I'm back. :) And yes, this is the sequel to Over The Rose. Questions will be answered from the night that Anikka ran away. Yay!

You know me, I eat reviews and I live by them. That's why I broke my promise of taking a break. I can't help it. :D


The Rose In Between

by four-eyed 0-0

PROLOGUE

Just as the grandfather clock chimed twelve midnight, a scream was heard across the huge mansion, stirring up everybody in their slumber. The mistress of the house, a woman in her forties, however, recognized the voice even in her tired state and quickly went for her robe to run toward the room where the sound came from.

In a flurry of dark hair, she trotted through the dimly-lit corridor, yelling at the top of her life-worn lungs for their driver. Why should it come in the middle of the night? She was so sure it was coming now. There was no doubting about that. It was October and about time.

When she finally reached the door, the woman fumbled for the knob and scurried toward the four-poster, the hangings of which were being clutched by the sobbing and screaming figure behind. Moving to cast the hangings aside, a young woman's face came into view, her oak-brown curls in disarray, and her chocolate-brown eyes full with fear. She was clutching her bloated stomach, her breath coming in sharp rasps.

"It's coming?" the elder asked, taking the pregnant lady's other hand in hers.

"My ― water ―broke," she replied, uttering each word every after labored breath. Pain was overflowing in her eyes and she gritted her teeth in the throbbing of the human about to be born into the world.

The mistress of the mansion laid her back down the pillows, motherly squeezing her hand. "Everything will be fine; the driver's coming in a minute." A drop of sweat ran down form her wrinkled forehead to her equally-crinkled cheek, which she nonchalantly wiped with the sleeve of her robe. "Just breathe in," she whispered lovingly, the anguished mother-to-be taking her advice, "and breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out…. Be calm. Akihiro's coming to town."

A very slight smile grazed the tensioned lady's face and was gone in an eye's wink. Just then the driver came hurtling toward the bed and the elder woman let go of her hold of the young mother as the man cradled her. No sooner had the curly-haired pregnant woman given her a bittersweet grin had they vanished through the door. The mistress began scampering after them and after three breathtaking minutes, they were riding off to the city hospital. The laboring woman was calmer now, except for the occasional yelps of pain.

Once they reached the infirmary, the nurses rushed toward them and the patient was laid onto a trundle before being rushed to the delivery room. The elder woman was ushered into the room right after wearing the necessary gown stayed, holding the laboring lady's hand all the time.

Being inside the delivery room was not easy. The sight of it floated across her mind amidst the bawling and yelling of the soon mother-to-be whose nails dug into her rough palm. She had never been in this before. She had never been blessed with a child until she was found right at the from of her gate that night less than a year ago. She had been at a most disorienting state ― shirt's buttons missing as though been pulled off the fabric, hair disheveled, face pallid as the snow-masked ground she was lying upon. It was as though she was violated. When she woke up the next day and the elder tried to question her of what had been done, she would not talk. It took her almost a whole week before she finally talked.

"I was almost touched by a ruthless man who wanted to avenge himself for whatever it was that my boyfriend ― " (she stuttered, as though shocked with her own words) " ― I mean, my ex-boyfriend had done to him…. He came for me and just when I was almost done did my ex arrived, beating him up for good."

The elder woman knitted her eyebrows. "Then why did you run away?"

"I was still touched." Tears streamed down her face, the familiar hatred welling up in the brown orbs of hers. "I am dirty. He loved me so much but then I was touched. And," she paused, looking straight into her, "I feel like I am pregnant." She hung her head.

"Pregnant?" the mistress of the mansion blurted, shocked. First was this runaway youth found in front of her gate, then the fact that she was pregnant, bearing a child. "Whose child is it?"

The addressed placed a hand upon her stomach. "This is of the man who loved me the most, of the man I wished never to be reminded of, and of the man I will always love."

She blinked, mixed emotions surging throughout her whole body. She never had a child and a pregnant and broken-hearted woman would come waltzing into her life. A motherly longing and affection built up in her chest and she hesitated no more. "I want you to stay, dear. I want to be the grandmother to your child. I want you to be my daughter."

When the young woman heard this, tears gushed out of her eyes once again and she stammered, "But I am a stranger, a pregnant teenager, a nobody."

The elder stood up from her chair and walked toward her daughter. "No. You are not a nobody. From now on, you will be known as Inoue. Inoue Takizato."

Just then a cry she had never heard before broke her reverie and a passing-out Inoue met her eyes while a healthy little boy bawled for the first time, tufts of red hair atop his head, and, as he was handed to her, green, emerald eyes peeked out of the almost-closed lids of the infant. A feeling of foreboding ran down her spine. He did not bear a single sign that he was actually Inoue's son. Was this how his father looked like? How would Inoue feel about her little Akihiro who came to be his father's replica when she had been hoping for the opposite?

She did not know. But as she watched the peaceful Inoue, she just hoped for the best. She was a mother. And no mother would begrudge her child for being very much alike their father, right?


So that's it. As always, my prologues are always short. But telling you, my next chapters will be forgivable.

BTW, the next chapter will be right up a little after two weeks. Still got tight sched. (^_^)v

Reviews?

~four-eyed 0-0