Going Home
"Where's my sister? Oh my gosh! Where is she?" Alexandria exclaimed. Fear spread through her body as she looked at the bed her sister had just occupied earlier that day. The bed was made, an extra blanket folded neatly set on the end of the bed, the pillow unused. "Where is Mariana?"
Alexandria turned around and blinked, not believing what she saw. Mariana was standing by Luka; he had his arm around her, supporting her weak body. She had a wide smile on her face.
"Hi Al," she whispered. Although her voice was pretty much back, little sounds of her breath could still be heard.
Alexandria smiled breathing a sigh of relief as she rolled her eyes. "You are evil, Ana! The evil twin sister!"
Mariana smiled. "Oh shut up! You're just saying that to cover up how scared you were when I wasn't in there."
Alexandria nodded, "Yeah, I was a little worried."
"A little?" Mariana asked as Alexandria walked up to her. "My dear sweet little sister…"
"Only by a couple minutes Ana," Alexandria said walking up and hitting her twin lightly on the back. "Are you coming home?"
Mariana nodded, "They let me out a little early."
"Yeah. She still can't do much, she can't go to school and she shouldn't move around a lot," Luka said. "She's still weak, so we should get going now."
Alexandria nodded and put her arm around Mariana who put her arm around her twin. Together, the three of them walked arm in arm out of the hospital.
~*~*~*~*~
Luka opened the door and walked in, Mariana behind him, Alexandria in the rear. Mariana looked around. "This is nice."
Luka smiled. "Thanks. Alexandria, why don't you show Mariana your room?"
Alexandria nodded. "Yeah, come on Ana."
Mariana followed Alexandria into the room that was there's now. There were two beds, each one opposite ends of the room. There were two desks. The room wasn't overly large, but enough to make the girls feel comfortable. Alexandria walked over to the closet.
"All our clothes and stuff have been moved in." Alexandria said, opening the doors.
Mariana walked over and stood next to Alexandria as they looked into their new closet. "There's a good amount of space in there."
Alexandria nodded as she walked into the middle of the rooms. "Which bed do you want?"
"Doesn't matter to me." Mariana replied.
Alexandria looked at the one she was standing closest too. She sat down saying, "I'll take this one then."
Mariana nodded and sat down on the other bed. Lying down on her back she said, "It feels good to be out of the hospital. Do you have scissors?"
Alexandria opened the drawers of one of the desks. She pulled some scissors and walked over to Mariana. "Here you go," she said sitting down on the bed. "Why do you want them?"
Mariana held her arm up above her and pulled her jacket sleeve down. "I wanna cut off this bracelet."
She picked up the scissors and slipped one of the blades beneath the bracelet, brushing her wrist lightly. She took a deep breath and then closed the scissors. The bracelet fell onto her face. She closed her eyes right before it touched her skin.
Setting the scissors down beside her, Alexandria quickly picked them up as Mariana took the bracelet off of her face.
"Girls," Luka called out from the next room. "Do you want to have something to eat?"
Mariana smiled and sat up. "Yeah! I'll be right out!"
She got off the bed and walked over to her desk. Opening the middle drawer she carefully set the bracelet in and closed the drawer.
"What's wrong Ana?" Alexandria broke the silence.
Mariana shook her head. "I'm really happy not to have to live with dad anymore. And I'm glad that Luka's the one that adopted us. But, it's still hard to believe that dad isn't my dad anymore."
"Oh." Alexandria said quietly as Mariana walked out into the main room.
"What would you like?" she heard Luka say as she got off of her sisters bed.
"What do you have?"
Alexandria stepped out of the room to see her sister sitting at the counter, watching Luka who was looking in cupboards and the refrigerator.
"What were you eating at the hospital?" Luka asked.
"Spaghetti-O's and other stuff like that," Mariana said before quickly adding, "Not like I really ate any of the hospitals food."
Luka laughed. "So, would you like to start with something lighter like chicken noodle soup or do you wanna have something like a steak right away?"
Mariana laughed slightly, stopping quickly to stop the small pain of laughing. "Something more like chicken noodle soup."
Luka nodded. "Yeah, that's best."
He pulled a can out of the cupboard and looked over at Alexandria who was leaning against the door. "Do you want anything to eat Alexandria? We have more cans of soup."
Alexandria smiled and walked over. "Yeah, I'll have some soup too."
"Soup it is then." Luka said and pulled two more cans out.
Alexandria got on a stool that was next to Mariana's and looked over at her twin, smiling. Ana smiled and leaned over, resting her head on Alexandria's shoulder. Within no time the smell of the chicken broth filled the air and Luka was spooning the mixture of broth, noodles and chicken into bowls. He brought three bowls and set them on the counter. Opening a drawer he pulled out three soup spoons and set them on the counter next to the steaming bowls of soup. He grabbed a stool and pulled it around sitting in front of the girls.
They began eating silently before Alexandria spoke up. "So, what are you like Luka?"
Luka looked at her. "What do you mean?"
"What kinds of things do you like? What kind of people do you hang out with? Where are you from?" Alexandria asked.
Luka licked his lips and said, "Well, I like sports. I just hang out with people I meet. I spend a lot of time at the hospital working, but they're letting me cut back on my hours there now that I have you two here."
He was about to go on but the phone rang. "Excuse me. I'm going to answer that quickly."
He got up and grabbed the cordless phone that was on the wall. "Hello?"
He stopped talking and smiled. It was a pleasant smile but it also told the girls he was a little nervous about something. Then, he started speaking a different language. Mariana and Alexandria looked at each other. Mariana raised her eyebrows and then ate another spoonful of her soup.
~*~*~*~*~
"Hello?" Luka answered.
"Hi Luka," his mother replied in Croatian.
He smiled, happy to hear from his mother, yet nervous. He had been planning on waiting until he knew how to tell his family that he had adopted twins. And that he had adopted them without being married. Sure, he hadn't gotten a woman pregnant, but still, his family didn't agree with children being the home before a loving marriage was established.
"How are you Mom?" he asked her in his native tongue.
"I'm fine. How are you?" she replied.
"I'm fine."
"I stopped by Danijela, Jasna and Marko's graves today. I left flowers. I know you don't want their graves to be bare." She told him.
"Thank you mom." He said closing his eyes in pain. Danijela, Jasna, Marko. He pictured his family in his mind. His beautiful wife and his two children. He opened his eyes and found that he was leaning against the wall. He blinked some tears away from his eyes and turned around. He watched as Mariana and Alexandria were eating and talking. They were both smiling, Alexandria was laughing. It still hurt for Ana to laugh, he could tell whenever she did.
Alexandria said something and Mariana burst out laughing along with her twin this time. Luka smiled.
"Luka!" his mother exclaimed and he realized that he had completely tuned her out. "Are you listening to me?"
"No. I'm sorry Mom. I got distracted."
"Who's there? I hear laughing." She asked him.
"Uh. Two girls." He said.
"Girls? Why are there girls at your house?" his mother asked. "Are you dating two women?"
Luka shook his head. "No! Two sixteen-year-old girls!"
"What are they doing there?" his mother asked.
"I-I adopted them."
"You what?"
"One of the girls was a patient of mine for a couple hours. She was stabbed by her father and I adopted her and her twin sister." Luka said.
"Oh. I have two new grandchildren?" she asked.
Luka smiled. "Yeah, I guess you do."
"Are you engaged?" his mother asked.
"No," Luka said. "But I felt like I had to adopt these girls. I thought about it and I knew that there was no question about it."
"Are you still with that Abby girl?" his mother asked.
"Yes. At least, I-I think so." He said. "She wasn't too happy about me adopting the girls, but she seems fine with it now."
"What are their names?"
"Mariana and Alexandria."
"And they're sixteen?"
Luka nodded. "Yes."
"Well, sweetie, I have to get going. I just wanted to check in and see how you were doing. Say hi to your girls for me." His mother said.
"I will," he said. "I love you Mom."
"Volim te Luka." She replied and then hung up the phone.
He pressed the on/off button with his thumb and slowly turned around. The girls were looking at him, Alexandria peering over her sister's shoulder.
"What language were you speaking?" Mariana asked.
"Croatian," Luka told her. "I'm from Croatian. That was my mom, just calling to check in."
Mariana nodded. "I was wondering where you were from. Why did you leave?"
"Uh, well. Because…" he stammered before deciding not answer. "Just because. Well, you should be able to start going back to school in a week. But you can take as much time as you want before you go back."
Mariana nodded. "Okay. Can I call Mitchell?"
Luka nodded and she picked up the phone and dialed his number.
"Hi Mrs. Evans. This is Mariana…I'm okay…oh, thanks. But I'm fine. I'm out of the hospital now…I'm living with Luka Kovac…he adopted Alexandria and I…oh, well he was my doctor when I came in…yeah, Mitchell met him. Is Mitchell there?" Mariana asked. She waited awhile before saying, "Hey Mitchell…I'm out of the hospital now…Yeah, Luka…I can start going back in a week, but I don't know if I'm going to go back right away…I feel okay I guess, as good as someone who was nearly killed can feel…uh, the phone number is…"she looked at Luka and he wrote a number down, "555-2506…Oh! There was a beep!"
"That's the call waiting." Luka told her.
"Mitchell, can we talk some other time? Someone's calling Luka…Okay, bye!"
Mariana handed the phone to Luka who answered the next caller. "Hello?"
"Hi sweetie."
"Abby!"
"Are both girls moved in now?" Abby asked.
Luka nodded. "Yeah, they are."
"Luka, I was thinking, I was being rude when I totally objected to your adopting the twins-"
"You weren't being rude Abby! You were just worried." He told her.
"Still, I feel bad. I was thinking, tomorrow's Friday. Why don't I rent some movies and we could all get together and watch?" Abby asked.
Luka smiled, "That sounds great! Let me check with the girls to see if they're up to it."
"Up to what?" Alexandria asked.
"Abby was thinking about renting movies and coming over. We could order out pizza." Luka said.
"That sounds great!" Alexandria said.
"But only if the movies are comedies. I've had enough action and drama for one week." Mariana said.
Luka laughed, "Abby. You can come, but only if you bring comedies."
~*~*~*~*~
The next day Abby arrived after her shift was over. She had Legally Blonde and Miss Congeniality. Shortly after Abby arrived, the pizzas came.
They spent the night watching movies, eating pizza, and having a good time. Luka smiled at the feeling, he felt like a family.
It was the end of the Legally Blonde, when Gracie was kissing her new boyfriend. Luka looked over at Abby who looked at him, smiling. They leaned forward and kissed each other lightly on the lips.
A/N: There is one Croatian: Volim te = I love you.
"Where's my sister? Oh my gosh! Where is she?" Alexandria exclaimed. Fear spread through her body as she looked at the bed her sister had just occupied earlier that day. The bed was made, an extra blanket folded neatly set on the end of the bed, the pillow unused. "Where is Mariana?"
Alexandria turned around and blinked, not believing what she saw. Mariana was standing by Luka; he had his arm around her, supporting her weak body. She had a wide smile on her face.
"Hi Al," she whispered. Although her voice was pretty much back, little sounds of her breath could still be heard.
Alexandria smiled breathing a sigh of relief as she rolled her eyes. "You are evil, Ana! The evil twin sister!"
Mariana smiled. "Oh shut up! You're just saying that to cover up how scared you were when I wasn't in there."
Alexandria nodded, "Yeah, I was a little worried."
"A little?" Mariana asked as Alexandria walked up to her. "My dear sweet little sister…"
"Only by a couple minutes Ana," Alexandria said walking up and hitting her twin lightly on the back. "Are you coming home?"
Mariana nodded, "They let me out a little early."
"Yeah. She still can't do much, she can't go to school and she shouldn't move around a lot," Luka said. "She's still weak, so we should get going now."
Alexandria nodded and put her arm around Mariana who put her arm around her twin. Together, the three of them walked arm in arm out of the hospital.
~*~*~*~*~
Luka opened the door and walked in, Mariana behind him, Alexandria in the rear. Mariana looked around. "This is nice."
Luka smiled. "Thanks. Alexandria, why don't you show Mariana your room?"
Alexandria nodded. "Yeah, come on Ana."
Mariana followed Alexandria into the room that was there's now. There were two beds, each one opposite ends of the room. There were two desks. The room wasn't overly large, but enough to make the girls feel comfortable. Alexandria walked over to the closet.
"All our clothes and stuff have been moved in." Alexandria said, opening the doors.
Mariana walked over and stood next to Alexandria as they looked into their new closet. "There's a good amount of space in there."
Alexandria nodded as she walked into the middle of the rooms. "Which bed do you want?"
"Doesn't matter to me." Mariana replied.
Alexandria looked at the one she was standing closest too. She sat down saying, "I'll take this one then."
Mariana nodded and sat down on the other bed. Lying down on her back she said, "It feels good to be out of the hospital. Do you have scissors?"
Alexandria opened the drawers of one of the desks. She pulled some scissors and walked over to Mariana. "Here you go," she said sitting down on the bed. "Why do you want them?"
Mariana held her arm up above her and pulled her jacket sleeve down. "I wanna cut off this bracelet."
She picked up the scissors and slipped one of the blades beneath the bracelet, brushing her wrist lightly. She took a deep breath and then closed the scissors. The bracelet fell onto her face. She closed her eyes right before it touched her skin.
Setting the scissors down beside her, Alexandria quickly picked them up as Mariana took the bracelet off of her face.
"Girls," Luka called out from the next room. "Do you want to have something to eat?"
Mariana smiled and sat up. "Yeah! I'll be right out!"
She got off the bed and walked over to her desk. Opening the middle drawer she carefully set the bracelet in and closed the drawer.
"What's wrong Ana?" Alexandria broke the silence.
Mariana shook her head. "I'm really happy not to have to live with dad anymore. And I'm glad that Luka's the one that adopted us. But, it's still hard to believe that dad isn't my dad anymore."
"Oh." Alexandria said quietly as Mariana walked out into the main room.
"What would you like?" she heard Luka say as she got off of her sisters bed.
"What do you have?"
Alexandria stepped out of the room to see her sister sitting at the counter, watching Luka who was looking in cupboards and the refrigerator.
"What were you eating at the hospital?" Luka asked.
"Spaghetti-O's and other stuff like that," Mariana said before quickly adding, "Not like I really ate any of the hospitals food."
Luka laughed. "So, would you like to start with something lighter like chicken noodle soup or do you wanna have something like a steak right away?"
Mariana laughed slightly, stopping quickly to stop the small pain of laughing. "Something more like chicken noodle soup."
Luka nodded. "Yeah, that's best."
He pulled a can out of the cupboard and looked over at Alexandria who was leaning against the door. "Do you want anything to eat Alexandria? We have more cans of soup."
Alexandria smiled and walked over. "Yeah, I'll have some soup too."
"Soup it is then." Luka said and pulled two more cans out.
Alexandria got on a stool that was next to Mariana's and looked over at her twin, smiling. Ana smiled and leaned over, resting her head on Alexandria's shoulder. Within no time the smell of the chicken broth filled the air and Luka was spooning the mixture of broth, noodles and chicken into bowls. He brought three bowls and set them on the counter. Opening a drawer he pulled out three soup spoons and set them on the counter next to the steaming bowls of soup. He grabbed a stool and pulled it around sitting in front of the girls.
They began eating silently before Alexandria spoke up. "So, what are you like Luka?"
Luka looked at her. "What do you mean?"
"What kinds of things do you like? What kind of people do you hang out with? Where are you from?" Alexandria asked.
Luka licked his lips and said, "Well, I like sports. I just hang out with people I meet. I spend a lot of time at the hospital working, but they're letting me cut back on my hours there now that I have you two here."
He was about to go on but the phone rang. "Excuse me. I'm going to answer that quickly."
He got up and grabbed the cordless phone that was on the wall. "Hello?"
He stopped talking and smiled. It was a pleasant smile but it also told the girls he was a little nervous about something. Then, he started speaking a different language. Mariana and Alexandria looked at each other. Mariana raised her eyebrows and then ate another spoonful of her soup.
~*~*~*~*~
"Hello?" Luka answered.
"Hi Luka," his mother replied in Croatian.
He smiled, happy to hear from his mother, yet nervous. He had been planning on waiting until he knew how to tell his family that he had adopted twins. And that he had adopted them without being married. Sure, he hadn't gotten a woman pregnant, but still, his family didn't agree with children being the home before a loving marriage was established.
"How are you Mom?" he asked her in his native tongue.
"I'm fine. How are you?" she replied.
"I'm fine."
"I stopped by Danijela, Jasna and Marko's graves today. I left flowers. I know you don't want their graves to be bare." She told him.
"Thank you mom." He said closing his eyes in pain. Danijela, Jasna, Marko. He pictured his family in his mind. His beautiful wife and his two children. He opened his eyes and found that he was leaning against the wall. He blinked some tears away from his eyes and turned around. He watched as Mariana and Alexandria were eating and talking. They were both smiling, Alexandria was laughing. It still hurt for Ana to laugh, he could tell whenever she did.
Alexandria said something and Mariana burst out laughing along with her twin this time. Luka smiled.
"Luka!" his mother exclaimed and he realized that he had completely tuned her out. "Are you listening to me?"
"No. I'm sorry Mom. I got distracted."
"Who's there? I hear laughing." She asked him.
"Uh. Two girls." He said.
"Girls? Why are there girls at your house?" his mother asked. "Are you dating two women?"
Luka shook his head. "No! Two sixteen-year-old girls!"
"What are they doing there?" his mother asked.
"I-I adopted them."
"You what?"
"One of the girls was a patient of mine for a couple hours. She was stabbed by her father and I adopted her and her twin sister." Luka said.
"Oh. I have two new grandchildren?" she asked.
Luka smiled. "Yeah, I guess you do."
"Are you engaged?" his mother asked.
"No," Luka said. "But I felt like I had to adopt these girls. I thought about it and I knew that there was no question about it."
"Are you still with that Abby girl?" his mother asked.
"Yes. At least, I-I think so." He said. "She wasn't too happy about me adopting the girls, but she seems fine with it now."
"What are their names?"
"Mariana and Alexandria."
"And they're sixteen?"
Luka nodded. "Yes."
"Well, sweetie, I have to get going. I just wanted to check in and see how you were doing. Say hi to your girls for me." His mother said.
"I will," he said. "I love you Mom."
"Volim te Luka." She replied and then hung up the phone.
He pressed the on/off button with his thumb and slowly turned around. The girls were looking at him, Alexandria peering over her sister's shoulder.
"What language were you speaking?" Mariana asked.
"Croatian," Luka told her. "I'm from Croatian. That was my mom, just calling to check in."
Mariana nodded. "I was wondering where you were from. Why did you leave?"
"Uh, well. Because…" he stammered before deciding not answer. "Just because. Well, you should be able to start going back to school in a week. But you can take as much time as you want before you go back."
Mariana nodded. "Okay. Can I call Mitchell?"
Luka nodded and she picked up the phone and dialed his number.
"Hi Mrs. Evans. This is Mariana…I'm okay…oh, thanks. But I'm fine. I'm out of the hospital now…I'm living with Luka Kovac…he adopted Alexandria and I…oh, well he was my doctor when I came in…yeah, Mitchell met him. Is Mitchell there?" Mariana asked. She waited awhile before saying, "Hey Mitchell…I'm out of the hospital now…Yeah, Luka…I can start going back in a week, but I don't know if I'm going to go back right away…I feel okay I guess, as good as someone who was nearly killed can feel…uh, the phone number is…"she looked at Luka and he wrote a number down, "555-2506…Oh! There was a beep!"
"That's the call waiting." Luka told her.
"Mitchell, can we talk some other time? Someone's calling Luka…Okay, bye!"
Mariana handed the phone to Luka who answered the next caller. "Hello?"
"Hi sweetie."
"Abby!"
"Are both girls moved in now?" Abby asked.
Luka nodded. "Yeah, they are."
"Luka, I was thinking, I was being rude when I totally objected to your adopting the twins-"
"You weren't being rude Abby! You were just worried." He told her.
"Still, I feel bad. I was thinking, tomorrow's Friday. Why don't I rent some movies and we could all get together and watch?" Abby asked.
Luka smiled, "That sounds great! Let me check with the girls to see if they're up to it."
"Up to what?" Alexandria asked.
"Abby was thinking about renting movies and coming over. We could order out pizza." Luka said.
"That sounds great!" Alexandria said.
"But only if the movies are comedies. I've had enough action and drama for one week." Mariana said.
Luka laughed, "Abby. You can come, but only if you bring comedies."
~*~*~*~*~
The next day Abby arrived after her shift was over. She had Legally Blonde and Miss Congeniality. Shortly after Abby arrived, the pizzas came.
They spent the night watching movies, eating pizza, and having a good time. Luka smiled at the feeling, he felt like a family.
It was the end of the Legally Blonde, when Gracie was kissing her new boyfriend. Luka looked over at Abby who looked at him, smiling. They leaned forward and kissed each other lightly on the lips.
A/N: There is one Croatian: Volim te = I love you.
