A/N: Okay… I had serious (and unexpected, but very appreciated!) demand to continue the first chapter, so here's the agreement. "It Happened at the Lantern" will be series of (usually) unrelated Warren/Layla one-shots. Some will be long, some (like this one) will be short, but they will all be Warren/Layla.
Dedicated to all of my wonderful reviewers, who encouraged me to continue.
Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own them. Sorry.
It was amazing, what the prying fingers of a seven-year-old could find.
When Mommy wasn't asleep on the couch after work, it was fun to go into her room and go through her drawers. Mostly, it was about trying on Mommy's clothes—the clothes that Mommy never wore any more because she was always dressed in work clothes.
And sometimes, the prying fingers of a seven-year-old would come across something else.
Like in the very, very back of Mommy's lowest drawer, underneath a pretty green dress that a younger Mommy wore in the picture on the mantle, a piece of paper, folded over once and yellow with age.
The prying fingers lifted the paper, and unfolded it. A silver ring fell out, then a smaller slip of paper fluttered to the ground, and the fingers picked they two items up, eyes skimming over the words with all of the ability of a bright seven-year-old.
To let true love remain unspoken is the surest path to a broken heart. 4-16-5-49
It was a fortune cookie, like the ones they got on the second Wednesday of every month. Every Wednesday, Mommy went to community college for a class at night, and brought back takeout. The second Wednesday of the month, it was Chinese.
But Mommy had liked this one, for some reason.
Ever curious, those sticky fingers unfolded the bigger piece of paper. It was a list, with the same numbers that were on the paper from the fortune cookie. Someone had written it out in elegant cursive, which was a shame—the particular seven-year-old that the prying fingers belonged to did not know how to read cursive.
So, with the ring, the fortune cookie paper, and the bigger paper, the little girl ran into the living room, poking Mommy gently on the shoulder until she turned over and smiled.
"Hey, sweetie," Mommy said, blinking twice to clear her eyes. "Is something wrong?"
She shook her head—after all, Mommies always knew how to read cursive. "I want you to read this to me. Please?"
Mommy took the piece of paper, turned it over slowly, eyes scanning the paper. "Sweetie, I…" Mommy trailed off, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes. "Mommy's tired," she finally sighed, eyes red. "And it's time for me to go to work again, anyways. You know who to call if you get scared?"
The little girl nodded vigorously. "Uncle Will and Aunt Jessica," she said. Mommy nodded, ruffling her little girl's hair, and slipped both pieces of paper and the ring into her pocket.
"I'll be back late, so be in bed by nine. Love you," Mommy told her, planting a light kiss on the mop of dark-brown curls.
"Love you too, Mommy."
Seven-year-olds do not think to look out the window after their mother leaves for work at eight at night, especially if their mother was always leaving to or coming back from one of three jobs.
And that is probably a good thing. For this particular little girl would have seen her mother, sliding into a beat-up car and sobbing quietly as she reread the words on the paper, then pulled out of the drive.
And it's even luckier that seven-year-olds cannot see their mother when the tears blurring her eyes leave her running a red light and being hit head-on by an F-350 going sixty miles an hour.
In Layla Greenleaf's car, the inspectors found very little. The old, barely-running vehicle was kept impeccably clean, with shabby seats that had been patched with different pieces of cloth until it was a veritable piecework of cloth. But in her clenched hand was a plain white-gold wedding band, the slip of paper from a fortune cookie, and a note yellowed with age.
Your lucky numbers are mine, too.
Sixteen is when I fell in love for the first time, with the most beautiful redheaded freshman girl who was mad for someone else.
Four was the number of months after her first homecoming that I told her I was in love with her—and the number of days it took her to break up with her boyfriend.
Five is the thousands of times I've wanted to kiss you since you started reading this note.
And remember, forty-nine is the number of kids you'd have to have before I'd find you physically undesirable.
But Layla, let me add three more. One. Countless. Forever.
One is how many knees I'll drop to when you finish this note, even though I know that the answer will still be no.
Countless is how many times I'll ask you to marry me, because I hope that one day, you will say yes.
Forever is how long I'll love you.
Warren
At Layla Greenleaf's two-room apartment, her daughter crawled into bed with the clock struck nine, snapped out the scented candle on her dresser, and fell asleep.
Tonight, she would dream of Daddy, because talking about him only made Mommy cry.
And tomorrow, she would ask Mommy to teach her cursive, so she could read the note without having ask for Mommy's help.