Pia tried to process the information. "So you hold the secret to time travel?" she asked. "That's... Groundbreaking."
Giovanni gave her a sad look. "That is only the start of it, I'm afraid."
"You're afraid?" Pia repeated. "Father, this is huge."
"And the other me understood it," Giovanni said. "He had teamed up with two other men, from other timelines, who had discovered the time travel as well, and aimed to utilize it for their own personal benefit."
"Well, that's not unexpected," Pia said. "You could... You could do anything with that power."
Giovanni made a grimace. "Within certain limits," he said. "You cannot change time after it has already happened... But you might create a different timeline if you try."
10 notes
·
View notes
Abraham hummed, raising an eyebrow, “It’s odd you know.”
Giovanni’s fingers tightened around his glass. Abraham continued, “somehow, her DNA matches your new girlfriend’s.”
Abraham watched as Giovanni’s eyes widened. The other man clearly didn’t expect such a blatant accusation.
“You…” he trailed off.
“You certainly didn’t think, after our last meeting, I wouldn’t confirm my suspicions.” Abraham set the glass down on the table next to them and straightened in his seat. He pulled the edges of his cuff links to straighten them, before patting them back into place.
14 notes
·
View notes
“Oh.” Pelle put down his slice of pizza, desperately trying to swallow the piece he had started chewing on as quick as he could. There was a long pause until he managed to. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” he said earnestly. He had certainly not been close to Fabio himself, and Pia gave far from glowing reviews on his behavior at home, but a son was a son.
“I thought it may be best that I tell Pia myself, rather than on the phone as I did with Jolanda,” he explained. “Unless Jolanda has called her herself already…”
“I don’t believe she has,” Pelle said. “She would’ve told me.” He was relatively certain of it, at least. “I’m sure she knows I would want to know.”
“No matter,” Giovanni said. “It made me realize our time is limited and I should spend more time with my children. And grandchildren.”
Pelle nodded. “Family is important,” he said. “I don’t talk even nearly enough to my parents and siblings, even though I should. Life just gets in the way. I’m sure it did for you too.”
Giovanni took another sip of coffee before replying. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of work to do on the lab and in my… Other activities.”
Pelle took another bite of the pizza. “Other activities?”
“I’ve been quite engaged in political activities,” he said. “You might’ve seen it.”
Pelle shook his head. “I stay far away from all that,” he said. “Only trouble. I can talk about animal rights, but that’s it.”
Giovanni looked at him, then shrugged. “It’s true,” he noted. “Plenty of trouble.”
“But I know you were in the original city council,” Pelle said. “When Abraham Helios ran the town.”
“Oh, I was,” Giovanni said, smiling. “I was his opponent and his ally both.”
Pelle, pretending to care, nodded along as he kept eating pizza.
“We all agreed on making ourselves as independent as we could from SimCity,” Giovanni continued. “We all agreed our freedoms had to be protected. However…” He clenched his fist as he spoke. “To succeed, we all had to make sacrifices. Agree to disagree. Etch things into the law we might later come to regret. And Salem Bellamy was given way more influence than public opinion should’ve allowed him to.” Giovanni bit his lip as he pondered the past. “Perhaps I wasn’t the most respectful in my criticism of him and Abraham. Perhaps I didn’t hold the most polite tone. But why should I? Why should I be ‘calm’ and ‘neutral’ while he demands outrageous legislations?”
Pelle, feeling uncomfortable with the conversation veering into topics too vague for him to know anything about, stood up abruptly. “I have a job interview,” he lied. “One of many lined up. I hate to leave you all alone here in the kitchen, but I didn’t expect this spontaneous visit, so I didn’t know to schedule around it.”
“No problem,” Giovanni said, taking another sip of coffee.
“It’s a job interview through the computer,” Pelle continued. He picked up the pizza box with one hand and grabbed the laptop with the other. Getting the oil from the pizza on his laptop made him cringe, but he was too much in a hurry to escape the conversation to wash his hands before grabbing it. “Come on, Sigurd, I don’t want you bothering Uncle Gio.”
12 notes
·
View notes
Emelia leaned her head back on his shoulder, “Good. If there is a problem, we will solve it. I won’t let Abraham Helios tear this family down again. And neither will you.”
He said nothing at that, But Emelia didn’t need confirmation. They both knew the lengths either was willing to go for family now. Her presence in the dining room was proof of that all on its own.
-----
9 notes
·
View notes
Giovanni goes to work in his shiny new car. Kaeileen was actually the one who wanted the car, but I gave it to Giovanni instead.
The telescope was my present to Pia for doing so well in school. And because she’s a queen.
10 notes
·
View notes