The bar between them suddenly felt like a gaping chasm to him, the wooden structure usually served like a barrier between Leo and the rest of the world. He could still see what was going on, he could still add his two cents, but behind there he was just a little distanced from it and that made living a life in Neverland that much easier.
Talking to her about this felt wrong a step away, causing him to leave the whiskey bottle resting on the surface near her glass as he walked around the bar and sat next to her, facing her on a stool to the left of her own.
“It’s not a lie. I mean it.” The sad truth of the matter was Leo had always wanted more children, a daughter specifically had always been what he envisioned but a life half-led and twice wasted had made that dream an unobtainable option. It no longer weighed on him the way it once had, not now he had a family that he wouldn’t take for granted. Liam, Effie, Thea, Tay, Whiskey. Even his darkest days here were illuminated by their presence.
When Leo looked at Charlie, he seen something different, something pure and untouched by Neverland but mixed with a sadness he knew all too well. He had felt that same anguish when he lost his father, right near where they stood. His mother hadn’t returned for long and that in itself was a gift to him. He never needed anyone around with one foot out the door, and he refused to be that person for her. For his daughter.
“If you’ll let me, I’d like to be a part of your life.”
Charlie sighed with relief when he told her he meant it, for the first time since she had arrived in Neverland she felt a small, glimmer of hope in her chest that she might actually be able to salvage something of her lost relationship with her biological father. It wouldn’t take away the pain of losing her mother, nothing ever could. Charlie was sure she would carry that grief around with her for the rest of her life, but maybe having Leo in her life would ease some of the pain.
It wouldn’t hurt to at least try, right?
“That’s all I ever wanted.“ Charlie had never spoke about it with her mother growing up, always afraid that she would upset her and make her think that she wasn’t enough for Charlie. That was never the case. Her mother was a hero to her, an inspiration. She was the strongest person she knew, but sometimes — just ever now and then — she had wished that she could have known her father so he could have kissed some of her scraped knees when she was a child, attended her nativity plays in primary school when she had always played Mary and slept in her bed with her when she was sick, holding a cold compress to her forehead to fight her fevers.
Charlie reached her hand across the bar; small, slender fingers tentatively reaching for his own. His fingers were long and felt rough against the smoothness of her own. She had no doubt it was a result of the years spent working behind a bar, carrying heavy crates and barrels of beer. “I always wondered what you’d look like, what you would sound like.. How embarrassing you’d be dropping me off at sleepovers. I had a hundred different versions of you in my head. I used to be afraid that if I ever met you then you wouldn’t be able to live up to the expectations I’d built up for you.” Charlie paused, lifting her brown eyes to meet his and smiling. She couldn’t help but wonder if that was where she got hers from now.
