InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 10: Anomaly ❯ Rumination ( Chapter 19 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

“I was hoping you’d found something,” Gavin said as he stepped past Mikio.  “I guess I should have called first, but I was already in the area . . .”

Closing the door, Mikio frowned, wishing that he had more concrete news for his nephew-in-law.  As it was, he hadn’t made much more headway today, which wasn’t surprising, really, given that he was still trying to figure out which server’s information he needed to focus on.

The dog-youkai sat in one of the overstuffed easy chairs, leaning forward, steepling his fingers together between his spread knees.  He seemed to be considering something, and, in the end, he sighed.  “They . . . encouraged me to take an . . . extended vacation,” he finally said, his tone, a strange mixture of irritation and just a little hopelessness.  Shaking his auburn-haired head, he heaved an exasperated sigh.  “They said it’d be wisest for me to lay low for a while.”

“They’re going to try to pin it on you, then,” Mikio concluded quietly.

Gavin grunted.  “You don’t sound surprised.”

“I’m not,” Mikio admitted, brushing aside the momentary desire to try to sugar-coat it for Gavin when he knew well enough that Gavin was anything but stupid.  “I had a feeling . . .”

Covering his face with his hands, Gavin flopped back.  “I . . . I could go to prison for this,” he said, voice muffled by his hands.  “Damn . . .”

“I won’t let that happen,” Mikio assured him quietly.  “Did they say anything else?”

Heaving a sigh, he hunched forward once more, letting his hands drop away from his face, resting his forearms on his knees, hands dangling limply between them.  “Nope, just . . . just that I looked stressed out, that it might be good for me to get away for a few weeks, maybe a month . . .”

“I see . . .”

“Do you?” he challenged, his anger cresting just below the surface.  “I hope so, because I sure as hell don’t.”

Mikio didn’t respond right away.  He could understand that sense of absolute frustration that backed Gavin’s words, his movements.  He wished he could say something more positive, but, in the end, he really had nothing, and glossing over the situation . . . Well, that just wouldn’t help, either.  After a minute, he nodded slowly.  “Do you have any way of knowing what server you use to post your reports?  I mean, I know it’s a long shot . . .”

Gavin’s expression shifted into slight confusion.  “No . . . I know I have Level Four access, but that’s about it.”

“Level Four,” Mikio repeated, reaching over to snag a pen to jot it down.  “Do you have an employee number or a system identification number?”

He shook his head.  “Yeah, we all do,” he said.

“Is that right?”  He handed Gavin the paper he’d just taken notes on.  “Can you write yours down for me?  That’d help.”

“How?” he asked as he wrote down the information that Mikio had asked for.

Mikio jerked his head toward the thick file on the coffee table.  “They gave me all the access information, but it’s all encoded.  If I have your number, though, then I can at least figure out which networks you’ve got clearance to use.”

Gavin grunted.  “You’d think they’d have sent you a list of access numbers and all of that . . . You’d think they don’t want anyone else to know who might have accessed what and when . . .”

Mikio didn’t say anything, but he agreed.

Gavin tossed the tablet back onto the coffee table, and the pen followed.  “Damn, what a mess . . .”

“I don’t know.  Maybe a vacation would do you some good . . . Get away from the stress of everything.”

That earned him a blackened scowl.  “What’s it matter?  Here or there, I’m still going to do nothing but worry . . . At least here, I’m more accessible than I would be if I took off.”

“You have a cell phone,” Mikio pointed out calmly.  “If I need anything, I’ll call you, but the information I need now is information you don’t have.”

“You mean, a list of everyone’s IDs.”

Mikio nodded.  “If I can get your information narrowed down, the I should be able to get the list of the ones I need from Winehouse-san.”

The look Gavin shot him spoke plainly of his own disbelief that he’d be able to get any such thing without a hassle.  Mikio, however, was cautiously optimistic after his talk with the corporate attorney.

Gavin pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through it before placing a call.  “Hey, Kris.  Yeah, vacation, they said . . . Uh huh . . .” He winced, his cheeks taking on a rather telling pinkness.  Mikio seemed to recall, hearing Bas once say that Gavin had a strange issue in talking to women in general, but maybe he’d gotten a little better about it since marrying Jillian . . . “Nice to know . . . I, uh . . . I was wondering if you could do me a favor . . .? Sure . . . I-I-I need a list of people’s access IDs . . . I know; it’s a pretty tall request.  They shared the files with my attorney, but they didn’t send him a user list, either, just the logs . . . Uh, yeah.  I know.  I swear, I won’t tell anyone how I got them, but it . . . It’s really important . . . Something like that.  My attorney could try to subpoena it, but that’d just take longer . . . Just email it.  You’re a life saver.  Thanks . . . I owe you.”

Ending the call, Gavin sighed as he stuffed the device into his pocket once more.  Catching Mikio’s look, he shrugged.  “Kris works in human resources.  I give her free financial advice all the time,” he explained.  “Told me the other day that if there’s anything I need to prove that I didn’t do anything wrong, just to let her know.”

His phone chimed, and he dug it out once more, taking a minute to look over whatever he’d gotten, and he forwarded it to Mikio.  “I hope that helps.  Just, um . . . Just lose her email address, can’t you?”

Mikio didn’t answer as he checked the forwarded email.  Attached to it was a master list of all employees along with their access IDs.  “That will help a lot,” Mikio replied.  “I’ll narrow down the list, and I’ll send Winehouse-san a copy of your reports.  With any luck, those should prove that you had nothing to do with any kind of crime.”

Gavin nodded.  He didn’t look relieved, but he did look a little more hopeful than he had since he’d arrived.  “I told Jilli it might be high time I retired and concentrated on the ranch.  I wanted to work a few more years, just to save back more money, but . . .”

“When all this blows over, you might want to consider changing employers, if nothing else,” Mikio suggested.  “If you aren’t ready to retire, anyway.”

Heaving a sigh, Gavin nodded slowly.  “I know,” he replied.  “Damned if I don’t feel like I’ve aged about five hundred years in the last few months . . .”

Mikio figured he could understand that.  The constant strain and stress of worrying about his future, about what tomorrow may bring . . . It was enough to wear anyone ragged.

After a minute, Gavin stood up, stepped forward, extending his hand to Mikio, who shook it as he stood up, too.  “I’ll get out of your hair,” Gavin said with an apologetic little smile.  Then, he sighed.  “I’ll probably take Jilli up to Maine.  I know she wanted to be there when Gin has the babies.”

“All right.  I know it’s hard to do, but you really should try not to think about it.  I’m doing everything I can to clear you.”

Gavin didn’t look like he fully believed him, but he looked a little more optimistic than he did when he’d arrived, and that, Mikio supposed, had to be good enough . . .


“M adison-chan, it’s so nice to see you!”

Blinking as she stopped on her way toward the exit, Madison waited for Kagome Izayoi to reach her, returning the woman’s bright smile that lit her eyes with an inner incandescence.  “Kagome!  It’s nice to see you again!”

She laughed softly.  “Were you leaving?”

Madison shrugged.  “Mom’s taking a nap, Daddy’s all but barricaded the door since he’s positive that everyone just wants to keep her awake, so, I thought I might as well go get a nap in,” she said.

“Oh,” Kagome remarked, her smile, dimming just a little.  She grimaced.  “I guess I have bad timing,” she ventured with a rueful laugh.  “Well, I guess I can always come back . . .”

Madison shook her head.  “Do you want to get some tea?  Mom probably won’t sleep too long.  She’ll have to feed the baby soon enough.”

“But weren’t you leaving?”

Waving that off with a flick of her hand, Madison turned to lead Kagome down the corridor toward the cafeteria.  “I’m kind of in that area where I’ll end up, sleeping too long, and then, I won’t be able to sleep tonight, so it’s probably best if I just stay up . . . Where’s Gin?”

Kagome sighed.  “She’s taking a nap—Cain’s insistence, of course.  InuYasha’s outside, talking to Kichiro . . . I assume Bellaniece is up with your mother?”

Madison nodded.  “She was napping in a chair next to Mom’s bed,” she replied.  “I’m pretty sure Daddy hasn’t put Jaeger down . . . I barely got to hold him—maybe ten minutes . . .”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard that name before,” Kagome said, carefully adding a teaspoon of green tea to a cup before filling it with hot water from one of the heated tanks.  She offered it to Madison, who held up a hand.

“I think I need coffee,” she quipped with a smile.  “Mom said Jaeger is German, meaning ‘hunter’, and Daddy about cried when she suggested it.”  She rolled her eyes, but giggled.

“Yay-ger,” Kagome repeated thoughtfully, committing the name to memory.  “I wondered, just how it was pronounced,” she confessed.

Madison laughed as she swiped her visitor card and scanned the barcodes for the coffee and tea water, then followed Kagome over to a quiet table near the back of the cafeteria.

“I like it,” Kagome stated, her gentle smile, widening once more.  Sitting there with her, Madison couldn’t help but to feel the genuine warmth that seemed to radiate from the woman—the same kind of warmth that she felt in Mikio, too.  Slowly, though, her smile faded, and she bit her lip, as though she were considering . . . well, something . . .

“Is everything okay?” Madison asked when Kagome remained silent.

The ageless miko sighed, casting Madison an apologetic, almost nervous, smile.  “I . . . I wondered . . . Have you spent any time with Mikio?”  She quickly shook her head, waved her hand, as though she were embarrassed by her own question.  “That’s silly . . . I mean, you’re both busy, I’m sure, so—”

Madison shook her head.  “No, it’s fine.  Actually, I’ve been staying with him . . . I lost my keys, so I stayed with him until Bas came down since he had the keys to Evan’s house—he keeps my spare—and then, he and Bas weren’t happy with my security system . . . There’s been a rash of burglaries in the neighborhood lately . . .”  She winced.  “And then, I screwed up the keypad because I couldn’t remember my own passcode, so we’re waiting for them to reset it . . .”

Kagome suddenly laughed.  “Well, that was a mouthful, wasn’t it?” she said between giggles.  She wound down, but her amusement lingered.  “How’s he been?”

Madison hesitated before answering.  Sure, Mikio didn’t really want her to know about the episode the other night, but then, she didn’t ask if he’d thrown up, either . . . “He’s good,” she replied.  “I know he’s been working really hard on Gavin’s case, but I did take him sight-seeing, showed him a few little shops I thought he’d like . . .”

Kagome seemed relieved by Madison’s answer, and she supposed that was good enough.  “Good, good . . . I’ve been worried about him . . .” She made a face, and that apologetic little smile returned.  “I know he’s grown, but . . . I guess it’s just the ‘mama’ part of me . . .”

“No, I understand,” she said.  “You love him.”

“I do . . . I also know that he gets so frustrated sometimes, like he thinks that I’m trying to say that he isn’t capable, and I know he is.  It’s just . . .” Trailing off with a sigh, she slowly shook her head.  “You and he . . . Are you . . . close?”

Blinking at the innocent enough question, Madison took her time, sipping her coffee.  She slept in the same bed as him, loved being with him, tried her best to come up with more reasons to stay with him . . . Maybe those things didn’t really constitute, ‘knowing him well,’ but she had a feeling that maybe . . . maybe she really did.  “We’re good friends—at least, I’d like to think so,” she finally said.

Kagome looked rather relieved, and she let out a deep breath, as though she’d been holding it the whole time Madison had been considering her answer.  “Ever since he was little, he’s had . . . issues—balance issues.  We took him in once to get tested, to see if we could find out why, but . . . But he was so small, and the MRI machine scared him, so InuYasha stopped it, and he wouldn’t let it happen after that . . . and I guess that we’ve always kind of coddled him, sheltered him.”  She made a face.  “To be honest, I’m not sure it was the right thing to have done, but . . .”

“But he’s your son, and you just wanted to make things easier for him,” Madison concluded.

Kagome gave an almost hopeless kind of shrug.  “The way InuYasha grew up, he never wanted his children to have to live that kind of life.  It was hard for him, and I get that.  Mikio . . . Physical impairment aside, he’s always been so much more sensitive, so much more introverted, than his brothers ever were.”

“It was easier to do that with him.”

Casting her an almost startled glance, Kagome smiled just a little, gave a curt nod.  Then, she narrowed her eyes, but her smile lingered.  “You’re good for him, aren’t you?”

For some reason, Kagome’s quiet assessment made her blush, and she quickly ducked her chin, wondering if the woman could read the expression on her face that she just couldn’t hide.  Good for him—for Mikio?

‘I . . . I hope so . . .’


Miki o dropped his pen on the table with a heavy sigh, giving up on trying to concentrate on anything for the time being.  It was just after six, and he watched as the daylight started to fade, and he still had yet to hear anything from Madison, and that was enough to drive him to complete distraction.

‘If you’re so worried, why don’t you give her a call?’

Scowling at his youkai-blood’s suggestion, Mikio stood abruptly and stalked over to the windows.  He was ninety-nine percent positive that she was fine, and hopefully, she’d made it in time for the birth.  It was just that nagging little one percent that was driving him mad . . .

‘At least if you go ahead and call her, you can get back to your work without the distraction.’

Dragging a hand over his face, Mikio grimaced.  The last thing he needed or wanted was to come off as being needy or overbearing—he knew well enough, just how irritating the ‘overbearing’ part could be, first hand . . .

‘Maybe if you just sent her a text?  Tell her you hope she got there safely . . .’

It was stupid, wasn’t it?  He shouldn’t care.  It was perfectly normal for her to want to be with her family, given the situation, and even if it weren’t . . .

‘It’s not like . . . like I have anything to say about it.  She’s . . . Well, she’s not really anything to me . . . Not like that, anyway . . .’

‘Yeah, about that . . . Do you really think it would be such a bad thing if she were?  I mean, if she were your—’

‘She’s not,’ he cut in coldly, unwilling to let his youkai-voice finish that statement.

‘—girlfriend . . . But if I did say, ‘mate’, you’d just flip out, now wouldn’t you?  So, I won’t, but you know—’

‘Enough.  I . . . I haven’t known her long enough for . . .’ He grimaced and quickly, almost furiously, shook his head.  ‘It’s not possible.  No woman would want . . . want someone who can’t even stay on his own damn feet.’

His youkai sighed.  ‘Don’t make assumptions, Mikio.  After all, you really don’t know what’s going through her head, now do you?  And if that’s really how you feel, then maybe you should stop letting her stay here.  She’s a little too nice to have around, you know.’

His scowl darkened as he considered his youkai-voice’s suggestion.  Okay, so he could fully appreciate what it meant, and he agreed, too.  Having Madison around was little better than playing with fire.  Everything about her spoke to him, and even though he knew that having her there wasn’t exactly the smartest idea, it seemed somehow out of his ability to stop himself, either.

He didn’t understand it.  It was almost more of a compulsion than anything else—a compulsion that he just couldn’t control.  Even when he convinced himself that he needed to put some space between them, he couldn’t seem to do it.  He just didn’t know why.

As if in answer to his own dark thoughts, his cell phone buzzed, and he blinked, jamming his hand into his pocket to retrieve it.

The picture that he opened, however, wiped the scowl off his face as a slow smile spread.  It was Madison, looking a little tired, but entirely happy, too, as she held a small little bundle, wrapped in a sweet blue blanket.  She held him, her right shoulder, raised to help the camera get a better angle: coal black hair with streaks of silvery white, exactly like Cartham’s that stuck out at every conceivable angle, kind of like a porcupine, the same dark violet eyes as Madison’s . . . It was still too soon to tell, just whose features had contributed the most to the overall shape of his face, but despite the slight swelling from the birthing process, he was already cute as could be.  The attached text said, ‘Jaeger Dorian Cartham, seven pounds, fifteen ounces, twenty-two inches long’.

He was just getting ready to close out the picture, to text her back, when the phone rang, and he very nearly dropped it.  But Madison’s name registered, and he didn’t think twice as he connected the video feed.  “Cute baby,” he said, foregoing the greetings since it seemed a little out of place when she could see his face, anyway.

She chuckled.  “I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner,” she said.  “It’s just, when I got here, Mom was leaving for the hospital, so I didn’t get a chance to do more than drop my bag inside, and then, I had to babysit Daddy for a while . . .”

“It’s, uh, it’s fine,” he told her.  “As long as you got there all right . . .”

She started to answer, but a wide yawn interrupted her, and she blinked quickly to dispel the moisture that gathered.  “I still haven’t gotten to sleep,” she confessed.  “I wanted to call you first, though.”

He nodded.  “And your mother?  She’s fine?”

“Yes . . . Tired, but happy.  Your mom and dad were there when I left . . . Your mom asked how you are.”

He grimaced inwardly.  “O-Oh?”

Madison nodded, and if she noticed his discomfort at the mention of his parents, she didn’t comment on it.  “I told her that you’re fine, that you’re busy, working on Gavin’s case.”

“Oh . . . Thanks.”

“You should give her a call.  I think she’s worried about you,” Madison added.  The video feed bobbled.  When it straightened up again, she was shouldering the bag she’d taken with her.

“Uh, yeah,” he replied, sounding anything but committed to the idea she suggested. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to call Kagome.  It was more that she had the uncanny ability to make him feel like little more than a pup that bothered him . . .

“Hey, about the other night . . .”

Snapping out of his wayward thoughts, Mikio gritted his teeth since ‘the other night’ was really not something he wanted to talk about again, either.  “It was nothing,” he told her, unsure if he were trying to convince her or trying to tell himself that.

“It was something,” she challenged quietly, though no less forcefully.  “How often does that happen to you?”

“It doesn’t—I mean, it’s not—” Cutting himself off with a curt growl directed more at himself than at her, he sighed.  “It’s . . . not a big deal,” he said instead, unable to bring himself to lie to her, but then, her question really was subjective.  For him, even once in a while was still too often.

“If it’s a big deal to you, then—”

“I’m used to it,” he lied, cutting her off, unwilling to allow her to try to placate him.  “Even if I don’t like it, it’s how things are.  I can’t . . . can’t change it.”

She sighed.  “If it happens again, let me know,” she said.  “It might not be much, but . . . Well, I just want you to know that I want to help you, even if all I can do is to be with you.”

Her statement . . . As much as he wanted to discard it, to think that she was simply trying to be kind, something in her voice . . . She . . .

“So, tell me, how is everything?”  She laughed.  “I make it sound like I wasn’t just there . . . and like I won’t be home tomorrow.”

Mikio frowned, reacting to the almost wistful quality in her tone.  “But you wish you could stay longer,” he concluded.  “Can’t you?’

Her smile turned a little sad before it faltered altogether, and in the half-light of the bedroom she’d stepped into, illuminated only by a small lamp as well as the waning daylight that cast warm and yet stark shadows over her face, she shrugged.  “I would if I didn’t have that meeting with Dean on Tuesday.”

“Dean?” he echoed since he couldn’t remember hearing that name before.

He heard the thump as she dropped her bag on the floor.  Then, she slipped the phone into a dock beside the bed and flopped down, the force of it, bouncing her up and down a couple times.  “Dean Mansfield.  He’s the guy, helping me with the LA location.  I’d reschedule if I could, but he’s only here to check in with me, so that would be pretty bad . . .”

“Well, maybe you can go back soon—stay longer, spend more time with your family?”

“That’s kind of what I thought, too,” she allowed.  “Next time, you’ll have to come with me.  Well, if you’re not busy, that is.  In fact, I—” Her own gasp cut her off, and she shook her head, eyes growing wider in surprise, mouth, rounding in an, ‘oh’.

“M . . . Madison?”

The only thing that proved she’d heard him at all was a fluttering blink, a slight shake of her head.

He frowned.  “M-M-Maddy?”

She seemed to give herself a mental shake, snapping out of her befuddlement as a blush filtered into her cheeks, leaving Mikio in his own state of bemusement for a long moment.  ‘Damn, she’s . . .’

‘Sexy as hell?  Uh huh . . .’

“You’re . . . You’re human,” she murmured, her cheeks, retaining the heightened color, the very pretty flush.

He blinked and glanced at the smaller box, only to realize just a moment too late that he was, indeed, human—and he hadn’t even noticed.  That was a first. He couldn’t remember ever having gone through the transition without feeling it, sometimes almost painfully so.  Then again, he really didn’t think that it had ever really hurt as much as it had unsettled him, and maybe, having been distracted by Madison . . .

That aside, he rolled his eyes and uttered a terse snort since, in his estimation, he looked like the millions of others that wandered the streets of Tokyo—the same black hair, the same dark brown eyes—just like his father on nights like this—just like his mother, every single day.  “It’s nothing special,” he muttered.

Madison laughed, but it was a soft, comforting sound.  “Oh, I disagree,” she quipped.  “I mean, you were good looking before, but now, you’re mysterious and brooding.”

He choked out a laugh despite himself.  He’d never been one to accept praise easily, but that aside, her rather ridiculous assessment both caught him off guard and amused him at the same time.  “I’m hardly brooding,” he countered.  “Gunnar, maybe . . .”

Turning her face to the side, she covered her mouth with the back of her hand to smother a yawn that she couldn’t hold back.  “Gunnar’s problem is that he has way too much ego—and he’s prettier than most women.  Women might appreciate a pretty face, but when it’s a guy, and he’s prettier than you are?  Then it can be a problem . . .”

He could tell from her tone that she was joking, but it still made him frown.  “I-I don’t think he’s prettier than you,” he muttered.

She stopped, let her head fall slightly to the side as she stared at him.  “You . . . You think so?” she asked quietly, almost hesitantly.

“I can’t be the first person to tell you that,” he said.

She sighed.  “Maybe, but that’s normally the guy who’s trying to get into my pants,” she replied.

“Uh . . . I-I didn’t—”

Her laughter cut him off.  “Do you, Mikio?”

He shook his head. “Do I, what?”

Stretching out on her side, she tucked her hands up under her cheek on the pillow.  “Do you want in my pants?  Because if you did, I might let you.”

He could feel the flush, painful and hot, that stained his skin.  Sure, he heard the teasing in her tone, but it did little to alleviate the acute embarrassment, and he cleared his throat.  “I-I-I—”

Again, she giggled.  “I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t tease you like that, should I?  I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable—even if you are cute as sin when you blush.”

His immediate response was a grunt, a slow shake of his head.  “I think you’re tired . . .”

She sighed, blinking slowly, as though to reinforce his statement.  “You’re right,” she agreed.  “I haven’t gotten any sleep since . . . Thursday night?”

He frowned.  “You should get some sleep, then,” he told her. “You’re coming back Monday, so . . .”

She smiled, but even that expression seemed a little vague, almost sleep-clouded.  “Will you stay on the phone with me till I go to sleep?”

Mikio sighed, but then, he smiled.  “I . . . I could do that,” he allowed slowly, cautiously.

“It’s been a good weekend,” Madison decided, her eyes drifting closed, but the smile on her features remained.

“Yeah,” Mikio said.  “Y-Yeah . . .”