Thank you so much to Guest reviewer Caroline Starr- your review was so appreciated you have no idea! It urged me to get this chapter sorted and uploaded ASAP!
The next one shot is likely to take a bit of a sillier turn... because I do love silliness.
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It took Tarzan weeks before he showed me the treehouse. When I'd made the choice to stay I had thought it would go on as before, but with Tarzan spending more time at the camp with Father and I.
As Tarzan took leadership of the family, I saw increasingly less of him. My father threw himself into the building of his camp and sorting out his research lab, while I studied the Gorilla colony, sketchbook in hand. One moment he'd be keeping guard on the family, the next he'd be gone and no one seemed to know where, though Kala would get a faraway look in her eyes and avoid the others until he returned.
I'd tried to follow him once or twice, but he was just too quick, and too well versed in the way of the jungle. I would lose my way and end up wandering aimlessly in circles until I found my way back. And Tarzan would look up, smile at me, and I'd feel rotten for even thinking of invading his privacy that way. Of course, I never got the chance to ask him, as he slept with the family, and I with my father.
It was during one of these episodes of his that I found myself sought out by Kala herself. My Gorilla was still weak, but she simply sat down beside me and began grooming me gloomily. "You know where he goes, don't you Kala." I sighed, mostly to myself, and turned slightly on my haunches to face Tarzan's mother. She looked down at my voluminous yellow skirt and stroked it gently. I studied her face carefully. "Where did Tarzan get that suit?"
The large ape seemed to smile at me knowingly, and tapped my nose very gently, very affectionately.
"Can you show me?" I grunted, in Tarzan's native tongue. Whenever I tried to speak Gorilla, Kala would give me the most gently amused look I'd ever seen on an ape. My accent must be ridiculous, but that might have something to do with the ingrained reluctance to twist my face the way the apes did.
My shyness aside, Kala cooed at me reassuringly and nudged my cheek with her nose, every inch the mother figure. "I can't." She told me, and looked up as Tarzan hopped onto the branch above us.
"Hello." He smiled at me, a little goofily, and glanced at his mother, grunting something too quick for me to catch. She cooed back to him soothingly, and I blinked as his smile dropped and he slung himself around to hang from the tree bough with one hand. He lowered his voice and said something with a negative in it to Kala, before glancing back up at me. "Jane, lets go swimming." with a cheeky chappie grin and big wide eyes.
I grimaced. How on earth was I supposed to resist that? I was sure he knew just how to manipulate me as he wanted and this whole innocence and naivete game was just that- a game. "Oh, all right then." I muttered, and he held his free hand out to me. I managed a defeated eye roll at Kala before I was swept up into the trees after the wild man of the African jungle.
Lovely.
I always thought the logistics of this were a bit silly- surely it would be easier for Tarzan if I was on his back? But was we swung between the trees, with me held insistently against his chest, I reluctantly had to admit that this was probably the most... ahem... comfortable option. "I can swing a little by myself you know." I mumbled, and Tarzan laughed, but didn't respond.
.
I was stood beneath the waterfall in my slip, rubbing at some of the dirt on my hands as Tarzan bounded happily about on the rocks. Silly of me really, seeing as I'd only get dirty again within the hour, but nevertheless I scrubbed away.
"Jane." Tarzan called, and I looked up without thinking, only to get a faceful of water as he splashed me and swam away, chittering gleefully.
Smirking, I swept my hair out of my face and dove after him, hellbent on revenge. Lane Porter did come first in the annual school swimming gala for nothing, you know! I chased him through the pool, laughing joyously as he wove about me beneath the surface.
He emerged from the water and without thinking I threw myself onto his back, wrapping my lags around his torso and one arm about his neck, reaching up with the other one to scruff his hair playfully.
"Take that- argh!" I screamed as he suddenly clambered out of the water with me still clinging desperately to his back. "T-Tarzaaaaaan!" He scaled the rock face beside the waterfall with irritating ease and was off, speeding through the jungle leaving... leaving my clothes behind us at the waterfall.
Fan-bleeding-tastic.
It was a considerable distance that we covered this way, with me clinging to Tarzan's back with my eyes wide open, shrieking every now and then as we came particularly close to a pointy bit of tree.
"Where are we going?!" I demanded, though it came out as more of a plea. "Tarzan?"
"Jane wants to know where Tarzan goes." He said, simply, and flashed me a dazzling smile. I blinked, and grimaced.
"Kala told you."
"Of course."
Of course. The gorillas had no secrets, and no sense of dignity the way I did. I was maintaining careful aloofness (as much aloofness as can be had after giving up one's whole life to be with someone else) by trying not to complain, or let it bother me. But then... "So... if I'd asked..."
"If Jane wants to know, Tarzan will show Jane."
Good lord it really was that simple.
What on earth had I been thinking? Tarzan wasn't used to the games of society, wherein one danced about the subject in an attempt to glean as much information as possible without expressing interest... Tarzan lived in a world where you asked if you wanted to know, and if you wanted to know then you were told.
I smiled softly, and wound myself about him a little tighter.
He set me down at the edge of the jungle, and I felt the cool sea breeze before it registered where we were. "Good God..." I breathed, staring up at the immense structure before me. It was a big strong tree, set on a stack, set a little way from the jungle's coastline. A thing, worn rope bridge connected it to the mainland and up in its boughs...
"Oh my goodness." I whispered, slipping down to the earth but keeping one steadying hand on Tarzan's shoulder. "What is this?" It looked like a ship had been hauled up into the tree and adapted into some sort of home. It was certainly a strategically sound position- not in the middle of the jungle where danger could come from all sides, but seperate to it, so that there was only one point of entry... Rather like a castle, surrounded by a moat.
"This is where my mother found me." Tarzan said softly, and guided me across the bridge. I tried to ignore the groaning of the wood beneath my feet and gripped the rope either side of me tightly as we crossed. The breeze nipped at my wet skin and I shivered as I looked up at the incredible feat of engineering in front of me.
"So... this is where your human parents lived?" I paused, and turned to face Tarzan in wonder. "Were there no others?"
He shook his head, no, and I looked back to the treehouse with wide eyes. One man and woman had achieved this, in the middle of the jungle, with a baby to look after. No wonder Tarzan was so resilient- he must come from good stock.
I swallowed the question 'what happened to them?' and crossed the rest of the bridge to stand at the base of the massive old tree. Reaching out, I ran my hand across its bark and had to clench my eyes shut to fight the wave of emotion. How long ago did they lose their lives? How did they succumb to the jungle?
Would Daddy and I meet the same fate?
No. I shook the thought from my mind. Tarzan's parents- whoever they were -didn't have what we had. We had the family behind us.
"Come." Tarzan smiled, and I took his hand, allowing him to guide me into a small rowing boat- an old lifeboat. I stood nervously inside and he gestured for me to sit. Hopping in beside me, he took hold of a rope and pulled, giving the boat a violent jerk as it lifted up off of the ground. Startled, I gasped and grabbed the side of the boat, watching as with each determined tug of the rope we rose a little higher off the ground.
"Oh... oh my goodness." I muttered, staring out at the jungle. "A pulley system! Extraordinary, Tarzan!" I grinned at him and he smiled sheepishly before looping the rope around a branch and lifting me out onto the bow of the boat... or, rather, the balcony of the treehouse.
From here you could see the top of the jungle spread out to the horizon like a thick, lush green carpet. Birdsong I'd never heard before warbled gently through the air and the ocean stretched ever further beyond my fathoming.
Feeling Tarzan hand creep into mine, I turned and lifted a hand to his face, suddenly feeling that I had no right at all to be here, to ask him to bring me here. "Tarzan, I'm so sorry." I gripped his hand tight. "I shouldn't have forced my way into this- it's not my right."
He looked so confused, and pulled me insistently through the door. "For Jane." He stated simply, and I felt like a first class fool.
The inside of the treehouse was immaculate. There must have been all sorts of plants growing here over the years but the floors were bare, the furniture upright, albeit broken, and pictures hung on the wall. There was even a carriage clock on a chest of drawers.
He'd been cleaning it, preparing it to be inhabited once again.
"Jane lives inside." Tarzan smiled, leaning in and nuzzling my neck. "Like in the book-pictures."
"Oh, Tarzan." I gasped, ignoring the little chill that ran down my spine with him in such close proximity. "Are you sure?"
"Jane likes it?"
"Oh yes, I like it so very much." I breathed, disentangling myself from his grip and stepping forward to look around. "This is incredible... but." I spun to face him again, wringing my hands nervously. "Will you stay here too?"
"Of course." He grinned. "New nest."
While this opened up a whole new realm of problems and technicalities in theory, I couldn't stop myself from grinning back at him and allowing him to pull me from room to room, eager to show me more of his hard work and absolutely oblivious to the implications that living together meant to civilized society.
Well, I suppose I didn't need to worry about it just yet. Not until Father found out anyway.