29. Don't Dream It's Over.

Charles asked me where I was, as he had not seen me in several weeks and these negotiations had been a pure shitstorm for all of them.

I answered shortly, "I am in medbay. "

He said, "Fine, I come there and see if I can help you. I guess you are there for a reason. "

I did not answer anything as I focused on doing something for my health. Charles came to medbay and was surprised at how unwell I was.

I was sitting on the bed, trying to wrap a support bandage over my crushed ribs. I had gotten a few pieces to mend already, and I was trying to get myself an actual ribcage.

When I told him what had happened, Charles said, "We're not having a party. The talks ended, but because Bran just struck back at the laws, the talks were for nothing. Now Damon has been drinking for three days, and now I understand why, honey, you need help, and Damon is the best to help. Stop hurting yourself, please."

I grunted, pulled one piece of rib again in a better position, injected little Colin's healing booster, and continued to wrap my chest.

I looked at my husband and said quietly, "Maybe so, but no. It was Damien, but right now, I don't want to hear any explanations or see his guilty gaze as he sees me again. It will not help him or me. So no. I'll fix myself. I'm a fucking trauma surgeon. Now go and don't say a word to Salvatore. As you can see, Colin's healing booster helps, and once my own healing kicks in, no need to make Damon feel any worse than he already does. No need for him to come boss me around now. It is time for me start to being something else than goddamn victim all the fucking time."

I felt my rage burning so brightly and it took all the pain away, or at least put it somewhere where it really did not bother me at all. 

Charles sighed and said, " First, Mimi, that rage needs to be put away, and then we'll help. Stop pulling those ribs, you are just making it worse. You will get an infection or something if you go on brutalizing yourself. Whether you're a trauma surgeon or not, it's a bad idea to operate on yourself. Try to get some freakin sense in your thick skull for a change. Do I have to get all upset with you about this, or what? "

Charles' eyes flashed, and I thought, " This guy has balls. Come and boss me around when I'm getting myself in shape. It's not like they're going to decide who fucking treats me and who doesn't. "

I looked at Charles and said, " Give me a few days, please, and I'll show you I can do this. I'll really be fine soon."

I grunted again, now got almost one full rib in place, shot up a little more healing booster, and continued my wrapping operation. I had splints on my legs too, so I could walk short distances too. 

Charles sighed and walked away from the medbay without saying a word. I continued to think about what to do next and was about to go and put one of my ribs in place again; I was putting them in place one by one. Colin's healing boosters had helped them grow some, so I was getting my ribcage in place slowly and carefully.

I was just about to walk up to my private medicine cabinet to get some more healing boosters. The distance was not so long, but I had kind support around me as my spine was not healed at all. I blew out my rage more and got on my feet.

Short distances of ten paces all around were my goal.

That's how much I always suffered when a voice from the doorway said: "Young lady, that's where your antics end. Now get on that bed and stay where you are, or I'll stun you where you stand."

I turned around, looked Damon in the eye, and said in an angry voice, "Perhaps you came to admire the marks on your hands, Salvatore. Or Damien's. I don't want or need you now, so fuck off, get lost! I can manage myself and I am sick and tired of being a victim, being weak. It is time for me to make myself better. No need to try to quiet your conscience. "

Damon looked at me and said, " Really, Mimi"

Then he came at me at vampire speed and once again snapped my neck so fast I didn't even realize it.

I woke up chained to the bed and watched Damon pulling different drugs into a syringe and putting them into drip bags. I tried to find my rage. I was drugged somehow, or then he just did not let me have my rage.

Then he said without turning his head, "Those healing boosters are not good for you in the long run. You are not getting your rage just yet. Good, that you still have such a good healing ability. It will help you recover better as soon as I operate on you. As I said, Mimi, that side is more in evidence. I can't swear it didn't strike again at some point. It didn't appreciate our holiday in the Azores. Now, baby, it's sleepy time again."

He came, he had the syringe in his hand and he put me to sleep by stabbing me right in the heart. My mind shut down immediately.

Damon, Adam, and Charles would cut Mimi and set the bones and stuff as right as they could. They filled the cavity of the body with loose space with a bump and put the nourishment in the drip. Quite a few organs were replaced, and they had gotten replication enzyme blocked before it got fully on. Metals were taken out by wizards. Now Mimi would just rest and recover. Mirella had come loose after the operation and gone off to do some wing work. Damon kept Mimi asleep for a week and then let her wake up. There was no infection, thankfully, and if there had been, then he would not let her wake up.

I woke up in the medbay, still in chains. Interestingly, I remembered what Damon had said during the torture session. I had been onto the table, tortured out of my mind and this little thing had made me now seriously doubt that Damien was real, or that he was truly just one part of Damon. The reality that struck me in the face so badly.

He came next to me, touching me, " This is quite different from what I did to you in the basement in the Azores, isn't it? It's not the feather stick I'm going to tickle you with here and there. Look, baby, as if the nice part of me would very much like to be some kind of double person or deny this pleasure, you see, I'm not a different creature if I remember our wonderful moments, aren't I? You would think that if there was a different good Damon, he would like to protect all those times with you, not showing them to me, Damien. Sorry baby, it seems that you are stuck with me, as you can't really shake me off."

Then he touched me just like had touched me in the Azores but somehow in so wrong a way. It made me shudder. 

He continued, now talking almost the same way as normal, not in Damien's way. "If that's just my way of trying to get you to stay with me, to make you believe that this part of me that I've now given power to is somehow different or that the nightly stabbings and flanks will help me not to take you to the shed, oh please baby, believe it, believe it hard and let me always break that belief."

He walked a few steps and injected more poison into me. It made my mind blurring up even more.

"See now. You will begin to see and know me fully when I no longer have to contain everything in myself. Come on, baby, read some psychology or some manuals, and you'll see. Defending myself is just my adjustment mechanism, so I don't go all broken when I hurt the one I love, but when, baby, I've always done it since the beginning of time. The one I love is also the one I hurt and fix. That's my kind of spin. Yes, you've probably by now learned to see that; it's just a matter of when you accept it. Now I've got you to be with me properly, to marry me again and again so that you don't deny you love me. You always want to be with me. "

He then continued to torture me, smelling wet dogs and time to time also from passionfruit, so my muddled-up brain had a hard time to keep it up with where I was and with whom.

After this little statement, I looked at Damon with different eyes. Maybe there is no Damien after all and I have put my hopes all on nothing. 

He came to me and said, "Good morning. Your bones are fine, organs too, no multiplication enzyme, and you are still quite weak. Now you are not going anywhere until I make sure you don't get any infection. "

I looked at him for a moment and said, " Is that true, what you said in the cellar, that you really have always hurt the one you love? Always ?"

Damon looked me in the eye and said, " There's no point in denying it, after all that pouring out, but yes, I've never hurt anyone else as bad as I hurt you, but yes, I've always done it. Why do you think I kill my girlfriends? There's no point in denying it so hard when I'd like that evil to be some part of me, so separate that I could get it out of me, but no. It's just me, baby. Or some flawed part of me, anyway. Just like you are sometimes a flea or a pretender, they are a side of you, but not all the time. Hard to explain. I'm so old and tired sometimes, and I think that's a factor, but also that I've been a brutal and ruthless vampire for so long. "

He got up and went to check some results on the computer. Then he walked out of the medbay, and after a few minutes, my shackles fell open. I then got out of bed, and no, he wasn't lying when he said I was weak when I was. I had no idea what to do next. I started moving and realized I was in a New Jersey mansion alone. I called Charles and said he and Adam were at a gig, and Mirella and Mimosa were watching a wing project somewhere in the house.

I couldn't understand why Damon left. What was so bad about facing the truth, but if he just couldn't face the whole thing now? I don't know. All I knew was that I needed company, and now I was on my own again, weak and not going to go to any gigs or go anywhere until I got myself together. I tried to think about this revelation in my mind, over and over again. Trying to find out if this was one of Damien's manipulations or if was he just one part of Damon. But what this medical experiment was that he did in the shed normally. Damon had no idea, so that would indicate that maybe Damien is a different part of him.

I started eating and walking, putting the aquariums in order, and waiting for the fish and plants. I did have large plant tanks to get some of the tanks in place. I called Damon and left a message that I missed him, and he could have stayed to rehabilitate me. But he didn't call back, and a week later, I got a message that my voicemail never got through or was rejected. 

He just didn't want to be with me now fine I'd be fine. I had to once again, and I knew I couldn't trust anyone but myself because there were always gigs and women, things that took the loves of my life away from me. I needed to be strong, to be able to get myself in shape, no matter in what shape I was originally.

And I couldn't have heart pictures in my eyes, sighing the whole time I had to work and get myself in shape. This was just my life, my luck, and there was nothing that I could do with it. Nothing at all. Then, after I'd been in recovery for two weeks, Charles called and said our animal hospital was getting ready to open. I started to get excited.