Chapter Text
- It’s a week after the foxes win the championship that Neil gets a call from the FBI. It’s not a new thing, he’d been getting calls and having infrequent meetings since Baltimore, verifying information and confirming identities of people in his father’s circle. This call comes on a lazy, hazy summer afternoon in Columbia. Neil and Andrew are lying on opposite ends of the couch, their feet tangled together in the middle, trading nudges and kicks. Aaron sits on his laptop in the kitchen, Nicky is heating up some tamales for lunch, and Kevin has the TV turned to the exy olympic team tryout coverage. Bland, uneventful, and luxurious; the kind of afternoon Neil keeps wondering how he can be so lucky to have, day after day.
- Neil lets his phone ring twice before Andrew sends a particularly pointy kick into his thigh.
- Neil answers it with a curt, “What?”
- A sigh on the other end. “Mr. Josten.”
- “Agent Browning.” Andrew raises an eyebrow. Browning had been acting as Neil’s handler, essentially. Most every call concerning the case was through him, and he and Neil had developed a tense but mostly cooperative relationship. He reminded Neil a bit of Wymack, in the way that once it was just the two of them, Browning cut the crap and didn’t rise to Neil’s bait. He was business-minded, didn’t do small talk, and Neil could appreciate that.
- Another sigh. “I...Alright. Are you in a place where you can receive some information that may be hard to hear?”
- Neil raises his own eyebrow back at Andrew. “Sure. Hit me.” Andrew takes this as an invitation to kick him again.
- “There was a raid on one of your father’s properties this morning. Rumor was the Malcoms stayed there infrequently. We found...an eight year old girl living there. Alone.”
- Neil stills, face emotionless. “What?”
- “Her name is Sylvia Malcolm. We’re running DNA tests now to confirm it, but we think she’s your half-sister.”
- Neil doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. His stomach immediately goes queasy. Agent Browning gives him a moment to respond, but when he doesn’t, the agent goes on.
- “Apparently, the nanny who’d been taking care of her just stopped showing up last week, probably when the last paycheck was up or something. We have Sylvia in custody right now, but the immediate issue at the moment is where to put her. The Malcolms have no other relatives, and there are no other Wesninskis that we know of, making you her only living blood relative. This means you have the option of taking over custody of her, seeing as you are a legal adult. However, with being a college student, I understand that taking over care of a child could be extremely difficult, and you don’t know this kid. So the other option is we can put her into WITSEC and the Maryland foster system-”
- “No.” He’s not thinking when he says it, or more like he’s thinking too much. A million things are running through Neil’s mind:
- Malcolm- is this Lola’s daughter?
- Lola and his father had a kid?
- Lola and his father are dead; this girl is an orphan, and it’s partially his fault.
- She’s eight, the same age he was when his mother took him and ran.
- She spent eight years with Lola and his father and his people. She’s probably fucked in all the same ways he was by that age.
- No one can better understand what it was like for him growing up than this girl.
- No one is going to be able to understand her better than him.
- He can’t let her be put in the system. He can’t, not with Andrew at his side, in his head. He feels sick from just the vague idea that this girl could be put into the same kinds of places, given to the same kinds of people.
- So he says, “No. Give me- I need time. I need to make a few calls. I’ll call you back tonight with a plan, just-”
- “Okay. Take your time, make your calls, do what you need to do. I’ll make sure we keep her right here, Neil.”
- “Thanks.” He says absently, then hangs up. There’s a moment’s silence before Kevin says, “What was that?”
- Neil feels almost numb, definitely queasy.
- “I have a sister. Half-sister. They found her at some safe house or something. I think I have to take custody of her.”
- “Oh my god, Neil, that’s-” Nicky starts, but Aaron cuts him off.
- “Whoa, whoa, hold on, the FBI is just giving you a child? Is there no one else who can take her?”
- “I’m the last living relative she’s got. It’s me or the state.”
- His words send a chill through the room. No one says it, but they’re all thinking the same thing: that’s not much of a choice at all.
- “How old is she.” Andrew is staring hard at Neil, but his mind is going in too many different directions for him to squirm under his gaze.
- “Eight.” He says softly.
- “Jesus,” Aaron reels. “What the fuck are you gonna do with an eight year old?”
- “Take care of her, Aaron, what else?” Nicky snaps.
- “He’s nineteen!”
- “I was twenty when I took custody of you two!”
- “We were sixteen, that’s different! She’s eight, this is an actual child who needs to be, like, raised and shit! Where are you even going to put her? There’s no room here and I’m not signing up to look after some other mob kid, and you can’t keep an eight year old girl in the same dorms as a bunch of college athletes-”
- “Call Wymack.” Kevin says. His face is hard but Neil finds the certainty in his voice steadying. “He can talk to Abby. She has extra rooms, we’ve all stayed there before. She could put you both up until you found a place, and you can apply for student-family housing next year. Call Wymack.”
- Neil nods and takes a faltering breath. He doesn’t move to call, though, just grips his phone tight as he tries not to shake out of his skin. He barely registers Andrew dragging him up the stairs and into his room. With a firm hand on the back of his neck, he calls Wymack, and then Abby, and then Wymack again, and then he has to put his head between his knees and breathe for a few minutes, but by the time the sun goes down he’s called Agent Browning back.
- Tomorrow, Neil and Andrew will drive back to Palmetto so Neil can give Abby some money to pick up things for taking care of a little girl.
- After that, they’re headed to Baltimore.