Chapter Text
“What time did they say they were getting here?”
“Beatrice texted that they should be in the city after lunch,” Lydia said, looking at the clock, the hour hand just beginning to turn past one.
Bernard frowned slightly at the clock and then window he was stood in front that let him see the sidewalk in front the house. He glanced down at the watch on his wrist just to be sure.
“It’s well after lunch now, isn’t it?”
“Bernard, you’re working yourself up.” Her voice was gentle, no hint of the fond exasperation that was seeping into her expression.
“Maybe you should call. See where they are?”
“They still had to drop of their rental. And I would expect they stopped by their flat first to drop their luggage.”
Bernard was fully pacing now, glancing out the window whenever he walked past to see if the girls had arrived. “Maybe we shouldn’t tell her the other part. We can just get her documents in order and she never has to know.”
Lydia looked up at him and kept staring until he stopped burning scuff marks into the carpet, “It wouldn’t be right to keep something like that from her.”
“But if it’s for her own protection. Parents do that kind of thing all the time, lie to their kids about things that would cause them pain if they knew the truth.”
“First of all, that stops being the reasonable thing for a parent to do after the child has fully developed their frontal lobe. Secondly, she’s not our daughter and it’s not our place to decide such a thing for her.”
“She’s going to be our daughter-in-law eventually. We’ve already accepted that fact.”
“But that doesn’t negate my first point. And should I remind you the last time we made a unilateral decision intended to be in our daughter’s best interest we royally screwed things up.”
Bernard sighed heavily, “I just don’t know how you tell anyone this.”
“It’s best she learns this now than discover it on her own later and realize we knew.”
“What if she gets mad at us?” He sat down on the couch, next to Lydia, “At me, for uncovering this?”
She leaned towards him, her hand resting on his knee, “Ava hardly seems like the type to shift blame, darling. I know this will be hard to tell her, but she’ll have Beatrice with her and she’ll have us, no matter how she reacts we’ll help her through. She has a right to know.”
He sighed and Lydia knew he agreed from the tone of it. She patted his hand once, “Regardless how she takes the bad news, you are doing an amazing thing for her darling. For that you have nothing to feel sorry for.”
The walk from Gloucester Road Station to Queen’s Gate was a well-worn path for Beatrice and Ava by now. It was no different today, as they climbed the steps out of the Underground, one of Ava’s hands in Beatrice’s the other holding a bag.
“They’re going to love it,” Ava was saying as they crested the top of the stairs into the pale grey light of a London afternoon, “I can’t wait to show them.”
“I’m sure they’ll appreciate the sentiment,” Beatrice said, not having the heart to tell Ava she couldn’t her see parents enjoying the novelty toys they’d won at the theme park they’d visited yesterday. She was quiet. Quieter than usual when around Ava. She was starting to learn her parents’ tells again, and Lydia had a few too many ‘darlings’ thrown in her conversation when they’d spoken earlier. And before Beatrice could inquire about it, Lydia had invited them. Ordinarily that itself wouldn’t be cause for concern, but there was something off about their interaction that Beatrice couldn’t shake.
Beatrice couldn’t help but wonder how things with her Grandfather had turned out. He had been furious when they left the estate. Her mother had insisted everything had sorted itself, but now Beatrice was beginning to doubt that.
“Okay, what’s going on in that head of yours?” Ava’s finger poking at her temple pulled Beatrice from sinking too deep into her mind.
“How did mother seem to you when we spoke to her this morning?”
“On the phone? She seemed like Lydia. Why?”
“I can’t put my finger on it. Something felt… off.”
“Like it wasn’t Lydia. Do you think a demon body snatched your mom and is waiting at home to ambush us?”
Beatrice snorted, bumping her shoulder into Ava’s, “Be serious.”
“I’m deadly serious. We’ve been attacked by demons too many times for me to joke about it.”
“No. Not like that. Like she was keeping something from us.”
“You think she killed your grandfather and had to hide the body in your basement.”
This time she knew Ava was joking and it pulled an easy laugh from her in the way Ava can always do, “Mother knows better than hide bodies close to home.”
Ava arched her brow in that classic ‘Ava’ way and tiled her head just a little.
“Alright, I get it. I’ll talk to her later today. No use in drumming up stress for baseless speculation.”
Ava winked at Beatrice, and took the front steps of the townhouse two at a time and didn’t even bother knocking before letting herself inside. “Hello MacCodrums!” She announced, finding them in the living room. Lydia was in her usual spot on her favorite sofa, a book face down on her lap. Bernard was standing next to her, looking a little spooked. Ava assumed it was because of the bluster of her arrival. But Beatrice did catch the way his hands were fidgeting and how he looked… nervous. Nervous, not startled. She really starting to worry things had gone poorly with Grandfather.
Ava wasn’t deterred in the slightest, pulling the souvenirs out from her bag. “You have to see what Bea I did,” she said proudly holding up a souvenir photo from a theme park. The words ‘Fantasy Island’ emblazoned at the top of the cardboard frame, while the picture was of a roller coast, moments after it went over a drop. Ava and Beatrice were in the third row, a little off center in the picture. Ava’s hands were tossed high in the air. Beatrice was holding onto the bar next to them, but her eyes closed, cheeks stretched in clear delight said everything they needed to about her emotions in that moment.
Ava held out the cardboard-paper framed photo for Bernard who was closer to her. But when he didn’t take it, Lydia reached out for it instead, her hand brushing Bernard in the process and seeming to draw him out of his stoper. “Looks like you had a wonderful time, darlings,” Lydia smiled at the photo before offering it back, but Ava shook her head.
“That one’s for you. I got like three other photos of us on other rides.” Ava was too busy looking at her phone, looking for more pictures she wanted to show. She didn’t catch the quiet berth of emotions that filtered across Lydia’s expression.
“Is everything alright with grandfather?” Beatrice asked, sitting across from her parents. She couldn’t wait in suspense any longer. If Grandfather's response had left them shunned, she’d rather know now than having her parents hid the information trying to protect them.
Beatrice was expecting for the worst. She was not expecting her mother’s amused snort.
“The Admiral has agreed to hold his tongue on the subject of your relationship.”
Beatrice blinked, clearly surprised.
“Really? He seemed ready to disown all of us and I don’t think he even has ability to disown me from anything.” Ava said.
The change in conversation seemed to have settled Bernard’s strange demeanor. A small smirk played on the edges of his lips, “Oh, he certainly tried. And then your mother put him in his place and he saw reason.”
Beatrice and Ava both turned their attention to Lydia who just waved the comment away. “I simply showed him what his reality would be if we were no longer responsible for the estate.”
“She had every worker and service that estate uses to run everyday functions forward all their correspondence to father and then we left Ayton to returned home. He was calling before our plane even landed.” Bernard explained, his smile clearly proud, “He admittedly did not really apologize for his behavior. But for now, we’ve agreed that we will not discuss the matter on the condition he behaves whenever you visit estate and you both use your digression in polite company. Father’s words.”
Ava and Beatrice exchanged a glance.
“It’s up to you girls what you want to do.” Lydia said.
Ava shrugged, “It’s not like Bea is into PDA anyway. I don’t care along he’s not yelling us.”
“With that settled, there is something Bernard wants to discuss with Ava.”
“With Me?” Ava looked at him, clearly surprised.
“Yes, well,” Bernard coughed, some of those nervous ticks from earlier slipping back into his demeanor. Beatrice’s brow shot up at this and she moved to sit next to Ava.
“Father?”
Bernard looked at Lydia and straighten his posture. “I’ve been… I have something for you, Ava.” He moved to a desk in the corner of the room that was usually used for mail and periodicals they had. “I’m sorry it taken me this long to… there was a lot of red tape involved-”
“Darling,” Lydia said gently, cutting off his rambling.
He returned holding a manila file that he handed to Ava. “I’ll say Ava Silva, your story is even more complicated than you let on.”
“What does that mean?” Ava asked, brows knitted together as she opened the file. “A birth certificate? What-” That’s when she saw the name. She stared at it for a few seconds before “I’m Canadian!?”
“Born in Ontario yes. From what I could find, your mother and you moved to the US shortly after you were born and were both to able to gain American citizenship sometime afterwards. But she, and you were originally from Toronto."
"How did I not know I was born in Canada?"
Because, there, sitting on top of the all the pages in this file was a birth certificate. A Canadian birth certificate. With Ava’s name on it. She blinked. Blinked again. Rubbed her eyes just to make sure she wasn't seeing things. Because some part of her wasn't accepting this as real. That the thing she was holding in her hands was real. She was so used to the universe being against her, there was no way this was real. Except... it was. She could touch it, feel it under her finger tips.
“I…” Ava was stunned speechless. “Mom never mentioned... How did you even get this.”
“I called in a favor with an American friend. Several actually. One of them was able to actually track down your case file with social services.”
“I have a case file with social services?”
“There was an investigation into your next of kin after your mother’s death. Under normal circumstances there should have been an effort for repatriation for you, even if next of kin wasn’t found, which obviously didn’t happen. It wouldn’t be the first time I heard of a child being left behind by US social services. I'm not surprised, as underfunded as it is.”
“So what? I got stuck in the orphanage because of a paper work error. Budget issues?”
“I tried to get in contact with the original case worker, but turns out he passed away a few years ago. At this point, it would only be speculation to say what happened and why you were never returned to the States. If I had to wager a guess, your dual citizenship might have complicated things.”
“I- I don’t even know what to say. I- thank you, Bernard.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I imagine you have a lot of sitting in government waiting rooms in your future.”
“I do?”
“There is the complication of there being a death registered in your name in Spain.”
“Right, there isn’t a zombie reborn box for me to tick on official forms.”
“The good news is, the hospital you were born in takes records of newborns footprints. If we can get a hold of a copy of those, we can prove that you are Ava Silva. After that, getting the rest of your documents in order will only be as complicated as it is for anyone else. Your ID, a passport, heck even a driver’s license if you want. In fact, we have an appointment in two days to get you an emergency passport.”
“Wait what?”
“The hospital won’t give out birth records unless the it’s the person asking or someone from the immediate family. And they certainly won’t send them overseas. Believe me, I tried. So once we get your emergency passport, we can be on the next flight to Toronto. I can’t promise you’ll be holding a real ID by next week, but you will be on way to doing so.”
Ava stood up and hugged Bernard suddenly. He coughed, cheeks flaming red, before giving her an awkward little pat on the back.
“No one’s ever done something like this for me.”
“Yes well,” He coughed, “It was as just as much for me as it was for you. Do you know what it would do to mine and Lydia’s reputation if it were ever discovered that your documents were forged?”
Ava saw the half truth for what it was, and hugged Bernard tighter. He sighed, acquiescing to the hug. His eyes met Beatrice’s eyes over Ava’s shoulder and she mouthed, “Thank you.” His smile, warm, came easily in response. He cleared his throat pointedly before carefully pulling her back.
“There is something else I have to tell you. I- this might be hard for you to hear.”
“I’m gonna have to study for some stupid citizenship test or something? I don’t care. I just can’t believe I get to have real documents with my name on it.”
“Nothing like that. The investigation into your next of kin when your mother passed…”
“Yeah? What about it? They never found anyone. If you’re gonna tell me all my family is dead, I already figured that out.” She said with an amused smirk.
“No… actually. Someone was found.”
The smile vanished off Ava’s face.
“They did find potential candidates for guardianship. Your maternal grandparents and… your father.”