“Mortals,” Rosa shook her head. “She’s making stupid choices.”
“Regardless, her wishes are clear.”
“Well,” Rosa slid her long legs under the bed. “I guess there’s nothing you can do but wait and see what happens.”
Gregory winced.
“Wait and see are not terms you are used to when you are a king, nor terms you like to hear.”
Rosa smirked.
“Take yourself down a notch and come to bed, Gregory. Stop thinking about the world.”
He sighed.
“You were radiant on stage tonight, my dear. A ray of energy in a dark world.”
“So come to bed and I'll show you some of my moves.” She wiggled her eyebrows and he laughed at last, sliding under the covers. What he did or didn`t feel for Rosa didn`t matter. At the moment, he was infinitely glad that he would have an immortal eternity with her to dwell on it.
* * *
Chapter 5
Peace. A cure. Quiet.
“Um …” Annalise was curled up on the couch a week later, a blanket over her legs and wearing two layers of warm clothing. She was freezing and exhausted today, but she knew nothing was an excuse to stop with lessons.
“Arthur …”
It was an extremely childish activity, but they were writing Christmas lists. She had explained yesterday about the legend of Santa and he had seen firsthand how commercialized Christmas had become. Today, for something that didn’t require much brain power, she thought she’d explain about Christmas lists and their cultural meaning. However, Arthur’s list, in badly written scrawl, was not exactly the way a Christmas list was supposed to be written.
“Think of things that can be wrapped and put under a tree,” she said, her voice hoarse. “A big jolly man in a red suit can’t wrap any of those things. And neither can your brothers.”
“What did you write?” he asked, confused.
Armani sweater, blue. Amazon gift certificate. Hollister coat.
She read them off to him, stopping for an explanation every time. He looked at his own list.
“But Knox could give me one day of not talking to me if he knew that’s what I wanted.”
Arthur’s language had improved in leaps and bounds recently. The only time he had trouble was when he was flustered, thinking faster than his brain could process. So far, none of that was a problem. Annalise hardly ever had to scramble for the dictionary anymore, although his accent could use some work.
“Yes,” this bringing humor to her tired eyes. “But he can’t wrap that.”
“But that’s what I wish.”
“My, you’re difficult today,” she teased him, trying to distract from a wave of pain that went through her body. She couldn’t stop shivering, and she knew that she had broken out into a cold sweat. It was probably just a side effect of the medication. The drugs she was on were strong. She had called Dr. Hever a few times, but he told her it was normal, and she said nothing more about it. “What we need is for your brothers to write lists too, so we can shop for them. Then, you can understand the real meaning of shoving people out of the way to get the last mass produced wallet the store has.”
Arthur’s face was a mask of confusion.
“Why would anyone want to do that?”
“Yeah, exactly,” Annalise said. He wasn’t the only one learning in these sessions. When he asked questions like that, it made her stop and question society itself, and what it had become. She realized that a lot of things that people did made no sense.
Another wave of pain hit her and she thought perhaps if she went to get a drink of water, she would feel a bit better.
“Just finish writing, okay? I’ll be right back.”
She struggled up, her arms shaking at the effort, and then started to make her way towards the kitchen. However, a wave of dizziness hit her, and spots formed in front of her eyes.
“Arthur,” she managed, in a whisper, and then her limp body hit the floor.
“Annalise!” Arthur had gotten to her a moment too late, but he had seen it as he rushed over. Her body, in his vision, her life force, flickered from this world, and then disappeared entirely. “Annalise!”
His shout brought his brother’s running, as he reached to her mouth, to feel no breath. Her eyes were closed, and her chest wasn’t moving.
“No!” he didn’t know what to do, so he just grabbed at her, trying to shake the life back into her. “No! No! No!”
“Arthur, stop!” It was Gregory’s fiery redhead that grabbed onto him, pushing him backwards. He felt the strength of vampirism leave his muscles as he struggled against her touch.
“Get away from me!”
“No, you’re going to hurt her!” Rosa snarled at him, backing him up against the wall. Behind her, chaos was taking place. Gregory was on the phone with the paramedics while Brock was frantically trying to breathe life into her. With Rosa nearby, they all drew enough breath to help. But it also removed the flickering from Arthur’s vision, something he needed to see. His brothers were blocking her limp body, lying on the floor, and he wanted nothing more than to be beside her.
“Let me to her!” His temper rose.
“Arthur, listen to me!” Rosa’s eyes pierced into his soul. “And don’t play games. I need to know if Annalise took something to injure herself.”
“WHAT?” He turned upon her, horrified and thinking he misunderstood.
“Don’t play dumb with me. I know the two of you had a suicide pack going on. You both want to die, that’s fine. But when the paramedics get here, they will need to know exactly what she took.”
Arthur sputtered at this.
“Nothing! Nothing! She’s sick, please, help her.”
Rosa searched his eyes for a minute, and then pulled back a little.
“Fine. That better be the truth, or she’s going to die a lot sooner than we knew.”
“She’s going to die?”
“Of course she’s going to die, Arthur,” Rosa rolled her eyes. “But not today, I hope. NO!” She yanked him back again, her ballet moves faster than his human reflexes. “Stay with me. There’s too many people there!”
Arthur’s eyes were desperate, but Gregory turned around and gave him a look and he stayed routed to the spot, watching in terror as the paramedics arrived. When he saw them doing chest compressions though, he leapt forward, breaking Rosa’s grasp and screaming that they were hurting her. This time, it was Gregory that caught him, pulling him back.
“Arthur,” he said, softly, and calmly with the voice of a king. “They are helping her. You cannot.”
“Gregory,” Arthur turned to him. “I think I love her.”
“Sshh,” Gregory replied, as they brought out the stretcher. He had a million things to say to that comment, but he said none of them, instead making sure that his brother wasn’t in his way. This is why he didn’t believe in love, this is why he couldn’t bring himself to be in love again. The pain on his brother’s face right now was more than he could bear to go through. “She’s breathing.”
“Can we go with them?” Arthur asked, and Gregory nodded. The paramedic heard this and turned.
“Does one of you want to come in the ambulance?”
“We’ll follow in the car,” Gregory said, sternly. He wished he could let Arthur go in the ambulance with her, but there would be too many things that he still didn’t know about, and it was likely that he would lose it again. “We’ll be right with you.”
“We’ll take her to St. Christopher’s.”
“Be right there,” Gregory said, holding Arthur back until the paramedic’s had exited. Only then did he feel he could speak freely. “Are you alright, Arthur?”
“Why aren’t we going?” his brother demanded and Gregory saw the old flair of power in him, the old regent come to the surface.
“Because I want to make it clear what is likely going to happen once we leave this house. We are going to go to the hospital, in the intensive care, likely, which is whe
re they take patients with serious illnesses to give them the highest quality of care. There will be very strict rules and visiting hours and once we are there, we must oblige them, no matter how stupid they seem. The doctors are going to do their best for her, even if they seem like they are hurting her. In addition, I am going to call Dr. Hever to give him an update and his medical opinion. The girl is no use to us half dead.”
“You will not touch her,” Arthur snarled. Knox rolled his eyes.
“Gregory means that Annalise will be sent to him, if she doesn’t recover. Now, get to it.”
“Rosa?” Gregory turned to her and she nodded.
“Sure, I’ll come. There’s nothing I like more than hanging around hospitals,” she rolled her eyes, but grabbed the car keys and followed them out the door.
Arthur was nowhere near as apprehensive of cars as he used to be, but he still looked nervous as he slid into the backseat.
The death of a human had never hit him so hard as it did now. He couldn’t explain what he had come to feel for this girl, only that he needed to be beside her, and that he needed to protect her from the reaper.
The drive to the hospital took forever, it felt like in a car, and he wondered how long it would have taken if all they had was a horse drawn cart. Gregory seemed to pick the furthest parking space he could from the front entrance, and by the time they reached the doors, over half an hour had passed.
“How do we find her?” Arthur asked, overwhelmed by the rooms and hallways that seemed to go on forever.
“That part is easy,” Rosa strolled to the front desk in such a way that the security guard actually stood up from his post, and looked her right in the eye, straightening his shirt and running a hand through his hair. Arthur turned to Gregory.
“Don’t you mind?”
“Don’t I mind what?” his brother asked, confused.
“That men … look at her that way.”
Gregory shook his head.
“If I killed every man who looked at Rosa that way, the human race would cease to exist. She does not belong to me, Arthur, she is of her own free will. I find it a blessing that she is by my side when she is.”
“How can it be that way?” Arthur was aghast. “I would …”
“Because you and I believe different things,” Gregory said, with a smile. “And the benefit to this modern age is that neither of us can be persecuted for them. We can all believe something different, and operate until those values.”
“She’s in ICU,” Rosa returned. “Come on, I think it’s this way.”
The hospital was decorated for Christmas, with strings of lights everywhere, vendors set up in the main hallway, and long rows of tables selling various wares. There was a familiar song playing that Arthur had heard many times this season, but couldn’t place it. In his day, there were once only a few songs and dances that everyone knew and could participate in. But now, it seemed there were millions and it was overwhelming. Annalise had over a thousand songs on the computer, and it baffled him.
They took the elevator to the sixth floor, and the mood was much different. There was only the sound of beeping monitors, and hushed voices, tiptoeing around. In the far corner, he could hear someone crying.
Rosa strolled to the desk, this time commanding the attention of a female nurse, who sent the doctor right over to them.
“You’re here for Annalise?” he asked, looking to Arthur as impossibly young to be a doctor.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Right,” the young doctor said. “We’ve got her stabilized now, although she came in with heart failure. It appears her leukemia has progressed to Stage 4 faster than expected. It depends how you want to proceed,” he spoke slowly, allowing the impact of the words to hit them. “We could try another round of chemo, if you wanted. She’s pretty weak right now, and I’m seeing organ failure when I shouldn’t be.”
“What are the chances,” Gregory asked, stone faced, “of it working?”
“A 4th round? Well, there’s always hope.” The doctor looked down at his chart. “I’ll give her attending physician a call as well. But for now, no choices can be made until she regains her strength.”
“Please, can I see her?” Arthur asked, trying to shape every word carefully so he could be understood.
“Five minutes,” the doctor scribbled something on his clip board. “Five minutes and please don’t exhaust her. She’s in room 605.”
“You can go,” Gregory said to Arthur. “Rosa and I will wait here. We don’t want to overwhelm the poor girl.”
Arthur’s head was still spinning as he approached the room. He had seen her already with tubes in her, and the monitors, but now that he was away from Rosa, he saw something that he had never seen before. Her life force was no longer flickering, it was stronger, but it was being sustained outside of her. She wasn’t holding on to it of her own volition.
He approached her cautiously, as if his mere presence might overwhelm her. She was sleeping, her eyes closed, and he gently leaned over, placing a kiss on her forehead.
“Annalise,” he breathed, and her eyes fluttered opened. The monitor beeped once and she looked at him, although the gaze was unfocused. “Annalise?”
“Arthur,” she replied, breathless in her struggle. “Stay.”
He bit his lip.
“I’m not supposed to stay.”
“Stay,” she repeated, before the world overtook her again and she drifted back to the black abyss. And stay he did.
He wasn’t allowed in her room the whole time. Gregory made it clear that he must obey the rules. He also made it clear that he could be hurting her more than helping if he constantly demanded her attention. So he stayed in the waiting room mostly, curled up in the uncomfortable chairs, painstakingly trying to work his way through her binder. He could barely make the words out, each letter foreign, but Gregory had found an English to Latin dictionary. While it was poor quality, it did the job.
It was three days before she was properly awake and moved to a lower level of care. As soon as she was, he was in her room almost hourly, his chair pulled as close to the bed as possible, just to be near her.
On her sixth day in hospital, he brought her the lists his brothers had made, silly things, but done under his threats and pleas.
“An ugly sweater? A snow globe?” She snorted as she sifted through the lists. “Wow, they really went cliché and made lists for everything Christmassy.”
“They did them wrong?” Arthur asked, and she shook her head.
“No, just amusing. So guess what we do with lists now?”
“We … send them to the fat man?”
“Only if you’re five years old,” she replied. “We take them, and shop for the items on the list, wrap them, and put them under the tree on Christmas for them to open.”
“But … so it’s the illusion of Santa?”
“Exactly,” she grinned at him, proud of his progress. She was still white as a sheet, and she was getting thinner by the day, but her spirits were high. Or perhaps it had something to do with the constant amount of Christmas sugar cookies that were being brought around. “You want to go shopping?”
He cocked his head, confused.
“How? You are not leaving until you are better.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t go downstairs. I’m not on bed rest completely. Do you think you can find a wheelchair?”
“Yes,” he nodded, eager to please her and rushed out into the hall. There was one waiting for him, as if placed there just for his purpose and he snatched it, bringing it back to her.
Annalise felt so thin and fragile in his arms. His heart exploded with love and protection as he settled her into the chair. He wanted to believe that these harsh drugs would heal her, that she would be back to her old self soon, just like last time, but he wasn’t sure it was possible, even with modern medication. Surely nothing was so powerful that it could bring her back to what she was?
Annalise settled into the chair and he
took the blanket off the bed to wrap around her, and then wheeled her down the hall. She was gazing at the lists and then closing her eyes, trying to think of places where she had seen these items.
When they got to the elevator, she pressed the button for the ground floor, letting the doors close. Arthur glanced around, and for the first time, she didn’t see fear in his eyes at a new invention.
“Well, this would have been very convenient, in my time.”
“Modernity does have some good ideas,” she replied, with a smirk and the doors opened onto the ground floor.
There were even more vendors than there had been before. She had grabbed her wallet, and still had the money Gregory had given her that day in the mall. She craned her neck up to Arthur, reading a few common items off the list.
“Got it?”
“And then we just … purchase these things and save them until Christmas?”
“Correct. It’s all about giving other people stuff, and not getting the stuff you want in return,” she smirked at her own joke.
“What’s on your list, Annalise?” he asked, as he slowly pushed her wheelchair through the row of tables. There were so many items, he felt overwhelmed. In his day, a market carried things that were needed, things that people had to go to market for. Nowadays, it seemed everything that could be dreamed up was sold. He still didn’t understand prices in terms of what was a good price or bad, but he found a few of the items on his brother’s list right away. He was so caught up in looking; he forgot to wait for her answer, which she was grateful for.
Once, this question would have been easy to answer. But now, Annalise had no idea what she wanted. She had come here wanting to go home, and wanting to be as far away from these Princes as possible. Now, with the threat of going home looming over her, she realized she didn’t want to leave.
She wanted to stay, to see Arthur on his first modern Christmas, to celebrate the holidays with the people in this town she had come to know well. And love. She didn’t want to admit that word to herself, but there was something, when she looked at Arthur, that she was frightened of, frightened because of how strong it was. Was she falling in love with this broad shouldered tall Prince, or was it simply being around him all the time that she had grown fond of him?
A New Start Page 20