Chapter Five

Disclaimer:  Jander isn't mine.  I wish he was!  I'm getting no money off of this.  I wish I was!  R/R/E!

            Jander made a gate into Nire's room, planning to ask her if she wanted to come see the fireworks.  Some mage had come to the town he was currently staying at and brought fireworks.  Jander figured Nire would enjoy them, and seeing as how (to his knowledge) she had never been to Faerûn, it would be a good time.  He had to laugh as he made the gate.  Nire had shown him the 'dance' she took it from - the kindergarten dance, an explained how one of the most common psuedo-philosophical questions on Earth was, "What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?"

            The first thing he encountered was the sound of Nire's muffled sobs and her parents' yelling.  He froze, unsure of what to do.  Should he just leave, or try and comfort Nire?  He hadn't been in this sort of situation for a long time, and even longer since it was a child.  In fact…possibly never with a child.  He never touched Nire - her body language made it clear that she hated people touching her, and had a very large area of personal space; plus, he was a vampire - but he dared to put his hand on her back and say softly, "Nire?"

            Her response was both bad and immediate - a tensing of her muscles, making herself as small as she could, and a growling from under the pillows covering her head to muffle the sound of her crying.

            "Get the fuck out of my room," she growled muffledly.  But then, as he jerked his hand away like he had been stung, she grabbed his wrist.  "Wait.  Jander?"

            She let go of his wrist and sat up, swiping a hand across her face.  Jander moved away a little bit.  He could tell by looking at her face that she had covered it with an illusion to make it look like she hadn't been crying.

            "So, what's up?" she asked in a tear-choked voice, trying to sound normal, but Jander wasn't fooled.

            "What's wrong, Nire?"

            "Nothing's wrong."  But he, once more, was not fooled.  She was sitting with her back to the headboard, her knees scrunched up to her chest.  Her arms were linked in front of them, holding them there, and her chin rested on her knees.  There was definitely something wrong.

            "Bunch of shit.  What's wrong?  If you've got an illusion covering your face, there's something wrong.  Put down the illusion.

            "No.  I'm not someone who can cry and still look good."

            He dared to sit down next to her and put his arm around her shoulders.  She stiffened for an instant, but then leaned into him.  He marveled at the feeling of this warm little body trustingly in his arms.  She had started crying again, he could tell.

            "What's the matter, little one?  Do your parents hit you?"  He expected her to flip when he called her that - she didn't seem like one for nicknames - but she did not seem to mind in the least.

            She laughed bitterly.  "Hell, no."  She dropped the illusion.  She had been right, she did not cry pretty.  Her face was red and splotchy; her eyes were red and puffy.  "God, I hate it when they're fighting."

            A fresh burst of yelling ("Why's the house never clean anymore?" "You wanted me to go to work, William.  You said I sat around all day eating bonbons and doing nothing.  Well, that's what I was doing - cleaning - and you can't have both.") sent a fresh flood silent tears down her face.  Jander just held her tighter, lightly stroking her curly brown hair with one golden hand.

            "Why do I care?" she whimpered to him, her face in his shoulder.  "I don't even like this family.  I hate my father, I hate my sister, I only like my mom some of the time.  Why should I care?"

            "Because you do, little one.  Because you do.  Maybe, really deep down, you do love them all?" This earned him a watery snort.  "Or maybe you hate conflict that you aren't part of."

            She was still crying in his arms.  She was crying so trustingly in his arms, that it scared him a little.  But still he sat there, holding Nire against his side.  He stroked her hair, rubbed her side, and murmured soothing phrases in her ear.

            "Sh, sh little one.  Sh."  In her distress, she let her shields down.  Since Jander was touching her skin, he couldn't avoid hearing her uppermost thoughts.  They were disturbing and sad, to say the least.

            Nobody cares about me.  Especially themThey don't care how their stupid fights affect their kids.  Does nobody love me?  What cruddy luck stuck me with this family in this body?  The fat little bitch that nobody would notice if she were dead.

            His surprise caused him to forget his own shields.  So Nire got his shocked thoughts (and was reminded to slam her shields up).

            What!  What is she thinking about!  Of course people care about her and would notice if she were dead.  Id, I would.  Do I count for nothing?  Hell, I probably don't.

            Nire whirled to him, shocked.  She honestly and completely thought she had the right of it.  That Jander was just there because she was interesting for the time being, and in a while, he would get bored and leave.  But the thing about telepathy was, although not impossible, it was very hard to lie, and Nire could feel his shocked sincerity.  Even though she was only eleven, she was sophisticated enough she that something like that really affected her, and she began to cry again.  Jander understood why she was crying and let her, merely holding her huddled up form against his side and letting some of the friendly feelings he'd developed for her flow through.  Then the lull of the yelling broke, and a new wave of it washed over them, setting Nire's quiet sobs off again.  She stayed in Jander's arms, feeling safe and protected, and eventually cried herself to sleep.  When Jander realized this (after he got over the shock that she trusted him that much) he gently laid her down and covered her up.  Then he turned off the light and went back through the gate, not once remembering the firework display.

            The next morning, when Nire woke, she felt better.  Jander had helped her, and just knowing that someone actually cared…  But that still did not stop her from taking one of her daggers and making a few well-placed slices on her skin, and watching the blood drip down onto the cloth she had.  Nothing could make her feel better enough to stop that.

*  *  *  *  *

            That was not the only thing.  That little event was a weird sort of bonding.  Privately, they already had considered the other their only true friend.  Because of that, they had been very careful not to show the other their depressed side, only their happy side.  Neither wanted to risk losing the one person they truly cared about, and thought might care about them a little.  But now…  It was as if that one little thing, something that would hardly matter to someone else, had shown the both of them that it was actually okay to trust the other.  That the other wouldn't just abandon them, and truly cared.  That the other needed them just as much as they needed to other.  They began to actually talk to the other, not just the pleasant and politically correct shit.  They began to tell each other a little bit about what their lives were truly like.

            Nire became closer to her other friends, too.  She was slowly making them into her new family, a group she could actually depend upon.  But this was nowhere near as close as they were to become.

            Nire was the queen of hiding things from people.  Not even her fiend knew, or even guessed at, things she did not want them to know.  Namely, her cutting.  It had become her nightly ritual.  The rest of her family would go to bed, and that was her signal to wake up.

            She had graduated from the safety pins that were so easy to hide to her daggers.  She did not have to be as careful where she cut anymore.  Now, she had illusion to hide the scars.  So every night, she took the special cloth (a towel, really) she had, the one that absorbed the blood so good and was so easy to clean, and her dagger, then sat on her bed and made the careful cuts.  Daggers were much different from safety pins - she could actually cut too deep with a dagger.  She was not that suicidal, she was not ready to die yet, so she was careful.

            On this particular evening, it was midnight.  It was the nonhour, the nonminute, the time that is neither today nor tomorrow.  It was the time when the langoliers are busy eating up yesterday, making room for tomorrow.  Nire felt relatively secure in taking out her dagger.  Everyone she knew was asleep, with the exception of Jander.  And the likelihood of a visit from him was slim, because he had come the night before.  He tended to show up every other night, but never twice in a row.

            She sat on her bed, facing the wall.  A strip of cloth was next to her, ready to bind the wound.  Nire preferred that way to Band-Aids, or bandages.  Her towel was right there, waiting to soak up the blood.  She made the first delicious cut, savoring the pain like candy.  Red red blood welled out of the shallow slice and started to drool down her arm. She watched the towel soak up the red, the color spreading outwards from the central point.  She was so intent on the pain, the release that was better than holding it inside, that she did not notice the gate opening behind her and Jander stepping out of it.  She soundproofed her room continuously now, and he never bothered to check to see if it was all right to come, just to see if there were any other people in the room.

            He stopped short at the sight of her and the delectable smell of human blood, which set his mouth watering almost immediately.  He had known she was depressive - hell, he could smell it every time he saw her - but never imagined she was as bad as this.  As was usual with Nire, he had no clue what to do.  He had lived for centuries; it followed all logical reasoning that he would have seen everything, and yet, he hadn't.  This was the little girl he would willingly give his life for, the one friend who knew his horrid secret, the one person he could actually talk to and not feel guilty, and she was…oh, shit.  He watched with his mouth seemingly frozen shut as she lifted the dagger for another slice.

            Just as the blade touched her skin, he became unfrozen.  "Nire!  What-"

            "Shit!"  She jumped at the sound of his voice, and the blade bit deep into her fat arm, much deeper than she had meant it to.  Instead of dripping and drooling, the blood flowed down her arm in a stream, only a little bit away from gushing.  She immediately clenched the bloody dagger in her teeth and grabbed the towel, wiping it up her arm to clean the blood, then holding it over the wound.  Apply pressure to stop the bleeding, was one thing she knew.  Then she turned a baleful glare to Jander.

            What the hell are you doing here?

            "What are you doing?"  He was still sort of in a state of shock.  Now he could feel her mental anguish that he knew, so strong that he knew she was trying to suppress it and couldn't.

            What's it look like I'm doing?  Well, now you know my dirty little secret.  So you can leave now, and forget you ever knew me.

            He did not know where she had gotten that idea.  Contrary to what Nire believed (and she truly believed Jander would leave now - who would want to be around a little kid with that many problems?) Jander would do, he came to stand in front of her and kneeled down so he was slightly below her eyelevel.  Nire refused to acknowledge to herself just how concerned his eyes were as he took the knife from where she was holding it in her mouth.  Oh!  The smell of blood was almost maddening to Jander!  The only reason he could stand it was that this was Nire, the one and only person who had shown him true kindness.

            "Let me look at it," he said gently, still holding the dagger for lack of anywhere else to put it.

            "Screw you," she said scornfully with a glare to match.  "I know how to take care of it.  Now run along like a good little vampire and kill a cow."

            After she had said it, she couldn't believe it.  Neither could he.  But Nire was not the kind of person who apologized for anything.  Jander mentally rocked back on his heels when she said that, but then saw the instant regret that flashed through her eyes and felt the horror in her mind.  He knew the real reason she had said it - not to hurt him personally, but to lash out at someone.  He just happened to be the closest target.  He supposed he should be honored - that showed that she trusted him enough to feel safe in lashing out for no reason.

            He watched with sad eyes as she peeled back the bloody towel.  She grimaced - it hurt lie hell.  This was not the kind of pain she was looking for.  It was still bleeding, oozing really.  She grabbed the strip of cloth and wrapped it around, trying it tightly.  Jander wiped the dagger off on the towel, then folded up the towel so one side was completely clean.  He put it, that side down, on her bed (out of arms reach from Nire) and put the dagger on top.

            "Why?"  He asked the question softly, looking directly into her eyes.

            "Go 'way, Jander."  She didn't sound mad, sarcastic, or scornful anymore.  Now she just sounded tired.

            "No."

            "Why not?"  Now she was frustrated.  "Damn it Jander.  Leave me alone."

            "No."  He looked at her with those sad, sad, silver eyes.  They just begged her to spill her heart, telling her he would understand.  But she wouldn't give in.

            "Why. Not."

            "Because I care."

            She just shook her head and looked away, her face falling into the stoic mask she hadn't shown Jander for months.  It was the face she showed people she didn't really trust, a face that revealed nothing to the world.  Jander sighed inwardly.  He wondered just what had happened to her in her life to make her thing so little of people at such a young age.

            "Look, you've got your ways of coping, I've got mine," she said with her head still turned away from him.  This was said in the flat voice that went with the face.

            "But my ways aren't self-destructive."

            He sat down next to her, catching sight of a single tear making its way slowly down her cheek.  Acting on impulse - that seemed to work best with Nire, when he didn't stop to consider what he was doing - he gathered her in his arms like a little child and pulled her into his lap.  He held her and rocked her in the comforting way she had never been held, not that she could remember.  Dry-eyed, she let hi hold her, resting her head on his chest.  This was only the second time he had ever touched her; he knew how she hated to have people in her personal space.  In fact, this was really only the second time he had come within arms reach of her.  The last time, she had been too upset to notice anything about him - her parents' fight had topped off a week from hell.  Now, however…

            The first thing she noticed was how his chest didn't rise with breath.  Why this was the first thing, she didn't know.  But it did bring up the interesting question of whether or not her breathed to talk.  She felt safe and comfortable in his arms like this.  That was another interesting thought.  Why did she trust him so much?  Supposedly, he was the epitome of evil, and yet, she felt safer with him than she did with anyone else.  She did not feel warm, thought.  That was the last thing she noticed.  He was cold as ice.  His hands were even colder than her hands usually were.

            Not thinking, she said, "Jesus Christ, you're cold.  You're even colder than I usually am."

            He froze, and would have let her go, if she hadn't whimpered a little and sniggled closer.  He got the thought, Damn it, nobody's ever held my like this before, if I just fucked that up…  So he resumed his soothing rocking, trying to remember all the ways of comforting people he had never learned.

            "Little one…"

            "Look, what do you want from me?  I'm a sick kid.  I know it, but I can't stop.  It's just how I deal with my problems, how I cope with things.  At least I'm not trying to kill myself.  And I swear, if you go to my parents, I will hunt you down and kill you with my bare hands."

            "Okay, little one, okay.  But…why don't, whenever you feel like doing that, talk to someone.  Tell them how you feel, what's wrong."

            "Yeah?  And who would listen to an eleven-year-old?  I'm too young to have any real problems."  Her voice was mocking now, and he could feel his shirt getting wet with tears.  "I don't have any real troubles - kids have it easy.  There's no reason for them to feel stressed, or depressed.  They're just looking for attention."

            "I'd listen, little one.  You know I would."

            "Would you really?" came her soft, pitiful reply.  "Would you really?"

            "Of course I would."  He continued rocking her.  This was the first time someone had held her in years - she had grown too heavy for anyone 'normal' years ago.  She was loath to have him let her go.  She was tired, and the motion was so soothing…

            "Are you sure you shouldn't have someone look at your arm, little one?"

            Jander's voice jerked her out of her light doe.  "Nah.  I'll put a healing spell on it in the morning.  Don't worry about me.  I always come out on top."  She smiled sleepily up at his golden face.  "I better go to sleep.  But thanks.  For everything."

            Jander let her slide off his lap and watched as she put the bloody towel and dagger under her bad, masking them with an illusion of nothing.  Then, as he stood up, she climbed under the covers of her bed.  He didn't know why, but he tucked her in and quickly kissed her forehead, cold lips on warm skin.  Over the years, he would always somehow know exactly what she really wanted, like a parent-figure to do that right then.

            "Sleep tight, little one," he whispered.

            " 'Night Jander,' she murmured, already half asleep.

            He turned out her light and quietly left, wondering where he had come up with the daring to do that, to treat he like his kid, and worrying over whether or not she would be all right.

*  *  *  *  *

            It became the norm to have Jander appear in her room late at night.  There, they would talk about their days, and listen to the others problems.  Jander also began keeping contact, subconsciously, with Nire all the time.  It was a feeling of safety in the back of her head that never went away.  He always wondered how he knew when she needed to talk, and this was it.  She told him both the bad and the good about her life, and he did the same for her.  They both listened, and seemed to understand the other.  This would be a lasting connection, going on into eternity and back.

            Nire became noticeably more friendly to her other friends.  At least, the ones not of her world.  At home, she was still as surly and antisocial.  From fifth grade until about ninth grade would be the time period when she really did not have any friends on Earth.  She would rely heavily on the support of her other world friends, just to make it through the day.  She relied on Jander, most of all.  She brought him, at night, to meet her friends on Krynn.  They did not know he was a vampire, they just thought he was just an elf.  When she went at night, he almost always went with her.  But still, she had not been to Faerûn.  It was the summer before sixth grade before she got to do that.