” Father commented after as they were waiting for their order.

“Thanks, there is not much local competition in my weight class. If I were in Sevs division, I wouldn’t do nearly as well.” Hanke demurred.

“That’s ‘cause you lose to me, of course.” Sevs cut in as he pushed Hank's shoulder. As the boys started to go back and forth, Father turned to Lily. Who was sitting peacefully on his right. They struck up a conversation about something reasonable.