Jagged sat on the living room couch, Lynette wrapped protectively in his arms, he'd forced her head to his chest to listen to his heart beating, recalling as Kim had that heart beats often soothed her when she felt the most frantic or vulnerable.
Penny was speaking with Lieutenant Roger Raincomprix about the vase and how the security cameras had been disrupted late in the night. Though it pained Jagged to even think it, moving Lynette to another location might be in her best interest, the rock and roller thought to himself, but first there was something she deserved to know.
"Lynette, did you ever hear your parents talking about you?"
Lynette bit her lip and shrugged, "they talked about a lot of things."
"Well this would particularly involve you and your father-" Jagged began he felt his mouth go dry and swallowed his saliva to wet his throat before continuing, "-you see, my birth name is Paul Kirby. I legally changed it to my stage name, Jagged Stone when I was twenty-one, roughly around the time that I found out your mum had you."
Lynette giggled, "Well trying to become a rock and roll sensation with a name like Paul Kirby would be a bit difficult. I keep imaging the pink Kirby cartoon."
Jagged regarded the teenaged girl before asking, "Lynette, did Charles ever mention me?"
Lynette gave a heavy sigh, "Yes. He said you went to school with them—and that he wasn't my real father that a guy named Paul was."
Her eyes widened as she looked to Jagged and blinked repeatedly before whispering, "No way."
"Your mum did a good job of hiding your real paternity from you, but she also made sure that your real father was always in contact and always watchful if you needed him, even made it so that if something happened to her and Charles, your birth father, myself, would be the one to raise you," Jagged confirmed.
Lynette swallowed hard, her mom was a well-known fashion designer, her father was a famous rock and roller, and she just wanted to be a paralegal.
As if he could sense her thoughts Jagged hooked a finger under Lynette's chin, forcing her to look him in the face as he informed her, "I don't care if you want to be famous. I don't care if you want to model, I don't care if you want to raise a herd of Tigers for a living, as long as you're happy and enjoy what you do. That's what matters to me."
Lynette felt a smile immediately spread across her face as she hugged the man she now knew to be her father.
"You truly are my miracle, Lynette, your mum is the only person I've ever been with," Jagged admitted.
At this information, Lynette's head snapped up so that blue eyes met green as she asked, "is that why you knew what I was going through?"
Jagged nodded in confirmation of her suspicion, then with a mournful gaze and a remorseful tone added, "I can't wait to be a grandfather to your baby. I didn't get to see you too much, given the circumstances but I thought Janine and Charles were better suited to raise you, they could certainly devote more time and attention to you than I could, that much was for certain. I was working 18 or 20 hours a day back then. I'd only stop to eat and nap, I never really slept. Much as it hurts me to admit that."
"Without that sacrifice though, I wouldn't be able to do all that I am able to now. So a bit of a trade off in the end, isn't it?"
Lynette blinked a bit before giggling, "Well, I guess we'll both be green horns at this then?"
Jagged nodded, "You got it love, but we'll figure it out."
Lynette thought for a moment before asking, "Umm, super personal question, I know but—you're the only one I know that's like me—how did you—I mean, how am I—err—uhh—"
Jagged chuckled a bit at how awkward his offspring was regarding a simple question and gave her a sympathetic look, "well, for one it took a lot of focus to try to keep things going to the end of the performance. Second, while your mum and I had been a bit of an on and off thing for a while—I broke it off that night. I loved her, who she was, but I knew trying a repeat performance would be taxing. I wasn't sure I could keep her happy."
"I worry about that too," Lynette admitted with a heavy sigh, "I mean, Kim and I—he's the polar opposite of me. How can I keep things going with him when I—I just don't care about—that? I love him. We've always been close but—"
"If he loves you back, you'll be able to find a way," Jagged advised.
He gave her a small smile, "Ultimately that's the big reason I broke things off with your mum. I loved her, but to her I was just someone with similar dreams, wanting to make a name for myself so she thought we should be together. Not quite how things work in the real world. I would've been happy to cuddle with her and kiss her while she satisfied her own needs but doing more than that was a bit much for me."
'Maybe Kim and I could do something similar,' Lynette thought to herself.
"Anything else?"
Lynette shook her head 'no', as Penny entered the living room and relayed to them, "they're searching for signs of forced entry, finger prints and the like but so far they haven't seen anything to indicate that something had gone amiss from the outside of the house."
Jagged nodded with a smile, "Alright, Penny thank you."
The dark toned woman regarded Lynette for a minute before looking to Jagged, "You told her?"
"About me, yes," Jagged stated.
"If there's more, slam it onto me now," Lynette coaxed.
"Well, you see, my relationship with your father isn't strictly professional, although we keep it a well guarded secret," Penny hinted.
Lyn thought for a moment before realization dawned on her, and her mouth made an 'o' shape.
"Lieutenant Raincomprix also suggested that for the time being we move Lynette somewhere else," Penny concluded.
"I was thinking that would happen," Jagged admitted as he stretched his arms.
"Well anywhere my family goes, I'm going as well," He decided.