Work Text:
Lynne learns young that most children have two parents.
The kids in her class talk about their moms and dads. One of the first assignments she ever had was to w rite about their families, and Lynne looked up at the bulletin board of all their worksheets, and all of them talk about having a mom and a dad. She’s the only one with a mother, and no one else.
So, of course, when she comes home after school that day, she asks her mom, “Where’s Daddy? Why isn’t he here?”
“Honey…” Mom looks sad. Lynne bets she misses him. “It doesn’t matter. Daddy…doesn’t exist, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Oh.” Lynne looks down. “Are you…gonna find another daddy for me, then?”
Mom giggles. “We don’t need a daddy, sweetheart. All I need is you.”
Lynne already knows that’s not true, though. Mom works hard for the two of them, but she sees the way that her classmates get picked up from school instead of having to walk or take the bus. She sees her classmates that take the bus getting greeted by their parents as they step off.
It’s not that Mom doesn’t care. She definitely cares! Just…it’s not the same as the other kids.
The thing is that as soon as the other kids started picking up in the ways in which Lynne was different from them, they weren’t afraid to stop marking her for it. She just tries to remember what Mom always says. They don’t need anyone else in their family. She tries to keep it in her heart, even as she hears them whisper about how she’s missing something important.
For her tenth birthday, Mom gives her a key to their apartment. She ruffles Lynne’s hair with a smile. “This way, you don’t have to wait for me to let you in anymore.”
Mom’s been trying to encourage her to be more “independent”. Lynne’s not sure how she can be any more than she is.
But she sees the dark circles under Mom’s eyes. She smiles and takes the key.
Now that she has a key, though, when she comes back from school it’s to an empty house. Mom leaves a container in the fridge or money for takeout with a note. The notes are always the same — “Mom is gonna miss dinner because of work, make sure to do your homework, I’ll be home before bed, I love you.”
She’s not always home before Lynne goes to bed. At least she’s normally there when Lynne wakes up.
The pattern stays in place for around a year. And then, one day, Lynne comes home and Mom is there. And she keeps coming home to Mom, even if she leaves right after for work.
The next month, they don’t have water to shower or bathe with for a week. Lynne brings multiple water bottles to and from school for home, and she sneaks into the high school to use the showers they have at their gyms.
After that, Mom keeps leaving after Lynne comes home, and comes back just as Lynne is about to leave for school. The glimpses Lynne gets of Mom are awful.
She knows the nice new pink winter jacket is a luxury that they can’t really afford to get. Most of Lynne’s clothes are from the thrift stores, including the jacket she has right now, which is tight around her shoulders. But Lynne’s just turned thirteen, and Mom wanted to do something special for her. So she chooses a nice, new jacket. She’s always picked her clothes in the past, but they’re all from things other people decided they’d rather donate to people they pity than throw away. It’s rare for her to have something new that isn’t underwear or socks.
It makes Mom happy that she’s picked a winter jacket, and not something more impractical, even if she flinches when she sees the price tag. Lynne’s just happy to have something that started as hers. It’s pretty rare.
Mom is still trying.
There’s still food in the pantry, but Lynne’s starting to learn how to cook basic stuff for herself. The leftovers and the takeout money aren’t a nightly thing anymore. Lynne’s the one leaving containers in the fridge now, when she makes something that even has leftovers. She eats a lot of sandwiches, because they’re easy to make with the things in the pantry still. She doesn’t tell Mom when she starts running low on things — she just makes do with what they have, as long as they can. Lynne remembers that time when the water got turned off. She’s not going to let that happen again, even if it means not eating for a bit. It’s not like Lynne’s starving or anything. She’s skipped breakfast every day for the last week because they ran out of cereal, sure, but she can skip it and be fine.
Until she pukes in the middle of class because her lunch used expired jam.
Mom rushes into the nurse’s office, frazzled. The school nurse tells Mom something that Lynne doesn’t pay attention to until she hears the word “malnourished”. Mom squeezes her shoulder.
As they leave the school,
“Lynne, why didn’t you tell me we were running out of food? You don’t have to eat expired food. I would have done more for you if you told me.”
“It was fine,” she insists. “It’s not like you noticed we were running out of food either.”
Mom freezes. “You’re right, Lynne. I’m so sorry. Work has been—”
“It’s always work,” she says bitterly. “You always work, or sleep, and you’re never there for me when I want you to be!”
“I am trying,” Mom replies. “I want to be there for you. I always want to be there for you. But…I’m just one person. We need a lot of money to keep living here. So I have to work. And my bosses choose when I’m on the job. So I can’t always be there.”
“You say you’re trying. You’re always trying,” she spits. “When are you actually going to succeed?”
Mom steps away from her. Lynne puts a hand over her mouth. Holy cow. She can’t believe she said that.
Mom takes a deep breath. “Let’s go out for dinner tonight, sweetheart. I want to make sure you’re eating good food.”
Lynne smiles. They end up at a restaurant called the Chicken Kitchen, and get two chicken combos, which come with a whole chicken and sides. Lynne ends up taking more than half of hers home. If she does a good job rationing the leftovers, she can make it last for the rest of the week.
Summer rolls around, and Lynne is home with Mom more often, since she doesn’t have to go to school. They take walks around Mino Park sometimes, or stay at home other days when Mom doesn’t have the energy. Even if it’s annoying sometimes to have to deal with beign at home together, it’s nice to see her more often. She knows it’d get old after a while, but she kinda wishes every day could be like this.
Summer eventually gives way to autumn, and to going back to school again. Lynne prepares for more of the same. When she misses Mom, she stops by Mino Park after school and eats her dinner there instead, listening to music on the MP3 player Mom got from a used electronics store for her. One time, she decides to roast sweet potatoes, lighting up some leaves and leaving them to roast. She hums along to the melody of the song in her ears as she pokes them around a little.
And then she’s lifted off the ground.
She can’t hear over the music, and she can’t see anything except the ground beneath her. She just goes limp and waits for it to be over. She hopes the person who picked her up won’t kidnap her. She doesn’t know how she’s going to explain that to Mom.
And then, she’s on the ground. The drop knocks off her headphones.
“Hey,” a large man in a coat says. “Hey, kid, are you okay?”
She sits up. There’s a corpse behind the large man, another man with a strange hairstyle in a bright red suit.
“What…happened?” she asks.
“You’re safe now,” he says. “You were very brave.”
“But what happened?” she presses.
“I…” He looks away from her and the dead body. “I think it was a meteor strike.”
“Oh,” she says. “Okay.”
He takes out a plastic badge, the same size as his. “I want to give you this,” he says. “In honor of your bravery today. You’ve earned it. We’re going to take you back to the station and ask you a couple questions, but mostly, we’re just going to inform your parents about what happened, okay? We’re going to get you out of here.”
Lynne nods. She’s been called brave before, by her mom and her teachers and her classmates, though usually the last group of people mean it in a mocking way. But she’s never been rewarded for it.
He pins the badge to her coat. She taps it a couple times. If this is what she gets for bravery, she wants to keep being brave.
At the police station, she learns that the officer who saved her is named Jowd, and he asks her a few more questions, like if she’d ever seen the man before, what she was doing in Mino Park, and if she believes he had any reason to take her hostage besides that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
They give her some Hot Pockets. It’s better than her sweet potatoes would have been.
She asks if they do internships, too. They do offer them — but only to kids over 16. Boo.
Mom arrives to pick her up while Lynne is in the middle of solving a 200-piece jigsaw puzzle from some kind of holding room.
“You’re Julia, right?” Officer Jowd says. “It’s good to finally see you.”
“Lynne’s not in trouble, is she?”
“Mom,” Lynne says, “I’m right here.”
“Oh,” she says, mollified. “I was just so scared when I got the call that you were with the police, I just panicked—”
“I’m fine. Not even hurt!” She smiles. “Officer Jowd even gave me a badge.” She gets up and grabs her coat from the hanger, tapping the badge with pride.
“Thank you,” Mom says to Officer Jowd. “I don’t know how I can repay you for helping my daughter.”
“I don’t need anything from you, ma’am,” he says. “Just keep an eye on your daughter, okay? She’s a good kid. She shouldn’t have been out alone at Mino Park. It’s not a bad place, but it’s not a great one, either.”
Mom squeezes Lynne’s shoulder. “Not by herself, no. Come on, Lynne. Let’s go home.”
Lynne nods, and follows her back home.
She counts down the days to her 16th birthday with renewed vigor. She finally has a way out. If she can work, too, not all of the burdens will fall to Mo. She hasn’t told Mom about her plan yet, but she’s told her teachers — put it down on paper when they ask her what she wants to do when she’s done with school.
She makes the transition from middle school to high school smoothly. Mom is practically a ghost around the house — Lynne can see the things she does, but only when she’s alone. Lynne is old enough to look after herself, now.
She still wants Mom to be at home with her.
But it’s going to be fine. Soon, she’ll be able to fix everything. She just needs to get hired by the police first.
She’s fine.
“Detective Cabanela, yes?”
Lynne’s nerves are practically killing her. Today’s her internship interview, and this is make or break for her. She already made it through the first round with someone from the HR department. Now she has to get interviewed by an actual police officer.
She’d put in the application as soon as she turned 16. Her teachers agreed to serve as references. They were proud of her taking initiative. She still hasn’t told Mom about it yet.
“Thaaaat’s me,” he says. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lynne.” He holds out his hand for a handshake. Of course he already knows her name. It’s probably not often that they get situations like hers.
“Same here,” she says, and tries not to shake his hand too enthusiastically.
“Nooooow then, let’s get down to business. You came hiiiiiiighly recommended by my partner, Detective Jowd. And I know aaaaaal about that case from three years ago. But police work isn’t always so…glamorous. You do know that, don’t you?”
“Being taken hostage isn’t exactly glamorous,” she mutters under her breath before realizing how catastrophically bad of an idea it is to say that in front of the man who will determine whether she gets this internship or not.
But instead of taking offense, he just laughs.
“Oh, oh, you’re good. I mean, it’s not always about the chases and the action. Me and Jowd, we pull some looooong days at the office sometimes. You get me?”
Lynne nods with as much enthusiasm as she can get away with. “I understand, sir. I know it’s not easy, and it won’t always be directly helping people. But I think all the work you do helps, no matter how glamorous or un-glamorous.”
“Riiiiight,” he says. “Well, it’s not quite a done deal yet, but you passed in my book. Welcome aboard, kid.”
Lynne smiles. “Thank you so much, sir.”
“Mom?” Lynne asks. She’s standing weirdly, like she’s hiding something behind her back.
“I know it’s late, but…happy birthday!” She whisks out a cake from behind her back and shoves it towards Lynne. “I picked up some extra shifts to make sure I could get this.”
The cake does look really good. Chocolate and raspberries.
“I have a job,” Lynne blurts. “It’s, um, a paid internship. With the police station.”
Mom sets the cake on the counter and pulls Lynne into a tight hug.
“I’m so proud of you, sweetheart. But…you know, you didn’t have to do this for me. It’s my job to take care of you. That’s what all the work is for, even when the money doesn’t always come through. I’m sorry you feel like you have to do this for us. I didn’t want you to.”
Lynne squeezes Mom tighter. “I wanted to do it. Not just for us, but for me, too. This is what I want to do.”
When they separate, Lynne feels a wet spot on her shoulder. Lynne ignores it as Mom sets up candles for the cake.
She doesn’t work very often — after school a couple times a week and weekends sometimes — but she manages to start earning some money, which is more than nothing. It helps. She can get her own food and avoid stretching out Mom’s resources too much.
Detective Jowd is a great mentor, too. He’s careful with her. He watches her closely, observes her as she files paperwork in their office or makes observations on the cases.
He doesn’t teach her how to shoot, though. That’s Detective Cabanela, who takes her to the range sometime after her 17th birthday’s passed. He doesn’t have the same issues with it — not that Lynne knows what Detective Jowd’s issues with it are.
Lynne’s not a huge fan of guns, either, if she’s being honest with herself. She doesn’t like the sound or the kickback. When she tells Detective Cabanela, though, he says in return, “That’s a good thing. Don’t get too attached to it. With sooooome people, all they want from the badge is the power to hurt people. Now, I’ve been known to be a little foolhardy sometimes, but that’s not what I want.”
“Me neither,” Lynne says, resolute. He nods at her back, the most serious she’s ever seen him.
On her eighteenth birthday, Lynne takes the exam to become an officer officially. Moving up to “detective” requires a second exam and more experience, according to Detective Jowd. Lynne’s still hopeful that someday she’ll get it. She’s studied a lot for the officers’ exam, at least. And once she makes the roster, she’ll be paid more than she was as an intern.
Mom decides, on the other hand, that her celebration of Lynne officially becoming an adult is to dump all of their family history on her.
“I met your father when I was 16,” she begins. “He was 21. I didn’t realize it back then, but…he was taking advantage of me.”
Oh.
“And then, later on, I got pregnant with you. His parents didn’t approve, and neither did mine. He tried to support me, but he was still young too, even if he was too old for me.”
Lynne does the math. She doesn’t actually know how old Mom is. But there’s a good chance that she’s older now than when her mom had her. She can’t imagine giving birth to another person right now. The thought itself just kinda…skeeves her out.
“He left me seven months pregnant with this place. The stress got to us, I think. When he left, he left some money, but it wasn’t enough. Not for everything we needed. I’ve…had to be your mother since before I was your age. I haven’t spoken to my parents since I told them I was pregnant. I know that it’s not enough to justify all these years, but…I want to make it up to you, as best I can. You should have grandparents and a father. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you that.”
Lynne looks at her mother, and she thinks about all the times she tried to convince herself that it was enough, because Mom kept insisting that it was.
She’s never believed herself when she thought that before now.
“That’s not really what I needed,” Lynne says quietly. “I just needed you to be around more.”
“I know, sweetheart. I know. I’m sorry.”
It won’t change the past. The damage has already been done.
A few weeks after Lynne gets her official badge (and a yellow coat as a gift from Jowd and Cabanela), the worst happens.
Jowd has always compartmentalized. He rarely talks about his wife or their daughter at work, and it’s only ever after Cabanela wheedles him for details about an off-hand comment or his insistence on knowing “how the wife’s doin’”. Jowd always smiled when he talked about them.
But Cabanela still made the arrest when Alma died. Now, Lynne’s on the opposite side of the glass from him, and it feels unassailably wrong.
“I don’t have anything to say to you that I haven’t already told Cabanela,” he says, meeting her eyes evenly.
Lynne’s not supposed to know the details of the case, but Cabanela slipped a photocopy of the files to her anyways. She’s read over the records multiple times. Maybe a little obsessively. The ballstic markings on the bullet are the same as his police-issued pistol.
The one that Jowd never uses.
“Cabanela taught me how to shoot,” she leads. “Because you refused. You hate guns.”
“Just because I hate them doesn’t mean I refuse to use them when it becomes necessary.”
“And was it?” she challenges.
“You woulnd’t understand how much,” he answers.
Lynne purses her lips. How, she wants to scream, could it possibly become necessary for him to shoot his wife? On her birthday, of all days?
“And Kamila?” she asks.
“Cabanela’s taken her, for now. He always says he doesn’t like kids, but they seem to like each other well enough.” The edge of his mouth twitches, on the verge of becoming a smile. “Between the two of you, I’m sure she’ll be very well cared for.”
Lynne leaves without saying anything else. She’s not giving up on him, but she’s leaving for today. It’s a war of attrition, and Lynne learned her stubbornness from him.
No matter what Jowd says, no matter how much the pieces seem to go together in that neat police file, Lynne is never going to believe that they really add up.
Lynne’s not Cabanela’s partner, but she walks into his office, and she sits down in the chair that used to be Jowd’s.
“Kamila.”
“I’ve got her, baby,” he confirms.
“Do you want her, though?” Lynne asks. Cabanela doesn’t talk a lot about his life outside work, either. Lynne’s pretty sure he doesn’t have much in the way of a life outside work, but she’s not sure if that’s just what he wants or if it’s because he wants something he doesn’t have. Lynne can’t imagine Cabanela wanting something and not going for it, though.
“I don’t know what to do with a kid,” he admits with a snort. “You were aaaaall Jowd’s.”
That’s really not true, but she doesn’t feel like pushing the point right now. “She should be with someone who wants her.”
“And that someone is you?” he ass. Cabanela knows about her family situation in the abstract, from the background check run twice over now that she’s an officer.
“Well, I’ll ask my mom first,” Lynne says. “We’ll need some financial help, of course. But if you agree to that, I don’t mind. It’d…be better if she had someone who really wanted her. Multiple people.”
Cabanela nods. “Well, I can’t disagree with that.”
Lynne feels older than she is when she meets Kamila. Was she ever really that small? She thinks she might have been smaller, really.
“Hey,” she says. “I’m Lynne.”
“I’m Kamila,” she answers. She’s drawing something in a sketchbook. Blueprint-paper-book. Something like that. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too,” Lynne says. “How are you?”
Kamila’s grip tightens on her pencil. “I’m fine.”
Lynne doesn’t push it. Instead, she asks Kamila what she’s working on. Eventually, the conversation manages to meander its way into Cabanela transferring Kamila’s custody to Lynne’s mom, which means her and Kamila are coming home together. So they do. Kamila seems a little happy about it, which is good.
Mom tries to help where she can, of course. The inheritances from Alma and Jowd aren’t touchable until Kamila’s an adult, but Cabanela covers some of the extra expenses with a monthly check, and Mom still holds onto jst a single job. She likes Kamila. Kamila’s still pretty quiet most of the time, but Lynne watches her gradually become less quiet, telling them what she prefers for dinner or what her day at school was like.
And then, two years later, Lynne’s mom dies, too.
The funeral is just the two of them and Cabanela. He’d talked to Mom occasionally, but he’s here more for emotional support. Lynne inherits the apartment’s lease, all of her belongings, and the savings that Mom managed to stash away between everything. It’s not much, but it’s something.
Lynne only breaks down about it in private. It feels wrong, sleeping in Mom’s bed. She was so young. In the end, a car accident got her before she could ever stop working. Lynne will never have a full day with her mother, will never have the chance to. She cries herself to sleep on her mom’s pillow. She can’t remember how she smelled — all she smells is the detergent on the sheets.
Before she heads to the station the next day, she packs Kamila lunch. She tries to remember Mom in the gesture, but Mom hasn’t packed her lunch since Lynne was seven.
It’s just the two of them now. Lynne still needs to be there, now more than ever.
Lynne runs the numbers and realizes that this month she’s on the verge of coming up short. She lets Cabanela buy her lunch when he swings by her cubicle, and if she’s not in the office, she just skips it. She drinks a coffee from the break room for breakfast and steals a doughnut when they have them. She still manages to eat dinners with Kamila. She knows having a full-time job puts her in a better position than Mom had when it comes to paying the bills, when it comes to convincing people of the reasons she can’t. Mom’s inheritance included her debts, too, which Lynne managed to pay off. She still works overtime, but she piles it on in the morning, coming to the station at 5 AM instead of leaving the station at 8 PM like she’s seen some of her coworkers do. It’s better for Kamila when Lynne comes home at the same time, even if Lynne is never there to make breakfast.
Lynne refuses to make the assumption of independence now, not when Kamila is only 11 years old. Lynne’s been independent as long as she can remember. Mom assumed that of her. She’s not going to make Kamila do the same thing, even if she is making an effort to come off like she already is.
Cabanela establishes the SIU, sing his newfound clout as an inspector to do it. He leaves Lynne out. She knows something must be wrong here, that there must be some kind of throughline between the cases the SIU holds sacred, but Lynne can’t find it.
Lynne talks to Jowd every day, still, updating him on how Kamila is doing. He’s never asked about Cabanela, though Lynne’s fairly certain he’s never gone out of his way to visit Jowd like Lynne has.
“Do you think I’m like my mom?” she asks during one call, gripping the reciever tightly.
“You are,” he says, and her heart drops. “I only met her once, but I know she worked hard. Like you.”
It’s a shitty answer, and Lynne’s pretty sure Jowd knows that, too. But in the end, Lynne decides to let it go, because he was trying to cheer her up. The apple might not fall far from the tree, but she can fall a little further away for Kamila than her mom managed to fall away for her.
After her next raise, Lynne celebrates by getting a small fish tank and a couple fish for it. She’s not a detective yet, but according to Cabanela, if she continues working like she is now, she’ll be on track for it in no time.
Kamila loves the fish tank, which is good. Lynne thinks she likes having something to take care of. One day, she gives Lynne a pencil-and-paper list of various fish that would be compatible with the ones they already have, plus suggestions for equipment and decorations. Lynne doesn’t have the heart to tell her they can’t afford it. Lynne just folds up the list and puts it in her coat.
It’s been a year since Mom died, but Lynne still has family, and she’s not talking about the piece-of-garbage grandparents that wouldn’t accept her or the father that took advantage of Mom.
No, she’s talking about coming home to the steady surety of Kamila, watching the TV or doing her homework or just reading a book and listening to music. They’re family, for real. Not just because Lynne stepped up to arrange the custody transfer, but because when Lynne chose her, Kamila chose her back, and they kept choosing each other.
But a year and a half later, it all comes crashing down.
Jowd’s execution has been scheduled. On December 21st, he is going to die. Then it’ll all be over, and Lynne won’t have any more chances of convincing him to tell what the truth is, that he shouldn’t give his life away like this, that sometimes Kamila still wants him to be there.
Lynne digs harder than she was digging before, between everything else. She studies to become a detective and gain higher clearance. She tells Cabanela that she will become a detective, no matter what.
He tells her it’s still not getting her into the SIU, but that he welcomes her to try, and that he’s looking forwards to having her on board at a higher rank.
Still, the night before the exam, Kamila comes down with a fever, and Lynne’s not in the right mindset to take it and do it well. She gets the promotion anyways, but with the way Cabanela reacted to it, she can tell it’s only because he fudged the numbers in her favor.
She’s not sure that even if she was in her right mind she would have been able to do it. The detectives’ exam is harder than the officers’, and she doesn’t have the time to study at 23 that she did at eighteen.
So, after the promotion, she heads to the pet store. She takes out the list from Kamila. It’s worn out at the folds, but she can still read the words.
And then a puppy tries to steal her badge.
With Missile, it’s love at first sight. So even if it’s going to be harder to look after him and Kamila, Lynne doesn’t care. And besides, she’s sure that if she already loves Missile this much, Kamila will love him too.
And she’s right. Kamila steps up to take Missile on walks and refill his water and food bowls as needed. That makes things worth it, at least. Lynne gets her noise-cancelling headphones for her birthday for the second year in a row. Hopefully Kamila doesn’t break this set, too.
As December approaches, she hears more rumors coming up from the SIU. Something important is happening on December 21st, something that isn’t Jowd’s execution.
And it’s going to go down at the town dump.
On the night of the 21st, she comes home around 5:30 PM.
“I’m going to be out late,” she tells Kamila. “Be good, okay?”
Kamila shrugs. “It’s not like I have any plans. Amelie’s sick right now.”
“Well, that sucks,” Lynne says. “I hope she feels better soon.”
And, as she turns to leave the apartment, she says, “Love you.”
She doesn’t hear the answer before she cloeses the door, if Kamila says it back at all.
(She doesn’t know it yet, but it’s the last time she will ever leave her apartment.)
She confronts a stranger that she almost recognizes. She fights against the idea of shooting anyone. But he’s dead anyways, and within a few minutes trying to resuscitate him, she’s dead too.