Note: I do not own or have rights to Twilight or its characters!!!

AN: Sarah is a little off the chain in this chapter. Potty Mouth Alert!!

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Chapter 3

The Shadow of Madness

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Infirmity doth still neglect all office

Whereto our health is bound; we are not ourselves

When nature, being oppressed, commands the mind

To suffer with the body.

William Shakespeare

King Lear

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Lub-dub . . . Lub-dub . . . Lub-dub . . .

I burst into wakefulness for the third time since my parents arrived to help Ben take care of me. As always the maddening drum beat of my heart pounded in my ears, laughing and taunting me about the revenge of the angry universe. This was its device, fate's thundering pawn by which everything I'd come to love and cherish would be stripped from me.

Papa assured me this was not the case, that he and Mama still loved me and always would. But how could they, I was cursed, afflicted like the lepers of old, I was a pariah and I knew it. In time they would come to see this too, all of them, and they would turn their backs on me. I would have no one . . . I would be alone again.

Lub-dub . . . Lub-dub . . . Lub-dub . . .

I felt the familiar sting of tears and wondered when I would exhaust the well of them as they trickled once more down my cheeks. My mother's soft singing made a feeble attempt to overpower the thumping menace in my chest, but in the end her voice was no match for my heart's fiendish thrum.

I felt a sudden familiar tingling as wave after painful wave of current danced across my skin. I knew what it meant, Red Dragons, traditional vampires were close by. How could they not be, the haughty tune pounding in my chest would be enough to draw them from miles away . . . even continents away. Only those who were stone deaf would miss its pounding. Though I knew from experience that it was useless, I had to at least attempt to flee.

Lub-dub, Lub-dub, Lub-dub . . .

The cursed rhythm increased with each new pulsating wave of my radar. I tried to get up but instantly found myself restrained.

"Quiet, Kitten." Mama soothed as her delicate hand caressed my brow. "Go back to sleep, it's not time for you to wake yet."

Her words were sweet and comforting and for a moment I settled back into her arms, intent on accepting my fate quietly. Then my overly keen ears picked up the voices. The tolling cathedral bell was my father, deep concern made it sound mournful. The melodic strains of the saxophone was Benjamin, his voice was almost as solemn as a funeral dirge.

The others were lighter, females. The one that spoke the most had a voice that was filled with the sound of a thousand song birds. Of the other two, one sounded like a waterfall the other like a soft rain drizzling through a canopy of leaves. Then realization hit like a freight train, the females had come to devour me, Ben must have brought them to finish me off. Maybe he would take the bird voiced one as his new mate.

I began thrashing wildly as I sought to get up, but my mother held me fast as she called out for my father.

*****

Zafrina, Senna, and Kachiri arrived the next day as promised. I told Ben that we were expecting help, I didn't tell him about Zafrina's doom filled prophecy. To my eternal shame, I chose the cowards way out allowing the Amazonian to break the painful news to him. Ben slumped into a disheveled heap on the couch as the finality of it sunk in. I felt boundless pity for him as my imagination played out what it would be like to hear that same gloomy proclamation about Esme.

"Is there no hope then," Ben groaned. "Can't she be turned back?"

"This I can't answer," Zafrina replied. "I have only known of on other of our kind who was exposed to the Water of Life. He was young and very inexperienced, at the end of the twelfth moon he died. To my knowledge, he did not seek a return to his immortal life."

I heard the sound of moaning from the bedroom and I turned toward the door. When Esme's soothing voice and soft humming followed, I relaxed and went back to listening to Zafrina.

"There is something else you must know," the slender warrioress went on. "The Inca tested the water on humans as well . . . their slaves mostly. While death was universal, there was something else that always occurred . . . madness. Those who were slain and then brought back were driven mad by the constant drumming of their own hearts."

"Dear God," I mumbled before collapsing into a chair.

Sarah's word and recent behavior flew to the forefront of my mind. The pitiful way she pleaded with me, her fits of violent rage, her insistence that she was somehow hideous were all symptoms of her increasingly unstable mental state. How could I have missed it, I scolded myself? If Sarah were any other patient wheeled into my ER with the same erratic behavior, it would have been obvious to me. I would have sedated her, had her restrained for her own safety, checked her for the presence of illicit drugs, and then ordered a physiological evaluation.

"Carlisle?" Zafrina's voice hauled me from my mental flogging session. She sounded concerned.

"She already hears it," I answered flatly, how could I have been so blind? "She begs me to make it stop."

"According to the Inca writings," the Amazon leader began. "The longer the slave was allowed to remain dead before emersion in the water, the more quickly they descended into madness. How long was Sarah a vampire?"

"Seven years." Ben answered despondently. "The day we found the grotto was our six year wedding anniversary."

My heart sank even further; with all the commotion, I had forgotten this vacation was an anniversary present. If my calculations were correct, and unfortunately they usually were, Sarah's life would end one year hence, on the very day she and Ben were to celebrate their seventh year as husband and wife. At that thought, a new wave of pain shot through me.

"Carlisle, come quickly." Esme's frantic call pulled me from my morose. I grabbed my bag as I made my way toward the bed room. Behind me I could hear Ben, Zafrina, and her sisters following.

When I entered the room Sarah was thrashing wildly against Esme's hold. Though she was still week, if she continued in this way her mother would end up accidently hurting her. I set down my bag on the dresser and prepared to sedate Sarah again.

"You think I don't know what's happening . . . you bastard!" Sarah spat hotly.

I was appalled by what I heard coming from my daughter's mouth and I turned to glare at her. Yes, Sarah had a temper and from time to time it got the better of her, but never had I known my youngest to use profanity.

"Sarah, calm down," I purred as I flicked the last air bubble from the syringe and then turned toward the bed. I was still stunned by my daughter's very unladylike behavior. "I'll have you feeling much better in a minute."

She was oblivious to me as she continued her rant. "I'm not human again for more than a few days and you get tired of me. What's the matter, Ben, are you too much of a coward to kill me yourself? So you brought home some Red Dragon bitch to finish me off and take my place!" She spit her insult and her rage into empty space. Her juicy wad of spittle landed harmlessly on the blankets, but not so her vicious words, Benjamin was visibly devastated. "Go ahead bitch . . . eat me, suck me dry so my worthless bloodsucking husband can be rid of his poor pathetic human wife!"

"I think we've heard just about enough out of you, young lady!" I insisted sternly, an irritated growl rumbled deep in my throat.

All thoughts of gentleness fled me and, while I wasn't unduly rough, I plunged the needle into Sarah hip and administered the sedative as quickly as possible. She whimpered and then slumped once more into her mother's arms. I instantly regretted not being tenderer with her as I realized my irritation was not with my suffering daughter, but rather it was with myself for missing the sings of Sarah's madness.

"She thinks I want . . . she thinks I want . . ." Ben mumbled, unable to complete the statement.

I felt so awful for him. Ben and I had more than a century and a half of friendship between us and I knew him better than most. Beneath the burly warrior's exterior lived a sensitive soul guided by the ancient code of chivalry. Sarah's anger words had cut to the quick in him just as easily and swiftly as the keen edge of a blade.

"Benjamin," Zafrina whispered, compassion and concern dripped from her every word. "You cannot take to heart the things your wife says in her current state, she is not herself. It is the madness, caused by the Water. If she were in her right mind she would not say these things to you."

"I'm sure you're right Zafrina." Ben managed as he tried to pull himself together again, but the look of horror and hurt was still plainly visible. "Carlisle, I think I need to go out for some air . . . would you kindly keep watch over Sarah."

Not only did he need air, but after his mate's vicious blow, he needed distraction and a purpose. This fact could work to both our advantages. If I was going to help bring Sarah through this successfully, there were things that I need too, things like information and samples for evaluation in the lab. I called after him, stopping him in his tracks before he reached the front door.

"If you're going out," I began casually as I rummaged through my carry-on luggage. As usual, we didn't bother to unpack. "Perhaps you could do some reconnaissance for me." I pulled out the digital camera I always packed when Esme and I traveled as 'tourists'. I hardly ever took pictures, but it helped us look the part.

"There's a four gig memory card in this and it's empty." I told him as I handed him the camera. "When you come back, I want it full. Shoot pictures of every square inch of the ruins and the grotto, especially the pool and any glyphs you might find on the walls, ceiling or floor. And fill these up too, while you're at it." I added, and handed him ten empty test tubes that I kept in my bag for taking venom or blood samples.

"Senna, go with him." Zafrina nodded to her sister. "We need to know the location of this place so that we can keep it hidden. It wouldn't do for the foolish humans to stumble upon it. I can only imagine the sort of mayhem and mischief they could get up to if they had unfettered access to the Water."

*****

After seeing Senna and Ben off, I asked Zafrina if she and her sister would mind helping Esme look after Sarah. I didn't want to leave my wife alone with our daughter in her present state, but I needed to make a foray to the local hospital for supplies. The Amazon sisters happily agreed and I breathed a sigh of relief as I headed out. Sarah wouldn't wake again for several hours, but it was nice for Esme to have some moral support during my brief but necessary absence.

I returned from the hospital an hour and a half later with the fruits of my pilfering. I had several bags of IV fluid that I would start her on immediately. Because I found it necessary to keep Sarah sedated most of the time, she wasn't drinking as much as she needed to and she was starting to show signs of dehydration.

I also managed to steal several vials of medicine, more of the sedative I'd been using so heavily as well as some others. It had occurred to me after I left that, while I couldn't currently treat Sarah 'condition' until I understood it better, I could treat her symptoms and alleviate some of her suffering . . . as well as ours.

To that end I managed to get my hands on some rather potent antipsychotic medication. I had to stabilize her mental state before we could leave Peru; it wouldn't do for her to be out in public begging me to stop her heart or accusing her husband of bringing home 'dragons' to eat her. I wouldn't put it past some airport busy body to call the authorities and Sarah would spend the last year of her life in a dingy Peruvian mental hospital.

After exchanging pleasantries with Zafrina and her sister, I took my haul into the bedroom. 'Time for Dr. Cullen to get to work,' I thought as I set my load down on the dresser.

"What's all that?" Esme asked.

"Hopefully, this is Sarah's salvation." I tried to sound up beat.

"You found a cure, already?" a relived smile lit Esme's heart shaped face and her voice purred with delight at the prospect.

"Not exactly," I answered sadly as I sat on the edge of the bed and proceeded to start Sarah's IV. In that moment, I would have given anything to honestly say yes and keep that smile on her face. "Our Kitten is showing all the classic symptoms of a psychotic break, she's delusional, combative, irrational, and paranoid just to name a few. I'm going to treat her for those symptoms."

"But Carlisle, that's not what's really wrong with her." She insisted.

"I'm aware of that." I said with a sigh. Most patients didn't realize just how often their doctors treated the symptoms of their illness and not the disease itself. "She can't go home like this Esme," for a number of reasons but I didn't go into that. "I need to stabilize her before I can take her back to the States. Once we're all home again I can take a closer look at Sarah's condition in my lab and hopefully find a solution."

*****

I woke from my sleep to a strange and eerie silence. I could tell I was alone in the huge bed, my mother was gone and that realization made me feel suddenly panicked. Where was she, where was everyone. I instantly reached for the tuning dial in my mind so that I could search for their stations and I instantly pulled back. Bone grinding pain and the most ear shattering noise filled my skull. I must have cried out because I felt a weight settle beside me on the bed.

"Easy, honey, just relax it's alright."

I recognized Papa's warm voice, but it sounded different. I let him push me gently back down into the bed. I grabbed the sides of my head and pressed my palms into my temples in an attempt to make the pain go away.

"Sweetheart, what's wrong?" Paternal concern and a touch of frustration echoed through his voice, but it still sounded wrong. "I can't help you, if you don't tell me."

"It hurts." I groaned through gritted teeth.

"Describe the pain to me, Sarah," Papa was in doctor mode now.

That was when it hit me, what was wrong with Papa's voice . . . the cathedral bells were missing. I began to sob, partly from the pain and partly because I missed the beautiful richness of the bells in his voice.

"I hate to sound harsh, honey, but you can cry later" he whispered. "I need you to focus right now. Tell me about the pain . . . it's important."

"My head hurts . . . really bad, like the time in Louisiana before I learned to control the mental volume of my hearing." I wiped my face with the back of my hand and went on. "I can't hear anything with my gift, it's gone or something and I don't hear the bells in your voice anymore."

I heard my father take in a breath and let it out slowly. "I'll get you something for the headache." He sighed as he got up from the bed.

"What about my gift," I was confused, and the absence of the gifts I'd come to rely on bothered me more than the pain. "Why are the bells gone from your voice? I could hear them when I was human before."

There was a knock at the door and I jumped, Papa shushed me as he sat back on the bed and put four tablets in my palm. The door opened and I tensed.

"Benjamin," my father announced for my benefit. "We were just discussing Sarah's gifts, or the absence there of. Why don't you come in and join us."

I heard the faintest sound of footsteps on the plush carpet as Ben entered the room. My thoughts were hazy, but I vaguely remembered the events of the past few days . . . and my behavior towards my mate. 'You bastard!,' the sound of my own voice cursing at my loving and adoring husband rang in my mind and I blushed with embarrassment. I suddenly found myself uneasy in his presence; surely he would hate me for what I'd done.

"How does Milady feel?" His voice sounded pained and a little uneasy, but there wasn't a single thread of hate anywhere in it. In spite of this, I was still saddened; it also sounded flat, gone was the soothing melodic strains of the saxophone.

"Ok, I guess, but I'm not quite myself." I answered honestly. Seconds later, I felt my father put a glass of water in my other hand.

"Take your medicine," Papa soothed. "The sooner you get it in you, the sooner your headache will go away."

As I swallowed the pills, another weight settled on the other side of the bed and I knew it was Ben. My hand groped over the covers, searching until I found what I sought. I grasped his hand in mine, it felt rock hard and ice cold but I didn't care.

"She certainly seems better," Ben commented to my father.

I could tell there was some secret meaning to his statement, but I couldn't quite put it together. My head still hurt, but worse, my brain felt like it was full of mud. Thoughts didn't whiz through my mind at light speed anymore; instead they came bubbling to the surface with irritating slowness.

"You're scowling, Kitten, what is it?" Papa asked softly.

"Nothing's the same, my gifts are gone, I can't hear like I used to, I don't think as fast. I feel, so exposed, so helpless . . . so vulnerable." I felt tears threaten, and did my best to hold them off.

Ben instantly had me wrapped in his huge arms making me fell even guiltier about my earlier behavior. How could I have ever said such poisonous things to this man? What sort of a wife was I to spew such hateful word at someone who loved me so truly and completely?

"Milady is well defended. Fear not, I shall not let harm come to thee." He assured me before kissing the top of my head.

My mate's words made the faintest ghost of a smile turn up the corners of my mouth and I instinctively nuzzled his chest. Then I discovered something else that was missing, I no longer smell Ben's personal scent, the intoxicating aroma of Gardenias was gone. A part of me wanted to push him away, crawl under a rock somewhere, and die, but I fought down the urge. Undoubtedly, my reaction didn't go unnoticed as I heard my father sigh.

"Sarah, you're human again and that's going to take some getting used to." Papa assured me. "As for your missing gifts, I'm afraid that's my fault. The water made you human again, but the change was making you psychotic. The medications I have you on improve you mental state, but they do so by altering your brain chemistry. For the time being, honey, you're just going to have to live without your gifts."

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Footnote: For those of you who don't already know, Blue is not a health care professional and I have no medical training of any sort. So don't get bent out of shape if Carlisle didn't treat Sarah's mental illness corectly.

Also, I've been accepted at collage just up the street from my house. I'll be finishing the degree I started years (that's years . . . plural . . . with an s) ago. I have a math placement test to study for and I meas I HAVE TO STUDY! I looked over the material, mostly algerbra, and couldn't even remember what an integer was. So you guys will likly find my posting slow for a time. Next week you should get ch 4 of Water, I have it written, but I'm still tweeking it and if your following Little Deer, you'll get ch 5 by the end of next week.

Sorry for the inconveniance.