And so we are here, at the final chapter. I'll miss this fic. 'Tis the longest thing I've ever written (I suck at finishing long fics). So yah. If you're here and you're reading this, R&R please, even if you don't normally. I'd like to know what you guys think of this last chapter. So...without further ado, I give you...boggy fields, the truth, a broken DVD player, and a little bit of spontaneity. Happy reading!
At nine o clock the next morning, the phone beside Rei's head rang. Groggily, he reached for it and picked it up, scattering his wallet and his watch to the floor. "Hello?"
"Mr. Kon?"
"Sp-" Rei desperately stifled a yawn. "Speaking..."
"It's about your wife, Mr. Kon. We're having to move her to a specialist hospital where she can get the right help for her condition. However...and we have to respect her wishes...she doesn't want you or her children to come and see her."
"Oh. Um. What about...when she gets out?"
"With the state she's currently in, she may never get out." A pang of guilt gripped Rei's stomach. "But she's made it clear that she doesn't want to have anything to do with you or anything that reminds her of you ever again. And that includes her children..." Hold on one second...was this woman saying what Rei thought she was?
"Wait, wait...do you mean she doesn't want to see Niu or Jin ever again...as in -ever-? She's abandoning them?"
"Mrs Kon is a very traumatised and ill woman. After being told her marriage had been nothing from the start...well I'm sure you can understand. She needs to start over and try and forget the memories of you and the life she shared with you." Rei gaped at the phone.
"Well great. Just great. I hope she enjoys staying in the loony bin, she deserves to be there!" He snapped, slamming the phone down.
And then he started to cry. Fat tears of anger and pity rolled down his cheeks, dripping off onto the bedcovers. Bryan shifted in his sleep, then opened his eyes. "Rei?"
"She's abandoning them Bryan...she never wants to see them again..." He sobbed, shaking.
"What?"
"The hospital just phoned...she doesn't want to have anything to do with me or anything she associates with me...she said she never wants to...she never wants to see them again!" Bryan sat up, wrapping his arms around Rei tightly. "It's all my fault!"
"No it isn't."
"It -is- Bryan! None of this would have happened if I'd just been honest from the start..."
"If you'd been honest from the start Niu and Jin wouldn't exist. Okay, maybe Niu would, but not Jin! And if you'd been honest from the start we would never have met!" Rei wailed like a child, feeling as if everything Lee and Mariah had called him was true. He was a traitor. He was a shit. He was filth. He was a dirty gay bitch. He didn't deserve to be alive...
"It's not your fault." Bryan repeated stubbornly over and over until Rei calmed down.
"Dad...what's wrong?" He looked up and realised that Niu and Jin were standing in the doorway, looking at him anxiously. "Is it about Mum?" Rei buried his face in Bryan's shoulder. How the hell were you supposed to tell your kids that their mother didn't want anything to do with them anymore?
"Look...come and sit down..." He said shakily. "Now...you two know how ill Mum is, right?" They nodded. "Well...she...her doctors have decided that she needs to move away...and that she shouldn't..." Tears threatened again and Bryan pulled him onto his lap, cuddling him close.
"Her doctors say she should have nothing to do with her family any more." He said hesitantly. "They called your Dad this morning to tell him." Niu stared at him.
"She's not allowed to see us any more?" Bryan nodded, face serious.
"She needs to start over if she's ever going to get better."
"But...she...she has to see us! She's our mum!" Niu replied, shock written all over her face. Jin looked hurt and puzzled.
"Why doesn't she want to see -us- though?"
"Because she's ill, Jin. Her mind...is all messed up. Maybe in a few years you'll be able to see her again and catch up, but until she's better and she's built herself up again she has to have some space..." Bryan tried to explain.
"Why doesn't she want us any more?"
"No-one said she didn't want us!" Niu turned and screeched at her brother. "She does want us! She's just ill!" She stood up, tears in her eyes. "She does want us..." And with that, she turned tail and ran, her ponytail flying out behind her. Jin crawled up to his father, leaning against him and cuddling him as well.
"It's not your fault...if she doesn't want to see us then we must have upset her. Maybe I shouldn't of said anything when we went to see her..."
"Jin..." Rei sat up, grabbing his son in a fierce embrace. "It's not your fault. It's not at all. But she's ill and she needs to recover on her own, away from me..."
"O-Okay, Dad..." Rei wiped his eyes, sniffing.
"Why don't you go and find your sister? I think she needs someone to talk to..." Jin obeyed, leaving Rei to sink against Bryan, letting all his breath out in one long rush. "Bryan...why are you still here?" Buried as he was in Bryan's chest, he didn't see the hurt look that passed across the Russian's face.
"If you want me to, I'll go..."
"No...I don't mean I want you to go anywhere...but why...why are you sticking around even though all this -crap- is happening?"
"A lot of reasons. For a start it's partly my fault. Then...well...I love you. Why would I abandon you if I love you? And if there's one thing being me has made me realise, it's that...you don't get that many chances to be happy. And if you just waste them then you end up a psycho. And while yes, your shirts are a little small for me, I can live with that. And Cherie'll kill me for not being ready with my next chapter, but I don't care about her and her blood pressure as much as I care about you and your happiness." Rei sniffed, looking up.
"I love you, you know that?"
"Love you too." Replied Bryan, lifting Rei's chin with a gentle hand and kissing him.
Rei closed his eyes, letting Bryan pull him closer, content to be in the Russian's arms. Bryan's kiss was as gentle as his touch, and Rei marvelled at how...beautiful it felt. It was more than just right, it made right look like a slap in the face. As he pulled away, smiling, he stroked Bryan's cheek. "This is better than right."
"Hm?"
"When...when Mariah used to kiss me, it felt wrong, all wrong, and then when I kissed you it made me feel right again...but that...that kiss just now...it made me feel better than right...it made me feel..."
"Perfect?" The Russian supplied. Rei nodded, and Bryan laughed, taking hold of his braid and dabbing at his nose with it. "I'm glad you felt that as well..."
Rei's smile turned into a smirk and he surged up, pinning Bryan to the bed and kissing him again. Perfect...so perfect...
"Dad!" Rei shot away from Bryan like a scalded cat. "Dad, Niu's gone!"
"WHAT?"
"I knocked on her door and she told me to go away, then I waited and I waited and I went in anyway and she wasn't there!" Jin wailed, looking lost and confused. Rei leapt to his feet and hurtled out onto the landing, flinging open Niu's door and looking around her room. The walls that she had painted black in a phase of rebellion were still covered with posters. Her Gameboy was still charging on her desk...
Her schoolbag was gone. And...
He looked in the wardrobe and found her two favourite pairs of jeans and kitten t-shirt missing. And her pink shirt and her jacket, and...
"Oh God...oh God..."
"Is she definitely gone?"
"Yes. Oh God...Bryan, what should I do? Call the police?"
"No. Call her mobile. Then call the police."
After a few hours confusion, they were no closer to finding Niu. Her mobile was off no matter how many times Rei called it, and even the police with all their 'technological expertise' couldn't find her. Rei was in pieces, and Jin was no better.
Bryan, on the other hand, had an idea. Over the last few days he had gleaned information about Niu that no-one seemed to be considering. After all, Bryan had run away himself a few times. If you thought about it logically...she had no other parent to go to. They'd tried all of her friends' houses. They'd scoured the local shops and restaurants. So that only really left one viable place.
As far as Bryan could gather, the only thing that fit that bill was her art project. Which happened to be on the other side of town. And happened to mean a hell of a lot to her. It was the only place left that Bryan could think of.
Without saying anything to anyone, he sneaked Rei's car keys off the hall table and went out to the car, starting it up and driving away.
"Jin, can you go and find Bryan for me?" Rei asked tearfully, needing comfort and knowing that only being in Bryan's arms would make him feel any better. Not that feeling better was an easy thing to do when your daughter had run away from home, but...but he needed someone...someone other than stupid policemen offering him tea. He felt as if he might punch the next one who asked.
It was such a helpless feeling, knowing that she could be out there, kidnapped, injured...even dead, and he could do nothing but sit around and wait for the police to update him on the situation...
"I can't find him, Dad." Rei sighed and pulled Jin up onto his knee, sobbing into his shoulder. Everyone seemed to be deserting him...everyone important was running away...
Ankle deep in sludge, Bryan wondered why the school had chosen this particular field for its project. It was nothing particularly special, to be certain. Boggy, yes, but interesting, no. But he could see Niu over at the far side, with her back to him. She was sitting on some kind of crate, staring at a gigantic wooden...thing. She was so absorbed in that that it was easy for Bryan to sneak up behind her. "Your father's worried about you, you know."
She shrieked, shooting to her feet and turning, hair flicking out behind her. "It's you..."
"We've looked everywhere else, and no-one seemed to be thinking of here. So I came to have a look. I'm glad I did, now." Niu's only reply was a sniff. "Your Dad's going spare worrying about you. He's hysterical. He's convinced you've been murdered or raped."
"Yeah well."
"I know hearing about your Mum must hurt-"
"Don't even start! My friends have done that to me all day! 'Oh, I'm so sorry'! And they're not sorry, it's just something you say and no-one ever means it! So don't bother! It's not like your mother suddenly decided she didn't want you!"
At that, Bryan had to laugh. "I spent my life from the age of two in care, actually. So you aren't the only one whose mother decided to run away and leave them. The best bit is, mine wasn't even ill. She just couldn't be bothered to look after me any more." Niu stared at him. "Yeah. And for the record, in the hospital? I know plenty about parents hitting their children. Because I -was- one of those children." Niu stared at him a bit more, so Bryan kept talking, saying whatever came into his head. "That's why I would never say your Dad couldn't see you any more. Because when you grow up without any, you realise just how important parents are. And yeah, okay, you feel like crap right now, and you want to wallow in your misery and be sad but if you're going to do that, can you do it at home? Where we know you're safe?
"You might not think your mother cares about you, but your father does, and Jin does. I suppose I do as well, even though I barely know you and you half-hate me anyway." Niu sniffed and then burst into tears, running at him and throwing her arms around his neck.
"She's -Mum-! Even if they say she shouldn't see us she should still want to!"
"I know. I know. Come on, don't cry...I've never had to deal with a woman crying, I don't think I know what to do..." He said nervously, patting her back. She looked up at him and laughed.
"I'll go and cry on Dad, then..."
"Good idea. You can cry on him, and he can cry on you, and I can keep my shoulders dry..." Bryan replied, smiling hopefully. Niu nodded and led him back across the squidgy field and to the car.
Rei was so hysterical with fear and worry that he didn't hear the door open, and he didn't hear the uproar of all the police who were busy infesting his home and drinking his coffee. He didn't notice anything was different until a hand grabbed his shoulder. "Dad?"
"Niu!" He looked up, hardly daring to believe it, and then shot to his feet, grabbing hold of her and sobbing into her hair. "Niu! Thank God you're okay! Where have you -been-? I've been so worried..."
"I just went out, Dad. I had to think..."
"We've looked everywhere! Where have you -been-?"
"At that disgusting boggy field where her art project is."
"Bryan! You-! I thought you'd -left-!" Rei cried, clamping Niu to his side with one arm and reaching the other out to Bryan, who instantly obliged him with a warm hug.
"Niu! You came back!" Jin dived into their midst, hugging his sister.
All of them apart from Bryan were crying again by that point, so he took it upon himself to chivvy them into the living room and sit them down. Then he started shooing the reporters and police out, none too kindly. And then he started clearing up the coffee cups. They needed some family time, he knew. Just to sit for a while and be themselves. That was really what they'd needed for a while. And he knew that it was none of his business to intrude.
He put the last of the dirty cups in the dishwasher and turned it on, sitting down at the kitchen table and resting his head on his hands. It was hard to believe, really, that in the space of so few days, so much had happened. If anyone had told him a month ago that he would be running around fields rescuing Rei's daughter he would have laughed at them. Mind you, a month ago he hadn't met Niu at all anyway...
"Bryan?" Niu appeared in the doorway, looking- for the first time since Bryan had met her- happy and contented. "Dad's falling asleep on the sofa."
"I'll...put him to bed. He needs it. He hasn't really been sleeping since this whole thing started, you know." He heaved himself up, stretching until his back clicked. "And of course there was the whole hysteria thing. He's worse than a woman when he gets going..." Niu giggled- truly giggled- and Bryan smiled back at her. "Lead me to sleeping beauty then..."
Rei was indeed asleep, arms tightly around Jin as he snoozed. "Rei..." The Chinese snuffled. "Rei?"
"Uhhh?"
"I'm taking you to bed, Rei."
"Nh."
"Let go of Jin." Rei obliged, barely awake, and let Bryan pick him up, wriggling as he was slung over the Russian's shoulder. It was a good thing the Chinese wasn't overweight, Bryan supposed. He got the impression that he'd end up with no shoulders left if Rei was inclined to be chubby. That said, he certainly -felt- chubby, digging as he was into Bryan's skin. But in the end he got Rei upstairs and deposited him on his bed, where, of his own accord, the Chinese burrowed into the blankets and finally fell properly asleep. "Sweet dreams, Rei." He whispered.
His only reply was a snore.
The next morning Rei found himself woken by the phone again. Cursing colourfully he extricated himself from Bryan's tight hold, at which the Russian gave a soft moan and curled up on his side. Rei smiled at him fondly and then remembered why he'd woken up in the first place. He grabbed the phone and wrenched it off the stand.
"Yes?"
"Hello Rei. It's me. Andrew." Uh-oh... If the boss was phoning him at home it couldn't be good news...
"Here's the thing, Rei...all this stuff with Mariah, it's a bad business..." Andrew's hesitant and apologetic tone told Rei everything.
"And you're firing me?" He asked, knowing the answer already. After all, he'd known that once people heard about what had happened they'd be mistrustful of him.
"No! No...we're...um...the company-" Rei sighed. He couldn't be bothered with all that rubbish so early on a morning.
"Just tell me straight." A sigh from the other end of the line.
"Then we're firing you, Rei. The...uh...the board don't want someone who drives his wife to a mental hospital on the payroll. There'll be severance pay, of course...that'll be sorted out..."
"Good. Was there anything else?"
"Look, I'm sorry-"
"Yeah."
"Um-"
"Was there something else you wanted, or can I go and look after my kids now?" Rei's voice was acid, scathing.
"I'm really sorry-"
"You -said-. Well if that's it, then goodbye."
And he slammed the phone down, sighing in frustration. Well where did that leave him? Scuppered, by all accounts. He would have to start looking for a new job...and he still had to sort out secondary school for Jin...God, why was it all happening to him at once?
He flopped back down beside Bryan, burying his face in the Russian's hair and laying an arm over his waist. "I love you." He whispered, nuzzling at Bryan's neck.
"Nhh..." Rei sighed, closing his eyes.
"I love you so much..."
"Mm...Rei?" Bryan yawned and turned, looking sleepy and puzzled.
"They fired me, Bryan..."
"Oh."
"I think I'm cursed."
"Huh?"
"All these bad things happening to me...I must be cursed..."
"Don't be ridiculous, Rei. It's not a curse, it's life." Rei turned away, pulling the covers up around himself.
"I don't know any other people who in the space of a few days have had their marriage exposed as a sham, their wife try to commit suicide, their kids run away from home and their company fire them."
"You'd be shocked I think. Come on, Rei...it isn't all bad..."
"Yes it is! Everything's gone wrong!" Bryan glared.
"So you don't want me here?" Rei sat up, shocked.
"What? I never said-"
"If everything is so wrong, then I must be wrong too! Is that it, Rei?"
"No! I-I didn't mean..." Rei reached out and grabbed Bryan's wrist. "I'm sorry, Bryan...I didn't mean you..."
"Then it isn't all bad, is it?"
Rei looked up into Bryan's eyes, and the Russian looked back at him. "No." He admitted at length. "It isn't all bad..." Bryan smiled and grabbed him in a bone-crushing hug. "Bryan, I can't breathe-!" The Russian relaxed his hold slightly and looked down at Rei, smiling.
"I love you, you know."
"I do know. And I love you too." Rei smiled back. And their lips met, and-
"Eww, Da-ad!"
"Jin! Niu! Oh!" Rei let go of Bryan and stood up, blushing. "What is it?"
"Niu broke the DVD player!" Jin complained. "And now I can't watch Lion King!"
Rei sighed. Jin watched that movie on a practically daily basis... "I didn't break it, Dad, he did!" Niu cut into his thoughts in irritation, folding her arms.
"Look, both of you-"
"I didn't break it! You did!"
"Oh shut up, you stupid little-"
"Hey!" Bryan shouted over all three of them, making them fall silent and look at him. "Stop squabbling over your DVD player and go and pack. We're all going on holiday." Rei blinked.
"What?"
"You all need a break, so we're going on one." Rei turned and stared at him, incredulous.
"But...where are we going?"
"How does a mansion in Russia sound? Indoor swimming pool, best chef in Europe, snow all around outside?"
"But...how-?" Rei asked, nonplussed.
"I have a friend over there. And he owes me a favour or five. I'll give him a call, book the flights, and then we'll take the first ones they have."
Jin ran over and hugged him tightly, the leapt on his Dad, excited. Niu just smiled. "Well you heard Bryan, we're going on holiday! So go and start packing!" Rei commanded. Jin raced out, giggling.
"I'll help him do his, shall I?" Niu asked, following. Rei nodded, then as Niu shut the door behind her, he turned to Bryan.
"Are you sure this is all okay? Your friend won't mind?"
"Nah, he won't be bothered." Rei smiled and snuggled himself into Bryan's arms.
"I love you more every time you open your mouth, Bryan."
The Russian laughed and Rei took the opportunity to kiss him soundly, feeling that things were finally starting to take a turn for the better...
Fin
Another fic over...
Heh, I kinda left it open for a sequel... There will be one if I can make myself write it, but it might take me a while...and by while I mean a LONG while...and only if people actually want to see a sequel in the first place...
In the meantime, R&R? Please?