InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Fruition ❯ True Love ( Chapter 15 )

"Funny.  I could have sworn that she said she had her own room."

"Well, she did, but she looks awfully comfortable, right there, don't you think?"

". . . No, I don't."

"Now, now, look at the bright side, Toga."

"There's a bright side?"

"Yes . . . It's not like she's still a baby anymore, and . . . and at least, they left the door open . . ."

A very loud sigh.

Charity opened her eyes and smothered a groan, mostly because of the absolute volume of her parents' voices.  Ben was still sleeping, which was just as well, all things considered.  It didn't look good, now did it . . .? At least, turned as she was, still tucked neatly against Ben’s side, they couldn’t see that she was now awake, and she counted that as a very, very small blessing.

"Come on, Toga," Sierra said in a loud stage whisper, grabbing his hand and giving it a good tug.  "Leave them alone.  Chances are good that they don't get to sleep in much these days, don't you think?  Besides, it just means that we get more time with the babies, right?"

"But—"

"No, now, move it!"

Heaving an inward sigh of relief as she heard them retreat, Charity stubbornly refused to move even an inch since she rather figured that her father just might have a few more things he’d like to say.

"Are they gone yet?"

Smothering a gasp, Charity pushed against Ben's chest, leaning up on her elbows as she narrowed her eyes at the man who had yet to move—or open his eyes, for that matter.  "Ben!" she hissed.

He chuckled, his arms tightening around her waist just a little.  "Don't make too much noise or they'll realize we're awake," he warned.

"But they—"

Letting out a deep breath, Ben rolled to the side, eliciting a squeal from Charity as he pinned her beside him and tossed a leg over hers to keep her in place.  "You heard your mama, right?  She gets it.  We don't get near enough sleep."

Charity giggled, but tried to look stern.  "As if!  You're always up before the sun," she accused.

"Your parents don't know that," he argued.  "Besides, wouldn't it be nice for us to allow them to have as much time as they want with their granddaughters?  You want them to be close to your parents, right?"

Narrowing her eyes since she knew well enough that Ben wasn't being nearly as altruistic as he wanted her to believe, she couldn't help the soft giggle that slipped from her, either.  "You'd make a great used car salesman, Ben Philips," she said with a snort punctuated by another giggle that she hadn't been able to squelch.

"Is that right?" he asked with a chuckle of his own.  "Go back to sleep, Charity."

She heaved a sigh designed to let him know exactly what she thought of that.  Too bad his arms were way too warm and inviting—and he did have a point, too.  The girls really were in the very best hands, and it had been a long time since she had actually gotten to sleep in . . .

She almost did it. She was almost asleep again when Ben's hand moved, claws trailing lightly up her back, up her spine, the thin material of the tee-shirt blunting the sensation, but by no means dulling it.  An involuntary shiver rattled through her as he nuzzled against her neck, as he breathed in her scent.  He sighed softly, his breath stroking her skin, tickling her, as she uttered a soft whimper.  "I love the way you smell, Charity," he mumbled, lips brushing against her throat.

"B . . . Ben . . ."

His answer was the gentlest press of his lips on hers.  The fall of emotion was enough to take her breath away, stunning it its simplicity, humbling in its totality.  He didn't seek to obliterate her senses.  It was more of a coddling, a nurturing sense of creation, as though he were leading her.   It was a heady feeling—the brush of lips, of fangs juxtaposed against the precarious rise of burgeoning desire.  Reaching up to touch his cheek, to let her fingertips dance over his stubble-covered jaw, she reveled at the warmth of him that radiated into her, only to draw a shiver, a sigh, a soft breath.

He seemed to lean into her touch as he fluttered the lightest kisses on her cheeks, her nose, her eyes.  A laugh welled up inside her, only to be thwarted when his lips returned to hers once more, this time, a little more urgently, yet still tempered by the tenderness that was both welcome and entirely maddening at the same time.

Catching her hand, he laced his fingers with hers, leaning back far enough to bring her hand up between them, taking his time as he kissed each of her fingertips.  "There's something to be said for this sleeping-in business," he mused.

Her laugh was quite husky to her own ears.  "Won't Eddie be mad if we missed breakfast?"

Ben flopped onto his back and tucked her in against his side.  "Even if she is, I pay her ridiculously well, so she'll be fine."

"And yet, it never stops her from saying whatever is on her mind," Charity pointed out reasonably.

He grunted.  "Are you saying you're ready to get up?"

"As nice as this is, I do miss my babies," she admitted.

Ben heaved a sigh, but finally sat up.  "You win, Charity," he said.  "I'll be down after my shower."

Watching as he rolled off the bed and wandered toward the bathroom, she stifled a sigh and scooted off the bed, too.  "Don't forget your clothes," she called after him.

His answer was a very loud sigh.

Biting her lip as she towel-dried her hair, Charity couldn't repress the soft giggle that escaped her as she tried not to flush.  It was rather silly, she supposed.  Here she was, a forty-five-year-old woman, completely alone in the bathroom, and yet she couldn't even think about Ben—about his kisses—without blushing like a teenage girl . . .

'Because those kisses were something that you've never felt before.'

Staring at herself in the sheet glass mirror over the sink in the bathroom adjoining the guest room—now her room—she sighed.  That was the absolute truth of it, wasn't it?  Sure, she'd had a couple of boyfriends and a few guys she'd seen on a casual level, and she'd kissed them, of course.  But even now, she had to wonder whether she'd kept those men at bay on purpose, which sounded entirely ridiculous, really.  And yet . . .

'Of course, you did, Cherry,' her youkai-voice replied in a completely pragmatic sort of way.  'You've been hung up on Ben Philips since the first time you saw him, haven't you?  Even now . . .'

Bemusement fading, Charity frowned as the first threads of realization began to wrap around her brain.  She'd tried hard, hadn't she?  Tried to push Ben out of her mind, tried to hold onto that sense of melancholy, of disappointment that she'd felt time and again, only to realize a little too late that she hadn't done that at all, and what was left behind was only that deep-seeded understanding that she'd actually been hanging onto a wisp of hope, even if it was as transparent as glass, as thin as smoke, rising in tendrils, only to dissipate in the air.

And in the last couple months since she'd moved in, that fragile hope had grown, demolishing the very last bits of her resolve, leaving her as vulnerable and shameless as a child, waiting in the half-light for a scrap of attention, for the hint of acknowledgement that came from being spared just a moment of time before life moved on around her, leaving her there, alone and hoping and dreaming . . .

'I . . . I was past all that, wasn't I?  Didn't I realize a long time ago that what I wanted . . . that he had to want it, too?  And he . . . He didn't . . .'

'I don't know, Cherry.  I mean, it's not like we can read his mind any more than he can read yours.  He's always been kind and gracious, and—'

'Which is how he is with everyone,' she cut in, dropping the towel and snatching up her brush, yanking it through her hair with all the viciousness of her thoughts.  'It's something I've always respected about him, and yet . . .'

'And yet, it has also always left you wondering, right?  Wondering where you stood with him.'

That wasn't entirely true, either.  No, she knew where she stood with Ben.  He'd made it painfully obvious over the years.  He might well smile with her and joke about things, dance with her at family gatherings that he'd always been a part of—at least, on the Zelig side of it—but it was entirely too easy for him to walk away from all them all without a backward glance, without a second thought.

And then, she wouldn't hear from him again until the next wedding, the next holiday gathering, the next one . . .

'But you also know Ben well enough to realize that he didn't kiss you last night or this morning simply because you just happened to be there, you know?  Because Ben isn't like that, either, and you recognize that, too.'

She sighed.  Of course, she did know that.  Even so, it confused her even more.  Common sense, her understanding of the past . . . She really ought to keep her distance from him.  The problem was, every last bit of that train of thought pulled out of the proverbial station whenever that man was near.

'Yeah, but . . . Do we really want to remember all of that, Cherry?  I mean, I understand that you're trying to think in terms of self-preservation, but you realize that the core of what life is, is taking those chances, and yes, sometimes you'll fall flat, but sometimes, you'll win, too.  Those wins make it worth the hurt that comes with the failures, don't you think?  And Ben . . .'

'That's the real question, isn't it?  Do I dare risk that failure with Ben . . .?'

'Something like that, but you know, even if things were exactly what you believed them to be in the past, we're talking about now, and you have to be the first to admit that nothing is how you thought it would be.  You'd have to admit that if someone said at this time last year that you'd be here, that you'd have those gorgeous babies, that you'd be sharing them with Ben, you'd have thought they were mad.'

Pulling her hair out of the neckline of the oversized cream mohair sweater and faun colored, faux suede leggings she'd selected for the day, she sighed.  It was one thing, to think things through logically.  It was something else, entirely, to be able to truly let go of those things that she'd hung onto for so long.

'So, if you're worried, why not ask him?  Instead of sitting here, over-thinking everything to death, can't you just sit down with him and talk to him?  He'd tell you.  You know he would.  Ben's a good person, and he isn't the type to just skirt the topic or to just tell you what he thinks you want to hear.'

That was the thing, though, wasn't it?  How on earth could she ever bring herself to ask him about it all?  It would require a kind of fearlessness that she wasn't sure she had or could muster up.

She stepped out of the bathroom and let out a deep breath.  Wandering over to stare outside, she took note of the gorgeous fall day that was just getting started.  There was a beautiful crispness in the air filtering through the open window, a certain scent that only accompanied the falling leaves in their amazing shades of yellows and reds and golds . . . It would be Halloween in a few days—Emmeline and Nadia's first Halloween—and Charity felt the hold of the deeper musings that had taken hold of her during her shower loosening.  It was hard to be pensive, wasn't it, when the world outside was so full of sunshine and promise.

It was that sense of vague excitement that pulled her away from the window as she hurried out of the room and down the hallway toward the stairs.  She heard the girls' laughter, and that made her smile, too, drawing her forward as she ran down the steps, hurrying toward the kitchen to greet the babies she hadn't seen since last night.

"Good morning," she greeted as she breezed into the room, making a beeline toward her parents—and her babies.  Emmeline squealed in delight as Charity leaned in to kiss her cheek, laughing when the infant inadvertently nailed her in the nose with a flying fist of joy.  Then she kissed Sierra's cheek before hurrying around the table to greet Nadia and her father.

Before she could kiss his cheek, however, Toga leaned in ridiculously close and sniffed loudly.  "Papa?  What are you doing?"

Toga snorted, straightening up in his chair and tilting his head to the side so Charity could kiss his cheek, too.  "Just making sure there isn't anything I need to know," he said.

Charity rolled her eyes with a giggle as she fought back the blush inspired by his not-so-subtle hint.

"Do you always sleep in Ben's room?" Toga went on, taking back Nadia as he pinned his daughter with a no-nonsense look.

"Papa," she said, crossing her arms over her chest as she lifted her chin a notch and tried not to smile.   "You know that I'm forty-five years old, don't you?"

"And yet, you're still my little girl, Charity," he explained calmly.

She wrinkled her nose as she slipped into the chair beside him.  "You should take it up with Chelsea if you're worried about that kind of thing."

Toga heaved a sigh, reaching for his coffee mug and carefully keeping it out of the way of tiny, waving hands.  "If I spend too much time, thinking about what that sister of yours is up to, I'm pretty sure I'd end up having a nervous breakdown."

"I told him," Sierra stated with a shake of her head.  "What Ben and you do in the privacy of your own home is entirely up to you."

"Thank you, Mama," Charity said.

Sierra smiled, breaking off a piece of sausage and giggling when Emmeline's face lifted at the aroma of the cooked meat.  "Wait a couple more months," she told the baby, popping the bite into her mouth.  "Besides, if Ben looks as good out of his towel as he does in it, then you can't really blame her for that, can you, Toga?"

Toga choked on his coffee, as Charity gasped and quickly ducked her chin to hide her acute embarrassment—and her overall amusement—at her mother's bald statement.  "Sie!" he complained, shaking his head at his wife.

Across the kitchen, Eddie heaved a longsuffering sigh.

"Morning," Ben said, striding into the room with the newspaper in his hand and fully dressed for once.  Long black hair, still damp from his shower, he looked completely relaxed—and entirely kissable . . .

'Stop that!' she chided herself, grateful that no one could actually read her mind, even if the look on her mother's face was entirely suspect . . .

Nadia screeched when she saw her father, tiny fists flying in her excitement as she bounced wildly in Toga's arms.  Toga chuckled and handed her over.  Ben paused long enough to plant a ridiculously loud kiss on the child's cheek as he stepped around the table to retrieve Emmeline, too.  Nadia, satisfied with her attention from Daddy for the time being, kicked her feet, waved her hands, lunging toward Sierra and very nearly managed to topple right out of Ben's grip.  Sierra laughed and took her as Ben picked up Emmeline with his free hand.

"Good morning," he said, giving her a quick kiss and cuddle.  "I trust you and Toga had a good night.  The girls weren't any trouble for you?"

"Well . . ." Toga drawled.

"Absolutely none," Sierra assured him, rolling her eyes at Toga.

Ben glanced from one to the other and back again as his eyebrow slowly lifted.  "Am I missing something?"

Charity coughed delicately, but refused to meet his questioning gaze.

Eddie snorted as she dumped coffee into Ben's empty mug.  "You either need to learn how to leave Miss Charity alone at night, which is what her parents would prefer, or learn how to shut your damn door," she muttered.  "That's what."

"Uh . . ."  He cleared his throat, lifting his coffee and trying to avoid a tiny swinging fist at the same time.

"Oh, we were wondering," Sierra interrupted, changing the subject in an expert fashion.  "Has Cain said anything about how long it's going to take to finalize the adoption?"

"The last time I talked to him, he said that the judge that usually handles youkai adoptions is on a temporary leave of absence.  His father was killed last year in a car accident, and his mother isn't doing well.  He wanted to spend as much time as he could with her, so he won't be back until . . . Well, you understand," Ben explained.

Toga grimaced and pushed his plate away before holding out his hands for Emmeline, who was quite happy to be handed off again.  "I can't say I blame him for that," he muttered.

Ben nodded and flipped his coffee cup to the side for a refill.  "Zelig did manage to procure a temporary custody order, so that's good enough for the time being."  Eddie hurried over and took her time, filling everyone else's mugs before she finally topped off Ben's.  "Anyway, Toga, I was wondering if you'd like to accompany me today?  I've got to run past special crimes to talk to Gunnar."

"Oh, uh, sure," Toga remarked.  "And you ladies?  What kind of trouble are you going to be getting into?"

Sierra laughed, and Charity nodded her thanks as Eddie slipped a plate of eggs and sausage before her.  "I've got to stop and pick up the Halloween costumes I ordered for the girls and buy candy.  Sound okay, Mama?"

Sierra gasped.  "Oh, my God!  I can't believe I almost forgot about Halloween!"  Giving a happy little squeak, she leaned toward her daughter.  "We should all dress up, don't you think?  We'll have a little party of our own!  Two days is short notice, of course, but it's not that bad, is it?  Toga, see if Gunnar's got plans already when you go see him . . . I wonder who else is in the city . . .?"

Toga shot Ben a longsuffering look.  "The first time she talked me into dressing up, I had to be Dracula," he explained.  "The last time, she wanted to be the Lone Ranger and Tonto.  Guess who got to be Tonto."

Ben tried not to smile.  He really did, but something about the absolute chagrin on the tai-youkai's face was a rare sight, indeed.

"Did you want me to run around shirtless, Toga?" Sierra challenged mildly, lifting an eyebrow as she gazed at her mate, whose cheeks pinked at the bawdy question.  "He still looks pretty damn good without a shirt," she went on, turning her attention back to her daughter again.  "Your Aunt Belle thinks so, too.  Did I tell you that I gave her a poster sized print of your father's beefcake calendar shot for her birthday . . .?"

Pressing his lips together so that he didn't laugh outright, Ben quickly flipped the paper open with one hand and hid his face behind it.

Toga uttered a sigh that shifted into a very low groan.  "I'm never going to live that stupid picture down," he muttered under his breath.

Ben coughed but kept his commentary to himself.