Title: Learning To Hunt

Chapter: Section 2

Fandom: The Tribe

Author: PinkTribeChick

Summary: Sometimes, love is just right under your nose . . .

Extended Summary: An alternate-universe Series 4 romance story, from the point of view of Pride, Jack, and an original female character.

Rating: Teen

Pairing: Jack-Original Female Fiction Character, Pride-Original Female Fiction Character, Jack-Ellie, and Bray-Amber, with a few mentions of other pairings.

Author's Notes: Massive thanks to Ariannya and Whit for their thoughts and proofreading on various sections over the years! Enjoy, and please review! Feedback is much appreciated!

Disclaimer: All characters, situations, and song lyrics remain the property of their respective owners. Any original characters are sole property of me, PinkTribeChick.

Learning To Hunt

Section 2

Liliana hurried into her bedroom. Samuel was standing up in his crib, wailing loudly. She walked over to him and picked him up.

"Shhh . . . it's okay, Samuel. Lili's here . . . Lili's here," she soothed. She held him close to her. He started sucking on him thumb, a sign that he was hungry. Liliana shifted him to her hip. "Let's go get you something to eat, shall we?" She walked back down the hallway to the kitchen. Samuel gurgled a little bit as they walked through the kitchen door. Jack was still sitting where he had been when Liliana left. He stood up as they entered the room.

"Well . . . hello again," he said softly, smiling.

"Hi," she responded. She smiled serenely at him. "Someone was feeling left out and wanted to meet you. Didn't you, munchkin?" She tickled Samuel's tummy, and he giggled.

"So this is Samuel?" Jack asked. The little boy in Liliana's arms had a headful of brown hair, darker than Liliana's, and the same bluish-gray eyes she possessed.

"Yes. This is my little brother Samuel. Samuel, this is Jack," she answered. "Actually, I think he's hungry. Could you hold him while I fix some food for him?"

"Sure," Jack agreed. He took Samuel from Liliana's arms. She walked over to the cabinet and opened it. Jack sat down again, holding Samuel in his lap. "So . . ."

"So . . . ," Liliana trailed off, walking over to the table. She filled a small bowl with cereal, and took Samuel from Jack, putting him in a wooden high-chair. She started to feed him.

"Do you really feel lost? 'Cause . . . I was starting to think I was the only one who felt that way anymore," Jack inquired, trying to pick up where they had left off earlier. She looked up at Jack with innocent eyes as she spooned some more cereal and fed it to Samuel.

"You don't think everyone in this world feels that way?" she replied.

"I guess they do . . . it's just most people wouldn't say so," he responded.

"Well, I'm not like most people," she said. "And I don't think you are either, otherwise you wouldn't have brought it up." Jack watched her carefully as she wiped some excess cereal from Samuel's mouth. She was so gentle about it, so motherly. He admired her for being able to keep going amidst so much discord. "It's just . . . well, I feel like I'm looking for something . . . like there's this piece of me missing, that up until recently I never knew was lost. It makes me feel like I'm just floundering, barely keeping my head above water. I hate that." It bothered her to talk about it, and he could see it in her eyes. His understanding gaze made her nervous, and she looked away.

"Do you ever feel trapped? I mean, trapped by your uncertainty? Like there's this big world out there, and it's yours for the taking, but you don't know what you want?" he asked. "Well . . . you thought you knew what you wanted, but it turned out to be total crap?"

"Yeah, I feel trapped. And I don't know what to believe in anymore. I don't even know what I wanted in the first place," she commented.

"That's exactly how I feel. Except, I knew what I wanted. And I had it. But it fell apart, all of it," he said. "Now I'm scrambling to try to get just a piece of it back. That feeling . . . my innocence about life."

"Sounds like you've lost your heart. Or misplaced it, perhaps?" she observed. She picked Samuel up out of the high-chair and cradled him in her arms, rocking him.

"I thought Ellie was my heart . . . but now I'm not so sure," Jack responded.

"Ellie?"

"My ex-girlfriend . . . I thought it would last forever, but it didn't. She left me for someone else after the Chosen were defeated," he said softly. "I'm such a dumbass. Here I am, moaning about a girl who doesn't give a damn about me now, when there are bigger problems in the world. Like Ebony taking over the city." Liliana reached out and put her right hand on top of his on the table. She smiled at him reassuringly.

"It's okay. Really. I know how you feel," she said. "It's nice having someone to talk to about this stuff for a change. No one around here really seems to understand how I feel."

"Well, what happened to you? And how do you deal with it?" he questioned, with an interested expression on his face.

"In a nutshell . . . shortly before the virus broke out, I fell in love with someone, and got my heart broken when I found out he didn't feel the same way. And then when my parents died . . . Samuel was born a month before the virus hit. With my parents gone, suddenly, I had to tend to an infant, which I had never done before. I was on my own for a while. It was hard, mourning my parents, nursing a broken heart, and caring for an infant and myself all at the same time. I never got any recovery time between any of them," she explained, a wistful look in her eyes.

"After about six months, I decided to take Samuel and leave the house I grew up in. We stumbled upon the Gaians a few days later. They took us in with open arms, especially Pride. But then, I knew Pride long before the virus. He's one of my closest friends. And after awhile, I realized that the only way I was going to make it through life, and to move past the pain, was to take life day by day, as it comes to me. Having to take care of someone beyond just myself helps a little bit. Only time can heal wounds of the heart . . . so I've heard." She smiled at Jack.

"Yeah, I've heard the same. But I'm not so sure I believe in it," he responded. "I don't think wounds of the heart ever heal. I think you just learn to ignore the aching as time passes." He looked at Samuel, who was fast asleep in Liliana's arms. "I think someone is down for the count." Liliana looked down at her sleeping brother and grinned.

"Well, I'm going to go put him to bed, and then try to get some sleep myself. I'll see you tomorrow," she said, standing up slowly.

"Yeah. You'll definitely see me. I'm not going anywhere any time soon," Jack said with a laugh. He looked down at his hands, both of them quiet momentarily.

"Well, thank you for the talk. I hope we'll have lots more of them. I'd like to get to know you better," she said bashfully.

"I'd like to get to know you better, too. And Samuel," he said, smiling. He stepped toward her, and they hugged awkwardly. She kissed him on the cheek.

"You haven't lost your heart, Jack. You've just grown afraid of letting people into it," she whispered. With that, she walked out of the room, leaving Jack standing there slightly amazed.

Please review – I'm eager to hear your thoughts! And thanks for reading!