AN: Just an idea I got watching 'Faith' again. I do wonder what exactly happened to Layla and Roy.


An Important Purpose

Roy never lies if he can help it.

What he says to the young man with the heart problem, Dean, is entirely true. 'A young man with an important purpose, a job to do. And it isn't finished.' Entirely true, but not the entire truth.

Roy knows a lot more about this young man than he says. But most aren't things he needs to hear.

He is confident in his abilities and yet does not love himself. He will risk his life for another person without thought if it will save them, and he'll fight to save himself as long as possible. He makes exceptions for people who have done terrible things, fight a little less for their lives. He makes exceptions for the people he loves, fights that much harder for their lives and a lot less for his own. There are few people this man loves, and most have earned the privilege. When he does love, he loves deeply and forever.

Roy suspects that most people, even those that know him best, would be surprised at how deeply this man feels. He has a remarkable soul, in Roy's opinion, and he keeps it well-guarded.

Roy wonders what will become of him.


He finds out through Layla, who still visits sometimes, even if her mother refuses to come near Roy.

She tells him that Dean sends her letters. Sometimes she gets three or four within a few days, and sometimes a whole month passes. Layla reads them aloud for Roy.

Dean tells her of the places he and his brother travel to, and of the people they meet, and sometimes the things they do.

He tells her of his father's death, months after it happens, and she tells Roy that the paper is tear-stained and the handwriting shaky.

Roy sometimes thinks waiting for Dean's letters is the only thing that keeps her clinging to life so stubbornly. After she dies, eight months after Sue Ann, Layla's mother sends the letters to Roy.

That is the only reason he learns, in the summer of 2008, of Dean's death.

The letter, written by Dean's brother Sam, does not mention the manner of his death, only (and James, who often reads to Roy, points out the similarity converning the state of the paper and the handwriting between this letter and the one relating the death of the father) that he died to save Sam's life.

Well, Roy thinks, maybe his job's done now.