Hello and welcome once more, this chapter is a little longer than normal so you'll have more to love. I'll like to quickly thank Chocoborider92 and MnM for the reviews,
ANNOUNCEMENT: once December arrives I'll be revising and correcting grammatical errors, paraphrasing, run in sentences, etc on this story, so if the readers could help me out by pointing out errors I'll gladly work it through (11/08/2012).
With that clear, now on to the story and enjoy.
Incubus
Chapter 06: Who's the father?
It had been a month since I found out I was pregnant, it felt strange. All the nausea, fever and even the disappointment I felt that even while using contraception pills he had gotten me pregnant. Lamely as soon as he told me the news that he thought I was pregnant, I bought myself a few packs of pregnancy testing kit or as I call them peeing on a stick only to get a confirmation of what he said.
Knowing what I had to do I went to the clinic the next day, Dr. Rodriguez got to me and had me do the urine test in the clinic, it turned out positive once more. I remember seeing him shake his head at me, and he asked me if I knew who the father was. I told him that the father was dead and he glared at me, quickly telling me that he was not joking. The problem was that a month before I had gotten sick and was in need of antibiotics, I went to a doctor and didn't told him that I was taking contraception pills. But who would have guessed that the exact antibiotic I was taking would interact with the contraception and make me lose any protection I could get from it. It made me feel at a loss.
I remember that when I got home from the clinic I found Sephiroth sitting in the couch watching television, a smirk plastered on his face. He had known all along that the antibiotic I was taking would interact with the contraception pills; he never told me a thing. I know I was mad, and I yelled at him in my desperation: "Why the hell didn't you tell me that?" That was when I learned that he hated to be yelled at, I could protest, challenge him and go against his words, that would only amuse him, but yelling at him? That would only anger him and it was that how I found myself in this position.
My back was pressed against the door, my legs hanging a feet above the floor, my neck? My neck surely felt as if it was about to break. He was strong, yet he knew exactly how to hold me in the air without making me feel as if I was losing my breath, he was only scaring me. Yet I knew that with him I had to hold my ground, because I know he could win me at any fight, but I won't allow him to break my spirit, he had done it before. He had even made me believe that there was loving relationship between the two of us, but that was a lie that both of us knew.
Smirking once more knowing that he had full control over me he moved in closer, our chest barely touching, yet with each breath I took I could feel cold radiating from him. It was no longer something I found scary, instead it was something that found to relate with the warmth people had. His cold temperature becoming what I accounted as warmth, that being what made me feel at home. Strange thought, I always hated the cold.
Yet he moved in closer and I felt his cold breath on my face and I gulped, he wasn't staring at me with carnal passion, instead he was giving me that murderous look he used to have back in Nibleheim. It was then that I heard him talk, his voice dark and low. "Do not yell at me… understood?"
Feeling scared I nodded at him as best as I could and I felt him lower my legs to touch the floor, his hand leaving my neck and softly to my left shoulder. Knowing somehow that I wanted to speak, he allowed me to do so with the phrase: "speak up."
"Seph…" I began slightly nervous, calling him by a name that only I was allowed to do so. "Why?" I asked as I felt betrayed by him, yet his words caught me off guard.
"It does not affect me in any way that you get pregnant, nor I could care less." He said to me as he began to walk once more towards the couch, once there he sat in his favorite spot.
Being brave and acting as the real owner of the house I moved towards him and sat right beside him, staring at him as he ignored my presence; his eyes never once leaving the small television. I sat there staring at him for a few seconds, him still ignoring me as he pleased. Getting slightly uncomfortable with his attitude towards me I said the nickname I had for him. "Seph." Even with the nickname he decided to ignore me, probably in his mind finding amusing his little game and my reaction to it. I sighed, he was nearly impossible but not giving up I called his name once more. "Sephiroth?"
In turn he looked at me, his expression void of any feeling but finally taking it in our eyes locked and I felt that what I wanted to speak had gone from my mind. He looked at me expectantly and raised his eye brows as he saw that I was paralyzed. "Cat got your tongue?" He taunted at me as his eyes trailed once more to the television, a bright red with orange adorning the image of it.
"Umm…" I began still slightly scared to ask him this, noticing my reaction he looked at me, his left eye brow lifting up as he waited for me to speak.
"What?" He finally asked as he noticed that I couldn't really speak, still slightly afraid of him.
"Umm…" I began once more, but as I got more comfortable in the couch next to him and positioned myself to face him fully, it was then that I felt the courage to speak. "How will I explain this?"
"Explain what?" He asked as he raised his eyebrow once more as a smirk adorned his features, yet his humor didn't last long as he went once more to pay attention to the television in front of us.
The scene had also caught my attention as I saw bright red with a bit of orange. It was a place that was burning, moving over so that I could watch the television directly I found my eyebrows touching each other. It was a burning town, a reporter was speaking, it was fast most of it barely understandable as the man could be heard nearly crying. "No, this can't be." The reporter said as his voice broke during the television broadcast. "I tell you guys," he said as if he was talking to everyone watching the video. "I have never seen something like this in my life." He spoke once more, his voice full of astonishment, yet as there was a minute of a pause he yelled as an explosion was seen, a house that wasn't captured by flames exploded. "Oh whoa, this is something never seen, I hope you guys at the studio are watching because this has just been made by a hero of war."
The scene changed to a group of commenters that began to speak about the incidence in the video that was just seen. A woman with blonde hair and blue eyes being the first one to speak, "Well that was a video back from the attack on Nibleheim, as we are commemorating the Seventh anniversary of this tragedy. On that fateful day, we lost many people, but among them, we lost a hero, a man that hailed by many, admired by most. That was the day that our General Sephiroth First Class SOLDIER died." Finished solemnly as she allowed another one of the people beside her to speak, yet her words ran in my mind. Was Sephiroth declared dead seven years ago?
"Umm…" I began once more as I kept staring at the television but having stopped listening long ago, yet he never allowed me to finish as he answered my unmade question.
"I do not know." He said quietly as he turned off the television, things that the people were speaking being most of them lies. Yet as he tried to somehow protect me from an invisible force he wrapped his right arm around my shoulder and pulled me to his chest, his cold skin somehow soothing my nerves.
"Oh…" I answered as I looked down, my fingers playing with a small ball of paper, part of the certificate given by my doctor that wrote that I was pregnant for the second time. Yet I sat there thinking, both of us probably having in mind the same thing. Seeing as he wasn't about to speak I spoke up once more, this time taking into consideration that he was calm at the moment. "Do you think you died that day?"
He didn't answer after a while, yet he took long. Probably he was thinking that was what I meant before, but it couldn't be. As I sat there next to him I dared to look at his face, his eyes having that hypnotizing green of it led me to observe them more than before. He seemed to be thinking but as he seemed to be slightly prepared to answer the phone began to ring. Sighing I moved over to the phone and read the caller id, it was my sister, taking a quick glance to where Sephiroth sat I stared at the caller id once more, it was the third time it rang.
"Who is it?" He asked as he must have probably found myself contemplating on whether or not to answer the phone.
"Liz." I simply told him as I read the caller id once more, after so many years her cellphone number hadn't changed at all.
"Answer it."
And with those last orders of his I picked up the phone on the fifth ring. "Hello?"
"Oh thank God! I thought you'll never answer." My sister said as she sounded desperate to speak to me.
"Well I did… everything okay?" I asked as I turned my back to the man that still sat on the couch watching my every move.
"Yea, everything is all right." She said as she sounded as if she was out of breath.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course Vana… Hey, I told you not to put that there!" She yelled to someone on her side of the phone call. "Sorry about that."
"Umm, I guess it's all right. But if you seem busy I better leave you there."
"Oh no you don't, don't you dare hang up on me. Do you have any idea what day it is?" My sister said puzzling me due to her question.
"Umm… the Seventh anniversary of Nibleheim…" I kind of asked as I felt that what I had said was not the right answer, as I said that I looked over my shoulder to see a slightly interested Sephiroth.
"Oh you dofus! How dare you forget mother's birthday!" She yelled over the phone making the man on the couch chuckle, him probably having heard everything. "You know I can't believe you! This is the fourth birthday in a row that you forget!" She said as she kept yelling over the phone, Sephiroth smirking at what he was probably hearing of her side. Yet somehow thinking of being the humorous person I never thought of him to be, he pulled two fingers to the side of his head and made a motion that indicated as if he were shooting a gun, his head responding to the movement of his fingers.
"Asshole," I muttered as I gave my back to him once more.
"Vanessa Smith! Did you just call me an asshole?" My sister yelled once more over the phone, leaving me no option but to separate the receiver from my ear.
"That was meant for someone else."
"Look sis, I'm tired of this game so I won't give you an option, get ready by six, I'll pick you up, okay?" Yet I never had a chance to answer her as she hanged up the phone.
Hanging up the phone and placing it in its respective place, I began to walk over to the man that sat on the couch. He was still smirking at me, but his eyes held in a playful gleam in them, yet as he did before with me I ignored him. Yet as I was about to sit down next to him, he wrapped his cold hands around my waist and pulled me over to sit down on his lap.
"To answer your question, it could be." He whispered in my ear as he held me close to him, his cold breath tickling my ear.
"That you died that day?" I asked as I found myself slightly shocked at his confession.
"It could be a metaphor." He answered as I relaxed into his arms, as I saw that the conversation was going smoothly, something that wasn't normal as we rarely spoke about him.
"Haven't you ever thought of redeeming yourself?" I asked as I looked once more at the television, it was turned on with the same analysis of Nibelheim being done for the past five years since the event.
"How can I redeem myself when people don't forget?" He asked as I felt him frown, probably this not being the first time that he had thought that.
"I know it's against your plans, but why don't you try it? I mean in a game of cards there's always one that you will call a life, one that if something happens, you have the faith that if you bet on it will save you from your situation." I said as I repositioned myself on top of him, my body perpendicular to his, this position allowing me to rest my head against his shoulder.
"Have you ever used it?" He said referring to the comparison I had just done.
"Now that I think of it, I guess not." I said as I looked up as if the ceiling had the answer to my own question.
"Then what's your card?"
I turned to look at him, his question seeming to go nowhere but somehow he must have something planned. With that in mind I answered: "I'll start from cero."
"Why didn't you do it?"
"Why would I need to use it?"
"You lost everything to me."
He was right with those words; I had lost everything to him. I lost my husband, my house back in Edge, my university studies, my first child, my sanity, my friends… what hadn't I lost to him? He had become that worm hole in my life. He had sucked everything that I had left; it was a miracle that he hadn't separated me from my sister. Sometimes he would even promote me to go look for my sister, but with that I have no idea what he is planning.
Shaking my head at him I got up from where I was sitting on top of him and headed to my bedroom so that I could get prepared for my mother's birthday. Moving quickly as I checked the clothing I thought of something loose, my goal being to hide what could possibly be a growing belly. Soon after and with the help of Sephiroth, which picked the clothing for me, I was washing myself and getting ready to see my family. Once I got out of the bathroom I found the dreaded man that I lived with, he was sitting there on my bed looking at me as if I were his prey. His green eyes never left me, thought something that was more inhumane of them was that they rarely blinked. Yet with that I tried my best to move around in search for some decent shoes and I was done.
Moving over to him I placed my hand on his forehead and moved close to him, our nose barely touching. "Could you stop that?" I asked him as I smirked at his face, it irked him that I would use against him things that he would normally do to me.
"She's here." He said indicating that my sister had just gotten at my house, somehow his keen senses being capable of telling when someone arrived.
Moving away from him, I looked at him in the eyes and found myself shaking my head at the small glare he was giving me. With that I left the house, my sister taking me to hers for a surprise party she and a few others had planned for my mother. At first everything was going on fine, but when it came to the part in which we had to give my mother her presents I found myself get nervous. I didn't bring anything for her. It was then that it was my time to give her a present and it occurred to me that I could tell the news of my pregnancy. With that in mind I began: "Well family, I know that today we are celebrating mom's birthday and I know that I didn't bring any gift with me, but I have an announcement to make."
"You're back with Bobby?" My mother asked as she felt that the rumors were true. That Bobby and I were once more trying to get together, but she was pretty far from the truth.
"No mom," I said as I kneeled down in front of her, placing my hands on her knees. "Well, you're gonna' be a grandmother." I told her as I looked into her eyes, yet instead of the happy cries I heard when my sister announced her pregnancies, I found myself receiving a disappointed look.
"Is it from Bobby?" She asked her voice sounding hopeful, probably thinking that I had done the same thing everyone thought I did with my first pregnancy.
"No mom," I confessed to her, yet with that I saw how her face fell, pure disappointment being what she expressed.
"But haven't you been seeing Bobby lately?" My mother said as she tried her best to somehow fix where the conversation was going.
"No mom! That we been meeting up doesn't mean I've slept with him," I said harshly already mad at her insistence, with that I had gotten up tired of the same thing. This situation wasn't the first time; it was the same story back with my first pregnancy, reason to why I had stopped talking to them.
"Vanessa Smith don't you dare yell at mom!" Liz said as she moved closer to us, pulling on my arm as she yelled those words.
"And what do you want me to say?" I yelled at my sister, my mom beginning to burst into tears. With her youngest daughter pregnant to who knows who and both daughters of her fighting during her birthday; the situation was too much for her to handle.
"You could tell her you don't know who the father is." Liz, my sister said trying her best to stop the fight that was about to begin.
"Oh that sounds great; oh look, hey mom I don't know who the father of my baby is but I think you could guess that I must have taken a new profession since you must believe I slept with anyone in town."
"Vanessa Smith! Stop it, right now, that's not the right thing to say." Liz yelled once more.
"Or what is the right thing to say, that I got pregnant by an invisible force?" I said as I had grown tired, somehow telling the truth as I made my sister let go of my arm.
"Oh Vanessa, please don't joke with me like that." My mom said as she felt insulted by the words I had spoken.
"Okay, I guess the party's over." Liz said as she moved to the entrance, signaling for her husband to come over and work with our mom and the rest of the guest. "Come with me Vanessa." She said still mad at me, once outside she led me to the car, no words being spoken between the two of us. The car ride was silent as she took me to my house, yet once we arrived there I didn't got out of the car as I expected her to speak some more to me.
"Vana," she began. "It was wrong to say all that in front of mom."
I looked at her and spoke, the silence that stood between us for a few seconds becoming extremely uncomfortable. "Maybe if you put yourself in my shoes, you might understand."
"You're lucky Bobby wasn't there." She said as she thought of my ex-husband.
"Liz, me and Bobby aren't together."
"I know, but he could do the same as last time." She said referring to my first pregnancy, as he took the blame to calm my mother at first, but all failed once our divorce got out and confirmed once the child was born.
"You know how last time went, I told you the truth but once the baby was born and had grey white hair everyone knew it wasn't his." I told her as I tried to explain to her the situation. "Doing the same thing again is just too risky."
"I know…" she said as she tailed off, probably thinking of what to say next. "There must be a way we could create a diversion; I mean I hate to see us fight like this."
"Liz, I told the truth today. And see? Even if I tell the truth, no one will believe me. No one will believe me it's Sephiroth's child." I said as I opened the door of the car, a light turning on indicating that a door was open.
"Look, sis… I believe you. I really do, but you know mom is sick. We cannot go on telling her things she won't believe, just tell her that it was a random man you met, one day he promised you the stars and on one night you laid with him. Just do it for mom." Liz pleaded me as I got out of the car, yet leaving the door opened so that we could keep talking to each other.
"Liz, the only man I've been meeting, and people here knows it, has been Bobby, and you know how mom loves Bobby." I told her as I moved slightly away, ready to close the door. "Plus, once the baby is born, it'll probably have the same hair color as the other. And I'm sorry for my attitude but I know… if you get any idea just call me." I said as I closed the door of the car and walked away towards my house.
Edited: 10.20.2014
