From Time To Eternity

★Dedicated to Linkin Park, my muse and the anchor to my sanity★

From Time To Eternity

"Darn it!"

The frail frame of the kitchen cupboard I hit shook with the impact of my irate blow. The Cherry wood crumpled where my knuckles met with its easy resistance, punching a hole in one of the doors which now hung loose from the one unbroken hinge; brittle and jagged. One tiny china teacup balanced precariously on the ledge and then fell over as I watched with morbid defiance. But before it could crash down to smithereens in the sink below, a swift pallid hand caught it mid-air.

"How do you do that?!" I muttered in frustration.

"'Cause I've got better reflexes."

The absurdly beautiful face beamed up at me, a full smile on her rose lips.

"It's just something you learn when you have an annoying brother who goes about punching furniture," she continued in her same teasing tone. "Now let me have a look at that hand."

I wanted to stick my tongue out at her, a childish reaction yet highly tempting. But of course the last thing I wanted was more 'whiny little bro' jokes. Instead I thrust my injured hand behind my back and answered with deliberate stubbornness, "Not a chance in hell."

I watched as she arched one brow, disbelief crossing her face and then broke into an impish grin that I immediately distrusted.

Her foot came down on mine, crushing my toe under her six-inch heel.

"Fuck," I winced. "What, you're into sadism now?"

"Marginally," she replied unabashed. "You're the one being difficult. Oh, and mind your French, Jake."

I sighed in resignation and went to sit down in one of the shabby kitchen chairs. Alison went to scour for the first aid kit in the drawers adjoining the stairs. I had never in my life come across a woman as tenacious as her.

When I thought I was safely out of her line of sight, I did a quick examination of the wound I had inflicted upon myself. Blood was trickling down from where the wood splinters cut into my skin and there were blue and purple patches underneath all the red covering my knuckles. I flexed my fingers to discover a sharp pain shoot through my index finger that in all probability meant a broken bone.

Alison came up then, looking all clinical, carrying the first aid kit like a ray gun. I sighed again as she settled down to play nurse on my surrendered hand. I could tell that she was going to enjoy this down to the last damn bit.

"You babysit me too much," I grumbled while trying to keep the grimace from showing on my face as she pulled the splinters out.

"I'll downplay it as soon as you stop acting like a child," she said as she puckered her eyebrows in concentration.

Her warm brown eyes shone with anxiety over my rash behavior; the ever-present laugh lines around them momentarily vanished. I was struck again by her stark resemblance to Mom though my memories of her were dim and distant given the short time I had known her. Our parents had both died when I was five and Alison nine, in a hiking misadventure they told me. Their absence was never more than a dull ache of a loss I couldn't fully repent. Alison had grown up to be the sole parental figure I had ever known. Hence eleven years later now, it surprised me some to realise that I had vainly fooled myself all along.

"There," Alison spoke, reviving me from my stupor. "I've washed and bandaged the cuts but you'd have to stop by the clinic regarding the fracture. It shouldn't be any more serious than a fissure though."