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Faroe was sick of this.
Every damn time her father went to New York he would leave her to get the post. She'd go out the door, across the hall, down the four (count 'em, four!) flights of stairs, across the lobby to the wall of post boxes, get any letters that may or may not be there, make her way back up all those stairs and finally deliver the letters or news of none to an empty room. She also had to water the plants.
Well she'd had enough of it. She was nearly eighteen for Christ's sake! As she made her way back up the "ten thousand steps" (as she had taken to calling them), she decided that today would be the last day she'd do this stupid little errand for her dad. As soon as he got back she'd tell him.
Faroe finally got to the top of the unending stairs, but she still wasn't done her trek.
She still had the hall to cross. She made quick work of that infinite desert wastelands.
She jiggled the door handle to her father's office, "Arthur Lester, Private Investigator" was etched proudly on the frosted glass. The door was jammed again.
Faroe groaned. Of all her father's quirks, his refusal to replace the bloody door was the only one Faroe could say with any truth that she hated. She forced it open with her shoulder.
Her father was sitting at his desk. He looked somewhere between a terrified hamster and a confused puppy.
"Oh good, you're back." Faroe hadn't expected him to be home so soon, but she wasn't complaining. Now that pleasantries were over with.....
"Look. I love you, but I don't want to be getting your mail and watering the plants every time you go to New York to visit your friends or see grandpa," she desperately wanted to go with him. She had only been to New York twice in the past year her father had been taking near monthly trips to go see his friends. He looked bewildered.
"I don't mind lending a hand!" Faroe liked watering the plants, they were all such lovely shades of green. With smooth dark leaves that she could wipe the dust off of to let them feel the sun. The only part she really didn't like was the Odyssey she had to endure every morning to collect the post, "It's just.. I'm tired of playing errand girl, okay?"
Faroe wanted to help her father do actual work. Real, proper investigations! She wanted to be out on the field, sneaking into a perp's hideout, skulking outside a café with the collar of her coat turned up, she wanted to be the avenger at the heel of the arch-murderer in flight! The one to go to the police with vital evidence that they'd missed! The one who got to return missing children to their mothers!
"You need a secretary. Someone you can actually pay to do this stuff." Faroe strolled over to the filing cabinet to put the letters away, turning her back to her father.
She heard him stand up, "I..." he sounded like he wanted to say something.
"Do you want a cup of tea?" If a cuppa couldn't loosen his tongue, nothing could. She turned back to him.
He was standing at the front of his desk, he was pale as a sheet.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," she walked up to him, "Dad?"
He let out a small gasp, now that was strange. Faroe was getting more and more concerned.
"Faroe?" His voice was so small she nearly had to strain to hear it. Tears shone in his eyes.
"What?" Faroe crinkled her eyebrows in that way she knew made her look like her father. She was standing directly in front of him now.
He took a shakey breath. His hands hovered slightly in front of his body.
"Where is-?" His voice wavered, Faroe could barely hear him. What on earth was he talking about?
All of a sudden he grabbed her by the shoulders.
"Wha-? Dad!" He pulled her into a tight hug, burying his face in the crook of her neck.
His hands clawed her back like a starving man who was finally given food. Faroe hugged him back of course, she would never pass up an opportunity to give her old man a hug, that didn't mean she wasn't confused though.
He brought a hand to the back of her head, like he did when she was small. It was then she realised he was crying.
"Dad! What happened?" He didn't respond, only hugged her tighter. His breathing was ragged. "Hey, hey you're okay. Everything's alright," Faroe wasn't the best at comforting people, but she rubbed circles on his back like he used to do to her when she scraped her knee or hit her head.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he was sobbing now.
Faroe was starting to panic now, what had happened in New York? She hadn't seen him cry like this since that day she'd nearly drowned in the bathtub.
He'd been there to pull her out then, the least she could do was try pull him out of whatever spiral he was drowning in now.
Faroe let him go slightly, just enough to look him in the eye. "I love you, Dad," she tried. She dried his tears with the cuff of her sleeve.
Looking at him properly, she saw just how battered he was. He had a scar under his right eye, and part of his ear was missing. He looked like he hadn't eaten anything at all while he was gone.
"What the hell happened to you?" Faroe brought one hand to the side of his head, the other to the crook of his neck. This was when she caught sight of the jagged lightning bolt on his throat. "Oh my god!"
Her father pulled her closer and rested their foreheads together. "I love you too," he breathed.
"Dad. What happened to you?" Holding her father so close was nice, especially after two weeks without him, the longest he'd been gone in a long time, but Faroe couldn't appreciate it with worry coursing through her veins.
"It doesn't matter, not now. It's over," her father pulled back to kiss her forehead before pulling her back into a hug.
He laughed wettly, tears still caught in his throat. "Oh my little girl, you're alive!" He was thin as a rake, but that didn't stop him from picking her up and spinning her around like she was eight years old again.
Faroe sighed.
Her father was a weirdo (she hasn't gotten that from thin air), she rolled her eyes and hugged him as tightly as she could.