18
It wasn't long after this time that the Ash began to take her with him on his frequent trips. He always had a busy schedule, and part of it was flying off to different places to visit and check on various fae clans all over the world. Most of the time, he took Dr. Bertrand with him as part of his general entourage. (Lauren had looked forward to those days, which was almost vacation time for her) Now Lauren too had to tag along.
While she was disappointed to lose her "free days", the travel part made up for most of it. The Ash traveled extensively all over the world. He usually dedicated international travelling during the winter times and over the course of season, Lauren was able to visit various countries in all the continents. Sometimes they'd let her go for a few hours to take in the sights and it was a lovely perk that she appreciated. It would have been perfect if Nadia had been with her. (But she wasn't. So Lauren never took pictures of the places she'd been, not wanting for Nadia to feel left out when she finally woke up)
It wasn't actually a pleasure trip for Lauren. Although there was never much required of her during the trip, she knew that this was part of her training too. To learn and experience the fae as she couldn't from the books and scrolls of the library. And it took a while, but she realized too that she was being paraded by the Ash as his pet human doctor. She was an exotic creature that drew everyone's curiosity and regard. The Ash was seen as "progressive" for taking a chance on a human and "wise" for nabbing her talent (she was still introduced as the doctor who cured the blood fever). Lauren didn't mind being treated as a prized trophy/pet, because almost everyone came to her. Elders and commoners alike, they were all interested in her. It provided her with an opportunity to talk to fae that would normally not deign converse with a human. And she talked to everyone she could, and asked all of them of what they knew about Nadia's symptoms.
For the Light Faes' part, they generally liked her. For a human, she was charmingly respectful, soft spoken and clearly intelligent. She also had a way of phrasing her questions in a way that flattered the fae of their intelligence. So they indulged her questions and answered what they could. Unfortunately, they didn't have much to add from what she'd already gathered. Still, Lauren relished the chance and was grateful for the Ash's tacit permission. It was probably part of him honoring his original bargain too, to provide resources in assistance with Nadia's condition.
And really, for all that she was a human slave of the fae, Lauren could sometimes admit to herself that she truly cared for her master.
xxx
Five months after Lauren "celebrated" her 3rd anniversary with the Light Fae, Dr. Bertrand announced his retirement. To say that Lauren was shocked would be a massive understatement. Especially when he named her his successor as the Ash's Chief Medical Officer and no one objected to the proclamation. Although technically, Dr. Bertrand wasn't "retiring" but only transferring to another place. He had always been asked to head the Light Fae's main hospital in Europe, (this is where the serious and long term illnesses usually end up in, as the clinic's too small to hold them all) but he had preferred his position with the Ash. Apparently, now he believed that Lauren was "ready" to take on his mantle and he could offer his services to others that need him.
He left with much fanfare (and with a snarky comment or two, directed at Lauren of course). For all his bad attitude, he had been a brilliant doctor and his staff would miss him. And yet when Lauren tried to give his position back, they stood firm in their decision. They bid him a proper good bye and gave Lauren a cheerful welcome.
It was a heady feeling that filled her with a deep sense of satisfaction. All that hard work had finally borne fruit. In what seemed like a blink of an eye, the insignificant human was now the head of the Ash's medical team. She deserved it all too. Lauren worked hard for all of it (Dr. Bertrand wouldn't have accepted anything less than her best) and not only that, she improved continuously. She went beyond what she was taught, experimented and perfected old formulas and ways to further improve the quality of care in the clinic. So for the next couple of days after her promotion, Lauren floated on a cloud of happiness. Because not only did she deserve her position, the fae themselves acknowledged her merit. The Ash himself stood by Dr. Bertrand when he announced his decision. She was finally recognized and accepted as equal to fae in terms of abilities.
Lauren's celebratory mood ended earlier than she would've preferred. (For her actual celebration party, Trick bought her a meal and dedicated a round at the bar in her honor) As the new CMO of the Ash, her workload has nearly tripled in size. Unfortunately, Dr. Bertrand took his secretary with him and it took her a couple of weeks before she was able to decipher his system. Still, she wasn't about to let herself be beaten by a messy filing system after all she'd been through. Lauren established her own system, hired her own fae secretary (and wasn't that a trip? Her very own fae underling) and proceeded to do the best job she could. (She wouldn't put it past Dr. Bertrand to make his threat come true and take back his position if he heard that she was slacking off)
xxx
Her first month as the official CMO brought a case of a teenage fae suffering from a persistent cough. After a simple test, Lauren discharged the fae with a cough medicine and strict instructions to follow. A few days later, he was back along with his mother. His cough had settled but he had developed a sort of rash in his limbs. Lauren conducted other tests and required an overnight stay. In the morning, haggard with the lack of sleep, she informed the fae's mother of the sad news. Her child was suffering a quick degradation of his cells, a genetic disease that sometimes hits their type of fae.
The mother only had one question: "Can you save him?"
Lauren told her she'd try her best. And she did too. She forwent sleep for the next couple of days working to find a cure. But this wasn't an infection like the blood fever. It was a genetic issue, a quirk of nature that he had been born with. Still Lauren tried (she even considered genetic manipulation but it was too risky and too slow for the quickly degenerating body) and failed. In a week, the teen was dead and his family in mourning.
That night, Lauren went to "her" bar and got drunk. (Not the Dal, but her "drink-your-sorrow-" bar) In the morning, she realized why the case hit her hard. In all her years as a doctor, she was already very much familiar with death. In fact, some would argue that death is her trade. Her role was to keep death at bay for as long as she could. She walked hand in hand with it, aware of how close people, human and fae alike, were to death; and how fragile and precious life was. This wasn't even her first fae death. There were the fairy folk in Congo before she discovered the cure, and there were a couple more after she became the Ash's ward.
But this was her first death since becoming the Ash's chief doctor and without Dr. Bertrand, it was her first time to be fully responsible for the fae's care. Only, it wasn't just that; it was also the way the mother had looked at her too. She had known Lauren as "the doctor who cured the blood fever". And she had expected a miracle of her own too. She hadn't said it out loud, but it had been in her eyes: if Lauren had managed to cure something that had plagued the fae for centuries, then she could just as easily find a way to save her son. And Lauren had failed that expectation, no matter how unfair it was.
She had always relished that title too: "the doctor who cured the blood fever". It had been hers, a foothold in a world that looked down on her kind. It gave her a chance to prove herself, made the fae stop and pay attention to her. She never imagined that it would become a burden to her. That it would elevate her to something she never inspired to be: a miracle worker and a hero of sorts. She didn't like the feeling and the heavy responsibility of it at all.
Lauren had become a doctor mainly because she loved science and the challenges it offered and because she wanted to help people too. And when she was younger, she had envisioned research that would change the world for the better. She had shared that vision with Nadia, who had her own grandiose, revolutionary dreams. Together they planned to conquer the world and make their mark on it. Now the memory just made her feel very old.
She shook herself out of the funk and struggled to move on. Anyway, the Ash barely commented about the incident, just stated a need to deliver his condolences (and Dr. Bertrand hadn't come back swooping after her). Lauren just firmed her determination to be a good doctor, and do her very best regardless of the expectations.
xxx
Once Lauren was fully settled in her new position, the Ash started assigning projects to her. Little things at first, like vaccination plans for fae flu or creating a healthy alternate dietary plan for some faes that have lost their food sources from humanity's drive to modernity. Soon though, she finally felt the full brunt of her new position.
If Lauren thought that she knew what it was to serve the Ash before, she was again mistaken. She was beginning to think that she shouldn't let herself feel complacent because every time she thought she'd figured the Ash out (and her relationship with him), he surprised her. First, she had been isolated but well-cared for. Second, she had broken the rules and was punished for it. Then she had been in danger and was protected from it. Now, she realized that he had come back to her original purpose: to be wielded like the tool she was and had been from the very beginning.
Hadn't she already realized this before though, when she was in the dungeon. The Ash bound her in his service for her abilities. And she thought she had understood and accepted it then too. But it was different, without Dr. Bertrand. He had acted as a buffer and only now did Lauren realize how "sheltered" she was, still. (A word that she would never have thought to use to describe herself by this time) She discovered this when the Ash came to her one day and asked her to make a cure.
A small Light Fae clan in the US had contracted a curious case of STD, apparently from having unprotected sex with humans from the general area. Fae were normally immune to many of the human diseases. This clan however, had managed to contract and retain the STD, to the point where the disease had mutated to cause them real harm. The cure was easy enough for Lauren to make (she only had to bind the normal medicine for STD to fae herbal remedy so the faes' bodies won't reject it) and she had it ready pretty quickly. However, the Ash had his own plans. He wouldn't let Lauren send the medicine to the fae. When she asked why, he told her. The fae clan was being punished. They had been engaged in some sort of illegal human trade with Dark Fae, and had contracted their disease through indiscriminate "sampling" of their wares. The fae clan began to degenerate quickly but the Ash was adamant. It wasn't until one had died that he finally relented to giving them the medicine. It took a while and with many treatments but they did recover. And most importantly, they remembered the Ash's justice.
For Lauren, it was a horrible experience. She had never been a spiteful person and what the Ash made her do horrified her. She tried to reason with him, to ask that the fae be punished "normally" as she had been punished before. When that hadn't worked, she tried to remind him of their agreement, that she wasn't to be ordered to harm or kill a living being. The Ash only maintained that it was a different situation. She hadn't harmed them or killed them, it was the disease that they contracted themselves through carelessness. It was a flimsy loophole but the Ash had looked at her with challenge in his eyes. She knew her choices then: refuse to obey and be punished, or completely back out of their agreement. And where would that latter choice have taken her (them) anyway? Nadia would still be in a coma and she'd have no way of curing her. She hadn't suffered three years to back away now. So Lauren gritted her teeth and waited it out. She waited until the fae clan were begging, waited until finally the Ash gave her the permission and only afterwards did she allow herself to mourn for the dead fae and her lost morals.
It only grew after that, of course. While her service with the Ash wasn't always distasteful (sometimes it could be downright boring - especially with common checkups), she found herself learning to tolerate and do things she normally wouldn't. There were the long hours spent in the lab with no time to spend on Nadia because he demanded reports to be available quickly. There was also that time when they had been on the way to a meeting and a passing cyclist clipped a pedestrian right near their car. Lauren had been about to jump out and help the woman but the Ash had stopped her. She tried to make him go without her (if he was so concerned about being late) but he wouldn't hear her out. And she couldn't do anything but watch the woman bleed on the street as people called for help, until the light changed and she couldn't watch anymore.
Sometimes, it wasn't about the medicine and her role as a doctor that Lauren compromised on. Sometimes, it was just about her being the Ash's ward (servant, slave). Though the fae liked her, their regard could be a double edged blade too. As the Ash began to take her to various meetings with important, high ranking fae, Lauren found herself falling under their scrutiny. And faes know humans only as either food or entertainment so she became the latter at times. It wasn't anything degrading, like say being made to act as dog, or being made to go naked. She was still the Ash's and they respected his honor to not humiliate her too much. Sometimes she was made to serve the food and the drinks; other times they subtly played with her. There was the time a luck eater took some of her luck and she tripped into a potted plan, hurling dirt everywhere. Or that time when an incubus kept touching her and building up her arousal all evening with no relief in sight (but she got him for that later with lots of painful, jerky injections when he came to the clinic). And then there was a time with an unknown fae who she had talked to during a small party. It was only later when Lauren found herself sobbing her eyes out and considering whether to use the fork or the butter knife to gouge her eyes out that she faintly realized that the fae had somehow messed with her. One good thing did come out of that event: the Ash forbade anymore "playing" with his ward. (In the fae's defence, he probably didn't realize how much despair was actually bottled up inside of her. The guards had to subdue and restrain her to get her away from the party. Later at home, she had to be sedated and made to rest for a couple of days as she occasionally burst into tears at random times)
And through all these things, Lauren wilfully chose again and again to follow and bend under the Ash's will. There was only the one time where she seriously contemplated on leaving his service altogether (and take Nadia's chances some other way) and that was when she was asked to euthanize a sick fae child. Because they were a hardy breed, Lauren hardly ever saw child fae patients and this one was the youngest she'd seen so far. He was only a baby at 15 months old and very sick. Unfortunately all the combined science and magic in Lauren's hands still weren't enough to cure him. At the most, he would be a weakly child that will need to spend countless hours at the hospital when he grew up. At the least, he would die painfully.
She hadn't wanted to do it, refused the Ash even as she trembled at the thought of punishment. But then his parents came to her and asked themselves. They were sad and devastated with their decision but nevertheless, they have already decided. They wanted to spare him a life of pain, they said. And if they could they would take his life themselves, but that was the one line they wouldn't break. So they asked her, asked Dr. Lewis to please spare their child, please? And Lauren understood, despite not wanting to. She was his doctor, she knew best what his chances were and she could see too how hard it was for his family to do this. But she also saw how much he fought for his life, trapped as he was with tubes and masks all over his tiny body. In the end, she granted him reprieve and pulled the plug.
Afterwards she resisted going to her bar to get drunk. Instead, she headed straight to Nadia's chamber and stared dry-eyed at her girlfriend's prone body. She wanted to leave the fae then, and never come back. Her mind had already begun to look at her options (maybe she could find a job in a hospital and install Nadia in their coma ward or something) but after a while she just stood there and sadly acknowledged that she couldn't leave the fae now. And it was no longer just because of Nadia, but because of her too. Because sometimes Lauren couldn't remember how she'd lived before she met the fae; because the Morrigan was right, the fae was a small community and she knew and cared for all of her Light Fae patients (more than she'd cared for her human ones from before); because as petty as it seems, she had gotten used to being the Chief Doctor with her own assistants. Lauren touched Nadia's pod and admitted to herself that she liked her life now. "The only thing I need is for you to wake up and everything will be perfect, babe."
In return for her loyal service, the Ash made sure that she had the latest gizmo gadgets for the clinic. He built her a better lab and indulged all her research projects. Gradually, she also finally had his confidence (making Dyson's suspicions finally correct). He trusted her with his some of his secrets and perhaps more importantly, he listened to her counsel and advice. He would often ask for her opinion on things that were not necessarily of medical nature and if he chose not to heed them, at least he took them into account. At long last, they have finally achieved the right balance on their relationship as master and servant.
