Author's note: Your response for the last chapter was so great, I loved reading every review. Thank you so much!
I hope you like this chapter. Well, the second half anyway. The first half isn't very happy unfortunately. Please review and let me know your thoughts :)
23rd November 2013
She looked so peaceful as she slept on the sofa, curled up under a hand-knitted blanket. Her face was relaxed, her breathing light and steady, and Xav couldn't take his eyes off her. Looking at her like this, he could almost believe that she was just an ordinary girl without a care in the world and without any serious problems in her life. He really did wish that was the way life had gone for her.
"Xav." A hand fell onto his shoulder and he recognised the voice as Karla's. Xav was knelt on the floor just watching Ireland sleep and had been there since he'd laid her on the sofa after she passed out in his arms twenty minutes ago. "Dinner's ready, we're all waiting for you. Come on."
He turned around a little and looked up at Karla, feeling like he wanted to cry but glad that he wasn't. "Mom," he croaked, voice quiet. "I don't want to leave her. Don't you understand what this means for her now? God, it wouldn't surprise me if it was her dad that had somebody plant all that shit in her mind. Just another way for him to manipulate her," he spat bitterly. "I'm staying here with her until Uri can drive us back. You can eat without me."
Karla tutted and frowned at him. "It's your father's birthday and he wants all his family around him, Xavier. I wasn't asking; I was telling. Ireland's not going to notice if you sit down with us all for half an hour, she's fast asleep."
"You still don't like her, do you?" He asked as he stood up. "What we just did for her proved that she wasn't in control of her actions, mom..."
"You don't know that. She said herself that she has no idea who the real her is. That darkness in her mind may not have even been making her do those things, she could have done all of that simply from her own free will. You just don't know, Xav," Karla wisely pointed out to him. He hated how she was always right and he wished she was wrong about this. He was hoping that this was the start of him and Ireland having something real between them without her father's hold on her keeping her away from him. "If, over time, Ireland shows regret for her past actions and shows that beneath all the darkness she is a decent person then I will treat her well and accept her as a part of our family. But until then... I'm sorry Xav, but it's not going to happen."
Xav could only nod to show he acknowledged his mother's words. Rising to his feet, he cast one last look at his sleeping soulfinder and followed Karla into the dining room where the food had been served and his family were impatiently waiting until they could eat. As Xav sat down, he didn't miss the fact that there wasn't an empty seat anywhere – they clearly didn't care that Ireland wasn't joining them for the meal and hadn't even left a seat out for her. On one hand, he understood that, but on the other hand he was bitter towards his family for it.
As they tucked into the meal – which was delicious, as it always was when Karla cooked for them – Xav didn't talk to any of them. He sat there and did his best to listen to their mindless chatter: Trace asked Zed, Blue and Yves how school was; Gracie talked about the latest Disney movie Will had taken her to the cinemas to see; Saul talked about plans to change up the slopes a little when they re-opened next week; Georgie and Karla talked about a recipe for a cake.
"How's work going at the zoo, Uriel?" Hazel asked politely at one point, sounding like she genuinely cared about the answer. "I read in the newspaper that a new litter of tiger cubs were born a few weeks ago, have you had chance to care for them yet?"
"Yeah yeah, I got put with the tigers yesterday actually. The cubs are so cute," Uriel answered her. "My friend Vivienne has been working with them since they were born and actually has to bottle feed one of them herself because the mother rejected him. The cubs already adore Viv; they're very friendly and love attention."
"I'm going to have to go to the zoo one day," Hazel replied. "All these months I've been living here and I haven't once been to the zoo. I really want to visit, especially when the twins are a little older and can enjoy it too."
"That'll be fun," Uriel smiled at her. "Just let me know and I'll be able to get you a discount on the tickets."
"Do you know what I've noticed?" Karla suddenly spoke up. "I've noticed that you've become a lot happier since you met Vivienne in January, Uriel. I know you were dating Hazel at the time, and then you were obviously upset after everything that happened, but you always came home from work with a smile on your face still. And after you were kidnapped, it was her that you wanted us to call straight away."
"That was because she's a healer and Xav was too weak at the time, mom." Uriel had blushed bright red and seemed uncomfortable with the subject now. "I don't know what you're getting at, but me and Vivienne are just friends and we work together. That's all."
"Okay, okay," Karla held her hands up in surrender. "All I'm saying is that you seem to get along and when we met her that one time she seemed really fond of you." Xav agreed with that, he'd also noticed that Vivienne had feelings for Uriel. "She also mentioned that you were the same age and your birthday was in the same month..."
"We're not soulfinders," Uriel said, snapping a little. "Besides, how would we even find out if we were? She can't do telepathy. I'm not going to take things further unless we somehow found out for sure. Which we won't. Mom, if there's anybody here you should be grilling about girls, it's Yves. He's the one with a secret girlfriend that he hasn't told you about and none of us have met."
"What?!" Karla turned her attention to Yves, the brother who had never had a girlfriend before. "Is this true, Yves?"
"It's true," Zed answered her instead. "Whoever she is, it's very top secret. All we know is that she's called Jess and there are loads of Jess' at school."
"It's not a big deal," Yves tried to brush it off, him now being the bright red one.
"Yes it is," Karla argued. She always got far too over-excited when one of her sons was dating someone. That was the main reason they all tended to try and keep it a secret unless it was serious – which it never was, except when it was a soulfinder involved. "Tell us about her, Yves. You must invite her over for dinner one day, we'd all love to meet her."
Xav had heard enough. Thoughts were bubbling over in his head and he finally snapped, angry at the lot of them. "I can't believe this," he burst out. "How can you all just sit here and joke around? How can you be so happy that Yves has some stupid teenage relationship with a girl who is most likely not even a savant, never mind his soulfinder, and a girl who he'll probably split up with and never see again when school ends? Why can't you be like that for me and Ireland? She's my soulfinder, for fuck's sake! Why can't we get attention like that?"
Victor was the one to answer. He looked irritated and was staring at Xav as if he'd lost his mind. "Did you seriously just ask that, Xav? We're not happy for you and Ireland because we all know about her past and we don't want to associate with people like her," he spat the word as if it disgusted him. "Hell, none of us want her in this house and only let her in so we could help her. She's lucky that we haven't kicked her out yet."
"You know she wasn't in her right mind when she did all that shit!" Xav argued. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Trace silently removing the kids from the room to keep them away from the conflict and swearing. "Regardless of whether she's the kind of person to do that no matter what, she still had that thing in her mind telling her it was the right thing to do so she couldn't change her mind. She might be evil deep down, I know that, but even then she had something messing with her judgement. I'm deciding to give Ireland a chance – not just because she's my soulfinder, but because I think anybody would deserve a second chance in a situation like this. All of you should give her a chance too, at least to prove herself and prove what kind of person she is deep down. At least give her the fucking time of day to do that!"
"I'll give her a chance to prove herself by betraying her dad," Victor said flatly. "If she can tell us where he is so we can arrest him and he can pay for his crimes, then I'll give her a chance to prove she's a good person. Are you going to get her to do that?"
"No," Xav replied instantly, shaking his head. He didn't even have to think about his answer. "I won't let you interrogate her and force her to do something she doesn't want to. That's bullying, Victor."
"No, it's my fucking job, Xav."
"Boys," Saul interrupted quickly as the two brothers glared at each other. "This is getting out of hand. Stop now, the pair of you."
Xav wanted to do as his dad said but he was too annoyed to this time. He replied to Victor as if his dad hadn't spoken. "She'll speak in her own damn time, Vick. She's had a rough time recently and I'm not going to make that worse for her. She needs time to recover and get over all of this."
"Wow, Xav. You know, if I didn't know any better I'd say that you'd let her get away with anything. That you'd try and defend her even if she killed everyone in this room. I know she's your soulfinder but you have to look at the facts and her history. She is not a good person. She tortured you and Uriel, for crying out loud! She held a gun to Hazel's head! She doesn't deserve a second fucking chance in my eyes.
"Trace and I could easily arrest her right now. Hell, we should have done that the moment she walked onto our property. She'd go down for life Xav, she could even get executed for her crimes. She hasn't been careful – her prints are all over crime scenes where people have ended up dead. We could get her done for the attempted murder of Carl Reynolds, for the kidnapping of you three. You'd never see her again, Xav."
"If that's how you feel, then why haven't you arrested her yet, hmm?" Xav retorted, his face twisted into a snarl.
"Because of you! We haven't arrested her yet because we know it would destroy you. But so hell me Xav, I can't keep doing this anymore. She needs to pay for what she's done, you can't fucking deny that! God, I should turn her over to the net right now."
"Then do it," a voice came from the doorway. Xav looked up and saw Ireland stood there, leaning against the doorframe. She looked tired and distressed, but was looking straight at Victor with strong eyes. "Arrest me, get it over with. You're right, I do deserve it for what I've done. I deserve to rot in hell. So arrest me now because I can guarantee you I'm not handing my dad over. He's terrible and he should be in jail, but I can't do it. At the end of the day he's still my dad and he's still the one who's looked out for me over the years. He's the only family I have left and I won't do that to him no matter how much I hate him." She looked over at Xav. "I know you probably wanna stay with your family so I'm just going to catch a bus back to the apartment. What number bus should I get on?"
Xav shook his head and stood up, unable to believe how bad things had turned in a matter of minutes. "Uriel, can I have the car keys?" His brother handed them over. "Thanks. Give me a call if you want picking up later." He looked at his parents. "I'm leaving. Happy birthday dad, I'm sorry that I ruined the day and that I'm leaving early. I just think it'll be better this way and that you'll all enjoy yourselves more if me and Ireland aren't here."
"We don't have a problem with you," Zed snorted. "It's her we have a problem with."
"I don't care." He walked over to Ireland before turning back to his family. "See you all later."
"Wait." Victor stood up, staring across the room at the pair. He addressed his next words to Ireland. "You should reconsider turning over your dad's location to us. Think about Xav and your future with him. If you want him you need to co-operate with us, Ireland. I'm giving you seven days – until the thirtieth. Get my number from Xav. If you haven't contacted me by then with your dad's location, I'm going to arrest you on the basis of the crimes we know for a fact you've committed – attempted murder and kidnapping with intent to murder, as well as GBH. Once I've taken you in, God knows what other crimes will come up on the database involving you. You'll never see Xav again, I'll personally make sure of it. I promise."
"Vick-"
"Sorry, Xav," he shrugged. "I really am. I wish you could have had a good, normal soulfinder but you have to realize that I have to do my job. The net will understand giving her a chance if she tells us where Oliver is, especially with the mind problems she had. She has until the thirtieth."
Xav frowned at his brother, wanting so much to go over and hit him. He knew that Victor was just doing his job but still. It was so disappointing that he'd do this to his own brother's soulfinder. With a hand on Ireland's back, he steered her out of the house without another word to his family.
Ireland felt awful.
When she'd woken up on the Benedicts' sofa, her first thought had been of Xav and how grateful she was that he'd noticed she desperately needed help. She still didn't know how she felt about the whole situation with her dad and how she was technically still working for him, but she did know that she felt more attached to Xav than she had when the darkness was in her mind. That was a start, right?
She'd heard arguing coming from the dining room and had eavesdropped even though she'd known it was wrong. She felt so guilty for being the reason two of the brothers were arguing but had felt warm inside at the realization Xav had been defending her. She honestly didn't think there was another guy in the world quite like Xav, another guy in the world that would be willing to give her a chance like that. She was so glad that he was her soulfinder instead of some other guy who wouldn't want anything to do with her.
As they got back into the apartment, Xav shut the door behind them and let out a long sigh. They hadn't spoken to each other on the way back and now, seeing Xav look so dejected, Ireland couldn't keep quite any longer. "I'm so sorry," she burst out. "I'm sorry that I'm the reason you're at odds with your family, that you're arguing like that. It's all my fault, I shouldn't have dragged you into my problems-"
"Ireland," he interrupted her, shaking his head. "No, it's not your fault. I mean yeah, it kind of is because it's about you, but it's not entirely your fault. It's nobody's fault really, everyone's just saying and doing what they think is right and I can't blame them for that. I fight with my brothers all the time – sometimes it's serious, sometimes it's not. No matter what though, we always make up. That's what will happen this time too, honestly. It'll be fine in a few weeks, once things have settled down."
"Yeah, unless your brother follows through with his threat and arrests me," she pointed out.
"We will... Deal with that when it comes to it." He finally met her eyes and gulped, a strange expression on his face that Ireland didn't understand. "Let's just not focus on it right now." Ireland was glad he'd said that because she didn't know what to say to him; she still didn't want to give away her dad's location and she didn't know the honest reason why. Was it simply because he was her dad, or was it because she was staying loyal to him and staying his side? "Ireland look, there's something I need to tell you."
She frowned in confusion. "What is it?"
"I've realized something..." He ran his fingers through his hair, his cheeks blushing pink slightly. "I've realized that all this time I've been saying that I'll help you out until you can get things sorted enough for you to go off on your own and for us to never see each other again. I kept on telling you that that's what I wanted and that I was happy with things to turn out that way but... But I don't want that. I want you to stay here with me. I want to help you figure out who you are inside; I want us to at least try and see what the future could have in store for us. For us being together. I know it's going to be tough and a long process, but I want to try. We're soulfinders, I think we owe it to each other to at least try. Do you think that's possible?"
She was speechless. She really didn't know what to say to him. The word 'yes' was on the tip of her tongue and she very nearly said it, but then she thought of her family and how she'd sworn to have revenge on the Benedict family. Had that changed now she didn't have other personalities controlling her? She was so confused with all of these lingering feelings and thoughts of her father telling her to remain loyal to him. All she could do was stare up at Xav with wide eyes. Finally, she managed to mutter, "I don't know."
Xav looked down at her, considering his next actions for a moment. "Fuck it. I'm just gonna do it," he said under his breath. Less that a second later, his hands were cupping either side of her face and his lips were against hers.
Through the shock, it took Ireland a second to actually fully realize what was happening. Brushing aside all thoughts of loyalty from her mind, she melted in Xav's hold and reached up to wrap her arms around his neck. She kissed him back, his lips soft against hers as they melded together perfectly. Every other time Ireland had been with a guy, she'd only reluctantly let them kiss her and had never got much enjoyment out of it. But this... This was something else entirely and she never wanted it to end.
She just wanted more: more of Xav, more of the kiss, more of this intimacy.
As Xav stepped forward, she stepped backwards, letting him lead her. Her back hit the wall and Xav pressed his body against hers, pinning her there. The whole time, their lips never separated. Now, pinning her against the wall, Xav finally lifted his lips from hers which gave them both time to get their breath back.
Ireland looked up into Xav's eyes, lost in the moment. She refused to let herself think of anything else but this – it was just him and her and that was all she cared about. She was scared he was going to disappear in the blink of eye and found herself tangling her hands in his hair and pulling his head back down to hers. Their lips met again and Xav groaned, his hands sliding down to her waist.
Her skin felt on fire as his hands moved down her body and a little whimper escaped her mouth. His hands went to the back of her thighs and as he lifted her she jumped a little until her legs were around his waist. Her back was still against the wall but it was Xav that was holding her up, his fingers digging into her jeans as he greedily kissed her.
After another few minutes of just kissing, they broke apart again and Xav suddenly turned and started walking towards the spare bedroom she'd been staying in, carrying her easily. He kicked the bedroom door shut behind them and Ireland took that moment to let go of Xav and pull her shirt off, dropping it to the floor.
As Xav gently laid her down on the bed and lowered his body on top of hers, Ireland was overcome with such a contented happiness, a happiness she'd never felt before in her life, not even once.
Xav's lips drifted down to her neck as he undid the button of her jeans and Ireland willing gave her body to him to control. Already, she felt like she was going to explode and she was shivering with delight and excitement about what it would be like to make love to her soulfinder for the first time.
When Xav's eyes met hers again, she was thrilled to see that he clearly was feeling the exact same way.
A hint about the next chapter: The morning after. (Not a very good hint, sorry, but I haven't planned how it's going to go yet so I don't have anything else!)