Disclaimer: Hey everyone; I do not and (unfortunately) will never own the American Dragon Jake Long television series or story line.
Note From the Writer: Hi everybody! Thanks all soooo much for the reviews that I have been receiving. Things may be confusing now, but it will all come together, I promise! So without further ado I present to you the fourth chapter :D
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Jake was silent for a couple seconds as he put all of his thoughts together. Finally, he blinked a couple of times, looked at the surroundings around him and stated, "the Dark Dragon is coming back...he told me so himself."
"Whoa!" said Spud as he lost his balance from leaning against the wall and toppled to the floor, making a loud thud and making Trixie and Rose jump. He shook his head quickly and without wasting a moment said, "what? Jake, that's like, impossible! You just like locked him up for the next, like, thousand years! There's no way out of that portal, its old magic dude!"
"Mmmm-hmmm, you know that that's right!" said Trixie. "Jakie, I think you hit your head to hard when you were havin' your little floppin' fit on the ground. There is no way that the Dark Drag is ever comin' back within the next 1,000 years...right?"
"Jake, look at me," said Rose softly as she stared caringly at Jake's face. Jake opened his dark brown eyes and peered into Rose's startling blue ones. "Now tell me Jake, looking straight at me is the Dark Dragon coming back?"
"Yes Rose," said Jake seriously, "the Dark Dragon is coming back, and he said that he won't rest until every dragon and magical creature that refuses to follow him is dead." Hatred glared in his eyes. "I must speak to the Dragon Council immediately!"
"But Jake!" objected Rose, "your still not well yet! What if you exhausts yourself and you get even sicker! You've been unconscious for days!"
"What? What do you mean that I've been unconscious for days? How long have I been out?" Jake questioned, troubled." When nobody answered him he asked again, "How long have I been out?"
"About four days man," said Spud uneasily, as if unsure as to how Jake would react.
" Four days?" exclaimed Jake. "How is that possible?"
"We don't know Jake," said Rose sadly. "We don't even know the full story of what happened to you...what did happen to you?"
"You all are about to find out," stated Jake as he pushed himself up, and began to crawl out of bed. "We are all going to go see the Dragon Council!"
"At least let me help you out of bed," said Rose as she grabbed his right arm to help steady him. At first Jake wobbled a bit, as if remembering how to keep his balance, but was steadied by Rose's gentle firm grip on his arm before he took his first steps and regained his full balance.
"All right Jakie!" cheered Trixie. "Now before you go an see any Dragon Council, I suggest that you go and drag your butt over to your family's room where they have been going nuts with reading books trying to figure out what's wrong with you.
"But what about the Dark Dragon?" demanded Jake. "He's not going to wait for me to go visit with my family before he decides to return!"
"Jake, I'm am pretty sure that the Dark Dragon isn't going to pop into this room any time really, really soon," reasoned Rose. "It can't hurt to go see your family and let them know that you are reasonably okay before you go running off to see the Dragon Council. We get that whatever you have to tell them is extremely important, but you are just as important if not more so to us and your family!"
"Come on man, just for a few minutes," said Spud coaxingly. "Anyhow, I think that they just ordered lunch!"
At the mention of lunch, Jake's stomach growled loudly causing Rose to giggle. "Well I guess it can't hurt to stop in for a few minutes then," Jake relented as he started towards the door, steadied by Rose's hand.
As they walked out of the large hotel room, which had adopted the look of a messy apartment, Jake asked, "So what have you all been up to for the past few days?"
"Well, Spud has been meditating by your bedside to try to connect with your aura," said Trixie, rolling her eyes as if that were the stupidest thing that she ever heard of, "while I have been charting your temperature and various other things to try to figure out what was wrong with you. Then, little miss Rose here has been sitting by your bedside non-stop watching you and reading an insane number of books." Jake smirked. It was just like Rose to always have her nose in a book. A sharp pang hit his heart as he remembered how much he had missed that.
"Here we are," stated Trixie as they arrived at a red door that stated that this was room 5062. Rose softly nocked on the door and smiled softly as Jake glanced over at her. She had large bags under her eyes and her hair looked like it had been thrown into a loose ponytail days ago since little pieces of hair had slipped out of it and now gently shaped themselves around her face. "When was the last time you slept?" he whispered softly to her. She let loose a small yawn, replaced the soft smile on her face, then whispered back, "about two days ago." "Aww, Rose, you shouldn't have stayed up that long! You look exhausted!" he whispered, shocked that she would do that for him. Rose just shrugged. "You would have done the same thing for me if it were reversed," she whispered simply. By the expression on Jake's face, she knew that she was right.
Just then the door came flying open as Hailey ran out and threw her arms around her brother, causing him to stumble backwards into the hallway wall. "Jake!" shouted Hailey as she hugged him tightly, making it hard for him to catch his breath. "Your okay! We were so worried about you," said Hailey, tears forming in her eyes. "Nobody knew what was wrong with you and they were throwing out tons of horrible magical diseases that you might have had! What happened?"
"I don't know what exactly happened Hailey, but I'm not okay," said Jake seriously. "All I know is that I need to speak with the Dragon Council immediately!" Hailey got a terrified look in her eyes.
"Opps,"thought Jake. "Maybe I should be a little bit more guarded with what I say to Hailey...Hmmm, how do I fix this?"
"What I mean to say Hailey," said Jake gently, leaning down to look her in the eyes, "is that, while I am okay physically right now, I am not completely okay. Something very, very serious has happened and I need to inform the Dragon Council about it as soon as possible."
"Is it about the Dark Dragon?" Hailey questioned, a scared look settling on her face.
"Yes Hailey, it mainly involves the Dark Dragon. For now though, how about you and Rose take me to go see Mom, Fu, Gramps, and...Dad. How is Dad taking the family secret anyhow? I am sure that he was not amused to find out that his kids are fire-breathing reptiles," Jake chuckled.
Hailey led them all through the door, telling Jake, "Dad is completely cool with the fact that we're dragons. If fact, he thinks its kind of cool! He has made me 'dragon up' for him at least 20 times. I can't blame him though. He is still completely fascinated by the world of magic."
They reached the living room in an unorganized bunch, Hailey and Rose both clinging onto a side of Jake to make sure that he kept his balance, which Trixie and Spud followed closely behind. "Hey everybody!" Hailey squealed loudly with a huge grin on her face while she bounced up and down. "Jake's awake!" Mom looked up from a book that she was reading, sprawled out on the couch as Gramps and Dad stuck their head out a bedroom door, books in hand, and Fu ran in from another room, carrying a laptop in his mouth.
"Jake!" Mrs. Long and Mr. Long shouted, both jumping up and running to give their son a hug. "Are you okay son?" Mr. Long questioned as Mrs. Long looked over her son, as if inspecting him to make sure that he was all there and wasn't hurt in any way.
"Kid, your alive!" shouted Fu, dropping the laptop and coming to join the hugging huddle, wiping tears from his eyes.
"Jake," said Gramps happily, quickly striding over to Jake. "Gramps!" said Jake happily, leaning down and hugging his grandfather and dragon master tightly. "I am so glad that you are okay," said Gramps happily, letting tears flow freely down his face. "We were all sure that we had lost you at first. Then we couldn't figure out what was wrong with you at all. Your symptoms were like none ever recorded for any magical sickness or disease ever recorded; you must tell me. What happened my young dragon?"
" I do not know fully what happened Gramps," said Jake seriously and loud enough so that everybody could hear. "All I can tell you now is that we are all still in danger and we need to speak to the Dragon Council immediately," he said as his stomach began to grumble. "Or at least, right after we have all had lunch," he smiled. Everybody laughed.
They all looked at the hotel menu and, after a couple of minutes, decided on ordering large deli sandwiches and several four-cheese pizzas. As they waited for the food to arrive, Rose and Hailey helped escort Jake back to his hotel room so that they could all clean up and change their clothes, since they all looked a little rough from being worn for so long. Jake changed into another pair of cargo pant jeans with a white shirt and his classic red jacket and sat on the couch while he waited for everyone else to finish getting dressed. A few minutes later, Rose emerged from Trixie's room, wearing a simple pair of full-length dark indigo flare jeans with a pretty white, embroidered shirt with a small pink rose stitched into the right hand corner. Her slightly curly, golden hair was thrown up into a high ponytail with her bangs left down, framing her face.
"You look pretty," said Jake admiringly, sitting on the couch, as Rose came out of her room. He blushed suddenly realizing what he had said.
"Oh, thank you," she said as a soft pink blush flushed over her cheeks as well as she took a seat on the couch besides him.
There was a small gap of awkward silence as both of them tried to figure out how what to say. It was the first time that they had been alone together in a long time. Finally Jake broke the silence and asked, "so how have you been Rose?"
"I've been fine...I guess," Rose said rather plainly. "Things here in Hong Kong have been fairly simple, and actually slightly boring," she said with a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "Well, they were until you showed up," she said, grinning.
"Well I'm glad that you have been having a good life here then," Jake said kindly. "From what I saw earlier after you left school you have made a couple friends too."
"Yes, but none as good as I remember having in my original past back in New York City," said Rose sadly. "Ughhh," she groaned. "You don't know how weird it is to have the memories of two entirely different lives stuck in one memory. I get more and more confused every day with trying to remember which is the real one and which one is more of the fantasy version."
"Their both real Rose," said Jake gently as he softly stroked the side of Rose's face. "They both make you who you are. While I would love to tell you that only your newly acquired memories are the real ones, I can't. Both of these lives and realities happened to you because you chose to save the lives of every magical creature on earth...including me. I can never thank you enough for doing that Rose, never."
Jake's eyes burned with pure sincerity as he looked at Rose's beautiful face which was cupped in his hand. "If only she knew how much I still loved her," Jake thought as he continued to stare at her.
"Jake," said Rose softly as she stared into Jake's gorgeous, bright, sincere eyes, "I want you to know that I still love you. Even though we have never meet in this version of my life, my real, original version of my life remembers us exactly how we were before I disappeared. I don't know if you still feel the same way about me, but I just thought that you should know how much I love you and that, now that I know about my old life, that I could go a day without seeing you!"
"Can you believe that despite everything that has happened since you have left, that I still love you too?" Jake whispered to Rose softly. "I tried to do everything to forget you once you left, sure that I would never see you again. I dated other girls, took up random art classes, and worked harder at my job than ever as the American Dragon just so when I would go to sleep at night I wouldn't have to dream about everything we did together and what you did to save us all. It never worked. Rose, I just wanted to let you know that I love you too and that I hope that I never have to go another day in my life without seeing you again!"
And with that Jake gently pulled Rose's face towards his and they began to kiss like they never had before. Before Rose had switched her reality of life, they had shared small kisses and pecks on the lips, but never anything like this. This, Jake knew, was the real deal, true loves first kiss. Rose was kissing Jake while sitting in his lap, her arms wrapped around his neck while Jake kissed her back, holding her waist and pulling her closer to him, both thinking of nothing other than how much they loved each other when suddenly Hailey emerged from her room white pair of capri jeans with a purple I 3 Unicorns t-shirt on. Both Jake and Rose stopped kissing at once and jumped apart, cheeks flaming with embarrassment at being caught, but smiling merrily. Hailey just stood in her bedroom's door frame staring at them with her mouth hanging wide open and blinking in shock.
Finally, she shook her head quickly as though to clear her thoughts, and smiled at the both of them. "Jake, your smiling again!" Hailey exclaimed happily. "That must mean that your his girlfriend again, right Rose?" Hailey screeched happily. Rose just nodded, smiling in Jake's direction. "Yah!" shouted Hailey as she skipped quickly out of the room and towards the door.
"You know that she is probably going to go and tell everybody, don't you?" said Rose with a large grin on her face.
"You don't mind, do you?" Jake joked lightly with her as he began to laugh.
"Not at all!" exclaimed Rose happily as she jumped up from the couch. "Now, lets get this dragon something to eat!"
"Sounds good to me," Jake said as he took Rose's hand and they walked out the door towards his parents room, hand in hand.
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I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! I promise that I will post another one or two tomorrow! :D
