Fic - Fundamental Things Apply
Zoofic PG. Collaboration between anax and myself. This is a Bridge to the sequel of both Once Someone Loved and cryogenia's Firebrand.
Once Somebody Loved [Chapter One] [Chapter Two] [Chapter Three] [Chapter Four] [Chapter Five] [Chapter Six] [Chapter Seven] [Chapter Eight] [Chapter Nine]
Firebrand
[Finale Chapter with links to previous Ten Chapters in post]
In the turn of seasons, a couple of months later, Ed turned twenty-one. At least Marta thought he was twenty-one, and so he was given his yearly cake. It was just an angel food cake with whipped cream as frosting, but it was always treated with awe and reverence. This year she had to leap in and save a piece for Eddie, whose parent conveniently forgot their relationship when the cake hit the table.
Things were relatively quiet. Eddie was showing beautiful progress. He interacted with her and Ed more comfortably as each day went by, and he was learning to tolerate Ling as long as certain boundaries were respected. He and Ling had seemed to come to an agreement about what the boundaries were by themselves, and that made her happy. She was feeling so good and confidant in fact that she decided she could, indeed, take a trip into the small town alone and leave her three current residents in residence for an hour or so by themselves.
She picked up a few basic necessities and idled in the small general store for a few moments, just looking around. Burtmar was tiny as far as towns went, with little more than a post office, a general store, one small hardware store and a farmers market. For anything truly consumer-worthy one had to drive the forty-five minutes to Casper, the town that lay between Burtmar and Pendleton. So it was to her very great amazement when she saw two small bath sets tucked on a lower shelf in the back of the Burtmar general store.
'Girly' luxuries were just something that Mr. Hampton didn't carry, so she wondered by what miracle these two had managed to work their way onto the shelves. One was lavender and one was vanilla. Each contained a sponge, a lotion, and an eight ounce bottle of bubble bath. For a mere five hundred ninety-nine cens, she could smell like a flower or a cookie. It was almost too much to think about. Five hundred ninety-nine cens would buy a dozen oranges or a few bunches of vegetables, or a modest cut of meat for her little predators. She chewed the inside of her lip for a moment. She picked them up, and weighed them in her hands. She tried to sniff each through its plastic wrapping, but smelled only dust and motor oil, which was sitting on the shelf next to the two incredible luxuries.
She put them down and closed her eyes and tried to switch them around a few times, but it didn't work because she knew which was which before she blindly picked one. For the first time in her life she missed the input of a female friend or a boyfriend for that matter and scratched her head in consternation. Well...which one would Ed like? Not that it mattered really, but he was the closest thing to a best friend she had, really. She almost regretted not bringing him. He might be able to smell under the plastic for her. If she got lavender he might think she smelled funny, if she got vanilla he might think she smelled like cookies, and beg for them when he knew he wasn't allowed to have very many. She caught Mr. Hampton looking at her, and smiled sheepishly. She took a deep breath, put them back on the shelf and left them there, heading for the front of the store. But she stopped halfway up the isle, turned, ran back and grabbed the vanilla one and purchased it. What the hell.
After dinner, after everyone was full and lying about, she found the only candle left in the house. She carried it, a towel, her slipper and robe and the little vanilla bath set into the sanctuary. The tub in the house part was just an ordinary bath tub, but the one if the sanctuary was big and sunken, so that both Ling and Ed could fit into it comfortably. She wanted a nice, long, hot soak to think and clear her mind and come up with a something to get the donations flowing again. She turned on the water, emptied half the bottle of bubble bath into it and got undressed. The candle was carefully set on the side of the tub, and she went through three matches from a little gas station match book getting it lit.
She turned off the water, turned off the light, and sunk into liquid heated heaven and sank to her nose and closed her eyes. Sheer bliss. Why did she think she'd get anything done while she practically orgasmed over cheap vanilla bubble bath? She fingered some bubbles and stretched her legs, lifting one foot and flexing her toes. She wished she had sprung for that three hundred fifty-five cens plastic blow up tub pillow she'd seen in the general store once upon a time. She'd just fooled herself into thinking that once the owner carried a thing, he'd always carry it. She knew now to pounce when the opportunity arose, because it was likely to never come again; Mr. Hampton was the type to suck all the joy out of being a woman in a godforsaken place like Burtmar.
She wasn't sure how long she drifted there, between nothing and nothing, but it wasn't nearly long enough. The door to the bathroom opened, spilling in light from the hallway. She tried to close her eyes tighter, hoping it would just go away, but there were shuffling sounds, and then a chirrup she knew all to well. She turned her head slightly and cracked her eyes open. There stood Ed, holding Eddie by one hand. They were both staring at her. Eddie's eyes were very wide and Marta felt suddenly more naked than she'd ever felt in her life. She grabbed for the towel on the side of the tub, sloshing as she did so; her ass slipped on the tub floor and she slid under a moment. She came up sputtering and dragged the towel over herself, spitting out suds and reaching up to wipe at her face.
“Ed,” she complained. “Don't bring Eddie in here, I'm taking a bath!”
Ed took a deep breath, raising his nose to the air and licked his lips and said something to the kitten who didn't react at all, his eyes never leaving Marta's soaking wet, towel-covered form. Oh great, so he did think it smelled like cookies.
“Ed,” she continued. “A little privacy please, go play with Eddie in the living room or something, go on!”
Ed's half whined, and burst into a long spiel, pointing at Eddie twice, and ending on a sheepish grin and a look back toward the doorway. She wondered what on earth he was talking about.
“Shoo!” she said loudly. “Scram! This is an Elric-free zone for at least half an hour! No Edwards allowed!”
Ed regarded her for a moment or two longer, gave a heavy sigh and turned around, tugging Eddie along behind him toward the door. Eddie kept looking over his shoulder, and grabbed the door frame a moment on the way out. Marta waited until she heard them moving off down the hall before ditching the towel to the back of the tub and settling down again. Just as bad as any man she'd known. She let out a long, slow breath and reached again for her nirvana of no thought, no cares, no anything, allowing her eyes to close once more.
Sometimes it was possible to sense things, little invisible things that are there even when they really aren't. They can be felt, though, known to be there even though they couldn't be seen ... in the logical world, this meant of course that they weren't there, but they were, raising a prickle of neck-hair and making the skin crawl. Marta slowly opened her eyes, because she knew by doing this the invisible things would scatter and after a moment or two she could close them again. But this invisible thing was neither invisible, nor did it scatter away into nothing. It grinned at her, squatting there by the tub as it was.
“Hi!” it said.
“LING,” Marta yelped and once again her butt proved to be frictionless and she went under. She came up flailing, and Ling kept grinning and then lifted his nose and sniffed the air. He shrugged after a moment, stood and started undressing.
“What are you doing?” Marta shrieked, grabbing her towel again. “No, no, no! OUT! Get out! No Elrics, No Lings, only Dexters!”
Ling's mouth pulled down on one side and he snorted. He seemed to wait a moment, as if waiting out her tirade, and then continued undressing.
“What is this? Every other time I try to get you in a bath I have to practically dart you and drug you! NO! OUT!” She pointed at the door.
He blinked, looked back at the door then down at his bare-chested self and back at the door again. Then he looked at her and the look plainly stated that she should be honored that he was here and willing to undress for her and why was she so offended? Ed stuck his head back in then and scowled. He said something to his mate and Ling ignored him, stripped down to naked and hopped into the tub with Marta. Marta's mouth hung open and she looked from Ling to Ed and back to Ling again. Ed was leaning in the doorway and he kept glancing to the side. Eddie was obviously with him, but not being allowed to look in the doorway as well.
Ling scooted up in the tub and practically climbed into Marta's lap; Ed howled in outrage. He kept starting to charge in, but stopping and looking back to the side. He hissed and made what must have been dire threats. Marta kept looking back and forth between them slowly, really trying to figure out just what was going on. Ling put his arms around her shoulders and bumped foreheads with her and Ed kicked the bathroom door and stretched in as far as he dared without letting Eddie get to the doorway.
The closer Ling nuzzled, the more steam came out of Ed's ears. Marta gave a sigh and shoved Ling off her lap; he rolled back and went under. She stood up, grabbing up her sopping wet towel and wrapping it around herself.
“That's IT!” she yelled. “I give up! I'm getting out! I'm sorry I tried to have a minute ALONE! You win! You both win!” As Ling sat up, sputtering, she stepped out of the tub and grabbed her bathrobe and slippers, and blew out the candle that has somehow survived the goings on and not toppled into the water. She realized then the towel really was soaked and turned and threw it in Ling's face before pulling on her bathrobe. She gathered up her little vanilla bath set, (with it's half empty bottle of bubble bath), and marched to the door of the bathroom. Ed hastily jumped out of her way and she stalked into the hall, gave Eddie a brief smile, and then went down to the house where she marched into her room and slammed the door.
It was a good thing there were no female Elrics, the males ones would all be extinct by now. Same went for the Lings.
Spring cleaning always followed Ed's birthday, but it was only a rearranging of closet space, as it was every year. Marta sat on the floor, surrounded by cardboard, to sort though things old and familiar, comforting and memorable. She pulled Ed's red pelt out of one carefully packed plastic storage bin and held it in her lap petting it for a moment. She pulled out his short black jacket and black shirt, his pants and finally his boots. She lay them all out on the floor around her and pulled up her knees and hugged them. She smiled at her treasure, reaching out again the finger the hem of the red coat.
It wasn't long until she was discovered. Ed came in and stood over her, looking at the pile of clothing scattered on the floor. Eddie sniffed delicately at it, but lost interest. They both milled around, and Ed squatted to dig in the box curiously.
“Why don't you make Eddie a red coat out of your old pelt,” Marta said, pushing it toward Ed. “Eddie is suppose to have a red pelt. Actually he's suppose to make his own, I guess I can save it for then.” Ed ignored her for the box and Eddie squatted down and poked at a boot and lifted the black shirt to his nose then dropped it.
“Get out of the box Ed,” Marta said, pushing his head aside and sliding the box toward her. He continued to try and dig in it as she tried to put things back in it. “Stop that, go on,” she told him but he ignored her some more. Eddie edged up to her back and leaned on it a little. “What? Are you two bored or something?” she asked. Ed huffed and butted shoulders with her, snuffled a bit behind her ear.
“Go on,” she said. “You just make a bigger mess.” She could feel Eddie sitting against her back and wondered what the kitten was doing. She felt the hem of her shirt move and tried to look over her shoulder at him. Ed looked back at Eddie, then his attention turned away too. Marta was just as happy as she could now get the box in order, but the hem of her shirt lifted again, higher this time. She looked over her shoulder.
“What are you doing? Ed, leave my shirt alone.”
Ed made a chirrup and her shirt moved some more, she reached behind her to swat at his hand. It seemed to work for a bit, but then again the hem of her shirt was tugged, the tug was lighter, so it must be Eddie, she didn't try to swat him as she had Ed.
“What is so interesting about the hem of my shirt?” she questioned them, then solved the problem by getting up and carrying the bin back to the closet, thus robbing them of their entertainment. They seemed to be watching her butt as she moved around the room, murmuring to each other and when she wandered too close, Ed grabbed the back of her shirt again. Marta wrestled away, snorting at him and finally stalked off to the bathroom mirror where she sat on the sink and tried to see what was so fascinating about the hem of her shirt. She finally located a loose thread and tugged it free. Wow, they must have really been bored.
She continued on with her rearranging, and both Elrics could find nothing better to do than watch her. Eventually the younger Elric got sleepy and curled up in a pile of old, donated clothing she had piled on the floor. Marta began to tip-toe around after that, enjoyed listening to his soft breaths and watching him burrow as he settled. Ed sat near him for a bit, watching him. Marta remembered Ed's kittenhood easily as she watched Eddie start to have one. Ed had wanted to be with her constantly, had napped near her. Tagged after her inviting her to play at every opportunity. It has been easy to bond with the love starved kitten, and she never regretted, never looked back. She enjoyed her dedication daily in Ed's smiles and soft sounds, in the way he tenderly took in an abused kitten and loved it like no other.
Ed got up after a bit, came over to investigate what she was doing. He sniffed at the back of her neck, touched her hands and finally tugged at her elbow.
“What?” Marta whispered softly.
Ed smiled and kept tugging, together they moved quietly to the door of the room and out into the hall.
“What is it?” Marta asked a little louder, looking into Ed's smiling eyes and waiting for some signal that would let her know what he wanted.
He kissed her.
It had been...so long. At first she responded, making a soft moan into his mouth, opening her own to allow his tongue entrance. Ed was a quick study at everything he did, teaching him to kiss had been rewarding and satisfying. He hummed and his hands went to her waist, his fingers began to knead there gently. She lifted one hand, fingers pushing into the hair behind his ear, other hand hooking over his shoulder; but then she stopped. She stopped and drew back and the hand on his shoulder that was supposed to pull him close, instead pushed him away.
“No, Ed,” she whispered.
He didn't seem to hear, or chose not to hear because he leaned forward again, pulling at her waist. She dropped her hand from his hair, pried one of his hands off and pushed back again, more firmly.
“No, Ed,” she repeated. “No, you go to Ling, he is your mate.”
Ed's eyebrows dipped in confusion for a moment, he tilted his head a bit and made a soft trill. He tried to put his arms around her but she held him off and shook her head.
“No, Ling is your mate, I am not your mate.”
She almost wished she hadn't said it.
He got very still for a long moment, then the fingers of his hand that was still on her waist tightened hard.
“Marta,” he said, and then launched into a litany of his own language, soft and almost sing-song from his lips. He shook his head and tried to pull her closer, tried to kiss her but she leaned away. It was so hard.
“No, Ed, listen to me,” she said. “When Ling wasn't here, things were different. You'd lost so much in your life and it hurt to have you lose someone you loved yet again. I thought at that time what I was doing was alright, it was what you needed, but it's not like that now. You have your mate again, you have a kitten. I don't think it should be like it was when Ling was gone, do you understand? It should be like it was before Ling left. You are Ling's mate, not mine. He has loved you a long time, he came back to you. Ling deserves to be your mate.”
She reached up then, stroked the side of his face.
“I love you very much, nothing about that is going to change, ok? You be a good father to Eddie and you be a good mate to Ling and you keep me company and help me watch out for everyone, alright?”
He shook his head, turned his face away from her hand and stepped back. She didn't want to hurt him, but she didn't know what else to do. The days of self-indulgence were over; it was time to set straight priorities that had become skewed.
“I love you,” she said again as he retreated from her, ducking back into the room where Eddie lay napping.
“I always will,” she followed up, but there was no one there to hear her.
March became April, and April became May. Marta had entirely forgotten about Jacob's promise to visit her by the time his call came; irritatingly, he chose to ring her just as she was scooping a drowsing Eddie off the living room floor and preparing to take him into Ed's enclosure for the night.
"Hello?" she said, after she'd picked up the phone. It was late enough for her to worry that it must be some kind of emergency; she balanced Eddie against her, trapping the phone handset between her ear and shoulder as she rubbed his back soothingly to keep him sleepy.
"Marta," said Jacob cheerily. "How are you doing?"
It took her a moment to recognize his voice. "Who is ... Jacob?"
"That's right. I'm in Pendleton right now. What are you up to tomorrow?"
Marta, caught off-guard by the suddenness of the question, sighed a bit and turned around to check where Ed was. "Oh, I always have things to do. I have animals to care for."
"I was hoping we could get some lunch. You got my letter, right?"
Ed, passing through from the kitchen where he'd grabbed a few slices of apple, paused in the door to the living room and chirruped questioningly. Marta gestured him closer. "I got it," she said, as she started to pass Eddie carefully over to his "parent." Ed cooed to the younger Elric, who clutched at Ed's shirt lapels like an infant. "I'm just not sure I can do it. I have to keep an eye on the Elrics, you know."
"Don't you have volunteers for that?"
"Well, yes, but ..."
"Then come on. When's the last time you went out?"
Marta had not told him about Eddie. She hadn't told anyone much, aside from a few close associates at T.E.R.N., although a lot of the people in town knew or suspected. She was only just recently starting to feel comfortable with leaving him alone with just Ed for more than an hour or so without checking on them; the fact that Eddie was becoming more tolerant of Ling, and Ling was respecting certain limits around Eddie was also encouraging. However ... Pendleton was over an hour away. To drive that far, have a leisurely lunch, and come back would take her away from the sanctuary and Eddie for several hours.
When her silence had continued for a few moments, Jacob said, "Obviously too long. Do you want me to come pick you up? How does tomorrow at ten sound?"
"Jacob, I really can't ..."
"Sure you can. Come on, I know you, you're going to go crazy if you don't get out a little."
She sighed, and then he decided to make it even more difficult for her.
"Hey, remember those photos I sent you? I have a lot more of them."
No, there was just no way he could make it an easy choice.
She told Kate, and especially Alexander, not to come in at all that day; it would be safer if it were just Ed and Ling with Eddie. And she warned Ling repeatedly not to tease Eddie when she was gone. Ling gave her bright grins that didn't do much to reassure her, so she told Ed to keep a close eye on Eddie, an edict that she felt was much more likely to be obeyed.
Jacob arrived around ten-thirty, after Marta had fed the animals and had Ed and Eddie settled in Ed's enclosure with some books. Just before she ran out to the car, she gave Ling two wire-sculpture puzzles, the kind with interlocking pieces that needed to be arranged in non-obvious ways to be pulled apart and put back together; she'd gotten them a few months earlier, and now seemed to be a good time to unveil them. He dropped one in order to examine the other one, trying to tug the pieces apart, and then frowned; soon he was sitting on the couch twisting them around in his clever fingers.
"You make sure you put them back together when you're done with them," she told him, and then got on her coat and ran out to the car.
Jacob was standing next to the car, and he tried to put an arm around her as she came toward him, probably in preparation to give her a kiss on the cheek. Marta evaded the arm by punching him lightly on the shoulder.
"What is this?" she said, smiling. "You've gotten skinny!"
He affected surprise and grinned in return, gracefully giving up the affectionate attempt at a hug. "Are you implying that I used to be fat?"
"Yes," she declared, and they both laughed.
"Well, I've been living it rough, camping out in the bitter cold for weeks at a time, to get you some pictures," he told her, as they got into the car. "They're in the back seat if you want to look at them now."
Marta twisted around and, on top of a folded tarp covered with dried mud was a plain manila envelope. As Jacob started the car and got it onto the road, she carefully opened it and started to page through the pictures.
There were dozens of them. An older, mature Edward and a younger adolescent, still in his brilliant red coat ... some photos were of one, and some of the other, and some ...
Marta flushed and hastily pushed the pictures down into her lap. Jacob laughed a little as he turned onto the interstate.
"They're pretty shameless," he said.
"They're mating!" said Marta, picking up the photos again. Now that she knew what she was looking at, it wasn't so shocking.
"Yes, they mate quite a bit. I'm sure a lot more than what I managed to spot."
"But ... they're both Edwards!"
Jacob said nothing about that, and Marta continued leafing through the photos. There were almost a dozen pictures of the older, silvery-haired Edward giving the young one oral sex outside what must have been their shared den; highly-zoomed, high-quality shots of the adolescent's blissful, squirming expressions as the adult held down his legs and licked his bared groin. The last two pictures of that series were of the older one lying atop the younger, teeth to the adolescent's throat.
"You got really interested in this activity, I see," she said.
"I've never heard of it before," said Jacob, and Marta swore he sounded smug. "I thought it should be thoroughly documented."
Frowning at the last one, of the adolescent arching his back and throwing back his head to offer the older Edward his throat, Marta flipped back to some of the earlier ones. There were two other pictures of the young Edward performing some kind of submission gesture to the older one, once crouching down to the ground before his snarling elder, the other time cringing with his throat bared as the silvery adult showed his teeth. "This isn't like a normal pair," she said.
"No," agreed Jacob. "There's a lot more snarling. I don't think I got any pictures of it, but the younger Edward gets cuffed sometimes. It's not like what you see with an Edward-Alphonse mating."
Marta spent the trip to Pendleton engrossed in the photos, drawing what conclusions she could from what Jacob had captured in them. There was another mating in the stack, taking the more usual form of intercourse, the adolescent on his knees beside some kind of body of flowing water, the adult taking him from behind. The rest depicted one or the other of them, or occasionally both, doing the usual things that took up the time of wild animals: renewing territory marks, gathering food, grooming one another ... there was one series of six, of the older Edward engaged in what was unmistakably a territory battle with another adult.
The pair was mated. As unbelievable as it seemed, they were mated in the same way that Ed and Ling were mated ... without any kind of courtship ritual as far as Jacob could report. The adolescent Edward was submissive to the adult, to a larger degree than what Marta was accustomed to seeing in mated pairs. All Elric pairs, after all, would have one member who was dominant over the other, but they never cuffed one another. Never cringed back from each other.
She came back to the photos of the two Elrics mating more than once. The older Edward's silvery-gold mane had gotten loose somehow, and fell everywhere, all around them both. There was so much of it, and it was so wild.
"Can I keep these?" she asked.
"Of course you can."
They lunched at Pascal's Olive Press; Jacob, naturally, picked up the bill. They spoke a bit more on the topic of the two mated Edwards, and how much Jacob was going to ask for the spread from Amestrian National Journal (he swore it would be the non-pornographic version, but Marta had her doubts); they talked about the sanctuary, Ed and his antics, and a little bit about Eddie (although Marta did not tell him that Eddie was a killer).
For the first time in over six months, Marta spent four entire hours in the company of only other human beings, without an Elric or a Ling in sight. When she said something it was immediately understood; no one pawed at her elbow for a piece of her lunch. And, while she would never have given up any of her animals for anything, she had to admit that she enjoyed herself.
As they left the restaurant, she worried a bit about that. Leaving Eddie alone ... was it unfair for her to indulge herself this way? Was it selfish? Well, really it was undeniably selfish, and she wasn't sure if she was entitled to be selfish or not. Ed and Ling and Eddie were completely dependent upon her. She'd taken up the burden willingly, but it wasn't one she could just set down again whenever it became inconvenient.
Four hours, it was only four hours ... she calmed herself on the car trip back to Burtmar by re-examining Jacob's photographs and asking him more about the paired Edwards. Really, how much could go wrong in four hours? There were no humans in the sanctuary to trigger Eddie's ... problems ... and Ed was responsible enough to ... well, that ran her thought process into a wall, because really, Ed was not very responsible, and shouldn't be expected to be.
Maybe she should have asked Kate to ... but no, she couldn't ask Kate to endanger herself by being around Eddie for that long.
Really, leaving the sanctuary had been a mistake. She should never have let Jacob talk her into it. The fact that she'd enjoyed herself only made her feel more guilty.
When they pulled up to the sanctuary, she was relieved to see that the building was not on fire, no walls had been demolished, and there were no cracks through the yard. She'd have to wait until she got inside the make sure all three animals were alive and unhurt, but just seeing the building intact made her feel a lot better immediately.
"Thanks," she said, laying her hand briefly on Jacob's on the gearshift. "I really appreciate it."
"Does this mean we can do this again sometime soon?" He grinned at her.
"Uh, well ..."
There was a sudden impact on the side of the car, and Marta startled ... but was only Ed, come barreling out of the side door and now pawing at the car window. "MARTA!" he yelled, the sound muffled through the glass but distinct.
"Looks like someone missed you," said Jacob.
"Yeah. Look, I really appreciate you taking me out, and I really enjoyed it." Marta gathered up the photographs and her purse.
"But you don't want to do it again," said Jacob.
"It's not that I don't like you, Jacob," she said. "But I can't just leave them alone like this for hours at a time, and there are good reasons why I don't want to leave them alone with one of the volunteers."
"We don't have to go all the way to Pendleton next time."
"MARTA!" yelled Ed, banging on the window.
"I need to go," she said, and put her hand on the door handle.
"Hey," said Jacob, leaning across the gearshift to lay a hand on her arm. "You need to take care of yourself, too."
"I do," she said, and opened the door.
Ed practically pulled her out as she emerged, throwing himself into her arms and clinging to her like a limpet. She hugged him and petted him, and then squirmed him around so that he was on her side and latched to her arm so that she could close the car door. "Thanks again," she said to Jacob before she shut it.
"Anytime. I'll be around again in probably five or six months. We could go to Casper instead of Pendleton. That's a lot closer."
Marta sighed. He could make things so difficult for her.
"I'll probably have more photos of that Edward pair for you," he added, and winked.
"You are an evil man, Jacob Mercer," she said.
"Is that a yes or a no?"
She shut the car door on him.
Eddie met them at the side door, sucking on an apple slice that Ed or Ling must have given him. He looked up at her with serious eyes, but he took her hand readily enough when she reached for it.
"Who gave you that apple?" she asked. "Someone must really love you to give you an apple while I was gone. Have you had a nap yet?" Ed detached himself from her arm in order to pick Eddie up, but he stayed close to Marta with the kitten, jabbering excitedly ... about what, Marta could only guess.
She put her purse down on the kitchen counter and took one of the sliced apple pieces out of the refrigerator for herself. Everything was fine ... everything was normal. Ed had obviously been made anxious by her absence but nobody had freaked out and destroyed something, and even Ling seemed to have stayed out of trouble; she could see Ling's black head over the top of the couch in the living room, still bent over the puzzle toys she'd given him.
It made her feel a little better about her selfish afternoon out with Jacob, but not much.
"Damn," she said, pressing the heel of her hand to her right eye. Was it right to feel this way, or not? Was she entitled to some time to herself, or did her time rightfully belong to these three? They couldn't really care for themselves, and she didn't dare try to entrust their care to anyone else, because of Eddie. That left only her to do it ... but did that mean she couldn't have a couple of hours to herself, ever?
She didn't know. She had no answers for herself.
When she came out into the living room to check on what Ling was doing, she saw the red light on the phone blinking, and went to push the button to listen to her messages. The machine beeped as it began to play.
"Hi, Ms. Dexter, this is Ron Harley from T.E.R.N. I need you to call me back as soon as possible. We have a situation with some animals rescued from a pit-fighting ring and we need to know how many of them you can take. There are eight in all, but we're checking with everyone to place them, so however many you can take in would be appreciated. My number is 034-490-2381, ask for Ron Harley. We really need an answer on this as soon as possible, so please call me back before five today. Thanks.
Marta stood frozen in the middle of the living room for a moment, as the answering machine beeped again to signal that it had reached the end of her messages. What a fool she was! She should have been here to take that call, get those animals moved as soon as possible ... pit-fighters! What the hell was she going to do with pit-fighting animals?
Checking the time on her watch, she grabbed the pen next to the machine and played the message through again to write down the phone number. What in the world was T.E.R.N. going to think, that nobody had been here to answer the phone?
No, leaving had definitely been a mistake.
Once Somebody Loved [Chapter One] [Chapter Two] [Chapter Three] [Chapter Four] [Chapter Five] [Chapter Six] [Chapter Seven] [Chapter Eight] [Chapter Nine]
Firebrand
[Finale Chapter with links to previous Ten Chapters in post]
In the turn of seasons, a couple of months later, Ed turned twenty-one. At least Marta thought he was twenty-one, and so he was given his yearly cake. It was just an angel food cake with whipped cream as frosting, but it was always treated with awe and reverence. This year she had to leap in and save a piece for Eddie, whose parent conveniently forgot their relationship when the cake hit the table.
Things were relatively quiet. Eddie was showing beautiful progress. He interacted with her and Ed more comfortably as each day went by, and he was learning to tolerate Ling as long as certain boundaries were respected. He and Ling had seemed to come to an agreement about what the boundaries were by themselves, and that made her happy. She was feeling so good and confidant in fact that she decided she could, indeed, take a trip into the small town alone and leave her three current residents in residence for an hour or so by themselves.
She picked up a few basic necessities and idled in the small general store for a few moments, just looking around. Burtmar was tiny as far as towns went, with little more than a post office, a general store, one small hardware store and a farmers market. For anything truly consumer-worthy one had to drive the forty-five minutes to Casper, the town that lay between Burtmar and Pendleton. So it was to her very great amazement when she saw two small bath sets tucked on a lower shelf in the back of the Burtmar general store.
'Girly' luxuries were just something that Mr. Hampton didn't carry, so she wondered by what miracle these two had managed to work their way onto the shelves. One was lavender and one was vanilla. Each contained a sponge, a lotion, and an eight ounce bottle of bubble bath. For a mere five hundred ninety-nine cens, she could smell like a flower or a cookie. It was almost too much to think about. Five hundred ninety-nine cens would buy a dozen oranges or a few bunches of vegetables, or a modest cut of meat for her little predators. She chewed the inside of her lip for a moment. She picked them up, and weighed them in her hands. She tried to sniff each through its plastic wrapping, but smelled only dust and motor oil, which was sitting on the shelf next to the two incredible luxuries.
She put them down and closed her eyes and tried to switch them around a few times, but it didn't work because she knew which was which before she blindly picked one. For the first time in her life she missed the input of a female friend or a boyfriend for that matter and scratched her head in consternation. Well...which one would Ed like? Not that it mattered really, but he was the closest thing to a best friend she had, really. She almost regretted not bringing him. He might be able to smell under the plastic for her. If she got lavender he might think she smelled funny, if she got vanilla he might think she smelled like cookies, and beg for them when he knew he wasn't allowed to have very many. She caught Mr. Hampton looking at her, and smiled sheepishly. She took a deep breath, put them back on the shelf and left them there, heading for the front of the store. But she stopped halfway up the isle, turned, ran back and grabbed the vanilla one and purchased it. What the hell.
After dinner, after everyone was full and lying about, she found the only candle left in the house. She carried it, a towel, her slipper and robe and the little vanilla bath set into the sanctuary. The tub in the house part was just an ordinary bath tub, but the one if the sanctuary was big and sunken, so that both Ling and Ed could fit into it comfortably. She wanted a nice, long, hot soak to think and clear her mind and come up with a something to get the donations flowing again. She turned on the water, emptied half the bottle of bubble bath into it and got undressed. The candle was carefully set on the side of the tub, and she went through three matches from a little gas station match book getting it lit.
She turned off the water, turned off the light, and sunk into liquid heated heaven and sank to her nose and closed her eyes. Sheer bliss. Why did she think she'd get anything done while she practically orgasmed over cheap vanilla bubble bath? She fingered some bubbles and stretched her legs, lifting one foot and flexing her toes. She wished she had sprung for that three hundred fifty-five cens plastic blow up tub pillow she'd seen in the general store once upon a time. She'd just fooled herself into thinking that once the owner carried a thing, he'd always carry it. She knew now to pounce when the opportunity arose, because it was likely to never come again; Mr. Hampton was the type to suck all the joy out of being a woman in a godforsaken place like Burtmar.
She wasn't sure how long she drifted there, between nothing and nothing, but it wasn't nearly long enough. The door to the bathroom opened, spilling in light from the hallway. She tried to close her eyes tighter, hoping it would just go away, but there were shuffling sounds, and then a chirrup she knew all to well. She turned her head slightly and cracked her eyes open. There stood Ed, holding Eddie by one hand. They were both staring at her. Eddie's eyes were very wide and Marta felt suddenly more naked than she'd ever felt in her life. She grabbed for the towel on the side of the tub, sloshing as she did so; her ass slipped on the tub floor and she slid under a moment. She came up sputtering and dragged the towel over herself, spitting out suds and reaching up to wipe at her face.
“Ed,” she complained. “Don't bring Eddie in here, I'm taking a bath!”
Ed took a deep breath, raising his nose to the air and licked his lips and said something to the kitten who didn't react at all, his eyes never leaving Marta's soaking wet, towel-covered form. Oh great, so he did think it smelled like cookies.
“Ed,” she continued. “A little privacy please, go play with Eddie in the living room or something, go on!”
Ed's half whined, and burst into a long spiel, pointing at Eddie twice, and ending on a sheepish grin and a look back toward the doorway. She wondered what on earth he was talking about.
“Shoo!” she said loudly. “Scram! This is an Elric-free zone for at least half an hour! No Edwards allowed!”
Ed regarded her for a moment or two longer, gave a heavy sigh and turned around, tugging Eddie along behind him toward the door. Eddie kept looking over his shoulder, and grabbed the door frame a moment on the way out. Marta waited until she heard them moving off down the hall before ditching the towel to the back of the tub and settling down again. Just as bad as any man she'd known. She let out a long, slow breath and reached again for her nirvana of no thought, no cares, no anything, allowing her eyes to close once more.
Sometimes it was possible to sense things, little invisible things that are there even when they really aren't. They can be felt, though, known to be there even though they couldn't be seen ... in the logical world, this meant of course that they weren't there, but they were, raising a prickle of neck-hair and making the skin crawl. Marta slowly opened her eyes, because she knew by doing this the invisible things would scatter and after a moment or two she could close them again. But this invisible thing was neither invisible, nor did it scatter away into nothing. It grinned at her, squatting there by the tub as it was.
“Hi!” it said.
“LING,” Marta yelped and once again her butt proved to be frictionless and she went under. She came up flailing, and Ling kept grinning and then lifted his nose and sniffed the air. He shrugged after a moment, stood and started undressing.
“What are you doing?” Marta shrieked, grabbing her towel again. “No, no, no! OUT! Get out! No Elrics, No Lings, only Dexters!”
Ling's mouth pulled down on one side and he snorted. He seemed to wait a moment, as if waiting out her tirade, and then continued undressing.
“What is this? Every other time I try to get you in a bath I have to practically dart you and drug you! NO! OUT!” She pointed at the door.
He blinked, looked back at the door then down at his bare-chested self and back at the door again. Then he looked at her and the look plainly stated that she should be honored that he was here and willing to undress for her and why was she so offended? Ed stuck his head back in then and scowled. He said something to his mate and Ling ignored him, stripped down to naked and hopped into the tub with Marta. Marta's mouth hung open and she looked from Ling to Ed and back to Ling again. Ed was leaning in the doorway and he kept glancing to the side. Eddie was obviously with him, but not being allowed to look in the doorway as well.
Ling scooted up in the tub and practically climbed into Marta's lap; Ed howled in outrage. He kept starting to charge in, but stopping and looking back to the side. He hissed and made what must have been dire threats. Marta kept looking back and forth between them slowly, really trying to figure out just what was going on. Ling put his arms around her shoulders and bumped foreheads with her and Ed kicked the bathroom door and stretched in as far as he dared without letting Eddie get to the doorway.
The closer Ling nuzzled, the more steam came out of Ed's ears. Marta gave a sigh and shoved Ling off her lap; he rolled back and went under. She stood up, grabbing up her sopping wet towel and wrapping it around herself.
“That's IT!” she yelled. “I give up! I'm getting out! I'm sorry I tried to have a minute ALONE! You win! You both win!” As Ling sat up, sputtering, she stepped out of the tub and grabbed her bathrobe and slippers, and blew out the candle that has somehow survived the goings on and not toppled into the water. She realized then the towel really was soaked and turned and threw it in Ling's face before pulling on her bathrobe. She gathered up her little vanilla bath set, (with it's half empty bottle of bubble bath), and marched to the door of the bathroom. Ed hastily jumped out of her way and she stalked into the hall, gave Eddie a brief smile, and then went down to the house where she marched into her room and slammed the door.
It was a good thing there were no female Elrics, the males ones would all be extinct by now. Same went for the Lings.
Spring cleaning always followed Ed's birthday, but it was only a rearranging of closet space, as it was every year. Marta sat on the floor, surrounded by cardboard, to sort though things old and familiar, comforting and memorable. She pulled Ed's red pelt out of one carefully packed plastic storage bin and held it in her lap petting it for a moment. She pulled out his short black jacket and black shirt, his pants and finally his boots. She lay them all out on the floor around her and pulled up her knees and hugged them. She smiled at her treasure, reaching out again the finger the hem of the red coat.
It wasn't long until she was discovered. Ed came in and stood over her, looking at the pile of clothing scattered on the floor. Eddie sniffed delicately at it, but lost interest. They both milled around, and Ed squatted to dig in the box curiously.
“Why don't you make Eddie a red coat out of your old pelt,” Marta said, pushing it toward Ed. “Eddie is suppose to have a red pelt. Actually he's suppose to make his own, I guess I can save it for then.” Ed ignored her for the box and Eddie squatted down and poked at a boot and lifted the black shirt to his nose then dropped it.
“Get out of the box Ed,” Marta said, pushing his head aside and sliding the box toward her. He continued to try and dig in it as she tried to put things back in it. “Stop that, go on,” she told him but he ignored her some more. Eddie edged up to her back and leaned on it a little. “What? Are you two bored or something?” she asked. Ed huffed and butted shoulders with her, snuffled a bit behind her ear.
“Go on,” she said. “You just make a bigger mess.” She could feel Eddie sitting against her back and wondered what the kitten was doing. She felt the hem of her shirt move and tried to look over her shoulder at him. Ed looked back at Eddie, then his attention turned away too. Marta was just as happy as she could now get the box in order, but the hem of her shirt lifted again, higher this time. She looked over her shoulder.
“What are you doing? Ed, leave my shirt alone.”
Ed made a chirrup and her shirt moved some more, she reached behind her to swat at his hand. It seemed to work for a bit, but then again the hem of her shirt was tugged, the tug was lighter, so it must be Eddie, she didn't try to swat him as she had Ed.
“What is so interesting about the hem of my shirt?” she questioned them, then solved the problem by getting up and carrying the bin back to the closet, thus robbing them of their entertainment. They seemed to be watching her butt as she moved around the room, murmuring to each other and when she wandered too close, Ed grabbed the back of her shirt again. Marta wrestled away, snorting at him and finally stalked off to the bathroom mirror where she sat on the sink and tried to see what was so fascinating about the hem of her shirt. She finally located a loose thread and tugged it free. Wow, they must have really been bored.
She continued on with her rearranging, and both Elrics could find nothing better to do than watch her. Eventually the younger Elric got sleepy and curled up in a pile of old, donated clothing she had piled on the floor. Marta began to tip-toe around after that, enjoyed listening to his soft breaths and watching him burrow as he settled. Ed sat near him for a bit, watching him. Marta remembered Ed's kittenhood easily as she watched Eddie start to have one. Ed had wanted to be with her constantly, had napped near her. Tagged after her inviting her to play at every opportunity. It has been easy to bond with the love starved kitten, and she never regretted, never looked back. She enjoyed her dedication daily in Ed's smiles and soft sounds, in the way he tenderly took in an abused kitten and loved it like no other.
Ed got up after a bit, came over to investigate what she was doing. He sniffed at the back of her neck, touched her hands and finally tugged at her elbow.
“What?” Marta whispered softly.
Ed smiled and kept tugging, together they moved quietly to the door of the room and out into the hall.
“What is it?” Marta asked a little louder, looking into Ed's smiling eyes and waiting for some signal that would let her know what he wanted.
He kissed her.
It had been...so long. At first she responded, making a soft moan into his mouth, opening her own to allow his tongue entrance. Ed was a quick study at everything he did, teaching him to kiss had been rewarding and satisfying. He hummed and his hands went to her waist, his fingers began to knead there gently. She lifted one hand, fingers pushing into the hair behind his ear, other hand hooking over his shoulder; but then she stopped. She stopped and drew back and the hand on his shoulder that was supposed to pull him close, instead pushed him away.
“No, Ed,” she whispered.
He didn't seem to hear, or chose not to hear because he leaned forward again, pulling at her waist. She dropped her hand from his hair, pried one of his hands off and pushed back again, more firmly.
“No, Ed,” she repeated. “No, you go to Ling, he is your mate.”
Ed's eyebrows dipped in confusion for a moment, he tilted his head a bit and made a soft trill. He tried to put his arms around her but she held him off and shook her head.
“No, Ling is your mate, I am not your mate.”
She almost wished she hadn't said it.
He got very still for a long moment, then the fingers of his hand that was still on her waist tightened hard.
“Marta,” he said, and then launched into a litany of his own language, soft and almost sing-song from his lips. He shook his head and tried to pull her closer, tried to kiss her but she leaned away. It was so hard.
“No, Ed, listen to me,” she said. “When Ling wasn't here, things were different. You'd lost so much in your life and it hurt to have you lose someone you loved yet again. I thought at that time what I was doing was alright, it was what you needed, but it's not like that now. You have your mate again, you have a kitten. I don't think it should be like it was when Ling was gone, do you understand? It should be like it was before Ling left. You are Ling's mate, not mine. He has loved you a long time, he came back to you. Ling deserves to be your mate.”
She reached up then, stroked the side of his face.
“I love you very much, nothing about that is going to change, ok? You be a good father to Eddie and you be a good mate to Ling and you keep me company and help me watch out for everyone, alright?”
He shook his head, turned his face away from her hand and stepped back. She didn't want to hurt him, but she didn't know what else to do. The days of self-indulgence were over; it was time to set straight priorities that had become skewed.
“I love you,” she said again as he retreated from her, ducking back into the room where Eddie lay napping.
“I always will,” she followed up, but there was no one there to hear her.
March became April, and April became May. Marta had entirely forgotten about Jacob's promise to visit her by the time his call came; irritatingly, he chose to ring her just as she was scooping a drowsing Eddie off the living room floor and preparing to take him into Ed's enclosure for the night.
"Hello?" she said, after she'd picked up the phone. It was late enough for her to worry that it must be some kind of emergency; she balanced Eddie against her, trapping the phone handset between her ear and shoulder as she rubbed his back soothingly to keep him sleepy.
"Marta," said Jacob cheerily. "How are you doing?"
It took her a moment to recognize his voice. "Who is ... Jacob?"
"That's right. I'm in Pendleton right now. What are you up to tomorrow?"
Marta, caught off-guard by the suddenness of the question, sighed a bit and turned around to check where Ed was. "Oh, I always have things to do. I have animals to care for."
"I was hoping we could get some lunch. You got my letter, right?"
Ed, passing through from the kitchen where he'd grabbed a few slices of apple, paused in the door to the living room and chirruped questioningly. Marta gestured him closer. "I got it," she said, as she started to pass Eddie carefully over to his "parent." Ed cooed to the younger Elric, who clutched at Ed's shirt lapels like an infant. "I'm just not sure I can do it. I have to keep an eye on the Elrics, you know."
"Don't you have volunteers for that?"
"Well, yes, but ..."
"Then come on. When's the last time you went out?"
Marta had not told him about Eddie. She hadn't told anyone much, aside from a few close associates at T.E.R.N., although a lot of the people in town knew or suspected. She was only just recently starting to feel comfortable with leaving him alone with just Ed for more than an hour or so without checking on them; the fact that Eddie was becoming more tolerant of Ling, and Ling was respecting certain limits around Eddie was also encouraging. However ... Pendleton was over an hour away. To drive that far, have a leisurely lunch, and come back would take her away from the sanctuary and Eddie for several hours.
When her silence had continued for a few moments, Jacob said, "Obviously too long. Do you want me to come pick you up? How does tomorrow at ten sound?"
"Jacob, I really can't ..."
"Sure you can. Come on, I know you, you're going to go crazy if you don't get out a little."
She sighed, and then he decided to make it even more difficult for her.
"Hey, remember those photos I sent you? I have a lot more of them."
No, there was just no way he could make it an easy choice.
She told Kate, and especially Alexander, not to come in at all that day; it would be safer if it were just Ed and Ling with Eddie. And she warned Ling repeatedly not to tease Eddie when she was gone. Ling gave her bright grins that didn't do much to reassure her, so she told Ed to keep a close eye on Eddie, an edict that she felt was much more likely to be obeyed.
Jacob arrived around ten-thirty, after Marta had fed the animals and had Ed and Eddie settled in Ed's enclosure with some books. Just before she ran out to the car, she gave Ling two wire-sculpture puzzles, the kind with interlocking pieces that needed to be arranged in non-obvious ways to be pulled apart and put back together; she'd gotten them a few months earlier, and now seemed to be a good time to unveil them. He dropped one in order to examine the other one, trying to tug the pieces apart, and then frowned; soon he was sitting on the couch twisting them around in his clever fingers.
"You make sure you put them back together when you're done with them," she told him, and then got on her coat and ran out to the car.
Jacob was standing next to the car, and he tried to put an arm around her as she came toward him, probably in preparation to give her a kiss on the cheek. Marta evaded the arm by punching him lightly on the shoulder.
"What is this?" she said, smiling. "You've gotten skinny!"
He affected surprise and grinned in return, gracefully giving up the affectionate attempt at a hug. "Are you implying that I used to be fat?"
"Yes," she declared, and they both laughed.
"Well, I've been living it rough, camping out in the bitter cold for weeks at a time, to get you some pictures," he told her, as they got into the car. "They're in the back seat if you want to look at them now."
Marta twisted around and, on top of a folded tarp covered with dried mud was a plain manila envelope. As Jacob started the car and got it onto the road, she carefully opened it and started to page through the pictures.
There were dozens of them. An older, mature Edward and a younger adolescent, still in his brilliant red coat ... some photos were of one, and some of the other, and some ...
Marta flushed and hastily pushed the pictures down into her lap. Jacob laughed a little as he turned onto the interstate.
"They're pretty shameless," he said.
"They're mating!" said Marta, picking up the photos again. Now that she knew what she was looking at, it wasn't so shocking.
"Yes, they mate quite a bit. I'm sure a lot more than what I managed to spot."
"But ... they're both Edwards!"
Jacob said nothing about that, and Marta continued leafing through the photos. There were almost a dozen pictures of the older, silvery-haired Edward giving the young one oral sex outside what must have been their shared den; highly-zoomed, high-quality shots of the adolescent's blissful, squirming expressions as the adult held down his legs and licked his bared groin. The last two pictures of that series were of the older one lying atop the younger, teeth to the adolescent's throat.
"You got really interested in this activity, I see," she said.
"I've never heard of it before," said Jacob, and Marta swore he sounded smug. "I thought it should be thoroughly documented."
Frowning at the last one, of the adolescent arching his back and throwing back his head to offer the older Edward his throat, Marta flipped back to some of the earlier ones. There were two other pictures of the young Edward performing some kind of submission gesture to the older one, once crouching down to the ground before his snarling elder, the other time cringing with his throat bared as the silvery adult showed his teeth. "This isn't like a normal pair," she said.
"No," agreed Jacob. "There's a lot more snarling. I don't think I got any pictures of it, but the younger Edward gets cuffed sometimes. It's not like what you see with an Edward-Alphonse mating."
Marta spent the trip to Pendleton engrossed in the photos, drawing what conclusions she could from what Jacob had captured in them. There was another mating in the stack, taking the more usual form of intercourse, the adolescent on his knees beside some kind of body of flowing water, the adult taking him from behind. The rest depicted one or the other of them, or occasionally both, doing the usual things that took up the time of wild animals: renewing territory marks, gathering food, grooming one another ... there was one series of six, of the older Edward engaged in what was unmistakably a territory battle with another adult.
The pair was mated. As unbelievable as it seemed, they were mated in the same way that Ed and Ling were mated ... without any kind of courtship ritual as far as Jacob could report. The adolescent Edward was submissive to the adult, to a larger degree than what Marta was accustomed to seeing in mated pairs. All Elric pairs, after all, would have one member who was dominant over the other, but they never cuffed one another. Never cringed back from each other.
She came back to the photos of the two Elrics mating more than once. The older Edward's silvery-gold mane had gotten loose somehow, and fell everywhere, all around them both. There was so much of it, and it was so wild.
"Can I keep these?" she asked.
"Of course you can."
They lunched at Pascal's Olive Press; Jacob, naturally, picked up the bill. They spoke a bit more on the topic of the two mated Edwards, and how much Jacob was going to ask for the spread from Amestrian National Journal (he swore it would be the non-pornographic version, but Marta had her doubts); they talked about the sanctuary, Ed and his antics, and a little bit about Eddie (although Marta did not tell him that Eddie was a killer).
For the first time in over six months, Marta spent four entire hours in the company of only other human beings, without an Elric or a Ling in sight. When she said something it was immediately understood; no one pawed at her elbow for a piece of her lunch. And, while she would never have given up any of her animals for anything, she had to admit that she enjoyed herself.
As they left the restaurant, she worried a bit about that. Leaving Eddie alone ... was it unfair for her to indulge herself this way? Was it selfish? Well, really it was undeniably selfish, and she wasn't sure if she was entitled to be selfish or not. Ed and Ling and Eddie were completely dependent upon her. She'd taken up the burden willingly, but it wasn't one she could just set down again whenever it became inconvenient.
Four hours, it was only four hours ... she calmed herself on the car trip back to Burtmar by re-examining Jacob's photographs and asking him more about the paired Edwards. Really, how much could go wrong in four hours? There were no humans in the sanctuary to trigger Eddie's ... problems ... and Ed was responsible enough to ... well, that ran her thought process into a wall, because really, Ed was not very responsible, and shouldn't be expected to be.
Maybe she should have asked Kate to ... but no, she couldn't ask Kate to endanger herself by being around Eddie for that long.
Really, leaving the sanctuary had been a mistake. She should never have let Jacob talk her into it. The fact that she'd enjoyed herself only made her feel more guilty.
When they pulled up to the sanctuary, she was relieved to see that the building was not on fire, no walls had been demolished, and there were no cracks through the yard. She'd have to wait until she got inside the make sure all three animals were alive and unhurt, but just seeing the building intact made her feel a lot better immediately.
"Thanks," she said, laying her hand briefly on Jacob's on the gearshift. "I really appreciate it."
"Does this mean we can do this again sometime soon?" He grinned at her.
"Uh, well ..."
There was a sudden impact on the side of the car, and Marta startled ... but was only Ed, come barreling out of the side door and now pawing at the car window. "MARTA!" he yelled, the sound muffled through the glass but distinct.
"Looks like someone missed you," said Jacob.
"Yeah. Look, I really appreciate you taking me out, and I really enjoyed it." Marta gathered up the photographs and her purse.
"But you don't want to do it again," said Jacob.
"It's not that I don't like you, Jacob," she said. "But I can't just leave them alone like this for hours at a time, and there are good reasons why I don't want to leave them alone with one of the volunteers."
"We don't have to go all the way to Pendleton next time."
"MARTA!" yelled Ed, banging on the window.
"I need to go," she said, and put her hand on the door handle.
"Hey," said Jacob, leaning across the gearshift to lay a hand on her arm. "You need to take care of yourself, too."
"I do," she said, and opened the door.
Ed practically pulled her out as she emerged, throwing himself into her arms and clinging to her like a limpet. She hugged him and petted him, and then squirmed him around so that he was on her side and latched to her arm so that she could close the car door. "Thanks again," she said to Jacob before she shut it.
"Anytime. I'll be around again in probably five or six months. We could go to Casper instead of Pendleton. That's a lot closer."
Marta sighed. He could make things so difficult for her.
"I'll probably have more photos of that Edward pair for you," he added, and winked.
"You are an evil man, Jacob Mercer," she said.
"Is that a yes or a no?"
She shut the car door on him.
Eddie met them at the side door, sucking on an apple slice that Ed or Ling must have given him. He looked up at her with serious eyes, but he took her hand readily enough when she reached for it.
"Who gave you that apple?" she asked. "Someone must really love you to give you an apple while I was gone. Have you had a nap yet?" Ed detached himself from her arm in order to pick Eddie up, but he stayed close to Marta with the kitten, jabbering excitedly ... about what, Marta could only guess.
She put her purse down on the kitchen counter and took one of the sliced apple pieces out of the refrigerator for herself. Everything was fine ... everything was normal. Ed had obviously been made anxious by her absence but nobody had freaked out and destroyed something, and even Ling seemed to have stayed out of trouble; she could see Ling's black head over the top of the couch in the living room, still bent over the puzzle toys she'd given him.
It made her feel a little better about her selfish afternoon out with Jacob, but not much.
"Damn," she said, pressing the heel of her hand to her right eye. Was it right to feel this way, or not? Was she entitled to some time to herself, or did her time rightfully belong to these three? They couldn't really care for themselves, and she didn't dare try to entrust their care to anyone else, because of Eddie. That left only her to do it ... but did that mean she couldn't have a couple of hours to herself, ever?
She didn't know. She had no answers for herself.
When she came out into the living room to check on what Ling was doing, she saw the red light on the phone blinking, and went to push the button to listen to her messages. The machine beeped as it began to play.
"Hi, Ms. Dexter, this is Ron Harley from T.E.R.N. I need you to call me back as soon as possible. We have a situation with some animals rescued from a pit-fighting ring and we need to know how many of them you can take. There are eight in all, but we're checking with everyone to place them, so however many you can take in would be appreciated. My number is 034-490-2381, ask for Ron Harley. We really need an answer on this as soon as possible, so please call me back before five today. Thanks.
Marta stood frozen in the middle of the living room for a moment, as the answering machine beeped again to signal that it had reached the end of her messages. What a fool she was! She should have been here to take that call, get those animals moved as soon as possible ... pit-fighters! What the hell was she going to do with pit-fighting animals?
Checking the time on her watch, she grabbed the pen next to the machine and played the message through again to write down the phone number. What in the world was T.E.R.N. going to think, that nobody had been here to answer the phone?
No, leaving had definitely been a mistake.