Shades of Secrets

Chapter Two

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“I am an idiot! Idiot, idiot, idiot!” Christopher cursed to himself, wearing a heavy cloak around his entire body, feeling the heavy rain splattering forcefully onto his back like falling heavy rocks, trying his best to cover Lynette as much as possible. A chill ran down his neck, feeling the powerful air blowing to remove his hood, drenching his head but he doesn’t seem to notice or care. Right now, he have to find that doctor, Lars, as fast as possible, positively sure that Lynette is beyond sick then before all because of his stupidity by forgetting to ask the doctor’s help.

One eye closed from the watery rain that soaked through his bangs and down the lid, he snapped it open which brightens immediately when finally arriving the front entrance of a small town and rushes in. The corner of his eyes twitches in mild anger, standing in the middle of the town to see all of the stores, houses, and inns locked down and closed.

He looked down at Lynette with such concern, hearing her coughing from behind his covered cloak in his arms that he ran into one of the chosen buildings and lifted his leg, knocking the door completely out of its hinges, practically scaring the life out of those who were working hard from the inside.

Luck seems to come with him, consider the building he had forcefully barged into happens to be a bright and busy clinic. But a person who bears a mind like Christopher, he doesn’t seem to understand the situation of being inside the clinic; consider this was his first time and never knew what it looks like, fearing to waste way too much money just stepping in one.

“Give me one room and a doctor! I’ll pay for the door too!” Was Christopher first reply, standing there and waited where the silences roam around the people, who were all staring at him like he had gone completely nuts. Brilliant of Christopher to believe that he had also entered an inn slash hospital where he can stay at both in one spot. Hearing another cough from Lynette, he immediately grew angry, “Can you PLEASE hurr-LARS!!”

The doctor he had met before – the person he most definitely wanted to see – just walked pasted him like he hadn’t heard him there. Christopher had thought he didn’t hear him for sure, consider he was sprinting quite fast and focusing deeply onto the papers in his hands, his face a little tired.

Christopher quickly stepped around him to get his attention and repeated his name, “Lars!”

He had to turn to his side to avoid Lynette being smashed by the doctor, who jumped in pure surprised when he bumped into him quite hard and accidentally threw the papers into the air. All of his assistants that were around had instantly reach out to gather the papers for him. But the doctor stood there and gaze at Christopher before he smiled, all tiredness on his face gone, “Ah! You again! So you notice that I didn’t lie about the weather, hm?” Then he stopped, looking around, “Where is that female companion of yours? Is she well?”

Christopher felt his patient going thin, “Remove my cloak.”

“I beg your pardon?” He asked him, giving an uncomfortable cough and glancing at his assistants, who were now staring at them when they finished putting the papers in order, “Aren’t you a little too-”

“I’m holding Lynette close to me and the cloak is going to make her even more sick if you don’t remove it cause I certainly can’t! And I want you to look at her!”

Christopher catch the look Lars is sending to someone behind him and felt his wet cloak off his shoulders, ignoring the deep blush from one of the nurses when she glance at him. If Lynette is awake, her tenseness is enough to warn the nurse away from him and he couldn’t help but smiled at the thought. One glance at Lars’s serious look when observing her, Christopher’s smile just dropped. He doesn’t like that look…both the frown and that brightness in his eyes.

“Her condition is much worse when I’ve last seen her,” Lars finally spoke, lifting his eyes towards him, the brightness still there. “Did you not notice her fever or are you much too stubborn to possibly think she’ll be well within the night?”

Christopher chewed inside of his cheeks, choosing both of the answers silently. The doctor doesn’t really need to hear that from him.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how long has she had this fever?”

He glance upon the ceiling in thoughts, “I suspect that she was acting strange than normal for nearly ten days now-”

“Ten days?!”

“-but she’s pretty secretive and I wasn’t really sure until she couldn’t even move just this afternoon.” He finished, not bothered by the interruption. Christopher nearly unsheathed his sword at his side to sink the blade into Lars’s flesh when Lynette was quickly snatched away from him without a warning, seeing the doctor running off with a few of his assistants following.

“She’s going to be here for quite awhile! Don’t you ever learn that carrying a fever for a long time sometimes meant death?” He could hear Lars throwing the warning over his shoulders, disappearing inside a room while the others swiftly took off for needed supplies.

Standing there awkwardly, Christopher have no choice but to follow, wanting to be beside Lynette but was stopped by the same nurse who had removed his cloak earlier and still in her arms, “You can’t follow him inside, so you’ll have to wait out here until he’s done with her.”

Until he’s done with her…? His eyes widen, zipping past the nurse despite her protest and entered the room by shoving another person aside, taking his tall height to his advantage. His only view was completely on the snipping scissors in Lars’s hand, lowering it slowly as if an attempt to cut her open with the glint of the shining sharp blades.

Before Christopher can say anything, he sighed in relief when seeing him cutting through the thick strings from the leather outer layer, not even trying to simply untie them. With a shrug, he slowly left the room, amused to see the wondering assistants moving away from his path instead of stopping him. Not until he took two steps away from the door, he halted in his tracks and sprint right back inside, anger beyond belief, “What are you doing to her?!”

The doctor had already removed the leather layer from Lynette’s body from the help of one of the other nurses, now working his way onto the last shirt that will exposed her flesh and directly answered him, “Removing her clothes in the most simple and fastest way possible.”

Christopher lifted his sword and held it at the doctor’s neck, who dropped the scissor with wide eyes, both ignoring the screams coming from the nurse, “Step away from her…”

“Now this isn’t necessary, is it?” All the fear he had thought the doctor carried from the beginning when they first met seems like it never happened for he was now looking at him with such calmness, “Don’t tell me I’m the first doctor to ever treat either one of you?”

Is it that obvious? Christopher growled at his question, “I had asked you specially to help Lynette, not exposing her!”

“Would a doctor try to rape his own patient? You surely have a very slow mind,” Lars laughed, noticing when he had slowly lowered the blade, “I’m removing her from the wet clothing, if you hadn’t notice, so she can be dry and warm. Do you have any other suggestion for me to help her? Maybe with me paying for the clothing I’ve ruin might satisfy you as well?”

Christopher lightens at the thought; girls clothing are a pain to buy sometimes, not to mention they are quite expensive then the men. Shaking his head to get rid of such thought, he pointed out the door after sheathing his sword back in his scabbard, “Out!”

“Out…?”

“Let your nurse handle this! Doctor or not, I’m not going to let you see her when she wore nothing to cover her maiden skin!”

“Even if I’m removing the drenched clothing she wore, she’s still going to be dressed back inside the appreciate clothing needed for the checkup. I’ll be-” The shine of the blade once again at Christopher’s side shuts him completely, the fear that was missing before now returning in his eyes and nearly skipped out the door, nodding towards the still fear-stricken nurse with a silent order before stepping out the room first, “I’m leaving!”

Christopher followed and slammed the door shut behind him, both standing outside waiting for the nurse to finish her task. Keeping an eye on the doctor, who seems to be a bit too uncomfortable under his gaze, busy himself by thanking one of his assistants for the dropped papers and now digging back into reading, his eyes dart from one end of the paper to the next.

This Lars, he can finally analyze like he was a big threat to him, is one very bold doctor he had ever met. When had he heard that a doctor – though known to be mostly males, very rarely a woman would be one – freely be undressing their own female patients and simply watches them without even leaving to have an assistant with the same gender doing the job? Had they ever heard of modesty at the least?

If Christopher let his mind wonder like an idiot he sometimes can be, Lynette will awake up in horror from the fact of being seen – by the doctor no less! – and surely her anger would either make her sickness perfectly cure or completely worse. Either way, she’ll still have his head dancing in her graceful hands if he didn’t do anything to stop the doctor from continuing any farther.

“So the girl is still pure?” Christopher blanched at such a statement, earning the doctor a good knock in the head with his fist, not satisfied enough when seeing him crouching over from the pain, the papers once again dropped though he didn’t even bother to pick it up. Christopher was hoping for him to at least drop dead on the floor. Lars slowly lifted his face, rubbing the forming pain, with one azure eyes closed, “Pardon my mouth, I can talk with nonsense sometimes. I had thought that girl would be your lover or some sort.”

He uses the scabbard this time to triple the pain onto the doctor’s head, his satisfaction not even near the limits when now seeing him onto the floor. “She’s my SISTER!”

“Doctor Chilton…?”

Christopher turned when seeing the nurse opening a small creak from inside of Lynette’s room, indicating that she was done. Her eyes roam anywhere else but his until it settles to the man she’d called on the floor, her face paler than usual.

They both watch the doctor when he began to twitch; now crawling to enter the room with the nurse shutting the door right in Christopher’s face before he could enter. He stood there, staring at the rough wood of the door and sighed, glaring into the watcher’s eyes of the assistants, where they all move and left to work in a different area.

He leaned against the wall near the door, his ears certainly open in case Lynette would decide to call for him. The sounds of the heavy rain continued from the darkness gather just outside the broken doors he had impatiently knocked down, his cloak left discarded on one of the waiting chairs.

“Don’t you ever learn that carrying a fever for a long time sometimes meant death?”

For the first time, Christopher felt the fear breathing down his neck and he ruffled his hair in frustration. How much stupider can he ever get, not knowing of Lynette’s health, and only made it worse by running in the cold rain by not believing Lars’s warning? His lips firmed, looking down at his arms which were raised for him to stare at. He had sworn he’ll never carry Lynette close to him towards his chest, a show of sign of his failure for never protecting her the way he promised himself he would.

Aggravated, he dropped them to his side and slammed his head against the wall, careful not to make it too hard to startle the doctor and nurse from the inside, hoping to be able to save Lynette. Was it wrong of him to stop the doctor for doing his job for that minute – kicking him out the room, no less! – just so the nurse can dress Lynette? The doctor can still use that minute to find out what would be wrong of Lynette’s health and probably will be able to cure her fast.

Lars had given him the warning of carrying a fever for a long period of time and Christopher just simply forget about it until now. If anything were to happen to Lynette…

No. He shook his head, sliding down to the cold floor where the papers still scattered from around and waited. Lynette will be fine by morning…she’s strong…

A smile formed on his lips, his ears still open to hear the sounds of Lynette’s voice, lifting his scabbard so it was leaning against his shoulders instead of disturbing him uncomfortably by his side. Never again will I lose myself for my idiocy that would concern you and your health…that’s another promise of mine, Lynette…

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Darkness swift from around her surroundings of unconsciousness, blank emotions showered upon her skin, soothing her mind completely. A sudden shiver ran down through her spine, an uncomfortable presence near her closed space of comfort, much too suffocating for her rest in serenity. Ever so slowly, Lynette opens her eyes – dull as it ever can be of emptiness in the color of hazel-green – and lifted, watching patches of more darkness gathering together to form a large shaded blur before her.

Her unfilled mind began to clear, enough for her to picture out the blur in shape of feminine form like a shadow cast by her body. But what seems to be out of proportion was the figure appears to be taller as it curled up facing her, like sitting in front of a rippled mirror.

Her hair was much longer and completely straight, the colors much darker then the blackness itself which swirls around her bare body like blankets of shredded sheets. A feeling of deep uncertainty rose in Lynette’s chest, gradually raising an arm as her fingers stretches, wanting to reach out for the figure. Like an exact images of hers, her opposite different self seems to be doing the same, their outstretch fingers nearly touching one of the other.

“Lynette…Forgive me…”

She stopped, her hand continue to stay high from the memories of the voice. Her voice…the voice of the woman she had wished to seek so desperately for six years of her life. Noticing the figure shrinking back to the void of her dreams, Lynette mutely cried out when the darkness thickens, consuming the figure whole until she couldn’t identify it any longer.

And then she remembers the curse, the coldness of the flames lingering in the air, overwhelming her whole. Then strong arms supporting her body, carrying her through the flames with given comfort but the warmth would never reach her.

The man’s face she can only memorized is still shadowed when he glance down at her. Her beautiful glittered eyes were wide and unspoken, her ear pressed against his cold chest, “I can’t hear it…” She remembered muttering, stiff fingers clutching hard onto his shirt, “…Your heartbeat…”

...You’re dead. Was her conclusion and all the coldness, images, and her emotions melts away. Christopher…you’re never going to leave me like he did, aren’t you…?

“Well! She’s quite a strong girl, isn’t she?” Lars piped, rolling his sleeves from the heat that’s carried inside the room consider they must keep the window closed, hiding themselves away from the rain. “She’s going to survive after all.”

The only nurse with him smiled amusingly at his jokes, eyeing the girl when she slowly began to tremble, her heavy eyelids trying to flutter open, “It seems like she’s going to wake up soon, Doctor Chilton.”

“I’ll handle her alone,” He said, his smile widening, “You can leave now and see if that companion of hers is still waiting outside. If he is, kindly show him a guest room to rest. I do not want him coming in here and disturbing her sleep.”

He nearly laughed when seeing her went pale at the thought of talking to the man who nearly killed him right before her eyes. Who wouldn’t be afraid of that man? Especially if he’s taller than any of them and his perfect well-tone body alone seems even threatening to be near. How can this Lynette even be traveling with that man – where all the nutrients he’d devour seems to be going through his body instead of his slow no excuse mind of his – is beyond him.

With a wave of his hand while he turned around and began cleaning his supplies, he let out a small chuckle as she stepped out the door slowly. He can almost hear her mind working, trying to think of a speech good enough for the man to understand. Lord knows how he can jump to conclusions easily and he hopes her speech is tolerable so he wouldn’t be limping around with any parts of his body missing.

Seeing as to how he’s alone with the girl now, he turned and looked at her, his azure eyes brighten immediately. Making his way towards her, he watches her breathing steadily, now that she gave up on trying to wake from her sleep. Slowly, his hand raises and lowers toward her.

Lars bit back a yelp in surprise when feeling his arm grabbed, now staring deeply in a pool of hazel-green from the awaken girl. His bare arm gave an uneasy twitch, eyeing cautiously down at the area where she had grabbed onto, “My name is Lars Chilton, I’m just a concerning doctor, Lynette.”

Face still flushed from her fever, he could see her eyes clouded in confusion and fear, letting them roam around him and weakly muttered, “Christopher…?”

“Ah! So that’s his name!” Lars chirped, grabbing her hand and slowly peel it away from his arm carefully, eyes narrowed, “You should rest for now and hopefully be well in a day or two. He’s well-taken care of so you shouldn’t worry.”

But she didn’t listen; only her hazed eyes lowered to where she grabbed him and he could feel her fingers loosen to caress the rough surface of a hard stone. He cursed lightly that he had rolled his sleeves and leaving it bare, grabbing her wrist and yanked it away, his arm out from her sight. He gave a force smile, “Now Lynette, I want you-”

And he felt himself frozen in the spot when the door burst open, the wood banging against the wall and virtually crack. Only one person came into his mind that would do that, turning to see Christopher standing by the door, whose face broke into stunned shock. His eyes were so unnaturally wide; it doesn’t take a mastermind to guess what the man is thinking.

The sight of Lynette lying helplessly on the bed, the nurse that was behind Christopher with an apology and horror look in her face had dressed her in quite an oversize clothing, leaving the skin of her shoulders and a small safe touch from the front uncovered. Her wrist grabbed in a forceful manner and the fingers that’s wrapping around them were most likely his. One would have thought there’s something not too innocent going around with the position shown to Christopher and he’s full of absurd ideas without a thought of asking for the truth!

This is most definitely going to be hard to avoid his wrath, Lars knew. “Christopher!” Lars smiled, releasing Lynette and quickly rolled his sleeves down, “Stubborn, are you? She needs her rest and do you have to come in with such haste?”

Impossible to not face the pain he’s going to get, Lars confirmed, consider his face shows promises of hurting him one way or the other. The thought of him being a doctor seems to be damned in his mind at the moment too.

“Should I explain?” Lars quickly said, his smiled crooked nervously when he’s starting to advance towards them, “I was only reaching over to cover her body with the blanket at her side but she must have mistaken me for you and stopped me.”

Christopher stopped, looking back at Lynette carefully and Lars’s smile widen with a sigh of relief. Then he felt his jaws drop when the shirt that she’s wearing sliding almost lowered and Christopher quickly grabbed the blanket and wrap her.

Feeling his murderous eyes on him now, Lars can only turned away and stared at the door where the nurse still stood. If she wasn’t his best assistant compare to the others, then he would have fired her at the spot for the pain and torture he’s surely going to get!

Lars mentally sighed. I’m going to triple his payment after this for sure…

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