Disclaimer: Don't own Birkhoff nor Sonya.
Coming Home
He didn't have any kind of relationship with his father to speak of. Well, aside from the fact that the man had contributed to his existence. So. That begged the question. Why the hell was he so nervous?
He had successfully avoided this long enough. He had moved to London. Sonya liked London, and he liked to keep Sonya happy, but he wasn't able to hide in that truth for long. She knew that London was far from Washington. Far from NSA headquarters. Far from his father. She didn't have to prod him much to get the full story out – he always caved in to her wishes.
It did take her longer to persuade him to do something. In all honesty, he had thought he was done. He'd saved his father's life, he'd let him know that his progeny still walked the earth, hell, he'd had a letter proclaiming him a hero sent to NSA so that the old man wouldn't die of constipation at the fact that his youngest son was a notorious criminal. There was nothing else for him to do. Sonya disagreed and that is how he found himself once again on US soil.
"Come on," Sonya nudged him gently with her elbow.
Birkhoff just stared out the car window at the house. It was his house. He had grown up there. He had had a room there. A tiny space all of his own. He had belonged and at the same time – he hadn't. He looked at the house and he felt sentimental – it hurt ever so slightly. But he didn't let it fool himself – he remembered his father screaming at him, his mother's disappointed looks or even worse – when she didn't notice him at all, because Lyle was about to go out the door with his prep school tie not straightened or Lily had been late from her date last night and deserved another reprimand. He remembered trying hard to impress and failing. He remembered picking up his father's stuff, working on it, improving – hoping that his father will see it for the achievement it was, but all Ronald had seen was a budding criminal. Well, he had been right.
"Seymour?" Sonya leaned closer, her voice as gentle as her touch.
"Do I have to?" he didn't like the plaintive tone in his voice.
"They're you're family," she replied softly. "You can't shut them out forever."
He turned to her, his gaze dark. "They're not my family," he argued. "You're my family. Nikki, Michael and Alex. Even Mister Personality Disorder Sam," the hard glint in his eyes softened. "Ryan was family. These people? I don't even know them."
"You do," Sonya's expression was full of empathy as she sadly nodded along her words. "You do know them – that's how you saved your father, remember. They are your family and we are too, all of us, but you have a chance here that none of the rest of us do. To make peace. So please," she cupped his face in her palms, leaning over the armrest. "If not for yourself, then for me. Okay?"
"Okay," he caved all too quickly for his likes.
She pressed a soft kiss to his lips and smiled. "Good." She leaned back, settling in her own seat and waved towards the house, "Now go. I'll come back for you later."
Birkhoff hesitated for one last time before drawing in a deep, steadying breath and getting out of the car. He didn't see Sonya looking at him with pride as he went.
CH
Knocking on the door seemed like the hardest thing he'd ever done. Then he remembered Amanda and how she tortured him for information on Nikki, and it fell into perspective. That is until the door opened and he saw his father again – for the first time since Dubai. He wondered if Sonya would consider this as a job done and he could retreat now. Quickly. He forced a smile. "Hello, dad."
His father's smile seemed equally forced as he said, "Hello, Lionel. Do come in," he stepped aside and motioned inside. "It's your house too."
He swallowed the bitter – it never was – and stepped inside. It was exactly as he remembered. If the flooring had been changed or the wall covers then they had been changed with exact replicas. The only thing changed was the pictures in the frames by the wall. Even the coat hanger was the same he remembered, one of it's horns broken off – his fault. He had crashed into it while skateboarding inside the house. He didn't intend to, but he paused by the pictures. They showed Lily in prom dress, Lily and Lyle graduating, Lily and Lyle getting married. Lily with a baby. A family photo without him. His mother. Him. And then there was he with Lily and Lyle at a garden party. A photo from his birthday. The last Christmas photo with him. He was surprised. He'd have thought they'd erase all reminders of his existence, if not out of grief then just to be finally rid of him.
Ronald waited patiently. He was a man of few words, and he knew, he knew that his intelligence interfered with the way he felt the rest of the world – he approached it logically and not every problem had a clean cut mathematical solution. His wife had always been his bridge, but even she had her faults. They had let Lionel down a very long time ago, and they had done it together. She had wasted away in grief later on, but he remained. And now he had a chance to change something – mend his broken family.
He had been surprised, but pleased when that woman – Sonya – had reached out to him. He hadn't held high hopes that she could do as she promised, but in the end she had kept her bargain – his son now stood before him in his own home for the first time in too many years. He suspected that Sonya would sooner or later become his daughter in law, she already had his approval for what little it would matter to Lionel. He looked forward to meeting the woman, but they had both agreed that first it was Lionel, or Seymour as she called him, who had to make a choice.
"Lyle and Lily are waiting in the sitting room," he said when Lionel finally shifted his attention from the wall of photographs.
"They're here?" Birkhoff asked before he could stop himself.
"Of course," Ronald replied as if the answer was obvious.
Birkhoff wasn't very comfortable with this whole prodigal son returns routine. To be honest, he'd almost rather face down Amanda again. He had cut these people out of his life so long ago, and he had learned to live with it. Hell, he had liked it, because, sure there had been good moments in this family, but far too few in his memory. It wasn't like he run away and faked his death without a reason. He had been an arrogant and angry teenager, but he hadn't been stupid, and still wasn't.
Sonya had asked him to try. He took a deep breath. So try he would. He walked in the sitting room with a wide, false grin. "Hello, siblings!"
Lily and Lyle both looked surprised, but it was Lily who surged to her feet (surprisingly fast for a heavily pregnant woman) and slapped her younger brother across the face with a resounding slap.
"Yeah," he probably should have expected that, he rubbed his cheek, moving his jaw – everything was in place, the slap stung, but it was hardly the worst thing that had happened to him in recent memory. "I see nothing much has changed."
"You left!" she fumed.
"Lily," the father tried to interject, but she wouldn't be stopped.
"You left!" she cried out again, this time with less anger and more pain. "You left and you lived while we had to bury you! Was it funny? Did it amuse you? Were you at the funeral? Did you see how hysterical our mother was? Did you find our pain entertaining?"
"I feel your pain all over my face," Seymour replied, his expression closed off. He chose to step back and drop into an armchair, and let his sister rail. Lily had always had a temper that she reigned in perfectly when she had to be a good little girl for their parents, but he knew how vicious she could be in anger. He had had his fair share of her slaps before.
Tears that had been welling in her eyes, spilled over. Her palm stung from the slap and she breathed heavily. "You haven't changed. You're so smart, the smartest one of us all, and you're so damned blind!" she cursed to the surprise of her father. "You always notice the little things, but you never look at the big picture."
"I say my face feels pretty big right now," Birkhoff shot back.
"Lily," Lyle got up and tried to get his sister to sit back down, to calm down. She was heavily pregnant, after all, but Lily just shrugged him off.
"Our mother died of grief," she spat. "I had to have ten years of therapy before I could reconcile myself with the fact that my little brother was so far off the deep end that he killed himself and none of us noticed anything. Lyle had to.."
"Wow, what gave you the idea that I killed myself?" of all the things that was the only one he could find voice to argue.
Lily scoffed. "You're the smartest, but you're not the only one with brains in this family. You went out on a boat in grief and got drunk. You had to know how high was the probability percentage for an accident. And you did it anyway, like you didn't even care. Whether in the end it was an accident or not – it was a suicide at the core."
"Lily," Seymour had no idea what he would say, he just wanted her to stop speaking, but she cut him off.
"I'm not finished," she growled. "Lyle started drinking and picking fights. Not long after your funeral he landed in a hospital after he was beat up, because he picked a fight with some local gangsters. You tore us apart – each and every one of us. And now you come here – with that grin and you're offended I hit you? You should be glad I'm pregnant with Rose or I'd wring your little neck."
"So it's a girl?" Seymour asked hoping to divert the conversation. His sister's words hurt. He honestly hadn't thought that.. It was so long ago and he remembered it all so differently. He had never looked up his father after he ran away. He had periodically looked up Lily and Lyle, but he had never dug deeper, never looked behind the shiny, carefully cultivated profiles presented on social networking sites. He had seen exactly what he expected to see and felt no reason to look further. He had stopped checking up on them when Division recruited him. It felt like it would be too dangerous.
Lily nodded. "She's my third," she sniffed. "Lionel was first. He's five now. Mary's four. They're at home with my husband."
"Lion... Wow," Seymour exhaled heavily and brushed his palm against his face, trying to wrap his mind around this. "Lionel?" his sister had named her firstborn son after him? Why would she do that? They had never gotten along as kids. He thought she saw him as a weirdo. A freak that got on her nerves whenever he popped up. She never had time for him. And at the same time he remembered how she took him to movies when no one else would. How she had been the one to gift him Lovecraft.
By now Lily cried openly and unashamedly. She blew her nose loudly in a handkerchief her father provided. "Of course," she sniffed loudly, "I'd so love to kill you right now, but I'm so glad you're alive. And that you're back!" she ended on a high teary note and Seymour couldn't stand it, he got up and perched beside her on the couch.
"I'm so sorry," he said. "I never thought.. I'm sorry I hurt you," he admitted and Lily launched herself at him in a long overdue hug. He wrapped his arms around her and patted her back. "I'm sorry," he apologized again. "I'm so sorry, you're so upset. I'm sorry for everything."
Lily drew back a bit. "And I'm so sorry you saw no other way out."
"I knew Dad was hard on you," Lyle spoke for the first time, looking over Lily's shoulder. "But he wasn't on me and I was so self absorbed.."
"I wasn't any better," Seymour interrupted.
"I wish you'd known we were there for you," Lyle finally said after a moment. "Even though I'm not sure it would have been very true at the time."
Lily sobbed harder and Birkhoff felt somewhat alarmed at the rate his shirt was getting wet. "Lilz? Lily?" he asked gently, prodding her shoulder and still half-hugging her at the same time. The sister he remembered was always self-assured, seemingly unflappable – the sister that cried in his shirt, frankly, scared him.
She drew back again to blow her nose in the paper handkerchief. "It's the hormones," she said waving her hand around and accidentally throwing away the hankie. "I'll still wring your neck after I give birth."
"Just don't shoot at me and we'll have a deal," he grinned.
She growled, pushing lightly at his shoulder. "No promises," but there was no strength or anger behind her words.
"Well, now that that's over and done with," Ronald finally spoke up. "I'll go and fetch some tea," he went quickly.
Lily smiled, a little. "He is uncomfortable," she said. "He is still bad with emotional displays."
"It was a bit more than a display, it was a whole show," Lyle remarked dryly, but there was no bite to his words.
Lily shoved him a bit, "None of those two would have said half of what I said. None of what we went through," she told her younger brother. "Probably I would have neither, but pregnancy makes me very emotional. And you needed to hear it. You needed to know."
Seymour halfheartedly nodded. He agreed, after a fashion, but at the moment everything was so fresh and raw it was hard to figure out what exactly he thought of it all. Guilt. He most definitely felt some guilt.
Lily turned more to her younger brother, "I didn't tell you all that to make you feel bad."
Birkhoff looked at her pointedly. And imitated a face slap on his own face.
"Well, not only to make you feel bad," Lily amended, chagrined. With tears drying on her cheeks, flushed, but with brilliant eyes – she was as beautiful as the young girl Birkhoff remembered. "I told you so that there would be no more secrets. No more things we'd like each other to know, but never say. I want us – all of us – to be a family again and we can't do that by holding back. So, yes, it was harsh. It's ugly, really, and I'm angry at you, but I don't blame you, and, most of all, I love you, silly."
"Lily.. I," he hesitated. Did he love his sister? He was sure he should. He did? He was not ready. "I want that too. I want us to be a family too," he gave her what he could.
"Great," Lily smiled for the first time and patted his hand. "Now, there will be a night where I'll bring Tom and Lyle will bring Helen, and you'll bring your girlfriend. But tonight, let's catch up, okay? I want to hear everything you've been up to."
He obviously couldn't tell her everything. But he shared his stories with his family. Lily sat clutching his hand for the rest of the evening. Somehow that made him more welcome than anything else.