Lydia

Joseph used to tuck her hair behind her ear in an avuncular gesture and tell her what a good, sweet girl she was, but when he'd follow it up by shooing her back out to fleece the johns and marks she entertained for him, Lydia was forced to wonder how accurate a picture of "good" he'd ever really embraced.

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: AU 'verse based on spin-off from Heroes graphic novels "Bloodlines, part 1 & 2" - Joseph not aimed at any particular journal. Samuel is offering_hope].

Eastern Europe, Christmas, 2008

Lydia stood in the shadows of the trailer, stunned. She couldn't have heard Joseph right, couldn't have. Surely she must have been distracted by the horror of what he described to Arnold, about Coyote Sands, and misheard what he asked the time traveler to do, yes? And if she hadn't been? If she had heard him correctly? Something inside her heart seemed to constrict tightly, a fluttering, aching feeling that made it hard to breathe. There was nothing she could do. Arnold was already gone, and if he did what Joseph had asked...her whole world would change.

But Christmas morning dawned and the world was still the same. Lydia watched Joseph with speculative eyes, watched his darting looks at Samuel, the worry around his eyes, and she finally dared ask where Arnold was, a picture of innocence. Joseph didn't answer, not really, just saying something about work the time traveler had to do, but later he came with Samuel to her trailer asking them to use their new found ability to work together and find Arnold.

Samuel's fingers were warm on her skin, the pierce of the needle quickly familiar, and she reached out for the lost family member a little desperately, even as she tried to hold on to the presence of the man next to her.

"Arnold's not missing in the past," Lydia said, looking back over her shoulder at Joseph. "He's right here, in the present day."

Even as old as he was, even with the tumor, it was possible Arnold could still travel, she thought, once they had him back home. Joseph's words rang in her ears, praising her and swearing her to secrecy about Emile Danko. Or, well, not secrecy, but just asking her not to tell Samuel. He wasn't going to send Arnold back again. He apparently wasn't that cruel to someone so frail--just to family. His intentions came through loud and clear as his hands curled around her hands.

Couldn't he see that fate had been on Samuel's side? That something greater than he was had stepped in to stop him murderous intent? He'd sent Arnold back to murder a baby in his crib. Her mind flashed to Amanda, to her lost baby, the one she ached for every day, so helpless against the world, and the thought of her idol doing something like that, and to someone she...her heart twisted.

This Danko person had killed Arnold's son. She'd just told Joseph that, and again he was planning to put his own blood in the line of fire.

For a while she sat in her trailer, robe wrapped tight around her, torn between loyalty to the man who had saved her and the growing feelings that had taken root so many years before and blossomed more each year. Her idol's feet were made of clay, apparently, and that hurt. And Samuel...had done nothing to deserve such a fate.

Mind made up, the bitter feeling of betrayal burning inside of her, she made her way across the space that separated her trailer from Samuel's and knocked lightly. He had the right to know what Joseph was planning, and to protect himself, and she'd do whatever it took to help him.