The Hurricane

You can argue that I am being dramatic if you like. That nothing could be so bad. You could argue all you want, but I don't particularly care. The months that followed were so much more horrible than a storm, hence, a hurricane. I was there, you weren't, simple. If you still feel that I am over reacting, keep reading and tell me then, or go dunk your head into a pool and breathe deeply, I have better things to do than argue right now.

For everyone else, our moment of bliss ended suddenly. It was almost violent and it ended with two words: 'Happy Birthday'. Remember what followed my first moment of bliss? What happened when I turned sixteen? It was a wolf thing correct? Guess how old Roxie was now.

Weeks beforehand Damon and I debated how it would affect her. The 'puberty' stage was the time when the wolf became stronger, the dominant force, and the time when you went from a pup to real wolf. The problem, she wasn't all wolf. What would it do to the other half of her? Maybe it wouldn't do anything, period. Maybe all it would do it polish up her 'furrier side.' I'll tell you now, we were both wrong.

She turned sassy sixteen on July 4th, ironic isn't it? One last celebration before everything goes to the dark side. For the first little while it seemed as if her inner wolf would just get stronger. Until she became uncontrollably sick. In an instant she went from a picture of near perfect health to being able to barely move. The change sparked something, a war starting in her veins. The two bloods were very dominant. Of course they could live side by side, but when one attempted to take control of course the other is going to defend itself. Yes, we probably could learn a lesson from our blood. As stated before though both sides were content being at ends with the other.

I immediately set out to find what was wrong with her. I became her doctor almost. I did research through old books, (not the ones you people read for a laugh, ones that none of you have even heard of before) to see if there was anything that could help me cure her. I searched, and searched, for two weeks it went on. Endless days finding anything I possibly could on the subject. No matter how many different texts I went to the answer was always the same. Death. Needless to say this was not an answer I was about to accept.

Everywhere was the same though. It was spread out repeatedly. And with each repeated conclusion I promptly slammed the book shut, tossed it to a corner, and opened another. Damon had no response to this. He stayed silently by Roxie as he usually did. Roxie's reaction was the worst of all, because I didn't have to tell her. She had seen it in dreams over and over again; somehow she felt her time getting shorter. So when I finally broke down and told her the conclusion of endless research she merely replied with "I know." Without even taking her once again sapphire eyes off the setting sun outside. Her bell voice sounded so far away.

For a time I thought I was going insane of worry. It angered me that she was being so passive about it, so accepting. It enraged me that Damon had no reaction at all. The most of his reaction was more silence than he usually handed the room. Was I really the only one who cared about her life? Roxanne slept frequently in vain attempt to keep her strength up. While she slept Damon would watch her as usual for a while then leave to hunt. I noticed though... His 'hunting' became more and more frequent the closer she came to death. Particularly angry one night I followed him, demanding to know. Shouldn't he care at least a little?

I never got to speak to him directly that night though. He stopped in a clearing where he just stood for what seemed like years, and for a moment I thought he knew I was there. Then he fell to his knees, and dropped his head into his hands. I was frozen in shock. Faintly, I heard him muttering something, and concentrated my energy to my ears in an attempt to hear him. He was apologizing.

"I'm sorry Rox... I am so sorry." His voice wasn't the velvet tone, it wasn't the icy polite tone, it was broken. He was blaming himself for this. He did care. "Don't die... Don't die..." There was a sound mixed with the broken-ness that amazed me. He was crying. Not to be vamprist or anything but I honestly didn't realize they could cry. It became clear then. He stayed calm and cool around her trying to make her last moments happier, he was absolutely falling apart.

It was such a shocking side of him to see. That was his reaction from the start and it just ate away at him with every passing second of her life that ticked away. Let me tell you now... This Damon will soon be more of a character than the other. But in this moment now... he was still the Damon I saw... and I stood watching him as pieces of him fell to the ground in sad mournful chunks.

It was much later when he finally composed himself enough to leave. As I followed him back the morning sun was beginning to peak its head over the trees with a new day in suit. I wasn't sure I could actually handle another day. Another day of the same depressing hopelessness, the only thing even slightly new about it was the numbers left on the clock of her life. Always changing, but never getting any bigger. We figured by Roxanne's state that there was maybe a week. She could barely keep her eyes open and had almost no energy when she woke.

By the end of the week we were all expecting the worst. It was an almost pleasant surprise when she woke on Saturday with as much energy as she had when she was human. Note the almost. It's debatable which would be more preferable. Her dying or what happened. Yes, that day she did in fact wake up as healthy as ever. It wasn't because she had sped through the stage of 'puberty' though. Oh no, that would be nice though wouldn't it?

Naturally, we tested her to make sure she was okay. Just in case something went wrong. Results showed that the opposing bloods no longer fought with each other. Instead they combined, melted together. They created something. In all honesty neither of us became aware that anything was created until it nearly smacked us in the face. Over the following weeks she became emotional. Not depressed exactly… more like bipolar. Her mood was as ever changing as the wind. She began to act more of a child than usual, and out of nowhere she'd have cravings for the most random things.

Yes, yes I realize that the more feminine readers have caught on. But Damon and I, like most men, didn't catch on until something became painfully apparent. At first it was only her more unusual of cravings that made her sick. When things she ate regularly couldn't stay in her stomach for more than a minute we began to worry what might be wrong.

With two people who can hear a mouse trip a mile away it took us only seconds to hear the second heartbeat resonating inside of Roxanne. At first neither of us knew what to say. Only a single word hung in the air, dressed as a question: 'why?' Later, of course another question joined it. Slowly more and more unsolvable mysteries became present. The three that concerned me most, why, how, and of course… Now what?

This I knew well for a fact was new. After all that research before I knew good and well we were on our own. No one knew what the child was, how it came to be (because I promise you, she may have been a demon that could qualify as hell's worst nightmare but she was at least innocent in that sense), or even had the slightest clue about it.

Now, with so much unknown, and the possible dangers behind it, would you think that an abortion would be the right thing? I realize some of you won't budge on your standpoint of this, but please… realize the chances. For the first time Damon and I both agreed on something: the child was a threat. Until we knew more it would only harm her. This was a stupid assumption… We could have known everything in the universe about the child clear to the day that it died and nothing would've changed what happened in the end.

We seemed to think that Roxie would agree with our reasoning. That too much was at stake. We were wrong. Dead wrong. She became angry with us, but before anything could be destroyed she stopped.