Hey guys! Fear not, last chapter was not the end! I'm not that mean ;) Enjoy!
Jin's POV:
It had been a pretty long week. Jin was very distracted from his work, and he was still having a whole lot of trouble sleeping. But he did his best to stay focused on what he was doing, as exhausted and depressed as he was.
On Friday morning, the phone rang and his grandmother picked it up.
"Hello, this is the Choral Clinic. What can I do for you today?" There was a pause as Irene listened to the voice on the other side. "Sure thing, Molly. I'll have them delivered to your house in no time."
Hearing Molly's name made him stiffen. He remembered her saying that she didn't have a phone- she must have gotten one just so that she didn't have to stop by the clinic anymore. Thinking this made him feel like his heart was shattering all over again.
Irene stepped from behind the counter. "Alright, Jin. I'm off on a delivery. Can you take over until I get back?"
Jin nodded his head. "Of course, grandmother." He stood up from his chair and made his way over to the counter at the front of the clinic.
"Hang on," Irene suddenly said behind him. "What is this?"
Jin was startled by the amount of surprise in her voice. When he turned around to look, he saw Irene bending over to the floor to pick up an electric blue feather.
The doctor looked at his grandma, frozen with shock for a moment as she inspected the blue feather. He looked down at the pockets of his white coat, and reached into his right one, only to poke three of his fingers through a large hole.
"It's... it's nothing!" Jin snapped out of his shock and hastily made his way over to his grandma, snatching the feather out of her frail hand. He stuffed it into his left pocket and turned to walk back to the counter. "You should hurry, grandma. It's not right to keep customers waiting."
Irene didn't seem to hear a word he said. "Jin, how long have you had that blue feather? Who's the lucky gal?" Her usually serious face was breaking out into a bright smile.
Jin quickly shook his head. "Grandma, it's nothing! I just... I just happen to have a blue feather," he lamely said.
"That can't be true, grandson!" Irene was getting more and more excited. "You had to have had someone in mind to go and find it!"
"No, grandma," Jin said, getting more and more embarrassed and annoyed. "Can we please just forget about this?"
"No way, no how!" Irene continued. She was now right up at the other side of the counter, leaning closer and closer over it to her grandson. "I deserve to know. I'm your grandmother, after all."
"I don't want to talk about it," Jin said shortly.
"I'm going to find out eventually. Might as well tell me now!"
"Alright, fine!" Jin finally snapped. His voice echoed in the empty clinic, and was followed by a long, dead silence. After a while, Jin took a deep breath and continued, his voice shaking with the effort not to yell again. "I was an idiot, grandma. I was crazy when I went to get that feather. I was thinking about Molly, and how great it would be if I could just propose to her. That's what I was thinking when I went to get it. I was a fool for letting myself fall for a married woman." He took another deep breath, his voice quieting down. "I was a fool," he finished weakly, tiredly hanging his head.
Irene was silent for a very long time. Jin wasn't sure what he expected her to say, but he was a bit surprised when she didn't immediately scold him or tell him to "just get over it, already."
"Jin," Irene finally spoke, placing a gentle hand on her grandson's shoulder over the counter. "I'd like to show you something."
The young man looked up at his grandma's face. She didn't look hard or stern like she normally did, but her expression had softened quite a bit. He had hardly ever seen her like this.
Irene turned and walked to the door of the clinic, flipping the "open" sign to "closed." Then she came back to the counter and reached into the pocket of her dress, pulling out a small ring of keys. Jin watched with curiosity as stepped behind the counter and began to unlock the only drawer behind the counter with a lock on it. He had always noticed it, but had never seen what was inside of it. He always just knew that that drawer was off-limits.
When Irene pulled the drawer open, she took out a small piece of paper. It looked like a photo, but she held the photo side against her chest, so Jin couldn't see what it was. She looked up at her grandson. "Why don't you have a seat?" She nodded over at the couch.
Without a word, Jin stepped around his grandmother and made his way over to the couch. He carefully sat down, and Irene followed, taking a seat right beside him.
"Look at this photo, Jin." Irene handed Jin the picture, and he looked at it, wondering what his grandma was trying to tell him. In the picture was a young couple, the man tall and handsome, with green eyes dark hair that fell to his shoulders. The woman was considerably shorter, her eyes also green and her hair falling in dark red ringlets down her back. She was very beautiful. The two of them were posed in what looked like it could be Simon's photo shop, smiling real, happy smiles. The woman was holding a small, sleepy baby swaddled in a blanket to her chest.
It didn't take Jin too long to figure out what his grandma was showing him. "Are they...?"
Irene knew exactly what he was going to say. She nodded her head. "They're your parents, Jin. And that's you," she said with a small smile, pointing at the baby in the woman's arms.
Jin couldn't believe his eyes. He had always known that he'd had parents, but he never, ever thought that his grandma would tell him about them, let alone show him a family picture of them.
"Ah," Irene said. "You look so much like your father." Jin looked at his grandma- her eyes were filled with sadness and memories as she looked at the photo. "It's been so long since I've looked at this picture."
Jin frowned. "Well, what happened to them?" he asked slowly.
Irene let out a sigh, taking the picture from Jin's hand and staring down at it. "They were going on a trip to the city for a few days. They were going to take you with them, but you had gotten so seasick on their trip to Toucan Island that they decided to leave you with me." Irene smiled a bit at the memory of baby Jin before continuing. "While they were on the boat there, they got in a shipwreck." She furrowed her brow. "It's so tragic that they had to go like that. But... in a way, I was so grateful that they had left you with me. If you had been with them, you would have died too." Irene continued to stare silently down at the photo.
Jin joined her in examining it with great interest. "Do you have any other pictures of them?" he asked hopefully.
Irene smiled a bit. "I do," she said. "Mostly of your father, since he was my son. I'll show them to you later," she said, smiling sadly up at Jin.
"Grandmother," Jin finally said, "why are you telling me about this now? Not to sound rude, but shouldn't you have told me about them years and years ago?"
"Well," Irene started, "you and your father may look alike, but you aren't much like him. Most everyone in our family has always been pretty serious, but your father... he was the odd duck out, there." Irene let out a small giggle. "Ah, he was always smiling. If someone wasn't having a good day, he would always find a way to brighten it, just by being himself. That boy had a gift- he made everyone around him happy." Irene sighed. "He even had a jar of candy here for children who came in for checkups. The kids absolutely loved him."
Jin smiled, "He sounds like he was amazing," he mused.
"Oh, Jin. I'm sure if you were raised by him, you would have turned out much more like them." Irene patted Jin's knee. "Anyways, you may not have a lot in common with your father, but you are in a similar situation that he was once in."
Jin perked up. "What? Really?"
"Really," Irene said, nodding her head. "The only time that your father and I didn't get along very well was when he was about to get married. You see, back before you were born, and when we were all much younger, the customs here in Castanet were much different. All marriages were arranged. Your father was betrothed to your mother when they were first born." Irene looked up from the photo. "When he grew old enough to feel true love, he fell in love with another young lady. You know her," she commented, sideways glancing at Jin. "Your father was in love with Mira."
Jin's eyes widened. "What?! Really?" he asked in surprise.
"Really," Irene said. "But Mira was married off before your father. He watched her get taken away from him. He watched her fall in love with her husband and forget about him. It killed him at first, especially when he was expected to marry your mother. He didn't love her the way he had loved Mira. He was always fighting with me over it, saying that I couldn't force him to get married. But, finally, he gave in and got married to your mother. She didn't really want to marry him either, at the time."
Jin listened intently as his grandma recounted his father's story. "But..." he said, looking back down at the family picture, "they look so happy," he said. "Those smiles aren't fake. They're real."
Irene nodded, smiling back at the picture. "Yes," she said. "You see, after being together for a while, your father started becoming his old self. Happy, bright, motivated to do good... he was beginning to love your mother. And she, him. Whenever I saw them together, they looked happy. I'm not sure what happened, but before I knew it, she was his whole world. And they were so happy when you came along," she said. "They would have been wonderful parents."
Jin felt a strange emotion inside of him as he continued to look at the smiling faces of his mom and dad. Hearing his grandmother talk about them this way made him wish that he could have known them.
"Anyways, to answer your question, Jin," Irene started, "I didn't tell you earlier simply because it's a painful memory to remember their deaths. But, I also promised myself that if I couldn't do it sooner, I would tell you on your wedding day. It's not your wedding day, but I think it's important to know that you're not the only one who has felt this kind of hopelessness. Grandson," Irene looked straight at Jin, "you have to move on. It wasn't hard to see that you really, truly loved Molly. And I think what I'm seeing now is you getting over these feelings for her."
Again, Jin perked up a bit. "You... you think so, grandmother?" he said hopefully.
"I do," she said. "Now it's time for you to start thinking about moving on."
Jin looked at his grandmother, who was still looking at him with compassion in her eyes. Then he looked down at his hands in his lap and thought about everything his grandma had told him. He was quiet for a long time as everything he had just heard ran through his mind, over and over again. He had no words to explain what he was feeling, but he did know one thing...
"You're right, grandmother," Jin finally said. "I do have to move on. Things will be better if I do."
Irene smiled. "That's the spirit, Jin," she said softly. "Things will work out the way they're supposed to, if you just keep moving forward. I know this to be true."
Jin slowly nodded his head. "Okay," he said. "But please don't set me up with anyone," Jin said, looking at Irene. "I'm going to find my own bride."
Irene smiled again. "Now you're talking," she said, patting Jin on the back. "I'm proud of you, and everything that you are. And your parents would be proud, too."
Jin looked at Irene and offered a small smile. "Thank you, grandmother."
This wasn't going to be easy, but it seemed to be the only way to get over his broken heart.
Okay, thank you guys for reading! There's a few chapters left, so keep looking forward to those! :) Okay, I gotta run! BubbleFettTea, I'll be sure to check that series out :) Thank you and Professor of Gallifrey for your reviews! Have a wonderful day :)