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Title: Between II - The Long Walk 2/10
Author: ebonbird (ebonbird@hotmail.com)
Summary: This is the sequel to "Between" which is
available @ http://ebonbird.tripod.com/stories.htm.
Though based upon episodes 89-104 of Gatchaman I this
story only loosely follows those events.
Contributing tunes: Time Has Come Today - The Chambers
Brothers; Pusher Man - Curtis Mayfield; Spanish Eyes - Back
Street Boys; Never Can Say Goodbye - Jackson Five; All I
Want - Angel Moon; Plenty - Sarah McLachlan; Mighty Love -
The Spinners; Gymnopedie 1, 2 and 3 - Eric Satie; Could I Be
Your Girl - Jann Arden; Ooh Child - The 5 Stairsteps; Paint It
Black - The Rolling Stones.
Disclaimer: The characters do not belong to me. They
are used without permission. Tatsunuko, Co. Leave me
be, this is flattery.
Comments & Criticism: yes, please.
Thanks to BeckyD, Lori McDonald, Naa Dei-Nikoi, John
Duffin, Sal, Stephanie Wilson, Wildcat & Kim Wylie
for beta-reading and encouragement.
******************
2.
Jun considered what Joe had said, and how he'd said it.
Sprawled on his back, Joe lay in the same uncomfortable
position he'd assumed when he'd settled down for the flight,
his left hand dangling off the edge of the flight couch.
She touched him, folding all her fingers around two of his.
Involuntarily his eyes narrowed. Her teeth met behind her
suddenly tight closed lips. He pulled his hand away,
rolled to a sitting position. Scrutinized her with those
eyes of his; intense, penetrating eyes - wicked blue.
Wordlessly, he took her hand between his, chafed it a
little, and sadly, smiled. It was small, hardly moved the
lines of his face out of their default 'back-off'
expression, but it was there.
It amazed her. Jun swung her legs off the couch and
searched his face, swallowing rapidly and making herself
sit and be silent because she wanted to scream and jump
up and down and hold him and rock him in her arms. He
was happy, oh, a part of him was happy and she would
be content with that. She would hold onto that and not
be unhappy.
She would.
She was going to say something, something important
when Ken spoke drawing her attention away from Joe.
"Is this it?" Ken asked Ryu of the empty expanse of
ocean below them.
Jun released Joe's hand, and went to look. The sky was
overcast. The water rising up in jagged little waves,
thrown into one another from the wind and the blast of
the God Phoenix's engines.
Ryu nodded and said, "Yep," flying the God Phoenix into
the Sea of Japan. He was an excellent pilot but sweat
beaded his upper lip as he maneuvered down into the
darkening depths, through the gap in the crevasse and
into the utter darkness of the artificial trench of the former
Galactor outpost.
Nambu's staticky message was brief. They were to rest
until further notice.
"I'm on the clock." Joe told Jun when she followed him
after their debriefing and retired to his cramped, dank
quarters, with the station's current surveillance reports.
Joe's sleep was bad. Blindsiding him as soon as he rested
his head against the bolster and pulled the flat screen
terminal atop his chest. His body loosened beneath
accumulated injuries and too little rest. His thoughts
fractured as he drifted in and out of consciousness. In all
his life he had never been so physically miserable. The
worry mark between his eyes lifted for the brief moment
when true sleep took him beyond his physical aches.
Biting back a moan, Joe dreamed.
Rose water. Jasmine. Vetiver -- Maria Brunelli, his
mother's perfume, scenting her hair, down for once and
over her shoulder, tickling his face as she tucked the
sheets around him. Her fingers were cool on his eyes as
she kissed his cheek and said, "sleep."
Waiting until he was sure his parents had settled in for
the night, he got up to walk the house, checking door-
handles and window latches, peering through gaps in the
drapes, and counting cars, familiar and strange as they
drove by the gate at the long end of the drive. He walked
and walked until his feet stumbled over each other and
he had to sit. Stationing himself beside the master
bedroom door, and needing to pray.
"Our father," he murmured. "Our father," and there were
tears in his eyes. He couldn't remember the words. If he
could remember the words then the bad thing would go
away. "Hail Mary," he whispered. "Our Father full of -" He
came awake with his calf bumping along Papa's thigh,
his face on Papa's shoulder, Papa carrying him back to
his room.
Joe needed to lift his arm and scream at the blindness
coming over him, taking away the house behind them,
but he was so tired, he couldn't breathe enough to say
`look out!'
Holding Joe to his chest with one arm, Papa flipped the
blanket and sheets aside. Slid Joe onto the mattress,
smoothed the sheets over Joe's body up to his chin. A
long kiss on the forehead and one between the eyes and
then Papa left him, shivering, under heavy bedding.
Sounds of smashing glass in the hallway. Mama shrieking,
heavy hair sticking to her face and her mouth wet, angry,
liquour smell on the wall where she'd thrown her glass.
"-too young, Giuseppe! He's a baby! A baby! No guns!"
Papa coming home from work, his gray jacket folded over
his red and white striped sleeve. Papa's long slender
fingers sliding his gold lighter, once Granpapa's lighter,
out of his breast pocket. Papa saying, "See this? You can
throw anything, hit anything, anyway you want, any time at
all."
Papa's arm along the back of his as they skipped stones
across the water. And one day the lighter, Joe skipped it
clear across, seven times two it sparked off the surface
and Papa graduated him to knives.
Mama had one hand over his mouth, and one over his
hands on his stomach when he opened his eyes in the
dark. He got out of bed and took the clothes she gave
him, his legs trembling as he forced them into his pants.
They were, Mama muttered, going to see the sea. She
took his hand and led him through the dark hall, through
the tiny kitchen (all windows, like a greenhouse, the
gleaming clean of the counters, cabinets and fixtures
drowning in weakly starred night), out the door, down the
deck and into the woods behind the house. Thyme. Dust.
Ocean. Rust. She would not let go of his hand. He could
not let go of hers. Her glossy nails dug sharp into his
flesh and her rings were cold. He didn't mind. When he
stuck his thumb in his mouth she was so busy feeling
their way down the leaf strewn, rooty hill, that she didn't
mind either.
They waited in the woods besides the cliff. Mama
squatted and put her back to the biggest rock in the
world, and then she pulled a gun out of the air and rested
it on her thigh. She bit her lip, staring all around her, then
looked up at Joe and smiled. Her teeth flashed white.
She opened her arms to him. His body humming with
tension, he sat on the ground between her legs. He
backed up close. Smelled jasmine oil, vetiver, oil of
roses, the stink of raw silk and fear. Hugging herself and
him she made him look up at the sky. Smooth fingers
stroked through his hair while she told him stories he
already knew about constellations he'd already
memorized. She was making fun of vain Cassiopeia
when Papa came, getting up so quick that Joe's head
smacked against stone, she beat Joe to his arms.
Wrapped her hands in the collar of Papa's jacket and
moaned, "Giu-." For the first time in almost forever Joe
saw Papa kiss Mama, and for the first time in longer
than that, he saw Mama kiss him back.
Jun, cross-legged on the floor of Joe's cell, wreathed in
intent and relaxation, breathed. Her clothes folded neatly
on the floor beside her, a lit brazier on the tiny desk.
Though no qi-gong master it was clear to her, now that
she bothered to look, that Joe was hemorrhaging qi, life
energy leaking out of him.
Sensing Joe's waking, Jun went to the alarm clock and
turned it off before it could sound.
Through opaque eyes, Joe watched her.
She took his hand in hers, manipulating pressure points.
He resisted her, but was too tired to keep the energy
from flowing out of her and into him. "Is your head bad,
still?" she asked after a few moments.
"Better. Thanks." Then, "I smell incense."
She sat on the edge of his bunk, gently grasping his right
hand by her thumb and crooked middle finger, leaned
forward and poured herself into him as if she were water.
He was so thirsty, his reserves so depleted that the
giving was endless, eternal. Pleasure on top of pleasure,
hurt on top of hurt. She saw the truth of it in the way he
latched onto her and her gift, felt it through his sweat,
tasted it on his skin. She knew him.
When Joe could make her stop, when he could make
her release him, body, soul and mind, she finally came.
Slumping without a sound, shaking in his grip, warmth
and cold spreading from every part of her body, colors
flooding her mind, a sweetness so sharp it made her
ache with its loss. She'd never known it could be like
this, that she could be so aware of a man inside and
out. Never known that she could spend herself like
this on anyone's behalf.
Truth caught up with her and she said, "You've been
lying to me."
Joe spoke when he was dressed. The terminal pulled onto
his lap as he sat cross-legged on the moist floor of his
cell. "About?"
"You and Nambu don't have a plan." The keys of the pad
stuck together as Joe typed, and light thrown up on his
face by the liquid crystal display was unkind. Jun knew
Joe's face. Knew his many frowns and scowl-eyed
glances, but the liar in front of her made no sense to her
tired eyes.
When Joe finally answered his voice was as unfamiliar as
his expression. "All I want to do is go back to Sicily and
nail the bastards who killed my mother and father. It's
nothing he hadn't authorized me to do before. It's nothing
he'd allow anyone else to do.
"Do you remember what you said to me when we first
met? You were standing with Jinpei hiding behind you
and you asked me if Nambu was my father. I said my
parents were dead. And you said, 'then who loves you,
then?' and when I didn't answer, you took my hand and
you said, `would you like me to?'"
Jun remembered, the boy with the small, angry eyes and
the jealous mouth.
"I wouldn't lie to you," he said. "Not with everything
you've done for me."
The intercom came on, instructing the science ninja team
to return to the God Phoenix. Joe slapped the terminal
shut with a curse.
******************
******************
end 2/10
"I hate women who say pretty=stupid.
They're really misogynistic men in drag."
~~~BeckyD
ebonbird's fan fic cache http://ebonbird.tripod.com
the storm archive http://ebonbird.tripod.com/stormarchive.html