[ussbansheec] "Life Lesson"
- From: "Moria McEntire" <bansheec@xxxxxxx>
- To: <ussbansheec@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2006 19:09:18 -0400
"Life Lesson"
Beatrice and Elisabeth Braddock, Laura Kinney, Jamul Moorning, Henry McCoy
Laura hated transporters. She hated them with a deep loathing passion. They
interfered with scents. They left a mechanical dead end. She lost Beatrice's
as soon as the girl had stepped into the blasted pad. A jumble of emotions
ranging from anger to fear boiling in her belly as she stalked the parlor,
claws extending and retracting as she paced, her form of a nervous twitch.
"They're coming," Betsy said suddenly, her eyes swiveling to their personal
station. "And she's hurt!"
The site of her girl limp and hurt in the arms of that so called artiest was
almost more then she could bare. Without waiting for Betsy, but knowing she
was right behind her, Laura ran towards them. She growled at the man as she
took Beatrice from him carefully. She snarled at him as fiercely as any
wildcat would over her cub, and then headed back to the house.
"What did you do?" Betsy asked softly as the two most precious people in
her life returned to the house.
Jamul was taken aback at the accusation. "I did nothing. She feel down the
stairs as we were leaving my flat."
"Understand my position. My little girl left this house to sneak out to her
lover, a man with a criminal record and convicted of ABH. What am I meant
to think?" she asked, her arms crossed under her breasts.
He was generally surprised she'd known, but shouldn't have been. "That was
in my past. I would never hurt Beatrice." He stood tall and looked the woman
in the eyes. "I love her."
Betsy fixed her purple eyes on him then hmphed. "You're telling the truth.
Bugger. Well... Go on then. I'll try to stop Laura from gutting you."
"That would be greatly appreciated." Jamul replied as he all but ran to the
house.
Given the fact that Hank was able to beam over right away from the mansion,
Laura was reevaluating her dislike of transporters. She was prowling the
hall outside Beatrice's room when she caught his scent lingering in the air.
He was coming this way. With all of her claws fully extended she waited, and
when he was close enough she pounced.
Jamul fell to the floor, the small woman crouched on his chest, and those
knives of hers against his throat. "I didn't hurt her."
Laura snarled at him.
"He didn't," Betsy confirmed. Her dark eyes still danced with amusement at
his position. ~~He says he loves her, I believe him. She loves him too,
regretfully~~
Laura didn't move. She knew Betsy could tell when someone was telling the
truth or lying, but he still let her little girl get hurt. "If she had been
here, in her home, with us, she would not be hurt." She growled. ~She's to
young to understand, she's only a little girl!~~
~~She's eighteen. Don't you remember being eighteen and still loving?~~
Betsy sighed as she added, "If I hadn't forbidden the man from coming here,
she wouldn't have snuck out in the first place."
Jamul could barely breath. How did such a small looking woman weight as much
as a steel beam?
~~I did not love at eighteen.~~ She reminded her lover. ~He will use her.~~
"Will you use her, Mr. Moorning?" Betsy asked. "Is she a meal ticket? How
is this for a deal? When she is better, I will send her away for a year.
For that year she will be your responsibility. In that time, you will teach
her how to live and love in a world that, despite all our efforts, still
revolves around money. Her stipend will dry up, her access to this mansion
removed. If you can love her and not take advantage of her in that year
then you will both be accepted back here. Understand?"
"I'm not," He choked out. "using her. I don't need or want her money."
"Then it won't bother you when she doesn't have any," Betsy retorted airily.
~~Let him breathe, love~~
Laura stared at the man with hateful green eyes and then nicked him with a
claw for good measure before getting off of him and moving to standing
beside Betsy.
Jamal pushed himself to his feet, touching his throat where his was
bleeding, his blood as green as his grandmother's, and mother's. "It'll tear
her up to be cast away from the two of you." Though he was starting to
wonder about the smaller one. Were those knives in her feet?
"She can come back any time she chooses," Betsy told him. "But in doing so
she admits she doesn't love you or you do not love her. If, in that time,
you mistreat her, Laura will gut you." She didn't add that being cut off
from her niece would almost kill Betsy herself but he didn't need to know
that.
"You'd throw her away after she's already lost everyone else?" He was
confused.
"I am not throwing her away!" Betsy snapped. "I'm offering her the
opportunity to understand what love really means."
"You don't think she's serious." Jamul replied as he pressed a handkerchief
to his neck. "You think she's a little girl playing games. She's not. Nor am
I. If it were money I was after I'd simply go to Vulcan."
Betsy actually smirked at him. "Easy cash to pray on the sentimentality of
young girls. I've seen it before."
"It would be easier to ask my Grandmother." Jamul snorted.
"Only because you understand the full extent of your actions," Betsy
reminded him. She looked him over with a thoughtful gaze. "Though, now I'm
beginning to rethink my request to Laura to get off of you. You seem
blithely uninterested in going to my niece."
He checked to make sure he'd stopped bleeding. He didn't want her to see
him bleeding, knowing she'd know where he'd gotten cut. Without another word
he went into the bedroom. He stopped and blinked at the large, blue, furry
man.
"This must be your young man?" Hank asked the girl with a bright smile as he
finished tending to her broken arm.
"This is Jamul, Uncle Hank," Beatrice said from the sofa where she was
laying. "He says we're going to be bonded like Vulcans."
It was just then that Hank noticed the ear tips. The part of him that was a
scientist found that fascinating. What would the addition of alien DNA do to
the X-gene? The larger part of him that was Uncle Hank looked the man over.
He was much older then the girl and it was evident that at least one of her
guardians had had words with him already.
Jamul smiled despite the intensity of the man's gaze. "It is how we marry."
"Yes, I know." Hank replied before turning back to Beatrice. "Your going to
be a bit sore and achy my dear. Lots of rest, as little movement as
possible, and lots of coddling from your aunts, and you'll be right as rain
in no time."
Betsy felt like a real jerk at those words but she wouldn't let Jamul see
it as she stepped into the room. "I'm sure Mr. Moorning can coddle just as
well as we can."
"Huh?" Beatrice asked, staring from Jamul to her aunts. "Can't I have
both?"
Laura's head was spinning. She didn't quite understand what Betsy was doing,
though she could feel the pain it was causing her to do it.
Jamul walked over and sat beside Beatrice. "Your aunt has made a decision
that requires you to make a choice, k'diwa."
"What kind of choice?" Beatrice fixed her eyes on Jamul. "What happened?"
Jamul looked up at Betsy. "Make your offer."
"If you can live without money or connects for one year but with the love of
this man then you can come home," Betsy told her.
"What d'you mean?" the girl asked, now petrified she knew.
"I want you to live with Mr. Moorning for a year, I want you to understand
that love is not convenient, not something to just slot into your normal
life. It changes lives completely. I want you to understand that. After
one year, I hope you do. If you no longer love him or he throws you out,
you can come home but not for any other reason during this coming year."
Tears started to fill Beatrice's eyes and she shook her head. "I don't
ever want to come back."
"I never wanted you to loss you family, k'diwa, I'm so sorry." Jamul
whispered to her. With gentle ease he picked her up off the couch and headed
for the door.
"Then leave her here and leave," Betsy offered as she quietly died inside.
Later she'd cry at the loss of her little girl and her own need to show her
how life works. "The choice is not solely for Beatrice."
"Don't leave me," Beatrice said quickly. "Not unless you don't love me."
"I do love you." Jamul replied. "I can give you me and my love but nothing
more, k'diwa. You've seen how I live. You won't be able to do all the things
you were talking about this morning."
"I don't care," she said seriously. "I don't need any of this. I don't
want it either. I want you."
That's all he needed to hear. With her in his arms Jamul walked out of the
room, down the stairs, and out of Braddock Manor.
Laura hadn't felt pain like this since she'd lost her mother. She followed
them to the door and then stood there and watched her little girl go,
trembling, tears flowing like rivers down her cheeks.
"I'm an old fool," Betsy told Hank as she felt Laura's pain almost as deeply
as her own. "Do you think she'll come back in a year?"
Hank put a huge furry paw on her shoulder. "The girl couldn't play princess
her whole life, Elisabeth. When she realizes your real motives, she'll come
back. I don't know if that'll be at the end of a year though."
"And Laura?" she asked as she felt her first tear.
"Even after she found Logan, despite Ororo taking her in as if she were one
of her own children, she never had a family until you and that child." Hank
sighed. "Your going to have to help her see this as more then a loss,
Elisabeth. The girl feels loss to harshly, like her father."
~~Laura? Have I lost you as well as my Beatrice?~~ "Will you stay tonight,
Hank? Please?"
"Do you have Twinkles?" The large blue fur ball asked. "Damned Bobby ate my
last box."
~~You sent her away.~~ Laura replied as she crouched near the front door,
her girl's scent already fading on the winds.
~~I gave her the chance to be a woman, not a child. We can't let her be our
baby any more. I can't. I won't. I'm sorry for that~~ "Ask the cook.
I'm sure Phillippe has a box somewhere even if it pains him to admit it, he
actually likes the things."
Hank rubbed furry paws together and grinned. "Perhaps he will introduce me
to the delicacy of the deep fried Twinkie." He kissed the side of Betsy's
head and smiled at her. "You're a good mother, Elisabeth, and a good
partner. Just give your girls time."
Rain was coming, the scent would be totally washed away now. ~~She hates
us.~~
~~She hates me. She loves you. I never for one instant imagined you
wouldn't go to her~~ "Ask him to deep fry you a Mars bar while he's at it
and tell him I will be needing my normal chocolate fix." Betsy tried to
smile at Hank but she found it hard to through her tears. ~~Sneak her food
from home and towels and clothes... Pretend it's against my wishes so
she'll accept them~~
"Alright, but stop standing here woman and go find the other half of you
before you both break." Hank replied before leaving the woman standing in
her niece's room.
~~But you said.~ Now Laura was really confused and it was starting to give
her a headache. ~~I don't understand!~~
Betsy didn't have to be told twice as she dashed from the room and flew to
where Laura was crouched. "I'm so sorry..." ~~I'm a fraud. I can't see
her leave and know she'll be in poverty. She needs to stand on her own but
I can't stand the thought of her being without the things that make her
happy~~ "Go to her, take her teddies and pretty dresses. Tell her you
sneaked them to her. Tell her you love her, that you're her link to me.
Tell her..." ~~That I'm the bad guy~~ Finally Betsy broke down and started
to cry heavily.
The sight of her love weeping quickly snapped Laura from her fog. She stood
and wrapped her arms around the other woman. "Why?" She asked simply.
"Because I don't want you to lose her like I have," Betsy whispered through
her coughing sobs. ~~I threw her out!~~ The freezing realization hit her
and she cried even harder.
"We can fix this." Laura told her softly. "We can fix this and she can still
learn." She paused a moment. "Can't we?"
"How?" Betsy sobbed.
Laura opened her mouth to reply and then sighed. "I don't know. You're the
brains, the one who always does the talking, I lurk, and grunt, and slice
things."
"I did the talking and lost my little girl," Betsy said, heartbroken.
She had to ask. "I can understand the lesson of knowing life's not as easy
as we've made it for her, but why banish her from contact with you? From her
home?"
"I'm the safety net," Betsy told her softly. "If she stays, she'll just
slip into the same old habits of getting Auntie Betsy to sort it out for
her. She can't do that because I won't always be here." Reaching over, she
brushed Laura's cheek. "We're not all immortal."
That made sense she guessed. She never had what Beatrice had, she hadn't
come from love, she hadn't know it until her mother's death, hadn't
understood it until Betsy. She didn't truly understand the life of a normal
child until she was blessed enough to be allowed into Beatrice's. Reaching
up she wrapped her fingers around the hand on her cheek. "What do we do
without her?"
"I don't know," Betsy whispered sadly. "For tonight we entertain our fuzzy
blue guest. Tomorrow... You go and see BB with the hamper we put together
for her."
Laura simply nodded until they were back inside the house. "The fuzz ball
better not have eaten all the Twinkles."
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