Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me all credit and creations of the Blue Blood world belongto Melissa de la Cruz.
A/N: Alright to clear a few things up before we get going:
1) if you have not read the Forgiver some things will probably make no sense.
2) Ara: Angel, Schuyler: Old One, Stephen: Old One Everyone else (except of course Oliver): Angel.
3) Jack and Schuyler are Ara's parents. I hope that clears up a few things happy readnig!
You're the cure and the disease
The vice I still need
The cast and the break in my bones
You're the life that's worth living
The hurt and forgiving
Heavier Things Remain (Gravoira Manent)
By Anberlin
Ara was seated in her grandmother's hospital room waiting for Madison to arrive. She was dressed for the 400 Ball if she got to see it that is. In the months since Madison's attack and her mother's midnight visit to Jack, things had laid low. There was no news on the Silver Blood though Kingsley spent hours poring over documents and interviews trying to needle out the truth. She had spent the last three months preparing for this, because it was the last thing she would do.
The door cracked open and Ara turned to face the new person.
"Do you have the dress?" Ara asked as Madison entered the room.
"Do you even need to ask? Channel heard that Allegra Van Alen would need a new dress and they were all over it. It's coming up with Susanna." Madison was already dressed for the party, her long evening gown was a pale mint color and her gorgeous auburn locks pulled skillfully up in a French twist. "Are you sure you can do this Ara?" The Blue Blood asked tentatively. She glanced at the bed where Gabrielle lay, could Ara really do what she had promised?
Ara didn't respond she pulled off her heels and handed them to Madison. She could do this, calling a vampire back from her comatose state was simple. Even if the population of Blue Bloods had over looked it for several decades. Ara sat down on the edge of the bed, and took Gabrielle's hand.
Ready?
Yes the response came.
Remember you must find her and receive forgiveness for your transgressions. Your own self loathing must be ended, find forgiveness and find the strength to go on.
I will I must.
Here we go. Ara reached in her pocket and withdrew a small vial she pulled off the stopper and let the contents slip into Allegra's mouth. It took moments and in those moments, Allegra Van Alen came forth from her sleep. Her eyes fluttered open.
"Gabrielle," Madison whispered bowing her head.
"Friend," Ara greeted the older woman. Gabrielle nodded licking the traces of blood from her lips. She pulled the tubes from around her face and off of her head. She leaned over to the small table grabbing the gauze Ara hand laid there, with skillful hands she pulled out the IV cord that snaked its way into her hand.
"You will need to feed again before we leave, that blood will only revive you for a while. It was not enough—"
"Where is he, how did you?" Allegra asked trying to make the taste of him last longer.
"It was sealed well to keep the life essence intact I don't know where Stephen is. But you must continue."
"No," Allegra croaked it had been years since her vocal chords worked properly. It would take some getting used to.
"Allegra you do no good to anyone if you cannot seek forgiveness and fall back into your ancient slumber."
"I cannot, Eliora please."
"Gabrielle," Ara took the woman's face in her hands and stared her in the eye. "You have so much good left to do, do not let a broken heart stop that."
"I cannot."
"It does not matter, my mother once told me you live for the moment, because the future is uncertain and the past is already gone but in that moment you are his. In that moment you had with Stephen you were his world and he was yours, but that does not diminish the fact that he is not here and he does not want you to suffer any more."
"Where is he?" Ara looked at the door where Jazz was ushering in a man.
"We'll be outside, but we need to leave quickly." Ara said eyeing Gabrielle carefully. The three girls walked out of the room leaving Allegra alone to do something she promised herself that she would never do again.
Madison leaned against the hospital wall awestruck. "I can't believe…I mean…I never," Madison started, "I mean sure you think but whoa Ara that was wicked."
"It's what I do," Ara shrugged. The man left the room silently and it was Jazz's turn to step in. She flashed a thumbs up at her friend and continued to escort the man down the long hallway. "Shall we?" Ara motioned back into the door to Allegra's room. She was seated on the bed waiting.
"I am ready."
"Good, I am glad." It was a wonderful feeling her last life had ended all too quickly she had judged wrong and Allegra had lost years to sleep. Madison came with the dress and together they managed to make Allegra look presentable though truthfully it wasn't hard. Gabrielle had a light that shone from within.
Allegra didn't say much on the journey across town and Madison was unusually silent. Before stepping out of the limo Madison had acquired Ara watched as Allegra changed her shape. Ara held her breath as they passed Charles Force but he merely inclined his head at the younger Blue Bloods and went into the party.
They entered the top stairs of the Hotel where they would all be introduced. It was there at the top of the steps that Allegra would make herself known. Madison was introduced and descended the stairs gracefully. Then Ara heard the slight gasp from the announcer and she didn't need to look to know Allegra had assumed her original form. "Pre---pre," the poor man stuttered.
"I'll take it from here," Ara said, she squared her shoulders and cried to the room, "Presenting Allegra Van Alen, known to her people as Gabrielle the Uncorrupted." Heads moved, mouths gaped open in surprise, and some bowed their heads in reverence as Allegra descended the stairs glowing in a golden gown.
She made her way quickly across the room before being stopped in the middle of the floor by Michael.
"What have you done Gabrielle?"
"Michael I will answer for my crimes but first I will seek what I desire most."
"What is that?"
"Forgiveness."
"It's done Allegra-"
"Not from you." She turned instinctively as if she knew that Schuyler would make her way to the scene. "From the person I have wronged the most." For the first time since Schuyler had been one mother and daughter looked upon each other. "Schuyler forgive me, it was my mistake that gave you such a life. I beg that you can find it within yourself to forgive me of my sins." The room was silent everyone hung suspended in the drama waiting for the response.
"There is nothing to forgive, Mother, I am stronger because of it. But thank-you." Schuyler hugged her mother wrapping her thin arms around her mother's frame. The cheers then went up only to be squashed by Michael.
"You cannot escape what is coming Gabrielle, there is no way around what you have done."
"I will face what I must," Gabrielle said pulling out of her daughter's embrace. "I made my choices and I will pay for what I did. For in the end everyone must pay for what they have done." Allegra let her gaze linger of Charles and for the briefest of moments Schuyler was sure that he shrank away from her look.
"Arrest her." And the happiness that had flooded the room instantly evaporated and for the second time in a century the Blue Bloods lost Gabrielle.
"I am sorry Gabrielle," the chief warden said taking her hands.
"It is alright, they are my crimes." Allegra followed the warden out. "Hope is never lost."
"Mom—"
"Schuyler get Ara she can help." Gabrielle replied reassuring her daughter as she squared her shoulders and followed the chief warden out of the great hall. The party mood evaporated in seconds, people muttered hurried apologies about family or other things that they needed to do and left.
"Mrs. Perry," Cam said pushing his way through the crowd. "where's Ara?"
"I don't know I haven't seen her since…since Gabrielle."
"She left and she wouldn't tell me where," Madison chimed in.
"She's gone to Dr. Pat—" Cam took off, pushing past the people on the stairs he had to get to her before she did something stupid.
Ara walked up the stairs of Dr. Pat's office, trying to hold herself together. Her shoes gently clicked on the marble flooring but instead of feeling light and delicate, they felt like lead bricks. She slid her phone open and checked the message ALL IS DONE. She closed the phone and laid it on one of the tables outside the door. It was done there was no way that she could get out of this. She opened the door, and there it was: the machine that would be her undoing. Laying down in the chair Ara took the needle pushing it through her skin and into her vein, blue blood pushed its way up the tube this was it. Flipping the switch with a shaking hand Ara closed her eyes and tried to remember the past.
The one night where she got to be her true self, where Orias was so close to remembering what had happened. Ara could remember the feel of his hands the look in his eyes that said he would never forget her. The machine was doing its job, and she was losing consciousness fast.
Cam raced up the steps of Dr. Pat's office, he burst through the doors and saw Ara's phone going crazy on the table. Cam grabbed the phone and flicked it open.
SAVE HER was all it said. The door was slightly ajar already and his Blue Blood hearing picked up on the machines slow rumble. Ara looked like she was simply sleeping he black hair fanned out around her and the expensive dress pooling around her silky folds. He walked to the machine and flipped the switch to send her blood back into her body.
He watched her skin regain its normal coloring, and he expected her eyes to flutter open, but she lay like Snow White beautifully dead. He snapped open the phone and dialed the good doctor then all he could do was wait. He flipped the machine off when all of her blood had been fed back into her body. By then Dr. Pat arrived with a full team of medical experts to back her up.
There were tests, lots of tests, his father showed up, as did Ara's parents but he paced the floor refusing to leave the office. Hours passed before his father finally came and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Cam," he said quietly, "You can do no more here." He gently placed a hand on his son's shoulder trying to reassure him. Cam brushed off the gesture.
"I should have gotten here sooner." He was beating himself up, this was his fault if he had gotten here sooner if he had remembered faster, if …just if. He watched as Ara was loaded onto a gurney and wheeled out, they were taking her to the hospital there was nothing more they could do for her here. Cam watched her sleeping figure go by; she was still lovely even while sleeping.
"Cam there was nothing you could have done," his father countered.
"I could have been there for her, I should have been there for her. I—"
"Cameron," another voice offered, "Ara knew better than most the duty she had to do, and nothing not even love of another could have stopped it." Cam looked up, it was Ara's father, he looked Cam in the eye and nodded, "She knew what she was doing and sometimes it's hardest to change those who are set in stone. Listen to your father, get some sleep."
Cam bowed his head and followed his own father out of the office and down the long hallway. Where would he go? Home to face h is mother or with his father to his apartment? All good questions neither could he answer. Luckily his father took the wheel and dropped him off at the hotel where they still had a reservation from the ball.
"Here," Jack handed him the key and waited for Cam to get out. "Take as long as you need, I know your mother and I have not put you in the best of situations."
Cam shrugged true his home life had been less than perfect, his father and Ara's mother seemed to have switched places in the past months. She would find him at the hospital or in a coffee shop and talk to him, ask him about his day, school, lacrosse, anything at all. They talked about life and angels and futures Cam usually directed the conversation away from his home because she was the cause but she was also the solution. Schuyler had never come by his house or even his father's apartment again as far as Cam knew.
Cam did know that Ara and his father had dinner occasionally getting to know your other child. Not that he and his father had ever been close but it hurt that he would make time for Ara and then leave him alone with his mother. Was Jack just going to brush him off when he got back together with Schuyler?
Still angry Cam snatched the key and got out of the car. This was going to be a long night. Madison met him in the entry way and they made their way up to the suit.