Chapter 25

Xanthippes Part II

And we're back! I made a second part of Xanthippes because I just wanted to stretch out the story which is BTW, coming to an end! Here are responses to reviews:

LaurenRiverSister: I tried to make Daring as angsty as possible. And yes, it ends at a Z with some kind of epilogue or bonus chapter.

CreativeWritingSoul: This chapter will answer most of your questions!

chica-flick: This entire fic will wretch your heart.

princess mh: I agree! And you're welcome!

—

There was a period of silence when Maddie turned to the roof and gazed up at you, the reader.

"My dear friend," she began. "I must digress that the narrator, Reade, wants you to send in questions about how she wrote this fic via reviews or PMs. You see, this story to coming to an end within a few chapters, and she would like to write a bonus chapter answering your questions. Since basically none of you read author's notes, I will also ask of you, as Reade has wanted, for you to write down your favourite line of the chapter in every single chapter review. Thank you."

"Who are you talking to, Maddie?" Humphrey asked, walking in with a mug of tea.

"No one," Madeline smiled. "No one at all."

—

Marcia looked very proud of herself. That she was. She had bought herself a new, sleeveless scoop-neck black dress that hugged her curves in all the right places. (That is, a lot of right places.)

An honourable citizen was to dine at the restaurant tonight. The daughter of the mayor, no less. And Marcia had to look her best.

She entered through the kitchen from the back door and greeted her staff, soon setting them to work.

After some time, she had realised that she had dropped her wallet somewhere in the grounds of the restaraunt. She stepped outside and hunted around. Inside her wallet she had three hundred-dollar notes, her credit card, gifts cards, and her driver's license. So she looked around, but seeing nothing, decided to return inside when a figure leaning against the wall caught her attention.

Marcia's first reaction was to check she had her pepper spray stuffed up her skirts.

She had.

Her second reaction was to call the police.

She didn't.

Instead, she followed her instinct and approached the man. "Sir," she began. "You're currently trepassing on private prop—oh."

She paused in her tracks when the man, who was very blonde, very depressed, and very handsome, turned to her looking unwell and upset.

"A-Are you alright?" Marcia managed.

The man said nothing, just looked away.

"My name is Marcia Fallashe. I'm the owner of this land, and it's counted as trespassing to be here," she continued. Hotness be damned. He was in her property without permission.

"Fallashe?" the man said, suddenly interested. He looked surprised but didn't stop looking down in the dumps. "Do you know Maurice Fallashe?"

Marcia felt suspicious. "Y-Yes," she responded, feeling that she should tell the truth. "He's my younger brother. Why?"

"Do you know of a Cerise Hood?" the man continued, ignoring her question.

"Yes. She's going to be my sister-in-law," she responded. "I think," she added, in case Reece died.

The man nodded slowly, and stood there gazing into thin air. "My name is Daring."

"And…?"

"And I used to date Cerise Hood," he said. Marcia nodded. "Can you tell Reece that I thank him?"

"Thank him? What for?"

"For forgiving me," Daring responded. "Excuse me. I'm trespassing." He walked off, looking less unhappy. Marcia only stared after him in confusion.

—

After the hectic visit of the mayor's daughter, a sweet girl named Apple who was beautiful and blonde and caring, Marcia returned to the hospital to check on her baby brother. She entered through the heavy glass sliding doors and took the lift to Reece's room, which was, oddly enough, closed and guarded closely by nurses.

"What's going on?" Marcia asked, shouldering the bag she had just placed down. "Where's Reece?"

Before the nurses could reply, a shaking, sobbing mess of dark brown hair and red fabric and denim collapsed in her arms. She looked down at Cerise and her heart dropped through her pumps. Something was very, very wrong.

"Cerise? What's wrong, sweetie? What happened to Reece?" she soothed, but was unable to hide the shaking in her voice.

"Reece is going to die!" Cerise sobbed. "He's in coma, and the doctors say he isn't going to make it!"

Cerise suddenly screamed as Marcia fell to the ground. Inevitably, she had fainted.

—

"What have you called us here for, Rae?" Briar asked. Raven had asked her closest friends - Maddie, Briar, Cerise, Ashlynn, and their significant others - to come to her house as she had an announcement.

Raven smiled, a happy geniune smile, for the first time in weeks.

"Guys," she started. "I'm pregnant."

There was silence for some time before Maddie squealed like an underage Justin Bieber fangirl and hugged Raven tightly. "I'm gonna be an aunt!" she cried. The men gave Raven their congratulations. Ashlynn and Cerise smiled knowingly.

When everyone had considerably quietened down, Ashlynn spoke up.

"I suppose I can't hide this anymore. Hunter, when you asked we where I went every Wednesday, the only reason I didn't tell you is because I wanted to keep it a surprise. And the surprise is that I've been going to appointments with a special doctor called Farrah Goodfairy. My-my womb is fixed. I can have children! And I'm pregnant too!"

Hunter started tearing up. He hugged Ash and swung her around in circles, and they both cried and laughed. Raven started crying too out of emotional instability.

Hunter put his wife down and they grinned at each other, smiling and grinning and laughing some more.

"Okay guys, sorry to rain on your parade, but since this is becoming a confess-thy-secret meeting, I too have something to say. But it's not good news," said Briar.

They became silent almost immediately.

"I've been seeing Cedar recently because I think I'm…well, I am…I'm…I'm severely genophobic," the brunette admitted, looking sad.

"What's that?" Humphrey asked.

"Well, there's some scientific reasoning behind it, but bluntly, I'm…really, really scared of…sex."

There was more silence as everyone processed this information.

"Hopper once asked me that if I wanted children. And I just freaked out and shut myself in my room for a week just…you know, freaking out."

"Yup," nodded Hopper.

"So I finally decided to go see Cedar. She did some research, consulted some medical experts, and now it's settled. I'm officially genophobic."

"But…why?" Hunter stammered.

"Good question," said Briar.

They all stood there in silence, thinking over what had just been revealed. Raven and Ashlynn, who were thought to never have children, were now pregnant, whilst Briar, who they thought had seemed to like the idea of having a baby, couldn't. If was all awfully confusing yet they were all relieved to hear the truth.

"I'm sorry for letting you all down," the brunette said. "Especially you, Hopper."

"We understand," Maddie responded on everyone's behalf, and hugged Briar. But the thing was, they didn't understand. At all. Who could be scared of sex?

—

Daring had returned to Dexter's grave to replace the wilted flowers. He stared at the soil, where his brother was buried. He blinked back tears. He stood up when he saw a figure in the distance, hunched over a gravestone with a stone angel on top of it. The figure stood up and trotted towards the exit. Daring spotted another person using a checkered dishcloth to wipe dirt of a plaque engraved in a statue. The statue was most likely made in honour of one of their loved ones.

The three mourners all walked toward the gate leading out of the cemetry. Seeing that they were all walking to the same place with the same speed, although from different distances, they met up just before the path to the gate ended. The three all stopped to look at each other. To Daring's left was a tall blonde man with jagged silver scars. Despite them, he looked innocent and angelic. To Daring's right was the woman who had accused him of trespassing, who was maybe related to Reece Fallashe.

Thinking of this, Daring's stomach flipped. What if the woman was here to mourn Reece Fallashe, who had died? Daring was good with keeping up with the news of his classmates, and he knew Reece had leukamia. So what if he had passed away?

"Are you alright?" asked the blonde man in a cheery voice, that made him sound even more childish (albeit in a good way). It took Daring a couple of seconds to realise the man was talking to him.

"Yes," he responded, politely, and turned to the woman who stood there with a rather neutral expression. "Pardon me for asking, but whose plaque were you cleaning just then?"

"My late parents'," replied the woman. She paused and studied him. "Hey, you're the man who trespassed on my property."

"And you're the one who called me out on it."

"You two seem to know each other," the other blonde man said. "I'm Xavier. I was kidnapped as a child and raised in an abusive family, and I was just released from whatever stupid rehab place I'd been dished in for a day, although I hated it already, and returned to my twin sister, Blondie." He stopped to take a breath. "Perhaps not just released…for a month, perhaps. Then again I have no concept of time."

"I'm Marcia Fallashe. I own a restaraunt," said the woman.

"I am Daring Charming," introduced Daring.

"What an interesting name. Do you happen to know of Dexter Charming?" asked Xavier. "In fact, were you just mourning him?"

"Yes," replied Daring, taken aback. "How do you know?"

"I am very observant, you know," said Xavier. Daring internally agreed.

"And if you don't mind, I want to ask both of you a question," Xavier added. "Do you think evil people exist?"

Despite the rather innocent and curious question, Daring felt it was aimed directly at him. It was Marcia who spoke first.

"I don't believe so. There's no such thing as evil. And if there is, there must be a greater force behind it. Jealously, revenge, or something along those lines. But no one would do it out of pure evil. I mean, wars started because of greed for land and thirst for revenge. And even if someone seems to have no motive behind it, I think there is some kind of force behind it."

Xavier nodded. "What about you, Daring?"

Daring placed a hand on Xavier's shoulder. "Behind every criminal mastermind and every cruel person, there is a broken child shivering behind the mask."

"I'm sure your brother has forgiven you," Xavier responded, smiling sadly.

Daring was shook by the man's accurate statements, but said nothing. Only smiled. And they stood there mourning for their loved ones and for each other.

—

Cerise spent the next few days visiting Reece. He seemed perfectly calm, sleeping in an eternal sleep when he pricked his finger of the spindle of cancer. She hoped that he would live.

She had brought along many things. His favourite music albums, audio books he might like, and other things that he didn't need to see to enjoy. She also brought a large vase of flowers even though he couldn't appreciate the colours and soft petals, that he might like the fragrance.

So Cerise sat there day after day and allowed him to listen to people narrating books and hear his favourite music in hope that he would stir from his one hundred year slumber. But something nagged in Cerise's mind. What if he didn't wake up, ever? What if he was fated to be unconcious for eternity? The very thought had made her feel sick.

She hadn't told any of her friends about Reece's comatose state. She thought that Briar's genophobia was bad news enough, and hadn't wanted Ashlynn and Hunter and Raven, who had a baby, to worry about him or anyone. But saying this, she wished he had told maybe Briar or Maddie, as they could comfort her.

However, Cerise was surprised when one day, she felt a hand on her shoulder as she sat there weeping for Reece, and saw the owner of the hand place down a large bouquet of Reece's favourite flowers (cherry blossoms and peonies).

She was even more surprised when she looked up and saw the worried, regretful face of Daring Charming.