InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 4: Justification ❯ Alone ( Chapter 28 )

Cain stood in the doorway of his daughter's bedroom and sighed as he tried not to think about just how empty the apartment felt without Bellaniece's presence.

She hadn't been away from home before—away from him—for more than one night before, and even that was rare.  She would be away for at least six weeks; long enough to do preliminary testing before Kelly's surgery, and then to make sure she was healing well before they came back . . .

She was safe enough with Kichiro Izayoi, wasn't she?  Gin had insisted that her brother would look out for Bellaniece . . . of course, that was after Cain had been told that the miscreant hanyou was gay.  If it hadn't been for that video footage, he might not have believed that.  Kichiro didn't seem gay . . . Still, stranger things had been known to have happened before, and maybe there was some truth to the stories.

'That's really not the reason you let Bellaniece go.  You might not like Kichiro, but you know that he really will make sure Bellaniece is safe enough.'

Cain sighed.  That was true.  Even if he didn't particularly care for Gin's family, he had to admit that they were trained well enough to make sure that she was always safe.  It stood to reason that Kichiro could easily protect his daughter.

'And it helps,' he thought with a guilty grimace.  'The two genuinely seemed to despise one another, too . . .'

If he could get rid of the feeling that his daughter had slipped away from him, he'd be ahead of the game . . .

The telephone rang, and Cain spared one last long moment, staring around the room before pulling the door closed and striding over to answer the phone.  "Hello?"

"Hi, Daddy."

"Is everything okay?"

She giggled but sounded tired.  "Yeah, I'm fine.  Maybe a little jet-lagged.  I just wanted to call and let you know we got here all right."

Cain sighed.  "Good."

Bellaniece yawned.  "I'll call you when I get up."

"Okay.  Be careful."

"Mm, I will.  Bye, Daddy."

"Bye, Bellaniece."

Cain let out his breath in a gust as he hung up the phone and rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand.  She was so far away . . .

He sat down with a stack of sketches that he was supposed to look over for class the following morning.  Shifting through them without actually inspecting them, he couldn't see anything but sparkling blue eyes that were always laughing, always happy.  Bellaniece was such a beautiful baby; such a beautiful child . . . To know that she was so far away from him was a painful thing.  From the first moment he'd held her in his arms, she'd become his sole reason for living.

In those first few days after Bellaniece was born, Cain had been a little afraid of her; this strange little person who had invaded his life.  She didn't cry very often.  Content to lie in a bassinet so long as she was near enough to see or smell him, Bellaniece only fussed when she was hungry or needed to be changed.  In the time before the numbness set in, Cain would stare at Bellaniece for hours.  In her eyes, he could will away the pain of loss, and in her eyes, he could find the strength to wake up in the morning because she needed him . . .

It hadn't taken Cain long to realize that he had to get himself and Bellaniece out of Florida.  Memories were too prevalent, too painful, and after the investigation into Isabelle's death was over, he'd taken Bellaniece and moved, leaving everything behind only to have professional movers pack their things and deliver them.  Most of Isabelle's effects were still in boxes, hidden away in one room in the mansion.  It was too painful a thing.  Cain could neither deal with sorting through it all nor come to terms with the idea of getting rid of it.  Maine provided a haven, and that was the place Bellaniece called home.

He'd been with her when she first pushed herself onto her hands and knees and crawled around the grass under the white ash tree behind the mansion.  He'd seen her take her first steps, praised her when she said her first word.  Her voice had been like little silver bells, and her laughter . . . Her laughter had always made him smile.

A lifetime of memories that shouldn't have been his assailed him, and yet he couldn't be sorry for having them, either.  Cain leaned forward, dropped the sketches on the table and buried his face in his hands.  'Be safe, Bellaniece . . . Daddy . . . Daddy loves you . . .'

The knock on the door was loud, jarring.  Cain jerked upright and stood up.

"Cain!  Cain!  Are you in there?"  Gin's voice was panicked, worried, and he hurried to the door, wincing as the upset in her youki burned him before he could even open the door.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked as she threw herself against him.  He glanced over her shoulder but saw nothing; only the empty hallway as Gin's heart raced, as she struggled to breathe and squeezed him tighter, burying her face in his shirt.  "Gin?"

"It's-a-rat-a-huge-rat-big-rat-huge—" she mumbled, her voice muffled by his body.  "Big-big-big-rat-bi-i-ig-Cain!"

"Where?" he asked gently, leaning to the side to push the door closed.  "Come on, Gin, you're tougher than that, aren't you?"

"In my apartment!" she blurted, burrowing her face deeper into the fabric of his shirt.  "It was big, and it was hairy, and it glared at me, and it hissed my name: 'Gi-i-i-in!'"

Tamping down the urge to laugh, Cain gently pushed Gin away enough to tilt her chin up and look into her eyes.  She was terrified, no doubt about that.  "Do you want me to go look for it?" he asked reasonably as she quickly shook her head.  "No?"

She shook her head again.  "It'll eat you!  I'm serious; it's huge!"

"How huge?"

Gin held her hands out, shoulder-width apart.  "This big!"

"Really."

She nodded.  "At least!"

"Are you sure?  That'd be a . . . really big rat."

"Cain, I'm serious."

He tried not to smile.  'She's really afraid of a rat?  But that's . . .' He scowled.  "I know you are.  You want me to go kill it?"

"Yes," she said then shook her head.  "No."

He chuckled.  "I can't do both."

She sighed.  "I want you to catch it and take it far away from me, but I . . . Don't kill it."

Cain shook his head; scowl deepening as he leaned his head, trying to figure out if she was being serious.  "You want me to catch it . . . and set it free again?"

"Yes, but not near the building."

He thought it over and shrugged.  "Okay.  You've got to let go of me then."

Her arms tightened.  "Wait!"

With a defeated sigh, Cain wrapped his arms around Gin for a moment.  "You've got to calm down.  Your heart feels like it's trying to jump right out of your chest."

She whimpered.

"It's okay.  It's just a rat.  Stay here, and I'll take care of it."

"Okay."

This time, she let go of him, eyes nervously darting around his apartment as though she half-expected a rat to come barreling out from behind the furniture.  With a little squeal, she ran toward the sofa, launching herself into the air about ten feet from it and landing neatly, feet tucked under her and hands twisting together in her lap.

Cain pressed his lips together and counted to ten before he dared to speak.  "You stay there, and I'll be right back."

Gin nodded, ears flattening as her fingers knotted into a perverse-looking lump of wiggling flesh.  "Cain, wait!"

"Yes?"

She dug her cell phone out of her pocket and punched in a number.  Cain's phone rang, and he grabbed it off the table by the door.  "Okay, Gin."

Gin nodded again.  "All right.  Be careful because it's really, really big."

Cain winced as Gin chewed her nail and tried to smile.  Acting before he could think about it, he strode over and kissed her forehead.  She tried to smile—it was more of a grimace—and Cain pressed the cell phone to his ear before heading out of the apartment.

Her apartment was exactly how he figured she left it.  "Gin?  You all right?"

"Yes," she squeaked.

Cain winced.  "Where did you see the rat?" he asked.

Gin gripped the phone tight. He could hear the creak of the plastic device, and he only hoped that she wouldn't break it.  "In the kitchen."

Cain sniffed the air and frowned.  He smelled something, but it was faint; hardly enough to account for a rat, let alone a huge rat, as Gin had claimed.

"Have you found it?" she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

"Not yet," Cain answered.  "I smell it, though . . . Gin?"

"Yes?"

"Are you sure it was a huge rat?"

"Yes."

He stifled a sigh and made a face.  "Okay."

Cain listened closely, could hear the faint scratch of something coming from behind the stove.  "Hold on," he told Gin before he set the phone on the counter.  He could hear Gin's frightened whining but concentrated instead on pulling the oven away from the wall.  A flash of movement caught his eye, a terrified squeak made him grimace.  His hand moved in a blur, and he blinked as he stared at the tiny mouse dangling by its tail from his thumb and forefinger.  'This . . . is Gin's rat?'

He dug a plastic container out of the cupboard and shook his head as he dropped the frightened little beast into it for safekeeping and slapped the lid on before he pushed the oven back into place.  "Okay, I caught it," he said as he picked up the phone and held up the container to eye the mouse.

"You did?" she asked breathlessly.

"Yeah . . . I think you should see it though . . . make sure this is the one."

"No!" she yelped.  "Cain, no!"

Cain rolled his eyes as he shut off the lights and headed for the door.  "It's fine, Gin.  I've got it contained.  It can't hurt you.  Do you believe me?"

". . . Yes," she finally said.  "But—"

Cain wedged the phone between his ear and his shoulder, freeing his hand to open the door.  Gin's eyes widened as she caught sight of the container, and Cain winced as she unleashed an ungodly, blood-curdling howl into the silent apartment.  Dropping her phone as she shot to her feet atop the sofa, her legs pistoning up and down, hands waving wildly as she nearly toppled over the high back; she looked even more terrified than she had when she'd first thrown herself into his arms.  Cain hurriedly stuck the container in the hallway on the floor before turning back to Gin with a dumbfounded look on his face.  "For the love of God, Gin!  What the—?"

The tears running down her cheeks stopped him, and Cain winced, feeling like an ogre in one of Bellaniece's bedtime stories—the ogre that made the fairy princess cry.  "I'm sorry . . . I'll get rid of it, right now."

"D-D-Don't k-k-kill it," she sobbed.

"Okay, I won't," he assured her.  "Let me go get rid of it, okay?"

Gin sank down, bunching up her shoulders miserably as she sniffled and tried not to cry.  "O-Okay."

Cain shook his head.  That wasn't normal, not at all.  Gin's reaction to seeing the mouse would have been more rational had the creature not been contained.  The most important thing at the moment, however, was getting the mouse away from Gin because she wasn't calming down at all.  Her fear had swelled into something far worse, and he grimaced as the girl in question peeked over the edge of the sofa, eyes scanning the perimeter of the room for any signs of movement.  How could a girl like her be that terrified of something as insignificant as a tiny mouse that couldn't hurt her?

'Does that matter, Cain?  Get the mouse out of here.  Worry about Gin's phobia later.'

'Yeah, yeah . . . I'm going to. . .'

His youkai snorted.  'Pfft!  Good thing she's not your mate.  You scared the crap out of her with that little beast.'

Cain ignored the jab at his pride as he grasped the door handle.  No, there was definitely more to it, if she would tell him what it was . . .

Gin didn't feel safe.  Despite the knowledge that she was being completely irrational, despite the knowledge that there really weren't any rats in Cain's apartment, she couldn't shake the idea that there were rodents prowling under furniture, little beasts hiding in the shadows just waiting to attack her.

The sofa wasn't high enough.

Peering over the edge of the plush tan suede cushion, Gin bit her bottom lip as her eyes darted back and forth.  More than once, she thought she saw movement.  More than once, she stifled a scream.  She hated rats and everything she deemed to bear a close enough resemblance to rats; hated them.  She also couldn't seem to convince herself that it was just a tiny thing, and that rats and mice couldn't hurt her.

Her cell phone rang, and Gin nearly shrieked again.  She fumbled with it, hands shaking so badly she could barely turn it on.   When she finally did, Cain's voice was calm, soothing.  "Gin?  You okay?"

"Yes," she squeaked.

Cain sighed.  "You don't sound okay."

"Where are you?" she asked as she pushed herself to her feet atop the sofa.

"I'm a couple blocks over.  Just let the . . . rat go."

Gin grimaced, bending her knees as she prepared herself to leap onto the kitchen table.  It was higher.  She'd be safe there . . .

"What are you doing?  Why did I hear a thump?"

"No reason," she assured him.  "I wanted to be higher.  I just can't stand rats," she whispered.

"Is there a reason for that?" he asked a little too casually.  "Do you want your plastic container back?"

"The one the rat was in?" she squeaked.  "No!  No, Cain, no!"

"Okay," —she heard a dull clink-thump as Cain chucked the plastic container— "it's gone."

"Thank you," she muttered, ears flattening as she crouched in the middle of the table.  "I'm stupid.  I just . . . I really hate rats."

"You're not stupid.  It's all right," he told her.  "I'll be up in a minute.  Just sit tight till I get there."

She was about to beg him not to hang up, but the phone went dead, and she whimpered.

'It's all my stupid brothers' faults,' she thought sourly, face shifting into a petulant scowl as she smashed her hands against the table between her feet.

'You're rational enough to know that it is just a fear, Gin.  There aren't really giant rats like that, no matter what the baka boys told you.'

Gin sighed.  She knew that, absolutely.  It was another thing, however, to remember it when she was staring at a rat—or a mouse—or even a rabbit, and opossums?  She shuddered.  'Forget about it . . .'

Cain opened the door and stepped into the apartment, gaze sweeping over the sofa where he'd left her and registering surprise just before he located her, sitting atop the dining table.  He started to say something but barely had time to react as she launched herself off the table, straight into his arms.  "Thank kami," she whimpered, burying her face in the crook of his neck as he stumbled back a step, hurrying to wrap his arms around her before he dropped her.

"Is it so bad?" he asked gently, clumsily patting her back as he strode over to the sofa and sat down with Gin on his lap.

"I hate them," she mumbled.  "I hate them, I hate them, I hate them!"

"Suppose you tell me why you hate them so much," he prodded, cradling her in his elbow, nestled against his shoulder as he smoothed back her hair.  "You're bigger than they are . . . Not by much, but you are."

Gin sighed and shook her head, self-disgust evident in the lines of her face.  "When I was little, Ryomaru and Kichiro used to tell me that there were giant rats living in the forest, and that they were waiting to . . . to eat me.  They said that the rats loved little girls, and that they'd already lost four sisters that way."

"How old were you?"

She made a face.  "Three . . . four . . . I don't remember . . . Once they caught a rat and put it in my doll house."  She uttered a little whimper.  "I didn't know it was there, and it bit me.  I had to have a tetanus shot for that . . . and a rabies shot, too.  I mean, I'm not scared of those now—shots, I mean . . . but when I was little, those needles were . . . they were big . . ."

"Aww, they were just teasing you, weren't they?  About the rats eating baby sisters?"

She sighed again.  "I know; I know . . . I just . . . Ryomaru used to hide outside my room and hiss, 'Gi-i-i-i-in!' and swear it was the rats . . . and I've never liked them, not since that.  They used to scratch on my door in the middle of the night.  I was just sure that the rats were coming to eat me."

"Sounds like they needed their asses kicked.  Didn't your papa do anything about that?"

Gin shrugged and sat up a little.  "I never told Papa.  He would have been furious."  She drew a deep breath and let her temple fall against Cain's shoulder, her fingers toying idly with the length of his ponytail.  "It's stupid, right?  I mean, I know that they can't really hurt me . . ."

"Fear isn't normally rational, Gin.  It's okay to be afraid sometimes."

She nodded, scowling as she watched herself wrap his hair around her finger.  "Cain?  Have you ever been afraid?"

A million images flashed through his head: Isabelle's strange smile as her life faded away . . . Blood on his claws, the sickening stench of blood filling his nose . . . The bleakness of a void of years he saw whenever he took his eyes off his infant daughter . . . Bellaniece's tears on the first day of kindergarten . . . Old fears that somehow were just as real to him as they were back then . . . and the newest fears he'd only recently discovered . . . "Yeah, I've been afraid."

She snuggled closer, hand resting over his heart.  "Are you ever afraid now?"

Closing his eyes against the sight of her in his arms, Cain swallowed hard as a different sort of dread rose in him.  "Sometimes," he admitted as he tightened his hold on her.  "Sometimes I am."

"I don't want you to be afraid anymore," she said quietly.

Cain didn't answer as he let his cheek rest against her temple.

Cain stared at the ceiling and stifled a sigh, smacking his head back against the lumpy pillow to try to get more comfortable on the stupidly small couch.

'You know, you've got a perfectly good bed in there.'

He snorted.  'Pfft!  There's also a perfectly adorable Gin in that bed.'

'Incidentals.  It's your bed.'

'I'll ignore that, thanks.'

'You're really a sucker, you know it?  Gin would share with you . . . and I'm pretty sure she wouldn't bite, either.'

'Yes, well, that's not the problem.'

'You should have thought of that before you decided she could stay with us, don't you think?'

'Shut up, will you?'

The real problem wasn't sleeping on the sofa.  It was trying to sleep and knowing that Gin was in his apartment, in his room, in his bed.

She'd been too frightened to go home.  She tried to.  She told him she'd be fine, and she left the apartment with every intention of going back to hers.  It hadn't surprised him when, moments after she walked out, she knocked on his door, eyes bright with worry, teeth gnawing on her lower lip.  "You want to stay here tonight?" he'd asked her, ignoring the voice of common sense; the one that said it was a mistake to let her sleep there.

"If I won't be in the way," she'd said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, wringing her hands as she tried to look nonchalant.

"Come on, Gin.  You can sleep in my room.  I'll sleep on the sofa."

"Oh, no," she gasped, shaking her head as she took a step back in retreat.

"It's fine.  I don't mind," he told her.

"If . . . If you're sure . . . I could sleep on the couch."

But he had insisted, hadn't he, and now Gin was lying in his bed, and that was the only thing that Cain could think about . . .

"Cain, are you sleeping?" Gin asked as she padded into the living room.  Turning his head to look at her in the darkness, he blinked and rolled over, leaning up on his elbow.  In the darkened room and shadowed in the thin light of the nearly full moon, she stood, hair shining silvery blue, wrapped in a pristine white sheet with a pillow tucked under one arm.

"I'm awake," he told her.  "You hear another rat, did you?"

She shook her head and sighed, shuffling over to him.  "No . . . I feel bad.  I can sleep out here.  Really, I don't mind."

"It's fine.  I'll call the exterminator for you, first thing in the morning, okay?  Go back to bed."

Gin dropped the pillow on the floor beside the sofa and started to lie down.

"What are you doing?"

"I can sleep here, if you're going to sleep there.  It's sort of like a campout."

Cain shook his head.  "Come here, Gin."

"What?"

"Come here," he repeated.

Gin looked a little reluctant but crawled over to him—no small feat, wrapped up as she was in the sheet.  He caught her under the arms and pulled her up on the sofa beside him.  She curled up against him and sighed happily.  "Are you comfortable?" she asked as she wiggled around a little.

"Sure," Cain lied.

"Good . . ."

He sighed.  "Night, Gin."

"Good night.  If you want, I can make breakfast for you in the morning."

"You'll have to," he agreed.  "You didn't make a cake for me."

Gin gasped and started to sit up.  Cain caught her and trapped her against him, gently but firmly.  "I was teasing, you know.  Breakfast would be nice, thanks."

Gin relaxed, her fingers twining in his hair.  "Okay."

She asleep within minutes.  Cain was awake well into the night.