InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 7: Avouchment ❯ Unnerving ( Chapter 10 )

~Chapter 10~

~~Unnerving~~

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

“I made some tea for you.”

 

Griffin blinked and looked up at Isabelle, his dark eyes reflecting the fluorescent light from the desk lamp. “Thank you,” he said, his tone gruff yet gentle enough to draw a smile from her as she set his mug beside him.

 

“And note: I'm not even going to crack a honey joke, either.”

 

That earned her a slight narrowing of his eyes, and she laughed, leaning over his shoulder as she balanced her coffee mug, careful not to spill it on him as she scanned through the translation he was working on.

 

“Here,” he grumbled, snatching the notebook off the desk and thrusting it into her face. “If you want to look at it, fine, just don't squash me, all right?”

 

Sparing a moment to cast him a bright smile, Isabelle took the notebook and shuffled over to the sofa, her slipper-covered feet whispering against the hardwood floor. Her smile faded as she read through the notes. According to the translation, Carl Carradine believed that someone was after him; trying to kill him—the same one that he claimed had been responsible for Kennedy Carradine's death. Sinking down on the sofa, she tapped a delicate claw against her lips.

 

`I've decided to hide the research in a place that it will be safe, and the key to it is, of course, the only hope that we possess. Even though we will not be able to complete the project, it is my only hope that this is able to help someone, even if it is just one person. In the end, isn't that why we're doing this? Or is this, as I fear, my own selfish wish that Kenney, Liza, and my lives were not lived in vain? That we will leave our marks upon history in this . . . After all, isn't it said to be the true nature of all living things? This inane desire to have someone recognize their existence . . .'

 

She sighed and rubbed her forehead as she pondered Carl Carradine's words. There was a certain level of truth in his claims; a certain sadly poetic sort of revelation. She could feel Griffin's gaze on her, as though he were trying to read her mind. Did he hate that she was reading something so foreboding? Did it bother him at all . . .?

 

“There's a noticeable difference in the way he writes at the beginning of the journal as opposed to the later entries,” Griffin commented.

 

She shot him a quick glance only to find him frowning thoughtfully into his tea. “What do you make of it?”

 

Griffin grunted, taking a long drink before answering. Clasping the cup between his hands, he shrugged in what seemed to Isabelle to be a calculated effort to appear nonchalant. “He was scared,” he said simply. He wouldn't meet her gaze . . . or maybe he couldn't . . .

 

A distinct shiver raced down her spine, and Isabelle bit her lip. For the first time since she'd gotten the research, she understood Griffin's fear—the reason he'd insisted that she move in for the duration. As much as she didn't like to admit it, she had to wonder if his worries might well have some gravity to them . . .

 

“Maybe he was overreacting,” she said though her tone sounded anything but convinced.

 

Griffin pinned her with a menacing glower. She could feel his gaze boring into her head, and she had the distinct feeling that he was contemplating whether or not she could really be as dense as she let on. “If you think so,” he finally mumbled.

 

She smiled wanly and slowly shook her head. “I . . . I don't know,” she allowed, more to herself than to him. “Even if what you think is true, then why didn't he look for the research sooner?”

 

“Didn't you say it was hidden?” Griffin asked, frowning down into the mug of tea clasped in his hands.

 

“Sure, but you know what they say: where there's a will, there's a way . . .” Her features clouded as she recalled the hint of a conversation that she'd overheard between Gunnar and Bastian.

 

“It still doesn't make sense,” Gunnar remarked, scowling out the window behind Bastian's desk as Bastian carefully used the handheld scanner to digitize the images on the research pages.

 

“Avis claimed that he didn't realize Jillian had lived, after all,” Bastian stated with a shrug and a quick glance at his cousin. “Makes sense to me. If he didn't know she'd survived, then how could he have known about the bio-chip?”

 

“True enough, but didn't he think that maybe—just maybe—the research would be found again one day?” Gunnar contended, cocking an eyebrow as he picked up one of the notebooks and leafed through it.

 

“Yeah, well, it doesn't matter now, does it? Jilli's safe, and the research . . .” Trailing off as his gaze lifted to lock on Isabelle as the latter glanced over the first page of the journal, he scowled thoughtfully. “You can handle this, right?” he asked at length.

 

Isabelle blinked and looked up. “Who? Me? Of course I can!” she assured him.

 

Bastian nodded slowly, falling silent as he continued to scan the pages . . .

 

“Sounds like wishful thinking to me,” Griffin grumbled, drawing Isabelle out of her reverie.

 

She blinked and shook her head to clear her mind and shrugged offhandedly. “Avis didn't realize that Jillian had survived. I guess he'd figured that she'd died with her mother.”

 

He digested that in silence then snorted. “Maybe,” he mumbled noncommittally. “All the same, you aren't leaving this house without telling me where you're going and when you'll be back.”

 

She couldn't help the amusement in her gaze as she lifted an eyebrow and met Griffin's more belligerent expression. He looked like he expected her to argue with him, and while she might have done exactly that under normal circumstances, that Griffin was concerned enough to say anything that sounded even remotely possessive . . . Well, she couldn't quite mask the smile that turned up the corners of her lips as she watched him drain the tea from the rough earthenware mug. “Careful, Dr. Griffin, or I might start to think that you actually like having me around,” she teased.

 

His cheeks warmed at the implication of her words, furthering Isabelle's undisguised amusement. `No doubt about it,' she thought with an inward giggle. `I do love to make that man blush . . .'

 

“Don't get carried away, little girl,” he grumbled, turning abruptly and presenting her with the wide expanse of his back, “and I could've sworn I told you that my name isn't now nor has it ever been `Dr. Griffin'.”

 

“Little girl, am I?” she parried, pushing herself off the sofa as she wandered over to drop the notebook onto the desk beside him. “I'll have you know that I'm hardly `little girl' material.”

 

He snorted indelicately and didn't bother to look up at her, shrugging his shoulder in a not-so-subtle reminder that she was invading his personal space. “Just because your ass is roughly the size of both of the polar ice caps put together doesn't mean that you aren't still just a cub.”

 

“A cub?” she echoed, a soft giggle slipping from her at his choice of words. “I wouldn't be a cub, in any case, doctor, or did you forget that I'm a dog?”

 

“You sound just a little too proud of that,” he pointed out with a shake of his head. “Go away, will you? I'd like to get the rest of this page done without being subjected to your penchant for asking questions every five minutes.”

 

She wrinkled her nose and reached over his shoulder to nab a honey roasted pecan out of the bowl on his desk only to be rapped across the knuckles by the ink pen in Griffin's hand. “Ow!” she exclaimed, jerking her hand back and cradling it against her chest.

 

“Hmf. There's no way that hurt you,” he pointed out.

 

Caught between amusement that he would protect his pecans with such fervor and incredulity since she knew very well that she'd bought them for him, in the first place, Isabelle laughed and shrugged, letting her hand drop as she whirled around and leaned against the desk. “You're right,” she agreed. “It didn't . . . You could let me have one, you know.”

 

“No, I can't,” he shot back, his tone dry as he flipped the page in the journal.

 

“Why not?”

 

He paused long enough to pin her with a look that stated very plainly that he thought she ought to know the answer to that question without having to ask. “Because they're mine,” he remarked. “Go eat your unhealthy crap, and keep your paws off my nuts.”

 

Her lips twitched as she struggled to keep her expression as blank as possible. “But, Dr. Marin . . . your . . . nuts . . . look so . . . delicious . . .”

 

His back stiffened as the pen thumped against the pages of the journal, his breath whizzing past his lips so hard that the sound was almost a whistle. Pinning her with a furious glare that was completely undermined by the infusion of color that bloomed in his cheeks, Griffin looked like he might be having trouble figuring out just what to say to her. “You're violating the agreement,” he choked out with a furious shake of his head.

 

“You're the one who mentioned your nuts,” she pointed out reasonably.

 

He narrowed his gaze at the feigned innocence in her tone. “You know damn well what I meant,” he mumbled, swatting her hip with his hand in an effort to remind her that he didn't like her proximity.

 

“All right,” she relented before he really did lose his patience with her. “Bad Isabelle.”

 

He snorted. “Is there a `good Isabelle'?”

 

“Sure there is. You just don't want to meet her.”

 

That earned her another doleful glance, and he slowly shook his head as he set about ignoring her for the duration.

 

Isabelle laughed softly and straightened Winnie the Pooh on the shelf, refraining from making any comments that she knew wouldn't really be welcome. It was enough that he'd kept the stuffed bear, she supposed. She hadn't really thought that he would. Still she hadn't been able to resist. When she'd seen him in the store, she couldn't help but think of Griffin—even if he didn't like the comparison.

 

Leaning over him, she nabbed the empty mug and headed for the kitchen to refill it.

 

It was odd, wasn't it? She'd never really thought of herself as a homebody. She'd never actually considered that she'd enjoy quiet evenings at home with a man like Griffin Marin, but she did. Even doing something as mundane as fetching tea for the surly man was enjoyable, and being around him? She smiled as the warm feeling of absolute wellbeing surged through her. She felt like she belonged, didn't she? She'd felt that before, when she had been a child. Sitting on her father's knee as he went over research notes or read the newspaper and, if she were lucky, sometimes he'd hold her on his lap while he played the piano for hours on end . . . During those times, she'd felt a level of contentment that was so hard to find nowadays. What was it about Griffin that made her feel that way . . .?

 

It was the same thing that her mother felt, wasn't it? That feeling was the reason why Bellaniece Zelig Izayoi had been so content as a housewife during the years when Isabelle and her younger sister, Alexandra had been growing up. The happiness that came with taking care of the man she loved—Isabelle's father . . . it had been enough for her, hadn't it?

 

In fact, it wasn't until the girls were well into school that Bellaniece had decided to go college. By then, though, Kichiro had the funding and wherewithal that he was able to stay home and work on his research while taking care of Isabelle's baby sister, Samantha. He'd said that he regretted missing out on things while Isabelle and Alexandra were babies. After all, he'd been in China performing a reconstructive surgery for charity on a young hanyou girl who had lost both of her parents in the same car accident that had nearly crippled the child when Isabelle had taken her first steps, and he'd been in Germany on a similar case when Alexandra was born a month earlier than she was scheduled to arrive . . .

 

No one blamed him for those things, though, with the exception of her grandfather, Cain, who had been livid when he'd found out that Kichiro was planning to go anywhere when Bellaniece was so far into her pregnancy. Having lost his first wife in childbirth, Cain knew all too well, just what sort of complications could arise, and even though Bellaniece had insisted that she wanted Kichiro to go, Cain, who had already brought the rest of his family to Japan for the duration of his oldest daughter's pregnancy, had adamantly refused to let Kichiro in to see his newborn daughter until after he'd had a few choice words with the errant father. Still, even Cain had to admit that Kichiro certainly had felt horrible about missing his daughter's birth, and there wasn't a more loving father anywhere on earth, as far as Isabelle was concerned. Kichiro might have missed a few things here and there, but he'd more than made up for it over the years. He hadn't freaked out when Isabelle brought her first boyfriend home, and he didn't bat an eye when his daughters asked him questions about sex. No, Isabelle had to wonder if anything at all could shake Kichiro Izayoi. She seriously doubted it.

 

Yet as happy as her childhood had been, she supposed she never really understood why Bellaniece had chosen to stay home as a housewife for so long. She was one of the smartest people Isabelle knew; Bellaniece could have done anything she'd set her mind to. She'd asked her mother about it once. Bellaniece had just smiled and said that one day, Isabelle would understand. When she met the man who would be her mate, she'd realize that forever really is a long time, and that there are some things that could not ever be replaced. The memory of seeing her daughters grow and change was something that would have been dimmed had she been forced to split her time between a career and her family. Recalling the warmth of her mother's laughter and the unselfish affection that she so freely had given over the years . . . Isabelle had to admit that maybe it was a good trade-off, after all . . .

 

She couldn't help the soft giggle that escaped her as she poured steaming water into the mug where she'd carefully measured out the tea leaves from the crock on the counter—Griffin's dandelion tea. She'd watched him closely enough to know that he always put two teaspoons of honey into the tea, stirring carefully, almost methodically, between scoops.

 

Satisfied with the results of her efforts, she took the mug and headed back into the living room. Froofie was curled up under the desk—no small feat for the massive dog—and Griffin seemed content enough with his task. Bent over the desktop, he was writing in the notebook. The pen slipped out of his grip, clattering on the wooden surface as he slowly opened and closed his hand, curling his fingers as though they hurt him. Isabelle stopped in her tracks, cocking her head to the side as a slight frown marred her brow while she took in the scene laid out before her.

 

He let out a long sigh and shook his hand, still flexing his fingers though he didn't make a sound otherwise. She'd noticed the build-up of scar tissue, certainly. She'd come close to asking him more than once, just how he'd managed to come by such a thing when he was youkai. Once more, it struck her, how very little she really knew about him. While she liked to think that she knew him fairly well, staring at him as he suffered such obvious discomfort . . . She didn't like it; not in the least . . .

 

“Are you all right?” she murmured, carefully keeping her voice low so that she didn't surprise him too much.

 

Griffin started and glanced over his shoulder only to shrug as his cheeks pinked slightly before turning away and snatching up the pen once more. “Fine,” he bit out tersely.

 

She didn't call him on his blatant lie as she slipped across the floor and set the mug of tea beside him. Though she couldn't see all of his face from her vantage point, she could see the tell-tale bulging of his jaw as he tightened his grip on the ink pen once more. He really was in pain, wasn't he, and more importantly, he was desperately trying to hide it from her . . .

 

“Let me see,” she said gently, laying one hand on his to still his movement as she pulled the pen from his grasp with the other one.

 

He scowled, tightening his grip though it did little to dissuade Isabelle's attention. As though he were no more than a child, she took the pen with little real resistance on his part. Sparing a moment to cast him an apologetic glance, she lifted his hand and examined the scar tissue as he tried to pull away from her. “This is bad,” she commented, probing the flesh as tenderly as she could. “Let me guess: rescuing puppies from a burning building?”

 

He snorted at her obvious teasing and tugged on his arm. “Yes,” he answered dryly. “Leave me alone, will you?”

 

“No, I won't,” she insisted, all pretenses of teasing falling by the wayside. All of his skin between his thumb and index finger was thick and unyielding; a testament of something that he seemed to want to forget. Angry, reddened, the scarring wasn't fresh she could tell, yet it still carried the garish discoloring that normally faded, given time. She shifted her mouth to the side, blowing a wayward strand of hair out of her eyes as she continued to examine him. “Do you have some ointment or anything?” she questioned, wondering absently whether or not he'd dignify her with an answer.

 

“Don't need it,” he mumbled, finally managing to pull away from her. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his face, telegraphing her a baleful glower for her concern and effectively hiding the appendage from her in the process.

 

“Of course you don't,” she agreed lightly, figuring that all he'd be even more irritated if she made a big deal over the old injuries. “It could help, though . . . it bothers you to hold that pen, doesn't it?”

 

He grunted and reached for the mug of tea with his other hand. Isabelle frowned at the crosshatching of scars on the back of that hand, too. “No.”

 

“Would you tell me if it did?” she asked carefully.

 

“No.”

 

“I didn't think so,” she replied with a sigh, though she couldn't help but smile at his brusque response. “Drink your tea before it gets cold,” she said instead, dusting off her palms as she turned away from the desk.

 

She could feel his gaze on her, and she almost smiled since she knew full well that the man was very likely trying to figure out why she'd let it go so easily. He sat still for a long moment before uttering a terse `hrumph'. The creak of the chair told her that he'd decided to let it go, too, and she stifled another sigh.

 

She wasn't letting it go; not by a long shot. She might not know how Griffin had managed to get himself so badly injured, but digging her heels in and demanding answers just wasn't going to work with the likes of the good doctor, and she knew it.

 

Grabbing her laptop computer off the coffee table, Isabelle sat down and stole a glance at the man in question. Hunched over his desk once more, he was hard at work again, and she bit her lip as she stared at him. There were ointments out there that could help to alleviate some of the swelling and blunt the pain associated with deep scars, she knew. Her father normally prescribed such things as a par for course for many of his reconstructive patients. The only trouble with them was that youkai on a whole tended to react differently to medication. In many cases, human medication worked well enough, but in some youkai, it didn't work at all, and in a few, the symptoms could get worse from the treatment. No, the best thing to do would be to ask her grandmother to whip up some herbal salve. Gin Izayoi Zelig had learned a lot about such things from her mother, Kagome, and she had learned all she knew from the old village miko, Kaede in the days of her time spent in Sengoku Jidai.

 

That really would be the best thing, she supposed. She'd just have to make the drive up to Bevelle on her next day off . . .

 

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

Griffin sighed and let his head fall back as he slumped against the chair. The clock on the fireplace mantle read nearly midnight. He'd sat still much longer than he should have, he supposed . . .

 

The soft click of Isabelle's typing was the only sound in the house aside from Charlie's breathing and the occasional scratch of his claws on the floor as he chased rabbits in his dreams. Griffin paused long enough to gaze at the animal. Had he ever felt secure enough to sleep peacefully? To have a dream that made him smile when he remembered them come morning?

 

He pushed himself to his feet and grabbed the notebook. If he had, then it was in a time long past, in what seemed like a lifetime ago, or maybe it was just a lifetime away . . .?

 

“Here,” he said, dropping the notebook into Isabelle's lap. She squeaked and jumped, nearly dropping her laptop on the floor as she scrambled to snatch the notebook before it fell. Griffin rolled his eyes but steadied the computer before snorting indelicately at Isabelle's perceived lack of grace. “Klutz,” he mumbled, setting the laptop on the coffee table.

 

She giggled, and it struck him once more, just how free she was with her laughter. As much as it unsettled him, he had to admit, at least to himself, that he rather enjoyed the sound of it. Of course, he'd gut himself before he admitted any such thing to her. Knowing Isabelle, she'd take that as an invitation to find new and even more irritating ways to torture him . . .

 

“You startled me; that's all,” she maintained, waving the notebook around as she smiled at him.

 

“Why? Emailing your boyfriend?”

 

She snorted—an entirely odd sound coming from the ever-ebullient woman. “Hardly . . . if you really must know, I was emailing my sister.”

 

“Oh, hell . . . You mean there's more than one of you?”

 

The laughter came again as Griffin plopped down on the sofa. “Rest assured: Alexandra is nothing at all like me.”

 

“So there is balance in the world.”

 

“Absolutely.”

 

“Good. Having two of you would be akin to witnessing the coming of the apocalypse.”

 

“Am I really that bad?” she asked with a grin.

 

“Yes,” he stated without hesitation. “Yes, you are.”

 

A wide yawn interrupted whatever comeback she'd been thinking of spouting. Griffin arched his right eyebrow and slowly shook his head. “You're going to catch flies,” he warned.

 

She choked on a giggle as she dropped the notebook into her lap and wiped her eyes. “I've heard they're good for you,” she countered.

 

“You eat the strangest things,” he said with a pronounced snort.

 

Isabelle just laughed.

 

“I made a few notes in there,” he said, poking at the notebook.

 

Isabelle blinked and rubbed her eye with the back of her hand. “Okay.”

 

“There were a few places where the translation could mean a couple different things. You can decide which one works better.”

 

She nodded, leafing through the notes with her index finger curled against her lips. It took her a moment to ponder the choices he'd offered before she circled the one she preferred with a red felt-tipped pen. Pushing her glasses up with a knuckle, she barely took note of anything else. When she started to chew on the end of the pen, it was all Griffin could do not to reach out and push her hand away.

 

`You're staring.'

 

Griffin snorted and sat up straight, eyebrows drawing together in a marked scowl at the unwelcome intrusion of his youkai voice. `. . . No, I'm not.'

 

`You are . . . not that it's a bad thing, mind you. If you're going to stare, why not stare at someone who looks like her?'

 

`I'm not staring,' he argued. Hefting himself off the sofa, he lumbered toward the kitchen to grab a glass of water.

 

`She's not that bad, Griffin, as much as you'd like to think otherwise. She's rather nice to have around, wouldn't you say?'

 

That didn't deserve a reply, as far as Griffin was concerned. She was one of the most irrational beings on earth, and she went out of her way to try his patience. Between her sexual innuendos and that damned laughter . . . Ignoring her was just not possible, no matter how hard he tried. Any way he looked at it, he was a condemned man, after all, because if he did manage to find a way to survive her overwhelming presence, there were just too many other factors to consider, and in the end, she'd look back on her memories of him with complete and utter disdain, if she bothered to look back on her memories of him, at all . . .

 

He took his time, drawing a cup of water from the kitchen faucet. Staring out the window that looked out into the forest beyond, he watched as the silvery light of the waning moon tried in vain to break through the dense convergence of the trees. The calm that normally soothed him during time spent observing nature eluded him, and he sighed, refilling the glass before retrieving a bottle of water from the refrigerator for Isabelle. He wasn't sure why she insisted on drinking bottled water. God only knew that she didn't care at all about her health otherwise. Maybe it was a conditioned response from having grown up in Tokyo, Japan. Larger cities like that tended to have more chemicals added to their water supplies, and even if they weren't dangerous, he could understand the aversion to drinking it, too. Here in Maine, though, the water was clean, and the air was fresher than in many parts of the country and maybe even the world. It was one of the reasons that Griffin had ended up here . . . if there had really been any reason to it.

 

With a sigh, he headed back into the living room, setting the bottle of water on the coffee table beside Isabelle's laptop before he shuffled over to his desk, retrieving the journal and another notebook. He sank down on the sofa beside her. Returning to his desk was just too much for him to consider. His bones ached from the hours spent hunched over in the unforgiving wooden chair. If he forced himself to sit there much longer, he'd be more than a little sorry for it come morning.

 

She was still immersed in the research notes, idly gnawing on her bottom lip. The illumination of the dancing fire on the hearth lent a golden glow to everything about her, the halo of light from the small lamp on the occasional table beside the sofa doing precious little to dispel the illusion. The tinge of rosy pink in her cheeks brought to mind another face, another time: a face that was always smiling, laughing . . . the same laughter that haunted his very dreams . . .

 

Shaking himself abruptly, Griffin cleared his throat and opened the journal once more. He was almost finished with it—small consolation since there were still two huge tomes of research left to translate, both of which were roughly five times the size of the paltry journal. At the rate he was going, it would take six months or better just to finish translating the research, and even then, he'd have to help her as she tried to make sense of it since the translations might need to be re-evaluated since there was often more than one way to translate a given passage.

 

“It's a lot of work, isn't it?” she asked, her tone a little rueful though she didn't look up from the notebook.

 

Griffin paused as he dug his glasses out of his pocket to spare a glance at the woman. “It's fine,” he mumbled, catching the end of one earpiece and levering the glasses open.

 

She heaved a sigh and let the notebook fall onto her lap, rubbing her face with both hands. “I really appreciate your help, you know. If it hadn't been for you . . .”

 

“Don't worry about it,” he grumbled, his tone unnecessarily sharp; a direct result of the softness, the gentleness in her voice. Teasing one minute only to turn around and say something completely serious the next . . . she perplexed him, challenged him on so many levels, didn't she?

 

“Thank you.”

 

He snorted. “Shut up, will you? The sooner I get this done, the sooner I can get you out of my hair.”

 

Her soft laughter filled the room with a heartening warmth, and Griffin blinked quickly, unable to reconcile himself to the overwhelming feeling that he couldn't quite place. Why could the very sound of Isabelle's laughter make him remember days long past; times spent watching in silence while she frolicked and played? Those days seemed so very long ago, yet the comfort that the memories afforded him was within his reach when Isabelle laughed . . . It was a comfort he rarely allowed himself. Still, somehow Isabelle managed to draw it closer, soothing his ragged soul without even really trying at all . . . and that made her far more dangerous than Griffin could really credit . . .

 

She didn't argue with him, much to his surprise. Turning her attention to the notes once more, she settled herself against the back of the sofa and yawned again.

 

The scratch of his pen on the paper was complimented by the occasional whisper of pages being turned in the notebook, and Griffin was grateful for the companionable silence as he worked. He still wasn't sure if Dr. Carl Carradine was brilliant or stupid. He supposed maybe the man had been a little bit of both. After all, he'd managed to do what he'd set out to do, hadn't he? In the jumbled text that was so difficult to transcribe, Griffin had to admit that if Carradine had wanted to protect his research, he had accomplished that very, very well.

 

A sudden weight registered in his mind, slowly at first, like the thawing of snow during the warming days of spring. It took a moment for him to realize just what it was, and he frowned when he saw that Isabelle had fallen asleep. Leaning on his shoulder, her expression soft, relaxed, she seemed more fragile, more delicate than anything he could credit. Like an angel descended from heaven or a devil in disguise she uttered the softest of sighs, nostrils quivering slightly as her dusty pink lips parted. The gentleness that she hid so easily behind the façade of those piercing golden eyes shone through, shattered the darkness that had been Griffin's stomping grounds for far, far too long.

 

She trusted him—really trusted him. The knowledge was vast and frightening, akin to balancing on the edge of a great precipice where one false move could plunge them both into oblivion. She could be the end of him, couldn't she? Simply, easily . . . everything seemed to converge in her; a lifetime of ugliness tempered by the beauty of one solitary figure who would remain forever out of his reach.

 

She'd hate him when all was said and done, and why wouldn't she? Some sins were far too potent that not even God could forgive them. Punishment came in all forms, didn't it, and maybe that was the greatest truth of them all. As easily as Isabelle smiled at him now . . . it would all change in the course of an instant if she ever learned the awful truth.

 

Still he couldn't help but stare at her as seconds ticked away, marked by the indelible chime of the clock. There was no solace for a condemned man, and as much as he wished it were otherwise, he knew that some things simply could not be forgotten.

 

With a sigh, Griffin shrugged his shoulder in a half-hearted effort to rouse the sleeping woman. It didn't work. In fact, she seemed to snuggle a little closer, and while it'd be far more comfortable to believe that she knew what she was doing, in his heart, he allowed that she didn't. Exhausted, or so she seemed. Working twelve hour shifts and occasionally, an eighteen hour one here and there—at the emergency room only to come home and devote herself to wading through the translations he'd finished while she was gone was taking its toll on her, and in the end, he could only sigh as he carefully leaned to the side, nabbing the thick afghan off the back of the sofa to cover her up. She sighed—more of an insular breath than a real sound, but she almost smiled in her sleep, and for a moment—just for a moment—Griffin almost smiled, too.

 

“Sometimes what you believe is worse than the truth of it . . .”

 

Shaking his head, Griffin wished for one fleeting moment that he could believe the words Maria Masta had spoken so long ago. She'd said it while cleaning his wounds, and he hadn't believed her back then, either. Slowly, so slowly, he'd developed a grudging respect for the human woman, hadn't he? He'd forgotten somewhere along the way that humans weren't all bad, and she'd reminded him. Oh, yes, she'd reminded him . . .

 

But Attean and Maria had troubles of their own. He was a hanyou; she was human, and he was half Indian, to boot. The white settlers didn't trust him, and Attean's mother's tribe didn't consider him one of their own, either. It was the same with youkai. The stigma of the hanyou still existed back then. Maria was shunned by `civilized society' for having chosen to marry a `heathen'. Griffin could still recall the scathing glances, the hushed whispers when Attean would journey into a town for supplies, and though they'd wanted him to stay, he'd known that his presence could only worsen the situation in the end. He knew all too well that the past had a way of catching up with him, and the last thing he would do would be to put Attean and Maria in danger. So he'd left without a word in the middle of the night of a new moon, simply disappearing into the great expanse of the Canadian wilderness. Sometimes he'd travel for weeks before he'd see another living being other than plants and animals.

 

He'd wandered for a long time, hadn't he? Drifting from place to place; not really a vagrant, exactly, but without any real destination in mind. He hadn't realized that he was so close to the home territory of the tai-youkai. Truth be known, he had actively avoided any information that might have mattered to him back then. It was enough to find a place where the people didn't shy away from him because of his scars; where people didn't judge him because of the way he looked on the outside. He still got odd looks from time to time, or worse; those glances full of a mixture of revulsion and pity. The revulsion he could stomach, but the pity he could do without. He'd earned his scars, hadn't he? Branded by a trial of fire and tears . . .

 

And yet a certain part of him had wished that Isabelle would look at him like that. He'd wanted it from her, hadn't he? The pity . . . the horror . . . If she'd done that—if she'd ever looked at him with those emotions in her gaze, it'd be easier to keep her at bay, wouldn't it? Then it would be so much easier to convince himself that she . . . that she was just too damn far away.

 

 

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A/N:

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Final Thought from Isabelle:

Maybe he's not so grumpy, after all …

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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 InuYashaor 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~