Nathalie Sancoeur's secret past

I can't do this!

As they arrived in front of Gabriel's bedroom, Fei hesitated.

"What is it?", asked the man concerned.

"I....I just can't lie to her! Please, I can avoid telling her everything, but don't make me lie!"

Gabriel sighed then nodded.

"Maybe you're right. But we don't want to get her all worked up, right?"

The girl nodded and waited for him, to open the door and glimpse inside, then, after seeing his fiancée still awake, nudging her inside, his arm encouragingly around her shoulders.

"Look who I found!", he exclaimed, making the tense woman immediately relax and let out a deep sigh.

"I was worried!", Nathalie said sternly, then noticed the bandaged hands and waved her to come to her and sit down, "what happened there? I knew that gut feeling I had wasn't just my imagination!"

"It's nothing", her daughter tried to play it down, "just a little encounter, with an old foe!"

The pregnant woman narrowed her eyes.

"Old foe? Here in Paris?", she wondered, to what Fei shook her head and explained, that she had been in Shanghai with Kagami, to show her her home, when she had bumped into someone from her past, who she had thought was still locked up, and that he had threatened her and her girlfriend.

"Are you hurt somewhere else?", Nathalie sat up immediately and looked her thoroughly up and down.

Fei shook her head.

"I'm fine, Ma, don't worry, please. It's not good for you and my little sibling right now. I'll tell you the whole story one day, I promise, just not as long as you're pregnant. I swear, I didn't get hurt, I just hurt that other person, bad, but he deserved it, believe me!"

"Of course I believe you. But I want to know the whole truth. So please, if you don't want Gabriel to be here, I am certain, he will give us some time...."

But her fiancé shook his head and objected:

"No, my love, this time, I won't. But...", he inhaled deeply, "...if you promise, to try and stay calm, Fei can tell you everything, allright?"

Nathalie gave him a puzzled look, then nodded and looked at her daughter. Grabbing both her hands very softly, to hold them in her palms, gently stroking with her thumbs along the skin, that wasn't bruised or bleeding, she cooed:

"Whatever it is, sweetheart, you can tell me!"

Fei looked desperately at Gabriel now and pleaded:

"Can you tell her? I can't do this....I...?", she began to cry and pulled her hands out of her mother's grasp, to bury her face in her palms.

"You know?", the woman now wondered in confusion, then she suddenly knew, who her child had attacked. The same man, who had her adoptive father killed and had stolen the bracelet from her, that she had bought from him herself.

"What did that bastard do?", she just spat out, remembering, what Fei had told her after her nightmare in her first night here.

Gabriel sat down on the mattress too and interlinked the fingers of his right hand with her left ones. His own left he placed on her flat belly, rubbing it gently, while calmingly squeezing her hand.

"She figured out, that he was the one, who.....", he swallowed hard...., "came into your bed back then!"

Nathalie held her breath and pressed her fingernails into Gabriel's hand, while she tried to not scream, focusing only on her child, that was sitting in front of her and the other child in her womb, then breathed out audibly.

She was rather certain, that she knew what was going on in the young Chinese's head and laid a hand on the back of her head, to pull her to her chest, wincing, as her head hit her hurting breasts, yet still held her in place.

"Fei, my sweet, little daughter, please don't cry! It doesn't matter! I still love you, my child and I nothing can change that. It's not important, who your 'sire' was. You have grown to be a beautiful, kind and righteous young woman. This....this vicious creature will get his punishment one day! Kharma's a bitch!"

Her last words, so strange coming from the usually self controlled and polite woman, made Fei chuckle through her tears.

"How do you keep so calm?", she asked.

Nathalie pointed at Gabriel with her head and explained with a grin:

"Years of practice, my dear!", she joked, making her daughter laugh again.

"Can I go to my room now?", Fei asked quietly.

"You sure? You can stay here for a while, if you want to!"

But the girl just shook her head.

"I would like to call Kagami and ask if she's alright, or if her mother was angry, because we stayed away for so long. And maybe, if her mother agrees, could I go over to her?"

That made Gabriel laugh.

"Good luck with that. Tomoe is, well....very....", he couldn't find the right word for it.

"Determined?", Nathalie suggested.

Gabriel nodded.

"Yeah, and old fashioned. She believes in traditions and things like that!"

"Well, I'm the perfect person to impress her then!", Fei bragged, "I may not have famous and honorable ancestors, but I have been brought up by the best and most honorable man to imagine. I've learned all his rules and values, and I learned to fight, as did she, when she was young, just in a different martial art!"

Gabriel snickered.

"Does she know about you?", he asked carefully.

The young woman shrugged.

"I-I have to admit, I don't know. Maybe I should figure that out first, huh?"

The designer nodded.

"Just do that. And as soon as Kagami is ready to tell her mother, I promise, to talk to her and tell her, that you are a very kind, hard working, honest and worthy person!"

"Really? You would do that? Thank you so much!", she blurted out and rushed over to him and hugged him tightly, then ran out of the room.

"How are you doing?", Gabriel now asked Nathalie worriedly.

"I'm fine. At first I wanted to scream, but when I told her, that it doesn't matter, I suddenly noticed, that it really doesn't. Much time has passed and no matter how bad I felt back then, how hurt and scared and desperate I was, I am okay now. Thanks to you and the fact, that I have her back and that we're having this little surprise....", she placed her hand on her lower stomach with a smirk.

The middle aged man smiled at her lovingly and bent down to kiss her tenderly.

"I love you Nathalie. And I promise you, to treat Fei as if she was my own, well.....after working on my parenting skills, of course!", he hummed.