(*Author's note: After long last, here is chapter 10.
This time I have a couple orders of business to take care of before getting to the chapter proper.
First, I'd just like to make you aware that this story isn't going to be updated as regularly as it has been in the past. I'm not taking a break from this story by any means and I've still got the inspiration to go on, it's just that I usually need a week or two to write a chapter and another week or so to polish said chapter. Revisions are a witch with a capital B, but it's very necessary - trust me, you wouldn't want to read this before the polishing :) . So, unless I'm hit by a spell of perfect first drafts, I wouldn't expect the time between updates to be any less than two weeks.
Second, I'd like to thank GoldAngel2 for betaing this chapter and for reviewing the last one. I'd also like to thank stungun millie, Wolfwood11, Strata and Kris Ice for reviewing chapter 9. Thanks, you guys!
Kris Ice: in the words of Q: "You are a veritable fountain of good ideas!" I'll have to see if ff.net will let me do supercripts, but even the (numbers) would be better than ******************* if I have a lot of footnotes.
Wolfwood11: Those were some good pics. It's kind of sad though that some of the fan art kicks the butt of the animation they use in the show.
Third, I . . . hmmm. Well, I guess there really isn't a third thing.
So, without further delay . . . chapter 10! *)
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Cathy chuckled to herself as the kitchen door shut behind her. She hadn't stuck around long enough to let Jet make some kind of retort, but there had been no missing the open mouth look of astonishment on his face. He sure hadn't expected that one.
Neither had she, really. It wasn't as if they were exactly friends, although, she thought that she might like them to be someday, and it wasn't as if she'd even known him that long. Usually, she only teased people when she'd known them for a long time - when she was comfortable with them and knew how they'd react. But, when it came to Jet, it seemed like all the rules went out the window . . .
Or did they? The strange thing was that, even though she didn't know him all that well, she genuinely did feel comfortable with him. Well, at least comfortable enough to let him into her home -although it had seemed like a natural decision at the time, she realized that she could have set Jet up in his own apartment and just checked up on him every now and then. That would have been enough.
So, she had to feel at least a little comfortable with him. More than a little, seeing as you fell asleep in his arms, a dry voice reminded her. Cathy could feel the blush creeping up her face as she thought about it. She wasn't sure if the blush was from remembering how it had felt to be held or the embarrassment of remembering how she'd been blubbering for no good reason.
Maybe a little bit of both. Either way, she didn't really want to think about it right know and she figured that it was about time to do what she'd come in here to do anyway. Her face was still hot but she ignored it in favor of rooting through the cabinet to see if she actually had anything to feed Jet (she wasn't feeling all that hungry this morning).
From the look of things, unless she wanted to make something using only soda crackers and vanilla extract for dinner, she was going to have to do some shopping today. She'd been hoping that she wouldn't have to but she guessed it was for the best. It might be good to get out of the apartment for a while, but it would nice to know, before she left, how long Jet was planning to stay.
While she knew she could afford to put him up for a while (at least, she didn't imagine that the expenses would be much different from when Daniel was here), she didn't want to buy a week's worth of groceries for three people and have it go to waste. That was something she couldn't afford to do.
Not that it would do much good to ask him. How would he know since he hadn't gotten a hold of his -
That phone call earlier. Maybe it had been that Doctor Gilmore calling back like Jet had said he would. She'd meant to ask, but it had completely slipped her mind. Well, once the soup was done, she'd make sure to find out.
After a bit of searching, Cathy had managed to locate a single bag of chicken ramen. She hoped it would be enough for Jet. There wasn't really anything else that was edible besides the crackers and vanilla - unless she counted the Mystery Can -
- which she didn't. The Mystery Can had no label and it was covered in several years - maybe decades - of dust. If memory served, it'd been in the apartment for at least as long as she'd lived there. She knew that she should probably just throw it away, but every time she tried, the feeling that it could prove useful someday stopped her.
Well, it wouldn't prove useful today.
Setting a small pan of water on the stove to boil, she just stood there awhile, not thinking about much of anything at all. Or, at least, trying not to. She'd managed to put it out of her mind for a while, but she was smart enough to know that she couldn't stave it off forever. Besides, it wouldn't be doing anyone any favors to completely forget that it'd happened.
'Were you ever human?' Worse enough to have even thought it after what they'd been through - ten times worse to have actually said it to his face. Cathy would be willing to bet that with those four words, she'd managed to hurt him more this morning than she had the whole time she'd known him.
She'd felt like throwing up when she saw that look on his face. He'd looked so . . . he looked like she'd betrayed him. In a way, she had. For some reason, he'd trusted her enough to tell her the truth and she'd let him down. He'd passed her the ball and she'd fumbled it. Badly.
It wasn't completely her fault though. All of this was a lot to take in and, to be perfectly honest, the fact that the guy in her livingroom was supposed to be some kind of super weapon wasn't the sort of thing that was easy to take in stride.
True or not, those things were just excuses and ones that Cathy wasn't happy with. She kept thinking that she should have done things differently. Maybe if she'd been less careless, the whole mess wouldn't have happened. Or maybe if she hadn't deluded herself into thinking that she was okay with the whole cyborg thing, she could have told him that she was still having problems. Or maybe if she'd been actually thinking about what Jet had been saying when he was talking about what Black Ghost made, she wouldn't have been caught so flatfooted when he'd said what he was. Or maybe -
Now she was completely disgusted with herself. No amount of 'Maybe If's would change what had happened.'Maybe If's weren't any better than 'If Only's in her book and she wasn't going to waste time worrying about 'Might Have Been's.
And, as much as she wanted to, there was really no point in beating herself up over it now, considering that Jet had already accepted her apology. Even if he'd accepted it a lot more quickly than she thought he should have, it wasn't as if she could apologize again!
Anyway, he obviously wanted to put it behind them and she owed it to him not to bring it up. If he wanted to act like everything was okay, then that was the way it would be. Still, she couldn't help thinking that, if their positions had been reversed, she probably wouldn't have let him off as easily.
Of course, maybe she was just more vindictive than he was. Even though she hadn't heard the whole story yet, the fact that Jet was able to call someone who had been at least partially responsible for stealing his life away a friend . . . well, it spoke volumes about his powers of forgiveness -
She heard a hissing sound and realized with a start that the water was boiling over. With a curse she took the pan off the burner and dumped some of the water out into the sink. After putting it back on the stove, she dumped the noodles in. Grabbing a fork and, stabbing at the square mass in the pan, she managed not to think about anything more worrying than what she was going to buy at the grocery store until the soup was done.
After plopping the noodles into a bowl and making sure that she had every thing she needed, she took a minute to make sure that she was really okay. She wasn't a great actress and she didn't want to make Jet any more uncomfortable than he probably was already. When she was satisfied that she was ready (artfully ignoring the voice that said she wasn't the one who had a reason not to be okay), Cathy opened the kitchen door and stopped short.
Jet was staring at the ceiling. Again. She glanced up and saw a ceiling suspiciously absent of anything worth staring at. 'See any gold up there?' was on the tip of her tongue, but it died on her lips when she noticed how haggard he looked. She didn't know how she'd missed it before (unless she'd some how gotten used to seeing him look like that), but she couldn't help but see it now.
His face was still dirty and his clothes were still charred and there was no mistaking the weariness in his posture. She immediately felt like slapping herself. What had she been thinking! Playing twenty questions with him before cleaning him up or, at least, making sure he was comfortable?
And, even if she didn't care for Jet's sake, Jimmy would be home soon. The last thing she wanted her son to see was his friend looking like he'd just been in a losing battle with a barbeque pit.
Well, once Jet was finished eating, she'd do something about it. She wasn't exactly sure how she'd clean him up, but she'd burn that bridge when she got that far. She just hoped that he wouldn't make a fuss . . .
"Cathy?"
Jet was looking at her questioningly and she realized that she'd been staring at him. She could feel another blush coming on (two in one day - a new record!) and tried to will it away as she handed him the bowl. "I hope you're not too hungry. This is all I've got until I go shopping."
She'd been merely stating a fact, but Jet must have taken it as a hint because he suddenly seemed pained. "Well, I don't have a lot of money left, but if you got to my apartment, there might be some in the -"
"Don't be stupid," she cut him off, trying to rein in her temper. She knew that he was just trying to be helpful and she doubted that he'd understand why his offer would upset her. However, there were some things that she just wasn't good at. "Do you honestly think I'd make you pay to stay here!"
From the look on his face, her words came out a bit more heated than she'd wanted them too. Still, he didn't seem willing to give up just yet. "I don't want to be a burden." He half smiled, "Anyway, it's not like I'm going to the mall anytime soon."
Cathy laughed. "No, I don't suppose you are." Then she spoke seriously and hoped that he'd understand. "I don't want to take your money. You're not going to have a broken leg forever, you know? You're going to need it when you get back to your own apartment."
There was a flash of . . . guilt? pain? in his eyes, but he looked away from her, almost hiding in his hair, before she could be sure that she'd actually seen it. "Yeah." He looked back and sighed in defeat. "Well, if you change your mind . . ."
She nodded, willing to accept the compromise. "I'll let you know."
"Okay." He turned his attention to his soup and took a few bites before looking back up at her, cocking his head. "Are you just going to stand there?"
"Actually, no." Something she could do while he was eating had just occurred to her. "Is your apartment unlocked?"
"What?" He looked confused. "I guess so, but I thought you didn't want -"
She waved hand and shook her head. "No, no. I meant so I could get you some clothes."
His confusion didn't lift and it was joined by wariness. "Why?"
Cathy didn't know why he was being so suspicious about it, but found that she really didn't care. "Because I'm not having you fester in those clothes for a week or how ever long you're staying here! Besides, you can't tell me you're comfortable in those."
It was hard to tell under all that hair, but she thought that he looked a little embarrassed. "I'm fine."
She crossed her arms. "Well, I'm not. Jimmy's coming home soon and I don't think it'd be good for him to see you like this. You know how much he cares about you."
He was clearly unhappy about it, but it seemed that playing the 'Jimmy Card' had done the trick. Throwing his hands up in surrender, he said grudgingly: "Okay, fine. Yeah, I think it's unlocked."
She smiled sweetly at him and pretended not to notice his annoyance. "Thank you. Now, will I be able to find your clothes or do you keep them hidden?"
Jet was obviously unamused. "They're in a drawer in the bedroom."
Nodding, she uncrossed her arms. "Okay, I'll be right back." She began to turn away but stopped when she noticed that Jet was still looking at her. "You better eat that before it gets cold."
Then she turned and walked out of her apartment. On to Jet's. As she started the long climb up the stairs, she wished (not for the first time) that this building had an elevator.
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To be continued.