AxidentlGoddess, thank you for your review. I can only hope others follow your lead, as I'm feeling rather deflated that this doesn't appear to be garnering much interest...
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Eric's POV
"Holy shit! What have they done to my house?" These are the first words Tyra shouts at the top of her lungs on this, the first time we check how building is progressing three weeks after it began. I kept her away for this long, because I knew there wouldn't be much worth seeing before this time. Also because I knew she might get a little upset at seeing people demolishing the home she worked so hard for.
"Started to make it into our house, is what they've done," I whisper to her, chuckling softly at the look of shock on her face. I knew she'd freak out. She doesn't lose her cool often, but when it's either her car or her home concerned she does seem to mislay her composure.
"It looks so sorry for itself, it really does," she replies a little sadly. I think Tyra is a lot more sentimental than she'd ever let on.
"Eric, Tyra. Nice to see you, and if you want to pop these hats on I'll be happy to take you into the site for a proper look around," Jake Birchlove tells us after approaching. He's decided we're all on first name terms now. A little over friendly for my liking, but I keep quiet about it for my wife's sake. She doesn't like it when I'm uptight about little things, so I honestly try not to be. You're probably wondering why since night is the only time I go out that building is carrying on at our new home. It turns out I didn't need to take up the king on his offer of a vampire building crew. Mr Birchlove here has one of his own so work may continue into the night under floodlights, ensuring our build will be done quickly.
We head through what used to be the front door (which has all been knocked away and will have a big double door replacing it) and into what was the area containing the lounge and the kitchen. The kitchen itself will remain for the most part where it is, but it will be extended out into where the lounge once was in a long L shape, meaning that there will be a wall build right across the path you'd take to get from kitchen to lounge. We then head through into a completely open space, since there is none of the original house left (hence Tyra's initial dismay when we arrived) and view where the new perimeter walls are being built, and then onto the area where a large pit is being dug out for the basement.
Tyra still has no clue at why I want such a large basement. She won't know until it is finished that I'm having a little wine cellar built down there for her. I've already begun shipping in some vintage bottles from Italy and France to fill it. I cannot wait to see her face when I show it to her for the first time. Nothing brings this old vampire more pleasure than to make his new wife happy.
"I must say, you have done a lot more than I first expected you to have gotten done in such a short space of time," I tell Jake, who looks very proud of himself.
"You want a house rebuilding in three months, then that's just what I do. I'm actually hoping to have it done ahead of time, and with all the extra cash you've thrown in my direction to achieve this, it certainly shouldn't be a problem." He replies, before a member of his crew calls him away momentarily. When he comes back he leads us around the rest of the site, and already I can see so much of the blueprinted plans coming to life before my eyes. All the small trees and other naturally growing foliage has of course all been ripped away and the ground levelled, the foundations for the building already down and concrete being poured as we stand and watch. This is the same for the rest of the house, and past this point there isn't anything else to see other than where the new back yard will run.
Tyra's house is strange in the respect of how it's laid out. The front of the house isn't actually where you enter. The front door is at the rear of the property, and there was a small path that lead back to the front of the garden, where the back yard was (are you confused yet?). Of course, Tyra by her own admission is not green fingered at all, so the back (front?) yard just overgrew for the most part. Because of the fact I'm planning to have a hot tub built out there (I very much enjoyed the hot tub sex I had on a nightly basis with Tyra while out in Australia) I want to have more privacy, so a large wall has been constructed around the perimeters, with lots of vines planted to creep over it and hide the bricks and a large armoured steel gate for entrance from the front.
"I know gardening isn't your thing, but I cannot believe you've never made use of all this land you have," I say to Tyra as I turn back to her, watching her scan her eyes into the distance at the large expanse of land with its brand new foundations laid.
"Time and money, the typical excuses are what I gave and still do. Also the fact like you say I was never green fingered on a larger scale than potted plants, so I thought it pretty pointless," she replies.
"Well now money is no object I shall hire a gardener to keep it looking good," I offer, not wanting her to have to lift a finger.
"No that's okay, you're actually building me a nice garden so the least I can do is be compromising and look after it," she replies, taking my hand and kissing my cheek as we walk out of the side of the site and back over to her car.
"No wife of mine will push a lawn mower," I snort, perturbed at the very idea.
"Nor will she be told what she can and can't do. Buy me a nice lawn mower and I'll get it done. I'm not above cutting grass," she tells me as she clicks the doors open with the fob.
"If you insist," I reply, actually rolling my eyes at her.
"You know I'm just as stubborn as you. Cease the eye rolling and give me a kiss, please." Tyra replies. I oblige her before she starts the car and we drive away, back to Fangtasia where we both throw ourselves headlong into our separate working endeavours for the remainder of the evening. I take the club office and she stays downstairs in the apartment. When I head below ground at close to 9pm after two hours of work, I find her not looking as well as she did when I left her.
"Darling I don't mean to sound insensitive, but you look awful," I say to Tyra as she works away, sweeping a loving hand through her hair. It's when my hand touches her forehead that I immediately notice her temperature is up by a good few notches.
"I've been feeling a little under the weather all day, but I'll be okay, I'm fine," she replies, taking my hand and kissing it. Right on cue, she lets go and covers her mouth to cough a very raspy sounding cough.
"You're not alright, you're coming down with something," I observe, resting my hand to her forehead properly. She's burning up.
"I'll be fine, it's just a cold or something," she mutters in reply, turning back to her computer. It turns out that fine is what she isn't after another couple of hours, when she's moved onto vomiting into the toilet with her temperature going through the roof.
"You need to see a doctor. I'm putting my foot down on this, and before you refuse just to let you know this is something I can and will do," I tell her, helping her up. "Be honest with me, have you been feeling ill for longer than you say?" I then ask.
"Seriously, this just came on this morning. I felt overly tired and my throat was all tickly like before you're coming down with a cold. Do you remember that feeling?" she replies.
"Just about, but it's the vomiting too that concerns me. I want to get you to the hospital and get you checked over as soon as I can. People do not just start to violently vomit like that for no good reason," I reply, with Tyra sliding out of my arms suddenly to return to the toilet. After waiting until all of the contents of her stomach have come up, I take her straight down to the hospital to get her checked by a doctor. One diagnosis of the influenza virus and a prescription for various medicines later and we've on our way home. The only stop I make is to take her prescription to the late night pharmacy, and the only stop Tyra makes after that is into bed, or so I think.
"No, no bed yet, Eric. I am perfectly capable of curling up on the couch to relax. When I feel worse I'll go to bed of my own accord." She protests when I steer her in that general direction, moving away on her own path to the lounge area and grabbing her bag en route. From it she retrieves her mp3 player, a book and a bottle of water. I leave her to rest shortly after seeing her take her medicines, and when I return an hour later to check on her I find she's fallen asleep. I lift her up and take her to the bed, removing her clothes after I've laid her down. They're damp with sweat, and she's still running a high temperature. Thankfully what she's been prescribed has brought her temperature down a little bit. At times like this, I wish I had windows. She needs breeze.
Thinking quickly, I put a call through to upstairs and have Mai Ling bring down the small electric fan that's usually on behind the bar in the summer months to keep my human staff cool. There, I now have something else to try and keep her burning temperature down. Logic tells me to do that naturally, but alas I know nothing more about caring for a sick human (well, a human of sorts in Tyra's case). Not in this day and age at least. All that changes after a brief peruse through certain medical help pages on the internet, and I am fully informed. It's just a pity that my patient is very impatient, which is to be expected with Tyra.
"Please Eric, I can work in bed I'll be fine. I can't sleep all the time," she tells me the following evening, after I've removed her from her laptop and bundled her back into bed twice.
"I can make time to do your work for you. You're not the only one in this marriage who is good with math," I remind her, covering her up again. She experiencing the shivers right now and while she feels hot in temperature she assures me she feels like she's freezing.
"But I'm so bored, just lying here feeling awful with nothing to take my mind off it," she protests, now shuddering quite violently.
"Then this is why I have taken the liberty of buying you three new books, and I will bring your television down from the basement if you wish me to. I know you won't get a signal down here, but you can watch some of the many DVD's you have stored here too," I reply in a final manner.
"My mind isn't that easily sated." She protests, looking glum. And on it continues, the impatient patient testing my very own. If I thought Tyra was difficult to take care of, then I haven't seen anything yet...
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Tyra's POV
"Oh damn, why do I ever think playing chess with vampires is going to end successfully for me?" I say when Pam easily check mate's me with a move I just did not see coming.
"Well I'll let you off since you do have a nasty case of the flu right now. Your mind can't be completely on it. Wow, you're hotter than the sun," she replies, reaching out to touch my forehead. I somehow don't think the dead are the best measure for temperature testing, then again I suppose they remember it, what constitutes normal and high where body temperature is concerned.
"Thank you for keeping me entertained for a couple of hours though," I reply, watching her nod at me before moving the chessboard again. It's a huge antique one belonging to Eric, and she set it up on the bed over my legs on a couple of dinner trays I had lying around in my kitchen junk. I have an abundance of items that can fall into the general category of 'stuff' that I must sort through and throw out before it's time to move into our new house. I hope it's going to be less than three months until completion, I really do. Eric's apartment is big, but I have a lot of stuff that's littering it at present.
"Is there anything you want to do or something I can fetch you?" Pam asks after putting the chessboard back in its place over at the other end of the apartment, hovering by the door.
"Could you get me another bottle of water please?" I ask her, picking up my flu medicine and taking my require dose plus one more (I can handle it) since I feel so rotten with the remaining water in my bottle. Pam nods and disappears, returning moments later with four small bottles from the fridge in the bar, taking one and holding it to my head after setting the other three back on the table.
"Ahhhh, bliss," I say, smiling at the sudden cold against my head.
"Until the chills come back and you're bundling yourself up in the comforter again, I remember the flu. It was a pain in the fucking ass." She sympathises, leaving me soon after since I've had a wave of tired hit me. Luckily, two days in and mostly all I've done is sleep. That's just what I do after another few sips of water, and this time taking no short nap, waking again at 6am when I feel Eric's weight dip the mattress behind me, his cool body soothing my temperature.
"How do you feel, did you sleep well? I've checked in on you a few times and you've been sleeping soundly whenever I have," he says when I turn around in his arms, pressing my boiling hot cheeks in turn to his chest.
"I feel like utter shit, I really do. It's been so long since I had the flu that I've forgotten how rotten it is," I say, coughing into my hand a few times, having to sit up to have a good hack in the end, Eric stroking my back as I do.
"I sympathise, even though I've never suffered with this flu thing before. It would have probably killed me as a human if I had been struck down with it," he says, holding his hands to my face after I've finished hacking, cooling me down nicely.
"Well I certainly feel like I'm dying at present, dying of boredom more than anything though. What I'd give to sit at my computer and do a few accounts," I grumble, lying down again and resting my head on Eric's chest.
"But you shan't, and I'll make sure of that. Besides, Cobie and Esmeralda have all of your current work anyway. You have absolutely nothing to do but convalesce until you're well again." He says, making me frown. I then have that frown kissed and am given a 'you won't argue with me' stare. I feel too sick to argue, so just settle down next to him and fall asleep a little after he does. When I wake again at 11am I get myself out of bed and go to take a much needed cold shower, one I swiftly change to hot when I get a case of the shivers. This is so annoying. Changing into a fresh pair of panties and sweats I then put on a clean bra and small vest top so I don't boil to death, heading out of the apartment and upstairs to meet Ginger, since I know she'll have just arrived to do the lengthy stock take before she begins work, and she's brought me some groceries as requested.
"I got you what you asked me for, and I made you this too. You might wanna eat it up here though, hon. It's stinky," the barmaid herself tells me, gesturing to the box of groceries I asked her for and also handing me my change out of the forty dollars I provided her with (and didn't expect to see anything left of, to be honest) and a large thermos flask, which after opening I discover contains soup. "Chicken and garlic, it's my mamma's recipe and I think I did alright following it. I didn't put no sugar in it instead of salt like I did last time!" she then exclaims, while I pour myself a cup and take a careful sip. Wow, that's delicious, and I tell her as much too, watching her smile proudly and look relived she got the recipe right.
Ginger's soup is something that ends up keeping me fortified and having some kind of lining to my stomach over the next two days, as I get so sick I barely leave my bed unless it's to go to the toilet, whether that is for normal ablutions or throwing up purposes, and have a very doting Eric taking excellent care of me too as my flu bout runs into day five. It's on the evening of day six as I try to get comfortable that I can suddenly feel something coming from Eric, something that isn't good in his emotions. He's upstairs in the club at present, so I have absolutely no idea what is bugging him and leading to his mood to turn from happy to extremely pissed off and disbelieving, but I find out soon enough.
He enters the apartment, flinging the door open and tearing a path through over to the bed, and I notice that he isn't alone either. A barely dressed in her halter neck top, skyscraper stripper shoes and tiny white shorts woman with long, curly black hair walks in behind him, a baby in a papoose strapped to her chest. Just before I can wonder any longer over whom our guest is, and why Eric has brought her down here without even giving me chance to dress to greet this guest, I see who she is clearly when she takes off her sunglasses, revealing herself to be a very well disguised Agnes. Before I can ask why she's here with a baby under disguise, the Norwegian queen speaks.
"Tyra, as I explained to Eric I am so sorry to just arrive here unannounced, but for safety this is exactly what I had to do. I haven't been followed, thank the stars, my disguise fooled any prying eyes. I just about got the reason of my visit out to Eric upstairs, but he stopped me from saying anything further until we were present with you, so I shall begin. A week ago we suffered a great tragedy, or rather your own kind did, Tyra. Nina was murdered, and little Milla here snatched. It took five days of extreme effort, but we tracked the child down and my associates delivered her safely into my hands, but with me she just cannot stay. Whoever took her, well they obviously know of Nina's Wolverina status, hence killing her and taking the baby, someone they could control a lot easier than a full grown woman, obviously.
"It couldn't be anything else, and whoever took her knows that Nina was close to me, so they'll know I have Milla. It isn't safe for her to stay in Norway, no matter that I am the eldest vampire on earth, the child will have no normal life as little ones should or no safety until I have managed to find who is behind this. Those who snatched her fled before any of my associates could catch them, but they are still being hunted down. For now though I need you both to do me the biggest favour I'm ever going to ask, and look after this child. She has no one, other than the grandparents who legally signed her over into my care and want what is best for their granddaughter. I of course had to inform them of everything so they understood if Milla was placed with them, they'd meet the same fate as their daughter.
"I say this is a favour, but I'm afraid I cannot give you the choice. My trust is firmly placed with you two, and in the interests of not letting anyone else know of this new wave of Wolverina blood, she has to stay with you, an actual Wolverina and her husband, who as the strongest vampire on these shores will be able to protect her as he does his wife. It's sorted," Agnes explains, while Eric and I exchange thunderous looks with each other before both extending those to Agnes. We are not baby friendly people, and with all this interest in me from Aiko at present, we really do not need another Wolverina to worry about. I'm also sick with the flu, but I don't think any of this is likely to factor into the decision Agnes has already made for us.
"Agnes, you cannot cross an ocean unannounced and then just drop a four week old baby off here with Tyra and I without any kind of warning or preparation! I don't know if you noticed, but neither of us are particularly child friendly either, Tyra is also sick at present, and with the king beginning to snoop around us as you full well know, do you really think this is the best possible plan, for me to have two Wolverina's to fret over the safety of? With all the respect in the world, I do not think you've thought this one through as thoroughly as perhaps you could and usually would have," Eric tells her, voicing all of my worries to Agnes.
"Eric, I've done nothing but think about this, and for the safety of Milla here, this is where she needs to be, and you are the one who needs to look after her. This makes the most sense. You can't even pinpoint exactly if Aiko even knows what Tyra is, and to be truthful if he did, marriage or not, his maker would have landed on these shores by now to take her. You know how San Lu is, he makes and breaks his own rules, bends them to his will, you know he's more cunning than you. I'm sorry but this has to be what happens. I'm afraid all I have in way of baby necessities are what is in the hire car I have out front, I couldn't travel with much since I was travelling alone with her, hence my cheap dockside hooker appearance, I had to look as far from my true self as I could. See, I even have bright blue contact lenses in my eyes, and this nose putty is driving me insane," she says gesturing to what I can make out now is a slightly larger, more hook shaped nose. She certainly took the incognito appearance to the hilt, going as far as to change her eye colour and the shape of her nose.
"I'm still saying no. Find someone else to care for the baby," Eric throws at her coldly, eyeing Milla with distaste.
"You don't have a choice, Eric. Milla stays," Agnes warns him, while I just sit and feel my head beginning to spin, that spinning having nothing to do with my bout of flu, and everything to do with what I'm currently witnessing, as Agnes and Eric begin to argue. I haven't even put my thoughts across yet, but I'm siding with my husband.
"Agnes, this idea, well its fucking ridiculous! I can't be responsible for a baby, you know my feelings on this perfectly well, you damn well know if there was even a hint of a chance of becoming pregnant I'd be sterilised, so how the hell can your justify doing this to me, to him too, especially after what else Eric has reminded you of, the Aiko problem at present," I say, getting up out of bed and walking over to them. I wave my hands at Eric immediately when he tries to fuss and send me back to bed, actually slapping his arm and giving him a sharp look. I need to be on my feet right now.
"I understand you're having a strong reaction to this," Agnes begins in a careful tone.
"A strong reaction is the very mildest way to put it. Essentially what you've done is hand me my worst fucking nightmare on a damn plate, Agnes!" I fume, my temper rising dramatically as I cut her up.
"Watch your tone with me, Tyra," she warns me sternly.
"Why the hell should I? You're my friend, not my ruler, not my monarch but my friend. When I'm furious with my friends I tell them as much, and right now I'm furious! Eric is right; putting the only two Wolverina left in the world together in such close proximity to danger is stupid. It's asking for trouble," I reply strongly, not at all willing to budge and inch on this.
"Then if we're friends, you need to see this from my point of view, and understand that Milla will be safest in a location I haven't been followed to. I just spent the last four days travelling with her to ensure I wasn't followed out there, I'm not taking her back to the country she's a wanted baby in," she replies in counter argument, before Eric jumps in all over again and they both start verbally going at it, their tones escalating until they're at full shout and I'm holding my head in my hands. Their noise is soon added to by that of Milla waking up and beginning to cry.
"Well fucking done, Northman! It took me forty five minutes to settle her before, and now you and your shouting have woken her! Here, I'll go and fetch her belongings." Agnes fumes while unclipping Milla from the papoose and handing her to Eric before she leaves the apartment. Eric and I can't even speak, we're too shocked at what has just been landed on us, but in the end Eric holds Milla to his chest and begins to gently bounce her. The look on his face as he tries to pacify her cries though, well it matches my mood, let's put it that way. Before we know it, Agnes arrives back with Milla's things, of which include a travel crib, which is reassuring as I was beginning to wonder where Milla would sleep, and then departs again, saying she needs to leave the area and the country quickly, should she be recognised at all.
"I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you both for doing this. You are forever in my debt. These Wolverina's, we need to keep them alive. If only I could have done the same for her poor mother." Agnes says with an air of finality. Indeed, I am barely even over the shock at being told Nina has been murdered, let alone even beginning to contemplate that her new child is now the responsibility of me and Eric. Just when I thought life was beginning to quieten down again as well.