A/N: This is one of the longer pieces I have. Yes, ohayou/Zmeyette, I'm still waiting for the Abe x Janine fic you promised. Hah. :)
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Title: Missing
Perspective: Abe Mazur
Summary: Abe receives an unexpected call from someone.
"Sir, there is a phone call for you." Khalid handed me a silver cellphone.
"I told you, no phone calls today." I growled. Ignorant fool.
"She told me it was an emergency and that you would regret it if you don't take the call." He explained weakly. "I'll tell her you can't be disturbed…"
She? I narrowed my eyes at him, then at the cell phone. A woman. There is no woman in the world who would have the audacity to call me like this. Except for one.
I stretched out my hand. "I'll take it."
Khalid quickly masked his astonished face and handed the phone to me. He melted to the exit unobtrusively.
"Janine."
"Abe." Relief was evident in her tone. Janine Hathaway worried? She was never worried. She was always cool, calm and collected even in the gravest of situations.
"What's wrong?"
Pause.
"It's Rose. Something happened."
The urgency in her voice made me grip the phone tighter.
Janine was struggling to compose herself. "She dropped out of school this morning and took off on her own."
I closed my eyes. "Did she."
"I'm worried. Really… worried. I wouldn't call if—"
"Is this connected with what happened to the school? I thought you said she was safe—"
"No harm ever came to her during the attack, you know this," she said sharply.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Of course. It was a careless thing to say, forgive me." My daughter is missing. It was as if the ground shifted and I lost my hold on it. "Why would she leave?"
"All I know is that Rose was terribly upset when her mentor died during the rescue attempt we did. After that—"
"Mentor?"
"Dimitri Belikov. He was… turned." she paused. "Rose took it very hard."
I leaned back on my chair and pulled the topmost desk drawer. Rose's carelessly laughing face was frozen on the photograph. It was hard to imagine her not smiling. Let alone devastated and hurt.
Rose was far from weak, and she certainly didn't need me in her life all these past years.
Except now, the thought came unbidden.
Janine broke our silence first. "I know I told you to stay away but—"
"She is still my daughter." I stood up and faced the window, mentally running through my head all the resources I needed. "No matter how hard you try to pretend otherwise."
I couldn't resist making that last jab. She never knew how it affected me—that she wanted me to have nothing to do with her and our daughter. Even then I could not deny her anything.
"Abe…" I heard her soft, slightly exasperated sigh. Janine sounded so young over the phone. "I think this phone call just proves that wrong, doesn't it?"
A beat of silence followed after that.
I finally asked, though I know she would not be pleased with my uncharacteristic display of concern. She understood a lot of dark facets about me, but not… this.
"Are you alright?"
Janine didn't answer right away. From experience, she hated when I asked her that—made he feel weak, she told me. Yet I couldn't help it. Janine was a warrior, yes, but she was also a mother. I had to know.
I heard her take a deep breath at the other end of the line, a thousand miles away from me.
"Just find her, Abe." she whispered. And before I could say anything else, the line went dead.
I have to find my daughter.
A/N: Ah, parents. Sometimes we hate them, but sometimes we also forget that they're human too. And they worry about us whether we like it or not. :)
Also, I need to see more canon Abe x Janine moments in FFn! Who's with me?