Johanna...
Johanna...
Why do you fascinate me?
I wondered this as long as you did fascinate me.
There was something about your face, a familiar curve of the jaw, a tilt of the head...it was your regal cheekbones.
These things I loved genuinely.
But there were others that I did not.
The slightness of your figure.
That rose upon your cheek.
The softness of your voice.
The color of your eyes...
The color of your hair.
And I thought on them.
Endlessly.
Until I did love them.
Until I thought of nothing else.
And the strength I worshipped became delicacy.
The white rose blushed.
Sureness softened.
Green grew blue...
And all of the darkness I desired faded to lightest yellow.
And I thought only of you, never allowing myself to see what I know now. I will never tell you. There is no reason.
I figured out on my own who your mother was, and from there, I found your father's name.
Benjamin Barker.
At first it meant nothing to me, but, learning his vocation, I became obsessed with him, again, never consciously knowing the reason. I found his criminal record, and, eventually, a trail of documents leading to a ship's log, bearing both his name and mine.
And suddenly I knew that it was never you whom I longed to steal away from a cage, but the shadow I saw in you, the shadow of the face I now had to go with the name: a thin but solid figure, pale cheeks, a strong voice, green eyes and black hair.
The one whom I had needed without knowing it, the one whom I had secretly mourned more than I have ever mourned for anyone. He is dead now, and so you need never know that I am only keeping you safe for him, that I love you because I can remember him through your face.
He was your father.
Mr. Todd.