"What's wrong?" Meadow asked Eddie.

There wasn't enough light in the room to get a good look at his face and read his expression, but she thought it was strange to find him holding her hand. They just didn't know each other well enough to be so close, despite the harrowing afternoon. Still, she wasn't repulsed by his show of concern. Instead, she gave his hand a little squeeze as she sat up.

Eddie couldn't possibly bring himself to tell her she was the prophesied Blood Bride who would ring in the Age of the Lycanthrope. He hardly understood it himself and didn't have the foggiest idea how to explain what that meant to her in a way a human could comprehend. Even if he managed to unravel the complicated royal and religious system that his people adhered too, something they kept well hidden from the human world and the Bureau of Lycanthrope Affairs, the chance that she'd understand the significance of being the Blood Bride was nil. Wasn't it?

Still, he couldn't leave her in the dark either. He'd already seen what a disaster that was when the family hid him from her. He couldn't imagine putting her through something like that again. If he wanted to remain a part of her life, and he did, he would have to sit her down and explain everything - somehow. But, tonight was not the night.  She was in no condition to take any more bad news. And, bad it was, at least, for a human. 

Eddie decided to ignore her question altogether and just respond with a sincere, "I'm so sorry I woke you. You should be sleeping."

"It's alright," Meadow croaked in a tired voice.

Her head was pounding and her throat was dry. She needed a drink of water desperately and whatever pain pills the doctor could supply her with.

"I need a drink," she confessed while sliding her legs over the edge of the cushioned examination table. "And some pain pills too. My head is killing me," she complained to Hedda.

"Of course," Hedda said right away. "Do you think you could stomach some food? I don't want to give you the meds on an empty stomach," she explained thoughtfully.

Meadow shrugged and only offered, "We can try." She wasn't sure if food was a good idea or not, but she was willing to give it a try despite feeling quite nauseous.

"Eddie will stay with you and I'll be back in a couple of minutes. Does that sound good?"

Meadow gave the doctor a soft smile and a little nod. Hedda left without another word.

"Should you lay back down?" Eddie asked with concern.

"No," Meadow replied simply. She then slipped off the bed and looked around. "Where is my purse?"

Eddie turned to the counter behind him. He'd seen it sitting there earlier. It was still there now. He grabbed it up and handed it to her. Meadow took it and fished out her cell phone. The screen said 2:12AM and was lit up with countless missed calls and text messages from her mother and brothers.

She dug in a pocket for her power chord and set her phone to charge there on the counter. Part of her wanted to delete all the texts and voice messages without going through them, but she refrained from being impulsive. She might feel differently in the morning when her head didn't hurt so much.

"Eddie," Meadow called his name while she fiddled with her phone, but she didn't turn to look at him. "I'd prefer it if you didn't update the Rask family on my condition. I appreciate you bringing me here and helping me out like this, but I hope you know that whatever goes on here in this clinic isn't any of their business."

He cleared his throat and replied apologetically, "Yes, I understand. But, I've already texted Forrest to give him an update."

"What did you tell him?" Meadow asked with a deep sigh.

Eddie cringed. He knew she was disappointed, but, at the same time, he couldn't ignore the multiple calls he was getting from the family all night long looking for information on Meadow's condition and whereabouts. Mind you, not a one of those calls came from Niko himself, which made Eddie angry. If anyone should be calling to check up on her, it should be her father who put her through the glass door to begin with.

"I kept it short and simple," he answered. "I told them I'd taken you to a clinic and you were being kept overnight for observation. That's it."

Meadow nodded and then turned back around to look at him. With a grim smile she said, "Thanks."

"What are you going to do? Will you stay on in Arrowfield or head back to Rutherford?" Eddie inquired quietly.

"I'll head back to Rutherford," Meadow confessed. "I'll make arrangements in the morning to fly back tomorrow afternoon, if Doctor Wallin gives me a clean bill of health."

"It's just Hedda," the doctor in question pipped in as she walked through the door and placed her handful of treasures on the counter by Meadow's phone. "Unless, there is a major issue between now and the morning, flying wont be an issue," she confirmed.

"That's good to hear," Meadow said soberly as she looked over the little mini buffet that Hedda had brought her.

The woman had scrounged up yogourt, a granola bar, a somewhat ripe banana and half an untouched garden salad. Plus, she brought a cold bottle of water and a room temperature bottle of orange juice. Meadow smiled down at the little stash of food and felt her stomach growl. Perhaps she was hungry after all.

"Is this all for me?" she asked with an amused smile.

Hedda grinned back saying, "Sure is. Eat up."

Meadow pulled Eddie's chair around to the front of the cabinet and sat down in it. "Anyone want a bite before I dig in?"

Both Hedda and Eddie shook their heads and smiled at her.

"Alright, don't say I didn't offer," Meadow teased as she cracked open the plastic pre-packed salad mix.

She ate slowly and quietly. Neither Hedda or Eddie said a thing. Meadow was fine with it. The less she talked, the less they talked, the better she felt. The quiet was soothing. She managed to pack away everything but the granola bar, which she slid over to her phone while she gathered up the rest and placed it in a garbage bin that Hedda produced from some corner of the room.

"Time for some pain pills," Hedda said a she offered Meadow two ibuprofen.

She took them gratefully and swallowed them down.

"How are you feeling right now?" Hedda asked as she read Meadow's pulse again. "Your heart rate is down considerably. You should be able to sleep, even on that full stomach," she said with a little chuckle.

Meadow smiled in return, feeling less ill, though her head was still pounding unmercifully.

"Why don't you hop back up on the table here and get some sleep. Eddie and I will check in on you again through the night and I'll give you another exam in the morning. How does that sound?"

"Good," Meadow replied simply as she did what she was told and laid back down on the examination table.

She was glad for the padding as she lay back down on her side, keeping her back to the window and her face to the door. It wasn't half as uncomfortable as one might have thought it would be. And the heavy therapy blanket kept her warm, which was a bonus since she couldn't seem to keep any body heat since she'd fallen through the glass door.  Perhaps that was all part of the shock.

"Thanks for all your help, Hedda," Meadow said sincerely as she closed her eyes.

There was no response. The room went silent and she dosed off just minutes after closing her eyes. Maybe even sooner.

Outside the room, Hedda dragged Eddie by the arm down to her office and shut the door.

"She can't leave tomorrow," she blurted out. "You've got to tell her and we've got to find her some allies in the community. Some powerful ones."

Eddie sat down in a plush chair by the door and ran his fingers through his mop of dark wavy hair. "Will the Bureau be able to help her?" he asked.

Hedda scoffed. "I may have my head in books all the time Eddie, but even I know how government institutions work. They will use her to make themselves look good and if that means selling her out, well, they'll do it."

"So, who do we go to? Who do we tell? I'm not connected at all Hedda. The lycanthrope community hardly knows I exist and even if they do know, they don't care about some half-human lycan. They aren't going to listen to me."

He watched Hedda pace back and forth a bit in the office before plunking herself down on a rough looking sofa that had apparently seen a lot of years of wear and tare. She laid down on it, folding her hand behind her head and propping her head up on the plush but cracked leather armrest.

"We should talk to the exiled prince. He's got powerful people - royals and clergy alike - who support him. He could offer her his protection, maybe?" But Hedda didn't know if he would or not. He might not want the trouble even if it was in his best interest. Surly he didn't want the Crown Prince to consolidate his political and religious power using the Blood Bride?

"How do we contact him?" Eddie asked. "Would we even be able to get an audience with him?" Eddie couldn't imagine that a lycan could just walk up to him and ask him for a chat over coffee. Eddie didn't have the first clue where the exiled prince even lived.

"We can't go through Alpha Ronning because he's a royalist," Hedda said more to herself than to Eddie.  "We could go through the healers. If we could find an in with the Gorare, surely she would see the necessity in taking an active interest in Meadow's well being."

Eddie shot up from his seat and exclaimed, "You've got to be kidding yourself. The Gorare is untouchable. It's like asking to grasp the moon."

Eddie didn't know much about politics and religion, but his mother was a healer, and he knew all about spiritualists. The Gorare was the head of all spiritualists and she was equivalent to the lycanthrope king and ecumenical patriarch. But, her position was consider sacred - untouched by the ups and downs of political infighting and religious intolerance that ran rampant within the lycan community.

The spiritualist, and the Gorare in particular, acted as a weight on the scale of power between antagonistic forces (both political and religious) within the lycanthrope community to make sure that power was never gripped too strongly by any one group - not the royalists (who wanted to consolidate all power in the hands of the the royals), the traditionalists (who advocated a balance between the royals and clergy but shunned the human world), or the integrationists (who wanted to integrate with the human world politically, economically and even socially). 

Hedda sat up and frowned at Eddie. "Just cause something seems impossible doesn't mean it is," she grumbled. "If I talk to my old mentor, maybe he would hear me out."

Spiritualists, just like the royals and the clergy, had a hierarchy. There were eight levels. The lowest was a Botemedel (entry level healer) and the greatest was a Gorare, who transcended all other healing practices and had reached the level of Metahealer. Only one lycanthrope held this position at any given time throughout history. There were even long periods when there was no Gorare among the spiritualists because reaching that level had proved to be nearly impossible.

Hedda was only a Fourth Level Healer - a Lakare - and did not have the presence or prestige necessary to even set eyes on the Gorare, let alone get an audience with her. However, her former mentor, who was once a Fourth Level Healer like her, had surpassed his peers and betters in recent years, through questionable means that Hedda was never privy to, and had become a Seventh Level Healer - a Trolakare.

As a Trolakare he ranked just below the Gorare. And it just so happened that the Gorare's responsibilities included personally instructing Seventh Level Healers - even the novices like Hedda's former mentor. He was, therefore, Hedda's only 'in' since he saw the Gorare on a regular basis. She just had to convince him to discreetly get a message to the Gorare about the Blood Bride. The trouble was, her old mentor, didn't do anything without expecting something in return, and Hedda wasn't confident she could convince him to help her without having to sell her soul to him.

Eddie knew this too about him and growled just at the thought of having to deal with him in any way. "Does it have to be him?"

Hedda sighed, but didn't answer him. She dreaded having to see the man again, but what could she do. She and Eddie were going to need his help if they wanted to get anywhere near the Gorare.