Jade, Ice, and Talon

LP: ^-^

Chapter Twenty-Three - "Leave Out All The Rest"


Hmm? What's this? The portal in Churchill just dropped off the map. Curious. There's another one not more than a few hours drive away, but that's a bit too much bother to find out why. Wormmon, am I just being paranoid, or is this a sign that she is pulling away? Is her heart still beating for him? Have my efforts all gone to naught for winning her over? Has she slipped through my hands? I'll grant her three days, three days only...Then, I shall rip that little fucking town apart and slay her and her mother, I'll do to them what I did to Cody, and teach them why you never, EVER, turn your back on the Emperor!

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"There's thirteen of you? Jade, you brought twelve friends over?" Jade's mother hissed at her, tugging her aside from the group.
"Mom, I had to! We were all going on holiday and there was a storm where we were going, so they grounded us here, and back at home there's a huge snow storm so we're trapped!" Jade lied, altogether too well. Her mother frowned, but nodded.
"I guess you can't help it, then. At least I'll have some help 'round here. I'll teach 'em all about everything. Joe knows it all already, so he can help me teach...You think those guys would help?"
"I already told them that they'd have to."
"Aww honey, that's sweet. I know you don't like making your friends work."
"Well, they might be here a while, I figured they can pull their weight."
"How about I take them on a tour? With Joe helping, I should be able to take eleven..."
"Still haven't fixed that chair that Carnage broke?" Jade asked, referring to an incident where a loose bear managed to maul the white chair in the tour car. "Nope! But hey, that David kid looks promising. I'll take him on a solo tomorrow with Joe, I think I can put him in the field with you...So, I'll take them all out while I've still got daylight, can you and David whip up something for dinner?"
"...It's Davis, and I guess so...." Jade could have strangled her mother; sure she never knew what was going on, and sure she had no clue about how leaving her alone with Davis was a bad idea; but once her mother had an idea about something in her head, there was nothing to change it, not even logic.
"Good! I'll get it all started right now!" the woman scurried off towards the living room, where the group had taken up various perches about the area, wondering what exactly there was to do in Churchill. Their bags of clothing cluttered up the floor.
"OKAY GUYS! TIME TO WORK! FOLLOOOOOOOW ME!" shouted the over enthused woman, who skittered out the front door. When no one got up, Jade pointed after her mother.
"Might wanna follow her, unless you ENJOY staying up all night learning..." she hinted, and smirked as the group shuffled groaningly past Jade, and out the door. Before he got out though, Jade tugged Davis away from the group, and bumped the door closed as the last of eleven left.
"What's going on? I thought-"
"Mom wants you to help me cook; she's teaching you tomorrow with Joe, she seems to think you'd do well as an field aid." she interrupted, letting his hand go.
"Oh...So, we're cooking?"
"Yeah - for fourteen people."
"Eww. Can we just order pizza?" Jade laughed.
"Pizza? That's the cheap way out, mister can't-last-through-making-nachos."
"HEY! The shredded cheese was hard when we were done!" Davis exclaimed with a grin, placing his hands mockingly on his hips.
"Ha! That's because you fell asleep, oh one-shot-wonder."
"I resent that remark!"
"More like you resemble it." Jade stuck her tongue out at him, closing her eyes for emphasis. Davis, using what he blamed as his stupidity being stupid, leaned forward to seize the chance, and kissed her, his hand placed on the back of her hand, his tongue softly curling around hers. Her lips tasted like sugar. Her spirit was like cocaine that he hadn't had enough of in a long time, and he'd finally gotten a hit. Just being near her was as if he'd been raptured up at this very spot, and had been injected into heaven-in-the-flesh. Jade froze instantly; she was not expecting that reaction, and even less, from Davis, mister oh-my-god-a-girl-is-touching me. She was instantly torn into millions of directions at once; kiss him, hit him, cry, scream, run off, forget everything and let it happen....it all hit her at once, like a squirrel on the highway with two routes to take. She'd shut her mind off far too often in situations like this; what was she going to do? His tongue was running around hers so softly. If she stayed there long enough, she'd look like a moron. Well, maybe for once she should -listen- to her soul. She'd tried following her heart, only to be confused more than she would have been listening to her head. Faintly, finally, after ten solid seconds, she kissed him back - and let her tongue move against his. Davis' heart leaped into his brain and fell back down, past his stomach, and into his feet. God, she was kissing him. He thought he'd get hit or something; but no, she was kissing him. A fire exploded in his spirit, and he leaned closer into her, placing a palm onto her hip. He leaned her against a wall, and kissed her as if the world were about to end, as if she were the kiss to save his life, with a deep love burning behind the lips that were pressed hard on hers. Ken had never had that fire in his kiss, Jade thought, as she let her guard down, and gave back the same fire that she thought was never there to begin with. His hands never moved, nor did he lean on her like a dog from a kennel. It was as if he wasn't after her body; was that normal? Didn't all guys except for Joe want sex and that was it? Jade let her hand rest onto his cheek, smiling faintly against his lips. Is this what real love felt like? Davis pulled away for a moment, resting his forehead against hers.
"Jade...Please don't go back to him...I love you, and I'm not just saying that because you slept with me. It's not too late; it's never too late. Stay with me, Jade...I need you. I don't feel right without you." As a growing trend, Jade froze one again. I seemed through all the snow, it was these little surprises that she wasn't expecting that seemed to strike her harder than the sub zero temperatures. When she didn't respond, Davis gently tilted her head upwards with both palms on her cheeks, and seemingly fell into her eyes. "Jade, you love me too, I know you do. Stay with me, don't go back with him...Jun's moving out for college soon, anyway..." her eyes widened. He meant live? Good lord, he didn't just mean relationship? Honestly, she should have dawned on this before. Where else was she going to stay if she wasn't staying with Ken? Split second decisions never bode well on her life, the last few weeks were evidence of that; especially now that Ken seemed to be much more evil than she first thought, with the digital world being real, with that Cody kid laying in the Burn Unit, with all those petrified digimon eggs...She knew she couldn't go back to him; but if she didn't, what would the spores do? Obviously, they had a short temper, and were cause for violence....But, would they seek to hurt her, if Ken thought he was in love?
"Davis, I..." she started, her head whirling with various thoughts, like clutter in a tornado. She wanted to say yes, she wanted to say no, she wanted to ask for more time, she wanted to run, she wanted to kiss him again...She wanted too much at once. She was listening to her soul, right? She reminded herself that. She had to; her soul was the only thing that she knew was right. Her soul was dedicated to every cause she had; dedicated to the truth. Dedicated...to love. "...Yes." she found herself saying, even if the whirl in her head was so very confused. "I'll stay...But this fight isn't over. He thinks I'm here to leave you and go marry him. I bet he knows we closed that portal...It won't be long before his paranoia gets the better of him, before he comes to hunt me...We have to do something about him, we've got to be ready..." her mind had taken over; it usually did that.
"I know; I know. We'll talk about that later..." he whispered, and gently placed his lips to hers once again. They burned with the same fire they had before, and it seemed to warm the deepest reaches of her spirit, her soul. His right palm slid over her left, and held her hand beside her face as the other wrapped around her waist. Jade reciprocated the tender kiss, letting her guard down for at least the time being. The two males were so vastly different; Ken was passionate, but lacked the fire that Davis seemed to have, whom was more on the side of simplistic affections. Ken had a lust-like skill, Davis had only what Jade could label as love. Ken was masculine and strong, Davis was soft and more feminine than most males tended to be. Ken focused on making her scream, Davis focused on her alone. A presence on her finger broke her thoughts, and caused her to pull from his kiss to look.
"It's not...what he was going to give you..." he explained, as the image of a thin gold band made it's way onto her right ring finger. Jade blinked and stared at the mass, as if expecting an explanation. "It's a promise ring. I wouldn't give you that kind of decision, not until I know it's okay..."
"...Together forever...That's the promise of these things, right?..." she spoke, staring at the symbology of a ring on her hand.
"Yeah. Is it too much?...I can...take it back..." Davis asked, a worried tone in his voice.
"N-no," she looked up, granting him a genuine smile. "No, I'll keep it. Together forever." Davis couldn't help but grin as he nested his nose against her neck, wrapping his arms around her waist again.
"Yeah. Forever."
"Come on; we'll have 14 hungry people all crammed in here in about 2 hours, we'd better get started."

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AN: I hate short chaptersssssss. Hissssssssssssssssss. But, any more stretching this chapter out, and people get bored. xD

LP: NOT A WORD about the missing chapter....:P