She stared at him with a calculated silence.
The light was bright as he flashed it between her eyes, looking for indicators Scarlet knew nothing about. It hurt as it moved over the center of her pupil and she fought not to flinch from his gentile examination. The rain still raged outside the window to the right of the room, she could feel its comforting weight settling over the land she occupied, rather than ravaging it. She shook from her freezing wet hair lying long down her back as lightning and thunder struck every few moments, the lights in the room would flicker; Scarlet didn't feel scared of the storm, and the Doctor seemed just as comfortable.
Jacob could not believe his eyes, her once drooping and necrotic eyeball had regenerated completely. Healthy white tissue visible where rotting ocular tissue had been, veins bright and red surrounding her iris as the light brought tears to her eyes- goddess, what was this? Normal pupil reaction, growth and reduction as the light cast its way over her insanely blue eyes. She showed no signs of the septic tissue- or any amount of the decomposing body- he had seen hours earlier in the morning.
When she was dead.
"Your eyes look better." He gave her a smile, feeling another drip from his wet grey hair land on his soaked shoulder.
A deep fear and discomfort was settled like a heavy stone in her stomach as she sat still on the stiff medical bed. The machine on a pole next to her held numbers and letters she didn't recognize, a large computer screen in the corner held images of a skeleton, and the room seemed oddly sterile. Scarlet was scared, and she didn't like this strange man doing these tests on her. She bit her tongue, holding back her whimpers her body fought to release with every movement of his arms bring memories of the dripping of water far in the distance and the feeling of grit and rocks as it dug into her cheek.
She didn't know what her eyes looked like before, she only knew them to be blue, so she just nodded and watched intently for his next move, holding the cold white sheet to her body, avoiding the spot with the red liquid that smelt of death. It had sunken into the cloth and mattress below it, and this Doctors eyes traveled to it every other second with a deep breath, before he held his lungs still and went back to his examination. He had already examined her scalp, moving her long, soaked, hair over her shoulders and prodding her skin lightly with his powdery-feeling gloves. He performed tests with what looked like a hammer on her knees, he mentioned the word reflexes, though Scarlet had only visited a doctor to remove her toe when she got frostbite. His fingers had prodded her forearms, he had asked her to raise her limbs as far as she could and so far, she had soreness in the muscles of her back, face, and head, but it felt no worse than a bruise.
Doctor Novache had never seen anything like it.
He didn't know a scientific explanation for these results, and he could not recall a single piece of werewolf folklore that could apply to this woman's...condition? He took a calming breath, knowing he had gathered as much information as he could from her physical assessment. Her heart was beating, she had active and proper reflex responses, her previously pulverized bones had healed, her brain showing no indications of the damage previously witnessed- and she was alive. No broken neck, no stilled heart, she was alive in the flesh.
Taking a deep breath, Jacob removed his readers and placed them onto the wooden table beside the medical bed, their thud as they landed on the wood the only noise occupying the room. He rubbed his forehead, so many thoughts spinning through his mind, before looking this young lady in the eyes. Should he tell her that she had been dead, should he tell her what had been of her head and eyes, of her infected and bulging skin oozing from an infected whip wound? Should he tell her how her flesh had practically slumped away from her skin and how her wrists wouldn't handle an IV because the flesh was so thin it broke through and tore her veins?
"Is it okay if I ask you some questions?" He felt he was on thin ice with this woman, her limbs trembled and though he knew she must be cold from her sopping wet hair, winter torn earth, and terribly thin state, he suspected some of it was fear as well.
She was scared, and Jacob could not help ebb her fear without being able to answer his own questions. Without being able to placate his own soul and his own terror at the rising of what was a dead woman, was this a gift from their Moon Mother, or was this the work of something more sinister?
A small shrug was his detailed response, and he knew he should start sooner rather than later; while she was still cooperative.
"Do you have a name?" Giving an impish smile, he felt it was best to start off light, despite the rock of trepidation in his stomach.
Scarlet nodded, staring him deep into his grey eyes. Did he want her to talk? Did he want her to speak? She wasn't going to risk it and wager on his reaction, despite the hopeful gleam in his eyes and nodding head encouraging her voice.
"Will you tell me it?" Scarlets eyebrows raised as Doctor Novache stared at her expectantly.
A pregnant pause built between them before Scarlet slowly opened her lips, the faintest of replies reaching his ears ," Scarlet."
"Scarlet?" He parroted.
She nodded, her long hair falling in front of her face, obscuring her scars. He could hear her heart racing without his stethoscope, and he felt bad for scaring this woman, though with the observation of her fear came his worry. He understood in the rest of the world fear and trauma was something to be worked through, it was a natural part of having a difficult life, and it took time to process. In Sendöw fear and weakness were synonymous, if this woman was as damaged as he feared she may not survive long by this pack, Luna or not. They had waited centuries for an Alpha Female, they had high expectations of their Goddess and Alpha, they would not tolerate weakness in their land. Jacob hated to say it, but he would not either.
"Scarlet, what is the last thing you remember?" A simple enough question, it would give him a starting point for her journey on what had happened to her body in his explanations.
Her heart skipped a beat in her chest.
Then another, and another. Her breathing stuttered before her lips curled downward as she fought a grimace. She stared at Jacobs eyes, the intensity showing he had certainly asked the wrong question to her, before her breathing went into overtime with the fighting of sobs. Her lungs inflated and deflated in sharp bursts, her throat hiccuping while her vision became obscured with hot, fat, tears hanging over her waterline. Her breaths stuttered and stuttered, practically becoming coughing sobs, before she looked to the wall at the far end of the room and Scarlet was no longer in the present. Her brain had warned her, it had told her it would steal her eyes and body should she try and remember, and still, his question had launched her into the past. And her breathing, stopped.
He did not expect her shivers to still as though a switch had been turned off in her body, her back slowly beginning to hunch, her shoulders curling in as her body forcibly caved in on itself. The vertebrae stretching and cracking as they rolled, the skin on the back of her body taught as the thick scar tissue kept her flesh from stretching to its want. Her legs pulled themselves under her chin, her sheet not long enough to cover her feet as they rested on the edge of the bed, her toes of her left leg in the pool of pink death that had erupted from her legs allowing her her first breath. Her chin turned, her knees supporting the roll of her jaw, until her scarred cheek rested against the top of her knees and she slowly began to rock herself.
He could see her cheeks and nose turn red, the tips of her ears where her thick, wet brown hair was tucked behind turning pink. Tears that had welled thick along her bottom lash line jumped to their deaths and landed with a muted thud against her white sheet, turning the fabric grey, and her whole face turned bright red as she fought to hold her breath. She did not blink, but the weight of her tears forced them to cascade down the side of her face and grow into thicker pools against the white linen. It room went from shadowed due to the storm raging in the window, to an ominous dark, the lights flickered for a moment before settling in the dark room. Jacob stared, fear firm in his gut.
"Scarlet, breathe." Jacob softly said.
She did not breathe and more tears fell quickly over her small lower lashes, trailing quickly down the river made by her precious tears. They rolled down the side of her hot red cheek and landed with another soft 'pat' on the soaked area of the sheet.
"Scarlet?" Jacob asked, wanting to reach out and touch her shoulder, wanting to comfort her and let her know he was here to protect her from whatever she was remembering.
He knew better to lay a hand on that thick, purple, rubbery, false, tissue she called skin. Whoever had given her those marks had taken away any and all kindness that this woman could expect from the world and turned it into hard, cold fear. Her face turned even more red, and Jacob knew she would breathe when her body forced her to, until then, he needed to reverse what he had done.
"Ok Scarlet, forget my question, forget what I had asked. Take a deep breath." She stared into the void above Jacobs shoulder, tears rolling down her face resting against her chin.
Her body shook, no doubt desperate for oxygen. Her lips trembled as she forced them together into a thin line, her fingers clenched around the sheet like it was her sole tether to this moment in time. Her eyes were a million miles away, staring through the air into the past, resistant to the Doctors soft words attempting to reach her. She was drowning, she was in the puddle outside the door, having fallen down the stairs again. She couldn't force her lungs to cooperate as she remembered the whip coming down across her body till her flesh screamed, till her body shut down and all she was, was an organism surviving.
She remembered his fingers wrapped so tightly around her throat her eyeballs felt as though they were going to explode from her sockets. All the blood rushed to her head, and the pressure mounted and mounted until it couldn't take anymore and she was stuck in limbo; floating between life and death as he raped her. She remembered the feeling of wolfsbane and water rushing over her skin, flowing down her throat, choking her as she attempted to breathe through her damaged airway. It seared her skin, the cold water boiling her flesh as if it had built to the most powerful heat before being dumped over her body.
Scarlet was drowning, and the storm outside couldn't reach her. It slammed itself against the windows, it rattled the shingles on the roof and tore through the trees attempting to demolish the building harboring it's hurting child. Scarlet did not yearn for its embrace, she had fallen too deeply into the descent of her mind, remembering those words that ripped her heart from her chest. That felt as if they had broken every bone in her body and seared every inch of her flesh down to the bone. It had killed her yet kept her brain alive so she could feel every iota of pain, as he whispered against her ear; orange blossoms filled the room.
Orange blossoms filled the room, Doctor Novache could smell the flower rampant in the small quarters. It oozed from the walls, secreted from the carpet, manifested in the air.
He didn't know how to bring her back, he didn't know what to do, and he knew the only man to help was standing over the cliff where his mate was supposed to be buried in a few hours. Jacobs heart hammered as he stood from the chair he had sat in, his shoes squeaking in the room filling with the scent of flowers.
He rushed to the side of the room, pushing the green button built into the wall allowing oxygen to hiss to life through centralized tubing beside the bed. He hastily grabbed a mask from the bedside drawer, attaching it to the tubing with shaking hands, never removing his sight from Scarlet. Her face had gone beet red, and he wanted nothing more than to jump into action and be the life saving doctor he had been for decades- though he yearned for life more than he wished for death.
Touching his Alpha's mate would be an instant warrant for his death, she was not in a life threatening situation. He had assessed her, she was healthy, she would breathe when her body demanded it, and when that happened he would press the mask against her face to insure her body didn't go into shock. She was in the middle of a panic attack, falling into a moment of PTSD, a nonviolent episode at that. Jacob could do nothing but wait.
The sound of the door ripping off the hinges had Doctor Novache's heart almost physically on the floor. The mask fell from his hand, his arm gripping the spot over his chest as he whipped around to view his soaked, enraged Alpha. His shoulders heaved with his panting breaths, his teeth bared at the elder man next to his mate. His hat had darken under the weight of the rain, the tips of his beard, and long strands, dripping to the floor.
"I hear three heartbeats, why do I hear three heartbeats!?" He thundered, his tan, tattooed chest, flushing red with his rage.
Scarlet opened her mouth and finally breathed, before the most heart-wrenching scream left her mouth and echoed off the walls.