Still groggy from his nap, Benimaru walked out of the bedroom. The door to Phoenix's room was open allowing him to see she was not there. Her bed did not appear to have been slept in at all. Although she had pretended everything was okay through the meal, chatting about the crops presently ready for harvest and such, she had not been okay. She most likely had been too stressed out and humiliated after that interaction with her aunt and uncle to sleep.
Hearing the rattling of dishes in the kitchen, he followed the sound to see if it was her making the noise. Her aunt was at the stove stirring a pot of what he guessed would be lunch. Or dinner. He had no idea what time it is. When she turned to walk toward the refrigerator, she froze upon seeing him, her eyes wide.
"Oh, hello, Beni. Did you have a nice rest?" she asked before continuing on her way.
"I did. Where is Phoenix?" he inquired abruptly, being in no mood for small talk.
"She went to the outer orchards to pick oranges with her Uncle."
"Outer orchards?"
"The ones outside the dome. She always did prefer working outside in the sun and fresh air."
After dumping the cut up carrots into the huge pot, she wiped her hands on her apron before taking it off and draping it over the back of the chair.
"Come with me," she said, walking toward the door. "We'll go find them. Lunch is almost ready."
They walked down a different corridor this time which led to a garage the size of a warehouse that was mostly empty except for a few tractors, a four wheeled all terrain vehicle, and a golf cart. Undoubtedly, the rest of the equipment and vehicles that usually occupied the vacuous space were in use around the farm at this time.
Auntie sat down on the white leather seat of the golf cart, patting the seat beside her. Beni barely sat down before she hit the pedal almost sending him rolling right back out. She hit a button on the remote attached to the steering wheel to raise one of the smaller metal doors of the garage.
"I apologize for what I said earlier. I have a tendency to say whatever comes to mind," she said as the small vehicle shot out of the slowly rising door with barely enough clearance not to scrape the top.
"Yeah, I'm kinda used to that with her. Your niece is a lot like you," he said, holding on the bar above his head attached to the roof.
"I'll take that as a compliment."
Take it as you wish, he thought, pressing his lips together. Since this woman was her Aunt and had extended hospitality to him, he was showing uncharacteristic restraint by keeping his mouth shut.
"You must think we're just idiotic hicks," she said as if inviting an insult.
Benimaru inhaled a deep breath to keep his temper in check.
"We just don't have much experience with these...what did you call them?" the woman asked, jerking the wheel to the left to turn onto the dirt road.
"Infernals," he replied. "What do you call them out here?"
"We refer to them as demons. We've never thought of them as people. When the demons take over, fulling engulfing them in flames, the person is no longer there."
Yeah, that's the gist of it, Beni thought without interrupting her to say so. Maybe you're not as stupid as I think you are.
"On the few occasions spontaneous combustion has happened, it's been dealt with quickly by the family members and kept quiet," she explained, maneuvering off the dirt road onto the tracks cut through the grass from years of vehicles running over it.
"So you've never seen one for yourself or seen what they are capable of?"
"No. Never with my own eyes. I've been lucky that way I guess. I only saw Phoenix's power a few times before she learned to control it. And hide it," she added, keeping her gaze fixed straight ahead. "It scared the hell out of me. Her uncle dealt with her mostly. It was too much for me to bear."
That explained why Phoenix seemed to be closer to her uncle. He was much kinder to her. At the very least he did not say much or insult his niece. Perhaps it was because his overbearing wife did most of the talking without allowing him to get a word in edgewise.
"Is there really no one with pyrokinetic powers here? Or do they keep it hidden since there is such a stigma attached to it?"
"You have to understand, Beni. Things are different here."
"Oh, yes, they are definitely different," he agreed, his knuckles turning white from the grip he had on the bar.
What Beni was starting understand was why Phoenix left and did not come back. No matter how well meaning and loving her adoptive parents were, not understanding her power and treating her like a pariah, forcing her to hide and be ashamed of her ability, had to be difficult to say the least.
The workers they passed along the way waved or called out friendly greetings to them. One old man pointed ahead as if to indicate they were on the right track to find the people they were looking for. Toward the end of the seemingly endless row of trees sat a small truck with flatbed back stacked with plastic crates full of freshly picked oranges.
Uncle stood on the ground under the ladder catching the oranges Phoenix dropped down. He tossed them into the crate at his feet. Only her jean clad legs were visible from where she stood on the ladder propped against the trunk of the tree. The loose faded jeans were rolled up almost to her knees, one cuff thicker and higher than the other. A small pink towel hung out of one of the back pockets. She was wearing beat up sneakers rather than boots. The leafy branches hid the upper half of her body.
"Hey, your Aunt and Beni are here," her uncle yelled up to her when the golf cart came to a stop behind the truck.
"Time to go in for lunch," Auntie announced, getting out of the cart to greet her husband with a hug and a kiss. "Hope you're hungry."
"Definitely. Been out here working up an appetite with our girl for hours," he replied, giving his wife another hug. "She hasn't forgotten how to work but she has gotten a bit slow. Hurry up, Phoenix."
"Just let me get these few right here," she said, dropping down an orange that nearly hit Beni on the head before he caught it.
Beni looked up to see she had on a pink and white gingham shirt tied at her waist. He reached up to catch the next orange then lobbed both into the nearby crate.
"Last one," she declared, holding it in her hand to begin descending the ladder.
Once on the ground, she smiled at Beni. Her cheeks were red from working in the heat and sun. Her arms and chest were a little bit pink as well. She had a pink scarf in her hair, tied into a knot at the top of her head. The tails of the cloth stuck up like pink bunny ears.
"Well, well, look at you, country bumpkin," Beni said, taking in the sight of her that he could not conjure up in his imagination.
"Shut up," she muttered, peeling the orange and discarding the peels at the base of the tree. Pulling apart the orange, she handed half to Beni.
"The country looks good on you. I honestly never would have guessed." And he had tried his damndest to picture what that would look like.
"Oh, yeah?" She popped one of the orange sections in her mouth. "Thanks. How does it taste?"
"Mmmm," he hummed in approval since his mouth was full. The fruit was juicy, sweet, and tangy. "Uh huh. Really good."
"Come on, kids, let's go," her Uncle urged them, leading his wife to the truck. "Your aunt and I will ride in the truck. We'll pick up the other crates on the way back. You two head to the house on the golf cart."
"Yes, sir. I'll get the table set," Phoenix replied, swiping at the sweat on her forehead with the towel she took from her back pocket.
"Did you sleep at all?" Beni asked her as they sat down in the cart.
"I tried," she sighed, turning the wheel then pressing down on the pedal to move the little vehicle. "All I could do was lay there and think. So instead of laying there miserable and getting upset or crying, I decided I might as well get up and go to work. At least then I would be too busy to think."
"In the short time we've been here. I've learned a lot about you," he said for no particular reason.
"Really? Like what?"
"Your attitude makes so much more sense. Especially the defensiveness. I now know why you never told me the whole truth about anything. You had been taught to keep secrets and guard them well. And this," he said, tugging at one of the ends of the scarf in her hair. "I learned you make a really adorable hick."
"Gee, thanks," she giggled.
"Your aunt is..."
"A lot?"
"Yeah."
"She means well. She's a little too outspoken for her own good."
"I know someone else like that."
"Hmmm, well, she and Uncle weren't being purposely rude or callous when they said what they said. They just really don't understand."
"Yeah, I definitely got that. I know that had to hurt you when they called you a murderer. That's something all fire soldiers have to struggle with. They don't need to hear it from other people. Especially ignorant country folk."
Beni watched as her eyebrow shot up toward her hairline but her mouth miraculously stayed closed.
"You don't have to make excuses for them you know," he added, leaning back in the seat and threading his fingers behind his head.
"I know," she sighed, gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white. "But I feel like I should."
"Don't. And you don't have to ashamed of anything anymore."
"Yeah, especially since I don't even my ability anymore. But I guess it was never actually mine anyway."
"Don't start. There's no time for a pity party."
"I know. Damn, you're not cutting me any slack. I would have pushed you back off the train in Asakusa if I had known this is why you really came."
"Someone has to stop babying you and slap some sense into you."
"Figuratively speaking of course?" she ventured, casting a quick glimpse at him.
"Depends on how stubborn you get," he returned being purposely vague.
"I won't hedge my bets then."
Benimaru propped his foot on the dashboard of the cart, draping his arm over his knee. His eyes scanned the area, watching the people loading the crates onto the back of another truck. Phoenix took a sharp turn to cut through the trees since the truck was blocking their path. For a second time, she almost dumped him out of the cart.
"This place, this village and the ones around it, have been cut off from the rest of the world for many decades, possibly centuries. And they want it to stay that way. No one ever comes here. They only leave," she said, waving to the workers with a smile on her face as they bowed in apology and hustled out of the way with their overfilled crates of fruit.
"That's understandable," he muttered.
"Everything is exported from this village. Transported to other places on the train. The village is old. The people are full of ancient beliefs and steeped in superstition. They still pray to stone and wooden idols and consult shamans," Phoenix informed him. "The shamans perform exorcisms to get rid of the demons."
The words dripped with sarcasm as she spoke them.
"I see how it was easy for your mother to fall in with such a group of insane religious fanatics," Benimaru mumbled.
"Yeah, me too. I have to say coming back here has been a real eye opener. I had forgotten exactly what it was like. Plus, I've learned normal is very subjective. If it's all you've ever known, then to you it's correct and acceptable." She sighed, unhinging one of her hands from the steering wheel to shake out her aching fingers. Then she stretched the fingers of the other hand, clasping and unclasping it as if to get the blood flowing to the tips again. "Please don't think badly of my aunt and uncle. They're extremely intelligent when it comes to book smarts but kind of dumb about how the rest of the world works."
"You really did lead a sheltered life," he said, casting a sidelong glimpse at her.
"I was glad I had two friends from the village with me when I got to university. We were all in for the shock of our lives. At least we had each other to get through it."
"The two friends you came to Asakusa with?"
"Yeah." She passed the garage, going on to the back entrance to the biodome. "The same two friends I had to k- "
"Just stop right there. I know what happened. I was there. You did what you had to do. I knew then you were capable of being a good fire soldier. Why do you think I gave you a home?"
Phoenix pulled to a stop a few yards from the entrance of the biodome. She turned her head to look at Beni. When she saw he was staring at her, she realized it was not a rhetorical question. With a sad smile on her face, she answered him.
"I would say you took pity on a stray cat but you're not the pitying type. Whatever you saw in me Benimaru Shinmon, I'm glad you took a chance. Thank you," she said, looking away quickly with the pretense of sliding out of the cart.
"Would you stop that shit?"
"What shit?" she asked, opening the door to walk inside without waiting for him.
Beni extended his arm to catch the door before it smacked him in the face. He stood beside her at the deep sink to wash his hands which were a little bit sticky from the orange she had shared with him.
"I'm simply thanking you to show my gratitude because I failed to do so before," she said, patting her hands dry with a clean towel from the rack before extending it to him.
"Quit being so damned formal, your Highness. You know I hate that shit. You're making it weird. You have changed a lot, and sometimes I feel like I'm dealing with a completely different person," he said, taking the towel to dry his hands.
"Don't you get it, Beni?" she asked, her eye meeting his. "I am a different person now. Something that had been a part of me since I was born is gone. The people here would say the demon possessing me is gone."
"The people here are full of shit," he growled, throwing the towel because it was in his hand.
As he stared into her eye, he saw a flicker of the old fire that used to be there making her singular iris shimmer like mercury. A spark of anger or hatred directed at these ridiculous backwards beliefs maybe? Whatever it was, he was glad to see it. When he visited her in the hospital, her eye had been dull, lifeless - dead even though her body was still alive.
"Hmph," he snorted, with a smirk on his face. "You're still you, moron. The old you you claim to be missing so much is still there. She never left. That thing wasn't you, idiot. It wasn't responsible for all of your irritating and annoying personality. I blame your aunt for that. The phoenix was only a part of you like a tumor or a boil on your ass that's been cut off. Quit feeling sorry for your damn self and get over it."
Phoenix said nothing in response, pressing her lips together into a thin white line. Kicking off her shoes in his direction, one flew directly at his face forcing him to raise his arm to bat it away. With a quick downswing of his other arm, he prevented the second shoe from delivering the shot directed at his genitals. Considering the accuracy of the two separate projectiles, he would dare to say she definitely aimed.
Beni could not stop himself from laughing out loud while watching her sashaying away. Her prissy 'mad walk' with her arms stiff at her sides and her hips swinging back and forth between them like a pendulum. He had seen that particular walk many times when she would storm off after heated words were exchanged. However, this time she had not uttered a single word. Surprisingly after expressing his amusement, she did not turn around and let him have it either with a string of curse words.
Well, maybe she had changed a little more than he thought. But showing restraint was actually a good thing in her case.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, he followed her down the corridor.
Phoenix was in the kitchen setting the table for lunch as she had promised. With a flick of her wrist and a pop of the knob, she turned off the burner under the pot. Without using potholders, she picked up the Dutch oven, it's contents still bubbling away, by the cast iron handles to set it on the table. The searing heat of the metal did not seem to bother her hands at all.
"That didn't burn you?" Beni asked, striding toward her.
"What?"
Her eyebrows drew together in confusion as she looked at her hands. She had forgotten to use potholders. Her hands did not sting though. Her fingers were not red or have burn marks on them either. She gasped when Beni seized her hands to pull them toward him so he could inspect them.
"There's no damage," he murmured, his fingers drifting her uninjured palms and down her fingers.
Her eye flickered to his face to see he was still staring at her fingers.
"What do you think this means? When I lost my pyrokinesis, I thought I lost my ability to withstand fire. Or even heal," she mumbled, looking back down at her hands.
"But when the phoenix was taken from you, the scars on your back healed and even the tattoo disappeared, right?"
"Yeah, it did but...what does this mean?" She curled her fingers into loose fists, holding her hands to her chest.
"I don't know what it means." He dropped her hands, turning his back to her. "But when we get back, you should find out. Talk to that resident mad scientist of yours."
"Viktor?"
"Yeah, him. See if he can figure it out. That's what he's there for right?"
"But he had already taken blood and performed all sorts of tests when I returned. It may mean nothing at all," she said followed by a dejected sigh.
"Well, he can take more blood and run more tests. He wasn't searching for anything specific at that time was he? Now he does have something to look for. Damn, when did you start giving up so easily? Once upon a time, nothing could stop you."
Maybe it hurt too much to hope. She opened the drawer to get the spoons, but paused to stare at her hands. If she developed some kind of healing or fireproof ability, she hoped it was something in her blood, something that could be harnessed and used to help others who were unpowered. If it was a healing factor, it could be used to heal people with a condition like tephrosis.
"Konro," she whispered.
"What?" Beni inquired.
He was standing so unexpectedly close to her when he spoke she nearly jumped out of her skin.
"Nothing," she snapped, grabbing the spoons and slamming the drawer closed.
"Whoo!" Uncle exclaimed when he entered the kitchen. "Oh, it smells delicious in here!"
"Come on in and sit down. The table is set and I'll get the drinks," Phoenix said.
Beni took a seat along with her aunt and uncle but kept his eyes on her while she scurried around the kitchen. She filled glasses with ice then placed them at each plate. Pitchers of cold water, tea, and lemonade were taken from the refrigerator and put on the table. Before sitting down, she took a loaf of homemade bread from the box on the counter to go with the hand churned butter already sitting on the table in a covered dish.
"You have cows too?" Beni asked, digging into the butter with the knife.
"We do. The animals are kept in enclosures behind the hay and corn fields on the other side of the road. If they escape and get into those fields, they're eating their own food anyway," Uncle said, ladling stew into a bowl before handing it to Phoenix. He extended his hand for Beni's bowl. "We're completely self-sufficient here. Myself along with the other farmers supply our village and the surrounding ones with food."
"In turn, they trade pottery, fine china, furniture, clothes...anything we need. We also get a few things brought in from far away on the train, but not often," Auntie added.
Phoenix traded glances with Beni.
Totally cut off from the rest of the world by choice. They're even proud of it, Beni thought, shaking his head.
"Something wrong, Beni?" Auntie asked, staring at him with wide, blinking eyes.
"No. Nothing at all," he lied through his gritted teeth.
He was withholding his words only to avoid creating friction with her family. Tomorrow he would leave, but she would be left here to deal with the nagging aunt. He didn't care what mean things the woman said about him, but he knew Phoenix would not want to hear them and that would cause an argument between her and her aunt.
"Are you coming back out to the fields with us, Beni?" her aunt asked while they were eating.
"Sure. I'm not afraid of hard work."
"That's good to hear." Turning her attention to her niece, she asked. "What do you do now as a fire soldier since you don't have pyrokinesis anymore, Phoenix? What good are you to them?"
Beni dropped his spoon with a clatter on to the plate where his piece of bread slathered with butter sat untouched. Phoenix placed her hand on his knee and squeezed to keep him in a sitting position. She could feel his thigh muscles bunching with the anticipation of leaping up from the chair. Tilting her head slightly so she could see him, she saw him place his hands on either side of the plate forming fists.
"We have an engineer on staff who is building a communications center for me. Phones. Computers. Multiple monitors. I will be able to take calls and send out the company. I can track their locations on maps on the computer. I can even watch their every move through cameras attached to their helmets. I will be the communications officer of Company Eight."
"Whoo wee! That's some pretty advanced technology. I thought I was special when I got a computer to do the books on and keep up with all of the employee records," Auntie said, poking at a potato in her stew with her spoon.
"Yeah. It's pretty amazing. There's some incredible people in Company Eight. Especially the Captain. He's unpowered to but he fights Infernals with no fear, never backing down. He's unbelievably strong and kind and supportive. He's like another father to me." She laughed lightly. "But he'd be mad if he heard me say that. He prefers to think of himself as a big brother so he doesn't feel old. He is barely into his thirties."
Phoenix glanced at Beni who was staring at her.
"I've been lucky. I've had the opportunity to meet some really great Captains who saw potential in me." Her eye slid over to her aunt. "They saw something I couldn't and believed in me. They helped me to feel proud of myself."
"Fifi, it's not that we weren't proud of you. We just didn't know what to do with you. With your power. And you were so angry," her uncle said.
"But you weren't proud of me, Uncle. Because of my fire ability, you were embarrassed. Ashamed. Even as a little kid I knew that. I internalized that and started to hate myself for having that damned thing so can you blame me for being angry? All those years, I believed it was my fault my mother died."
"But we never told you - " her aunt began.
Phoenix jumped up and slammed her fist down on the table.
"You didn't have to!" she yelled, sitting back down in her chair. "You never had to a say a thing. I could feel it from you. You resented me for killing your sister. And you told them I killed her. I saw it in the angry stares from everyone in the village when they would look at me. I heard the whispers, the gossip from them."
It was if all of the air had been sucked out of the room. It was hard to breathe.
"I'm sorry. I'm not hungry," Phoenix said, standing back up and placing her napkin on the table. "I'm going back out. There's work that needs to be done anyway."
"I'll come with you," Beni said, leaving his barely eaten stew behind.
Witnessing another uncomfortable family squabble had caused him to lose his appetite anyway. While she was putting on her shoes, he went out to the golf cart to wait for her.
"Before you even ask, no I'm not okay," she snapped, plopping down on the seat behind the wheel.
"I wasn't going to ask a question that had an obvious answer," he retorted, folding his arms across his chest. "What I am going to ask though is are you sure you want to stay here? You can leave with me in the morning. I will pay for getting your ticket changed."
"That's very tempting. I might just take you up on that offer. Dammit!" she yelled, punching the steering wheel. Tears of frustration streaking down her cheeks which she allowed to run free without trying to stop them. "I so wanted to enjoy seeing them again. To mend our relationship. Dammit!" She punched the wheel again, the thick rubber bouncing from the force of her fist. "It wasn't supposed to be this way."
"Glad to see you got your fire back," he said, nearly head butting the dash when she stomped on the brake with both feet. "Too soon?"
"Way too soon," she muttered, pressing on the pedal to holt forward and slam him back against the seat.
"Sometimes certain things just can't be fixed. They're broken beyond repair. Besides, you have a new family now. And I guess that still includes me and Konro and the twins," he begrudgingly added, seeing her whiplash inducing double take out of the corner of his eye. He was glad she had to watch where she was driving rather than staring at him.
"Do you mean that?" she sniffled.
"I'll yell at you and call you names if you make me say it twice," he warned her in absolute seriousness.
"Okay," she sniffed, wiping her face with the towel from her pocket. "I love you, Beni. But in a platonic, big brother sort of way so don't tell Shinra I said that."
"I wouldn't embarrass myself by telling anyone that."
Phoenix drove the cart back to the orange tree where she had been picking earlier. For a long moment, she did not move, gripping the steering wheel, and gazing off into the distance at nothing at all.
"Tell me something," Beni said, startling her out of her thoughts but she did not turn her head to look at him. "Were you lying about that fancy, hi tech dispatcher communication center?"
"No," she replied, leaning forward to rest her chin on the steering wheel. "Vulcan showed me the schematics. Lisa described the entire set up to me. Needless to say, right now it's just a plan. There's too much going on for him to work on it at this time. Things have gotten too intense with the White Clad to let up and risk letting them initiate their plan."
"I see. So it's pretty much a bribe to shut you up and keep you at the Fire Cathedral."
She snorted with self-derision, the lopsided smile staying on her face.
"Yeah, pretty much," she confirmed, sliding from the seat. "I'm more embarrassed than angry about it though. I don't feel like I'm a capable contributor to the team anymore. Like I'm just dead weight. But what other option do I have? Move back here?"
"Oh, hell no. When that system gets up and running, you'll be a vital part of the team."
Looking back over her shoulder at her Beni, she asked, "Until then, what am I? I'm a secretary who will be blindly listening to the radios while they go out to save the world. I'll be the janitor who stress cleans to occupy herself while waiting. I'll be the cook who prepares the food while they are stuck out on emergency calls for hours on end."
"And what's wrong with that?" he demanded, folding his arms across his chest. He glared at her with parental disapproval that she was accustomed to from her aunt and uncle. "You'll be doing vital work to take care of your colleagues. You'll be there to call for reinforcements should they need them. They will come home to food and clean beds when they are hungry and exhausted from putting Infernals to rest. You'll be the one who welcomes them home with a smile, thanking them for a job well done."
"Wow, Beni," she whispered, unable to find her voice through the tears clogging her throat. "Thank you."
When she moved toward him, he backed away with his arms extended, his hands held up in a stop gesture.
"You're not going to hug me are you?"
Phoenix laughed, a single loud blasting guffaw before covering her mouth with her hand to stifle it into a chortle. Clearing her throat and turning her nose up into the air, she pivoted on her foot to walk toward the tree.
"Well, I'm not going to hug you now, you asshole. You totally ruined the moment. Geez, it was just a hug," she muttered, the metal ladder clattering when she grabbed it and braced it violently against the tree.
"Hey, that tree did nothing wrong! It was you because you were about to get all weird and affectionate!" Beni yelled at her which made her start laughing again.
"Get over here and help me. I pick. You catch."
"Yeah, yeah, your Highness."