"Why are you here?"

it came out sounding harsher than he'd meant, but he hadn't been expecting to see the museum's history curator at his wife's funeral.

"She was my niece" said Dr. Saunders, eccentric personality subdued.

"Oh" said Lou, mildly suprised. He hadn't known much about her family, but she'd given the impression that they weren't around- and in all the years they'd known him, she'd certainly never shown any sign of recognizing Dr. Saunders as family.

"She never said anything" he said, voice tinged with suspicion.

"She wouldn't have known- I haven''t seen her since she was a little girl, I didn't even know who she was until I read the news"

Well, that explained it, Lily had been very private about her true identity- aside from Lou, no one in her personal life had even known.

"So, you knew her father?"

Dr. Saunders nodded, "we were close, but... something happened to him when she was vary young, and I wasn't able to take her in- I lost track of her after that" He paused, "or... I thought I had"

Lou felt a pang of sympathy- of all the ways to rediscover a lost loved one. He didn't envy Sanders' situation.

"I'm sorry" he said.

Dr Saunders smiled wistfully, "It's alright" he said, "atleast I got to be in her life"