Author's Note: Hery guys, I think it's official I've won the award of worst fucking author ever when it comes to updating. xD. I sincerely have this horrific habit of dying on people without any word and then returning from the dead. So it's one of those happy phases then people because I. Have. Returned! ! ! Yay! :D *crickets chirping for audience* Erm...was I gone for that long LOL?

So much thanks as always to PinstyLover1983 (formerly laura 101) to motivating my butt and encouraging me to get back to this! ;)


11. What's Best Left Unsaid


For the longest time, the small family had said nothing when they reunited in the hospital room. As soon as she put her foot through the door, Aurora ran right to her mother and engulfed her in the most sincere, warm, loving hug. Tiffany held her tight in her arms, fearing that once again Aurora was going to run out on her and this time Steve would be unable to find her. Of course the chances of that repeating itself were now very unlikely, as she could feel wet spots forming on her shoulders- Aurora's tears.

"Aurora honey, sh...it's okay." Tiffany said soothingly, stroking some of Aurora's soft, thick, curly ringlets. But Aurora made no audible response but a sniffle, still too ashamed to show her face. Instead she buried it deeper into her mother's shoulder blade, too ashamed to look into her mother's compassionate blue eyes. She just felt so ashamed for hurting her like that.

"No it's not Momma. I was vewy bad." Aurora murmured after finally deciding to break her silence. Tiffany felt her heart break, for she hated it when Aurora blamed herself on any sort of situation. This really wasn't her fault, in fact none of this was supposed to be happening. In Tiffany's opinion, she felt this was her own fault. She felt so foolish for boiling over and blatantly discussing the conversation with Steve all while knowing Aurora wasn't too far away and a naturally curious girl.

So Tiffany carefully placed her hands on Aurora's shoulders and firmly pulled her away, just so that her dark brown eyes would be looking right into Tiffany's blue ones. But when she did that, Tiffany's heart faltered even more seeing that Aurora's eyes were redenned and wet with more tears pouring down her cheeks. Steve sat beside the two women with a tissue box in his hands and offered it to Aurora. She gratefully but quietly took it and blew her nose.

"You know, I'd try and do a magic trick right now but I suck at them." Steve said in effort to break the ice and to make Aurora laugh. He was a bad joker and he knew that, so he found a way to entertain his wife and daughter by mocking his comedic skills. But this wasn't a lie, he really was too clumsy for magic tricks.

Aurora made a smirk and a light giggle, while trying to fight it and remain upset. But even with quite a stubbornly strong will for her age, she couldn't stay upset forever. To make her laugh even more, Steve pulled out a quarter from his back pocket and showed it off before placing it in his hand and putting a tissue over it. Waving his hand as if placing a spell on it, he lifted the tissue up and showed that the quarter was gone.

"Ta da!" he sang softly, but Aurora's eyes flickered to his other hand where she could easily spot the shine of the quarter as it gleamed from the nearby sunlight reflected from the window. She frowned playfully and shook her head.

"Houdini, you're fired." Tiffany beat Aurora to making a sarcastic comment, shaking her head in disapproval. Aurora giggled again at the act, but suddenly she stopped and looked to her parents with widened but serious eyes.

"Are you going to tell me the truth?" she asked hesitantly but with confidence. It was so unexpected that it threw both of her adoptive parents off guard, and they instantly stopped laughing. Steve glanced slowly to his wife, his expression unreadable so Tiffany couldn't console to him. Even he didn't know, so neither did she. Would it be a good idea to tell them what they knew now? And how?

Knowing Aurora's intellectual curiosity, there was also another worry for Tiffany alone that if she asked a few too many questions for her own good. Like in particular; "How did you met my real mother?" couldn't be easily answered with the two teaming up and fighting for their lives in a Hell asylum to a five year old, no matter how mature.

"Sweetheart we-" Steve started to hastily say before taking a deep breath, eyes closed and starting again. "I mean, we hadn't expected you to overhear, which is my fault-"

"No Steve, it's mine." Tiffany interjected, whipping her head right over to him with sincere eyes.

"Momma, Daddy, I don't want you two to blame this on yourselves and fight. If I'm too little, it's okay." Aurora said, lowering her head down sadly. As much as she now eagerly longed to know the truth despite still carrying the guilt and confusion she had from before, Aurora knew it'd be wrong and selfish to ask so much from her parents.

"You deserve the truth, you always have." Steve defended. Placing his faith in his daughter, because knowing how smart and mature she was, he and Tiffany glanced at one another once again reading the same decision in their eyes before continuing.

"You're a big girl Aurora. You're very smart and you act like a grown up lady, you know that? Right?" Steve reminded, as Aurora's cheeks brightened and flushed. The flattery was nice, but her small stature never made her feel exactly like a grown up. And her stupid act of saying all those awful things to her parents made her feel like a foolish child, and nowhere near a smart girl.

"I guess so." she responded softly, as Tiffany reached out to her and stroked her cheek, drying away the damp trails where tears had fallen from Aurora's cheeks.

"And right now you're going to make your first big girl decision sweetheart. Whether or not you want us to explain to you about what you heard. About- about your birth mother." Tiffany motioned, nodding her head sternly but gently all at once to Aurora. She seemed taken back by this, and immediately a war began in Aurora's mind. A part of her screamed to just say yes and be over it, or else her wonders and curiosity would never die. Yet at the same time if it made her parents so uncomfortable and guilty, she didn't want them to feel like that just so she could get what she wanted. But darn it she wanted to know so badly, and she knew this was her only shot now until a much later time when she would be an adult. And that wait seemed just so far away..so with the weight of innocent guilt, Aurora answered anyways.

"I wanna know the truth- please." she quickly added the last part, nearly forgetting her manners for a second. Tiffany had taught her that she should always use please when asking for something, no matter what.

Steve knew this wasn't going to be easy for Tiffany, finally bringing up the subject of her deceased best friend to the one who meant the most to her. It didn't help with Aurora's appearance being a near spit image of Kirsty as well, but it wasn't like she could help herself with that either. All these thoughts of helplessness made Steve nearly groan out loud. How could he act so negative right now in such a serious and emotional situation, when on some subject of helplessness? Neither Tiffany or Aurora were helplessly weak, and neither was he. And he could do enough on his part to help. So he turned to his wife and reached for her nearby hand, grasping on to it with a gentle grip. But Tiffany's hand tightened the grip, which was more than enough of a signal for him to realize she was going to need his help explaining this out.

Aurora sat up attentively with careful eyes to both of his parents. Right now she was about to find out the story on the one who realy was her true mother (yet what about her father?) and that her Momma wasn't really her Momma by blood. It was all very hard to take in so fast, but the fact remained that in Aurora's heart that sun blond haired woman and olive toned skin man were going to be her Momma and Daddy as she had been raised to know them as, no matter what.

"We were the best friends of your real mother Aurora. And she was the sweetest, kindest, most beautiful woman you could imagine. She is the reason we met and fell in love actually." Tiffany explained with a warm smile. Aurora would never know that she had hastily skipped past a few unmentioned years. Those years were best left unsaid anyways according to both parents, as they were...unnecessary. Aurora didn't need to know about the Box, the Channard Institute, the dark corruption in Kirsty's family, none of that. Not for now at least.

"Yes, but she had your little stubborn attitude too. She could kick anybody's butt." Steve added with a cheeky grin, playfully pinching at Aurora's cheek. It accidentally hurt her a little bit, but she couldn't help but grin as well. Her mother was a beautiful match-making buttkicker? How cool was that? !

"Was my real Mommy a princess?" Aurora asked innocently, but meaningfully as well. All these things that Momma and Daddy described about her reminded her princess in modern day fairytales, ones that weren't the constantly fainting damsels but independent and strong girls. Steve and Tiffany both cracked a smile and giggled a bit, as Tiffany shook her head.

"No honey. She wasn't a princess, but she was more than beautiful enough to be one." she answered hoarsely, feeling her throat act up on her. It took Tiffany a second to realize it was her entirely acting up, and not just her throat. Unknowingly she had been fighting down tears of both sadness and happiness, and before Aurora could notice as well Tiffany wiped them away.

"Well I think you're really pretty too Momma." Aurora said meaningfully, cocking her head to one side in confusion. How could she not find herself pretty? Her hair outshined the sun, and she had the sweetest eyes and smile. If her Momm didn't find herself pretty, it almost gave Aurora a headache to try and picture her birth mother's beauty. To Aurora it sounded like her birth mother possessed impossible beauty then, which captivated her with excitement. One day when she grew up, would she look just like her mother?

"Thanks Aurora." Tiffany said, with her lips curling into a sincere smile. She was even blushing a little bit as well, as she held Aurora closer. Once again she stroked some of Aurora's curly hair, but the hug felt as though she was hugging Kirsty once again. Actually a particular time, shortly after leaving the Channard institute together. Tiffany had no family and nowhere left to go, so Kirsty had kindly taken her in to stay with her at her own small apartment complex. The two friends lived together for a while, until Tiffany was able to successfully go to college and get a medical degree in nursing, leaving her with no choice but to move out. Of course that hadn't meant she had moved on from her and Kirsty's friendship.

There was a peaceful silence which lasted about a minute when Aurora released herself from the embrace. Lifting her head upwards, she looked solemnly to both of her parents with obviously another question in mind. Tiffany and Steve braced themselves to answer for it, but little had they expected this would be one they couldn't answer.

"Why did she die?" Aurora asked.

The doctors that had been there in the delivery room had told Tiffany a million explanations all at once that just seemed to all go together in their eyes. They had said during her pregnancy she must've suffered through something emotionally traumatizing and made her enter a depression, and she just nautrally lost the will to live. Or perhaps she wasn't physically strong enough to simply carry a child, since Kirsty's own mother had nearly died giving birth to her (hence the reason Kirsty never had any brothers or sisters). But to Tiffany, it just didn't add up. After all, this was Kirsty Cotton. A naturally fiercely strong woman, both physically and emotionally.

"I don't know Aurora. I honestly can't answer that." Tiffany sighed quietly, frowning and feeling a sense of disappointment and shame. Steve approached her and lovingly brushed a few strands of her sun blond hair away from her face all while they merely came back from her shaking her head sadly.

But in Aurora's mind, a haunting thought puzzled her instead. One she hadn't quite thought of until now, and horrified her to even think.

'Did my own dad kill her?'


xXx

He swears she's going to be the Death of one another.

A tad ironic joke or perhaps a bad pun, considering they're technically already dead. Their mutilations and wounds donned on their bodies, even just one alone would've been fatal for a normal human.

Feline had stormed furiously into their chambers, but was oddly silent when doing so. Though CD no longer had a true set of eyes he could see her furious appearance, in a way he couldn't explain. Her golden eyes gleaming with anger, as per usual might he add. The times she commonly was so furious in her eyes was because she obviously had another encounter with Xipe Totec. Her 'notorious enemy No. 1' to put it humorously, for the grudge she held against him was so powerful that even making eye contact with him was enough to set her off.

This had become a routine for the two of them. Something was on her mind to rant, and after all these years he would still always listen and dare attempt to reason with her. Then again, the grudge Feline held against Xipe was definetely called for, the literal Hell he had placed them both in now. Years ago, he had shared the same enragement with her and for all the same right reasons. They had both been unfairly sentenced to a cruel punishment for all eternity without any voice of their own opinions or a reason of crime. But in a way CD had grown to accept his fate for what it was, there was nothing that could be done. Since Xipe had regained his humanity, it was at least the closest he could ever get to an apology for how he somewhat sympathesized for him and other 'Pseudos' for the fact they were still somewhat human. They still carried their memories...

And he still blamed himself for Shana's suffering.

"What happened to you?" he questioned telepathically, dare he ask. In a sense he already had a bad feeling of what her unpredictable response would be. Yet in another way, it was for his own amusement; CD had once wondered that if given the opportunity, would his consort write a book of countless reasons why she hated the Prince of Pain.

Feline stopped, frozen in her tracks to where she was. She then turned to a side angle, so that he couldn't saw her still bleeding wound by her wrist that her other hand was covering. Wrapping one hand around the other was extremely awkward and if she were to make a sudden wrong movement, rather bloody with her fingernail knives. But she had to, for the last thing she wanted was being demanded to explain herself like a child coming up with an excuse as to why he hit a baseball into the neighbor's window.

"N- nothing." she said, fluttering her eyelashes and trying to sound innocent. In a sense her hoarse voice somehow found a way to accomplish this, despite how at the same time when she hissed it sounded like a ferocious cat preparing to attack. She trailed her golden eyes away from staring at her consort towards the nearby dark shadows of their barely lit chambers in hopes of a distraction.

"You actually expect me to believe that?" CD remarked, as if laughing in his mind. If he still had his visible eyebrows, they'd be raised sky high by now in awe and disbelief. Of all the people within the Labyrinth or the surface of the human regions, he knew her better than any living or demonic being. Except on a few occassions given the circumstances, Feline was an awful liar to him.

"I said it was nothing. Now just let me be." she hissed, suddenly a tad more aggressive. Her patience was always a thin surface of ice, easily breakable no matter whom was the one testing it. Without another word she had begun to turn away when unexpectedly he reached out, grasping for her hand to stop her. Unexpectedly and by conincidence, the hand he grabbed happened to be the injured one so immediately he came into contact with the familiar warm liquid that was drying on her sickly pale mocha skin.

Feline sighed, she knew that he was going find the injury one way or another anyways. CD was rather silent, staring at his hand that was covered with a small amount of her blood before he closed it into a fist and lowered it down.

"Xipe did this to you, didn't he?" he asked slowly, and in a tone that was rather dark. It echoed in the back of her mind, along with the memory that she dwelled on it. The immense amount of hatred when Feline and Xipe made eye contact with one another. Her heart faltered in disgust that she looked weak, on the floor in agony to his advancement. Bah! She was so much stronger than that, how easily she should've figured out a why to slip her wrist free. He made her look weak and pathetic.

Every fucking time, he found at least one certain way to win against her.

"Who else?" she muttered bitterly.

For a moment, he had nothing to say. The blood on his hand felt like a permanent stain, at least in his mind. When his fingers had brushed against the exact spot where most likely a chain had wrapped around it, he could feel it's depth into her skin, and her soft inside flesh. Despite that Feline insisted it was nothing, CD ended up developing an image in his mind of a brutal image of what it looked like in comparison to the wounds she sustained as she hung dying from that doomed night long ago...

"I hate him so much." Feline growled, her eyes stinging. Cenobites couldn't truly cry tears but some such as herself could do so in a strange fashion- tears of blood. They were watery like normal salty tears, but an obvious and evident dark red color blood.

She released and exasperated sigh, deciding shedding tears were a waste of precious time. Wait- where was there any value in time? They had all of eternity, even though it was something Feline hadn't wanted in the first place. To her there was otherwise no other better option than to simply waste it all away. But not even finding entertainment from that could be used as an excuse to cry. Nobody cared, nobody ever had anyways to begin with.

'I care. You know that.' CD murmured in her thoughts, sounding almost as if hurt she had included him amongst all those who didn't care about her. He absentmindedly placed his hand gently against her face, his thumb skimming the tears slowly falling from her cheeks. Feline smiled a bit, her hands reaching up and grasping ahold of his as if never wanting him to let go.

His hands were the only part of him that hadn't been mutilated. The only reminder of his humanity from so long ago for her, still the same ones that held her close and brushed away the tears she cried after having a bad dream of her heartless man of a father. But her own were long ruined, the blood covered knives for her fingernails being such a distraction. Her attempt for a gentle touch could end up being her accidentally scratching a thin cut against him. In a humorously dark sense, it wasn't as though either one of them could appear any more monstrously worse than what they were now, but she hated it.

No matter how they would ever begin something, it would always end like this. Embracing, because they were the only things left for one another.


She ran right towards him with a blissful grin that went as wide as from ear to ear. He raised his eyebrows in shocked awe, totally unprepared as she practically threw herself at him.

"You shouldn't have!" he nearly screamed in a gasp. A million thoughts ran through his head all at once. All said the same basic thing; She shouldn't have come back. Why oh why did she come back? Why didn't she just listen and get rid of that damn Box?

"Don't tell me what I can an' can't do, alright?" she questioned. It sounded muffled as she buried herself right into his shoulder. She was holding on to him so tightly as if in fear that the simplest breeze was going to yank her away from him.

"You're so stupid Shana, you know what?" Jimmy cried in shocked disbelief. He was so numb that he couldn't even shake his head in disapproval. Still no matter what either he or she said, he couldn't believe she loved him so much that she'd risk her life to save his own.

That resulted in a wave of guilt that shot at him. This was all his fault, the entire situation and everything to it. She was going to die because of him. How could he be so foolishly selfish? In that case a part of him believed he deserved to suffer in Hell.

"Why- why did you come back?" Jimmy asked Shana before he could stop himself.

She pulled away and looked right into his eyes; His dark brown eyes staring right into the fire of hard, blazing, hazel ones. She gave a half smile and her eyes welled up.

"Because I can't live without you." she answered, embracing him once again. As he ran his fingers through her soft raven hair, as her mocha brown skin clashed against his fair skin in their hug, as her red dyed bang brushed against his face, it brought back familiar memories...

And this time he wasn't about to let those or her go.


The memory was too bittersweet to dwell back upon it. Perhaps to others it sounded romantic, but for CD it was a painful punishment. A reminder of how it was his fault his sweet Shana ended up here in the first place. How her determination and love for him ended up being her downfall. A question lingered in his mind that he knew would never be answered; Why would she still want him, let alone love him, after everything she had endured for him and only for the efforts to be proved fruitless?

Feline in the meanwhile had realized something she had forgotten, despite it being mentioned not earlier before. Her encounter with Xipe Totec, and the warning he had given to her if she were to share it to anyone. The temptation to tell her consort now was like a siren's haunting call, making it almost irresistable. Her golden eyes cast a distant gaze, while her mind went to war with it's own self on the decision.

Just do it! Why not tell your beloved consort? You tell him everything, why should this make any sort of difference?

That pesky Prince of Pain had threatened a torturous death to the both of you should you tell anyone though...

And you fear him for that? What stupidity! He's nothing but a coward who couldn't bring himself to kill you. He wouldn't dare, Leviathan actually has placed trust in you and rather favors you as a loyal Tracker. If anything were to happen to you-

-You could easily be replaced.

Not if you make a standing defense for yourself.

It isn't worth it.

To spoil out to everyone that the beloved Prince of Pain has done something so forbidden, let alone for the second time? Having a human lover? ! If Leviathan had a human face, it'd be expressing the emotion of outrage, and oh how you would long to see that Pinface jerk taste a piece of misery.

Can you at least try and act rational and sane for once in your life? Did you even listen to the words you just said, and how in reality it would most likely never end up like that? !

Shut the hell up.

'Shana?' his voice interrupts, clearing the clouds of her conscience. Feline realizes that her consort has since pulled his hand away from her cheek, now concerned with how she is silent and dazed off. She jolted, shook her head, and blinked.

Now's your chance. Now or never.

Oh how the words were on the edge of her tongue, so tempted to jump off and spread their wide wings free. Gracefully and carelessly, her lungs felt as though they were going to burst from containing her little secret. She wanted to scream badly, let the entire Labyrinth know. If she could, she would mockingly dance around the godly presence of Leviathan himself while maniacally and rather childishly singing 'I know Xipe's secret! I know Xipe's secret! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!'

Feline felt utterly lost, and unable to say a word. It was as if her ability to speak had been taken away from her or worse, like someone had ripped her throat out painfully. Her stomach lurched and she felt sick on the inside from the overwhelming pressure of temptation, for Leviathan's sake (rather her own) she craved for a distraction. Just...just for now.

"Jimmy, make love to me, please..." she murmured, her tone pleading. Her request was far from a murmur, it was a barely audible whisper that did not echo obnoxiously across the sacred halls of the Labyrinth like she had desired to do so.

CD nearly jumped in disbelief. Had he heard her correctly? He was almost tempted to telepathically chuckle in disbelief, until he foresaw the sincerity in her eyes and the pleadingfulness in her hoarse voice echoed. Before he could make a proper response, she already approached him a bit too eagerly for his comfort. Feline's knees seemed to suddenly buckle and she nearly collapsed, he had not caught her quickly and held her up close in their embrace. Her head craned backwards

Her face just inches away from his, her breasts just pressing against his chest, and her icy breath landing lightly against his face. If he had his true sight once again then he'd be able to see the details on her face, count the her eyelashes and stare right into the tiny dot serving as the barely existing pupil of hers, normally giving a wicked appearance, but now suddenly gentle. Only then had he realized she had deliberately fallen, like she was acting like a damsel. In a sense he suddenly had a bad feeling, because gentle as she could be at times, she seemed to acquire a liking for roughness.

"Just like we used to...so long ago." she added, with a feeling of nostalgia running through her veins as she reflected back to those memories. How she suddenly craved for them yet again. It'd never be the same now, but it'd be enough- for a distraction- just for once.

Without another word, he seemed to give in easily to her. But this was not a game. Not the ones she seemed a tad eager to play at times, acting as one another's slaves, where it was always rough and quite bloody. In actuality, it was nothing involving sadomasochism.

Their hands roamed on one another's body. Every scar that was ever made, whether from when they had each been stripped of their humanity or conflicted from a different incident, each one was familiar. She easily found the edges of a pattern where she had clawed down from his shoulder blades to his abdomen, and he encountered a rather unwelcomed feeling of brushing against her neck- the area where the barbed wire chain had wrapped around her neck and killed her. The rough scars remained, never to heal and always to bleed- and always a guilty reminder for him.

That feeling only intensified more when she had leaned in even closer and tenderly planted kisses on his neck, the tips of her sharpened teeth digging lightly into his skin. It wasn't the possiblity of bleeding that upset him, but feeling the tension on her lips. They were practically shaking, oh how he wished he could kiss her back truly. Just grab her into his arms and kiss her strawberry tasting lips until his lungs gave out and he needed air, but that once reality had now become a long missed dream. And yet he felt so selfishly greedy for having nothing to give to her, but he wanted so much more from her...

He wrapped his arms around her lithe body, and by now she was pressed so close against him it looked as though their bodies had molded together. His hands pressed against the bare skin of her back, but he found himself slowly tracing her hourglass figure and right undenreath the rather thin leather material of her clad bikini, carressing her breasts. She squealed in arousal, her finger-claw knives clawing down his back.

But it just wasn't enough.

Her mind still lingered back to the ever so tempting offer to tell, and quite frankly at this moment she wished it would just go away. She needed more, desperately, so her mind would fly away into a bliss just for the fun of it. Everything would be best left with 'for now' and Feline could already see the paranoid in Xipe's eyes as she eagerly looked forward to it. But she just didn't feel up to it. She just wanted to leave this world, and didn't care where she would go to for now.

So when he carefully but with frantic hunger pushed her against their bed, she made no objective. The back of her knees landed first against the sheets, while her fingernail knives clawed deeply into CD's shoulders, dragging him down with her as they lost one another in waves of passion.

Lust, desire, greed, guilt, shame, pain, desperation, regret, love...

Feline was one who felt more than bitter hatred and bloodlust revenge.

And for now, this was enough.


See, Feline does have an emotional side. :3

So um, yeah, I honest to God was going to make this chapter longer with other stuff, but it was seriously kicking my ass. I hope this is a good enough update for you all. Guess not. :P

Reviews= Love! I need it, I've been going through a really tough time lately, and things aren't looking so great. Sigh. :(