Katekyo Hitman Reborn

My Fate is Certainly Uncertain

Chapter 39: Mint Chocolate Chip

Warnings: Blood, Hormonal rage and a box of mint thins. Watch out for those, they'll kill ya.

[Written to: [FULL ALBUM] 별에서 온 그대 You Who Came From The Stars OST (CD1)]

~o0o~

It was only a matter of seconds that I stepped out there, that Jager, in his unholiness aura, tried to attack me. I say tried because despite me being afraid of what the voice, the monster in the mold of the barrier would do, what effect it would have on me and my child, it still was on my side. I fought very hard to keep it under control. To keep my anger at bay, but I had already lost what control I could muster. By coming out here, I had done something so incredibly stupid.

Why wasn't I thinking this through? This wasn't like me!

He wasn't allowed near me, for I did not let him do so freely as he pleased. He tried to slaughter, tried to mame and harm with malicious content. I wasn't going to let him kill the people I loved, the people I hated. I felt my arm spasm.

"Miss!" Romario yelled, and I bit my tongue. There was no way I could back out now, not with the way he was sneering after me. Not physically, but mentally I could see the limitlessness of his willingness. Bermuda apparently was his leader. The one he trusted the most.

The mouths bit down on his face. They screeched and tore through the air, invisible in sight, but menacingly, they were alive in my mind. I could hear them so vividly, they could break a window if they tried. The air flexed and teeth assumably were ripped out from both sides because I could feel a sharp tinge to the tops of my fingers, even though I wasn't touching any blood.

Jager used his hands to free himself. His face was bleeding heavily, and he held

"Ho ho! Who are you?!" The man called, the one sitting by the other Arcobaleno. To degrees of horrified looks, Reborn was the one who was shaking his head. Not of betrayal, but of anger.

I worked very quickly to set up protective barriers around those who had fallen, so at least they wouldn't get injured even more while the battle continued. I couldn't get closer to Dino, he was on the other side of the field, now collapsed.

"Medic of team - "I paused in the quickest moment I could, and thought very briefly of what I should say next. And then it occurred to me that I was technically an outsider. So Reborn's team could get disqualified for it. "Team Fon, sir! Loaned out to team Reborn!"

"Loaned out?" He questioned, thinking briefly. He was such an airhead that I wondered if he even thought at all.

"Both teams should be eliminated." Jager hissed, his jaw apparently reforming itself.

I snorted. "Not a chance, ya Bellatrix wan-na-be. Rules clearly state that medics are used as tools, not participants, therefore I am allowed access to the arena."

Utter blasphemy, was what he thought, around the only clean and clear thing I was getting out of his mind.

Surprisingly though, through my bluff, Mr Airhead accepted it. Not soon after that, I felt Tsuna's presence, while I was putting pressure on Xanxus's legs as Ryohei healed him. He warned me of Basil's injured, and I cursed. He was still conscious, and I told Ryohei to keep working on him.

I call myself selfish, to walk past Byakuran, on my way to Squalo. I felt selfish, thinking I had no obligation to help him. Technically, he didn't kill him, but I still hated him. I didn't want to feel hate, or even feel adored, but I couldn't stop it. Squalo, he was closer and I was amazed to find his organs intact, while the remainder of his skin was absolutely shredded. This gave me a clear indication that these probably weren't his read organs to begin with.

Mammon, I thought, looking over to the hooded one. I couldn't see his eyes. I was too far away to clearly hear him, not that I could anyway. He didn't let me, like he didn't let Reborn. Like Mukuro with Chrome's organs.

"Keep doing that!" I yelled at him, leaving Squalo there. At least, he wouldn't die right now, but there wasn't anything I could do. He'd have to wait till an ambulance got here. My next goal was to get to Dino.

Bermuda looked wrong. Seriously, very very wrong. That's sounds judgemental of me, not even fair to say, but that was what I thought when I turned my head to check for a safe path. With a head too round that mirrored his eyes and hands too big, like grand weights held from the handles, disproportioned, he was. My eyes could not adjust to the way his body rippled, those eyes unmoving, blank staring, watching as I ran past. I was repulsed. Repulsed. Repulsed. A thousand times over. I didn't like the way he stared. I felt bad.

"You finally….woke up master." Whispered Jager in a whisper, face down on the ground, Tsuna flying on an orange flame above.

"Let's put some things in order, first." He said, reaching Dino before I could. Only to break his watch, and then give me another emotionless blink. "Now I can fight you without any interruptions. The little lady won't. Ha, well, the fight will only last for ten seconds, but it's still a fight. Shall we?"

Dino was barely awake and I moved him onto his back, his crying out in pain while doing to. I quickly apologised, my hands hovering above him, head turning to look at my medical kit. I needed something to patch his wounds. To stop all the blood leaking. His coat was ruined beyond repair, and I sighed loudly, beginning the process of tearing the material apart from around the wound.

His breathing was ragged and his eyes struggled to stay open.

"...t-..." Breath in. Breath out. Repeat. In. Out. "The fuck you...doing..h-here?"

"Medic. Hold still." I ripped his shirt completely off and threw it to the side, opening my toolbox. "You need to stay awake okay, I can't have you blacking out. You've lost a lot of blood and I can't move you till the battle's over."

"Phillipa!" Dino was growling, chest rising and rumbling, moving up and then down. "You're..you're not safe here!"

"Nobody is." I said, whispering into his ear. "I'm helping because there's no other choice I can make. I can't run and leave you here. Xanxus has his muscles cut, so he's not going to walk for a while. Mukuro's stomach and intestines are rubble and so is Byakuran's. Fucking hell Dino, please don't fall asleep!"

"Is…." He gulped, muscles contracting. His eyes focussed demandingly up at my face. My arms were elbow high in blood, not a good ethic to go by. I paused to rid myself before I administered an appropriate treatment. I could only sanitize and clean here. "Is Squalo stilll…...still a-live?"

The look on his face was horrible. I felt his anger and I closed my eyes and begun to clean his wound, not making contact with his eyes.

"Alive?" I repeated to the air, feeling breathless. "I should say yes, but he looks a mess Dino. I….I don't know. I could barely feel his pulse when I checked. Mammon's illusions might not save him."

Tsuna's flames were burning the air, filling every cold void possible. The bottle of antiseptic dropped to the ground, and I fell from leaning on my knees to sitting on my bottom. My head was spinning.

"P-Phillipa?"

"It's hot." I gasp, clutching my head. "I-I'll be fine."

He held the hand that I propped myself on. It was a faint gesture, and I tried to focus my fuzzy vision.

"Tsuna got shot."

"W-What?"

"Who's that man?" I asked, not to Dino, no. He was on his back, and he couldn't see it. There was an odd fellow entering the arena. My headache went, when Tsuna's flames died. I was able to breathe and I squeezed his hand, confirming my okay.

"Help me up." He asked, and I struggled under his weight. He didn't always feel so heavy, but now wasn't like the times past. He couldn't support his weight, and he felt like he was burdening me by asking for help. The art of asking is so simple and so bleak. They don't do it anymore, because it is.

I knew it was him, the noodle slurping guy from the future, when we got close enough. He was arguing with Tsuna. Well, not really arguing but not exactly talking nicely to each other. His curtness was rough and accepted with Tsuna, who stared at him, like he was going to spurt out an answer.

Another man, someone who resembled a witch doctor, was holding orbs of glass. The plan was for the Arcobaleno to die - that really upset me - but with those, he explained, there would be no need for deaths.. There would be no need for any more Arcobaleno.

They took Bermuda and the rest of the wounded Vindice with him, protecting the policy and releasing the bonds of which held my father by his throat. Everybody was so happy that the fight was over, and Dino moved from resting on me, to hugging me tightly, his breathing still shaking.

They left, and in that space in between the cracks in time, they changed. It was only a blink. It was only a second that I closed my eyes and smelled Dino's musk so that I felt safe again, and when I turned back, they were there.

He was the most pleasing to watch. I realised that when he said I really did resemble my mother, he was lying to himself a little. I could see the flick in our hair, the pinch of our chins. His fedora wasn't there, but his clothes strangely were. Smart. Sharp. Even Leon had changed into something fiercer that my imaginative sight. Sharp scales, pointed angles. Long, double split tongue. Flick. Flick.

It's embarrassing to say, but Dino dropped to the ground without me supporting him, when I fainted.

~o0o~

The plane ride home was filled with a deafening silence, despite the headphones I wore and the music I had playing. It was Dino's private jet, the same one we came in on. But I didn't want to sit with him, and he had no wish to sit with me facing him in opposite seats. I lied on the one behind, my back to the isle, face looking at the plastic interior. It was white and clean, and I felt a little blinded. I curled up, and wished that this plane would never get home.

It was a long night we had together. Dino was at the hospital and I, I woke up in my room, back at the Sawada's, not alone, but I did feel empty when he questioned me. It made me sick to my stomach, sick on my insides. To think that he would even consider something so horrid about me, when I didn't do anything but stay by him.

Reborn was there, sleeping on the same mattress, telling me how good it was to not fit on it anymore. His feet were poking out and I cried for a long time. It seems longer that we spoke together, how happy I was that he was okay. And how he told me that my world wouldn't stop, that this baby would need it's mother, if he or she was to be the absolute best.

I was forever in a state of tiredness on the car ride back. We sat on opposite sides of the car, my hands on my lap, head out the open window. Like a dog, I wanted to feel the breeze and not care anymore. Just to be free of burdens and memories.

He thought I was cheating on him. Dino confronted me, a day or two after we got back, when he could walk on his own two feet without me. I didn't think he came looking for an argument, but it certainly turned into one. Reasons was what he wanted, to questions that I didn't have any to offer. Accusations popped up, how he said that I checked Squalo before him. They were stupid. Everything, everyone I heard, with my ears and my head, I wanted them to go. Leave.

"What did you expect me to do, Dino?! Leave you and run? Let you die along with your friends?!"

"He is not my FRIEND!" He roared, fist in the air, face contorted. Every fibre in him was trying to stay calm. His voice shook with pain and I couldn't deal with it. "He hasn't been since the day you swam after him! You, you I'm blind, you think I can't see the way he looks whenever you walk into a room? I'm the one that loved you first, remember?! I'm your husband!"

"How DARE you! I've never! Ne-ver! What do you think I did, have sex with him or something? No! I dragged him out that room to get him to go after somebody else, anyone! I told him that I loved YOU. Don't you DARE think that there's nothing, nothing I wouldn't - "

My voice cracked after that, and I felt myself losing control again. Like I lose everything, I lost the will to stay in there. I stormed out of the mansion and into the rain, wearing nothing but jeans and a t-shirt, just getting away from all this.

Somehow, I found my way back to my apartment. It wasn't mine anymore, because I had passed it on like an old heirloom that I'd grown fond of. I loved this place. I liked the fact that could once say this was mine. I still felt attached to it, a fond feeling, a warmth that comes from holding hands. It was cold out here and I thought that Basil wouldn't be in, assuming that he was no staying on the base. His injuries had healed quickly and he was eager to get back to work.

With two years of lockpicking under my belt, as a job I used to do as a teenager, getting inside was so fucking easy, I'm not joking. I used to practice on my own lock and I can tell you that he hasn't had it changed yet. One-oh-one to getting your ass burgled. The house was furnished and there was a lovely bookcase. It was the same one he had when we bunked together, years back, it seemed.

Lying on the couch was what I did for a while, My phone was turned off because I didn't want to have to open it. I took the wet clothes I had and put them on the rim of the bathtub. They would dry by morning. For now, I would wrap myself in the duvet cover that he keeps in the hot water cupboard. The thick one. That being said that I didn't want to use my phone, it led me to use Basil's home phone instead. I hoped that he would pick up, because I want to talk to someone. That someone I usually did wasn't here anymore.

He picked up on the third ring, with a tired yawn. I wasn't surprised, the pain that you got from the training was harsh, but it was contradictingly wonderful. If I was still in America, still with Momma and Mason, I wouldn't have said that.

"Sorry about this." I said to him, my head on the pillow, tired eyes blinking, each time getting sorer than the last. "I broke in. Door's not busted or anything, I just needed a place to crash for the night."

"Why not with Dino?" He asked, and then he paused. "Did thy and him have an argument."

"Yeah, he thinks I've been cheating on him." I sighed tiredly, rubbing my face. "Oh, and I'm eating those mint thins of yours. Haven't had dinner yet."

"He's doubting thou words?"

"I don't know why. I keep telling him that it's him that I'm living for, but he keeps thinking that I'm not. It's mind-numbingly frustrating and I hate it! Urgh!"

He sniffed. "Why is it that thy doesn't telleth anyone about thou past?"

Why would he ask me that, it's nothing now. It's a distant memory that I don't ever want to think about. I want to be like an Albanian immigrant, leaving their life for Italy. That was my past. I promised myself I'd let it go. "Would you tell your past, if your enemies were here?"

"But we aren't thy enemies, but friends."

"I know." I whispered, shrinking back into the back of the couch. It's not that I didn't know that. Trust isn't something I give. I don't know if it's physically possible for me to change.

"My head was filled with thoughts of the past. They were ridiculing and judgemental. I didn't like to be alone, but I didn't want to leave here. At least I felt like I was worth something in here.

"They tell me every day that they love me. That they're happy that we have a beautiful marriage. But it's in my head, that if I tell, they die. That's what happens. I can't afford to let myself care, otherwise I can't control myself. If can't control, I can't stay calm. I get anxious and I panic. And that's never a good thing, for a person who doesn't think twice. You heard what happened, that wasn't me thinking properly. I was fucking lucky that they didn't get disqualified. If I were to lose control, I feel as if I'm slipping deeper. Like swimming lengths, you're fast at the start, but eventually you start to hurt, and it slows you. You'll stop and sink down, and then float back up to where you stopped in the first place. I try not to feel, because if I do, the pain just gets worse and when I close my eyes, I see myself becoming what I've loved and hated.

They'll tell you Basil, that this happens to me a lot. That I'll get into a phase and come right back out. I don't tell them, so they don't know and it's not their fault. But I'm going to be a mother one day and I'm thinking right now that my child is not safe while the people who hunted my family are still alive. I've left it too long, and made the mistake of falling for a guy who falls too much when nobody's looking. I'm an idiot."

"No thy isn't!" He said, his voice getting louder. "But are thy sure thou isn't Bipolar?"

I was too tired to keep talking with him. I said the first thing out of my mouth and hung up. "Who knows? Never bothered to check."

~o0o~

I left the house the way I found it before Basil got home the morning after. And it occurred to me that there was no better time of the day to eat gelato. That only proved my theory more, about how I should have never gotten pregnant in the first place.

It was mint chocolate chip, and the sun was out today, for once. It would be summer soon, a time where I'd usually look forward to wearing shorts and tank tops. Don't think I'll get to do it this year though. I shouldn't have been a surprise to me that he found me, just as I was in the middle of eating it. Not only could he smell food a mile away, Dino had a particularly good habit of guessing where I was at times. Don't know how he did it, but leaning onto the zone of intuition got me thinking. That boy was going after me and there wasn't anything I could do. I just had to sit here and be round.

"You're an idiot." He told me, coming up from behind. "How could you leave the house with hardly any clothes on! How could you not pick up the phone when I called?"

"I was upset."

"Oh? I noticed."

"Woah." I said sarcastically, turning to look at him. "Hold your freaking hormones there, how else did you expect me to act? Be titillated with fucking joy at you horrid accusations? Look Dino, yeah I knew that he liked me but I didn't want either of you to get hurt. You think that I'm cheating, but I told Squalo that he should go after someone else, because I loved you. So don't you dare come to me, yelling about how I'm fucking him behind your back, because it's not true. I don't know what else I can say to make you believe me."

Maybe marrying him wasn't a good idea…. I pondered, now sick of the feeling of my ice cold tongue. There were lots of families at this park, all with their strollers and happy faces and honestly, I didn't think I'd be able to be like them. I'm not mother material.

"Let's go home." He said, taking my by the hand and leading me to the car. "Everyone's worries about you."

He was accepting and I was thankful. I didn't get any sleep last night, but it was the type of tiredness that refuses to let me sleep at all. One that made me stand and look for a new day. Getting back to the house was going to be a mission, because I knew how Jenny was. She was going to have my ass on a silver plate.

"What do you want to have for dinner?" I asked, trying to change his focus. I didn't want to distract him from his work because there was a lot of deals going on. But from the bags under his eyes and the way he stared, I guessed that he took the morning off. "I'll cook. Jenny said she had some new spices coming in from Malaysia."

"...Chicken." He said stubbornly.

I nodded. "Okay."

"With peas."

"Okay."

"And no broccoli."

"No promises there."

~o0o~

So, after reading through Frankenstein again and sitting here, wishing my friend could get back so we can actually go to lunch, I wrote this. I am so hungry.

Overall replies: Yes. Phillipa is stupid. I am hungry. Life shall go on.

Peace,

Verdigurl