InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Fruition ❯ Happenstance ( Chapter 31 )

"Ow! "

Glancing up from the computer she was using to surf the internet to find ideas for Christmas presents for the twins, Charity raised an eyebrow at Ben, who was laying on the floor without a shirt on with the pair of now-three-month-old little squirmers, who were doing their level best to bedevil their father.  Emmeline was content to lean up, using her chubby arms to brace herself against his chest as she babbled and squawked while Ben held her in place with one arm.  Nadia, however, must have decided that her father looked quite yummy since she was sitting up in the crook of his arm, holding onto his hand and chomping down hard on his finger.

Catching Charity's amused stare, he grinned.  "I think she's starting to teethe," he remarked with a grimace as his hand jerked slightly when Nadia bit down hard again.  "Her fangs, anyway . . ."

She shook her head.  It wasn't surprising if Nadia was teething, or at least cutting her fangs.  Though typical development of youkai children tended to be fairly close to their human counterparts, even if just slightly accelerated, she'd also been told that youkai and hanyou children tended to cut their fang teeth a month or two before the regular teething really began.  "You'll be sorry for letting her do that when she starts breaking skin," she predicted.

"Listen, Nadi," he said, grasping the baby and rolling her up onto his chest next to her sister, "you can chew on me all you want, but don't do that to Mommy, okay?"

Charity broke into a smile, resting her chin on her balled-up fist as she turned in her chair to watch the three of them, instead.

Ben chuckled, his grin taking on a devilish light.  "After all, Mommy's just a hanyou, so she's not nearly as tough as we are, right?"

Charity snorted indelicately and swiveled back around again.  "Baka," she muttered, much to Ben's amusement.

"That's okay, girls.  We'll keep her around because she's awfully pretty, don't you think?"

She snorted again and clicked on a link for a baby bouncing indoor jungle gym.

A sudden hiss, however, drew her attention, and she turned her head just in time to see him deposit both girls on the floor before quickly sitting up to grasp his chest—and the rapidly pinking nipple.  "Wow . . . Did she bite you?" Charity managed to ask without laughing outright.

Ben made a face, giving up the inspection as he rubbed a hand over the abused body part.  "Yes," he said with a grimace.  "Yes, she did."

"Aw, it'll be fine," she scoffed, turning her head before she laughed right in his face.  "You're full youkai.  You're so much tougher than I am."

He snorted.  "I would feel terrible for you if Jaws-Of-Doom, here, bit your nipple," he pointed out a little too reasonably.

"First off, there would be no moment in time in which that would be possible, all things considered," she argued.  "Second off, if it did happen, you'd better feel sorry for me, considering women's nipples are by far more sensitive than men's!"

He grunted.  "That's one of the most sexist things I've ever heard, Cherry."

"It's not sexist if it's true," she scoffed.

He heaved a sigh, apparently deciding that she'd won that round, after all.

Charity made a face.  "You could come over here and help me look for Christmas presents, you know," she remarked.

He shook his head as Emmeline latched onto his pants and tugged herself forward.  "I'm already done shopping."

"What?" she blurted, turning around to pin him with an incredulous stare.  "You are not!"

He nodded.  "I did what I do every year."

Narrowing her gaze, Charity slowly blinked.  "And what's that?"

"Gift cards," he replied simply.  "Takes ten minutes, tops, and you're set."

Rolling her eyes, Charity got up and sat down next to them.  "You cannot give babies gift cards," she pointed out.

He grinned.  "Yeah, but you're shopping for them.  I'll just write, 'plus Daddy' on all the tags."

Shaking her head as she pulled Nadia into her lap, she sighed.  "Ben?"

"Hmm?" he drawled, grabbing Emmeline and turning her around to settle her on his leg.

"Did you get me a gift card?"

"Mmm, yes—a higher-dollar gift card than everyone else, though."

She wrinkled her nose.  He missed it.  "Ben?"

"Yes?"

"If you give me a gift card, I won't speak to you ever again."

"It's for Oceans Equitus," he pointed out, knowing well enough that Oceans Equitus was Charity's favorite bath and body store, ever.

She made a face.  "Good, then go into the store and spend that gift card because I want a present, Ben Philips!"

He sighed.  "I would, but there isn't one down here—at least, I've never seen one."

"You're such a jerk," she muttered, ruining the effect a moment later when she giggled.

Ben chuckled, grasping Emmaline's wrists and pressing her hands together.  "All right, Em, before you engage your opponent, you need to show them the proper respect."  She pitched forward just a little since she wasn't perfect with her balance just yet.  "Yes, just like that.  Now, put your hands in the ready stance . . ." He pulled one arm back and stuck the other one straight out in front of her while Emma leaned down in an effort to capture Ben's knuckle in her mouth.  "Okay, now you're ready to—"

Charity laughed helplessly.  "They aren't old enough to spar!" she giggled.

"Okay," he allowed, letting go of Emmeline's arms and grasping her upper legs instead.  "Kickboxing, though . . ." To illustrate his point, he made the baby kick out her leg—complete with ridiculous sound effects, too.

Charity's giggles escalated as she scooted away a little bit. "Quit it," she insisted between bouts of laughter.  "You're trying to turn them into underground cage fighters!"

Nadia, reacting to Charity's amusement, screeched out a happy laugh, too, clapping her hands and half-hopping, half-lurching forward as her mother's arms tightened around her to keep her from toppling over.

"See?  Nads wants to learn how to fight," Ben pointed out.

"She does not!" Charity argued, cuddling the baby close.  "You're a terrible influence."

Ben chuckled.  "Maybe, but hearing you laugh is well worth the effort."

Charity could feel the hint of a blush creeping into her skin as she dropped her gaze to the baby she held.  Nadia must have decided that it was nap time, because she leaned to the side, curling herself up in Charity's lap, resting her cheek on her mother's folded knee as she closed her eyes.  "Did you look over those listings I printed out for you?"

Glancing up from Emmeline, who was doing pretty much the same thing on her father's lap, Ben shrugged.  "I did," he allowed.  "I can't say I'm too thrilled with any of them."

Charity frowned.  It wasn't the first time in the last few weeks that he'd disregarded the home listings she'd found for places in and around Bevelle.  "If you don't want to move closer to oji-san . . ."

He chuckled.  "It's not that," he assured her.  "I was simply thinking that it might be better to have something built exactly as we'd like it.  Besides, I spoke with Zelig, and he offered to sell us the property he owns that lies on the other side of the lighthouse, closer to the ocean front.  It's about fifteen acres, including a couple of small islets not far from the shore, as well."  He stood up, careful not to disturb Emmeline as he moved her off his lap and onto the play mat to finish her nap.  "Let me get my phone.  He sent me some pictures to show you."

"You want to build a house?" she asked, laying Nadia down with her sister.

Ben shrugged and handed her his phone.  "Well, if it's going to be our main residence, then it might as well be exactly what we both want, don't you think?"

Unable to repress the blush that rose at the allusion that there was and should be a more permanent bond between the two of them, Charity bit her lip as she scrolled through the images.  Most of them showed expanses of land, covered in snow, but the images of the beachfront were beautiful, despite the overlying gray that was fairly pervasive in Maine at this time of year.  "What . . .?  What do we both want, Ben?" she asked quietly as she stared at the pictures and wandered toward the windows.

"I hope you want the same things I do," he replied.

Charity opened her mouth to reply, but the phone in her hand buzzed.  She squeaked in surprise, nearly losing her grip on the device, and started to hand it over when the caller ID flashed on the screen.  'Kyouhei,' it read.  Charity's eyes flared wide as she slowly shifted her eyes to meet Ben as he strode over to take the phone.

"Kyouhei . . . Everything okay?"  Intercepting Charity's worried expression, Ben nodded and smiled.  "Good.  Glad to hear that," he said.

Letting out a deep breath as a wave of relief washed over her, Charity smiled.  "Tell him I send my regards," she said quietly, just loudly enough for Ben to hear her.  The satellite phone rang, too, and Charity giggled.  "I'll get that," she said, hurrying away to grab it off the desk.  Ben headed for the back doors since his phone tended to cut out whenever the satellite phone was in use since the regular cells didn't get the best reception out here.  Luckily, it was a fairly calm day, so reception seemed better than usual.

The caller ID on the satellite phone registered, 'unknown', and Charity frowned.   "Hello?" she said, connecting the call despite the trill of unreasonable trepidation that suddenly took hold of her.

"Hello," the blatantly feminine voice greeted her.  "This is Manami . . ."

"M-Manami," Charity said with a frown.  "You . . . Are you calling for Ben?"  She grimaced, irritated at the intense sense of overwhelming insecurity that crashed down on her upon hearing the one person that threatened everything that Charity had come to depend upon.  Forcing a hollow laugh, she bit her lip.  "Of—Of course, you are," she muttered.  "He's on his phone right now . . . I . . . I'll have him call you back . . ."

Manami laughed—an entirely pleasant sound that grated on Charity's nerves just the same. "Actually, I wasn't calling him," she admitted.  "Is this Charity?  Benjiro's Charity?"

"Benjiro's—? Uh, yes, I-I-I'm Charity . . ."

Manami sighed, but it sounded entirely pleasant.  "I wanted to call you before, but he asked me to let him explain . . . Did he do a decent job of it?  I hope he did because that was never his strong suit, well, ever . . ."

Unsure what to make of the unexpected phone call, Charity frowned as she slowly sank into the desk chair. "He . . . He said that you were his oldest friend," she replied slowly, carefully.  "He said that the two of you . . . That you were lovers."

"Oh, dear," Manami replied, sounding entirely distressed over Charity's admission.  "That couldn't have been easy for you to hear, was it?" she asked, her voice full of concern, maybe even some empathy.  "We were, but that was a long, long time ago, and I hope he told you that we were never, ever meant to be mates.  He was my first love, it's true, and maybe I was his, but . . . But I was never in love with him, nor was he with me.  It was more of a childish need, I think—funny to look at it like that when we were both a little over a hundred years old when we last parted ways, but maybe when you've lived this long, that ages really does seem like your childhood . . . Anyway, we were both searching for something to fill an emptiness—me with my lost parents, and him with the parents that treated him as little more than a possession: a possession and a weapon—and so, we leaned on each other, used each other to negotiate that void, but only on a purely physical level . . ."

"You don't . . . Don't have to explain all of this to me," Charity forced herself to say as she rubbed furiously at her suddenly-throbbing temple.  "It's . . . It's really none of my business, and—"

"Please, Charity, believe me when I say that I am not trying to hurt you.  When I saw him at your party, I confess, I forgot myself.  If I had realized—if I had known about you, I certainly would not have kissed him."

Charity sighed, unable to ignore the very real distress in Manami's voice, as clear as daylight, even over the phone connection.  "Ben told me that he wanted you to go with him when he left Japan," she said.  "Can I ask you?  Why?  Why didn't you go with him?"

She laughed, but the sound was tinged with a hint of sadness, as though she regretted what might have been, at least, on some level.  Or maybe it was simply that the passage of time had worked its magic, shifting the memories into a different perspective that she just hadn't had back then . . . "When he told me that Keijizen had been offered the tai-youkai's office in the New World, I knew that Benjiro would go with him.  There was no question.  Those two . . . They were close—close in a way that I couldn't even hope to breach.  Even Akinako-chan could not, although I'm sure that she and Keijizen had their own special bond as mates . . . But Benjiro . . . He asked me to go, but I understood that what he really wanted was to bring me along as a friend, as part of our circle, but even if I wanted to go, I couldn't leave my sister behind.  She had grown to love Akinako-chan's mother as her own, which, I guess, wasn't surprising, given that she possessed very little in the way of memories of our real mother.  She never would have wanted to leave, and I . . ." Trailing off for a moment, she sighed, as though she were trying to find a better way to order her words, to offer an explanation that Charity wanted—no, needed.  "I almost did go with him," she admitted.  "I . . . I followed them to the docks, watched them board the ship.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't almost call out to them so many times, but in the end, I think I knew that it was a simple feeling of dependence up on the friends that I had come to love, and in the end, I realized that our paths all lie in very different directions . . ."

"And you never saw him again after that," Charity finished with a wince, hating the part of her that had condemned this woman in her mind for so long.  She'd always sought to be fair, to withhold judgment, and yet, in this case, she hadn't tried, at all . . .

"Not until your party," she agreed, and Charity could hear the smile in Manami's voice.  "The last time I'd seen Benjiro was his birthday—his one hundred nineteenth birthday—the day they left for the New World."  She sighed. "I was living in Paris when I heard of Keiji-kun and Aki-chan's misfortune, but I heard nothing of Benjiro.  It didn't occur to me that he'd changed his name by then, though, in hindsight, I should have realized that much . . . I suppose that, over time, I tried to stop wondering where he was, what he was doing . . . Whether or not he was even still alive . . . I missed the familiarity of his friendship, the feeling that I wasn’t alone, but . . .” She trailed off with a sad sort of sigh.  “I never stopped missing him—missing that innocence that we'd both left behind in the Old World . . . It was . . . a long, long time ago."

And just what could Charity say to that?  Manami had managed to put things into a context that Charity could understand, could empathize with.  How sad would it have been, to lose the one person who you'd learned to depend upon when the rest of the world had let you down?  "Manami-san . . ."

Manami laughed gently.  "No need to stand upon formality, Charity.  I just . . . I was calling because I wanted to ask you . . ."

"Ask me what?" Charity prompted when Manami trailed off.

The woman drew a deep breath, a fortifying breath.  "If Benjiro thinks that you're special, then you're someone that I feel is worth knowing, and . . . and if you cannot because of that stupid kiss, then I can understand that completely."  She sighed.  "If I could go back in time, I'd stop myself from acting so impulsively, Charity.   I'm so very sorry for that."

"I don't . . . I don't really know exactly where I stand with Ben," Charity admitted, hating the feeling of inadequacy that still lingered in the back of her mind.  "I'm really not all that special . . ."

Manami laughed.  "Oh, please!  Surely you know!  The Benjiro I knew was not one to play games, and unless he developed that truly deplorable habit over the years, which I sincerely doubt, then you must know, don't you?  I believe that Myrna once said that Ben was truly 'good'.  It's one of the things that always kept her from trying to pursue him in any capacity—she didn't wish to corrupt him."

"So . . . So, Ben and Myrna never . . .?"

Her laughter escalated, but it was not unkind.  "Goodness, no!  I'm sure she would have tried, had he ever been anything but entirely upstanding, but he's Benjiro, and that is just not who he ever has been.  But you knew that already, no?"

Biting her lip, leaning her forehead on her raised fist, Charity sighed.  "Sometimes I don't think I know much of anything," she admitted.

"Ah, but you know that you have two absolutely gorgeous little girls," Manami pointed out.  "I must confess, sometimes I wonder what it would be like, to find my mate, to settle down and have babies . . ."

"It makes you really sleepy," Charity joked.

"I bet it does," she agreed with a laugh.  "Anyway, I should like to have lunch with you sometime when you're back from Mexico," she said.  "I could tell you all about Benjiro's bad habits—any of them that you're not already familiar with, that is."

"Oh, uh, okay," Charity agreed.  "I think . . . I think I'd like that."

"It was so nice to talk to you, Charity.  Thank you for listening."

"No, thank you for calling," she countered.  "I . . . I really needed it."

The connection ended, and Charity dropped the phone onto the desk as she let out a deep breath.  That Manami had taken the time and gone to the effort to call, to tell her everything, spoke volumes about the kind of person she was, in Charity's estimation.  Objectively speaking, she could fully appreciate just why Ben would hold Manami in such high regard.  If she took Manami's claim that it had all been a huge misunderstanding at face value, then Charity could see where the entire situation had spiraled out of control, and that, really, was no one's fault.

That cautious sense of optimism that Charity had been trying to ignore ever since that day when he’d kissed her in the water surged forth, and suddenly, she felt like laughing, like dancing, like singing or shouting or maybe even crying.  There were still a few lingering doubts, and yet, for the first time in such a long time, she smiled to herself.  Maybe she could stop second-guessing herself, stop second-guessing Ben.  Maybe it was okay to think of fairy tales and happy endings, of rainbows and unicorns and the beauty of a new day.  Maybe it was all right to dare to think of a future where the blanks were filled in, where the man she wished she could see was the same as the one who stood before her, and maybe, just maybe it was all right to hope again . . .