The Oldest Riddle

By Indiana

Characters: Edward Nygma, Jonathan Crane [Scriddler], Jacqueline Boudreau (OC)

Synopsis: Edward has located his mother and makes the trip to see her, but the result is not what he expected.

Note: In my series Jonathan was abandoned at birth on the steps of a boarding house in Georgia and largely neglected by the woman who ran it. Edward was given a stack of photographs of his mother in 'Like Father Like Son' which is referenced here. At this point in my timeline Edward and Jonathan are retired in Toronto.

It had taken him years to make this decision, but here he was.

He had previously made many excuses for his inability to locate her. He had no name, no face, no voice, even, to use as a starting point. No marriage certificate. No evidence, really, that she had ever existed.

Except for himself, of course.

On a whim he still did not know the origins of he had packed the stack of photographs given to him by his informant in Trois-Rivières into his getaway suitcase. He had crushed most of them into ruin but one of the pictures of her was intact. He had memorised the photos when first he'd seen them, but having a physical object helped to sharpen his focus. He had looked at it quite extensively on the plane east. You couldn't glean much about a person from a photograph. Many of them held only lies. The one he had used as the basis for his search was the physical evidence of an event that had sent forward a lifelong set of falsehoods for his father, who had pretended to be one person to the outside world and let only one other see the truth of himself. More importantly, however, that picture told him the person he was searching for had once attended a certain university. It had taken a while to peruse the student records of an institution of that size, but once he had come upon her the resemblance to the photographs he had were unmistakeable. He had a name: Jacqueline Boudreau. From there it was simple enough to match the information he took from the university to the most recent New Brunswick census. He would find her in Grand Falls.

He'd debated whether or not he should actually act on this information. She'd left. She didn't know who he was, or if he was even still alive. She did not care to track him down.

Well. He hadn't made it easy to do that, so even if she had she would not have gotten very far. His name change had not been drastic, but it had been enough.

After asking Jonathan for approximately the twentieth time what he should do, Jonathan had finally snapped, "If you did not want to go you would not keep asking me whether you should! You would have lost interest!"

"Huh," Edward had said, because as usual Jonathan made a good point.

"Book the damn plane to Nova Scotia already."

"New Brunswick."

"I don't know where either of those places are anyway so it does not matter where I tell you to go. Just go before I lose my mind."

And Edward had, but not before asking a few more times to make sure.

So here he was. In Grand Falls, New Brunswick, down the street from Jacqueline's address. He could not quite think of her as his mother. And why should he? She wasn't, in most senses of the word. She had carried him and bore him and… done something with him for approximately eight years, but did that even count if he didn't remember it?

Would she?

He'd come all the way here. He might as well.

He got out of the car he had rented at the airport and walked down the street to the woman's house. One storey with a car shelter, in good condition from the outside. He took a moment to choose between the doorbell and knocking and decided on the latter.

Only a few moments passed before a young woman opened the door; his stomach clenched in anticipation when he saw the doorknob turn, but this was definitely not her. Far, far too young. "Um… hi," she said.

"Is Jacqueline at home?" he asked. She better be, because he did not want to have to come back.

"Yes. Who are you?"

He hesitated. If he provided his name, Jacqueline might well refuse to see him. He couldn't have that.

"I believe she'll recognise me."

The woman squinted at him somewhat and closed the door. He listened for the click of the deadbolt but it didn't come. He waited another minute or so before the door opened again and behind it was a different woman who was unmistakeably the one in his photographs, albeit more lined and with thinner, fading curls. She stepped back when she saw him, face paling. "Edwin?" she said faintly.

Edward found himself shaking his head slowly, the motion barely even qualifying as such. He found he had nothing to say, suddenly, when he'd had so much he wanted to say before. She looked at him for a long time.

"…Édouard," she said finally, softly, and something about it got to him. He wasn't sure what it was. Maybe he, somehow, had a trace of the memory of her voice buried deep in his brain someplace, and he was helpless but to respond to it. Perhaps it was simply the fact that he had not heard his name pronounced properly in thirty years. He'd convinced himself a long time ago it didn't matter. It seemed to far more than he'd ever thought it would.

That seemed an accurate initial summary for his trip at the moment. And a terrible one, given he'd meant to have the upper hand for this as he had in all things. Having all of those largely unpleasant feelings scrambling his thoughts left him blank on what to say. He had never lacked words for so long in his entire life, and now was a terrible time for it to be happening. Before he'd had much more silence with which to humiliate himself she opened the door further and stepped back. "Do you want to come inside?"

He didn't, he realised; he did not want that at all. But here he was doing it, crossing her threshold and sliding his shoes into her shoe rack and following her into her home. He gritted his teeth. There was a very vocal portion of the back of his mind relating to him just then how pathetic he was to hand control of his life back over to a woman who had willingly absented from it. He hated it because it was true. It was extremely pathetic and he bitterly asked himself how long he was going to keep doing it for. And why. He had no idea.

He also was starting to realise he didn't actually know why he was even here. He'd been so focused on the journey he had neglected to make a plan for when he arrived at his destination. As he followed after her he found himself flabbergasted by what he was allowing to happen. This wasn't like him. This wasn't like him at all!

The front door led directly into the kitchen, which was somewhat cramped given there was an island spaced too close to the opposite wall. It was done up mostly in browns and the furniture seemed dated, but serviceable. The sitting room was further on from that, with more brown and some red accents. She showed him to the couch, which sank farther beneath his weight than was to his liking. She sat on the other side.

He looked to the opposite wall of the room, not because there was anything of particular interest over there but because all semblance of language seemed to have disappeared from his brain. This was ridiculous. When had he ever been without something to say?

"How far did you come?" she asked. It took him a moment of calculations before he realised she probably did not actually desire the distance in kilometres.

"Toronto," he answered.

"The train?"

"No," he said, confused. She shook her head, looking as though she thought he had missed out on something exciting.

"You see so much more on the train," she told him.

Ah, yes. Might as well sightsee on the way out here, right? That wouldn't have been a complete waste of his time at all!

The first thing of real significance he learned about her was that she did love to talk. She seemed quite content to direct faltering topics onto new avenues of conversation, and she was in fact quite clever and entertaining. He discovered that he liked her. He hadn't expected to, nor really wanted to. But there it was.

She had remarried after returning to New Brunswick and had two children, and he had expected to hear that but had been unsure of what his reaction would be if he did. To his surprise, he found that he didn't really have one. He was neither jealous nor resentful, and he did not have any particular desire to meet them. When she spoke of them, there was no real emotion in her words at all. Jacqueline just did not like children and seemed to have ended up with them anyway. Edward understood that completely. Jonathan disliked them as well and had no interest in Edward's in the slightest. Jacqueline did ask if Edward himself had any children, but without looking at him and in an almost automatic way. He provided the barest details and she expressed no desire to know any more than that.

It was difficult, at first, to be faced with it. To be there in a room with her and the increasing obviousness that she did not care about him or what he'd been doing. She was doing this out of courtesy and that was all. He couldn't pretend that didn't hurt. He had gone into this with minimal expectations, but he had still expected something from her. Something more than an exchange between one stranger and another. As though there should have been some intangible connection between them borne in those eight years he didn't remember. He was beginning to wonder if she was the one and only thing he'd ever forgotten intentionally.

Eventually they both realised it had grown dark in the room and Edward did not know where the lightswitches were, and Jacqueline stood up to rectify that. The conversation lapsed here and there was a moment in which it was clear neither of them quite knew where to pick it up again. Finally Jacqueline said, "I'm sure you have some questions for me."

He looked over at her. At his mother. The woman who had brought him into being and then left him behind, as though he had not mattered.

No. This was not his mother, and he was not who he had been back then either. She had moved on, and he had… done something else, and there was no point in dredging up old history. She was not his mother, and he was not her son. They were two different people entirely now, and nothing linked them together save for whatever bits of her data had made it into Edward's own. He shook his head.

"I don't," he said.

And he meant it. He was being completely honest. All of the questions he'd ever had throughout his life had… they hadn't quite vanished. It wasn't that. But the answers… if he had them, what was he going to do with them? He had moved on by now. He had moved on, and she had moved on, and it did not matter why she had done what she had done over thirty years ago because… he no longer needed to know. He had when he was eight. He had when he was sixteen. He had even when he was twenty. But now? No. No, he no longer needed to. It wasn't important anymore.

He stood up, and Jacqueline showed him back to the foyer. As he slid his shoes back on she said, "I have one question for you."

He straightened, smoothing down his lapels. "All right."

"Did he send you?"

He felt it in his chest then: the helpless need for parental approval. He wanted to tell her all of it, all of the things his father had done and what he himself had had to do afterward. He wanted to know, needed to know, if she would have cared. What she would have done. He wanted to tell her he, too, had left. He wanted her approval for doing the same thing she had done.

He turned away from her and took a long, centring breath through his nose. He didn't need it, he told himself. Not from her. She was meaningless. He needed nothing from her. It didn't matter anymore. It was time to let it go.

"No," he said, looking up at her again. He extended his hand. "It was good to meet you." Good how, he hadn't figured out yet. But he felt as though it would be, once he had.

She shook his hand wordlessly and he took his leave, walking to the rental car with his own hands in his pockets. There was an unsettling feeling in his stomach. He sat in the car for a few minutes, the house a blur in the corner of his vision. He realised it was going to take him the whole plane ride to properly process all of this and it made him even more reluctant to get on the aircraft than he had been before.

He smoothed his hair back and inserted the key into the ignition.

/

He'd been home a few hours when Jonathan asked, "Well? Are we invited for Thanksgiving?"

Edward looked up from his laptop screen. "Are we celebrating Thanksgiving now?"

Jonathan tapped the back of his pen against his ledger. "Are we?"

Edward considered the other side of the room for a moment. What on earth was he –

"Oh," he said, returning to his computer. "No. She doesn't care any more now than she ever did. Which she never did."

"And?"

His eyebrows lowered in annoyance before he realised Jonathan was trying to be considerate and ask after the visit before Edward had some sort of issue over it. He liked to pretend he didn't do that sort of thing and Jonathan usually humoured him, if in a jaded sort of way. But there was no need for any of it right now. And talking about it might help ease the discontent that had not quite faded in the handful of hours it had taken him to return to Toronto.

"And nothing. She simply doesn't like children. She might have stuck around if my father were worth it, for his sake. She's doing that with her current husband." He sat back against the couch. "She reminded me of you a lot, actually."

Jonathan almost smiled. "She must have been incredibly beautiful, then."

No matter how many times Jonathan used this joke, it never got old. When he was finished laughing Edward said, "Absolutely. Outshone the sun. Exactly like you."

Jonathan snorted. "Only during a solar eclipse, if that."

Edward looked up again when he was able, having been overtaken with amusement a second time, to see that Jonathan was smiling now, just a little. It warmed his stomach, as always. "And you do not fault her for leaving?" Jonathan asked.

He paused to ensure he believed his answer. "No," he said. "She put her life on hold for a baby she didn't want with a man she didn't love." He tapped his mouse so his laptop wouldn't shut off. "She stayed as long as she could but there's only so long you can neglect yourself for the sake of people you don't even like."

Jonathan nodded once. "Will you go see her again?"

"No," Edward said, though he hadn't actually decided until that moment. "I'm not going to."

"Good," was Jonathan's response, and if anything else was to follow it was interrupted by Ada appearing from the other room and throwing herself into Edward's lap. He had given up hoping he'd ever be free of bruises and she was the entire reason why.

For you! she declared with intense enthusiasm, and she handed him some crumpled up piece of paper scribbled on liberally with glitter crayons. He took it and looked at it bemusedly.

"What is it?" he asked, unable to puzzle it out. She took it from him and rotated it before giving it back.

It's a swan! she said. It's origami and I just learned it.

"Aha." He was still unable to find a swan in the collection of folds and creases that this paper had become. "Thank you."

I'll make you one even prettier soon, she promised, and she hugged him far too hard as was her wont. It was painful but he'd never actually minded it.

"I can't wait," he said, and he meant it. He appreciated everything she gave him, though he was running out of places to put all of it. She jumped off of the couch and ran off as he leaned over and put the… swan… on the table.

"She's missing out," Jonathan said. Edward looked in the direction Ada had gone.

"She is?"

"Not Ada. Your mother."

"Jacqueline," Edward corrected. "My question still stands."

"She'll never know her granddaughter."

Edward folded his arms. "She doesn't want to, and wouldn't even if Ada weren't a robot. Why are you even bringing that up? You don't like kids any more than she does." Even Edward's.

"I like Ada sometimes." He reached for something on the left side of his desk Edward couldn't see from that angle, though he held it in Edward's direction in the palm of his hand. Edward forgot to look at it initially because he was distracted by Jonathan's elegant fingers. When he snapped to he got a little jealous.

"Why did she give you that and give me -"

"She didn't," Jonathan cut in. "She asked me to help her with it. When we were finished she said I could keep it and patted me on the head."

Edward wished he had been there to see that. It sounded adorable. Jonathan put the folded paper back on his desk.

"My point," he continued, "is that I don't care for children and yet Ada is fine as a person. I don't want to parent her or be otherwise responsible for her in any way. But she is a pleasant way to pass the time. I am glad that I know her, even if I don't always like her."

That was an interesting way of putting it. Edward got up and rounded the coffee table, moving to stand behind Jonathan's chair. He had the swan on top of a stack of other papers, and Edward thought bemusedly that it was going to end up lost behind the desk. He put his hands on the chair back, it suddenly occurring to him there was something much more interesting he could be doing than discussing a strange woman in New Brunswick. "So you don't want me to fill out the adoption papers for you to sign?"

Jonathan leaned back in the chair and Edward had to remove his fingers in order for him to do so. He pressed his hands into Jonathan's shoulders instead. Jonathan folded his own hands into his lap. "No," he said flatly, and Edward laughed.

"But she would love it," he said close to Jonathan's left ear, kissing the lobe afterward. The skin on Jonathan's cheek tightened the slightest bit, but in response to what he wasn't sure.

"Edward."

"What," he said, bringing his thumbs up Jonathan's neck to the nape hidden under his curls. He kept himself bent over enough he wasn't far from Jonathan's ear.

"Stop doing that. I have work to do."

"You don't have a job," Edward reminded him, then bringing his lips to the top of Jonathan's head as he squeezed on his shoulders again. He did not miss Jonathan's short, quiet exhale.

"I hope 'because I said so' is reason enough, then."

Edward wasn't a fan of that reason but if he made Jonathan angry that would put him off for a long time. Edward had only needed to learn that lesson once. He stepped back and Jonathan moved his chair closer to the desk, picking up his pen. Edward sat back down on the couch and reactivated his laptop screen. He'd probably done enough anyway that Jonathan would be thinking about it all day until he felt like it later. He was rarely ever willing to get intimate before ten pm, but sometimes Edward tried his luck regardless.

That was fine. Edward actually did have work to do for the job he actually had, and unlike Jonathan he was far more able to ignore the call of physical temptation. Like right now. Jonathan was staring at the wall instead of anything in front of him, and he didn't stop doing that for the next ten minutes entirely. At this point he got up abruptly to make coffee, and Edward could finally start laughing without Jonathan being able to see him, with his thumb between his teeth to stifle the noise. He must have looked in a very good mood when Jonathan returned five minutes later with his coffee because he frowned and stopped in front of Edward. "What's so funny?" he asked.

"Oh, you know. Memes."

"What in the hell is a meme?"

Edward was decidedly failing not to laugh. "A joke you wouldn't get because I'd have to explain it to you."

Jonathan looked over the top of his screen and Edward pulled the laptop out of range of his coffee. "Get that away from my computer."

Jonathan rolled his eyes and returned to his desk. "Because that's the only one you have and you would surely be devastated if you were to lose it."

"Says the man with every edition of a thirty-year-old textbook."

"How else will I keep track of the minor edits and infographics inserted to inflate the cover price?"

Edward gave an exaggerated shrug. "Why would you want to?"

"It's my hobby."

Edward sat back and folded his arms, looking over at Jonathan now. He was paying a great deal of attention to his cup. "You have a side job as a textbook editor, eh?"

"Hobby, Edward. Try to keep up."

/

That night Ada had gone outside, as usual, and they were in bed – Jonathan earlier than usual, probably because Edward had been away but he wasn't going to ask about it lest it prod him into getting up – and Edward's head was on Jonathan's shoulder, Jonathan's arm around his back and down to his hip. They'd been like that for about fifteen minutes but he was still hoping he was going to get lucky. "Do you know what I think," Jonathan said, somewhat languidly. Edward was a little concerned that meant he was falling asleep.

"I would never make the mistake of attempting to guess."

"I think," Jonathan said, pressing one of his free fingers to the top of Edward's nose without looking, "that mothers are overrated."

"They would probably both say husbands are overrated," Edward told him, scratching the place he'd touched. Jonathan's nose brushed Edward's ear as he murmured into it,

"Mine isn't."

Edward was good and tired of waiting to see how things were going to go. He threw off the blanket and positioned his knees on either side of Jonathan's legs, straddling him. Jonathan's habit of falling asleep sitting up put him in a prime position for Edward to lean in and kiss him deeply, one hand against the headboard for balance and the other nudging Jonathan's chin in the right direction. By the time Edward needed to catch his breath Jonathan's hands had made their way onto his waist, his hands gentle yet solid there. "I was beginning to think that – " Edward began, but Jonathan put one finger against his lips to interrupt him.

"I believe there's something more productive you could be doing with your mouth right now," he said, and Edward had to admit he did have a point. Only to himself, though. He leaned back, enough that he could still kneel without leaning on Jonathan's legs. He pressed one of his thumbs against Jonathan's thigh.

"You don't seem conducive to that sort of productivity at the moment," Edward responded, and Jonathan did not even blink.

"You can poke fun at my age-related physical issues or…"

When he didn't continue that sentence Edward removed his hand entirely. "Or?"

Jonathan was smiling, which meant he was going to get lucky indeed. "Or you can prove you're just the person to do something about it."

"Oh, I assure you," Edward breathed, moving forward to brush his lips beneath Jonathan's ears, "I certainly am."

"Your bravado, while quite entertaining, proves nothing, I'm afraid."

/

"Well? Did I prove anything?"

It was very obvious that he had; he'd been there, he'd seen it, he'd had his fun. But teasing Jonathan was every bit as entertaining.

"Hm?"

Edward was lying on him much the same way as before, except that neither of them were wearing pants. Well, Edward wasn't wearing anything, mostly because Jonathan liked it that way. He had left his hand on Jonathan's hip, which was covered by his shirt, without much thought, but now it was in a convenient position of him to slide it down and rest it on Jonathan's naked thigh. "My bravado," he said. "You told me to prove its merit."

"Oh." Jonathan made an attempt to move some of his hair out of his face. Nothing really happened. "I suppose. I'll let you know when I decide."

"I see," Edward said, slowly sliding his hand back to where it had been. Jonathan's hand connected with the back of his abruptly, aborting his progress.

"That's fine where it is."

"That's what I thought," Edward whispered into his ear, and before he had moved his head back down Jonathan pressed his lips to his brow. Edward smiled to himself.

Jonathan was languidly tracing the line of hair that ran up his stomach to his sternum, and it took him a moment to decide if he was okay with that today or not. Age and a period lacking in due diligence had added weight to his waistline, and though Jonathan had already told him more than once that it did not put him off in the slightest, Edward had still not actually accepted it himself. He was doing his best to maintain a regular exercise routine, but the plain fact was it would most likely take more hours at the gym than he was willing to put in to both remove it and keep it off. It bothered him, but he had more important things to do with his time. He would continue working on his fitness and his level of acceptance both, because he was going to have to reach a compromise at some point and sooner would be infinitely better. After turning all of that over he decided that, if Jonathan wanted to do that, he would let him. Other than that, Edward was doing well at not letting age steamroll him entirely. And it did feel nice.

"Edward," Jonathan said after a moment, "I must admit earlier that I gave you an answer that was not quite reflective of what I was thinking."

"You were thinking?" He said it less to make fun and more as a warning, in case Jonathan didn't realise he was about to make some emotion-driven admission. Edward didn't like those any more than Jonathan did after he'd discovered he made one.

"I do that sometimes. It keeps my brain warm." He squeezed Edward's arm a little, and he took that to mean Jonathan was fully aware of what he was going to say. "But yes. When I said your… Jacqueline was missing out, I wasn't talking about Ada."

That made his comment even more nonsensical than before. "Who, then?"

"You," Jonathan said. "I meant you."

Edward needed a moment to process that. In order to aid this he brought his hand up to Jonathan's mostly nonexistent stomach. "Me?"

"Don't take that to mean I dislike Ada. What I said was genuine. What I like about her more, however, is what she brings out in you."

Had Jonathan noticed some difference in his behaviour at such times? "Hm?"

Jonathan's thumb was stroking his arm very softly. He liked that. "You have a myriad of faces for all types of people. But there is one you show only your children. It fascinates me."

Edward hoped he was going to get around to explaining it, because he had no idea what any of this meant. He didn't act in a distinct way around Ada as far as he could tell.

"You always provide her the attention she wants, even if you aren't in the mood to do so." He rubbed at some place beneath his collar absently with his free hand. "The reasoning behind it doesn't matter. Only the action. In doing so you become… warmer. This look comes over you, and it is that of… contentment. Quiet satisfaction. As though if you never had to do anything else, you would be happy."

Edward had had no idea he did such a thing, though it was true… or at least he thought it could be, if ever he tried it. He did need other things, of course, but if events had played out differently and he had had to change his plans, he thought he might have been content to spend the rest of his days in the factory with his children. He would never know for sure. But he did know they were the only thing that had made him simply happy in those months he would have more or less lost to his delusional insanity without them. He moved his arm farther across Jonathan's waist.

"You would have made a good father, I think," Jonathan said. "Not initially. It would have taken you far more years to work it all out than would be good for anybody. But once you knew, you would not forget."

He agreed with that. He didn't like it. Didn't like admitting he would be even the slightest bit bad at something. But Jonathan was right. He would have figured it out what would likely have been far too late. Such a thing was undeniably impossible now, even if Jonathan would have agreed to it, but that didn't stop him from wondering what it would have been like. He could not deny that what had happened instead was infinitely better for everyone involved.

"It's a side of you I enjoy a great deal." He put his free hand over Edward's. "It's the only time I get to see whom you would have been, perhaps, if things had been different. A glimpse of a world denied through a shuttered window."

A shiver ran through his stomach. Jonathan was so eloquent. He'd always had a mastery of language that rivalled even Edward's, but sometimes he forgot. When he did Jonathan always seemed to know about it. Edward was so very lucky to have someone who could still surprise him.

"One last thing."

He was almost afraid to hear it. What more could Jonathan possibly say, after all of that?

"Even if your parents aren't," Jonathan continued, very softly, "I am proud of you."

Edward's arm tightened around Jonathan's waist of its own volition. It meant a lot, to hear that. More than he'd ever thought it would. Jonathan could be sparing in his affections; in part because it was his nature and in part because he knew Edward needed it that way. As such, Edward never had any idea when these sorts of things were going to come. But Jonathan always knew when he needed them most, before Edward ever did.

He had gone to New Brunswick to learn something Jonathan had known all along: everything he needed was right here at home. And it there it would stay. It wouldn't vanish, inexplicably, in the middle of the night. Nor would it force him to do the same. The need to search for answers that weren't there might never truly fade. But he would always have the ones at home to come back to.

"Thank you," was all he had, and maybe this time such simplicity would be more than enough.

"You're welcome," Jonathan said, and he pressed his nose into Edward's hair.

Author's note

I made Edward's mother Acadienne because there was one night when I once worked the overnight shift at Tim Hortons where I was supposed to do a shift with my sister and my mom refused to let her go to work. So I had to work the whole shift myself, from 11 pm-7 am, because it was Sunday and nobody would come in before 7 or to fill in the missing person. I was okay until the rush started, at which time the drive thru and the store was all backed up because I was good but not Superman, and I dropped a coffee pot and people started laughing at me and I just wanted to jump out the drive thru window and abandon my life altogether. (Not kill myself, just abandon my life). One of the regular customers that would come in at 3 or 4 am was a man named Robert who was from New Brunswick and had a French Tricolour attached to the bottom of his front license plate because he was Acadien. On this day I asked him if he would talk to me after work because I needed someone to talk to because I was really upset everyone, including my own family, had thrown me to the sharks, and he agreed and after I was done we drove down to the river and he let me sit in his truck and rant at him. When I didn't have a car he would drive me home sometimes as well (I had to walk to work and it took me 45 minutes and I had to go to high school after) and during my break he would smoke and I would go out back and talk to him every day. So that's in appreciation of Robert and the nice things he used to do for me.