(A/N):
Drop a meme here that you find funny. Or reflects your mood.
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Marvel: Starting as Ghost Rider!!!
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....
Jojo eventually settled onto the large couch in the living room, finally allowing himself to relax after the long journey back from Los Angeles.
The ancient book and the other evidence from the case had already been taken upstairs and secured, so for the first time since leaving the city he didn't have anything immediately demanding his attention.
Lorraine had excused herself and gone to her room, saying she needed a shower and some sleep, while Leah had headed back to her own house because she still had to report her return to the tribe and fill them in on what had happened during the investigation.
That left Jojo alone in the enormous living room.
He pulled out his phone and started going through the messages he had received while they were away.
Most of them were routine DMC updates, contractor reports, and Sara's automated summaries.
Nothing seemed particularly urgent, so he was slowly scrolling through them while leaning back against the couch.
Then a voice came from nearby.
"Here. You should have some coffee."
Jojo barely paid attention.
"Thanks."
His hand automatically reached out and accepted the cup.
Then he froze.
Something about the voice hadn't registered properly at first.
It wasn't Alice.
It wasn't Rosalie.
It wasn't Indau.
He slowly lowered his phone and looked at the cup in his hand.
Then he looked up.
His entire body stiffened.
Standing directly in front of him was Renesmee.
Except...
She wasn't the little girl he remembered.
Jojo's eyes widened.
The child who had once looked barely seven years old was gone.
Standing before him now was a young woman who looked around nineteen.
Her features had matured considerably, her hair falling naturally around her shoulders, and there was an almost unsettling resemblance to the woman Bella had been before becoming a vampire.
She stood there casually, apparently unaware that Jojo was experiencing something very close to an existential crisis.
For a moment, Jojo simply stared.
'Nineteen?'
His mind raced through the numbers.
she had been seven just before he left and now she looked nineteen.
Even knowing about Renesmee's accelerated growth, actually seeing the result in front of him was something entirely different.
Renesmee noticed his reaction.
"Are you all right?"
Jojo immediately looked away.
"Yep."
His answer came far too quickly.
He placed the coffee on the table without drinking it and stood up.
"I just remembered something."
Renesmee blinked.
"What?"
"Something important."
She stared at him.
Jojo was already walking toward the hallway.
"I'll be back."
"Where are you going?"
"Somewhere else."
That made even less sense.
Jojo kept walking.
He deliberately avoided looking at her face, because the moment he had looked up and realized how much she had grown, the old instinct had returned.
The same instinct that had made him avoid touching her.
The same instinct that had made him step aside whenever she reached toward him.
The same instinct that had made him refuse to catch her when she had pretended to fall.
He had never explained it to any one.
And now that she was nearly an adult, Jojo suddenly realized the situation had become even harder to avoid.
Behind him, Renesmee remained standing beside the couch, watching his back disappear down the hallway.
Her eyebrows slowly drew together.
She had noticed.
Of course she had noticed.
She had noticed it ever since she was old enough to understand what was happening.
Whenever she tried to touch Jojo, he moved away.
Whenever she sat beside him, he eventually found an excuse to leave.
Whenever she tried to catch his eye, he deliberately looked somewhere else.
Even when she was younger, when she had run toward him excitedly and expected him to pick her up like everyone else did, Jojo had always found a way to avoid it.
At first she had assumed he simply didn't like children.
Then she had wondered whether she had done something wrong.
As she grew older, however, the question had become much more persistent.
'Why me?'
He wasn't afraid of her.
She knew that much.
She had watched him walk directly toward creatures that could tear vampires apart without hesitation. She had seen stories about what he had fought, and she knew enough about the supernatural world to understand that Jojo wasn't a man who frightened easily.
Yet when it came to her...
He behaved differently.
And now, after seeing him practically flee from the room simply because she had handed him a cup of coffee, Renesmee's curiosity finally overcame her patience.
She looked toward the hallway where he had disappeared.
A small, puzzled smile appeared on her face.
"Interesting."
She glanced down at the coffee cup he had left behind.
Then back toward the hallway.
Whatever secret Jojo had been keeping from her all these years...
Renesmee had finally decided she was going to find out what it was.
Jojo had barely stepped out of the mansion when he was suddenly caught completely off guard.
Alice came rushing toward him first, throwing her arms around him before he could even figure out what was happening, and she hugged him tightly enough to make him stumble half a step backward.
"Finally,"
She said with a bright laugh, squeezing him as though he had been gone for months instead of only a short while.
Before Jojo could properly respond, Rosalie stepped in beside her, and Alice loosened her hold just enough for Rosalie to wrap her arms around him as well.
Jojo barely had time to breathe before both women leaned in and kissed him passionately, one after the other, leaving him standing there with a completely stunned expression.
"Wait, wait, wait..."
Jojo finally managed once they pulled back, blinking at them in disbelief.
"I have been gone for a few days. Not five years. What exactly is this welcome-home committee?"
Alice laughed again, clearly delighted by his reaction, while Rosalie simply gave him a satisfied smile and lightly brushed her fingers across his shoulder.
"You disappeared into another supernatural disaster,"
Rosalie replied.
"We were entitled to a proper welcome when you came back."
"And you didn't even tell us everything that happened,"
Alice added, narrowing her eyes playfully.
"I had to hear bits and pieces from everyone else."
Jojo opened his mouth to defend himself, but before he could produce an answer, he noticed someone standing a short distance behind them. Inadu had arrived with Alice and Rosalie, and unlike the two vampires, she had been patiently waiting for her turn.
There was a faint smile on her face as she watched the entire exchange, seemingly amused by how quickly Jojo had gone from confident supernatural hunter to thoroughly overwhelmed man.
When Alice and Rosalie finally stepped aside, Inadu approached him without saying anything.
Jojo's expression softened when he saw her, and this time he did not have to wonder what was coming.
Inadu opened her arms, and Jojo immediately returned the gesture, allowing her to pull him into a warm embrace.
She held him firmly for a moment, her cheek resting against his shoulder, and Jojo could feel the tension in her slowly disappear now that she had him standing in front of her again.
"You are back,"
Inadu murmured quietly.
"I'm back,"
Jojo replied, smiling as he hugged her.
For a few seconds, none of them said anything.
It was a simple moment after several days filled with demons, parasites, ancient books, disturbing visions, and questions that seemed to multiply every time Jojo found an answer.
Standing outside his own mansion with Alice, Rosalie, and Inadu around him, he finally felt the weight of the journey beginning to leave his shoulders.
Then Alice suddenly leaned closer and said,
"So... are we going inside, or are you planning to stand here looking confused for the rest of the evening?"
Jojo sighed and glanced between the three women.
"I was actually planning to have a quiet evening."
Rosalie smiled. "That was your first mistake."
Inadu chuckled softly, still holding onto his arm.
"You should have known better by now."
Jojo stared at them for a moment before shaking his head with a reluctant smile.
"I leave for a few days and apparently my peaceful life disappears completely."
Alice immediately linked her arm through his.
"Your peaceful life disappeared a long time ago."
With that, the four of them finally started walking toward the mansion together, Jojo already suspecting that whatever peaceful evening he had imagined was never going to happen.
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(Author's POV)
(A/N):
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