Work Text:
You wouldn’t be where you are today if not for a keen sense of propriety. You seek to practice moderation and precision in all things. You don't form personal attachments with your associates, as a matter of principle; it complicates your work, and it invites risk. Lydia, who flinches when someone behind her moves too close but not when you rest your hand at the small of her back to help guide her through a stilted approximation of a waltz, needs none of this explained to her; it goes without saying.
She is young - old enough to know what she’s doing, but young enough that when you take her under your wing it feels appropriate - and she is cautious. You notice, the first time you meet her, that she tends to clasp her hands in a deliberate self-soothing gesture and is most comfortable where there are exits in sight. She is never truly, completely at ease; she will never be complacent, though she could become impulsive. When you tell her that you want her to feel safe, it seems to draw her closer. In time, she comes to you bright-eyed with ideas, eager to solve the problems you present, and placing in you a rare degree of trust.
You tell yourself that she’s nothing at all like Max.
When one day she comes to you in a fluttering panic, you calm her down, because she is most capable and most useful when she is calm. You teach her a little of what you’ve taught yourself, how to breathe in for a slow count of three and out for a count of four, and although she struggles with it she does so until the turmoil inside both of you is quieter.
Lydia’s two-year-old daughter sits next to you on their living room floor, arranging a set of polished wooden blocks. The little girl talks in Spanish and you could be elsewhere, in another life; if things had turned out differently then maybe something like this would be your family, your home. You prefer not to think about all the possibilities that died off when you were young, but around Lydia who still has something young and unhurt in her they come back as quiet echoes in your mind, like the whispers of wind in dry grass. This, too, goes without saying. Lydia, who stands on tiptoe to kiss you goodbye with her daughter in her arms, understands that it is not a matter of longing but of loss.
During your negotiations you talk less and less out loud, sensing an understanding. You don’t move around each other like guests any more, rather like friends who keep at a slight but essential distance. In the end, Lydia is as close to you as you will permit anyone to be. On a red-eye flight to a regional conference she leans against you in her sleep and you don’t wake her. She feels safe with you, safe, safer than she should.
When one day for the first time in decades your chest goes tight with some unnameable fear and you have to breathe deliberately, bent over the kitchen counter in sudden pain, Lydia's there and she doesn’t ask what you have to be afraid of. She only takes your hand, reminds you to breathe in for three and out for four, and sits with you in silence.