InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 8: Vendetta ❯ Just to See Her ( Chapter 61 )

~~Chapter 61~~

~Just to See Her~

 

-=0=-

 

 

“Tanny.”

 

“No.”

 

“Tanny?”

 

“No.”

 

“Tanny!”

 

Kurt made a face and flopped back on the bed with a very tired sigh. “Stinky-butt, it's nearly three in the morning—no `tanny'.”

 

She sat up as her bottom lip popped out. “No tanny?” she said.

 

Kurt blinked and uttered a low groan, forcing his gaze away from her. “That is so not fair,” he pointed out.

 

She smashed her little palms over her eyes and whimpered. “Daddy, no tanny?”

 

Kurt screwed up his face and grunted. That, in his opinion, was even more unfair. She'd picked up that horrid little habit a couple days ago at one of the diners when she'd heard one too many waitresses call him that . . .

 

He managed to stay still a whole three minutes before he tossed the blankets aside and got up—last night was only about one minute, if that . . .

 

Grabbing a handful of candy out of the small cabinet mounted on the wall of the rather ratty motel room, he tossed one into her lap and pocketed the rest as he shuffled over to the desk since she was nowhere near tired.

 

He'd tried sleeping and letting her wander around, but he'd figured out that the more comfortable she was with him, the more daring she grew, and the more daring she grew, the more mischief she got into, as well. Last night was the shaving cream explosion. The night before, she'd eaten an entire tube of toothpaste. She'd helped herself to a full bag of Hershey's Kisses a few nights ago, and to be completely honest, he was afraid to see what she'd get into tonight if he left her to her own devices . . . Too damn curious for her own good, and not that he didn't understand that. After all, she'd spent the majority of her life thus far locked away in a glass cube . . .

 

Pulling open the leather case that he'd purchased to put all the information that he intended to give them into, he frowned.

 

He'd considered hiring a courier to deliver the case, but he wasn't entirely certain that the rumors he'd uncovered were true. Having spent the evening in a small restaurant near the motel where he was staying, he'd found out that there was, in fact, a family close by that possessed what they called, `exotic' looks. Evidently, it wasn't surprising to hear of silver haired people in the area. That was enough for him.

 

They'd said that the family lived outside of a nearby town named Bevelle in a huge mansion on the ocean . . . Apparently very friendly though a little on the reserved side, they said . . . Anyway, although he was fairly certain that this family—Zelig, their name was—was the right one, he wasn't about to leave anything to chance; not in this . . .

 

`Zelig . . .'

 

That was the name that the second guy he'd talked to had given, wasn't it? When Kurt had called to check on Samantha, the second guy he'd talked to, the one who had told him that she had made it home all right . . .

 

Still, he had to make sure, didn't he? Had to be positive that it really was her family before he dumped this sort of information on them . . .

 

`You're a damn liar, Drevin, you know it? Why don't you admit the real reason you're dragging your feet? You want to see her. You know you do. Even if you say you don't, you know that's really just a lie . . .'

 

Rubbing his forehead, he tried not to think about it. It didn't matter, anyway; not really. What he wanted, what he felt . . . Pushing the thought to the back of his mind, he grimaced. Even if he wanted to be with her, her family had to know about those data cards, didn't they? And if they knew about those . . .

 

A tiny hand reached under his arm, sneaking toward the breast pocket of his tee-shirt. He swatted at it with the papers in his hand. She giggled.

 

Digging out a piece of candy, he handed it to her and shook his head when she laughed.

 

She was the other problem, wasn't she? Just what the hell was he going to do with her? He couldn't just leave her, could he? But . . .

 

But . . . he couldn't take her with him, either. If Samantha's family had seen those videos . . . if they knew about him . . . If things went awry . . .

 

He sighed. The child had already seen more than enough ugliness in her short life. He couldn't let her see more, even if the idea of leaving her somewhere bugged the living, breathing hell out of him . . .

 

“Daddy, tanny?” she asked as she tugged on his arm.

 

Kurt blinked and gave her another candy. She popped it into her mouth and gurgled around it happily. He reached over to muss her hair then got up to grab a soda out of the dorm-sized refrigerator.

 

An insistent grunting stopped him before he'd taken the first sip, and he glanced down at the groping hands that swung at the can but couldn't quite reach it.

 

Heaving as sigh, he let her take the can. She'd refused to drink the milk or to even try the real food that he'd bought for her along the way, but she'd nabbed his soda quickly enough, and he'd ended up bringing her across country on a diet of candy, soda, and the occasional Twinkie . . . “Father of the Year material, for sure,” he muttered with a shake of his head.

 

A particularly nasty fart broke the silence, and Kurt winced. It hadn't taken him long to learn that noises like that one tended to be accompanied by things that no man should ever have to witness. Before he could say anything, though, another one—longer, louder, and way fouler by far—cut him off.

 

“Come on, stinky-butt,” he muttered, taking the can she'd emptied in short order and tossing it into the trashcan.

 

She giggled then belched loudly right in his ear when he picked her up and carried her to the bed. “Christ,” he muttered when he opened the diaper. “I am not going to miss this,” he decided as he grabbed some diaper wipes.

 

“Tanny?” she asked, oblivious to Kurt's very real pain.

 

He didn't answer as he made quick work of removing the offending diaper and positioning her on the new one. Dumping a liberal amount of powder on her, he pulled the diaper up and fastened it into place. “I don't suppose you're sleepy yet?” he asked though he knew the answer to that question already.

 

She giggled and slipped off the bed, darting around the room as the sugar in the candy kicked in. Letting out a deep breath, he shook his head but figured that she'd be all right long enough for him to go to the bathroom, himself.

 

If nothing else, having the girl underfoot kept him on his toes, so to speak. It also made things like showering a little daunting, too, since she still wasn't keen on taking baths, but she didn't seem to have any qualms at all about peeking into the shower while he was in there. The first time she'd done that, he had thought for sure that the police were going to bust down his door and charge him with some sort of crime. So he'd tried locking the door the next time, but she'd cried the entire time.

 

It was just a no-win situation, he supposed . . .

 

Then he'd thought that if she had something to distract her, he could sneak into the bathroom without her realizing it. Cartoons hadn't worked—she just didn't understand them, he supposed—and the crayons that he'd bought for her ended up in her stomach when she mistook them for candy. As a last-ditch effort, he'd gotten her a stuffed animal—a teddy bear. That seemed to do the trick. She hadn't let the bear out of her sight for more than a few minutes since.

 

He'd just started to pee when he heard the ripping sound. Glancing over his shoulder in time to see her step out of the diaper he'd just put on her, he grimaced as she wandered over to him. “Uhh,” he muttered, cheeks pinking despite the fact that she was just a little child, and he knew it. “G-go put your diaper back on!”

 

She watched him pee with avid interest, and Kurt stifled a groan of dismay. He tried to stop the flow, but that was easier said than done, and before he could manage it, she hiked up her dress, catching the hem under her chin, thrust out her little pelvis to imitate the way he was standing, he supposed, and she started to pee.

 

“Ahhhh!” Kurt complained, hurriedly putting himself to rights. The he grabbed her, holding her at arms' length, and set her on the toilet. “You're a girl!” he grumbled. “Girls sit down when they pee!”

 

But she was already finished, it seemed, and letting out a deep, defeated breath, Kurt slowly shook his head. The bathroom was a mess, and she definitely needed a bath . . . At least she'd left the teddy bear out in the room, or she'd pitch a fit when he tried to throw it away, he was sure . . .

 

Still, he'd really hoped, hadn't he? Confronting Samantha's family was going to be hard enough. But as he cleaned up the floor and started the bath water, he sighed. The idea of actually getting into bed was slowly slipping further and further away . . .

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

The ticking of the clock was obscenely loud in the quiet. Another night just like the one before, just like the one before that, just like the one before that . . . Night after night after night, it was all the same . . .

 

Rolling onto her side, Samantha let out a deep breath and rubbed her hot, gritty eyes. With every day that passed, she felt it; the nearing of the precipice . . . and the long drop below . . .

 

`Taijya . . . where are you . . .?'

 

The nights . . .

 

Those were the hardest to deal with, weren't they? The memories were so poignant, so beautiful . . . and somehow horrifying, too, weren't they . . .?

 

During the day, she could smile and pretend that she was all right, couldn't she? She could laugh and smile and be all those things that everyone wanted of her, but . . .

 

Somehow after the sun went down, when those memories returned with the falling of the night . . . The smiles and the laughter . . . the way his eyes sparkled and shone . . . and he'd tried so hard, hadn't he? Bringing her things because he wanted to make her happy . . . that's what he'd done, hadn't he? Those things may not have been big or expensive or fancy, but . . . but they'd meant the world to her . . . He hadn't really smiled much, but the boyish look of anxiety he'd get on his face as he waited to see if she liked what he'd done for her or not . . . It was . . .

 

She missed him.

 

`But he promised he'd come, Samantha . . . you have to believe . . .'

 

Smiling sadly at the pragmatic sound of her youkai voice, Samantha stared at the window, at the darkness outside. `He promised,' she told herself. Just that little reminder . . .

 

He would come. He'd said so, and she'd be waiting when he did. He missed her, didn't he, and even if he didn't miss her quite as much as she missed him, that was all right, too. He loved her; she knew he did. The raw emotion behind that one kiss was enough, wasn't it? In that moment, he hadn't tried to hide what he was feeling, and maybe it was something that he'd never meant to show her. That didn't matter, did it?

 

She knew. She remembered, and though many of her memories of that day were a little fuzzy and distorted, that one moment was not. That one moment would forever remain in her heart, in her mind, in her soul in that place that Kurt had hollowed out and filled with himself inside her. That was where he belonged, wasn't it?

 

No, it was just impatience on her part. She knew he was going to make good on his word; she just didn't know when, and the waiting was hard. Every day, she heard the whispers when people thought that she wasn't paying attention.

 

“Do you really think this guy's her mate? How can he be when she's fine; just fine . . .?”

 

“Well, she's still not quite as healthy as she used to be . . . She really could stand to gain a few more pounds . . . maybe ten or even twenty . . .”

 

“If she goes back to work, will she be able to focus on her job . . .?”

 

“What if he's not really her mate? What if it's just that . . . what do they call it? Stockholm Syndrome . . .? Poor thing . . .”

 

She'd heard them all, hadn't she? She'd heard the whispers and the innuendo . . . She pretended that she didn't hear them because that was what they wanted from her, but they'd see for themselves, wouldn't they? When he came for her, they'd see . . .

 

Maybe it wasn't entirely simple. She knew well enough that nothing worthwhile ever really was. She knew that he was still suffering from the feelings that he'd carried with him since his family was so brutally destroyed.

 

Still, he had gotten her out of there, had set her free . . . and even if he had despised what he thought she was in the beginning, she also knew that he had never, ever been cruel to her. He'd never tried to hurt her, never belittled or mocked her . . . He had simply been lost, hadn't he? Lost and alone . . . and just a little afraid . . .

 

That was all right, too. Being afraid of things that he didn't understand . . . She felt that way, herself; felt the same sense of fear when she considered what might have happened had he not come back. Yet everything happened for a reason, didn't it? She was meant to meet him, to talk to him, to get to know him . . . That was her reason for being in that awful place, and even if it didn't seem completely right, who was she to say that it was wrong, either?

 

All of those things that she'd experienced had changed her, had given her a wholly new perspective on those things that she'd taken for granted over the years. The simple joys that she savored every day were so much more profound to her now. Walking in a gentle spring rain . . . relaxing in a hot bath . . . savoring a fragrant cup of tea with her family close . . . sitting on a stool in her grandfather's studio in complete silence as she watched him work . . .

 

Those were all things that she'd thought that she'd never experience again—things that were beautiful in their absolute simplicity; the kinds of things that other people forgot.

 

And yet how many of those things had Kurt experienced in his lifetime? How many of those insular moments did he hold dear in his heart? Did he even remember things like that?

 

A thoughtful frown surfaced on her features, and she bit her lip. He would have memories like that if she had something to say about it. She would devote the rest of her life to showing him the joy of those moments . . . and he would laugh, wouldn't he? Smile and laugh . . . and know that life really was a beautiful thing, after all.

 

Tossing the blankets aside, she got up, wandered over to the window. Pushing herself up on her tiptoes, she unlatched the window—her father would have a fit if he found out about it—and shoved it open. The cool breeze that flowed inside was a welcome balm on her overwrought mind, a cleansing feeling that made her smile just a little.

 

Somewhere out there, he was looking for her; that's what she believed. She didn't know how she knew it or why, but she did, and as long as she knew it somewhere deep down . . .

 

That was enough.

 

 

-OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO-

 

 

`Okay . . . I think . . . that's it . . .'

 

Heaving a sigh as he hunched forward, elbows on the table as he scrubbed at his head, Kurt glanced at the clock and made a face. `Six-thirty in the morning,' he thought with a grimace. `Damn it . . .'

 

He started to push the chair back, but frowned when the right rear leg met with resistance. Glancing down, he spotted the cause and slowly shook his head even as a wan little smile quirked his lips. `Now, why doesn't that surprise me . . .?'

 

The girl had passed out right behind him, curled up on the floor with her butt high in the air and her face sort of smashed forward into a very warped-looking smile.

 

Carefully stepping over her, he bent down to pick her up, but paused as he stared at her. Her hair really was black, wasn't it? He chuckled, lifting a lock of her hair and holding it up to stare at it. His own hair was black, sure, but hers seemed somehow deeper, darker, richer, and against the stark paleness of her skin. It was remarkable, wasn't it? The little girl that he'd found cowering in that cell . . .

 

She really was cute. There was just something about those huge eyes of hers, framed so prettily with the longest, thickest eyelashes he'd ever seen, and whenever she gave him that pleading look of hers he gave in every time, didn't he?

 

No doubt about it, he was a sucker . . .

 

Scooping her up, he sat back, leaning against the foot of the bed as he settled her against his shoulder. She grunted a little, made a couple sucking sounds, but didn't wake up. Once she went to sleep, Kurt had learned that there wasn't much that could disturb her.

 

He frowned. He'd meant to put her on the bed, but for some reason, he didn't want to. Considering how long she'd lived at that facility, he highly doubted that she'd had much, if any, real interaction with people, and he knew that she had a habit of crawling into his lap at odd times—or onto his head, depending. Still, he had to wonder if her behavior was due to the idea that she wanted to belong with someone. It was a natural thing, wasn't it?

 

Looking back now, he could see it in himself, too, couldn't he? Even though he knew that his brief stay at the hospital after his family's death was something that he'd benefitted from, he could still remember the relief he'd felt when he'd first seen his aunt and uncle lingering in the doorway to take him home with them. He could recall the sense of belonging that had helped to ease the sense of loss . . .

 

But the difference was that Kurt did have that family, to start with, unlike her—the child who was nothing more than a macabre science experiment to her biological father—and if Kurt had one real regret, it was that he had let that bastard live. There was something completely unnatural about what Thurman had taken it upon himself to do, and the one to suffer for it?

 

Pulling her a little closer, Kurt gently stroked her hair. In her sleep, she cuddled closer to him, as though she simply needed to be near him. That thought was painful, wasn't it? It brought too many things to mind: things that he hadn't dared to admit, not even to himself.

 

And yet he could hear her voice in his head. It had started out as a whisper when he'd first left California, but as he'd made his way across the United States, it had grown louder, more insistent, and far, far clearer. She was calling him, wasn't she? In her quiet voice and with her gentle laughter, she was calling out to him. There was a certain urgency to it, but not the kind that made him feel as though she were in trouble. No, it was more like she . . . like she missed him, and that . . .

 

Heaving a sigh, he shook his head, his gaze falling to the child sleeping in his arms. If he were smart, he'd pay someone to deliver the surveillance information to her family. If he were smart, he'd walk away before he could do any more damage. If he were smart, he'd let her forget him; get away from her before he hurt her again . . . If all he knew was how to destroy, then wouldn't he end up doing that to her in the end, too? Speaking of monsters and demons and right and wrong, and all those things had somehow converged, turning inside out until all that remained were deep blue eyes and the gentle trill of her laughter . . .

 

Letting his head fall back, he closed his eyes. Those things . . . the one real problem with those ideas . . .

 

It'd mean that he'd never see her again, didn't it?

 

And Kurt just didn't think he was strong enough to do that, either . . .

 

 

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Final Thought from Kurt:

Tomorrow ...

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Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Vendetta): 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~