Lydia

Dear Amanda,

I know there’s a lot you don’t understand--about me, about my life, about why I left, about why I didn’t want you here. The last is the worst, I think. I see it in your eyes every time you look at me, that hurt, the betrayal, the accusation. I’m a bad mother, or I never wanted to be one, or I don’t want you, or ... whatever it is you think. Maybe the first is true...maybe I am a bad mother...but you mustn’t think the other two.

The only thing I ever wanted for you was to be safe, happy, to have everything I never did.

I didn’t know about abilities when I left you with Carol--I didn’t know what I was except that I felt like a freak. She was older and married and able to give you so much I couldn’t--a stable home, a normal home, with two parents who loved you. Because she did love you. I could feel that from her, completely, and her husband was a good man. He wanted to be a good father to you, and that was something that no matter what I did, I couldn’t give you.

Even once I found out about abilities...what life was being the daughter of a single, teenage mother at a traveling carnival compared to a comfortable, cohesive family? You could go to school, have friends, put down roots, grow up learning to ride a bicycle and playing with dolls...We were outcasts, the people society didn’t want, and as far as I knew, you were normal. You had a chance at a life in a world that didn’t want me.

Then I found out you were like me, and, Amanda, you have to know I was going to come for you. I understood--you couldn’t stay there. Carol wouldn’t understand. You’re like me. But the government had been hunting us, and Joseph had been murdered, and there were new people in the carnival I couldn’t trust...Edgar was going to come for you, take you somewhere safe, and I was going to follow. I was going to do my best to find somewhere safe for both of us, to be with you...

But you found me first, and you overheard things that weren’t true, things I was saying to protect you, because I didn’t trust Samuel’s reasons for wanting you with us. You were my daughter, and he didn’t need to be making decisions about you. I had to assure him of my loyalty, though. He’d already taken the money, cut off my one avenue of escape...I had to placate him...to try and think of something else, another way to get to you, to make you safe...

I didn’t mean the things I said. I never meant for you to hear them.

You mean the world to me, Amanda. You’re the one thing I’ve longed for all of my life. Leaving you is the only regret I’ve ever let stay on my mind. You’re the one thing I did right--the best thing I’ve ever done, and I have wanted you with me from the day I walked out of Carol’s door.

I just loved you enough to give up what I wanted in order to try and give you a better life. I never meant to hurt you with that.

I’m sorry. I hope one day you’ll understand, and one day, maybe, you’ll forgive me.

Love forever,
Mom

[Complete list here.]

Dear Joseph,

You were my hero. I don’t know if I ever told you that, if I ever found the words to say it. I searched for a long time, always looking for the right thing to say, to try and tell you what you meant to me, but they never seemed to come. You could read people, though, you knew what we felt--I always assumed you knew. Did you?

A song came on the radio the other day--one from my childhood. Reba McEntire, if you believe that -- “The Greatest Man I Never Knew.” I didn’t get it, as a kid. I mean, I understood it on an academic level. I knew what she was singing about. I knew my life wasn’t normal, that some kids had people in their lives they could look up to, fathers they could call great men, fathers who didn’t do things to hurt them. But I didn’t get it.

I’d forgotten all about the song. It wasn’t one I ever liked much, truth to tell. It made me feel I was missing something, even if the song was so...painful on another level, I guess. This time I listened, and this time...I got it.

I don’t know what I was to you. I don’t know what any of us were, really. You made this place a home, a safe haven, but I don’t know if it was love or necessity. I thought it was love, but I...I saw what happened with Samuel. I heard the things you said. This wasn’t the life you wanted. We weren’t the family you wanted. But even so...you could have done something else, kept Samuel away from others another way. You didn’t have to create this for us. You didn’t have to take in a wandering girl who had nowhere else to go. But you did.

So, the song hit a bit hard. There’s one verse that goes:

The greatest man I never knew
Came home late every night
He never had too much to say
Too much was on his mind
I never really knew him
And now it seems so sad
Everything he gave to us took all he had

( We did that, didn’t we? )

[Complete list here]

[ooc: More of a canon answer, and obvs not aimed at any Peter she's actually met, or verses where she knows him? LOL]

Dear Peter,

You don’t know me, but I’ve heard so much about you and, as odd as this will sound, felt you enough times that I sometimes think I know you. There was a chance, once upon a time, that you were going to come to us. I saw it, saw you, lost and longing for a place, a home. There were three of you who needed us: you, Claire and Sylar. Claire and Sylar found their way here, but though Samuel found you...you’ve never found your way to us.

I find myself wondering time and again what might be different if you had.

We aren’t bad people. I know you’ve had...encounters with us that might lead you to believe that. You haven’t seen us at our best, haven’t heard of us at our best, but we are capable of so much more. At our core, we’re a family, just like any family. We have our good and our bad, our hopes and our dreams. We want to be safe, protected, loved, free. We want a home. We want the chance to live our lives as ourselves, without being persecuted for who and what we are.

For so many years, the carnival has given us that, and though we live apart from the outside world, we’ve been happy. But...we lost our heart. We lost our way. We’ve been wandering in the desert. I’d like to say we fell when Samuel killed Joseph, but it wasn’t all his doing. Joseph...Joseph wasn’t the saint we make him out to be, and somewhere inside of us, something was falling apart before that. A discontent, a restlessness, a need for something more. Samuel’s power, his drive, his need...it reflects something in all of us.

There is a story I remember from my lost catechism, the Israelites wandering in the desert for 40 years, longing for home, losing heart, needing to believe in the Promised Land, but ceasing to think it could be real. I think, perhaps, that’s us. Joseph failed as our shepherd. He had no vision for us, no guidance, just a code he clung to, but didn’t believe in. Samuel has a vision, but it’s tainted by hate, by vengeance, by too many years of belittlement and degradation.

We’re a lost flock in need of a shepherd. We say it’s an empath we need--an empath to replace Joseph. Some of them look to me, because it’s my ability, but I’m as lost as they, as trampled down and turned around as everyone else.

You could have been that person. Maybe you still could be. You’re good--I’ve felt it. Pure of heart and soul, longing only to help a world that you see hurting around you, but you don’t fit in, either. No one accepts you--not your friends, not your family. You’ve lost so much, been betrayed by those closest to you, found yourself alone in the wilderness not of your own making.

I know what that’s like. We all do. You could do great things here, save a lot of people, have at your hand countless family members willing to aid you in your quest to help a world in need. We could do good things in the world, instead of ill, with the right guidance. But you haven’t come, even though I’ve felt your soul longing for us without knowing what you reached for. Even when I called for you...you didn’t come.

Maybe one day you will. I just pray it won’t be too late.

~Lydia

[Complete List Here.]

Dear Danny,

She’s beautiful. I don’t know if you care, or if you even ever think about us. I don’t know how you couldn’t. We were just kids, then, but now, somewhere in the world, you’re presumably a man. Maybe you’ve settled down, married, have other children--but surely, you must think of her sometimes, if not of me. You had to know I wouldn’t get rid of her, so wherever you are...does your mind rest on her, the daughter we made, the one you didn’t want?

I don’t expect you to think of me. To tell you the truth, I don’t think of you all that often. I thought I loved you, it’s true, and maybe I even did, to some extent, but I was fifteen--what did I know of love? You were an idea as much as anything, and a chance at a life away from the one I despised.

But I never stopped thinking of her, after I gave her up. Did you, after I left? I knew you didn’t want her, that you didn’t want me. I could feel it, sense it deep down inside. You wanted to run. I didn’t want to be abandoned. Were you relieved when you woke up to find me gone? Did you even try to look for me, or did you just continue on your way, one less burden to worry about?

It doesn’t matter, not anymore. I wouldn’t even begin to know how to find you, or where, to send this, but I thought you should know--she found me. I met her. And no matter what a mess we made of each other...we did something right, you and I. She’s beautiful, perfect, everything I could have hoped for in a daughter. I look at her and I see so much of me, but...how I could have been, if things were different. I see you, too. Your sass, your fire, your defiance..maybe some of those were mine, but I learned so many of them from you. She has your eyes, too. Your lips. When she smiles, sometimes I see flashes of you, and I remember.

But only sometimes. Mostly, I just see her. I see the years I lost, and the things I missed out on. You missed them, too. There are so many more you’re going to miss, as well. Does that bother you? She hasn’t asked about you. I don’t know what to say when she does. I’d like to tell her that you loved her, too, but if you had....life would have been so different for us all.

People change, though. They grow up. They regret the things they did when they were careless children, frightened and irresponsible. Have you? Do you?

Maybe one day, she’ll find you, too. If so--I hope for your sake, and hers, you’ve changed, grown. But if not--it’s your loss. Because we created something amazing, you and I, and if you could see her, talk to her, I think you’d see that, too.

Lydia

[Complete list here.]

Dear Dreams,

I believed. Despite every instinct that told me not to, I believed up until the end that he could be saved, that we could still find a place in the world. I bought into the fairytale, even after everything I'd seen, that if you were just good enough, just believed hard enough, just worked hard enough...you'd be rewarded, your dreams would come true.

He'd see me there. He'd realize his potential, turn from the path he was on, be the man I believed he could be. We'd be together. He'd stop saying, doing, hurtful things.

I believed.

Hell, I even still believed after the fucking bullet hit me. He'd bring Claire. He'd make sure I was saved. He'd see what had happened. He'd save me.

And then he kissed me.

Let's just say, it wasn't anything like the old song, and everything I'd held on to, everything I'd believed was destroyed, including you.

So don't you dare try and raise your head again now because he's full of pretty speeches about remorse and puppy dog eyes. I'm not the same girl I was before, and I won't be fooled again.

Lydia

[Complete list of letters.]

[ooc: The list.]

Dear Edgar,

Sometimes I struggle to find the right words to tell you what you mean to me, how you make me feel. Even now, with pen to paper, knowing I can rewrite this if need be...I find myself hesitating. Some of the words are so easy--best friend, family, love. They're words people use every day, and I think maybe it's their very simpleness that belies what they mean. I know...I know what you feel for me, what you want, and I know you think that I don't love you as much, or that I don't see you, don't feel you.

You're wrong.

I need you, Edgar. I need you the way I need air and water and sunlight. When you're not here, or when things aren't right between us, something inside me breaks, hurts, and you're the only person who can fix it. You think I see you as less than, somehow, or less important than them, but...they come and go, Edgar. You're my constant. You're my northern star. I don't know who I am when you're not around--it's like I'm not me, not fully. You're a part of me.

No one has ever made me feel as safe as you do. No one has ever made me feel as cherished, as special, as loved. You don't look at me and see a piece of flesh to be possessed, but a person to be respected and protected. You believe in me when no one else does, not even me. You make me feel like maybe I can do something, be something more than what I've been before. You're the one I trust with myself, my life, my daughter's life.

And I don't want to lose that. I don't want to do anything to jeopardize that. Because if I lost that...if I lost you...your friendship, your love, your respect, you in my life...I don't know what I'd do. I think I'd lose me.

You're not less than. You're not...unworthy. You're special, more special than you know. I love you. You're my best friend. You're my family. You're my home. You make me strong, complete. I wish I had more than words to make you see...

I'm damaged. I'm broken. You deserve so much better than someone like me. You deserve someone who doesn't need you to hold her together, someone capable of standing up for herself, someone you can build a life with. You deserve the best of everything, not someone who'd just...I would break us, Edgar. Everything that we have...it would disappear and I'd lose you, and I can't bear that. It's selfish, I know, to want you near, to bind you to me in any way when I should just set you free. But what you want...I don't stay away because you're not worthy, Edgar. Please never, ever think that. It's me. I don't deserve you, and I'm a coward--too afraid of what I might lose to risk what I might gain.

I just thought that you should know, at least this once, how much you mean to me, now and always.

Love always,
Lydia