‘thoughts’

Telepathic speech

The quiet sounds of hospital staff bustling on whatever duties they had mingled with sounds of crying, people talking quietly, children, and the machines that were standard fare for the ICU ward. Jared pushed his hands farther into his jeans’ pockets as he walked alongside Jensen and Jeff to the room that Andrea had told them was where Evie was staying. According to Andrea, Evie had suffered from internal injuries, severe blood loss, and a punctured lung. But, since they had gotten the antidote in her in time, she hadn’t had too much damage from the poison. Unfortunately though, she was currently in a coma hooked up to a ventilator. Her family was fearful she might not wake up...they weren’t the only ones either.

They arrived at room 512 and went inside quietly, but stopped at the sight that greeted them. Evie was hooked up to several machines and they could barely see her face under the ventilator that was helping her to breathe. The soft beeping noises as well as the pump for the ventilator filled the room as they struggled to find something to say. But their gazes were grabbed suddenly by the chilly green gaze that locked onto them as Kathy Treber slowly rose and put her daughter’s hand on the bed before coming around to them. Her face was still like stone, but rage could be seen flickering in her eyes. Before they could even open their mouths to speak, her finger was up, silencing them as her mouth became a thin line. She pointed towards the door without a word and they obeyed her and filed out in front of her. She closed the door behind her, and then faced them, her arms crossed over her chest as she gazed at them coldly. They all felt her expectation for an explanation, but to be honest, none of them wanted to risk her wrath.

Finally, Jeff stepped forward, hands up in a gesture of peace as her eyes snapped to him and narrowed. “Kathy...we just want to see her,” he said quietly and an eyebrow tilted briefly on her face in reaction.

“You *want* to see her,” she repeated softly, her voice clipped and icy as well as mocking and the three men started to feel equal parts exasperation and worry curdling through them. Her lips twisted a bit as she looked at each of them slowly, assessing them and they ducked their heads like school boys before their teacher after being caught in a prank. “*You* want to see her. Too bad you’re not family. I suggest you leave the premises before I call security and have you escorted off, saviors or not,” she finally stated before turning towards the door.

“Wait! Kathy...please. We just...we have a right to see her,” Jared desperately pleaded, but stopped as the windows rattled a bit, a sure sign that Kathy was not as controlled as she seemed.

She turned slowly back to them and they all flinched almost physically at the fury that was in her eyes. “You have the *right* to see her. Is that the *best* you can come up with, Jared?” she hissed out as she pointed at him. “You take my daughter from a life that she has always known to a place where she ends up isolated. You come in and *rescue* her from the isolationists, only to turn around and think to use her for your own gain. And then, because of *your right*, she leaves the safety of Eden *before* it is safe to do so and is now barely hanging on in *that bed*. Now tell me, *Jared*...do you honestly see me as senile enough to allow the three men responsible for putting her in this situation to even breathe the same air as her?” she retorted and her voice rose slightly, but it never went hysterical, which showed just how pissed she really was. She walked straight up to Jared and glared up at him, making him feel like he was three years old and being scolded for something that he’d done. He avoided her gaze, but he could still feel her watching him. “Your delusions of grandeur have seriously eroded your intellect,” she whispered coldly.

Stepping back, she turned her gaze from one man to the other, searing them with her fury. “I don’t want you *near* my daughter *ever* again. You broke her heart and her spirit...I’ll *never* let you hurt her again. Now leave before I call security. And if I see you here again, you will know what it means to be a eunuch,” she stated firmly before going back into the room and shutting the door decisively behind her.

The three men stared at the door in a mixture of shame, remorse, and real fear. The very idea that Evie might not make it terrified them, but what Kathy had said was true. They were responsible for what had happened. With a quiet sigh, Jared sunk down into a nearby chair and cradled his head in his hands as despair rolled over him. He heard some soft rustlings and felt his lovers’ presence next to him, but they were just as lost in their thoughts. How were they going to make up for this?

“We have to see her...” Jensen suddenly whispered huskily and Jeff and Jared looked over at him in disbelief.

“What part of ‘eunuch’ didn’t you get?” Jared asked incredulously as he stared at his co-star. “We go in there and I doubt that she’ll let us get away with a whap on the ass! She was serious!”

“But if we don’t see her, she might die because she doesn’t have a connection with us. Can’t you feel it?” Jensen replied insistently as he faced them. He placed a hand over his heart, right where the symbol of their bond was. “I think that we’re the only ones who can help her back to consciousness.”

“But how? And how would we get in there? Knowing Kathy, she’ll be like a mother hawk and will prolly never leave unless absolutely necessary,” Jeff pointed out grimly as they considered Jensen’s words.

“We’ll just have to sneak in when she goes for a break. We can deal with the repercussions afterwards, but we need to be with her. The bond we have with her has been slowly eroding away since we haven’t really been trying to bond with her. She was wary and defensive with us before and now it’s not strong anymore. I’m not saying that we have to sleep with her, but the trust has to be re-established. We have to get *through* to her,” Jensen insisted as he watched his lovers. He tapped his symbol again. “I know you guys can feel it.”

Nodding, the other two men sighed heavily. “Then I guess we better set up camp to watch,” Jared declared quietly before standing. They went over towards an unused room that gave them a good view of Evie’s room and put up shields so that they weren’t detected by their fellow Elam as they went in and out of Evie’s room to visit her.  Their cover was almost blown at one moment when Kayla had insisted that she wanted to visit Aunt Evie’s ‘boys’ and had started towards their room, but Andrea had grabbed her in time and had swept her off to get some food in the cafeteria, which had given them the suspicion that perhaps she had known they were there and was trying to help.

When visiting hours ended, they watched as Kathy went with her husband and their family to get some dinner. After making sure that the coast was clear, they crept into the hallway, keeping to the side wall as they saw a couple of nurses at the nurses’ station. Jensen leaned around Jared and waved his hand, making the nurses look the opposite way and Jared couldn’t help snickering a bit at that. He winked at Jeff as he got a cuff upside the head and then they headed into the room. Jeff closed the door behind them and shut the blinds on the windows before joining the other two at Evie’s bedside.

Jared was seated on Evie’s right side while Jensen sat in the chair next to Evie’s left, so Jeff sat on the bed, careful to not jostle the bed too much. They were silent for a while, just touching her or holding her hand as the machines continued to hiss, beep, and whirr around them. Finally, Jared placed his forehead on the hand he held and whispered, “Evie...I-I know you can hear us. I believe that you can, so I’m going to explain something to you that we hadn’t had the time to tell you. Jensen, Jeff, and I are your Guardians. We’re connected to you through a bond that is stronger than any other bond, even family. And yes, we’re lovers, which strengthens the bond. In all honesty, when I came to visit you that day that just seems...so long ago, I had only gone over to visit. I didn’t want to...seduce you. Well...” He grinned and glanced up as Jensen and Jeff both snorted then all three sighed. “The thing is...we want to get to know you. We want to be able to say that we courted you and swept you off your feet before showing you that we’re pretty good in bed as well,” he explained quietly and flashed a grin at his lovers before reaching a hand for Evie’s face. He caressed her cheek and bit his lip as he remembered how she’d turn into his touch as if seeking that tenderness.

“We’ve screwed up and we realize that, but we didn’t mean to,” Jensen said quietly as he kissed her hand and placed his cheek against her cool fingers. “If we’d met in better circumstances, it definitely would have been different. But my momma always told me to not go by ‘if, then’s and to go by what you have. So what we have is now. And you’ve got to wake up so we can make sure that there is more to go with, baby. We’re not talking about all of our destinies. We’re talking about what’s right there in front of us,” he stated before placing a hand just above her heart. “Right now, you’re what we need. And I hope...we hope...that we’re what you need.”

“You have to wake up, sweetie. Your smile...your light...we miss it so much. We miss *you* so much,” Jeff whispered roughly as he rubbed her ankle. They fell silent again and just touched her, taking comfort in being with her and each other.

The comforting silence was broken by a throat clearing and they all looked up in surprise. They stood up immediately as they came face to face with Kathy and Mike Treber. She glared at them as she radiated with her fury. “I warned you to stay away from my daughter,” she hissed out and they backed away from her towards Evie instinctively.

“Kathy...we needed to see her. You don’t understand,” Jeff protested quietly as he held his hands up defensively once more.

“Oh I *understand* all right! You boys are obviously deaf as well as stupid!” Kathy snarled back as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I warned you no-”

“Evie?” Jared’s soft incredulous question stopped Kathy mid-rant and Jeff turned immediately to find Jensen and Jared bending closer to Evie with her hands gripped in theirs. Jared caressed Evie’s cheek tenderly as he smiled. “Come on baby...we’re all waiting for you...” he whispered encouragingly. As they watched, Evie’s eyes fluttered and then opened slowly. She blinked sleepily and then looked up until her gaze met Jared’s. Smiling tearfully, Jared knelt on the ground and leaned as close to her as possible. “Welcome back, baby. Have a good sleep?” he asked and swallowed hard around his tears as she smiled slightly and nodded just a bit.

“So good to see your pretty eyes,” Jensen murmured thickly and smiled as she looked at him. He kissed her fingers and squeezed them, feeling his heart fly when she squeezed back weakly.

Her eyes shifted up tiredly and she smiled again as she saw Jeff, then her parents bending into her line of sight. How...long? she asked weakly and Jared shh’ed her.

“Don’t tax your strength,” he ordered softly and she rolled her eyes.

You’re...not my mom... she retorted and he snorted with laughter as the others grinned or chuckled. She tried to swallow and gagged a bit.

“Don’t try to swallow or breathe, sweetie. Your lung was punctured on the low right side and it’s still healing. You had lacerations in your abdomen through your large intestine and a pretty deep wound in your right shoulder,” Kathy explained as she moved around the bed so that she was standing just to the side of Jared. “You’ve been in a coma for about four days.”

Closing her eyes, Evie squeezed Jensen and Jared’s hands as tightly as she could, which wasn’t very much. The...kids? she asked after a minute before opening her eyes to look at them. Are they safe? What about...what about Max?

“The kids are safe. In fact, they’re outside in the hall with Andrea and Jeff,” Mike said as he moved over to Jensen’s side. “And Max...”

“Max is dead and he’ll *never* hurt you again,” Jared whispered fiercely as he cupped her face. Evie looked over at him and he smiled at her.

What...now? Too...dangerous... she managed thickly and Jared wiped away the tears that ran down her cheeks.

“Yes, it is. That’s why it was decided that your entire family is to move to Eden. They’ll keep their jobs and use the Paths to travel, but the rest of the time, they’ll be safe in Eden. Your room mate is coming too, just to be safe. They’ve already let their various landlords know that you and they are moving and your parents are making sure to lock down their house with your brother in law’s special security system so it won’t be burglarized,” Jensen explained and Evie smiled and nodded once in acceptance as her eyes closed.

“I think that’s enough for now. We should let her rest and let the doctor do his job,” Jeff murmured with a touch to Jensen’s shoulder and a look at Jared. “Let’s step out and let her be with her family,” he suggested with a glance at Kathy and Mike.

Nodding, Jared and Jensen stood up carefully, and then the three men each kissed her on the cheek and whispered their good-byes before straightening and heading for the hallway. Before they stepped out though, they heard a whisper and looked over. Evie gazed at them and smiled. Please...come back soon. I...miss you, she whispered and they all smiled at her and nodded before leaving the room.

Jared’s eyes shone as he looked at his lovers before they turned to Jeff and Andrea and their kids. Somehow, they just knew that things were going to be good from then on.

TBC