Lights | A Forever Fanfiction

Chapter Six: Maternal Difficulties

I tried to inhale a breath, but it stuck in my throat. I tried to scream, but that got stuck, too. The cell phone I was holding clattered to the floor.

Jo and my mother circled around each other, talking, before panic flared in Jo's eyes, and she dove to the floor. A red stain blossomed around her shoulder. It took me a moment to process that she had been shot. Hanson ran over to her. Then my mother crumpled against the wall, dropping her weapon as she fumbled for the remote, but the other officers swarmed around her and handcuffed her.

She was supposed to be dead.

Dead. As in, cremated-and-sitting-in-a-little-urn-in-my-apartment dead.

I stumbled backwards, my back hitting the glass door. I slid down against the glass, little squeaks of distress slipping out of my mouth.

"Are you okay?" Lucas demanded. "Oh, no. If only Henry were here, I would know what to do... Come on, medical school training, come back!"

"I'm not... having a medical thing," I wheezed, shaking my head. "My mother is alive. My mother is alive. Oh my god. My mother is alive." I buried my head in my arms. "Oh my god."

I could feel Lucas's confusion, but I ignored him and instead began to pace around the room. Suddenly, the phone rang. We both jumped, and I dove for the phone.

"Lucas, I'm at the hospital," Dr. Morgan said. "Jo's going into surgery right now, and the Jane Doe will be in a few minutes. Could you bring Lights-"

"This is Lights," I interrupted. "Now what were you saying about the Jane Doe before you got all worried about me?"

"Lights? Oh, um, that was nothing," he lied. "Tell Lucas that we're at Lawrence West Hospital."

"Have I lost the right to visit Jo?" I demanded.

"No, I just didn't think you and Detective Martinez were... close."

"Okay, nevermind. I don't want to do this."

"Which part: the talking, or the visiting?"

"The talking, the pretending that we care about my relationship with Jo. I'll just pass along these details to Lucas and catch a cab on my own. I am not a child." I slammed down the phone. Dr. Morgan was probably a nice person, but he was just another adult. Another patronising, agist-

"Hello?" Lucas asked. "Something about details and information?"

"Oh, yes," I mumbled through gritted teeth. "Details. Jo is at the Daleston Hospital. She is going into surgery, she should be out in a few hours." I got up, pullings my coat on over my shoulders. I packed up my laptop and hoisted up my backpack.

"So, where are you going?" Lucas asked.

"To visit the closest thing I've ever had to a mother, and then visit my actual mother," I replied icily. I stomped away, my presence about as cheerful as a stormcloud. I hailed a cab, and silently sat through the drive as the sun began to set, and darkness fell over the city.

Life is messy. The people are selfish and jealous, or they are misled and confused. Perhaps they are all of the above. The world is built from this chaos, so it is no wonder that it is chaos. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. This is life. Everything you thought you knew can be disproven.

The white sterility of the waiting room made my head hurt, and as I slipped into a half-conscious stupor, a very English voice slipped around me.

"Miss LaVaughn?" Dr. Morgan called. I glanced up quickly, very aware of the miserable state I was in.

"Don't call me that," I mumbled as he trotted over. "It makes me feel like an adult."

"Jo is awake, she just got out of surgery," he said breathlessly. "And about the phone call-"

"I'm sorry," I replied quickly. "I just..."

"I understand. Seeing your best friend get shot is disarming." He paused. "Would you like to see Jo?"

"Um, yes, if that's alright." I got up, running my fingers through my hair nervously. "She's okay, right? The bullet didn't hit anything important?"

"No, no. Nothing fatal. Is Lucas here?"

"I- I don't know. I didn't come with him." I glanced away, suddenly very aware of the fact that I had lied to Lucas. "I'm sorry."

"Stop apologising, and come with me." I followed him through a set of plywood double doors and down a long corridor of the same obscene, white sterility as the waiting room. Finally, we stopped at a room and went inside.

Jo was propped up in her bed, her eyes half-closed from the morphine's induced lethargy. She smiled lazily at our arrival, and Dr. Morgan sat down in one of the chairs by her bed.

"Hey, Jo," I said softly. "How are you feeling?"

"Good. I heard that I died twice from the surgery," she chuckled. I started to laugh,but I choked upon relief and happiness that she was alright. Tears pressed forwards, but I held them back. I walked up to her bed and took her hand gently.

"I know that I might not get another chance to say this, but I think the felon we caught- I mean, you caught - might be my mother," I said. "She looked just like her and I know it's almost impossible, but I think that woman was Persephone Reid. They looked exactly alike, and with your permission, I'd like to speak to her. If she is my mother."

Jo opened and closed her mouth a few times, staring at me with mild shock. She glanced at Dr. Morgan. "Did you know about this?"

"I had no idea," Dr. Morgan said. He scratched his neck with one hand and tugged at his collar, and I knew in that instant that he was lying, but I didn't have time to process it properly. My mind was blurred and distorted by the pain coursing through me.

"Lights, let Mike talk to her first, and if that is your mother, then he'll tell us, okay? Then you can talk to her," Jo said carefully. She squeezed my hand, and finally the tears fell.

"If she is alive, then... that means that she really did abandoned us. She was too much of a coward to say that she didn't love us, or that she didn't like being with us," I choked out. "Dad broke, when she died, and he was never the same. It took a long time for him to heal - a sensation you surely understand, Jo." She wrapped her arms around me with what little strength she had as I cried quietly into her shoulder.

"Lights, I wanted to tell you earlier, but... We had to go through your father's important legal documents, to try and find leads and... I- I was named godmother," Jo whispered soothingly. "Only because Sean was godfather, but... I'm your godmother, Lights!" We broke into tearful, awkward, joyous laughter. "Everything is going to be okay. I promise. That damned woman will go to prison, and-"

"Jo," Hanson called as he appeared in the doorway. "It's not over."

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