Maleya was shocked awake by the sound of the front door closing. She sat up suddenly, her memories of the brief dream she was having slipping further and further away from her. The only thing she remembered was: Why was the tooth fairy here when no one had lost a tooth?
"Daddy!" Came David's greeting and Maleya winced, waiting for the onslaught of her headache, but was relieved when nothing came. Relaxing, she opened her eyes. The room had become significantly darker and warmer since she'd gone to sleep.
"Hey, kiddo!" her father's deep voice grumbled in response. Maleya turned to watch him scooping David off the ground and high into the air, enveloping him in a giant bear hug. "How was your day?" he asked, and David grinned.
"We won at soccer practice today!" David boasted proudly and received a good hair-ruffling from his dad.
"Oh, you did, huh? And I guess you did all the hard work?"
"Well, it was a team effort…" David said rather humbly.
"That's a good boy. Acknowledging your team like that. But, I'm sure they couldn't have done it without you!" Maleya's father's voice hitched a bit as he bent down to put his son back on the ground. His suitcase had barely touched the ground before David had run to him.
She eyed him over. He looked quite tired.
"Hey, dad. How was your day?" Maleya chimed in, and he smiled a greeting at her.
"Stressful, but I got a lot of stuff done," he nodded, taking off his jacket and proceeding to the couch she was sitting on. "And how about you, cupcake?" he asked, ruffling her hair as well. She laughed.
"I've felt horrible all day," she admitted. "So… peachy?"
"That bad, huh?" he said, his eyes narrowing slightly with concern. "Maybe you should take the day off tomorrow?"
"Was planning to," she said meekly, smiling up at him. "Don't think I can handle another calculus class in that state." She watched him eye her for a minute. She knew he was taking in her paler features and feverish burn on her cheeks. He was really concerned with her, and it made her feel happy. She had a great dad and she was grateful for that.
"Well, mom's going to be working late, but I figure I can take over playing with David," he announced, giving his son a big grin. "Since your sister was doing such a good job, dozing off and all."
"Sorry…" she replied sheepishly, but he just laughed.
"No worries. So what were you watching David? And did you eat?"
"Kung Fu Panda!" David replied, racing over to his dad's side. "And uh-uh! Plus I did the dishes!"
"He did indeed," Maleya confirmed, smiling warmly at her brother. "But I guess I'll head off upstairs then… I'm worried I'll fall asleep standing up." She folded the blanket as she spoke, and her dad nodded.
"Oh, and dad! The tooth fairy came to visit!" David exclaimed. "Can you see her? She's still here!" he said, pointing at a spot close to Maleya's shoulder.
"Did you lose a tooth?" his dad asked, confused.
"No, but I think she really likes Mallie! She's been hovering beside her all day! She's very pretty, like a hummingbird! Can you see her, daddy? Can you?" He asked again, excited, but looked quite disappointed when his dad shook his head.
"No, guess she's shy," he replied, and Mallie waved at both of them before heading upstairs.
"Aw, Mallie! She's following you upstairs!" David said, both happy for his sister and sad that the fairy was leaving him.
"I'm sure she'll stick around so you can talk with her some more," Maleya smiled. "Good night," she managed, before walking up the stairs slowly, grabbing the railing tightly in case she slipped. The dizziness and nausea weren't gone, though the aching in her head was.
"Night, lemon pie!" Her dad called back cheesily, and Maleya couldn't help the grin that formed on her face. He was always calling her weird things. It was almost… cute.
She wished she wasn't feeling so tired and hazy. She rarely got to spend time with him away from her mother, and he seemed to be more serious when she was around. She loved seeing him like this- the real him. He was so carefree, almost childish, and happy.
Sighing, Maleya opened the door to her room and was shocked to find that it was chillingly cold. She saw the cause almost immediately; one of her windows was open. Angrily, she marched and shut it loudly. She knew she hadn't left it open, but her father had told her sometimes the doors and windows opened by themselves due to the pressure from closing or opening other doors. The thought that someone might have snuck in struck her, but she waved the thought away. She didn't think it was possible since she was all the way up on the second floor, and she didn't have the energy to investigate.
Instead, she made her to the bathroom to wash up and brush her teeth.
Jack exhaled loudly with relief. He had made it back in her room just in time. He had seen someone's car parking outside and had left Jamie hurriedly while he got ready for dinner. A few seconds late, and he would have been locked out. Baby Tooth buzzed in front him, looking rather displeased. She waved a finger scoldingly at him, and he lifted his shoulders in protest.
"Sorry?" he said sheepishly and she rolled her eyes. "You can leave if you want to, you know," he added, thinking that Toothiana was probably struggling without her trusted helper.
Baby Tooth squeaked a bit, trying to explain that Maleya wasn't going to school tomorrow. It took a long time- a game of charades seemed to have ensued- but Jack finally understood her.
"Right. I'll keep watch on her tomorrow, too, then. You can help Tooth out in the meantime. Alright?" he asked, and nodded, smiling at him. She waved a finger again in warning, before she took off through one of the windows that Jack helped open for her. He closed it immediately, however, noticing how angry Maleya had gotten.
She came out minutes later wearing a rather short nightdress. It was blue with a pink cartoon cat in the middle of it, and Jack almost laughed. He hadn't imagined her having anything like this in her closet at all. She often seemed… a bit uptight, and her clothes usually reflected that.
Maleya felt a bit more refreshed, having washed her face and brushed her teeth vigorously. She wasn't hungry. The nausea had made sure she had no appetite despite not having eaten anything since a small lunch at school.
"…so fucking cold," she muttered to herself as she walked towards her bed. She hated the cold, and despite having closed the window, the temperature seemed to have dropped even more since she'd gone into the bathroom. She contemplated sleeping in her bathtub. At least the bathroom was warm.
"Really don't like the cold, huh?" Jack laughed, hovering over the floor slightly as he tried not to frost anything over. "I can have so much fun with that," he added to himself, thinking of all the ways he could piss her off some more. He watched her climb into bed and pull her thick duvet over her slightly shaking body. He would've almost felt sorry for her if he hadn't found it so amusing.
Seeing Jamie had lifted his spirits slightly, and he thought he could manage without any real "fun" for a couple of days while he watched her. He didn't want to give the Guardians another reason to think of him as irresponsible. But if he had to use Maleya as the target of his pranks and practical jokes, he hoped they would understand…
Suddenly, Maleya sat up, and he almost jumped at the sudden motion. He watched her pull herself to a sitting position and stretch a hand to the side table by her bed. She picked up a small bottle, unscrewed it, and shook out two pills onto her hand. She had a small water bottle nearby, and managed to put one pill in her mouth before taking a sip of water. He watched her swallow the pills with interest.
"What are those for?" he asked, knowing she wouldn't answer. When she had tucked herself back in bed, he hovered by her nightstand. He saw her shiver visibly when his presence caused the surrounding area to become colder, but he tried not to notice. He leaned forward and read the labels on the bottle she'd recently opened.
"Zyprexa…?" he read. There was another bottle, this one labeled "Lamotrigine". He didn't know what either was, but he knew they were medication. A blue box was lying on the side table, this one with the words 'Atarax' on it.
"Sheesh," he breathed out. "That's a lot of medication." She tried to cover her face with her duvet as she waited for the duvet to warm her up, and he decided to move away to the far side of the room. She had a small bookshelf by her desk, and he went over to read the titles while he waited for her to sleep. The lights were off and most of the curtains were drawn, so it was hard to read in the dark, but he managed in the end.
She had a plethora of fictional and reference books. Some titled were familiar to him, others weren't. He touched the spine of one book. "Ariels by Sylvia Plath". He'd heard of the poet, albeit vaguely. After all, he had been there when she established herself as a writer. Well, not 'there', but well… in this world.
Three hundred years had gone by, and he had been astounded by how fast the world was developing. He watched the coming of electricity, cars, movies, music, and many other progresses. He'd also seen the steps back that humanity had taken, what with the wars that were happening all over the place. Of course, he had tried not to linger on them too long- that would have depressed him- and tried to spend as much time getting to know kids whom he thought would never believe in him.
Now that he had a small group of believers, he had felt a huge burden lift from his shoulders. He remembered Pitch, even though he had tried so hard not to. Pitch had told him his greatest fear- of not being believed in- and he was glad that it had never been realized. He knew that at least Jamie wouldn't stop believing in him. He was his first believer… His first human friend.
He listened for a minute, but Maleya's breathing had not evened out yet so he knew she was still awake. He continued looking through her books. He knew that books often told a lot about someone. Jamie had all sorts of books on monsters and mysterious animals that may or may not be real. He had gotten a subscription to a monthly magazine from his parents as a birthday present. It featured news and articles about claimed sighting or "proof" of the existence of certain mythical creatures. Jamie would always read the magazine the day it arrived in the mail and would always tell Jack about everything he had read.
Jack saw a rather ornate black spine of a book, covered in red letters. "Complete Collection of Edgar Allen Poe". Hm, interesting. But not my taste, he dismissed. He did not enjoy reading dark, depressing things.
Skimming over her lower shelves, he saw Maleya's true passion come to life. There was a myriad of floras and field guides. Field guides to mammals, birds, arachnids, insects, fish, and many others. She had several textbooks, and he wondered if she had bought them as part of school or if she'd gotten them 'for fun'. The latter thought almost made him cringe, but he knew that it could very well be possible.
Listening again, he realized she had finally fallen asleep. Relaxing a bit, he allowed himself to sit on her desk chair. He rested his staff against the bookshelf and tried to find a title that interested him. He found one that caught his eye, though it seemed old and worn out.
"Funny Stories for Nine Year Olds," he read, smirking slightly. He could see why it was worn- it must've been 8 years old at least. He picked it carefully from the shelf and began flicking through the pages, settling on an interesting short story about balaclavas.
It was almost dawn by the time he put the book back in its original place. He hoped the frost wouldn't ruin it. He had managed a few chuckles while he read the stories. They had been amusing, though a few seemed almost too…adult for children. The jokes had been borderline dirty.
He had to find some more ways to kill time before she woke up. She had a book on her desk that had been opened to a page with a big title that read 'Anthropocentricism'. He had almost rolled his eyes at the big word, and lifted the book gently to read the cover. "The Principles of Conservation Biology."
"Jeez, she is really weird," he muttered to himself. He looked back at the page and noticed she had highlighted something.
"Today, the expression "man and beast" is common, reflecting the anthropocentricism that is so prevalent in society. We separate ourselves from other animals, because we see ourselves as 'superior' to them…" the underlined quote continued, but he didn't continue reading. The sentence was true enough, and his gaze lingered over the sleeping form of the girl he was supposed to watch over.
The Thesan pull was still there, though he had almost grown accustomed to it by now, being in the same room as her for hours. He knew she was something special. Maybe not interesting, but special, and he thought she had the potential to do something good in the world. She seemed quite passionate about life in general.
He almost laughed. She seemed to love life, but she was not full of life herself. It was a sad observation.
She seemed almost flat to himself, and though he had been frustrated at first with having to spend so much time with her, he was now curious. What had made her this way?
In the distance somewhere, an alarm clock began to beep and Jack looked at the clock on Maleya's nightstand to see that it was 6 in the morning.
Jack tensed as he listened to the sounds of people getting up and starting their day. He looked at Maleya's sleeping form but she didn't move. The duvet moved with her chest as she breathed. He remembered then that she wasn't going to school.
He got lost in thought as he continued to stare at her sleeping form. It wasn't until a few minutes later that he was shocked back to reality when the door opened. A man, whom he assumed was her father, stood by the door. He was dressed up in a shirt and black pants. Jack noted he had the same hair colour as Maleya, though his was much shorter and more…controlled.
Her father strolled over to the bed and shook her shoulder gently. Jack frowned, watching as Maleya groggily woke up. Why was he waking her up?
"Hey," her father greeted her lightly. Maleya squinted her eyes as she took in her father's face. Some light was coming in from a window whose curtain she'd forgotten to draw. Her head felt heavy, but at least it wasn't aching.
"Morning?" she managed, before yawning and stretching her arms.
"Just wanted to remind you to take your meds," he father said gently, and she managed to pull herself up into a sitting position. In front of her father's watchful eyes, she managed to take her Lamotrigine tablets- all four of them, she thought in irritation- before looking back at her father expectantly.
"Good?" she asked and he nodded, ruffling her already messy hair.
"You take care, then," he said. "I don't know when I'll be home," he admitted, and Maleya's face fell. She had probably missed the only time she could've spent time with him alone for a long while. "Do you have any plans for the weekend?" he asked suddenly, looking at the clock on her nightstand. He still had a few minutes, so he thought he might as well chat.
"Actually…" Maleya began, looking nervously at her father. "I got invited to a party on Saturday. I was wondering if you would let me go and borrow the car- if I feel better, of course."
"Maleya…," her father was about to scold her but she rolled her eyes.
"I won't be drinking, of course. Not when I'll be driving," she said, and when he gave her a long, steady look, she added: "and definitely not with the meds." That seemed to appease him.
"If you feel better, I wouldn't mind," he said, smiling. "As long as you take care of yourself."
"Goes without saying," she muttered, but returned the smile all the same.
"I'll go down for breakfast, then. You can go back to sleep if you want," he told her and she nodded, giving him a quick hug before he stood up.
"Alright, see you later," she said, and he answered her with the same. In a few moments, he had exited her room and closed the door behind him.
Jack watched the scene passively, trying not to move to get either of their attention. He was conscious of the frost that had spread on the chair he was sitting on.
But when the father left without noticing anything and Maleya went back to sleep, he sighed with relief and relaxed a bit. Going back to the bookshelf, he looked through more of the books, before settling on another one to read to pass time.
A/N: I am so proud of myself for updating so soon. Hope you got some insight into Maleya and her relationship with her dad (and mom a bit more). I swear it will be cleared up some more soon, especially the situation with her mother.
I'm really trying not to rush it with her meeting Jack. But ugh, I can't wait to write that part. (Also, excuse the typos. I read through it a couple of times, but there might be some that I missed).
Incidentally, my sleep schedule is fucked up for real now. Went to bed at 1pm and woke up at 1 am. Have to get this shit sorted because I have another 8 hour excursion on Monday morning. Yeaaaaah.