for @adventurebcby.
'YOU'RE SURE YOU'VE got everything for the plane?' he asks again, probably for the fifteenth time. He'd be hard-pressed to keep the fatherly concern from bleeding through into his words - so he doesn't try. It's his prerogative. But he feels a small pressure on his arm as Elena corrals him for the umpteenth time with a quiet 'Nate' and soft shake of her head (he's sure he can see her suppressing a smirk).
'Alright, alright,' he accedes, 'I get it.'
And he does - it's just, every time he so much as looks at his daughter he needs to make sure she's going to be alright. But at the same time he knows she's going to be alright. They've all come a long way, they've all grown up, and he'd be a fool to assume that she'd stay with him & Elena forever. And he'd be a fool to ever think that she wouldn't follow in her parents' footsteps - adventure runs in her veins, THICKER than blood.
Elena makes some sort of remark about 'leaving you to it' and walks away to actually help check Cassie's bags, and Nate is left staring at his daughter fondly. She'd turned twenty-two, and he & Elena had promised her she'd be able to lead her own trip after graduating. The stipulations had been a degree - the conditions had been no supervision (a.k.a. no Mom or Dad looking over her shoulder) and complete control. He'd watched with pride throughout all her preparations, bitten his tongue at moments when he'd almost become a back-seat driver, and grown increasingly confident in his daughter's abilities to take on this & any challenge with every passing day.
He begins to sift through the memories of her in her childhood, memories he'd kept close to his heart over the years. He'd give the world and every treasure contained within it to see her safe. But now he's got to face up to the fact that his little girl can take on the world.
'Hey,' he starts, shoving his hands into his pockets and blinking at the ground, suddenly overcome with the image of her in pigtails running through their backyard on her way to the water, the golden streak of a puppy trailing after her. His eyes jump back up to her face now, and he wonders how he ever had the LUCK to father such a beautiful young woman.
'I know I promised I wouldn't do this but, well, I lied,' he chuckles, as he begins to list off important things to remember for her arrival in Bangkok, finishing with, 'Oh, and as soon as you land, you're gonna call Paula - okay, I think that's it.'
He sighs, the habitual gesture of his hand ruffling his now mostly silver hair accompanying a glance over at the jeep they'd all be piling into a few minutes from now to take Cassie to the airstrip. There one of D&F's pilots and Sully's old plane await her arrival. Only another hour, then, for him to pretend she's still that little girl running down the beach.
She says something, something he's heard a million times before in the company of comments such as 'I'll be fine' or 'I got this' or 'You don't need to worry, Dad,' and he smiles as he leans down to press a KISS to her forehead. Then, without warning, he wraps his arms around her and holds her for a long moment, squeezing his eyes shut so that none of the tears he feels welling up have a chance to spill out.
'I'm so PROUD of you, Cassie,' he tells her quietly. 'And I love you so much.'
