Round I of Ficlette Fiasco II -- three ficlettes

[mhalachai]

The first three of a planned 26 ficlettes are presented for you. Two are Inevitable related. Enjoy.

Title: Red Light
Characters: Cherry and a lycanthropic nurse to be named later. Anita Blake universe.
Disclaimer: All Anita Blake characters belong to Laurell K. Hamilton. I am only borrowing them for a short while and am receiving nothing.
Author's Note: Takes place before Cherry was infected with lycanthropy. For sparrow015
~~*~~

Cherry didn't look up when the nurse came into the room. She’d done it a hundred times at her own hospital. Check the vitals, then leave the patient to their pain.

She'd been on her way to the zoo, to see her brother and his family. The other car had run a red light, right into her. Now, her leg gone, her life was over.

I'd give anything, anything at all, just to have my leg back, Cherry thought.

The nurse finished with the IV and stood by the bed. "Cherry? I'm Elizabeth. Can I talk to you about something?"

--fin


Title: Never Much Liked A Mystery
Characters: Edward, reference to Harry Potter
Disclaimer: All Anita Blake characters belong to Laurell K. Hamilton. All Harry Potter charactrers belong to JK Rowling. I am only borrowing them for a short while and am receiving nothing.
Author's Note: An Inevitable ficlette (okay, a teaser). For monique_chan
~~*~~

Edward was a very methodical man. He knew how people were, even if he wasn't really a part of their world. People were sloppy, leaving bits of themselves all around. High school yearbooks, sports teams, job applications, letters, rent cheques, visits to the dentist. In the last few years, the internet had made it even easier to find a person.

So when Edward couldn't find a trace of the boy, he was uneasy and more than a little puzzled.

He turned off his computer screen and frowned into the blackness. All he could find on the boy began in August, when Harry James Potter of Surrey flew with his guardians from England to St. Louis. He'd popped up on the police files after the sorcerer was killed, and Edward knew that he had been living in Anita's house. But that was it.

People didn't appear from nothing, not like this.

Edward stood up and picked up the plain white coffee mug from the desk. The liquid in it had gone cold while he was engaged in his futile search. While he walked toward the kitchen, he reviewed what he knew about the boy.

The few photographs he had secured of the kid had erased any doubt in Edward's mind that the boy really was Anita's pet vampire's offspring. But that only deepened the mystery. The boy's father didn't seem to exist, and information on his mother was just as patchy as on her son.

Edward poured himself more coffee from the machine. More than anything, he hated a mystery. This boy was a mystery. How he saved Anita, when Edward himself had been too late, was a mystery.

Taking a gulp of the tepid coffee, Edward came to a decision. He had a contact in England, one he'd been hesitant to use. The man was crazy, unstable. But he could learn things that Edward could not.

Edward put his mug in the sink. He had a call to make.

--fin


Title: In The Dark
Characters: Anita, Jean-Claude
Disclaimer: All Anita Blake characters belong to Laurell K. Hamilton. I am only borrowing them for a short while and am receiving nothing.
Author's Note: Takes place between chapters 27 and 28 and of Inevitable. For samira_86.
~~*~~

She sleeps.

Carefully, so as not to wake Anita, Jean-Claude pulled the sheet up over her shoulder, then adjusted the blanket so she would not get cold. Only then did he lie beside her, watching the candlelight flicker on her skin.

He had never come so close to losing her as he had from the Witch's curse. After these long years, he had finally broken through Anita's defences. She had finally admitted that she did not see him as a monster, but as a man. In her eyes, his humanity was redeemed. He had thought nothing would break them apart.

Although it might disturb her sleep, Jean-Claude caressed Anita's cheek with a feather-light touch. He had touched her like this a million times, it seemed, and yet every touch was a new miracle. Was this what love was? he often wondered. Such gentle trust in the dark?

He knew it was the magic that had made Anita the way she was, paranoid and fearful. But when she had threatened to kill him, pointing a gun at him, it was only her nature, however warped by the magic. To protect her people from the monsters.

Anita whimpered in her sleep, and Jean-Claude gathered her to him, whispering softly to her in French. As he held her against his body, she relaxed and fell back into a deeper sleep.

Jean-Claude had thought he had know love, before, and in a way he had loved Asher and Julianna. But now that he had Anita, he truly understood the rage Asher had harboured for him all those years. If he lost Anita, he suspected he would never be able to forgive anyone, himself included, who failed to save her.

The dawn was drawing near, and Jean-Claude knew he should send for Jason, so Anita would not wake alone, cold and in the dark. But he remained, feeling the warmth from his love's body, to take the memory of her with him to his coffin that day.

--fin

Comments

[sabriel-0405.livejournal.com]

Damn, you are so very good at these. Naturally, I'm partial to this last one. Your Inevitable universe is just a wealth of plot tangents.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm such a JC/Anita shipper at heart :)

The Inevitable universe is amazing. You've got all the AB characters, plus the Harry Potterites... It's so much fun.

[catherinecookmn.livejournal.com]

Can't wait for the Remus/Nathaniel smut!

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

My eyes, my eyes!

Oh, so never going to happen. Especially after what I have planned for Inevitable.

[catherinecookmn.livejournal.com]

Well, how about Tonks/Nathaniel? ;-)

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Nope. In fact, it is unlikely that Tonks and Nate will meet. At this point.

[samira-86.livejournal.com]

Omg I loved In the Dark. It was beautiful. I think that you and I feel the same way, that Jean Claude really discovered what love was with Anita. I wasnt sure if anyone felt the same way, but now I see that some do. Your other ficlettes were great, but I epsecially loved the last one. Thank you so much so writing it.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

You're quite welcome. In some ways, JC's a mystery to me, but he's also very much a simple man. In the end, it's about love and protecting what's yours.

[(Anonymous)]

The third ficlett really evokes Jean-Claude's sensuality...just as the Edward fic reflects cold precision with some-sort of emotion towards Anita (jealosy? love? protectiveness? pride?). Your writing is brilliant, and I can't wait to read the rest.

E.A.V.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Edward's feelings in this case are more hurt pride, as he wasn't the one to save her this time (And the ficlette above hasn't quite happened yet in the timeline of the story, so we'll see more of Edward when that happens).

Thanks for your kind words :)

[samira-86.livejournal.com]

Ooo so does that mean Harry will have to save Anita again? I thought she was the one who was supposed to be saving people hehe

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Inevitable is all about mixing up the power roles :P

[samira-86.livejournal.com]

Oh no is Anita ever going to get better? Is my gun-toting badass powerful necromancer not going to be so badass anymore? Is Voldie or whoever else she has to fight going to get the better of her? Wow that's never happened before. You have shocked me! hheheheh

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Trust me, I don't think anyone will see this one coming. And she's still a badass. She'll be running up agianst someone we've seen before, who's seen a little bit too much on how she deals with her enemies. (And that's all I'm going to say on the matter.

[samira-86.livejournal.com]

Gr. You are killing me with the suspense. I keep reading all the comments you write back to people and all the little ficlets and like I thought I might have figured out what would happen at the end, but now you totally threw me off. (Is pouting slightly) You're killing me man, you're killing me!

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Well, I can't give everything away right now, can I? *eg*

At the very end? I can tell you this. The very last word of the story will be "home." Does that help any?

[catherinecookmn.livejournal.com]

Wait, I thought the very last word was going to be "scar"? Oh, sorry -- wrong genius author.

Love your Richard. He comes across like a modern-day Javert.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Here is where I betray my ignorance, and say "Who and the what, now?"

[(Anonymous)]

Inspector Javert is Jean Valjean's nemesis in Les Miserables.

Actually, now that I think about it, a better comparison would be Sam Gerard from the 1992 movie The Fugitive, which itself was based on the 1960s TV series, which was itself ripped off from Les Miz. Gerard, especially as played by Tommy Lee Jones, is a softening of Javert's character; he's still a hardass cop (actually a US Marshal) and a tenacious logician, but also a compassionate person.

[catherinecookmn.livejournal.com]

(Wow! It really does work better if I actually log in, right?)

The 'scar' bit is a reference to the fact that JKR has said that the very last word of Book Seven will be 'scar'.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

I knew about the scar bit, I was talking about the literary character guy, thanks

[lishel_fracrium.livejournal.com]

*squeals* I just love the Edward ficlett. So we will be seeing Edward in the future? Oh and in that ficlet I think you misspelled trace you put trance sorry I just noticed it thought you wanted to know. But it was so awesome I hope to see the next chapter of Inevitable soon. thankyou for sharing these.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

yup! More Edward in a while in IN.

Thanks for the spelling note, it's amazing how many times I can read through the ficlettes and not even see stuff like that. Le sigh.

[monique-chan.livejournal.com]

Oh thank you thank you for the wonderful ficlet... I wonder who Edward's contact is...

The Cherry drabble has, for some reason, left me with the desire to reread, or rather skim through, all my AB books. But it was still good.

The Anita/Jean-Claude ficlet was simply lovely.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

The Cherry drabble has, for some reason, left me with the desire to reread, or rather skim through, all my AB books.

Out of curioity, why is that?

[monique-chan.livejournal.com]

I'm not really sure, but it could be because I am pretty sure that the book mentions why she was turned... was it so that she could get her leg back? Actually, I don't know why I didn't think of it before... I'll just go to The Anita Blake Compendium (http://halo-productions.com/anita/). ^_^

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

What happened with Cherry was that she was in a car accident, and Gabriel promised her that he could give her the leg back. She was infected, then they cut off the stump of the leg before the change, and when she came back she had her whole leg.

IIRC

[watcher457.livejournal.com]

yay. edward. hehe.

[thymidinekinase.livejournal.com]

"The man was crazy, unstable. But he could learn things that Edward could not."

Erk! His contact wouldn't be named Peter P. or Tom R., by any chance? That could lead to the gunfight that Edward and Anita have both seen coming, all these years. [Rubs hands]

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

We have not met Edward's contact in the HP books, but we have met his type. It begins with an S and ends with a Q and can otherwise refer to a small explosive.

:D

[thymidinekinase.livejournal.com]

You've lost me; the only word I know that starts with S and ends with Q is "suq", meaning a type of desert upwelling. The UN hazardous materials list includes a type of explosive called a "Squib", however. Interesting.

PS I've been reading your LJ so much that I went ahead and friended you to simplify things; you need not feel pressure to reciprocate. I'm assuming that you're not planning to stalk me from Canada. Er, right?

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Nope, no Canadian stalking. I just sometimes put stuff under friends locks for various reasons, such as previews of chapters, that I figure anyone on LJ who wants to read the fics can see the previews as well :)

[(Anonymous)]

Shaq! His contact's Shaquille O'Neal!

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

darn it, you've figured me out :P

[waterfall8484]

Oh, I just love your ficlettes - although I don't understand how you get time for all this... :~) Red Light was very touching indeed... and does this mean that Edward will appear in Inevitable? *squees with joy*

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

I used to think I didn't have a life, but I seem to be pretty well rounded these days (figurativly, of course). And yes, Edward will get some Inevitable play.

[child-labor.livejournal.com]

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

The event Edward is referring to, that set him on his hunt for Harry, will play a major role in the story.

I'm glad you enjoyed them :)

[sparrow015.livejournal.com]

Oooo! Cherry, very awsome! But I thought she lost both of her legs? Eh, still awsome either way! And I can't wait to see how you do the other drabbles with Asher and Larry. XD

And Edward, very interesting!! I know Harry was sheltered most of his life, but don't you think there would be some records of him attending his elementry school?

You write Jean-Claude so well. I'm having an awww moment with him right now because of what you wrote. XD

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

From what I recall, it was just the one leg. Will review. The records of Harry in primary school are the ones Edward can't access, in part because they are paper records out the country, and also Harry was always pushed to the bottom by Dudley and crew, so he never really managed to acomplish much or stand out on anyone's radar. Poor kid.

JC is very awww worthy at times, I have to say :)

[houses7177.livejournal.com]

Edward! Very nice portrayal of Edward, entirely in character. Besides, it's Edward, you knew I'd love it.

The Cherry drabble worked well and does fit with canon- it was only one leg.

You know I'm a sucker for Anita/JC lovin so that last one made me smile.

I won't be able to read the chapter till later but I'm very much looking forward to it.

[mhalachaiswords.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed them. I think fleshing out the world a bit helps keep me focused. It also pushes me to write more, and how can that be bad?

TTYL