Chapter Twenty: Precious

Why do the things we have

Seem precious only once

They've slipped away?

'Coming of the Dawn', Frankenstein the Musical

xxXxx

"No! This was not my intent! Live, Haru!" Baron yelled as she slipped out of the world of the living for a second time.

Haru's head was immediately clear as she vacated her body again, her eyes locking on the spirit of her boyfriend. "B-Baron? What just happened? I can understand you now? You lied to me!" she accused, pointing a slightly glowing and see-through finger at him.

She didn't bother worrying about seeing him. She could see him since becoming a ghost the first time.

The tall feline flinched, looking down at their bodies as the voices and chainsaws grew closer. "... Yes. I did not wish to frighten you, my heart. I was certain that giving you my Life Force would save you, and I wanted your memories of me to be happy."

Haru stared at him, trying to decide what to ask first. "The curse was... my death?"

The orange tabby nodded in misery. "The Keeper of Winter wished to be my mother's mate. Thiris felt that a fitting punishment for choosing my father was to make me feel even more pain than he experienced. He arranged at my birth celebration for me to find out about a pure-hearted maiden far too away for me to reach while ensuring that you would only live for a certain amount of time. His spell hit you eight of your years ago. I have not been able to stop checking on you or thinking about you since."

He turned away from her with shame, the first time he had taken his eyes off her since Haru started seeing him. "I also apologize for my overconfidence. I did not wish for you to die in such a manner twice, and I know you were looking forward to speaking with... them."

The pure rage on his face made it clear that he was speaking of her parents.

Haru looked at him, trying to muster anger over the lost chance. Yes, she was looking forward to hearing what her parents had to say for themselves without her making up their excuses for them. But... at the same time...

"I would have died alone if you hadn't come."

Even if Tsuge had stepped up, she would have been alone so early in the morning.

Her tawny feline nodded, still looking miserable. "I... refused to let that happen. I swear that if I had been able to find some way for us to life a long happy life together, or even just yourself, I would have taken it in less than a heartbeat! I will be understanding if you scream at me, beat me if you wish, but I will not take back doing all in my power to try to save you." He even held his arms out slightly as if to invite violence.

'But we're ghosts.' Experimentally, Haru floated just close enough to brush her hand against his face again.

Her fingers slipped right through him. She couldn't even tell a difference in temperature or a fuzzy feeling from the strange contact.

Judging from the look of despair on his own face, Baron couldn't feel her touch, either.

The human girl would have started crying if she still had lungs or tears. "Baron... you didn't have to die with me," she whispered as the men wielding chainsaws steadily grew closer to the front door.

"What would I have to live for after you?" he answered without thinking twice, still looking at her as if she were the greatest treasure he had ever seen. "I was only able to collect enough power to come to you, and I highly doubt the Keepers of this world would have left me in peace after your death. Even if my mirror charm is no longer active thanks to my death, they saw enough to know that I foresaw your demise. It would not shock me if they found a way to twist things about to make it look like I killed you."

Haru could only shake her head at the thought, although she agreed with his assessment. She tried to touch his face again, with about the same amount of success as before. "So... what now?"

"I do not have the slightest idea, my love. Do... you feel a need to go in any particular direction?"

The brunette only shook her head in bemusement. "You?"

"No, but if you were planning on going anywhere, I was planning on following." It was only then that he was able to smile again, using his gift of flight to bow to her in midair. "That is, if you would not object to my company."

Despite the circumstances, Haru couldn't help but laugh a little at his flirty antics. "Well, you haven't given me anything to complain about yet... other than this morning, obviously," she finished with depression.

"Obviously. Again, my sincerest apologies for not telling you everything. But I hope you will forgive me for saying that I do not regret all the times you allowed me to hold you while I had the chance."

Haru gave him a shy smile in response. "I think I will forgive you about as easily as you'll forgive me for stealing those kisses."

His tabby face lit up with a large grin as he tried to pounce on her for a hug, but wound up going completely through her like a wisp of smoke until he was righting himself on the other side of the couch. He growled in frustration, but the two were soon distracted by a black-clad soldier kicking the door down.

"Yoshio-" he tried to call out, but then stopped cold at the two bodies on the floor. Despite the fact that Haru had never seen the man before, he gave a strangled cry as he ran to her body's side to check her pulse.

"You will watch your hands, young tom," Baron growled in hostility.

Haru tried to slap herself in the forehead, but even her own touch was elusive as a ghost. "Seriously, Baron? Does it matter at this point?"

"It matters to me," he insisted as the stranger tried not to cry into his radio.

"Sir? Whatever the cat did didn't last very long. I'm not moving her position, but Yoshioka-san is dead again."

A loud agonized wail emitted from the radio, one that Haru was surprised to recognize.

"... Mom did care about me?" she asked in surprise. 'She wasn't raising a fuss for the cameras?'

Baron huffed angrily as her father's cries were heard as well. "Quite a bit of good it does them to say something about their feelings now, is it not?"

Haru would have happily sighed if she still had lungs. "Baron," she stated sternly. "I'm never going to have that talk with them. All I wanted was to know if I meant something to them after all. I have my answer, and this is as close to peace that I'm ever going to make with their behavior. Please respect that."

His left ear twitched in annoyance, but he sighed in defeat. "Thiris' curse certainly did not settle for anything less than a pure heart. Very well, dear; expect me to be suspiciously quiet concerning your parents."

"Thank you." As she snuck a peak at the soldiers piling into her home to both stare at their bodies and start taking pictures for who knew what, she realized just how pointless staying around was. She looked down at the space between her slightly see-through feet and the floor, willing herself to raise high enough to almost slip through the ceiling.

"Darling?" Baron asked worriedly, floating to her side in an instant.

"You know what?" she asked casually, giving him a smile. "I've always wanted to go on a road trip. See new things, hear new things... I know Japan and other parts of the world have some beautiful forests and mountains."

It would also be nice to get to visit the ocean. Anything new would be welcome at this point.

"Oh? Can they hold a candle to mine?" he asked with a slight challenge in his tone.

"Well, if you want to take me to your world after doing some sight-seeing around this one..." the brunette offered with a teasing grin.

His beautiful green eyes lit up again, and he was just able to keep himself from trying to hug her again. "If my lady wishes it, who am I to argue?"

Haru laughed, and brought her face just close enough to press a kiss against his cheek, although she had to keep her eyes open so as to not go through him. "I'll race you to Mount Fuji!" Without another warning, she shot upward through the ceiling.

Baron shook his head out of a loving daze and laughed before following her. "If this is my afterlife, then I must have done something right!"

ooOoo

Naoko tiredly looked around her living room a month after her daughter's death, staring at everything as if this had never been her home.

It was her first day back in her own house. Ugh, what a nightmare. As if losing her only child wasn't bad enough, there had been endless lawsuits, official explanations to give, tests on the two to wait for...

Talking her bosses into letting her take back her old job as a columnist. Even if she could somehow endure the constant public shaming over this mess, Naoko had completely lost the little desire she still had to go see the world and meet people who shared her interests.

She wasn't all that surprised when her husband admitted to more or less doing the same thing with his own job, even though he met up with a lot less people than herself.

'When did we get this rug? This TV certainly isn't the one we had when we moved in. How is it that I never saw the little touches Haru made to make this place more of a home?'

With no one around to appreciate it but herself. Naoko again felt the stab of guilt over all the chances she had quite literally thrown away for her career.

Try as the best military doctors in Japan could, not a one of them had been able to find out what had killed her sweet child. Unfortunately, the only one that seemed to know what happened had died trying to help her daughter.

Poor Baron. There were so many apologies she owed that feline for doubting his motives toward Haru. If anything, he had more right to be near her than she or her husband did.

On a whim, she released Muta with one hand and reached out and harshly grabbed the stems of the roses that were sitting on the piano in a glass vase.

They still pricked her, but they were not the little daggers they were before. After Baron's death, the thorns had lost all the fight in them, and had even stayed trimmed back like regular roses were supposed to. Who would have thought she'd someday prefer the dagger feel of thorns that were bent on shredding her like cheese?

"It would serve me right," she muttered in depression, reluctantly letting the bouquet rest in the vase as her eyes strayed to the few movies that Haru had left out close to the TV.

Not finding anything better to do, Naoko hiked Muta's considerable weight back onto her hip and started putting the movies back in their display case.

But after putting away Sleeping Beauty, her eyes widened in disbelief. "This movie again?" she tried to snarl, but couldn't really find the enthusiasm for it.

She didn't recognize the title, but she had no trouble recalling that skeleton. When did Haru bring this movie back into the house?

'If you had stuck around, she wouldn't have been able to disobey you.'

"No need to rub it in," she snapped at her own thoughts, picking up the case in order to look at the plot summary.

Huh. That looked surprisingly harmless. That skeleton didn't look as scary when the small picture of him was admiring a snowflake in his bony fingers.

Well, what could it hurt now? Naoko opened the case and popped the disc into the TV. But just before she closed the case, she noticed a bit of paper tucked securely into the inside of the case.

Her daughter's handwriting had a date at the top with thirteen tally marks below it with obviously different pens over a period of time. The date was a few days before her birthday.

The day her patient daughter finally stopped trying to reach out to her parents.

"... Just how many times have you watched this?" Naoko remembered demanding.

Haru almost answered, but then stopped herself. "I wasn't counting. Lots of times."

She had counted this time. She was counting on being caught watching this again, ready to show the evidence against herself. She was ready for a fight.

"My poor Haru," the red-haired woman whispered, her voice full of the tears that her eyes were drained of for now. "How badly I've disappointed you. No wonder Baron wouldn't let us into the house."

What would have happened if she had given the movie a chance back then instead of driving her daughter to tears?

What had Haru been upset enough about to run to her room? Why hadn't she thought to ask or try to offer comfort?

"Honey? I finished making the frame," Hasho announced as he came up from the basement. "If I were better at carving, I'd try to put some roses in, but... Naoko? Is something wrong?"

She looked over at him, taking note of the portrait Tsuge had done of Haru and Baron. It was the only picture they had where Haru wasn't miserable or trying not to look miserable.

Tsuge had gotten off surprisingly easy after he gave confirmation that the alien's only intent had always been Haru's happiness and survival. Though Naoko wasn't certain that giving the boy a computer job in the military really counted as 'community service', she was glad that he was getting to live a semi-normal life after... well, everything that had happened.

The middle-aged woman suddenly realized that Muta had fallen from her grasp and she hadn't answered her husband's question yet, since he was now standing next to her with a look of tired concern. She leaned down and grabbed the doll first, fighting back relief that Haru had clearly gotten better at sewing since trying to show her the toy.

"... Haru once told me this movie had a beautiful story and pretty songs. I never really thought about why my sweet little girl would be so drawn to something that looked like a nightmare." She squeezed Muta a little harder, trying to fool her senses into thinking that it was her dear child. "Maybe if I had watched it with her instead of taking the movie away that day, I'd know why she loved it so much."

Hasho looked at the case, clearly not understanding either. But after a while he noticed that the TV was set to the movie's main menu, he gave his wife a somewhat roguish grin that made her heart pitter-patter like it had back when they were dating. "You weren't going to investigate without me, were you?"

"S-Sorry. I'm... not used to..."

"Having me around?" he asked, his grin sliding off his face as he removed a shattered mirror frame and replaced it with Haru and Baron's portrait.

"... I'm sorry," was all Naoko was able to answer, looking down at Muta rather than her husband.

"Me too. We should have made time for this kind of thing when Haru..."

Without thinking, she squeezed Hasho like he was only solid thing left. He squeezed her just as hard, trying hard to fight back his own tears.

"Go... sit down, dear. I'll start it," the man managed to say after several minutes of tearful silence.

Before Jack's Lament was over, they understood completely why Haru had not been able to stay away from this movie.

"The fame and praise come year after year, but does nothing for these e-em-pty te-ars."

xxXxx

Lots of love goes to; Fumiu, fringeperson, NitenGale, PrincessoftheShadowsofDestiny, Eclipse Kuran, Boohead86, Guest, Cecily Mitchell, Wolfy, lordnitemare, Orihime-San, Kaoru-Yuki, Nanenna, GoldfishDanYAY, Kaithlyn FireBreather, Elizabeth, Ms. S. Phinx, LiviaWavern14, Ebony Mitsu, blueroses97, Endeliaha, Momochan77, SakuraRose16, Yang Spirit Wolf, DemonWolf25, Ytak, FireKat91, Aperio, , Serendipity's tears, Chantal, EmpressDragonfly, MidnightLotus627, Endy, UnderlandFox-0, Samellan, Anatekoira, cmsully, Casandravus, Albino RJ Stingray, Uncle RJ Kitten, Eriya, Sindy Sugar, Rowena Bensel, Ellena Tyler, BooksAreMedicine, Mitsuki81, TheCoralineBeldamCat, snowfloat, Xireana Prime, KrisG, InYuJi, snowfloat, and Rose. for sharing their thoughts and reviews. (Big hug for everyone!)

As stated before, this was inspired by a surprising amount of Writer's Block that plagued me while writing Ties that Bind, since my mind kept going off in directions that wouldn't work with how far along I already was (the writer's block hit during Haru's first attempted flight with Toto). The original idea this story would have had was Haru losing hope that anyone would ever care about her, trying to commit suicide, but failing because of Baron's interference. She would have stayed in that house out of sheer depression until Baron came for her, and after they died, Tsuge would have been stuck with the guilt of never being the kind of friend that he knew Haru needed. (Like I said. Much darker than my usual style). I'll admit that I was debating on whether or not one or both of them were going to die until writing the 'birthday date' chapter.

But the breaking arm thing pretty much wrote itself, and well, you've seen what happened with that. Other inspirations are The Book of Life, Phantom of the Opera, a slight bit of Scar from the Lion King, a touch of Mr. Barnaby from the animated Babes in Toyland, Beauty and the Beast, Nightmare Before Christmas, and Romeo and Juliet as well as the Sleeping Beauty thing.

Also, sorry for updating late. Internet connection problems for two days straight.

So. The next story. I was really hoping to start updating it around Christmas since the first few chapters are both centered in it and I made absolutely sure to write the first two or so chapters on Christmas Eve and Day to get the right feel. To those worried that I'm going a little too dark, this one has plenty of bright spots between the darker threads, so it won't be anywhere near as depressing.

The good news is that it currently has the second highest number of words out of all my work on this site, and that I'm on Chapter 27. The bad news is that I might be just past the middle of the story. You can blame laziness, Writer's Block, and jenna131 for talking me into co-authoring an audio drama for MLP (It's already awesome!). Yes, it's based in fairy tales. Which is why she didn't have to exactly twist my arm.

Because of these factors and how long this next story will probably end up being, I'll need to be nice and give betas four months to work on it instead of two since they do have lives and I need to respect that. On the bright side, I'll have well over a year to get my #50 special to its full potential! Or maybe I could give them the first 20 chapters now and the rest when I'm done…

The only hint I am willing to give concerning the plot for #49 is that the first inspiration for it is from a Cary Elwes movie (no, not Princess Bride. Already did that one twice!).

A chance meeting changes fate, you never know what ripples one choice will make.