Chapter Text
0.
She thought that, if she put her mind to it and tried really really hard, the baby inside her would go away. Sometimes, when she was studying for her exams, when Sheila made her laugh, when her father complained about taxes, she would forget it was even there and perhaps she'd always imagined it after all, this baby that wasn't supposed to be.
Other times, it became a black hole inside her, a fear that set in the back of her neck, burning cold on her skin, sucking the air out of her lungs. She'd take long walks under the sun, hoping it would fall out and disappear on the sidewalk. Sheila had told her once that pregnant women need a lot of rest, to protect the baby she said, so she'd walk all the way to the Glasgow Zoo, hopping every now and then for good measure, but the little blob inside her would just do a summersault and stay stubbornly put.
When the baby came, her father cried. She just stared at the little boy, at the angry mop of hair on his head, at his wrinkled face, red from screaming and crying out of sympathy. She stared, searching for his father in him and finding nothing; he was hers, hers, hers, a baby with old man's eyes burning into her own.
"I'm scared," she whispered, running a finger down his nose, "so you gotta be brave for the both of us, Leo, yeah?"
He screamed louder.
2.
He was a quiet baby.
No, not quiet. Sometimes, after days of silence, he'd burst out and shout until his throat went raw and she didn't know what to do, didn't know what he meant, "talk to me," she'd beg, "talk to me, Leo, please," but he never did. Instead, he'd stop crying and he'd just stare at her with his old man's eyes, and she felt that fear again, in the back of her neck.
He wouldn't talk, and she worried, and her father told her she was being stupid every time he caught her praying for the little blob who was now a little silent boy. He said, maybe he's just waiting for something worth saying. He said, maybe he finds angry screaming more effective; he said that a little too proudly, a Scotsman to the bone, he'd say, turning the next page of his book without sparing her a second glance.
But it wasn't the silence, she thought, it was the eyes. Because when he looked at her, she felt loved with the force that burned the stars and blew the universe into existence, all at once, and it scared the hell out of her.
5.
Every Monday, they'd go to the zoo. He read all the signs, face scrunched up in thought, and Helen smiled at the small wrinkle that formed between his eyebrows, at the way he tried to smooth it away with two fingers, at his hands, comically resting on his hips, like a pregnant woman, she thought, strolling down with him to the Monkey House.
Suddenly, he pointed at a baboon and said, "Geladas use a complex mix of facial expression and vocalisations to communicate with others in the group. They flash their eyelids if they're annoyed, or chatter to greet each other. And," he turned his attention to smaller, black monkeys, "Goeldis chirp, and chuck, and scream to keep in touch. But my favourite are Capuchins. They're very disruptive, I think. People like Lemurs better, because they do all sorts of acrobatics, and sometimes they throw faeces at each other, but I prefer Capuchins anyway. I think maybe one day I'll get one, and we'll go exploring together. It'll be nice."
He said all of that, barely breathing, in a thick Scottish brogue that was so much like her dad's that she wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, because he had never talked, her boy, and now he was chatting on and on about monkeys, and flora, and habitats, with her father's voice and an enthusiasm that was all his own, so eager to get to his next sentence that he would lose consonants here and there. Never a word, she thought, and now he was saying them all at once.
They walked home, Leo telling her all about the stars, and Newton, Pythagoras, and relativity, burning fuel and closed circuits, losing threads and picking them back up, weaving them together and throwing them away. She felt ecstatic and lost, with this child that was finally talking and she still couldn't understand, with this child who took in the world and saw it bright with questions unanswered.
When he greeted her father and asked if he could please have his radio, he said Good, and handed him his pencils, and his tools, and his valves. She said, praying paid out, and he called her silly and said God had nothing to do with anything at all, then Leo shushed them and she silently thanked God anyway.
Later, Helen asked him why he never talked before. He thought for a moment, searching for words. Then, "It's just. Very loud," he said, pointing at his temple, "up here."
With a little nod and a little smile, Leo went back to his radio, tinkering happily, her father's booming laugh filling the room.
8.
Sometimes she really missed the time he never talked. At least, back then, he wasn't running his mouth and getting his arm broken.
"I can't believe you got yourself into another fight," she said, angrily, while she stitched his eyebrow in the Emergency Room.
"'t wasn't my fault!"
"You tried to shoot them!"
"With a potato gun," her father supplied, completely unhelpful.
"A modified potato gun. And it can throw beans, too" chirped Leo, groaning when she cleaned his cut a little too forcefully.
"You're not throwing beans at your friends."
"They're not my friends," he grumbled, as his grandfather added, "What's wrong with rocks, anyway?"
"I'm civilized," replied Leo, throwing his one functioning arm up in a sudden motion, "And I built a shock gun, but mum confiscated it."
"You're not allowed to electrify other high schoolers."
"Although they did, technically, just break his arm," said her dad, and honestly, she thought, whose side was he even on.
"It's alright, grandpa. Next time, I'll aim the Po-Tat-Ouch better."
"Really? Is that the name you're going with?"
She let out a long-suffering sigh and thought yes, sometimes she really missed the silence.
(Interlude)
In later years, when telling the story, she'd always say that Leo and her father learned how to speak together.
He sat on his armchair, reading, handing her son whatever new book he'd found the day before, holding an unlit cigarette between his lips. This is how they spent their days, her men. Silently reading, leaving colourful notes on the margins, sharing a sandwich when their stomachs began to growl in unison. Sometimes, they went to see the trains come and go, sneak around in the depots to peek at the new engines before someone showed them out.
(It used to bother her, just a little, when she was younger, and sillier, and tired from a long day of classes or a night shift, that he wrote numbers instead of drawing little stick figures, because her boy was unique, and uniqueness is just another word for loneliness.
But her father always dismissed her with an annoyed wave of his hand, "So what, some children draw trees and cats and houses. He looks at trees and cats and houses and does the math. Same thing, really. Look, he even used coloured pencils."
The day after that, she stuck bright green equations to the fridge and the smile her father gave her, then, felt very much like pride.)
After, after the Zoo and the Capuchins, they bought a journal. Leo had questions, and her father didn't have any answer - but, they decided, they would write down all the questions they had and then go look for the answers together. It was their little project, even when Leo's questions became more than the notebook could contain, even when her father couldn't really understand the questions anymore.
10.
"What's it like? Death? Because I've...I've been trying to understand, and I do. I know what happens when the heart ceases to beat. I know the tissues die, because there's nothing to pump enough blood to oxygenate them, and I know that eventually the brain dies, too, every cell, and everything shuts down with it but I just...I don't really. Understand."
It's the first time he's spoken in a week. He screamed, and screamed, and screamed, after the memorial, bloodied knuckles and shaking shoulders, until his legs gave way and he was left with nothing but tears.
But he's talking now, and he's staring at her, vulnerable and sincere, and she knows sometimes they have to be brave together.
"It's just like the way your life was before you were born. That wasn't that bad, was it?"
He thinks for a moment, lips trembling, and shakes his head. "'Suppose not."
"Good. So...you shouldn't be afraid, Leo. It's just the next moment, after this one."
He leaves the room, then, and spends nine days scribbling furiously on their notebook, writing down all the answers they couldn't find together.
(spending the rest of his life asking more, for the both of them).
When he's finally done, she gives him a sandwich, and a kiss, and pretends to ignore that old burn in the back of her neck.
13.
They leave the Dean’s office in silence, Leo following her despondently down the hallway. She’s still carrying her luggage, she’s tired, she’s frustrated, and she’d scream right here, in the middle of Her Majesty’s Imperial College, if she hadn’t decided to keep their family’s embarrassment at a minimum for the day. The Chief Inspector said they were going to let it slide, her son was not going to be expelled, and she was going to explode as soon as they reached the sanctuary of his room.
When the words came, they were colder than she thought, lower than she imagined her voice could go, each of them carefully enunciated. “I can’t believe you’d let yourself be talked into forging official student records. I thought you were supposed to be smarter than that. I thought you’d be grateful for the education this school is granting you.”
Leo lands on his bed, staring at the ground mutinously, hiding any trace of shame from his features. She keeps going, because she’s on a roll, because she’s livid, and worried, and terrified.
“And more importantly, I can’t believe you’d throw that opportunity away for a bunch of spoiled, manipulative, trust-fund delinquents!”
“They were my friends. We- we had laughs together.”
“Friends do not use their friends to break the law. Friends don’t throw their friends under the bus when they get caught.”
“How would I know?”
He’s still staring at the ground, but his hands are tightening around the bed’s edge, and his voice breaks even if he’s trying to prevent the tears from spilling. And Helen, Helen is still angry, and still terrified, but she eventually sits next to him, and her voice is softer when she says, “One day you’ll meet someone, and you’ll know.”
He nods, breathing heavily. They let the silence do the rest of the talking, and she lets him covertly dry his eyes when she pretends she’s not looking.
“I’m sorry I technically committed fraud.”
She pats his hand. “I’m sorry your friends were pricks.”
He gives her half a smile, as if he couldn’t yet commit himself to a full-blown grin, but then nudges his shoulder against hers and says, “You know …I still have the Po-Tat-Ouch.”
“You’re really committed to that name, aren’t you?”
“I stand by it.”
She sighs, because you can’t win every battle, and remembers she’s still supposed to be scolding him.
“The worst part is that you weren't even brought in for the forgery-“
“-the fire was purely accidental!”
“Just.” She shakes her head, and looks at her brilliant, apologetic, stubborn son. “Try not to do anything illegal until Christmas?”
“Promise.”
“Same goes for arson.”
“It's science, Ma! Sometimes things happen to explode.”
His exasperated puppy eyes are met with a poignant silence, and Leo, too, knows when to back down from a lost battle. He deflates, hands flailing in repentant surrender.
“Fine, I'll try.”
“Good.”
They stare at each other for a few moments, until his eyes are drawn to the small package she’d left on his desk.
“Is that banana bread?”
He’s happily munching away like the gentleman she never managed to raise, and she closes her eyes briefly, sending another little prayer to whoever’s listening. Please, don’t let him be alone. He has so much to give, and a world to give it to, but don’t let him do it alone.
Someone must’ve been listening, she later thinks to herself, because not too long after that the Universe sends them Jemma Simmons.