Vaucouleurs (4)

One thing I've learned these past few day, is that teaching is really hard. I feel horrible for my past teachers. Jeanne wasn't a stupid girl, but I think she just had a really stupid teacher. It's been almost a week since I've been teaching her to read, and the girl can barely understand. At first I thought she was just a slow learner, but now I'm starting to think I'm just that trash as teaching. She can recognize smaller words like God and Lord, but besides that she's as skilled as a kindergartner, maybe even worse. The worst part is she keeps apologizing every time she messes up. 

"Oh I see… I am sorry for forgetting that word Jack."

I sighed and rubbed my hand against my forehead. I feel bad for her, but I don't understand why she's so hard on herself.

"Jeanne, please stop apologizing. You're doing fine. It isn't easy to learn to read, so I'd really appreciate it if you stopped apologizing everytime you mess up or forget a word…"

We'd been practicing around an hour or so every night inside our room before bed. She's slowly getting better, but I really don't think she understands that yet. I'd been switching between using phrases from the bible and random simple sentences I would write down. It was easy to show her every letter and what they sounded like, yet her remembering that information and putting it into practice was a completely different story. She never gave up though. Every night she was enthusiastic about learning, and I often found her trying to read to herself in the middle of the night long after we finished practicing. She would've been a great student in my era. People like her are a rare find in the future. 

After we finished our nightly study session I stood up off the chair I'd been sitting in and made my way over to the bed. My body had been exhausted throughout the day because I'd been constantly swinging a sword since I didn't know how to actually train myself. I fell face first into the pillow below me while Jeanne crawled onto the other side besides me. Her gentle voice called out to me. I kept my stomach down on the bed as I turned my head towards her. She was looking at me with a conflicted look in her eyes.

"Hey Jack?"

"What is it Jeanne?"

"Do you miss your family..?"

Of course I missed my family. Even though my father was an asshole sometimes, he was still my father and therefore I still loved him. I also missed my older brother. Whenever I was alone I found myself thinking about how they were doing without me. I knew they were probably heartbroken at my sudden disappearance. I hope my dad didn't blame himself for whatever he thinks happened to me.

"Yeah, I do miss them. Why do you ask?"

"I miss my family as well. Everyday I long for them to come and find me here. I want my mother, my brothers, and my sister to know that I am alright. I hope they are still alive, so that one day I can see them again…"

"Your mother should be the only hard one to find though right? I mean don't you know where the rest of them are."

Jeanne shook her head sadly.

"I do not know where they are. They were supposed to visit us, but then the village was destroyed by the English… They are probably scattered throughout France by now."

"I see… Don't worry though Jeanne. Once we start traveling I'm sure your siblings and mother will hear of us and find us."

"I hope you are right Jack. What will you do if you find your family?"

If I ever did see my family again then the same thing that brought me into the past would have to send me back. If that happened then I'd never see Jeanne again. I did want to see my family, but I was getting pretty fond of this era. Life was more simple here even though the technology was way worse and the world was more dangerous. Instead of living a simple life back home, in this era I could actually do something with my life instead of rotting away in some kind of office. 

"If I ever did find my family, then we'd never see eachother again Jeanne." 

"What? Why would we never see each other!?

"I don't know how to explain it in a way you'd understand. You already know I'm not from France, and my family is not from here either. If I were to see them again then it would be in a place you could never reach."

"I do not understand. Your explanation was not very, uhm, good."

I don't know what'll happen if I tell her how I got here but what's the worst that could happen? I've been by her side forever, so she should be able to keep this a secret. I don't think people would really believe a man came from the future anyways. Then again, if they did believe it, I'd probably be hunted down…

"Jeanne, listen to me, I need you to promise not to tell anyone what I'm about to tell you. Please just promise me you'll keep this between us okay?"

"Whatever you are about to tell me, I promise I won't tell anyone."

Jeanne just looked at me with a confused face. She'll probably think I'm crazy after I tell her about how I got here.

"Jeanne, if I told you I was from almost six hundred years in the future would you believe me?

"Jack, that sounds idiotic. Did you hit your head earlier?"

"Jeanne, I'm serious. Would you believe me if I told you I was from the future?"

"I do not appreciate your jokes Jack. Are you trying to make some kind of excuse to not tell me where you're from?"

"Jeanne, I'm being serious, I swear. I was teleported into the bush on the edge of your farm right before you found me."

"Tele-ported…?"

"Oh uhm… Teleporting is like when you… Go from one place to another instantly. Like If I were to be here in Vaucouleurs one second, but in the next moment I'd be back in Domremy."

"So… You want me to believe you are from 600 years in the future and were… teleported?"

"Yes…?"

"I… do not understand…"

"Jeanne, one day if I am suddenly gone then it means whatever force sent me here has taken me back."

"What? So you are telling me that one day you may disappear forever with no warning?"

"I'm not sure if it will ever happen, but yes I could suddenly get sent back to where I came from."

Jeanne still didn't look like she believed. If I was her then I wouldn't believe me either.

"So… I'll be all alone when that happens?"

"I'm just saying if it happens then don't think I left by choice. I could end up staying here forever."

"If what you're saying is true, then where do you come from?"

I've already told her I'm not from this time. Telling her about America shouldn't mess anything up as long as she keeps it a secret.

"Across the ocean there is a place called America. It shouldn't be discovered for another few hundred years. That's where I come from, a place called Texas. It's a part of a country called the United States."

"Since you're from the future, does France win the war?"

"I don't know Jeanne. I don't know anything about this country's history or what happened to it."

"I see… If you have the option to return to your time then what will you do?"

"I don't know what I'd do. It be better if I never had to make that choice, so let's not talk about what my choice would be."

If I had the option to return to my time or stay here then I have no idea which I'd pick. I want to see my family again, but I don't want to leave Jeanne alone. Right now I'm pretty sure I'm the only one she trusts. Her father is dead, her mother is missing, and all her siblings are somewhere unknown. If I wasn't here then what would happen to her? 

"I wish we got to celebrate Christmas…"

"There's always next year Jeanne. They're probably anxious that they'll be attacked while celebrating. We can always celebrate next year though right?"

"I guess that's true. Hey Jack, tomorrow I want to go to Baudricourt and see if he'll allow us an escort."

"Alright then, tomorrow we'll go and ask him."

"I hope he'll believe me. It would be rather difficult to reach the king without his help."

"I'm sure he will. Don't worry about that for now and just go to sleep."

"Goodnight Jack."

"Goodnight."

Jeanne closed her eyes and I could see her body slowly moving in sync with her breaths. After around twenty minutes I sat up and slowly crawled out of the bed. I'd been thinking about my insane regeneration for awhile, and I had a few theories I wanted to test.

I grabbed my blade on my way out and walked out of the fort to a nearby forest. Considering the scars on my arm hadn't ever vanished it meant two things. Either my scars hadn't healed because I received my regenerative abilities after I was transported here, or my regeneration only applied to wounds I received from other people.

I took a deep breath while pressing the blade of my sword against my arm. As I exhaled I slid the blade down against my skin as a trail of blood was left behind. I shook my arm in discomfort as the blood started dripping down. The sword hurt worse than the knife I'd used before. It also felt more awkward now. I had only left a shallow cut on my arm, so I leaned against a tree and watched it closely. It shouldn't take long at all for the wound to heal considering the time it took for all the injuries which were much worse. After a few minutes the blood had stopped dripping, but the wound on my arm hadn't started to repair itself at all. I guess that meant wounds I inflicted on myself wouldn't trigger my regeneration.  

It probably wasn't the best idea to hurt myself just to answer a question that didn't really matter. I see that now. It doesn't matter what causes my body to regenerate because all that matters is that it regenerates in the first place. I sighed and wiped the drying blood off my arm. My legs started moving back towards the fort while I kept staring down at my arm. 

I slipped back into my room and gently laid my blade against the wall while trying to make as little noise as possible. My arm rubbed against the inside of my shirt in order to get off any remaining blood.

I slowly made my way back into bed so as to not wake up Jeanne. Tomorrow we'd hopefully be able to get an escort from that military general. My eyes closed and my body eased into the sheet below me. I positioned my cut arm towards the wall so Jeanne wouldn't be able to see it when she woke up. My consciousness slowly faded away as I laid in bed thinking about tomorrow. If the general didn't believe Jeanne then I didn't know where we'd go from there.