"Inventing the Future"

Author's Note: I'll admit, I'm not entirely confident that this story is worth continuing, but I'm having fun writing it all the same. This story is proving to be addictive! I just hope Meredith isn't turning into a Mary Sue. :/ Dr. Jaming having a relationship with someone is canon, because he eventually has a grandson, but we never really learn anything about his wife/girlfriend, so I'm having to make her up based on what I think might go well with his personality. Or, at least, what little of it we see in the game! I guess some people will still think she's a bit 'Sue-ish', but I think all OC's run the risk of having that happen. But I picture Jaming going well with someone who doesn't care too much about outer appearances, who 'tells it like it is', and who is just a little bit quirky.

I've got several ideas, but if anyone would like to see a scenario play out, feel free to suggest it in a review or a PM. I can't promise that I will definitely write it, because sometimes the muse just isn't there no matter how much I want it to be, but I'll consider it and I'll give you a shout-out at the beginning of such a chapter. Just try to keep it clean, please. Some things are better left behind closed doors. ;)

Hope you guys enjoy it~

"Chapter 5: Deadly Grotto"

About a month later, Jaming was moderately relieved that Pau seemed to be true to his word. No one other than Pau, Meredith, and Jaming himself seemed to know about what had happened. Jaming had not seen Meredith since yesterday afternoon when she left town to go look for crafting supplies, but he didn't give this a second thought. She was prone to going off on her own from time to time, so short absences were not unusual.

The late afternoon air was sticky and humid, and Jaming was in his garage with the door and windows wide open and a large box fan set on high power near the door to keep the air circulating. His research was once again put on hold, and for a good reason. He found it difficult to concentrate when he was this hot, and he was well aware that contracting heat stroke would make concentration nigh impossible.

He had purchased a broken air conditioner from a young boy called Donny several weeks ago, fully intending to scrap it for parts. The price that kid had quoted at first had been ridiculously high, especially for a broken piece of machinery, but Jaming was able to acquire it for a mere ten Gilda by agreeing to fix Donny's broken TV.

As Jaming sat in the relative coolness of his garage, feeling disgustingly sweaty and making repairs on the A.C. unit he had previously planned to dismantle, he reflected that it was a lucky thing for him that Donny's love of cartoons was almost as strong as his love of money.

Hearing footsteps approaching, Jaming wiped an armful of sweat from his forehead and turned to see who it was. He partly hoped it was Meredith, because he wanted to ask her if she knew any good recipes for Kaji. His cooking skills were modest, and while the food he prepared was edible, it was still nothing to write home about.

On the other hand, he was wearing a T-shirt instead of his usual vest, button-down shirt, and yellow tailcoat. He was (in his own opinion, anyway) under-dressed for company, and the armpits of his shirt were stained with perspiration. She might not give this a second thought, but he certainly did!

But it was not Meredith.

"Pau. You are the last person I expected to see," Jaming commented, returning to his work. "Good afternoon."

The young Moon Person stood hesitating in the doorway, his rabbit-like nose wrinkling as if sampling a disgusting smell. "Eugh...human B.O. is nasty."

"Your nose must be more sensitive than mine. I smell nothing," replied Jaming, not particularly caring. All he could smell was sawdust and motor oil. If Pau was just going to be rude, he had nothing to say to him.

"Lucky you," Pau snorted, entering the garage and coming over to inspect Jaming's work.

"Please, come in," Jaming said, pointedly.

"What is that?" Pau reached out to poke at the metallic jumble that lay on Jaming's work table. "Something new to use on the Shigura?"

Jaming closed his eyes for a moment. So, this was how it was going to be, was it? There was a time, not so long ago, that Jaming would have angrily responded to the obvious dig, but he knew that Pau's feelings were valid. The little fellow did not trust him, and why should he? "It's an air conditioner. Or it will be, once I've repaired and reassembled it. Do you have something you want to say to me?"

Pau folded his arms and stared down the strange-looking human without a trace of fear. "Plenty. I promised Meredith I wouldn't blab, but I won't forgive you for what you did to Shingala. He's just a baby! You had no right to go near him. Meredith might believe you've changed, but I don't. And I'll be watching you."

Pau's words cut deep, and Jaming stopped tightening a screw and sat very still for as long as it would take a person to count to ten. Then he took a deep breath and looked down at Pau. "You do not need to list my crimes to me. I know what I've done. I have to live with it every day. And you are not required to like me. Your opinions are justified, and you have a right to them. But I can tell you from personal experience that clinging to anger and hatred will do nothing but lead you down a dark path."

Shifting his attention back to his project, he turned his screwdriver idly in his hands. "I am trying to make amends. Whether or not I'm successful remains to be seen..."

"Hmph..." Pau looked away, having no response for that. Then, as if remembering something important, he asked in a different tone of voice, "Speaking of Meredith, you haven't seen her today, have you?"

"No," Jaming began to scrape the rust off of the A.C.'s fan blades. "I haven't seen her since yesterday, but she comes and goes as she pleases. I'm sure she'll turn up soon."

"Well, when I talked to her yesterday, she said she'd be back from Ocean's Roar Cave by nightfall, but I haven't seen her today. I went by her house to-"

Jaming fumbled his screwdriver and dropped it. "'Ocean's Roar Cave'?" He looked very serious now, and his face grew rather pale. He remembered having a few very narrow escapes himself when he had ventured into the caves to intercept Shingala. He knew Meredith had gone through there before, because she told him that there was a lot of good stuff to be found for jewelry making, but he had asked her to avoid that place in the future. He wasn't surprised that she didn't listen, but he could have done without this elevation in his blood pressure. "When did you say you saw her last? Yesterday? What time?"

"I...around lunchtime," Pau blinked, rather taken aback by this sudden shift in Jaming's demeanor. "What's wrong?"

Jaming clicked his tongue impatiently and covered the dismantled air conditioner with a tarp. It was possible that she had come back when she said she would, and that she was simply busy with something else today, but he had a horrible feeling that this wasn't the case. Meredith hadn't told him where she was going, only that she was going, and it dawned on him that she had kept this detail from him on purpose.

'Because I would have tried to stop her, and she knew it.'

Jaming snatched up his pack from the work bench and began hastily stuffing a few items into it while Pau watched him with an expression of bewildered shock.

"What's wrong?" Pau asked again, his tone more demanding this time. "I heard she goes in there all the time."

"And I suppose she always comes out when she says she's going to?"

"Well...yeah, I guess so. I mean, I don't know her that well..." Pau rubbed the back of his neck, his ears drooping. Jaming's worry was contagious, and Pau was startled to see that it was genuine. Maybe Meredith was right about Jaming's change of heart...and maybe she was in danger.

"Blast it..." hissed Jaming, side-stepping Pau and stalking out into the bright seaside afternoon without even bothering to turn off the fan or shut the door and windows. If his suspicions were correct, she'd been in that cave overnight. 'Let me be wrong about this. Let her be all right. Don't let her be...'

He unwillingly pictured her lying dead in the inch or two of water that permanently covered the cave floor, and he shook his head vigorously to banish the image. 'Not her...Please, not her! Idiot woman...Why didn't she listen to me?'

"Hey, wait up!" Pau called, closing the distance between them with some difficulty, for Jaming would not slow his pace at all. Panting, he maintained a steady jog beside Dr. Jaming, and he was astonished by the expression of barely-suppressed terror on the man's face.

"What do you think you're doing?" Jaming demanded.

"What does it look like? I'm going with you."

The caves weren't nearly as bad as they had been before Max and Monica had cleared them out, but little by little the monsters were making their way back into the darkness and the damp they preferred. Other than being less crowded than it had been the first time Jaming had been in there, the caves were just as he remembered them. A few inches of water still covered the floor in a giant puddle, meaning that there were no tracks to follow. He was afraid to call out for her, because that would only draw the monsters to him and Pau.

What troubled Jaming the most was the sheer number of sea bats in the place. They were hard to spot, and he knew that their bite was notorious for being poisonous. In fact, sea bats were the only monsters they had encountered after wandering the caves for nearly three hours.

Three hours. The thought made Jaming nauseous, and the hollow feeling in his heart was becoming unbearable. He was torn between wanting to find her and being afraid of how he would find her. Every time his thoughts turned morbid, he forced them away and rejected them as being useless. He would simply deal with the here and now, because the thought of her being dead was simply unacceptable.

Pau reached up and touched Jaming's arm to get his attention, and when he had it he pointed to his own nose and whispered, "Do you smell that?"

"What?"

"It's...I don't know. Sort of a medicinal smell."

Dr. Jaming drew in several deep breaths through his nose, then his eyes widened. "Smells like...an antidote drink. But it's very faint."

Pau was able to ascertain the direction from which the smell was coming, and as they rounded a corner they nearly stepped on some shards of broken glass. Looking up at Jaming, Pau held the neck of a broken bottle up in his paw. "It's an antidote drink, all right. It looks like someone dropped it..."

Jaming brushed past him, unsure if it was the distant ocean he was hearing, or the hammering thud of his heart pounding in his ears. Was the bottle Meredith's? Had it simply fallen out of her pack? Or had she been trying to use it when it slipped from her fingers and shattered against a rock?

And as his mind was going over these scenarios, he tripped over something that was suspiciously soft and fell with a splash on the cave floor. "Oof!"

He scrambled to turn and look at what he had tripped over, and his eyes widened in horror.

It was Meredith.

At first, Jaming thought she was dead. She lay on her side, very still, almost serene in her stillness. Her forearms were covered in tiny bruises, and at the center of each bruise was a set of puncture marks. Sea bats must have bitten her arms as she held them up to defend herself, and it was possible that the attack continued while she fumbled with the antidote drink.

Pau gaped, reaching out as if to touch her, then lowering his hand again. "She's..."

But Jaming was at her side before Pau could finish, holding her face between his hands and whisper-shouting at her to wake up. "Meredith...Open your eyes, damn you! Come on, don't do this to me. W...wake up. Wake up, Meredith...Don't sleep now...Wake up."

What happened next should have disgusted him, but instead it nearly made him laugh with relief. She had been breathing so shallowly that he wasn't sure if she was breathing at all, and as he gently shook her to bring her around she furrowed her brow and gagged. He quickly turned her back onto her side so that she wouldn't choke, but she simply dry-heaved a few times and remained unconscious.

"Pau, my pack..." Jaming gently lifted her upper half and rested it across his knees, "I brought an antidote drink. Quickly."

"How will you get her to drink it?" Pau was already rifling through Jaming's pack, which was still on his back.

"If she won't, we'll try again outside," he held out a hand for the glass bottle, cradling her head and shoulders in his other arm. He nodded his thanks and approval when Pau handed over the bottle, already uncorked and ready for use. He tilted her head up as best he could, and pressed the lip of the bottle against her slack mouth, tipping a few drops of the strong-tasting liquid onto her tongue. "Come on...wake up and drink..."

Jaming gave her a few more drops, and when they trickled down the back of her throat she coughed. And, finally, she began to move.

"Mmmno...G'way..."

"You need to drink this, Meredith, it'll help you. Come on..."

"J...Jaming?"

"Come on, take your medicine...You'll be all right now."

Obediently, Meredith opened her mouth and swallowed the antidote drink as she struggled to open her eyes.

Blue. She had blue eyes. Why hadn't he noticed it before?

"Hurry it up, you two...I hear wings..."

Jaming dropped the empty bottle and lifted Meredith in his arms with some difficulty. He was not the strongest human around, and if he put it to the test he would probably lose to Meredith in a physical fight. But not as she was now. 'She's so cold...'

"Let's go, Pau. Quietly."

Meredith still wasn't quite 'there', and as she was lifted she felt a wave of vertigo that caused her eyes to flare open wide. "J-Jaming..."

"Shh, I'm here. I've got you. We're going to get you home. Shut your eyes and go back to sleep."

Pau led the way, and now it was he who had to slow his pace so that Jaming could keep up. As he kept a watchful eye out for trouble, he tried to process what he had just witnessed. He had begun the morning hating this man, not trusting him as far as he could spit, which wasn't very far. But to see him actually showing concern, even tenderness, was quite a surprise. And there was something else. Pau hadn't known her for very much longer than Jaming had, and while the Moon Person had feared for her safety, Jaming had almost looked devastated when she at first appeared to be dead. Could Jaming actually be in love with her?

Pau shuddered a little. 'This is getting too weird. They've known each other for...what...three months? I'm just reading too much into this, but...either way...I think I might have misjudged him.'