Chapter Seventeen:

Three days had passed since Mackenzie had left the hospital, since Godric had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. To her relief, Godric hadn't made another attempt to talk to her, though she had a feeling this wouldn't the last she heard from him. Unfortunately, in those three days, her body had betrayed her. She could barely stomach anything Eric tried to get her to eat, throwing up anything that even made it to her stomach. She had slept more on the tiled bathroom floor than she did in her own bed. That is, until Eric discovered her there each and every time and carried her back to her bed. That, of course, only ended up with the carpet getting destroyed when she hadn't been able to get to the bathroom quick enough.

Eric had stayed awake and by her side during the hours he should have been resting. He barely got a few hours of sleep each day, choosing to instead be there in case she needed him. She never did of course, and usually was sleep or wasn't even aware half of the time when she was conscious and not throwing up. Pam tried to stay up with her one day, but Eric had refused. She was his responsibility; she was his daughter. He didn't care about the bleeds; he would drink more the nights before if he had to. All that mattered was being there for her.

Something he had failed horribly at in the past.

It was the fourth evening when the fever she had been harboring for the past few days broke and she was able to sit up without the entire world spinning around her. She gazed to the left, expecting to find Eric still at her side. She wasn't disappointed, the vampire still lounging in that same plush chair at the side of her bed. His head was bowed, and for a moment she thought he was sleeping. But the second she made even the smallest noise, his head snapped up, his orbs raking across her body as if searching for what was wrong. When she offered him a small smile, he was able to relax, only to groan when his back cracked painfully.

"You don't have to sit with me all the time." She eyed the vampire, frowning at the blood that had dried just beneath his ears. "You were bleeding."

"The bleeds." He explained, grabbing a cloth he had set on the nightstand and rubbed his skin raw until the blood was gone.

"It's what happens when you don't rest, right?"

He nodded, leaning forward as he raised a hand and gently felt her forehead for a fever. He was relieved to find there was none. "Your fever is gone. How are you feeling?"

"Okay." She shrugged. "Better I guess. I think I'm actually hungry."

"That's good." Eric tried to smile, but it was forced.

"You need to sleep, Eric." Mackenzie sighed. "You shouldn't have stayed up all day with me the last few days."

"I'm fine." He insisted before standing, gritting his teeth to keep but grunting out in pain. "I'll make you something to eat."

"You really don't have to. I know vampires don't like the smell of human food." Mackenzie shook her head, pushing back the bed sheets and throwing her legs over the side of the bed. She still felt weak, the room still tilting to one side, but she needed to get out of this bed, and out of this room. Or else she was going to go crazy. "I can make myself something."

"No." Eric shook his head with a frown. He laid his hand on her shoulder, nudging her slightly to lie back down. "Just rest. I've survived the past fourteen years around human food; I'll be fine."

"But…"

"Mackenzie." He looked her dead in the eye, cupping her cheek. "Stop worrying about everyone else and just rest. Please."

"But you're bleeding, Eric. You're tired; you haven't rested in days. Have you even fed?"

"You're sick and yet you're worrying about me." Eric snickered. "I'm fine, Mackenzie. Just rest."

She wanted to argue back, but knew she would never win. Instead, she just sighed and nodded, laying back against the mounds of pillows and watched as Eric slipped out of the room. She looked at the time and found that the sun had only just set. She didn't have clue as to what day it was. All she knew was that she had been in this room for too long, though she barely even remembered much of the last few days. She tried to do as Eric asked, to sit there and rest, but after ten minutes, she started to become restless.

"Oh forget this." She shook her head, muttering to herself. She threw her legs back over the side of the bed and slowly rose. She had to grasp onto her nightstand to steady herself, but she was pleased with herself when she was able to move towards the door without too much trouble.

Mackenzie knew Eric would flip if he knew what she was doing, but she decided to risk it. Even if she just walked down the hallway and back, she would be happy. She just needed to see something other than these four walls and that bathroom floor.

Bracing herself, she stepped out of the room, gazing down the hallway as if expecting Eric to come charging at her. When nothing happened, she smiled to herself and slowly began towards the stairs. She could vaguely hear Eric in the kitchen and her smile widened. While Karen had usually always prepared her meals, Eric had indeed been around human food for years. It was just still a surprise to see the lengths he was going to for her. She hadn't brought up what Pam told her about New York to him, and while she knew she needed to talk to him about it, she just didn't want to ruin this. They were finally acting like a family; she didn't want that to go away.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Mackenzie froze at the top of the stairs, Eric suddenly appearing at the bottom with a frown plastered across his face. His arms were crossed over his dark grey t-shirt as he stared up at her with a pointed look.

"You're supposed to be in bed." He made to walk up the stairs.

"Being in there is driving me insane." Her nose scrunched up. "I needed to move around."

"But you're still weak. You need to rest." He insisted. "The doctor…"

"The Doctor said I could go back to my everyday routine as long as I didn't push myself too far. I'm just walking." She pouted down at him. "Pretty please? I swear I will literally go crazy if I have to say in that room for one more minute."

His eyes narrowed and for a moment, Mackenzie thought he was going to force her back to her room. He surprised her, however, when he sighed and nodded.

"Do you…"

"I'm okay." She grasped onto the railing and took a cautious step down the first step. "I think."

He watched her closely until the beeping of the microwave pulled his attention towards the kitchen.

"I'll be fine." She assured him. "Go before my food gets cold."

He rolled his eyes but he still didn't look certain. "Call if you need help. I mean it, Mackenzie. You get your stubbornness from me."

"I'm not technically related to you." She pointed out.

"You've been around me for too long." He winked, that smirk of his threatening to spread across his lips. "Take it easy."

"I will. Now go." She shooed him away.

Eric shook his head but took his leave as he slipped back into the kitchen and left Mackenzie to trek down the stairs alone. Her eyebrows knitted in concentration as she stared at each step like it had personally insulted her. She was determined to do this. She was even weaker than she had been days ago when she had first gotten home from the hospital. The fever had wiped her out completely. But she still refused to let anyone help her up and down these damn stairs.

She was halfway down the stairs when her right leg started shaking. She stopped for a moment, hoping it would steady itself. But It didn't, giving out on her completely. She let out a soft yelp as she found herself falling forward. She tried to grip onto the railing, but her hands betrayed her. She expected the worse, bracing herself for the pain. She was surprised, however, when a pair of arms suddenly caught her. Her eyes had squeezed shut during the fall and only opened again when she felt herself being set on her own two feet at the bottom of the stairs. She wanted to complain to Eric for helping her, but couldn't, knowing that he just saved her life.

"I'm fine, Eric, really…" she gazed up, her cheeks flushing pink in embarrassment. She was caught off guard though, to find that it wasn't the tall Viking that had caught her. "Godric?"

"Are you alright?" Godric's orbs were filled with concern as he put her at arms length, ensuring she wasn't hurt at all. The tips of his fingers light were along her arm, inspecting the fading bruises, when she flinched away from him.

"Don't touch me." She snapped, her eyes narrowing. She took a quick step back, putting as much distance between them as she possibly could. She even took a step up the bottom stair.

Godric sighed at her reaction, but before he could utter another word, Eric was in the front hallway in a flash.

"What happened?" he flashed between the two, cupping Mackenzie's cheek as if she were a cracked piece of china. "Are you okay? Are you hurt? You should have just stayed in your room."

"I'm fine." She insisted, pushing away his hands and glaring at Godric around Eric. "Why is he here?"

Eric sighed as he glanced over his shoulder to where his guilty maker stood. "I wasn't expecting you."

"Pamela informed me Mackenzie had been sick the last few days and her fever finally broke." Godric explained. "I thought perhaps it would be a good time to…talk."

"I don't want to talk to you." She crossed her arms over her chest, turning her focus back onto Eric. "I don't want to talk to him."

Eric gazed between the two of them, unsure of what to do. He wanted to side with Mackenzie, not wanting to upset her. She had a right to be furious, after all. She had a right to hate Godric, to never want to speak to him again. But he knew deep down, Mackenzie didn't hate him. He wasn't sure she ever could. She was only upset because she had loved him so much that it had destroyed her when Godric had left. She had loved him so unconditionally that Godric's abandonment had devastated her. And instead of acknowledging that pain, she instead focused on that anger. He knew that trick a little too well.

Anger was a far easier emotion.

It was facing everything else that was the difficult part.

"You should go." Mackenzie shot at Godric, her hard expression not wavering.

"The two of you should talk." Eric braced himself for the consequences of suggesting such.

"What!" her mouth fell open in shock. What the hell was he doing, being on Godric's side? He was supposed to back her up! He knew how hurt she had been when he had left. He said that he understood. "No! I don't want to talk to him. Not now, not ever!"

"I know you're angry with him and upset, but…"

"You know nothing!" she took another step up the stairs. "I don't have anything to say to him.

"But he has something to say to you."

"I don't give a fuck!"

Eric sent her a warning growl. "Language."

"Oh I don't give a fuck." She snapped back.

"Mackenzie…"

"You can't force me to talk to him."

"Actually I can." He caught her chin with a firm grip. "Mackenzie I know that you're upset, but he came all this way to make amends. Give him a chance."

"I can't believe you're on his side." She tried to pull away but his grip only tightened. "I'm never going to forgive him. I hate him."

"You and I both know that's not true. You could never hate him."

"It's funny that you think you're an expert on my feelings." She snorted. "You don't act like you care for years and now all of a sudden you know what's best for me?"

"Not this again, Mackenzie." He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his free hand. "How many times do we need to go through this? I sent you to New York for your own safety."

"Bullshit!"

"I'm really not in the mood for your attitude tonight." He hissed, his eyes narrowing as his frustration began to build. "I'm tired, angry, and one step away from locking you up in your room for the next year."

"Well I guess it's a good think I'll likely die before then."

He was taken back by how casually she just threw out her fate, like it was no big deal.

"I'm not talking to him." Mackenzie stood her ground, refusing to waver. "I don't want to hear anything he has to say. He abandoned me, not the other way around."

"And I want to apologize…" Godric attempted.

"Well I don't want you to. Because it's not going to change a damn thing." She sent him a fierce glare. "You left me Godric, and I will never forgive you for that."

His shoulders slumped, his expression falling as he looked away.

"Mackenzie, you're more reasonable than this." Eric shook his head. He understood she was angry, and she more than deserved that right, but Godric was at least trying. She may never forgive him, and she may claim to hate him, but she needed to at least know the truth, to know the guilt his maker felt. It nothing else, she would pass on knowing she was loved, though Eric didn't want to think that way.

"Oh stop trying to act like my father." She snapped at him. "Because you're not, you know."

He was taken back by her statement. His hand dropped from her chin and he took a step back. He knew she was just angry and was taking it out on him, but that didn't mean her words didn't hurt. Fourteen years ago he would have laughed in his own face at the prospect of being hurt by a silly human's hurtful comments. But so much had changed since the moment Mackenzie became a part of their lives.

"I'm just trying to help. I know you. I know you'll regret this one day." His voice softened.

"You really need to stop acting like you care. You can't just pretend that you care about me after practically neglecting me the last fourteen years. You're not my father and you never have been." She didn't know what she was saying. She was just so angry that she didn't care what was coming out of her mouth.

And he knew that, but that didn't change the knife that felt like was protruding right through his chest. He frowned as he took another step back, his expression turning blank.

"I'm trying, Mackenzie. I've been trying." He muttered.

She just stood there, her arms crossed, her anger still boiling inside of her.

"I think I'll go make sure Pam hasn't completely destroyed Fangtasia" Eric turned away, not even sending her a second glance. He needed out of that house before he did or said something he would likely regret. He had been trying so hard to fix things, to make things right. She might not have meant the things she said, but he knew she believed it at one point. And it killed him in a way he never thought it could.

Mackenzie's eyebrows furrowed as she watched her guardian walk away. Realization dawned on her and her eyes grew wide. She was an idiot, a completely and utter idiot. Had she really just said that? Eric may not have been the greatest guardian or father in the world, but he had tried. She couldn't deny that. Maybe she didn't understand why he had sent her away for the last three and a half years, but that didn't mean he didn't care. Hell, he had just stayed up with her for the past three days to make sure she didn't need anything, to make sure he was there if anything went wrong. He had done so much more than just try.

He was being a father.

"Eric…"

Eric ignored her however, grabbing his leather jacket from the coat rack beside the door and slammed the door in his wake as he slipped out of the house. Her entire stature changed at the sound of the door slamming, her shoulders falling, her head bowing in guilt. It was the guilt that distracted her from remembering that she wasn't entirely alone.

"Eric will be fine." Godric offered softly, watching as the stages of guilt crossed her expression.

Her head snapped up at the sound of her voice, having completely forgot he was even there. He expression hardened again as she glared at him.

"Go away."

"Mackenzie…"

"Go. Away."

He didn't know what to say, what to do to make her believe him, to make her see that he was sorry. He knew it wasn't enough. It never would be. He had hurt her too deeply for a simple 'I'm sorry' to be enough for her. But he was willing to try. He needed to.

"I know you don't want to hear it, but I am sorry." He took a step forward.

She took another step up the stairs. "And I really don't give a fuck."

It was a struggle to hear such language from her. The last time they had been together, she had only been a little girl. But now she had grown up, and into a beautiful young woman.

"I'm not going to forgive you. I'm not going to just magically be okay with the fact that you abandoned me. So you might as well just go back to Dallas or wherever you've been for the past six years because I really don't want to hear your bullshit."

She tried to turn away, to hurry back up the stairs and to the safety of her room, but Godric knew if he just let her walk away that he would never be able to fix things. He flashed before her on the stairs, startling her. He grasped onto her arm, steadying her but refusing to let go afterwards.

"You're hurt, and you have every right to be. I'm sorry. I know that might change the past six years, but it's a start, Mackenzie. I need you to know how truly sorry I am. I was a coward by leaving. I didn't want to risk you rejecting me for the monster that I am so I left before you could. It was cowardly and selfish, and I'm sorry."

She tried to tug her arm away, but he held onto her as tightly as he could without causing another bruise to form. He raised his free hand to gently brush a stray strand of hair behind her ear and she flinched.

"I shouldn't have left, but even so, I should have called. I should have come back. And I'm sorry. I was afraid you hated me. I was afraid you wouldn't even want to look at me."

"I don't." she hissed.

"But things are different now." He continued. "You're…you're sick and I…"

Her entire body stiffened. "That's it, isn't it? That's why you're here."

"Mackenzie?" he frowned.

"It's not because you're actually sorry or because you actually wanted to see me again, is it? You just felt guilty. I'm dying and you didn't want this guilt for the rest of your life. That's why you're here." She was able to rip her arm from his grasp this time and quickly took a step back down the stairs until she was on solid ground. "You don't care about me at all. You just wanted to make sure you cleared your conscious before I died."

"That's not why I'm here." Godric shook his head.

"Bullshit!" She shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself. "Admit it, you really don't give a shit about me. You never have. You just don't want to feel bad. That's all this is."

"Mackenzie that's not true." he tried to make her believe, stepping forward. "I do care about you. I care about you more than you'll ever know. That's why I had to come. I needed you to know how much I…"

"Shut up. Just shut up" her teeth grit together. She couldn't handle hearing his apologies. "I don't want to hear it."

"I wish I could have been there, I truly do." He was on the ground in seconds, raising a hand to cup her cheek.

She slapped his hand away however. "So do I, Godric, so do I."

"I'm here now. I know you're angry, and I know you might hate me. But I'm here, Mackenzie. I'm…"

"But I don't need you now." She growled. "You know when I needed you, Godric? Six months ago. That's when I needed you. That's when I so desperately needed you."

She was breathing heavily, her anger mixing with the pain she had tried so hard to shove down the past few days. She didn't want to cry. She didn't want to waste a single tear over him. But she couldn't help as the memory of six months came back to her. He had no idea how much she had wished for this, for him to suddenly just appear out of thin air and fix everything.

"You have no idea how much I wanted to call you." She looked away, her bottom lip threatening to quiver. She had to bite down hard to keep it from doing so. "The minute I found out I had cancer, that I was dying, all I wanted was to call you."

"You could have."

"No I couldn't have." She snorted with a shake of her head. "You had made it perfectly clear you didn't want anything to do with me. I…I didn't want to call and have you reject me. I couldn't handle that, not for a second time. But god, you have no idea how much I wanted to. You have no idea how much I needed to. It wasn't Eric or Pam or even my best friend I needed, Godric, it was you. It's always you."

He didn't know what to say. What was he supposed to say? That he was sorry?

"You have no idea how much I wished that this would happen." She admitted softly, tears forming in her eyes. "I prayed and prayed for so long for you to come back. It was all that got me through those days that I just wanted to hurry up and die. I thought maybe just maybe you would somehow know and you'd be there."

"I wish I had been."

"But the thing is, Godric, is that you weren't. And now, well I'm as okay as I'm going to get. I'm dying, and that sucks. But as much as I still so want you, I don't think I need you anymore. Or at least not as much."

It broke his heart to hear her confession, but he knew he had no right to be upset. He had been the one to leave, the one to just destroy the great friendship they had. She had been everything to him. She had changed him in ways she would never comprehend. He had been so ready to end his existence. The guilt of his past sins was eating away at him and he wasn't sure how much longer he would have been able to live, knowing all the things he had done. But then she walked into his life and brightened his entire world. He had found hope, a reason to live. And he had just thrown it all away for some stupid little reason six years later he regretted with every fiber in his being.

"There's nothing you could say or do that would change that." She swallowed back the rising lump in her throat. She could feel herself beginning to crack, to completely break in half. This wasn't what she needed right now. She was supposed to be resting, to be fighting back against this cancer. She wasn't supposed to be a blubbering mess. She wasn't supposed to deal with these emotions she had gladly stored away for six years.

"I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything." She sighed heavily. "Just leave, please."

"I can't do that." Godric shook his head, closing the gap between them. "I can't just leave again, Mackenzie. Leaving got me into this mess. I'm not about to leave you again."

She tried to move out of his reach, but he again wouldn't let her. He cupped her cheek, stilling her completely.

"I'm sorry, and I know that's not enough, but it's all I can offer you besides this promise: I will not leave you again. I will be here every single night. I will stand out on that porch if you don't let me in. But I'm not leaving; I won't do that to you again. This isn't out of pity or to clear my conscious, this is me, standing before you, begging for your forgiveness because I care about you. You meant more to me than you'll ever come to understand and I can only hope that one day, you might feel the same again. But for now, I'm just going to be here; I'm not going anywhere."

She couldn't control the tears that slipped down her cheeks one by one. Godric attempted to brush them away for her, but she pulled away from him before he could. She instead rubbed at her own eyes, silently cursing at herself to stop.

"Mackenzie…"

"I just…I think I need some fresh air." She took two steps backwards before twisting around. She was dizzy, but sheer determination drove her out the front door. Godric never followed, to her relief, and instead just stayed inside the house as she stood out on the porch.

The door remained opened the entire time as Mackenzie shakily sat on the steps, closing her eyes as the humid breeze hit her face. Godric moved towards the door, but instead of impeding on her space, he sat against the wall just inside the house.

"I'm not leaving you Mackenzie." He reiterated.

"I don't know if I can ever forgive you." She admitted softly.

"That's okay. I'm still not going anywhere. I promise you that I never will again."