Discovery
By Bashfulglowfly
Rei looked at the boxes and boxes of photographs that surrounded her and Jade.
She picked up a handful and carefully went through them. She found one that was of her grandparents and her mother who must have been about 13. Behind them was a bridge that she recognized as the famous one in San Francisco.
She heard Jade laugh. She turned to look and he showed her a picture of her grandparents wearing raingear and grinning ear to ear. "This one says Niagara Falls." He looked at her face, she wasn't smiling. In fact…"Baby, don't cry!"
Rei swiped at the tears rolling down her face. "Why? Why didn't he show me these? He traveled all over the place with grandmother and after her death? Why?"
Jade place the photos he was hold back into their box and pulled his beloved into his arms. Gently kissing the top of her head, he held her as she wept. "Rei, perhaps he didn't want you to feel bad."
She swiped angrily at her tears and glared up at him. "What do you mean?"
He stroked her cheek with his thumb. "Love, would the Senator have allowed him to take you out of the country?" Jade learned a long time ago not to refer to the man as "your father."
Rei sniffled and shook her head. "No. No, that man wouldn't have allowed grandpa to do that."
Jade kissed her lightly. "So, he didn't and he didn't tell you because he didn't want you to think that you living with him prevented him from enjoying himself."
Rei laughed "Yeah, that'd be just like him." She sniffled again and blotted away her tears, this time with a tissue. She spotted a familiar looking box and pulled it to her. Opening it, she showed Jade a picture of her and her grandfather at Nusamai Bridge in Kushiro. "It didn't stop him, really. He just took me all over Japan." She showed Jade another picture of her at a waterfall in Hokkaido.
Jade kissed her again. "See, you didn't stop anything."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Rei looked at the hundreds perhaps thousands of pictures. "Perhaps we can get this organized then find someone who can digitize them or something."
"I bet Ami would know someone."
"Yeah, she would, wouldn't she." Rei twisted around and straddled Jade so that she could wrap her arms around him properly. She gave him a slow and lingering kiss that he happily responded to.
"You know…we could find all the places that grandpa and grandmother went and we could take our own pictures?"
Jade smiled at her and stroked back her hair. "Deal."
"Thank you for being here."
"I'll always be here for you. Always."
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When this story first popped into my head, I was going to have Rei going through the pictures with the other girls.
Then Jade showed up and said "Hey, Bash…going through her grandfather's things after his death would be very personal for Rei…too many people."
Darned if he wasn't right.