InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Fruition ❯ Emergency ( Chapter 6 )

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

Stepping into the quiet apartment, Charity tossed her keys onto the table near the door and touched the wall panel to bring up the lights before shutting the door behind herself.

It had been a long day: a really enjoyable day, but still, a long day.

'We had a lot of fun, didn't we?'

'Yeah, we did . . .'

'Ben . . . He's quite charming, isn't he?'

She could feel the blush creep up her skin, and she bit her lip.  'Yeah . . . He is . . .'

The little smile that tugged at the corners of her lips widened, and Charity laughed softly.  Yes, she supposed she had enjoyed herself, maybe a little too much.  Watching Ben muddle his way through baby shopping had been highly amusing, but at least she was pretty sure that he had everything the babies needed and a heck of a lot of stuff that they probably didn't need at all.  There's a good chance that Ben would be feeling it later, once he added up the staggering amounts of money that he'd just forked out on baby things.  Then again, being Cain Zelig's business manager most likely meant that Ben wasn't hurting financially, anyway . . .

'And admit it, Cherry . . . You really didn't mind it when people said that you all made a lovely family, either.'

Charity grimaced though her amusement didn't fade.  If they'd heard it once, they'd heard it a number of times during the impromptu outing.  Cashiers or other customers, taking time out to positively gush over the twins, complete strangers telling them that they were a lovely family . . . After the third time of trying to clarify the misunderstanding, Ben had shrugged, and, in his customary good-natured style, had simply said, 'thank you'.

Casting Charity a sidelong glance as he pushed the newly acquired double stroller through the long and crowded corridor of the mall, he shrugged when he caught her look.  "It's easier to just go with it than it is to try to explain it every time," he said, as though it were the simplest thing in the world.

"All right," she allowed, telling herself that it was fine, that it didn't really mean anything.  They were all a bunch of strangers, right?  So, who cared, what they thought . . .?  "I'm the working mom, and you're the stay-at-home dad, though."

He laughed.  "I'm okay with that.  Do I get an allowance?"

She considered that for a moment then wrinkled her nose.  "Only on weeks when you keep the house clean, too—and have my dinner on the table when I walk in the door."

He barked out a laugh.  "Good thing we have Eddie, then . . ."

Letting out a deep breath as the memory faded, she kicked off her shoes and turned them around neatly on the large mat in front of the door, then shuffled through the living room and down the short hallway to the master bedroom.  No doubt about it, she really had to remember that she needed to keep her guard up around that man.  If she didn't . . .

Almost ten, according to the clock on the nightstand . . .

She made quick work of gathering her night clothes and a change of panties before heading for the bathroom.  Normally, she liked to sit and soak in the tub on the weekends, but given how late it was, she figured a shower would just have to do.

Clicking the first button on the pre-programmed panel that controlled the settings for the shower, she stripped off her clothes and tossed them into the hamper.  By the time she was finished, the water was sending out tendrils of steam over the top of the glass doors that enclosed the shower stall.

The heat of the water was a welcome thing as she closed her eyes, flattening her hanyou ears as she lifted her face and let the spray hit her full-on.

It didn't take long to wash her hair and body.  Turning her head when a big yawn nearly made her jaw crack—figuratively speaking, of course—she rolled her neck a few times before hitting the button to shut off the shower and grabbed the towel she had slung over the glass doors.

'Do you think Ben will call soon?'

That particular question was enough to dim the good mood she'd carried home with her as she wrapped her hair in the towel and stepped out of the shower to reach for another one.  She hadn't actually planned on spending the day with him today.  She'd only gone over to his house to drop off the clothes she'd bought for the twins.  After all, she reasoned, it was only right and proper to give gifts to new babies, wasn't it?

Even so, it wasn't like it was a prearranged thing.  Ben just didn't have anything else to do—he'd said as much while they were shopping—other than a visit from one of Cain's hunters that he expected later on in the day.  Charity had spent the time during that meeting, feeding and changing the babies while he took care of business.  She'd just gotten them to sleep when Moe Jamison had left.  The rest of it, she figured, was casual, just because she happened to be there, she supposed.  'And because Eddie pushed the issue, to start with . . .'  It wasn't like he would have called her if she hadn't showed up there, in the first place, and she knew it.  No, getting all caught up in wishing and hoping would only lead to another round of disappointment, and Charity . . . Well, she wasn't about to subject herself to that again, either.

'It didn't seem like he felt that he was just humoring you because you were there,' her youkai-voice pointed out.  'He enjoyed our company, Cherry.  Trust me on this, okay?'

Grabbing the oversized tee-shirt she used as a nightshirt, she jerked it over her head and made a face when the rough action yanked on the towel on her head.  'He was just being nice,' she thought sourly as she re-wrapped her hair.  'That's what he does because that's who he is.'

Her youkai sighed, but didn't argue with her.  Yanking the cut-off sweat shorts on over the plain cotton panties, Charity stepped over to the vanity.  'Everything will go back to normal tomorrow,' she predicted as she applied a thin layer of lotion on her face.  'Everything will be the way it's meant to be.'

'Meant to be, huh . . .?'

'Y . . . Yes.'

Thankfully, her youkai-voice opted to let the discussion drop, and she was just towel-drying her hair when her cell phone buzzed, announcing the receipt of a text message.  Swiping up the device and unlocking it, she frowned when she saw the alert.  She'd thought that it was Chelsea, sending her a picture of something weird since that was the most likely thing, but it wasn't.

Eyes flaring wide as she read the single word in the message, she gasped softly, dropping the towel and stumbling out of the bathroom as quickly as she could, unmindful that she hadn't even brushed the snarls out of her hair, unmindful that she was ready for bed and wasn't even wearing a bra.  Nope, the one word was enough to galvanize her into action, and her hands were shaking so badly that it took her five attempts before she was able to call for a taxi as she jammed her feet into her shoes once more and swiped up her keys and purse on her way out the door.

'Blood,' it had said.

Just that one word.

It was enough.


Ben threw the door open before Charity could even dart up the steps onto the porch, his expression more rattled than she could remember ever having seen on him before.  He wasn't even that shaken back when Charity's second cousin, Samantha Izayoi, now Draven, was missing and abducted . . . Stepping back to allow her entrance, he rubbed the baby's back in an effort to soothe the sobbing infant.

"Blood?" she said, skipping the niceties as she brushed past him.

He led the way up the stairs, taking them two at a time in his haste.  In the distance, she could hear the other twin crying, too.  "I don't know," he admitted over the din of the crying babies.  Charity took the baby from him at the top of the landing.  He opened his mouth to say something else, but decided against it as he whirled around on his heel and ran off to get the other baby, she supposed.

She followed him down the hallway and into the last room at the end, trying to comfort the infant with soft sounds as she cuddled Emmeline against her heart.

Ben heaved a sigh, sinking down on the foot of the bed.  "I was trying to give her a bath," he explained.  "Turns out she doesn't like them very much, but . . . I don't know if my claw snagged it or what, but the stump of her umbilical cord came off, and . . . and she started bleeding . . ."

Quickly sitting on the side of the bed, Charity lowered the infant onto her lap and unwrapped the towel he'd swaddled her in.  It only took a moment for her to assess the damage—there wasn't any, as far as she could see.  Maybe a trace bit of redness around the baby's belly button, but whatever bleeding there might have been wasn't there, and with a relieved sigh, she wrapped Emmeline up again and lifted her against her shoulder once more.  "She's fine," Charity said, raising her voice just enough to be heard.  "No worse than picking a scab."

The look of relief on Ben's face was immediate and intense.  A few moments later, the twin in his arms seemed to sense the calming of his emotions, and she wound down, too.  It took another minute to calm the other baby, but finally, blessedly, she relaxed.

Ben sighed.  "I've never been so scared in my life," he admitted.  "I didn't know if I should take her to the emergency room or what, but then, I was afraid that they wouldn’t be able to help her, considering . . ."

Charity laid the infant on the bed and unwrapped her again.  "Look, see?  She's fine now.  She's not bleeding at all," she said.

Ben leaned in to stare at the baby's tummy as the last traces of worry seemed to fall away.  "Thank God."

"You were trying to bathe them?"

He nodded, rolling slightly to stretch out on his side with Nadia tucked against his chest.  "Yeah, she didn't like it at all.  I didn't even try with Nadia yet, but I'm not really ready for a repeat of that."

She laughed softly.  "No, I don't imagine you would be . . ."

"I, uh . . . I'm sorry for worrying you," he muttered, his cheeks pinking as he scowled at the slate grey coverlet.  "I just . . . You were the first person that came to mind . . . I would have called, but you probably wouldn't have heard me over the two of them . . ."

She blinked in surprise as her heart skipped a beat before she could remind herself not to be silly, not to put too much emphasis on what he said.  Swallowing hard, she had to lick her lips since her mouth had suddenly gone bone dry.  "It's okay," she said.  "I . . . I don't mind."

He didn't seem at all comforted by her words.  If anything, his scowl darkened—as did the flush still high in his cheeks.  "I really thought I'd hurt her," he muttered.

She bit her lip while she considered what he'd said.  "No permanent damage, right?"

He snorted.

"You know," she said as a suddenly thought occurred to her.  "They're cougar-youkai, right?  Cats . . . and big cats are still cats.  Maybe they just don't like water."

That didn't please him, either, if the scowl he shot her meant anything at all.  "They have to have baths," he pointed out reasonably.

"I know," she agreed.  "Maybe you should try something else, like getting into the bath with them."

His eyebrows shot up at her suggestion.  Then he barked out a terse laugh that was more incredulous than amused.  "I'm a man, Charity," he said slowly in a tone of voice that suggested that she ought to know as much.

She rolled her eyes.  "And they're babies—frightened babies.  Mama or Papa used to take baths with us when we were babies: whoever wasn't busy at the time . . ."

"Your . . . father . . ."

"Sometimes Mama and Papa would."  She nodded.  "We didn't like baths back then, either."

"It doesn't seem right," he said thoughtfully.

She laughed.  "I'm Japanese, Ben.  There are a lot of public bath houses in Japan, and in those public baths, you're naked with strangers of all ages."

He shook his head, but he did manage a wan smile.  "But this is the USA.  They arrest men for bathing naked with small children here."

"Okay, point taken," she allowed.  "They're not going to arrest you for trying to show infants that they'll be okay in the bath."

He shook his head.  "It's not that I wouldn't do it," he explained.  "If it would make them more comfortable in the water, then it would be worth it."

She nodded.  "Do you . . .? Do you want me to try?"

"Try?"

"Yeah.  Do you want me to try taking a bath with Nadia?"

He considered that for a moment, then gave a slow nod.  "If you wouldn't mind . . ."

Leaning over to put Emmeline down beside him, she carefully scooped up Nadia and stood.  "Okay," she said, casting him a quick smile.  "Wish me luck."


'Ben . . .?'

'Hmm?'

'. . . You know, right . . .?'

Leaning down to rub his nose against Emmeline's downy cheek, Ben wasn't really paying that much attention to his youkai-voice.  'Know . . .?  Know, what?'

A long, melodramatic, drawn-out sigh . . . 'She's in there.'

Closing his eyes as he inhaled the sweet smell of the mercifully sleeping infant, Ben smiled.  'Okay.'

'. . . And she's naked.'

'Uh huh . . .'

'Ben . . .?'

'Huh?'

'. . . I wanna see 'naked' . . .'

Propping his head up with his hand, Ben frowned at his youkai-voice's near-whining statement.  'Wh—? Why would you want to see Nadia naked?' he sputtered indignantly.

'Fool,' his youkai retorted with a pronounced and highly indignant snort.  'Not the baby!  Charity!  Charity!  Charity Inutaisho, who is in there—naked—taking a bath with Nadia . . . Just what kind of pervert are we, anyway?'

Ben snorted.  'Speak for yourself!  I'm not the one sitting here, saying I want to see someone naked, and even if you didn't mean Nadia, it didn't sound that way, you realize.'

'There you go, totally missing the point!  Typical, Ben.  Really typical!'

'Oh, yeah? And what is the point, then, oh wise-and-ridiculous-youkai-voice?'

Another definitive snort.  'The point? The point?  The point is, oh idiot-of-a-glorified-pussy-cat, is that Charity is in our bathroom, and in that bathroom, she's naked.  And wet.  Don't forget wet—and we want to see that because I guarantee you, it'd be a truly spectacular sight, don't you think?  Stupid!'

Rolling his eyes, Ben opted to ignore the voice, despite the low whisper in the back of his mind that absolutely agreed on the point.  He carefully scooted off the bed without waking Emmeline and strode over to the walk-in closet to change.  Ordinarily, he would just strip naked since he had never been fond of the constrains of clothing of any kind while he slept, but since Charity was there and because the babies were probably going to end up sleeping on the bed with him again, he reached for a pair of sweat pants instead.  After a minute of silent debate, he heaved a sigh and dragged on a tee-shirt, too.

He was just stepping out of the walk-in closet when the bathroom door opened, carrying with it the soft waft of baby bath and lotion.  Charity emerged with a still-sniffling Nadia cradled in her arms, wrapped in a comfy thick towel.  "She didn't like it at all," Charity said, casting Ben an almost apologetic look.   "She calmed down a little bit, though, so it wasn't too bad.  The smell of the baby wash seemed to soothe her, a little bit, anyway."

A sudden sharp screech from Emmeline distracted Ben as he strode over to scoop up the unhappy infant, who was busy trying to shove her fist into her mouth without opening her eyes.  "I'll be right back," he said, casting Charity an apologetic sort of glance as he headed for the door.

'Maybe we should install a small kitchenette up here,' his youkai remarked as Ben hurried through the house to grab a couple bottles.  'If we did, then we wouldn't have to go so far at night . . .'

Ben sighed as he maneuvered one of the last two ready-to-feed bottles that Zelig had brought with the babies.  Using his teeth to grasp the sterile pack and rip it open, he shook the nipple out of it and carefully screwed it on before carefully tucking the bottle into Emmeline's waiting mouth and letting it rest on her bundled blankets so that he could grab the last bottle and nipple to take along with him as he turned to head back the way he'd come.

By the time he stepped into his bedroom once more, Charity was sitting on the bed with her back propped against the thick pillows as Nadia started to fuss all over again.  It didn't take long for him to repeat the process of readying the second bottle that he handed over to Charity before slipping onto the bed beside her with a heavy sigh.  "I'll get better at anticipating this sort of thing," Ben remarked, offering her a somewhat lopsided smile.

She laughed, her eyes sparkling in the weak light from the lamp on the nightstand.  "I think you're doing just fine," she replied with a little shrug as rolled toward him slightly, just far enough to lay Nadia beside her, nestled against her chest.  She propped herself up on her elbow and held the bottle with her free hand as the infant spared a moment to heave a tumultuous sigh before resuming her meal once more.

"I was thinking," she said, breaking the companionable silence that had fallen as the two watched the babies eat.

"Hmm?  What's that?"

She frowned thoughtfully at Nadia.  "Maybe the reason they have such a problem sleeping in those cribs is because they'd rather be together," she went on.  "I remember Mama said before that Chelsea and I wouldn't sleep unless we were in one crib."

Ben considered that and slowly nodded.  He hadn't thought of that last night, but he had to admit that it made sense.  "I'll try that," he said.  Then he made a face.  "Maybe not tonight, though . . . I think they've been through enough for one night . . ."

She didn't reply, but she lifted her gaze to meet his, her eyes taking on an inner glow, an incandescence that was entirely mesmerizing and entirely unsettling, too.

"Thanks again," he told her, realizing a little late that she must have dropped everything to run right over when she got that text.  Her clothing seemed like something she'd wear to sleep in, not that he minded, and her hair had been still damp from a shower when she got there.  Still in a bit of disarray, too, though she had, since then, brushed her hair out after the unplanned bath . . .

'You realize that she's not wearing anything under that shirt, either, don't you . . .?'

Ben blinked but didn't respond.  No, no, he hadn't realized that as he struggled to keep from looking to verify the information.

"I'm really sorry," he murmured with a shake of his head. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

"You . . . Well, you did, but it's okay."  Her smile started out slowly, spreading over her features like the unfurling of a summer day, unleashing that dimple in her cheek as the inherent sweetness of her reached out to him.  Without stopping to think about it, he reached out, grasped a soft lock of her hair that had fallen over her shoulder, and he gently pushed it back, smoothed it into place as she unconsciously leaned toward his touch.  He could feel her trembling beneath his hand, the slight fluttering in her, as though her emotions needed a viable, physical outlet . . . 'She's . . . beautiful,' he mused, savoring the feel of her skin as she leaned in just a little closer, as his fingertips brushed over her cheekbone, along the contour of her jaw.

The sound of an unhappy infant cut through the moment with the finesse of a chainsaw in a silent forest, and Ben chuckled ruefully, letting his hand fall away as he quickly readjusted his hold on Emmeline's bottle.  Inwardly, he heaved a sigh, tamping down the irrational surge of irritation that the moment had been so thoroughly interrupted.

He sighed again as he set the empty bottle on the nightstand, and he sat up to lift Emmeline to his shoulder, patting her back to get her to burp.  Nadia whimpered in protest as Charity picked her up to do the same.

Humming a low song—one he didn't know the name of, if it even had a name at all, but that he'd had known for as long as he could remember—Ben gently rubbed Emmeline's back.  It struck him, just how much he enjoyed this kind of thing and the strange yet welcome emotions that welled up inside him.  Over seven hundred years old, and that he was suddenly experiencing things that he hadn't realized even existed was a humbling kind of realization.  Just how long had it been since he'd felt that wonder, that freshness, when facing a new day?

He'd grown up in Japan in a volatile time.  He had lived near Sebastian—the first North American tai-youkai as well as Cain Zelig's father—and Daniella, Cain's mother.  Even back then, the three of them, along with another of their collective friends, had gotten into their fair share of trouble.  He supposed that was normal.  But Sebastian—Keijizen back then—had complained both mightily and often enough about the endless lectures he’d had to endure for the escapades that often went wrong.  Ben, however . . . Well, his upbringing had been vastly different.  At the time, he’d counted himself as lucky that he'd never really gotten called to account for the many and varied incidents.  Looking back, though . . . There was a certain level of apathy to it all, wasn’t there?  And . . . And there shouldn’t have been . . .

Glancing over at Charity, the song died away in his throat as he smiled.

She'd fallen asleep with Nadia in her arms, curled on her side with the child nestled against her.  He watched her for several long heartbeats, enjoying the sight of her and the infant held so close to her heart . . .