He watched her sleeping form. Still ridden in the hospital bed, Pogue had been surprised to wake up with Kate in his room. She was curled into the adjacent chair, taking a long overdue nap. Her skin was flawless, no remarks of the curse left. Perhaps when Chase disappeared, so had all his enchantments. Unfortunately for Pogue, all of his damage was physical, not magical, so he'd have to heal normally, or at least until he was well enough to use his power to finish the job. He'd find a way to explain it off to Kate later. But right now, he planned on enjoying the moment.
Her muscles were relaxed and she was free of any emotion. It had been a rough couple of weeks, he knew that. And the two of them fighting hadn't helped. Of course, he'd been right to trust his gut feeling about Chase, not that he could pull an "I told you so" on his girlfriend, as he still had a secret to protect. Another curious thing. Caleb had told Sarah everything. Everything she hadn't already figured out, according to Reid. And yet, she hadn't ran away. But then again, that kind of loyalty was fickle. He made sure not to trust anyone but his brothers. Even Kate had been kept at bay. He knew she had been distancing herself lately, and honestly he couldn't blame her. Caleb had even prodded Pogue to tell her the truth, if he did truley love her, but something held him back.
He closed his eyes, trying to force back the unwanted memories. But he couldn't help it, it defined him just as much as being a Son did. Everything they had learned had come from the previous generations experiences, and theirs before that. For instance, Caleb had loss his dad to the greed of the power, Reids parents just kind of let him go with it, Tyler's parents were the super careful, over protective ones, and Pogue, well his parents were the ones that split because of it. The day he turned thirteen and got his powers changed everything. His dad had told him the truth growing up, insisting that he not mention it to his mother, trying to be a good boy, he'd kept his mouth shut. Well once he developed use of his powers, there was no hiding it. His father had kept the secret of the covenant from his mother, to protect her, and in the end, it only scared her. Scared her enough to walk out of both their lives, simply kissing her son's forehead goodbye, with tearfilled eyes as she walked out the door.
Not that it was the same situation, or that Kate was his mother, but he just felt that the moment she discovered the truth, she'd be gone. The others just shook their head at him, but he didn't care. He loved her, and would do anything to keep her. Not that he hadn't been testing fate lately.
Sighing, he sat up. This was more painful than he predicted. His responing groan was enough to stir the dark-haired beauty.
"Pogue?" She lifted her head, still half asleep.
"Yeah," He straightened into a more comfortable position, moving the bed so it was propped up, supporting his weight.
"You're awake!" She stated, realizing that she was indeed talking to him, and not dreaming. She got up, and walked over to his bed. "How're you feeling, babe?"
He smiled, taking her hand, "Better now."
"I was worried about you. Sarah told me that you wrecked your bike. I told you that you shouldn't be going so fast on that thing!"
This made him chuckle a little. "Well, I heard you were in the hospital. What else was I going to do?"
Now it was her turn to sigh, carefully sitting beside him on the bed. "This okay?"she asked, not wanting to hurt him.
"No," he reached with one arm to pull her up against his good side, to which she immediately snuggled, "This is though." Happily, she closed her eyes.
"So you're better now?" Pogue asked, secretly wanting to know how the broken curse had been explained.
"Oh, yeah. I was only in there for like three days. They were going to move me to a different hospital, but I guess my body finally started working with the medication they had me on. Anyway, my fever broke and within 24 hours the sores faded."
"Oh, well that's good I guess. I'm glad you're feeling better."
"You know, I think we were mad at each other?"
He pulled her tighter to him. "Who cares? We're always mad at each other. It doesn't change anything between us, right?"
"Of course not." Kate took a deep breath before sitting up a little, to look him in the face. "Pogue, I'm so sorry. I know this past week or so has been..."
"You don't have to apologize, Kate." He interupted her.
"Yes, I do. Please just let me..."
He nodded and she continued. "I've been rude, and, yes, you were acting like a complete ass, but I shouldn't have given you a reason too. I guess it's just been so routine with us lately. I feel like you've been pulling away. Anytime I try to get you to do anything with me, your always busy. And to be honest, I was getting a little annoyed being put second to a bike."
"Kate, I-" Pogue started, but she cut him off.
"No, let me finish." And continued before he could interupt again.
"So when Chase came, he actually acted like he wanted to be around me. He went to the movies with me, and into town, just to hang out, I- I don't know. I guess I just found with him, what I was wanting from you. And I'm not trying to make you feel bad or anything, or make exuses, I'm just saying. And the fact that you got jealous, when you weren't even making an effort, yeah that kinda pissed me off too. But at the same time, I loved that you had some kind of reaction. I don't know, I guess I was just confused, I still didn't need to act the way I did though, so I'm sorry Pogue."
And here he had thought she was being unreasonable. Looking at her now, he couldn't have been more blind. Leaning down, he lightly kissed her lips. He'd take the pain over the feeling of not touching her again. But she seemed to get the unspoken message to be gentle, and didn't try to deepen the kiss, and just enjoyed it. Finally he pulled away.
"Kate, I'm the one who should be sorry. Yeah, not saying that it was fun watching you act that way with him, but you're right. I was being a stupid asshole and kind of deserved it."
They both paused momentarily. "So," Kate picked up, "this mean we aren't mad anymore?"
Pogue smiled at her again. "It means I love you. No matter what, that wont change."
She kissed him again. "I love you too."
He rested his head on top of hers. It would be so easy to tell her the truth. They basically jumped around the topic everyday, but he couldn't force the words out. Kate's breathing soon evened out, and he had the feeling she had fallen asleep again. Not that the bed wasn't plenty big enough for both of them. Being the heir to one of the original, and richest families in town assured that he had to best money could offer. Kissing the top of her head, he concentrated, trying to summon his power to heal him. He felt it build inside him, a churning warmth, both welcoming and terrifying. But he couldn't force it into action, no matter how hard he focused, his body wouldn't accomidate. Oh well. He relaxed back into his pillow. Probably best to wait anyway. Kate wouldn't understand how he magically regained full health overnight.
All throughout the remainder of the day he had drifted off randomly, Kate next to him most of the time. Then sometime that afternoon he was awoken by an annoying buzzing, which turned out to be a message notification on Kate's phone. Already awake, she climbed over to her purse to check the text.
"Ugh, I have to go." She turned to him as he gave her a questioning look.
"It's dad. The hospital called my parents and now they're in town, so I have to go meet with them."
He nodded. "Have fun, babe."
She smiled lazily, leaning down to kiss his lips once more. "I love you."
"Of course you do," he smirked at her, wrapping an arm around her waist, bringing her lower to the bed, closer to him.
"You know, it's pretty bad that even wrecking your precious Ducati hasn't flattened your ego."
"So what, you love it." And he kissed her before she could deny it. With her on top, he used less effort in restraint, therefore was able to put more into the kiss. Still, it wasn't nearly as much as he wanted. He pulled her down sharply, ignoring how her slight weight pressed uncomfortably into his still bruised rib. He allowed his hands to trail up and down her sides, causing a slight shiver from his beautiful girlfriend. Especially when his palm grazed the skin of her lower stomache.
With a moan that shot straight to his groin, Kate broke apart their lips.
"I love where this is going, but babe, I seriously think you need to get just a little better before any of those kind of activities. Plus my parents..."
He sighed. "Fine, fine. Go on." He told her, allowing her access to climb off of him.
Rolling her eyes and shaking her head she leaned over once more to kiss his cheek.
Then he felt her hot breath in his ear. "But at least now you have something to look forward too. Get better soon babe."
And with that, she turned and walked out, leaving him smiling at her retreating figure.