The Wasteland

Bunker

Missa stood in front of two once grand doors, now covered in ivy and crumbling. Shifting the sleeping Hawnt to her hip, she reached out and hit the knocker three times. Hawnt's cradle-basket hung off her arm, nestled in the crook of her arm. Waiting a moment, she also rand the bell that, amazingly, still worked. After a minute or two, she heard shuffling through the thick planks and waited while the owner opened the door.

"Who in their right mind would come here at this time of night? It's not as if I don't have enough torments, with all I once loved lost." A rather older, but still handsome man wedged open the door. His straight silver-white hair was in disarray, and the red and black suit he wore looked in need of a good washing. "Yes well, who is it-" He stopped mid-sentence and looked at her. His eyes were wide, and she almost thought she saw tears there. She was sure that her face was awash in tears by now.

"I- I- came because I have no where else, Mr. Masters. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come." But before she could turn away, she was swept up in his warm, comforting hug.

"Missa! Oh, fates be praised for this once. You're alive! When I'd heard from Vania that he'd gotten you, I was sure you were no longer living." Hawnt, not used to being squished like this, sent up a weak cry. Vlad looked down at the child, and looked into Missa's eyes. She couldn't return the look.

"Perhaps what he did was worse. But, come now, this old house isn't like it used to be, but I'll bet that there's at least a cleared room for yourself and the baby." He ushered her into the ruin of his former manor. The once fine spiral stair was wrought in dust and ivy, the marble choked with chunks of debris and vegetation. Entire spans of the roof were missing, letting in cooling moonlight. The place had once held splendor unrivaled; now, the decay of civilization and the rise of nature were all too evident. To Missa's tired eyes, it was a heaven beyond compare. Moving silently across the foliage, she moved into a pooling of sweet, innocent silver light. Its guileless serenity was a balm on her light-deprived soul.

Vlad masters watched her, and saw how the boy could have been enchanted by her. As a girl, she had been detached, intelligent, icy, even. She had spurned all affection, thinking people were trying to use her. Sadly, she had been right. He himself had tried to manipulate her, and had come… very close to succeeding. After that, she had trusted no one. But this new Missa was strange to him. After all, it had been some nine years since she had come to his door, wide eyed but still alone, asking about Danny. Her brown hair was tinged silver-white in the moonlight, illuminating lines that her twenty four year old face should not have had. She glowed with some inner grace, an aura of wisdom and pain. And, truthfully, it scared him.

And that baby, so small, seemed different in the moonlight as well. Even has his mother and the area around them shone silvers and blues, he glowed with an inner golden light. It shook him to the bone to know that this small creature was the tyrant's son. The now over-thrown tyrant. And Missa needed somewhere to hide.

All too soon, his fears were confirmed. "I need to hide for awhile, Vlad. Hawnt isn't welcome anywhere in the ghost zone, because of his father. And the memory of the humans' betrayal is still too fresh in my mind."

"You do not classify yourself as human, Missa?" She stared at him. The look held no malice in it, just empty of emotion and feeling. And he went cold.

"After what's been done to me, I'm not. Dan had at his disposal thousands of his parent's findings, as well as those from Valerie and her father, and even a few stolen from the former Brooke corp., amazingly. He was a sadistic SOB, and he had rages even destroying cities could not sate." She shrugged, still locked away in her icy façade. "That's what I was for." She looked away from his stare, and Vlad was sure he had seen red hot anger burning deep within her averted eyes. So, she truly had seen horrors, and lived to tell the tale.

"I heard you mention Vania; is she here?" Missa stepped out of the moonlight and drifted closer to him. Her piercing sterling blue eyes were lightly misted from memories best left unthought-of. Placing a hand on the small of her back, Vlad escorted her through the remainder of his main hall and into a rather dark hallway.

"No, my dear, she returned to the ghost zone. The poor thing was lost without you, you see; you were a mother-figure to her." She smiled sweetly, if sadly. Vlad thought that all her happiness was to be tinged with sorrow.

"Not just mother-figure now. Mother, legitimate and verified." Leading her into a suite of still operable rooms, he paused.

"These are all that's left of the house that's livable. There are ghost shields, running water, and luxury of luxuries, feather beds. I have an electricity generator that powers the lights in this small area, and a large supply of candles. I even have a small ice-box, for perishables. A real little paradise, this." Vlad felt ashamed that this was all he could offer her. She had suffered almost four years of hell to be greeted by this mediocre world? But, as dismayed as he was, Missa was aching at its perfection. Placing Hawnt in his cradle basket, she stared. She had not seen anything to welcoming as a rather moth bitten couch, scuffed carpet, a kitchen, and the item she had missed the most; books. Books, novels, anthologies, comics and manga even! She walked into the main room in a daze, moved towards the library without a thought, and caressed the bindings. Of all things he could have brought, television, computers, gaming consuls, even. And he had chosen books. She sank to her knees and began to weep for joy.

Vlad obviously took this as a bad sign, and so rushed in and placed his hands on her shaking shoulders.

"Missa, what's wrong?" As he kept on sobbing, he kneeled and pulled her round to face him, and saw a truly happy smile on her tear stained face.

"You chose books, of all things! Books!" her body loosened so suddenly, Vlad barely had time to catch her.

Helping her stand, Vlad set her down on the couch and brought the baby in to her, and sat next to her. She was still shaken, but there seemed to be less anxiety and pain than there was just a moment before. So, he though, she can be healed from her past.

"What's the child's name?" he asked suddenly. It startled Missa. She had not been expecting that. Lifting her baby into her arms, she rocked him slowly.

"His name is Hawnt. He's only two moths old, but he is still one of the best behaved children I have ever seen. He only rarely cries, sleeps a lot, and when he is awake he seems to understand what it is I'm saying." She clucked to Hawnt softly, and the sleeping bundle woke up. He gazed into her eyes with such tenderness that she thought her heart might just rupture.

Vlad watched her face soften. She loved the child. Dan's child, forced upon her. The son of the greatest and most powerful Ghost to ever walk the human world, or even the ghost-zone. Hawnt, the baby that could one day inherit his father's power. He was the most hated and feared entity across the known universe, and Missa had come here so she could protect him.

"You know that the boy's father stole what was rightfully mine. My Ghost half. My power." She turned to look at him, sharply. Her eyes were hard, but the mistiness was still there. What he had said hurt.

"Yes, and yet you once said the same thing about Jack Fenton. Who, by all accounts, is this child's grandfather. And in a messed up way, you are also partly Hawnt's father. Danny's Ghost half ripped yours away, and they combined into one really scary Ghost. The full Ghost Dan is the entire father, but put his messed origins in a genealogy chart, Mr. Masters, and you and Danny, fates rest his soul, are also related to this baby boy." The revelation had come to him in the middle of her monologue, but it still took time to sink in.

Missa hoped that Vlad realized that she had no where else to go. And she needed his help with raising a baby. She was only twenty-four, and had never planned on ever being attracted to another person, let alone becoming pregnant! But now that Hawnt was here, she would never give him up. Ever. But she still needed help. Vlad's help. Only he might forgive the baby for his father's sin's and take them in. She prayed with every fiber of her being that he would.

"I am, in a way, this child's father." He spoke softly, without real inflection. Missa couldn't look into his pain-wrought, confused eyes. She looked instead to her baby, who was watching Vlad with uncanny seriousness. "And although it would appear that you have the most need of me…" he paused, gathering his thought. "It is that I do not want to live alone in this crumbling manse, wreathed in my memories any longer. You, and your son, are not only welcome here," He looked up, and Missa saw understanding and caring in his eyes. "You are now as much a part of this old place as I am." Missa could think of no thanks large enough to encompass her emotions. So, instead, she decided to show her trust in him.

"Do you want to hold him?" She was offering her baby to him, Vlad realized. She was showing a level of trust he had not dare think about, let alone allow himself to consider. Reaching out gently, Missa placed the warm bundle in his arms. And he looked into the baby's eyes, and Hawnt smiled, letting out a gurgling giggle. And Vlad felt happiness in his heart. Feeling Missa's tired head fall on his shoulder, he heard her whisper.

"Now we are really part of a family, Hawnt. A real family…"

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