By Jaclyn
(musicnotej@aol.com; http://www.geocities.com/tlwmr)
"Argh!" Marguerite snarled as she rummaged around the kitchen for something to munch on. "I am so bloody bored, it's RIDICULOUS! Where is Roxton when you need him?!" Realizing she was talking only to herself, she abruptly snapped her mouth shut.
To be fair, he had gone on a hunting trip with Veronica and Malone because their food supplies were on the verge of becoming severely depleted. She had bristled at the fact that they didn't want her to come with them. (We need to you stand guard, Marguerite, they'd said. You know how Challenger gets when he's wrapped up in one of his experiments. What if something were to happen?)
Blah blah, of course that was it, Marguerite thought sarcastically. In truth, they probably just didn't want her around. And maybe she had been a little snide lately. But sharp comments had a way of flowing from her mouth before she processed them, and although the rest of the group didn't know it, she was honestly making a serious effort to be a little easier to live with.
Not that they cared, apparently. Marguerite bit her lip, hating that she was bothered by the fact that they obviously didn't want her around.
Suddenly, she froze, a glint having caught her eye.
"Real French wine...." Marguerite whispered with a gasp. "Challenger, you've been holding out on us!" she cried gleefully as she dragged out a crate. Just the thing to raise her spirits!
A new realization wandered into her mind. Her sarcasm in the face of danger was actually something they should be thankful for! It turned their fear into irritation, a much more useful emotion when preparing to fight for one's survival. For gd's sake, they probably owed their lives to her many times over, all because she had a head clear enough to focus on keeping them on their toes!
Grabbing a clean cup from the countertop, she took a rather large sip. Pure heaven. Marguerite leaned back with a now-contented sigh, a smile, and a refill.
Roxton shouldered his rifle, staring in horror at the carcass at his feet. For a moment, he could have sworn its dying fall to the ground had mimicked his brother's own final tumble.
It was probably all in his head, but still, Roxton couldn't wait to get out of here and get home. Look at that. They'd only been here for a fraction of his lifetime and already Veronica's treehouse seemed more like a home to him than the cold London society ever did. He suspected Marguerite felt the same way, regardless of all her complaining and prattling about the plateau's obvious downfalls. She had started to seem more relaxed of late, and for a few rare moments, he'd even chanced to see her with her guard down. Although....over the past week or so, something had changed, and Marguerite had started tensing whenever anyone ventured near her.
Regardless of all that, he still couldn't wait to return to the Treehouse and to Marguerite, scalding tongue or no. She was the only one able to soothe him when worries about his brother overtook his mind. Roxton didn't know if she was entirely aware of how much her outlook helped him. Every kind moment they shared was like....a burst of sunshine between storms--
Roxton shook his head, clearing it of his clichéd thoughts. Good god, he thought. I really have been away from her too long. I'm starting to romanticize our relationship, which is something I'd better wait a while before sharing because she's gonna kill me.
A snatch of melody floated by his head. He froze, straining to hear it again, then turned to the others with a questioning look. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Malone asked guiltily. Roxton smiled to himself. He'd probably startled the poor kid out of gawping at Veronica.
"It sounded like Marguerite," Roxton said slowly.
"Marguerite sings?" Veronica asked with genuine surprise.
"I've heard her in the bath once," Roxton explained.
"And now you'd know her voice anywhere?" Veronica raised an eyebrow skeptically. "After hearing her one time?"
"He was probably paying very close attention," Malone jabbed, knowing he'd been caught by Roxton a few moments ago.
Roxton glared. "Shut up, Malone." He tensed. "See, there it is again. And she doesn't sound quite....well, just listen....I can't catch the words but doesn't she sound....like she's acting with more abandon than usual?"
He didn't give the others time to respond. "Let's go."
"Look at that," Malone muttered to Veronica. "Marguerite sounds like she's finally having a bit of fun, and all of a sudden Roxton's ready to charge in on her. Am I the only one whom this strikes as weird?"
Veronica considered the hunter's back as he jogged the remaining short distance to the treehouse. "I don't know....he does spend the most time with her....maybe there really is something wrong."
"What's wrong with enjoying oneself occasionally?" Malone said.
Veronica stared at him out of the corner of her eye. "Absolutely nothing," she whispered.
All three were rather surprised to find a staggering Marguerite lurching around the treehouse yard, singing loudly to herself.
"You were right," Malone said, breaking the stunned silence. "There is definitely something wrong with this picture."
Roxton broke away from the group and grabbed Marguerite's hands. "Marguerite!"
"Hmm?" she smiled sweetly. "Oh hello, Roxton!" For some reason, that seemed hysterically funny to her, and she cracked up immediately.
"Get it?" she giggled. "Hello, Roxton?!"
Veronica edged closer to Malone. "Ned....what on earth is wrong with her? That wasn't funny at all...."
"Veronica," Malone began with a sigh. "I can't be sure but I have a feeling....um, do you know what the word 'intoxicated' means?"
"Oh for gd's sake, Marguerite! How did you manage to get drunk out here?" Roxton muttered. She was still laughing. He cupped her face with one hand and enunciated clearly. "Did you eat something new without clearing it with Veronica or Summerlee first?"
Marguerite shook her head, her smooth skin caressing his callused palm.
"Did you accidentally inhale something from Challenger's lab?"
"Uh uh!" Marguerite cried gleefully. "Guess again; I like this game!"
Roxton stared at her incredulously. Was this really the hard-edged Marguerite? Reduced to a childlike state by a simple....actually, he didn't know what it was, but he intended to find out, especially if the effects didn't pass quickly.
But first, he had to get rid of the audience. Who knew what was going to come out of Marguerite's mouth now? If she were coherent, she'd probably be mortified. He gestured at Veronica and Malone. They took the hint quietly and without fuss, watching Marguerite worriedly as the elevator brought them farther and farther away from her.
She slapped Roxton's chest playfully. "Guess!"
"Why don't you just show me?" he asked gently.
Brow furrowed, Marguerite stuck out her lower lip, which began to quiver. "I don't want to go up there."
"Why not?!"
"Because...."
"Because why?"
She shook her head and began to hum, staring at the ground. Suddenly, the words of the song she'd been singing when they arrived hit Roxton with a force even greater than the weight of all Marguerite's precious stones combined.
His brain filled the ditty in as she continued to hum its tune.
Nobody likes me
Everybody hates me
I'd better go eat WORMS....
He stared at her in horror and swore under his breath. "Marguerite?" he said gently. "Come up to the treehouse with me. Everyone's waiting."
"No," she said cheerily, her sudden change in mood throwing Roxton for a loop. "You go inside. You'll be happier without me, anyway."
"Marguerite! What are you talk-"
"WORM!" Marguerite shouted suddenly, lunging toward it. Her slim body ricocheted off his outstretched arm. Reflexes kicked in, and Roxton threw his arms around her to prevent a fall. Marguerite struggled violently against him, but he knew he couldn't let her go.
"No!" he shouted. "No, Marguerite! That's the electric fence!"
"WORM!" she wailed, kicking at his legs as he hoisted her up.
Suddenly, to complicate the moment, the sky's darkened clouds burst. The ice-cold water shocked Roxton into loosening his grasp, allowing Marguerite to break free. She darted in the direction of the brown ropes.
Roxton threw himself at her.
They tumbled to the ground, a tangle of limbs and curses and questions.
"Lord Roxton!" Marguerite chortled. "How deliciously inappropriate!"
"Marguerite! Are you okay?" Roxton asked simultaneously as he hurriedly transferred his weight from her body to his elbows. He looked down at her, concerned. Her raven hair was wild; some of the saturated strands clung to the skin of her face and neck. With her cheeks flushed rosily, her eyes bright, and an alluring smile curving her lips, she looked ravishing. Roxton swallowed hard. The thin material of her shirt was soaked through. It didn't leave much to the imagination.
Keeping his eyes firmly rooted on her face, Roxton struggled to pull both himself and Marguerite out of the mud without loosening his grip on her. Delighting in the squishing sound it made as she dug her fingers into it, she splashed some of the gook at him.
"Come on," he grunted once they were finally upright. The wet, shivering, and quite frankly, disgruntled hunter hoisted her up. "We're going where it's warm, Marguerite, whether you make it easy for me or not."
Marguerite's eyes clouded. "I didn't mean to be such a burden," she said softly, unable to tear her eyes away from the bulging muscle near her head as he carried her through the rain. "But I don't know how to stop it....this is who I am....it doesn't matter how hard I try; it doesn't work and nobody notices anyway. I'm just naturally someone everybody hates....you'd better leave me here. I don't want to be the cause of yet another ruined evening where everyone stalks off to bed, mad at me."
Roxton halted abruptly, gaping at her in horror. "Is that what you think? That that's how we all view you? As an annoyance to be tolerated?"
Marguerite nodded dejectedly. Roxton wasn't sure if the liquid that dripped down her cheeks was rainwater or tears, but either way it was making him ache inside.
He set her down carefully, but she was no longer able to keep her balance. The world shifted underneath her feet, and Marguerite let out a small yelp.
Roxton wrapped her in a hug, as much for comfort as for physical support. "Listen to me," he said firmly into her ear. "NONE of us feel that way. We all care about you. You keep life interesting around here."
"I'm mean."
The bluntness of the statement caught Roxton off guard. "No," he said carefully. "Not mean. You just try a little too hard to keep people away." He leaned his head back so their gazes could lock. "But I want you to know, Marguerite - and maybe I should have said it earlier, but now's a good a time as any, I suppose - I really do care about you. As a friend, but perhaps one day, if you'll allow it....as more."
"Why are you saying this?" Marguerite cried. "Why is it that everybody seems to feel some uncontrollable urge to lie to me? What is that you want? Sex, perhaps? That was a popular one. So was my money. Oh, but you're a hunter, Lord John Roxton, maybe you just see me as prey." She squeezed her eyes shut. "I can't take it anymore....please, just please stop lying." She clutched at his shirt. "Make everybody stop seeing me as a 'thing!'"
Her lips were starting to turn blue, and Roxton could feel his limbs tingling uncomfortably. He edged her closer to the elevator as he spoke. "I'm not lying, Marguerite, I swear it. I honestly do care about you. You're the most intriguing woman I've ever met....everything about you is just-"
Marguerite was crying in earnest now. "-evil," she finished for him. Her words took on increasing speed, becoming rambling and frenzied. "I know. Sister Catherine told me and I told her she should go to hell and she said that was where I would go because I was a devil-child and then she dragged me to Father Dimitri and he spanked me but I refused to cry and I thought it was because I was strong inside but they said it was because I was possessed and I tried to cry but I couldn't so maybe they were right...."
Roxton thought his heart would shatter. Evil? Devil? Spanking? This was how she'd been brought up?! No wonder she was so untrusting, so hard and cold toward strangers. The world had been hard and cold to her....
"Hey! Marguerite! Snap out of it!" He shook her, hard. She squinted at him.
"John?" she said. Her voice was small, vulnerable, bewildered. A moment later, she passed out in his arms.
He raced with her back into the treehouse, wishing the elevator wasn't so slow. "Blankets!" he screamed over the wind, only halfway up the elevator. "Hot water!"
Veronica peered over the railing and gestured to show she'd understood. "Let's go, people, you heard him!" she called as she raced around the treehouse, grabbing the covers off everyone's beds. "Someone heat up the water! And make tea!"
The gradual buildup of respect and trust that Veronica was developing with Marguerite had turned into something almost sisterly of late. Cold fear clutched at the blonde's stomach. She knew how easy it was to die on this plateau. She knew how easy it was for colds to turn in pneumonia.
"Kiri!" Veronica sobbed, kneeling next to her friend's bedside.
Kiri had opened her fevered eyes then. She whispered, "Friends forever, Veronica, remember?" and then her eyes drooped shut for the last time.
It had all started because twelve-year-old Veronica had wanted to swim in the rain, and best friends did everything together.
Veronica squeezed her eyes shut, willing the memory to dissipate. "That was a decade ago," she muttered to herself. "I need to move on already." But the sight of rain never failed to bring the memory of her Zanga friend to the forefront of Veronica's mind.
She stomped into the main area, weighted down by blankets. "How could you let this happen?" she shouted yet again at Challenger, who was slumped in a chair by the table. "Do you know how dangerous even a cold is? Let alone alcohol poisoning!"
Challenger nodded wordlessly. "I don't think I'll ever be able to look at another beaker of beryllium sulfate ever again...." It had been what he'd been experimenting with when Marguerite had gone and unwittingly drank the extremely concentrated alcohol he'd stored in old wine bottles, intending it to be used for medicinal purposes when the need arose. The bottle was only a quarter of the way empty, yet from what Veronica and Malone had described, Marguerite was drunker than anyone had a right to be from only two glasses.
The elevator platform finally lined itself up with the floor of the treehouse. "Thank goodness!" Veronica cried, racing over to the dripping pair with the blankets.
"She's out," Roxton said tiredly. "I don't know if that's good or not. What happened to her?"
Challenger couldn't bring himself to explain, so Malone quickly filled Roxton in. The hunter's face turned purple. "You FOOL! You didn't think to WARN us? You know Marguerite; she craves fine things!" He threw up his hands. "Imported French wine! Can you blame her?" he shouted, the hostility in his voice contrasting with the gentle way he laid her down.
Marguerite stirred when the cushion of Roxton's arms slipped away, leaving the hard tabletop. "'Cuz nice things are supposed to make you happy and not lonely," Marguerite slurred, her voice high and childlike, and then she blacked out again.
There was a stunned silence. No one knew quite what to say, so the treehouse remained in an awkward hush for a moment. Grimaces pulled at everyone's features. They all crowded a little closer to the unconscious Marguerite, fighting the urge to shake her awake and throw their respective pairs of arms around her.
The sound of Marguerite's chattering teeth abruptly stopped, a sign of advanced hypothermia. The occupants of the treehouse snapped into action.
Roxton tried to help Veronica peel off Marguerite's wet clothing and replace it with warm woolen blankets, but by this time he too was shaking so badly from cold and fear for her that his movements were too jerky and erratic to be of any help. The buttons on her lavender shirt stayed firmly in place.
"Roxton," Veronica said firmly. "Go away."
"I can't leave her!" he cried emphatically.
"I've got it under control. Now go get warm," she ordered.
"But Marguerite-" Roxton protested loudly as Malone threw a blanket over the drenched man's shoulders and pulled him away.
"-will be just fine," Veronica finished, blocking Marguerite's body with her own, allowing the woman the modesty she would have wanted. Roxton seemed to have forgotten that there are some things a man has no right to see without a lady's permission.
"Really?" Roxton easily detached himself from Malone's grasp and ran back over to Marguerite's side. "She's gonna be fine? You're sure?"
Veronica hesitated, unwilling to make promises when she herself was uncertain.
Challenger's deep voice came from behind, surprising them. He brandished a piece of paper covered in calculations. "Although her body mass is small," he said, sounding more and more like himself now, "she didn't consume enough alcohol for it to have fatal consequences. She must have realized how strong it was and stopped before it was too late!"
Roxton grinned down at the now blanket-ensconced Marguerite. "That's my girl!" he whooped. "Smart as a-"
"Still," Challenger finished. "She's going to have one hell of a hangover."
[Probably] to be continued....
Feedback is craved and appreciated....and I always return the favor of reviews!
If I can find a spare moment (RL is quite hectic right now), I want to write chapter two, which would take place the next day. Marguerite's gonna wake up with one heck of a pounding headache....and the consequences of all that's been said will have to be dealt with!
Also - this story is being quite annoying about letting itself be named! I can't come up with a good title....if anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear 'em!