Hey all, SO SO SO SO sorry about the delay, but I have been mentoring at and old camp I used to attend when I was younger. I was going to wait until I was back in VA but I saw all the reviews and I was like, what the heck. Sniff I wuv you guys! Anyways here's chapter 3 hope ya'll enjoy it!
PS: Ella Enchanted the movie is coming!!! They say it's supposed to come out spring 2004 or something like that. Starring: Anne Hathaway as Ella and Hugh Dancy as Char (The fact that I'll be a junior when it does indeed come out only sets me off a little)
Disclaimer: See Chapter 1 cuz I'm NOT writing another one of these lame ass things.
Love, Labors, Lost
Chapter 2: The Present
Rated: PG-13
"Mama!" the little boy at the Anderson's dinner table exclaimed once Usagi came into view.
She bent down and kissed his forehead and smoothed his pale locks down lovingly. "Hey baby." She cooed, taking a seat next to him.
Kate looked at her husband, asking with her eyes what she should do. Max just shook his head discreetly and quickly cleared his throat.
"Well then, Casey, I believe it's your turn to say grace," he said warmly to the four year old across from him. Keisuke beamed, "Hai!" he replied without thinking, but Usagi shot him a sharp look, and he quickly corrected himself with an "Okay."
"Dear Lord, Thank you for this day and for this food, and the precious hands that prepared it. Amen."
"Amen." Echoed everyone else at the table.
"Wow Aunt Kate, this looks really good!" Keisuke exclaimed excitedly.
Kate smiled, "Why thank you, Casey."
Usagi shifted nervously at the table hoping against hope they would not notice her slightly red nose, or her glossy eyes.
"Serena can you please pass the mash potatoes?" Max asked, poking at his wife's new recipe, craving something familiar before trying what seemed to be a pink and green burrito on his plate. However, when he did not see a slim hand holding a bowl in front of him he looked up to see Usagi sitting exactly as she was.
His brow raised cautiously as he tried again, "Serena?"
Keisuke poked his mother slightly with the end of his fork. "Ma-ma!" he said in a two-toned voice.
Usagi shuttered at 'Mama' and was back, apologizing softly, quickly taking hold of the potato bowl; "I'm sorry Max, I'm not used to being called-" she stopped herself, looking into two pairs of very confused eyes.
"-Serena, a- a woman at work calls me Sere now and I've gotten used to it." She finished, cursing herself silently at the badly executed lie.
Max turned to Kate, and his eyes might as well have screamed, "What the hell?" Kate kicked him underneath the table.
Keisuke, not thinking, calmly added, "You're probably still used to your old name, Mama."
Usagi's head snapped towards her son. "Keisuke!" she hissed.
Keisuke gasped and put both hands over his mouth.
Max leaned in, "And what would that be?"
"Nothing." Usagi answered quickly, she knew Keisuke wouldn't slip up twice, but needed to be sure.
"Anyway," Usagi sighed, changing the subject, "I don't think I apologized to you for being late, I was. caught up." She looked up nervously.
Max gave a Kate a "We need to talk" look, but Kate just smiled and rubbed Usagi's back. "Don't worry about it dear, we were just wondering, that's all."
Usagi looked up, "What did you say baby?"
She was sitting on the side of Keisuke's bed reading "Moby Dick" aloud when Keisuke suddenly interrupted her.
"I said why am I so different from everyone else?"
Usagi closed the book and looked down at him. "Who ever said that you were different?"
"You." he mumbled, "And the kids at school. They call me a freak because I'm so young but I'm smarter than most of them!"
"Baby," Usagi said concerned, "I call you smart, and just because you're smart doesn't mean you're a freak. The kids at your school are all different ages, and are all smart for their ages as well, so I don't see how they could say that you're any different."
Keisuke sat up; "I'm the youngest Mama! I'm the youngest at my school! Why am I so different?! How come no other kids my age are like me?"
"That's enough," Usagi tried to say softly but Keisuke's little mind was bubbling over with questions he'd been smart enough before not to ask, knowing some how or another it would up set his mother. But now the four year old in him was coming out and had questions he just couldn't suppress any longer.
"And, and how come everyone else has a father but not me? Is that why I'm different? How come we have to lie so much to Aunt Kate and Uncle Max? We ARE from Japan right Mama? Your REAL name is Japanese, but YOU give people an English one! You told them you learned Japanese in school, when English was the one you learned! How did you learn it so fast Mama?!"
Usagi was petrified, how had she been so stupid to think that her son wouldn't catch onto her lies? He was so smart; so incredibly smart and she knew he most certainly did not get it form her. How could she explain herself to her son when she wouldn't even could to terms the past herself?
"That's ENOUGH!" she nearly yelled, slamming the book in her hands closed, stopping Keisuke before he could think of any more soul searing questions.
She grabbed both of Keisuke's hands in hers. "Listen Baby, I can't-- we can't talk about those things. I'm sorry Baby but you're just. we just can't!" she whispered frantically.
Keisuke sighed, his mature demeanor returning. He searched his mother's eyes, they seemed. scared? Then in a flash the world around him disappeared and a new one took its place.
Before him was his mother, she was. She was crying! Then a faint silhouette of a tall man in white appeared. Keisuke squinted but there was no need for the figure was growing clearer by the minute. Soon it was as real as his mother was, maybe even more real. But the boy caught on quickly that even though this man was holding his mother, it was not a soothing embrace; in fact his mother seemed to be struggling to get out of his arms. The man threw Usagi down and Keisuke screamed as he saw the man's face fully.
"Mama!" he called into the darkness but the apparition was gone and he was back in his room, Usagi still clutching his hands tightly.
"Those things are all Mommy's business, and all grown up stuff. Let Mommy worry about those things for now. Do you understand everything I'm saying Keisei?" Usagi asked earnestly.
Keisuke blinked, he was still startled but glad his mother didn't notice; she was upset enough already. Softly he replied, "Yes Mama."
Usagi smiled and embraced her son. "That's my baby. You may be as smart as a teenager, but you're always be my baby boy, and I couldn't care less HOW different you are, you'll always be mine." She kissed his forehead and whispered in Japanese, "Aishiteru, atashi no Keisuke." Then she was gone.
Alone again Keisuke lay there, dumbfounded, realization finally striking. He had screamed when he saw the man's face in his vision. He screamed because the man, looked like him.
Usagi slowly closed the door behind her. She leaned against it and tilted her head back to rest.
"Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!" she yelled silently at herself. Two tears trickled down the side of her face. She lifted herself from the door and proceeded down the hall to her own bedroom.
"I'm just tired," she thought. "All I need is a little rest to get my head back on straight, and then I'll worry about this tomorrow." But her son's questions were still running, fresh and untiring through her mind.
She had almost reached her room when she heard a small muffled noise coming out of her fosters bedroom. Undaunted, she kept walking only to stop dead in her tracks when the muffle evolved into very strong, very audible words.
"Why are you taking HER side?!"
"I'm not taking anyone's SIDE dear, I just think she needn't be bothered over such trivial matters as-"
"TRIVIAL? What is trivial Kate? Oh you mean SMALL things, such as her NAME, where she's FROM, what she's involved in. Small things right?"
"Max, she's been through so much, can you imagine what it would have been like if I had gotten pregnant when WE were fifteen?"
"Do you realize, that we have a complete stranger in our home?"
"Don't talk about her that way! You've known her for 3 years Max! You talk as if she was-"
"She was what?! Involved in the Mob, the CIA? What? God knows what she's running away from. You saw her and her son at dinner!"
"OH! So now it's HER and HER SON. You adore Casey! Serena too! What's gotten into you that you won't even say their names!"
"You know full well that's what this is all about. 'You're probably used to your other name Mama"? Kate I'm sorry but I've held my tongue about this for long enough. I don't know about you, but I would actually like to know who is living under my roof. Who are we protecting Kate?"
"One little incident and you're off! You're always like this! One little thing-"
"Don't give me that Kate, you know full well this isn't the first time she- "
Usagi didn't wait around to hear the rest. She ran into her room and slammed the door. Her world was spinning. How? HOW? She kept asking herself, she'd done so well up to now in keeping her affairs secret and uninteresting. Yet at the dinner table she slipped as if she had stopped using her real name yesterday! She screamed aloud, not caring who heard her. She banged on the wall, tore at her hair, all the while, Keisuke's questions running, running, pounding in her head like merciless waves crashing into the sea.
A ringing noise sounded from her laptop then, and a small box shot up onto her screen. She walked over to it, but paid no heed to the blinking instant message, instead it was the newly written Word document on her desktop that caught her eye. She opened it once more and sunk down into the chair seated in front of it. She read the last couple lines of what she had written.
I was on cloud nine and would stay there, long after my Mamo-chan drove me home. But what I didn't know was that while I was in heaven, a plan was churning in someone's mind, a plan that would turn my newfound heavenly life, into a hell.
It was as if something clicked on then, in Usagi's mind. Awoke would be a more accurate description. A plan. a plan against her, it was planed, this was planned! This Hell she lived was all a plan!
An image of the Man in White arose before her, smirking.
"STOP IT!" Usagi screamed out loud. "GO AWAY! HAVEN'T YOU DONE ENOUGH!?"
The figure began to laugh.
"THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"
It laughed harder.
Usagi screamed, the tears streaming down her face. "HE SHOULDN'T LOOK LIKE YOU! IT SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN YOU!" She picked up her laptop and threw it at the man, but he kept laughing.
"Why?" Usagi choked. She fell to her knees and as sobs wracked her body. "They hate me now you know. All of them. Mamo-chan, minna, Kate and Max now too. Even my son is beginning to doubt me," she whispered softly. Looking up at the figure Usagi's eyes began to burn with a feeling she had never felt before a feeling she thought she was incapable of, hatred.
"I FORGAVE you, I CRIED for you. I- I PITIED you!" She said through gritted teeth, venom dripping from every word. "I- I-"
The figure wouldn't stop laughing.
"I- I- I HATE YOU! I COULD BE LIVING HAPPILY WITH MY LOVE AT THIS MOMENT IF IT WASN'T FOR YOU! I WISH YOU WERE NEVER BORN! I WISH THIS HAD NEVER HAPPENED! I HATE YOU!"
With that figure was no longer an image but solid and his laughter rang loud and clear throughout the room. He bent down to Usagi's level and grinned,
"So, we meet again. Usako, or should I call you, Serena?"
Suddenly the door swung open and in came Max, shot gun in hand, with Kate close behind.
Usagi jumped up and ran to Max but when she turned around the man was gone.
"What in God's name is going on here? What was all that noise? For Christ sakes Serena, we thought there was a bur-," he stopped, dropped him gun and grabbed both the young girl's shoulders at the sight of her.
She was shaking uncontrollably, and sobbing freely while never moving an inch. Max's voice changed to a soft tone as he wiped the tears away from her face,
"You look as though you've seen a ghost," he whispered, amazed slightly that he actually meant the cliché.
Usagi squinted her eyes nervously and tried to swallow. "I- I have," was all she answered, and then didn't speak another word the rest of the night.
Note to mangachick and all other readers. This chapter and the next are comeplete. When I origonally posted these, I posted them in segments, about a month or more apart from one another. So the result was somewhat of a cliffhanger at the end of many of these chapters. The format also may have confused you as I did not leave an authors note at the end of these chapters. Well, here is the authors note, and the end of the chapter.
Claidi Winter