5. Friend or Foe?

Suddenly, I woke up to the feeling of someone hitting me with an open palm, hard, again. I snapped my eyes open and bounced up to sit up and panted. I was sweaty and mildly panicked, as in that dream it had Damon, not Damien, and it took a few moments for me to get myself not to be afraid of Damon. To the extent that he would notice it, not easy as he was really digging into my mind, Damon stood by my bed, looking at me very worriedly. I remembered every second, but I knew Damon wouldn't see them and wouldn't feel or even know the whole thing.

I said, "I'm awake, I'm awake. What do you want?"

Damon looked at me for a moment and said," What were you dreaming about? When I didn't see it, and I should have."

I swallowed and said, "I don't remember. It wasn't anything funny. Some vague nightmare, I guess. "

Damon furrowed his eyebrows, looked at me for a moment, and said, " Now baby, I don't believe you, but whatever it was, you know I can help. I can dispel and even erase. It is not meant for you to hold all of that shit in your mind. Trust me. "

I got myself under control and said, " Really, I don't remember. " He moved away from the bed, still frowning.

I got up and went to the bathroom. I looked at the bracelet on my wrist and touched one stone. Now it was empty. There were 48 stones in the bracelet: 48 torture, shed sessions, whatever. This bracelet had once been every dear gift that Damon had given me, and Damien turned this into a torture device.

I had this bracelet last time in that damn session where he killed me the first time. I remember that one too, and the shed that was under that castle. I destroyed it, personally during those seven years when I got my memory back, not by chance, but I found a few of his laptops and heard his dictations. 

And I remembered how real the dream had been because it had been my memory, and then it had sunk in somewhere. I knew now I wouldn't sleep because I'd start having those dreams if I weren't with somebody all the time. I did my business, washed my face and my hands, getting my mind fully calm state. 

I went back to bed, sat down, and said, "I'll be back in a minute for food. I'm just going to take a shower and get dressed."

Damon looked at me and said, his voice softened a bit, but still, there was a hint of impatience on it, "I wish you would trust me, but then again, I have to be patient with you. It's probably difficult for you to trust anyone, and I'm trying to show you that everything is going to be okay. I'll help a lot. Sweetheart. Don't be afraid at all."

I said, " Yeah, I believe you want to help, and you can help. I am not gonna dig out any shit while pregnant, not want to endanger my cubs. But I'm going to take a shower. I've got a few days left."

Damon looked at me and said, "4 days, but I have to think about the surgery. Really, because you're still reacting strongly to those anesthetics, and even though I try to keep the dosage very low, you'll still cool down and sleep for at least a few days. Your body is not used to drugs, and it is complicated."

I said, " Have you thought about operating on me under anesthesia, spinal anesthesia?"

Damon looked at me and said, " That's an option, but right now, I can't guarantee that you'll be pain-free because I don't know how to numb your tissue. It might not work, not even with Colin's drugs. I mean cesarean is painful. It is much worse than digging out a few bullets. And it takes its own time. "

I sighed and said, " Well then, I'll give birth. That's fine. They'll come out."

Damon stood up and said, " Go to your shower. Keep it warm. Those cubs are energy creatures, then come and eat, and then you can do something else. "

I nodded and went into the shower. I took off the bloody bracelet. It wasn't the bracelet's fault. I just didn't want it to touch me. I washed and scrubbed myself clean. That had been an awful snippet, and I knew that memory would be long and there were so many of them. He had really manipulated my memory because I started to see when and where I had been in the shed; he had always healed me to some extent in the end with his blood.

So there was no clear evidence of sessions and he had manipulated my mind to think I had gotten banged up on missions or somewhere else. I could still almost feel the fucking jelly dripping down my insides.

Then I got dressed. I'd been left with my clothes ready. Damon, of course, had chosen my clothes for me. I did no need to be too independent, and I was just wondering how I would keep myself together and not sleep. How was I going to get through the memories that came from the jewelry without the telepath in my head getting any clue about them?

But I had learned to think of everything else when I felt Damon in my head. He was probing, clearly looking for something. After all, he had seen that I was having a nightmare and wanted to help. But I wasn't ready for that yet.

This was just another weakness; I would have to endure it alone, as if it were for the best. I loved being in the pack, I really did, but I'd already seen from Lepard, Adam, Charles, Demon, and even Damon's face that my shit, my horror, was getting to them and good, so it would be my burden to bear.

I was just simply protecting those around me. No need to traumatize them or be any anymore a victim than I already am. Charles and lepard, even Princess Mariella had been truly shocked by those few snippets that they probably had seen, they wanted to keep me safe and they were very protective, but so was I. I had seen firsthand what it meant for someone to burn out in my organization, in my job and it was not nice. 

My problem, my burden to bear. I thought was before I was ready. I didn't want to tell Damon. I was protecting him. I didn't want to show him or anyone how Damien abused me in his body, how I believed it was Damon.

It's what gets to your soul whether you like it or not. There's nothing you can do about it, and you just have to accept it, learn to deal with it, and move on. It's my job to protect the pack from my traumas.

No matter how much they want to help. There's nothing I can do about it. Nothing at all. I went into the kitchen. The Hustle and bustle were going on around me as I sat down. Damon came, took my wrist, tasted my blood, and then disappeared into the fridge, soon coming out with a multitude of smoothies and food for me to eat. I did not think about my dream and concentrated on eating. I knew I was going into labor in four days, and it certainly wasn't wise to put me to sleep if I was going to sleep three days a week.

This was my life. I ate everything Damon carried in front of me, and he watched, regret flashing in his eyes as I went to sit in my own seat, which was no longer next to his. But I didn't mind. I had learned that my place at the table was not the most important matter in the world, so it was just the same to me where I ate. Life goes on, and so has this pack. They had their life for those seven years and it was wrong for me to even assume that they would change it all just because of me. I just had to learn about it and not assume that everything would stay the same.

I was thrilled to have had all my crafts, beads, and other important things seven years ago. Now I had time to do these things again. It was strange to go through the house. Everything had been moved, my storages had been searched, and stuff had been sent on. Rugs had been moved, and sofas, chairs, curtains even. some rooms were put a whole new way, and I did not see any bad in that, actually. This was now our home, and it was important for the pack to feel it too.

The pack was exploring what my life had been like. I saw that my prize trophies had been put somewhere else, probably posted in a display case in the hospital so everyone could see how damn good I was. But I wasn't perfect. Because if I were perfect, I wouldn't have lost any patients. Not one. But I am what I am. And sometimes, this overconfidence of mine is my greatest sin. I think I can do anything.

I had not gone to any gala. There had been someone from the hospital to receive my prize and deliver it to me. I did not think that I deserved all of those prizes, but I got them anyway when I managed to save important lives and get a few nasty cases of brain tumors healed.

Damon told me at one time, before the divorce. I don't remember exactly if he was even number one, but he taught me or tried to get into my head that he, the energy being, the telepath, the wizard, the healer. He can't save everybody, and that's why he doesn't go to the hospital to work; it's too much of a lesson in humility. He knows his powers and abilities and can do miracles, but he can't save everyone, either.

You see, the human body doesn't understand magic. Magic doesn't work on human physiology or anatomy, either. Vampire blood can only help so much. But he can't heal people. He can help with the supernatural, but even that is not guaranteed, and he doesn't want to learn repeatedly how damn powerless he is. That's not an excellent lesson at all. So he's not even going to be a doctor.

But me, the eternal masochist, I'm bound to be a doctor and a flea. I wasn't any longer suffering to be Mimi. I was dumped just because I opened up completely. The pain was too much for me, and so I did everything else. My rage helped along the way, but it was just me, who I am. As I pondered these things while I ate, I saw Damon catch my thoughts. Regret flashed in his eyes again, and he got up from the table after eating and walked away.

I finished my meal and went into one room to read for a while; I had a lot of medical books on my tablet to be read and when number two came to bring me my food, a few hours had been gone again, he also explained to me that Charles was sleeping because he got some flashes in his head from me that were not good for him. I could understand the subtle implication that I shouldn't sleep with anyone. I would not sleep at all.

I prepared for the birth, doing a few little things and combining a bit of my chaos and my rage, which had now come several wells in a couple of days as I was so incredibly furious about that Damien trick. But I had learned to hide my rage from the pack and from my babies. It actually wasn't that hard to do the trick.

Again, there were different rages. All of my colorful rages were starting to come back to me. It seemed that I could now do them without thinking. Let's just see where my life takes me and how we can give birth. I knew that I could do this on my own too, no need to support, I had learned to lean on myself.