A/N: Hello readers! I know I don't usually update on a Tuesday, but I was supposed to publish this chapter yesterday, but the edit took longer than I was expecting. This is the penultimate chapter, one more to go after this. Special thanks to wolverinacullen for, inadvertently, giving me the idea to title this chapter. Hopefully you all understand the title and, sit back and, as always, no reviews=no chapters until I get some, so review!

Chapter Seven: The Ace

~ He'd never tell you

But he can play guitar

I think he can see through everything but my heart

First thought when I wake up is

My God he's beautiful

So I put on my make up

And pray for a miracle ~

I'd Lie by Taylor Swift

Laurent POV

I had never been to a hospital before.

There were two reasons for that: the first being that I couldn't afford it, and the second being that I had never hurt myself seriously enough to be admitted into hospital. Or, no, that wasn't exactly true. The real reason I had never been to a hospital, since I'd let home, at least, was because I was afraid that they might do some kind of blood test and find weed in my system. I didn't know if the doctors had a legal obligation to notify the cops or not and I'd rather stay in the dark about that one and never find out.

But that, I knew, was a time bomb.

Despite what a lot of people thought of me, I wasn't stupid. I knew what the pot was doing to my head, heart and lungs, but the high... well, that made it all worthwhile.

The thing about drugs, and any addict will tell you this, is that giving them up means giving up all the good stuff too; it also meant unpleasant withdrawal symptoms and cravings that are hard to deal with. So, on the balance of positives vs. negatives, I would take the positives of the high and forget about the negatives to my health.

Forget about the negatives, who was I kidding? Twice this year I'd had very nasty chest pains (and told myself that I was fine and that the pain was not a warning sign of a heart attack or a stroke), I hadn't had a good night's sleep since before I started smoking (stress, I always told myself, and the inevitable product of having to sleep rough at least twice a week), two weeks ago, I vowed and declared that I'd heard my grandfather talking to me while I scoured around for something I could use as a blanket (I'd been, tired, that was all. I was NOT hallucinating!) and not to mention the breathing difficulties (I had no excuse for those, they could only be caused by my smoking).

I was killing myself slowly and I knew it, it was just a matter of what came first: heart failure, mental breakdown or lung cancer. But I wouldn't stop, marijuana was my net, my safety, it had been the only stable thing in my life since my parents had gone back to France when my grandfather got sick. Of course, they hadn't just up and left me, I'd known they were going and I was staying with an elderly friend of my mother's. My parents enjoyed being back in France a little too much and they'd called and asked me if I wanted to come back to France, I'd said I didn't so arrangements were made for me to stay with my mother's friend until I finished school. That was the year I was first introduced to marijuana.

I smoked it casually for a while, without telling anybody, and then I got into it more heavily when my mother's friend died. Funnily enough, while there was the funeral and all sorts, I never actually told my parents. If they wanted to stay in bloody France then they could! I didn't care!

Funnily enough, even though my life went downhill from there, I never once regretted anything and, if I could go back in time, I wouldn't change a thing! I hadn't spoken to my parents in years and I liked it like that.

But I wasn't here to muse about my addiction or my almost non-existent family situation, I was here to straighten out dimwit of the century James Swan and then bang his and Victoria's heads together a few times. God knew they needed it!

I asked politely at the front desk where James Swan was and I was directed up to ward five, which was a regular wing of the hospital. Victoria had told me that he'd been moved from ICU yesterday and was going to be kept in a regular wing of a hospital for tonight for observation before going home tomorrow.

I walked along until I got to ward five and entered. The ward was basically a long corridor with beds on either side of it. Most of them were empty - the people of Forks, Washington seemed to be immune to all forks of sickness - but there were a few people in the ward. I was looking for James, but he saw me first.

"Oh god!" I heard his familiar voice and I looked towards the back of the ward where I saw him. He didn't look happy to see me.

"No," I said, strolling down the ward towards his bed. "Not God, just me."

He glared at me and I smiled politely at him.

"What do you want?" he asked rudely and I sighed, I'd hoped he might have the good grace to be civil.

"I have a question to ask you." I said and he raised an eyebrow, "Well then, ask. Then get out, you stink like pot! The nurses will be in here in a moment asking if I've been smoking the damn stuff!"

"Are you stupid?" I queried and I had the satisfaction of watching his jaw drop.

"Excuse me?"

"Are you stupid?" I repeated and he goggled at me for a moment before saying, his expression turning very hostile, "No. No I am not stupid!"

"Oh," I said, acting surprised, "it's just that you tend to act that way. Epically when it comes to Victoria"

"You know nothing about me and Victoria," he said scathingly and I rolled my eyes.

"I know an awful lot about you and Victoria. A lot of it I don't want to know, but I know it. Unfortunately, once you know something, you cannot un-know it and..."

"Is this going anywhere?" James interrupted in a voice that was half bored, half angry and I sighed again, he was acting like a bratty, spoiled child and I knew he was everything but!

"You play guitar," I told him and I think he nearly had a heart attack on the spot!

"How do you know that?" he demanded, once he had sufficiently recovered from his almost heart attack.

"Victoria told me," I said and James looked ready to have another heart attack.

"How does she know that?"

"She," I chastised him, "is the cat's mother. Victoria knows that because she knows everything about you, James Henry Swan. That's what I was alluding to previously, once you know something you cannot un-know it, meaning that Victoria is stuck mooning over all the silly little things she knows about you and you are too dim to even see it!"

I didn't mean to snap or sound harsh, but I felt protective of Victoria, she was the little sister I never got to have an this, this dimwit sitting here in this hospital bed had no idea how much she loved him!

James sat frozen for a moment before spluttering "Victoria, Victoria knows things, about, about me?"

"Victoria knows everything about you! Everything! She probably knows you better than you know yourself!"

"How?"

"Because she's in love with you, you idiot! She's been in love with you for years! You're just too wrapped up in your own tragic life to care!"

He looked flabbergasted.

"Victoria, is in love with, me?" he squeaked and I nodded once and then he started laughing. "No," he said. "No, she's not. She can't be, I would have noticed, I mean..."

James hesitated and I sighed. Where was Victoria when I needed her? Of course, the only reason I needed her here now was so I could bang her's and James' heads together ea few times, but still...

"Look, I really need a smoke," I told him and the slightly hostile look returned. "So, I'm leaving, and you can deny it all you want, but she loves you. She thinks about you 24/7/365 and you should have seen her when you were missing."

James blanched and I gave him a brief nod and walked towards the end of the ward.

"Laurent! Hey, Laurent, wait! Wait!"

I turned back and raised an eyebrow at him. He was looking at me with a desperate, pleading expression.

"I need a smoke," I told him and went to continue walking but he stopped me in my tracks when he said, "But I love her too! I always have! So, so I would have known if she loved me!"

I took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. Jesus Christ, I needed a smoke! And I needed to kill someone too, preferably the two idiots who had spent their lives thinking the other didn't love them when, in fact, they were head over heels for each other! I took another deep breath.

"I'm going to kill you," I said, thinking about my smoke as I said it. "Both of you, and you deserve it to!"

"What?" James sounded rather confused and I turned to face him.

"Call Victoria and ask her if she's in love with you, idiot," I half snapped. "If she says no, she's a liar."

I strolled out of the ward and heard James dialling Victoria's number.

Outside the hospital I leaned against the building and fished one of my marijuana cigarettes from my coat pocket and lit up. I had just inhaled the sweet, pungent scent of my drug when I heard my message alert go off. I held the cigarette in-between my teeth and fished through my pocket for my phone, pulling it out and unlocking it I saw I had one new text message. I opened it and saw that it was from a number I was unfamiliar with, but I realized who it was when I read the message: I am such a fucking idiot!

I laughed, put my phone away and took another long pull on my smoke.

A/N: This was actually my favourite chapter to write, creating Laurent's character was fun and giving a major role to a marijuana addict was a very different writing experience for me. As always, review and, also, the poll on my profile is important if you guys ever want to read chapter eight. I don't like how it is at the moment and I want your help to finish off the story. I'll be looking at the votes on Friday AEST to see what you all think, if I get the votes the next chapter will be up, as usual, on Monday.