Disclaimer: It's all Meg Cabot's (or Jenny Carrol, YMMV) and as much as I and many others WISH we owned Jesse and Paul – I don't.
AN: I'm so pleased with all of the reviews; I'll give comments to some at the bottom, so those whom don't wish to read that kind of thing don't have to. This chapter is going to be in Suze's point of view, but I haven't really decided which one of the two I'll use for other chapters, it's really a bit of a dilemma. Do you guys like reading from Jesse's point of view, or should I stick to Suze? Drop me a line, and enjoy the chapter!
CHAPTER TWO: Oh Susannah!
Oh I come from Alabama
With a banjo on my knee,
I'm a goin' ta Louisiana
mah true love for to see
It rained all night the day I left,
The weather it was dry
The sun so hot I froze to death;
Susannah, don't you cry...
Oh, Susannah,
Don't you cry for me
For I come from Alabama,
With my banjo on my knee.
For the first time in five years, I felt a blush come over my face.
It couldn't even have been one of those delicate oh-my-goodness-gracious-I'm-just-so-innocent blushes that popular girls like Kelly Prescott always seemed to be able to summon by will. Oh no. When I blush, it's the full monty - a horrible redness that starts at the crown of my head all the way to the vee of my tasteful tank.
And worse than that, he liked it. His eyes twinkled with unholy mirth, and when I glared at him, instead of fleeing in terror from the Queen of the Night People – he grinned.
Oh boy.
Remember when I was talking about how deliciously hot this guy was? That was decimated when he smiled. The man was obviously the product of an excellent dental plan, with gleaming white teeth that stood in contrast to his beautifully tan skin.
So it was understandable how I glanced away and started fiddling with my clothes to try and make myself more presentable. I mean come on – you try keeping your mad on when you're faced with a God. Really, I was surprised he wasn't followed by throngs of swooning girls, all jostling each other for the privilege to merely LOOK at this guy. Because I'd never seen a man so hot in my life, or my afterlife, come to think of it. And I've used my recently acquired invisibility to sneak into Jake's dorm to get a look at his totally buff room mate. Phwoar.
I know, I know, bad Suze. Very bad Suze. But hey, when you can't talk to anyone or even turn the TV on for yourself, you've gotta get your kicks somewhere, right? Besides, it gives Father Dom something to complain about. Secretly, I think that Father Dom is rather amused by my exploits, far more often than he is exasperated by them. But I was almost certain that he would not be pleased to know my new room mate was a twenty-something hunk. One that was currently trying not to laugh at my obvious state of nervousness.
My mother, of course, was oblivious to our guest's new found interest in the room. She was going on and on about the history of the house, and how people had supposedly been killed, maybe in this very room. The irony was not lost on me that she was talking about this in front of a dead girl, and someone who could see and talk to the spirits of the dead. Eventually though, she ran out of steam and made her way out of the room with a quick comment that all Jesse had to do was shout, and she'd come help him unpack.
Mothers. I swear, even after death she continues to embarrass the life out of me.
As soon as I heard my mother's footsteps recede down the hallway and down the stairs I stood up and faced the new guy. I placed my hands on my hips and gave my best glare – one that had sent Dopey running when he tried to snitch on me about sneaking out, and spoke to the Latino hottie. "All right, who the hell are you?" Nervously, I began tapping one of my combat boots against the floor, trying to distract myself from drooling over this guy – time and place Suze, time and place. "And what do you think you are doing in MY room?"
He simply raised an eyebrow and replied in a silky voice "Your room?" he glanced around the admittedly masculine room and shook his head. "Dios, I'm afraid you are mistaken, Mrs. Ackerman is renting me this room while I go to University. I will of course, be happy to help you move on, miss -" I was too caught up listening to his voice to notice what he said at first. His voice was as liquid as the dark pools of his eyes, his English as flat and unaccented as I fancied my own was, a slight Brooklyn blurring of my t's aside. He clearly had some Spaniard in him, as his Dios and his colouring indicated, but he was as American as I was. Then it sunk in.
"WHAT?" I am ashamed to note my voice took on the same tone and pitch of a banshee, indicating my displeasure along with the sudden shaking of the dressing table's mirror. "Listen this is MY room, and I am NOT sharing it with some… some… cowboy decide that just cuz his rich mother -" I didn't get much further than that, because while Jesse had looked amused, and slightly frustrated with me before, he now looked – well, murderous. If I had been alive, I probably would have been babbling for his forgiveness, and as it was I took a step back before realizing that I was, well, dead and even hot stuff couldn't hurt me.
Much.
"Cowboy… cowboy?" He started muttering angrily in Spanish, but since I had taken French, I had no idea what he was saying. From the inflection, and his posture which was at the moment looming all six plus feet of him over little five eight me, I think it must have been some decidedly unpleasant things about my heritage. "I am not a cowboy. My family worked like slaves to make something of themselves in this country-" he began to wag his finger in my face, "But never, never as a… a vaquero-" and promptly ceased speaking as I grabbed his finger and began hissing at him.
"Hey, the next time you shove your finger in my face, I'll break it." I flung his hand away and put my hands on my hips. He seemed stunned, either by my threat or the fact that I knew I could touch him. Either way, I wanted to get my piece in before he started yelling in Spanish, because as hot as he was doing it, he was also plenty scary, like a panther coiled to pounce. And I had never made very meek prey. "Look, amigo-"
"Jesse." I paused in my tirade and blink at him for a moment. He must have seen a 'huh, what?' look on my face, because he continued, and in a much more pleasant voice with a certain amount of sheepishness in it. "You called me amigo. I though you might like to know, I have a name. It's Jesse." He smiled, and I was instantly reminded of my earlier thoughts, about what a nice face he had. Not that I thought him pretty, not at all, especially after our little incident a moment ago. Not pretty, but dangerous, like a man that could face practically anything.
Except for me. "Fine. Whatever." I scowled at him and threw myself down on the window seat. "So Jesse we need to discuss you leaving my room, because I'm sure as hell not going to let you-"
"And you?"
"And me what?"
"What is your name?"
I scowled at him and blew a stray hair out of my face. My mother had apparently been on crack at the time of my birth, because there was no other explanation for my wacko name than that. "Suze." I mentally rolled over his name in my head, Jesse sounds like a very modern name, and not terribly Spanish, but then my name was after some ancient song, so who am I to talk?
"As in Susan?" He raised an inky black brow at me, and for a moment I felt very confused – as though the action was familiar, but something was wrong with it, like some minor detail was missing. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and felt a smile quirk my lips as I responded,
"Nah, Susannah, as in 'Don't you cry for me'" He chuckled at that and commented that he knew the song, and we strayed into sort of an empty silence for a moment. Not an awkward one, strangely, but a comfortable one, I let my gaze wander over him, as he began to unpack his things. I took in his short black hair that curled sexily against the back of his neck, and his tight muscle tee that was clearly worn for comfort, not style, but still showed his defined muscles to perfection and he bet to pick up clothes out of his suitcase. And if my eyes strayed to certain parts of his body as he did this, it was only to silently praise the designers at Levi's, for creating such a spectacular garment.
Phwoar.
The studly image was upheld further by – I kid you not – cowboy boots. Spurs and all. On any other man, they would have looked completely ridiculous, and I would lament his sexual orientation if not for the fact that Jesse had mentioned his family worked on a ranch. So instead of coming off as slightly gay, it radiated vibes of 'salt-of-the-earth' and 'hard-working' that had my hormones all in a tizzy. It's no picnic being stuck in a sixteen year old body for all of eternity, let me tell you.
"So Susannah, why have you not passed on to your next life?" I blinked as Jesse started talking to me, pausing only to grunt as he shifted some boxes of my stuff in the closet to make way for his now empty suitcases. "Really, it would be best for both of us if I helped you to move on. I am what is called a-"
"Mediator." I sighed and put down the book I had been pretending to read while checking out Jesse's butt, and took out my hair clip to let my hair down. If I was going to have this conversation, I was going to look good doing it. The whole hair up thing has never been a good look for me, and for some ridiculous reason, I really wanted to impress Jesse. I smiled at his confused look, but it didn't have any mirth in it.
See, being a Mediator never really was my dream gig. I kinda felt like Buffy, when they did that ridiculous promo you know 'In every generation there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the ghosts, the demons and the forces of bad fashion. She is the Mediator.' Cheesy, I know, but you would be amazed at what people were allowed to wear in northern California. I mean, the day I came, I saw this woman walking around in pink leggings and a white spandex sports bra. And only that. Some people should be locked up, I swear.
I first figured out I could see ghosts, and that other people couldn't, at the ripe old age of two. It's a rather long story involving a mouse, a cat, and this grey wispy ghost that had the misfortune to try and be mediated by someone who didn't speak English. I mean come on; I was two, gimmie a break. But I only figured out the whole Mediator part of the equation when my father died. I didn't understand why everyone told me I wouldn't see my father; he had gone on to a better place. Because to me, he hadn't moved on, I could still see him. My Dad was a ghost, and a constant pain in the neck, popping up whenever he felt like it, and not when I actually needed him. He explained the whole Mediator deal to me, and occasionally helped me out when I went on an errand for the undead. And I did a really good job, mostly without his help. I mean, come on, I was the only Mediator for all five Burroughs, and I thought I was pretty hot stuff, tackling the ghosts of the world on my own.
The reason I really didn't want to talk this over with Jesse is that it's kind of a sore spot, the whole Mediator job. Because I wasn't, as you can tell, the only Mediator in the world. As soon as I moved to Carmel, and started going to school, I found out my principal was one too. Father Dom, the kind old Catholic priest had mediated ghosts in the No.Cal region for forty something years, which made me feel a whole lot better on arrival, let me tell you. Until he introduced me to Heather.
Heather was this girl who went to my high school. The reason I had to transfer in the middle of the year was because there were no spots at this high school, and it was basically the only choice since Doc, Dopey, and Sleepy went there (plus I wanted to avoid an all girl school at all costs). So when I was told there was room second semester, I figured that someone's parents had decided to go on a world cruise and take their kid along with. So you can imagine my surprise that on my first day, I have to save the life of this guy Bryce from his psychotic girlfriend, the one whose place I had taken. This was further complicated by the fact that no one but Father Dom and I could see her – she was a ghost. The stupid girl had blown her head off just because Bryce had dumped her.
Not, as you can imagine the most comfortable of circumstances.
Heather, instead of being a nice, reasonable Casper, decided that I was trying to usurp her place at school, and in Bryce's life. And this was totally an overstatement; I had only let him kiss me once, and only saved his life twice. But where she really screwed up was when she got Father Dom involved. I hadn't known the guy for ages, but he was the grandfatherly type, a good looking man of about sixty with a healthy mop of snowy white hair to cap off his lean six foot frame. Plus, he was the only other Mediator I had met, and as such, held a special place in my heart, even though I hadn't known him for all that long. Heather tried attacking Bryce again after I had managed to help him avoid acquainting his head with a falling support beam. This time she tried to topple the six foot crucifix that stood in the secretary's office onto Bryce's head, something that would have killed him for sure. Father Dom, kind soul he is, pushed Bryce out of the way so that neither was fatally wounded. But Father Dom was really hurt, and had spent some quality time in the hospital.
He was quite adamant that I not attempt an exorcism- a tactic I had used before when a spirit decided to get testy and go topple buildings and such. And being the responsible teenager I was, I told him that I would wait for him to do a Catholic exorcism so that both of us could be there. I was of course, lying through my teeth.
A huge part of me wishes I had listened to the old guy. Or that my father – someone – was there to talk me out of what I had planed. You see, I decided to go down to the school and exorcise her myself, using my afore mentioned Brazilian voodoo.
It's amazing what you can learn in New York.
So I decided that I would attempt to appeal to her girly nature by dressing up a bit, hence the tank top and skirt. But I was no fool. I had been in plenty of smackdowns back in NY, and I knew that almost nothing provided as good protection as a good leather motorcycle jacket, and a good sturdy pair of combat boots. So I gathered my materials on the way home from the hospital and set out on my little quest well after midnight, when I was sure everyone was asleep. I rode down to the school on a bike I had found in the garage, and set up everything I needed for the ritual – including a picture I had very sneakily obtained from Bryce when he was doped up on meds. For a while, everything was going fine, until Heather opened her eyes and saw the big swirly cloud of exorcism that was hanging above her head.
She was a tad annoyed.
Annoyed enough that she started uprooting half the school with her psychic powers.
Oh, never fear, ye olde bad beastie was sucked up into that vortex, into the great beyond, or whatever lay in store for people after this plane. I of course, wouldn't know what's there, seeing as I'm currently doing a stint in a bad Reese Witherspoon-esque role. Because Heather had the last laugh. I may have managed to exorcise her, but she managed to pull down half the breezeway onto me as she went. I lay there, buried in the rubble until at last, even I, the great and powerful Suze, left the building.
I really did, leave the building. I 'woke up' in my bed, some time later, and wandered down stairs to see what Andy was cooking for breakfast, thinking that maybe I had dreamed the whole thing, and really would have to wait for Father Dom to attempt the exorcism. But I started to clue in, when Doc didn't return my grumbled hello, and even Dopey looked as though he'd been hit by the depression train.
Another big hint?
My mother wouldn't stop crying. And when I tried to hug her, to ask her what was wrong – I fell right through her.
I started to freak out, and noticed that the china in the cabinet began to shake, and everyone ran to the doorways thinking there might be an earthquake coming. Finally, my father materialized in the kitchen and grabbed me, removing me from the house and taking me over to the Mission to talk to Father Dom. Apparently, the weight of the rubble finally managed to crush my internal organs, and since no one walked through the breezeway until Matins (morning prayers for the religiously inclined), no one could have helped to dig me out until it was too late, and they discovered my cold dead body.
Father Dominic looked really haggard, and my dad later informed me that it had been him who had found my body – he had returned from the hospital early, eager to complete a Catholic exorcism before I did anything rash. We don't talk much about it, Father Dom and me, because it's a very painful memory for both of us. And he was really great, for the first little while after I died. He made sure I had a nice ceremony, and that many people attended. He did the usual things, tell my family how much I loved them, mailed a letter to Gina that took me hours to write (it is very, very hard to move a pen when you are the newly dead), and oh, one more thing. He exorcised Heather's butt. I guess Father Dom was kinda mad over me dying, because he didn't seem to have a tiny bit of pity in his eyes as he read out the Catholic ritual for exorcism, no matter how much Heather whined and cried and begged him to give her back her old life.
So it fairly stumped us when I did not move on.
And so, I've pretty much stayed put, opting to watch over my mother, and help Father Dom out with the more active spirits that tend to pop up every now and again. We both achieved a sort of peace with my new found status, one that was disrupted with the arrival of one Hector 'Jesse' de Silva. And even though most of me was very angry with the fact that he wanted to;
a) Take over my room, and
b) Help me "move on".
Another part of me felt as though the Earth had been tilted off its axis for a very long time, and that his arrival seemed to snap it back into place. Sitting here, talking to Jesse, even about Mediator stuff seemed to feel, like home. Which is of course, almost as crazy as the thought that someone could see and talk to ghosts. Suddenly, eternity seemed as if it could be a lot easier to bear if I could only listen to Jesse's voice, even when he said random things in Spanish that I had no idea what they meant. So it was without too much nervousness that I told my story to Jesse – the one about how I knew I was a Mediator. I didn't tell him about my death. I know it's silly, but I was kind of worried that if I told him, he'd figure out what was keeping me here, and suddenly, I didn't really want to leave.
"Oh, querida," Jesse breathed, in a very sexy way as he made his way over to sit beside me on the window seat. In the burnt orange light of the sunset, his eyes seemed to be lit with some inner fire, and they scorched me almost as hot as when he took my hand in his much larger, tanned ones. I was embarrassed to find that I had spilled some of my thoughts about watching my family without being able to touch them or anything, and tears were gathering in my eyes. I gave a very ungraceful sniff as Jesse swept his thumb over the back of my hand and smiled at me in a very sweet way. He then started to sing very softly, so softly that I had to lean closer to catch what he was singing. "Oh, Susannah, oh don't you cry for me. For I come from Alabama with my banjo on my knee…" I let out something that was a cross between a laugh and a sob, and could have sworn he was about to kiss me, except for one thing.
Unnoticed by both Jesse and I, my mother had opened the door, and was clearly there to call Jesse down to dinner. Instead she was leaning in the doorway, with tears streaming down her face. "Oh Jesse… that song, that's the song I sang for my Suzie-" She let out this pitiful sob and would have collapsed on the floor if Jesse had not moved so fast to catch her. He cradled her in his arms, and rocked her back and forth, muttering soothing words in Spanish as she sobbed into his shirt. "Suzie, oh my Susannah, why, why, why-". I quickly rushed over to her and tried to put my arms around her, and of course, failed, which made me cry harder.
"Oh mom, oh mom I'm so sorry…" With Jesse looking at me with sad, sorrowful eyes, and holding my wailing mother. I don't know how long we stood there, my mother and I crying, Jesse looking more and more panicked by the minute, until my mother sang the last few verses of the song into Jesse's shoulder as the sun dipped over the horizon.
I had a dream the other night
When everything was still,
I dreamt I saw Susannah
Coming up a hill,
The Buckwheat cake was in her mouth
The Tear were in her eye,
I said I'd come to take her home,
Susannah don't you cry.
Oh, Susannah,
Oh don't you cry for me,
For I come from Alabama
With my banjo on my knee.
AN: Whoo boy, that was a bit of an emotional one – or so I hope. On to happier thoughts – reviewer comments!
Amattsonperdue : Yeah, Jesse is usually a lot more non-violent, but he was just helping another Mediator get rid of an extremely malevolent spirit, and I'm sure he's learned different techniques through the years. Also, this is a universe where ghost Jesse never existed, so that whole storyline didn't exist – which I hope was made clearer with Suze's recounting of her death. Thanks for your comments though, I sometimes forget that everything makes sense in my head because I know the whole story, or so we hope P.
creating apathy : Ha ha, thanks so much! I was really trying to put myself in his headspace, which is very hard, seeing as I am a seventeen year old girl much more in line with Suze than a hot Latino ranch heir. As you can see, I quickly whipped myself into shape and wrote bigger chunks: paragraphs are my friend. I know, some authors clearly have a grasp of Spanish, and others make me wish I had a spork to pluck my eyeballs out with. I might make mistakes, I've only completed two years of Spanish, but I'll try very hard not to screw up too badly!
Tuna Bites : Oh man, your review totally made my morning, it was the first one I read when I got up, ha ha. I do have a plot, I have the entire story mapped out, with specific points I'll make sure to hit so that everything flows rather smoothly. And because it bugs me when I read an incredibly good fic and then fall into a P/S ending, I'll make this clear now- this is most DEFINITELY a J/S story. Jesse and Suze were put together in Meg's cannonverse, and I'm going to adhere to that. I hope that's what you wanted to hear, and thanks for reading!
butt-kicking-chic/Aqeelah : Yeah, I know there are a couple of fics where their roles are reversed, but I don't think that any author has taken this approach, so I'm hoping this goes over well.
Avalon's Minstrel : Hey babe! Ha ha, those were some good times, neh? Joss Whendon? Oh, I bow before the mastah. I'm going to be using you as my beta, at least for spelling mistakes until I find some pour soul to foist my fics on. Update your stories, wench!
And a huge ton of thanks to:
The Magnificent Kiwi
Nights-girl
armedwithapen
emm-is-da-bomb
joseph-dreamer
Alright, I'm off to bed before I turn into the Queen of the Night People.
