A/N- I have been trying to rewrite my other story and failed, then came the cruise, then came finals. Thus I have not updated sorry, here's a chapter for your patience.
Also Jim is about 16 in this fic.
Chapter Three
"Mama," was once all she knew how to say, and the deep blue eyes and long red hair were only shades of what she thought were there but could have easily been nothing but her imagination.
She thought she didn't have a mama. But she was calling for her, calling for the woman who made her childhood complete. She longed for the only person she didn't want to remember because memories brought back pain and loss, but if she pretended that she didn't feel them...
The woman seemed to smile, were there lips where the mouth should have been? She couldn't tell as she raised her small hands and reached for fiery locks in a white light that surrounded the woman who held her softly. She was younger, a small child easily held.
"Mama!" She said loving the word on her mouth, loving the feeling it gave her, the sense of lowering her defenses to completely trust, the only feeling the woman who held her ever gave her... love.
"Hush, sweet little one," the woman said softly, her voice soft but distorted through time, through the sharpness and sketchiness of a child's mind too young to remember. A song melted into her as the little girl sighed, loving the feel of arms around of her, the sweet scent of lilacs invading her senses as if nothing but that smell and those arms existed.
"Hush little baby don't say a word..." The words were fading...
The arms were growing cold...
The smell was vanishing...
"No," she cried as tears warmed her eyes. She tried to hold tighter, closed her eyes wishing as hard as she could to try to stop the inevitable.
"What's your favorite animal?" The woman asked in her mind.
"Tiger!" She could hear herself distantly remembering she had fallen once and scrapped her knee.
"Whenever you're afraid be a brave tiger for mommy. Be the little tiger that stood fearless so nothing should ever make you cry," the woman said softly, behind her closed eyes she saw the woman smile. "Even if you fall don't cry, tigers don't cry when they fall. Just come to me and I will make it all better because tears don't do anything but wet your pretty little face."
"Ok, Mama," she replied happily.
"You're such a smart little girl, you make me proud."
"Mama..." The word faded on her lips as she touched her cheeks, eyes still closed as if searching for lingering fragments of what she would never have again.
Tigers don't cry,...
She shook her head. She didn't like thinking about her Mama, she didn't like thinking about things that made her sad, things that made her heart hurt.
Stop it! She cried at the inner child so lost and lonely, wanting to cry but knowing the tiger, the animal no longer a definite shape, would chase the tears the little girl harbored away with an angry roar of frustration.
She was alone now, she could feel it, and all she knew was a longing, a longing so strong it hurt even more than loosing what she could barely remember having...
Long for, hurt for, roar for...
Love.
But pretend it didn't exist,.. scream the animal to come, scream the innocence to stay, and love wasn't anything but something she kept deep inside, locked away, so it couldn't hurt her.
Love was what she felt for her Mama, and love was reserved for her Mama only, because her Mama was special, her Mama was lovely, and her Mama was dead. Love reserved for the passed, but memories reserved for the immortal and the constant innocence she had deep inside the animal, the child, and the pretender.
~*~*~*~*~
"Yeah, I found her the other day." A familiar voice said.
Ed growled a complaint in her throat, her eyes were shut tightly as she rolled over on her side. She was so tired, she didn't want to wake up. She could feel a warm blanket over her shoulders and a fluffy pillow under her head. She was too at ease to want to wake up from dreams and peace that seemed so hard to find lately. She whimpered her contentment as she pressed her face into the softness beneath her cheek.
"She sure looks like a human, but she sure as hell doesn't sound like one. Hey, maybe she's related to Aisha." A sarcastic voice said, a small hint of amusement hidden somewhere in the tones that made him seem warm and cold at the same time.
She rolled over, growling a warning for those around her that she was trying to sleep.
"Hey, I resent that, Gene Starwind! Bastard!" A loud screeching voice filled Ed's head and she growled louder, angrier.
"Hey, Aisha, keep it down, she's trying to sleep," the familiar voice said softly.
There was a laugh as the one called Aisha growled with low defeat.
Ed rolled over one more time, her hand covering her eyes as she grabbed the pillow and slammed it over her head. "One more minute, Ed wants one more minute..." she muttered into fluff.
"Hey, Aisha, c'mon now. Don't get your panties all in a twist." The other voice mocked.
"GRRRRRRAAAAARRRRRR!"
"Greeeeaaattt, Gene. Now look what you did. Aisha's going all animal on us."
Ed sprang up, eyes wide, lost, bleak. She looked around with confusion as her vision cleared away into reality. She was in a large junk yard, blankets covering her as she sat in an old beat up car without a roof, moonlight of the night caressing her shoulders. Piles of metal and scrap loomed on both sides of her, reaching far into the distance as she yawned and stretched.
She then stared at the figures in front of her, her head spinning with last minute memories of her Mama. She saw the tallest one first, he was young, but not her age young, more like in his twenties young. He had a deep stare of gray-blue, his mouth impishly turned up at the corner as he laughed. He had red hair, dark, a color she never saw before, that shone in the moonlight with flaring anger.
Next she saw the boy that she had met earlier standing next to him, his eyes narrowed, mouth set angrily, blonde hair flying over his face in the night's wind. "I told you before you came, Gene. If you brought Aisha, you had to behave." He said under his breath.
"Yeah well, I planned on that, but ya know, shit happens." The man replied shrugging indifferently. He lay his back against the pile of junk the two were backed up against leisurely.
Then Ed caught saw their opponent who she guessed was obviously Aisha. She was on all fours, eyes gone crazy- blue, ice blue. White and streaked with black. A tiger!
"KITTY!" Ed shouted at the top of her lungs with delight as she flew from the beat up car and jumped on the tiger's back, her hands encircling the neck with love and possession of a child. Soft fur filled her arms and she held on so tight, hoping that what she was holding was real, soft, fluffy, cute!
The animal was surprised as it tried to buck her off, kicking, growling, and then finally shouting as the fur shrunk to a normal neck size. "Hey! Hey! Get off, wouldya! Hey!"
Gene and Jim stared at the small child as she snuggled closer and Gene laughed as the child held on like a burr. "Well, well, thats what you get for trying to eat us." He said sarcastically.
"Ctarl Ctarls don't eat people! We kill them, ripping them to shreds!" Aisha screamed as she tried to squirm out of Ed's grasp without hurting her. "C'mon kid, leggo!!"
"Pretty kitty!" Ed shouted as she hugged harder.
"Hey...I-..I can't...Br- breathe!" Aisha gasped.
Ed buried her face in the white hair and tugged on the braid she'd found brushing her shoulder. She loved the softness on her fingers, she loved the cuteness of the animal she held onto.
"S'cuse me, Miss Prissy Pride, for not knowing what the hell Aisha Clan-Clan eats!" Gene said irritably.
Ed could feel the fur she was holding on to heat with anger. "Grrrrrrr..." It was a low rumble in the base of Aisha's body as she radiated anger and rage. Ed whimpered then growled, refusing to fear, refusing to let go.
"That's it, kid!" Aisha screeched.
Claws stretched and all Ed felt then was a red pain slashing over her wrist. But she didn't move away, she did the only thing she knew how to do as a defense. She bit the large ear in front of her face.
"OWWWWWW!!!!!"
Jim raced foreword as Aisha went to slash Ed again. He grabbed Ed by the hair and pulled her off Aisha, taking the slash of the silver claws instead of the little girl he now held in his arms.
Pain raced over his back as he stared down at the girl who was wrestling in his arms, growling, biting, scratching as if she was the ctarl ctarl of the bunch. Jim caught a glimpse of the yellow eyes, so weird, so odd, and yet so knowingly full of fear. Then something changed, and the fear was replaced by pure insane power...
"Hey, its ok," he said trying to hold onto her, she fought angrieir, she growled, she went crazy in his arms. Red pain scorched over his shoulder blades as the full impact of Aisha's blow radiated through him.
"Damnitt, Aisha, she's just a kid!" Gene was shouting at the top of his lungs.
"She was a human trying to suffocate me! You humans are all alike!" Aisha retorted back.
Jim still wrestled as the little girl with the fire red hair bit his arm, scratched his face, kicked his stomach. Pain erupted through his body but he held on. "Settle down, Nh..." He grabbed for her arms. "I'm not going to hurt you!" He cried as he put his weight flat over her body.
She stared up at him, her yellow eyes angry, hating, animalish as she bit at his face, nothing else prevailing over his weight. He pinned her hands over her head with one hand, and then slapped her, hard, not knowing what else to do to knock her from the illusion of her animalism. He didn't even know if the child was imagining or if she was just crazy.
For a moment the world seemed to stop as she stared in the direction of his blow, the slight smack echoing through the wind loudly. Her eyes lost all the fierceness and as she slowly turned her head back towards him slowly he saw the innocent child inside, scared, confused as her lip began to bleed.
She was hurting, she was bleeding, and he had slapped her. She wasn't bad, she hadn't been bad, she cried to herself. She was a good girl, she didn't deserve the blood, the pain. She didn't want it. She called the animal inside, she called in vain. The animal had been knocked into shock and had left her alone. So coldly alone...
"I'm sorry," he said softly, knowing that he had said he wouldn't hurt her when he did anyway. He eased his weight on his knees that were on either side of her stomach and slowly, carefully, released her hands.
Her eyes burned into his, heat radiating, confusion swirling her body as if it owned the small form. She was hurting, where was the animal? She didn't want to hurt!
She kept her hands above her head as if his still bound them, and just stared at him. She made no move as he slowly eased off her body, the only things changing were her eyes as she watched him, pain and confusion hidden in golden depths that burned him in a way he couldn't explain.
A red splotch formed on her cheek in the hand print identical to his palm.
He'd hurt her, she couldn't make the pain go away. Pretend wasn't working anymore.
Then she sat up and growled at him angrily and held her wounded wrist to her heart with her other hand as she turned from him and began to attend the wound with her tongue. She tried to act the animal, but the animal was gone. She whimpered in defeat and hugged herself, then began to cry.
I'm sorry I'm crying, Mama, she thought softly to herself, she wrapped her arms around her shoulders. Where was the animal? Why did it leave her?
For a while Jim just stared at her, and then he felt Gene's presence next to him. "What didya do to make her cry?" He asked as he put his hand on Jim's shoulder.
"Probably tried to suffocate her!" Aisha chimmed in.
"Shut up!" Gene said angrily and the two began to bicker again.
Jim ignored them, didn't say a word as he took off his leather coat and walked slowly next to the girl whose tears weren't on her cheeks but in her heart as she sobbed dryly. He touched her arm, touched her hair, then wrapped the coat around her shoulders gingerly, guilt shinning in his own eyes as she turned to stare up at him blankly. "Hey, I'm sorry," he said again.
His blue eyes were so sad, so sincere. The were deep, like her Mama's once had been. Were they accusing her for crying?
Then she was holding on to him, her face buried in his chest as she sobbed without tears.
All Jim could do was hold her, and stroke her hair, telling her softly that it was all going to be Ok, though he didn't know how anything was going to be Ok when he didn't know what was wrong. But then she spoke, sobs breaking her voice. "Ed don't wanna stop pretending."
The illusion of her perfect world was being stolen from her, every second the animal lay absent the more her soul aged through the pain she couldn't escape. Blood dripped down her arm, her chin, her heart ached for some unknown reason, and her head spun with confusion.
Jim didn't know what to say. He didn't understand. All he said was, "Hey, Ed doesn't have to stop pretending," He tried to sound reassuring even though he didn't know exactly who Ed was. She held him tighter, and he held her back protectively, guilt stricken, until she eventually fell asleep.
A/N- sorry that was kinda bad, I am not in the mood for writing but I wanted to hand out another chapter for all ya before I went away for tonight. Sorry I didn't have time to look over it...