herophine - Trouvaille

Chapter 41

Crosby, Liverpool - England, 2027

Being Crosby a small town has played against them this time, because it hasn't taken long for reporters to locate them. It is the first day of school after the holidays, so Hero and Jo go back to the daily routine of walking their daughter to school. And only five minutes after leaving the house, they were already walking to school accompanied by four reporters.

She understands that it is their job, and she really tries to stay calm and have the most polite smile on her face. However, and even though she knows they won't post them because she is a minor, Josephine wants to go to the war against them when she sees them taking pictures to Sofía.

Hero is taking it worse than her. He wants to tear the cameras off their hands and smash them on the floor. It would do little though, cause they would come others with cameras even bigger.

Sofía, who is hiding behind her parents, tries to figure out why those people with cameras seem to know their names and have so much interest in them.

The process repeats for three days more. Three days of Jo's fake smiles, Hero's bad-tempered grimaces, and Sofía's scared expression. On the fourth day, the reporters seem to have abandoned their enquiries and the town. Hero and Jo suspect that someone of the town might have told them something about them... the hunting dogs do not leave without a piece of their trophy. But, the couple feels a bit more relieved and now they can go back to normal life.

Mother and daughter continue to dance together a peculiar choreography, where sometimes they walk on tiptoe face to face and other times they get much closer. A beautiful, fascinating and haunting process of bonding that Hero watches everyday.

At night, when Sofía sleeps, the old castmates dance a very different choreography in which they try to make up for lost years. They leave a trail of kisses on her skin, savoring each other for as long as they are able to hold it and finding on their way the weak spots on their bodies.

During the day Hero and Jo doesn't hide it from Sofía, who accepts with a surprising naturality that change of status in concrete. She seems more willingly to let Jo being her dad's couple rather than letting her act as her mother.

One night the little girl enters running into Hero's bedroom after waking up because a nightmare, and it isn't a surprise to her that Jo is sleeping next to him. The freezing night of January is the only cause for them wearing their pyjamas. Sofía climbs up the bed and lays down facing her daddy, who keeps sleeping deeply due to being more habituated to his daughter coming visit him to bed in the middle of the night. 

On the other hand, Josephine tries to sneak out discreetly to her bed in the living room. But, a sleepy Sofía grabs her hand and prevents her from going.

The next morning, not very friendly of beating about the bush, Sofía interrogates her parents.

- What are you two?

Hero leaves the coffee mug on the table and Jo stops pouring milk into the bowl. They look at each other for a split second and is Hero who starts talking.

- We are your parents.

Sofia rolls her eyes and explains it as if her parents weren't very smart.

- Sutton's parents are married. Parker's are not, but they live together. And Meghan's are also married, but her daddy sleeps in a different room than her mother.

Hero and Josephine ask themselves what kind of conversations take place during the school recess, and what exactly their daughter tells in them.

- So, are you boyfriend and girlfriend or what? - She says raising an eyebrow in a very characteristic gesture of Jo. Genetics in action.

Josephine wants to answer that they are "or what", because she hates tagging relationships. But, at the age of six years old you need more defined and closed concepts

- We are boyfriend and girlfriend. - Hero answers without looking at Jo.

It's likely that a six year old has just achieved that two adults blush in the darkest tone of red.

- Are you okay with it? - Jo asks with softness.

Sofía shrugs and puts some more cereals in her bowl, before filling Jo's bowl too in silence. Her parents interpret it as her blessing.

Since that morning and after discussing it with Hero, the bed sheets in which she was sleeping most of the nights disappear from the living room. Jo's toiletry bag is moved from the bathroom she shared with Sofía to the one inside Hero's master bedroom, and her clothes now rest in the closet next to his. In a matter of seconds she is settled permanently in his room, which from now on is also hers.

Almost at the end of the month, the first headline comes out.

"The secret daughter of Josephine Langford and Hero Fiennes-Tiffin."

It sounds like the title of a novel from the Victorian Era. A shitty title.

But, the content of the article is even worse. The story written is true, due to the fact that Josephine had let Lena share the truth with the media once the pictures were out. Yet the way it is written is very evilish.

"There are Disney stepmothers who would win the mother-of-the-year award compared to Langford."

"There are animals that eat their young, who fare better than Josephine Langford."

- I guess I deserve it. - She finally says quietly and leaving the tablet on her nightstand.

Hero does not agree. 

- Perhaps you deserve Sofía's rebukes, your family's or even mines. - He lifts her chin so she is looking at him. - But, no one outside that circle has the right to attack you in any way. It is not their lifes, they don't know the reasons and they haven't got a fucking clue about what happened. - His tone is serious.

Josephine nods and lets herself being kissed on the forehead. She wraps her arms around his torso, tangling her legs with his under the quilt and hides her face against his neck.

And Hero's old habits of trying to protect and defend her come back at the right time. When she needs him. He is her safe place.