Do You Believe In...?
a/n: Spoilers for the second game (A Journey Into Lost Memories) even if mostly orientates around the events of the first. Yes, because lots of people keep on asking, there is a second game. And please note that I'm British, and I have played the second game as it has been released in Europe, and Ashley's personality may not be as your remember since the original game was translated differnetly for the NA/UK; Ashley's personality is slightly different. Ashley, in A Journey Into Lost Memories, briefly has a discussion with her father about her telling him about her friends, including her first 'real' friend, which in another conversation with Matt Ashley refers to as D. I wouldn't want to usually put this here, but lots of people have been asking; so it's going here.
Anyway! After Ashley talking about this with her father, I figured that one day, she would want to tell him about D.
"Dad?"
Ashley looked over from the straw she had had poised in her mouth for the past ten minutes, deep in thought, not moving a muscle. She'd been arguing with herself to talk to her dad over a certain subject or not for a while, and suddenly, she felt a moment of motivation to do so. Richard, on the over hand, had taken it for an awkward silence and had sat there fidgeting for the past ten minutes, grasping at conversation starters but having them slip away before he even had something to say. Even his mumblings couldn't break Ashley out of her reverie.
Hearing her finally speak, Richard grasped onto the single word as if for dear life, grappling for any way to actually talk to his daughter during this meal at all. Ashley blinked, unaware of the tragedy on the other side of the table - he acted like this so often, she hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary. "What is it, Ashley?" he asked, exasperated.
"I need to talk to you about something. Now."
"Well, I don't know, Ashley..." Richard replied, rubbing the back of his head, wincing.
Ashley frowned briefly, her eyebrows rising, not expecting that response. "Why not?"
"I'm not sure it's really the time..." Richard said nervously, gesturing round at the busy fast-food restaurant around the two of them, which, in their ten minutes of reverie-on-one-side-and-failed-attempts-at-bonding on the other, had been going on with its busy schedule.
"But... I need to say this now. I've been thinking over it. And… I need to say it now, or else..." I won't, Ashley thought, bitterly. So much for bonding with her Dad. About to continue, she didn't get a word in as someone walked straight past Richard, bumping his shoulder in the busy aisle, and he almost jumped three foot in the air.
She made another face, though this time it was filtered with worry. "Dad, are you okay?"
"W-What? Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine..." he waved it off. Ashley simply eyed him.
She wouldn't be surprised if he was nervous about taking her out to a fast food restaurant, of all places. Hell, she even remembered the first time he'd taken her to the supermarket - aside from being freaked out, he seemed astonished Ashley knew her way around and could shop for herself, and even more dumbstruck by the fact she could easily push a trolley round and fill it up. This at first, had bothered her - but over time, as she'd occasionally gone shopping with him when he'd insisted, she let him have the trolley. It was something small, she knew - a small thing that he wanted to do. It was his way of apologising for all the years for not being by her side. To anyone else, they wouldn't notice. But Ashley could tell.
So she wouldn't be surprised if he was nervous about taking her out someplace, and even just talking to her, Jessica-free. Ashley smiled lightly.
"Well, if you don't want me to talk to you, and make this trip a failure..." she trailed off, a glint in the edge of her eye.
Richard simply responded by looking almost mortified, causing Ashley to hold back a groan. "Come on Dad, it's a fast food restaurant. It's not like it's a library, or a cinema. Everyone talks," she replaced the cup on the table, before returning to popping chips in her mouth for a moment. "And... I want to tell you now."
"Well, I suppose... I have been wondering what to talk with you about," he said, sheepishly, moment of mortification over. "So... alright then, Ashley. I'm listening."
She nodded, grin in place, before it faded. "Dad... do you remember back at Lake Juliet, when you said you wanted me to tell you about any friends I made, and would like them introduced to you? And even the fact you don't... know the first friend I made?"
Probably unsure where this was going, Richard pulled a face. Ashley bit her lip. He was probably thinking all manner of - incorrect - things right now. "Yes..." he trailed off. She waited for him to say something else, but he didn't, so she reluctantly continued.
"Just wondering."
"It's not relevant?" Richard's eyebrows raised - she could almost see the question mark above his head.
"No... not really," She said, her voice teetering, as she shook her head slightly. It was. It really, really was relevant, as it was what was bothering her. That she wanted to tell him about her first friend. About a certain friend that she could never see again. But she couldn't tell him any of that unless he believed something else.
Ashley, even if she denied it, had hoped with all her heart as she'd thought, that he would believe her. A little, at least. Just a little. Even half way there. A compromise.
But it all hung on one key question, that, with his previous remarks about this being the wrong place, probably were quite accurate. A fast food restaurant was not the place to discuss self-belief and life meanings. Or, maybe it was.
After the moment's silence, she plundered on, "Dad... I... well... you see..." she fumbled over her words, before taking a deep breath, and saying crystal clear, "Dad, I know you believe, as you told me once back on Blood Edward Island, but, truly - do you believe in ghosts?"
"Ghosts?" Richard asked, his expression unreadable.
"Ghosts," Ashley affirmed, her voice less confident than it had been, studying his expression carefully. At least, as could be expected from her father, he had taken her seriously. That was one thing she could always count on him for, as his expression turned to a familiar one of thought - the one he used when he pondered memory thesis - and considered.
The next ten seconds felt like a lifetime before he finally answered her.
"Well, Ashley... I'm a man of science. It goes against logic. But I can't deny that there are some things that are unexplainable by science, and that, I suppose ghosts do exist. Even parts of memory can be a ghost to us. I can still see Sayoko when I walk past familiar places... but that's my mind playing tricks on me. Ghosts that still walk this Earth on their own, well, they may, they may not, exist. I wouldn't be one to completely rule out that they didn't."
"But you can't see them," Ashley said, after absorbing his words. It was the words of a question - though it wasn't fashioned to sound like one.
Even Richard managed to pick up on that, and his voice was surprised. "No... I can't. Though I can't say, because I wouldn't be sure if I had ever met a ghost, either way."
"You have," Ashley whispered under her breath. "You have."
Richard looked at her, but Ashley brushed if off. "N.. Nothing," she said, picking up the milkshake and taking another slurp - unfortunately, this distraction to prolong the silence failed, as it as empty. She put it down slowly, fumbling for something to say, either way. "Just..."
She sighed. "When I met you, on Blood Edward Island, Dad... I made my first real friend. And even though I want to now, I can't let you meet him. But... I wanted you to know. That's all."
Her eyes fell onto the table, unable to look Richard in the eye.
There was silence. It felt like it would go on forever, and Ashley felt even more and more regret for saying anything, as the bubble of tension around them both seem to reach breaking point, even as the kid over her dad's shoulder continued to shout with glee. She didn't know what he'd say - or if he'd put two and two together.
Though maybe he would. He was her Dad.
"Ashley," Richard said, eventually. Another stretch of silence. "Your first friend, on Blood Edward Island."
"Yes," she said.
"A..." he trailed off.
Ashley didn't need him to say anymore. She could hear the 'G' being formed by his voice. "Yes." She breathed, long, and hard. "He was. D - Daniel - was."
Nothing. Not a sound. "Do you... believe me, Dad?"
She forced herself to look up, and there was Richard, eyeing her with that look of stern quality - what she'd called an attempted Dad look, a look that was stern but also full of concern and worry and thought. She couldn't decipher what he was thinking. She knew he had been fascinated by the Edward family history, and about what had happened to Daniel, but hearing his daughter say she had come to know him as a friend? That may be too much for even his mind to take all in one go. She found herself talking, to try to confirm it, to get him to believe before he discarded it. Now she had finally told him, she didn't want... didn't want it to slip away. "D was stuck, he couldn't remember who he was or how he'd died, so I helped him find his memories as we went round the Edward house... He helped me through, he really did, and he eventually remembered everything, and... He was able to move on." She felt suddenly out of breath, as if running a marathon, having managed to fit that all into two breaths.
He still didn't say anything. "Do you?" she repeated.
And slowly, his features rearranged - as if he was remembering that day, her questions, what she had figured out, and how she must have gotten through the house, and when she had one final thing to take care off on the beach. All little things that a simple girl would not notice a long forgotten father noticing.
"I believe you," he said softly. "I believe you."
She knew he wasn't lying.
Ashley smiled. "I'm glad."