(Untitled)

[punkass_drgnrdr]

Who: Lance, Faith, Hailey
What: Lance gets to meet a cute little girl. And get his brain broken.
When: 18 March
Where: Neon City, Hyperion

Comments

[teddysaidso]

Mommy had come to see her and her Daddy, and they were currently playing a Hyperion-wide game of hide and seek. It was Mommy's turn to count, and Hailey ran as fast as she could to find a hiding place, thinking of where in the Hyperion she could hide ... she was still rather new to the place, despite having some time to explore with some help from Alex.

It was then that it came to her.

So, without another thought, she ran as fast as she could toward the hiding place, only ...

"OOF!"

... to run into a humming man.

[punkass_drgnrdr]

Lance didn't manage to step out of the little girl's way quite fast enough, and stumbled slightly as she ran into him, one hand reaching out automatically to catch her by the shoulder and the other to catch the wall.

He blinked for an instant after seeing her--I haven't seen this girl before--before remembering the comm post he'd seen while up in the mountains. Oh, this is Nick's girl? He suppressed a grin; he'd wondered how Nick had taken to the revelation of being a father.

"Alright there?"

[teddysaidso]

Hailey was shocked, to say the least. But she had to hide! She looked up momentarily to apologize and be on her way, but when she saw him she stopped, her mouth open slightly.

then she closed it.

and opened it again.

aaand closed it.

After a few more moments of staring, she squealed happily and hugged his legs.

"UNCLE LAAAANCE~!"

[punkass_drgnrdr]

Uh ...

Lance blinked, glad he was still holding the wall when she glomped his legs because the action made him over-balance slightly. Then his lips twitched.

"I guess ... someone's already told you about me, huh?" Haku or maybe Alex, probably. Someone had to have told her why Greg wasn't there and who he was with, anyway. He was a little surprised she was already calling him 'uncle', though ... that wasn't usual, surely?

[teddysaidso]

She looked up at him curiously.

"You came and visited us in Vegas when Alex and Mattie went missing, remember? And you helped me stop crying, and stayed with Uncle Greg and Aunt Sabine ... Uncle Greg said you were his half-brother. Don'tcha remember, Uncle Lance? It's me, Hailey!"

[punkass_drgnrdr]

"I ..."

... what?

He couldn't help it. He stared. "I ... visited you?"

It ... wasn't impossible. He was ten years before Greg's time and he'd rarely been out of his country before, and never to Vegas; for all he knew there was--or would be--a CSI Greg Sanders there.

Except--

"Greg's half-brother?!"

That couldn't be possible.

[teddysaidso]

"Ahuh. That's what Uncle Greg said."

Hailey was more confused now then she had been before ... and these last few days have just been confusion one right after the other. Daddy had done a good job of explaining it, but ...

[punkass_drgnrdr]

Lance had to lean back against the wall and slide down it to a sitting position, his mind buzzing madly.

"How ... is that possible?" The question was rhetorical: his mother had died when he was born. There was no way he could actually be Greg's brother; it was just something they said because they were all stuck there together. Right?

It ... could be another version of me I guess ...

[teddysaidso]

"Weeeell, when a mommy and a daddy really love each other, the stork flies by and gives them a baby. But sometimes, the mommy and daddy realize after a while that they're not happy with each other, and they find other people that they're happy with, while still taking care of the baby. Sometimes, the stork finds one of the parents with someone new and gives them a baby, and the new baby and the other baby are then half-brothers!"

Hailey seemed so, so proud of herself.

/2

[vanderfleet]

"Nice hidin' place ya got there, sweetie," The sound of a female voice all but grinned from behind Hailey. Hailey looked up and smiled.

"Mommy! Aww, you found me .."

"Yeah, well, y'weren't makin' much of an effort, baby girl!" she laughed, lifting Hailey into her arms and holding her on her hip. She looked to Lance and blinked a few times, trying to remember why he looked so familiar.

"Hmm. Yer .. AH, Lance, right? Y'look like ya got yer brain broken."

"I told him how half-brothers are made, Mommy," Hailey explained.

Faith made a face, but decided not to ask.

[punkass_drgnrdr]

Lance blinked at Hailey for a moment, bemused by her explanation, before covering his face with his hand and taking a deep breath, coming down hard on the urge to chuckle hysterically.

It was Faith's voice that made him look up again, and when he had it took a few moments before he recognised her as Nick's girlfriend-slash-future wife. "I just did," he managed in response, and shook his head violently in a vain effort to clear his thoughts. "Greg's my half-brother. In Hailey's world."

It had to be an alternate version of him. Except for the fact that it was possible and he never had heard much about his mother except that she'd died, and there had never been any pictures of her or things that belonged to her, and you'd think that a man who couldn't bear to keep his wife's things around his own house would at least keep them somewhere on the family estate but then no one had even shown them to him after he went to live there ...

Fuck.

[teddysaidso]

Hailey was worried now. "I didn't mean to break you, Uncle Lance ..."

Faith pet her daughter's hair a bit, unable to hold back a bit of a chuckle.

"I thought I knew that look. Hey, look, it ain't the end o' the world, alrighty? It might not even be true in yer own world, if that's what yer worried about."

[punkass_drgnrdr]

Lance took a deep breath, rubbing his face slightly. When she put it like that it didn't sound so bad; it wasn't exactly on par with the Hotel being attacked or something. And it wasn't that he objected that much to being related to Greg, even if it was true, which it wasn't necessarily despite indications in his own history that it could be.

It was just that it meant that, somewhere, either he was a bastard in the literal sense of the word or his father had had a second child and then abandoned him. He didn't like either of those ideas. Either way, his father had failed and badly.

He looked up again and smiled weakly, and a little belatedly, at Hailey. "I know you didn't. It's ... okay."

[teddysaidso]

"D'ya need a hug, Uncle Lance?" Hailey asked quietly, clinging to her mother. Faith smiled.

"Y'know, a hug might help~"

[punkass_drgnrdr]

"I'll be f--" Lance started, but then had to stop, looking up at her anxious little face. She was worried about him, and even though he probably didn't need comforting--really--he knew she wouldn't take the rejection well. She'd just think it was all her fault.

... Besides, if it was true then she knew him and he'd helped her handle Mattie and Alex's disappearance--fuck Alex and Mattie could be my blood relatives dammit do they even have DNA analysis here?--and he'd be a cad if he suddenly rejected her now, even though he was at least ten years before her time.

He huffed and held out his arms without shifting from his seat on the floor. "C'mere."

[teddysaidso]

Hailey squirmed out of her mother's hold the instant he told her to come over, landing on the floor and rushing over to give him a big hug. Faith knelt down a bit, chuckling.

"I think you've got a friend, Lance. An' a niece."