Decisions, Chapter 14

Just after Godric hung up on her – she guessed that was his version of ending a call – Cara sat on the couch with her mouth open catching flies until she realized that not only was Godric coming over, but that he would be arriving way sooner than later considering he was bringing a doctor with him… doctor who evidently still made house calls, at that.

As hastily as she could considering she felt like the proverbial sick puppy, she changed into comfy lounge pants and a loose button-up sleep shirt, tried to run a brush through her hair, then gave up and gathered the whole mess into a sloppy bun. She splashed her face with water, endured a coughing fit, half-way spread up her bed, and just glared half-heartedly at the living room before collapsing back on the couch.

People visiting sick people should know better than to expect neat and clean, and if they didn’t, they could get over it.

As she relaxed on the couch swathed in the large throw she kept on the back, she reviewed everything Godric had said to her on the phone. He’d sounded so…sweet, so concerned; more concerned, really, than the small amount of time they’d known each other really should have warranted, but she couldn’t bring herself to worry too much about it. She was sick and he was…attractive times infinity, she decided as she rested her slightly warmed cheek against the cooler sofa pillow.

She didn’t understand why he seemed so worried. As old as he was, surely even being vampire he knew that colds were just colds, that you suffered through them and go on with it. At his age… she paused in her mental meanderings as she suddenly realized something.

Way back when he was still human, even colds were a serious illness with questionable outcomes. Back then, people died from simple illnesses.

So it was natural that he would be somewhat more concerned about her well-being than she thought reasonable. As she grasped the true depth of his concern, she found that she felt somewhat…bad for the guy.

Carrying for over 2,000 years the fear and memory of people dying from what could so easily be cured or managed these days could not have been easy.

She immediately resolved to take his concerns just a little more seriously…even if she didn’t quite understand why he was so concerned when he barely knew her.

The magnitude of his concern for her should have felt creepy, she once again acknowledged to herself, especially since they had only had two face-to-face encounters and both of those happened on the same night. Granted she had known that he had been following her at night for some time, which again should have sent her creep-o-meter screaming into overdrive, but instead, she’d felt, well, safe and cared for when she realized that he was the cause of the sensation she’d been feeling.

She had no idea why his presence made her feel protected and safe, but he did, even though there was this air about him that suggested he was capable of great destruction. And he smelled really nice, too.

Just as she was about to fall asleep again, she heard something rustling outside her door followed by a strong knock. Vaguely wondering if the doorbell had quit working, she shuffled over to the door and opened it to reveal a mass of shopping bags, two glowing vampires, and a…someone.

Sniffling while laughing wasn’t as easy as it sounded, but she managed to do that as she took in the scene before her even as Godric approached to cup her chin. He raised her face up so he could survey her appearance, and the slightly hardened expression on his face proved his displeasure with her illness.

“Ah, Cara mia, you do not look well.”

His smooth, warm voice sent shivers down her back and she let herself get lost momentarily in the deep blue of his worried gaze. Entranced by her own warm brown eyes, Godric stroked his thumb slowly across her flushed cheek as he returned her gaze.

A sudden softly cleared throat brought them both back to the present.

Godric shifted enough to wrap his arm about her waist to help support her as she indicated the living room with a sweeping gesture.

“Come in, please,” she invited everyone. “Did you buy out,” she trailed off as she suddenly turned away to cough into her elbow. After she recovered, she remembered her manners, and looked at the lady vamp to ask, “Oh, do I need to issue you an invitation?” She then glanced at Godric, figuring he’d know best since the woman was with him.

“Cara, this is my grandprogeny Pamela, and it would be best to issue her an invitation. I know you are tired, so let us proceed.”

She nodded, then raised a brow in query toward the small woman she assumed must be the doctor. The woman did not look entirely human – Cara had always suspected that if there were vampires as well as humans, then there were probably other species of people running around the planet as well – but she didn’t want to be rude and just come right out and ask her if she needed an invitation too. The older lady looked very surprised, but simply shook her head.

“Pamela, please come in.”

“Pam,” the lady vamp corrected as she entered while handling all the bags with as much dignity as she could.

As soon as everyone was in, Godric closed the door and slid his arm more firmly about her waist to safely guide her back into the living rom.

“Cara, this is Dr. Ludwig,” he said, nodding toward the short, scowling doctor who had just plopped her large medical bag near the door after taking a deep whiff of the air inside the home.

He looked back to Cara who was nodding at the doctor, then frowned as he followed the direction of her gaze. With an unsettled look on his face, he then turned toward the pretty blonde lady vamp. “And this, as I said, is my grandprogeny Pamela.”

Following the vampire custom she had heard so much about, Cara just nodded to the impassive blonde in pink who stood clutching all those plastic grocery bags. Godric was holding her so close to his side that she couldn’t have easily broken free anyway.

“Come, child,” the non-statuesque doctor interrupted to order brusquely. She headed toward the couch, her impatience obvious in every step as she mentally berated everyone and everything to do with the entire vamptastic situation. The girl didn’t even look near death like she was promised; she just looked like she had a damn cold. Fucking vampires getting all hysterical over their favorite pets. At least the girl didn’t act like a pet, though, thank the powers that be. Bah… Idiot vamps could have just spent five minutes online and known what was up or – horrors – called a regular doctor and been done with it, but nooo, they had to get all hoity-toity and call her in for no good reason.

Ostensively to give them some privacy, Godric immediately led Pam, who had once again rearranged all the shopping bags, back to the kitchen. He nodded for her to begin sorting everything out onto the counters and placing the cold things into the clean but cluttered refrigerator while he focused on the living room…and was quite put out when he couldn’t hear anything. He could see perfectly well, but not only was the sound spelled down, but they were turned in such a way that he couldn’t even read their lips. Apparently the house-calling doctor also had a mobile privacy spell.

Sensing the doctor’s impatience, Cara had simply patted Godric’s arm to get him to let her go, and said, “This won’t take but a second, y’all; it’s just a cold.” Then with a cough, she obligingly followed the doctor over to sit on the couch.

When the doctor indicated that she wanted Cara’s hand, she held it out but gave the doctor a questioning look when she raised the palm toward her mouth. “I’m just going to taste it, girl.”

She couldn’t help but scrunch up her nose as she jerked back. “I don’t know what kind of doctor you are, and I can’t say I particularly care so long as you make people well, but I gotta warn ya – my hand is going to taste like a bad mix of soap and hand sanitizer…”

The doctor snorted. “If that’s the worst thing I ever taste it’d be just fine by me,” then proceeded to lick her palm.

Cara giggled at the sensation, then broke out into a coughing fit. “Well,” she added when she was finished, “I have gum for the bitter aftertaste.” She indicated the open pack of gum on the coffee table.

Dr. Ludwig ran an appraising eye over the girl, nothing more than a child, really, and wondered…

“So, how do you feel?”

It was Cara’s turn to snort, then she glanced over her shoulder toward the kitchen.

“You can speak freely. They won’t hear a word.”

“How?”

The doctor just gave her a look.

“Oh, well, never mind, then. I just hate that they drug you all the way out here because this is nothing more than a regular, generic cold, but to answer your question, I feel like shit… the way one does with, you know, a regular generic cold. Can we wrap this up so you can get going and they can leave so I can get back to bed?” Being awake was highly overrated.

The doctor’s wrinkled old face split into her first genuine smile of the week.

“I like you. You’re going to be fine, but I don’t think you’ll be getting rid of him any time soon.” She nodded toward the kitchen as she withdrew a weird looking phone from a pocket Cara hadn’t noticed and started typing something a hundred miles a minute.

If the silly girl didn’t want the old vamp around, she thought, I’ll do what I can to get rid of him tonight, but it doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere on his own. Humph… if she just had to go and catch a vamp’s eye, though, she couldn’t have done any better. Ah, yes, there’s the blush. Such a child… wonder if she has any idea of just who Godric is…

“No, well, I don’t mind if he stays, I don’t guess,” Cara fumbled, trying not to blush but giving up almost immediately. Hell yeah she wanted Godric to stay…but not so much the other one, the one she didn’t know.

The doctor gave her a look, finished with her phone, sniffed the air in the room again, then burped.

“Yes, child, congratulations. You are indeed the proud owner of a nice, boring cold. A member of my staff will be by in an hour with something for that cough and congestion. You’ll be well in a week.” With that, she patted Cara’s hand twice in what was supposed to have been a consoling manner, hopped off the couch, and called the others back into the room.

“It’s just a cold,” the doctor barked as Godric and Pam returned to the living room. He immediately stalked over to stand beside Cara and placed his hand on her shoulder as she remained on the couch before he leveled his impatient glare at the doctor. He highly resented that damn privacy spell.

“She’ll be fine,” Dr. Ludwig began, not giving a shit if the ancient vampire’s nose was out of joint or not. Patients deserved their damn privacy no matter what prying-assed vamps wanted. “She just needs rest, sleep, and liquids, and some of that food you managed to bring her. She’ll be well in about a week. One of my staff will be by in an hour or so with some medicine for the girl.”

“Would my blood cure her?” Godric’s question, voiced strongly and surely, cut the doctor’s diagnosis short. He had straightened to his full height, his back and shoulders set, his arms now folded across his muscular chest. If giving her his blood was what it took to heal her quickly and effectively, then naturally that’s what he’d do. Of course, that she was the only person on the planet he would even consider giving his blood was never in question regardless of the looks being thrown his way.

A part of him knew he was badly over-reacting. Cara and the doctor both had told him it was nothing to worry about, and he could sense no deception from either even though he also realized that there there was nothing to be hidden. The doctor’s privacy spell simply had not helped matters.

It was just… She was… But… But this was his Cara, and he would take no chances. He couldn’t.

Cara noticed when both women whipped their heads around to stare at him in shock. What she didn’t realize, but that Pam and the doctor both knew well, was that Godric was firmly of the old-school line of thought: a vampire’s blood was the most precious thing to that vampire and to older vampires it was worth far more than money could ever buy. It contained a vampire’s literal life-force, the magic that caused a vampire to exist in the first place. That he would even consider offering that part of himself to the bloodbag, thought Pam, silly but nice child, thought the doctor, for a common cold was…delusional at best and insane at worst.

Pam quickly stifled her internal alarm as she didn’t want her shock and worry to alert her Maker, much less call him to this place, but decided to have a word with Eric when she returned. Surely this was not normal, even for whatever the “new normal” for her grandsire was now. While the short brunette was more than passably pretty, she wasn’t “all that and a bag of chips” as she had heard some redneck wanna-be goth-boy spout the other night. Freak was wearing jeans, eyeliner, and some sort of mesh …thing… for a shirt and actually seemed to expect some vampire to choose him? Ugh…

After Dr. Ludwig recovered very quickly from her shock at Godric’s suggestion, she hastily shook her head. As little deference as she held for vampires in general, Godric was one of the very few she could tolerate. His progeny and grandprogeny were much farther down that short list. But, when The Northman had called her, she had listened to his words, and the words he hadn’t spoken, and had to agree. There was definitely something amiss in the ancient mind of the vampire before her for him to even consider giving this girl his precious, precious blood for nothing more than a common cold.

There was no way Ludwig would approve that course of action, not knowing how the “real” Godric felt about such things. Even though he was a damn vamp, she would still try to protect him – even from himself. She needed to have a word with The Northman before she left for her much needed vacation.

“Yes, it would, but that won’t be necessary. That would be like killing a spider with an atomic bomb when a shoe would do perfectly well,” she informed him bluntly. “Just make sure she gets enough rest and sleep, push liquids, and get her to eat what she can, when she can, and she’ll be fine.”

As Godric hummed a non-committal reply, she walked toward the door and grabbed her bag. “I’ll send The Northman my bill,” she called as she exited the house.

Cara promptly sneezed as the two vampires turned to look at her.

.

.

.

**A/N: Next chapter: Godric cuddling. 😀  And, as always, if you choose to lift my ideas from my stories and use them in your own, please have the courtesy to acknowledge the use and credit the idea back to me, or just leave my ideas where they are.  Either/or…  Peace!**

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.