InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 7: Avouchment ❯ The Bio-Chip ( Chapter 2 )

~Chapter 2~

~~The Bio-Chip~~

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

“I've always wondered what the inside of this place looked like,” Isabelle mused as she set her purse on the table just inside the door. The place was dark despite the sunlight filtering through the many windows. Hulking, clunky wood furniture with mud brown cushions . . . barren hardwood floors stained a deep chestnut color and without the shine of any polish . . . naked rafter beams over her head also stained dark . . . wooden slat ceilings with dark brown drop fans . . . The only real concession appeared to be a threadbare faded area rug in front of the sofa. All in all, it brought to mind a bear's cave—decidedly apropos, considering. Pressing her lips together in a thin line, she figured that laughing just wasn't in her best interests, all things considered . . .

 

“Don't get comfortable,” Griffin rumbled as he strode over to the decidedly old-fashioned looking desk and set up the computer. It didn't take too long for him to open the laptop and connect it to his printer.

 

“It's very nice . . . very archaic in the color scheme . . . a little über-macho, if you ask me, but nice just the same,” she decided.

 

“I didn't ask you to critique my home,” he remarked acerbically as he fussed with the computer long enough to send the document to print.

 

“I could copy the files for you,” she offered, wandering over to him.

 

“Don't like reading off the computer,” he mumbled.

 

“Give you a headache?”

 

His head lifted almost imperceptibly for just a moment before he resumed his perusal of the documents. “Something like that.”

 

“I really appreciate this,” Isabelle went on, smiling sweetly as she perched on the corner of the desk.

 

Griffin made a broad sweep with his arm, trying to push her off the desk with a grunt. “If you need to sit down, do it over there,” he said, jerking his head back to indicate the vague direction of the sofa. “Keep your fat ass off my desk.”

 

Isabelle blinked in surprise as a little giggle slipped from her. “Fat ass?” she echoed, scooting over once more and drawing a formidable scowl from the bear-youkai. “Mine?”

 

“Yes. It's huge.”

 

She laughed again. “I'd be hurt if I didn't know damn well that I have a hella fine ass, Dr. Griffin.”

 

“. . . If you say so.”

 

“Want to feel it for yourself?” she quipped, leaning to the side to present him with a better view of said-fine-ass.

 

“I'll pass,” he muttered dryly, ducking his chin but not before Isabelle saw the telling blush that filtered into his cheeks.

 

“All right, but if you change your mind . . .” she went on, biting her lip in an effort to refrain from laughing outright at his very real discomfort. `You'd think the man's never been flirted with before . . .'

 

Yanking the glasses off his face and tossing them onto the desk as he sat back to scowl at Isabelle, he snorted loudly despite the high color in his face. “Need I remind you of the terms of my agreement to translate this for you?” he snapped.

 

Isabelle waved her hand and pushed herself off the desk. “I'm sorry; I'm sorry . . . I just can't help it when I'm around you . . .”

 

Griffin snorted indelicately. “Don't blame me for your lack of self-control,” he grumbled.

 

She sighed, giving up for the moment since Dr. Marin's patience was wearing rather thin. “Thanks again for helping me with this,” she went on, wrapping her arms over her stomach as she wandered aimlessly around the humble but neat living room. “If you hadn't agreed to help me, I don't know what I'd have done . . . I mean, if you couldn't translate it, I don't suppose anyone else could have, either.”

 

He grunted in response.

 

Stopping before a rough wood shelf, Isabelle reached out, running a fingertip lightly over the cloth bound books. Those were rare nowadays; those kinds of books with the gold gilt lettering that smelled of musty old paper that was somehow reassuring even as the smell tingled in her nostrils. “You've got a lot of old books here,” she mused, smiling absently as she read some of the titles to herself. `War and Peace . . . The Iliad . . . The Comprehensive Works of William Shakespeare . . . Very nice, Dr. Marin . . . Very nice, indeed . . .' He'd never struck her as the kind of man who would spend time reading the ancient classics, and yet . . . and yet wasn't it rather befitting, after all? For someone who knew as much about history as Griffin did, it shouldn't have surprised her that he would gravitate to the archaic scripts. “You're just full of surprises, aren't you?”

 

“Stop babbling, will you? I'm trying to read this.”

 

Glancing over her shoulder, Isabelle blinked then smiled. Hunched over in the desk chair, his brow was furrowed in concentration as he scanned the first page of the stack of papers that he'd printed out as he stubbornly jammed the glasses back onto his face one-handed.

 

“Is it bad?” she asked when his scowl shifted into something more akin to a grimace.

 

Griffin shot her an unwelcoming glower. “It's a damn mess,” he grumbled, shaking his head as he flipped through the pages, pausing only long enough to scan them over before moving onto the next. “Medical research, you say?”

 

Isabelle nodded, wandering back over to him and tapping a pointed claw against her chin thoughtfully. “Well, we can't know for certain until we get it completely translated, but judging from what was stated in the bit of the journal I was able to translate, yes, that's what it looks like.”

 

Griffin sighed. “I see.”

 

“Verdict?”

 

He snorted, dropping the stack of papers onto his desk followed by his glasses before leaning back in the chair and rubbing his eyes with a slightly trembling right hand. “It's going to take awhile.”

 

`That's better than nothing,' she decided despite the slight deflation of the cautious optimism she had been feeling. “Awhile, huh? I can live with that,” she allowed but couldn't help the impish grin that surfaced moments later. “So tell me, Doctor . . . Is it really going to take that long or are you just making up reasons to keep me hanging around?”

 

The look he shot her quelled a little of her teasing. “Would you rather that I don't help you?”

 

She waved her hands to cut him off. “Okay, you've made your point. Bad Isabelle. Gotcha.”

 

“I think you're beyond `Bad Isabelle',” he grumbled but picked up his glasses once more.

 

Isabelle sighed as she checked her watch, cursing the silent fact that she had less than thirty minutes to get to work. `Damn, damn, damn, damn,' she thought ruefully. `First time I get Griffin's full attention—ever—and I have to leave for work . . .'

 

“Whatever you're plotting, forget it,” Griffin stated flatly.

 

Isabelle blinked. “Really, Dr. Marin, you have so little faith in me.”

 

“I have faith in you,” he argued. “I have faith that you'll find something else entirely inappropriate to say to me, so before you bother, I'm telling you to forget it.”

 

She shook her head but didn't argue his logic. “As much as it pains me to say, I have to get going.”

 

She didn't miss the suspect eye he cast her. “So what's the unlucky guy's name?”

 

Isabelle wisely hid her amusement at his surly question. “Hmm, well, there are so many of them . . .”

 

He snorted.

 

“Bangor Memorial Hospital,” she added.

 

He blinked, and she didn't have to look at him to know that her answer had earned her a surprised glance, and he grunted yet again.

 

She dug a cream colored business card from her purse and set it on the desk beside him before digging her sunglasses out and slipping them into place. “See you, Doctor.”

 

“What's this?” he demanded. She almost smiled when she glanced over her shoulder in time to see him holding up the card and narrowing his eyes, as though he were having difficulty reading it.

 

“It's my cell phone number,” she replied.

 

“Yeah, I won't need that.”

 

Rolling her eyes—a completely worthless expression since he wasn't looking at her, and even if he were, she had the oversized sunglasses in place so he wouldn't have seen it, anyway. “Well, you have it, so if you do need it then you've got it.”

 

“Yeah, fine, thanks,” he mumbled, tossing the card onto the desk before turning his attention back to the stack of papers once more.

 

“I'll stop by later to pick up the laptop,” Isabelle said, wiggling her fingers in a jaunty wave as she grasped the door handle and blinked at the sudden wash of sunlight that blinded her for a moment. A tiny smile broke over her features, and she couldn't help the little giggle that slipped from her lips as she strode across the porch and down the steps.

 

`And why are you in such a good mood, Bitty?' her youkai voice demanded, using the nickname that most of her family were fond of. `Bitty' was short for `Bitty Belle' since she had been named after her late grandmother, Isabelle, and mostly since her mother was most commonly addressed as `Belle' by family and close friends. The only exceptions were her great uncle, Sesshoumaru, who didn't shorten anyone's name, and her cousin, Mamoruzen—Gunnar to most people—who had always called her `Izzy'.

 

`You mean you really have to ask?' she mused, climbing into her car and starting the engine.

 

`You're either persistent to a fault or you're incredibly dense, you know . . . You've been after that poor man for years now, and he's never, ever so much as given you the slightest indication that he even likes you, let alone wants your constant attention.'

 

Pulling out of the otherwise empty driveway—Griffin didn't own a car—Isabelle sighed though her optimism didn't falter. `I've told you: it's simply a matter of time. He's going to realize eventually that we're meant to be together. He's just being stubborn; that's all.'

 

`Persistence is a virtue, but you've also got to know when to admit defeat.'

 

Isabelle wrinkled her nose. `So you say; so you say . . . All that man needs is a good woman to shake the starch out of his sails . . . and I'm the perfect woman for the job.'

 

Her youkai sighed—a long, pronounced sound. `It's not just that, Isabelle, and you know it. There're things about Griffin that you cannot possibly begin to understand.'

 

The first discernible lines of worry formed between her eyebrows as Isabelle's expression shifted into one of astute concentration. `That's not true. I'd understand him if he'd let me.'

 

`Yeah, well, just remember: youkai don't normally scar.'

 

The worry deepened in Isabelle's expression as she turned off of the quiet neighborhood cul-de-sac onto one of the busier roads that led toward the center of Bangor. That was true enough, she had to agree. Her grandfather, InuYasha had been in countless battles way back when he and her mother, Kagome had been trying to hunt down the shards of the Shikon no Tama, and he didn't have a single blemish on his body that she was aware of, and she didn't even try to delude herself into believing that her great uncle, Sesshoumaru hadn't been in many fights, himself. Even her grandfather, Cain Zelig, the North American tai-youkai had to have had his own fair share of fights, and none of them bore any residual scarring, and yet . . .

 

And yet Griffin, she knew, did have some quite severe ones—ones that ran the length of the left side of his face, almost forcing his left eye closed . . . scars that twisted and carved deep paths in the flesh of his hands though his right hand looked far worse than the left one, and she realized with a scowl that she'd never seen Griffin wearing anything other long sleeved shirts with the cuffs fastened securely around his wrists . . .

 

`Whatever happened to him . . . it doesn't matter. I'm not so superficial that I find him any less attractive with those scars than I would if he were completely unblemished.'

 

`That's just it, Bitty . . . some scars go deeper than just the surface.'

 

`Maybe,' she agreed with a shake of her head as she drummed her claws on the steering wheel, waiting impatiently for the traffic light to change from red to green. `See? That's why he needs me!'

 

`Because you think you can `fix' him?'

 

`I could do it.'

 

`If you say so. Just don't come crying to me when he proves to be even more stubborn than you.'

 

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

Gavin Jamison scowled as he peered up through his eyelashes at his preoccupied mate. Pushing her food around the plate with a fork held in her listless hand, she didn't seem at all aware of the ardent perusal. Jillian normally had a very healthy appetite, and that she had yet to even take a bite of her food spoke volumes in his opinion.

 

“We could go home,” he ventured quietly, yanking the cloth napkin off his lap and dropping it on the table beside his barely-touched plate.

 

“Hmm?” she murmured, glancing up at him with a startled expression on her pretty face. Pale blue eyes lit with seriousness, she shrugged in an over-exaggerated, offhanded sort of way as she cut off a tiny bite of steak and lifted it to her lips. “I'm fine, Gavvie,” she insisted with a forced smile.

 

Not for the first time, he had to wonder if it hadn't ultimately been a mistake to give in to Jillian's request to visit with Dr. Avis. Both Cain, Jillian's adopted father, and Bas, Jillian's eldest brother, had asked him to reconsider. Even Jillian's much more laid back brother, Evan had voiced doubts about the idea, but in the end, Gavin had thought that maybe it was a good idea to let Jillian meet with the doctor. After all, Dr. Avis was the only living link she had to her deceased parents—her father having died well before Jillian was born, and her mother having died just after giving birth to Jillian. The woman had traveled all the way to Maine to entrust her infant daughter to the care of Cain Zelig, the North American tai-youkai, and while Jillian didn't exactly pine for her biological parents, Gavin knew that there would always be a small part of her that wondered about them. It couldn't be helped, could it, just as the pain he'd caught glimpses of in both Cain Zelig as well as his wife, Gin's expressions, though never when Jillian was looking, couldn't be helped, either . . . Gavin supposed that was natural, too.

 

“We could go home for awhile and come back in a few months or so,” he offered.

 

Jillian set her fork aside and sat back, her eyebrows drawing together as she pondered Gavin's words. “No . . .” she finally said, shaking her head as she scrunched up her shoulders. “If I ran away now . . . If I did that, I'd never come back,” she admitted.

 

And Gavin could understand that, too. Jillian had spent her entire life being cosseted and protected by her parents and by her older brothers . . . and by him, as well. They'd been close growing up despite the nearly five years' difference in their ages. Gavin had always been Jillian's hero, and as much as he hated to admit as much, it bothered him more than he cared to admit. He couldn't really protect her this time.

 

Dr. Avis had been more than forthcoming with the information, though. It seemed he loved to talk about Jillian's mother—they'd been childhood friends, as well. In other circumstances, Gavin might even have liked the older youkai. Too bad Dr. Avis had paid some thug to kidnap Jillian just days before Gavin and Jillian's wedding just over a month ago. Because of that, Gavin was certain that he'd never fully trust Dr. Avis, nor would Gavin allow Jillian to be alone with him, ever.

 

Still, the visits, as pleasant as they tended to be, were taking their toll on Jillian. She'd become so quiet the last few days that Gavin normally had to cajole her into talking. He figured she was struggling to put some sort of perspective on the information she'd been given. Gavin just hated that she didn't seem to want him to help her.

 

“Tell me what you're thinking?” he prodded, giving up all pretenses of dancing around the subject.

 

Jillian's gaze ventured toward the plate glass window that overlooked the ocean, a sadness in her eyes that killed Gavin somewhere deep inside. She sighed, oblivious to the other patrons in the restaurant. “It's nothing,” she lied, managing a fake smile that didn't reach her eyes.

 

“You can't start lying to me now,” he countered gently.

 

She flinched and shook her head. “I just . . . all these things that Dr. Avis has said . . . they don't make sense in my head.”

 

Gavin motioned for the waitress as he dug his credit card out of his wallet. “Come on,” he said, handing the card to the woman and standing up. “Let's go for a walk.”

 

Jillian nodded, waiting for Gavin to pull out her chair before rising to her feet. He slipped his hand under her elbow to escort her through the restaurant. It only took a minute for the waitress to hurry back to return Gavin's credit card along with a receipt. He mumbled a few parting pleasantries and led Jillian outside onto the generous sidewalk in the waning light of the early evening.

 

“He talks about her like she was some sort of saint or something,” Jillian said quietly. “Both of them, really—my mother and my father. I mean, the things Dr. Avis has said . . . but he can't be right, can he? If the things Dr. Avis said were true, then . . . then why . . .?”

 

Gavin grimaced, understanding the question that Jillian just couldn't bring herself to ask out loud. `Why did they do something so horrible? Why would they implant that bio-chip in the child they wanted so badly . . .?' He sighed. Unfortunately, Gavin wasn't sure he could understand that, himself. “Jilli . . .”

 

She cleared her throat, unconsciously moving closer to Gavin's side as the two wandered down the sidewalk toward the empty docks. During the day, the docks were bustling with activity. At this time of day, though, they were mercifully abandoned aside from a few stragglers who were working on little boats or standing idly, watching the sunset over the water.

 

Jillian pulled away from Gavin, veering over to the side of the pier and sitting down, unmindful of the havoc she was wreaking on the pristine white cotton skirt she wore. Gavin followed suit, smiling absently when he noticed that her feet weren't anywhere near touching the water's surface. Water had always given her comfort, probably because she was a water-based-youkai. She scowled at her distorted reflection, kicking her feet back and forth.

 

“Was I just . . . a throwaway baby?” she asked quietly, her voice barely above a whisper.

 

“No,” he insisted, unable to contain the vehemence in his rebuttal. “Don't you ever even think that again.”

 

He regretted the harshness of his tone when tears filled her eyes moments later, but she let him draw her close, settling her temple against his shoulder as he kissed her forehead, pushing the hair back out of her face. “You're not a throwaway,” he muttered, his voice much gentler.

 

She sighed and relaxed against him. “I love you, Gavvie,” she said. “I'm glad you're here . . . You'll stay with me, right?”

 

“Of course I will,” he assured her, biting back the irrational surge of anger that welled up inside him: anger that anyone would make Jillian doubt herself—doubt him. “Forever,” he stated.

 

“Forever,” she repeated, and to his relief, she smiled: weak and thin, but a smile, nonetheless.

 

Gavin swallowed hard, pulling her into his lap as though she were little more than a child. “Don't worry, Jilli . . . no matter how the chip got in you, it's not there now, and I . . . I'll never let anything hurt you like that again.”

 

“I know,” she murmured, closing her eyes for a moment as the tight hold of her upset started to loosen its grasp. “I know . . .”

 

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

`This is quite possibly the stupidest things you've ever, ever done, Griffin Marin.'

 

The frown on Griffin's face deepened as he dropped the ink pen onto the neat pile of papers and slowly flexed his aching hand. He'd been sitting there for the better portion of the day since Isabelle's departure, and his body was screaming its own brand of protest at the confines he'd inadvertently instituted.

 

`Crap,' he thought with a wince, planting his hands on the arms of his chair to push himself to his feet. He'd turned on the lamp sitting on his desk at some point, but he hadn't quite realized just how late it really was. Pausing long enough to retrieve a thick plastic tumbler from the cupboard, he filled it with tap water from the kitchen sink before lumbering toward the back doors.

 

It was pitch black outside, the sky overcast, unwilling to let even a single star shine down from the night sky. He could smell rain carried in on the desolate breeze, and he smiled at the absolute irony the weather presented as he lifted the cup to his lips.

 

`I mean it. Are you listening to me?'

 

``Course I'm listening to you,' he thought with a sigh. `Pretty near impossible not to listen to you, isn't it?'

 

The voice of his youkai blood sighed. `If you're listening to me, then tell me: just why did you do a damn fool thing like agree to help Isabelle Izayoi with her research?'

 

He frowned, slowly sipping the water as he pondered the question. `Who else could've?' he countered, latching onto the first decent answer he could think of.

 

`Who else, indeed . . .?'

 

`It's true,' he countered, setting the cup on the table before grasping the railing and descending the steps into the yard. `There isn't really anyone else proficient enough with all of those languages to do it.'

 

`What about Dr. Howard?'

 

Griffin snorted at the mention of his colleague, another professor at the University of Maine who specialized in ancient Native American linguistics. `He'd be good enough if it were nothing but Abenaki and maybe Caddoan . . . Those documents were written in some sort of mishmash of those and a few others, as well . . . I can't tell if the guy really knew what he was doing or just thought he did . . . Either way, those notes would be nearly impossible for anyone else to decipher, and you know it.'

 

`Hmm, wow . . . You really gave your rebuttal some thought, didn't you?'

 

Pausing for a moment as he methodically worked the latch holding the rough wooden gate closed, Griffin snorted. `And what's that supposed to mean?'

 

`Nothing, nothing . . . just that your answer was very well-presented—almost too well. If you wanted to help her—'

 

`I didn't.'

 

`—All you really had to do was say so—'

 

`Except that I didn't.'

 

`I mean, she isn't that hard to look at—'

 

`Your opinion.'

 

`—And you might as well appreciate the scenery, as it were, since you were `noble' enough to tell her that you didn't want paid for your services. As far as that being my opinion, let me remind you, friend—'

 

`Friend now, is it? Since when?'

 

`It's a figure of speech. Anyway, since I'm merely an extension of you, then you find her attractive, too, and you know it . . . and you hate it, by the by.'

 

Griffin snorted. He had the distinct feeling that his youkai would be laughing in his face if it were a separate entity. Deciding that he was far better off to ignore the pestering voice, he set off toward the blackened shadows of the forest behind his yard. He wouldn't go far, no, but he desperately needed to stretch his legs before the dull ache that had set in awhile ago grew worse.

 

Mercifully, though, it seemed that his youkai was finished, at least for the moment, and while he didn't even try to tell himself that it was the last he'd hear on the subject, he couldn't help but feel a little relieved.

 

The forest was peaceful, soothing in the night sounds that comforted him. The singing crickets' song . . . the soft whisper of the wind in the treetops . . . a lone owl calling out in the distance, and Griffin smiled a little sadly as he stopped to look around.

 

“Why do the owls only call out at night?”

 

Grimacing at the skeleton of a voice that echoed through his head, Griffin clenched his fists, feeling the all-too-familiar ache stab at his chest—his heart. Long ago, he used to think that the pain would lessen, given time. It hadn't. If anything, it had taken on a duller edge, more like an ache than a cutting bite, and that was worse, wasn't it? After all, didn't it hurt far worse to be hacked at with a dull weapon than to be sliced clean through with a sharp one?

 

He dug his claws into the callused flesh of his palms, smiling in grim satisfaction as the coppery tinge of blood filled his nostrils. Why, indeed . . .?

 

The nights were the hardest, weren't they? Surrounded by the echoes of screams, unable to escape the burning stench of ominous flames . . . charred flesh . . . rivers of blood . . . All he had were sleepless hours spent reliving the past, and even in the carefully contained environment he'd striven to create . . .

 

He just couldn't change the past, could he?

 

And he, better than anyone knew . . .

 

If he couldn't change the past, he couldn't have a future.

 

 

~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~ =~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~*~=~

A/N:

 

The Caddoan languages were mostly spoken in the Midwestern US area.

 

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Reviewers

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MMorg

OROsan0677 ------ oblivion-bringr (Maybe … lol) ------ Archeronlover ------ MikoTen ------ leeksandmisosoup ------ artemiswaterdragon ------ xfalsetruth06x (It's written pretty much phonetically, and Griffin is fluent in those archaic languages.) ------ EJA Roberts ------ Shiarra (a ribbon seal is a breed of seal) ------ mserye12 ------ Bellhopper 21s ------ kina12 ------ evloner ------ InUyAsHaRlZ ------ silveraliora ------ Tree-lynn ------ Jester08

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Forum Reviews

Chva the Mai-coh ------ cutechick18 ------ OROsan0677 ------ aidhen ------ Zero ------ Piett ------ kds1222 ------ Deceptress ------ Acheronlover ------ psycho_chick32 ------ razorbladesinner ------ angelfire777

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Final Thought fromIsabelle:

…Scars …

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Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Avouchment): I do not claim any rights to InuYasha or the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al. I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.

 

~Sue~