Chapter 3

"Morning!" I yawn stretching my arms high up in the air as I come down the stairs. Things are stationed as usual; Mom is seated at the dining table looking through clothing catalogs, Rick is in the kitchen.

"Sleeping Beauty awakes," Rick rolls his eyes through the kitchen window.

"Hmm and I was going to see if you needed help…" I say falling on to the couch. Actually I don't mind helping out with meals once in a while. Especially eggs for breakfast, but I value sleep a little more. Well that and burning things happen to be a little too common of an occurrence for me.

Pulling the television remote out from under the pillow –Rick's favorite hiding spot- I flip the box on planning to watch some cartoons or something. My thumb glides through the channels one after the other I'm just about ready to give up entirely when I hear a small gasp come from behind me.

I pause but don't look writing it off as a high price or paper cut. Then that I hear one of the most sickening sounds I have ever heart in my entire life, a hoarse shaky cry followed by a loud thud.

"MOM!" Rick yells whatever pot he had been using clamoring to the ground as he rushes over, by this time I've jumped up look around. At first I can't see anything then I follow Rick's gaze… down… down to the ground. Where my mother lay, or I really can't calling lying at all. She is convulsing, her eyes twitching back and forth her whole body shaking. Her mouth coughing up salvia and I dare say she is even turning blue.

"Get the Doctor!" Rick yells before I ca even process any more thoughts on the matter.

"But-"

"NOW!"

I don't hesitant after being told twice. Still in my pink fuzzy slippers and pajamas I run out in to the cold. It is snowing but I don't pay any attention to that, all I know is that I have to get Tim now.

I suppose I hadn't been looking ahead much either as I run straight into something, ran. Bouncing back I reach for my head pain going through me it felt like I'd hit a pole. A hard and sturdy pole that nearly knocks the wind out of me.

"What the hell do you-"correction not a pole, worse a pissed off blacksmith.

"Move!" I yell not even bothering to care if I sound harsh. For all I know my mother is dying, being polite is the last thing on my mind.

"Don't talk to me like-"

Sometimes they say in desperate situations people can do inhuman things. Like a father throwing a several ton car to save his being crushed daughter. Or something like that. I think that is kind of what happened here. I don't know what comes over me but I push Gray. With all my heart is soul I push him… and he falls.

I am as I've often said before only a small girl. I stand at five feet and two inches; Gray is somewhere around the six foot mark. I weigh just over a hundred pounds, he well I don't even know. I guess what I am trying to say is that there is no way under any other normal circumstances a petite thing like myself even have the strength to do that. Not to mention the guts, Gray in all senses of the word terrified me.

But in that second I don't care, I don't even apologize either. I shove and run not bothering to look back.

I slam on the Clinic door, it's locked. But I kick at it and yell until a blearily awake doctor comes to the door.

He looks shocked to say the least, "oh Popuri how-"

"It's my about my Mom."

Funny how five little words can make this man come to life. He yells for his nurse grabs a carrying bag and quickly follows me out the door.

"What's happening to her?" he asks.

"I-I don't know," I sob back. It is the first time I realize I'd been crying. Though I assume it had started ways back when I first saw my mother on the floor, but I hadn't realized it. I hadn't realized I was out in the snow in just a tank top and now soaked through sweats. I hadn't noticed my slippers were almost drenched in mud and snow, either… Tim is a doctor everything is going to be okay…

We barged in the door and my mother is still on the ground but she looks conscious and aware of her surroundings, thats good. Rick who is white as a ghost sits holding her hand. A pillow has been placed behind my mother's head -I assume Rick has placed it there-. His glasses are fogged with tears as he looks up at us.

"What happened?" Tim demands.

"Seizure... I think…" Rick responds.

"Lillia are you alright?" Tim asks coming down to squat next to her.

"I-I don't remember it-"she whispers her eyes distant but I'm just so happy she is breathing normal and most importantly alive.

Tim nods, "that's normal. Rick can you explain what you did and what-"

"Yes, she was sitting there and…" his voice fades into the back of my head as he goes through whats happened. I don't listen, I don't need to live it all over. Elli arrives somewhere during Rick's explanation, I let her in. Reassured everything is fine she turns to me.

"Are you alright?" she asks sitting down at the foot of the staircase next to me.

I shake my head tears still coming down my face.

She wraps her arms around me and I lean my head on her, "she's going to be alright." She whispers trying to sooth me.

I don't respond Elli doesn't, no one knows that. No one ever will… even if this seizure meant nothing Mom is still ill. And no one has the cure… And I hate it, absolutely hate it!

~~~~:~~~~

"Word on the block is that someone decked and other someone..." Karen smiles over me making my hand stop halfway in it's reach for the bread.

"Huh?" I ask as innocently as I can.

"Oh don't go around listening to Manna's rumors again," Rick scolds his best friend.

"I'm not, I heard this one from the source."

"I-I didn't hit him…" I whisper but that is enough for Karen to be cheering pumping her fist into the air. It is also enough for Rick look as if he could blow his top.

"Him! Popuri what did you-"

"She soaked Gray right in the-"

"I said I didn't hit him!" I try to defend myself. "I just-"

"Gray! Popuri you fought Gray! What do you think-"

"I DID NOT!"

See this is why both Karen and Rick are friends. Both happen to be close to hypocrites! Rick hates Gray yet is mad that I hit him. While Karen who not long ago dated the guy is acting like this was the greatest accomplishment of my life. Okay well maybe that isn't why they got along but its my version at the moment.

"Well that's sure what it sounds like…" Karen shakes her head at me. I'd only pushed the guy this morning, I doubt anyone even knew of the scare my family had been through just hours ago, and yet somehow the whole town knew I pushed a blacksmith. I knew I shouldn't have left Mom at home; I'd only left since she insisted I go with Rick to the market…

"Well I didn't," I growl. "He just happened to be in my way when-"

"When what?" Karen laughs, "when a dinosaur ate your brain and-"

"WHEN I THOUGHT MY MOTHER WAS DIEING!" I yell. Unable to take it anymore tears starting in my eyes.

Karen's eyes immediately soften, guilt splashing on her face. But that doesn't matter to me now. "Popuri I-"

"Here," I force the basket into Rick's arms. And without much other thought I rush out the door hearing Rick faintly telling Karen it is alright she hadn't known.

Fresh tears well up in my eyes; it isn't that I hadn't known my mother was sick. I remember the day she was diagnosed, ironically Gray had been there that day too. We were watching him when my Dad had ran out of the house with Mom in his arms and rushed her to the clinic.

I remember crying and waiting in the other room, Gray trying to cheer me up. They hadn't told me much after that just she was sick… but she said was going to be okay so I took it as that… Years later I obviously knew it was more serious when my father left to go find a cure for her but never had I been closer to thinking she could be dead than this morning.

And that was the most terrifying thing the in the world. Tim said the seizure had probably had spurred from her disease but that she should be fine. But I don't believe that, what if this is permanent and…

I open the Inn doors tracking Ann down. I wanted to talk with someone, someone who knew me best…

It doesn't take long for Ann to see how upset I am and for Doug to comply for her to take a break. Actually I don't even think she had to ask, Doug flees from tears like the plague.

I tell Ann the morning's events so fast I was surprised she'd even understood them, but she nodded and listened along with them. She didn't try to consol me like Elli. Elli was a great girl don't get me wrong, but it's something about the way she talks to me, everyone else finds it comforting and calming I just… I don't. I don't know why I just don't want advice or to be told everything would be okay, I wanted someone who would listen to everything and not say a word, and that person for me is Ann.

Ann didn't give an opinion she didn't try to pretend things hadn't happen. She let me cry and get every emotion out of me and she doesn't question or judge it me for it.

"I'm sorry Popuri…" she says at the end handing me another tissue. "Tim didn't seem too worried though, right?"

"No… but sometimes I don't know." Actually I do know I know exactly what I think. Sometimes it just seems like Tim has given up on my mother. He doesn't have the cure to whatever was wrong with her, he hardly knows what is wrong with her. And at times like this I really questioned how much more he knew than I or Rick. But I can't say that.

"I heard you hit Gray," Ann smiles and I groan assuming she thought that was supposed to cheer me up or a positive change of subject.

"I didn't hit him; I pushed him he got in the way when I was going to the Clinic's."

Ann laughs, "Well that'll make him think twice before messing with you again. You show em girl!"

I give a weak smile, and she returns it.

"Come on I think that tonight calls for cookies and milk."

"Strawberry milk?"

"Of course!"

I laugh slightly see this was the thing Elli won't do, and this is why Ann is my best friend. She knows after I've cried my eyes out I'm done. And if you talk about it more I'm just going to cry more. She knows that cooking ginger bread cookies and strawberry milk made me feel better. Now if only she knew that along without cookie dough wars I want to watch a chick flick not an action movie…

"Well come on!"


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