Consequences | By : Sabriel0405 Category: Anita Blake > Het Views: 4737 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own the Anita Blake series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
I floated in and out of consciousness for days. From the doctors’ perspective, I was in a coma but I came to awareness periodically. Not enough to alert the machines, but enough so that I knew I wasn’t dead. Pain medication was intravenous and kept the worst of it at bay but at the tail end of each dosage, my screaming nerves woke me from my unnatural slumber.
“How is she, doctor?”
“Lucky to be alive. Frankly, it’s a miracle. The damage was extensive, broken limbs, broken ribs, punctured lung, internal bleeding. We repaired what we could. The miscarriage was a bad one. We were able to keep her uterus but I don’t know if she will be able to bear children. I’m sorry.”
“She’s alive, doctor, everything else is secondary.” Micah’s voice. Micah’s touch. The pain machine beeped and I returned to blessed nothingness.
The next time I woke, so to speak, the tension in the air was oppressive.
“It’s all my fault.”
“Jason, don’t be ridiculous. You told me what happened. There was nothing you could have done.” Micah stroked carefully down the arm that was taped to a board. The other was encased in fiberglass. I sincerely hoped rapid healing was in my future.
“Micah, I saw him move, I saw his intent!”
“And what could you have done?” The strokes against my arm were soothing. The drugs were waning but his touch took the edge off. The machines continued their steady beep and hum.
“I could have tackled him. I could have shouted a warning. I could have done something. Instead I stood there like a coward and just let it happen!”
Micah sighed. This was apparently not the first time they had had this discussion. “Jason, if you had done something heroic, Richard would have had to ask why. You would have had to tell him. There would still have been violence.”
“Sure, but against me. I’m a werewolf. I can take the damage. He could have killed her while I stood by and watched! What’s worse is that I stood there after the fact! I just stood there!”
“Anita would have been furious with you if supporting her had endangered you. She didn’t want Richard to know about the baby. It doesn’t matter now since it’s a moot point.”
There was silence. The baby was a moot point. I had miscarried. I knew when the guy slammed into me and I felt that small tearing that it was over. I knew when the cramps overcame me in the car that I was miscarrying. I knew when I went into the ravine that I had failed my unborn daughter. But hearing it said out loud made it real. I wasn’t ready for reality. The pain machine beeped again and I accepted the darkness gratefully.
“Why won’t she wake up?” I knew that voice, plaintive and scared. Nathaniel. I hadn’t thought about Nathaniel after the accident. Though he was my pomme de sang, and though I wanted him sexually, he was not an equal and I had to trust that the others would keep him safe.
“She’ll wake up when she’s ready.” Cherry. I wondered if I was in the shifter hospital.
“Why aren’t we lying with her, healing her?” Nathaniel was pushing. This was good.
“This is a human hospital. They frown on that here. These injuries aren’t preternatural. She needed human intervention, even though she’s healing faster than a human. But we can touch her. Micah thinks it’s been helping.”
“Do you think she’ll be sad about the baby?”
Cherry didn’t respond right away. The hum of the machines made me sleepy but I didn’t want to go back to the darkness. Not before I heard what she had to say. How was I supposed to feel?
“I think she’ll have a lot of feelings. Sadness, guilt, relief, disappointment. There isn’t any one emotion. Do you remember when I told her shifters couldn’t have children because the change was too violent? Anita doesn’t like it when choices are out of her control. This was always out of her control.”
Was that true? I should have been able to control what happened with Jason but I didn’t. I let the ardeur win. Of course, the ardeur had been winning since day one. I wasn’t ready to have emotions yet. It was safer in the dark. It reminded me a little of my killing place, quiet, steady.
The room grew quiet though I had the sense of hands touching me. I don’t remember fading out but the voices had changed the next time I came aware.
“She is so very still. I do not believe I have ever seen her like this, not even in sleep.” The French accent was heavier than usual. I was surprised he wasn’t speaking in French.
“We usually don’t give her a lot of room to move, but I agree, it hurts to see her like this. She isn’t even dreaming. Though, it’s probably better that way.” Micah. I was surprised not to hear Jean-Claude, but since I wasn’t awake, or maybe aware would be a better description, that frequently, I’d probably missed him. “How is Jean-Claude?” Micah asked.
There was a period of silence so long I wasn’t certain I hadn’t slipped back into the darkness. Finally, Asher said, “He is exhausted. He is still so very frightened that he will lose her. He is the Master of the City, which means he cannot show weakness. But each night she remains unreachable to him is painful.”
Again a period of silence. Then I felt them touching me. Apparently I didn’t have the much exposed skin but they touched what I had. Micah rubbed the inside of my arm while Asher laid his fingers on the pulse of my neck. The flash of memory of Asher’s bite on that pulse caused the machines to beep wildly in response. But it was momentary. Their touch felt good. It made my body remember it was alive. It made me think that I should want to be alive.
“Has Richard been by yet?” Asher asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Richard knows everything. Despite her wishes, Jean-Claude did not close the marks between them. It was a good thing or we wouldn’t be here right now. She was dying. In fact, she died several times waiting for rescue. But Jean-Claude kept pushing his power into her, forcing her heart to beat. That kind of metaphysics takes tremendous power and though he had fed, he needed more. He called Richard.”
“I take it you don’t mean by telephone?” Micah said, a rather wry tone to his voice.
Asher made a sound that almost qualified as a chuckle. “Jean-Claude invoked his own power over wolves as his animal to call. You can imagine Richard’s fury. He felt Anita’s pain but didn’t understand it. Then to get Jean-Claude’s call, it was too much. He came into the Circus snarling. Jean-Claude didn’t waste time on diplomacy. He told Richard that he needed to feed on Richard to keep Anita alive and he would do so with or without Richard’s consent. Richard paled but to give him credit, he asked no questions, just offered his neck. Not until we were sure Anita would survive without Jean-Claude’s power did he break that hold. They went into his rooms. I do not know what was said, but Richard was very subdued when he left.”
So Richard knew. I wondered how much. If he knew about the pregnancy or just about the accident. I was surprised he had allowed Jean-Claude to feed. He had let Jean-Claude do it once, for me, the night we first joined our powers. But not since. He didn’t let anyone feed on him.
They had begun to limit the pain medications. I had heard Cherry explaining it to Zane. I should have woken by now, apparently. My body was healing, though the bones were knitting faster than my internal injuries. They were concerned about that. Cherry sat next to me on the bed. The contact of her body against mine spiked a fever. That was a good thing for a lycanthrope, an iffy thing for almost-human. They were shooting antibiotics through my IV to control the infection.
I wasn’t sure that waking up would be a good thing and I did nothing to encourage it. I felt like I was in Snow White’s glass coffin. Or was that Sleeping Beauty? Would I wake with a kiss?
“Some of her last thoughts were to protect me,” Damian said. He hadn’t touched me but I knew his voice.
“That’s who she is, though she would deny it with her last breath.” Rafael. How did he find out?
“She looks so helpless but I keep thinking that if I drew my blade, she’d draw her gun almost faster than I could follow.” He sounded so sad. He picked up my hand and held it.
“She’s a fighter. She’ll come through this. But this will be an emotional recovery as well as a physical one. Anita isn’t used to acknowledging her feelings.”
It was true. Fighting I understood. Feelings confused me. When you fought, you risked getting physically injured. But when feelings got hurt, they didn’t necessarily heal back the way they started. Was that why I hadn’t woken up? Because I didn’t want to have to deal with the repercussions? Are there always consequences?
I didn’t hear them leave, so lost was I in my own thoughts of the future. Just when I had come to terms wa fua future I hadn’t expected or wanted, I was suddenly faced with the future I had previously. That should have made me happy. I hadn’t wanted to be pregnant. But it left me sad. My fever spiked again. The doctors whispered around me in hushed tones. Physical therapists made sure my body was exercised. I stayed quiet and unmoving, safe in my cocoon.
I heard his footsteps before he said a word. I’d know those footfalls anywhere. “I stayed away as long as I could. Lillian wasn’t sure if my presence would harm you, but I had to see you. I’m sorry, Anita, so very sorry.” He laughed, a sad sound full of self-disgust. “You’ve heard that so many times. I’m sure you think I’m sorry you lost the baby. Or more particularly the way you lost the baby. But that isn’t why I’m apologizing. I’m sorry that you felt the need to hide it from me. I’m sorry that you thought I might hurt Jason. Yes, I know it was Jason. Jean-Claude told me everything.
“I was furious at firstriourious that he called me like a dog to heel. One look at his face stopped me in my tracks. I have never seen such panic, such devastation on anyone’s face before. Jean-Claude is the master at hiding his feelings. But not that night. He would have killed me for my blood if it meant keeping you alive another minute. It was the first time I realized that he really loved you. It wasn’t merely that he won the competition between us. He loves you. I never understood thatore.ore.
“When he was sure you were safe, he took me into his room and collapsed on the bed. I fed him again because he was in such need. It was almost selfish. I needed to know what was happening. I had never seen him in such disarray. He looked nothing like the Master of the City. It took him some time to calm down. He took me back to Musette’s visit, what Belle did to us. The consequences to you.
“I couldn’t imagine how you must have felt. How hard it must have been for you to tell any of them. I asked how long you had known. He told me that you had told him and Jason not that long ago. He told me that you didn’t want Jason to tell me because you were afraid that I might hurt Jason. That he also thought that I might hurt Jason.
“I didn’t say anything. The last year has been difficult for me. I don’t hate myself, Anita, but embracing the darkness is frightening. Because I like it so much. Being cruel is so easy. Leading a group of werewolves requires everyday cruelty. Marcus had Raina to inflict daily punishments. I think he used her because he didn’t want to become like her. I am frightened of what I have in me to become.
“I don’t know how I would have reacted if I had found out you were pregnant while you still were. It would have hurt. I wanted kids, the white picket fence, the whole deal. I wanted that with you. I love you, Anita. I probably always will. I want you safe and happy, even if that means you’re in someone else’s arms. I thought Micah was foolish to accept you on your terms. I understand now that you’re like the rest of us, living day by day and hoping that you make it to another dawn. You just do it with more confidence than most.”
It was the longest speech I had ever heard from Richard. It gave me hope that maybe he’d be okay. He hadn’t touched me and I wanted him to. I reached out to him before I realized that my body wasn’t responding. I strained to convince my bodymovemove. I tried moaning but no sound came from my lips.
He left without ever touching me, not even the clichéd goodbye kiss on the lips. It was over between us. I had known that for a long time but I hadn’t really admitted it. Now I knew. If I woke from this suspended animation, I might get Richard back as a friend, but never as a lover. He was finally ready to move on.
I let time pass because it was easier. Because I didn’t want to deal with my reality. But waiting wasn’t making things easier. I was aware now more often than not. The pain meds had been reduced to minimum levels. Neurologists poked at me daily. Micah practically lived here except when the others came in to relieve him. The vampires came after midnight and kept vigil. Even Zerbrowski had been in one night. He hadn’t said much. A few lecherous comments about seeing me in my nightgown. I think he was hoping to get a rise out of me. I hadn’t realized RPIT knew but it made sense that they would have heard. I hoped they hadn’t found out about the miscarriage, but I’d deal with that when, if, I woke. I felt myself hovering on the edge, waiting for the push that would propel me back into the world. I didn’t know how long I could remain in this place between worlds. I could only hope I’d feel the push when it came.
“If I told you that you looked lovely tonight, ma petite, you would accuse me of lying.” Jean-Claude. My heart skipped a beat hearing his sensual voice. I knew he had been there before because others had mentioned it but this was the first time I had heard him, felt him. “But I wouldn’t be lying. You are alive which makes you beautiful in my eyes.”
He sat in the chair next to bed and took my hand in his and pressed it to his lips. I felt the heat and wanted more. I realized that my eyes were closed. Not my body’s actual eyes, though they were also closed, but my inner eyes. I had been hearing people but not seeing people. I wondered why. I had a mental image of opening my eyes and just like that I could see.
I gasped. Jean-Claude looked, well, not like Jean-Claude. He was dressed well enough, all in black, but he looked exhausted. As though he fed just enough for hunger but not enough for satiety. If it was possible for a vampire to age, Jean-Claude had done so. He looked tired. He looked sad
“I miss you, ma petite. The others, they mourn you. The doctors cannot understand why you have not ned.ned. The longer you sleep, the less likely you will wake, they tell us. They are wrong. I know why you sleep. But you are not a coward, ma petite. You can face your world.” He kissed my hand again and this time I felt something wet splash my hand.
“I need you, ma petite. You should have drawn my energy, drawn on our shared marks, as soon as you woke in need. How could you believe that I would want to live in a world without you in it? Even if you had waited until I woke to draw on my strength, it would have been enough. But you were going to let yourself die. That is not acceptable, ma petite.
“I am sorry about the baby. A daughter with your beauty and quick mind would have been someone special. Asher told me that he spoke to you of Julianna’s desire for children. I had never wished for children before, but once it was fact, oh, ma petite, I had dreams, fantasies, of watching you grow round with child, of watching you grow into motherhood. It will be harder for you, because you did not imagine and yet you will be so humanly haunted by guilt.
“Richard and Jason both gave me their events of that night. You did nothing wrong. You could not have known. You must accept that. You are a true believer, ma petite. Accept that this is His will. It is not punishment, no matter how badly you believe you deserve it.”
Jean-Claude walked over to the door to my room and, seeing that it had no lock, wedged a chair under the handle. The lights were off and it was the middle of the night, so it was unlikely his precautions were necessary. He pulled the privacy curtain around the bed, and then he went into the bathroom for a few minutes. I heard the sound of water running. When he returned he very carefully drew the sheet and blanket off my body. With extreme gentleness, he removed the hospital gown. His eyes closed as he stared at what I assumed were the new decorative scars. I felt rather than saw, a soft scented cloth being drawn against my injured skin. Jasmine and lavender floated around me. He washed me tenderly, lovingly. I hadn’t realized I felt dirty until he washed me, though I knew ge bge baths were part of regular hospital routine.
When he was done, he pulled a fluffy towel from somewhere and dried every inch of my skin. It reminded me of other times, times that ended with me in his arms or him in mine, and the tumultuous pleasure that we shared. I wanted that again.
Next was lotion, fragrant and silky. He left no patch of skin unpampered. I didn’t think it was the first time he had done this for me.
When he was done, he dressed me in a silk gown, one designed exactly like a hospital gown but felt so much better against my skin. He restored the room and removed the chair from the door. He sat back down again and took my hand again in his. He just sat there, chafing my hand in his. He looked so depressed. I had never seen Jean-Claude like this before and I didn’t like it. For the first time since the accident I could feel his energy pushing against me. I tried pushing back. He went perfectly still. “Ma petite?” he asked.
I pushed again and whispered in my mind, “Jean-Claude?” The whisper sounded so scared. But it was like a door opened and the spring breeze blew away the winter dust.
“Ma petite! Come back to me, ma petite!” It was an order, but a loving one. I strained to wake.
“I don’t know how,” I said.
His smile was filled with relief and joy and other emotions I couldn’t sort out. “You have only to make it so. Come to me, ma petite. Come to my arms. Je t’aime, ma petite.”
I thought about how much I wanted him and I took a mental step forward. It was like pushing through waist-high mud, every step an effort. I was panting from the exertion and he was still just a speck on my horizon. I kept slogging forward. The mud receded to knee-high now. I picked up the pace. I could see Jean-Claude clearly now and I wanted him. I couldn’t run, not yet, but the time was near. When the metaphysical mud was only ankle-deep, I started running. I threw myself into his arms, crying and hugging him tightly, a desperate attempt to anchor myself. The machines in my room had gone crazy. I could hear wild beeping.
My eyes came open and I was seeing again, seeing in colors. I hadn’t even realized my world had been reduced to black, white and sepia until I saw the green of the emerald pendant. Ice touched my lips, followed by a straw. I managed the barest sip of water before it came pouring out of my eyes. Jean-Claude took me gently in his arms and held me until the prick of a needle made it all go away. For better or for worse, I was alive again.
While AFF and its agents attempt to remove all illegal works from the site as quickly and thoroughly as possible, there is always the possibility that some submissions may be overlooked or dismissed in error. The AFF system includes a rigorous and complex abuse control system in order to prevent improper use of the AFF service, and we hope that its deployment indicates a good-faith effort to eliminate any illegal material on the site in a fair and unbiased manner. This abuse control system is run in accordance with the strict guidelines specified above.
All works displayed here, whether pictorial or literary, are the property of their owners and not Adult-FanFiction.org. Opinions stated in profiles of users may not reflect the opinions or views of Adult-FanFiction.org or any of its owners, agents, or related entities.
Website Domain ©2002-2017 by Apollo. PHP scripting, CSS style sheets, Database layout & Original artwork ©2005-2017 C. Kennington. Restructured Database & Forum skins ©2007-2017 J. Salva. Images, coding, and any other potentially liftable content may not be used without express written permission from their respective creator(s). Thank you for visiting!
Powered by Fiction Portal 2.0
Modifications © Manta2g, DemonGoddess
Site Owner - Apollo