Trying to be Human
Chapter 7: Für Elysia
I like Elly's full name.
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"You look awful," Roy remarked, pouring Elly a cup of coffee as she stumbled into the kitchen. She didn't ask why he was in their kitchen in the first place. She figured he had just wanted a square meal.
"I didn't get much sleep last night."
"Worried about something?"
Elly managed a tired smile. "Oh, nothing important." And that was the truth. Sitting in the bright, familiar of her childhood, with a man she had known and adored for as long as she could remember, she realized how trivial all her worries were. So what if her fiancee's family had been responsible for her father's death? In the long run, what did it really matter?
Roy stirred more sugar into his coffee to distract himself from watching his surrogate daughter play with her engagement ring. "How much do you really know about this Reg?"
The young woman smiled infatuatedly. "Besides that I'm madly in love with him?"
"This is serious, Elysia. He acts like he's hiding something."
The smile disappeared. In fact, her expression became downright grim. It had occurred to Elly that, through some unhappy miracle, Roy had found out about her beloved's lamentable past. "What makes you say that?"
"Nothing, really, just a hunch."
"I know that you worry about me, Roy-san," she said seriously, staring straight into the man's eyes as she spoke, "but I assure you, I know the worst of my Reggie's secrets, and there is nothing he can hide from me I would not forgive."
"I just don't like him. And I don't think your father would approve of him."
There was nothing Roy could have said to strike a nerve with Elly the way that simple statement did. She slammed down her coffee, spattering Roy with a little shower of caffeinated liquid, pushed her chair over standing up. "How would you know?" she screamed, running for the door. "You aren't my real father!"
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When Gracia made her way into the kitchen a few hours later, she was surprised to find Roy sitting at the table covered in a thin coating of coffee, but she figured he had wanted a square meal. "Sorry I slept in so late," she apologized, pouring herself a mug of the coffee. "I think I may have drank a little bit too much wine last night."
"Well, you don't get out much, you should be allowed to enjoy yourself," Roy laughed, finally coming to and beginning a search for the paper towels.
"Some of us had daughters to set examples for when the rest of us were out partying," Gracia reminded him. "Speaking of daughters, did you catch Elly this morning? Do you have any idea where she might be?"
"I don't know. She was a little upset when I saw her last," admitted Roy, preparing to explain the entire morning's events.
-----------------some time later-----------
Gracia stared at him. "You... told her that her dead father wouldn't like her fiancee?" she asked slowly, wanting to get the details right. Roy nodded. "You said that. To my daughter." Once again, Roy nodded, and Gracia slapped him so hard that he dropped his coffee. "Get the hell out of my house."
Still a little shell-shocked, Roy turned to leave, but Elly's mother changed her mind. "No, on second thought, you stay right where you are. I'm calling Riza."
For the first time that morning, Roy went pale.
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For some bizarre, unknown reason, Maes Hughes' grave had become a common meeting place for Central couples, so Elly had to deal with a few people trying to hook up, but they recognized her quickly and cleared out apologetically. (How they recognized her was a mystery to Elly, she had certainly never seen them before, and they were too young to be old friends of her father's. Oddly enough, Gracia and Elly had never had a problem being alone in the cemetery, even though Roy was constantly complaining about the crowd.)
Finally alone, the girl threw herself, sobbing, before her father's tomb, which she was still doing when she was found. "Daddy, I'm so sorry," she whimpered. "I don't know what to do,"
"Elysia Chan Hughes!" Gracia snapped, spinning her daughter around to face her. "You listen to me! Your father is dead. He's passed on. He is no more. He has ceased to be. He's expired and gone to meet his maker. He's a stiff, bereft of life, he rests in peace. He's pushing up the daisies, his metabolic processes are now history. He's off his twig, he's kicked the bucket, he's shifted off his mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. You are apologizing to a tombstone! A slab of granite with a name etched on it by Big Bill's Memorials. It can't hear you any more than Paula Shultz over here," she waved at the adjacent grave, kneeling down next to Elly. "I loved your father, Elysia, and you know that, but what he wanted for you really doesn't matter anymore. Just because someone is dead, doesn't mean you have to be responsible to them."
In response, Elly threw her arms around her mother's neck, and the two of them sat there for a long while, just the two Hughes women (and a young couple who passed through on a date and removed themselves discreetly when they saw the two mourners were having a moment. They would later tell their friends, and would become famous in their circle the way that friends who have seen celebrities do.)
"Mommy?" Elly asked quietly. "What if... what if I told you that Roy-san's right... Daddy really wouldn't like Reggie?"
Her mother laughed and ruffled her hair. "First off, I doubt very much that that's true. Your father liked pretty much everybody. And second, I already told you, don't worry so much about it."
"I mean, he really wouldn't like him."
"I don't doubt that he would hate any boy you tried to marry. Now, why don't we head back to the house. I think that Roy may have a very heartfelt, not at all force apology to give."
Her daughter grinned and stood up, but Gracia remained for a second, glancing around to make sure Elly wasn't watching, and giving her husband's headstone a quick kiss before leaving.
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Elly was set up comfortably on the couch in the living room to await Roy's apology, when Riza walked through, which was good, because Elly still wasn't sure. "Riza?"
"Hmm?"
"What do you think of Reg?"
The older woman pulled up a chair to face Elly. "I really don't know him. You can't get the measure of a boy who's trying to impress his in-laws."
This was not the helpful advice that Elly had been hoping for. "You don't have any opinion of him at all?"
Riza thought about this. "Does he treat you right?"
"Like a princess," Elly smiled.
"And do you enjoy spending time with him?"
"Always."
"And do you trust him?"
"With my life."
Riza smiled. "Then what does my opinion matter? It sounds like you two are right for each other. Don't worry about us. Your mother loves him, I don't care as long as you're happy, and I'm sure that he'll grow on the colonel." Elly smiled back, and Riza, satisfied that the young woman had finally received the helpful advice she wanted, stood up, just as Roy shuffled in, taking her chair.
"Elysia," he began, after Riza had left. "Your mother and my wife have informed me that you are in love. I may have been slow to recognize it, having never experienced it myself except pertaining to Black Hayate, but, after extensive education, I realize now that this young man... er, Reg, is, while nowhere near good enough for my Elysia, not a bad person, and that it would make you very happy to be with him. And, even though it may not always seem like it, I do want to see you happy. So, I wish to offer you and Reg my apologies, and let you know that someday, perhaps someday not very far from now, I will get over the initial prejudices I have against Reg for stealing my little girl, and, in the meantime, you two are not to listen to a word I say, and remember that I am only being rude because I care about you."
"I know you do, Roy-san," Elly assured him, taking his hand from across the coffee table. "And, I was wondering... you're as close as a father to me, will you give me away at the wedding?"
Roy balked. This was not something he had planned on dealing with. Just the words "give away" were distasteful to him. But Elly was staring at him with those cute Bambi eyes that she had mastered when she was a little girl, not to mention Riza and Gracia were waiting in the kitchen with an array of sharp knives, and he knew that he was going to end up agreeing to do this, the most difficult mission in his entire career.