A Life, Unforgotten

A Long Needed Reconciliation

"Lydia?" Lights voice was hushed on the phone, he was too tense to be anything other than a rigid board as he held his phone too tightly. He'd called his mother. And he was tense, hoping she recognised his voice despite the last time she heard it, he was absolutely paralyzed with fear.

Her response was delayed, and he swears he heard her bustling about for a bit before any din in the background vanished and she... sounded, happy? And startled. "Light, is that you?"

"Yeah – you..." He winced as he heard her excited chattering, half expecting it to be berating or some kind of hateful remarks but, as he tuned it in, he realised it was her overflowing with so many... apologies and worries over him. And they sounded genuine, something struck his heart and he just knew she wasn't lying to him. He waited a moment until she went quiet(ish) again before he spoke up, sinking back into the window seat and letting his wings guide the curl of his spine this time.

"Breathe, Lydia. I... was kinda calling about all of this. Jackson isn't... he isn't close by you, is he?"

"No, nonono hun he's downstairs watching the game from earlier this week. He won't notice I left for a bit, I'm in the bathroom upstairs. He can't hear anything."

A sigh was all Light gave before sinking into his wings like they were a chrysalis of blue around him. "Are – a-are you still in town? I... wanna ask if you – just you – could maybe meet me for coffee at Kona Hut in..." A pause as he looked at the time, 11:30. "About 30 minutes? I, wanna talk. I think."

A very, very faint laugh was all he heard for a moment and he honestly read it as a bad one, but her words ease that. "You've grown. Of course, I'll come. And keep an eye out for you if I'm early. Okay?"

"O... Okay. Yeah I'll, see you then. Merry part."

"What was that d–?"

He'd cut her off, hanging up in a small rush so he could finally breathe and fidget thoroughly with his hands, popping the joints and then migrate that to as many joints possible, even catching his spine. He's never tried to pop the joints in his wings, nor would he want to try, but he does curl them as tight against his back for a moment before snapping them open and taking some relief in how much better they feel from that. A big sigh as he dug in his closet for something comfortable and reasonable for a brisk noon coffee, very tentatively picking a low-backed shirt so his wings could properly breathe as well as a vest binder that would mimic it and still keep his chest flat. Exposed burns it is. High-waisted jeans was a good option to pair and basic tennis shoes worked perfectly to him, so he got dressed with as little struggle as he could manage and turned so he could eye his back.

At least the burns aren't too reddened today. Or maybe that's because he's got ice in his stomach? Regardless he shivers and just carefully rakes a hand through his curls before pinning them back from his face, well. He looks okay at least, if not dead exhausted. Deep breath and he tried for a smile, but it smothered any hint of light in his eyes so, he just. Settled for a poker face.

Okay, showtime. It was easier to just pull himself up onto the roof and give himself a headstart of a glide, he left himself only 8 minutes to get there when it's a fifteen minute walk. The glide at least shaved three minutes off that and, his slight increase in normal speed cut off another two. He can be late by two minutes, right? No worries, she won't, get, mad,,

Sssssshut up stop thinking like that, it won't help.

A deep breath as he calmed himself, he needs to stop overthinking. And it did help ease him a bit, shaking his head as he made it the remainder of the way and let his wings dip low so they broadly swept the ground just as he approached the cafe, cobalt eyes scanning as he stood on his toes, fidgeting far too anxiously with his hands, until he saw the familiar blonde push the door open with two coffees in hand and settle them on a table, her back having remained to him. Nyx this is, nerve-wracking but he took a deep breath and approached carefully.

"Hey." She may as well have jumped a half a foot and, it had him give an unintentional bubble of a laugh before covering his mouth and taking a half-step back, cheeks dusting blue. "Sorry –"

"Good God you startled me, Light." She interrupted with her own light laughter but, she didn't look as put together as he was used to seeing her. Hell, she... kinda looked like he did when he fought sleep for so many days. Actually, looking at her now he, can see he did grow into some of her features. The softer angles of her face, the higher cheekbones, the little curl at the corners of her mouth that suggested a weak smile even when she frowned. A care.

He never noticed it before.

But she seemed concerned now, those blond brows knitting, it had him refocus cobalt eyes on her, only just realising she'd gotten closer and, very tentatively seemed to be reaching a hand to his face. He turned his head and took a deep breath, moving around the table to put space between him and her so he could sit and, after eyeing the cups, he spotted his name scrawled on one. So he slid it to himself and carefully removed the lid, the smell of coffee always helped clear his head.

"So..."

"Sooo...?"

He chewed at his lip, tracing a finger around the edge of the cup carefully before managing to pull his eyes up to meet hers. She looked torn between hope and hurt. Another big sigh and he shrugged his shoulders up so he could sorta be level with her gaze. "I... will be honest with you, if it weren't for... something my friend said, I wouldn't have contacted you again. I didn't really want to see either of you."

"I understand..." Lydia just gave a small nod to his words, he watched her fingers play with the little cardboard sleeve nervously, leaving little indents in it with her thumbnails.

"Do you really? Because, I never felt like you did understand. Not before everything and, when I woke up alone without any memory of who I was or who I was meant to be, I definitely didn't feel like it." He withdrew his hands from the cup to fold his arms against his chest and lean back carefully arctic brows knit and cobalt eyes actually settled on her, for once he was firm. He was being an adult, he was tired of hiding. "And then you and him both show up four years later - you're LUCKY I remembered my life - acting like you didn't torture me and, leave me for dead. Even if you thought I was dead, which by the way I was! Shouldn't you have, I dunno, stuck around to make sure? At least to act like you cared? I know you guys didn't really give two shits about your freak child but, a little pretending would've... I dunno. At least made it hurt less? It would've been great to know who I was for the last four years, Lydia." Despite how steady his words were his hands and feathers were practically shivering with his nerves as well as anger.

Lydia seemed to take it in calmly, but a quick tap to her mind was all he needed to know what she was thinking. It was, startlingly enough, full of regret and her own hurt at his words. But he couldn't care. He didn't want to so he simply didn't, though Light had to take a lot of his nerve to give that to her.

There was a silence that stretched, it felt like eons but couldn't have been more than a minute, long enough for him to reach and swipe his coffee up and nervously down just about half of it before her voice rose.

"I... I won't lie to you. We had hoped you were dead. I can't assure you for the reasons they hoped it but, I wanted... you to be away from us. I knew we weren't good for you, Jackson is quite manipulative and I suppose he settled on you to pick on most because of who you are." Lydia's voice was unsteady, he watched her thumbnails carve large curls into the styrofoam of her cup. "He notices a lot and, when we got married you couldn't have been but a few months old. He hadn't even met you by then. When Jackson saw you, he... was bitter. I don't know why but he hated you. With a passion I'd never seen." She lifted her eyes, dark cobalt ones were actually familiar in her face. He couldn't pin why. "But you aren't his child. And he knew it. He was jealous, I guess, of your existence."

"Jackson, isn't my maternal father?"

"No, Light. Far from it. Your father was... a very kind man. A witch, I later learned, but you... are a spitting image of him now. In the shop I thought you were him."

"What was his name?"

She paused. "Daniel."

Light echoed the name under his breath, it sounded... foreign. But he held it in his memory and, for a moment he swears he could hear half a dozen arguments between Lydia and Jackson where the name was thrown. "I'm almost afraid to ask but, what happened to him?"

He watched her eyes dart away, taking a soft breath that had her shoulders rise so suddenly he rose his brows. Lydia's only response was a shake of her head, expression grim, but after a half a second he saw tears rise and fall so swiftly. For a moment he swears he saw himself in the action, and maybe for the first time in his life, he reached out and placed his hands over hers. Lydia seemed startled, as if it brought her back from a distant memory, her head swivelling around so tearful blues met calm ones. He didn't press his question, only gave an empathetic look.

"You don't have to answer. It's okay."

She nodded, and he dug in his messenger back, wing dipping downward so the strap could slide, and he retrieved a packet of tissues to offer her. She took one, just to dry her eyes for now, having kept her hand under Light's. She could scarcely believe he was the one to offer comfort through contact, and she was somewhat in awe that he was as gentle as he was.

He was still curious if her grief response was meant to mean he died or he abruptly left. But, he suspected it was death. In which case he would likely contact the Goddess on it, and maybe, hopefully get one chance to see him.

Lydia interrupted Light's brief inner questioning.

"I brought a picture of him with me, if..." She trailed off, noting Light's expression of curiosity and shifted to dig deep into her purse, retrieving a small booklet he doesn't seem to recall ever seeing, and he watched her thumb through before pausing at one photo and flipping it around.

The photo was worn on the edges, a little yellowed with age, but it was otherwise in perfect condition behind the plastic protection, and he reached over to tentatively take it to get a closer look.

It showed Lydia, expression warm, laughing, almost like it was taken when she didn't know it. Her belly was swollen with what he could only assume to be himself, and there was a man with striking light blue hair and eyes completely whited out, pupils and all. He was pressing a kiss to Lydia's stomach, and even he could tell that the man was looking right at her with his own smile. And he looked, a lot like Light. But he was happy, practically glowing with delight, he could practically feel the love radiating from the two even through the photograph.

Light brushed a thumb over the man's face, though the page caught and the next photo showed. He paused, flashing Lydia a look, a gentle request to go through and see the rest of the photos. She nodded, carefully moving her chair so she was more beside him, and he lowered the little booklet so both of them could see.

There were many photos of Daniel. Some were clearly taken without his knowledge, others were posed for, but he could see how many similarities he held with his father. So many photos were so clearly happy, where both of them seemed to shine brighter than any sun, it was incredible.

The very last photo in it was a newborn cradled in Lydia's arms, not crying, but staring right at the camera with wide eyes, pupils as white as the sclera and irises a rather icy blue. It had him shaken, he was a rather small baby. After that, there's blank pages. Like she expected there to be more time for many more photos, but it was taken away.

Light closed the booklet carefully, but he didn't let go of it just yet. He had a myriad of questions but could only speak one, his voice quiet, almost like the silence before a storm.

"...Why didn't you tell me sooner...?"

Lydia seemed to flinch, and after a moment of fidgeting with her fingers, she spoke.

"I didn't want you to hate someone you never met. Your brother and sister, they... hated him because to them, he abandoned them. And you. He, got into an accident on his way home from a meeting with his coven. Ever since then they hated the idea of magick. Of your world. And, because you looked like him, they hated you. And I... am sorry. I'm so, so sorry for this. For being someone that behaves nothing like a mother should, for leaving you behind, for --"

"Stop."

Lydia's mouth snapped shut, cobalt eyes flicking up at Light for a half second before down into her lap, ashamed and looking ready to cry. He finally pinned why her eyes looked familiar.

They look just like his.

He outstretched a wing, curling it around her carefully, and a moment later an arm joined, soon followed by the other arm and wing. He never would have thought to hug her before this knowledge, but now, it felt... right. And in the embrace he could feel how thin and frail she really felt. "It's okay. I forgive you."

Lydia was rattled to her core, cobalt eyes wide with the shock and soon flooded with tears, embracing her son shakily and loosely. She pressed her face into her shoulder, causing it to dip just slightly, before he resettled it where it belonged. For once, Light felt like this was right. Like, he was okay with her being around and a part of his life, he was willing to try and let her back in.

He could feel his heart twist in his chest, unsure if it was good or bad but positive it was a sign. And at last, a seed of trust was sown for her. Small but, in time, with her effort, it would grow.

The rest of the coffee meeting rounded into a thousand questions for one another, What was Dad like? What happened to Nick and Daryn? Where do you work now? Are you happy? Who was that with you at the bookstore? How did you sprout wings? Do you own that store? Are you happy?

The last one always felt loaded from either of them. Light was relatively happy, with his friend on the mend and things looking up save for Max throwing a tantrum. He told her about Starling and Starre, how they took him in when they met him some years ago and that they were ghosts like he used to be, he told her about Nyx and how he's like a direct line to the Goddess. He told her about Bill, and how happy he makes him, about Blue and how he has helped take care of him through the years, about the old Mr. Pendragon that gave him the store when he passed, about the kind nurses at the hospital that helped him understand himself and recover back then. He told him about the strange nymphomaniac he worked for as an assistant and took care of trivial things for sake of a (very nice) check.

Lydia was relatively unhappy but had hopes. She told him about Jackson and his continued ways of ignoring her save for hounding her for meals or to berate her for being overweight. She told him how his siblings had been long gone, moved out with a boyfriend or girlfriend or went of to college and they haven't contacted in some time. About how she's had to work in half a dozen various places to make ends meet while Jackson lazed on his ass all the time, and how she's been hiding an affair with a much sweeter man from him. She told him that his name was Taron, and that he was a baker that was looking to buy his own shop, and that she planned to divorce Jackson to stay with him.

Light had gently interrupted her, offering to perhaps put her up for a little while, as he knew a bakery that recently went out of busiess and the building was for sale, that he would help clean it up and get her started here. Lydia denied, only to concede when he explained there was a studio apartment below the bookstore, and that there was a door through the back that he so rarely used, but it lead off onto the back street. He mentioned that rather than giving him rent he'd just accept a bit of help around the shop when she could.

She eventually agreed, seeming overly thankful, but he brushed it off, just giving a tired (but happy) smile. "It's what I do."

She seemed baffled but, he refused to explain. It was hours later before Light had thought to check his phone, half a dozen text from Bill and his cousins wondering where he was, to which he had snuck a photo of Lydia when she wasn't looking too closely and sending it with a simple, 'taking a leap of faith and finding there's someone to catch me.'

He'd stowed it away again before she would notice, and it was when she got a call from Jackson that he fell silent, wings lifting a tad so he could lean forward and hear what he had to say to her, only to grimace at the string of insults and profanities, reflex having him reach over and rest his hand on hers again. Support, to which she seemed grateful for.

She had hung up on Jackson, her only words being that she's leaving him before she'd done so, and Light couldn't help but smile at her, her expression frazzled and slightly in disbelief. But relieved, too, and he rose the same time she did, him circling around the table a bit and when she paused, he just folded her in a hug. She felt so small and fragile in his arms, but he was gentle and had been sure to be so. It took a moment for him to register why she seemed to shake, but he realised it swiftly and only gave her a small squeeze.

She was sobbing into his shoulder, holding tight to the son she had finally reconciled with after all these years, and he didn't cry. A calmness seemed to possess him and he only held her, assuring she was okay and speaking the softest thank-you to her. She didn't have to do this but she did, and he took solace in that. It felt good to hug her. To feel like she wasn't some terrifying monster hellbent on killing him but rather, a kind soul ⏤ something he felt, something that was drained some time ago, hidden by the blackness of a lie and grief but now, now he felt it. He could partially see it, and much like his blue soul, hers was a soft green.

He lingered only a little while longer, before he had disengaged the hug, though her hands seemed to linger on his back for a moment. It was, odd, but it almost felt like the pain of the burns were fading.

He had twisted his head and was curious to see the redness was fainter and the scars look less angry. He raised a brow at her, though she seemed oblivious to it, instead focusing on drying her eyes now, giving a smile to him once again. This one he knew was genuine, warm, and actually mirrored Starling's in a strange way. But he knew what it was, a mother's smile, and while he couldn't bear to call her that just yet ⏤ that would be reserved for when the seed of her trust was in bloom ⏤ he felt it was true.

It was a quick addition to her phone, his number, though he kept a codename by it (simply marked, really, by a star) so if Jackson were to go through it he wouldn't know. He gave his goodbyes and they parted ways, Light actually feeling better than he had in some time and Lydia full of hope, grey-green eyes seeming to have a light in them that not many had seen in almost nineteen years now.

Once he rounded the corner, Light took off homeward, getting in more than a few wingbeats to get him to sorta leap an extra yard or so, he's bounding with a sort of happiness and it doesn't take long for him to get home and immediately call Bill. To fill him in, yes, but to also call him home because even with this, Light had his routine and it was definitely time for dinner, so while he busied himself making a pasta, he frantically explained what he could to his boyfriend over the phone before hanging up and continuing when he came home.

Things were getting better. And he felt it.

At the same time, this felt like the calm moments before the storm. And he feared it.