When Edward returns to the orphanage, Lee is nowhere to be found. It's the middle of the day - she should have been in her clinic at the very least.
He asks around but only gets hounded by excited gaggles of girls wondering when auditions for Paradise Lost will be held. He tells them that as soon as all his revisions to the script have been made that he'll start casting. He found that he had needed to shorten and simplify it quite significantly for primary school kids.
"How many parts will there be Mr. Nygma?"
"I hope there will be some juicy ones."
"Yeah! Tell us!"
"Patience girls. Patience."
Edward finally finds her when he goes back to their quarters in the orphanage. Except . . . she's not the one he'd been expecting to see.
She sits on the side of their bed, clutching both Pooky Bear and Pokey Bear tightly to her chest. And weeping.
She doesn't have to speak for him to know who she is. He sits down softly beside her and says, "Leslie?"
She looks up at him with tear-stained eyes. "I miss my mommy!"
Edward rubs her back. "I know you do, sweetheart."
"No, you don't understand. I've been abandoned." She sucks in a sniffling breath while she hands Pokey Bear to him. "And not just by her."
"Abandoned?"
"Just like them."
It takes him a moment to realize what she means.
"Who? These kids at the orphanage?"
This was new.
She nods and then reaches out to take Pokey Bear back from him. Edward had not been paying attention to him, and the bear was drooping from his arm.
"Don't drop him!" She screeches. "It's not his fault that his mommy died."
"Okay, Leslie, I won't." Edward brings Pokey Bear to his chest and clutches him tightly like she's doing with Pooky Bear. "Better?"
She nods and wipes some snot off her nose. "We all miss Kristen."
What?
"Pokey Bear misses his mommy more than the rest of us. You can't abandon him, too!"
"Leslie, I won't."
What is this all about? When did Kristen suddenly become Pokey Bear's mom? He's not sure he even saw his daughter playing with him. But there had been a significant portion of time that he had been out of it. . .
"Daddy did," Leslie says.
"Excuse me?"
"Daddy couldn't take it after Mommy died and he left me all alone."
"What do you mean?"
"I was alone in that house. I had to take care of myself."
"Wait? He left after your mother died?" Edward asks incredulously. This was definitely new. Lee had never told him this. What was Leslie talking about?
She frowns. "See, now you sound like all the others. What's the big deal, Leslie? Grow up, Leslie. You're a big girl, stop crying. You can handle it, Leslie."
"I don't understand."
"Daddy didn't love me anymore. He only loved work. I had to fend for myself."
"In what way?"
"I had to feed myself. Every day, every meal. I had never had to do that before. I had to learn how to wash my own clothes. I'm very good at it now, but I made a lot of mistakes before I figured it out. And I had to keep the house clean. Even in places I couldn't reach." She sniffles. "I fell off a ladder one day when no one was around to help me."
"Were you hurt?"
"Yes," Leslie starts crying really hard again and grabs Pokey Bear back from him roughly. "I broke my arm."
"How long was it until you were found?"
"Four hours."
"Oh my god." He takes the crying Leslie into his arms, teddy bears and all, and lets her cry onto his chest for a while. Then he asks, "You learned to take care of yourself from a very young age, didn't you?"
"Yes," she whimpers. "Eddie, why didn't anyone love me enough to take care of me?"
"I don't know, Leslie. But I do," Edward says. "I'll take care of you - all of you - anytime you need me to. I promise."
"Sorry about that," The Doc says as she pulls away from his arms and dries Leslie's tears. He hadn't really noticed her change, just a tensing of her body right before she pulled away. "I can take care of myself, really."
"I don't doubt it," Edward says.
"Good," she says and nods her head. "So this is all just a misunderstanding."
She looks down at the bears, one more pathetic than the other.
"Doc?"
"Yes?"
"It's okay to not want to be abandoned by someone you love."
There's nothing but silence between them for a while as she picks some of Pokey Bear's fuzz off of Pooky Bear. Then she turns to him and speaks.
"You know what? Jim left me when I needed him. When I LET myself need him." She gives him a sardonic smile. "That kinda messed me up."
"I think it was more than just Jim . . ." Edward says lowly. "Your father was derelict in his duties at a time when any child would need their parent."
"Well then, maybe I just don't want to be let down again. Maybe I don't want to need anyone anymore ever again. What do you think about that?"
"I think deep down, as you've admitted to me in certain moments. . ."
Like the two of them standing over Kristen's grave.
". . . that you don't want me to leave you. And I understand that. Being abandoned sucks."
The Doc looks at him oddly, but doesn't say anything. She almost looks like she's having a conversation in her head.
Edward continues, "Just because you don't want to be left behind, left alone, it doesn't mean that you're weak. It doesn't mean you're not your own woman. It just means that you're human."
She lets out a deep sigh and crosses her arms.
As she turns away from he says softly, "I wouldn't want to lose you either."
But I'm going to anyway, aren't I? The thought goes unspoken.