SERIES: Against a Movie Sky
PART: Two of about four
RATING: R-ish (For discussion of mature themes)
PAIRING(s): Lenny/Laverne inferrence. Lots of original characters
DISTRIBUTION: To Squeaky, LW, Kai and FG so far; any other archives are welcome to ask, but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine. Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google" Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my
work!
CATEGORY: Drama, definitely.
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SETTING IN TIMELINE: Post "Hair Today.."; Twenty years in the future.
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Laverne's little girl is all grown up, and she wants some answers.
NOTES: One of those fics that just HAPPENS; The only thing I own here is Lennie.
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He stared at me for a long, unbroken moment. Watching him, I stood, embarrassed, waiting for his reaction. Suddenly, he staggered backwards; eyes reflecting shock.
"I..." He closed his eyes, "I can't look at ya. You look just like her..."
I stared down at my fingers, "Mamma always said I looked like you."
He reached out for me; I felt the callused tips of a few fingers gently graze the back of my hand, "Ya can't look like me. Yer too pretty." For the first time, I look into his face and wonder what he's talking about.
Words begin pouring out of me, "You probably think I'm crazy, but Mamma...she never believed that Ted Nelson was my dad. But they got married, and four weeks later I was born."
"Why do ya keep talkin' about her like she's dead..." His eyes turned to me in a desperate denial; his eyes fell closed, "Aw, God..." His face crumpled, and I reached out to instinctively comfort him. He jerked away from my touch and took a long, deep breath for steadying power. "No one tol' me..Why didn't Shirl call..."
"...Because my father didn't tell anyone when mom died. Not Aunt Shirley, not Uncle Carmine, and not you."
His jaw set, and immediately I understood that he knew just what had happened to my mother, "He killed her."
"She tried to get away..." I leaned back heavily against his walls, trying to block out the worst of my memories of Mamma's last days on earth, "She was so strong. Fought back at him with everything that was in her. But she just couldn't..." I melted, everything feeling too strong and immediate to express, "With Grandpa dead, she lost all hope that anyone would see what was going on."
He reached to comfort me, but this time I pulled away, "She's buried in Milwaukee, next to grandma and grandpa. My supposed 'father' shot her after a night of drinking."
My biological father seemed to barely be in control of himself, that he would restrain his emotions at all for me was touching. Neither of us knew what to say at that moment, and then I spoke, "I'd...like to know that there are still good, decent men out there. That not all men are evil, vicious monsters." I looked into his eyes, "Lenny, why didn't you follow her back to Milwaukee? Why didn't you and Mamma get married? Better yet...why the hell am I here?"
I waited for his response, and a lighter expression crossed his face. The answer came as simple as day.
"You're here," He said, "'Cause the Angels won the pennant."