Title: Learning To Hunt
Chapter: Liliana's Journal
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
Liliana's Journal
10/9
I want to find someone to love. I want to feel that safe with someone, to know for once in my life that there is someone I can totally count on. That Samuel and I can count on. A soulmate. I can't spend the rest of my life with an endless string of guys, one after another, when I have a son to raise. And I can't keep living in the past either. Life goes on, and I have to go with it. But with such a large secret to still hide, it's hard. And with Samuel's father, who I still love so much, so nearby, the secrets I hide are like someone suffocating me with a pillow. And they haunt me like a ghost.
My parents weren't exactly supportive when I told them I was pregnant. We were so close, and I assumed they would be there for me, as they always were. I took their buttressing of me for granted. Instead, I was shipped off to my grandmother's until I gave birth, my parents coming up with a lame exchange student program excuse to cover my absence. My father never said much about it, but I know he was disappointed and hurt. I remember walking past the upstairs bathroom the morning after I told them, and even though the door was shut, I could hear him crying while he shaved. I don't think any other sound has made my heart ache more than that one. I just remember going into my room after that, curling up in a ball on my bed and crying.
I guess it didn't help that I wouldn't tell them who Samuel's father was. But how do you tell you parents something like that? "Hey, Mom and Dad, the father of my child is our next-door neighbor, Pride, the boy I've been best friends with since I was five. I love him, but he doesn't remember sleeping with me at Deirdre's party. Could you please pass the peas?" It was hard enough telling them about the baby to start with, I wasn't about to drag Pride into it. I still can't help thinking that on some level, my mother knew it was Pride. She just knew me too well.
So, my parents shipped me off to Ge-ge's when I needed them most. Treated me like I had the plague. And then welcome my son with open arms, adopting him, and acting as though nothing had changed between them and me. How utterly hypocritical.
To this day, I don't know whether to be angry, hurt, or indifferent about how they treated me. It's almost like a martini - a mixture of the three, shaken well to blend together, each popping up depending on how much I feel it at the time. They never apologized to me for sending me away, even when they knew they were dying from the virus. And as cold and heartless as it sounds, I never actually cried when they finally did die. I never even felt hurt about it. I had grieved for them long before the virus hit, when I was at Ge-ge's. And suddenly, I was faced with a new reality: raising an infant alone in a world devoid of adults.
I must confess, when my parents decided to adopt Samuel so I could finish school and lead a normal life without anyone ever knowing he was mine, I was relieved. I was unprepared to take care of a baby, and even while I was pregnant, I never really allowed it to sink in. I never really allowed myself to love the child I carried. I didn't want to be a mother. I was glad to be free of the burden. It was two weeks after Samuel was born when the virus first hit. My parents took complete care of him, and I chose to stay away from him as much as possible. It was easier that way. But within another two weeks, whether I liked it or not, Samuel was thrust into my arms and I was forced to be a mother. And once I took a good look at him and held him in my arms for the first time, I was gone. I couldn't help but love him.
A perfect baby boy, with Pride's dark hair and cute smile, and my eyes. He was so sweet and innocent. He counted on me. I couldn't let him down. I had no clue what I was doing, but I kept going for Samuel's sake.
The first several months were hard, with no adults, no one to help me if something went wrong. Pride left after two months, begging me to come with him. But the wild chaos of the city and countryside were no place for a baby. So I stayed put, as hard as it was. I was so scared, and I watched over my son like a hawk. Eventually, we started to run out of food, and had to leave, journeying into the countryside. That's when we found Pride again, by a stroke of luck.
Pride is possibly the most wonderful person I know. He's so strong and intelligent. He's taught me so much about life and myself, and he is so much a part of me. I have this incredible bond with him that is just so hard to put into words. We're so much alike, so in tune with each other on every possible level. It's to the point that often times one of us can tell what the other is thnking without anything ever being said. We've been that way since the first day we met, when his family moved in next door. It's the kind of bond that has become increasingly rare in our world.
I won't go into the particulars of how Pride and I ended up sleeping together or anything. Just the aftermath of feelings. When I realized he didn't remember, I kept him at arm's length from then on. I stopped confiding in him, often times ignoring his attempts to make conversation or find out why I was so distant. I know it wasn't the nicest thing to do, but at the time, I hated him. I hated him for forgetting something so special, I hated him for his blindness to my affections, I hated him for ripping my heart out unknowingly. And I hated that there was a part of him growing inside me, with our son. So in the weeks before I left for Ge-ge's, I pushed him as far away as I could.
I seriously wonder if it is possible for anyone to be as daft as Pride. I thought for sure he would have figured things out a long time ago. That Samuel is my son . . . his son. And that I love him more than life itself . . . I don't know if he's my soulmate, though.
But now there's Jack. And Jack is great. He and I connect on a level that I have been unable to connect on with anyone else so far. He knows how it feels to be lost, to feel abandoned. He, too, is haunted by the past. And we are both looking for the missing piece in each of us: our hearts. He and I are just a couple of heartbroken saps intrigued by each other. Heartbroken saps mending together by falling in love.
10/10
I'm starting to wonder if I know what love really is anymore. I thought my parents loved me, but they shipped me off to Ge-ge's when they couldn't deal with my mistake (Samuel's not a mistake - just getting pregnant so young was). Pride tells me he loves me all the time(as a friend - which is annoying and depressing at the same time), but he can't remember sleeping wiht me, which was the single most incredible, remarkable event of my life, if not his as well. And I don't really have anyone else, other than Samuel. And he'll love me no matter what, because I'm Mommy. As reassuring as that is, he's just one tiny person. And it's not the same kind of love as what I feel for Pride.
I guess with all that I've gone through, it shouldn't be too surprising that my idea of love is fuzzy. I was adopted the day I was born, much the same way as Samuel was. I never met my real mother, and I know little of her, aside from the fact that her name was Jillian, and that she picked out my name - Liliana Sabienne. That's it. Finding out more would be next to impossible now.
I think that's part of my problem. Not just that I don't know what love is, but that I have no idea who I am. I don't know where I come from, or what my real mother and father were like. I don't know who Samuel and I got our blue-gray eyes from. I don't know where I got my love of jazz music from - because it certainly wasn't my adoptive parents. And now, I guess you could say I've lost two sets of parents in my lifetime, instead of just one. That thought kind of overwhelms me at times.
10/11
Do you ever wish that you could spend one day being completely self-centered, without any consequences, any other cares? I do. There are times when I really want to just walk away from my life. Leave it all behind. Samuel, Pride, Jack, the Gaians. Live alone on the beach and answer to no one but myself. But that's not possible.
I love Jack so much . . . I think. He's so sweet. The other day, I was outside helping the other girls in the garden, and Jack was working on something inside, with the lanterns, I think. And he heard Samuel wake up crying, so he went and picked him up, held him until he quieted down. When I found them, Jack was sitting in a chair in the kitchen with Samuel in his arms. They were both fast asleep. A true Kodak moment if I ever saw one. If there were cameras and film available nowadays.
Pride didn't seem too happy about it. He snatched Samuel out of Jack's arms and took him to his crib. He's been acting so strangely the past several days. Every time he looks at me, he has this dumb grin on his face and a twinkle in his eye, as though he knows some secret to life that he's just not sharing with the rest of us. And he's suddenly ignoring May, who he seemed to care so deeply about, out of the blue. I feel so badly for her. He's really hurting her, and I know how exactly how it feels. But it isn't like him to be so intentionally insensitve toward another person's feelings. I've tried talking to him about it, but he gets that stupid expression on his face, and it's as if he just forgets to listen. So I went to Amber. She wouldn't tell me what was going on, but I could tell she knew. She got all uncomfortable and tried to change the subject, asking me how Jack and Samuel were. Is that not completely weird? Suddenly, I can't trust two of my closest friends to be honest with me. What's going on here? Am I just being completely daft and not seeing something? Well, atleast I have Jack, and he listens to me. He would never lie to me, and that's a comfort for right now.
The final chapter will be the blurb I wrote for a possible sequel.