InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Metempsychosis ❯ Feeling It Out ( Chapter 3 )

"I'm sorry that Ashur said those things to you."

Shrinking back, making herself just a little smaller in the seat of the late-model luxury car, Jessa lowered her head, ducked her chin, huddled a little closer to the door.

Charity sighed and gripped the steering wheel tighter.  "He's normally not like that," she went on, her tone more apologetic than Jessa figured it should be.  She hadn't said a damn thing, and she ought to not be apologizing for him, either . . . "It's just that he's been through kind of a lot himself the last few years . . . He . . . He really wasn't like this before . . ."

For some reason, the woman's gentle words were enough to irritate Jessa even more.

"It was careless, is what it was . . . The man knew he was going to die.  It was obvious, right?  He was a fool if he didn't have a will drawn up to protect her.  All of this mess is his own damn fault—and all of it could have been easily avoided, if you ask me . . .  Any man who doesn't lift a finger to protect his own, however he can, is a fool.  He's the one who owes you an apology, not me."

It was laughable, really, and she might have indulged in that, had it also not been so completely and overwhelmingly pathetic, too.  Maybe her father should have or could have done things differently in the weeks following her mother's death, but he'd been caught up in his own kind of hell, hadn't he?  And how, just how, could Jessa fault him for that . . .?

"When you get to know him a little, you'll see.  He really is a good person . . ." Charity sighed, turning into a parking garage across from a line of stores.  "He's just . . . forgotten a few things . . ."

Clenching her jaw so tightly that it ached, Jessa didn't trust herself to say a word.  Nice, wasn't it, to have someone who would or could stand up for you, to explain away the boorish behavior that was all right because he was damaged goods?  No one would do that for her, would they? Not that she'd want them to.  She had no one—nothing—but she'd be double damned if she handed over what was left of her pride, too . . .

"Jessa, lass . . . Hold your head high . . .  Put your shoulders back . . . There's not a being on earth—or at your ma's little party—that is better than you, you hear?  Don't you ever bow your head to anyone—not ever.  That's my girl . . ."

Blinking as the sharp sting of tears prickled the backs of her eyelids, Jessa bit them back with a ruthlessness that would have made an army general proud.  Even the echo of her da's voice . . . It hurt . . .

"I'm . . . I'm really not trying to make excuses for him," Charity went on quietly as she maneuvered the car onto the third level of the parking garage.  "I'm sure it sounds like I am, but . . ." Trailing off, she shook her head and carefully pulled into an empty spot, not far from the overpass that led to the shopping complex across the street.  "He really shouldn't have said what he said to you."

It bothered her even more, didn't it?  Myrna, her own cousin, had thought nothing about dumping her with some stranger, hadn't batted an eye in shelling out a fistful of money, and sure, they weren't close and really didn't know each other, either.  Even so, something about the whole thing had felt so . . . so clinical, and had left her feeling like little more than an imposition, a nuisance, and that was more than enough to spike her ire, too.  The idea of being beholden to anyone rankled on her so badly that it made her want to scream.

'At least if you must be beholden, he's not such a bad one to be beholden to.'

'Speak for yourself,' she growled back.  'That man . . . What he said about . . . about Da . . .'

'A shame, that is, don't you think?  Until he opened his mouth this morn, he was a right fair one . . .'

She snorted inwardly.  At the moment, admitting anything even remotely complimentary about that particular youkai was just not something she was willing or able to do, no matter how ridiculously attractive he was . . .

'So, you admit it!'

She gritted her teeth, ground them together hard.  Of course, she'd noticed.  She'd have to be dead not to notice exactly how handsome he was—Ashur.  He looked like an actor or a model, straight out of the biggest fashion magazines or the pages of People . . . Eyes that were bluer than they ought to be, golden-brown with streaks of blonde hair that hung to his waist, shinier than it should be, and a body that was too fit, too well-muscled, though not at all bulky, with a trim waist and long legs . . . His chest was hidden beneath the billowing shirt, not that it mattered.  Somehow, she knew . . .  Too bad his cold demeanor, his acerbic personality, ruined his looks entirely . . .

Sometime during the night, as she'd lay awake, staring at the ceiling, she'd decided.  The best thing she could do, given that she really had no idea how long it would take to sort out her parents' estate, would be to find a job—any job—and to get out on her own as fast as she could.  After all, she was only a couple weeks from being eighteen, and she'd read enough to know that eighteen was considered a legal adult in the USA . . .

Seeing no way around it, Jessa slowly got out of the car.  The last thing she wanted to do was to spend all day, traipsing around stores, picking out clothing like there was nothing amiss in the world.  It felt so wrong, didn't it?  So shallow, so stupid, so useless . . .

Too bad she didn't really have a choice in it.  When the Gardai had arrived to tell her that her home was being locked up until the legalities were worked out, she'd barely been able to grab anything, save for a single change of clothes.  In the end, all that they'd let her pack into her backpack otherwise was an old photo album and a tiny lace handkerchief that her mother had made years ago because the Gardai had deemed the items of no monetary value, and the only reason that she'd gotten to take her father's coat?  She swallowed hard.  She hadn't meant to light the guard's sleeve on fire, no, but she wasn't exactly sorry for it, either.  It was during the ensuing commotion that she had managed to stuff the coat into her bag—no small feat, actually . . .

Charity paused, holding her door open as she regarded Jessa.  "Don't you want to take that off?  It's pretty warm today.  It's actually been warmer than usual so far this year . . ."

It was on the tip of her tongue to say no, that she wanted to keep the coat on, because the scent of her father still clung to it, even if that scent was growing a little weaker every day.  Swallowing hard, angry at the sudden sting of tears that tingled in her nostrils, prickled her eyelids, she slipped the coat off and stuffed it onto the passenger seat, closing the door before she changed her mind.  To her relief, Charity locked the vehicle, so she was reasonably sure that it would be safe . . . Somewhere, in the back of her mind, a little voice told her that she was being ridiculous, that no one in their right mind would actually try to steal the old coat, but logic really held no sway at the moment, and she grimaced inwardly, in a place that no one else could see.

When she dragged her gaze off the coat through the car window, her eyes locked briefly with Charity's, and she frowned at the rather startled expression on the woman's face.  When she caught her staring back, however, Charity blinked quickly and forced a smile.  "Let's see what we can do about getting you more clothes," she said brightly, leading the way to the skyway.

'You really shouldn't have said what you did about her father, you know.'

Scrolling through the compiled file that was basically an overview of the Canadian region that he'd been asked to oversee for the Zelig, Ashur tried to ignore the censure in his youkai's voice.  Given that Kells was taking a rare nap on the floor by the television—he'd fallen asleep, watching Sonny Sunshine—he figured he ought to take full advantage of the quiet.

'No matter how you slice it, you pretty well kicked the girl when she's already down.  I mean, you know she just lost her father, so hearing anything that derogatory about him?  You know, don't you, that it had to have hurt.'

'Too bad it was entirely accurate, too,' Ashur shot back mildly.  'No matter what he was going through, he should have taken the time to see to his daughter's needs, especially when he knew damn well that he wasn't going to be there to see to it himself.  She'll figure that much out eventually . . . or she won't.  I don't really care, one way or the other.'

'How did you get like this?  This isn't like you.  It's never been like you.'

Heaving a sigh as he dropped the slim-file on the sofa beside him, Ashur stood up and stalked over to the window, scowling out at the mid-afternoon street.  "This is me," he muttered, his voice, harsh in the quiet.  'It's . . . It's what's left of me . . .'

"Sometimes the cost of silence far outweighs the price of one's conscience . . . In this, there are no winners . . . There are only losers who must decide how much they can stand to sacrifice—and why."

He gritted his teeth as his own words came back to him in a whisper of irony . . . He'd said those things to Charity when she'd wanted to know why he'd go back and spy for the Inu no Taisho.  At that time, it had seemed so easy, hadn't it?  Back then, right and wrong were so black and white, and there were no shades of gray . . .

When did that all change?

He sighed.  No, he knew when that change had come, hadn't he?  Standing over his mother as her blood flowed out onto the floor, as her one remaining eye had stared at him with such animosity, so much hatred, and the only choice he'd had then was whether or not he'd save his unborn sibling . . .

And then, he'd stared at his claws, his hands, dripping with her blood, the crimson flow, glowing black as the flash of wind and light took her away—as he'd held Kells to his chest, as he'd listened to the sobbing wails of an infant: so tiny, so lost, so alone . . . And he knew those feelings, didn’t he?  He knew them because . . .

Something deep within him had broken that day, in that instant—in that breath.  Something he'd never, ever get back, something that would never, ever heal . . . The absolute horror of what he’d done, of the choices he’d made that had no black and white moral compass . . . A lifetime—his entire lifetime—where he’d existed as little more than an extension of the family, as someone who was not allowed more than the minimum amount of personal autonomy . . . All of it . . .

As InuYasha had held back Hana . . . And he couldn't even bring himself to look at her—his childhood friend—his best friend, his only friend—his lover.  She'd somehow become someone he didn't know at all.  Yet, he couldn’t hurt her, either: couldn't stand the idea of demanding the ultimate retribution from her for what she'd chosen to do . . .

So, he'd covered up her sin because a part of him could understand what had motivated her actions, but even that part of him could not forgive her—could not overlook the fact that she'd come so very close to killing Kells, too, when she'd taken it upon herself to demand justice for her long-dead mother.  In the end, he'd done the only thing he could think of to do.  He gave her money—enough money to live off of for the rest of her life somewhere far away—far away from Japan and the ugliness that lived there.  Far enough from him so that he'd never have to see her, ever again . . .

And then, he'd taken Kells, and he had walked away, too.

The sound of the doorbell drew him out of his reverie.  It wasn’t nearly as simple to close the door on those things, those thoughts—not nearly as easy to be all right again, and he sighed as he turned on his heel and strode over to answer it.  He probably ought to see about adding Jessa to the security system or getting her a keycard, whichever.  He hadn't thought of it before, and he swung open the door to let Charity and Jessa inside.

Then he stopped.  Dead.  Unable to do anything other than to stare at the girl who stood there with Charity, unable to reconcile the sight of her with the hidden figure from yesterday and this morning . . . Hair that seemed like a dark, chocolate brown, yet shot through with the brightest crimson streaks, highlighted by strings of copper that fell around her in a crazy disarray of loose curls, framing her alabaster skin, adding a vibrance to her eyes—eyes that were the exact color of the crimson streaks in her hair—almost brown, but not quite, framed by the darkest, thickest eyelashes, giving those eyes a sooty look, even without the aid of makeup that she very obviously didn’t need . . . The delicate features, the hint of a flush in her cheeks, the blood-red lips . . . and her incredibly willowy body with generous curves in all the right places . . .

The sun, hanging midway in the sky, seemed to add an unearthly glow to her, but the expression in her eyes—the darkest shadows that lingered deep down—added years to her age that shouldn't have been there as she stared at him in an entirely bored kind of way, as if he were of no more interest to her than a fly, buzzing around her in the summertime . . .

'Kami . . . What . . .?' his youkai-voice choked out.

'How . . .?'

'She . . . kami . . .'

Charity handed him a couple of bags that he very nearly fumbled, but caught before they fell on the floor.  "Are you going to let us in?" she teased.

Ashur blinked, realizing a moment too late that he was, indeed, blocking the path, and he stepped aside with a frown.

She still wore that leather trench-coat, but she'd left the hood down.  It occurred to him that the coat didn't fit her at all, hanging off her shoulders like a sack, hiding the rumpled jeans that were smudged and needed a good washing and the tee-shirt she wore might have been pink . . . maybe . . .  Maybe those things needed to be burned, not washed . . .

"This, uh, doesn't look like much," he said, gaze dropping to the bags in his hands and theirs.  All together, there were only about six of them, and they weren't very big, either.

"There's more in the car.  I think these are just her underthings," Charity said, handing the rest of her bags to Jessa.

Ashur very nearly dropped the bags.

'. . . I want to see these 'underthings' . . .'

'. . . Shut up.'

'Oh, right, and you're saying you don't want to see them, too?'

'. . . Shut . . . up . . .'

'Liar.'

Charity grabbed his arm.  "Would you mind helping me get the rest?"

"Sure," he said, setting the bags on the floor near the wall.  He glanced at Jessa again as he followed Charity out of the house, shaking his head as he tried to wrap his brain around exactly what was happening.

'How the hell did she hide all . . . that?'

'Go ahead, Kyou . . . You can say it.'

'It's 'Ashur, remember, and . . . I don't know what you're talking about.'

His youkai-voice heaved a sigh.  'Ba-a-a-aka . . . And it's not so bad to admit that you think someone looks damn good.'

'For the third time: shu-u-u-u-ut . . . u-u-u-u-up.'

"I was as shocked as you were," Charity said rather noncommittally as they stepped off the porch and over to the car.  She sighed, then laughed.  "And I thought Myrna was gorgeous . . ."

"She's a child," Ashur stated.

"Age doesn't mean much," she argued.  "Not when she's been through more than she should have, no matter what her physical age is . . ."

He shot her a droll look and shook his head.  "The hell it doesn't," he countered.  "Isn't that why Ben left you alone for so long?"

She snorted.  "Ben's kind of stupid that way, and even if he had good intentions, it doesn’t help me a lot when I remember how things were for so long," she maintained.  Then she sighed briskly, as though the sound could redirect the focus of conversation.  "Anyway, I don't know what I expected, but Jessa?  It just makes you wonder how many boys she's devastated so far in her seventeen years."

Ashur snorted and grabbed the rest of the bags, opting to ignore the idea of ,‘devastated boys’ for the moment.  "This still doesn't seem like very much clothing."

She shrugged and closed the trunk.  "Give her a break.  I'm pretty sure that she's still in shock, not that I blame her.  Let her have a bit of time to get her head on straight—and don't be rattling off any more of your nonsense like you did this morning.  Regardless of what you were thinking, you really did hurt her, I think."

"Are you done lecturing me, Charity?"

She made a face.  "Do you need it?"

He rolled his eyes and started back toward the townhouse again with all of Jessa’s shopping bags in tow.  "Thank you for taking her," he called over his shoulder, sounding a little less than truly sincere.  "Give Ben my regards."

She sighed again.  "Call me if you need anything else."

He lifted a bag-laden hand to indicate that he'd heard her as he carefully maneuvered things so that he could press his thumb against the identilock and waited for the lock to release.

His frown deepened when he stepped back inside.  Jessa was nowhere to be seen.  The bags he'd set down were gone, and, when he glanced into the living room, he wasn't surprised to see that Kells was gone, too, and he made a face.

"She's really pretty!"  That's what he'd said this morning.

'Well, no, ‘pretty’ isn't really right . . .' his youkai-voice mused.

'She isn't?'

'Nope . . . She's more along the lines of drop dead gorgeous, don't you think?  Devastated boys, indeed . . .'

Heading for the stairs to deliver the rest of the bags, Ashur grunted.  'She might be,' he allowed grudgingly, 'someday, anyway.'

His youkai sighed.

So did he.

Reading through the classified ads, Jessa frowned. She had thought that, in a place as large as New York City, there would have to be something listed in the dailies that she had the qualifications to do.  Apparently, she was very, very wrong, and she sighed.

There were lots of ads for things like receptionists—must have prior experience with Teletek systems—machine operators—must have prior experience with various shop tools and machines—tech support—must have prior experience with various computer systems and/or equipment—custodial positions—must have references—delivery drivers—must have own bike and clean driver's records—and the list went on and on.   Various other retail or fast-food type ads, and those she could probably do, except that there was no way she'd ever be able to support herself on that kind of income, either, so applying for something like that was definitely out of the question . . .

Rubbing her forehead, she made a face.  That was the problem, wasn't it?  Raised as the only child and heir to the O'Shea dynasty that included a huge estate in Ireland—Dunborough, just outside of Waterford—which was where she called, 'home', along with a smaller, but more prominent marquisate of Aumberlese, by which her great-grandfather had been assigned the title of marquess, that had been passed down in each successive generation, as well as a slew of lesser-estates in and around Great Britain.  As the story went, her great-grandfather had thwarted an attempt on the life of the king at the time, and in his gratitude, he'd awarded him the title and lands.  All it meant to Jessa was that she was always introduced formally as 'Lady Jessamyn O'Shea' at events that she could not get out of, which she did, as often as she could, and often by feigning sour stomach or something of that nature.  For a very long time, she'd thought that she was clever, but her mother knew.  Of course, she knew.  It was Jessa's considered opinion that there wasn't much that her mother, Orlaith Daugherty O'Shea didn't know.

Too bad the peerage did nothing to ensure that she would be hirable for common work, especially here.

"Jessa, I want up!"

Glancing over the side of the bed at the hopelessly adorable little boy, Jessa pushed the paper aside and grasped him under the arms to haul him up onto the bed beside her.  "Those are cute pajamas," she remarked, pointing at comical lion printed in the middle of the boy's shirt.

He leaned back and smacked his hands onto his tummy.  "My uncle is a panther," he stated importantly.  "I want to be a panther, too!"

For the first time in days, Jessa giggled softly.  "I don't think you've got the coloring to be a proper panther," she remarked. "Panthers are always dark."

He cocked his head to the side as he considered what she'd said.  "I can talk to cougars," he replied.  "I let 'em go in the zoo!"

"You did?  That sounds dangerous for the cougars . . . Did they manage to catch them?"

The boy looked positively inconsolable.  "Yeah," he muttered, his chubby cheeks pinking.  "They didn't get away."

"That's probably for the best," Jessa remarked.  "I imagine your da didn't like that very much."

Kells wrinkled up his nose.  "No . . . I gots in trouble," he admitted.

She bit her lip, loathe to laugh at the poor child.  "I'll tell you a secret—it's one my da told me once when I was about your age."

Kells' eyes light up at the idea of sharing a secret with her.  "Okay!"

"He said that the animals in the zoo like to live there.  They get fed, and they get to play, and they don't have to go out and hunt or do any of those things, especially when some of them are so hunted on the outside that they'd never exist if they didn't live there."

"O-O-Oh . . . The cubs just didn't like the cage," he concluded, then he sighed.  "Daddy says we can't go back until the people are dead or on fire . . . But I like the zoo . . ."

She frowned.  "He said what?"

Kells shrugged, then hopped to his feet and jumped up and down a few times.  “You talk funny!” he said.

Jessa smiled.  “My accent, you mean?  You know what?”

“What?” Kells breathed, eyes widening, as though he thought that she was about to tell him a secret.

Jessa played along, leaning in toward Kells in a rather conspiratorial kind of way.  “Where I’m from, you’d be the one with an accent.”

Kells’ mouth rounded in an, ‘o’.  “I would?”

She nodded.  “People from different places only sound like the others from that place, so people who visit those places always sound like they have an accent.”

He considered that, and it must have made sense to him because he laughed again.  "You’re smart!” he decided, his approval, quite evident.  “Can you be my mommy?"

Jessa blinked and shot the boy a look, partially because of the randomness of his question, and also because a part of her brain was positive that she couldn’t possibly have heard him correctly.  "Wh-Wh-What?" she stammered, unable to help the blood that suddenly shot into her cheeks, making her feel a little feverish.  "Wh-Why would you ask me that?"

He giggled.  "'Cause you're pretty an' I wike you!"  Then he frowned, all hints of his cheeful demeanor, fading fast, as a haunting kind of seriousness, clouded those bright eyes, lowered his chin almost bashfully.  "Everybody else has a mommy . . . Nadi and Emmy have a mommy . . . Auntie Cherry's their mommy . . ." His frown shifted into a confused sort of sadness, and without conscious thought, Jessa reached over, pulled Kells gently into her lap, wrapping her arms around him as she hunched her shoulders forward, her cheek resting against his downy hair.  "I don't know why I don't gots no mommy."

Jessa sucked in her cheek as she pondered that.  It was strange, come to think of it—strange and not really possible, either, was it?  How could it be that Kells seemed to think that he didn't have a mother?  He and his father smelled so much like one another that she hadn't thought to question it, but it was quite obvious to her, too, that there wasn't a woman in residence, either . . .

'It's not possible that he doesn't have a ma,' she mused, frowning to herself as Kells relaxed against her.

'Maybe not, but he's not old enough to understand the why of it, either . . . I wonder if his da knows how he feels about it?'

'It . . . It isn't really any of my business—and given his disposition, he'd probably snap my head off if I were to ask, anyway.'

'Oh, he might not be that bad.  Maybe you just got off on the wrong foot . . .'

Eyes darkening as she scowled toward the windows on the far side of the room, Jessa snorted inwardly, flipping a clump of crazy-curly hair back over her shoulder.  'He insulted Da,' she maintained stubbornly.  'He had no right, and—"

'And you hate that he had a fair point, too . . . You know as well as I that your da really should have done exactly what he said—and you know well enough that he hadn't meant for you to hear him, either.'

'Don't make excuses for him,' she countered.  'I don't . . . I don't care . . .'

Flopping back on the bed and dragging the boy with her, she reached over to tug her father's coat over the both of them.  Kells snuggled closer to her with a contented little sigh.  "I can sleep here!" he announced happily.

It crossed her mind that maybe his father might not like it as she pulled him closer against her, and he sighed again, tangling his tiny hands in her hair.  But she was too tired to haggle over it tonight, in any case, and by the time that thought had occurred to her, it was too late: she was already almost fast asleep, and so was Kells.

She was asleep long before Ashur opened her door, frowned down at the sleeping forms in the bed.  A sad sort of expression softened the features of his face, a quiet melancholy that emanated from him in waves.

He stood there for several minutes, staring at the two of them.  He fleetingly considered, picking up Kells to put him to bed in his room, but he discarded that idea just as quickly, and, in the end, he quietly pulled the door closed again and shuffled down the hallway toward the stairs.