I've been itching to write this for a while and I finally decided to write it. Takes place in The Lonely Hearts Job when Sophie and Eliot go to find Lacy (aka Christine) Written in Sophies POV. I don't own Leverage.
Ghosts Haunt My Mirrors
When I look at Lacy, or Julie, or Christine, I see myself when I was young. Innocent but not so. Her mind is still innocent to the death that her life could bring - a foul stench that burns in your mouth, but you never taste it because you're too busy running. When I see the fear flash in her eyes I feel the aching of sadness in my heart. Family...friends...lovers...all threatened because I was dumb enough to let them know they existed. Liabilities, they say, have no place in the world of the grifter. It'll get someone killed, and you'll be left with that foul taste in your mouth as you run for your life. I see so much of myself. A life back when the truth hadn't been sucked dry from my body - it still slipped from my tongue on those bad days. This woman had three names connected to three lives, I thought, and luckily hasn't forgotten who she is. She still had that truth in her heart, in the light of her eyes, and even in her house.
Her knees collapse under the pain that she's caged up. I want to reach out and tell her that it's alright...that it's not her fault. But how can I? What role-model am I for this stranger (that has somehow caused the world to slow down around me) when I am no good of a role-model for anyone? I fell in love with Nate...felt that rush of vulnerability. That feeling of wanting to tell him the truth. To know that I could be safe in his arms. Not just faking to care. Not just faking to love him...
Courage, she says, she hadn't gotten up the courage. I look at her, feel myself looking in my mirror. It's the mirror in my apartment. I want to tell him...I want to spill out my guts to him. How can I? Then I'm looking at the mirror back at my childhood home. I'm looking in the dusty one as I watch myself curl my hair. The mirror I looked in while I zipped up the dress for the con on the night I spoke those first lies. And with those lies I would forever change - ruin - my life.
"Do you let them love the fake you or hate the real you?"
I still don't know the answer to the question. I don't think I'll ever know the answer. I've spent to much time dedicating it to being loved by someone who isn't loving me for me. Whoever me is now. I still don't know if she's the abused six year old girl in the basement of the house on Joker Lane. Or if she's the 12 year old on the farm who sat outside under the kitchen window and sang songs while her brothers played rugby. Or if she's the 17 year old on the boardwalk that flirted with guys and never had to pay a cent. I guess I would tell him if I could remember who I was, but they all just seem fake to me. I have things I regret. Things I wish I wouldn't have done. They all stare back at me when I see them, faces broken, eyes that are now black holes, and their minds and hearts empty because they've been abandoned.
They are all the ghosts that haunt me when I look in my mirror, and right now Christine (or Lacy or Julie) is the one haunting me.
THE END