Damon was restless. Mariella had settled in well with the pack. she had gone shopping with Adam and Charles and it had turned out that Charles was Mariella's protector, whereas Damon was Mimi's. Damon didn't know how to react. He understood now why he had always been so protective of Mimi, always wanting to help, to heal.
This uneasy feeling was somehow familiar. But he just couldn't get a grip. Mariella looked at Damon, now for the last three days Damon was restless. He couldn't stand still, pacing around like he was looking for something, looking out the window, furrowing his brow.
" What's wrong with you, honey?" Mariella asked. Damon turned around and came over to kiss Mariella. The kiss was passionate and held the promise of something more intense, but Mariella knew the session would be shorter than normal and Damon would find some excuse to get out of bed.
Damon smiled and said " Nothing really, kind of uneasy, familiar, but now I can't remember when I've experienced this. You see, while mine and Damien's memories are still separating. " Damon smiled " Don't you worry, it'll be fine"
Mariella said, "I think it's Mimi that's bothering you."
Damon raised his eyebrows, no way. He hadn't thought about Mimi in weeks now, Damon reckoned, a couple of months. Not since Mimi had turned around and walked away and changed her last name.
Damon said " Well, it's not Mimi. I haven't thought about her all month. Maybe I'm just confused too."
I was safe. I had gathered blankets and pillows and mattresses from all over the house to make myself a protective cave. I was cold when I curled up among the blankets. But deep down I knew I had to make myself better because I was the only one I could trust.
The years had taught me that clearly. Never show weakness. Be strong. Trust only yourself and most importantly. Never, I mean never, hang on to someone else like I hung on to Damon. Don't share everything. I knew I had to try to get through this on my own. I wouldn't be weak.
I felt my protective shell was just as strong, just as protective. No one would ever rip my heart out of my chest and stomp on it again. I had to be strong and independent to keep myself safe and never surrender to anyone's power.
I am not a Mariella and I never will be again. Maybe once I was but not anymore because it is a weakness and when someone uses that weakness against you it hurts and badly.
At first, I tried to start slowly to get the pharmaceutical situation under control. Small steps. Then the fucking dreams. I knew I needed sugar. Fine, let's get ourselves together and walk to the kitchen to get all the sugar.
Eat sugar and wear lots of clothes because we don't keep our body temperature up. I took the jars and thought of Damon and I bit all the poison out of the jars. I got 57 of those 50 ml jars. I was so furious. Then apparently the poison ran out or I couldn't do it anymore.
Then I'd have to work out a little something for that inflammation. That could be taken care of at medbay. Downstairs. I decided to regroup and put a lot of blankets around me, I had a hard time moving because I had stuffed ten layers of clothes on me.
When I got downstairs, I knew what I had to do. In the medicine cabinet was some self-made dental stuff and from there I would take antibiotics for its other stuff. I couldn't take the fever medicine because the dreams were still on and my body temperature was really low.
The solution is an Incubator. Put yourself on a journey to recover and then in an incubator for as long as it takes for the meds to wear off.
My liver ached every now and then, they had had time to put platinum in it or else an infection. I decided to make a nest to start within one of the hospital beds. I watched my straps they were already less than 100, I wondered if this would kill me eventually, it would be only right as I was so unpermitted stupid.
Now to go to the gala and invite Damien to come up to me and properly announce to everyone that yes I am coming. Victim here. Get it.
But that's okay. I'll survive. I'm a survivor. I gave myself permission to take an antibiotic for a couple of days or so until I had 45 straps left, then I would go to the incubator.
Damon was getting more and more agitated and restless. Now they hadn't had sex in almost 24 hours. Damon had made Mariella watch while Adam and Charles made pancakes and crepes.
Could it be Mimi after all?" Damon wondered. Mariella came and wrapped herself around Damon. "Let's make a deal, honey, I'll do a tracking spell on Mimi and we'll go see if everything's okay, okay?" Damon nodded, at least then he could be sure the feeling wasn't about Mimi.
Mariella focused, she pulled up a map of America and asked Damon for a drop of her blood. Damon was questioning. "You're Mimi's physiological other half, you're her protector, the best link I can come up with. Don't you dare question me on this?"
Damon was silent, bit his wrist, and reached out to Mariella. Mariella took the bowl and let the blood drain. Then the wound closed, and the blood would be more than needed. Mariella took a pipette and dropped a drop of blood in the middle of the map.
Then she began the spell " ah dae min, koh, nur suubr, ah dae min, koh suubr" The blood droplet began to move. Damon watched for a moment and said. "I think I know where Mimi is, in Chicago."
Damon said. "Now I'm teleporting us to the courtyard of the Chicago house. I know you've never been there and you know its history. This is the first place Mimi ever felt safe. Now the best person for the job would probably be Adam, but you know Adam's temperament. He'd go straight for Damien. If anything's been done to Mimi, it's probably been Damien."
Mariella nodded. Then Damon teleported them out into the yard. Mariella immediately felt the energy in the house. She could see that the house was not going to be. It will somewhere in between, burn down? Mariella couldn't quite see clearly, but the sense of unease and dread that swept over her as she looked into the future was strong. Whatever happened, it would not be good.
They went inside. The energies of the house were mixed, there had been pain, hurt, and fear but also a very great and bottomless love and trust, which Mariella soon realized belonged between Mimi and Damon.
What had crushed this, in time, was Damien. Damon didn't want to acknowledge or even accept this, Mariella knew that and was silent. Damon was now on a quest, finding himself, and as a sort of protection mechanism had put all his feelings for Mimi away.
Damon was convinced that Damien was complicit in the feelings, and he didn't want to dredge them up yet until he was sure they were just his feelings.
However, something inside him was working.
A desire to care and nurture. To see that Mimi didn't get hurt. Something was wrong with Mimi. He knew it and he just for a moment, was afraid to find out because he wasn't sure how he would react. He didn't want to see her in pain or sick.
Damon picked up a bag from the hallway which clanged, he flipped it open and took the medicine jar in his hand. A pharmaceutical panic drug. He suspected the worst and knew what he would find. Mimi is in a medical panic. And it was dangerous. For a moment, Damon considered the safest option. Mimi needed to put down and fast. But how.
Mariella asked, " What are they?" When she saw Damon open one of the sports bags and pull out a glass jar.
Damon replied grimly "Pharmaceutical panic drugs. Mimi has gotten into the medical establishment and escaped. This is not good." Damon walked down the hall. He sensed Mimi down below.
He opened the door to one of the rooms and the sight made Mariella gasp. It was a bedroom. More mattresses had been brought into the bed, bent into a cave-like nest. The bed was filled with blankets and pillows. There were bloodstains everywhere.
The energies of the whole room told Mariella of anguish, pain, and despair. Mariella shivered. Damon came and wrapped his arms around Mariella's shoulders.
"Here's a medicated feeling for you. Mimi is now seeking refuge, and hiding. I think she's in the medbay downstairs now. But first, come on, I'll show you around the house."
Then Damon went and opened the window, moved some stuff around so that the evil energies slowly started to flow out the window. Mariella sighed in relief.
They went upstairs. Damon opened the door to Mimi and his bedroom. The room had been trashed, and destroyed. The wallpaper was torn down, there were only fingernail marks on the wall, Damon could smell Mimi all over the room, the pillows were destroyed, the blankets torn and the bed was split down the middle.
Damon's side of the room in particular was empty and the window had been left open. Damon walked to the window and looked down. All his clothes and bedding had been thrown down the window. There were blood stains on the window glass.
Damon smelled the drugs in the blood and concluded that Mimi had been shot in the escape. For some reason, destroying the room caused something inside Damon to shatter and Damon knew it was his fault.
He shouldn't be sad, but the deep sadness that seemed to stem from the fact that something had been permanently broken between him and Mimi was almost palpable.
Mariella became wrapped up in Damon. "You'll get Mimi back if you want to." Damon said " How can you be so sure? Mimi is a hard girl to win over, and I've done some bad things myself, and as you can see she doesn't want me. I broke her heart once again. This is my original sin, I am too quick and cruel to do things. I don't think. If I had been thinking for a moment when Mimi came to see you, I might have been able to say it a little more mildly. But now. Mimi believes me and has already moved on. She has a kind of protective shell, an armor, and I can't get through it, I haven't been able to for a long time."
Damon sighed, now would not be the time to be sentimental.
Mariella said, "Damon, love is such a force that it will get you through, you just have to believe and wait." Damon thought about it for a moment and he had a small glimmer of hope.
He put this feeling where he had put all his other feelings about Mimi and pulled himself together. "Now you're seeing something you probably don't believe is true. I can warn you. This is definitely not the same ice queen you met before."
They left the room. Damon had closed the window and was now putting the door shut. It closed with a final thud and Damon felt as if he was permanently closing a chapter of his life. A chapter that had given so much and then he had destroyed it too.
He knew that he loved Mariella more than anything but he also remembered the couple of peaks he had experienced with Mimi, how they had been one, connected. That connection was as unique as Mimi and Damon feared that connection existed only in his memories. Why couldn't he love two? Mimi loved it too, didn't she? Right now, Adam and Charles. Why couldn't he love her?