@formermessiah
This was home for now. This time, with these people, experiencing their problems. Getting heavily involved was something he avoided if he could. Time travel made life more complicated in a way that most others couldn’t understand.
Hope wasn’t most others, though. Nate Summers wouldn’t usually be labeled as the father-type but it was always meant to be for him. Certain things were fixed, no matter how many time jumps were made. Hope was meant to be with Nate and he wouldn’t ever change that.
His daughter was tough, resilient, and brave— all necessary things for growing up in a post-apocalyptic world. They survived together. She could protect herself but it was a father’s natural instinct to want to protect their kids. Nate did the best he could, but always felt like it wasn’t enough. Cable was known to be dangerous, and he was— toughened and violent, surviving against all the odds against him ever since he was born. Shouldn’t that mean he could protect her whenever he needed to?
When she was taken into Pleasant Hill, there was nothing he could do. There were enough mutants rallying to march in and practically burn the place to the ground to get their people back— he didn’t need to be one of them. Before he knew it, they had gotten her out and killed her. It was a fast solution. It got the job done. But he was finding himself needing to bite his tongue around everyone who made that decision without him. Times like that reminded him why he preferred working on his own, making the hard calls on his terms. Not anyone else’s.
Now that Hope was back though, it was easier to let the anger and frustration fade. All that mattered was that she was okay.
Nate entered the Hatchery and took slow steps, passing the pods as he looked for her. He caught a glimpse of red hair and let out a breath, turning to head towards her. “Hey, kid.” His greeting was soft as he approached, finding it hard to not smile. “You have no idea how good it is to see you.”