InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Fruition ❯ Uncertainty ( Chapter 19 )

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

Charity kissed Emmeline's downy head as she slowly shoved her feet against the floor in a controlled rocking of the chair as she watched her babies fall asleep in her arms, cosseted by the quiet of the nursery.  For once, her parents hadn't tried to take them to their room, and maybe they'd understood, just how badly she needed to do this tonight—to concentrate on the twins because if she stopped, if she tried to think . . .

It wouldn't be long before they were too big for her to hold them both at the same time.  At their last checkup with the pediatrician that Isabelle had recommended—Dr. Beatrice Lancolm—Charity had been happy to learn that both of the girls had gained a good bit of weight and had managed to catch up with other babies in their age range.

"What the hell . . .?"

Wincing at the harsh undertone in her father's voice, Charity forced herself to look away, bit down on the soft side of her cheek until she drew blood as she struggled to blank her expression in the face of her family that were all staring at her.  She didn't have to look around to verify it, either.  No, she could feel their eyes and the questions in their gazes, and that was more than enough . . .

"Papa!" she hissed as she caught Toga's arm.  She didn't let go until he finally stopped trying to shake her off.  "Papa, what are you doing?"

"I'm going to ask a few questions, that's what," Toga growled, keeping his voice lowered for her benefit, she supposed.

"No," she stated, shaking her head for added emphasis as she frowned up at him.  "Please."

He opened his mouth to say something, only to be cut off when Sierra hurried over with Nadia and Emmeline.  "Charity, I think the twins are just exhausted," she said, her smile a little too bright, her gaze a little too strained.  "Why don't you go ahead and take them upstairs?  I . . . I think they've had more than enough excitement for one day, don't you, Toga?"

He snorted out a response, refusing to drag his eyes off the youkai general.

Sierra sighed as Charity took the babies.  "Come on, Toga," she said, taking his hand and giving him a little tug.

"Where are we going?" he demanded, not at all pleased that Sierra seemed to be trying to distract him from what he fully intended on doing.

Her smile brightened even more as Charity winced inwardly.  "We're going to go get the babies' bottles around," she explained.

He looked like he was going to argue with her.  In the end, however, he heaved a sigh and let Sierra drag him toward the archway.  Sierra glanced back at Charity and offered her an encouraging smile before she disappeared into the foyer with Toga in tow behind her.

Letting out a deep breath in the dimly lit nursery, Charity blinked a few times to drive the memory back.  "What . . . What am I suppose to do?" she asked quietly, not really expecting an answer as the babies drowsed in her arms.  Everything she thought that she knew; the things that she had believed . . . Unable to shake the image of the two, standing there, outlined by the dancing light of the flames on the hearth behind them, of them embracing one another and that damned kiss that she wished she'd never had to see . . . Just where did it leave her?

She winced.  That was a stupid question, wasn't it?  That woman—whoever she was—it was pretty obvious.  She knew Ben, and she knew him well.  Ben wasn't the kind to randomly go around, kissing women, and Charity knew that, too.

'But he kissed you, too . . .'

Ignoring the soft musing of her youkai-voice, Charity slowly shook her head as she carefully stood up to put the babies to bed.  There really wasn't anything she could think of that would turn what she had seen into some kind of misunderstanding.   Just what could be said, anyway?  That kiss . . . It wasn't a greeting of two people who hadn't seen each other in a long time.  There was nothing friendly in the atmosphere of the room.  No, it was almost more of an electric kind of anticipation, and she would have had to be stupid to have missed that.

Biting her lip as she felt her ears flatten against her skull, she tried to will away the fresh surge of emotion that washed over her in an unrelenting tide, leaving her feeling torn and bruised and bloodied in places that the eye could not see.  The overwhelming knowledge that she was just a little dumber than she'd ever realized brought a harsh pain to her chest that rivaled the thumping inside her head, and the understated knowledge that she really was a fool . . .

'And how could he help it?' she thought with a rueful smile, one that didn't begin to hold any real humor, full of irony and of the tiniest bit of self-pity.  'She . . . She's gorgeous . . . Like a model or an actress or . . .' She winced.  Tall, elegant, with a kind of grace and bearing that Charity would never even begin to possess . . . And Charity, as much as she hated to admit it, felt more like the ugly duckling in comparison.

Yet there was more to it, wasn't there?  More to the whole thing than Charity wanted to consider.  The familiarity between the two was too apparent, and did it matter if he'd never mentioned her before?  It didn't because Charity knew well enough that it was Ben's life, Ben's story, and if he chose not to tell her about it, then she had no right to ask, either.  After all, the truth of it was entirely obvious, as much as Charity hated that, too.

If that woman knew Ben well enough to waltz right into his house during a family gathering and kiss Ben like that?

'They've got a history,' she realized as she pulled a soft fleece blanket over the sleeping babies, 'and Ben and I . . . We don't . . .'


"I can't believe it's you . . . Ben Philips, now is it . . .?"

Ben handed Manami a glass of wine and sat down on the sofa beside her after seeing the last of the guests out.  Lifting his glass of brandy, he swallowed deeply before he shook his head and managed a drawn smile at the swan-youkai.  "You look good, Nami," he remarked quietly, using the childhood abbreviation of her name, still not entirely certain that he actually could believe that she was there, sitting next to him. The last time he'd seen her . . .

She laughed softly, placing a gentle hand on his forearm for a moment before withdrawing once more.  "And to think, I was about to tell Myrna that I wasn't really in a Halloween-ish mood . . ."

"And how long have you known her?" he asked, raising an eyebrow to emphasize his question.

"How long . . .?" she repeated, her face taking on a thoughtful frown, lips puckering slightly as she considered her answer.  "It must have been around Christmas because I remember the festival outside the cathedral in Paris . . . Somewhere in the early 1800s . . . I lost track of the years, I guess . . . They all rather meld together after so long . . ."

"Sounds about right," he allowed with a smile.  "And that's when you met her?"

Her laughter flowed over him like water, and she shrugged.  "She was just a child then—a gorgeous child, mind you—I think she said she was seventeen, and she worked in this cabaret four nights a week, up on that stage, dancing with everything she had, just to make the money to pay for the flat she'd gotten her brother to rent for her.  I used to stop in just to watch her . . . Even back then, she had the moves."  She giggled again and waved a hand as though to dismiss her own wayward thoughts.   "One night, a particularly obnoxious fellow waited for her to leave, and he tried to force himself on her in the alley behind the club, and Myrna's tough—you know that, I'd guess.  But the man was huge—a boar-youkai, which was entirely apropos, if you think about it . . . Anyway, I couldn't let that happen to her, now, could I?  And we've been friends ever since."

He couldn't help the surprised expression that filtered over his features, and he shook his head as he pulled the fake goatee off of his chin and dropped it on the coffee table.  There was still a residual stickiness that he needed to wash off, but that could wait.  "You?  You fought someone?"

Her laugh was entirely warm, almost indulgent.  "Things changed, Benjiro—or should I call you 'Ben' now?"

He shrugged and drew another fortifying quaff of the brandy.  "Either.  I don't mind."

She nodded, but the smile on her face didn't diminish.  "I learned how to fight."

"I don't know," he allowed, eyes clouding over as he considered the Manami he knew better: the timid girl with the brightest smile and the tears that always came when faced with violence or even the perception of it.  "Did you really change that much?"

"Everyone changes," she said simply, but there was no anger, no bitterness, in her voice.  No, just a gentle sense of inevitability that he could fully appreciate . . .

"So, why are you here now?" he asked, rising from the sofa to refill his glass.  "Didn't you tell me that the New World was utterly barbaric?  Those were the words you’d used . . ."

She rolled her eyes as another soft chuckle issued from her, as she set the wine glass aside and toyed with the fan in her lap.  "That was ages ago.  It's since been domesticated, or so I hear.  But to answer your question, Myrna asked me to come.  She has a job for me."

"A job?  Doing what?"

"Helping you, I think."

He stopped mid-pour and glanced over his shoulder at her to see if she was kidding or not.  She looked serious enough, despite the devastatingly gorgeous smile that he used to know so well.  Pushing an errant lock of platinum blonde hair out of her face with a delicate hand, she met his gaze and winked, and Ben shook his head slowly.  "Helping me?  How's that?"

Manami waved a hand, as though she were dismissing Ben’s softly-uttered questions.  She wasn’t, though.  "Myrna asked me to try to get information from the cougar-youkai: the Unkers.  She thought I'd have more luck than a bunch of men."

Pivoting on his heel to face her once more, Ben sipped the brandy as he frowned at her.  "No," he stated in a tone that should have ended the subject, once and for all.  "Absolutely not.  It's too dangerous."

"I want to do it," she said simply.  Then she sighed, and the smile that she'd carried throughout the conversation thus far faltered just a little, only to be replaced by an enigmatic light in her gaze.  "You did so much for me back then: you and . . . and Keijizen-san . . . and . . . Akinako-chan . . ."

Ben let out a deep breath but said nothing as he considered her words.  He didn't like the idea that she'd willingly put herself into a dangerous situation—not her . . .

"Even if it weren't for you, I'd still do it," she went on almost philosophically.  "And don't worry.  I can take care of myself."

"Manami . . ."

"You haven't asked me what I've been doing, you know," she remarked when he trailed off.

"Okay," he said, setting the snifter aside and crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned against the bar behind him.  "I'll bite.  What have you been up to since the last time I saw you?  How's your sister?"

She laughed again, but this time, there was a sad kind of lilt to the sound, a melancholy that only someone who had lived as long as they had could manage to attain.  "She died a few years after you'd left," she said simply, matter-of-factly, despite the sadness that tinged the edges of her youki.  "After that . . . After that, I thought maybe I'd come find you, but . . . But I found Paris, and I was comfortable there.  I met Elan Rainier—"

"Rainier . . .?” He frowned.  Something about that name was familiar to him, but it took another minute for him to figure out, why.  “The first MacDonnough’s hunter?  That Rainier?"  He shook his head, his mind, unwilling to believe her candid claim.  “The . . . The last hell-youkai . . .”

She nodded.  "He taught me his trade: how to fight, how to . . . to kill."

Ben's eyes flashed wide, and he straightened up as he narrowed his eyes on the woman sitting so demurely before him.  "You're M," he said, shaking his head in silent disbelief.  "You're the one MacDonnough calls, 'the assassin' . . ."

She nodded again.  "I am."

He snorted indelicately, leaning back once more and stuffing his hands into his pockets.  "I'm surprised he'd let you out of his sight," he said.  "It's not like he'd ever do a favor for Zelig, after all."

"The MacDonnough and I are not seeing eye-to-eye at the moment," she admitted with a shrug.  "You could say that I'm on an extended leave of absence."

"Is that right?"

She nodded.  "There has been a lot of unrest there of late," she explained.  "Ian wanted me to hunt a family, simply because they disagreed with some of his policies—not the least of which was the standing order to kill Meara MacDonnough-Izayoi and her mate upon sight if they so much as step one foot into European jurisdiction.  And then, there is that whole mess in Ireland, and I . . . Well, there were differences there, too . . .”

Ben made a face.  "Damn bastard," he muttered, snatching up the snifter and draining it in one large swallow.

She sighed, but it was more of a cleansing exhalation than a sound of exasperation.  "Enough about that!  Tell me about you!  Tell me about your babies!"

He chuckled and shook his head.  She'd always been quick to change subjects at the drop of a hat.  He supposed some things just never changed.  "I thought you knew about them already.  I mean, Myrna had to have told you enough for you to know what she wanted you to do . . ."

This time, she rolled her eyes and pinned Ben with a droll look, her eyes so dark blue that they looked nearly black in the half-light.  "Of course, she did," she said, as though it was a foregone conclusion.  "What I want to know is, how?  Did you just feel as though the time was right?"

"Actually, no, the timing's not that great, but . . ." He broke into a slightly lopsided little smile.  "They belong with me."

She nodded as though she understood his reasoning.  "And this woman, this Charity . . . She is their mother, but not your mate?"

Letting out a deep breath, Ben's smile faded, and he slowly shook his head.  "No . . . She's . . . She's not."

Manami's eyes widened, and her lips parted, only to take on the form of an 'oh' for a moment before she pressed them together and gave a nod.  "But you want for her to be."

He sighed, mostly because it would be his rotten luck to have met up with the one being on earth that he'd never, ever been able to lie to.  Manami always had been far more perceptive than she ought to be.  "It's . . . complicated," he allowed.

'Even more complicated now, you moron,' his youkai-voice snorted.  'Shouldn't you be cutting the reunion short and go see how much damage control you need to do with Charity?'

"Love is complicated.  Life is complicated," she said.  "How can I help you?"

Rubbing a hand over his face, he grimaced.  "You could start by not kissing me like you did when you got here," he pointed out.

Manami winced, too.  "I'm so sorry . . . I didn't know, and when I saw you—Oh!  Where is she now?  I will go explain—"

"Oh, no," Ben said, shaking his head stubbornly.  "I really don't think—no, I know that's not a good idea.  I'll . . . I'll talk to her."

She didn't look entirely convinced, but she grudgingly nodded once.  "You're not nearly as good at explaining things, Benjiro," she reminded him dubiously.  Then she sighed, her gaze taking on a somber sort of light.  "Tell me . . . When did you stop thinking about me?" she asked quietly.

Pulling off the jacket and cape, he dropped it over the back of a nearby chair and took his time as he worked the buttons on his cuffs.  "I think about you," he admitted.  "It's just . . ."

"Just that you think about her more," she finished when he trailed off.  "She's the one, though, isn't she?"

He rolled up the sleeves a couple times and stuffed his hands into his pockets as he wandered over to the bank of windows.  "From the first time that I saw her . . . Well, not the first time. I saw her a number of times as a child.  But . . ."

"Then why isn't she your mate already?"

He sighed.  "She was just a child," he said.  "Not a child, but . . . but not a grown woman, either . . . She was only nineteen . . ."

"So, you waited."

He nodded.  "I've been waiting, yes."

"And now?  How old is she now?"

"Forty-five."

She pondered that for a moment.  "No longer a child, right?  Tell me, then, why you're dragging your feet now."

"I was working on it, and I'd like to think it was going well—until you kissed me, that is."

She wrinkled her nose and blushed prettily.  "I've apologized for that," she reminded him.  "And I offered to make it right, but—"

"I know; I know."

"Then why are you beating around the bush with it?"

Leaning his forearm against the window sill above his head, he let his forehead drop against it as he stared out at the darkness of the night.  "It has to be right," he said quietly.  "I've waited this long, haven't I?  I can wait until . . ." He made a face.  "Until she loves me back."

"How do you not know?"

He started, straightening his back as he glanced over his shoulder at her.  He hadn't heard her approach . . . "I can't read her mind," he pointed out dryly.

She rolled her eyes as she stepped around him to pin him with a no-nonsense look.  "Have you kissed her?"

Ben opened and closed his mouth a few times, but couldn't help the hot wash of a blush that slammed into his cheeks, either.  "W—I—Sh—A . . . A couple times," he blustered.

She narrowed her gaze thoughtfully, but didn't look away from Ben's face.  Finally, she nodded.  "Then you know."

"I beg your pardon?"

Manami waved a hand in blatant dismissal.  "Women cannot hide their emotions, you realize.  If you've kissed her, then you should know."

He snorted.  "Not that easy when I—" Cutting himself off abruptly, he clamped his mouth closed and shifted his gaze out the window once more, stubbornly denying the blush that darkened in his cheeks.

"Go on."

He grunted, fully intending to ignore the woman for the duration.

She sighed.  "When you what, Benjiro?"

"When I cannot think when she touches me," he growled.

Manami laughed softly, placing a comforting hand on his arm.  "Is it the same?"

"What?"

She shrugged.  "I asked you if it is the same."

"Is what the same?"

"Oh, Benjiro," she chided.  "The feelings when you kissed me and when you kiss her.  Are they the same?"

"Hell, no, it's not the same," he snapped, shooting her a look designed to let her know just how stupid he thought that particular question really was.

"Describe it," she challenged.

Ben shook his head.  "What?  Why?  What do you mean, describe it?"

"Describe the difference," she replied patiently.  "Tell me what this, 'difference' is."

He uttered a half-growl, half-sigh.  "It's easy," he grumbled, letting his arm drop away from the window frame as he turned to face Minami.  "When I kissed you—When we . . ." he sighed again. "It was . . . It was a physical reaction."

"And you have no physical reaction to your Charity?"

"Of course, I do," he shot back, raking his hands through his hair as he paced the floor before her.  "It's just, with her . . . It's all these . . . these feelings, these emotions, and . . . and I can't think or . . ."

Minami laughed and clapped her hands.  "That's so beautiful!" she insisted, her eyes sparkling with her amusement as she let out a dreamy sigh.  "Your Charity . . . She's a lucky woman."

Ben shook his head.  "I still don't know what you're getting at, Nami," he grumbled.

"You are kissing her with your emotions, Ben, and that is a beautiful thing!  It is your heart, your soul, that speaks to her, and that only happens if she is your mate.  Is that not so?"

He sighed.  He hadn't actually thought of it that way, no, but . . . But it made perfect sense, too . . . "It . . . It is . . ."

She laughed again, her eyes sparkling just like they did when they were little more than children. "I should go," Minami said, sparing a moment to lean up, to kiss Ben on the cheek.  "I . . . I would like to see you again . . . Maybe dinner with your Charity, too, when all this is behind us?"

Ben made a face.  "If she's still talking to me," he sighed.  All the same, he followed her to the door and stepped outside with her.  The cool air hit her, and she shivered, but her smile was still just as bright, just as radiant.  "It’s good, seeing you again."

She nodded and stepped back.  "It's a small world, Benjiro."

He chuckled.  "Do you want me to call you a cab?"

This time, she laughed.  "That won't be necessary," she assured him.  Then she glanced around, as though to make sure that she wouldn't be seen.  A moment later, gorgeous white wings sprang from her back, flipping gently, lazily a couple times.

"Ah, don't do that!" he said, knowing damn well she wouldn't listen to him.

Manami laughed again as her feet lifted off the ground.  "Give me a call, won't you?  Myrna has my number!"

Ben heaved a sigh, shaking his head as he watched the woman rise into the darkness and disappear faster than a human eye could have discerned her, in the first place.

Then he reached for the door, bracing himself for the confrontation that he was sure was brewing upstairs . . .