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Graham doesn’t really seem to question running into Lua for so long, referring to it as a strange miracle, amd rambling at a pace that she can hardly keep up with, but she understands the gist of it. At least, she understands that he thinks it’s an odd coincidence that they would be reunited when they were and where they were, at just the right time for her to join up with his group and travel with him. Graham is happy that she will be there to greet Ladd when gets out, but she can’t help wondering if he might not be a little jealous, at the same time.
After all, if she weren’t there, he might get more of Ladd’s attention, and she knows that he always competes with her for that. Well, “compete” might be a strong word, considering how one sided it is. Lua doesn’t get nearly as jealous of Graham as Graham does of her, because she does not need Ladd’s undivided attention in the same way that he does. She is content as long as she can be with Ladd, and even more content knowing that they have time that’s just for the two of them. His time with others does not get in the way of that.
But Graham thinks very, very differently than her, is a different sort of person entirely, and she can’t honestly blame him for his jealousy. After all, he did know Ladd first, and then she came out of nowhere, and suddenly she and Ladd were inseparable, so it must have been difficult for him. He’s always seemed unable to decide exactly how to feel about Lua.
She likes Graham, mostly, even if he is too loud and his personality is a bit much, and Ladd really is enough intensity for one girl to handle. He and Ladd are too much alike for her to be able to dislike him, but different enough that she really doesn’t mind when he goes home to leave the two of them alone. But he’s a good kid, and right now, her home is with him, at least until she can see Ladd again.
She finds herself on another train to New York, but this time, the trip is uneventful. Or, at least, as uneventful as a trip with Graham can be, and she’s grateful to the members of his gang who are able to keep him at least a little bit in line. Though she does discover that, if he gets a little bit too rowdy and she looks at him, he backs down quickly, apologizing to her.
“I just can’t misbehave when she’s giving me a look like that!” he exclaims once, and this confuses Lua. She wasn’t giving him a look so much as she was looking at him, and she was only looking at him because he was making so much noise that she wanted to see what was going on. But from that point on, if he catches her eye while he’s “misbehaving”, he’ll settle down, at least for a little bit. Shaft calls him out on it from time to time, and Lua wonders why it is that he takes her typical expressionless expression as a scolding.
Still, she won’t complain about it any time soon.
~X~
She looks out of place, traveling with the group of men that Graham leads, but she knows that she’s protected, and that is all she really needs. They say she’ll get to see Ladd again very soon, but she feels like she’s had that expectation for too long now. Ever since the Russos first contacted her, she’s had the expectation that she will see Ladd soon, and now, she’s really starting to get impatient.
Well, Ladd always tells her that she struggles with impatience, but he should be proud that she’s managed to wait for him as long as she has.
She wonders what they’ll do in the meantime, while they finish out their wait, and remembers something that Shaft said on the train. Ricardo is going to restart the family, here in New York, and Graham has plans of joining up with him, so perhaps they’ll try to find Ricardo, though they don’t have much way of knowing when he’ll arrive to the city. But, then again, she’s not even sure how Shaft knew Ricardo had those plans, so maybe he has some means of contacting the young boss.
She doubts Ladd will have much interest in the Russo family now, regardless of who heads it, and he certainly will have no interest in taking it over for himself, but she won’t mind if she becomes a part of Ricardo’s group while she waits for him, if it comes to that. The young man was very nice to her while she was in captivity, and there’s something about him that makes her feel a sort of kinship with. Is it because he’s so withdrawn, and almost mature for his age? Or maybe there’s something else, below the surface, that draws her to the boy.
She thinks of Christopher then as well, the man who declared that he and Ricardo were her friends now, without consulting her or Ricardo on the matter. He and Ricardo certainly make for an odd pair, but then, so do she and Ladd, when she thinks of it like that. Yet another thing she and Ricardo have in common; no matter how withdrawn they may be, they’re rarely seen without someone loud and vibrant enough to make up for it.
She wouldn’t mind getting to see the two of them again, but a few weeks pass, and there’s no word from or regarding Ricardo. In fact, before she hears from him, the gang hears from Ladd, and with a set date, Lua is finally confident in the assurances that she will see him again soon.
After all the waiting she’s had to do, her wait is finally close to an end, but this only makes it harder for her to be patient. Graham is visibly anxious, causing even more trouble than usual, but she can’t exactly blame him. She’s quiet but tense, practically watching the clock as she waits for the last few days to pass, so even if she does not show it like Graham does, she can understand how he feels.
Even Shaft can’t wrangle him during those last few days, and he relies entirely on Lua “giving him looks,” to ensure Graham doesn’t land any of them in prison before they can pick up Ladd. And then, after three years of waiting, the day is finally upon them.
After three years, with the last one being the most eventful of all, Lua is finally going to get to see Ladd again. They are going to have a lot of catching up to do, and she’s sure he’ll have a lot of stories to catch her up on- as well as finally, coherently explaining what he was trying to the night he got arrested, what is was that he had to do- but she has plenty of things she could tell him about as well.
But he’s always been more talkative than her, and whether she has the chance to tell him about everything that’s happened or not, she’ll be happy enough just being back together again.