darker_london | That Faith Chat (Peter/Lydia!)

Peter was sitting on the end of his bed with his eyes closed when his fourteen-year-old daughter appeared in his bedroom doorway. Lydia saw Peter was not asleep, and she leaned up against the frame to wait for him to open his eyes. As he did so, Lydia entered the room slowly, wondering if it was alright to disturb him. "Dad?"

Peter rubbed his eyes as if that would actually remove his exhaustion from them. It was unsuccessful. He turned to grant his daughter with a smile anyway, because she deserved one. "Hello, Lydia. How was school?"

Lydia responded with the customary teenager reply. "Fine." She hadn't come to talk about school, really. She just wanted to spend time with her father. "And then I went to see Tasha and I sang her an Epica song."

Peter grinned and he turned a little on the bed to face her. "You don't sing me Epica songs!"

Lydia giggled and stuck out her tongue at her father as she closed the rest of the distance between them. "You don't sing to me anymore! I want to know when I grew out of lullabies! Because it's uncool."

Peter looked thoughtful and finally he shrugged. "Probably about the time you started to listen to Mortiis and VNV Nation. I could sing you lullabies anyway, if you wanted me too. Somehow 'go to sleep little baby' doesn't seem to apply. I could improvise!"

"Would you improvise like a monk?" she asked, giving him a dubious look. She was referring to his years as a choir master when he had lived as a monk at Downside Abbey in Bath.

"Hah! Most likely. A monk or Dream Theater. That's it, I'll sing you progressive metal church lullabies." Peter looked pleased by this arrangement.

"You're weird, Dad," Lydia informed him, but she was grinning. "And now you know I'm going to make you." Peter chuckled and Lydia bit her lip. "Dad? What were you doing when I came in? I thought maybe you were having a vision but then you weren't all jiggly. And then I thought you'd fallen asleep sitting up, but usually when you fall asleep, you slump over."

Peter made a strange face at the thought that he fell asleep in random places enough that his daughter knew he slumped over. Fantastic. Insomia was not pretty. "I was praying."

"Oh. Oh! You...do that? I mean still?" Lydia watched him carefully while she poked at the carpet with the toe of her boot.

The realisation that his daughter did not know this surprised Peter. He was, at all times, a person who was open with his feelings and honest to a fault. And yet his daughter didn't know he prayed. "I do. 'Still' might not be the best word for it. I think 'again' is better."

Lydia finally grabbed Aly's gigantic purple chair and she pulled it over so she could sit in it. It dwarfed her and even as tall as she was, her feet still didn't touch the floor when she had hefted herself up onto it. She swung them back and forth a little, which made her appear younger than she was. To Peter, she pretty much always did anyway, so this wasn't as strange for him as it was for her. "You never talked about that stuff."

"Didn't I?" Peter had forgotten by now who had read his journals and who hadn't. He was, however, rather relieved that Lydia apparently hadn't because as honest and open as he was, he was also blunt when writing things down. And some details he would have preferred to lighten when it came to his children. "Do you want me to?"

Lydia nodded eagerly. "I don't even know what church is about. I had a father who was a priest and I have no idea what Catholicism is like."

"That...that was because your mother refused to let you take part in it at all." Peter sighed and he leaned back a little, propping himself up on his arms. "I think she was bitter that I went back to it all, even after seeing what life outside of the clergy was like. Even if she hadn't, I probably wouldn't have taken you unless you asked to come. I...I guess I believe faith is something people should come in to by themselves. If faith is forced on us, it's pretty meaningless."

Lydia arched her eyebrows at him and she smirked. "Dad, no wonder they fired you."

Peter opened his mouth in faux shock. "Lydia Ashley, I was not fired, I quit."

"After they fired you," Lydia grinned wickedly.

"Yes, yes, naughty Father Kemp, believing in personal choice. Mea maxima culpa." Peter accepted the teasing with good humour. He was overly humble and his children could get away with pretty much anything, anyway. "What do you want to know, Lydia? About the church, or me?"

Lydia didn't really care about religion. But she wanted to hear about her father. She knew he was a wonderful man and a wonderful Dad, but he had been fairly quiet on the topic of his faith. Lydia felt like there was a huge part of him that she didn't understand. "Well. I know that you decided to be all...uhm...in the church? Because when you were a kid and Aunt Margaret died, Grandma was sick and a priest helped her, right?" Peter nodded. "And you wanted to help people like that. But you didn't become a priest...?"

Peter nodded again. "I didn't. It takes seven years of study to be a priest and I was anxious to get stuck in, I guess. I was only eighteen. I was very young and I thought I knew what I wanted. Liz, Margaret and I had been raised in the church, but Liz stopped going after our parents died. I continued with it because it gave me something to cling to. Life without parents can be...kind of scary."

Lydia levelled him with a look. "Yes, I know."

Peter felt instantly guilty and his face crumpled. "Lydia-"

"It's okay. Keep going. I like hearing about you." She hadn't meant to upset him, but it was the truth. She did know.

"A...alright. Uhm. I..I joined because it meant I could start helping right away. I planned to do the study to become a priest while I was in the order, but once I joined I was happy where I was. I had Brother Thomas and Brother Stuart, and I worked in the abbey school. I directed the choir. I helped people. I saw no reason to strive to be anything else when what I did made so much sense to me. My religion...my faith made me happy. I knew I was doing the right thing and that God was working through me. And then Thomas died as I watched. At the time, I couldn't understand how God would allow someone to die while trying to do his work. Thomas had been trying to save Svetlana and he had been allowed to die. I lost my faith and I left the abbey."

"And you had me," Lydia added.

"Lydia, you are just about the only thing I did right in those years I spent away. Losing my faith made me lose so much of myself. It had been the one thing that had guided my life up to that point... And all of a sudden I had nothing to guide me. And because I had never once thought that there could be other ways to live out there...I did some supremely stupid things to try and fill the gap. Really very, very stupid things which I would like you to never do please..."

Lydia nodded her agreement. She had seen enough of what addictive substances did to you to never want to try them ever, not even once. Most of that was because of her late junkie mother, but Peter's alcoholism, even if he did control it most of the time, no doubt added to it. "You believe now though. Right?"

"That's...complicated." Peter leaned forward then, attempting to take some of the weight off of his arms. He rested his elbows on his knees and he hunched a little, looking like a crazy-haired vulture. "I went back and did my seven years of study because I knew whatever had killed Thomas hadn't been human."

"Svetlana is going to be so pissed off you just called her whatever!" Lydia laughed. "I won't tell."

"Thank you! You know what I mean. I didn't know she was a demon, but I saw her eyes when she did it. They were black. And I had started to have dreams about other beings like her who needed my help. In my arrogance, I believed that existence of these creatures and my knowledge of them proved that God couldn't exist. Here were beings who had wings and they were strong, but they could pass for humans...some even thought they were human. Most of them I had met up to and including Deirdre had no idea that they were different. I wanted to help, and I thought the best way to do that was through the clergy because it was all I knew. So I went back, even if I didn't believe. And then I was forced out again, and I started my work here...and Svetlana came back into my life..."

Lydia made a face. She tolerated Svetlana now, but she had not appreciated Svetlana back when she had been a grade-A certifiable loon, hell bent on taking Peter's family from him and making them her own. "Yeah. Not...the best time any of us ever had."

"No," Peter agreed. "And the things she did...were incredibly unpleasent. But they led to her eventual recovery. I think it was that which allowed me to find my faith again. I guess...I looked back on everything that had happened...Svetlana killing Thomas, her taking you away...the erm...other things. And I can see now that it all happened for a reason. If Thomas had not died, I would not have dedicated my life to helping people who had no other way to understand themselves. I would not have you. I would not have seen and helped Svetlana or Deirdre...or any of the others become the people I know and love today. No matter how horrible...it all came together. And I suppose it is not for me to know whether there is a higher power behind it or whether it all came about by chance. I believe too much has happened for it to be chance, but I could be wrong.

I choose to believe, but I don't identifiy with the Catholic church anymore. Religion is man-made, no matter what anyone says to you to try and deny that. Faith is up to the individual. To me, it makes sense and it hasn't been disproved. Angels and demons, with the exception of the ones who are made that way by joining with a seconadry being, are the result of genetics. Like twins. I don't think the existence of twins precludes the existence of Gods, and neither then can the existence of demons and angels and werewolves...and anything else."

Lydia nodded thoughtfully. "So you believe in God, but not...the Pope?"

Peter laughed and he reached out to pat Lydia's knee. "Something like that! I identify with God because that is how I was taught. But I think whatever you call him or her or them, it's all the same. A higher power or powers looking over us. The Pope seems hell-bent on taking the joy out of life. And I rather like my joy."

"And us!" Lydia stood then, hopping down from the tall chair. She moved to sit in Peter's lap. She had decided a long time ago she would never be too old to do this. When she felt his arms around her she smiled. Nowhere was as safe as Peter's arms. "Right?"

"Oh I'd say you're just about the best part of not being a priest, my Lydia." Peter kissed her hair and he gave her a little squeeze. "All twenty of you, or however many there are now..."

Lydia giggled. "Eight!"

"Goodness me." Peter laughed into Lydia's shoulder. "If you had told me when I came back to London three years ago that I would be called 'Dad' by eight people, I would have wondered what kind of strange daydreams you'd been having." Peter actually hoped little William never did call him 'Dad'. David was his father. He was Uncle Peter. But Peter also believed this was not up to him to decide. It was up to William, who was still only two and couldn't understand.

"Dad, can you tell me more about this some time? I want to know what you think." Lydia leaned against his chest and Peter's back protested that. He, however, did not.

"Of course I will, Lydia! I didn't know you wanted to know. I'll tell you anything you want."

"Who were you praying for? Can I ask?"

Peter nodded, his chin brushing the side of her head. "Of course you can. I was praying for Josie. And for Rosa, and for all of this nasty Templar business to go away. Of course, in order for it to go away I'm probably going to have to do something about it. So I was praying for strength..."

Lydia turned to look up at him. She studied his face for a long time, a slightly melancholy expression behind her green eyes. And then she leaned up to kiss his cheek. "I think you're the strongest person I know. Just don't do anything stupid because no one else is going to tell me about God. Especially not the Pope."

Peter snorted and he kissed Lydia's hair again. "Well...that I can't really argue with..."

"Cool, make me pancakes!" Lydia grinned in such a way that Peter could not refuse. Not that he ever would have.

"I would be honoured to make you pancakes, but you should know I'm going to make them in funny shapes."

"While singing lullabies?"

"You got it."