Maeve: Mal, you are not going to repeat their story.
Mal: I failed with Arlo and Apollo, a miscalculation on my part. Washed my hands from the blood that's inevitably on them due to my part on all of it. But the fact remains, I failed them... I don't want to do the same with Syra.
She asked my help. I told her it was a bad idea. She insisted... So I did.
Maeve: That doesn't mean you should allow yourself to be hurt.
Mal: For my children? Within understandable bounds, that's what being a father is all about.
Maeve: Thought this wasn't your parenting run.
Mal: And it isn't, and it has been very hard not to level that skill... And apparently centuries of existence didn't teach me anything, I keep walking into... into the exact same problems and having to deal with the inevitable aftermath of it.
Maeve: Is this why you try to be distant?
Mal: I have lived centuries. I have tried isolation and I have tried living in society. It's easier to just live, to live with the fact I will outlive the people I love, to accept I will watch my children die. So I try to become... an afterthought to them. There will be no resentment from them towards my predicament. That way is easier to let go. It won't hurt that much. Because it hurts, I walk away happy knowing I gave the people I loved a normal life so to say, hope the chaos that is my existence doesn't hit them too hard, but it hurts every time, rather the chaos hits them or not. And even with all this power, all this knowledge I make mistakes and it hurts every. Single. Time! So I hide behind this wall, "it's not my parenting run" and I emotionally check out of their lives, but then I watch them fall and I want to be there to catch them, but sometimes it's too late...
Maeve: It'll only be too late if you allow it to be too late, Mal.
Mal: I can't foretell the future Maeve. I have a slight idea of the future plot, but I don't always know what will happen until it does and then it's too late. And sometimes, catching them will do worse. It's a blood double-edged sword.
Maeve: And you don't want the same to happen to Syra... What about Dim and Alcina?
Mal: I'll become the same to Dim and Alcina most aging parents do. They'll go on with their lives, visit during Winter's Eve, but after you die and I sell this house. They'll live on and forget about me, so, it's best I give them to freedom to facilitate that. I'm an afterthought.
Mal: Syracusia will never forget either of us, Maeve. If there is any good in my Eyes, Syracusia has inherited it all! But she can't stay with me forever. I am a Paradox, I attract all that is good and all that is bad. Same thing with Arlo and Apollo. Change and Antagony chases us.
So it's better to be selfish, and mean, and cold and little bit distant... So when time comes and I leave, it won't hurt them as much, because it's not like I was ever there to start with. It will hurt me to go, it always do, I may hide, I may pretend it doesn't, but it's easier to let go, if I am an afterthought.
Maeve shook her head and pulled him closer, pressing her forehead against his.
Maeve: Your reasoning has some flaws, you know. I don't agree with it.
Mal: Like I said, it doesn't justify it.
Maeve: But I understand. And in my opinion, that's bullshit!
Maeve: You just said it yourself. Staying away, being distant, doesn't work either. So either love us plainly or leave! Don't half-ass it! Aren't you the one who's always saying you don't like to leave loose ends? Then don't leave them!
Maeve: You should do your best to be a good dad and a good husband for us, as long as you can, because, like you said, even if you become an afterthought, you can become a good afterthought. We're going to age, and die and you'll be here. Become a good memory for us to bring with us to the grave. Even if time erases us from you, let us take the thought of the wonderful man I know you are with us.
Mal closed his eyes, shaking his head. There was a certain disbelief that from all he said, that was what she chose to take from it.
Mal: Since when have you been wise?
Maeve: I'm almost on my fifties and I am a mother of five and I have messed up with a few of them. I have learned. I can chose to keep doing the same mistake, dwell on them, or try to make things better for the ones who are here. You can make the same choice.
Come on. Lets go clean up that wound, and then you can rest here while I go make you dinner.
