Ashes to Asher

"OK, I have a very important question," Ashley said as she and Emil walked up to his rental car. "Should I stop by home and change clothes?"

"Well, I would think you would want to be comfortable, so up to you I guess," Emil shrugged as he gave the keys to her.

"I meant my color scheme," she said, waving a hand up and down in front of her. "I wouldn't want to clash with the Purple Prince. I was not going to say princess," she added defensively.

"No, but I heard you think it," Emil growled. "I swear I think you spend too much time with your uncle, just like your son." He sighed and then continued. "No, if your clothes are comfortable, then you're just fine." He got into the passenger front seat of the car before adding, "I don't just wear purple because it's my favorite color, you know. The color is soothing and easy on the eyes. It has a calming effect, so it's a good color for my line of work."

"I hadn't thought of that," Ashley admitted. "I'm sorry for teasing you about it. My next question is actually serious. Are you going to tell Danny and Uncle Ash that you faked the freak out over the snake?"

"Someone told me that you would catch me on that," Emil shared with a bashful smile. "You won't actually stay mad at Jimmy forever, will you? I mean, obviously you've held the grudge for a really long time already, but now you know he wasn't really at fault."

"Jimmy thinks you faked it, too?" Ashley blurted. Emil nodded.  "And he told you I would figure it out?"

"He said I could bank on you knowing about it and said you never missed a beat even when you were kids," Emil said as he nodded again.

"Well, clearly I missed a few things, like the fact that he was put up to pulling that horrible prank on me. I also never saw what a deadbeat loser I hooked up with in college. Instead of a lifetime of happy with a stable, caring guy, I had a few months of mediocre at best with an idiot who took off the moment he found out about Danny. Uncle Ash took me in and has taken care of both of us just like a sane parent, instead of the psych case I had for a father."

"Asher does seem like the best kind of good people," Emil mused aloud.

"You could do a lot worse," Ashley smiled softly. "I know I did a lot worse, but I think I've finally gotten it all sorted out now. Which brings up my next question. Are you going to tell Jimmy that you really weren't faking the freakout?"

"I could have been faking it," Emil gasped in defense.

"Yeah, but you really weren't, were you?" Ashley giggled. "You're just as delicate as Uncle Ash thinks and hopes you are. We all know you're strong and you're a survivor. You are an end-of-life caregiver. You literally look death in the face on a daily basis and you keep your cool and do what's needed when most of the rest of us humans would run away screaming in fear."

"Stop it, you're going to make me blush, or cry," Emil sniffled. "Someone has to do what I do, and in each case that I've had, no one else could or would, so I just rolled up my pretty purple sleeves and got on with it. I don't feel like the hero you're making me out to be. Now, Jimmy, he's a hero. He faces all the stuff that makes me hide under my bed just from watching the nightly news. Plus, he adores Danny, and Danny likes him, too."

"That's funny, because I said the exact same thing last night to Uncle Ash about you. You love Danny already and Danny loves you just as much," Ashley smirked.

"I hope you know, I only think of Danny as a sweet boy with a bit of a twisted sense of humor which seems to be a genetic trait. Nothing else. I walked away from him after handing Asher his clothes because I have absolutely no interest in seeing anything he shouldn't be showing me, much less doing anything else," Emil said quickly. "He is nothing to me but a slightly deranged, good intentioned little boy."

"Emil, relax, I trust you with Danny, if for no other reason than that you are crushing so hard on my uncle that the whole town already knows about it. I'm pretty sure that gerontophilia is at the far opposite end of the sexual spectrum from pedophilia."

"I'm not that obvious," Emil denied quickly and loudly. "Am I?" he asked in a soft tone, more to himself than her. "And don't call your uncle old. He's not old, he's hot… I mean full of life. I did not say hot. You didn't hear that. He's… mature."

"Oh, yes, I did hear it, and I am so going to tell him you said it," Ashley giggled. "But seriously, Emil, Uncle Ash was mature when I was born. Do not call him that where he can hear it, though. He will act out worse than Danny just to spite you."

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me," Emil laughed.

"So, I guess I should ask where I'm going, since I'm the one driving," Ashley snorted.

"Well, I have to turn the car back in at the rental place by the airport," Emil answered. "I had thought of buying something new before we get rid of this, though. I wonder if I could get a temporary car while mine is being finished?"

"What do you mean? Why would you need a temp if you buy something new?"

"Well, I'm fairly certain I would have to custom order anything I get so that I can have it in purple," Emil admitted.

"AHA! I knew you were making up that stuff about why you wear purple," Ashley crowed victoriously.

"I did not," Emil defended. "Every word of that was true. It is still my favorite color, though."

"Oh, you're going to fit into the Danvers family just fine," Ashley giggled.

"Ashley, OMG, we're not even dating, yet. We just met a couple of days ago," Emil defended as he blushed intensely.

"You said yet," Ashley pointed out with an impish grin that Emil could already identify as a Danvers family trait.

"You are incorrigible," he pouted.

"I think you'll find that all three of us Danvers are very easily incorriged, especially Uncle Ash," Ashley returned.

"Incorriged is not a word. I think you mean encouraged," Emil corrected.

"See, I knew you would get it," she smiled. "And as I was saying, Uncle Ash is very easy to encourage, just like last night when I also told him that you had faked the freakout."

"Wait, you said you knew that I wasn't faking it, and he already knew I wasn't…. I'm so confused."

"The only thing that could make Uncle Ash fall for you any quicker was if he thought you would do anything to protect Danny, even if you had to look like an idiot to do it," Ashley told him seriously. "He wants someone he can take care of, but he wants them to help him take care of me and Danny, too. That's why when we get home, I'm going to tell him all about how I was being mugged in the big city and you went all crazy and screaming like a drag queen and literally saved my life."

"Crazy and screaming like a…. We're not even in the city, yet, woman," Emil squealed. "Are you insane? Did I get a crazy woman to drive me? You're going to throw me out the door off that horrendous cliff, aren't you? Bears and things will find my body before humans do, and I better die on the way down because I just know there will be bugs and… and why are you laughing so much. Settle down and focus on the road before you throw us both off the cliff."

"That. That's what Uncle Ash loves about you already," Ashley gasped between laughs. "You go off the crazy end at the drop of a hat because you need him to ground you. Do you know how long he sat in his arm chair in the living room just rubbing his hand up and down the arm that you had grabbed and tried to climb when you heard about the snake? Just sat there, rubbing his arm with this big dopey grin that I've never seen before. Well, not on him, anyway."

They talked about other things for the next little while, like Ashley pointing out views from the mountain drive that Emil shouldn't miss, him screeching about being airplanes being required to be above clouds and then hiding his face as if he were the proverbial wimp at the horror movie.

Once they finally reached the city, nearly an hour after they had left the diner, they headed toward the airport which meant they were driving through the business sector. "There, pull in there," Emil called out, pointing out a car dealership just ahead of them on his side of the road.

As Ashley parked the car right in front of the glass walled showroom, she laughed, shook her head, and asked, "Do you have like some sort of purple radar?"

"What do you mean," Emil asked her. She pointed in front of them to something inside the building. He followed her gesture with his eyes, and then squealed something in a decibel level that Ashley wasn't aware that humans could reach, much less males. He ran into the showroom completely ignoring Ashley as she tried in vain to coach him about looking uninterested in order to get a better deal. When she got inside, she saw him literally hugging a vintage 1973 Ford Bronco that was indeed a lovely shade of lavender. "Look, Ashley! It matches my shirt," he called out as his head rested on the hood.

"Ma'am, I don't think your friend should be molesting the boss's personal prized toy truck," a salesman whispered to Ashley.

"He's not molesting it," she tried to defend. "He's umm… well… uhh…. He's enthusiastically appreciating it." She hid her face in her hands and hissed out, "Emil, you are embarrassing me."

"I don't see many people come in here that appreciate my mother's customized Bronco," another voice spoke. "I certainly don't see people that color match it while hugging it and purring like a kitten," he added with a laugh.

"Oh, it's your mother's," Emil said sadly as he backed away from the vehicle. "Is there any chance I could get one exactly like it, but with automatic transmission?"

"This one has automatic," the older man informed him. Emil whimpered as if he had just been punched, but didn't want anyone to know that it hurt. "You really like it, don't you?"

"It's the most perfect vehicle I've ever seen," Emil gushed.

"UN interested," Ashley groaned.

"I think it's a bit late for that," the salesman laughed. "You're safe, though. Boss'll never sell Lilac."

"This isn't lilac, it's lavender," Emil corrected.

"Mama called it Lilac because she said they were sturdier than lavender, plus it was easier to say," the older man explained. "I remember many times she would grab me and take off in this thing up the mountains to visit her best friend, Miss Moony."

"You're kidding," Emil and Ashley both gasped.

"I'm staying in Miss Moony's inn right now," Emil continued.

"She's the closest thing to a mother or grandmother I had after my own mother died when I was young," Ashley added.

"Hold up for a minute," the old man called out. "Are you telling me that she's still alive? Wait…." He stared intensely at Ashley for a moment. "My last trip up there with Mama, Miss Moony took us all to a little diner there. There was the cutest little waitress girl, who told us it was her fourteenth birthday that day. My mother ordered dessert just so she could share with the birthday girl."

"Uncle Ash served us cake and even put a candle on it, and your mother helped me blow it out because Uncle Ash had snuck one of those trick candles that relit on it," Ashley remembered with him.

"I laughed so hard at your face trying to blow out that candle," the man smiled as he wiped a tear from his face. "Mama passed away a month after that, but she remembered the fun she had that day right up until her last moment."

"I grieve with your loss, but I'm very happy to know that you helped give her pleasant memories in her final days," Emil said sincerely.

"Emil is an end-of-life caregiver," Ashley explained. "He came to this area to fulfill the final wishes of his last patient."

"My mother had a wonderful and sweet lady helping me take care of her those last few months," the man smiled. "She was so sweet and caring, in fact, that I fell in love with her and married her."

"I never knew that was how you met my mother," the salesman whispered.

"You know something, maybe it's time I do part with Old Lilac," the older man said thoughtfully. "Mama would want to know that someone appreciated it the way she did. I just park it here in the showroom, in a spot that my old T-bird could be taking. I can't just give it to you, of course. But how about you just pay me for the last refurbish it got? All new paint, new wheels, new upholstery, all of it an exact match for the way Mama had custom ordered back in 73 when she got it."

"No, that doesn't seem fair to me," Emil told him. "I insist you charge me the full price you would normally put on it in this condition. I hate to impose on your memories with it, but is there a chance we could upgrade it a bit more and put a decent modern sound system in it?"

"I told you that you wouldn't regret doing that, Dad," the salesman laughed. "Oh, now don't give me that look, old man. You know darn well that you've been a way better father than the man that sired me. It's high time I told you that I know it, too."

"Take a look at your new old Bronco, Emil, and give an old man a minute, will you?" the old man whispered more than a bit emotional. He stood and walked away for a bit while the salesman held out the keys to the vehicle to Emil.

"Should you go…" Ashley asked quietly, nodding her head in the old man's direction.

"He'll be fine," the salesman responded. "Like he said, he just needs a moment or two. I think. Maybe I will just go make sure."