Note: I'd like to thank all my awesome, awesome, awesome reviewers, and say that I'm quite interested on your opinions of the characters so far. Skye is popular, isn't he? And Trent…poor Trent, he's got no love from y'all! Shame on you. xD Kidding. Mostly. But I love all the characters in this fic, and I've been running it by a friend who's outside of ff (you know, to save it from NaNo speeding –sigh-) and it's funny, because she loves Trent and Claire the most in it. But she's read ahead, so eh. Anyway. Shutting up.
Another Note: To those of you who have not played Magical Melody: this transition will be as painless as possible. Any vagueness, let me know, and I'll clarify. :D
Chapter Three: Welcome
Don't admit you're scared. Keep the status quo, Gwen, keep him just where he is.
The blonde's chest heaved up and down with short terrified breaths, but her eyes were hard, accusing. "Well? What are you doing here?" she snapped again, nudging the intruder with the broom. "C'mon, dammit, I want answers out of you!"
"Calm down, beautiful. I'm not going to do anything."
A shaft of moonlight hit him just enough to reveal his piercing blue eyes and the remarkable shade of his hair—the color of moonbeams. There was a decided air to his movement as he eased himself upright; his arms were held high in arrest, but his face was remarkably cool and collected. "D-don't you talk to me like that!" the girl demanded. "You—you crook!"
"I don't think I've stolen anything of yours, pretty miss," he replied easily.
"You were about to, though. Don't think I didn't see you."
"Well." He shrugged. "I didn't. No harm done."
Where on earth was that uncle of hers when she needed him—? Oh, that's right: he'd chosen tonight, of all nights, to spend with Duke at the Moonlight Café. Wonderful, leaving a vulnerable and pretty young niece all alone in this Inn. Great. Gwen swore she wouldn't have heard of such a thing in the city.
And thieves aren't heard of in tiny villages.
"Who are you?" Gwen tried instead. "Tell me, or I'll clock you in the head, you creep. I won't hesitate."
"Am I fighting back?" he stated flatly. Sighing, the stranger's eyes centered in on the food Gwen had left on the table mere minutes before; the kitchen had been an empty place then, kind of chilly, and she'd just wanted a midnight snack for some comfort. Or, at least, the comforting aroma of one. "I just smelled this curry. I came to see if I could have any."
"You mean you broke in, crawled on all fours, and tried to steal it?"
"What can I say? I was hungry."
Gwen didn't know why, but she was disappointed by this answer. Stealing curry? What kind of thief bothered with stealing curry? Unconsciously, the handle lowered in her hands, and she studied the man further.
For what it was worth, he wasn't hard on the eyes. A little sullen, maybe, and there was a good chance he'd been a dreadful flirt, too, once, but right now he seemed harmless enough. Seemed, Gwen repeated inwardly to herself. Looks are deceiving.
"You never said who you were," she reminded him. "Why are you here in Flowerbud, anyway? I've never seen you before."
"My name?" Something clouded his gaze—just for a moment—and Gwen's ruby eyes tried to pick out what exactly made his reply so reluctant. Guilt? Regret? Mischief? "Call me Steiner. And may I ask, lovely maiden, what your name might be?"
"None of your business," Gwen retorted. "What, don't you think I know better than that? You, a stranger, prowling about in the dead of night in a girl's home while she's alone?"
"I wanted curry, and you know my name now. We're not strangers." He chuckled. "At least, we wouldn't be, if you just told me your name."
What the hell? She had him cornered, with a broom, and he was flirting with her? After trying to steal curry, of all things? "You…what am I going to do about you?" she groaned. "When my uncle gets here, thief—!"
"Steiner. I told you my name; use it." Seeming bored, 'Steiner' sat himself down at her counter and, to Gwen's disbelief, poked the curry with her fork. "Mind if I take a bite? I haven't eaten in days."
"What? Not enough restaurants around for you to rob?"
His eyes narrowed, and this handsome stranger crossed his arms before saying, "If you must know, my wife has left me, and now I'm trying to find a place to stay with my baby girl. So, no, I've just been traveling a very long way on foot, with very heavy, very precious cargo."
"Your…baby?"
"Yes. My baby daughter. If you don't believe me, I'll gladly carry her over to prove it."
The broom fell from Gwen's hands. Oh, God. She blushed, his expression patient and calm, while hers was blood red. "Um… Want anything besides the curry, then? We've got some warm milk, i-if the baby wants it."
Skye smiled. Like taking candy from a baby.
Villagers were all the same: trusting, sentimental, cooking fools. Oh, to be sure, when that cook had caught him, Skye could've just used his chick-beam on her innocent feminine charms. But he couldn't rely on it, not now. So with a few silky smooth words, and a baby's guileless smile, that girl—Gwen, she'd said her name was—had been easily convinced to find them a room and give them a meal.
"My uncle won't mind," she'd insisted. "Business has been slow, and we'd have to be heartless to turn down a starving baby and her daddy, y'know?"
Skye had politely protested just enough for her to beg once more, and then he agreed that yes, this would be perfect: for the baby's sake. "What's her name?" Gwen had asked, and, with another pause, Skye had answered, "Claire. Her name is Claire."
The smell of their room was musty, filled with the dust of new carpentry and the starchy smell of brand-new sheets. He'd asked innocent questions: was there a TV, did they get the news all the way out here—really, everything was local? How different! The chances of his story—Skye's story, not Steiner's—spreading to this hick cable-less town was laughable.
As was the idea of a kidnapping all the way in Forget-Me-Not.
"I'm sorry about treating you like that, I really am," Gwen apologized. An extra pillow was tucked under her arm for baby Claire's head, and the cook poked her head through the door to see Steiner stretching on the bed, fully awake. "But you have to understand, in need or not, you were breaking in and scaring the hell out of me. What was I supposed to do?"
"Oh, I understand completely," Steiner assured her. "It's your job. What kind of beautiful innkeeper would you be if you let thieves crawl around here at will?"
"I'm actually just the cook," she admitted. She plopped herself beside him on the bed and smiled. "My uncle, Doug, is the innkeeper. He's a good guy, though. I'm pretty sure he'll let you stay until you find a place to live. He'd be glad to work something out, I'm sure."
"You're a saint, darling." His words had an easy effect on her; Gwen's cheeks would color in some sort of embarrassment or indignant pride. Skye surveyed this new specimen of woman: ah, he'd always been a sucker for blondes, and this one was no exception. She'd tossed her silky locks in a hurried ponytail, but even that managed to showcase her beauty, and those eyes!—so fiery and red, like jewels. And what man wouldn't mind admiring her figure? The more beautiful, usually, the more difficult it was to penetrate their defenses. But Gwen? Oh, Gwen was crumbling easily enough.
Too simple. Too easy.
"Oh, this is completely abysmal," Gwen laughed, shaking her head. "Did you do this?"
Bristling, Skye turned to protest, when he saw just exactly what the girl was doing. "Oh. I'm afraid I haven't had much practice changing diapers. Claire's mother used to do that."
"I can tell. What is this—there's knots everywhere!" Chuckling, Gwen's fingers worked at the mess of cloth as Claire squirmed beneath her. "How long were you going to let her suffer like this?"
"She's not suffering," Skye scoffed.
"Uh-huh. You'd like to wear something like this for so long?" His answer silent, Gwen lifted her hand expectantly. "Fetch me some fabric from the storage-room. I can tie her a new diaper with it."
Part of Skye woke up in alarm; leaving Claire's baby alone with anyone tended to do that to him, he'd noticed. But then he surveyed Gwen's eyes—teasing, gentle—and saw the fight wasn't worth it. Besides, her request made sense, didn't it?
"And there we go," Gwen announced, their combined efforts creating a brand new diaper. "Now your daddy has no excuse for cleaning you up so horribly, okay?"
"You handle babies often, then?" Skye answered flatly. Was it odd to be jealous of something as menial as this—a cooking girl's knowledge of child-raising?
"Not often enough." Gwen smiled. "The last one came a year ago, and left after a season with her parents. Actually…" The blonde's eyes darted from Skye to the child, and she bit her lip. "Can I…hold her?"
Skye blinked. "What?"
"Baby Claire," Gwen murmured—was she blushing? "I just—I haven't held a baby in so long. Could I? Please?"
No. That answer was the first to spring to his lips, but he bit it back immediately. "I'm sure Claire wouldn't mind," Skye let slip instead, and held himself back as he saw Claire's beautiful baby cradled in someone's arms besides his own. That cook girl seemed happy enough, grinning like girls always do when they're met with a pair of sparkling new eyes. Damn it, Skye, relax. You need her to trust you.
"She's beautiful," Gwen exclaimed, and Skye laughed.
"You should see her mother," he replied, but even as he spoke the words, Skye knew he was seeing a woman different than the one he had loved—one now lying in the arms of another man.
Her loss. Her mistake.
Once upon a yesterday, the worst part of Claire's day was working the field. She'd let out a sigh of relief at the sight of her satisfied plants, all ripe and green and proud, before skipping inside the house to shower off all the sweat and dirt. Trent would be at work, and Willow would be waking, ready to see the world from her mother's arms.
"Do you see her? Over there—can you believe she's out and about?"
"Where?"
"That way. No, that way. Look, I'm not going to point—"
"Oh!"
Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.
If you smile long enough, your mouth begins to twitch. Yet while walking across the village path, the farmer somehow managed to keep her mouth in a curved line, cutting through her neighbors like a knife. It's funny, the effect calamity has on people; they don't mind staring and pitying from afar, but they can't come close to you for fear they'll catch your misery like a disease.
Ignore. Ignore.
When she gets home, Trent will be there, give or take a few hours. She could snuggle up on the bed and let the record player run, playing the same sweet song over and over again as she stayed up for him so she could cling to his professional white coat and reassuring presence.
Waiting had been the cost of marrying him, hadn't it?
Claire hadn't minded that, not really. Before their marriage, she'd been lucky to catch a glimpse of him once a week, but oh, what girl didn't fall for a handsome man from med school? Yes, he'd wanted her to leave with him for Mineral Town, but they'd worked that out, hadn't they? He'd stayed.
Mostly.
Rummaging about, Claire brought out a single, slender fishing pole and tossed it into the river before her. Too cloudy today to see her face in its ripples, she noted with a sigh, and far too shadowy to make out the slippery figures of fish lurking in its depths. She was content to stand still and alone, dead as stone, until something pulled her forward—something alive.
Her father had taught her how to fish, long ago. He'd taken her to the muddy creek out behind their house and, for once, held her hand without a glove or the touch of a cuff on his sleeve. In his grungy clothes, he became something human, something nature accepted. To be honest, she hadn't liked the fishing at first. Claire had first fallen in love with the sound of her father's proud crow at her first catch, and the rough touch of his hands against her own.
She wondered, briefly, if Trent had ever held a fishing pole over a stream. A wry grin tugged at her lips at the image; no, probably not. She imagined his scholarly face washed over with joy at the perfect catch, laughing as he held a wriggling fish in hand before a delighted, grinning little girl.
"She looks so sad and alone standing there. I could never handle that, I just couldn't. Poor Claire."
But for a moment, she isn't Claire anymore. She's one with nature, a fragment of a memory she knows she deserves to someday have.
And she will. Oh, if she has any say in it at all, she will.
"Good morning, Doctor Trent."
Even for Elli, the greeting was a bit chipper than usual, and the doctor caught himself raising an eyebrow as he nodded in response. "Morning."
As always, he walked on over to his examination table, and as always, Elli retreated to her place behind the counter. She bit her lip and glanced at him once more. "Um, Doctor?"
"Yes?"
A pause. "Nothing."
She could have asked him how his wife was faring, whether they'd heard anything about the baby, if Skye had been caught. She could have said sorry, asked him why he was here when he clearly needed to be home—offered to be a shoulder to cry on, even.
"Elli? Where are those papers on Lillia from the other day?"
But Elli was his nurse, and right now, that was all Trent really wanted her to be.
She'd been in Forget-Me-Not before, long ago. Maybe not so long, if she was being brutally honest with herself, but Detective Stone made a point of pushing her past journeys as far back into the recesses of her mind as possible.
It was maddening, almost: the legal laws in this region. Everything seemed so effortless; you steal, you wind up in jail at the victim's request. You kill, you're sent to the city for proper punishment. You kidnap…and then what?
Then you file a missing person's report, and Detective Stone winds up in the middle of nowhere, a phone call away from turning this idyllic paradise upside-down with federal agents and high-tech machinery.
The mayor had pleaded against it, which was the only reason she'd been called instead of the entire enchilada of federal alphabet soups. The case sounded simple from his mouth—a little too simple. He'd sat her down at the Inn with his son (the officer she recognized as the amateur who'd written the report) and, over coffee, explained that they had a primary suspect, someone known for petty theft, who had written a note warning his crime.
It was in her gloved hands now: Fair maiden, I shall steal your heart this very night.
"Crime of passion," Detective Stone muttered to herself. There were no photos of either baby Willow or the suspect Skye, but she'd been given what was supposed to be an accurate portrait of both, courtesy of the bizarre artist down the way. She already had the documents about the parents: squeaky clean doctor from the next town over, and architect-turned-farmgirl via inheritance. Obviously, something had happened between Skye and the mother; what it was could be as simple as a spurned boyfriend, or as complex as…well. The detective had seen quite a few scenarios more complex than that.
Well, if the mayor wanted things to go low-key, she would grant him that. From what she'd been told, there was no reason to suggest the child was in immediate danger; Skye was a thief, yes, but he'd had yet to be convicted for any violent behavior, and to be honest, there was no reason besides this note to suggest the child had even been kidnapped. Yet she'd investigate this criminal all the same. There was no way for Skye to get far either, not with the nearest airport a whole state line away and the automobiles on the road nonexistent. All he had available to him was going by foot in this area, or sailing on the sea—and no one had seen any such ship while on vigilant watch. Others more capable than Detective Stone were already searching the region up and down.
God, it hadn't changed at all, had it?
Detective Stone looked about her once more, her blue eyes calculating, and couldn't help but marvel at how the village had maintained its fairytale feel, how the Inn was still right there with its faded yellow walls, and how maybe, during this whole ordeal, she might see a familiar face, or…
"Nami?!"
Or a familiar face might see her.