30 - Awake
It was always a relief to wake up before the blaring of my alarm clock, it was such a great feeling when you knew that there were a few more minutes left before you had to leave the comfortable bed. My mind was especially sluggish this morning, it was really hard to wake up. Had I stayed awake too long with Phil last night? For some reason I could not seem to remember what we did.
The sound of my slow and steady heartbeat was very reassuring, but my mind would not tell me why this was relevant. Taking a huge breath I tried to move but my body was behaving similarly to my mind, it was reluctant to obey my commands. What the hell had I done last night that made me feel this sore? It was almost like I had been run over by a steamroller.
It took too much effort to open my eyes, in fact it felt like my entire body was made of lead. There was something on my nose, but when I tried lifting my arm to brush it away the most excruciating pain I had ever felt shot up my left arm. There went the 'I got drunk as a skunk last night' theory, this definitely was not a hangover.
"I know it is hard but try not to move Leah." Tiffany told me in a quiet voice, what was she doing in my room?
A feeling of calm overcame me almost immediately, if the family had found me it meant I was safe; it was not until this moment that I recognized the fear that had consumed me immediately after regaining consciousness. The though of some unknown danger that I could not remember made my heartbeat increase in speed - what the fuck had happened? And why the hell could I not remember? There was a sound of someone moving around the room and all of a sudden a little more light appeared on the other side of my eyelids. My eyelids felt gritty and much too heavy for me to be able to lift, I would have to use my other sense to figure out what was going on.
"She is waking up a little." A strange man's voice told the room in general, his voice sounded a lot closer than Tiffany's. His accent was a little bit foreign sounding, but it was too subtle for me to place. His voice sounded young and smooth, much to my relief the perfect bell-like quality that went with vampires was missing.
"Hi," I croaked wondering if I could ask for some water, my mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton balls it was so dry. Trying to unsuccessfully lick my dried, cracked lips with a tongue that felt about twice the size of normal I attempted to look around me once again. With a great deal of effort I managed to crack my eyelids open just a sliver. It took me several seconds to finally focus on the face of an unfamiliar face that was above me.
Anything I would have said was lost as I took in his appearence, a gasp was my only reaction. He was absolutely beautiful, even the vampires could not compare to this man's looks. Dark blonde hair was streaked with chunks of white and gold, his hair was a little overgrown looking with large curls pointing every which way. The shape of his face was perfectly symmetrical from his beautiful forehead to the dimple on his chin. His skin was without a single blemish, his complexion a light tan color that perfectly matched his pale eyes. His light green eyes finally reminded me of a very important goal, there was something that I needed to accomplish.
"Phil?" The urgent need to find him foremost on my mind, there were a couple of words that I had to say to him. For a moment I was afraid that this man would not understand my garbled words. I don't know if my voice sounded better than I thought or if he read my mind but he answered my question almost immediately.
"He is fine, he just used too much energy trying to heal you and ended up making himself ill." The man must have seen my horror at the thought that I had made Phil sick because he quickly continued his explanation. "He will be fine after a few days of sleep. We all do this sort of thing at one time or another, nothing to worry about."
It was then that I finally recalled why my heartbeat was important, the memories of that demented doctor came back to me.
Quickly looking down at myself trying to examine the damage I came to the conclusion that moving my head hurt like a son of a bitch so it would behove me not to do that again. In fact any type of movement hurt, it felt like I had been pummeled all over. Making another attempt to investigate the situation I looked down at myself, this time moving only my eye. My nose was covered with a clear plastic mask, that must have been what was bothering me when I woke up. A pristine white sheet and a soft looking baby blue blanked were carefully tucked around me. The sheets covered my entire body all the way up to my neck. I could see several tubes coming out from under the blanked next to my right arm, these were hooked up to various IV bags. I considered lifting my left arm to examine it, but even a small movement yielded excruciating pain.
The IV pole gave the impression of this being a hospital but that was the only indication that this was not some bedroom in a very nicely furnished house. The walls were not the faded bland green that seemed to be favored by hospital interior designers, instead they were painted in a cheery yellow stripe pattern. The bed I was in was a wide sleigh bed made of mahogany wood, it was long enough that even stretched out I could not reach the footboard. One thing that was familiar from the last time I had been in the hospital with my father were the monitors with their various blips and lines, though here they were built into the walls. One entire side of the room looked like a window, but there was not one curtain in sight to block the normal view of the urban scene that was usually present outside of hospitals. Here the scene outside showed a sky filled with more stars than I though could possible exist, they shone brightly on the towering trees that blanketed the rolling hills as far as the eye could see.
The lack of a cloud cover as well as the missing signs of civilization gave away my location. The family had brought me to the island.
"Do you want to know the rundown of the damage?" The beautiful man asked in anticipation, Tiffany was nowhere to be seen so she must be either outside my line of sight or maybe she left the room - but no that was not the case, I could still hear her heartbeat and from the sounds of it she was somewhere behind this man. "By the way in case you were wondering I am Tristan, Ophelia's brother."
"We need her to wake up a little more so that I can do a complete neurologic exam." Tiffany told him, finally coming into view. "But I guess we can explain how you got here and what the story is while you wake up a little more. Hi there Leah, let us tell you about the party you went to a few nights ago." Her smile was genuine but I could see the concern in her eyes, I must have really been fucked up if I worried the laid back Tiffany.
It was Tristan who told me the story of what had happened after I died in that cabin. He was very adamant about the fact that my heart had stopped so it was a must that I follow all instructions and take things very slowly for the next few weeks.
According to Tristan, Phil beat my pack to the cabin by just a few minutes, a vision had prompted his search for me. He found me dead with Claire crying next to me. Not having many options he had brought both of us back to the island.
"Claire, oh my god I forgot about her." My voice was still doing the frog impression but at least the words came out right.
"Claire is fine, the last time I saw her she was having a tea party with my wife, though she is probably asleep by now. Quil has not left her side the entire time, he even allowed Claire to pick out the proper tea hat for him to wear." He explained quickly while Tiffany flipped through screens on the monitor. I have no idea what she was looking for. The labels of aVL and aVF had no meaning for me but Tiffany looked to be very interested in them.
"How long have I been out?" I asked in my toad voice.
"A little over two days but this is the island so as you know time is somewhat irrelevant here." Tiffany switched monitors again, I wondered if she actually knew what she was looking at. I don't recall asking her what she did for a living. "The problem is that we need to get you back to Earth or your mother might get suspicious if you are too far along in the healing process."
Before they were going to move me Tiffany wanted to check and make sure there was no brain damage.
"Brain damage?" I joked half heartedly, even the small laugh hurt my body.
"Your heart stopped beating which means your brain was deprived of oxygen, I am just going to check to make sure there is no lasting neurological damage. We need to do this before we move you off the island and away from our superior medical equipment." It made sense when she said it like that. With my luck I would forget everything I needed know for finals.
Oh shit, what was I going to do about school? But I did not have time to worry too much about that because Tiffany started her exam.
"Do you know what you are doing?" I asked desperate to make her stop, as she started moving limbs and tapping various parts of my body. Her questions seemed pointless, of course I knew what three words she had just made me memorize. Blue. Car. Fly. Of course I knew what my name was and what the year was.
"Board certified neurologist." She told me as she continued the torture. "They had to do extensive surgery on your abdomen to repair the damage, had it been a few centimeters deeper it would have hit your Vena Cava which would have meant near instant death for you. As it was, probably only your wolf healing abilities allowed you to move as far as you got."
I cringed remembering the slow agonizing journey to the cabin as Tiffany continued with her story, "the bite mark actually was what caused the most problems. Phil needed to cut open and irrigate your entire left arm to make sure all the venom was out. Your arm is still an open wound that will have to be washed out every few hours so it would be best not to move it too much."
"Good to know," I slurred my words, my tongue still not fully functional.
"Everything looks fairly normal, reflexes are good." She had finished on my open left arm, she must have saved it for last knowing how much it would hurt when she examined it. I was too much of a coward to look at my arm when she uncovered it. "Are you ready to go back to sleep now? For the first few days we will keep you mostly sedated while the major wounds heal, after that we will allow you to wake up a little more. You will probably feel a little drunk on the drugs, we don't want you in pain but we will try to keep you as aware as possible."
I did not bother to answer, as she covered me back up again. In fact I could not answer, I had been too busy trying not to scream as she had messed with my open arm. I merely nodded and hoped that she would see it. Tristan put something in one of my IV bags, almost immediately I got a warm feeling all over. This is really nice, I thought as the darkness consumed me yet again.
I started having strange dreams after my talk with Tiffany and Tristan, in one of them my mother was there crying but it was too hard to move my mouth to reassure her that everything would be all right. I knew it was a dream because well in real life my mother never cried.
My brother Seth was in my dreams as well, he told me everything was taken care of and to get to feeling better. I did not know what he was talking about, I was feeling pretty good not even the fact that my body felt too heavy to move bothered me anymore.
The next guest in my dreams was Esme Cullen of all people, she was in the room as well and for some strange reason she had an arm wrapped around my mother's shoulders and was trying to comfort her. In all of my dreams I was in an unrecognizable room that had the stench of vampire all over it, this should have freaked me out but again it was a dream so there was no need to work myself up.
It was completely dark outside the next time I was fully conscious, the room was dark indicating that it was night on whichever planet this might be. It did not take me long to figure out what had caused me to wake up, the pain in my arm felt like a good suspect. There was a low light on in the room, and turning in that direction I saw Phil leaning over examining my arm. He had removed the wrapping so you could see the exposed flesh. I cringed before focusing on Phil's face only, my arm had looked like someone had put it through the meat grinder. The skin was peeled back revealing bloody muscles and other things that I did not look long enough to recognize.
"Princess? Does this hurt?" He asked in his rumbly voice. Concern and love was radiating from his face, how had I not figured out until now that I loved this man?
"Not really, you guys gave me some really good drugs." I was quick to reassure him, it seemed that while my voice sounded just as harsh as before my tongue was a little more willing to obey my commands.
"If it still looks this good tomorrow we should be able to close the wound." I could feel him touching me lightly as he carefully closed skin around the wound and put a fresh dressing on it, his long dexterous fingers making quick work of the bandage. Phil did not look up as he spoke, instead he concentrated on the task he was finishing.
Only when he had pulled the blanket back up to my chin did he meet my eyes. He looked tired and worried, "Leah we need to talk about your need to get kidnapped. You need to be more care..."
"I love you." I spit out my not so romantic declaration, but it did stop Phil in mid lecture.
I watched as a big goofy grin spread across his previously serious face, even the dimples made an appearance. "I love you too, Princess."
"Oh I know," I replied in a nonchalant way, that was one of the few certainties in my life. Every time he called me Princess I knew he was telling me he loved me.
"Well someone is certainly sure of themselves," he told me with a huge smile. "It took you long enough to figure it out. Now about this little thing of going off with vampires intent on raping or murdering you. Did you even consider making a phone call?"
"What do you mean it took me long enough?" My tone sounded somewhat indignant probably over the fact that I was not able to sidetrack him from the safety lecture.
He popped up off the chair he had been sitting on and moved until his lips were less than an inch away from my face. It was then that I noticed the deep dark circles underneath his eyes. "Are you all right?"
"Asks the girl who died a few days ago?" He whispered before he kissed me lightly on the lips. He pulled back, but I was not done with him since that was not even half a kiss. He grabbed a small jar of something from the bedside table and smeared an ointment on my lips. "Are you thirsty, I can get some ice chips for you?"
"Not really, but I guess it might get this dry feeling out of my mouth. So did you guys catch them?" I was back on Earth, it was time to start worrying about those leeches again.
"I was not really concerned with them, there was something else occupying my mind." He was smiling down at me like he wanted another kiss. Trying to encourage him I puckered my lips, but then I remembered that my teeth had not been brushed in a while.
"I ripped their heads off, just like Tiffany had taught me. I almost had the third guy too but the bastard bit me." I explained to him proudly.
"The third guy? I am pretty sure that Jake said they found two of them." Phil looked concerned for a moment but then he quickly went into action, pulling out his phone.
"Joham was his name, I ripped his arms off and was trying to go for his head but he managed to bite me." I explained confused, oh shit did they not know about the third one?
"Are you sure his name was Joham?" Phil asked, there was something going on in that big brain of his, he was making connections that were not apparent to me. "Well this explains a few things."
"Would you care to tell me what it explains? For us mortals who are not millennia old?" I was getting frustrated, Phil had an absent look on his face like he was thinking about something far away and obviously not paying any attention to me.
"Of course the Volturi are probably involved." He mumbled to himself, he was searching for something in his phone.
"Explain." I growled at him, if he did not tell me soon I was going to get out of this bed and kick his ass. Luckily for both of us, Phil decided to listen to me and finally explain what was going on.
Joham was the name of the "scientist" who had been going around raping human women to try to make hybrids. The guardians had mentioned his name to the Volturi, so it does not take a big leap to put two and two together. More than likely it has been the Volturi who have financed this little expedition, and if you assumed that Joham's purpose became understandable. He had been sent here to try to create a vampire and wolf hybrid. This was the reason why he was so desperate to get a woman of my tribe.
My blood ran cold as I thought of the possibilities when the Volturi were involved, I had to remind myself they were not as dangerous because now we had the family on our side. It was when I tried getting out of bed that Phil noticed my agitation, he had been busy calling one of his family members.
"All right Princess, let us get you some more drugs." He told me as he put away his phone and immediately reached for a vial next to the bed. Drawing up some clear liquid he reached for one of the IV lines.
"Hey wait, I don't want to go to sleep." I murmured as I felt the heaviness fall over me again.
The next time I woke it was morning, the constant aching pain in my arm is what initially pulled me from my dreamless sleep. I might have been able to ignore the pain and gone back to sleep it it was not for my mother, it sounded like she was having a heated argument.
"I want to take her home, just tell me when I can do that." She said in a clear and determined tone. "I don't like her in this house, she will recover better in her own home."
"It would be foolish to move her at this point in her recovery. You want to take her away from several doctors, medical equipment, and a nice large room to where exactly?" Was Phil's reply, this was who mother must be arguing with.
"But this is not her home." My mother repeated stubbornly, seemingly determined to get me away from here. Looking around the room I realized here was actually the Cullen's old mansion in Forks. I smiled while eavesdropping on the argument, obviously she had not yet figured out how stubborn Phil could be. She still remembered him as the laid back mild mannered man that he pretended to be last Fall.
"I do not think you fully comprehend the seriousness of the situation, your daughter for all intents and purposes died the other day. She lost several liters of blood, this lead to her heart stopping. We are talking cardiac arrest here, not something to be shrugged off. Everything looks great right now but she is not out of danger, her arm wound is still half way open and needs to be irrigated every four hours. She is not able to eat, drink or even go to the bathroom. The medications she is on need to be carefully monitored to make sure that they don't do her any harm."
"I can follow instructions." My mother grumbled starting to realize that this was a not a fight she would be able to win.
"That is wonderful but can you diagnose a pulmonary embolism or even begin to know how to treat it? The consequence of that going undiagnosed is death, and since she has been in a bed without moving for several days it is not out of the realm of possibilities. It would be very beneficial for her to be near both a physician and the equipment that could handle any problems that may arise." When Phil got this tone of voice it was really hard to change his mind, I had on a few occasions been able to make him see my way by using my feminine wiles but I somehow doubted Phil would respond to my mother's flirting. Seriously wishing I could get out of bed, the pain would have almost been worth it to see mother's face right now.
She made one last ditch effort and pointed out that there were other doctors in the region but she did not sound as certain as before. She must have remembered that taking me to the hospital was not really the best option.
I laughed a little and ended up hurting myself, my stomach must not be fully healed still. Why was that? This healing business of a wolf was usually much quicker? I would have to ask Phil or Carlisle about it sometime.
Phil might not have wolf hearing but it was better than that of a human, he must have heard me moan because seconds later he walking into the room.
"Princess, are you all right?" His concern was evident in both his tone and expression. He brushed the hair out of my eyes as he looked down at me trying to figure out where I hurt, that was an easy thing to figure out. The answer was everywhere.
"Yeah I was just trying to laugh, remind me it is a bad plan right about now." You used the muscles of your stomach when laughing and I had been quickly reminded of this fact.
He started messing around with the small monitor on the stand next to me, this time I knew what he was looking at, my heart was beating very quickly. Less than a minute later my mother walked in, there was a distinct look of displeasure on her tired looking face. But for once it was Phil that was the target of her ire, I would hazard to guess that whatever spell he had weaved last Fall to make my mother accept him had just worn off. But that might have happened around the time when she figure out I was living with him.
"Leah you had me so worried," my mother said reaching for my face. What was up with everyone touching my face this morning? Though looking down at myself there was no other place to really touch that did not have bandages, tubes or what felt like massive bruises.
"We closed most of your left arm a few hours ago, may I look at it?" Phil asked me before he lifted the sheets off my arm.
When Phil delicately removed the layers and layers of bandages, I got another look at my arm. It was horrible, all swollen and purple but at least it had skin covering it. There was a large gash that had been sewn closed going from my wrist all the way up to my elbows, the skin was still somewhat of an open flap going from my elbow to my shoulder. But the worst part of it was a chunk that seemed to be missing right where the vampire had bitten me.
I cut it out when I found you in the cabin. I knew what vampire venom does to your kind and had to think quickly. It was strange to hear Phil's voice in my head. But I guess he had no other choice with my mother standing over me. You lost a lot of blood and we had to replace it with human blood, the side effect seemed to be that it slowed down your ability to heal, but it is better than that of a human.
"Is that going to be all right?" My mother asked with a great deal of concern, it was hard not to agree with her assessment. Especially regarding the chunk of skin and the muscle underneath missing from my forearm.
"It will be fine, it already is starting to heal at a rapid rate." Phil explained to my mother, he put on some gloves before touching the edges of the skin that had not been closed shut yet. "These finally look healthy enough to close, the stitches in your forearm will have to come out soon. They are healing rather quickly, which is a sign that the tissue is healthy and the circulation is good. There is fortunately no sign of infection, but we are pumping enough antibiotics into you because of your abdominal wound to clear out most bacteria."
My mother cleared her throat awkwardly, and gave me a look over Phil's bent head. He was too busy examining my healing arm to notice the faces my mother was making, at least so she assumed - I knew better, Phil missed nothing and if the slight curls of his lips was any indication he found this amusing. "She certainly is a quick healer," my mother acknowledged in a subdued voice.
Hmm what was Phil supposed to know and not know, I was not going to worry about it. Phil examining my arm had jostled it enough that it was really starting to ache.
"Wow that really hurts." Wanting to change the subject, talking about my pain seemed the best way to distract both of them.
Phil looked pleased with my complaint, mentioning something about it being a sign that the nerves were working well. "We will lay off the heavy sedating drugs now that your arm is back together so you should be a lot less groggy. Let me just get the tools ready to finish stitching your upper arm."
I tugged a little on my arm right arm, pulling several IV lines with me. "Why all the tubes?"
"You have been out for several days, we had to keep you fed somehow." Phil pointed out one of the milky white bags, I was going to go with the assumption that was supposed to be my food. Turned out that I was totally hooked up, I did not have to eat, drink, or even worry about peeing. That was kind of gross, but my abdomen still hurt like a son of a bitch, so moving in order to go pee might not have been possible with me breaking down and crying like a little girl.
Phil moved around the room and pulled out what looked like a pair of bend scissors, a large tweezer and little oval shaped disks. They were a dull aluminum in color and according to the writing on them they were the suture. He gave me some local anesthetic before starting the procedure, my mother hovered nearby clearly agitated because she had nothing to do. As much as I hated needles I could not help but look at what Phil was doing, it was very interesting so long as I did not think too hard about the fact that he was doing this to my arm. He used the funny looking bent scissors to pull out the needle, never once did he touch the needle with his fingers.
"It is kind of handy that you don't have to thread the needle," I told him with a small smile, my kermit the frog impression going strong.
"If you want to get her some ice chips, they might help her dry throat," Phil suggested to my mother. She jumped to obey, finally having something to do.
"Thanks for that," I told Phil as he started to put perfect even stitches into my arm. His speed was faster than a should have been possible for a normal human. "Her nervous twitching was starting to bug me."
"It also allows me to do this a little faster," he told me without looking away from his work. His movements were practiced, like he had done this thousands of times. That is probably because he has.
By the time my mother came rushing in with the small cup of crushed ice Phil had moved onto examining my stomach. "Sorry it took so long, I had to find something to crush the ice with since they only had cubes of ice."
"Thanks mom, this is perfect," and it was the few slivers of ice instantly melted in my mouth giving way to a trickling of cool wetness down my throat. Phil allowed me some time to eat some of my ice chips before continuing with his exam.
My stomach looked a little better under the bandages than my arm had, just one curved line going horizontally across my entire belly. Phil nodded and smiled, "these can definitely come out now, it can make scars worse it you leave them in too long."
"Is she going to get a scar?" My mother asked in a worried tone. Suddenly worried about my ability to wear a bikini? Phil gave her a dirty look, I guess she must have forgotten that he was in the business of scars. It was the job of the plastic surgeon to make sure there were no scars. He quickly snipped the small sutures before pulling them out with the tweezers, this was followed by some thick yellow ointment and fresh bandages that were a lot thinner than the ones on my arm.
I was awake for most of the day, Phil had not been exaggerating about the fact that they would let me stay awake but I still had enough meds to make me feel a little bit drunk. The human blood they had given me had seriously slowed my ability to heal, so I had to do this the old fashioned way.
"This really sucks." Was my grumbling complaint when Phil explained this to me. I was tired, cranky and in pain; but at least Esme had given me a toothbrush and I had been able to take care of that issue.
He simply laughed. "Yeah poor baby, most of us get to live like this everyday."
So it might have been childish to stick my tongue out at him, but sometimes it was the only way to deal with Phil.
"Red blood cells last about three months so you might want to take that into consideration when you are making future plans. Especially when coming back to visit your family. " He told me quietly, my mother had gone home for a change of clothes now that it looked like I was doing better, but she had promised to come back in a few hours. It was nice being able to give up on the pretense that Phil knew nothing.
"Did you guys find Joham?" It might be easier to find him now that we knew who this crazy "doctor" actually was.
"Regrettably we can't seem to locate him, it looks like you scared him into hiding. I cannot see him surfacing for the next couple of months. One of my uncles is keeping an eye on the Volturi to see if he tries to make contact." Phil sighed and rubbed his face with both hands, it really must bug him having so little control over the situation.
I could already tell that Phil was going to be a little smothering, especially since my healing ability was almost comparable to a human's. I could not blame Phil for being protective, had it not been for his quick actions I would more than likely be dead right about now. My heart had stopped beating, I had lost too much blood and there was venom in my arm. My pack would not have been able to save me, they simply did not have the skills or the resources to do so.
I did not like the morbid places my thoughts were going, Phil must have read something in my face because he got up from the chair he had been sitting in and walked around the bed to my right side.
"Move over." He said as he picked up some of the IV's still hooked up to my arm. He was not really expecting me to move over, his words were simply a warning that he was going to join me on the bed, the only movement I had to make was to place my head on his shoulders.
Only after I had made myself comfortable on his muscular chest did it occur to me that it had been nearly a week since the last time I showered. A year ago this probably would have bothered me, but right now I needed to be held. Anyway, Phil was a big boy and he could tell me to go shower, at least my teeth were clean.
"So how do you think my mother would react if she came back to find you in bed with me?" I started to giggle at the thought of my mother freaking out, but my laughter was soon interrupted by a sharp pain in my stomach. The muscles in my abdomen did not appreciate being used.
"Which is one of the many reasons I argued with her over the ridiculous plan to take you back to her house." Phil shook his head, while I inhaled the scent of citrus and sage. It was fast becoming my very favorite smell, so I focused on that instead of the lovely scents coming off of my sticky skin. He had taken a shower recently and changed his clothes, he must have jumped home to do it because the vampire stench had not inundated his clothes.
"It is kind of funny seeing my mother have to back down to someone, especially since she sees you as her junior. But try not to hurt her feelings too much." It would be best to ease my mother into this, she had been the one to take care of me for the past twenty years and would not appreciate someone else coming in to her how her 'job'.
"Leah, I don't care whose feelings I have to hurt so long as you are safe." I got the impression that he would hurt more than feelings if it came to my well being. "Plus I would feel like an old pervert, sneaking into some young girl's bedroom."
I could not help but laugh again as I pictured him trying to fit through my small bedroom window, or better yet my mother's reaction if she found him there. "You know I could put my hair up in pigtails, and there might be an old plaid skirt in the back of my closet. Just to make it authentic for you."
Phil chose to ignore my last comment. "If it had been up to me you would not have ever left the island, but we need to keep up the story." There was a great deal of regret in his voice, it must upset him to take me away from the perfect safety of the island and bring me back to Earth. According to Seth who had come by to visit a few hours ago before heading back out for patrols there had been a great deal of blood in and around the cabin, I could not have gotten away with telling people I was only lightly hurt.
"Mother would have been insane with worry if she could not find me. Or worse yet if I showed up a few hours late perfectly healed you know Sam would have been suspicious, he can be like a dog with a bone. He would not forget about it until he knew everything." The annoyance of having to stay at the Cullen's house was worth being able to alleviate my mother's worry just a little bit, it helped that Carlisle and Esme were the only ones in residence.
My mother had enough to worry about in the past year and if I was being honest with myself a big portion of that had been due to my actions, this was the least I could do.
"After you are healed enough to leave here we can go back to the island. Stay there for a few months while you get back to normal." Phil interrupted my thoughts.
"I wish, but there is this pesky little thing called reality. I have to finish school, and then there is my job. What about your job, won't they notice if you don't show up?" It would have been nice to get away from it all. The trying to balance the "normal" life with the supernatural one was getting to be harder every day. It had been much easier when I lived on the Rez and was able to tell my mom that I could not come in to work, but my current boss would not be as sympathetic to my plight. In fact he would probably try to have me committed if I explained the problem to him.
Phil had the most amazing laugh, especially when you were listening to it start deep down inside of him. Because of my position on his chest I could hear it bubble up before it burst out. "Leah you are thinking like a mortal. Would you like to know how we immortals live our lives?"
I risked hurting my stomach and shifted a little bit to look up at him. He had a somewhat mischievous light in his eyes, one that meant he was up to no good.
"For certain reasons I won't get into time on the island only flows forward, you can never go back. But outside of there we can manipulate the flow of time to go forwards, backwards, or even to pause. We can move through time like most people walk down the street. So we are capable of stepping out of time, we simply go to the island. We stay there for a few weeks or a few years and then we step back into the life we had left behind, to the humans around us we were only gone a few days."
I had been informed of the fact that time moved differently on the island, but for some reason it had never occurred to me that they were doing it deliberately. It was hard wrapping my head around this concept, so did they just get bored and take a vacation from life at any point? No wonder they lost track of how old they really were. Phi's face was serious, he was giving me the option to do this, the temptation to give into this offer was hard to resist.
"We could leave this world behind for just a little bit, do whatever you wanted and there would be no vampires to worry about, or secrets to hide. You could be completely and utterly free." He was crooning into my ear now, trying to convince me to do as he wished. His warm breath against the delicate skin behind my ear was giving me other ideas, finally we could go to a place where we could be alone without interruptions.
Looking at his face I came to realize that he was not only tempting me with this offer, it would be a treat for him as well. How hard it must have been all those months of being my friend and not being able to be his true self? When he told me the story of his youth, had he not admitted to having learned to be content in only telling half the truth? Did I want him content or would I want him to be true to himself? Here was the opportunity for both of us to be together without having to hide things, would he allow all of his masks to slip away? I could get to know the man who I was starting to suspect was becoming necessary for my survival.
For a moment I was scared, why had I allowed myself to become dependent on another man? Had I not learned my lesson the first time? But it was wrong for me to compare Phil and Sam. Phil was a man who would be my partner in all my endeavors, ready to support me in whatever I wished to do. Sam had been a boy struggling under the heavy weight of responsibility, he was too busy fighting to keep his head above water to be able to help me.
"As much as I would like to take you up on your offer I still have finals to get through in a couple of weeks. I would be afraid of forgetting everything if I went off to play for a few months." I hated to refuse, but there really was no other choice.
"So we will do it after finals, you should be healed enough by then that no one could get suspicious." He gave me a quick kiss on the forehead before he continued. "There is a great deal of responsibility that goes along with being part of the supernatural world. So let me show you one of the perks." He moved his eyebrows up and down sort of like a villain from one of the old black and white movies. The part just before he makes off with the virtuous maiden - well as the saying went, you can't rape the willing.
"After finals we will sneak away for a little bit." I promised him, maybe we could find that deserted island he kept talking about. I leaned back on him and decided to take a little nap before my mother came back and took my pillow away.
I was in the middle of a dream about sandy beaches and Phil wearing nothing but a pair of cutoff jeans when something woke me up. Someone was going to pay for waking me up especially since I had just gotten to the part where I was about to unbutton those pants. Maybe if I kept my eyes closed they would go away and I could go back to undressing Phil, if only in my dreams.
"I am sorry Leah did I wake you?" A quiet voice apologized from inside the room.
"That is obvious mother, since she was asleep when you got here and is now awake." Phil sounded more upset than me.
Great now the family is interrupting my dream seduction of Phil. It was not enough that they interrupted us in real life. Grumbling nonsense under my breath to distract myself, I tried to come up with the enthusiasm to greet Tam, Phil's mom.
It took me a moment to notice that she looked completely different from last time, her hair was not the same color and it was missing the vibrant highlights. If I did not know any better I would say she dyed her hair to cover up the grey hairs but that was not possible since she was immortal and did not age. Unlike last time now her face had a few wrinkles that I was certain were not there before, she actually looked old enough to be Phil's mother. There was one thing I noted that amused me enough to almost forgive her for interrupting my dream. She must be doing that glamour thing to make herself look older. "I must say you age very gracefully."
"My dear, if one must age you might as well do it with well." She told me with a twinkle in her eye, but this was quickly replaced with concern. "Oh Leah, we were so worried about you, is there anything I can do for you?"
I sighed and gave into the inevitable, Phil's pants would unfortunately have to stay buttoned. I looked up into his green eyes and wondered if he knew what I was thinking, maybe concentrating would send him my thoughts. I pictured unbuttoning his pants while staring deep into his eyes.
It was obvious when he got my message, his eyes got bigger and there was a faint flush on his cheeks. He did not move his head but his eyes looked around me, I felt my own cheeks start to heat up. Phil was not the only mind reader in the room.
"I will head down to the kitchen and see if I can make something to eat for everyone. Do you want me to make you some soup? It is always good to begin with liquid diet when it comes to stomach wounds." She was halfway out the door before she had asked her question, not even waiting long enough to hear my answer.
"Well that was awkward," I told Phil with a small embarrassed smile. "She must think I am a total slut."
"I would not say it like that." He told me with a smirk, there was some joke I was missing.
"Oh god...what does she think of me?" Maybe she would convince Phil I was all wrong for him.
"Unless I miss my guess you are about to be coddled and spoiled to the best of her ability. My brother is not bound to anyone and because of that you are her best bet for grandchildren." He quickly explained, when he saw the panic in my face.
His explanation did not alleviate my fears, in fact it only made them worse. What if I could not have kids? Family was so important to these people, I would hate to disappoint them. Regardless of all that I was not ready to have kids yet.
"Leah we are not talking about having kids right now, this is sometimes in the future, like we have millennia to fulfill this request." He soothingly rubbed my back as he encouraged me to lay back down on his chest.
"Oh," was my lame answer. I guess when he put it like that, we would have centuries to figure it out. My fears alleviated I let Phil take me back into his arm and reassure me, mainly because despite my nap I was still tired.
Over the next few days I healed and allowed myself to be spoiled by both my mother and Phil's mother. When I had been told about the mainly a liquid diet because of the damage to my stomach I had been extremely displeased to say the least - Phil had been wise enough about making sure that I was well fed. He even resorted to bribery at one point, promising me homemade strawberry milkshakes if I held out for a few more days.
Phila really came through for me and arranged everything with my professors at school, she brought me not only my textbooks and notes but also the lecture notes from the classes I had missed. Fortunately for me my biology lab was the only thing I would truly miss, but since I had perfect attendance before now I got to drop one lab grade.
A week later we moved back to the house in Seattle, my mother had protested about it until Tam reassured her she would be staying with me the entire time. Phil went back to work and I got the ultimate babysitter, Tamora took her duty seriously. She even went with me to class to make sure I would be safe, not that I could have driven there by myself. My left arm was still a little sensitive, Carlisle was hypothesizing that there was something about the venom that interfered with my wolf abilities.
The hardest part about going back to my "normal" life was Jenny. She was shocked when she first saw my arm in the sling. "What the hell happened to you?"
"I kind of fell a cliff, and hurt myself" This was the story we had come up with, and it could have happened that way. There were a lot of sharp rocks around the Rez.
"Are you sure you are all right? Should you not be in the hospital or something?" It was so hard to lie to your friends, even when it was for the best. I was gland when the teacher started the lecture so that I could pretend that my recent absence meant history class needed my full attention.
Finals were really tough, I sort of ignored everything but getting through them. I think I would probably not have gotten regular meals had Tam not been forcing me to sit down and eat at the right intervals.
"You really want those grandchildren." I had joked one time as Tamora placed a plate full of food on top of the notes I was trying to read.
"Leah, you cannot begin to comprehend how different my son has become since meeting you. He was content with life before, but now he is happy. Taking care of you will keep him sane, and it really is not that big of a chore. It is nice to get to know the woman my son has chosen." She was giving me a full smile, it was very obvious that Phil had inherited the dimples from her.
"I thought the spirit chose me?" At least that is what I had been told.
"The spirit may have pointed you out to him, but in the end it was Phil who picked." She patted my arm gently before she sat down on the couch in my office. I would be supervised to make sure the meal was finished, or she could just want to get to know me a little better.
"I am glad to get to know you as well." I told her the truth, it was nice to learn more about Phil and where he came from. Maybe he had been right, maybe it does take a couple of centuries to truly get to know someone.
The day after finals I called my mother to tell her that I would not be coming home right after finals. In fact I would probably spend most of the summer in Seattle, she was none too pleased but I told her there were some summer courses I wanted to take to make up for the fact that I started school a semester late. She reluctantly agreed that my education was important.
"So are you ever coming back home?" She had asked in a quiet voice.
I did not say anything for a minute, I wanted to make sure to formulate my answer in a way that she would understand. "Mother, I appreciate what you did for me and that will always be my home. But I need to move on, there are too many painful memories associated with that area. I wasted too much time on them already. Other than you and Seth there is nothing for me to go back to, my life is here."
"With Phil." She told me, there was a great deal of concern in her voice. "The man you have not imprinted on."
She had made a statement, but I chose to treat it like a question. "There are times when I will rely on my wolf instincts and there are times when I have to be a human being and just trust my own judgement."
"So you are staying in Seattle because of Phil," it could have been just the connection but there might have been a slight bitterness in her voice.
"Phil has something to do with it, but there are other things as well. If things go according to plan then right after I get my bachelor's degree, I can go to graduate school and there is a really good Native American history program here. This would be a good way for me to help preserve our history and teach others about it as well." When you are stuck in a bed, especially after a near death experience, you tend to think a lot about your future.
"I am very proud of you Leah, you have to understand that. I know you will succeed if this is what you want to do. But you have to know I will really miss you." She sounded both proud and sad at the same time. "Are you sure you are all right? Are you getting enough to eat?"
I could not help laughing. "Don't worry mother, Tam has been watching over me like a hawk. Making sure I finish all my dinner, and that I get enough sleep - I was surprised she did not try to brush my teeth for me. Seriously though, my arm is now completely healed, you can barely see a faint pink scar. Phil says it will be gone in a few days time." To my relief, slowly but surely the underlying muscle was healing as well - that was now my main reason for the sling.
"About Phil, what does he know? What have you told him?" My mother asked the question I had been hoping to avoid.
"I never came out and told him everything," this was not necessary because he had always known the truth. "But he would have to be blind and stupid not to suspect something."
"Has he said anything?" My mother asked suddenly worried on my behalf. "What if he finds out and..."
She could not say it but what she meant was that she was afraid he would leave me if he ever found out all the truth. How could I reassure her that would not happen without telling her the truth. "Mother, sometimes you just have to trust a person. If my bitchiness when he first met me did not scare him away I somehow doubt me turning into a wolf will." I stopped to giggle for a moment. "Seriously mother, Phil is not the type of man to abandon me for something like that. And if he did I am sure Tamora would be happy to help me kick his ass."
My mother did not question me too much further, I don't know if it was my firm belief in Phil's love or the fact that she was letting me make my own mistakes. Not long after that she made a half-hearted attempt to get me to come back to the Rez for the summer but I could tell she really did not mean it.
The conversation with my mother made me more thankful that I was going off on with Phil for a few months, I could avoid conversations with her that required my constant vigilance regarding what I said to her. I did not bother packing for the little adventure since I had a closet full of brand new clothes in my room on the island.
Instead I waited impatiently for Phil to come home, pacing back and forth in my sitting room. Looking at the clock I realized Phil would not be back for another four hours, I really needed to find something to do with myself.
I was in the middle of putting all my class notes from the entire semester into a box when I heard the familiar sound of Phil's heartbeat behind me.
"Hi there," I told him turning around and giving him a quick kiss.
"Here let me get that box for you, I told you not to lift anything too heavy until your arm if fully healed." He chided me as he took the box away from me.
"You are back early." There was a huge smile on my face, it was nice when he came home early since most of the time he came home later than his schedule dictated.
"One of my surgeries got cancelled, they found something wrong with the patient, we sent her to cardiology instead." He smiled down at me as he carried the box up to the attic.
"Are you ready?" He asked me pulling out his silver tab, and starting the calculations.
"Sure why not?" I shrugged, but my attempts at appearing calm were ruined by the nervous tapping of my foot. This really was the way to travel, no luggage, no having to check and make sure you did not leave the stove on.
The meadow was almost unrecognizable when we got there, the snow was completely gone to be replaces by some sparse grasses as well as small white and purple flowers.
"Ooh these are pretty." I bend down to touch one lightly, it was then that I noticed that there were what seemed to be stepping stones all over the clearing.
"Crocuses, they bloom later here in the forest because we are at a higher elevation and it stays colder longer." Phil explained as we started walking, there was no surprise birthday party so we took the path straight for his home. Since my last visit things had changed drastically, winter had turned into spring. Well I had technically been here a few weeks ago but I don't remember much about that time.
I walked through the woods with wonder, when mother nature finally woke up these woods she certainly outdid herself. The sounds of insects was almost overwhelming as large fat bumblebees buzzed around us gathering pollen from the newly opened flowers, their back legs were so coated with the stuff that you could not see the black anymore.
"I have never heard this many animals, even in the middle of the woods on the Reservation." The entire forest had woken up and they were very busy going on about their business.
"We try to impact the environment as little as possible, and since there are so few of us living on this entire planet it is almost like a wild place. This is what earth would look like if humans had not been around." Phil's words made me look around the forest a little more. Was this the way things looked even my people settled down in the region?
It took us longer than normal to reach his home, when I started to apologize for stopping every few steps to check on something new he casually leaned against a tree.
"Don't worry about it Leah, it is not like we are rushing someplace. This is a vacation, there are no alarm clocks here." Phil was giving me a smile, it was not that hard to figure out my absolute hatred for that annoying sound in the morning.
His talks of alarm clocks made me remember something, I stopped my examination of a perfect little snowdrop and gave him a look filled with suspicion. "Did you have anything to do with the fact that my alarm clock never worked last December?"
Phil did not even bother looking ashamed, he gave a small shrug, "you were making yourself sick, and Phila and I took your patrols for you."
"It would have been nice to have known that back then." I gave him another mock glare before going back to my admiration of the pristine world around me.
It took a lot longer for us to get to the house because of my utter distraction, luckily Phil was the patient sort. I finally sat down on one of his barstools in the kitchen as I watched him prepare a quick dinner. "So what do you want to do now?" He asked me with his smile.
For a moment I was stumped, I had spent the past couple of weeks looking forward to coming here and getting away from all the demands that were a part of being an adult. Most of my life there was always something that I needed to do; wether it was helping my parents out at their business, running patrols, school or my job at the restaurant. It was strange not having something that needed to be done, I was almost lost.
"That is all right, we will figure it out together as we go along. Do you know anything about surfing?" He told me as he placed a plate of food in front of me.
"Uh no?" There were some kids that did it around us, but the only thing I had ever done was boogie board.
"Want to learn?" He asked me with a brilliant smile. It was only now I realized how worried he had been about my well being, it almost seemed like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. It must have taken everything he had not to let me finish my finals instead of grabbing me and bringing me back here where it was safe.
I looked at his now excited eyes and saw my future; I did not really care what we did, so long as we did it together. "Sure."
A/N: All right everyone can calm down, Phil saved the day and Leah is all in one piece. I know someone wanted the Cheesecake recipe, you will have to remind me who it was.
ABarbieStory: You can call Kendrick a Beefy boo if you wish, and I would guess that he would have been very disturbed about the fact that Leah was hurt. Sorry she is not coming back in ghost form, though that would have been interesting.
ASH186: See she did not die, Phil got to her in time and does not have to be heartbroken. He even managed to talk her into going to the very safe island for a while, I am telling you now it is not only because of her safety :D cough lemons, cough.
Lea: Glad you liked the chapters, there was no twist Phil just got lucky and got to her in time. It was a good thing he was not getting bad Karma from cheating at chess.
Jaime2772: I promise, promise, promise you there will be a whole fruit salad in the next chapter. Not just a little zest :D, the only problem is that sex scenes usually take me longer to write because I am ultimately a prude and to me they are really hard to write. Not that I don't like reading them, that is the furthest thing from the truth, and I was seriously pissed off with the Breaking Dawn bit from SM...three and a half books of foreplay and we get fade to black? I wanted my money back. Seriously can we ask her to write the adult version of that chapter?
Ms Animegoddess: See no need to be scared, everything turned out all right. Family dinner with Sue will have to wait a little bit longer. Next we are doing alone time with Leah and Phil cue the raunchy stripper music.