Hello, my lovely readers. I will updating this story at least once more this month and at least twice next. On with the show…

Chapter 8: The Rush and the Fall

Toward the end of the week Lucien went on another of his trips; leaving me to deal with Aurora. She was a demanding girl. She forced me to drive her out to Rodeo Drive. Aurora whipped out a black credit card and the shop girls went flying about; trying to accommodate her every whim.

"Champagne, love?" Aurora called to me as I shrugged, looking around the boutique that she dragged me into. "Two glasses," she called to a girl who looked like she might have a breakdown. Aurora smiled, coming over to lean against my side, picking up a scarf and wrapping it around my neck. "What do you think, girls? Isn't he pretty?"

"Yes, Miss De Martel!" they chirped, bringing her dresses and shoes to try on.

I pulled the scarf off, placing it back on the mannequin that Aurora had taken it from. Aurora pouted but did not say a word. Instead she began to undress in the middle of the floor, her bare back exposed to the large plate glass window and whoever might be window shopping. I quickly moved behind her, grabbing the first piece of clothing I saw and holding it in front of her. "Go!" I ordered her.

Aurora twisted her head to grin up at me, trying to dodge away when I scooped her up and carried her back into one of the dressing rooms. "This should have been a scene in Pretty Woman," Aurora said, sliding a hand down my chest while I moved away from her, slipping back out of the dressing room but blocking her exit. "Oh, Kol, stop being so shy. You've seen me naked before!" she called as a salesgirl came forward with an evening gown and eyed me.

"She's teasing me, darling," I told the girl with a smile. She blushed and handed me the dress. Aurora pulled the door open and I handed it to her. She grinned before closing the door. This woman seemed to take perverse pleasure in torturing me. Knowing that I was in love with someone who I couldn't be with—in the all the senses of the word—and taunting me with what I could have, if I did not value my own life.

"Kol, what do you think of this dress?" Aurora asked. Snapping me out my thoughts, she emerged from the dressing room in a long blue gown. She spun for me, showing the back of the dress which barely covered her arse and dropped to the floor. "Do you like it?" she asked, looking shy.

"It's marvelous," I meant it. She looked extraordinarily beautiful in it.

"You mean it?" Aurora asked, pressing her hands together and I nodded. Laughing, she leapt into my arms, pressing kisses all over my face. "You are a wonderful friend. What would I do without you? Never mind, you're never going to leave me. So I'll never have to find out."

I thought it better not to tell her that I did not intend on spending the rest of my life as Lucien's employee. I had a life to get home to. Family and a girl. This was just a short chapter before my real life began again. A little adventure to tell my kids about.

"We should find a gift for your Davina," Aurora said, flinging the dressing room door open again and slipping the dress off. She did love to be nude. "What do you think she would like? A dress? Shoes? Maybe jewelry? We can go to Tiffany's. I love Tiffany's! Maybe you can design something for her. Or you can get her some chocolate. Girls love chocolate. Or you could—"

"Aurora, dear, slow down!" I said and Aurora nodded, her eyes glowing still as she was slipping back into the dress she had worn to the shop. Her hands went to her head.

"I do not feel well, Kol, I think I need to rest," Aurora murmured before her eyes rolled up in her head and she passed out.

"Is she okay?" one of the salesgirls cried, coming to stand near the dressing room, clutching a dress.

I moved inside the room and gathered Aurora into my arms. "I don't know. I'll take her to hospital to find out. Can we have the blue dress there," I nodded at the dress that Aurora had liked so much, "put aside for her. For when we come back. She loved it."

"Oh, yes, sir," the girl nodded. "Would you like me to show you the back entrance?"

Nodding, I carried Aurora out to the back, texting the driver to come pick us up. We waited for only a couple of minutes before the driver pulled up, opening the back door and I told her we needed to go to the hospital. "That's not necessary. Ms. De Martel has a private physician who will come to see her. I will make the call," she told me and I had no choice but to sit beside Aurora, pulling her head against my shoulder and hoping she was okay.

As much as I feared how Lucien might react if something happened to his fiancée on my watch, I also feared for Aurora because she was growing on me. "Come now, love, wake up for me, won't you?" I said quietly, stroking her pale cheek. Aurora continued to slumber.

When we arrived at her building; I carried Aurora through the doors and to the elevator. Once we were inside the penthouse, I took her back to her room and laid her down, kicking off my shoes and pulling her close to me.

We only waited ten minutes before the doctor came. He did not seem at all concerned. His first stop was at the medicine cabinet. "Looks like she's been mixing the wrong meds, again. Okay. I'm going to give her something that will make her sick to clear her system of the drugs she's taken." The doctor opened his bag and pulled out another vial of pills.

The doctor got Aurora into a sitting position.

"Aurora, you need to take this. It will make you feel better," he said. Aurora gave him a wary look, her eyelids heavy before she opened her mouth and swallowed the pill, lying back down. The doctor then turned to me. "You'll need to keep a close eye on her for the next twelve hours," he advised me. "Make sure she doesn't take anything that wasn't prescribed to her and in the exact dosage it was prescribed. My number is on her phone, if there is a problem."

I thanked the man and walked him to the elevator before making my way back to Aurora's side. My phone buzzed in my pocket. "Hello?" I said quietly, rubbing Aurora's arm.

"Kol," Davina greeted me chirpily. "I have great news!"

"Tell me all about it, love," I replied, placing a hand to Aurora's forehead, watching her beginning to shift in her sleep, her face contorting and her body curling inward.

"I received a prize for this portrait I made and you'll never guess what my subject was," Davina sounded so excited and I wanted to sound equally so but I was worried about what Aurora's doctor had given her. Maybe I should take her to the hospital and let the consequences be damned?

"Oh," I tried to concentrate on my conversation with Davina. I loved talking to her and I would do almost anything to be where she was right then but I simply couldn't be.

"Uhhhh," Aurora moaned pitifully and then sat up. "I'm going to be sick," she cried out, grasping my shoulder. "I'm going to be horribly sick!" Her face looked waxen and she had begun to sweat, her hair sticking to her head.

"Kol, who is that?" Davina sounded alarmed.

"It's a friend of mine. She wasn't feeling well and her doctor gave her something. Davina, I've got to go right now but I will call you back soon. I promise, darling," I said quickly, hanging up and helping Aurora into her large bathroom. She sunk to her knees, vomiting into the toilet, her entire body shaking. "You're going to be okay," I said, rubbing her back as she cried.

"I hate this!" Aurora sobbed into the toilet bowl. "I hate all of this! I want to die!" She continued to shake.

"I'm going to get you a robe," I said. "Do not try to go anywhere!"

Getting to my feet, I went into the bedroom, grabbed a fluffy looking robe from inside her closet and carried it back inside. Aurora looked like she might die as she sat, shaking uncontrollably, her teeth chattering and her body convulsing. "Okay, love, we're going to the hospital," I told her, moving to pick her up when Aurora grabbed a fist full of my shirt.

"No! You mustn't. They will lock me away again! Please, Kol! You mustn't! You don't know what it is like to be surrounded by those people, drooling and babbling to themselves. There is nothing lovely there. Nothing grows there. Everything is stagnant and grey. I can't be there again! Please!" Aurora began to sob.

"Alright. Alright. I won't take you to the hospital." I had no idea how to help her. I feared what the doctor and Lucien were doing to her. Maybe her brother could help. "What about your brother?" I asked, stroking her hair away from her face.

Aurora shook her head. "No! Never Tristan! He's worse than Lucien. Lucien wants me to be his pretty little wife, always at his side, always adoring him. But my brother, my brother would have me locked away. And I would never come out again. Never Tristan! Promise me, Kol! As my friend, promise me!"

"I promise," I replied, holding her while she cried into my chest. After awhile, Aurora fell asleep and I carried her back to her bed. I laid down beside her, holding her to me, watching her sleep. I thought of Davina. I owed her an explanation but I did not know what I should tell her. "I am taking care of my mentally ill friend who has no one else to rely on? I'm busy right now, Davina, but I do want to hear all about your triumph. Please, don't hate me, love, for leaving you and for caring for another woman. No, darling, not like I care for you. She's a friend…" No, none of that would help. Keep it short and sweet.

Easing away from Aurora, I grabbed my phone and called Davina. Her phone went to voicemail and I sucked in a breath when it came time to speak. "Davina, I am sorry about hanging up on you the way I did. I need you to know that I wouldn't if it weren't a crisis. My friend is sick and I need to take care of her right now. I promise you one day I will have a better explanation. Perhaps she can help you understand better than I can. Call me back."

I hung up and walked back to the bed, lying down and holding Aurora while she slept, shaking every once in awhile and muttering to herself things that I did not understand. When she awoke, she sat up and placed a hand over her mouth.

"Oh, I must smell terrible," she exclaimed. "And you saw me sick like that. How unattractive! I must bathe and scrub my mouth a million times over!" Squealing, Aurora tried to leap from the bed but did not have energy to, yet. I got up and helped her to her feet. She leaned against me as I led her into the bathroom. I turned on the water while Aurora leaned against the sink, brushing her teeth and muttering to herself about how ghastly she looked. I helped her undress and slip into the bath.

For once there were no jokes about sex between us or flirtation while I scrubbed her back and washed her hair. I wondered what Lucien would think if he came in at that moment. Probably the worst. Worry about my boss's opinions flew away as I helped Aurora back out of the tub into a fresh set of towels. She looked better, more like her old self but she needed to eat.

"I have to take my pills," Aurora told me, glancing at the medicine cabinet.

"Okay. I'll get them," I told her. I helped her back into the bedroom before returning to the medicine cabinet. Never in my life had I seen this many bottles of pills in any person's home with names I had only seen on commercials and some I had never heard of. Were they using poor Aurora as a human lab rat to test their products on?

"I need a glass of water," Aurora told me.

I nodded. "Right. Then we will have to go into the kitchen because—sad to say—I do not trust you not to abuse whatever is in these bottles."

"So, my doctor told you that I have a drug addiction as well as being crazy?" Aurora let out a bitter laugh. "That is rich." She sighed. "Fine. Let's go to the kitchen where I will act as a good girl and take my pills."

"What do these do?" I asked her on our way into the kitchen.

Aurora took one of the bottles. "This one makes me vomit. So, I have to take it with this one," she pointed at another bottle. "The first one is an anti-anxiety medication. This one is an anti-depressant. This one is for my mania. This one is for my hallucinations, brought on by the anti-depressant. This one, this one is fun, it makes me feel like I'm flying but it has a nasty side-effect where I become dizzy and pass out, sometimes, which is rather inconvenient, like today. I only took the one that makes me fly because I wanted for us to have fun. Sometimes, when I take all of them, I just want to sit and stare into space. That's not any fun, now is it?"

I set the drugs down. "But you can't just pick and choose which drugs you want to take and which ones you don't," I told her.

Aurora shrugged. "I suppose not. But wouldn't it be lovely if I didn't take any of them?" she asked, her eyes wide and curious.

"Yes," I nodded, moving to get a glass of water and turning on the tap. Aurora sat, watching me and I turned off the sink. "Perhaps we could wean you off these pills and see how you react." I had no idea what that would do but I wondered if her meds were doing more harm than good.

Grinning, Aurora got up and came over to me, throwing her arms around my neck and kissing me on the lips. "I knew I liked you for a reason," she said, taking her glass of water before going back to her seat.

"I suppose I should make you lunch," I replied. "What would you like?"

"Something simple. Lobster?" Aurora retorted, popping pills into her mouth.

"How about a nice grilled cheese?" I went over to the fridge and examined the offerings.

"That sounds dull but I'm sure you make it less so by making it," Aurora replied. She finished taking her pills while I found some kind of cheese with an Italian name on it and a loaf of French bread. "Wine?"

"With your meds?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Every day." Aurora smiled up at me. "Oh, goody. I love French bread." She clapped her hands and I had a feeling she had skipped the pills that made her numb. So much for doctor's orders.

We had a nice lunch and Aurora began to talk of plans for later in the day when I remembered that I had left my cell in the other room. "I'll be right back."

"Take your time," Aurora said, filling another glass of wine. I took her pills back into the bathroom and then went in search of my phone. I had one new message from Davina.

"Hi, Kol. I hope your friend is feeling better and that it is not contagious," Davina giggled. "Anyway, I was hoping that you could come home this weekend to see my project. It's being displayed with a number of other pieces in the Quarter. There are rumors that some well-known critics will be here. I might even be discovered. Wouldn't that be cool! And Hayley had an ultrasound so we know what the gender of the baby is but I'm not telling you. Elijah is so excited. And Rebekah has been out buying presents for the baby and driving Marcel crazy storing them at their place. You've missed so much. You really, really need to come home for a visit. Bye!"

Sitting on the side of the bed, I sat my phone down and ran my hands over my face. I missed my family. And Nik would probably be going down soon with Caroline. Perhaps this was the right time for me to go home.

Aurora popped inside the room. "Do you think they still have my dress?" she asked me. Noticing my expression, she came to kneel in front of me. "Are you alright?" Aurora inquired, placing a hand on my cheek. "Is it your little bird at home?" she smiled, taking my hand. "We should go back and get her something nice."

"Aurora, I need to go home this weekend," I said quietly.

Aurora frowned. "Why?" Standing up, she looked at her feet. "Do you find me tiresome?"

"No. No. My brother's girl is having a baby and I need to see them," I explained.

Aurora's eyes lit up. "A baby! I always wanted to have a baby but Tristan said it might turn out like me and I mustn't. Or that I might hurt my child. I would never do that. You believe me, don't you?"

I nodded. "Of course."

"Well, now we must go shopping again. For presents for your brother's girl and for the baby." Getting to her feet, Aurora took my hand, pulling me to my feet and I grabbed my phone before leaving. I just hoped that Aurora would not insist on joining me on my trip home.

There will finally be a Kolvina reunion in the next chapter. Yay!

Thank you for reading, faving, following and reviewing.

Answers to guest reviews:

Guest: Thank you!

Guest: Thank you for your enthusiasm!

Princess: I do plan on including a few more TO characters and one more TVD character that you like in chapter 11.

Peace,

Jessica