Chapter 125

Aria’s POV

Working with Piper was like a dream. She was so incredibly talented, sure to surpass me someday, and we were very much in sync.

Already this morning, we’d helped a patient deliver a healthy baby through a difficult child-birth, both mother and child were doing well. Then, we’d helped rest a man whose broken shoulder had set crooked. Now, we were diagnosing a child with a tummy ache.

Piper had already made some suggestions that I agreed with. We were just filling out the paperwork now, while I explained how the medicine worked to the mother.

“Paging Dr. A,” came a voice through the clinic’s speaker system. “Phone call for Dr. A. Dr. A, please head to the nurses’ station. Paging Dr. A.”

For them to page me, likely meant this was urgent.

I’d been weary of all phone calls since Jean had answered that call and spoke to the man who asked after me. So this page distracted me, and I began to lose my train of thought while explaining the medicine.

“I can go and take a message,” Piper suggested, seeing me waver.

Oh, that would be such a relief. Immediately I started to relax, not realizing how tense my body was becoming.

When Piper walked out of the room, I more fully focused on what I was doing and was able to give detailed instructions about the medicine as well as answer all of the mother’s questions.

“Thank you so much, Dr. A,” the mother said, as I was showing them out.

“Thanks, Dr. A!” the child patient agreed.

I smiled warmly at them both. “You are both very welcome.”

After they’d both gone, I went to find Piper. I found her in the nurses’ station, staring at the phone. She had a somewhat stricken expression on her face, which was increasingly pale.

“Piper? What is it? What’s wrong?”

Piper looked at me, startling slightly, as if she only realized I was there. “That was Cathy on the phone,” she said.

“Cathy?” I’d given her my work number for emergencies, but I had never expected her to actually use it, especially during the day when Cathy should have been working herself. Something must have been very, very wrong.

“She told me…” Piper glanced around then, looking at our semi-exposed location. The patients in the waiting room could see and hear us from here, as well as the receptionist and any nurses that happened by. “Let’s go to the breakroom.”

Following her down the hallways felt like the longest walk of my life. Dread start in a small corner inside of me but quickly bubbled out, taking over the entirety of my body. By the time we sat down at the table, I was all encompassed with it.

“Cathy’s sick,” Piper said. “For a week, the Healers in Nightfall had been trying to diagnose her.”

“Her indigestion…” I said, remembering how she complained the last time we had talked. She’d thought she was getting sick, or had maybe eaten something that didn’t agree with her.

“More than that, I’m sorry to say,” Piper told me. “She was diagnosed today with Purkle Disease.”

The name gave me pause, and took me a moment to remember. Purkle Disease, named after Arianna Purkle, who had been the first known werewolf to have it. It started in the stomach and stretched outwards, making the patients lethargic, giving them chills and then fevers.

The disease was believed to be genetic, but as the cases were so rare, there weren’t many researching the disease. Undoubtedly, Cathy had been told there isn’t a cure.

I hadn’t personally faced this disease, and outside of reading about it here and there in textbooks, hadn’t thought that I ever would.

For Cathy to have it…

For her to call me…

“She said she didn’t want to force you to return,” Piper said. “She said perhaps you could do research from here.” Piper lowered her head. “But she did admit she was very scared. They only gave her 3 to 5 months left to live…”

No. I refused to accept that. Already my mind was filling with possibilities and potential avenues to developing treatments and a cure.

Cathy would make it longer than 3 to 5 months. After I cured her, she would live to be a long old age.

It was generous of Cathy to not want to force me back. She understood the reasons for my hesitation better than anyone.

But I would never leave my friend to suffer alone. Plus, I could more quickly develop a cure if I could see her and run some tests myself.

Looking at Piper, I told her, “Pack your bags, Piper. We’re going on that trip back to Nightfall after all.”

Piper brightened slightly, though the overwhelming worry remained in her eyes.

At home, as I told the children about the trip, they became more and more excited.

“We’re going on an adventure!” Luke said excitedly, as he and his sister began to dance around the kitchen.

I didn’t have it in me to correct them. I had told them that Cathy was sick and we had to go back to help her. But I didn’t think such young children should be exposed to just how dire the situation was. Not yet.

There was no sense in putting them through that when I had every intention of curing Cathy.

A few minutes later, I was on the phone with Silas.

“Of course, I will look over the clinic in your absence,” he said.

I hated having to ask him, knowing he was living a pleasant retirement, yet at the same time, I could hear the excitement growing in his voice. It seemed he might have missed the Healer life in his time away.

“I will be back as soon as I can,” I told him.

“I know you will,” he replied. “And I know you will do your best while you are there. You will save your friend.”

“I will,” I confirmed, because there were no other options. I was not going to lose Cathy to a disease, I didn’t care how incurable it was.

Incurable diseases just hadn’t met me yet.

“While you are there,” Silas said, “Do not forget to show your children around. I am sure there are many old friends who will wish to see you.”

I thought of Jasper, and of Julia and Harold who I heard were in declining health at their advanced age. Perhaps I could do something to help them while I am there, though Jasper assured me their issues were only related to their age.

Still, it would be nice to see them. I might not bring their grandkids on that trip, however, as much as it pained me to keep them from them. There were too many risks that word could get back to Lucian.

That was, if Lucian didn’t take one look at Luke and know the kids were his.

How was I even going to handle this? Dr. A or Aria? Could they be traveling together? Or should I pick one or the other. The kids didn’t fully understand the nuance. They treated me the same whether I was in my Dr. A costume or out of it.

There was much to think about.

“You could stop to see Lucian,” Silas suggested.

“No,” I told him firmly. That was the one thing I wouldn’t do. “If I can help it, he won’t even know I’m there.”