Disclaimer & Author's Notes:
Yes, I've been silent. Very silent for a very long time. I've been suffering greatly under the strain of writer's block (a very large and heavy cinder block), coupled with school and work taking precedence. (The upswing is that I updated and redid my website at http://www.jaggededge.pair.com ; yes, that was a shameless plug). Well, I'm sad to report that the writer's block is not gone. However, I was cleaning up my hard drive and came across a couple of vignettes that I had never gotten around to posting. I cleaned 'em up, edited 'em and here's the first one. (How old is this vignette? It's authored under my maiden name, that's how old).
This is another edition to the 'Nothing Gold Can Stay' serial. It's 'shipper-ish because I am an incurable romantic and that's just the way it is.
Now the legalese:
I don't own them. The characters featured here (Mrs. Jackson, Ami Jackson, Adam Newman, Megabyte Damon and Jade Weston) are not mine. I am borrowing them and promise to put them back where I got them from when I am done with them. They are the property of Roger Damon Price, Thames Television, Tetra Television, and Nickelodeon. No money is made from this.
Please send all compliments and virtual chocolates to mbumbarger@neo.rr.com.
Enjoy!
Michele Mason Bumbarger
She heard Ami on the staircase long before the girl's voice called out to her. "Mum? Mum, I'm home."
"I'm in here, Ami." Sherry Jackson lowered the book she was reading, turning her eyes expectantly toward the door. Ami shouldn't have been home; they had talked about her teleporting back and forth from Cambridge to London, but, as always, Ami had a mind of her own.
Her first few weeks at Cambridge, she had rarely seen or heard from her daughter. Abruptly, that had all changed. Ami now spent as much of free time in London or at the Ship as she did at her University flat. Sherry knew that something had happened, something that had changed Ami's perspective; what was another question. Ami hadn't wished to talk about it, and she had grown so sullen and stubborn that her mother had been left with no other choice than to let the matter drop.
That didn't stop her from wondering.
"Came home for dinner, did you?" Mrs. Jackson teased her daughter with a smile as Ami crossed the threshold to the bedroom and sank to the bed beside her mother.
Her daughter smiled brightly, giving her a hug. "I wanted to see how you were."
"I'm practically feeling like a girl again. I actually managed to do a load of the wash."
Ami frowned. "Mum, you're never going to get over that flu if you don't take better care of yourself. I could have done the wash."
"You're not even supposed to be here."
Ami sighed, giving that familiar roll of her eyes that marked her exasperation. "I told you, it isn't a problem. No one even notices that I'm gone."
"And that isn't a problem?" Sherry gripped her daughter's hands tightly. "Ami Michelle Jackson, I'm your mother and I know when something's wrong. I just wish that you would talk to me about it."
"Mum, it's nothing. Really," Ami slipped her hands from her mother and busied herself rearranging the blankets on the bed. She was avoiding eye contact; that meant that she was hiding something.
"Ami--"
"Mum, it's nothing that I can't handle."
"And that's why you keep running home or off to the space ship at the first opportunity?"
Sherry waited for her daughter's hysterics and pleadings. She waited for denials. They never came. Instead, Ami surprised her by sitting on the bed again, smoothing her hands across the blanket as she spoke. "I've missed it here. And I've missed my friends. I can't help it. And I've needed someone to talk to."
Mrs. Jackson held back the rush of hurt she felt by those words. It was an effort, but she kept her voice calm. "You can't talk to your own mother?"
Ami's head rose slowly, an inexplicable sadness in her dark eyes. It reminded her of when she was a little girl and always needed her mother to soothe and comfort her. "I love you, Mum, but you wouldn't understand."
"And the Tomorrow People do?" Mrs. Jackson's voice held a hurt edge. She hated the cracking sound of her voice, but she couldn't help it. Every day she seemed to lose her little girl a little bit more.
"Adam does," Ami whispered the words so softly that at first her mother was not certain that she had heard them.
"Adam." Mrs. Jackson repeated the name slowly, softly. She had known this day would come; the day that her daughter found her own life and her own place. She had seen it coming since the day Ami fled from her mother's hospital room to help a boy she had never met-- since the day Adam Newman and Megabyte Damon had first entered her daughter's life.
Foolishly, she had tried to prevent Ami from seeing the boys, hoping that it would keep her safe and out of danger, but that had not happened. Mrs. Jackson had learned very early on that it was impossible to keep the Tomorrow People apart-- and in the end, when she saw how Ami blossomed, becoming more responsible and wiser-- she hadn't wanted to. It taken some time to reach that point, but she had done it. And she had done it all the while realizing that she was slowly losing her baby girl.
The little girl that came to her with skinned knees, or needing comfort from a nightmare was gone. The pig-tailed child who shared her secrets with her mother and considered "Mummy" her best friend had disappeared one night. They had been replaced by a willful teenager with a mind of her own whom Mrs. Jackson did not always understand. And while she changed mentally, she also changed physically-- she metamorphosed into a beautiful young woman who had feelings, thoughts, and emotions that she would never be able to share with her mother.
But she could, and she would, share them with her friends. She could share them with Adam.
Watching Ami stare down at her hands, Sherry wondered why it was that she had not seen this before now. Oh, she had speculated, but she never had any true confirmation before this moment. Her little girl was no longer a little girl-- she was a woman; she had a woman's dreams and a woman's desires. She didn't think her guess would be far off if she believed that Adam made up some part of those dreams and desires.
Her little girl had grown up. And her daughter was in love.
"I've been spending some of my free time with him," Ami explained. "Adam and I never really talked before. I never realized how much we understand each other."
Mrs. Jackson lifted her daughter's chin so that their eyes met. She had never realized how much Ami was growing up and becoming her own woman. Maybe she hadn't wanted to. "Then I hope he helps you work this out. Whatever it is."
Ami's smile was genuine, as was the hug she gave her mother. "Stop worrying. I'll be fine. I just need sometime to figure some things out. Now, can I make you some soup, or some tea?"
"Oh, all right. There's some new spice tea--"
"I know, Mum, I bought it, remember?" The young woman was on her feet in a minute, and halfway to the door before she looked back. Her eyes were smiling, whatever turmoil there gone-- for the moment at least. "And, Mum, I love you."
Then she was gone, the familiar patter of her feet echoing as she raced down the stairs.
Leaning back against her pillow, Sherry Jackson wiped away a tear. They never warned you that the hardest part of loving them was letting them go.
-- End --