The next morning Ivan woke up in an unfamiliar room. During the last months he had always woke up in his room at the campus, which was a lot smaller than the room he was currently in. His confusion didn"t last long as he remembered what had happend yesterday, which was nothing less than a complete change of his life. He now had a daughter and a wife, even though his wife didn"t seem to like him.After collecting his thoughts he went into the bathroom to wash up and then changed into some comfortable clothes, before leaving his room.
As soon as he left his room he was greeted by the happy scream of his daughter, "Daddy! You are finally up."
He then saw her bound up the stairs before happily gabbing his hand.
"How did you sleep? What are we going to do until the picnic? Can we play something?", she then fired out a stream of questions, not giving him time to answer any of them.
"Let"s go to the garden, I will show you around.", she then continued and started to pull him along.
"Stop right there Jane.", the voice of Lara came to his rescue, "You still haven"t finished your breakfast."
"Oh.", only now did she seem to remember that she was still having breakfast when her daddy had come out of his room.
"Then let"s eat first.", she sounds a bit dejected, that she couldn"t start playing with him now.
"Sure, and after that you can show me around.", Ivan encouraged her.
A blinding smile appeared on her little face and he once again marveled at how fast her mood changed. One second she was unhappy and the next she was full of happiness again.
Besides Lara his mentor too was seated at the table with a plate full of food before them. There was one more empty s.p.a.ce with a plate on which there was still some food left, which surely was his daughters, that had been abandoned when she came to greet him.
With great timing the housekeeper came from the kitchen with another plate of food which she put down on the seat besides Lara, which was traditionally the seat for the man of the house.
He was a bit taken aback, since he wouldn"t have expected to be seated like this, considering his wife att.i.tude towards him. But surprisingly she didn"t say anything towards this arrangement and he had no choice but to accept the seating. Looking at his daughters face, she too wasn"t all that happy with the arrangement, since she was sitting on the other side of Lara and as such not directly next to her daddy.
The breakfast was rich consisting of egg, bacon and toast with a gla.s.s of orange juice. Only after he sat down his mentor greeted him, "Morning, Ivan. Didn"t you sleeping a bit long?"
"Well it was the first time I was able to, since I had to either go to school or training all the time before."
Lara on the other hand didn"t even greet him and instead scolded her daughter.
"How many time do I have to tell you not to get up from the table until everyone has finished their meal?"
"I"m sorry mom, I forgot.", Jane ruefully let her head hang down.
"Just don"t forget it again next time."
"Yes mommy, I won"t."
"And outside of the house call your father Ivan and not daddy."
"Huh? Why?"
"Because it is a secret for now that he is your father."
"Great, I love secrets.", she happily jumps up and down on her chair, which lead to her mother smiling at her antics.
After that they finished breakfast Jane pulled him along for a tour of the house. Since he had already seen everything important inside she lead him to outside.
Behind the villa there was a big outdoor pool, from which steam rose, because in the mornings it was already quite cold and the pool was heated. After the pool there were a tennis court and a big playground with a swing a climbing frame and a trampoline.
"What do you think? Isn"t it great?"
"Yes, it is. It must be fun to play in the playground or in the pool."
"It sure is, sadly I don"t have n.o.body to play with most of the time, since mom is always busy."
"Aren"t there any children at you age you could play with?"
"There are a few, but most of them are annoying. They are just to childish."
It was weird to hear this out of the child of a child.
"They are childish? Aren"t you a child yourself?"
"Of course I am a child, but that isn"t a good reason to behave like they do. Most of them can"t even read, although they are already eight years old. And lastly they are just to weak, so I always have to be careful not to hurt them and that"s really hard if they start rampage around."
"I don"t really know how children are supposed to be at your age, but are they really that weak?"
"Oh right, I forgot that you have forgotten everything. And it isn"t so much that they are to weak, but that my stats are just much higher than theirs."
"Really how come?"
"Grandpa said that it must be because of you, since my mother had normal stats at her age and I am the first in the family who has such elevated stats."
"Then do you hate it that you are different?"
"No. I"m happy to be different after all that is something I got from my parents and which means that I wasn"t as much of a burden for my mother."
At this point Ivan went on his knees and hugged the little girl. As soon as he had put his arms around her she started to sob, as her strong facade crumbled and her pent up frustration released.