Post by StoryGirl83 on Nov 1, 2021 21:53:50 GMT -5
Chapter Thirty-Five - Mustering the Troops
11:25 AM
As Cilly walked down the hall of the hospital she closed her eyes, as if that would close out the pain she felt all around her. Truly coming here felt like the worst idea she ever had, but if she was going to be a cupid, she needed to learn to deal with a bombardment of strong emotions.
She rather wished she could have just appeared in her Uncle Leo's room, but they had company so it wasn't an option. Instead she'd gone to Peter's room and given him and his dad a quick update before heading upstairs and down the hall toward her destination.
At least no one here had died from this yet, not that she knew of anyway. They were a couple stages behind the East Coast and that meant they had a couple extra days to solve this before everyone started dying. If all went well, they were never going to get to that point, because they were going to end this today.
She wished she had the confidence that Alanna was clearly exuding. It was so strong, she didn’t need her powers to read it. It was all over her cousin’s face. Alanna had a plan.
Outside Uncle Leo’s room she found Melinda pacing back and forth. She must have heard Cilly approach, because she stopped short and looked up at her.
“Cilly.” She bit her lip and looked Cilly up and down. “You seem well.”
Cilly nodded, not really sure what to say. They’d only known each other for a few months and had rarely spoken during that time. It was hard to really say what their relationship was, but Melinda seemed genuinely concerned about Uncle Leo. From the little she’d been able to gather, she knew that an alternate version of Uncle Leo had raised Melinda and she seemed to have latched onto this version of him as her lifeline. And Uncle Leo seemed to have grown very attached to her as well.
In a sense he had adopted the daughter of his alternate self as his own daughter, which basically made her family even if you weren’t sure how to classify her without that.
And that wasn’t an easy thing to classify, because in a way they were both cousins and not cousins at the same time. The funny thing was it was so much easier to think of Pat and Vicki, especially the exuberant Vicki, as cousins, but maybe that was because Vicki was just so easy to get to know and Melinda was so much more difficult to get to know. And if you accepted Vicki as family it wasn’t hard to accept that her sister and her parents were family as well.
Then, of course there was Aunt Piper and to a lesser extent Aunt Paige’s reaction to Aunt Prue. It was rather difficult to consider her anything other than their aunt when her aunts were so ready to consider her their sister. And it was very clear that she and Aunt Piper shared a lot of memories.
“Do you bring news?”
“Not exactly,” she admitted. “Alanna asked me to come get Aunt Piper. She has an idea. Beyond that I really can’t tell you anything.”
Melinda made a face. “I see. Well, I hope it all works out.”
“Is Aunt Piper in there?”
“Yeah, the doctor is looking at Dad. I’m not sure what they think they can do, but then the doctors don’t really know that this is all caused by magic.”
And there was no point in telling them.
“I guess I can wait a couple of minutes. The others can work on the plan and I don’t know how long it’ll take Seth to get Aunt Prue.”
“What’s she thinking? Alanna I mean? What is her plan?”
Cilly shook her head. “Sorry, she hasn’t explained it to me.” Of course she was anxious, but there really wasn’t anything Cilly could do about it. She didn’t really know what was going on either.
11:27 AM
Seth returned to Andy's hospital room and heaved in a deep breath. "There's been a change of plan."
Mom frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I got to the manor to see if Chris could tell me about the key and things didn’t progress the way I’d planned. I just got a call from Alanna and she told me that she needs to see you and Piper, now."
That got all three of their attentions. Pat looked at him with a frown while her sister looked over at Dad. Why were they listening to Alanna on this? She wasn’t that much older than Pat and Pat couldn’t imagine giving orders to her mom and aunts.
"She thinks they might know how to end this without killing everyone," Seth informed them.
Mom inhaled sharply.
Pat’s heart leapt into her throat. Was she right? Had Alanna actually found something that could save Dad?
"Will you come with me?"
Mom nodded quickly. "Absolutely." She stood and walked over to Dad's hospital bed. Leaning down, she gave him a quick kiss and whispered, "I love you," in his ear. She straightened and looked at Pat. "Call me if anything changes, okay?"
Pat gulped. She knew what that meant, but she nodded anyway. "I will."
"Ready?"
She nodded and walked over to where he was.
Seth put a hand on her shoulder and in a shimmer of air they were gone.
Pat stared at her dad's hospital bed, trying to fight tears and be brave for her sister. I can do this, she told herself.
11:33 AM
It had taken longer than she wanted for the doctor to leave the room, but he hadn’t been someone she knew, so she figured it was probably best to not cause waves if she could avoid it. As soon as he had left the room, she hurried in and put on her best smile.
“Hi, Uncle Leo, Aunt Piper. I hope everything is going all right.”
“As well as can be expected,” Uncle Leo informed her, from where he was sitting in his hospital bed. “Do you need Piper?”
She nodded. “Alanna has an idea and she needs Aunt Piper. I know she wants to stay with you . . .”
“I’ll go,” Aunt Piper interrupted. “If there is any chance that this will work, I will go.”
“You don’t even know what it is and what the potential fallout is.”
Aunt Piper looked at Uncle Leo. “We’ve been through a lot. And no matter what happens, you know I love you.”
Not wanting to intrude on this moment, Cilly stepped out of the room and went back over to where Melinda was. “Alanna thinks this will stop this for good and save the people who are already sick. I don’t really know what her plan is, but I hope she’s right.”[/div]