[Lex walks in with his usual lack of grace; his nose is very red from the cold, and he smells strongly of woodsmoke rather than alcohol. He looks awkward and nervous.]
[Ms. Angelus looks up, and stands from her desk. She's working late again, and seems to glow in the dim room. She always seems to glow.]
Lex, are you alright?
[He grins uncomfortably] ...Fine. Yeah, fine... how’re you?
That was rhetorical. I'm not that unobservant. What happened?
[He rubs the back of his neck.]
Uh. I don’t- nothin’s happened, I guess? Just wanted to, I dunno... talk?- may I sit down?
... Sure. Any of the desks are okay, or you can find another chair somewhere. Sorry, I don't usually meet with adults if it's not for a conference.
[Lex laughs awkwardly, and sits down uncomfortably on the edge of one of the desks].
Yeah. Well, uh... how’ve you been? Your um, your family alright?
Elisabeth is back in town, and has been doing okay, and Poppy's got a bit of a cold, but other than that we're doing alright. How about you and your partner?
Eddie’s... well. He’s. You know. He’s Eddie. [He grins again. It doesn’t meet his eyes.]
Um, yeah, so. I wanted to talk to you about..? Gawd, it sounds sort of weird, I don’t know how to explain this.
I work with young children. I can figure out what you mean if you try to explain.
[He grins genuinely at that, for a second.]
Yeah. Okay. So um. Eddie was- before Ed and I got married a few years ago, he made it pretty clear he would want, you know. A family. Eventually. And now he’s sort of started to bring it up again a lot more, and I really don’t like to keep making excuses and being evasive and... but... I don’t really- Gawd, okay, this sounds really stupid but I don’t think I’d be a good dad. [He finishes in a rush.]
... Why specifically don't you think that?
[It's a genuine question, though she's pretty sure she knows the answer.]
[He looks at the ground.]
You know. I don’t- I mean, my old man was- [he stops awkwardly.] Don’t wanna turn into him, y’know? What with the... you know.
... Personally, I don't, but...
[She sighs.]
That's not quite something I can help with-you might want to talk with my wife about that. She was in a similar situation to you when we adopted Poppy, I think. However, I'll say what I always do-talking to the other person involved is the first step to figuring this out.
[He furrows his brow.]
I mean... I’ve been... you might not be able to tell, but I’ve been trying to- reign it in a little? I mean, I’m getting too old for the whole, up-til-dawn, sleep-til-evening thing anyway. I just... don’t know if it’d be... right, still?
You are improving. I can tell that much. But I think you should be blatantly honest with Eddie.
[He shrugs.]
Not that I don’t want to, you know. Adopt kids. I just. Don’t know if I’d be any good at the whole parenting thing.
And you should tell Eddie that and talk to him about what you both want going forward.
[She sighs, heavily.]
Sorry, I'm tired, and winter setting in is not helping.
Sorry. I can- I can go. Don’t really know why I brought all of that to you, anyway.
It's alright. I'm probably one of the better listeners there is.
Sorry for not being able to help.
