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Fathers bring a lot of deception. Family in general is kind of a letdown. But Alexios roams cities and countryside. Earth and sea. And getting back his family, his childhood home, the remembered scents and views of Sparta, he feels a wound inside slowly mending back, soothed by this anchor he was missing.
Only every time he catches a glimpse of a thin dark arm and small naked feet disappearing in the crowd, a serious face on a too small body, the white of a terrified eye looking at the menacing world around it, he sees Phoibe. He sees himself. All those abandoned kids trying to survive on their own, betrayed by the adults around them.
He has to stop his heart to leap at every child he meets who look at him with those mistrustful eyes. He wants to take them away. To follow them around and dare everyone to pick on them when he's there to make them hurt in return.
He feels like such a fraud to despair about orphans when his job makes him kill so much fathers and mothers. Telling himself he’s making the world better one assassination at a time. Bringing chaos and destruction to small worlds, but for the good of the many.
When he can’t take it anymore, seeing the ribs of a little girl in rags sharing her meal with dogs, he seeks a man who will understand and maybe help with this project that keeps brewing. He knocks again on the door of Dolops, Chrysis’s son. The man is happy to see him and got the experience he needs to make his idea a reality. Build an orphanage where he could take all those boys and girls he meets living in the street.
They start small. Alexios gathers his drachmae and his resources and get back to where he saw the girl. She’s named Cora. She has no family, can barely stop shivering from fright and cold but keeps nodding and gripping his belt when he tells her he can take her somewhere safe. She’s the first of many and Alexios can finally breathe easier.
He’s surprised when his friends keep meeting him there. He didn’t advertise the orphanage but of course, Alkibiades finds him with no effort. He’s not great with children but keeps ranting about bland food and musty beds. When he leaves, Alexios finds an enormous pile of drachmae on the doorstep and smiles fondly.
Hippocrates intercepts him a few weeks later to chastise him about his childcare knowledge and checks personally all the kids before he’s satisfied. One of his apprentice is stationed at the orphanage after that.
He comes back with a five year old boy who lost his entire family to the plague when he finds Socrates surrounded by the kids, telling them a story with no doubt a boring but important moralistic message . After that, teachers keeps popping up and organizing a schedule for the older kids to learn all the basics.
Aristophanes is crossed when Alexios finds him there, yelling at him about arts and stupid brutes not caring about the importance of theater in life. He caves and writing classes starts a week after. He even builds a scene and some stands.
It’s Stentor who surprises him the most. They’re sailing on the Adrestia and the man approaches him with a piece of paper in hand, all embarrassed. It’s a list of people he gathered. People wanting to adopt a child. Alexios didn’t even think about that. He’s not sure about letting his kids go but who is he to deny them another chance.
The thought that maybe these kids could have more than all he can provide sends him in a spiral of doubt. Again he sees his orphans and thinks about family, about the care of a parent, even an adopted one. He was always a child searching for a family and he’s starting to understand the emptiness inside him. He gets his family on the project of judging the merits of these adoption applicants, stopping Kassandra to organize a trial by combat and he sets sails to the orphanage.
When they get there, he gathers Cora in his arms, the first girl of his ragtag team and asks her if maybe she wants him to be her father.
She grips his belt and nods.