True to You

Much Too Young

Jimmy waited for Elliot to make a joke. He waited for her to tell him that he'd completely misunderstood what he'd just seen but she didn't. She simply sat, deathly still, with her eyes squeezed shut and her fingers pressed to her lips as tears silently poured down her cheeks. Not once in the time he'd been watching the lives and actions of his friends and family had he thought that the images on his screen couldn't possibly be real. This was the first time and he couldn't decide if he wished that what he'd seen was true or hoped that it wasn't.

Desperately he sought to force down the rage and betrayal that coursed through his system. He loved Elliot; there was no doubt in his mind that he loved her just as much as he had as a teenager but in that moment he'd have been hard pressed to answer if he liked her or not.

"Well?" he pressed forcing himself to ignore the urge to comfort her. "Is she my daughter?"

Elliot's nod drew a gasp from Val who suddenly held a bucket of popcorn in her lap. "Val..." he growled trying to restrain his ire, it wasn't Val's fault she still didn't have full control over her abilities yet but that didn't mean he didn't want to slap the popcorn from her hands. He shot Ryan a grateful look when he stood up, grabbed for Val's hand and with a glance at Jimmy that only hinted at sympathy led her from the room.

Free to focus on the answers he needed Jimmy turned back to Elliot. She'd edged further away from him and was focused on the massive crystal cigarette lighter she'd picked up from the coffee table. It was just the kind of thing that could be used as the murder weapon in a whodunit movie. He wondered if she'd bash him over the head with it in an attempt to avoid answering his questions. Lucky he could only die once right?

"Elliot, answer me," he said plucking the lighter from her hands in an attempt to make her focus on him. "Is Laine, your daughter, also my daughter?"

Elliot looked at him, the remorse in her expression was painful to look at. "Yes, she's your daughter."

"Why?" It was one choked, agonised word. It was though his throat closed up after he'd forced it out and the other questions he was desperate to ask were trapped in his chest helplessly struggling to be free.

Elliot shrugged seemingly unwilling or unable to answer him.

No!

He deserved answers. He needed answers. He had a daughter. One that he'd never met and now, thanks to the stupid mistake that he'd made that had led him to the place where he could always watch but never touch, he never would.

"Why?" he roared.

Elliot pulled her lower lip between her teeth and for a moment she looked almost vicious as she hissed, "Because I was homesick and hormonal and insecure. Because even before I found out I was pregnant the distance from you had me doubting that there could be any possible reason that you'd want me when I got back and because of that I believed the pointless lie that my cousin, your best friend told me!" Then she slumped back against the sofa, all the fight drained from her body. "Because I was a terrified eighteen year old girl who found it easier to believe a stupid, careless statement from Brian, made when no doubt he thought that I'd broken your heart, than I found it to actually call you and ask if you were still waiting for me."

"I waited over two years. I waited until you came home with your - my - daughter. I still waited until I realised that you weren't going to call me and I saw a photo at Brian's house of you, your daughter and some dude dressed like a 1970's Robert Plant. That's when I knew it wasn't worth waiting any longer, I knew that you'd forgotten about me and moved on."

Jimmy threw the heavy lighter at the television screen. When it hit instead of the destruction that was to be expected a shower of bright, rainbow hued sparks radiated from the point of impact. The lighter was gone and the screen remained dark and undamaged.