InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Fruition ❯ Drowning ( Chapter 55 )

Charity stepped off of the walkaround path and down the steps, trying to soothe the infant against her shoulder.  She was exhausted, to be honest.  Over a week of a fussy baby who didn't want anything, and every time she put him down, he cried more.  Ben had said that it reminded him of the twins when Cain had first brought them to him, but his cries were even worse if Ben or anyone else tried to take him . . .

The house was dark, quiet.  She'd brought the infant out to the courtyard, hoping that she could keep him calm enough that the others could sleep.  It seemed to be working tonight, anyway.  Last night, he'd cried so much that he'd woken up everyone, and they'd all taken turns, trying their best to soothe him.

It wasn't good for him to cry so much, so hard.  She did her best to remain calm, to retain a level of peace that was hard to come by when all her instincts wanted her to panic . . . It was the basest level of mothering, she supposed.  She was geared to react to a baby's cries.  It was the instinct to mother, to protect . . .

Breaking into a soft lullaby that Sierra used to sing to them when they had trouble falling asleep, she wandered through the stuttering garden.  At one time, she thought that this area might have been beautiful, but it had been neglected of late.  Whether they had been using the courtyard to practice fighting or if they just stopped caring about it, she didn't know.

The baby calmed a little, but he still fussed.

She sighed, but kept singing.

It had been almost ten days since he was born.

The baby wasn't the primary concern, though.  The problem, in her estimation, was Kyouhei.  He hadn't moved, hadn't spoken since that day.  Sitting in his room, day after day, maintaining that silence that he held onto so stubbornly, and he didn’t eat, didn’t sleep, didn’t do anything as he continued to just sit in silence . . . And every day, Charity worried just a little more . . .

Ben had wondered himself if their mother's death, their brother's birth, had somehow managed to break something deep inside him.  Words didn't reach him, couldn't reach him.  Even when Kichiro and Bellaniece had come to check the baby, to check on Kyouhei, he hadn't responded at all, simply sitting there and allowing them to check him over, but saying nothing, giving no indication that he even realized that they were there at all.

But the baby had checked out fine.  He wasn't gaining as much weight as they might like, but he wasn't doing badly.  Bellaniece had given them a bottle of the nutrient drops to add to his formula, said that it would be okay to give him a few extra drops at a time since he wasn't taking his feedings as often as he ought to.

And then, Bellaniece had reminded her that they really needed to do something about the baby's lack of a name.  That was a problem, though, because every time Ben and she sat down and looked at him, none of the names seemed right.  Something in the back of her mind whispered, but the crying of the infant seemed to obliterate any ability on her part to hear, to comprehend . . .

In reality, it all led back to Kyouhei, didn't it?  They were stuck here in a strange sort of limbo, and it wouldn't be broken, not until Kyouhei pulled himself out of his funk or whatever it was.  Tomorrow, Bellaniece was going to come down with Kichiro again to give the baby another checkup, and they were bringing the girls down, too.  It was safe enough, now that Hidekea and Yukina were gone, now that the major threats had all fled for Europe . . .

If only she could make sense of everything that had happened.  If she could come to some kind of understanding, maybe she could reach Kyouhei, help him to understand, too.

But she didn't understand it—any of it . . . And maybe she never, ever would . . .

"You want me to take a turn?"

Charity's lullaby paused as she glanced up at Ben and forced a smile she was far from feeling.  "I'm okay," she insisted, resuming the melody again.

She could feel him watching her, a thoughtful frown on his face as he crossed his arms over his chest.   Finally, though, he strode forward, wrapping his arms around her, closing his arms over her and over the fussing child, gently swaying them back and forth as he kissed her temple, humming the lullaby with her in the stillness of the night.

"I wish I knew what to do to calm him down," she murmured.

Ben sighed.  "Me, too . . ."

"Ben?"

"Hmm?"

She frowned, hating to put her thoughts into words, even though she knew she had to, for the baby's sake . . . "What if . . .?  What if he won't accept us as his parental figures?" she murmured.  "Are we doing more harm than good to him?"

"What do you want to do?  We can't just . . . just give him away."

She winced.  "That's not what I mean," she insisted quietly.  "I don't want to do that, either.  The poor child's already been through enough, and he's not even two weeks old yet . . . But how fair is it to him if he isn't happy with us?"

Ben sighed again, tightening his hold on them both.  "Cherry, let's just see what Bellaniece has to say tomorrow.  Maybe there's some kind of testing we can get done to see if there's another reason for his constant crying . . ."

She considered that and slowly nodded.  "That . . . That's entirely possible, isn't it?  Maybe something that was missed the first time they checked him over, right?"

"It's okay . . . Everything will be fine," he told her.  "Things have a way of working out just how they're supposed to, you know.  Just like us . . ."

She smiled, and this time, it was genuine.  He'd given her back her hope, hadn't he?  She snuggled closer against him, content to let him sway them both gently, as she resumed humming the lullaby under her breath.

"Well, everything looks good . . . He's gained some of his initial weight back, and he has very good lungs," Bellaniece said with a wan smile as the infant cried loudly, angry at the loss of clothing or the warmth of someone holding him.  She picked him up, cuddled him close.  "Poor little guy . . . He's just still trying to find where he belongs," Bellaniece said, crooning at the baby.

Charity sighed, rubbing her forehead with a slightly shaking hand.  "He's a good baby," she insisted.  "He's just . . . Are you sure?  Are you sure that there isn't something wrong with him?  Like some kind of birth defect or anything that would make him upset enough to cry all the time?"

"No, he's perfectly healthy," she replied.  "I think he's just trying to adjust.  Youkai babies are usually born with an instinctive knowledge of who their parents are—Kichiro believes it has something to do with smell since their hearing isn't fully developed until nearly three months old.  It could simply be that he recognizes that you don't smell like the one who should be his mama.  He'll grow more used to you over time.  I'm interested, though, because one would think that Ben ought to smell a lot like his father, at least, given that everyone says he looked like him."

Charity frowned.  True, she hadn't gotten that close to Hidekea, but she'd been in the house long enough to figure out that Ben's scent was a curious mix of both of his parents and not really closer to one or the other.  "Actually, he doesn't," Charity replied thoughtfully.  "Do you think it might help if I got some of Yukina-san's clothing out?  Would that soothe him at all?"

Bellaniece frowned thoughtfully.  "Well, it could," she drawled slowly.  "It could make things worse, though.  I mean, it might help, short term, but when the source of the smell is not there . . ."

Charity nodded when Bellaniece trailed off.  When the mama he expected to accompany that smell never showed up, it might well make it even more confusing for him in the long run . . .

Bellaniece nodded, too, laying him back down so she could dress him.  "Charity, you look exhausted," she said.  "Why don't you let me watch him today?  Get some rest, play with the girls . . ."

Biting her lip, she started to decline.  Why did it feel as though she was abandoning him, even if it was only for a day—a day that she probably needed.

"Go on," Bellaniece insisted, smiling as she lifted the infant off the bed and cuddled him close again.  "It's been a while since you and Ben got to spend some time with just the girls, right?  He'll be fine; I promise."

"If . . . If you're sure . . ."

Bellaniece laughed.  "I'm sure.  We were going to stay the night, anyway, so it's fine, and Kichiro mentioned that it's been too long since we had an infant around to love on, so he'll enjoy helping, too."

Charity hurried over to hug her aunt, then kissed the baby's cheek before hesitantly slipping out of the room.

She found Ben in the room they were staying in.  Sitting on the floor with the girls crawling all over him, he looked happy enough.  "Dada!" Emmeline hollered, sitting back as she braced her hands on Ben's knee and pushed herself into a sitting position.

"Mama!" Nadia burbled, spotting Charity and crawling over to her as quickly as she could go.

Charity laughed and picked her up, giving her a quick cuddle and squeeze before planting a loud kiss on her cheek.  "How's my girl?"

Nadia giggled and smacked her open mouth against Charity's cheek.  "Mama!"

"Where's the baby?" Ben asked, glancing up at her long enough to smile.

"Oba-chan offered to watch him for a little while," she replied, sinking down next to Ben and reaching out to tousle Emmeline's hair.  "Aww, I've missed them."

"Me, too," Ben agreed.  "Zelig called . . . He was wondering when we'd be coming back."

"We can't just leave Kyouhei-san here; not like this."

He nodded.  "That's what I told him."  Then he chuckled.  "If you ask me, I'd say that he's just tired of actually having to work."

"You're making the tai-youkai sound awfully pathetic," she pointed out.

He shrugged.  "If the shoe fits . . ."

Rolling her eyes, she clapped a hand over her mouth as she giggled.  "You don't really think that!" she argued.

Ben chuckled, too.  "Okay, okay, I don't really think that," he agreed.  "Don't tell him I said that, though."

She sighed as her amusement died away, as she watched the girls, crawling around on the floor, chasing after each other as they giggled hollered and played.  "Oba-chan said that there's nothing at all wrong with him," she told him.  "She said that maybe he's missing your mother—the scent of her that he would have been born knowing—expecting."

"So . . . Should we get some of her clothes?  Something that smells like her?"

She shook her head.  "She said that it might well do more harm than good to do that.  It would reinforce his understanding that this is his mama, and . . . And when she doesn't show up, it would just make it worse."

He fell silent, and she had to wonder, as she looked at him, if he was thinking about the same things she had.  Even if it was the last thing they wanted to do, would it be better for the child to find the people that he would accept, just as the twins had accepted Ben and her as their parents . . .? She knew well enough that Ben wouldn't be okay with the idea of it, but at the same time, they didn't really factor into the equation, did they?  It was and should be about the well being of that little boy—that infant who didn't know what was going on, didn't understand a thing except his base knowledge that his mama just wasn't there . . .

"The hell of it is," Ben began quietly, frowning as he watched his daughters and their silly antics, "if she were still alive, it really wouldn’t matter.  He'd still be watched over and taken care of by servants.  Hahaue was never exactly what you could call nurturing."

"Don't give up," she said, reaching over to take his hand.  "It'll all work out, one way or another.  Maybe . . . Maybe we just have to believe."

"Believe," he repeated, contemplating that word as a sad little smile quirked his lips.  "Yeah, you're . . . You're right . . ."

It was dark; so dark.

The quiet of the night seemed to press in from him on all sides, and yet, the sounds kept repeating in his head, over and over again.  The screams, the gurgling sounds, the sickening tear of flesh, coming undone . . . Over and over, the sprays of crimson, of the morbid rain that fell in a bloody mist . . .

He'd been trapped in the loop for days, staring at the walls, seeing them covered in spatters and splashes of red, only for it to all vanish when he blinked, helpless to do anything as it flew through the air, again and again and again . . .

He didn't know how to escape it.  Lost in a realm where he could only watch, only hear, only taste the blood that misted over his lips.

His stomach lurched at the memory—the nightmare—the inescapable loop that he was trapped inside.

He needed to escape, didn't he?  Needed to, desperately, and yet . . .

And yet, there was nothing—no reason, no light . . . because everything was gone.

He could feel himself breaking, could sense the slow decay.  If there ever was anything good in him, it was falling away like ashes in the wind, and he discovered something in a vague and distant kind of way, without any real thought, without any conscious decisions, he realized, in the end, if he had nothing at all, then there was nothing to bring him back, either . . .

Still, a hundred thousand memories that were too jumbled to hold any real clarity: running through the fields, through the forests, over hills, through valleys . . . hours spent alone as he taught himself how to master the earth arts . . . watching countless sunsets, watching countless sunrises . . . and they all circled back on themselves . . .

And he was always alone.

A solitary sound came to him, a flicker of something that didn't come from his own mind . . . Somehow, it seemed almost familiar to him, and if he could only understand, if he could only grasp onto what that sound was . . .

He'd almost faded back into his own mind again when the sound came to him once more—a high pitched and piteous thing that was almost as sad as he . . .

'Am I . . . necessary . . .?  Is there . . . anyone . . .?'

That sound again.

It drew him up off of the floor, moving as though in a daze as he pushed open the shoji screen door, stepped out onto the walkway, following that sound, even if he wasn't sure why.  It was the sound of desperation, a feeling so lost, so lonely . . . And somewhere deep down, he understood those things . . .

He didn't stop when he reached the door that stood between him and the sound . . . If he could just reach it, the source . . .

He opened the door without thinking, strode forward, compelled by the incessant reverberation inside his own mind.  Reaching out slowly, carefully, he took it from her without hearing a thing around him—nothing but the cries that echoed in his head.

And those cries stopped, winding down to hiccups, to sniffles, to sad little whines, to a harsh sigh as the infant relaxed against him, uttering a couple tumultuous, stunted breaths as his eyes closed, as he finally, blessedly, slept.

'This is . . . This is . . .'

The voice that had lain dormant for so long finally spoke.  'It's okay, Kyouhei . . . You can say it.'

He swallowed hard, frowning down at the infant, held against his heart, the downy golden-brown hair, the tiny pointed ear . . . The little fist, clenched against his face, resting against his chest . . . And a part of him understood, didn't he . . .? 'This is . . . The one who . . . needs me . . .?'