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Days spent with the Hawkins began to take on a routine. The mornings were chaotic and bustling, full of noise and clinking of coffee mugs and plates. Leo usually kept quiet, listening to the mix of taunts and laughter among the Hawkins children intercepted usually by something stern from Laura. Then there was the splatter of footsteps up and down the stairs as socks were pulled on last-minute and jumpers grabbed from the corner closet. Finally came the doors opening and slamming close in succession as the Hawkins one by one flurried off to begin their day, Mattie always with a brief ‘see you later’ peck for Leo.
Then… quiet.
Leo used to spend the rest of the day reading, listening to the news, and thinking, useless as he was now. But today was a bit different. There was Sam.
He got pieces of the story from Joe that night he brought Sam home. Leo thought he should have felt more shock, hearing about Karen’s death. But he wasn’t too surprised somehow. Maybe because he still couldn’t quite separate the image of Karen from that of his mother. A tragic end for Karen never felt that far off considering his mother’s fate.
But the reason Karen died did surprise Leo. Leo’s mother had died trying to drown herself and her child. Karen died saving hers. She had chosen a different path after all.
Leo watched the young Synth they called Sam… He was the human equivalent of six or seven years old. Leo tried to remember himself at that age, and could only conjure memories of playing with toy trains, a soft caress here or there by… Mia. It had always been Mia. His memories were human memories now, no longer sharp and pristine and clean, but even when they had the precision of a machine Leo could barely remember his own mother, apart from her illness-struck screams. And that day, of course; her hair, flowing in the water, as his shrieks stifled in his throat.
Mattie had told Leo that he and Sam had a lot in common. Leo knew she meant Karen, who had been a mother to them both, in very different ways. Except Leo could not think of Karen as his mother, not truly, not ever. That was not Karen’s fault. If anything it was his father’s fault, fooling himself into thinking bringing somebody back from the dead would fix everything. That it would lessen the pain instead of deepen it.
Karen had been the one most hurt in all of this, Leo knew. She was brought into a world that immediately rejected her, and never gave her a chance. She had not known the love and warmth of a family like Leo had with his brothers and sisters.
Well… maybe not.
The more Leo watched Sam the more he thought he was beginning to understand. He might never have gotten to know who Karen Voss really was, but Sam was proof. Proof that Karen had loved and been loved as a mother, more so than her human counterpart ever was.
“Sam,” said Leo, stooping down so he was at the child Synth’s eye-level. “Your mother was very brave.”
“Did you know Karen?” Wide green eyes looked at Leo expectantly and solemnly.
“I wish I had,” said Leo. He hoped that wherever Karen’s soul was now, she would take that as a token of his regret. Of his acceptance.