Thanks for bearing with me everyone--I know I just keep getting slower and slower as I write these, but I promise I'll keep working! I want to know as badly as you what is going to happen to Lana next. Many thanks to my step-in editor GimletEdge for the wonderful encouragement and suggestions, and thank you to all of you for your fantastic comments. As always, please leave more! Tell me what you want to hear, and I'll do my best.
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I walked out of my office one morning about a week later, the clinic quiet and dim so close to sunrise, and I laid my head on Sandy's shoulder. She smelled like unscented lotion, warm and motherly.
"I feel like a vagrant."
"What?" she absentmindedly responded, alphabetizing files without pause.
"A vagrant." I sighed and let myself curl up on the ground next to her chair, leaning my cheek on the soft fabric of her slacks.
"What on earth do you mean?"
"I have no home. To be honest, it is really amazingly lovely to be living with Theo again, but it's not my home. I have nothing there except for a pile of clothes at the foot of his bed that I couldn't be bothered to fold for the life of me."
Sandy chuckled gently and I pulled back so that she could spin her chair around to face me. "So why don't you convince your royal boyfriend to buy you a home that YOU can be in charge of?"
"Oh, that'd be silly. His fortress should be good enough for me. I mean, it IS a fucking castle." Sandy watched me as fiddled with a spot on my pants.
"Hmmm, okay. If you say so." She finished putting away the 'L's and then turned around again. "Oh Lana—I forgot to tell you. Elke called around midnight, she wanted to check in with you about something for Alma's care. You were in with Mr. Andrews, and I didn't want to bother you."
"Thanks. I'll get back to her later on. Maybe I'll actually stay up till 7 or 8 this morning and give her a ring then."
"Good. Here are your other calls," she handed me a list of phone numbers and messages, "and here are your appointments for tomorrow night. There are no appointments until later, around 1am. After talking to Elke I figured you'd probably want to head out to the compound a little while, so I kept that time free."
"Oh my goodness, Sandy, you are amazing. Have I ever told you how amazing you are? You are the best." I scanned the appointment book and made some notes in my own notebook. I wanted to remember to get all the supplies for the appointments I had coming up. I knew I'd need a couple of vaccines, some new bandages for a patient I knew had a major wound, and the ultrasound machine for another patient with a curious mass in his abdomen. It was funny to be my own nurse, medical assistant, counselor and technician, but I felt so much better here, really knowing my patients, knowing what they would need, and providing it for them, than I ever had when I was working in a hospital or a private practice. The way the medical system is set up there I was required to be ONLY a physician, and stay away from anything other than diagnosis and prescribing. I wasn't allowed to spend the time to chat with my patients, to center the assessment around them. I had to ask them the questions on the sheet, check off the boxes that applied to them, and then give them a solution and send them on their way. I actually got in trouble once from my professor for following up with a patient on the phone when I was worried she hadn't quite understood my instructions.
After Sandy, Elliott and the research crew left for the day I stayed to clean up the exam rooms, do some paperwork (I still found it really hard to get rid of the habits of recording everything. I wasn't entirely sure I COULD be sued by a non-human, but I didn't want to risk it), and make some early morning phone calls. Elke, it turned out, was worried about some potential contractions that Alma was having, and I had wanted to go out to visit Nora anyway, so I packed up my nifty little doctor's bag and headed over. The compound was as idyllic and welcoming as always, and as I walked through the gates and over the hill I felt a little bit of longing. What a wonderful thing it would be to have such a huge family. The fact that they would even taken in this unknown pregnant woman and care for her and offer her home and protection without even expecting her to give back was amazing. I had been working on a contract with Theo and Elke, working some sort of peace treaty with them, and the whole time I was so amazed by Elke's graciousness and her willingness to forgive. Millennia of confrontation, fighting, and cruelty have passed between the two groups, and there she was, shaking Theo's hand, preparing to sacrifice the actual blood of her people to save those who had been hunting them since they could remember. Theo, on the other hand, was clearly a business man in all aspects. He was certainly interested in a truce of sorts, but much more interested in the possible financial gain. Although it disappointed me a little to think of it, I understood that for him, the state of his Kingdom outweighed all else, and if benefitting it meant amassing more finances, he would do what he had to.
At that moment I felt a tingling under my skin that started at the nape of my neck and rushed forward around my face and down my spine. It felt like I had just stepped under a shower of electricity. I stopped walking down the path to the compound and took a deep breath, allowing the rush to move to its completion. The woods were quiet but every chirp and rustle of leaves felt magnified, intensified at that moment. I could smell the moist freshness of the earth, the warm dustiness of a nest above me, the green leafiness of the baby trees struggling to grow up into the sunlight. The rush didn't abate, though, so I closed my eyes, and explored it. There were new emotions in me, strange ones of determination, focus, and self-preservation. Where did these emotions come from? Thoughts popped unbidden into my mind. 'The sun's already up, I should go to sleep,' I heard myself think. 'I thought Lana would be home by now. What's she gotten herself into this time?' My stomach cramped suddenly, and I became overwhelmed with a hunger I had never felt before. A deep, needy, soul-hunger filled me, and my thoughts spoke without me again. 'Ugh, I'm hungry. I wish Lana were here. She tastes so damn good.'
I shook my head vigorously moved away from the spot I had been standing in, rubbing the back of my neck and trying to get the sensation to stop. It wouldn't go away though, and instead it almost started to come on more intensely. I knew it was Theo, from the way he'd been thinking, and it pissed me off that he would think about me just as a tasty but mischievous pet. And why wouldn't the damn feeling go away? I didn't like being in his head and I just wanted it to STOP!
I felt a little pop and the electric humming under my skin went away immediately. The super sharp senses dulled back down again, and I felt content in knowing that I was the only one in my head. I scanned the area—no one had been watching. It was warm out still, even though fall was finally beginning to creep up, and I realized I had been sweating. I took a deep breath and felt the stretch in my lungs—it was calming enough to bring down the thudding of my heart to a more reasonable rate. Just another side effect of drinking so much of his energy, I had to tell myself. Must have been. Another deep breath and I continued down the path. I had work to do.
As if in a fairy tale, the front door swung open before I even reached the steps. The beautiful Were guard who had escorted me to the house the first time stepped out.
"Dr. Crane. Welcome back."
"Thank you so much, Elli! It is so good to see you again. Can I ask you a question though? How did you know I was here?"
"The way you stomp along? Ever Were from here to Kansas could hear you. And not to mention the fact that you smell so particularly. I noticed it the moment you got out of the car."
"Oh man. I'm always out done by you fantastical creatures. How are you?"
