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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.

Chapter List
- 17
- 18
For what it was worth, I was home. Even that had been a problem. Jean-Claude wanted me to go back the Circus. Micah wanted me to go back home. They looked at me. I shrugged and said it didn’t matter. It was not the right answer. Micah won out in the end.

It felt strange to be back in my own bed. Nathaniel snuggled against my body like I was his last refuge in a storm. With Micah on the other side of me, I knew I was safe. But I couldn’t sleep. The first few nights were endless. I wasn’t tired anymore. I wasn’t anything. Cherry was in full nurse mode making sure I ate, watching me for signs of pain. It wasn’t the outside that hurt.

On the fourth night, I sought out Damian. He was content to hold me for hours. It wasn’t sexual. At least not on my part. I was too numb to notice. I had cut my hand earlier in the day. That wasn’t like me, I was good with knives. I just stared at the blood, a crimson puddle bright against the white Formica. It hadn’t hurt. Cherry walked into the kitchen, saw the blood dripping off the countertop and nearly screamed the house down. She wasn’t panicked, not our Cherry, but she was afraid that I was a danger to myself. She may have been right.

Eventually I slept, and in the morning when I woke I was sandwiched between my pomme de sang and my Nimir-Raj. Everyone walked on tiptoes around me, afraid to say anything that might upset me. It was worse than when they thought I might be Nimir-Ra for real. Micah shook me awake and told me that he was going to work. He didn’t want me to wake to an empty house. The fact that I was sleeping a lot during the day was one of the reasons I wasn’t sleeping at night. It was also a symptom of depression.

In the back of my mind, I knew I was depressed, but I didn’t understand what that meant. It was just a word. I was sitting on the couch staring at the television, which might have been less odd had the television been turned on, when Jason walked in. I should have drawn on him. I should have moved at faster-than-human speed had had him sighted. He should have known better than to come into the house without warning. But I never moved, never gave any indication that I knew he was there.

“Anita, are you okay?” he asked. He didn’t try to touch me. Hell, he didn’t come anywhere near me.

“I’m fine. Why are you here?” The answers were automatic. I hadn’t looked at him. I hadn’t needed to. Jason was familiar to me. I knew the sound of his footsteps, the scent of his skin.

“Because you aren’t fine. We’re worried about you. I’m worried about you. I’m worried about me.” The last was said almost so quietly that I should have missed it.

“Didn’t we go through this already? I don’t blame you,” I said, a hint of aggravation edging my voice.

“Anita, this isn’t about blame. It’s about what we lost.” He sounded so grown-up, so un-like Jason.

“What this ‘we’ business? There is no ‘we’. This was a one time event not to be repeated!” I was angry now and wasn’t sure if I appreciated the heat riding me. I almost got off the couch.

“Fine, ignore it if you want, pretend it didn’t happen. But I lost something. And I don’t know how to deal with it.” He practically snarled it. He was sitting on the chair opposite me. I finally looked at him. He had more color than the television, but he looked awful.

I sighed. “Jason, it was hardly real. You couldn’t have been dreaming about father-daughter dances already.” Jason reacted as if I had physically punched him.

“Jesus, Anita, don’t you ever imagine the future? I pictured rocking a tiny infant in pink and frolicking with a little girl in frills. I dreamt of senior proms. I even imagined roughhousing with in min my wolf form.”

No, I didn’t imagine the future. I was too certain I wouldn’t have one. I lived recklessly and other people had been paying the price. It was only a matter of time before payback “Look, I’m sorry, Jason. But you’ve known me for years. I don’t daydream about might-have-beens. I don’t have that luxury!”

“Maybe it’s time you realized it’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity. In the hospital, you said if anyone was to blame it was you. I didn’t deny it, though I felt pretty damn guilty myself. But blame isn’t the word I would have used. You were thoughtless, not with the baby but with yourself. In someone else the word might have been careless but that isn’t one of your failings. You tend to think you’re invincible, as if your death wouldn’t matter. But it would. Your death would kill Jean-Claude and Richard. I saw Jean-Claude that night, Anita. Even if you didn’t kill him through the marks, he would have literally died from a broken heart. You’d destroy your pard, despite Micah’s leadership. You want to talk luxuries, well you don’t have the luxury of living your life in a vacuum!”

I stood up, anger flowing through my veins a lot hotter than the blood that had rushed to my head fast enough to make me dizzy. “How dare you lay accusations at my feet!”

“I’m just beginning,” Jason said, standing also. “You may not think the rest of us have the right to grieve, but we have been anyway. I’m the one who took Jean-Claude and Asher shopping for the baby clothes and toys. Let me tell you, you want to panic a room full of expectant mothers just bring a few vampires into their midst! If you think all they bought you were the gifts you opened, sho should think again. You’ll never see them, of course, but there’s a closet full of stuff. They were both so excited. They kept talking about how beautiful you were and how pregnancy made you glow. I don’t think I have ever seen Asher this animated. Jean-Claude actually imagined holding you as you breast-fed. You aren’t the only one who lost something!”

I tried to say something but Jason wasn’t finished.

“What about Nathaniel? It wasn’t just Christmas that had him so excited. He saw your daughter as the little sister he always wanted. He even started talking about names, Anita. Baby names! Your whole pard is afraid to even mention youscarscarriage but they all want to talk about it. They have feelings, Anita. You are their leader and their friend. They hurt for you!”

“Get out, Jason. You have no right to make me feel guilty!”

He looked me in the eye and I saw the man he was becoming. “Someone had to get you to feel something.”

I was motionless, stupefied, as he walked out the door. Emotions, all negative, roiled through me. I usually relished my anger but this time I had no one to fight except myself. I tried sitting back down but the energy coursing through me wouldn’t allow me to do so.

I forced myself to shower. The Browning was on the top of the toilet tank. At least some things hadn’t changed. I wore Asher’s gift back to my bedroom. It felt good against my skin and I hugged it around me. I pulled open one of the dresser drawers to grab a polo shirt and pulled out one of the baby outfits from Christmas. I hadn’t asked about the baby stuff when I came home. Everything from Christmas had been put away. Out of sight and all that.

It was so tiny, a doll’s dress really, pink and ruffled and so soft. I stood there holding it, confused, for long minutes. At first, I didn’t understand what I was seeing. I mean, I knew what I was holding. I just couldn’t understand why it was in my drawer. Then it hit me, really hit me. It hadn’t been a bad dream. Like the night I came out of my coma, emotion completely overwhelmed me. I sank to my knees and sd. rd.

I had been going to have a baby. There wasn’t even a correct grammatical syntax for the verb tense. It hadn’t been real to me. I dealt with it the way I dealt with everything in my life that I couldn’t handle. I ignored it or made it someone else’s problem. It wasn’t as simple as never having wanted children. That would have been easy. Religion or not, I could have had an abortion. But that would have meant acknowledging the pregnancy.

I made Micah and Nathaniel and Cherry and Zane take the responsibility. I ate because they made me. I stopped helping RPIT because they said it was too dangerous. I rested because they said was good for the baby. If it had been up to me, I would have let the dice fall where they may, which was exactly what had happened in the end, only lots of people had suffered for it.

Jason had guts, I’d give him that. I could make smart remarks about how he wasn’t old enough to be a father, but Jason had a lot more maturity than I gave him credit for. I used to look down on him for being Jean-Claude’s snack. He was a college student wh fir first met him. He gave up all that to join the monsters. I had long ago stopped being sure that was a bad choice. For all that he came over to shake me out of my complacency, Jason wasn’t lying when he admitted to feeling sad. It was easy to picture him as the father of a little girl. I hoped he got that chance.

I hated when other people paid the price for my behavior but once again, that’s what happened. I had hurt people with my stubbornness before and apparently, I hadn’t learned. Because I hadn’t let myself dream, losing the baby was only one piece of my melancholy. I was so afraid of hurting people that I did my best to push them away. They got hurt anyway.

Micah was always by my side. I don’t mean like Nathaniel who needed me in ways I couldn’t handle. Micah didn’t need me. He enjoyed the protection I offered but he didn’t need me. That scared me. Micah voluntarily chose to be mine. He never offered censure when I went to other men. He never told me I was wrong, though he might help me come to that conclusion all on my own. When I think what he did for me in the hospital, I was both aroused and disturbed. Aroused because I could not be around Micah and not want to touch him. The metaphysics that bind us together pull us tighter with every act of sex, something that was true for the triumvirate as well. That fact caused me to run once. One of the many luxuries I only thought I had.

I was disturbed because for all that Micah didn’t need me, I worried that I still practiced a subtle coercion on him. He fed the ardeur without complaint but this was different. He put on a sex show for me. I’ve never been comfortable asking people to do things I wouldn’t do myself but Micah never hesitated. I thought about my insistence that I didn’t really love Micah and felt shame. I never realized how much I took from others without giving back. I knew what I was doing to Nathaniel was unfair. I hated that he was my food. But I didn’t realize what I was doing to Micah.

Tears rushed forward again and I let them come. I had known that I needed everything to be my way, but I hadn’t realized just how much I used people. The ardeur had heightened the problem, but I couldn’t blame it for everything. All my cats came to me out of need, need for safety, need for home. I provided that, but the price was high. I almost choked on my tear-swollen laughter.

I only had to look at Damian to know just how high the price. He had a coffin in my basement. He kept me from flying off the handle. He owed his very life to my own. But what did I really give him? I used him like I used everyone else in my life. I expected him to be available when it was convenient to me. What’s worse is that those were now his expectations.

About the only person now free of my hold was Richard. I already missed him. I had never stopped loving him But all the love in the world can’t make two people suited to each other. I had figured that out a long time ago but I still kept him bound to my side. I wasn’t sure if I was still Bolverk. I wasn’t sure it mattered.

I shouldn’t have had more tears but as I reflected on my selfishness, they kept coming. Isn’t that truly what separated the monsters from the humans? I treated Jean-Claude horribly. I always had, first because I couldn’t believe vampires weren’t monsters and then simply because I could. He insisted that he wanted only me in his bed though he was delighted once again to have Asher’s pleasure as well. But having Asher without me? That wasn’t allowed. Because I wasn’t comfortable with the idea. As if my wishes were the only important ones. Jean-Claude agreed because he couldn’t bear the thought of losing me. I used to believe it was my power he couldn’t bear losing. Then I started believing that he might really love me. Now I knew that couldn’t be possible. I imposed unreasonable demands on the people I cared most about, hoping that either they would jump through my hoops and I could keep raising the bar, or that they would finally admit defeat and I could justify what I had done. God, why had I woken up?

Micah snapped on the light in the bedroom. I hadn’t noticed it had gotten dark any more than I had heard him come home. I was still curled in a fetal position on the floor. “Anita! My God, Anita, what’s wrong?” He lifted me off the floor effortlessly and put us both on the bed. “You’re freezing!”

I hadn’t answered him, hadn’t moved. He began chafing my hands. “Anita, talk to me. Are you hurt? Are you in pain? God, you’re so cold!” He wrapped his body around mine like an electric blanket. I started to cry again, as if his heat had melted me.

“Micah, why do you stay with me?” I asked. At least that was my intent. It came out a little more garbled than that.

Micah didn’t respond to me, not until I tilted my face up to look at him. Then he asked, “Anita, what are we talking about?” There was no judgment in voice, no hint of exasperation, no censure.

“I don’t understand why you stay with me. You know I’ll keep your pard safe. I know the sex is good but you could have good sex with anyone. I come with so much baggage.” My voice wasll all and tight and I wasn’t even close to being warm.

It was long minutes before Micah answered me. “They told me that it would eventually hit you, the enormity of what happened. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you earlier.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said, my voice muffled by being buried against his chest. I had burrowed into him as far as I could without being welded to his body.

He sighed this time. “Anita, I don’t stay with you simply because we are a mated pair. Sure, that was a sweet introduction. I would tell you that I love you but that has the tendency to scare you. So why do I stay? Anita, I like you. You have incredible integrity and are immensely loyal to those people you call friends. We all have baggage. We all want to be accepted for who and what we are. You fight yourself harder than anyone else I’ve ever met. You think you don’t deserve happiness so you push it away whenever it comes into reach. But you’re surrounded by people who are stronger than you and don’t push very easily. We’re with you for the long haul. Not just because you are our Nimir-Ra but because you’re our friend.”

Tears slipped down my cheeks and onto his chest. “I killed my baby.”

“No, an accident killed your baby.” Micah was implacable.

“I never wanted to have a baby. I pretended she wasn’t real. I pretend anything I don’t like isn’t real.”

He stroked my hair. “Anita, you didn’t kill the baby. Wishing you had never gotten pregnant didn’t kill the baby. Not telling Richard you were pregnant didn’t kill the baby. It was an accident. Yes, the werewolf meant to hurt you. But he meant to hurt you, not your baby. It was an accident.”

“It doesn’t change the fact that everything has to be my way. That I treat all of you like personal servants. Except for my actual vampire servant. I control his very life! You tell me you like me, but I am not sure what that says about you. I don’t think I’m a very nice person.” This brought on a new bout of tears. I had to be dehydrated by now.

Sighing, Micah got out of bed without responding to me. When he came back he held two mugs. My favorite penguin mug held coffee with cream and sugar. The other mug, “You know you drink too much coffee when you don't get mad, you get steamed” was filled with soup. He put them down on the night table and got back into bed. He pulled me between his spread legs so that I was propped up against his back. Guess which mug he handed me first?

They hadn’t let me have coffee in the hospital. It tasted heavenly. I was pretty amazed that it tasted at all. Food, even cashew chicken and crab rangoon, hadn lan largely uninteresting to me since I woke up. I took a few more sips before Micah did a mug switch on me. Chicken soup and coffee aren’t the best combination but I wasn’t in a position to be picky. We didn’t speak until I had finished both mugs. I curled back into him again, warmer now, but no more balanced.

He ran his fingers through my curls and tucked an errant strand behind my ear. “Do you still believe that Jean-Claude is attracted to you only for your power?” Micah asked.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t believe he didn’t have an ulterior motive for wanting me in his life, not when I fought him at every turn.

Micah decided not to wait. “He was at the hospital every night. At first, he just held your hand and murmured soothing things in French. But as the days went by, he grew restless. He started bathing you on the third night. He mixed the water with scented oils and gently drew the cloth down your skin. And he talked to you. It was like a ritual, one that seemed to relax him. Something had to. He fed only enough to keep his vampires alive. His hashooshook as he bathed you. I finally made him feed from me. I understood, though we never spoke of it, that your death would kill him in all the ways that mattered.

“It was in the early hours, the ones right before dawn, that he would talk to me. More precisely, talk at me. He talked about you, about how much you had changed since he first met you, your continued crisis of conscience. He respects that, you know. He pushes you, of course, but he views that as part of the fun. He likes you, Anita. For all the same reasons that the rest of us do. For all the same reasons that we love you.”

I still didn’t say anything. I just hugged Micah’s arms around me tighter. “How can I be in love with all of you?” I whispered. “How you can you love me back knowing that you aren’t the only one in my heart?”

He sighed. “The heart wants what the heart wants. Who knows what love is, Anita. The first person who can manufacture attraction will be able to print his own money. Meanwhile, we all do the best we can with what we’ve got to work with.”

Now it was my turn to sigh. I heard him, I just didn’t believe him.

“What if I told you that while you were out of the picture, word got out and a bunch of alpha leopards came into town?” Micah said, rather too casually in my opinion.

I pushed away from him. “What are you talking about? How dare other leopards come into this territory without asking permission! Did they threaten you? Do you know where they are?” My Browning was in the holster hanging on the headboard. I grabbed it and held onto the headboard to steady myself.

“Where are you going?” Micah asked.

I looked at him oddly. “Micah, you just told me that rogue wereleopards are here in St. Louis! We have to take care of this now! Where are Merle and Noah?”

Micah ignored me. He cocked his head at me and asked, “Why do we need to do something?”

Now I was exasperated. I was standing now, a little shaky, but the caffeine had begun to work its magic. “Our people could get hurt. You know that. You’re Nimir-Raj. Why are you just sitting there?” Okay, I’d just gone straight into anger. Didn’t that feel normal.

“Because there is no threat. I said, what if. Look at yourself. A few minutes ago you were curled up tighter than a pill bug. But as soon as you thought there was a threat to someone you consider yours, you pulled yourself together. You’d pull yourself off your deathbed to protect one of your own. But not to save your own life.”

I stood there, replaying the conversation. “It doesn’t negate what I did. What I allowed to happen. My carelessness cost a life. This wasn’t the first time.” I thought about Philip and how he died because I didn’t know what I was doing. I thought about Cris and Igor, the wererats who had died as my bodyguards. I even thought about Ronnie, who had taken two lives in order to save mine. Being around me practically guaranteed a short life span.

“Forget about listening to me, Anita. Just think about your actions. You think you’re selfish. I think you put yourself last. You make sure that everyone else’s needs are satisfied before you handle your own.”

I blushed when he said that, because of course it wasn’t true. The ardeur had forced me to put my needs first. That’s what got me into this mess in the first place. “You forget the ardeur,” I whispered.

“No, I don’t. You feed it only when you have no other choice and you’ll hurt yourself rather than give in, like you did at the hospital.”

I blushed harder. “I made you-”

He cut me off. “You didn’t make me do anything I wasn’t willing to do. Jean-Claude made it clear to me that there were alternatives. But when he told me you would feel my touch on his body, I didn’t hesitate.”

I dropped my eyes.
He tugged at my hand. “Come on, put the gun down and get back into bed. When I went out to make the soup, I made a few calls. I told everyone that you needed some time, so we have the place to ourselves.”

I did what he asked because I couldn’t think of a reason not to.

“I know you didn’t want to see a therapist in the hospital but you shouldn’t deal with this on your own. Gwen would be happy to help. You don’t have to be strong all the time.”

“It’s who I am,” I said. But was it? The last few months skewed my world. I had never been weaker, needier than I had been since I discovered I was pregnant. Yet my world hadn’t collapsed. My leopards had risen to the occasion. It hadn’t scared them. My vampires had embraced me. Jason had shown himself to be a genuine adult. It had even freed Richard. I had tried to keep everyone away and yet they came anyway. I tried to keep them out of danger, but I couldn’t live their lives. Hell, I could barely live mine.

I rubbed my belly. I had barely been showing and now there was nothing left to show. I was underweight after the last few weeks though I was certain that Jean-Claude would be delighted to escort me to any, if not every, restaurant in the city. Maybe I wouldn’t argue with him too much about tasting the appetizers though wine was still out of the question. I couldn’t change my basic nature that much.

It would take time I knew. I hadn’t changed my mind about children. They didn’t belong in my life. This had been for the best. I thought I would always feel a small pang of curiosity about the road not taken. I knew I would always feel sad. I owed Jason an apology and a talk. A real one. He shouldn’t go through this by himself.

He was right though. I’ve been trying to live my live as though I my actions impacted no one else but that isn’t what happens, is it? Everything that we do affects others. Jason claimed that being careless wasn’t one of my failings but he may have been wrong. I was careless with the most important thing of all, other people’s feelings. I was surrounded by people who loved me not for what I could do for them but just for who I was. I hadn’t let myself believe that because it wasn’t tangible. I couldn’t see it, touch it, or taste it. But I could feel it. That had to be enough.

There are consequences to every action. They can be as large as not buckling a seatbelt or as small as not taking a pill. Sometimes those consequences tear the very fabric of your life. No one knows that better than I do. Now I just have to prevent myself from forgetting. Again.
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Consequences